A New Year

I have been absent from blogging for a while. But I have an excuse! I was abroad for 2 and a bit months and forgot to take any of my books. Yes, many boring plane and car trips were had. I visited quite a bit of Europe and had a quick dash through England checking out some universities. I also had my first white-ish Christmas (it was snowy around Christmas, but being in Luxembourg on the day had no snow!).

Here are a few pictures of various quality (Blackberry/Sony Camera/Awesome Canon camera):

Innsbruck, Austria

Innsbruck, Austria

Seefeld, Tirol, Austria

Seefeld

Wattens, Austria [Before all the snow fell]

Wattens, early in the snow fall

Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Berlin for NYE

Still to come - a lot of Germany, Belgium, England, Greece and Italy.

China Adventure Pictures

Posting pictures is much easier than writing a meaningful post so here are some pictures from my recent trip to China.

SHANGHAI

More European than Europe, Shanghai

At times it looked like a China town stereotype, Shanghai

Futuristic. Pudong, Shanghai from the Bund

Pudong from atop of Jin Mao Tower...87 or so floors up

Shanghai from hotel room, 74 stories up in Jin Mao Tower

YANGZHOU

Yangzhou from the hotel

GUANGDONG/CANTON

Guangzhou, Guangdong

View of some of Guangzhou from the hotel

Pedestrian street - Beijing Road, Guangzhou. American brands as far as the eye can see

Above

Heshan, Guangdong

I was visiting a factory literally in the middle of nowhere yet nearby there was this amazing resort.

View from room

Foshan City, Guangdong

Just delivering a few sofas by motorbike

In the middle of this run down  district is this  empty shopping centre

View from room...actual greenery

That's it for now.

Virtual Shelf Browsing is Awesome

The "New Library" [source]

Macquarie University recently opened the technologically minded "New Library". While a lot of the changes have been impractical (books stored in a basement and retrieved by a robot, designer seats that have no functionality, NOISE!!!) there has been at least one good development.

You can now virtually browse the shelves. This is a great for doing research and coming across books that you may never have known existed without going into the library. If you already have this technology, I remind you that Australia is very far away from the rest of the world. We are a simple people easily impressed.

You may even discover that a fellow bibliobloggers book has finally been acquired by the library.

How does one read/write on this table/chair combination?