I’m blown away by this.

I walked home today and passed a guy delivering huge stacks of white and yellow pages directories to apartment buildings all the way along my street. It increasingly seems like a huge waste of paper and distribution – I’m sure there are demographic groups who still find use for these tomes, but every year they seem more and more redundant.

Time for an opt-in process?

Taking photos for my other blog, I always take a shot of the nearest street signs.

It’s just a prompt to remember where it was.

There’s something poetic about these sights though. I’ve thought quite a few times about doing something with them all.

The weather turned on a coin.

One moment it was bright and sunny.

The next, dark and apocalyptic.

I saw these tulips in the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens last weekend.

It was bright and early. But some trick of the focus makes the photo look like it’s night, and there’s something in the white perfection that looks like computer animation. Trust me, it’s not.

At first glance it looks like an abstraction.

It’s actually more than that. Eva Dijkstra and Michael Lugmayr’s Surry Hills based Infographiti work “explores the aesthetic potential of the graph as a work of abstract generative art.” I love the blurry space between art and science, and this concept of data-generated artworks and installations is right there.

It’s been a busy week.

Captivating talks by Intel’s Genevieve Bell and NYU’s Jay Rosen (in the pic above) – more here on Jay’s talk, here’s how it looked in my tweet stream.

Off to see @jayrosren_nyu talk

“news is arbitrary, improvised due to drive of production routines”

“what happens when production revolutionised by web?”

“what if your laptop got updates for software you don’t have installed? This is what news does every day”

“Stories like This American Life’s Giant Pool of Money ‘install the software’ to fire that interest”

Need understanding of big picture before you’ll be interested in incremental news

“journalists should be producing public understanding, not just incremental updates”

@jayrosen_nyu calls for ABC to create backgrounder for topical areas of news – extension to Background Brief?

Puts hand up RT @matt_levinson: @jayrosen_nyu calls ABC to create backgrounder for topical areas of news – extension to Background Brief?

“do things like NYT’s Topics pages and Google’s Living Stories actually help improve understanding?”

Someone just commented on “anthopomorphic” climate change. Obviously a mistake, but ironically encapsulates the issue.

To go see another @jayrosen_nyu talk or get lunch?

@isabel_lo I think it’s going to be a late lunch!

@tmgrimson yes, giving several talks today. on journalists as explainers, citizen journalism, and business models. just the little stuff.

RT: @girlinblack From the Accidental Art file: @matt_levinson’s twitpic from a @jayrosen_nyu talk he’s sitting in right now: http://twitpic.com/2e6wxy

“NYT introduced ‘geek squad’ of 50 to newsroom – clever way of changing to more collaborative culture”

“The Guardian able to be nimble because it’s a trust – needs to ensure sustainable future, despite mid term risks”

Lots of questions about Assange and WikiLeaks – “first global media org”? Anarchist? Hacker? Adaptive to say the least.

“have to find places where closed systems (media – verification) and open (accessible, participatory) work best”

“a journalist is just a heightened case of an informed citizen”

Watching the yachts leave for the Sydney to Hobart is a Boxing Day tradition. But today’s weather was pretty poor, and using my phone camera just amplified the conditions.

I reckon the out of focus effects look a little like an oil painting, with that characteristic Richter wooziness.

Where are the best fish and chips near you?

Fishface serves up fish+chips for a pricey $15 on Darlinghurst Road, but it’s totally worth it.

Will this be your first tweeted festive season?

I’m tweeting my way through the ham, pudding and prawns season for the third time on Friday. But it’s friends/fam/eating/drinking, not tweeting.

What’s the best Christmas present Twitter could give you?

An easy way of managing multiple accounts?

Followers: quantity or quality?

Talking followers at xmas seems oddly appropriate – I’m happy both ways, if someone decides to follow my tweets, they’re quality in my book.

What is your favourite season-appropriate song?

I love doing xmas specials on my radio shows and have songs well and truly stockpiled. @wayneandwax’s heavy remix-mas is a fave.

It’s Christmas Night. You turn on the TV. What movie should be broadcast?

Flying High, Spinal Tap, Weekend at Bernie’s? Short attention span, a little stupid and definitely no xmas theme.

What is your attitude to office Christmas parties?

Office party a la Mad Men, with loads of booze, good looking colleagues and maybe a small fork lift? Yes, keen on those.

In 140 characters or less, what is the future of journalism?

“The future’s already here, it’s just unevenly distributed” (from @williamgibson)

If the Walkleys had a best tweeter category, who would you nominate?

The best tweeters are disarmingly frank, insightful, entertaining; @vasilikaliman is all that and deliciously bitchy about the art world.

Who is your favourite tweep?

It’s not so much the specific tweeters, but the back and forth collective flow of ideas. It’s all about scenes/community, you know?

Read the final cut, Twitter For World Governor 2010: 20 Questions, and now The Twitterati Speaks: 20 Questions at New Matilda. BTW I’m @fortunegrey.

Well this wasn’t like that. Despite it being a seriously life changing moment for many in this group of people from Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and a host of other countries, it looked as though it couldn’t have been more boring for the dignitaries involved. The local MP, Laurie Ferguson, phoned in a mumbly speech – this is to an audience of non native English speakers – he projected boredom throughout the ceremony. Likewise, the mayor. The local reverend gave a sermon.

Fortunately, they were pretty much irrelevant when it came to meaning in this event. It’s a major milestone in the life of our good friend Jams, and it was pretty amazing to be there.

It was the ultimate fan gig, with the band playing in a tiny room, just metres away. When Redd Kross did an instore at Waterfront Records, I was blown away to hear them playing acoustic.

Hanging out there at Waterfront, or other Sydney record shops like Phantom or Red Eye, you’d sit cross-legged and squashed in on all sides, tucked between record stands, with dust a constant fixture. The people sitting around were most likely in bands or otherwise impossibly hip, but just by being there for these impromptu shows seemed like it lifted your standing somehow.

There were a couple of great instores at my friends Thommy Tran and Chris Wu’s shop Gifted, but they were packed – standing – and no wonder, with, from memory, Bill Callahan and Architecture in Helsinki.

I guess there are a million ways to get close to your favourite band these days, via a splatter of social media offerings, but hanging out in a tiny shop with a bunch of like minded heads was pretty great.