Noise Boy's Cyberhome

Yes, Nowhere

2009-11-08T18:58:00.000+10:00

It is a dark, Sunday night. There has just been some rain and the humidity is high but the temperature is tolerable also thanks to the rain.

Someone in the neighbourhood is having a barbeque and I can smell the smoke really strongly. I am sitting in my room, studying with an elaborate set up to allow myself to use one computer while at two desks.

Still Run - BrotherSister is playing in iTunes.

Why do you care? You don't. So I make this small observation about my life at this exact moment in time. So what? This is of no consequence to anyone but me and even for me this experience is so minor, so insignificant in the broader scheme of things that once it is over I won't remember it or care about it any further.

So why am I taking the effort to post this moment on my blog? Nobody cares, even I won't care in about half an hour. The reason is this: for some reason I just thought for a split second that this is a great experience. The smoke, the dark, the rain, the music. Something about these factors came together and suddenly I feel like this is the most perfect place in the world.

And what would life be if we didn't all have these random moments where for even no more than 10 minutes the world just seems perfect. Where all the much better possibilities for how life could be at this moment just don't seem so exciting compared to the dull yet magical experience we have here.

In a recent XKCD comic, Nowhere, this idea is ridiculed. The guy says there is nowhere he'd rather be than here with his girlfriend, his girlfriend pictures herself riding a dinosaur. I found that comic hilarious, but I still disagree with it because just now I could honestly think of nothing I'd prefer to do than be right where I was.

It is strange, it makes not much sense because really studying, smelling someone else's barbeque and being stuck in a small humid room aren't the most appealing things in the world. But there is still honestly nowhere I'd rather be.

You don't care about what has made this experience for me, in fact you might not care I had the experience. The fact that the experience exists is why I am sharing it. It is just another very human moment saved for the archives of the internet.

Storm Season '09/'10: Storm 4 Review

2009-11-05T22:23:00.001+10:00

The day began at the ludicrous time of 4:54am, which was sunrise given our government hasn’t seen fit to introduce daylight saving. Because I was asleep at sunrise, as were most people because it is so ridiculously early, I have no idea how it started other than unconsciously. As the day progressed however it became hot and humid. I actually found it quite pleasant.

As the day continued more cloud covered the cloud, but it wasn’t anything special. You could possibly extrapolate a storm from the clouds but it was more likely that everyone knew there was going to be a storm tonight anyway.
In the afternoon there was a huge storm that wiped out most of west South East Queensland. I’ll be waiting eagerly for the email from the relative in what used to be Warrick for first hand reports of the 7cm hail they got there. As for me in Brisbane though- nothing. Jut heat and humidity.

That is pretty much how the story went for the day. There were lots of big storms and storm warnings and the warning even had an arrow pointing to one cell to say it was very dangerous- as if its representation as a huge red mark wasn’t enough to suggest that. But none of this came remotely close to us.

It was beyond the end of the day, which happened at the foolishly early time of 6:09pm because our government is too stupid to wind the clock on one hour, when the promise of a storm that dared approach was seen. It came in the form of a huge barrier of red moving East across the radar. There was no way it could possibly miss us. There was at one stage a large black spot in the cloud but it faded out as it approached. When the storm came near to hitting, at a time I foolishly didn’t take note of but I think it was some time around 8pm, the first drops of rain were large and isolated which suggests the formerly black spot on the radar was in fact hail that melted out.

The storm didn’t start with these heavy drops though, in fact for a while there it didn’t start at all. We went out to observe the calm before the storm and then when it finished we eagerly watched the next stage- the calm before the storm. Ultimately there were three calms before the storm finally blew open the doors. The unusually long calms built quite the excitement. The sky was constantly a light with lightning, but there was scarcely any thunder to be heard. This silent light added to the eeriness created by the perfectly still environment.

Next there was a series of false starts after the calm finally cracked with an almighty gust of wind and the heavy drops began to fall onto the tin roof… and then stop after a few seconds… and then start again… and then stop. The storm’s engine seemed to have stalled just after Ipswich and it was now unsuccessfully trying to kick back into gear.

The radar was still showing a looming red mass so the family had shut all the windows, and under the astonishing silent lightshow had also shut down most of the electronics. We lined up chairs and ate dinner in front of the storm.

The rain eventually did come, but it seemed somewhat undramatic. The build up to the storm was over done and this was pathetic. We’d lost internet so we couldn’t see the radar any more, but something was going wrong. The storm tired itself out already perhaps?

For about 3 seconds the power went off. Enclosed in darkness the family gave a great cheer at the sign of something entertaining, however the people at Energex must have been particularly on the ball as the power came back on again immediately. A few minutes later it went off a second time, and as with the first time there was a great cheer. As with the first time also it lasted only 3 seconds before the lights came back.

There was a show for a while, but it was nothing notably exciting. It looked like a storm would look if you weren’t as obsessively excited by them as I am. The family retired inside and turned back on the internet and checked the radar. The storm had changed direction just before it hit us and gone south. We only got the very edge of the storm, while the Gold Coast got hammered. The storm must have headed south where they have a decent time zone I guess.

The storm is over now and BoM has cancelled warnings accordingly, but there are thundery showers sitting over South East Queensland. The thunder in these showers- ooh there was a strike just then- is ironically better than that of the actually storm. One rumble as loud enough to shake the glass in my open window. These showers are expected to last all night.

Final Statistics:
Wind: yes
Rain: yes
Lightning: yes
Hail: no
Blackout: yes
House damage: no
Car damage: no
Human damage: no

Side yard: wet
Car-tracks: wet
Breezeway 1: wet
Breezeway 2: dry
Front Yard: wet
Carport: wet around the edges
Inside the house: dry

This storm had a lot of tension to start with, the long series of calms added anticipation, the long series of false starts added frustration. The blackouts added happy distractions. The most exciting part was probably watching cars drive past during the storm and seeing in their headlamp light that the road was steaming, the cold of the storm taking affect on the hot bitumen from the day. Overall though this storm was bitterly disappointing. Other than the things I’ve just mentioned and the spectacular albeit silent lightshow there was really nothing interesting. Yes there was a storm. There isn’t much more to say though. It is Guy Fawkes Day, and with this storm was a poor substitute for fireworks.

Brisbane Storm 5th November 2009:
5/10

And if you can’t tell, I think South East Queensland should have daylight saving.

Australian Song of the Year

2009-11-02T20:03:00.001+10:00

It is November! Which means I must wish you all a very happy Aus Music Month! Being Aus Music Month I think it is the perfect opportunity to shamelessly plug my favourite song at the moment. It is Australian and it was released this year and it is an independent artist.

My Australian song of the year is ‘The Waitress Song’ by Seth Sentry. I first heard this song on a rainy Easter Saturday morning while in the car home from an all night LAN party and it was one of those songs that even as I was listening to it for the first time it stuck in my head. Not it was stuck in my head, but I remembered it as I just demonstrated by retelling the story of first hearing it.

If you haven’t heard the song it is about going to this dodgy café everyday because despite the poor food and unpleasant dining experience, he has a crush on the waitress.

The lyrics to the chorus are:
And there’s a place I go for breakfast every afternoon
The coffee’s rubbish and the bacon’s always hard to chew
And the toast is always soggy
But I hardly notice
And the food takes such a long time to get made
Even when I’m the only person in the café
And my table’s always wobbly
But I hardly notice.

The next time I heard it was on the Triple J Unearthed Podcast (Episode 8, 2009) where it was the song of the week. They played an interview with Seth Sentry about the song and here is what he said:

“So I wrote this and I was just thinking ‘can I play this to her? Is she going to swoon? Is this what chicks want to hear? Is it a little bit stalkerish?’ So I just thought about it for like a month and didn’t go back into the café cause I felt a bit dodgy you know, I couldn’t just go and eat in a café, looking at this waitress knowing I’d written this song about her. So yeah I eventually summoned up the courage, went in with the intention of showing her this song and you know the rest would be history, we were going to get married, it was going to be beautiful; and she’d quit the day before. So I never saw her again.”

The guy has a great sense of humour and to be laughing about that. I can no longer listen to the song without feeling a harsh kick in my stomach. But I love it. The Waitress Song is a beautiful tale of one sided romance between strangers, a feeling that I’m sure everyone has experienced even if I’m the only one here willing to admit it (hey, the supermarket has more than just cheap soft drink would you believe it), but along side the beautiful lyrics of strange infatuation comes the sickening kick of regret delivered courtesy of the story behind the song.

I guess it is another example of how intertextuality is capable of improving everything (Johnny Cash’s cover of ‘Hurt’ being the best example), but even without the intertexuality this is a great song.

I downloaded The Waitress Song from Seth Sentry’s Unearthed page, but it has since been removed so if you haven’t heard the song you can stream it from Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/sethsentry , at that good low quality stream quality only MySpace and YouTube provide. Or you can pay money for it and get it forever from iTunes.

I don’t know how to put it without being extraordinarily blunt, but if this song doesn’t make it into the Hottest 100 for 2009 then I will hurt myself. My self harm record has been pretty good recently, but if this song doesn’t get in then I will not hesitate to take a brick to my head. The reason I stress this so much is because I have very little faith in Triple J listeners to do it justice. There is a habit for average Aussie Hip Hop to do very well while outstanding Aussie Hip Hop is left out of the light. To prove my point go back and look at how many TZU songs have been in previous Hottest 100s- nil. Now I love the Hilltop Hoods as much as the next guy, and Urthboy should make a strong showing with Hellsong, but The Waitress Song is in my opinion far more deserving of a place, yet is also far less likely to get in.

So I urge you, please go and listen to this amazing song by Seth Sentry, buy it if you like it that much, and vote for it in the Hottest 100. It is a great song, you’ll love it.

How To Derail a Statistics Class

2009-10-31T10:20:00.000+10:00

Actual answers given in class yesterday afternoon.

Q. Sasu walks 2km to school and along the way he drops a $2 coin. There is an equal probability of the coin being dropped at any point along his walk.

a) What is the probability of dropping the coin in the first 10m of his walk?

b) What is the probability of dropping the coin on a different street?

c) What is the probability of dropping the coin and then having it roll onto another street?

d) What is the probability he never drops the coin?

e) What is the probability that there was no coin?

Ah yes, 34% of people think that the future of statistics is in safe hands. I don't blame the people who fall into the 79% of people who think it isn't though.

Thoughts on The Top

2009-10-27T18:16:00.004+10:00

In the mail today I got a shirt I ordered from The Cure. It is The Top Alternative t-shirt, you can get it yourself here or I’ll put a photo of it at the end of this post. It is a great looking shirt and it is just the right size, and it came in good time considering it started life in Britain and had to come through customs to get here (and it didn’t even have cocaine in it when it arrived so customs were even doing their job).

Now having it on a t-shirt I thought I’d write some of my thoughts on the album itself. It was released 25 years ago, 8 years before I was born so I only know what I have read and listened to.

Most people I find seem to consider The Top to be the worst Cure album, or at least worst classic album and then put one better than 2004’s eponymous release. I think I would agree that it is the worst album but that by no means is because it is a bad album. It just doesn’t come up quite as well as the others.
My main objection to the album is that it is too short. The feeling of the album is good to begin with but it starts to deteriorate and just becomes songs after song until the end- quite a problematic feeling coming from a record with only 10 tracks.

The album’s opener and most frequently performed song from the album is Shake Dog Shake, which goes for the right length, opens the album well and sounds healthily like Cure of that period. Only 2 years after Pornography this is the sort of sound that you’d be expecting, though maybe not so much after Japanese Whispers but we’ll just ignore that for the duration of this post.

Birdmad Girl is a song I adore and it also goes for the right length. Wailing Wall then also great length and fantastic song. The slow hypnotic droning of The Wailing Wall followed by the fast anarchic Give Me It carries the mood as well as Pornography did, though with a fuller and more experimental feeling.
Everything is great to this point.

Dressing Up though is where it all starts to come undone for me. Dressing Up is a brilliant song that evokes images of blissfulness, lost in white sheets. It just takes me to a place in my mind that is peaceful and happy in a simple, intimate way. But then after not even 3 minutes it just stops. This song could easily have continued instrumentally for another 2 minutes. If it had done something interesting in those 2 additional minutes it could have possibly gone even longer than that. As it is though it sounds like it ends before it finishes, as if there was more played but somehow left off the recording. Not in actual sounds of course, just in feeling.

The longer Dressing Up would have also led better into the only single from the album, The Caterpillar. The Caterpillar is spot on, it could not be improved by any means. When the single is over you are greeted rapidly by the beginning of Piggy In The Mirror. The vocals starting immediately does work for the song, but it feels too short when it ends and I think it would be better, especially following the single, to have had an instrumental at the beginning. I’d not contest the fact too strongly because the opening would have a different impact but I think an extra minute and a half could easily go into this song.

The Empty World is good. Short but sweet, it says everything it needs to say in the short amount of time it has. Bananafishbones though is again, I feel, too short. A longer instrumental beginning maybe, more instrumental throughout, maybe a solo; I’m not sure exactly what but it needs something to buff it out a bit. An extra two minutes to this song and you would be ready for the album to end.

The title track is spot on. The mood of loneliness and longing that it sets is beautifully captured and effortlessly recognized. It is tracks like The Top, Shake Dog Shake and The Wailing Wall that give the album its strength.

When I criticize the album I am simply stating my opinion and not trying to say “oh he should have done this differently and this differently”. Ok, I am saying he should have done these things differently, but I say that based on the effect the album has on me; if we were judging on the way each composition turned out compared to how the artist intended I’d be telling a whole different story. Also if the songs were all the lengths I suggest then the album would have a total running time of over 46 minutes, which wouldn’t fit on an LP back in 1984.

The feeling I get of an album that deteriorates in the middle to end might not be the best musically but it actually captures the mood of the album’s creation wonderfully. After the violent and chaotic period of Pornography, Robert Smith made as close to a solo album as The Cure have ever produced, with just Lol Tolhurst and some studio musicians forming the band. At the end of it all Smith decided to clean up his life and get a proper band back together, resulting in the unmistakable brilliance of The Head On The Door, which a new line up of 5 made the next year. The deterioration I see in the music then is representative of the deterioration in ambition you might say that occurred during the period, first going in with what was left and doing a good show of it but gradually realizing this wasn’t working and calling out for a new start.

The music in a way shows this transition too, with Shake Dog Shake starting with laughter and The Top’s closing lyrics “please come back all of you”.

So those are my thoughts on the album. It’s sure no competition for the likes of Disintegration, but The Top is a very interesting album, pushing boundaries for the band and creating a powerful mood beautifully fitting with the band’s biography of the time. I just wish it were a little bit longer.

Comments on the album welcome, but note as always that I cannot respond if you are at Blogger.

Storm Season '09/'10: Storm 3 Review

2009-10-26T22:47:00.002+10:00

The day dawned with a beautiful sky perfectly prepared to deliver the promised rain. I’m not sure about other people but I like the sky to be blue and when there is an entirely overcast day it doesn’t send moods high. Perhaps that is why I like storms but not so much the rain. Today’s forecast was for both storms and rain, but with a day of rain a true thunderstorm would surely be unlikely. It would be thunder approaching in the too familiar grey sky of the waking hours passed.
But the evidently rain filled cloud in the morning’s blue sky gave enjoyable weather a favourable prognostication even if it be of rain. The day grew gradually more overcast as the land slowly and unregrettably vanished beneath the blanket of shade.

It was 2pm when he sky showed its eagerness for release and precipitation unavoidably awaited. The BoM site gave no storm warning but the radar showed cells of moderate to heavy rainfall moving in a South-South-South-East direction, almost due south but with just enough East to put you on edge. Shortly before 3pm the wind came in and pushed it more east again and the class left work for the day under no illusion as to the likeliness of saturation during the trip home.

As I reached the train station and began my run home I kept in the forefront of my mind the looming rain, determined to beat it home despite the ominously cold humidity that felt suspiciously like the first mist of a shower. In the distance I could see the blanket of water pouring from the heavens, but this was not nearby. I must have been under a different cloud. It was while coming over an elevation on a bend in the road that I saw the first magnificent strikes of white light piercing the sky as they broke from cloud to ground in the far west. This determinedly set the mood as storm rather than shower.

I did beat the rain home, in fact it didn’t rain at all. I even had unmarred opportunity to take photos of the dead trees below the grey cloud; the results reminiscent of a Sefiros album cover. Still no rain. The radar showed the cells moving due South and avoiding us so I continued to play games, some Team Fortress 2 for the afternoon. 612 Brisbane took actions to command the reluctant rain into their own hands as lightning and thunder were now bountiful across the city, yet the clouds simply would not let their bellies break. Before 6pm a city-wide rain dance was issued- and to what effect! At 5:55pm the rain finally descended and the storm began.

However it was not an entertaining storm. It was a relief storm. We had what we wanted but the effort was minimal. Outside it was cold and wet and not much to look at, inside it was hot and humid as result of being forced to close all the windows. I went back to playing Team Fortress 2.

Feeling tremendously proud of my efforts in the game, my skills having benefited from a recent outbreak of Nexuiz campaigning on my part, I was in a way disappointed to have to urgently leave the game while shouting at Adam (my gaming computer) to shut down more quickly. Stupid Windows 7, just be gone already! I was not alone in my rushed efforts to turn off and unplug computers as the rain had begun outside with storm force and more threateningly the lightning was at a rate of seconds and close enough to be deafening. This was weather for storm watchers, not computers.

It was now 6:30pm and after a trip to the toilet- a small almost pitch black room that I didn’t bother to illuminate with electric light as the natural electrics beyond the window provided sufficient brightness- I went out to the storm observation deck and beheld the wonder that this storm had to offer. Rain fell hard and at a harsh angle having been tilted by the wind. The lightning continued its unrelenting assault of the sky. For minutes it remained this way.

After a while the rain died down, certainly only a drop to rain and not as low as showers but no longer of the full intensity of a storm. The lightning also died away, not entirely but its ferocity reduced. This was not the end however. After this short reprise the storm again fired up and continued its incursion until shortly after 6:50pm at which point I left to attend dinner.

The lightning and rain hung around for the rest of the evening and into the night, never giving up but no longer being as dangerous as to prevent electrically dependent activities within the house. As of now as I write this at after 10:35pm I can still hear the rain fall on the tin roof and overflow from the gutters and into the tanks; the thunder still sounds with regularity if not volume.

The come down from this storm will be stretched out beyond usually measure. Based on the forecast from BoM, tomorrow the rain will ease to showers, on Wednesday the showers will ease possibly to squalls, on Thursday the squalls will be all and then it will be mostly fine from Friday to Sunday before finally shaking the clouds next Monday. Enjoy drifting to sleep tonight to the soundtrack of a dying storm.

Final Statistics:
Wind: yes
Rain: yes
Lightning: yes
Hail: no
Blackout: no
House damage: no
Car damage: no
Human damage: no

Side yard: flooded
Car-tracks: flooded
Breezeway 1: wet
Breezeway 2: wet
Front Yard: flooded
Carport: wet around the edges
Inside the house: dry

Although storms on rainy days are usually terribly disappointing, scoring lowly among morning storms and electric showers, this was a pleasant surprise. The build up was not what I would be any means call classic but it was an extremely enjoyable atmosphere all the same. The build up taking the duration of the whole day was also a nice touch, and the blue sky with rain cloud morning was beautiful. The reluctant start just added to this very slow feeling with the real start being a half hour later when the full force of close lightning brought everything to a stand still. Some people have had a blackout from the storm, I however have not though it did seem a likely prospect at the height of the lightning which did through its brightness give daylight strength bursts of illumination to the street. Over all though with the slow build, slow start and now the long, slow, drawn out conclusion, there is no other way to describe this than the slow storm. Slow, but certainly brilliant.

Brisbane Storm 26th October 2009
8/10

Run Everywhere

2009-10-23T22:10:00.000+10:00

Society is built on a number of basic principles, some which we realise consciously and some which we take for granted and completely fail to realise. Unless you are under two years old, use a wheelchair, care for someone in a wheelchair or care for someone under two years old you probably take walking for granted.

I could discuss the differences that would emerge in society if we were to not walk but rather to run everywhere, but they are too numerous and profound for any simple analysis of mine to even scratch the surface. Some of the differences that I can hypothesize include people would be fitter and disease would probably be different because while minor bugs wouldn't effect us, major ones would effect us much worse. City design would be completely different because with running being much quicker than walking people would run more often than they currently walk, but at the same time you can't run as far as you can walk because you tire out quickly, so any services would have to be closer.

I have thought about what would happen if everyone were to run everywhere for quite some time. This is partially because I play too many computer games and everyone runs in computer games, partly because I've recently developed a potentially alarming exercise obsession, and partly because it is just interesting.

I mentioned my thoughts about this concept of running everywhere to a friend today, a friend who I respect greatly as her intelligence perfectly counter-balances my idiocy. She greeted my interest with such words and phrases like "interesting" and "you should try it sometime". Expecting that people would just tell me I was insane I was now incredibly enthusiastic about this idea and continued to spread it to anyone who would listen. Everyone else of course told me that I was insane.

But here is the idea: for one week to start with, next week in fact, 3 days away from now, starting the 26th October, instead of walking just run everywhere. You only run everywhere you would otherwise walk, so you aren't excluded from any other forms of transport. You also don't have to run if you are inside. But walking down the street, walking to take out the bins or whatever you will now run.

Expect to get a lot of strange looks at first- a collar and tie business man in the city running down the mall to get his lunch is going to look out of place. People tend only to run places currently if they are in a hurry, or obviously doing exercise. But after you get over the strange looks it could be greatly beneficial to your health. Also doing weird things and not worrying about it can be very liberating.

I doubt many people reading this are going to try this experiment and those of you who do try will probably give up, but I would still suggest that you, despite my great pessimism, give it a go.

I'm going to try. I expect it will be an effort constantly interrupted by periods of walking, Kanye West and my inability to talk seriously for prolonged periods of time without mentioning a meme, but I'm going to try. I decided to run home today and did better than I have before. I did walk the whole time I was with a friend and then I walked for half blocks at a time when my chest felt like exploding but the rest of the way I ran. The walk home is 2km so I think I did alright.

Run everywhere: give it a go. And my apologies for the potentially appalling spelling errors in this blog but Cailie is currently speaking German and as such Text Edit has put a red line under 97% of the words in this document so I've got no idea what is right and what is wrong. And I never proof-read for the blog but you all know that by now.

5 Years From Now

2009-10-20T18:31:00.001+10:00

I’m not sure if this is something that has come across before but I have a tendency to be unable to pull apart from things that I am invested in. Not in an economic manner, but in an emotional manner. It is now exactly 1 month til graduation and I still like school a lot and have lots of friends there, most of whom I will stay in contact with after school thanks to social networking but some of whom I will lose contact with after I leave.

To sum up nicely so I can get on with the point I will just say that when I started catching the bus when I was 10, Mum found a bus stop that was safe for me and my sister to cross the main road from and she taught us how to cross there safely. Since then I have not only mastered this whole crossing roads thing (not actually true- traffic scare me) but the council has built another bus stop that is not only just as safe to cross from but is actually a couple of hundred metres closer to my house. But I still get off at the other one because I’ve been using it for 7 years and I’m not going to stop now.

That last paragraph not only demonstrates what I mean about being unable to withdraw from something I’m invested in, even something as trivial as a bus stop, but it also provides a nice segue because the story I’m about to tell took place at that bus stop, or rather on that bus to that bus stop some 4 years ago.

On the old buses (probably on the new ones as well) the engine is at the back under the floor in line with the second to last row of chairs. On the old buses this means that if the window in that line is open it rattles loudly whenever the bus is stationary. People who sit at old bus stops in Brisbane will know the sound all too familiarly. That line of seats is also conveniently protected by the rows in front of it, and being second from the rear it isn’t all too commonly sat in. It is sought of the obscure seat. So I claimed it, applying pressure to the window to reduce the noise when the bus was stationary. It was my seat.

However there was this girl who got off at the same stop as me who started stealing my seat. She got on at the start of the trip and I got on at the station so she had plenty of opportunity to take it. She also, as I was more inclined to think, had a great opportunity to sit wherever else she wanted so why did she need to steal my seat? This sounds all very juvenile but at the time it was something I cared about. It is still, to some degree, something I care about though I only challenge the fact if it is a friend who takes the seat from me.

Enough with this juvenile nonsense however, it is not only something that sounds stupid and immature unless you are directly related to it, it was also 4 years ago so let’s move on.

As time moves closer to graduation I have spent more time thinking about how my life has changed more in the last 5 years than I could ever have imagined. I went into high school with an interest in all sorts of sport and fiction and as desire to become an economist; I will leave in a month with interests in politics and philosophy, the internet and with plans to study broadcast media at university.

I think about the friends I have who mean so much to me now that I strongly doubt I could have survived the year without them being there for me, and yet these same friends I didn’t know until only last year!

Sometimes I feel like my questions are answered. For instance when I was in grade 6 I caught the first glimpse of facial hair on my own face. It wasn’t enough to call it hair at that point, really just a hairy shadow, but it gave me my first chance to see what I might look like one day if I grew facial hair. If only! Well tonight I’m going to have to shave again because my beard is again at the length where I have to call it deliberate cause it is way too long to use the usual excuse of “couldn’t be bothered shaving.”

But the more these questions come and are answered or the more I answer questions that I never in the past even bothered asking I am just more strongly begging the question of my future self: what will my life be like in 5 years? 5 years ago I could never have imagined my life would look like this, what will happen in 5 years that I could never possibly imagine now?

Don’t think that this is just a youthful pondering of misdirection, this is something everyone should ask themselves and I think if you can honestly give an accurate answer then you need to get out more. There is nothing wrong with working in the same job for 20 years and keeping the same friends but if you’ve got nothing to achieve in half a decade then something needs fixing.

Still, there is no point wondering too hard or wasting away over this question because in only 5 years I will know the answer and will be asking what is to come in 5 years from then. But there is no harm in thinking about this whole thing time to time.

Times like this afternoon where, as the golden late afternoon sun hit the dust covered window of my bus turning the glass almost opaque, I sat on the rear seat of the bus because that girl had stolen my seat again. It’s ok we are good friends now and have been for some time.

A Perfect Storm Review

2009-10-14T16:33:00.001+10:00

For the people who want to know what it takes to get a 10/10 I present this review of a fictional summer storm.

The day began with the promise of a thunderstorm, a forecast several days old which only upped the anticipation, though it has not been too long since the last storm. During the day the clear blue skies bore only unthreatening fluffy white clouds, only the 33 degree heat hinted at the existence of a storm. The heat didn’t seem so bad though because of the refreshing cool breeze, though as the afternoon began to set in the humidity began to rise and the breeze began to change direction which although not unpleasant certainly was not as pleasant as it had been. At the same time as this, updrafts began to form in the sky, most prominently on the western horizon.

By 3pm the breeze had fully changed direction but was still refreshing, the westerly winds not bringing desert heat but rather the smell of on coming rain. The updrafts littered the otherwise clear blue sky and the only complaint that could be made – and was made – was the humidity. By the time I was home at 4pm there was a warning issued by BoM for severe thunderstorms bringing hail and lightning. The warning map covered most if not all of South East Queensland and the radar showed thick walls of dark red and gold cloud moving quickly east. The updraft covered blue sky of the early afternoon was gone and grey was covering the sky, much darker in the west.

At around 4:45pm the sky was darkening at a rate so fast lights were being turned on prematurely as no solar illumination could penetrate the thick sky cover. The sky was not only dark grey but also bearing a tinge of green, the ominous sign of hail. The cold wind blew powerfully and leaves exploded from tree tops with such force the storm, still looming a great distance away according to the radar, could be predicted only as a significant one. We rushed around storm proofing the house, stacking and securing furniture which even in this pre-storm wind was becoming dangerously loose in its positioning. The neighbours did the same, the people across the road moving their cars to every enclosed or at least covered location available.

At just before 5pm the wind disappeared all together and an ominous still silence fell over the street. The leaves covering the road looked almost out of place in the great stillness. The atmosphere was so heavy it was bordering on tangible. At 5:05pm the first heavy drops of began to fall and within less than a minute of these drops hitting the tin roof the wind returned in full force and with it a torrential deluge came crashing from the sky. The strong wind blew the water vertically and horizontally almost simultaneously, the storm observation area in which I stood provided no shelter as the water came from every direction to flood the covered concrete slab. The neighbours were out to watch as well, sheltering in their own equally pathetic viewpoints.

After a few short minutes, or possibly even only one minute, it is hard to be precise, the deafening roar of the rain on tin was replaced with an unimaginably louder roar and the unmistakable sound of hail entered the show. Any attempt to even scream over the noise was hopeless as the hail, the size of freezer ice cubes, fell constantly to form a thin blanket over the road and yard. Dad jumped quickly into the car and moved it a few metres further into the shelter. Thankfully the wind had died down slightly since the ail arrived but only slightly and the hail was still coming into the car port mightily in amount and speed.

With the furious pandemonium of the hail on the roof the thunder could not be heard, its only evidence the quick flashes of naked lightning from cloud to cloud. This changed after a short time thanks to two reasons, the first being the hail had passed us leaving only a drop of near 15 degrees in temperature and a white pavement of ice covering the whole street, the second being the lightning was growing much closer. The lightning before the storm had struck had been good, but in comparison to this it seems like a bland photograph capturing none of the energy of the raw sparks.

A new crack split the sky every second, the best view obscured by an inability to move to the edge of the carport from fear of potential drowning in the still relentless rain. The fearfully loud thunder in sync with each strike showed just how close the lightning was. We rushed inside and turned off all the power points and unplugged what we could. This meant we lost the radar but not before we caught a short final glimpse at the cell bearing down on us. The wind was changing direction again and another cell was coming for us now. This storm would be a long one.

Once we were outside again having surge proofed the house we were met with an almighty crash and sudden blackness. The sound wasn’t loud enough to have been a powerbox explosion up the street, but whatever it was it was close and we no longer had power. It was about 5:20pm by this point and the sky was still growing darker, possibly a trick of the mind as electric lights were no longer giving the false impression of brightness, possibly as a result of the nearing additional cell we’d spied on the radar before the power went out.

33 degree heat was no longer imaginable, the family stood in the cold, wet wind, our thick windproof jacket clad bodies being assaulted with more furious rain, the wind had again picked up to the point it had been at the beginning of the storm.

It was in this dark, wet and cold battle between storm and suburb that we remained locked until a few minutes after 6pm when the rain had notably decreased in intensity and we returned to inside. The rain continued to fall lightly until after 7:30pm, outlasting the black out which ended just after 7pm, in time to see the ABC news which lead with stories on the storm. In what can be called luck or a miracle the storm, which provided some of the most spectacular news footage for months, had managed to lash the whole city for only the most minimal damage. Trees had fallen and crushed fences but houses remained for the most part safe; the struck houses sustaining only minimal non-structural damage. Trains and the airport had all been closed and roads were flooded so traffic was chaos but that is only to be expected. For the most part South East Queensland had suffered its most fortunate storm in years.

It was after 9pm before BoM officially cancelled the storm warning, a precaution taken in case more cells developed after the main storm had passed.

Final Statistics:
Wind: yes
Rain: yes
Lightning: yes
Hail: yes
Blackout: yes
House damage: no
Car damage: no
Human damage: no

Side yard: flooded
Car-tracks: flooded
Breezeway 1: flooded
Breezeway 2: flooded
Front Yard: flooded
Carport: flooded
Inside the house: the toilet was wet (the only room in the house in which the albeit very small window cannot be closed)

In many philosophies I think people tend to think of perfection as somehow restricting to a single case. This is not the case and especially with storms there are many variables in which something can be perfect. Maybe the wind could have been less strong or the sky more green or the duration shorter or longer or the blackout different or the humidity to start with less, who knows, who even cares. In the form which it happened today this storm was in my mind perfect. The level of spectacularity was high while the level of destruction was low. Traffic disruptions and knocked over fences are unfortunate of course, but there is always a price to pay and we should all be glad that this storm came at such a low price. Because by the time it was safe to assess the damage to my own house it was dark that is a duty which will have to wait until tomorrow, at which stage I will edit in the results of that. But as for now:

Total score: 10/10

EDIT:
Ok it is now the day after and what I said last night about waiting til it was safe to come and assess damage, well maybe I didn’t wait long enough. When I checked the yard at 7:30am there were still puddles on the concrete never mind on the lawn. Inch thick pools of leaf littered water lie around the yard in multiple locations and in no place is there solid dry ground. I suppose that taking into consideration the lawn being turned entirely white with hail there was an awfully large amount of water and the whole street became a river yesterday under the pressure of such a vast quantity of water, so its remaining here is not really surprising. The yard is also covered in dead palm branches which were ripped from trees yesterday, but none of them hit anything too vital in the yard. The front gardens will probably need some care as their mulch was washed out and away, but that I guess is just the price you pay.

The sense of community developed by the storm was great though. At work everyone had their own story to tell, nobody missed out and everyone is discussing it, both in the physical realm and online. I even saw reports of the storm make papers in New Zealand, although not majorly because of the minimal damage done. There could be something wrong with humans that we only seem interested in things that cause damage and devastation. Except, as I said, in Brisbane where everyone is amazed at having actually witnessed the storm.

BoM has forecast another storm for the weekend and again next Monday so we look forward to those and hope they aren’t too disappointing after yesterday’s offering.

Have a good day!

Storm Season '09/'10: Storm 2 Review

2009-10-13T22:18:00.000+10:00

Not the first storm for the season, but the first one that has hit me. And for the people who read this thinking that I deserve to be caught out for all my enjoyment you do get a treat this time around.

It was a fantastically hot day in Brisbane, reaching about 33 degrees I’d judge. 33 degrees is in my opinion the perfect temperature although today it did suffer towards the hotter side thanks to the warm, gusty wind as opposed to the much-preferred cool breeze. During lunch I felt the sore of my eyes as they filled with dust being whipped off the bare garden beds around me, a feeling that is never pleasant even if Brisbane has received more than its share of the problem to numb us over the last month. Hot gusty winds and flying dirt aside the day was alright. The dust was evident in the air in the morning- or possibly it was high fog but that seems less likely to me- (I haven’t seen the weather today as you may find obvious) as the blue sky faded unnoticeably into a grey polluted blur on the opposite horizon.

During lunch, while facing the scenario described above, I spoke to a friend and when I mentioned the storm forecast he spoke of surprise that it would be a real thunderstorm and not another dust storm. Hard to believe at the time but skip forward only 3 hours and the prospect seemed far more realistic. When I headed into my final class at 1:50pm there were updrafts forming on a distant western horizon, but so far off as to form just another piece of skyward backdrop, not anything significantly threatening or even vaguely interesting.

At about 2:30pm while sitting on the BoM site I noticed the storm warning had been issued. I jumped up to the class in excitement and proclaimed the news which inspired a rush to the window and to my surprise beyond the curtained glass of the classroom stood a dark grey sky, all too familiar as the underside of a summer storm.

Before heading home I had to speak to a friend and as she and her sister departed under the ominous sky I reassured them that according to the radar the storm would leave them unbothered on their walk home, unless of course it changed direction. Given the squally nature of the storm this was perhaps not the smartest reassurance that I could have or should have provided, but nonetheless I offered it and headed home myself. While on the train it began to rain, increasingly heavier as I drew nearer to my destination.

Upon arrival at my local station I walked out with a problem: it was raining only slightly and given the greeting between rain and train evidence suggested that the rain was passed this area, evidence that was added to by the marks of heavy liquid precipitation on the concrete. However I live 2km from the station and while I didn’t mind getting a bit wet, my laptop which I had in my very unwaterproof bag just might.

I called my Dad who had internet access to check the radar again and see if I had a clear way home, and when he returned the call with the information I needed the answer was no. Only minutes after his call had deterred me from endeavoring on my walk home I found myself stranded at the station in not only a sudden and heavy downpour of rain, but under the small scatterings of ice as well.

I sat on a wall watching the rain reduce visibility and flood the street. In only minutes the gutters turned to rivers and the t junction opposite the station formed nicely car sized puddles to obstruct drivers, or rather to entertain- rather wet- pedestrians as drivers demonstrated clearly that the puddles were not obstructing them.

The storm passed but there was still an ominous cloud luring to the west and it made no secret of the fact it contained a great deal of lightning, the infrequent strikes stretching across the cloud in a magnificent crack of light.

After a short break of this the rain picked up again, the punctuality of each liquid dumping after each train’s departure proving to be not only impeccable but in its impeccability quite comical as well. The wind was not so friendly with this offering, the gusts from earlier in the day forsaking their hot dusty attempts of lunchtime with cold wet attempts that prevented any attempt to find adequate shelter; if the wind could not drive the rain at you from one direction it simply changed to try from another, usually with unfortunate success.

After 30 minutes of this the bus came and I got home to a very hot, very humid house which thanks to the storm, greeted me with closed windows in every room. The radar promised at least one more storm cell which I eagerly awaited as I, now being home, could enjoy it with the comfort of not trying to defend my laptop against the elements, but this cell fully evaporated before it reached us. The northern suburbs were luckier.

The storm did have its impact on the public transport system, causing the Cleveland and Ipswich lines to be temporarily closed, longer on the Cleveland line due to a storm related level crossing failure. The storm warning was finally cancelled by BoM at 6:09pm.

Final Statistics:
Wind: yes
Rain: yes
Lightning: yes
Hail: yes
Blackout: no
House damage: no
Car damage: no
Human damage: no

Not being at home I cannot give a wrap up of how it impacted the property.

Although the final cell did cause a great deal of disappointment, generally this storm scores highly. On a hot dry day nothing is more rewarding than having a thunderstorm to cool things off and today had that very reward. Being stuck in transit during a thunderstorm is not the most pleasant experience I’ve ever had but it doesn’t for me deter the excitement of the storm, if anything the thrill is only increased by the change of scenery and adrenaline of still having to find a way home. The hail was only very light and small where I was though I’ve heard it increased in size and weight as it continued east.

Brisbane Storm 13th October 2009:
Total score 7/10

Well what a start to the 2009/2010 season this has been! We did have the usual pre-season storm in September to wet our appetites and then the first storm of the real season missed me so it is up to others to judge how well it fared. I’m not sure what we can expect this season. I would love to see more dramatic storms like those of last season, but of course without the tragic loss of life and property that was experienced in the events of last spring. Spectacularity without loss is what we aim for.

2009 has been such a strange year in weather so far. Although the full grunt of last storm season was really in the 2008 end of the season we did after the end of storm season experience multiple floods in Brisbane. The storms then returned for a one off, very unexpected reprise early one Sunday morning in June. The hottest day all year was in August, which although actually being a spring month if you’ve ever lived in our wonderful sub-tropical climate is still officially winter. Then the last month has had 2 dust storms, the first being the Sydney dust storm because it was really that large, the second being an allergy offensive though more minor affair the following Saturday. With the dust from that week only now being removed by rain it is no doubt welcomed.

I can’t say what will happen in the rest of this messed up year we call 2009, but whatever happens I hope it is good.

Doing God No Favours

2009-10-12T17:35:00.001+10:00

WARNING: This post contains strong coarse language.

I have been thinking over the last couple of weeks that I should post something happy and full of goodwill. Anything at all, maybe a list of songs that I really like and think deserve wider positive recognition. You see I’m not really a hugely angry person. Sure I fall under a lot of stress and given my age people in power tend to give me less attention than I deserve and given my generation I sadly have no evidence as to why I should be taken notice of and the world is heading down the drain but really without all that I’m not that angry. And I don’t like coming across as being angry all the time.

Unfortunately my plans to avoid public anger have been abandoned now after the appalling day I’ve had so far. The girls walking two abreast down a narrow corridor, really slowly in front of me while I needed to get to the toilet I took with good grace. The motorcyclist who thought he was on a push bike so insisted on using bike lanes and driving at 30km an hour below the speed limit was frustrating but my anger was largely circumstantial.

Internet Explorer refusing to load any web pages (evidence as to why it is not a web browser) did cause me a lot of pain and has prevented me from sending home work I needed to do, but this is a regular occurrence and everyone knows how much I hate Microsoft and how evil they and their inferior software (if it deserves to be called software at all) is, so that isn’t anything special.

No, the reason I’m so angry today is because in a short 20 minute window at about lunch time while IE was actually loading web pages (albeit only some and only slowly) I found myself reading breaking news at The Courier Mail and looking for a laugh I chose to read an article entitled ‘Evil spells are being cast on parliament’ which mentioned Steve Fielding. Ah, what are those crazy fundamentalists up to now I thought cheerily to myself while the page loaded. However the article itself I found quite offensive and so in my own offensive retort I present my own view.

Anyone under the age of 15 or a conservative relative who is coming to see how my life is doing should all stop reading now.

I quote from the article, which can be found here.

“Catch the Fire Ministries pastor Daniel Nalliah has organised a "prayer offensive'' to combat evil forces including witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion.”

Ok, in the past on this blog I’ve called Danny Nalliah “a fuckwit who is going to burn in hell” so we know I don’t like him and really the Chaser stopping him from getting a good night sleep one night is about the only time I can say I’ve been happy to see him or hear from him. I’ve got no problem with a prayer offensive, prayer can fix things so go ahead, but witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion? Witchcraft? Really, are we still living in the 18th century? Homosexuality and abortion are more delicate so I’ll address them later.

“The discovery of a "black mass altar'' at Mount Ainslie in Canberra by a group of school students had inspired him to organise a prayer gathering at the area on Saturday. "The type of altar discovered on Mount Ainslie pointed to a black mass and the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and federal parliament,'' Mr Nalliah said.”

Ok, while everyone is entitled to their views, as a Christian I don’t really like Satanists. I actually feel like Satanists are the weaklings of the religious world, looking for a cheap way out (and when the hard way is a God who willing forgives everyone without prejudice you’ve got to be pretty cheap), but I would probably go for the more moderate approach of praying in church. That’s up to you though Danny, so do what you want.

I have problems however with “the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and federal parliament”. It sounds to me very much like you are suggesting that the powers of evil are at least equal if not more powerful than the powers of God here Danny. Certainly the way you talk and now the counter-offensive gives the impression of a battle from behind. If you think that Satan is even equal in power to God then I don’t think you are really the person most fit to be leading a prayer offensive never mind pastor of a major church.

"These days people don't think the devil is real but we have seen the bad effects of the spiritual being known as Satan and we believe there is a spiritual fight over the nation of Australia being fought in the heavens. Asked what evidence of Satan there was in parliament, Mr Nalliah said: "The number of politicians who have serious marriage problems.''”

Yes, of course that is what it is, Satan, naturally. It couldn’t possibly be that federal politicians have a hard job, you know like running the country, that is quite stressful and not perfect for relationships. Long hours at work, lots of overseas trips, a large slab of stress on you every day, I’d have trouble maintaining a marriage too. Not to mention that politicians are just people too and love isn’t perfect, it isn’t even close. Being elected to parliament doesn’t give you the power to be seen better in the intimate eyes of another person, but if you want to believe this is all Satan’s doing then whatever.

“Legislation supporting homosexuality, abortion and a push for a bill of rights were other areas where Mr Nalliah said the devil was having influence.”

I’m going to stop being nice here. Homosexuality is a natural thing that the person has no control over. You like women I assume Danny, well you didn’t have a choice in that, homosexuals don’t have a choice either. Nobody has a choice. If it wasn’t their choice how did it happen? God make it that way? In a world with an out of control population and climate change leading to impending irreversible doom I’m inclined to believe that probably God did have something to do with it, as without scientific interruption homosexuality does prevent reproduction. How do I know it is natural? I have two homosexual guinea pigs. Or are they infected with Satan as well?

Abortion is a delicate issue and I’m not sure I want to put my opinion of the matter on the blog at this time. Absolutely abortion should not be allowed after a certain time of the pregnancy but my understanding is that the recent rules don’t allow that. If a couple who are unprepared to have a child, who take contraceptive precautions and still end up pregnant and who seek to have an abortion at the very beginning of the pregnancy want to then I think they should be allowed to, as I think it is better to raise a child in an environment which is safe and loving than in one that could potentially end dangerously for them if the family is too unprepared. I don’t think abortions should be if you are just too lazy to take precautions and don’t want a baby.

Still, I don’t want to weigh in too hard on this front because it is so sensitive and so many people have such strong feelings about it.

The push for a bill of rights in Australia? Yes that is certainly the work of Satan. So Danny I suppose you think it is a good thing that if the Australian government wants to legalize slavery all they have to do is pass the legislation through both the parliament and the senate and then we have legalized slavery? Is that what you want Danny? I suppose you like the fact the Australian government can and has deported its own citizens because they were mentally ill? Or are the mentally ill just infested by Satan? Is that what you believe Danny? So the enforcement of human rights is the work of evil is it Danny?

I don’t think that living in a country where, with my current body mass I could, if I were not a citizen, be deported for failing to meet health standards despite being otherwise healthy, is a good thing. Please feel the full impact of my words when I say fuck you and shut up. I’m starting to feel that Satan may have a place in Australian politics and that place is you.

“"Me trying to explain it to you is like trying to teach a cricketer how to play soccer,'' Mr Nalliah said.”

First to poke fun from a purely literal point of view cause I’m in need of a laugh; crickets can play soccer they do it all the time for team bonding and fitness exercises. To pull apart what you mean though, how high level is this divine knowledge you possess that you can’t explain it to anyone? What a burden to have to bear the weight of an understanding nobody else can grasp. Am I right Danny?, cause it actually looks to me more like a thinly veiled excuse for not knowing what the fuck you are talking about.

“He said 100 Christians from across Australia would be at Mount Ainslie this weekend.
"Our main reason for going to Mount Ainslie is to pull down the strongholds of the devil to repent and pray against any evil done in our land including the adverse effects of witchcraft, homosexuality and, of course, the devastation of abortion, so that God will save our land.''”

The devastation of abortion so that God will save our land? That is funny Danny because I recall you saying back in February that it was God who was destroying our land. Victoria passed abortion legislation so God sent the bushfires? Yes that is what you said. The same God from John 3:16 who “loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life”. Killing them and their families in a bushfire seems not to match the sentiment of that passage I think. Unless he is bringing them to heaven earlier as a reward but that isn’t what you are suggesting.
I’m thinking that in this great battle in the heavens you are proclaiming you’ve ended up on the wrong side and just haven’t realized it yet.

“Senator Fielding and Mr Nalliah occupied the first and second spots on Family First's Victorian Senate ticket in 2004.
But Senator Fielding, who was elected to the Senate with Labor preferences, said Mr Nalliah had been asked to leave the party in late 2004.
"Family First has had no connection with Danny Nalliah since he was asked to leave the party five years ago after he made demeaning comments about a minority group,'' Senator Fielding said in a statement.
"He has no voice in Family First.''”

Well thank God that we didn’t end up with Danny Nalliah in the senate. Family First is a party I haven’t much time for but they clearly got something right.

“Asked about Senator Fielding, Mr Nalliah said his former running mate did not have a long-term political career because of his failure to defend the nuclear family.
"He won't get re-elected because the Christian vote won't be there for him,'' he said.
"Steve has not been standing up for the Christian cause.''”

You know I thought that Steve Fielding didn’t have a long term political career because he is incompetent, but whatever you say Danny. You see Steve Fielding is a man whose’ beliefs do not match my own and so I disagree with him on a lot of things but as a person I’m sure he is quite nice. He shouldn’t be in the senate because he is out of his depth there but with anything else I’m sure he’d be a good guy. Though I will point out his astonishing resemblance to Noah Bennet.

His failure to defend the nuclear family? The nuclear family doesn’t need defending it needs its definition changed. As much as I hate 4WDs I’ve seen Nissan ads that are more in touch with Australian families than you are Danny. Steve may not have been standing up for what some people regard as the Christian cause, but bigoted agenda pushing doesn’t tend to do you favours in politics unless you are in a major party and there are many and much more effective ways of maintaining morality without being religious.

Also I don’t think you have any right to be talking about the Christian cause Danny, because you seem to be about as far from it as you can get. Unless your idea of the Christian cause is to reduce rights and ideologies to the state they were in during the crusades. As a Christian I feel embarrassed and ashamed to have someone like you as a spokesperson for my beliefs and with you speaking out like this I can even start to feel sympathetic towards to students who ran that black mass because nothing estranges you from God quite like having bigoted, fuckwit fundamentalists shoving their intolerant, medieval beliefs down your throat calling it the word of God.

Fortunately the God I believe in loves and forgives everyone despite their sins (like my language in this post). I’d be hoping I’m right, Danny, cause if I’m not you are going to burn in hell for all eternity.

School Progress Results Term 3

2009-10-05T18:05:00.002+10:00

I'm taking a short break from the Windows 7 because I'm up to the playing around in the system settings and system folders bit and it is excruciatingly painful. It does mean I am feeling much kinder towards Apple of course and gives me a chance to do some of the life updating stuff I'm supposed to be doing, which is what this post is about.

Remember I'm supposed to be posting my school results? Well that sort of failed, not because my results are embarrassingly low and I don't want the world to know them, while they aren't as good as I hoped for their absence is due to my laziness in writing for the blog.

I can't be bothered going back to write about every piece of assessment I've done all year because that would be boring. Instead I'll summarize! (Note every result in this is pre-moderation and could have changed without my knowing, but in the unlikely case they have it would be only slightly).
My current results are: FTV - Very high achievement,
Multistrand - High achievement
Music - High achievement
English - High achievement
Ancient History - Sound achievement
Maths - Sound achievement.

I'm naturally not too pleased with those results (except for FTV of course) and will be trying to raise them with the final piece of assessment in each. Being now term 4 there is only 1 more item of assessment for each subject and in most but not all subjects the mark for this piece will just consolidate what I've already got. However I'm sitting on a number of thresholds so I can move around depending on what I get.

I am hoping to finish the year with: FTV - Very high achievement
Multistrand - Very high achievement
Music - High achievement
English - High achievement
Ancient History - High achievement
Maths - High achievement.

To get those marks I need a minimum mark of: FTV: B-
Multistrand: A
English: B-
Ancient History: B+
Maths: B+
Because of the way music is assessed I will get a High achievement regardless of the outcome of this final piece, but I will obviously still be trying to get as good as I can.

The stakes for English are slightly higher in that if I get anything less than a B- then I will fall to a C+ on exit.

Overall I'm feeling much more optimistic this term. It is short, there isn't much else going on to cause major stress breakdowns, it should be easier than certainly the last term (I doubt I'll get swine flu in exam week this time).

The feeling I got at the end of last term when I looked at what results I can finish with if I do as well as I need to this term was actually one of regret. At the start of the year I was so determined to pwn year 12 and get As in everything. Certainly there have been circumstances that have prevented that from happening, my natural ability not being what was required to do that well played a part but I just felt that the year has been so quick why couldn't I have just put in more effort. I know I have put in lots of effort but I still feel I could have put in more. I'm told that everyone acts the same way and I guess it is good that I regret not trying harder because that at least suggests I'm motivated for next time. Still feels disappointing though.

I couldn't have survived with the results I did without assistance of course so I'd like to offer big thanks to my teachers for teaching me, my parents for keeping me and Kaylee Gannaway for being there for me on those afternoons when I just felt like breaking down.

7 weeks less today until it is all over forever. It is nearly done.

Windows 7 Review pt 3: Security

2009-09-28T13:19:00.000+10:00

Security:
There are many reasons why people continue to buy Windows even though most people acknowledge they dislike it and it isn’t that great. Obviously the main reason is because if you buy a new PC in Australia it comes with Windows pre-installed, it is so dominant in the market that in many environments you are forced to use it. Another reason is because when you look at a Windows operating system on paper it looks very good. With Windows 7 Microsoft can honestly say they have built an operating system that is smoother, faster, more secure and gives the user more control. Just because it can honestly say that on paper doesn’t mean it is necessarily a good thing though.

First I’ll look at networked security and Windows 7 offers three levels of defence. The first level of defence is your anti-virus software which you will need to download and install (or just install if you have it on disc). Windows 7 does not have any anti-virus software included but it will give you constant and potentially annoying reminders to install some until you do, or until you disable the notification, which is actually quite easy.

There are two sides to the anti-virus story. The good thing about anti-virus is that it stops you from getting viruses. The bad side is that it slows your computer down a lot. Even the best, fastest anti-virus software will slow down your computer, there is no avoiding the fact. It is up to you to decide whether you want a slower system that is secure or a faster system that you occasionally lose all your files and have to re-install the operating system with. Most people choose the first option and get anti-virus software, I chose the other option because I really don’t believe (perhaps in my Mac user naivety) that it is really that easy to get a virus and this is only a gaming computer anyway so I don’t have any important files on it anyway.

The second level of defence that Windows 7 offers is the Windows Firewall. Now I’ve jokingly said for ages that Windows Firewall stops you getting viruses and the second you turn it off you are guaranteed to get a virus- one that won’t let you do anything for all the annoying pop-ups reminding you to turn the firewall on. When I had XP and I turned off the firewall I did get annoying pop-ups all the time telling me to turn it back on, but Windows 7 is more trusting and it leaves its annoying reminders in the reminders section with the other security news, and unlike XP you can turn off the reminders.

Windows Firewall has a problem, I’m confident of after hours of research and the most effective testing I could do without being allowed to use the family computer, where it discriminately blocks outgoing LAN traffic. Change the settings to allow all the file sharing you want but as long as the firewall is turned on you can do nothing. Other computers can browse your PC and do whatever they want; you just can’t do the same on other people’s machines. As I said, I’ve done hours of research (using Google mostly) to find out about this and then ran a test: the family computer had the firewall on (I wasn’t allowed to turn it off) and it can’t see anyone else on the network. My computer with firewall turned off can see everyone else on the network.

The third level of defence offered by Windows 7 is something called Windows Defender. I’ve never seen it before and I don’t know what exactly it is, but I yesterday used it as a virus scanner and it worked well and found nothing, as it should have.

I am actually extremely impressed with Windows Defender. The first time I went on the internet after installing Windows 7 I was browsing for literally 10 minutes and I got a virus. I am not exaggerating even slightly, it was 10 minutes. As soon as I got it Windows Defender opened and said it had found a virus. It told me what the virus was, where it was and asked me if I wanted to keep it, quarantine it or nuke it from space. I chose to nuke it from space, Windows Defender did, and then said it could find no viruses and disappeared again. Now leaving aside I got a virus in only 10 minutes of using a PC, I am genuinely impressed with the security. Never thought I’d call a Windows operating system secure but it is. I’m content, even happy, to leave the firewall off and no anti-virus software installed because Windows Defender takes care of everything for me. Well done Microsoft.

The congratulations end there however because Windows 7 does not only protect you from outside, it protects you from inside as well. I would have thought that a decent operating system wouldn’t need a security program to protect it from itself, but as of the introduction of Vista that is what we have. Yes, I’m talking about the User Account Controls, or UAC, or No. 1 reason to buy a Mac. Remember the ridicule brought on Vista by the stupid setting that asked you if you were sure before you did anything? Well here it is.

The first annoying thing about UAC is that you can’t turn it off. You can set it to the minimum setting, which stops it from working, but it is still there so it still complains about everything until you turn it back to a different setting.

The next annoying thing about UAC is that it only lets administrators do anything. Not such a problem for me because I am the administrator so when I do anything it gives me a pop-up which tells me I need admin approval then lets me do what I want. If you don’t have admin approval you get the pop up and then can’t do anything. This wouldn’t be such a problem, what is a non-admin person going to need access to these settings for anyway? Well that depends on what UAC covers, and what it covers is: all system folders, all security settings (including itself), about half of all your other system settings, compatibility mode and any program that causes changes to the computer. Maybe Microsoft forgot how computers work when they made that rule, but every program makes a change to the computer. Oh this program wasn’t using the processor and now it is, it made a change like that because I opened it. Diablo 2 runs under the UAC and I’ve no idea why. Firefox runs under the UAC because it wants internet access. I don’t really like having to give my web browser permission to use the internet every time I open it. But it seems to be random because while Firefox runs under the UAC, Steam, which also accesses the internet every time it opens, doesn’t run under the UAC. Diablo 2 does but Warhammer doesn’t.

The reason UAC is on the computer is because it gives the user control (as you may have guessed from the name). You see it is possible to have a malicious program running and it would have the same control over the computer as you do. You don’t want your programs to have the same access to the computer as you, so you lock them away under the UAC and then you have complete control again.

I’ve got a better idea. With every version of Windows 7 they include a text file that teaches people how to use a computer safely. The basics like how to avoid downloading malicious content, how to identify it and how to alter your system settings so they provide the optimal performance without opening holes in the system’s security. I know most people already know all this stuff but Microsoft seems not to notice or else they wouldn’t find it necessary to include the UAC.

Apple has a good policy which is they make everything so simple you could not only use it while asleep, you could probably use it while dead. Then they offer the advanced settings and let you play in them if you want and nothing stops you accept the common sense assumption that if you are in advanced settings you know how to use them. Microsoft instead makes an operating system that isn’t user friendly, though is certainly not difficult to grasp for anyone vaguely computer literate, and then puts restrictions on everything to protect the users from themselves. The whole time I’m using Windows I feel like Microsoft is punishing me for using the same operating system that stupid people use. Where is the trust? I know my approach to security is often called things like “suicidal” but I know how to use a system folder without breaking everything. Windows is an operating system for the Personal Computer, so how about a bit of room to make it personal eh?

UAC is the main reason people didn’t buy Vista, oh that and Vista being the worst operating system of the century, and if you are looking for a reason not to get Windows 7 here it is. I can’t bring myself to say Windows 7 has good security while UAC is there which is a shame because Windows Defender is so brilliant. If it was just the external security to protect you online then I would say they have done a good job and they have and they should have left it at that, but protecting you from yourself is unnecessary and stupid and restrictive and makes using the computer a nightmare. I was talking yesterday about the lack of direction in this operating system, well you can see it here too. They knew that security was important but they didn’t know how or where so they just put in security on everything and it is barely useable as a result.

GOOD: Windows Defender
NOT INCLUDED: Anti-virus software
BAD: Windows Firewall, User Account Controls.

Windows 7 Review pt 2: Applications

2009-09-27T17:55:00.001+10:00

Applications:
Windows has the largest market share of any OS in the world so most programs are available for Windows and for those that aren’t you can probably find an alternative. I’m not going to focus on what programs there are but rather how well they run.

I’ll start with the older programs because that gives me an opportunity to focus on one of the main features, if not the main feature, of Windows 7: compatibility mode. The reason for Compatibility Mode is that every long running series of operating systems, such as Windows, eventually reaches the point where backward compatibility is just slowing things down and they need to axe out all the old stuff to keep the operating system alive. Everyone hates it when it happens but if it didn’t happen we’d all be running computer so slow none of our programs would work anyway.

The program that was the biggest test for me was Balls Of Steel. Balls Of Steel may be one of the greatest games ever, but it sadly only runs in Windows 95, so this was the big test for compatibility mode. But, alas, Balls Of Steel would not run. This was an install straight off the CD though so I patched it and tried again and thanks to Compatibility Mode I was able to run, with only minor difficulties, Balls Of Steel. I can’t play the game but I can run it. The reason I can’t play it is because my computer is too fast. Something about the 2008MB extra RAM over the system it was designed for probably contributes to that. The point is, the software would run with no obstacle from the operating system. One Must Fall also won’t run, again no fault of the operating system: it is a 16 bit application and I have a 32 bit system with no way of reducing it.

Two other old games that I installed at the same time were not so lucky. Flight Simulator for Windows 95 wouldn’t even begin to install and neither would Mech Warrior 2, also a ’95. If they won’t even install you don’t get as far as the chance to use Compatibility Mode so that was fail. I’m not going to blame the problems on Windows 7 though because it is only a release candidate. The point of a release candidate is the OS is finished now it is just one last debug on things that testers can’t think of- things like 14 year old games. I doubt either game will get any further on the official release of Windows 7 at which point I will start blaming the OS, but for now it is just an untested bug, or so I say.

Some older non game software and I have installed Office ’97. I first used Office ’97 and by today’s standards it is anything but bloated even with its inclusion of easter eggs to provide more gaming fun even without opening a game. It is also easy by licensing restrictions because even if only one person can use it, nobody else would want it so I’m right for it to be mine. It works fine as a basic suite (though I only installed Word and Excel as I have no need of the others) but there are some key features missing. The office assistant (remember him- the annoying paper clip that was so hated Microsoft removed him in 2003) does not work, as the help is not supported by the operating system. Online help is still available though I suspect the program is so out of date online help would be useless. The spell check function also doesn’t work, which means that as soon as I’ve finished typing this I need to transfer it to my laptop to edit. Funnily enough even though the spell check doesn’t work the grammar check does, which points to it being a problem with the dictionary.

The final thing that I have noticed is wrong with it is actually sort of funny. Because Aero was not even a thought in 1997, this version of Office obviously cannot handle Aero, so when you have the document itself within Word running in a window (as I do because my screen is too big for me to work with it at full size) you get a nice transparent glass title bar at the top and a bright blue one below it. The blue certainly isn’t as spectacular as anything Windows 7 is supposed to be doing, but it still looks nice in my opinion, in fact I much prefer it to how Office would look with Aero. I’ll get to that later though.

Before leaving alone graphics there are some problems I have had with games. As I said, Balls Of Steel ran with only minor difficulties. These difficulties come in the form of the dot bar at the bottom (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve played the game) being all multicoloured and unreadable. The same effect covers any grey or moving part of the image in Diablo, which makes that almost impossible to play unless you are really desperate, and the same problem again plagues Starcraft. Starcraft also is unable to detect screen shape so everything is stretched out of proportion. I’ve tried everything short of reinstalling my graphics drivers (something I’m reluctant to do while my graphics intensive games do work) and have had no luck fixing the problem. My suspicion is that the problem is DirectX related, but I have as of yet found no proof to back this up.

Some new programs that run now. Winamp Aero runs perfectly. I went to the Winamp site and downloaded the latest version. Once it was installed I checked for new skins and it said I should get Aero so I got Aero and it works fine. For anyone who can gets Aero I recommend it as it turns the entire application transparent. It also gets rid of all the menus, which makes things hard sometimes (you can access them by right clicking on the application). Last.fm works as well with only the usual Last.fm problems: if you aren’t online when you start scrobbling it won’t register to the website until next time you log in while online, but that is a problem with Last.fm not with Windows 7.

Steam works well as does Team Fortress 2 which works fantastically and gives me great joy in the fact it runs extremely quickly compared to my other computer which although theoretically faster is actually a huge pile of Dell rubbish that is so unstable the operating system has been known to quit if you open a Word document (though funnily can still run TF2).

Eve Online works and is so beautiful I drool a little every time I play it, although I did have a problem installing it. I bought it through Steam and so everything must have downloaded and installed fine but when I tried opening it I would get an error message saying .dll d3dx9_35 was missing. After one night of sitting up until 3am and then sleeping on the couch to fix computers (the same weekend iTunes 9 broke my laptop) I managed to fix it. The problem was to do with DirectX so I downloaded the latest version of DirectX 9 (I have DirectX 10 installed but 9 was required to run Eve and both versions can run at the same time), in fact I downloaded it 10 times and every single time the file was corrupted. I was downloading from Microsoft.com though so I guess it was my fault for not using a trustworthy website. Eventually the problem was fixed when I just went to a random and certainly not trustworthy website, downloaded the lone .dll file and moved it into the Windows system folder. Everything then worked fine, the moral of the story being virus filled, insecure hosting sites for system files with no context are better support than Microsoft.

The only new games that I have had no luck with running weren’t legal versions so I wasn’t entitled to run them anyway. While in my opinion there are legitimate reasons for having illegitimate software installed, Microsoft of all companies isn’t going to support that view and there is general consensus among gamers and supporters that if you use illegal cracks and the game won’t run you deserve it. I trustingly expect that when I get a legitimate copy of the games they will start working relatively trouble free.

Now I said that I would focus not on what software is available but on how well it runs. That is strictly not true as Windows 7, of course, comes with software included and it would be an incomplete look at Windows 7 applications if I didn’t look a little bit into the included software.

It will only be a little look in because the first thing I do when I get a Windows operating system is replace all the included software, as per the universally recognised rule ‘anything Microsoft makes is already made better by somebody else for free’. In Australia, Windows 7 includes Internet Explorer 8, the latest version of the world’s worst internet browser (if you can call it a web browser and personally I don’t think you can). IE8 is fully functional and perfectly smooth and fast in its sole task of getting to the Mozilla website to download and install Firefox. If you are in Europe however, Internet Explorer is not included in Windows 7 as per a legal battle over Microsoft’s anti-competition policy. I’m not sure how you guys can get to the Mozilla website, I don’t think Microsoft was thinking very clearly when they made that decision.

Once you have Firefox you will also be able to activate Windows 7’s fantastic suite of media consumption tools in the form of Winamp (you need to download it from the Winamp website). Windows 7 does include Microsoft’s own suite of media programs, which no doubt includes Windows Media Player. I’m not sure what else is in it because I’m not stupid enough to bother finding out. I’ve used Winamp since the mp3 was invented; it is the best PC based mp3 player you can get. I’m also put off by the fact that when we got iTunes for the first time I learned how to use it within a week of getting it. It was hard at first but after a week I was all good. After 9 years of having Windows Media Player, however, I still have no idea how to use it for anything more than playing audio CDs.

The usual accessories all come with Windows 7: Note Pad, Paint, Calculator, Wordpad, etc. Coming from XP you will be in for a shock the first time you open Paint or Wordpad though and discover it is in the new Aero layout which introduces “the ribbon”. Good luck learning how to use the ribbon, I’ve not bothered. My friends and peers who have Office 2007 can use it (Office 2007 is in Aero layout as well so everything looks like that if you’ve used it before), but it is highly counterintuitive and will require some playing around in and certainly relearning before you can use it.

And finally the famous Windows games. As you may recall from my post earlier in the year about the 10 best video games ever, computer Solitaire was No. 3, with Hearts coming in close behind at No. 4. I was happy when I first installed XP on this machine because I again had access to the world’s best computer cards games. Now I hear you saying “ok, you don’t need to tell us about the cards games, there is no way that Microsoft could possibly screw up cards. They couldn’t. Could they? Tell me they haven’t.”

My curious friend I have some bad news for you. Against all odds (well except that we are talking about Microsoft so not really that surprising) they have managed to ruin cards. The decks aren’t as varied or pretty as in XP, but that doesn’t matter a great deal. You can change the colour of the table, but you don’t have to. The cards have shading on them and they look more, I don’t know, bubbly? There is something different and it just makes it a bit harder to read than previously, but unless you are seriously visually impaired I doubt it will bother you too much once you get used to it. They also have stupid animations that make it infuriating to play with; fortunately you can turn these off. The Hearts table is no longer square but I guess I’m starting to nitpick a little.

What really bothers me about cards is that it has lost its simplicity. Windows cards were good because they were so simple you could play them in your sleep (and I often did). The animations and new look remove the simple look, but the way the game works is annoying. A new feature I like is that when you quit a game of Solitaire halfway through it asks if you want to save. Sure it means an annoying pop up before you quit and nobody in their right mind saves a game of Solitaire anyway, but what if you miraculously racked up a score of $600. You might want to save in that case and although you’ve never wanted to before, now you can you might. Solitaire keeping statistics on the other hand is so stupid I don’t know who could have thought it was a good idea. Need I remind you that not every game of Solitaire is possible? Some games have only 1 possible move? Then when you make your moves, discover the game is impossible and so deal again it asks if you want to really deal again, which means a loss in your stats, if you want to deal the same game again (maybe it won’t be impossible this time?) or if you want to keep playing the game with no possible moves remaining.

What has happened to cards is they have tried to improve them, but there wasn’t any room for improvement and where there was they couldn’t see what, so they just changed everything and hoped for the best. The cards games lack direction is what I’m saying, and it makes my job easier in writing this review because the cards games perfectly mirror the operating system as a whole. Yes they are pretty now and look awesome, but they completely lack direction. Windows 7 is an operating system that hasn’t got any direction. And that is something I will explain in full detail as I continue through this review.

To wrap up the applications though. With the exception of pirated software and the missing .dll file to run Eve, new software is running fine and I am comfortable in saying if you get Windows 7 you should have no trouble running your new software. Be aware of course that even if you get the first official release (version 1.0, not the RC I’m running) there will still be things that don’t run properly, still be bugs and problems. That isn’t something you can specifically blame Windows 7 for, that is just the nature of first versions. I expect there will be less bugs and problems with Windows 7 because it is effectively Vista SP3 and the Beta and RC versions have both been heavily tested, but a small minority will always have problems. Old software might run, might not. I don’t know how many people other than me insist on running programs older than their children so I don’t know if this is a problem for all or just for me. Starcraft not running is a concern but no doubt Blizzard will fix that mess after the official Windows 7 release.

The software included in the operating system deserves avoiding but better, free alternatives are easy to find and they run beautifully so just avoid anything by Microsoft and you’ll be ok. The cards games have sadly taken a hit from the fail whale, but you’ll get used to it eventually. The golden days of XP are over though.

GOOD: New games, alternatives to bundled software, range of applications.
WAIT AND SEE: Old games, old Microsoft Office.
BAD: Bundled software including cards.

Windows 7 Review pt 1: Appearance

2009-09-24T18:00:00.000+10:00

Here it is, the big post that I’ve been promising in time for the October release. My review of Windows 7.
I think I’ve said before what my situation is: I built a gaming pc and after running off scared from Microsoft’s threatening draconian licensing on XP I settled for the at the time costless Windows 7 RC.

Because I’ve only got the release candidate I’m going to be easy in the review. If something doesn’t work then I’m not going to slander it for not working properly. I can however tell the difference between a release candidate bug and a poorly written OS and if the OS design is at fault then I’m going to put the blame where it is due.
I’ve only used Vista on other people’s computers enough to know I hate it so this review is from the point of view of someone coming straight from XP. Well straight from XP via Mac OS X.5 really.

Let’s get underway.

Appearance:
The first thing I noticed about Windows 7 was that it is very good looking. When you turn on the computer, while the OS loads instead of the traditional loading bar you instead get 4 colour dots that swim around and turn into the Windows logo which continues to pulse until the loading is done. The logon screen is quite nice, light blue with lines and a bird on it which is much prettier than XP and much more refreshing than Vista’s greeny blue blur which reminds me of a Mac OS X default background.

The last sentence serving as a segue, the first thing I did once into my profile was change the desktop background. I had seen the ZDNet review, which was pretty much just screenshots of desktop images and nothing useful (they will have no doubt written a useful review by now but the one I looked at was just desktop previews) so I knew what was on offer. The default setting is a picture of a fish and a horrible blue start bar. It looks dreadful in my opinion so I changed it to Fireworks over Sydney Harbour and set the start bar to completely transparent.

They might be the second most evil company in the world, but Microsoft has excellent photographers, or more likely they contract some excellent photographers because every Windows OS since XP, possibly earlier, has had some of the best desktop backgrounds you can get, to the point where the last thing I did before installing Windows 7 was copy all the XP desktop art onto my USB for safe keeping. Windows 7 is no exception and it comes with a set of images that are region specific, so if you are in Australia then you can enjoy some photos of extremely obvious tourist locations in Australia (Sydney Harbour, the 12 Apostles, etc.).

I have feeling towards Aero that I need to explain and this is off topic but I need to address it so here it is. Aero is completely evil. When I was building the computer I was on a very strict budget and couldn’t afford a graphics card. This was no problem because the motherboard would have graphics so while I couldn’t do anything too strong I would still have a working computer. But I was wrong, the motherboard didn’t have any on board graphics, not even a place to plug in the monitor. I had no choice but to buy a graphics card and I am still paying off the debt I accrued because of it.
Now the first point is that computer designers are completely stupid and have their heads so far up their technology bloated arses that they can’t see an obvious problem even when you can’t plug a monitor into it. With no onboard graphics I not only need a graphics card before the monitor can even be plugged in, but I also can’t do any graphics debugging because there is no way of telling what is a problem with the machine and what is a problem with the card. And if the card breaks, even though it may be the least important component of the machine, I need to replace it and until I do the whole machine is useless.

However I did discover why I was faced with this problem. With the introduction of Windows Vista and its glorious inclusion of Aero, system requirements for running just an operating system suddenly skyrocketed because Aero requires a high end graphics card to work. This was a common complaint with people when Vista first came out. I don’t really understand how Microsoft managed to screw up something as simple as graphics transparency so much. My Macbook can do exactly the same thing and it doesn’t have a graphics card of any sort, it just uses its basic Intel motherboard. But Windows, however impractically bloated and system greedy it is, is the default OS for computers in today’s market, so when Microsoft releases their horrendous bloated software computer designers have no choice but to accommodate for it.

To get back to the point, while my Macbook is capable of Aero style effects, Mac OS X doesn’t have them, and maybe that is something they should look at for 10.7 because once you take away the evil system greediness that comes with Aero, the effect itself is fantastic. You can control how transparent you want it (it being the start bar, menu and the edges of ever window (or in the case of Winamp the whole program)) to be on a scale of completely transparent to 99% opaque. Or you can turn it off completely and get fully opaque. Aero produces a glass effect so anything that appears under the transparent part becomes blurry which is useful when you’ve got multiple windows open on top of each other because you don’t end up clicking on the wrong menu accidentally.
As well as transparency level you can select the colour from any of however many millions your computer can generate. The Start button is always blue but that doesn’t matter.
When I first installed Windows 7 I felt really guilty about using Aero because it is so evil and cost me so much money, but now I have a high end graphics card I’m going to use it, so I have Aero on all the time.

The way the appearance of the OS is dealt with is with themes. I’m not sure if they were in Vista but it means you do all the customising you desire and then it is all saved as a ‘theme’. You can then change between themes and change all your settings in one click instead of dozens. Themes are a good idea but if you make any changes then it says you are using “unsaved theme” and there is no save option, only Save As, so every time you make a change to a theme you have to create a new theme to do it. This wouldn’t be so bad if you could then just delete the old them but deleting is extremely and unnecessarily difficult. So difficult in fact I have completely forgotten how to do it, although as the inability to just save changes means I now have about 3 copies of a single theme filling up the menu I will have to work it out again at some point.

If you don’t like the Aero appearance of Windows 7 (the overall appearance, not limited to the Aero effect), then don't worry because you can go back to the classic Windows look of beige menus from Windows 98. You can also choose to have the high contrast look if you prefer. Apparently high contrast makes it easier to read although I’ve never been able to read anything in high contrast as easily as I can when the graphics are just left normally.

Changing the appearance back to classic however will not change the menus back to classic as it would in XP or Vista. Regardless of what appearance you have the menus all look like Windows 7 menus in terms of layout. Microsoft said that the reason for this is that users have had since the first release of XP to get used to the new menu arrangement and they are sick of keeping classic in for people. You’ve had two whole operating systems to get used to it now, time to move on. It is a decision that I partially agree with, yes it has been a long time since 2000 and it is time to get used to the way the Start Menu works. On the other hand Windows 7’s Start Menu takes usability back to the days pre Windows 95 and is atrocious to use. I’ll get to that shortly.

The appearance option that I noticed was missing was that of XP. The only OS you can get to look like XP is XP. Apparently a lot of people dislike XP’s balloony appearance, but I must confess I like it. Sure only being able to have 3 colours (4 if you have SP 3) is a drag and makes things boring as hell for people like me who like to change the colour of everything they can see, but the appearance itself was good in my opinion. It was distinctive if nothing else. If Windows 7 were to let you use the XP appearance but in any colour combination you could think of, that would be great and it can’t be any more system intensive than Aero. Maybe Microsoft will make that offer available in later released of Windows 7 (you know, like the first one) but as for now there is no XP.

Like in Vista, you can have desktop gadgets. This means widgets that sit on your desktop giving you information, like the time and date or the weather or the stock market or whatever. Gadgets strike me as something that Microsoft did after seeing it on a Mac, but after having only looked at the Mac for about half a second, because gadgets are stupid.

On a Mac you have a Dashboard, which is like a second desktop, and it contains all your widgets. You press the dashboard button and it appears then you press it again or click anywhere that isn’t a widget and away it goes again and all the widgets dissappear. It is a brilliant idea and is fantastic for all the information you want at your fingertips through the day.

The reason gadgets are not good is because they don’t sit on a dashboard, they sit on the desktop, taking up room and getting in the way. The only way to get rid of them is to delete them which means you get them back you have to re-add them. I think really poor thinking is what is behind gadgets. You can have a clock in 9 different colours but you can’t stop is blocking your Word document. If they were just to implement a Windows Dashboard then it would all be fixed, but this is two operating systems in a row where you just have annoying widgets cluttering the place so I suspect that instead of fixing the problem they will just, in true Microsoft style, kill off every other idea until the problem is market standard and then not worry about it any more.

Jumping back to the start bar now and there have been some changes made here as well. The basics first and on the far left you have the Start button (just the Windows icon if you haven’t seen it before) and on the far right you have a button that if clicked will minimise every open window, aka show the desktop. To the left of the desktop button is the time and date which thanks to the extra height of the start bar can now sit on top of each other, then all the system icons like sound, network, security and any programs running in the background. You can select which icons appears here and which ones appear on the little arrow which opens a menu for the options you said you wanted on the little arrow (this sentence could possibly go on forever). And language. The interesting thing is there is no application tray any more. Instead you can ‘pin’ applications to the start bar which means that their icon is always there whether they are open or not and they are in the order you want them to be in. When you open a program that isn’t pinned to the bar its icon appears on the right end of the icons you do have pinned. Applications only ever appear as icons on the start bar and the name doesn’t appear along side it as it has in XP and previous versions. In this way it is very much like the dock on a Mac, only not as good looking and not as obtrusive.

As someone who uses muscle memory on the computer I found it frustrating in XP that applications would appear only in the order you opened them. It left me compulsively opening programs in a particular order every time I was on the computer just so it would all fit. Being able to move them around to wherever you want and having them remain there permanently makes my life a lot easier.

The Start Menu now. Like XP, when you open the start menu you get your frequently opened programs list, although I’d like to see the algorithm for this because after installing a program but not opening it the program will appear at the bottom of the list and after opening it every day it still only makes it halfway up. Like the start bar, you can pin items to the start menu so they are there whenever you need them, or you can tell them never to appear on the start menu if, for example, you don’t want them there because they are already pinned to the start bar. Under this list is the “all programs” option. On the right side of the start menu us the user picture and name followed by links to My Computer sections of user, documents, pictures, etc. You can change exactly what goes here so I won’t stay on it too long. Under that is a menu for games, which for me at least seems to select games installed randomly with a preference for games that don’t work. It certainly doesn’t show all of them. Then under that you’ve got Control Panel and help and all the things like that.

The shut down button is different. It is just a single button with an arrow. If you click the button it shuts down the computer. If you click on the arrow you can then select log off, switch user, restart, sleep or lock. You can change which option is the default to appear on the button but Shut Down seems the most logical. When you click it, the computer really does just shut down, no menu or confirm option. This is impressive and a novelty after 15 years of having to confirm it, though while I like it now there is a reason for a confirmation requirement and I suspect the novelty will wear off very quickly the first time I accidentally shut the computer down after clicking in the wrong place absentmindedly.

Where it all goes wrong is when you click on all programs. This, as expected, opens a list of programs and folders of programs. You can’t add anything to the start menu though, only the OS itself can, so you very quickly find you have a dozen folders and you think “these would be better as subfolders for an audio folder” but you can’t do that because you can’t create an audio folder. You can’t create an audio folder in explorer and then drag it in either. Things get very cluttered and disorganised very quickly. Now I know that you could add folders directly to the start menu in previous versions because I did it all the time. It is something super basic that I bet pretty much anyone who actually cares about the organization of their computer will do at some point.

I complained about this problem on Twitter when I discovered it and someone kindly pointed out that you don’t need to organise anything because the start menu now has an awesome new search function. They are wrong. The start menu does have an awesome new search function that I haven’t used because I haven’t needed to, but that isn’t the point. You should be able to organise the menu properly, not just let it grow uncontrollably unusable and then rely on a search function. There never used to be a problem here, but Microsoft has invented the problem and then fixed it. Why didn’t they just never invent the problem in the first place?!

I did eventually find buried 11 subfolders into an obscure system folder that you need admin permission to access there is a way of adding folders to the start menu. The start menu itself being just an awesome looking folder after all. But having to dive through 12 obscure system folders to do so is not my idea of user friendly; it is my idea of Windows Fail. It really has just taken the idea back to what it was before Windows 95, which for people who didn’t use Windows until 95 (like me and anyone younger than me) it is just a huge pain in the butt. Though maybe it is people my age and younger Microsoft is targeting with the search function. People too lazy to do anything that requires more effort than typing a word. Whoever they are targeting, the start menu is an epic failure.

So to wrap things up:
Overall Windows 7 scores very highly in terms of appearance. The start menu is a disaster, gadgets are pointless and Aero is pure evil, but other than that it looks very nice. And appearance really is all about looking very nice. You can customise the appearance to within an inch of your machine’s life and even if you just want to pick a nice default background then it will still look stunning. Even Snow Leopard, the equivalent Mac OS to Windows 7, is not nearly as good looking and Apple is the expert when it comes to good looking computers.

GOOD: Start up and login, desktop images, appearance customising, the start bar, Aero.
ALMOST GOOD: Themes.
BAD: The start menu, gadgets, Aero.

Aren't We Over This Already?

2009-09-21T17:59:00.002+10:00

Hey have you guys heard that Facebook acquired Friendfeed? No, probably not because you are all reading news that is way out of date. Yes, I sort of can’t believe I’m posting this because I really thought we were all smart enough to have worked it out and left it alone by now but apparently not: the Australian have published an article suggesting that Triple J rigged the Hottest 100 of all time, the main evidence that they put forward in the article being that an internal report into the vote counting process was stopped and the ABC refuses to allow an external investigation. The reason for the initial investigation was that some popular songs didn’t make it in, including any songs by female artists.

Aren’t we over this already? Yes, when the Hottest 100 was actually on, 2 months ago, we all scratched our heads a great deal at why there were no female artists in there. I could link to some of the best blogs on why, but there are too many of them and I have better things to do this evening than bath in html. We aren’t just complaining about a lack of female artists this time though, we are complaining about a lack of artists that deserved to get in.

As I said when I posted about this back during the countdown, it isn’t a list of the 100 best songs ever, it is a list of the 100 most popular songs that are played on Triple J as voted by listeners of Triple J who can be bothered to vote. Now the Australian is alluding to the fact it was rigged because there wasn’t any Elvis? Well does Triple J even play Elvis? No, they don’t.

No Cold Chisel was in either but Triple J does occasionally play some Chisel, so what was going on there? Was it rigged? No. Either people had 10 songs they wanted to vote for more than Cold Chisel (can actually happen you know) or they figured that someone else would vote for Cold Chisel so they didn’t need to. I figured that Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2 would receive heaps of votes so I didn’t vote for it. It didn’t make it in either.

Also I’m sick of people saying that something is wrong with a poll because important artists don’t do as well as less important artists. Elvis was very important in the history of music, but he didn’t necessary write one of the 100 best songs of all time. He didn’t even necessarily write one of the 100 best songs of the last 60 years.

Lots of people were talking about the oddities of the results at the time, it was something people had interest in and so why not Triple J run an investigation into it. Just a bit of light journalism. So they claim they couldn’t get all the data and they scrapped it, not the most important thing in the world, as I said there are more than enough blogs already discussing whatever they could have pulled up, only in a more hypothetical manner. But all this was 2 months ago. Why does the Australian find it necessary to run a story suggesting it was rigged now? My guess is that they are desperately trying to grab onto something they know will pull readers and looking at Twitter I’d say it worked.

But really. It was two months ago, we have already discussed this, there are completely logical and reasonable explanations for the way the poll turned out, can we get over it already? We should all be more intelligent than to be stirred up by 2 month old conspiracy theories over a popular music poll. You’re just making me angry. Stop being stupid and read something intelligent and up to date.

Learning From Learning and Sick Exams

2009-09-15T17:20:00.001+10:00

Verification is this week which means that teachers across the state if not the country are all stressing real bad because all their workload has just shot through the roof. It also means that students can get their marks back and see an indication of what their results should look like at the end of the year, allowing room obviously for improvement, failure and moderation during the verification process.
I should be able to post my results some time at the end of the week.

On Monday the 31st of August I came down with the flu. Anyone in the Queensland education system will know this means I got sick the day before the most important exam of my life but in case you didn’t know that you do now. I stayed sick for a bit over a week. The doctor said that it was either normal flu or swine flu and there is an 85% chance that if you have the flu then it is swine flu but they don’t test any more unless you are in a high risk category so I just got given drugs and sent home. Being sick for the week leading up to exams and then for the first of my exams meant that I underperformed, mostly because I was unable to study for anything. This post isn’t to make excuses for my bad performance though.

A thought that struck me being in this position is that being sick for assessment puts you in a really awkward position and it all fits into the self-improvement thing. Unlike the people who run the education system (state and federal) I actually believe that the purpose of education is to learn, not just to produce qualifications. Oh yeah, learning for the sake of learning, aren’t I radical.

I would much rather do average on an assignment or exam and be able to look at it later and understand how and why I did average and how I can improve it for next time than I would do well and not know how or why. Some people will argue to this that it is better to do better end of story and yes I agree it is better to do better but that isn’t the end of the story. I present to you two examples:

The last assessment piece I did in year 11 ancient history was a short response to stimulus on ancient art. I got a solid A for it, my highest mark in ancient history for that year. When I went to the teacher to get my mark I was told that I had aced it. Everything I had done had just been a fluke of brilliance and that is what I should do the next time. Now the teacher is brilliant and with the mark I got there was no constructive criticism that could be offered. The trouble is I didn’t now what I’d done specifically. When I had to sit the same exam earlier this year (same conditions, same topic, different specifics) I only got a C+ for it. Yes the later exam was more difficult, but not by much. I just did badly on it, there is no excuse, I just did badly.

The last assessment piece I did in year 11 film, television and new media was a current affair style film production. I got a C- for it, barely a pass and honestly I find it a miracle I managed as high as a C-. The production was a disaster and I was so sure that I’d failed it. If it wasn’t obvious enough what had gone wrong- and it was very obvious what had gone wrong as barely anything was right- the teacher lectured the class after watching the film along the lines of it is better to have made this rubbish now and learn a lesson from it than to do ok but screw up next year. He was absolutely right and in the equivalent production piece which I have just completed this year I got a solid A.

The change in results obviously reflects a change in amount of effort I have put into work this year from last year, but at the same time it doesn’t. That argument can’t be made for ancient because it was the same topic so I already had all the previous year’s preparation and it was an exam anyway. I certainly put in a hell of a lot of effort into FTV this year, but I still put a lot of effort into it last year (all the effort in the world couldn’t salvage that wreck however). It also doesn’t reflect on the teaching. The teaching is as always a superbly high level of quality and it was the same teachers for both years. One teacher isn’t better than the other either.

Being sick has a definitely awkward feeling about it though. It feels bad to use being sick as an excuse for doing badly because everyone gets sick. If you get sick and fail it is bad luck, you aren’t special, it happens to everyone. Telling everyone who’ll listen that you were sick isn’t going to improve the mark and you can’t get it changed because you were sick, so there is no point making an excuse, it is just whining. At the same time though, being sick does affect the result. You know that you are better than the result says but from being sick you are stuck with a less than representative result. There is nothing you can do about it either. Unlike with another assignment, you can’t say that you should have been better prepared or studied more; if you are too sick to study then you are too sick to study, it has nothing to do with preparation or commitment.

I guess, and my English teacher at least agreed with this when I spoke to them this afternoon (well it was implied that they would agree if I actually said anything along these lines), that the sign of good a student isn’t one who does well even when they are sick but one who does well when they aren’t sick so that when they are sick it doesn’t completely mess them up. Students that are regrettably not me.

These are all problems that every student- or at least every student without superhuman abilities and I do know some of them- has to deal with. I guess that it all serves as just another, albeit un-testable, lesson learned.

Riverfire

2009-09-13T09:39:00.001+10:00

Last night was Riverfire in Brisbane so we headed out to watch some fireworks. While watching the fireworks last year I had some thoughts and so with the event fresh in our minds this time around I thought I’d share them.

The first thought is the paradox of celebrating peace with fireworks. Riverfire isn’t a celebration especially of peace, it is a celebration of the river and the way it effects the culture of the city but typically fireworks are used to celebrate peace. The reason it is odd is because a firework is a bomb. Sure the explosions lack shrapnel and are under controlled conditions and in the sky and in lots of happy colours, but they are still all just bombs.

Aside from the fireworks themselves, Rivefire’s main attraction is the dump and burn from the F1-11s. This year was the last year for them because apparently the defence force doesn’t think it is worth maintaining the planes when all they are used for is Riverfire. I guess they have a point. But with the F1-11s it means we go out and watch military jets fly low over the city while bombs explode all around us. This is what we do for a fun night out, a peaceful night out, a celebration.

One of the main criticisms of Rivefire and I hear it every year is that it is a waste of money. Although most people agree that it is fun, probably because they fail to acknowledge the economics of the event, you can’t escape a year without someone complaining that the government is wasting money that would be better spent fixing the hospitals or the roads. Or my front garden which you kids should by the way all get off of.
I certainly agree that in terms of prioritizing government spending, things like hospitals should come first, and Riverfire is certainly expensive (although this year was smaller than previous years as a sign of the global recession), but I disagree that the money is better spent on other things. Other money should be spent on other things.

Riverfire, despite the paradoxical nature of its staging, is an important social event. It might be something I got off a QR ad but it really does bring people together. Governments should spend money not just to provide services for a society but also to hold a society together. People enjoy watching fireworks, it makes people happy, they have a great night out. That surely is worth government money.

Someone is now going to start complaining that they don’t like fireworks and why should their taxes pay for me to watch them. I don’t have children in childcare but my taxes still pay for the childcare system: it is important and I don’t complain. Watching fireworks on the river might not seem important but it is, not because fireworks themselves are important, but because nights when a city can gather to celebrate for no reason other than because they can are important. It is one of the great things about living in the city.

Why I Hate Apple At The Moment

2009-09-12T08:53:00.000+10:00

Yes, why I hate Apple. Not Microsoft, Apple. I’m on holidays now so my Why I Hate Microsoft post will be coming soon, although it will be entitled Windows 7 Review, but this is not that, this is why I hate Apple.

It started about a year ago when for some reason my operating system updates failed. The computer came with 10.5.4 and I upgraded to 10.5.5 sucessfully but 10.5.6 and 10.5.7 and now 10.5.8 have all failed. 10.5.8 won’t even save, it just gives me an error saying that Apple has failed to sign it authentically and it can’t be saved for my safety. Then I have to download it from scratch, so I’m thinking I will charge Apple for my internet fees this month. Isn’t it funny that it can’t save the update for my safety because the signature is wrong, even though because I can’t save it all my security is a year out of date.
I was going to buy Snow Leopard to fix this problem, and I will some time next year when the Mac Pack ’10 comes out, but right now I don’t feel like paying Apple so I can fix all the bugs I’ve got because of them.

Here is another reason I hate Apple at the moment. I can’t access the Apple website. Now it is more complicated than that. In what I would call suspicious, I could access the Apple website if I used Safari, but not if I used Firefox. For some reason if I try loading the Apple website in Firefox it will most often load one page and then never another. Sometimes it will load a few pages, such as the night Snow Leopard was released, and other times it won’t load even one page. Safari would load the Apple website however, well, used to. Safari stopped being able to load the Apple website, in what I would call very suspicious, at the same time Safari 4 was released. I’m still using Safari 3.2.1, which you may know as the app that allows a Macbook to be hacked in less than 10 seconds. Safari isn’t that great a browser and I’ve got Firefox so I only used Safari for two things anyway, accessing the Apple site and private browsing (because Firefox won’t let you run private browsing and normal browsing simultaneously another browser is required for my purposes). However when Safari 4 was released, in what I’d call extremely suspicious, not only did Safari 3 lose the ability to view the Apple site, it also lost the ability to use private browsing. If I try using private browsing in Safari now it will work for about 5 minutes and then the app stops responding which means pages stop loading, the CPU works way too hard which slows the whole system down and sends the temperature high which means the fan speed goes through the roof and everything becomes slow, loud and useless.

Ironically the problems I have with the Apple Website only extend to this Mac. I can load it indefinitely on my PC, however the whole thing is smart coded so I can’t actually do anything useful on a PC because it assumes I want Windows software.

This week iTunes 9 was released. Now a little history on iTunes. One of the previous versions introduced a new feature called iTunes DJ, which is pretty much a new name for the Party Shuffle list. It does the same thing except if someone at your party has an iPhone they can request a song and then iTunes will play it. So long as your friends have both a good taste in music and an iPhone this is a good feature. The other difference with the iTunes DJ list is that you can’t uncheck songs. The checkbox is gone. This means that I can’t listen to the list any more because like most people I have songs in my iTunes library that I don’t like, don’t listen to and certainly don’t scrobble. They just sit there waiting until I feel like playing Beat The Bomb or something and usually don’t harm anyone because they are all unchecked. Except now that iTunes DJ has no checkbox all these crap songs come up. Every time Apple releases a new version of iTunes I get it in hope that they will have fixed this feature but they never have.

I was reading an article during the week on the 10 worst things Apple has ever made. The 10th thing on the list was iTunes, not because it is a bad app but because it is a good app that Apple seems to be unable to touch without breaking. Someone just needs to tell the guys at Apple to leave it alone before they wreck it completely. The main reason this article gave for iTunes’ failure was that when it started it was simple but they keep blowing it up with new features, especially the store which was once a place for buying songs and is now a place for buying songs, videos, TV shows, movies, university lectures and applications. Apple might have read that review because with iTunes 9 they have updated the store. Or at least they claim to but I can’t check that and I’ll get to that once I’ve listed more stuff about iTunes 9.

It is ugly. Strange for an Apple product but it doesn’t look good. Genius has been given its own section which has screwed my sorting of saved playlists. They’ve introduced this thing called Home Sharing which means if someone in your house buys a song you can then get that song on your computer too. It is great for households like mine where we’ve got about 7 computers on a single account and a constant fight over whether we’ve got the latest single of the week already.

But back to the store. The new store can only be viewed if you have Safari 4.0.3 (the latest version) installed. First of all why? Second of all what about PC users who would rather never listen to music again than download Safari? It seems stupid and pointless and, as my Dad described, is just bullying consumers into having to use more Apple software than they need. This is a tactic Microsoft is famous for, I didn’t expect it from Apple. So I can’t use the iTunes store any more, which is a disaster because although I don’t buy that much I use the store for research and the 30 second samples. It also means no more iTunes U and no more single of the week.

So I tried to get Safari 4 but of course the Apple website wouldn’t load and on the PC it would only let me download for either XP or Vista and I need it for Leopard. Finally, after some tricking around with Google, I managed to get to the download page and download Safari 4. But Safari 4 won’t run on anything less recent than 10.5.7 and I can’t get that because Software update is screwed and I can’t get it from the Apple website because the Apple website won’t load without Safari 4.

So I’m stuck with security that is out of date by a year, I can’t access the Apple website for updates or anything else, and now I can’t use iTunes either.

That is why I hate Apple at the moment.

My Twitter stream recently:
“I’m ready to kill everyone at Apple now”
“Well between Apple and Steam, both my computers are too screwed to be worth using now. Time to find a good book.”
“Guess I'm sticking with using iTunes fail- err, I mean iTunes 9. Wouldn't have thought you could screw up iTunes but Apple did.”
“Apple is currently my most hated company, so if anyone at Microsoft wants to ask a favour this may be your only chance.”
“New plan: not sticking with iTunes fail. Going to downgrade and then nuke Apple from space instead.”

Formal Pants

2009-08-29T14:18:00.001+10:00

A story so surprisingly happy it may just bring a tear to your eye.

First I need to explain my fashion sense. When it comes to clothes I see everything from the point of view of practicality. Most of the time cargos and a tshirt is all I wear. Formal clothes are not comfortable and they are not practical and I hate them. When I outgrew my last pair of formal black pants I swore I’d never wear any again.

Unfortunately I have a formal event coming up and I need to wear formal clothes. I have a friend who has a pair of formal black pants that have side pockets. Refusing to wear any pants of any kind that do not have side pockets (I never wear jeans in fact I don’t own any) I asked him where he got this pair of pants. He had no idea.

I was about to set off on an epic journey to find formal mens’ clothes, formal black cargos effectively. The first obstacle came when I had to go to a mens’ clothing shop and I realized I don’t know any. I get all my clothes from either Myer or Target or Best and Less so why would I need to know. I went to Myer and they were extremely helpful and not only wished me good luck finding these mysterious pants that they were confident did not exist (they of course didn’t have them) but they also named some mens’ clothing shops for me to try. I next went to Tarocash and they also said that no such pants existed: pants with side pockets aren’t appropriate for formal occasions, but they showed me some more casual pants that would be suitable for a formal if I gave up on side pockets and then also wished me good luck in my search.

I had also been informed that cargo pants, despite being the most practical invention since the pocket (of course seeing as cargo pants are just pants with lots of pockets), are no longer in fashion so I won’t be getting new pants of any kind for the next 3 years. (Note: fashion is stupid, fashion designers are stupid, fashion followers are stupid and in my perfect world the fashion industry will be shut down and made illegal with its attempted resurrection being made punishable by death. But this story isn’t about how fashion is an appalling, offensive, slave driven market that destroys people’s individuality for the sake of profit, so I’ll get back to the point.)

I’m 16 and quite stubborn (actually I’m 17 and when I realized this yesterday I scared the crap out of myself. Wouldn’t be so bad except my birthday was in February) so just because everyone is telling me these pants don’t exist I continued looking.

And found them today. Long black formal pants with side pockets. I am really happy. Usually shopping for pants is living hell but now I found the pants I needed, the pants I wanted and the ideal pants for the occasion. They are made by Essential Man and found in a shop of the same name. Everyone go and buy clothes from them so they make money and keep doing what they are doing because for the first time I’ve found a clothes brand that does something worthwhile.

Now I have my formal outfit together it actually looks quite good even if the metaphorical cherry on the equally metaphorical cake is a clown top-hat.

Lining Up For Snow Leopard

2009-08-25T18:15:00.001+10:00

Last night the world became very excited over a website that didn’t actually work. For about 4 hours until just after 10:30pm Brisbane time, Apple Stores globally were closed for maintenance. People who know such matters knew that the Apple Store closes for maintenance on Tuesdays and not all at once, so something was up. The most hypothesized reason for the store being closed was that Snow Leopard was being released. Apple said that Snow Leopard would be released in September and the bets that it would be early, as in last night, were sufficiently high that both “Snow Leopard” and “Apple Store” hit trending topics on Twitter. At the height of the waiting, about 1150 new tweets containing “snow leopard” were posted every 10 seconds.

Bloggers, riding on the anticipation, started churning out hype, either just echoing what was being said on Twitter, or offering a miniscule bit of evidence as to why Snow Leopard was indeed about to be released.

With everyone refreshing the Apple Store, the blogsphere and Twitter, it took only seconds for the world to know when the store opened again. 400 new tweets for “Snow Leopard” started rolling in every 10 seconds, all proclaiming the news that Snow Leopard is released for order and will be out on the 28th of August (this Friday).

The Apple Store had no reason to be closed globally for 4 hours just to add a few new pages so it was clearly down to generate the amount of hype that it did.

The Australian store opened a few minutes after the US and UK stores did, so being tipped off that it was about to open I was able to get in and look at Snow Leopard within seconds of the store re-opening (usually the Apple Website won’t load for me unless I’m using a Windows computer; ironic really).

Even though this happened online, it felt a lot like actually lining up at the store waiting to get in and see the new products. The hype was tangible, an what for? Even if Apple is correct in their claims that Snow Leopard is “the world’s most advanced operating system” it is still just an operating system. It isn’t even a vastly new one, it is really just a faster, smoother, more efficient version of Leopard. And with the exception of the one guy who accidentally got a copy early when purchasing a new Mac Mini, nobody is actually going to have Snow Leopard until Friday at the earliest.

This is also the OS’s main release and there has been no public testing. At least with Windows 7 there is an RC to do one final debug before Microsoft starts asking you to cough up the money; Apple is just setting Snow Leopard into the wild. Certainly I trust Apple to get it right the first time and I don’t trust Microsoft to do the same, but lack of public testing is another reason not to get so excited.

But hype traps you and the feeling of waiting outside the ship for it to open—even an online shop—is something special. Whether or not Snow Leopard is actually as brilliant as it is expected to be, the internet can claim its release as another victory.

A Lesson In Socialism Thanks to QR and Coca-Cola

2009-08-09T15:27:00.002+10:00

My vision of an ideal government system is a socialist one where the government provides all services to the people free from service charge (paid for by taxes) but businesses and corporations still have a market in which to profit and compete.

Most people I share this vision with tell me that it doesn’t work. Supporters of the capitalist model tell me that if the government provides everything for free then businesses will never be able to compete, after all why pay Optus $50 a month for internet when the government gives it to you for nothing. Realists tell me that it will never work because the government won’t uphold it: the government provided services are so poor that only those who can’t afford to pay use them and it becomes a form of welfare rather than a social service.

Then you get people who support privatization of everything. I hate privatization- it is a disaster. People often speak of privatizing a government company as “giving it to the people”. Well I disagree. When Telstra was a government company I owned a small part in it, as did every other taxpayer in Australia. Since privatization only a much smaller group of Australians as well as overseas investors and other companies now own it. Telstra wasn’t “given to the people” it was taken away from them. But that is beside the point I’m trying to make here.

Last night while I was at Roma Street station to catch the train home from BIFF (Brisbane International Film Festival- you should all go it is brilliant), I was thirsty. I had neglected to buy a rink with my lunch and was dehydrating and still 40 minutes away from home. So I set out to find a drink fountain but couldn’t find one so I went to a vending machine instead. The vending machine I approached offered Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Lift, Sprite, Powerade and Mother. If I was going to pay for a drink I wanted Fanta because I like it best out of the fruit range and I can’t drink anything with caffeine or cancer.

Fortunately for me there are two Coca-Cola vending machines on that platform- one at each end. So I walked up the other end of the platform and as I approached the other vending machine I saw it had Fanta. I was about 2 metres away from the vending machine and was even preparing to grab my wallet when I noticed a drinking fountain, so I abandoned the thought of buying soft drink and just got some tap water instead.

The government (in this case the city council) put a drinking fountain on the platform where I can drink tap water free of charge. I can have as much water as I can fit in my mouth, it is unfiltered and so full of the minerals that pollute (naturally though) Brisbane’s water supply and it came out at room temperature. It was also difficult to drink because bubblers really aren’t the height of access convenience.
Coca-Cola had a vending machine next to the tap where I can choose to drink from a range of products for $2.50. I could have had Fanta, a delicious sweet, orange drink, 600mls and in a bottle that I could take with me and reuse as much as I liked. Soft drink isn’t healthy but I know exactly what is in it and Fanta tastes great.

I chose in this case to have the water because I’m short of money and was thirsty in a biological sense rather than an appetite sense.
But that is exactly how I think the government should work. The government should provide every Australian home with free internet access, but if you want higher speeds and a larger download quota each month then you pay money to a business to provide internet instead. Telstra and Optus would still be able to compete over who has the best internet offer and they can still make a great profit out of it, but if the government rate is good enough for you then you don’t have to go to a company.

This model does work in non-analogous situations too, like TV. The government gives permits for networks to broadcast TV to be watched free of charge, in fact the government even has their own network- the ABC. But if 15 free channels isn’t enough, if they don’t have the programs you want to watch then you can pay for Foxtel or Austar or whoever the other pay network is and then you get up to 100 more channels, and more flexibility with what you get. Most people stay with Free to Air, but you can’t try telling me that Foxtel doesn’t make money.

It bugs me that we hear of places where the government does provide free internet or free university for its citizens but we don’t aim to have that happen in Australia, we just say it is really fantastic and do nothing about it. I do understand that in order for governments to provide these services at a substantial quality free of charge it would mean a great increase in taxes, that is something I will deal with in another post.

A Fiction Created

2009-07-26T23:49:00.000+10:00

Not trying to provide answers for anyone or anything, this is just a thought:
The way we remember things is not how they were but how our brain has chosen to keep them stored in our subconscious; the memory takes on aspects of its category as a result, other similar events in our lives form the context for the memory rather than the context of the event being remembered.

The most obvious way in which this is evident is the way we only choose to remember the good things about a person once they die. There are two lines of thinking for this: one is that we shouldn’t put the dead on a pedestal just because they are dead, the other suggesting that the pedestal is a means of forgiveness for the bad things they did in life. That isn’t really what I’m talking about though.

A less obvious way in which we remember things is seasons. Living in Brisbane there isn’t really that much to remember seasons by. Certainly summer is hotter and winter is colder, but only a few things really stand out about each season. I guess summer storms and the jasmine flowering would be the highlights of my year.

Looking through photos for each season, winter is portrayed by photography as a snowy paradise. Not necessary a pleasant paradise, there is bleak winter and the grayscale of dead trees in ice. Spring is a warm bloom of life and colour everywhere. Summer and Autumn also have very full portrayals. The truth is though, while nature may provide this for us this isn’t what our seasons are. We all still work through all but the summer. Our memories of the seasons aren’t what we actually lived through, but what we have seen amplifying what we have lived through. Of 3 months of Spring only 2 days were colourful and blooming with life, the rest of the time we were too busy to notice, but we photographed those 2 days and those photographs joined with photos from the same 2 days by everyone else. Photographically Spring was only those 2 days, but we remember all 3 months as being that. The photos influence us as we influence the photos.

It works with all art and all memories. What is left is not quite a fiction but not quite real. A sort of semi-corporal spirit in the world, tangible proof of something nonexistent, but by that proof brought into existence. The art becomes our thoughts and our thoughts become the art, creating for us a new plane on which we may live and escape from the entirely real.

Such is the power of art and thought.

State of Origin 2009: Game 3

2009-07-15T16:08:00.067+10:00

Ok we are ready for kick off! Queensland kicks off, caught by New South Wales and the first tackle is on the 10m line.
We've been playing for 23 seconds and no score yet. It could still go either way. Penalty to NSW, not sure what for.
Queensland got the ball and was tackled in goal but QLD got the ball back. And now Queensland has got a penalty. Queensland has knocked on the ball and NSW has picked up the ball.

Now New South Wales has had a rough tackle and knocked on, but we didn't see it live only on replay because the TV was at a replay when it happened and the commentators saying we could stay at a replay all night. Yeah no.
The other big event that happened today was Harry Potter 6 opened at the cinema.
Oh wow, Greg Inglis has just taken a pretty amazing catch from the kick, he had a Blue on him the whole jump and juggled the ball all the way down.

Now Queensland got a break and then ran ages and then NSW intercepted it and immediately knocked it on. I think as Gus would say, he was simply "outorigined". And with that segway I should remind everyone on Twitter to tag your origin tweets either #maroonwash or #shutupgus or both.
In what has started looking dangerously like becoming a knockonathon the Blues got the ball back and then completed a set and kicked it dead.

8 and a half minutes gone now. Ok, I don't know what happened there, was it another knock on? There was a lot of kicking along the ground, but the ball never went dead because a NSW boy grabbed it and got advantage and ran for 0th tackle. But that set came to an end with, you guessed it, a knock on.
Queensland has recieved a penalty now, not sure why. Third penalty this game already.

And an end of set kick has gone low, 2 Blues fell over trying to grab it, a Queenslander fell over trying to grab it and then another Queenslander came across from behind and put it down for a try with his chest. In total, in order to score this try 4 people have fallen over. Though it was less his chest as his groin that grounded it, having seen another replay. Video ref has given the green light:
QLD 4 - 0 NSW
That has been converted! QLD 6 - 0 NSW.

That was strange it was a benefit of the doubt try allowance. Just because the man's man put it down just mean he didn't score.
The Blues are now attacking but somehow QLD got the ball back just in time to prevent a try. I guess I should pay more attention to the TV and less the the party and more accurately Cailie.
Hard tackles all round and someone is being escorted from the field. Another Blue break and he looked to have miles of room to run but somehow he was still caught. NSW got a new set of 6 but the player didn't hear and kicked it anyway!

Gus says NSW shouldn't panic because depsite the score they are mentally winning the game, and despite agreeing with him: shut up Gus!

And a New South Welshmen has crossed the goal line, but he has dropped it. It looks like he dropped it but still applied pressure. Awarded the try.
QLD 6 - 4 NSW.
Michael Ennis, on debut, has converted, QLD 6 - 6 NSW.

Another interception to give the Blues the ball. It has been declared forward pass so QLD gets a scrum feed though. Queenslander in a 1 under 4 tackle still ran 15m. Now after the kick we are going to get a line drop out so Queensland will get a repeat set. There is a Maroon on the ground though, a Blue came and hit him in the head after he had disposed of the ball.

High tackle by the Blues and a fight ensues. While the referee is standing 5m away, yeah great time to pick a fight guys.

Attacking the line QLD comes up with some cool passing but it results in a knock on. Blue penalty for something.
A Blue just tried to play the ball, but the guy behind him jumped on his back and started a fight. It broke up itself though, was played and maybe something else and somehow QLD has got the ball.
Someone is going to be killed at this rate.

Did he dropped that or kicked it? If a kick he scored a try. No, he dropped it, so no try. It was actually a strip but the ref doesn't seem to care so New South Wales gets a scrum feed.
And a Blue guy has played the ball forward. He was facing the right way and everything, but he kicked it forward rather than backward, 3 maroons jumped on it but it will be a scrum rather than an advantage that probably would have seen a try.
And now Queensland, making another attack has knocked it on in a very spectacular way. The ball is very slippery in fact everything is slippery as proved by a QLD player falling over mid run. It is very dewey tonight, getting down to 7 degrees.

Justin Hodges may have scored the try of the century here. Ok, he dropped it, but he was in mid air upside down trying to put it down with one hand. It wasn't a try but it should get a 3 point consolation for spectacularity.

Now NSW has run the length of the field, a brilliant kick, straight to the centre of the field to an onside player in miles of room but the ball has hit the upright and bounced back long enough for a QLD player to grab it and get rid of it.

Then after more running Billy Slater grabs it and as good as hands it to a NSW player and now everyone has just put the ball down and left it. What's happening? Nobody knows. New South Wales appears to have scored a try. Well that explains it. Yes, after years of replays it has been given a benefit of the doubt try. Now they are looking at giving a penalty, this could be an 8 point try.
The crowd is hating this is just steady booing. NSW gets the first conversion. Second conversion is successful so that is 8 points.
QLD 6 - 14 NSW.

Nicely Channel 9 let us miss the first 2 tackles because of an ad break. The penalty was because Thurston kicked the guy in the head after the try was scored. As the commentators say it was instinctive rather than deliberate but he was put on report anyway.
Now a change over and the Blues get the ball, but the players were trying to pack a scrum. They don't know what is happening, they just want to have fun.

Hayne about to score a try but was just tackled and mid tackle the siren blows so that is the end of the half.
Queensland 6 - 14 New South Wales.

It being half time I should address the comments from last game.
I am very happy to have got the comments, I know I only replied to the first one but I am thankful to everyone who commented. It is really great to know I'm entertaining people and I hope this game I've been more informative. Really great guys.

Now, half time, I'm off for food and some exotic drink I have been told to have from last game. Yummy! See you in 20 minutes.

Ok it is now the 52nd minute and I'm sorry to have missed the first 10 minutes, I was drinking and then we saw the warning for a tsunami coming to get us, so I went to Google News and then BoM and read all about the tsunami. Tsunami is unlikely to hit but if it does it will hit somewhere or everywhere in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmanian coast some times between 9:30pm (now) and midnight.

In the football though Queensland has just scored a try which is their second this half and New South Wales got one earlier too. Thurston converts this one, he missed the last one pretty badly.
Queensland 16 - 20 New South Wales.

Another knockonathon and now Queensland has the ball with 6 more. Tackles that is not balls, one ball is enough for a game like this.
Queensland is becoming the walking dead again from injury now.
Something went wrong and play stopped then play started and NSW kicked on the first tackle, so QLD now has the ball and now we've got a penalty as well.
Queensland has almost scored but it ended with a knock on. New South Wales came in with a leg and prevented it, which if the last half was anything to go on means we get an 8 point try, but instead the Blues get the ball and play continues.

Queensland had the ball and were looking good and then knocked on. New South Wales looking menacing now and they score. That is probably going to be game.

According to the newsbar the tsunami warning is now only a maritime threat which is like what I got from the online news.

Gus is dancing around saying it but has just as good as said Queensland are being outorigined. Oh shut up Gus.
Oh now we are having another fight. It's all just grabbing and no punching. One day it will spill up and someone will have their spine pulled out, possibly TF2 style "Oh my God, Oh my God, He has punched out ALL my BLOOD!"
Blue penalty being awarded.
"You called that ripping out my spine, you couldn't... OWW MY SPINE!!"
The men in blue are going for a two point kick. Gets it of course, making the score
QLD 16 - 28 NSW
Record 52439 person crowd in attendance tonight.
Now a penalty to Queensland. Played on. Now tackled, now knocked on. You know Queensland might be able to win this if thy could hold on to the bloody ball!

Those TF2 quotes are from Meet the Sandvich. You should watch it, it is hilarious in a violent teenage boy way. I love that game so much.

A maroon has gone running down the sideline but he had no support and was taken out to touch.
"He has to download..." yes, you thought this was live football but actually it is LAN football. Mwhahahahahahahaha!
Well I never commentate as enthusiastically in the second half as I do in the first, but as New South Wales crosses for another try I should point out this is the first game I've blogged that we've lost. But there is a Maroon on the ground flat on his back and above him a fight is breaking. The referees are both trying to break it up, I think that whoever wins this the ref will lose it.
True, try is yet to be awarded. Ah here we go on replay, the the fight was earlier than that and it had good old fashioned face punching, then th maroon guy was tackled by a second blue guy and now he ain't moving. Now wonder the fight isn't going away this time.
Apparently there is fights in the crowd. No try! Denied because of the fight. The fight is ended but that guy on the ground is still on the ground.
The crowd is throwing their rubbish onto the ground now in protest at something. The dead guy is now on the stretcher. Hmm.. maybe shouldn't call him the dead guy.

Ah, the Blue guy who started it has been sent off! Not that it will make a difference in the 80th minute. Haha, suck it Waterhouse!
So penalty to Queensland at the end of that. Another fight has broken out!
As the older members of the party are saying, fights like this haven't been seen since the 80s. Well this is 2009, so the end of the decade, maybe we are at the end of the clean era, the biff is back!
Now a player from each team is going to the sin bin with 26 seconds left to play.
And as the siren blows the teams rush back in for another fight. They are shaking hands now. How many will have broken hands at the end of it I wonder?

So the final score for the football is:
Queensland 16 - 28 New South Wales.
And in the fighting it is what? About
Queensland 2 - 2 New South Wales.

Well, we lost the game but we had a record winning series and more fights than we've seen since I last remember. (I remember fighting but just not when.)
So I hope this has been good for everyone. The Blues got one over us this once.
I look forward to blogging again next season when Queensland sets a record 5 season wins. Til then, good night, I'm off to eat chocolate and pizza. :-)

A Browser Too Good

2009-07-12T13:33:00.005+10:00

For lack of something worthwhile to say here is a thought I had yesterday while searching the web for things to amuse my geekery. (Note: geekery is not a word.)

My web browser of choice is Firefox. I unfortunately have to use Internet Explorer at work and you should all know how much I hate it. I also use Chrome when I'm on the PC largely as a way of testing out how it was so I could write a comparison review of it with Firefox. That review will be posted one day, but I'm taking a very long time to write it.
You'll have to read that review when it comes to know my reasoning, but Firefox is still the better browser, in fact Firefox is the best browser in the world.

The problem is one web browser isn't enough for me. I want heaps of them. Ok, so I've only got two on this computer: Firefox and Safari. But I would like more just so that I can say "look at how many web browsers I have". That just appeals to me for some reason.

I am constantly disappointed though, because it doesn't matter how many great web browsers I find, none of them are better than Firefox. Even as I was looking at Opera and reading through the features and thinking "wow look at this it must be fantastic" I still also though "but Firefox does all these things too."

I guess that is the price you pay for using the best product on the market.

This post has been pretty much meaningless, so to make it worthwhile your reading it, here is an xkcd comic:

Image found at:
http://xkcd.com/198/