utter geek humour

Unless you're a unix geek, you may as well skip this one.

Really.

( Really, I warned you... )

irwin

So a few random thoughts on Irwin's unlucky death.

First: Yes, he was a larger than life character. Yes, he was a prominent Howard-snuggler (odd for someone who cared about conservation as much as he did). But he also did an arseload of work pushing conservation issues -- particularly with those animals that are less snuggly and cuddly looking than a panda. He also was extremely active in trying to stop trophy hunting in the far north, and was keen to spend the money he'd made on as many causes as possible. The Age had a good article about this a while ago, including his efforts to try and help the northern hairy nosed wombat (the most endangered large animal in Australia, and one of the most endangered in the the world).

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Second: This really does just support my theory about Australia's fauna. Most of it is poisonous or extremely poisonous. Of the ones that aren't poisonous, most of the remaining are just dangerous. And the small fraction that are neither poisionous nor dangerous are, well, jerks.

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Third: Is there a Curse of Denton? Both Don Chipp and Steve Irwin have been interviewed on his show. But can he get Howard or Ruddock to appear? Noooo.

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Finally, some pretty pictures. While reading about stingrays, I found this site, with some amazing photos of a type of ray (a smaller variety of the massive, yet harmless, manta ray), breaching. What amazing photos - and no, according to the text, no-one has any real idea why they do this.

(no subject)

Another cartoon from http://xkcd.com. I really like this one. It's large, so behind a cut.

( large image )