May 2008 – woowoowoo

petrol addicts, go cold turkey!

Does anyone else find the recent debate over petrol tax just a little bit pathetic? 4 cents, 5 cents, myopic politicians taking cheap shots, pretending they can do anything about fuel prices. It’s all such a load of crap.

Firstly, I’m no economist, but as I understand it, the price is high because of the old supply/demand equation. What’s dropping the price going to do? I’ll help: it’ll increase demand, raise the price and before a few weeks have gone by any, gains will have evaporated faster than if you put a match to it.

Obviously the only thing that is going to make any difference is a drop in demand. If you want to save 20% on your petrol bill, try catching the train or riding a bike one day a week.

It’s sunset on the day of the car. When I travel to work, I am just sickened and amazed at the number of cars with only one occupant – these will be the same people whinging about petrol prices – are they completely stupid? They are racing headlong to a future of congestion taxes and greenhouse taxes – five cents is going to look cheap when they start having to pay the real cost of their addiction.

I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the secondary effects of a fuel price crunch – farmers, miners, primary producers and manufacturers everywhere are already dropping out of business. We’re seeing protests across the world in rich and poor countries. What happens when our shops can’t get adequate stock of fresh fruit, fish, and milk? The writing has been on the wall since the first ‘oil shock’ in the ’70s, but little has been done to change course. If not this crunch, maybe the next one, but you know, it’s really going to hurt unless we start making other plans.

And in a perverse little postscript: Our local paper ran a front page story this week about a councilor calling for trams to be banned on Sydney Road… wait for it: because they cause congestion! Hang on a minute, last time I was on Sydney Road, there were about 300 cars for every tram. Wouldn’t that indicate it’s the cars causing the congestion? Bingo! Maths isn’t my strong suit, but I think I nailed that one.

Apple’s iTunes rip-off

I remember waiting with huge anticipation for Apple to launch iTunes in Australia – the rumours got thicker and faster until it finally arrived. The store finally launched with tracks selling at $1.69 each.

At the time, as I recall, the aussie dollar was about $us0.65¢ so we were effectively paying about $us1.10 while the US pricing was only $us0.99¢ – that seemed a little unfair at the time, but no-one seemed too fussed.

Roll forward to today: the aussie dollar is sitting on $us0.95¢, but tracks are still the same price, which means we’re actually paying a little over $us 1.60 per track! That’s quite a bit more than our US counterparts – certainly enough to make most CDs better value.

With the parlous state of the US economy and their sliding dollar, I’m sure we’re not the only market where iTunes is starting to look expensive.

A week in touch

I’ve had the pleasure of using an iPod Touch for the last week. As much as I like my music, I’ve never really felt the need to upgrade from my old ‘gumstick’ 1Gb shuffle, but we’ve got one at work with the intention mainly of testing podcasts and public facing services.

Yes, the multi touch is cool, the screen is brilliant, the wifi easy to use – all just so sweet. So, what can I say about my week that hasn’t already been said a million times in a million other reviews? I’ll try to stick to a couple of things that have impressed me.

resilient

News reports tonight are describing the people of Burma as ‘resilient‘.

Certainly they are resilient. When we visited, we saw these people living in pretty ordinary circumstances – poverty, lack of basic services, poor to non-existent infrastucture, all against a constant undercurrent of oppression. Despite their obvious hardships, they were friendly and open, with a ‘can-do’ attitude and beautiful smiling faces.

They certainly don’t need this latest obstacle.

If you’re feeling a little compassionate, don’t be put off by the fact that Burma is run by a cadre of self serving military officials. I’m sure they’ll find a way to get their grubby hands on a portion of your money, but trust the aid agencies to do their best and get your money to the people who need it. Head over to the Red Cross Donations page and be generous.

the old sou’wester

Am I imagining things? Perhaps there’s someone out there that can help me with this.

As a kid, (many years ago!) I remember all the bad weather came from the south west. Cold, rainy days, cold fronts, storms – you name it, they all came out of the south west… as I remember, anyway. These days, when rain approaches Melbourne it is just as often from the north west and seems to get scattered by the ranges on that side of the city. I also remember summer storms – cracking shows with thunder and lightning and winds so strong that they swept the rain in spirals down our driveway. Obviously, we are still in drought and weather patterns are pretty grim, but this is one trend I feel has happened over the last 10 years.

So, the question – has anyone else noticed the relative lack of the old sou’wester? and storms, weren’t they almost inevitable after a hot day in summer?

Of course, those days we never had the wonderful BOM radar and all I remember is wonky lines on the ABC news weather map. I’m intending to look back over what records I can glean from the extensive bureau archives, but I thought I’d just pop the question here too, in case others have noticed it.