Going Solar. (Definitely)

Well there was a lot of information to sift through before deciding once and for all to opt for solar energy, and I got buy-in from the Mrs. to invest in a 3kW system from a highly recommended company. After a lot of reading I found an installer from a small company that has been in the Solar Energy industry for around 18 years, who is an active participant on a forum focussed on green energy, and has received glowing reviews from other participants with no criticism of his work. Their prices were also competitive with like-quality components, which is still a bit more expensive than some of the other options but I won't be "praying" my Sopray panels actually produce what they're supposed to produce.

Many people on the forum post up how much energy their systems produce for a given day, and what their setup is along with the current conditions for the day. Installs by this guy seem to rank pretty well all things considered. The design of our system will also accommodate adding more panels in the future so we can effectively double our system size if we choose to down the road. My wife is a bit cautious about whether this system will make money or not, but I'm really happy she's agreed to invest in the larger system. I truly think it will blow her friend's cheapie 1.5kW system out of the water when it's up and running, and it will probably be installed sooner too. :)

So now we wait for a probable December install. (depending on weather) Unfortunately I've found some termite activity out in front of the house so that will be another chunk of money to get someone in for an inspection and then update the chemical barrier around the house. The list continues to grow. :)

Why the Internet will lead to our extinction.

"News" has always been bad. Before the age of radio and television it was passed by mouth, and generally didn't travel very far, or very fast. By the time it was received, people understood that it wasn't current, and that elements may be inaccurate due to transmission and translation. The most important factor is that this news needed to travel from ear to mouth or be printed on paper. Trivial crap was filtered out. It wasn't important enough to mention.

Even in the age of radio and television, news was compiled through the day and presented at one or two times during the day. Something had to be pretty damned important to be transmitted as "breaking news".

But in the age of the Internet, much more becomes the front page of the moment, everyone is looking to the Internet for that "breaking news" story. Every story news sites publish gets its 15 minutes in the limelight as the "main" story for that section of the page. Stories are released with gramatical and spelling errors, showing little to no editorial effort; They're released out to the world as fast as authors can hit the submit button. Each news site is actively mining content off other sites so embarassing rumors and goof-ups occur constantly and spread like wildfire throughout the world. (I.e.this)

A key example of how this can, and will eventually destroy the world was a stupid story about a preacher in Florida. This self-righteous bigot had an issue with a proposed Mosque near the site of the fallen trade centre in NYC. His choice of protest? To burn copies of the Qu'ran. (Koran) To which effect he set out to advertise a Qu'ran burning day. Now in the days before the Internet, the proclamation of a minister in a back-water Florida town might have reached a number of people in New York, Florida, and might have been worthy of a mention in other city's news programs. But in the Internet age there are riots in Iran, counter-threats in various other countries and muslim community, protests, counter-protests... All because of one bigot in Florida. A similar case came up recently in China where a Chinese fishing vessel crew was detained by Japan over their presence in some contested Japanese waters. The reaction in Chinese cities was to smash anything made in Japan. This is complete lunacy. It was an excuse to smash Japanese cars owned by Chinese citizens.

People aren't meant to process so much information in such a short time, as their first natural reaction to stimuli is emotion, followed later by logic and reason. The Internet makes far too much crap in the guise of "information" available to feed the addiction of being "informed". The result is that everyone can find, or is actively encouraged to find volumes of unprocessed crap on various websites. We get to form opinions on events or topics that don't directly or even remotely affect us, or worse, choose to act on it. It's time to turn CNN.com off.

Going solar. (Probably)

It's been a while since the last post, partially because I've been spending a lot of what little free time I have investigating solar energy. Well, that and playing a bit of Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the Wii. (which totally rox.)

Solar is a very interesting option right now in Australia. There's no rebate anymore, but instead they are offering 5x the RECs for 1.5kW systems and smaller. Renewable Energy Certificates are essentially shares that are traded as an investment in renewable energy. Australia has committed to 20% renewable energy by 2020. The prices for RECs fluctuate around $36-40, so depending on what price you can trade them for they can knock off around $6000 from a system. Each state government has also set up schemes to buy back energy produced from solar systems. This can be gross production or net production. Unfortunately in Qld they use net production which returns less, and is harder to estimate for. How it works is that when your solar system is producing electricity (typically between 09:00 and 15:00, any electricity your house isn't using gets fed back into the grid and you get paid between $0.44-0.60 per kWh. This offsets the cost of kWh you use outside of production time, and is currently close to 3x the cost of purchasing a kWh. (Qld has committed to this feed-in credit until at least 2028.)

A 1.5kW system doesn't produce a whole lot. It can generate typically under 1/3 of your household daily usage. However there's nothing stopping you from installing a larger system, except you won't get the bonus RECs for panels over 1.5kW. This means that while a 1.5kW system will set you back about $2,000-3,000 out of pocket, a 3kW system will cost a whopping $9,000-10,000! It would seem like a no-brainer that this investment wouldn't be worth it, except for a few key considerations.

With the 1.5kW system, the amount of total energy you produce is fairly small. Very little gets sold back into the grid so the REC credit basically makes the investment worth-while. A 3kW system's REC credit is only marginally higher, but the difference is output and the feed-in rate for excess energy. Every kWh fed into the grid is currently worth 3 kWh bought from the grid. Granted, this will decrease as electricity prices continue to rise unless the feed-in charges rise as well. The cost over return for the two systems, or even larger systems remains the same. Whether its a 1.5kW or 3kW system, they pay for themselves in about 5 years, but every year after that the larger systems produce significantly more profit. (Avg. lifespan is 25 years)

A 1.5kW system with feed-in of about 33% of its daily production can earn about $900 a year. A 3kW system with feed-in of about 69% of its daily production can earn about $2,000 a year. If both pay for themselves in 5 years, and we assume the $0.44 only applies until 2028, by 2028 the 1.5kW system will earn about $11,700, while a 3kW system will earn $26,000. If the rate carries through the full 25 year expectancy you're looking at $18,000/$40,000 respectively. However, this is assumming the panels were capable of 100% their production over their lifespan, they'll actually lose efficiency over time to about 80% by the age of 25, so those figures are probably around 15% too optimistic, plus you will likely need to pay for a new inverter within that time as well.

Like any investment there are unknown variables and risks associated with it. There is also the question of system quality and reputation for getting an installation. There is a lot of push in the market to get people on-board to take advantage of the 5x REC credit. This means a lot of demand for panels, and a lot of really dodgy ones showing up on the market.There are also a lot of new players in the market for selling and installing panels, including companies that got burned during the ramp-up to accept government handouts for insulation installations which was cut off sudenly after they were linked to 4 tradesmans deaths and at least 40 house fires. There are bargains easily visible out there, but I strongly believe in "you get what you pay for."  Now if I could only convince the Mrs. of that as well. She sees "bargain!", someone offering to do installations for $1,000 cheaper than the others. Wait, they're using a panel coming out of China from a company that has only been making panels for about 5 years. They're an electrical company that has only been doing solar installations for 1 year. Where-as nearly all other companies I contact charge an extra $250-400 for a tile roof due to the need for a special mounting bracket, these guys don't. These facts all send off alarm bells. Solar panels typically come with a 25 year performance guarantee. (which in itself probably isn't worth the paper it's written on, still...) If a company has only been making panels for 5 years, who's to say that within 25 years the "shine" of producing panels wears off and they shut down and gear up to produce something else before having to deal with any of those performance guarantees? They have no brand, no reputation. If you buy a Sharp panel and they don't work, it is a stain on the Sharp brand. Who's heard of "Taizhou Sopray"?? ("You bought them? so pray!":)  Having a company that's only been installing panels for a year and not charging extra for a mounting bracket for a tile roof says they aren't using the proper bracket on the roof which means the panels will be attached to tile so in a good windstorm they'll work tiles loose and damage the roof. It's not like they're more expensive than other installers and can hide the cost of the brackets.

Ah well, fun, fun. Lots of things to consider.

Thank you Tripple J

A co-worker turned me on to this radio station and I haven't looked back. They're a public station, but very professionally run, and often the first to play tracks from new artists, with a preference for local artists. IMO they have done a lot for building local talent across Australia and I wish every country had such a station.

Some of the really cool stuff they do:
Unearthed - A service and competition they have for unsigned artists. You can upload a single or two to their website where anyone can go to download and have a listen. Their presenters are often scouring the Unearthed archive and several of these songs get air-time.

Unearthed High - Every year they hold a competition for high-school bands across Australia where the best of each state are voted on. The winner gets to do a concert at their school along with another professional Australian band, and gets their entry (or maybe an EP) professionally recorded and mixed. It is absolutely amasing the talent that is uncovered in this program.

Like a Version - A favorite of mine. As world-wide artists are travelling around Australia they are invited to the Tripple J studio to perform on air one of their singles, anda cover of some other artist of their choice. It's refreshing to hear which artists truly have talent, vs. which rely too heavily on the capabilities of their mixer. Case in point, today the Klaxons performed one of their recent singles, "Echos" and they sounded terrible, as if they got two fans in to Karaoke as they played. On the other hand, Angus & Julia Stone had come in last week and played a cover of "Say it Right" by Nelly Furtado that was *by far* better than the original. Mind you, A&J Stone are primarily an acoustic band so they don't rely as heavily on technology, but it definitely shows. Tripple J releases a CD set each year of the Like a Version recordings.

Promoting concerts, gigs, and festivals - If the Australian music scene has too much of anything, it's festivals. There are music festivals year-round with them held back to back through the summer. Tripple J actively promotes many of these, and is a good place to listen to find out who's playing where.

All together, Tripple J is a fantastic station. Best of all, you can listen all day and not hear a single track from "Lady Gaga" or any other cookie-cutter "performer".  Though they do tend to play a bit too much "Muse". I never understood that considering they're not even Australian.

FlexiRent? Flexi-Ripoff

It is surprising how many ways people can find to exploit one another. Renting electrical/electronics goods is one that makes my skin crawl.

For example, Harvey Norman carries laptops. Lets say you want to get a simple Netbook for you kid to use for studying. There's a nice one available for $599. Hmm, you don't have $600? Credit cards are already maxed out? No problem, FlexiRent is there for you. You can rent it for $9.17/wk.

Hang on, lets check the fine print, then do the math. That $9.17 per week is applicable over 24 months, two  *years*... That's 108 weeks. $9.17 x 108 = $990.36. You're paying nearly double for that laptop.  And do you know what the real kicker is? That's to *rent* the laptop. After two years you hand it back.  If you put it on your credit card that you get stuck paying interest it'll probably end up costing you $700 or so, but at least after two years it's yours.

How on Earth are people stupid enough to get suckered into something like this?

To make matters worse, some of these rental schemes get even more clever. They'll let you "upgrade" after 18 months on a 24-month agreement. The initial reaction isn't too bad. Take $9.17 x 81 weeks = $742.77 then you can exchange it for another laptop of equal or greater value. (Actually in this example it's still a bit of an obvious rip-off, in the real example I found that "deal" on the 18 month rate actually worked out to just under the value of the goods...) However, there's that fine-print catch again: You need to renew a new 24 month agreement on the upgrade. So lets see, even if you upgrade to something worth the same value 18 months later they've hooked you into 189 weeks at $9.17 or $1733.13 and nothing to show for it afterwards.

Betting on an election.

This has to be distinct to Australia. The various betting agencies in Australia offer odds on federal elections. Not just which party will win, but you can bet on each individual electorate. This year the election has been a complete shambles. Labor recently ousted the Prime Minister and decided it was time to do to the rest of the resource sector what they did to the Gold mining industry back in the early nineties. (Slap on a 30-40% profits tax.) Not that the tax wasn't a good idea where foreign companies can come into Australia, create a few jobs (good) but effectively strip-mine the country of resources without any real benefit to the nation. Still, the mining companies banded up and launched a hell of an Ad campaign that looked like WorkChoices all over. (If the mining industry tax goes through, lots of people are going to lose their jobs.) Reports came out stating that the tax would have a negative impact on the mining industry.... Well, "Duh". What would you expect their report to say, that the tax wouldn't affect them, hell, take some more of our cash?!

Still, the media effect was bad news for Labor and their effort to convince people that they were willing to negotiate a more fair deal didn't do enough to keep people in their favour. Still, I think the real knife in the back for Labor was the knife that Julia Gillard stuck into Kevin Rudd's back. Labor may have been a bit frustrated that he hadn't been able to sell their policies to the House, and such. He had his party behind him, but unfortunately he didn't hear them sharpening their knives. If the 2nd in command for a party can't be trusted to keep their word when they say they give their full support to the leader, why should they be trusted to lead?

The only reason the Coalition didn't take this election is because they were too stuborn to admit where they'd made serious policy mistakes, and didn't bring in some fresh faces to reflect that they possibly (though probably not) were able to change. I'm sure they still believe that their policies for Work Choices and such are for the best interests of Australia, but it's a hard sell at election time when people see that if they get into power it means they have fewer rights in the workplace and their bosses have more power to exploit them. It's good for business, and over-all good for the economy, but it makes it a lot harder for the common worker.

But I digress. There is really something wrong when people are willing & able to wager on the results of an election. I'm quite surprised that it is actually legal considering there are laws against publicly expressing electorial preference. The government can release preliminary preference poll results, but I'm surprised that betting agencies are allowed to give odds since that could influence people as to how they choose to vote. Not to mention current rumors and accusations in Cricket and the NRL over match fixing after betting anomolies are found.

"They're not that smart."

Since I bought our house there have been a few things that have irked me. Things that I have in my mental list to sort out. One of the remaining items is to update the security system, so I set out to get some quotes from installers and security agencies since insurance companies prefer to hear that your security system is monitored or "back to base".

Essentially with reputable companies they will have a monitoring system that your system dials out to when an alarm goes off. They will then call you at the house, then try any number of nominated contact numbers in which case you can request them to send out a guard. (for about $75) With a response time commitment from them of no more than 20 minutes that doesn't sound too bad, except for one problem. This is Australia.

Back in Canada, telephone and power lines are run roughly 1-2m underground, to your basement interior. In Australia they are run underground, or above ground, but they are run to a box at the "exterior" of your building. Exterior as in outside, and accessible from the front of your house. And you're not even allowed to put a lock on it because that's where they go to read your meters.

So my first question about back to base is whether they use land-lines or can opt for hooking in a mobile phone. They use land-lines, so my next question is, what happens when they cut the land-line. Absolutely nothing. The alarm will go off, but that monitoring company you're paying for will know nothing. Oh, I think he said that the system checks in every week. So I asked if there was a mobile option to use in case the land-line wasn't available, and sure enough there was one, for $1,600, not including the SIM card. $1,600?! What freaking planet are these people on? a GSM modem, which is the basis of this feature costs around $150.

So what I'm left wondering is why they couldn't wire a small GSM modem to the power supply, then I could put a $20/yr pre-paid SIM card from Vodaphone in, and do-away with the land-line completely?!

Anyhoo, the punchline title was a response I got from the system technician that came by to quote the system. I had said that monitoring seemed like a complete waste of money if all a burglar needed to do was cut the phone line before setting it off. He agreed that it was a vulnerability, but claims he's only seen it done 12 or so times. His response was "They're not that smart."

*Sigh*

And the wheel does a burnout.

This is becoming a far-to-frequent scene in Australia. Oddly, I don't feel the slightest bit sorry for these two, if anything I'm thankful they didn't take any innocent bystander with them, and I hope the car owner had insurance.

The Australian government cannot get a handle on road fatalities due to speeding and/or drinking, especially amongst the younger generations.

So I'd like to offer a 4-step solution to the problem.

Step 1: Mandatory driver education. I'm not talking about some tax-payer funded fuddy-duddy coming into a classroom for a day. I'm talking parent-funded, after-school accredited course as part of an L-Plater permit. None of this crap with driver logs which parents can't be bothered, or don't have time to be honest about. New drivers should attend courses every week, either evenings or weekends, and they should be tested by professional drivers at intervals. They pull any kind of crap, no license. If parents can't afford to pay for their kids to go, or can't make time to arrange to get their kids to the lessons, well, they can wait to learn to drive, it obviously isn't that important.

Step 2: Stringent P-Plate restrictions on allowable family vehicles. 1.5L maximum engine volume, and no after-market accessories. If a cop spots a "P" sticker on a non-conforming vehicle, warning fine, and then loss of license. Special exemptions can be granted for tradies and the like that may need access to drive a Ute or a Van as part of their job while on a "P"-Plate. If the family car is a Commodore V8? sorry, get sonny a used Metro or Barina to park out front. You'll save most of the purchase price, and resale value on the insurance premium.

Step 3: Setup legal, and reasonably safe outlets for driving enthusiasm. Race tracks staffed by professional drivers. Let people hire cars, or sign a disclaimer and use their own car. Drag races, lap-timed rounds on a closed circuit, and scheduled multi-car races. Have an ambulance standing by on-site for races with a simple rule. No ambulance, no race. Someone does something stupid and gets hurt, no one has any fun until the ambulance comes back. Let people keep themselves in check. They muck up their car? Too bad, call a tow-truck.

Step 4: Adopt a no-strikes attitude to wreckless driving behaviour. Pull any kind of crap on public roads and you lose your license and your car. It's a family car? Too bad, you and your parents should have thought of that before they let you take it out. No, and I mean NO give-backs. Too many deaths are caused as a result of 2nd or 3rd offences where an idiot's parents got back the confiscated vehicle, and the kid went out and killed themselves, or worse, someone else as a result. If parents are inconvenienced because "their" stupid kid lost them their car, then GOOD. They can always get another car, and keep the keys away from the kid until they've taught or beat some sense into them. They can't go out and buy a new kid.

They're at it again.

Lowering prices? That's anti-competitive!

This has to be an Australian tradition, something they should add to the citizen test if they want to reduce the number of immigrants to this country. "Define how capitalist competition works in Australia." Every rational attempt at an answer would automatically be wrong.

Telstra, one of the most grossly, over-expensive, piece of poo Internet service providers on the market, actually wants to lower its prices? BOOO!! That's anti-competitive! The problem? Internet, like groceries, and pretty much any consumer goods provider or service in Australia is based on a Fat-Cat sense of economy. Companies love this economy because the biggest cats nudge prices ever upwards, while reducing costs (and quality of service) downwards, leaving lots of room for "healthy competition." Except when that competition has it so easy, there is no competition. Each cat is as fat as the next, and 20% market share or 25% market share doesn't matter in the slightest. Except in Internet there are some 100+ players comfortably splitting the market. Australia is more competitive! See, we have over 100 competing internet providers! (Disclaimer: operating off of one of two networks) Dave! That's not competition, that's collusion!

And Telstra, who own the largest chunk of the network that this "competition" operates on goes and says: "They can get access to our network for as little as $2.50 a month and use their own equipment to make healthy margins," $2.50 a month?? Where the CHEAPEST plan you can typically get (where you don't get fiscally molested for not obeying a legion of conditions) is around $30/month.

Fat, fat cats.

Bureaucrats 0, Cyclists 0, Police Coffers +158

A classic in bureaucratic short-sightedness. Brisbane and other Australian cities have been coming under fire to provide green solutions to traffic congestion issues in and around the CBD areas. At some point they clued into programs running in Europe for cycle hire stations. Think of them like shopping cart bays scattered around the city where you can hire a bike for a modest fee so long as the bike is returned to any of the other docking stations. A perfect solution for people looking to get between key places around the city without waiting for overcrowded busses, provided they're willing to put in the pedal-power. Sounds like a good idea, a pretty good idea, until you catch one itsy-bitsy detail that differs between Australian and European cities... Cycle helmet laws.

Australia is a nanny state. In participating European cities, wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle is recommended, but optional, however in Australia it is compulsary. And guess what: at cycle hire stations, helmets are not provided.

So people are expected to carry around a bike helmet in their travels so that they can catch a train to the city and ride a bike over the river to SouthBank. Yeah, ok.

A recent protest of sorts to promote the cycle-hire scheme and ditch the goofy helmet law was arranged in Melbourne, where the first few months saw only around 70 trips on their initial 600 bike setup. (After a nice tax-funded $5.5M setup fee) People showed up to hire bikes wearing no helmet or other recommended safety gear. Their point? That in a country where over 1 in 10 people is overweight the focus should be on ensuring cycling is accessible and safe without scaring people away from it. Of course the police showed up in 3 cruisers and issued $158 fines to everyone that rode more than 200m without a helmet, forcing everyone to walk the remainder of the trip. Nice to know the police are handy to stop this kind of nonsense instead of helping people on the trams threatened within an inch of their life. Your average Tram attack in Melbourne according to the driver. Of course if police were there to help out they'd probably be putting themselves in harms way, and wouldn't have collected $158 a head.

So in total, the various state governments will spend over $14M setting up cycle hires that will be woefully under-used due to a dumb-ass law. Maybe they'll plan to raid Police coffers for some of the expected helmet offence revenue.

Griffith cracks me up.

Griffith University has a habit of periodically creating some inspirational commercials for television and radio for various courses they offer. Whether for Engineering, showing graduates heading over to Malaysia, Business, which featured a graduate I worked with when I first came to Australia, or something like Forensic Science. They do a good job making everything sound so damned, well, interesting.

This morning on the short drive to work, I was listening to their latest campaign. Aimed at people that had a passion for law, and making a difference in the community. Here I was thinking they were describing a course for people to become a judge, or maybe law enforcement, or politics? That was until the ending address:

"Come into Griffith and find out why the world needs more lawyers."

World Cup 2010

Well, it's over and done, and another year of seriously boring matches, a few gems of matches, and a good dose of controversy.

First and foremost I think Luis Suarez deserves to burn in Hell for degrading the sport of football to his pathetic level after deliberately hand-balling a well fought-for Ghana goal which would have saw Ghana playing Holland, then likely Germany for 3rd place. Both teams were tied at 2 all well into extra time when Ghana got a rebound past the keeper. Two Uruguay players were camped out on the goal line and when the first missed heading it away, Suarex batted the ball away with both hands. A handball around goal is typically an automatic Red card and match ban for the offender, plus a penalty kick. Now in cases where a goal isn't clearly able to be determined (such as a ball hitting an arm before reaching the keeper) this is sufficient, but for a player to make a deliberate act at stopping a goal by accepting a red card, that is absolutely against the spirit of the game. The sad thing was that Ghana's striker missed the penalty kick which meant the game went to penalties and Uruguay eeked out an advance. It doesn't get more deliberate than this:
http://www.sportpost.com/video/view/Uruguay+hand+ball+and+Red+Card+vs+Ghana+World+Cup

Uruguay's coach defended the red card stating the player has been adequately penalized and he had no way of knowing that Ghana would have missed the penalty kick. That's completely beside the point. The player knew full well that ball was going in, and that there was at least a chance that Ghana would miss their penalty shot.

FIFA is apparently considering allowing for penalty goals after this incident, but I doubt they'll change the rules.

There are also calls for an introduction to technological aides for referees after the Germany - England match where England was very unluckily denied an equalizer goal just before half-time when a shot off the crossbar landed a good foot or so behind the goal line, then bounced back up to the cross bar, and bounced back on the goal line before the German keeper recovered it and cleared it downfield with a hurried kick. The referee had not seen the first bounce behind the goal line. While Germany went on to win 4-2, it's interesting to think what a difference in momentum there might have been had England equalized before the break.

Still I'm sure more than a few fans that travelled to South Africa might have felt a bit ripped off with some of the games. Notably the Spain vs. Portugal first round game where the teams were already 1-2 so they played to a nil-nil draw to advance. (yawn) I don't think I could have sat to 90+ minutes of continuous droning from those bloody Vuvuzelas. IMO, Africans have a few screws loose when it comes to celebrating during a game, but I guess it beats gunfire. The Spain - Holland final wasn't particularly entertaining, decided only in the last few minutes of extra time.

For me, the match of the tournament was the 3rd place bout between Germany and Uruguay. Uruguay went up 2-1 with what I consider one of the best strikes of the tournament from Diego Forlan. He didn't hit the ball square, and instead of heading at the net it headed at high-speed for the turf and after a rocket of a bounce, streaked into the net well within reach of an awestruck (or screened) German keeper. Germany managed to equalize shortly after, but right up until the last 10 minutes Germany appeared to have run out of steam and were looking pretty desperate to fend off constant presses from Uruguay. Their final goal in the dying minutes was sheer magic. Still one German player deserved a good slap across the back of the head for drawing a penalty during Uruguay's last desperate ghasp. Fortunately Forlan couldn't summon up the magic for his free kick, sending their last chance off the crossbar.

Nothing says "you eat too much" quite like a stomache flu

I've been wrestling with a bug since last Tuesday morning, I'm pretty sure I'm over the worst of it now, but I'm still well on guard. Combine the lack of appetite, expedited exit of pretty much anything I eat or drink, and the extra excercise sprinting to the washroom, needless to say I've lost a few kilos. And that is a good thing.

Probably the only good thing that can come from a stomache flu is the chance to "reset" your appetite. Not only in what you eat, but more importantly, how much you eat. As I've begun gingerly returning to the dinner table to eat something, just enough to not provoke a rapid sprint a hour later, I realized how much beyond "enough" I put away every meal. Right now I'm eating probably a bit less than 1/2 what I normally do, and I'm not getting hungry.

I know that when you eat too much, your stomache stretches which means it doesn't feel full next time until you put more food in it. Then when you over-do it again it stretches more, leaving you eating far more than you should be. The fix is to eat slower, and eat less, so that the stomache starts to shrink back down to normal size. But the stomache sends powerful signals, so sometimes you need something that sends a more powerful signal.

So, the next time you feel the motivation to start losing weight, give yourself the edge and catch a good strong bug. The urge NOT to end up spending 5/10 minutes on the toilet completely blocks the normal "Feed me Seymour!"

Goodness! There is something in Oz with a volume discount.

Shopping in Oz makes me twitch and occassionally burst out into uncontrollable chuckling. Australians don't get the joke, they've live here their whole life so it's perfectly normal to them.

Australian products do not offer volume discounting. You can buy various products in various sizes/quantities, but your price per item or per g/kg remains typically the same. What I find strange is that the advertising on the product even bothers to use terms like "value pack". Value pack?? just where is the value in 6 for $2.95, 12 for $5.90, or a 24 "value pack" for $11.80? When there is a discount, it's rarely even 1%. Competitors confuse matters by ensuring products are offered with different volumes, weights, or quantities. The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has recently stepped in and started requiring retailers, particularly grocery retailers to display prices per unit or per 100g as applicable. Perhaps a few Australians will start to question why a retailer sells three different sizes for each brand and variety of toothpaste for virtually the same price per 100g.

However, I have finally found something sold in Australia where buying in volume does have a noticeable effect on price. Paint and the like. While shopping for floor finishes for my stair project I was shocked to see floor coverings sold in 1, 4, and 10L containers, for $30, $65, and $105 respectively.

Unbelievable.

Stairs & Roof

What a curious couple of weekends this has been. Since we bought our house it has been in pretty desperate need of some TLC. The roof and stairs have been particular eyesores I've had to look at every day since moving in. The roof is Concrete tile, an extremely common roofing material in this region, and must be a major nightmare for Australian firefighers. I've got to figure there is at least a tonne or two of concrete covering the average house. Durable stuff, but with time it develops some pretty catastrophic faults if it's not maintained. 1. Tiles crack, break, and slip out of position. This lets water in. 2. Ridge caps (points) need to be cemented down in place, these can work loose, and in severe winds from an unfortunate direction, lifted out of place. This lets water in. Combine these faults with the potential for torrential drenchings through the summer, then a roof containing around 2-dozen cracked tiles, and loose points left me really uneasy last summer.

But finally it's no longer an issue. We've contracted in a pretty good roofing company who've replaced all of those cracked tiles, re-bedded all of the points, cleaned it all up, and given it a beautiful couple of coats of paint. Scratch one off the list.

Now for the stairs. This was one I was determined to tackle myself. It looked like one of the previous 2 owners had made an attempt at re-coating the oak staircase in the house, but they did a pretty half-assed job of it. The stain / coating had gone seriously yellow, and the edges and corners of the steps appeared faded or chipped. Obviously they had at least attempted to sand back the previous coating before applying new Polyurethane, but hadn't sanded back into the corners and sides. I was determined to correct this issue. At first I was wondering what stain to use, but after a couple trips to Bunnings to compare samples it looked like a nice Oil-based Polyurethane on the raw timber would produce the look we wanted. I picked up a $35 orbital sander which I didn't expect to get through much more than this set of stairs but it has been holding up magnificently, barely heating up at all with several hours of continuous sanding. I had been working the sides and corners using paper and a small wooden toy triangle block (handy having a baby:) but wasn't fully happy with the result. It was a lot cleaner than the previous attempt had gone over, but not quite.

A chance conversation with the painter who was working on the roof as he was cleaning up proved to be an ace. Use a file. I had to make a trip to Bunnings before I started staining to upgrade the amount of Poly for the stairs, so I started looking around at files before settling on a small, half-curve file for $10. It worked out better than I could have imagined at cleaning out the corners, sides, and even running down the back edge to scrape away stuff. In the end I still managed to miss one corner. (bugger) I just put down the second coat this morning and will do the third coat this evening but already the stairs look 10x better than they did. Still, it's turning into a 3-weekend job when I had thought originally it would only take 1 weekend. I had guessed that the initial sanding would take about 3 hours. It took over 9, even with a powered sander. In sanding the stairs I originally didn't plan to do any risers until I got a close look at the risers on the 2nd half of the staircase. Ah well, it did mean we could spend extra time planning and preparing. Next weekend will be the risers.

And that will be the first 2 off the list. Only 98 remaining. :)

Australia goes through leaders faster than I go through shoes.

Politics are funny regardless of where you live, but Australia has to be one of the most amusing of the Western nations. Sure, Barack Obama has trouble getting staff to spell his name correctly, but I really feel sorry for the nominated Speaker in the Australian Parliment. Regardless of the which party is in power, they are both pretty keen on replacing figurehead leaders.

Lets see, since I moved here, the Labor party has had 4 leaders, and the Nationals/Liberals have had 4 as well.

In the ring for Labor
Mark Latham: Opposition leader when I arrived in Australia. Seemed a nice enough guy until he got ousted and showed his true colours to the media.

Kim Beazly: Old-fart ex-labor leader, back from the dead, and buried again pretty quick when elections were nearing as Labor wanted to attract younger voters.

Kevin Rudd: Recognizable face of Labor since appearing regularly on Morning Television with Joe Hockey. (Coalition) Fairly well spoken, and after some heavy criticism of the Howard gov't Labor finally regained popular support. However, as a spokesman for somewhat controversial new policies around carbon trading and resource taxes aimed at large mining firms, it seems he lacked the backbone to get the party's view across.. So his right-hand-woman Julia Gillard stepped up and stabbed him in the back.

Julia Gillard: The current PM until the next election, probably called within the next two months. Frankly, she doesn't seem remotely like PM material to me. Just listening to her listless, droning voice makes me change the channel.

Meanwhile in the coallition corner:
John Howard: Prime Minister of Australia when I arrived. One of the longest running PMs, but getting very long in the tooth. Ousted before the last election for a younger, more "now" candidate to face off against Rudd. His 2nd in Command was too timid to challenge him, so the party picked an alternative.

Brendan Nelson: Party Yes-Man #1. Younger than Howard, but completely useless at convincing anyone of anything original. Not that the Coalition made it easy after implementing some really unpopular changes before the ellection.

Malcom Turbull: Bumped Nelson shortly after the last ellection. Started off as Party Yes-Man #2, then made some unpopular support calls against his party and got bumped as well.

Tony Abbot: Current Coalition leader but still selling the same old party lines around the unpopular Howard-era changes. Still extremely underspoken since every time he seems to raise his voice about something he puts his foot in it.

So, election 2010! On the one hand we'll have Julia Gillard trying to sell down the effective planned tax raping of the resource sector, with a voice I can't bear to even listen to... Vs. Tony Abbot, Someone I've barely heard anything from because he can't get 2 words out without choking on his own shoe-laces.

That is, unless either/both parties would care to replace their leaders *again*

And people wonder why I don't vote. Maybe we can import Hillary Clinton to run the country, she's going to waste at the moment.

Contracting as a Sole Trader: A good way to become less poor.

Interesting circumstances have come up where I've needed to take the plunge (well, at least dip the toes in) into becoming an independent contractor for my current employer. Previously I had been on a casual arrangement which suited me just fine as I was paid an hourly rate instead of a salary. However this is a bit of a murky gray area they weren't comfortable with since I was, and will continue to be working relatively regular hours. I'm not really interested in "permanent" work since paid vacation is never convenient to take, and does nothing to help my mortgage, plus I'm rarely sick more than 1 day a year.

Looking at the options was quite a headache at first. I could go independant as a sole trader or company, or use a contractor management company similar to past arrangements through recruitment agencies. Contractor management companies charge between 3-4% in "management fees" off my rate in exchange for providing insurance cover, and options to do stuff like salary sacrifice. (claiming various expenses pre-tax.) My current employer offered to extend their insurance over me for the duration of my contract, so contractor management companies just became a rather expensive option for pretty much nothing. Digging around for insurance I've found policies that are well under that 3-4% anyways.

A lot of people look to setting up companies and trusts to gain tax savings since sole traders treat all income as personal income. The company tax rate in Australia is 30%, where your personal tax rate average can edge up to around 40%+. However, the ATO (stingy bastages) love to make tax law around companies very complex, especially in the case where the company only has 1 employee / director. It essentially wants to ensure that a company structure for an individual contractor is complex and cannot easily be used to marginalize tax. Even so, under a company, any dollar taxed at the company rate need to remain "firm" assets of the company, even paid out as fully franked dividends (tax paid) franking only covers that first 30% so you still need to pay the difference in tax back to the ATO as the dividend is counted as personal income. Some people look to things like Trusts to spread out income among the family which I think works out well if you've got an unemployed partner, and lots of kids... Other than that it requires a lot of input from professional accountants who are probably dipping into gray areas of the tax laws.

The sole trader option is simple and free to set up, and in particular circumstances such as my own, it can be very lucrative. For instance, I am not well-off, I'm actually quite poor. Thanks to my mortgage I owe a bank a crap-load of money that will take decades to pay off. However, I do have an offset account where I can keep my funds liquid, having an effect as if they were paid directly against my mortgage. This means the more money I can get into my offset account early, the far greater impact that money will have against my mortgage's interest paid back to the bank. I do not pay any tax for this interest saving, and it's impact increases and decreases directly with my mortgage interest rate so it its inflation-proof. But the question is how can this work with a sole trader business model?

There are two very interesting factors to consider about the sole trader arrangement:
1) Sole traders are not required to pay Superannuation. (retirement fund)
2) Sole traders are responsible for paying their tax at the end of the tax year. (Or quarterly if the ATO gets shirty)
3) If you earn more than $75,000 per year you must register for and pay GST. (10% paid quarterly)

Superannuation is normally a compulsary 9% deduction off your rate that goes into a super fund which either earns you marginally more than your mortgage rate, (after fee deductions) doesn't, or even loses you money. (As has been the case for the last 2 years.) Honestly, the system the government imposed is a complete sham as Super brokers deduct significant fees regardless of whether the super fund performs well or not. Depending on how this arrangement works out I will consider looking at self-managed super fund options to get some benefit from the slightly lower tax arrangement offered for superanuation savings. In the meantime, that money can be better served paying down my home.

The fact that tax can be paid at the end of the financial year is HUGE. This is effectively turning your annual earnings into one big credit card with the offset account. Every penny goes into the offset account working against the mortgage until the end of the year when the tax office gets their cut. GST must be claimed on top of your agreed rate, and it is claimed by your client as an expense, but you collect it and pay it to the tax office every 3 months. For that time, it too is working against your mortgage for free.

To put it in perspective: If you're using a management company, with PAYG (Pay as you go) tax arranged (the norm) and you're contracting for $50/hour:
$50 - $4.50 (Superannuation) = $45.50 - $1.36 (management fee) = $44.14 - $15 (income tax) = $29.14 * 40 = 1,165.60 This is what is going into your offset account account each week.

As a sole trader: $50 + $5 (GST) = $55 * 40 = $2,200 is going into your offset account each week. Each thee months $2400 is deducted from the account to pay GST, and at the end of the year $30,600 (plus tax from super savings) or so is deducted for income tax. Your offset account would be left with virtually the same (depending on whether you make super contributions or not) but the key difference will be in your mortgage balance. That extra savings will be knocking off dollars more a day from interest charges quickly adding up to substantial savings on the final price of your home. (And if you want to put *that* into perspective, given a 30 year mortgage with no offset account, paying the bank's required repayments, and averaging out the interest rate, the final price of your home is roughly 2x your signing price, adjusted for inflation, 2.4x+ in today's dollars.)

This is how it can be used to make you "less poor". It wouldn't be nearly as effective at making someone who isn't in debt "more rich" since any interest gainings from investing that money until tax time is typically taxed itself, and adopts whatever risks your investment strategy incurs. Rest assured the ATO will want to collect its pound of flesh whether you lose money investing it's tax dollars or not. But less poor today = more rich later as your mortgage is paid down faster, which means more equity sooner.

Unfortunately, there is one snag with this model, and that is that much of the industry, particularly larger clients such as government, will not deal with sole traders. Insured or not. Still, my current client doesn't have a problem with it so I thank them for this opportunity, and will place great value on similar options in the future.

Interest Rates

This is one curious difference between Canada and Australia. In Canada, the preference is often given to using fixed-term, fixed-rate interest rates on home loans, where-as in Australia the preference is to use variable rates. Banks in both countries seem to offer various incentives for the respective preferred interest model, either being a good reason for the preference, or a business decision in response to the preference. For example, in Canada several banks will offer an adjusted-fixed rate loan that will decrease as the variable rate drops, but won't increase until the term is over. This is favourable in the sense that you don't get a feeling of being ripped off if interest rates start dropping after you've "locked in" for 5 years. In Australia, the options favour keeping your loans on variable rate. For instance most banks will offer a package that includes a discount off the variable rate, and features such as offset accounts.

Offset accounts: If you're the kind of person that can squirrel away money, offset accounts are absolutely awesome. They are fully liquid accounts that are linked to your mortgage. Every $ you have in this account on the given day is considered in the interest calculation on your loan. It is like if you put all of your savings against the loan and were to redraw from the loan, except without any of the hassle. You can use the funds in the offset account as normal. The account itself earns no interest (then again what liquid account does these days) but it's effective interest is your loan interest rate, which remains equally effective as interest rates climb. What this effectively means is that if your mortgage rate is 6.5% p.a. the money in your offset account is effectively earning you 6.5% p.a. "tax free". Can you find a liquid bank account anywhere that can beat that?! Fortunately the ATO doesn't tax interest savings. Depending on your income level you would need to find a rate of 8.45% to 9.5% p.a. to earn equivalent taxable interest.

I personally keep a spreadsheet of all transactions made against our accounts and the loan so I can keep track of how much interest we are paying each month, and how much cash we are saving. This is made much easier because we put most of our daily expenses on a credit card and pay off the balance each month. (Leaving extra cash in our offset account until the end of the month.) The package we have that includes a rate discount and offset account, plus a few other perks, costs us $350/year. The offset account and rate discount save us over $10,000 a year. (A no brainer.)

Recent hot-topics with the Mrs. that always seem to pop up as interest rates rise include whether we should fix a portion of our loan or not. There was a steep drop-off in interest rates due to the GFC, and now interest rates are climbing back up. At first I was a bit concerned, but then I did the math, and modified my spreadsheet to verify the numbers to prove that it is far more likely to cost you money than it would save you money.

Best-case scenario: I went back and applied a locked-in fixed interest rate the day before rates started to climb. Granted in reality you can only *guess* when rates will go up, and how fast they will go up, but for this test I used best case actuals. Fixed interest rates for 1 year are lower than the variable, but still 0.3-0.35% higher than our discounted rate. That means you're looking for at least 2 rate rises before you start saving back the extra intrest you start paying as soon as you lock in. The rates get significantly higher if you want to opt into locking for longer periods. The major catches to consider here are that any discount and savings from offset accounts you have only apply to the *variable* portion of your loan. The first rate rise after the GFC occurred roughly 7 months ago, so I locked in the day before. After about 3 months the interest savings recovered the extra cost, and after 7 months I would have saved $300. I'd estimate that after the year we would have saved about $500.

Sounds ok? Ah, but hind-sight is 20/20. There's no way I could have known rates were going to go up when they did, and when they will go up again. So adjusting the model I locked the interest rate just 2 months prior to the rate rise. Lets say the reserve bank is considering a rise next week. Maybe it goes up, maybe not... Got to lock in because banks will start raising fixed rates before the reserve bank makes a decision if the banks think the cash rate is going up. We lock in, rates don't go up, but they start climbing 2 months later. Now the numbers change dramatically. Those two months we are paying at least $3 a day more in interest, after 7 months of rate climbs we still haven't recovered this back in interest savings, and after a year we'll be back on variable or locking in at a higher fixed rate. Fixed rates are *NOT* a mechanism to try and save money, they are a mechanism to ensure people can maintain a consistent budget over a period of time.

Locking in interest rates in Australia in an attempt to save money leaves you with a mentality of hoping rates go *up* to prove you hadn't wasted that money... That just sounds stupid. :)

Bond

This one left me feeling a bit ambivelant. The next Bond movie has been suspended indefinitely due to the financial troubles of MGM Studios. (http://www.watoday.com.au/entertainment/movies/james-bond-film-suspended-amid-mgm-woes-20100421-ss68.html)

After being thoroughly, and utterly disappointed and disgusted by what was done with Bond under Pierce Brosnan, I was very skeptical about whether to bother watching the latest installments starring an Australian of all people, Daniel Craig. Not to slam Brosnan, he's a decent actor and I believe he could have been capable of playing a very good James Bond, if only they would have hired a decent writer that perhaps READ earlier James Bond or watch Moore & Connery in action. Bond is fantasy, but in the sense of fantastic suspension of disbelief. The movies Brosnan was involved in were pathetically written, and most suffered from "you can't freaking be serious that anything like this is remotely possible." It left me scarred, so much so that it was over a YEAR after Casino Royale was released that I bothered to rent it.

Casino Royale
Ultimately I was fairly relieved by this movie. At least up until the end. Craig was a very interesting choice for the role. Bond has always been suave, and used his quick wits, charm, the arrogance of his opponents, and the right gadget to get out of a tight situation. Craig is more like a neothanderal, solving problems with a big rock or a hefty shoulder through a wall. But his character is no idiot, he plays the part of an agent that you can drop right into the thick of a situation and know he's got at least half a chance of completing the mission and getting out alive. The bulk of the movie was quite well done up until the end bits where it started to fall apart around the edges. Actually I'd say that they started to peel off scenes from Thunderball, well, actually "Thud! Ahh!! My Balls!". If there's one thing I don't really like to see in movies is Deus Ex Machina. This is where some miracle happens near the end of a play (or movie) to save the hero. Unfortunately they resorted to the Deus Ex ending, saving Bond from an inescapable situation. Ah well, it was only a minor stain on the movie over all.

Quantum of Solace
This is a movie that ultimately should never have been made. I think in hind-sight it foretold of the difficulties that MGM was having with the franchise. The start of the movie was fantastic, considering how it was probably the first Bond movie with any sort of continuality written in. (The interrogation of Mr. White.) The plot twist with the secret organization unknown by MI6 and the like was a good twist and played out very nicely, but for an organization that they hadn't even caught a whiff of before the interrogation, they sure were too easy to figure out and infiltrate making it a real downer. The real disappointment in this movie is how the overall quality of the movie continually degrades; it actually visibly rots as the movie goes on. By the end you'd think you were watching some B-grade film. I was ready to shut the movie off when they prepared to storm the fuel-cell hotel out in the middle of nowhere, where negotiations between a corrupt general planning to coupe his government, and the evil organization member posing as a environmental group, setting up to double-cross the general was taking place. I think the only thing burning down faster than that stupid hotel was MGMs bankroll.

Quantum of Solace to me said that during the last film MGM was running out of money so the production quality of the film was continually getting dropped. It is a bit odd that it seemed to happen so linearly from beginning to end seeing as movie scenes are typically shot out of order depending on locations, actor availability, etc. Still it made some money, delayed the inevitable, and MGM gambled once again. It will probably be a good thing if "Bond 23" never sees the light of day because I'm sure it will probably show signs of rot no more than 15 minutes in.

Queensland Motoring

For anyone considering moving to Australia, and Queensland specifically, there are a few key points you should be aware of when it comes to driving in Australia.

1. They drive on the left in Australia. Think England: This surprisingly doesn't take too much getting used to, however it was a few weeks before I was comfortable looking up and left to find the rear-view mirror. Up until that point I found myself instinctively relying on my driver-side mirror. Confusing the signal lever an wiper levers (also reversed) was resolved in about a week.

2. Terminology: There are a number of different terms you should be prepared to substitute or risk getting a few confused looks from people.
American/Canadian English => Australian English
Gas => Petrol
Traffic Circle => Roundabout
Yield (sign) => Give-way
Parkade => Car Park
Pickup (truck) => Ute
Trunk => Boot
Hood => Bonnet

3. Road rules: There are a few subtle differences in road rules, aside from the obvious disorientation of driving on the oposite side of the road.
a) No left turns on red lights. In Canada you can turn into traffic on a red light, it is an illegal maneuver in Australia.
b) Merging traffic does *not* have right of way. This is a pretty dumb one and I think explains why people don't seem to "get" how to merge here. More on this later.
c) No Stopping does not equal No Parking. This is a subtle one that got me here. No Stopping means no stopping, literally. In No Parking zones you would be able to stop the car for short periods provided the driver did not get out of the car and the car was running.

4. Requirements to get a license: Australia has a somewhat xenophobic culture, and getting a driving license here demonstrates this. For example, if you come from Canada or the U.S. where you're raised driving on the opposite side of the road, you can get an Australian license simply by getting a passing grade on the written exam. However, if you come from a country like Malaysia where they have similar road rules and drive on the same side of the road, irregardless of how long you've held a license, you need to write the exam and take an in-car driving test. I found this mildly amusing. However, I did come across a plausable explanation for this difference. That Australian driving authorities may base the requirement on country of origin depending on how difficult it would be to obtain a convincing fake driver's license.

5. Weather & day of week: Back in Canada, aside from the first couple weeks after the snow starts, and the occassional significant bad weather day in the winter; When the speed limit is 100km/h you can pretty much assure people are trying their best to be motoring along at between 105-110km/h rain, shine, day, night, etc. every day. My first experience in "the wet" was a real eye opener. I'm driving along the highway to the Sunshine Coast at around 100km/h and I was approaching some wet weather. Then I notice everyone slowing down to around 80km/h and I'm passing people thinking I'd missed a construction sign. So I slow down. No construction, no radars, nothing, just a really light drizzle. So I speed up again and start passing people, until "it" hits. It wasn't particularly hard rain, nothing more than I'd experienced in Edmonton, but I don't know if it's the humidity, or the combination of road and tyre materials, but when it starts raining it creates a haze roughly 2m high on the road that cuts visibility dramatically. You also need to be cautious in the city after a dry spell when it first starts raining. The road materials don't have to go through as wide of a temperature range here, so they contain a lot more rock, and when the oils from day-to-day wear start getting pulled up by the rain over this harder surface, it gets really slippery for a while. Combined with relatively hilly terrain it makes for some dangerous driving. Lastly, the day of week seems to really affect people's brains. Sunday is the most frustrating time to drive as there seems to be an unwritten rule that people drive 10km/h below the speed limit on Sunday. I've found no explanation for this.

6. Warning signs: Beware of "L" and especially "P" plates displayed in windows and stuck to the backs of cars driving around town. These are "L"earner drivers, and "P"rovisional drivers. There are special regulations applied when under the "P"-plate designation, but from what I've observed these are rarely enforced, meaning effectively that these are some of the most dangerous drivers you will encounter. There are constantly fatal accidents reported involving one or more "P"-platers, and my only sympathy is when one of these idiots is responsible for damaging/hurting others, or worse, taking them out with them. Frankly, the "P"-plate problem could be minimized and effectively solved with one simple measure: If you are provisional, you are limitted to driving a vehicle with no larger than a 1.6L, 4-cylinder engine solo, or must be under the direct supervision when driving a larger vehicle. Exceptions may be granted for tradies who might need to be able to drive a commercial van or Ute, but the vehicle would need to be inspected before aproval. Basically, restrict P-Platers from owning/driving "hoon"-ish vehicles until they get some real-world driving experience instead of video-games, and maybe they'll realize that those daft cars can and will kill them, the price for a quick thrill.

7. Merging: As I mentioned earlier, merging right of way is opposite here. Still, there is nothing more frustrating than driving along a highway and virtually coming to a stop when approaching merging traffic. Merging is quite a simple technique, think of a zipper. The key is that the faster cars are travelling, the more space people leave between vehicles which means to merge you need to accellerate up to the speed of traffic, pull up just behind a car, indicate, and pull in behind it, gradually easing back to a comfortable distance. Unfortunately this concept is completely lost here. Traffic instictively slows down which tightens the gaps between cars, cutting off the opportunity to merge in without forcing cars behind you to slow down even further. People start then merging from the left lanes to right lanes, slowing down those lanes, until the whole expressway has ground to a complete halt. When I first experienced this I driving down towards the Gold Coast. I was convinced there was an accident. 4 lanes of traffic were virtually stopped, but the cause was no accident, it was a merge between the Pacific Motorway and the Gateway. (2 lanes merging into 4)

8. Incompetent Drivers: Queensland in particular has a very, very high ratio of incompetent drivers. Just walk through a car park and see the amount of scrapes, dents, and other general damage these people inflict on their cars. In Canada I'd never been involved in an accident in over 14 years of driving. I'd had close calls, backed into a truck that was parked on an odd angle, and run off the road a couple of times, I had to dodge a couch in the middle of the highway once, and had a dumb cyclist throw himself into my windscreen in the dark (while the car was parked and unoccupied!)... But within 3 years in Australia, I have been hit from behind twice, side-swiped once, and had some ass in a 4WD scrape the entire side of my car while parked in a car park. The only parts of my car that haven't been re-painted are the bonnet and the roof. The number of accidents and fatalities reported in this country is mind-boggling.

Victorian Police take a page from Hollywood.

A thing of rather macabre beauty. Victoria has long had a stain along it's borders in the form of organized crime. They set about some years ago to crack down on it and the corruption around it, jailing some really bad men. One of which, Carl Williams who was accused of arranging the murders of dozens of people. Up until today he was sitting in prison, a taxpayer funded embarrasment, and landmine for Victorian police and politicians who have been desperately trying to re-write themselves out of a history of corruption and collusion. Still, what are they to do with him?

Let's pay to send his daughter to a private school! $8000/year of tax payers funds; and start rumors about paying some $750,000 of debt currently owed by his father. I dunno about you, but where I come from that is is called making a deal, or more sinisterly, mean't to look like he had made a deal. A deal with authorities for some pertinent, embarrassing information about other underworld figures either in custody, or with observant figures in custody watching out for their best interests.
(Smells of a Deal)
Not 14 hours after the story was leaked and published, (and I suspect a phone call to an illegally smuggled mobile phone) Carl Williams is dead. Beaten to death in a maximum security prison. (Hook, line, sinker, and copy of Angling Times)

Now if I could just place my finger on the movie I saw this happen on...

Fish.

I enjoy fishing. A lot. Ironic though, to anyone who knows me, is that I cannot eat fish. Fortunately my wife, and daughter both LOVE fish, and I'm pretty good at catching fish so in that sense it's a really favourable match. The only trouble is that while I enjoy going fishing, my wife does not enjoy my going out to enjoy fishing. The reason for this is that we live in the Western suburbs of Brisbane which is about a 45 minute drive from the nearest decent coastal jetty. Going there during the day is pointless with so many people around, nowhere to park, and screaming kids running up and down the jetty. So it's typically evening trips anywhere after 19:00 staying out there until as late as 03:00 in the morning some nights when the tide is right and the fish are biting. But there are typically quite a few like-minded people around the jetty at all hours, chasing those elusive fish. Most don't seem to have a clue what they're doing, but that is a completely different topic. The main thing is its not as dangerous as she fears it to be, but my reassurances are little comfort.

The reason I like fishing so much isn't really the man vs. fish aspect as much as it's an excuse to get out of the house, into the nice, cool fresh air, and think about stuff. In another sense of irony, the thing I end up thinking about most often is what it'd be like to be a fish. I imagine a number of kids, and probably some adults have watched movies like Finding Nemo and Shark's Tale and thought it'd be pretty neat to be a fish. Actually, I'd think it would have to be one of the closest things to hell on Earth. I'm not a religious person but I do have an interest in the likelihood of reincarnation and I'd think if you were ever to be meant to suffer for past sins, you'd probably come back as a fish, or something that gets eaten by spiders, which, ironic point #3, includes fish.

The life of a fish must be a constant state of stress. I mean they sleep with their eyes open, not that they can blink anyways, and their days and nights consist of running around hoping to run into something to eat while at the same time hoping not to run into somthing wanting and able to eat them. Often I feel that my life is in a constant state of stress since getting married, but then I go out and cast a line, think about the fish, and realize I ain't got nothing to worry about compared to them.

Still, another thing I get wondering about while I'm fishing is just how stupid fish must be, or perhaps they have to be born with a completely different perspective and understanding of the world. For instance, sometimes you cast down under the jetty and you get repeatedly pounced on by a group of Bream. It'd be interesting to actually be able to watch what's actually going on down there, but fishing alone on the jetty I find my imagination is free to stab a guess. One fish will grab the bait and pull it to find out "hey there's a pointy thing in this food and it's trying to pull me out away from safety!" so it pulls back and typically spits the pointy bit out. Meanwhile the group of Bream can surely see/smell/feel all of this going on. So you cast under again and in a couple moments another Bream has gone on to do pretty much the exact same thing. The strategy from my point of view is to set up the scenario to give me the best chance that one of the Bream makes a mistake and finds that pointy bit firmly lodged in its mouth, and pulling it hard up and out of the safe spot he'd set up to haunt that time of the evening. But maybe this is as much a game of wits for the Bream as it is for me. Maybe they know exactly what's going on with the free food and are daring each other in turn to try and not only get the food, but show their stuff by pulling the dangerous, pointy-filled food as far as they can without getting pulled out themselves. Surely there are bonus points to the Bream strong and quick enough to be able to cut the line attached to the pointy thing while it's firmy lodged in their mouth. That's got to be one kind of piercing that says "I am tha Shiz!". Sure the young ones or timid ones might go up and nibble at the food or try and fool the pointy bit into pulling before they've grabbed it all the way, but that isn't going to impress their friends. Fish wouldn't know what a chicken was or why it would be associated with a coward, but I'd guess they would have their own association... Maybe a Yabbie or something like that. I mean, some of these fish will have probably played the game a few times and got pulled out as wee little rats to the disappointment of an honest angler, had the pointy bit removed for them, and thrown back into the water. They're probably not banking that it might be a one-way trip, but that's part of the thrill when as they get bigger and hang out with bigger buddies, those buddies that do get pulled out often don't come back. Talk about a rush.

That really doesn't come down to intelligence or perception. Maybe fish are really just dumb and can't put two & two together, much like watching Magpie Larks repeatedly challenge their reflection in a window. Preceptionally fish may not even be self-aware, or perhaps they are more aware of the way of things than we give them credit, or are comfortable realizing or accepting ourselves. Why else would a living thing like a fish or insect want to bother existing unless they instictively knew that dismemberment, suffering, and death were merely a transitory point in a continuous cycle where the goal was to try again and be better, smarter, and stronger: given at least a hint of recollection of past mistakes. Wouldn't this possibly explain concepts behind evolution and instinct? Humans may be "unique" not because we're any more self aware than fish or bugs, but because we've become so pre-occupied with who and what we are in the here-and-know that we've lost perspective of the big picture. We fear death, invent beliefs to reassure ourselves of the unknown. Ironically (arg #4 for this post) the concept we've created for "lives" within popular video games may be closer to the truth than anything. Failure, regrets, reset to square one with a nudge of fore-knowledge (instinct, gut feelings.) to make new types of decisions all over again. Personally I believe genes can explain the colour of your eyes and hair, how tall you are, or how many toes you'll end up with; But I'm not convinced that they can determine how you will respond to stimulae, or explain what it means to be "self aware". There's got to be something more that defines *why* molecules continue to organize themselves into insects and fish and people with its own set of rules governing just how much information can be relayed from one generation to the next.

I guess this is part of the danger of going out late at night to go fishing alone and doing a considerable amount of thinking. I end up filling my head with whimsical "heavy" nonsense like this.

The state of Internet access in Australia.

If anyone is seriously considering moving to Australia and regularly uses the Internet to stay connected, be prepared for some serious head-scratching. As I eluded to in my last post, Internet in Australia is ludicrously expensive for what you get, and with the average Aussie consumer as complacent as they are, extremely confusing to sort out how to effectively not get ripped off any more than you have to. Trust me, if you're coming from Canada, you're going to get seriously hosed here.

The first thing to know is all you need to know about Internet in Australia is on Whirlpool. No, not the white-goods appliance company, Whirlpool Forums. Here you will find reviews, discussions, statictics, and most importantly offered plan comparisons. But even with this information, choosing an Internet provider and plan can be a daunting task. Do they split the bandwidth between peak and off-peak hours? What are those hours? Do they count uploads? Do you have to commit to a contract? What happens if you exceed bandwidth limits? Do they support churning? (Basically a fast, cheap/free way to switch between supporting ISPs) What are the setup costs? (If no churn option.) Do you/should you consider bundling with telephone and/or mobile? Should you consider a naked connection? (No land-line rental) Those last two and the counting uploads are serious gotchas to watch out for. Counting uploads effectively halves your limit if you plan to use stuff like MSN Messenger/Skype or VOIP, or play games online where uploads pretty closely match downloads. Bundling can often be an attractive option, but don't let it distract you because it often comes with some of the more vile excess usage charges/conditions. Naked connections are more expensive but save you from having to pay for a land-line if you're content to use mobiles. (Also damned expensive here though.) Personally though, I think this does limit your options to change because I don't know if/how churning works if you're on a Naked connection, (Setup charges when you change ISPs without Churn will easily eat any savings unless you commit to long-term contracts which add penalties for changing as well.) and sitting on hold with ISP support alone when your connection goes dead will eat your mobile allowance real fast.

Believe me, there are some doosies of a bear-trap out there that ISPs set out to snare you; I have difficulty believing they can possibly be legal.

For example, most respectable ISPs will have a policy that if you have a limit of (n)GB per month and exceed that limit, your connection will be "shaped" down to effectively dialup speed until the next billing period starts. Often they'll give you the option to buy additional blocks of bandwidth by the GB, usually between $5-10/GB. And then there are others, such as Optus, one of the major Telco's in Australia, which will give you a limit, then charge you $150/GB should you exceed that limit. (That's no typo. One Hundred and Fifty dollars per GB) Their policies are changing all of the time, but at one point I believe they would charge you automatically for up to 2GB excess usage, then shape you down to dialup speed. That's an extra $300 "Surprise!" on your monthly ISP bill if your kid figures out how to torrent a movie one day.

One ISP bases their whole business model around this kind of rip-off. Dodo Internet. They advertise the bargain-basement of Internet. $20 a month, in which they give you a gracious 500MB (with the recent additon of 3GB of off-peak allowance if used between the hours of 1am-1pm.) 500MB a month is effectively enough to do little more than check e-mails. Exceed that limit and you're hit with a whopping $180/GB excess usage charge! Not all in one go, this is supposed to be a subtle rip-off. You're charged $0.18 per MB until you reach a cap of $70, at which point you're effectively cut off unless you purchase and additional 2-25GB block effective *only* until the remainder of the current billing period for $10-30.

So doing the math, you pay $20 for 500MB, then are forced to pay $0.18/MB until you hit $70. ($50 / $0.18 =~275MB) at which point you can buy 2GB for $10 (half a cent a MB) So, paying $70/mo with Dodo, you don't even get 1GB of useful bandwidth, where $70/mo with TPG will give you 100GB peak, plus 100GB off-peak, and shaped with no extra cost should you exceed that. That is, if you're silly enough to get conned into the cheapest option without realizing that 500MB on ADSL2+ can be eaten in a couple weeks of browsing, forget about downloading movies or playing games online. (Measure it in Days then.)

Yet the twisted thing is that PEOPLE HERE BUY THIS CRAP!

Expect to spend a good few days sifting through the data on Whirlpool before selecting an ISP. Don't trust the advice of Aussies about plans, especially the older generations because they have been thoroughly fleeced and mused into accepting this nonsense, with matching blinders to keep from being distracted by that annoying competition thing.

But in choosing an ISP, also be wary of anything too good to be true, especially with new entries into the ISP market. Many offer great deals and get you hooked into a contract, then try and use their member list as bait for a buy-out or sell-off down the road. You end up getting reeled into a bigger ISP with far less favorable conditions, and a hassle to find a new ISP. (Fool me once...)

My personal recommendation right now? TPG. They offer some of the best bandwidth limits per $, and no nasty hidden surprises. They also (currently) do not count uploads. (a trend soon disappearing I fear.) Probably the only significant downside is that like most ISPs now, they don't accept BPay. Essentially this means they auto-bill your credit card, which means another headache and series of long phone calls when they inevitably cock things up. Internode was also pretty good, but more expensive for what you get, especially if you're not looking for the flashest of speed and bandwidth quotas.

The ones not even worth considering? Dodo obviously, but also the major telcos. (Optus/Telstra) Surprisingly these have probably the largest number of subscribers, but average at least twice as expensive as quality competitors. Ironic, coming from Canada where the Telcos offer some of the best value for money as an ISP, but when I talked to Telstra upon ariving in Australia, my reaction to what they considered a "competitive" plan was "You can't be serious." I didn't need Whirlpool to smell that con.

Beware the long, wibbley-wobbley arm of the Law.

Whether you plan to come to Australia to visit or stay, one thing to be cautious of is the very odd interpretation of "Laws" that they use in this country. If you're famous, or otherwise deemed to be "important" than there are a completely different set of options available to you.

Case in point, Brisbane Bronco's assistant coach and ex-Player Allan Langer gets caught Drink-Driving at 3x the legal limit after losing a game. $1000 fine and 8mo. suspension of his license. Now normal people would also have a conviction recorded against them, but jumping to his defence his lawyer utters, "But think of my client's career." Apparently having a conviction recorded would have a negative impact on his career. Sorry? The last time I checked, doing something wrong, and illegal results in a conviction, and I don't care who you are but that generally results in a negative impact on your career. But I'm thinking if it works for Langer, then it should become an interesting argument for overturning convictions in the future. (Still, not as bone-headed as the Facebook Alibi that a NY judge conceeded. Talk about leaving a door WIDE open. Facebook Alibi) I mean the guy was probably innocent but what's to stop this kind of nonsense: "Joe: Yo! Tim, sit at my desk and send some Tweets about my Girl & Pancakes & stuff while I go find Sam and pop a cap in his ass!"

But if the courts here are one thing, they are flexible. You can get just about any case admitted into court, such as the legal pitbulls representing the motion picture industry taking an Australian ISP to court claiming that it was responsible for the potentially illegal download activities of its clients... Pretty much on the grounds that in advertising for a recent increase in bandwidth limits (which in Australia are already ridiculously expensive and puny) they mentioned downloading more MP3s and movies, and finished off with a cheery "Happy Downloading!". The BASTARDS! Oh wait, you can download "legal" MP3s and movies, you know, the stuff that you purchase online. It takes precious bandwidth to download that, and it's not like the film or music industries are compensating our additional bandwidth costs when we purchase them... Mind you, these are the people that torment those of us content to do the *right* thing and BUY DVDs just to get stuck watching several minutes of (often unskippable) propoganda about how it's wrong to steal movies.... Which I would think is one pretty appealing reason to pirate a copy of the damned movie just so you don't need to waste time ignoring that dribble. I hear the Blueray fans get even more annoying propoganda, to the point that someone demonstrated on Youtube that he could start downloading and watching a streamed, illegal version of the same movie faster than it took his Blueray copy of the movie to start playing. Still, back to the case at hand, I was amazed that it wasn't thrown out on day one; The Aussie courts/lawyers must be pretty hard up for money. This would be like trying to sue a gunshop for advertising a sale with the phrase "Happy Shooting!" on the basis that they could be incouraging folks to go out and murder someone. In the end, iiNet won the case... Hoorah! Now the movie industry has one more excuse to justify raising ticket and DVD prices, and the broadband enabled have one more excuse to start downloading instead of purchasing them. "Happy Downloading!"

Costco!

I love Australians. Only here can people be so blind-sided by change that they can somehow be quoted saying the most ridiculous things.

"THE nation's most powerful shopping centre owners are trying to stop the expansion of US discount warehouse chain Costco, claiming a planned multi-million dollar development is illegal.

In a raft of objections, the group - which includes Westfield, AMP and the Shopping Centre Council of Australia – says the proposed store is in breach of existing state planning laws, is 'inappropriate' and that to create any special exemptions would be 'anti-competitive' for other retailers."
Costco anti-competitive

"Anti-competitive"? Introducing competition is anti-competitive. Really, the beef they're trying to skewer is that the development site Costco found in Sydney isn't zoned in a manner that a shopping centre or grocery store chain couldn't be located there. Though Costco is neither a shopping centre or a grocery store. It seems that their protest was in vain, NSW is allowing Costco to go in as planned provided they provide infrastructure to deal with added traffic.

In a nutshell, local vendors are getting in a stink about new competition. I can't fault them on this, but they really should think about what they say before they open their mouths. :)

The simple fact is that if Australia wants to be taken seriously in the world market for more than just being a source of raw materials, it's going to have to swallow its pride and open its doors to that world market. Australian businesses are spoiled by teet-to-grave protection from foreign competition which is dangerously self-destructive. A good case of this was ABC Learning centres which was doing fantastic business here in Australia where it was founded... Until it did so well it decided to branch off into the U.S. where it had NO FREAKING perspective on the child-care funding practices in the U.S. NOTHING like the reliable, punctual hand-outs by the Australian gov't. In the end they lost control, garbled their auditing, and ended up sinking leaving the taxpayer to clean up the mess.

So, my thoughts about Costco? BRING IT ON! I can't wait until one shows up in Brisbane.

Apples

A rather curious recent development. Australia banned apple and pear imports from New Zealand nearly 90 years ago after a disease outbreak in NZ in the 1920. This ban has been finally successfully appealed to the WTO by NZ growers. Australian growers will now lose much of the protection they had, and will have to compete with imports. Good news for consumers, crunch time for growers that have become complacent without competition.

Still, one quote from Australian growers left me smiling:
"Apple and Pear Australia Limited general manager Tony Russell said there were still persuasive arguments about the pest and disease risk posed by Kiwi apples.
'Rather than erring on the side of conservatism they have decided to take a more pro-trade stance and I think that's a rather dangerous precedent,' he said.
'This would be a slap in the face to Biosecurity Australia in terms of their ability to conduct impact risk assessments.'

Mr Russell also rejected claims Australian shoppers would get more choice, as New Zealand had 'nothing particularly flash' to offer.

Pink Ladies were Australia's favourite apples, and the best were home grown, he said."

That last statement is like saying Trebants were East German's favorite cars. A favorite amongst seriously limited options, come on now!

Not that Pink Ladies aren't a good apple, but damn, bring in some B.C. McIntosh's if you want a flash apple!

Not in Kansas anymore.

In 2004 I moved from Edmonton to Brisbane. If you put your fingers on a globe that's pretty close to the precise opposite ends of the world. Quite a few people asked why I moved to Brisbane. Simply put, "Weather". Edmonton is lovely in the summer. The sun's up nice and early, and it stays light out until quite late in the evening. Where else can you play 18 holes of golf after work? But winter on the other hand is a dreary, depressing affair. You wake up and it's dark & cold, drive to work, sit indoors through the day, and by the time your shift is done, it's a dark & cold drive home, usually with a pause to shovel the fresh snow off the driveway before you can pull into the garage. You must shovel it or those tire ruts it will quickly compress down into caked speedbumps which will make future shovelling attempts an absolute hell.

So their next question is "why Brisbane?" Well, that one is a little more interesting. I'd considered going down to the U.S. I'd spent some time around Seattle and it was pretty much like Edmonton, except not so cold, not quite so dark, but a whole lot more wet. My criteria for a new home was that it had to be warm enough to be able to play Golf year round, and free of serious natural or man-made disasters. South-Central California and the South-East seaboard were out. I didn't feel like experiencing Earthquakes and Huricanes first-hand. Man-made disasters basically boiled down to C.C.W. (Carry Concealed Weapons) This knocked out most States warm enough to play Golf that had a reasonable software development presence. The only other requirement was that it had to be English speaking. I spent a week in Dresden, Germany. absolutely lovely place but it was a good taste of how stressful a place can be when you don't speak the language. I spent a month in Malaysia, and the company I worked with at the time was prepared to offer me a position in their offices down there when I told them I was going to move to Australia. Malaysia is an awesome place, and English is common enough to get by without too much trouble, but it is one heck of a hot and muggy climate you need to deal with there. The most uncomfortable experience is trying to have a shower. You feel exactly the same going in, during, and coming out. You hang your wash out for at least 2 days before it's dry. Australia was about as good as I could think of. Warm, not too wet, tough gun control, and not prone to many natural disasters. (I wasn't going to be living up in the tropics.) But why Brisbane? I come from a small city. I like cities, but not really large cities. They're busy, crowded, expensive, bleah. Sydney and Melbourne were out. Perth was too isolated, Canberra was too central. (I always wanted to live near the ocean) That really left Adelaide and Brisbane. A quick search of the job market showed Brisbane having nearly as many I.T. job vacancies as Melbourne. Brisbane it was, and still is.