Occasional commenter “mick” has been in touch to advise me of a public lecture series to be held in Brisbane. The lecture series is entitled “BrisScience”, and will involve a number of excellent scientists giving lectures on their topics of interest for the general public. The website is here. All of the lectures are free, there is one talk a month, and they will all be held in the Judith Wright Center of Contemporary Arts in the Valley.
The first lecture is by John Mattick on “junk” DNA, which IIRC has been the subject of a very dubious intellectual property claim by an Australian entrepreneur. But the talk won’t be about IP, which should make it more interesting for about 99 per cent of the potential audience. John argues that the extra DNA is the opposite of junk: it may be ultimately responsible for the development of all life more complex than bacteria.
John Quiggin 
Speaking of plugs, I might plug a business I used recently online here at http://www.clickbusinesscards.com.au/
I should state quite categorically that neither I nor any of my friends or acquaintances have any commercial interest in this Co, but I offer it to those in the market for business cards from time to time. Basically those of us in business dread the time when circumstances, staffing, or directional changes cause us to need new business cards. You just know you have to invest some time in liasing with the design/printing of same and for most of us it’s a bloody time wasting chore. There I was one Sunday arvo, piddling about with MS Publisher, cooking up some ideas for a new business card when Google crossed my mind. Voila! Up came clickbusinesscards and I was immediately hooked on their website. Well I ordered a 1000 cards with my details on one of their many designs, coughed up the $74.95 plus just under $10 for postage on the plastic and crossed my fingers all would be well. Bear in mind this was late Sunday arvo. To my pleasant surprise, a postbag containing my order was waiting at home for me the following Wed and I must say the cards were all I wanted them to be. Clearly the Sydney Co had printed them Mon, posted Tues and delivered Wed, unless of course their robots work Sun nights. For mine, it would be hard to beat the quality and service for the price.
Interestingly enough, I subsequently received a regular business newsletter from Westpac and one of the articles was about web business and Click business cards was their feature Co. I can see why they’re doing so well at it.