Well, that’s the last time I go to Mount Gambier!

I would link to this story, but that would push its Google PageRank even higher. As it is, I’ve already had my place as the #1 result for “Ben Hourigan” usurped. Given that I tell people “if you’re not the top hit for your own name on Google, you don’t exist,” this provokes a minor existential crisis.

Honestly, what does a dead guy need to be #1 for?

To see what I’m talking about, copy and paste the URL below. Or Google “Ben Hourigan.”

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22776627-5006301,00.html

(And yes, I know this is in poor taste.)

Good luck!

I spent several weeks looking for a new base theme for my Wordpress sites, and I finally settled on Freshy. Paired with the aptly named Customize plugin, it’s highly and easily customizable. I’ve had a lot of favorable comments from friends on how professional the theme looks. Kudos to designer Julien De Luca.

19 August 2008. A new version of Customize is out that restores widget reordering and fixes other admin interface bugs. There is also a new version of Freshy out (2.0.8), but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I’m almost ready to say Freshy users are okay to try upgrading to WP 2.6 (or even 2.6.1, the current version, which I’m now running), but will test the new version of the theme first.

18 August 2008. There are problems with the interaction between Customize (current version, 1.0.2) and WordPress 2.6 that can break some features of your admin interface, particularly the ability to reorder widgets by dragging. Freshy users should hold off upgrading to WordPress 2.6.

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary:

Homogeneous: “of the same kind, alike … consisting of parts all of the same kind.”

Homogenous: “an old fashioned term for homologous,” which means “having the same relation, relative position, or structure.”

This is one of those distinctions you never notice until you become an editor.

Benjamin Hourigan is the editor at the Centre for Independent Studies, a libertarian think-tank based in Sydney. He has previously been an assistant editor and subeditor at Architecture Media, publisher of magazines including Artichoke, Landscape Architecture Australia, and Houses. His writing has been published in a range of venues, including The Age, News Weekly, Australasian Drama Studies, and the IPA Review. He has given lectures at RMIT and at the University of Melbourne, where he has also tutored. He has been interviewed on Melbourne radio station 3LO, and for articles syndicated in the Christian Science Monitor and USA Today.

He is currently enrolled in the MBA program at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Benjamin is available for freelance writing and editing work. He has specialized experience in architectural publishing, editing for business, pharmaceuticals, videogaming, policy analysis, cultural studies, English literature, and Asian studies.

More soon.

why should there be a meaning? I mean, we want a cause as to why we’re here, but I’m afraid there isn’t one. I don’t find it depressing at all. #

Where others might take their solace in religion, I tend to take mine in fiction, where I can brush off the fantasy that events fall in place according to an overarching plan and purpose as a conceit for the sake of aesthetics or entertainment.

Surrendering to snack food and TV in the US is a way of taking yourself out of the competition—for power, beauty, sex, fame. #

True, perhaps, but then, to surrender is to lose. It does no good to leave the competition. The best thing to do is win.

Update: The article gets better. Later we have this:

If we were a genuinely Apollonian, Promethean culture, space travel would have become a global human project, governments throwing trillions at it by public acclamation and we would have colonised Mars by now.

Instead we have devoted ourselves to making devices that allow us to watch Everybody Loves Raymond while waiting in the queue at the bank, and may get back to the moon in five years time, where we were half a century ago.#