This is a quick test to check that Habari is no longer adding additional paragraph tags and random line breaks for people consuming this blog in a feed reader.
Both of you.
Many thanks to arthus (possible pseudonym alert) aka Morgante Pell (additional pseudonym alert) for creating the plugin that made this possible and the death of autop().
Garry Tan, a developer for Posterous (a simple but powerful blog platform), wrote a brilliant post about product design.
Are there any questions? I said yes -- one last one: "When do we decide to remove features?"
In a similar vein, Amit Agarwal asks 'What's Common Between an iPod and Google ?' Answer: Simplicity.
If I had a cube, I would print both articles out and pin them up.
As we meandered our way through Western Australia, we took a taxi from the rather mediocre accommodation provided by Ocean Lodge to Broome airport to fly back home via Darwin.
As we turned a corner on a deserted road, an Aboriginal woman and her daughter crossed the road in front of us. They looked up before crossing and walked quickly across the road towards a school. It would have been courteous for the taxi driver to have slowed down but he maintained his speed and turned to me in the passenger seat:
'Damn - missed 'em. Maybe next time, eh ?'
I simply couldn't believe my ears. I looked at the driver's smiling face and replied:
'Still - they were here first, weren't they ?'
An awkward silence followed. I could feel my wife's eyes drilling into the back of my head and even the children looked a little uncomfortable at the chilly atmosphere.
Cogs slowly turned. The driver paused and then retorted:
'Yeah - they were here first alright but that doesn't mean they should get an allowance to keep four dogs though.'
I'd dearly love to end the story with how I pointedly waited for the racist, ignorant taxi driver to slowly and laboriously count out every last 10 cents of my change for a $12.20 fare.
But I didn't - I gave him $15, grabbed our four heavy bags from the boot and got out of that cab as fast as I possibly could.
Of course, unfortunately, there is another less attractive side to Aboriginal culture.
When I last visited Australia in 1990, we took a flight to Alice Springs. Back then, Uluru was more commonly known as Ayers Rock and people were freely able to climb the massive sandstone rock. I used to be quite proud of the fact that I had scaled Ayers Rock and written: 'Nice view, bit busy, could use an ice-cream stall' in a tatty visitors book on the summit. Now the rock has subsequently and rightfully been returned to the local Aboriginal communities who view it as a sacred site, I am almost ashamed of the fact.
Twenty years ago, en-route to Alice Springs we saw small groups of Aboriginals congregating in dry creeks, drinking and obviously under the influence of alcohol and we heard that sometimes, they perished when the rains came and the creeks flooded. On this visit, we also saw small clusters of Aboriginals on parkland, sitting, chatting, drinking and occasionally shouting and arguing.
Now this behaviour can be (understandably) intimidating to tourists but to be honest, I walked straight past and the Aboriginals didn't pass me a second glance. They didn't speak to me, they didn't harangue me, they didn't ask me for money. In fact, I've had more hassle off beggars in the South Bank underpass at Waterloo station in London.
It was as if we simply didn't exist and in many ways, I suspect they probably wish we didn't. Not in their country anyway.
In the last week of the great Australian adventure, we took a guided tour from Kununurra to Broome, in a 4x4 truck, visiting Purnululu National Park and the Bungle Bungles.
The scenery was fantastic, the company was great and our guide was interesting, professional, humorous and knowledgeable.
One day, we also took another boat trip and a bushwalk at Fitzroy Crossing with an Aboriginal guide.
The Aboriginal guide was fascinating. He talked about Aboriginal culture, the importance of Dreamtime, respect for the environment, respect for each other, how Aboriginals lived off the land for 40,000 years, the extended kinship model, the need to take just what you want and not what you need. In fact, there are so many areas we could learn from the Aboriginal culture.
At night, we were able to gaze up into a beautiful, dark, crystal clear sky. I was amazed to be able to clearly see the Milky Way, Venus and identify various constellations in the night sky. Then one of my new found Aussie friends broke the silence with a statement that staggered me and made me pause for thought:
'Of course, the Aborigines don't look at the stars. They look at the spaces between the stars.'