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.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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