I was in Sydney last week for the excellent WDS08, but it was some other aspects of Sydney that I want to write about this time. 1. Soul Sydney doesn’t seem to have one. I find it an intensely sad city – I’m sure there are exceptions, but Sydney is beautiful in spite of what …
Category Archives: rant’n’rave
Radio Parts have a customer service problem…
… and sadly, I appear to be the victim. About 6 months ago, I bought a PVR/set top box. I went with Wintal for a few reasons: I already had a non-recording Wintal set top box which had given no trouble; and the retailer, Radio Parts Group, assured me that they have their own repairers …
Continue reading “Radio Parts have a customer service problem…”
your mileage may vary
Watched a very interesting documentary on SBS the other night: Car of the Future, where two charismatic brothers – one a host of a radio car show, explore future trends in car design in a lighthearted, but well informed way. It was certainly entertaining, but I want to share the two big points that came …
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 …
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 $us0.65ยข so we were effectively paying about $us1.10 while the …
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 …
a bullbar for my bicycle…
Dear reader: Take the first couple of paragraphs with a grain of salt as they are based on comments as reported in the Moreland Leader. Seems there is a possibility that this wasn’t exactly what was said. All the same, the stuff I said isn’t all suddenly wrong either, so I’ll leave it here. Breathtaking …
I beg to differ…
A well organised march in support of the Chinese government’s position on Tibet. Most of the participants were university students – organised through the Chinese Student societies at various universities. A few points…
negative feedback
In these days of social networks, recommendations and feedback, how do you give seriously negative feedback? I would like the world to know how useless a former staff member was, but can’t bring myself to write comments directly on their linkedin profile (christ, we were just glad to get rid of them!), but almost every …
Ballina’s last resort
Well here I am at Ballina Beach Resort, the venue for Ausweb08 – one of the world’s oldest internet based conferences. It doesn’t have the cachet of the newcomers like Web Directions, but it still attracts some good thinkers and some interesting topics. One of the features of this conference, however, is that it is …
RACV – fossils fuel the road debate
Each month I get the RACV magazine, Royalauto; and almost without fail, I am appalled by their dated, conservative, tunnel-vision approach to problems on our roads. This month, the cover boasts a “Special Roads Report. Congestion: the solutions“, so I thought I’d see what the 1950’s think tank had come up with this time. Living …
False start for China?
All eyes on China at the moment – they must have expected that, but what the world wanted to see was a new approach. Awarding the Olympics is defended as an incentive – a carrot, if you like – to lure China away from it’s old ways. Sadly, it looks like that’s not gonna happen. …