Random tangent (blog)
Ameel Khan's personal blog. This is a blog about life, technology, photography, typography, the internet, science, feminism, books, film, music, and whatever other random stuff I come across or happen to be interested in today.
Some more photos from the various suburbs near where I live.
Photo of a narrow strip of grass outside a residential fence that’s had its edges very carefully trimmed.
Close-up photo of a triangular give-way sign that’s mounted on a pole along a residential street.
Photo of three, brightly coloured, plastic children’s toys lying on a residential nature strip.
Thanks to a bout of post-viral fatigue, I didn’t take a single photo with my mirrorless camera in all of April.
It’s only now that we’re approaching the middle of May that I’ve had the energy to go (a) out anywhere and (b) take my camera with me – even if it’s just when I’m going for a walk, to the shops, or to a cafe in a nearby suburb.
So here are some more of my photos from around the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Photo of a ceramic sculpture placed on a tall tree stump in the front garden of a weatherboard house. The sculpture is of a bald, large-headed baby – the child Buddha – hugging the back of a small elephant. The elephant’s trunk is reaching back to touch the crown of the Buddha’s head. The tree stump has a string of lights wound around it.
Photo of a male AFL footballer standing in front of the goal posts at a local ground. The player is standing alongside a player from the opposing team and in front of an official. The player is pulling at his shirt so that he can brush some dirt off it.
Photo of a AFL game being played on a local football ground, as seen through some trees are there to provide shade to spectators.
Photo of the back of a small, black, AKAI CRT television lying in the nature strip outside a house in a residential area, awaiting hard rubbish collection.
Photo of a small, black, AKAI CRT television lying in the nature strip outside in a residential area, awaiting hard rubbish collection.
Photo of the front of a house with a jet airliner in the sky far behind it. Their airplane has its wheels down in preparation for landing at Melbourne Airport.
Photo of a small roundabout in a residential area. A tree and a few low bushes are growing out of the centre of the roundabout. Cut off by the right edge of the photo frame is a car that is waiting behind the line to enter the roundabout.
Photo of a rusted, half-broken satellite dish mounted to the roof of a house.
After a few, quiet, post-pandemic years during which Nadia and I didn’t attend many events, the start of 2025 has been quite busy for us!
I’ve already shared photos from the Australian Open tennis tournament we attended in January and the Avalon Airshow I attended in March. So for completeness’ sake, here a photos from the other events we went to.
These photos aren’t great, but that’s on purpose. When I attend concerts, plays, and comedy shows, I don’t make an effort to take good photos and I deliberately try to take as few photos as possible. I realised several years ago that focusing on photography and videography at events like these takes away from the overall experience of being there and makes the events less fun to attend. So now I just go there to have a good time :)
This was a huge, fun, straight-up rock concert that was gorgeously produced and a joy to attend with thousands of people who were happy to sing out loud with you.
Photo of a four-piece rock band performing on a large stage with a massive video projection behind them.
Photo of a rock band performing in a stadium. Above the general admissions crowd (the people standing in front of the stage) is a large, inflated, white convertible car with the words, “Bryan Adams” written in black market along one side. This inflatable is being steered by drones attached to each corner.
Adams ended the concert by walking to a mini-stage set up at the very back of the stadium and performing a couple of acoustic songs from there.
Photo of musician Bryan Adams standing on a small stage that’s been assembled at the very back of a stadium. Adams is playing an acoustic guitar and is singing into a microphone on a stand. Many of the attendees are taking photos and videos as her performs.
Both the opening act (Xani Kolac) and Hania Rani were fantastic. Being enveloped in layers of sound and light is a magical way to spend your evening :)
Photo of a woman on stage surrounded by an upright piano, a grand piano, and two large electronic keyboards. Several small spotlights are arranged in a curve around this set-up. A dynamic visualisation is being projected on massive strips of curtains hung at the back of the stage.
I’ve been following Akana and her YouTube, stand-up, film making, and music career for a very long time, so it was great to finally see her in real life.
Photo of a mostly empty stage with just a microphone stand with wireless mic and stool with canned drink on it. Projected on the screen at the back of the stage, in all capital letters, is the name, “Anna Akana”.
I haven’t kept up with the Goo Goo Dolls over the last few years, but they were a massive part of my university years. Unlike the high-production Bryan Adams concert, this was a stripped-down, classic rock show. It wasn’t any less fun, of course, and how can you not be moved by thousands of people around you singing Iris along with the band?!
Photo of a five-piece rock band performing on stage.
This was possibly the least impressive of the concerts we attended, though it was still fun. Roxette isn’t the same without Marie Fredriksson, but Lena Philipsson did an admirable job. And again, it’s difficult not to be feel something when you have thousands of people around you singing their hearts out with the band!
Photo of an eight-piece pop/rock band performing on stage.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from the stripped-back Goo Goo Dolls concert was this Dua Lipa performance spectacular. In spite of the massive production that it was, Lipa has a way of connecting with her audience that made the event feel much smaller and more intimate than it was – while still being hugely impressive to watch!
Photo of a singer and several dancers performing on a large, multi-level stage in a stadium. There is a catwalk in front of the stage that leads to a circular performance area in the middle of the venue. Massive screens above the stage show a close-up of the dancers and the singer.
Photo of a singer and her band in a circular performance area in the middle of a stadium. This performance area is connected via a catwalk to the main, multi-level stage.
Photo of a singer on a circular platform that’s been elevated above a circular performance area in the middle of a stadium.
One of the most fun parts of Avalon Airshow are the dogs you get to see there. Both the air force and border security folks run demos, and the Royal Australian Air Force also has a place where you can go and pat their puppies :)
Photo of a malanois (large, mostly-brown dog) wearing a military harness and holding a stuffed dog toy in its mouth. A name patch reading Cyclon (in all capital letters) is attached to the harness. The dog is on a leash that's being held by its air force handler named Rea wearing battle fatigues. The two are standing in a large field with several carnival rides in the background.
Photo of a brown labrador retriever (a large breed of dog) looking around at the audience at an airshow. The dog is wearing a black harness and the trainer is wearing a blue border security uniform. The two are on a grassy field that's been covered by a large tent. Metal railings and netting have been placed between the field and the audience who are standing around the show area.
Photo of a malanois puppy sitting on a low bench in a fenced-off exhibition area at an airshow. The puppy is looking up the air force handler who is standing next to the bench. There are people standing and walking all around the fenced-off area so they can get a look at the puppies.
Aircraft are loud, so hearing protection is highly recommended at airshows – especially if you’re standing right next to the runway while watching the flying display.
Hearing protection is especially important for young children, with constant announcements about that being made in the hour leading up to the start of flying.
I thought it’d be a fun mini-project to document all the kids (and a few adults) who were out and about wearing some sort of hearing protection or the other.
Photo of a young girl in a pale blue jacket wearing large, white hearing protection earmuffs at an airshow.
It’s not just fun to take photos of the aircraft that are flying around, it’s also fun to photograph the people who are attending the show with you. This and the next post are all about that.
Photo of a young man in the crowd at an airshow taking photos with a professional camera with a long lens. The man is wearing and Air Force t-shirt.
I love the flying display at airshows, and this year I came prepared with a folding chair and a long lens for my camera :)
The flying display at Avalon kicks off with a “wall of fire” along the runway, which is pretty fucking impressive. That’s followed by an aerobatic display and then a military display.
However, there was a crash at this year’s aerobatic display on Friday. The pilot survived, but they cancelled the aerobatic display for Saturday, which is the day I was there.
Also, this airshow takes place at Avalon Airport, which is open for regular commercial flights the whole time. Because of that, I got photos of a scheduled Jetstar flight landing in amongst all this. (Jetstar was the airline I used to work for.)
I’ve grouped my photos into galleries for easier viewing, since there are quite a lot of them! One photo I’ve selected as the feature photo for each section.
Photo of a massive wall of fire along the length of a runway at an airshow. Hundreds of people are standing in the foreground, several with their phones out as they record the display.
Zoomed-in photo of an F-35A military fighter aircraft in the air at an airshow.
It’s only at an airshow that civilians like us get to see two aircraft flying this close to each other :)
Photo fo a MH-60R Seahawk "Romeo" multi-mission maritime helicopter hovering above the runway at an airshow. Above this a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft flies low across the runway. In the foreground of the photo there are hundreds of airshow attendees watching, photographing, and filming these aircraft.
Photo of the front of a C-17A Globemaster III military transport aircraft on the runway at an airshow. In the foreground of the photo there are hundreds of airshow attendees watching, photographing, and filming this aircraft.
Photo of an Airbus A320 passenger jet in Jetstar livery about to land on the runway during an airshow.
I love aviation and have always wanted to be a pilot.
My family wasn’t well-off enough for me to even remotely consider becoming a private or commercial pilot so, up until my teenage years, my plan (very seriously) was to join the air force – like my favourite uncle who retired as Air Vice Marshal from the Pakistan Air Force.
As I got older, my love of computers trumped my love of flying, so I never ended up becoming a pilot. Though I did work for an airline for several years, which was absolutely fantastic.
Lots of industries have expos and events, but I think aviation has the coolest showcase in the form of airshows.
Growing up, my father took me to as many Pakistan Air Force Day events as he could. We’d get up-close to military aircraft, chat with air force officers, watch the flying displays, and buy lots of merch.
He’d even let me skip school that day because Air Force Day isn’t a public holiday in Pakistan and he knew how much I loved aviation. (It was his older brother that was in the Air Force, btw.)
I found out about the biennial Avalon Airshow a year after moving to Melbourne, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I could afford to attend. Since then I’ve gone every time the airshow has been held.
Screenshot from Flickr showing four albums containing photos from Avalon Airshows held in 2017, 2019, 2023, and 2025.
Naturally, I take lots of photos while I’m there. This year’s photos are split across five posts because, yes, I took that many photos :)
In earlier years I focused more on the air show’s booths and static displays of general, commercial, and military aircraft. This year I focused on the flying display and the people watching the flying display – but more on that later.
This is my favourite photo from the static display set. The rest I’ve put in the gallery below.
Photo of one of the massive wing-mounted engines of a C-17A Globemaster III military transport aircraft that's parked at an airshow. An attendee is reaching up to touch the bottom of this engine.
I haven’t gone on a proper photo walk for a while, so here’s a bunch of photos I’ve taken over the last several weeks.
Photo showing a small traffic sign with a reflective, bright-yellow background and contrasting black text. The text reads, in all capital letters, “road ahead”. This sign is mounted on top of a metal pole that’s been installed next to a bicycle path. The bicycle path runs parallel to a two-way residential road. The sign is small and placed well away from the road so that motor vehicle drivers don't confuse it for a sign they need to pay attention to.
Photo looking straight down at large, white text painted on the khaki-grey concrete of a bicycle path. The sign reads, in all capital letters, “slow down”. The photographer’s black sneakers are visible in the bottom edge of the frame.
Photo of a bird eating some bird seed on a wide, painted, brick pillar that’s part of the front fence of a house.
Photo of a small, fluffy, brown dog sitting on the road while it waits for its owners who are at a market stall. The dog is looking over its shoulder at the rest of the people wandering around this market section of the street party.
Photo of the bottom edge of a rusted, but still functional, gate at the bottom of a residential driveway. The gate is made of widely spaced iron bars that are covered with a layer of rust, their paint having peeled off likely years ago. One side of this swinging gate is kept shut with a large bolt that goes into a hole drilled into the driveway concrete. The other side is kept shut by a broken brick that has its two halves stacked on top of each other.
Photo of a portable, outdoor sign that’s been placed in front of a large tree. This sign and tree are in a cemetery, and many rows of gravestones are visible behind the tree. The bright yellow sign has black text that reads, in all capital letters, “warning, bees and wasps active in this area”. A large icon of a bee has also been drawn on the sign.
Photo of a medium-sized duck pond within a large parkland area. A large, while bird – an Australian white ibis – has just taken flight and is already halfway across the width of the pond.
Photo of a wooden bench that’s been installed on the banks of a medium-sized duck pond within a large parkland area.
Photo looking straight down at the black sneakers of two people who are standing facing each other.
Photo looking straight down at the black sneakers of two people who are standing facing each other.
The Amazon Kindle is an amazing product that revolutionised the world of reading when it was launched in 2007.
Sadly, it is now time for me to completely leave this ecosystem.
Happily, there are other, non-shitty ecosystems that you can get into instead.
More on all that in a minute.
I got my first Kindle in 2010 as a birthday present from Nadia. This was a second generation Kindle and the first model that was available outside of the US, hence its ‘Kindle 2 international’ name.
The first ebooks I bought were Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series and Larsson was the first author to sell over a million books on Kindle.
Screenshot of an Amazon Kindle library showing the purchase of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium series Book 1)’ by Stieg Larsson on 14 September 2010.
I even got this Kindle signed by James “The Amazing” Randi when I attended The Amaz!ng Meeting in Sydney towards the end of 2010 :)
Photo of the back of an Amazon Kindle device that’s been signed in gold marker. The signature reads, “To Ameel – James Randi”.
Since 2010, various versions and iterations of Kindles have been my default book reading device.
Close-up photo of a man holding a Kindle Oasis device while sitting in a residential garden. The eReader’s screen shows the cover of the book, ‘The Left-Handed Booksellers of London’ by Garth Nix.
As a result, Nadia and I have built an extensive ebook collection.
Screenshot of an Amazon account ‘Digital Content’ screen showing 760 ebooks and 75 audiobooks.
I also have a decent audiobook collection on Audible, which is great for books like Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, in which your experience is elevated by the sound effects, or Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, in which the narration really helps you with the pronunciation of names.
Screenshot of an Audible library listing three books: ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir; ‘Lock In (Narrated by Amber Benson)’ by John Scalzi; and ‘Ancillary Justice: The Imperial Radch Series, Books 1’ by Ann Leckie.
Amazon purchased Audible in 2008 and, for a while, they were fantastic stewards of this service. For example, they launched the Audible Frontiers imprint through which they started recording science fiction and fantasy books that deserved to be heard; and they launched the ‘Whispersync for Voice’ feature that allowed you to switch seamlessly between the Kindle ebook and Audible audiobook versions of the book you were reading.
All of this was really cool and, as a result, I have been heavily invested in the Kindle-Audible ecosystem for years.
The biggest issue with the Kindle and Audible ecosystem has always been that you don’t actually “buy” any books, you only “licence” them.
What this means is that Amazon can delete any book from your library if it itself loses the licence to that book – like it did in 2009 with, ironically, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Though in that specific case it was because Amazon discovered it didn’t own the correct licence in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You also can’t resell, back-up, or archive the books you thought you had purchased, and your kids can’t inherit your ebook collection either. In fact, if you delete your Amazon account, all your books go with it.
This has not been a concern to me because there are, um, workarounds to these restrictions for both Kindle and Audible.
Animated GIF showing a man tapping his head as if to say, “that’s smart”.
Even though this ecosystem’s licencing restrictions weren’t an issue for me, Amazon’s market dominance and, later, market abuse became an issue, especially on the audiobook side. This became so egregious that, in 2014, Cory Doctorow stopped selling his audiobooks via Audible.
It took me a little longer to catch on, so with the exception of Project Hail Mary in 2021, I stopped buying audiobooks from Audible in 2017. These days, if I do buy an audiobook, I buy it directly from the author if I can – like I do with Doctorow’s books. (It helps, of course, that I rarely listen to audiobooks any more. These days I mostly listen to podcasts.)
Things aren’t as bad on the Kindle side since there have long been viable alternatives. Kobo launched its ebook store in 2009, for example, and then its first eReader in 2010. Authors, publishers, and other booksellers have been selling ebooks online for years as well.
Not everything about the Kindle ecosystem is bad, of course. They were pioneers and innovators in the e-ink reader space, their device-to-device synchronisation is great, their devices themselves are excellent…the list goes on.
Amazon also made the most of their market power by, basically, forcing publishers to keep mass-market ebook prices low. We all know that book publishers (like film studios and record companies) work very hard to extract as much value as they can from both creators and consumers. But, for a while, thanks to the likes of Apple (with iTunes) and Amazon (with Kindle), the price of music tracks and ebooks remained low.
To counter Amazon’s insistence on keeping ebook prices low (typically US$9.99 for most fiction books), Apple and the large book publishers colluded to raise overall ebook prices, for which they were rightly sued. The book publishers all settled so, in 2013, only Apple was found guilty of price fixing.
Ebook prices have gone up since then, but I’m sure they would have be a lot higher if publishers could have had their way all along.
The upshot of all this is that, even though I’ve been buying ebooks and audiobooks from authors, publishers, and other online bookstores in parallel for years, Amazon remained my go-to place for buying ebooks.
Laziness, inertia, and a few remnants of brand loyalty (more so after the book publishers’ collusion) kept me in the Kindle ecosystem, but Amazon’s enshittification continued, so last year I finally had the time and brain-space to start moving to a different ecosystem.
I prefer to read on e-ink devices (meaning no Apple Books or Google Books), which means the obvious alternative was the Kobo ecosystem and so that’s where I went.
I formally started my move to the Kobo ebook and audiobook ecosystem when I bought the Kobo Clara Colour eReader. I still had a few unread books on Kindle – which I’m still making my way through, by the way – but that was when I switched to using this Kobo as my primary reading device.
Making the switch was pretty easy since I already had a Kobo account. I’d created one when Humble Bundle offered a great Kobo-only deal on the entire Seanan McGuire urban fantasy book collection and, since she’s my favourite author, I used this opportunity to create an account and put one foot in the door of this nicer ecosystem. (And I’m not just saying ‘nicer’ because Kobo is a Canadian company.)
I haven’t transferred all my Kindle books to my Kobo eReader – I have them archived on my computer and I’ve read most of them anyway – but I have bought a bunch more ebooks since then. The recent Ursula K. Le Guin Humble Bundle helped with that too!
All this to say that I’ve already got myself a good starting library in the Kobo ecosystem, which is cool.
Screenshot of the Kobo library showing 93 ebooks.
For me the final nail in the coffin for the Kindle ecosystem came when Amazon announced that, from 26 February 2025, they would no longer allow you to download ebooks to your computer to transfer them via USB to your Kindle device.
Screenshot from an Amazon Kindle library pop-up window with the title, “Download & transfer via USB”. The text under this reads, “Transfer Tip: After downloading, use your USB cable to connect your computer and Kindle. Your Kindle will appear as a drive on your computer. Copy your downloaded file from your computer to your Kindle’s documents folder.” Below this is an information icon with this text next to it, “Starting February 26, 2025, the “Download & Transfer via USB” option will no longer be available. You can still send Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled devices by selecting the “Deliver or Remove from Device” option.” This is followed by a hyperlink that reads, “Learn more about managing downloads”.
This is the mechanism I use to archive my ebooks (ie I don’t download them to copy to my Kindle, I download them to back up my library). So, with this option gone, none of the books I’ll buy in the future will actually be mine to own.
Screenshot of a news article by Andew Liszewski from The Verge with the title, “Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books”. The article slug reads, “After February 26th, you can only download books from the Kindle store to your e-reader over Wi-Fi”.
That to me is unacceptable, so it was finally time to pull the plug and exit the entire Kindle ecosystem once and for all.
Screenshot of an article by Michael Kozlowsky in Good E-Reader with the title, “Amazon is not to be trusted anymore with their Kindle e-reader”.
My first step was to download the 1-2 books I hadn’t yet downloaded from my Kindle library.
I have a recurring monthly reminder to do these downloads but, because I’d been spending all my time on my Kobo, I hadn’t kept this up.
My second, and more future-focused, step was to cancel the three preorders I had with Kindle. Fortunately, this is really easy to do.
Screenshot of an Amazon account’s ‘Your Orders’ screen that shows two cancelled book preorders. The cancelled preorders are for ‘Overgrowth’ by Mira Grant and ‘Exit Strategy’ by Lee Child and Andrew Child.
My final step was to add those preorders to my Kobo account.
Though, as I discovered, I had mistakenly preordered the upcoming Mira Grant book on both ecosystems already! (Mira Grant is one of Seanan McGuire’s aliases, fyi.)
Screenshot of a Kobo library showing eight books, six of which are preorders. The preorders are for ‘Overgrowth’ by Mira Grant, ‘The Shattering Peace’ by John Scalzi, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me’ by Django Wexler, ‘Automatic Noodle’ by Annalee Newitz, ‘The River Has Roots’ by Amal El-Mohtar, and ‘Exit Strategy’ by Lee Child and Andrew Child. The two books in the library are, ‘The Reappearance of Rachel Price’ by Holly Jackson and ‘Under the Whispering Door’ by TJ Klune.
So that’s it then.
I’ll read the last few books I have left on my Kindle, buy a second Kobo device (this one for Nadia, since we share a library), and move on with my life.
It’s sad to be leaving an ecosystem that brought me so much joy and convenience, and also brought so much good to the world of reading. But once you’ve made enshittification your business strategy, the only way for your ecosystem is down. And the sooner users jump ship to a more open, distributed ecosystem, the better.
*sigh*
Screenshot of an email from Kobo with the title, “Congrats on finishing Five Survive”. An image at the top of the email shows the Rakuten Kobo logo and has the title, “We’ve got your next read covered”. Text below this reads, “We love a good ending, but there’s nothing better than a new beginning”.
Fortunately, all is not lost!
There are eight days left to download your Kindle books, so there’s plenty of time to archive your whole library.
Once you’ve done that, there are three large ebook ecosystems you can easily switch to: Kobo (Canada), Apple Books (USA), and Google Books (USA). There a bunch smaller ecosystems too, of course, like Vivlio (France), Tolino (Germany), and Nook (USA). However I think most people will jump to one of the other big ones. (Unless you’re a big Barnes & Noble customer, in which case the Nook is for you.)
Alternatively, if you don’t want to get into a new, closed ecosystem, you can buy DRM-free ebooks from lots of places online (including most bookstores) and use any number of non-affiliated eReader devices to read your books, with ONYX BOOX and reMarkable being the most popular in Australia.
So let the reading continue! And hopefully this time without any DRM or shitty business strategies to slow you down :)
PS. Good E-Reader wrote a nice, long history of Kobo back in 2018 if you’re into that kind of stuff.
Nadia and I are laughing all the way to our 21st wedding anniversary :)
Selfie of a man and a woman laughing while trying to take a selfie. The man is bald, with a salt-and-pepper beard. He is wearing eyeglasses and a while linen button-down shirt. The woman has long hair. She is wearing glasses, large gold earrings, a gold necklace, and a dark-and-light green printed dress.
I took a couple of photos while I was in the Melbourne CBD. The compositions had a lot of great light-and-dark contrast, so I figured they’d work well in black-and-white as well – which they do :)
Black-and-white photo of a very wide and very tall pedestrian underpass beneath a major road. Most of the underpass is in shadow and there is a bright square of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, where you can see a fence, some trees, and some buildings. A man and a woman are walking through this tunnel and are about to come out the other side.
Photo of a very wide and very tall pedestrian underpass beneath a major road. Most of the underpass is in shadow and there is a bright square of sunlight at the end of the tunnel, where you can see a brightly-painted fence, some trees, and some buildings. A man and a woman are walking through this tunnel and are about to come out the other side.
Black-and-white photo of a short, empty, and very clean alley in a central business district. The section near the photographer is in shadow, but the rest of the alley is brightly sunlit.
Photo of a short, empty, and very clean alley in a central business district. The section near the photographer is in shadow, but the rest of the alley is brightly sunlit.
Less than an hour into day one at the 2025 Australian Open tennis tournament and a big thunderstorm rolled across Melbourne.
And the intermittent heavy rain stuck around till late in the afternoon.
Screenshot of a weather app showing a severe thunderstorm warning with heavy rainfall expected for most of Melbourne city and surrounds.
Fortunately, Nadia and I got there just as the gates opened, so we managed to watch at least a little bit of tennis on the outside courts before the rain came.
Importantly, we managed to take our annual Australia Open selfie :)
Here are my photos (and selfies!) from the day.
Photo looking down from the stands at a video camera operator sitting on the side of a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. The operator is wearing a cap and a bulky pair of headphones, and there is a small, blue umbrella over his head. The camera has a waterproof cover on it.
Photo looking down at the net of a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. Two ball kids are standing on either end of the net, and a tennis umpire is sitting on a raised chair at the far end of the net.
Photo of tennis player Tatjana Maria who has just tossed a tennis ball into the air as part of her serve.
This photo was entirely accidental! I was trying to get a photo of the player framed between the out-of-focus heads of the people sitting in front of me (which I managed to do in the next photo). But when taking this photo, I’d mistakenly left my camera on its ‘zone focus’ setting and it picked the wrong subject to focus on. Oh well. Even though this photo was an accident, it was a happy one because I quite like how the photo turned out :)
Photo of the back and side of a woman and her young daughter watching a women’s singles tennis match.
Photo of tennis player Tatjana Maria at full stretch as she serves the ball on a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court.
Photo looking down from the stands at a blue-coloured, hard-surface tennis court. One of the ball kids is running up to retrieve a ball from the middle of the left-side court.
Photo looking down between the spectator chairs at a tennis arena. The subject of the photo is the foot of a person wearing grey-and-white New Balance sneakers with bright orange highlights. Next to this shoe are two orange corn kernels that have been dropped on the concrete.
Photo of a small jet engine aircraft flying above some tall buildings on an overcast day. The aircraft is climbing and is about to disappear into the cloud cover.
Photo of the outside of a tennis arena with large photo banners set along its side showing past championship winners. The outside area is almost completely empty of spectators because it is raining heavily. Despite the heavy rain, ushers wearing black pants and yellow shirts are standing under red umbrellas that have been affixed next to each area entrance. A supervisor wearing a black skirt and blue polo shirt is walking between two of these umbrellas with a blue folder over her head to minimise the amount of rain she gets on her eyeglasses.
Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while they sit on blue coloured seats at a tennis court. Both are wearing straw hats and sunglasses. The woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top and the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt.
Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while standing outside the entrance to Margaret Court Arena, a tennis arena in Melbourne, Australia. Both are wearing straw hats and glasses. The the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt and the woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top.
Selfie of a man and woman smiling at the camera while standing outside the steps that lead to the entrance of Rod Laver Arena, a large tennis arena in Melbourne, Australia. Both are wearing straw hats, glasses, and black face masks. The the man is wearing a printed black t-shirt and the woman is wearing a white, sleeveless top.
My first photo walk of the 2025 was a quick one on a bright, sunny day during summer break at the University of Melbourne.
Wide angle photo looking up at the first four stories of a 1970s Brutalist-style university campus building with a light-brown brick facade. A sign above the entrance reads, “John Medley Building East Tower”. The photographer is standing under the third-storey walkway that connects to the west tower. Outside the building, on both sides of the entrance, there are several bicycle hoops, one of which has a bicycle locked to it.
Wide angle photo looking up at the first four stories of a 1970s Brutalist-style university campus building with a light-brown brick facade. A sign above the entrance reads, “John Medley Building West Tower”. The photographer is standing under the third-storey walkway that connects to the east tower. Outside the building, on both sides of the entrance, there are several bicycle hoops, and there are four bicycles locked to these hoops.
Photo of a long, wide lawn between two walkways on a university campus. There are several tall, old trees growing in a line along one side of this lawn. Some wrought iron outdoor tables and chairs have been placed the shade of some of these trees.
Photo of a single, yellow coloured, wrought iron outdoor chair lying in the shade of a line of trees alongside a lawn in a university campus. To the left of the photo is a wide walkway leading to a campus building.
Photo of one part of a 1920s Tudor-Gothic style building with a light-brown freestone facade, as seen through a gap in the branches of a tree.
Photo of a small, brick courtyard surrounded by trees on three sides and, on the fourth side, a 1920s Tudor-Gothic style building with a light-brown freestone facade. In the courtyard are five wrought iron chairs arranged around a wrought iron table.
Photo looking through a long row of bicycle hoops installed in a brick walkway next to a garden.
Photo looking up at the windows of a five-storey, modernist, 1950s design, university building with floor-to-ceiling windows along the outside.
Photo of a man facing the mirror-wall of a 1970s, all-wood-panel elevator. The man is wearing olive green shorts, a black printed t-shirt, and a black cap. His t-shirt reads, in stylised bright yellow-and-orange text, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” and, in all-capital letters, “don’t panic”. He is wearing glasses and has a short-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard. The man is holding a camera at stomach height and is taking a photograph of himself, as reflected in the lift's mirror.
I’m not here to do an annual music wrap-up, but…
These were my favourite albums of 2024:
I also have three honourable mentions, two of which were released at the end of 2023 (though I listened to them mostly in 2024) and one of which is an EP:
These are the songs that got stuck in my head most often and for the longest time in 2024 (in alphabetical order):
I can’t remember the last time I listened to a song on a constant loop as much as I listened to St. Vincent Sweetest Fruit. The layers, the soundscapes, the loops – there’s so much to unpack, enjoy on its own, and then repack and enjoy as a whole in this song. Phenomenal. (Here’s a production breakdown of that song, in case you’re interested.)
I love that Dua Lipa released two versions of her Radical Optimism album: a regular version and an extended version. It’s great having access to longer, more groovy, more atmospheric, and less radio-conforming versions of all her latest songs. (Reminds me of Peter Gabriel releasing two versions of his i/o album in 2023 – a Bright-Side Mix and Dark-Side Mix – each produced by a different mixer.)
Half of my favourite albums this year here live albums, which is great to see. I love a good live album.
Chris Stapleton and Dua Lipa performed a live duet of Stapleton’s Think I’m In Love With You that at the 59th Academy Of Country Music Awards. I also love a good live duet :)
Today would have been our eighth Maggie-versay because we adopted Maggie – our red heeler/kelpie mix – on 30 December 2016.
Photo looking down at a red/brown with big ears looking up at the photographer.
Sadly Maggie didn’t make it to this milestone, passing away at home with the help of the lovely folks at Goodbye Good Boy on the night of 27 December.
Maggie loved food. So it was a bit of a surprise when, around the middle of October, she refused to eat her monthly flea and tick medication, and then didn’t finish her dinner that night. When she kept refusing food, we took her to our vet. A couple of tests later we confirmed that she had chronic kidney disease, likely brought on by old age.
When she continued to feel unwell, she was referred to a specialist vet. After some more tests we learned that she also had a urinary tract infection. Fortunately, this infection was quickly treated with antibiotics and she bounced back from feeling miserable in just a day or two.
Chronic kidney disease, however, is incurable. And, depending on what stage the disease is at, you really just have a few weeks to a few months left. You can slow its progress, of course. But, as we discovered, hers was quite advanced.
(She also had a small tumour next to one of her kidneys, which a biopsy showed contained a slow-moving cancer. But given the rest of her diagnosis, that ended up being a non-issue – just like her arthritis, which we kept treating even though we knew it wasn’t going to be an ongoing concern.)
Photo of a Patient Discharge Information folder from Advanced Vetcare, a veterinary specialist centre and 24 hour emergency hospital. Handwritten on the folder in black marker is the name ‘Maggie’ with a little love heart icon drawn after her name.
Once your pet has received a chronic kidney disease diagnosis, all you can do is take care of them till it’s time for them to go. The HHHHHMM quality of life scale developed by veterinary oncologist Dr Alice Villalobos helps you decide when that time has come.
Maggie was a happy, energetic, stubborn, no-nonsense dog with an insatiable appetite who led a really good life with us, so she made the best of her last few weeks as well. She wasn’t eating much, so she didn’t have as much energy as before. But we stayed home to spend as much time with her as we could, so she hung out with us all the time. We took her for her daily walks, which were the highlight of her day. Even on her last day, we went for a short walk on our street, which she would have happily extended if she hadn’t been feeling so worn out.
But worn out she was. Over a two week period in December her quality of life score dropped from the 50s to the 40s. A score of 35 or more is considered an acceptable quality of life, but it’s best to let your pet go just before they start to get miserable. So on 27 December we made the call.
Maggie had had her daily walk; she’d spent time in the garden, getting pats and cuddles from all of us; and she’d even eaten a bite of beef-steak fat, which was her favourite.
She passed away in her favourite orange, fuzzy bed, asleep and snoring like a champ.
To remember the fabulous years we had with Maggie, here are some photos of her that I haven’t uploaded before.
Photo of a woman walking a dog in a large public park.
Photo of a woman in a living room, sitting and leaning back on the right-side arm of a black leather sofa. She is holding a red/brown dog in her lap, with the dog stretching-out and raising her head so she can lick the woman’s cheek.
Photo of a half-asleep red/brown dog lying in a large bed. The dog is sleeping between the two humans in the bed, with its head on a pillow, while facing the photographer.
(I have uploaded a version of this collage before, but this one is better.)
Collage of two photos that have a passing similarity. The one on the left is of a red/brown dog with a yellow bed cover over its head that is covering both its ears. The dog is looking over its left shoulder at the photographer. On the right is a photo of the painting ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Johannes Vermeer. The painting is of a woman wearing a yellow-and-blue turban looking who is looking over her left shoulder at the painter. The woman is wearing what appears to be a very large pearl as an earring.
Photo of a woman in gym gear cuddling a resigned looking red/brown dog on a sofa.
You can find all my published photos of Maggie in the ‘Maggie’ category on this blog (or in the ‘Maggie’ album on my Flickr profile).
Maggie’s passing is the end of an era for me and Nadia. We’ve both acquired, raised, and lost dogs before, but that was always with our families. Maggie was our family in Australia, and now we’re one family member short. *sigh*
Photo of a red/brown dog waiting in anticipation at the top of a flight of steps. The photo is taken from near ground level, behind the dog’s bum.
[NOTE: For the most up-to-date version of my favourites list, see my ‘Typography’ page.]
It’s December 2024 and, of the typefaces I currently have a licence to, these are my favourites. (Like last time, I’m just going to list them, not talk about them.)
I’ve grouped the typefaces based on their level of formality, as discussed in my ‘How I think about typefaces’ post. And I’ve sorted them in decreasing order of versatility.
Also, I’ve only included typefaces that work well for body text or occasional text (ie short blocks). This list would be far too long if I listed all the heading and display typefaces I liked!
Friendly: Slippery; Bariol Serif (pay what you want); Emy Slab
Casual: Merriweather (free); Bitter (free); Literata (free); Bookerly (free); Tisa Serif (included with Microsoft Office); Vollkorn (free); Caladea (free)
Chill (formal): Source Serif 4 (free); Charter (free); TT Jenevers; Sentinel
Neutral (formal): Novela (pay what you want); Mercury; Sentient (free); PT Astra Serif (free)
Stylish (formal): Audela; Crimson (free); Writer; Sabon Next (included with Microsoft Office); Editorial New; Malabar
Elegant: Stempel Garamond; Palatino Nova (included with Microsoft Office); DM Serif Text (free)
Friendly: Fira Sans (free); Gill Sans Nova (included with Microsoft Office); Nudica (pay what you want); Bariol (pay what you want)
Casual: Atkinson Hyperlegible (free); Ideal Sans; Work Sans (free); Woodford Bourne
Chill (formal): Public Sans (free); Source Sans 3 (free); Trade Gothic Next (included with Microsoft Office); Fact; Segoe UI (included with Microsoft Windows); Libre Franklin (free); Oswald (free)
Neutral (formal): Neue Montreal; Roboto (free); Inter (free); Helvetica Neue (included with macOS); Neue Haas Grotesk; DM Sans (free); Neue Haas Unica; Verdana (included with Microsoft Windows, macOS; Pro version free from Windows Store)
Stylish (formal): Whitney; Poppins (free); General Sans (free); Cooper Hewitt (free); DIN Next; Jost* (free); URW Dock; URW DIN
Elegant: Hint (added Jan 2025), Noah; Avenir Next (included with Microsoft Office)
Friendly: Clab; Emy Slab; Bariol Serif (pay what you want)
Casual: Merriweather (free); Tisa Serif (included with Microsoft Office); Literata (free); Bookerly (free); Bitter (free)
Chill (formal): Zilla Slab (free); Charter (free)
Neutral (formal): Roboto Slab (free)
Stylish (formal): Rockwell Nova (included with Microsoft Office); Drafting* Mono (free); Klinic Slab (pay what you want)
Elegant: Sentinel
Friendly: Nudica Mono (pay what you want)
Casual: Fira Mono (free)
Chill (formal): JetBrains Mono (free)
Neutral (formal): Source Code Pro (free); Consolas (included with Microsoft Windows)
Stylish (formal): Neue Montreal Mono; Drafting* Mono (free); Cascadia Code (free)
Elegant: Berkeley Mono
The way I acquire typefaces is by maintaining an up-to-date list of the realistically affordable typefaces I want to buy next. If any of those typefaces go on sale, I snap them up. But if there are some that never go on sale, I wait till I get my annual bonus from work and then buy one or two families every year.
Since I maintain that up-to-date wish list of future favourite typefaces (at least the more affordable ones), I figured I’d include that here as well :)
Friendly: SideNote
Casual: IvyStyle Typewriter
Chill (formal): Myriad; IvyStyle Sans
Neutral (formal): Untitled Sans; Untitled Serif; Tiempos Text; Equity Text
Stylish (formal): Calluna; Calluna Sans; Kappa Vol2; Kappa; IvyJournal; Chaparral; Mackinac
Elegant: Bodoni Egyptian; IvyOra
Do you have any favourite or go-to typefaces? What are they? I’d love to know!
I want to talk about my current favourite typefaces. But in order to do that, I need to explain how I categorise typefaces. So here goes.
When trying to figure out which typeface(s) to use in a project, the first aspect I consider is the level of formality the body text typeface needs to have. Everything else flows from there.
I put typefaces into formality categories based on the vibe I get from them. And because the formality level of ‘formal’ can be context dependent, I split that into subcategories.
This gives me six “vibe” categories which are, from least to most formal:
Friendly
Casual
Chill (formal)
Neutral (formal)
Stylish (formal)
Elegant
If this sound a bit like I’m describing fashion, then you’re correct. I think of these formality levels as either dress codes or as the type of pen I’d use to achieve that level of formality.
Applying this to typography, here’s how I’d sort some familiar typefaces into these categories.
No categorisation system is perfect, of course, and many typefaces are versatile enough to be placed in more than one category [1]. But my objective here isn’t to create the perfect categorisation, it’s to give me the language I can use to compare the vibes of two similar typefaces.
Happily, this formality-level approach is surprisingly practical when put into action. For example, I can say things like, “nah, that typeface has features that are too elegant for the vibe I’m trying to set in this situation” or “this typeface is on the chill side of neutral, which means it has the perfect level of friendliness while still being formal enough to use in this project”.
More than that, I can use this system as a whole to help me make typography decisions. Here’s how that works.
Every time I kick off a new project, I start by considering if a neutral (formal) typeface is what I need. This is what I’d use if I didn’t want the typeface to be noticed. Or if it was noticed, I’d want people to assess it as neutral. Think Times New Roman, Helvetica, or Arial. Or Novela and Neue Montreal, like in the example below. If we were still in the days of handwriting everything, the vibe I’d be going for is text written with a fountain pen.
If neutral isn’t what I’m after, then I can go in two directions: warmer and friendlier or cooler and more elegant.
If I’m going in the cooler direction, then I’ll look for a stylish (formal) typeface. Something like Sabon or Caslon (both of which you see in a lot of printed books) or Futura. Or Writer and Cooper Hewitt, like in the example below. The vibe here is slightly more fancy/artsy, like text written with a fine felt-tip pen.
If that’s not enough, I’ll look for an elegant typeface. Think Baskerville, Palatino, or Avenir. Or Stempel Garamond and Noah, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a calligraphy pen.
But what if I want to go warmer instead?
Moving to the other side of neutral, I’ll look for a chill (formal) typeface. Think Calibri or Georgia. Or Charter and Public Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a rollerball pen.
If that’s not enough, I’ll look for a casual typeface. Something like Century Schoolbook (which a lot of older children’s books were written in) or Work Sans. Or Vollkorn and Ideal Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a standard ballpoint pen – though with good handwriting.
But if that’s still too formal, then I’ll look for a friendly typeface. Something like Gill Sans (the typeface used in classic, orange-and-white Penguin book covers) or Roboto Slab. Or Bariol Serif and Fira Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a marker pen.
I went through this exact process when deciding which typeface to use in the labels of the graphics above, by the way.
I knew neutral was going to be boring (like DM Sans in the light blue box, below), but I didn’t want to go in the casual direction (like Public Sans in the orange box). I also didn’t want the labels to be too elegant (like Avenir in the dark blue box), so I settled on stylish (like Whitney in the mid blue box). And that’s why all the labels in all the graphics above and below are set in Whitney Semibold and Whitney Medium.
Now that I’ve explained my typeface categorisation, I can talk about my current favourite typefaces – which I will do so in the next post.
[1] Nudica, for example, I classify as ‘friendly’ because that’s the vibe context I tend to use it in most often. But it could just as easily be classified as ‘stylish’ if you used it in that context.
It was a hot day in Melbourne today. But if you’re smart about it, you can stay mostly in the shade when you walk from my office to Flinders Street Station along the Yarra River :)
Photo looking down to the banks of an urban river where a black swan is floating, its red beak inside the water as it investigates something below the surface.
Photo looking down to the banks of an urban river where a black swan is floating. The swan has noticed the photographer and is looking straight down the barrel of the camera lens.
Photo of an urban river framed by the underside of bridge that the photographer is standing under. The photo shows three adults and one child in a small, flat-bottomed, motorboat with a table affixed to the middle and bench seating around the sides. This is a rental boat, with the brand name GoBoat painted on its side. An employee of the rental company is standing on the pier from which this boat has just been launched. With one hand raised, the employee is explaining something to the renters inside the boat.
This is the last set of photos from my work trip to Brisbane. As an aviation geek I can’t not post photos from every time I visit an airport or fly anywhere :)
Photo of a large parking structure and hotel next to an airport terminal. The photo has been taken from inside a taxi. A covered pedestrian walkway extends from the terminal (which is off-camera on the left) to the parking structure (which is on the right of the photo). Below this walkway, on the ground floor, is a large, all-caps, three-dimensional, illuminated sign that reads, ‘Melbourne’.
Photo of the apron outside a domestic terminal at a large airport. An Airbus A330 aircraft in Qantas livery is parked outside one of the gates. An elevated cabin service cart is delivering food and drink items to the aircraft from the rear-left door. Below the left wing a fuel-pump truck is refuelling the aircraft.
Photo of the apron outside a domestic terminal at a large airport. An Airbus A330 aircraft in Qantas livery is parked outside one of the gates.
Photo of the apron outside a domestic terminal at a large airport. An Airbus A330 aircraft in Qantas livery is taxiing up to one of the gates.
This is personal website of Nadia Niaz and Ameel Zia Khan. Here we document our lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
