Two surprising bits of news from Indiana this morning:

• Lawmakers are proposing redrawing the Indiana-Michigan border. Huh? Apparently the original border was laid out in 1827 with wooden pegs, and that’s all people have to know where the line is. I had no idea! I kinda thought that even without GPS, surveyors would be able to always know where the line was based on their, I don’t know, magic measurements or whatever. Guess not.
• Elkhart County has slipped to #2 on the unemployment list. #1? Lagrange County with 18.9% unemployment. Jeeeez. That’s the county where I went to high school. It’s the county where several members of my family still live. I just can’t even imagine what it’s like with 1 out of 5 out of work.

Links courtesy of The Elkhart Project.

Chippendale is on both lists of top suburbs to buy houses and apartments in Sydney. High demand from first-home buyers is pushing prices up. Woohoo!

New Harry Potter trailer. Holy crap. That looks AWESOME. I found Half-Blood Prince a little boring at times, but that trailer makes it look action-packed. And I LOVE the reworking of “Hedwig’s Theme” at the end, all bombastic with the horns. (Instantly reminded me of Darth Vader, very sinister and menacing.) At least we get it at the same time as everybody else.

What a Business Analyst Does
For anybody who is curious or confused about my new business title, you’re not alone. Even people who are actually in this industry aren’t quite sure what the various titles and job duties actually entail. Today I found a great article that finally explains the names and the overlap. Here’s me:

IT Business Analyst – This is the analyst who is generally associated with requirements elicitation/analysis and solving problems using information technology solutions. This role is the bridge between business & IT.

I love that last quote. That’s the key, really. The business and marketing guys have a goal they want to achieve. I take these Feature Requests and turn them into functional requirements and specifications that the tech guys can work from. When the tech guys have an issue – like a technology or resource limitation – I can be an advocate and make a case to the business for what they need. It’s fun! I get to be a bridge, contact point, and translater between lots of different areas of the business. And since we’re so small, I get to have a lot more input in setting up new processes and documenting existing ones that I might have in a big corporate environment.

Spreadtweet. A Twitter client that looks like an Excel spreadsheet, for people in offices with restrictive managers. (I, on the other hand, trade Twitter client recommendations with my manager. Hi Venks!)

Wow. Somebody’s actually created a Mac botnet by infecting users who pirated Photoshop CS4. Yikes. (As Snookums put it: “Good thing I don’t know anybody who would do that.” Me: “Uh… Yeah.”)

Wow. Just spotted on SMH: “It’s off: Carlton brewery site goes flat”.

THE developer behind the massive former Carlton and United Brewery project at Broadway has called an indefinite halt to construction and says the project will not start until the global economy recovers.

Very interesting. On one hand that’s more time for the project to be scaled back to a level that meets residents’ concerns for overpopulation and green space. On the other hand, it’s a massive city block that looks like Wonka’s chocolate factory was leveled by a wrecking ball. I posted it to the Life in Chippendale blog; I’m interested to hear what other people think about it.

Geek Girl Dinner Sydney
Tonight was our long-awaited Geek Girl Dinner Sydney event. I met up with Issy and Tia at the new Googleplex in Pyrmont. (Not the same one I interviewed at in the CBD. Note: My double Goog-rejection was much on my mind.) The new building is gorgeous, and the emcee mentioned a couple of times how “green” it was supposed to be. We checked in and picked up our swag, then were directed out to the “verandah” for drinks. We had champagne and beer while looking out over the gorgeous Sydney skyline. We made some new friends. There was much mockery of Joomla. Then we were all directed down to the meeting room for the “lightning talks.” I got instantly recognized by misswired, who it took me a few minutes to place. (One of the perils of having a blog; being recognised by strangers. Within ten minutes had worked out that we have, like, 20 of the same friends.) Anyway, the talks. Eight different speakers gave five minute speeches about everything from Twitter to Adobe Flex to helpful command line utilities. (I’d offered to give a speech on the Australian online knitting community, but the bill was full. I think my speech would’ve been better than at least half of them.) Several of the speeches just seemed to be plugs for the chick’s business or employer. Also – there were a lot of guys there! I had no idea that it was kosher to bring partners along. I twittered and knitted throughout the speeches. Afterwards we were herded into a (very small) room for more drinks and nibblies. There was much pounding of free Google booze, and much stalking of super-cool Google coder chicks. (I covet those t-shirts with the Google logo with the female symbol as one of the o’s.) Thankfully Issy was available to drive me and Tia home. Thanks, ladies! It was a super fun night. I’m definitely up for the next one.

Demystifying double crochet for beginners. Great tutorial with super clear photos. Knowing where to put that last stitch is always the problem I have with crochet. This helps a lot.

The Elkhart Project. MSNBC is “focusing long-term coverage on the city of Elkhart, Ind. to provide perspective on the national recession.” Wow. I’ve already learned stuff I never knew about the area I grew up. The most surprising was that the RV industry is/was pretty much all non-union (which I should’ve realized given that I never heard anyone in my family other than Grandma Vee mention a union ever). As my cousin Kim said on Facebook, “Here’s hoping the press coverage ends up doing some good in the end.”