Category: Uncategorized

Hazelwatch: Discussing the residue left on her foot from a band-aid applied yesterday, she came out with:
“If I don’t hurt myself, I won’t need a band-aid, and I won’t get any sticky stuff on my foot.”

iPad Prices in Australia

Because spreadsheets aren’t all bad, I just ran some numbers on how much Macs cost here in Australia, compared to the US. GST was removed from the Australian price, as sales tax is not part of the advertised US price.

You’re left with an effective exchange rate. Prices usually only change when a model is refreshed, so the rate varies from model to model. Right now, Mac Pros are most overpriced (US$1=AU$1.31) and the best deal is the MacBook (US$1=AU$1.18). There are smaller fluctuations made locally to make the price end in a “99” (or a “49” for the cheapest Mac mini).

The average is US$1=$AU1.22.

That all means that the Wifi iPads will probably be $649/$799/$950 (if we’re lucky) or $699/$849/$999 (if we’re not). The AU$ is strong and has been for a little while, so let’s hope it’s the lower of the two numbers.

Please feel free to correct my numbers if you wish.

US Price AU Price ex GST AU Price inc GST
iPad WiFi 1 499 A$611.39 A$672.53
iPad WiFi 2 599 A$733.91 A$807.30
iPad WiFi 3 699 A$856.43 A$942.08
iPad WiFi+3G 1 629 A$770.67 A$847.74
iPad WiFi+3G 2 729 A$893.19 A$982.51
iPad WiFi+3G 3 829 A$1,015.71 A$1,117.29

How To Research

As an ex-university teacher, a little advice for new university students writing essays.

You have to reference your sources. Wikipedia is great, but it isn’t acceptable as a reference. It’s also what a vast number of your colleagues just read. Easy way out: read a Wikipedia article for background, then skip to its reference section at the end. Read those articles and reference them if they’re useful. Read something else too. For the moment, anything printed on a dead tree carries more weight (figurative and literal) than work on the web.

A Recipe

To even out the posts on Hazel and on technology, I thought I’d post a recipe. I do most of the cooking at the moment, and nearly always make something that’s quick — not much time between getting home and Hazel’s bedtime. So:

Creamy Bacon Gnocchi. Serves 3ish.

Put a kettle of water on to boil for gnocchi later.
Put a large wok-style saucepan on medium-high heat. Add olive oil.
Cut about 6 short-cut rashers of bacon into small squares and add to the pan. Give them a minute or two.
Cut a large handful of green beans into short pieces.
Shake the bacon up and add the beans on the top.
Cut a zucchini into small pieces.
Shake the pan again and add the zucchini.
Chop up a large tomato into pieces and throw that in the pan too.
Add a teaspoon of pesto to the pan (whatever’s in the fridge). Shake it all up.
Add a drizzle of cream if you have it, shake it up, then turn the pan down.
Put the freshly boiled water into a pan on high and get it back up to the boil.
In your fresh pan, cook a packet of baby gnocchi (Golden Pasta brand are good; they’ll be done as soon as the pan comes back to the boil).
Shake the other pan up one more time. Add fresh basil if you have some.
Drain the gnocchi when done, add to wide bowls. Spoon the topping over it.
Add freshly grated parmesan and enjoy with red wine.

(Original recipe. Share and enjoy.)

Why Junk Mail Matters

If you keep up with Apple you’ll doubtless be watching very closely for the new iPad/Slate/whatever tablet-style computer-thing to be released next Thursday morning, 4am Brisbane time. You might even be wondering what it will be good for? If you have a laptop and an iPhone, why would you need anything else? Well, a few reasons.

Living without a letterbox, we don’t get junk mail. That’s made me realise the power of a piece of print: it hangs around. Simply because it’s there, it gets read at breakfast, dinner, whenever. We still get the RACQ monthly magazine and it hangs about too. As we aren’t fans of the local newspaper, we simply don’t get one.

A tablet computer which actively presented news to me would be left around the house — in a way a laptop isn’t — and would actually get read. Reading a lot on the iPhone can be a pain, simply because of the size of the screen. However, I have read books on it, and I read The Guardian a lot more now that I have their app. I can choose to see more of what I want to read and skip the ads. As with the iPhone itself, it’s all about making the experience better, easier to use. Yes, I could read the website for free, but I’ll pay (once!) for the ability to easily find Charlie Brooker’s latest rants and see my news on the front page.

So, hanging around the house. Surfing, reading and watching videos from bed or sofa. Sure. But the thing that would really make a difference? Imagine what the best iPhone apps could offer if they had much more screen space. Think about your current apps (games for starters) and I think you’ll find a few things you’d love even more if they were bigger.

There are already screen-sharing/remote control apps which let you see your local Macs on your phone — much more useful showing the full screen. A holiday computer with a Lonely Planet app that gives you an interactive version of a guidebook, with maps in English that locate you — but guidebook-sized. A 5MP still/HD video camera with a 10″ viewfinder? Hell yeah. A video-chatting machine that’s much lighter and easier to use than the current solutions? Yes please. Some truly cool stuff from the multi-touch interface is a given.

People like apps because Apple made them accessible and easy to buy. Applications on a Mac or a PC are still a scary concept for most people — if it didn’t come pre-installed, it doesn’t exist. Computers scare people. iPhones don’t. The tablet probably won’t either.

Hazel Loves iPhones

Hazelwatch: while being driven, by Nana, to a party on the weekend. (Hazel likes to watch Meg and Mog cartoons on the iPhone; she’s only allowed on the way home.)

“Can I watch Meg and Mog on the iPhone Nana?”
“I don’t have an iPhone Hazel. I’ve got an ordinary phone, but it doesn’t have Meg and Mog on it.”
“Oh. You’d better go to the shop and buy an iPhone right now!”

She’s her father’s daughter.

Movies, 2000-2009

Inspired by The Onion AV Club’s lists of the last decade, I thought I’d record my favourite films of the last ten years. I’m sure I’ll miss some, but that’s the nature of the beast. They’re not the best, necessarily, but the ones I remember fondly and will watch again. In no particular order but with Pixar first:

Up (wonderful, a 3D marvel)
Wall-E (genius on many levels)
Ratatouille (just brilliant, happy making cinema)
Children of Men (in which Clive Owen is good)
Memento (twistedly good)
The Lord of The Rings (yes, all 3, extended editions)
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (oddness goes mainstream)
Amélie (joy)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes! You Rock!)
The Life Aquatic (Wes!)
Sunshine (a modern day Silent Running — track that down if you’ve never heard of it)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen in Europe!)
Wonder Boys (so many great elements)
Sideways (for re-inventing American Indie films)
Michael Clayton (George Clooney and Tilda Swinton in fine form)
Burn After Reading (The Coens can’t fail)
Lost In Translation (so slight, but the memories are happy)
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (unusual, beautiful)
Stranger Than Fiction (surprisingly enjoyable)
The Barbarian Invasions (a superb film about death after life)

and the worst I had the misfortune to see:
King Arthur (in which Clive Owen is not good and the direction is staggeringly bad)
Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (so bad we turned it off; the highlight is in the extras where the director is proud of the largest set ever made that houses two full-size galleons in one shot, and then the effects guy casually mentions that they mostly painted the second boat out)
Transformers 2 (abysmal, awful, horrible)