from the Neal Stephenson interview on Slashdot
"In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?
Neal:
You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight.
The first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. He deflected the blow with a force blast that sprained my wrist. The falling table knocked over a space heater and set fire to the store. Everyone else fled. Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. Slowly I gained the upper hand, for, on defense, his Praying Mantis style was no match for my Flying Cloud technique. But I lost him behind a cloud of smoke. Then I had to get out of the place. The streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle.
The second time was a few years later when Gibson came through Seattle on his IDORU tour. Between doing some drive-by signings at local bookstores, he came and devastated my quarter of the city. I had been in a trance for seven days and seven nights and was unaware of these goings-on, but he came to me in a vision and taunted me, and left a message on my cellphone. That evening he was doing a reading at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Swathed in black, I climbed to the top of the hall, mesmerized his snipers, sliced a hole in the roof using a plasma cutter, let myself into the catwalks above the stage, and then leapt down upon him from forty feet above. But I had forgotten that he had once studied in the same monastery as I, and knew all of my techniques. He rolled away at the last moment. I struck only the lectern, smashing it to kindling. Snatching up one jagged shard of oak I adopted the Mountain Tiger position just as you would expect. He pulled off his wireless mike and began to whirl it around his head. From there, the fight proceeded along predictable lines. As a stalemate developed we began to resort more and more to the use of pure energy, modulated by Red Lotus incantations of the third Sung group, which eventually to the collapse of the building's roof and the loss of eight hundred lives. But as they were only peasants, we did not care.
Our third fight occurred at the Peace Arch on the U.S./Canadian border between Seattle and Vancouver. Gibson wished to retire from that sort of lifestyle that required ceaseless training in the martial arts and sleeping outdoors under the rain. He only wished to sit in his garden brushing out novels on rice paper. But honor dictated that he must fight me for a third time first. Of course the Peace Arch did not remain standing for long. Before long my sword arm hung useless at my side. One of my psi blasts kicked up a large divot of earth and rubble, uncovering a silver metallic object, hitherto buried, that seemed to have been crafted by an industrial designer. It was a nitro-veridian device that had been buried there by Sterling. We were able to fly clear before it detonated. The blast caused a seismic rupture that split off a sizable part of Canada and created what we now know as Vancouver Island. This was the last fight between me and Gibson. For both of us, by studying certain ancient prophecies, had independently arrived at the same conclusion, namely that Sterling's professed interest in industrial design was a mere cover for work in superweapons. Gibson and I formed a pact to fight Sterling. So far we have made little headway in seeking out his lair of brushed steel and white LEDs, because I had a dentist appointment and Gibson had to attend a writers' conference, but keep an eye on Slashdot for any further developments."
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Rain boosts Sydney dam levels
Sydney Morning Herald - October 21, 2004 - 3:12PM
NSW Premier Bob Carr today said overnight rain had provided a 0.3 per cent increase in Sydney's dam levels, but warned NSW was not out of the woods.
Mr Carr today told parliament combined dam levels were now at 42.2 per cent.
He said in the last 24 hours a week's worth of water, equivalent to 1,800 Olympic swimming pools, had flowed into the catchment.
"It is great to report that rain has arrived - and importantly arrived in the right places," Mr Carr told parliament.
"Mother Nature has smiled on us this week with a very welcome drenching."
But Mr Carr cautioned the community's efforts so far to curtail water use must not stop because of the rain.
"This is just a small respite from the grip of the worst drought in more than 100 years," he said.
"We are still not out of the woods by any means. For our dams to get back to 70 per cent capacity, we need 40mm a day for seven consecutive days."
How you'll lose $790,000
Sydney Morning Herald October 21, 2004 - 1:38PM
The average Australian stands to lose up to 22 times their median annual income over the course of their life through bad financial management, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission said today.
Speaking at the launch of ASIC's financial management guide Your Money in Sydney, Commonwealth Financial Literacy taskforce chairman Paul Clitheroe said average income earners were wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars through bad decisions.
"Taskforce research modelled the effects of bad financial decision making," Mr Clitheroe said.
"(It) discovered that a person on a salary of $36,000 per annum stands to lose $790,000 in lost wealth over the course of their lifetime."
These included ill-informed investment, superannuation and mortgage choices, misuse of credit cards and bad management of debt, ASIC chairman Jeffrey Lucy said.
"Average income earners can potentially save thousands of dollars by the time they retire," Mr Lucy said.
"To avoid lost opportunities it's crucial for everyone, especially those not on high incomes to get the most out of their money and to plan for the future."
Australian Consumers Association chief executive Peter Kell said financial awareness was important for any income bracket.
"Anyone can start now, no matter how little money they have...to make a real difference to their finances," he said.
Your Money details a range of financial strategies and issues, including investment, insurance, superannuation and managing mortgages and debt.
It can be found online at http://www.fido.asic.gov.au.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
The interesting thing I find about things like blogs & flickr is how it enables you, over a period of time to almost get a top-down view on your own life... The essences of what you feel and what you deem important and aesthetic enough to write about and take photos of can essentially explain the essence of you.
For example... I've always been a bit of a gardener.. It's a nice antithesis of my technology-based work life.. but over the last year I've noticed that I've started growing flowers... nothing too major in that, but I know I never used to. Within time, this tidbit of information about me will fade.. I have no photographic evidence that I didn't used to grow flowers, as without a facility like flickr I never took so many photo's, now I have the ability to share this visual documentation of my life easily, I'm more keen to document it. It's quite cathartic.
Assuming I'm still using flickr and also blogging over the next few years it will be interesting to note the flow of changes that takes place that normally wouldn't even be noticed, even by me, let alone published for others, including myself to view and review in the future.
Heya, how's it going? I've been busy 
...as you can see...
I've got just over 500 photos up on my flickr site now, so why not shoot on over and have a look, maybe even leave some comments. That'd be grande.
I've recently discovered these two sites and i thought I'd share them with you:
Hmmm... what's been happening lately...
My friend Link has recently moved up to Townsville.
Lisa has finished and submitted her script (you go girl).
Our friend Kristin has had to leave the country back to Sweden, hopefully she will get her visa sorted out and get back here asap, we all miss her.
I've taken up painting again... and, as frustrating as it is, I'm really enjoying it.
I'll post a photo of the final product.
If you want to see some of my other art, please go here.
I've been to two bucks parties in a month.. the first one was for Pete, one of the guys I met through Mick. Pete lives up in Newcastle. We went 14 nautical miles out in a boat for a little sea fishing... terrific. Here's Pete and the catch of the day:
... The second was last Saturday night, for Phil, one of my work colleagues. I have no photos of that... and even if I did, I couldnt post them on here.
(=^D)
Also Lisa celebrated her 26th birthday on the 29th of September, I hope she had a great time (I think she did).. It really threw out my plans as I had to work in the city that week (and therefore staying at her place), so I suddenly only had half the time to prepare that I thought I did. Ahh, all's well though.
