Everyone is bagging the iPad for not having a camera, GPS or other "basic" hardware features - including me. I've had some time to think about it- and I'm recanting my disappointment.

What needs to be understood is that a shopping list of hardware components is not what Apple products are about. When talking about the iPod, Apple makes sure to tell you that it can hold 2,000 songs in addition to the fact that it's a 8 GB iPod - the song information is more useful to the average user.

Likewise, the lack of camera and GPS are not the important points for a consumer- it's that they can buy lots of books off a shelf and flip through them, page by page- just like a paper book. Expect the iPad to be marketed as "Can hold 10,000 books!"

It's the practical user experience and utility to the average person that Apple cares about- and this is why they succeed.

It's Australia's equivalent of the 4th of July with a tinge of Thanksgiving. A time to give thanks for living in the "Lucky Country". I am happy to be an Australian and thankful for what it has to offer. Here's what I'm thankful for:

1. It's a nice place for a family- with a large, expanding middle-class.
2. Good schools
3. National healthcare
4. Mild weather
5. Suffered the least in the GFC of any country in the world (so far)
6. Good public infrastructure - museums, libraries and transport

Of course I can't help but make a list of things that I'm not so crazy about.

1. The country is soaked in booze - especially on a day like this.
2. Superficial materialism - big screen tellies and italian tile floors for everyone!
3. A certain prejudging of foreigners - if you behave in a certain way or have a certain alternative belief, it is inevitably due to your foreignness.
4. A lack of neighborliness. Maybe this is a global thing, but neighborhoods seem to have dried up here. Everyone lives completely inside their house.

... to someone who thinks that eventually computer networks will wake-up and gain sentience.

If you've been following the recent SCOTUS ruling that confers individual rights to corporate entities- you know what I'm talking about.



I'm predicting that eventually networks of data like Google, Wikipedia, banks and more will be more than dumb repositories of information. So it makes sense to talk about a network's right to free-speech, privacy and er ... right to bear arms ... (uh oh).

The corporate person of Google's right to free speech has been trampled on in China. Rather than endure this, it's contemplating exile.

We may all be working for corporate people eventually - let's hope they're good bosses.

I had a banner Christmas. Aside from my Aeropress, my favourite gift is my OXX Wifi Internet Radio.


Here's me tuning into a classic rock station in Anchorage, Alaska.

I know all of these internet radio stations are available through my laptop- but it's pretty cool to have a dedicated appliance with presets- I can flip from "Sikh Radio Punjab" to "KINE radio Hawaii" with just a button. We had a relative visiting from Ireland over Christmas- and we tuned in on local AM radio from Limerick- to play during Christmas dinner. It's so cool to have basically a radio that tunes in on every station in the world. (not every station of course - there are some exceptions)

The other nice feature is that it has a DAB mode. DAB is a terrestrial digital radio format that broadcasts locally here in Australia. I don't think it exists in the US (?) but it's like XM or Sirius, except free- no satellites involved, and not as many stations. We use this for when we want to just leave the radio on all day- because the Internet radio does chew into my broadband.

I have a copy of Avatar in my brain. Admittedly, it's a bad copy- worse than the worst Russian screener out there. What can I legally do with my Avatar copy?

What if stood in a town square and vividly recreated the movie for a crowd of fans- using my brain-copy to make funny voices and pantomimes and such. Is that a breach of copyright?

I can imagine a future wherein you have to pay a subscription fee if you want to retain the copy of a movie in your brain- don't pay and the movie is scrubbed from your memory.

Copy-protection would be a neural block to prevent me from relating the story of a movie to friends:

"It was so awesome, first the ngyyayayaya!" (biting tongue and convulsing)

This completely made my day.

via: Reddit

I'm having a bit of a weekus horribilus- this first week of 2010.

On Monday I dropped my iPhone and shattered the screen glass.

On Tuesday I had an accident in the toilet involving a shortage of toilet paper, a shattered cup of coffee and brown spattered walls. (it was coffee!)

On Wednesday I got a $40 ticket for jaywalking. Basically crossing on a crosswalk while it was flashing, and not exiting by the time it had stopped flashing.

On Thursday I got my Three iPhone bill for December. It's usually around $79. This time it was $435.91. Something horribly wrong there.

So anyway - looking forward to Friday - I'll keep you posted.

... But not to VideoSift of course. Has anyone tried this? (Possibly NSFW Text)

1. Be more diligent about tracking my spending/income
2. Lose 30 Pounds

That's it. I'm sure I just need to learn the 1 weird old tip for losing stomach fat. Now where have I seen that?

We're also getting tingling sensations about migrating back to the USA. We've been in Australia 10 years - most statutes of limitations run out at 10 years right?

Here's my list:

OXX DAB radio with Wi-fi I love it, seriously good sound quality for a little box - frees up my laptop and (broadband bandwidth) because the DAB terrestrial stations here are really good.

AeroPress Coffee Maker This little gadget blows expensive espresso makers away - very simple, but possibly the best homemade cup of coffee I've ever had.

Sunbeam Conical Burr Grinder No muss no fuss - fresh ground beans on demand.

Two recent paperback from my favorite authors (*amazoned below)

So what did you get?

It's almost Christmas Eve here in Australia. I've got my wrapping done and I'm settling into the sofa with a nice glass of white. It's been a stormy Christmas here in Brisbane - I wish it was a white one, but I'll take wet - at least it keeps things cool outside. Inside Persephone is boiling puddings on the cooker - and the whole house feels like the deepest, steamiest jungle.

I'm not quite ready to get into review mode for the past year, and plans for the future - I'll save that for a New Year's post. I am thinking about it though- reflecting on the almost 4 years that VideoSift has been around - and what the future holds.

For now though - I'm wishing you all a mellow, stress-free break. Go see Avatar and have one of those egg nog lattes if you can find one. Man I wish they had those here.

I haven't had any ideas for a Tee Virus design lately, but I'm pretty happy with this one. Feedback welcome!

This movie breaks all kinds of new ground. Cameron has made a beautiful and completely believable alien world. Not only was the story great, but it's the first CGI movie that realistically portrays human-like creatures without getting stuck in the uncanny valley. I agree with Roger Ebert- that the trick to making it work is by not trying to make them exactly human-like in their bodies and faces.

When I saw the trailers- I thought the CGI looked kind of lurid and exaggerated- like a cut-scene from StarCraft or similar video game. But after about 10 minutes of viewing the inhabitants of Pandora - I was completely immersed- not noticing or caring what parts were CGI or live action.

Go see this movie on the biggest screen you can find- don't wait for the video.

In 1999 I worked as a contractor for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) in Arizona. In July of that year, I quit because we decided to move to my partner’s terra natal- Australia.

The idea was to buy a car, drive up to the tourist area of tropical Cairns (pronounced “cans”) and get touristy jobs with our increasingly rusty Japanese. We managed to get there, but the jobs were not forthcoming. We were down to our last thousand dollars when I got an email from my former employers asking if I wanted to work a 4-6 month gig in Japan. They needed a “Y2K consultant” who could speak Japanese and had the proper clearances. I had no previous experience as a Y2K consultant- I’m not a Cobol programmer- but money was getting thin so I jumped at it. My partner went back to Southern Queensland (Brisbane area) to set up house- and I flew directly out of Cairns to Tokyo. I had no idea what I was getting into.
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As you may know, I've been engaged in a dialog on Facebook with Russ, a young earth creationist minister. I really have to hand it to Facebook- it's exposed me to people that I would not normally get into a conversation with. I hate to say it, but our site can be a bit of an echo chamber at times - and I value to the opportunity to talk to people who are so far out from the majority philosophy here. Read on for the fun conversation:
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This post has made me think about religion and Atheism.

I'm afraid I come across as an Atheist evangelist. I don't really want to convert religious people to Atheism - (I'd rather convert a PC user to a Mac). I do wish that religion was an order of magnitude less important in people's life - say maybe on a level with astrology.

I do think that atheism is becoming more mainstream, accepted - and a "movement" centered around leaders like Dawkins and Hitchens. I wonder what the world would be like if say 85% of the world professed atheism?

It's possible that things would be much, much worse. It could be akin to taking people of their anti-depressants. Maybe we don't want to have the majority of people facing the fact of their own mortality.

I saw Ricky's new movie The Invention of Lying the other day- it was a subtle appeal for atheism that portrayed a completely rational, truthful world where everyone knew they were going to be eaten by worms when they died. But I wonder if the meaning of the movie kind of back-fired. The people in the rational world were completely miserable with the truth. (Kind of a shit movie by the way - not Ricky Gervais' finest work)

I saw something on 60 Minutes a few years ago on a study that was looking at what common characteristics centenarians shared. The single most prevalent trait was a deep, deep faith. All of them went to church on a weekly basis. And this is silly to confess, and completely irrational but I sometimes think about Carl Sagan's relatively young death from Myelodysplastic syndrome and wonder what his health would have been like if he was a church deacon.

Here's an idea. Maybe faith has been selected for by evolution. People who "let go and let God" are more likely to live a long, healthy life and procreate - and so religion has been baked into our genetic code.

Scary thought.

So, I got friended by this very prolific young earth preacher on Facebook. I'm trying to convert him to Atheism. So far, I think it's going pretty well.
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I'm not saying that Tom's Quality Comfort Air Conditioning want to sodomize your pets, but they might- and I'm getting tired of comment spam.

So- when you Google "Tom's Quality Comfort", here's hoping you are reminded that this company may or may not be behind a conspiracy to do unspeakable acts with your beloved pet.

And I have something to say.
spoilers ahead ...
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I crossed off bucket list item #37 and made it to an Apple Store grand opening. This is the first Apple Store in Brisbane, so is kind of a big deal. If I believed in heaven, I would want the pearly gates experience to run something like this - replace the people in the pastel tees with dead friends and family.

Apple Store Opening - Chermside from dagmaggot on Vimeo.