Murphys Haystacks – Mortana, South Australia

Back Again, Again

This site has been missing (again) for many months. Over the nearly thirty years this site and its antecedent Geography – Environment – Society  has existed it has been broken by host or CMS issues on at least four occasions. Given the busy life and age (85) of the webmaster, it has taken some time to restore it. This last time the whole site was “gobbled up” and irretrievable. Please accept that the process of restoration is ongoing so that parts will emerge slowly and often in an imperfect form. The resurrection of this site was only possible because of the splendid foresight and work of Archive.org which has been collecting and saving websites since 1996. At the time of posting Archive.org has over 866 billion web pages saved over that period which are searchable online! We were able to download functioning versions of both recent and old sites using the very helpful Wayback Machine Downloader. The older pages, which are  mainly of historic interest, we intend to archive here. They are somewhat messy and will take a while to make presentable enough for re-posting. Please be patient. It is important to note that most of the links in the old pages do not work. They have been left there because they are of historic interest. We do hope they may suggest avenues of research in the present day. However it should be noted that the any link, old or current, on this website does not confer our complete endorsement. Too often visitors to the internet accept the first information they find and neglect to verify it. This appears to be worse as our lives are so busy and social media encourages us to quickly accept anything that confirms our existing biases. Please approach everything with small dose of healthy academic scepticism.

Last Modified: 20 August 2024

Welcome

Welcome to McElroy Bits We hope you will get value from your visit. Some content may require you to join.

Zara

Geographical explanations of society, economy and the natural environment depend upon integrating facts about places and the spatial relations between and within them.

What to expect

Our advice to visitors is to expect nothing. That way if they do find something they may be pleasantly surprised. This site existed for many years as Geography – Environment – Society. Its main purpose was to provide ideas and guidance for Geography teachers and students. It also allowed for some personal indulgences such as Family History. The site fell into disrepair because of family health issues for much of the past couple of decades and was removed several years ago. There were a couple of attempts to revive it, but they failed. While it is back yet again it will necessarily be quite different We hope this version meets a better fate than the original. Where it is deemed helpful some archival advice and data from the old site may be posted. However the very limited offerings here will reflect the current access to knowledge and ideas provided by the present digital age.
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Old site was out-of-date

Significant personal demands over the past couple of decades meant that this site could not be maintained properly. So it was removed. Some of the old content may be returned here, but because the internet has changed dramatically over that period and many of the former site’s functions are better provided in new ways this site will be very different.

The internet keeps evolving

This newly revived site hopes to reflect many of the new ways the internet functions. One of the most used sections of the old site was a comprehensive and varied set of links to aid Geography students and teachers. This information can now be more easily found by using a good Search Engine like Google or by following other schools and researchers on Social Media like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. This may leave space for this site to draw attention to current issues where Geographic research and insights are providing crucial answers or some valuable learning methods are being employed.
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What has the COVID-19 pandemic taught us? As we reflect upon its impacts on the economy, society and natural environment should we build a “new normal” as it recedes? Or should we simply return to the “normal” which caused its worst aspects? The ideas provided here are meant to stimulate thinking and to challenge glibly held beliefs. The visitor is encouraged to put aside ideological stances and political allegiances and to test previously held dogma by weighing facts presented or otherwise gleaned. This essay was prompted by several folk who asked the author whether he thought that after the pandemic we should “get back to normal” or seek a “new normal”.
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