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8 days ago
I’ve upgraded and overhauled my other site in Wordpress now, so for future blogs and photography, please head over to www.mattwhittingham.com
88 days ago
The world’s most friendly people often seem to be in directly inverse proportion to the amount of wealth they have. Fijians are a case in point; you could not meet a more friendly, genuinely welcoming people, yet most eke out a subsistence level island life, living off the land and the ocean. After a days diving I wander into the local village to take photos and meet the locals. Pretty soon I’ve made new friends with the husband of the school teacher at the Catholic school, who invites me back the next night for an evening of Cava, the local alcohol. The following evening I meet the Fire Chief, easily recognisable from a brand new red fire engine parked on the grass next to his hut, who proudly tells me of his efforts to recruit most of the islands youth into his volunteer fire brigade. I promise to send him a couple of new mobile phones when I get back to Sydney. Taveuni is Fiji’s third largest island, but is only 42kms long, and about 15 wide. It is everything you’d want ...
88 days ago
I’ve had this flagship Nokia smartphone for about six weeks now, and it has been a love hate relationship. For the first couple of weeks I wanted to put it on the floor and stamp on it repeatedly. Even basic core tasks like answering a call seemed anti intuitive and irritating. Upgrading the firmware was a frustrating experience: Even though other s60 users were happily reporting substantial improvements with firmware v11.x, attempts to update my phone from v10.x were met with a ‘upgrade not available’ message. However, many weeks later, and with v11 of the s60v5 platform, it is much improved, and many bugs have been fixed. There are still some significant cons – the keyboard is impossible to read in bright light, the resistive touch and interface is clunky to say the least, and belies it’s Symbian origins. It also ships with the old version of Nokia’s email client, and not the new, much improved Nokia Messaging suite. Overall it is an ‘OK’ device but the worrying ...
150 days ago
The Cassowary is one hell of a bird. Big, (up to 85 kilos) ugly, frequently bad tempered, and primeval looking. Tales and myths abound about this ornithological freak, the worlds third largest bird after the Ostrich and Emu. It’s reputation seems to stem from a combination of it’s testiness, a strange looking horn on top of it’s head, pink fleshy flanges that swing about it’s neck like some giant mutant Turkey, and massive three toed feet, one of which contains a particularly sharp claw. This talon is a very effective, and on rare occasions, lethal weapon. A Cassowary when spooked and in attacking mode, will pump up it’s feathers, charge it’s victim, and with a Bruce Lee type manoeuvre, attempt to eviscerate the unfortunate object of it’s derision. An encounter with a pissed off Cassowary would then I imagine would be a pretty un-nerving experience, and explains why many Australian’s are scared of them. In fact, there is only one recorded human death from a Cassowary, ...
