And considering there are more Portuguese speakers in Brazil than Portugal, why not show the Brazil flag for Portuguese (if you’re being consistent with the use of the US flag).

Or… just don’t use flags to illustrate language. Ever.

Almost.

Broadband come back!!

I was very slack updating this site along the way; Angela was handling the journal writing more than adequately for both of us (rather spectacularly, actually). However, I did managed to upload a fair few photos to Flickr along the way (with surprising ease in even backwaters of South East Asia) – I’ll upload plenty more when I get the chance.

The distinctive brown tartan pattern struck me instantly – shocking me that my first reaction was to recognize a fashion brand out of all the agony in that photo. Well, that’s branding for you.

I’m not American and I’ve never been to New Orleans, so I don’t feel particuarly qualified to comment on the situation there, other than that I hope New Orleans’ agony is soon alleviated.

There was some interesting conversation on the post about geography/culture influencing colour and style, particuarly from Molly Holzschlag. Following Andy’s examples I thought I’d put some of my favourite travel photos through for the hell of it.

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

New Norcia, Western Australia

Some nice effects. The New Norcia photo of course shows the earthy feel of the Australian outback. Ljubljana reflects soft pastels of Eastern Europe (and a lot of Europe in general). The shot from Cambodia was more an experiment, as it was a favourite photo of mine – the general ‘colour’ of Cambodia would generally be a swatch of greens reflecting the jungle around the country.

Anyway – an excellent technique for getting some more interesting colour swatches.

I would have spent thousands of hours playing with Lego as a kid, and it really is one of the few toys that was as fun as it was practical. I think a lot of the problem solving skills I have now were pushed along by all those hours building spaceships, aircraft & whatever else I could think of. I was always very anal about having consistent colouring, which again is another skill Lego helped me develop (using colour, not the analness). I would spend hours looking for an elusive yellow ‘twosie’ block, just so everything would look perfect.

Being older now, I feel compelled to do an old man rant on Lego. The stuff you get in the shops these days has far fewer individual pieces, and far more custom pieces. Plus all the pop culture trimmings – Harry Potter Lego, Star Wars Lego, etc. It was much better fun when you had to build (or imagine) stuff you didn’t have single pieces for. That said, it would’ve been cool having Lego Ewoks and Stormtroopers. Anyway I’m sure it’s still good fun.

I wonder how many people now in technical and creative fields spent their youth playing Lego – maybe those who really got into it helped push them in that direction?