andrewlighten.com

This is a totally awesome video illustrating this year’s drastic rule changes. [Via]

There’s a meme going around at the moment about naming a band. I saw it on MetaFilter a few days back. In essence, you do the following:

1. Your band’s name is the first random article from Wikipedia
2. Your album’s title is the last few words of the last random quotation from QuotationsPage.
3. Your album’s cover is the third image on Flickr’s Explore the Last Seven Days.
4. Photoshop and mix to your taste.

There’s a heap of albums that people have released invented on BuzzFeed. One caught Fred’s eye:

It’s the photo I took of Andrew last week!

Five stitches later…

Hope the following links are useful to you.

Going fires

• DSE summary of going fires (public land only) [PDF]
• CFA summary of going fires (public & private land)
• VicRoads road closures

DSE (Department of Sustainability & Environment)

• Situation links
• Summary
• Maps

CFA (Country Fire Authority)

• Incident summary
• Updates and advice
• Fire bans, fire restrictions
• Links to fire related information services

Compared to the bushfires in Victoria, submitting daily photo challenge entries seems utterly trivial.

Having said that, I visited a friend yesterday and figured this portrait would work perfectly for the day 47 challenge.

He’s a volunteer with the CFA unit where he lives, and although his local area hasn’t been directly affected by fire there’s a few north of him and one to the south, so he’s still keeping a very close eye on things. Alert but not alarmed, so to speak.

The initial emergency has passed, but there are still some very active fires that haven’t been fully controlled. The DSE website lists a large number of fires still going on public land.

The police last night updated their death toll to 189, but that’s going to climb. I’ve heard that the publicly quoted Marysville figure of 36 is probably very, very low. I spoke to a few police while I was in Beechworth for a few days and the word is to expect a total of ~300. The scale of this fire is unimaginable. The current area consumed by the fires is approaching 500km² — that’s bigger than many of the world’s small countries.

It’s now 173 181 189 209. We knew Saturday was going to be bad, but this is such a staggering number it’s hard to believe.

Trevor says (13:06):
I did hear a Jon Faine interview with a woman who called from Paris because a friend listening in Holland had heard an appeal on 774 for news of a particular couple in Buxton.  The Paris woman’s parents lived next door to them.  She was able to call them from France, confirm that the missing couple were actually with her parents and then called Jon and let everyone know!!

Andrew lighten says (13:07):
so the lady in holland was streaming 774 over the ‘net, and was able to link family members in melbourne via a call via paris… that is so cool

Trevor says (13:07):
way cool !!

Trevor says (13:07):
exactly.

Andrew lighten says (13:08):
mind if i stick the last snippet of this chat on my blog?

Trevor says (13:09):
np.  I’ll hunt down the audio if you like

Andrew lighten says (13:09):
that would be great… i’ll link to it

Trevor says (13:12):
http://www.cerebralsoup.net/audio/deirdre_ABC_local_radio.mp3

The official number of lives lost so far is 108. Not all of the 750 destroyed homes have been search yet, so that number is bound to rise.

I spent yesterday dressed in orange over at Bendigo helping with traffic management (separating emergency vehicles and legitimate residents from sightseers.) The loss of homes was shocking. Whole streets have completely disappeared. It’s distressing to see family after family picking over burnt remains looking for anything that connects them to life before Saturday afternoon. It’s even worse knowing that the Bendigo fires (along with some others) were almost certainly deliberately lit. What kind of person does that?

Maryborough escaped the carnage. We were very lucky. Lots of people here know people affected though, but of course the magnitude of this fire event is such that everyone in Victoria will know someone who has been impacted. Lisa, the Kids and I are fine, and we’re so thankful for that.

If we can do anything for anyone affected by the fires, call me on 0448 358 208. We’ve got land that can house a horse or three (with water and shedding) and we’ll do anything else we can to help out.