On the idea that people’s lives get overlooked the older they get reminded me of a story relayed on about my grandfather when he got taken to hospital. The ambulance driver (I think it was) asked him “So, have you ever been in an ambulance before Mr Lee” in one of those “I’m speaking to a simple old person” voices. He used to drive the bloody things!

Anyhow, higher resolution pictures on Tom’s site if you want ‘em and another one or two pics in this series.

Shepard by the yellow river can't stand the pollution smell.

Villager in Guangdong province washes in polluted water.

Wroking in heavy dust, migrant workers invariably start to have health problems after 1-2 years.

See here for some explanations of the pictures, original source is from here.

Some other equally scary pictures from China (originally from here):

Man collecting dead fish in Guanqiao Lake in central China's Hubei province.

Migrant workers sort through industrial and household waste in Beijing.

I’ve posted in the past about the idea that China may solve global warming (kinda) because of the pressures such massive growth puts on it, but as I mentioned (at length): it is paying a hell of a price currently. Let’s hope with that comes the ability to clean-up the vast unliveable areas (and soon!).

Now THAT is a transformer!

If I want some welding done on whatever “mad-max” vehicle I’m driving in the post apocalyptic/post comet strike world: I’ll be giving this guy a call to see what he’s coddled together out of scrappy wires, string, cardboard and metal.

Update: Image had died. That’ll teach me to rely on the internet!

Quite a surreal light this morning, thought initially that I was just up at the crack of dawn, but an hour of sleep in later and it was still a funny red colour. Thought my eyes were just not working properly for a while there. Where was the blue sky?

The view from the living room

The view of Coogee beach wasn’t quite so good this morning.

Coogee beach.. No really, it's there somewhere behind the dust.

Just like the snow sitting on cars! (Well, not really).

Car cleaners will be busy this week

On the way to work I couldn’t help but think this might be a sign of things to come worldwide if we keep destroying our farmland and having it blow away.  This was freak wind doing the work, but if we don’t watch things: it might be the norm in a decade or two.

Heading to work, post apocalypse. The traffic lights looked fantastic though.

If anyone was filming a sci-fi movie about the end of the world today they just saved a bundle on post production specialfx.

A true hard working bike

What would have been interesting was if the creator of this beast had installed a centre stand and some sort of hookup with the wheel that allowed the bike engine to drive the grinding wheels too.

Does the helmet double as eye protection?

Still: I like the idea of a trade that comes to you, with minimal vehicle footprint and then putts off to the next job.