Geekery
Yesterday, I attended an Australian Rules football game at the former Olympic Stadium in Sydney. The game was enjoyable, although my team were a bit soft towards the end and lost, and the game was a little lacking in atmosphere. (Even in its reduced post-olympic form, the stadium seats 80000, and there were only 33000 at the game). After the game, I went into a bar outside the ground. Before getting in, a bouncer wanted to look inside my bag, presumably to check I was not carrying any other alcoholic drinks (or something).
"Can I check your bag".
(Assenting grunt). (Bouncer looks inside bag).
"Is that a Walkman"?
"No, it's a DVD-ROM drive".
"Okay, that's fine".
The DVD-ROM drive was bought for only A$25. (£10) in one of those little computer shops run by Chinese people that Sydney has in abundance. My Mum's computer does not have a DVD-ROM drive as it is a year or two old, and that is so cheap that I felt pretty much compelled to buy one to add to it.
Update: The DVD-ROM drive came from a well known company (Creative, who also are well known for their Soundblaster sound cards and who are also a distant number 2 in the MP3 player business behind Apple), but it was an old model. This had two disadvantages: the first is that the drive is 12x speed rather than the seeming current standard of 16x; the second is that the software it came with was for Windows 2000 rather than Windows XP. This explains the low price to some extent, as I had to find some appropriate XP compatible software before it would play DVDs. Now that I have done so and installed the software, however, the drive works just fine. Definitely a bargain.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
Good news
My laptop has apparently been fixed and returned by Dell. Of course, it is in London and I am in Sydney. Given that I will have only occasional access to other computers for the next few days, it would be nice to have it with me. (Also, given that the whole point of getting a laptop is to have your computer with you when you go on trips like this one, it would be good to have it from that perspective, too).
My laptop has apparently been fixed and returned by Dell. Of course, it is in London and I am in Sydney. Given that I will have only occasional access to other computers for the next few days, it would be nice to have it with me. (Also, given that the whole point of getting a laptop is to have your computer with you when you go on trips like this one, it would be good to have it from that perspective, too).
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Starbucksology
When Starbucks entered the Australian market in 2000, they charged a rather excessive 60c Australian for an extra shot of espresso. A tall latte cost $3.45, which meant that a double tall latte cost $4.05. In the competitive Australian cafe business, this seemed a bit excessive, and it wasn't too surprising that a few months later they cut the cost of a second shot to 25c, so that a double tall latte cost $3.70. Presumably Starbucks thought that they could thus sell more double shot coffees than before and make it up in the volume. (This strategy has been tried elsewhere. In the UK the price of a second shot was recently cut from 40p to 15p).
However, going into an Australian Starbucks yesterday, I discovered that the cost of an extra shot has been cut further. To zero. So a double tall latte now costs $3.45, the same as an ordinary tall latte. So Starbucks cannot now make it up in the volume. Ot at least they can't if all it does is cause people who would have ordered a single shot latte to now buy a double shot latte. Clearly to make it up in the volume they have to sell more cups of coffee in total. Which means that they presumably have to win business off their competition.
And competition appears intense. Australia traditionally had a more traditional southern European (actually Italian) coffee culture. Regular readers will know that I have thought that although Starbucks are successful in Australia, this traditional coffee culture might make it hard for chains of Starbucks clones to come into being the way that they have in other countries without traditional cafe cultures. However, I think I may have been wrong. Starbucks clones now are strongly in evidence in Australia, and the cafe culture is becoming Starbucksified. It may be the competition from such clones that has caused Starbucks to lower some of their prices.
But more on that tomorrow.
When Starbucks entered the Australian market in 2000, they charged a rather excessive 60c Australian for an extra shot of espresso. A tall latte cost $3.45, which meant that a double tall latte cost $4.05. In the competitive Australian cafe business, this seemed a bit excessive, and it wasn't too surprising that a few months later they cut the cost of a second shot to 25c, so that a double tall latte cost $3.70. Presumably Starbucks thought that they could thus sell more double shot coffees than before and make it up in the volume. (This strategy has been tried elsewhere. In the UK the price of a second shot was recently cut from 40p to 15p).
However, going into an Australian Starbucks yesterday, I discovered that the cost of an extra shot has been cut further. To zero. So a double tall latte now costs $3.45, the same as an ordinary tall latte. So Starbucks cannot now make it up in the volume. Ot at least they can't if all it does is cause people who would have ordered a single shot latte to now buy a double shot latte. Clearly to make it up in the volume they have to sell more cups of coffee in total. Which means that they presumably have to win business off their competition.
And competition appears intense. Australia traditionally had a more traditional southern European (actually Italian) coffee culture. Regular readers will know that I have thought that although Starbucks are successful in Australia, this traditional coffee culture might make it hard for chains of Starbucks clones to come into being the way that they have in other countries without traditional cafe cultures. However, I think I may have been wrong. Starbucks clones now are strongly in evidence in Australia, and the cafe culture is becoming Starbucksified. It may be the competition from such clones that has caused Starbucks to lower some of their prices.
But more on that tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Quick thoughts so I will have blogged something today
I finally managed a day yesterday in which I was not loading and unloading stuff from trailers, and instead managed to go to Sydney. The thing that I am really struck by is the extent to which Sydney is really a Pacific Rim city these days. In 50 years people are going to look back and wonder that Sydney was once not a Chinese city, as on current trends by then it will be at least as Chinese as is Singapore. Sydney would be dull and sleepy without this Chinese influx, and it does make the city much more exciting. And much more prosperous.
On the other hand, I think it is surprising that there are so few Indians in Sydney (and Australia generally). There are far more than there were even five years ago, although they are still almost absent compared to, say, London or even Singapore. (That said, I was having a couple of drinks with a friend of mine in a bar in a fairly posh Sydney hotel yesterday, and I kept glancing at the stunningly beautiful Indian woman at the next table). With the rise of India in the world, this must change surely, but the Indians have certainly given the Chinese a big head start.
I finally managed a day yesterday in which I was not loading and unloading stuff from trailers, and instead managed to go to Sydney. The thing that I am really struck by is the extent to which Sydney is really a Pacific Rim city these days. In 50 years people are going to look back and wonder that Sydney was once not a Chinese city, as on current trends by then it will be at least as Chinese as is Singapore. Sydney would be dull and sleepy without this Chinese influx, and it does make the city much more exciting. And much more prosperous.
On the other hand, I think it is surprising that there are so few Indians in Sydney (and Australia generally). There are far more than there were even five years ago, although they are still almost absent compared to, say, London or even Singapore. (That said, I was having a couple of drinks with a friend of mine in a bar in a fairly posh Sydney hotel yesterday, and I kept glancing at the stunningly beautiful Indian woman at the next table). With the rise of India in the world, this must change surely, but the Indians have certainly given the Chinese a big head start.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Idiocy
Glenn Reynolds has already linked to it, but this essay giving a history of American drug prohibition is well worth a read. (In fact it is really good). The section about how cannabis came to be made illegal and got to be legally regarded as amongst the worst of drugs is particularly illuminating and simultaneously utterly hilarious.
Glenn Reynolds has already linked to it, but this essay giving a history of American drug prohibition is well worth a read. (In fact it is really good). The section about how cannabis came to be made illegal and got to be legally regarded as amongst the worst of drugs is particularly illuminating and simultaneously utterly hilarious.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
The trouble with hacked together technology
I have been sending SMS messages from my mobile, using a local (Vodafone) SIM here in Australia, to a friend who is registered with the O2 network in the UK but who has been holidaying in Spain and whose phone is thus roaming. Some of them have been arriving instantly, and some have been taking as much as several days. I have also been sending messages to a few people in the UK. Some are getting through, but I am unsure about others. It could be that there is some latency there, but it could also just be that my friends are slack in replying.
I have been sending SMS messages from my mobile, using a local (Vodafone) SIM here in Australia, to a friend who is registered with the O2 network in the UK but who has been holidaying in Spain and whose phone is thus roaming. Some of them have been arriving instantly, and some have been taking as much as several days. I have also been sending messages to a few people in the UK. Some are getting through, but I am unsure about others. It could be that there is some latency there, but it could also just be that my friends are slack in replying.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
New ethnic groups
Any major airport (particularly the sort of long haul airport where lots of people change planes) has a bar where people who find themselves stuck in the airport for a few hours (due to a change of plane or a refueling need for the plane they are on or similar) can spend the time drinking beer. When travelling from Europe to Australia I occasionally find myself in one of these bars. This one is the one on the roof of Singapore Changi international airport, which I visisted on the way through to Australia last week. This one is quite intriguing, because it is on the roof, and there is a small area costisting of a bar and cactus garden. (The two photos that follow were taken from approximately the same spot, but looking in opposite directions)
If you go for a drink in such a bar (as I tend to when in such airports) the sorts of people you meet tend to be thirty and forty something types who look like they have suffered from a bit of wear and tear. (This is of course at least partly jetlag. They no doubt look less so when they are relaxed and at home, wherever on planet earth that may be). They tend to be Anglophone, British and former dominions of the British empire types: English, Australians, New Zealanders, the odd South African, the very odd Canadian. (Not Americans, however). They tend to be the sorts of people who are doing okay but are not extremely prosperous, and who work at the type of profession for which the work is spread around the world and usually employs independent contractors rather than employees. (Now that I think about it, there is a lovely portrait of the type of person I am talking about in Neal Stephenson's 1996 Wired Essay Mother Earth Mother Board from 1996. He is talking about people laying undersea fibre optic cable, but the image is more general than that. In any event, such people seem to form an ethnic group of their own. The national origins become irrelevant (other than that general British Empire sort of type) and they all become relatively similar in the bar.
And the bars are very similar, whether you are in Tokyo, Singapore, Bangkok, or Manila, although in superficial terms they might have strange unique features such as cactus gardens. (They do vary a bit when you get outside Asia. The subculture I mentioned will still exist, but perhaps only in one corner of the bar). You find yourself stranded airside in such an airport, and you know that a familiar bar will be there somewhere, and you eventually do find it at the end of a dingy corridor, where you walk inside and you find the same expats as always. It will not be necessary to change your money first: the bar will take your sterling or Australian dollars, although they will frown on South African rand. You will sit down, and start a friendly chat with people next to you.
Other types of frequent travellers are not to be found in the bar. Actual employees who travel a lot are to be found in business and first class lounges in comfort, away from the hoi poloi. I used to (briefly) be one of that kind of person. I rather prefer the bar with the expats. Perhaps this is why I no longer am that kind of person.
These days, some airport terminals have a different kind of lure, which is a free internet cafe. If I have to waste two or three hours in a terminal, this can sometimes be a better way to make the time pass than can an expat bar. However, it depends on the circumstances. There is a particularly good free internet terminal in Tokyo Narita airport, even if the security requirements are irritating. There is one at Changi, but when I was there it only had four terminals, and two were out of order. This meant endless queueing for a short period on the internet, which made it possible to check e-mail, but no good for making time pass. To while the time when I was waiting, I did take a photo, but the lighting was weird, and my digital camera does not handle weird lighting very well.
While the bar would certainly have taken Australian dollars or sterling, as it happened I had spent all my sterling in the bar at Heathrow, and I didn't want to spend my Australian dollars because I still wanted to have some when I arrived in Melbourne, so I got 20 Singapore dollars (about A$20 or £8) out of a cash machine. I didn't spend all of them, because I thought it would be good to still have some when changing planes in Singapore on the way back, which I was intending to do.
As it happened, though, I have delayed my departure from Australia by four days and the only flight I could get back was via Tokyo. (I have a four hour layover in Tokyo in fact). It is quite possible (indeed likely) that the bar in Tokyo will take Singapore dollars, but it is not quite as certain. So I may have to keep the Singapore dollars in my wallet until next time I find myself in Singapore. But that will no doubt not be before too long.
And by coming back via Tokyo instead of the Sydney-Singapore-Frankfurt-London routing I was taking originally, I have lost the two days in Germany I was intending to reward myself with on the way back. Oh well. It is at least possible to buy draught Erdinger in London.
Any major airport (particularly the sort of long haul airport where lots of people change planes) has a bar where people who find themselves stuck in the airport for a few hours (due to a change of plane or a refueling need for the plane they are on or similar) can spend the time drinking beer. When travelling from Europe to Australia I occasionally find myself in one of these bars. This one is the one on the roof of Singapore Changi international airport, which I visisted on the way through to Australia last week. This one is quite intriguing, because it is on the roof, and there is a small area costisting of a bar and cactus garden. (The two photos that follow were taken from approximately the same spot, but looking in opposite directions)
If you go for a drink in such a bar (as I tend to when in such airports) the sorts of people you meet tend to be thirty and forty something types who look like they have suffered from a bit of wear and tear. (This is of course at least partly jetlag. They no doubt look less so when they are relaxed and at home, wherever on planet earth that may be). They tend to be Anglophone, British and former dominions of the British empire types: English, Australians, New Zealanders, the odd South African, the very odd Canadian. (Not Americans, however). They tend to be the sorts of people who are doing okay but are not extremely prosperous, and who work at the type of profession for which the work is spread around the world and usually employs independent contractors rather than employees. (Now that I think about it, there is a lovely portrait of the type of person I am talking about in Neal Stephenson's 1996 Wired Essay Mother Earth Mother Board from 1996. He is talking about people laying undersea fibre optic cable, but the image is more general than that. In any event, such people seem to form an ethnic group of their own. The national origins become irrelevant (other than that general British Empire sort of type) and they all become relatively similar in the bar.
And the bars are very similar, whether you are in Tokyo, Singapore, Bangkok, or Manila, although in superficial terms they might have strange unique features such as cactus gardens. (They do vary a bit when you get outside Asia. The subculture I mentioned will still exist, but perhaps only in one corner of the bar). You find yourself stranded airside in such an airport, and you know that a familiar bar will be there somewhere, and you eventually do find it at the end of a dingy corridor, where you walk inside and you find the same expats as always. It will not be necessary to change your money first: the bar will take your sterling or Australian dollars, although they will frown on South African rand. You will sit down, and start a friendly chat with people next to you.
Other types of frequent travellers are not to be found in the bar. Actual employees who travel a lot are to be found in business and first class lounges in comfort, away from the hoi poloi. I used to (briefly) be one of that kind of person. I rather prefer the bar with the expats. Perhaps this is why I no longer am that kind of person.
These days, some airport terminals have a different kind of lure, which is a free internet cafe. If I have to waste two or three hours in a terminal, this can sometimes be a better way to make the time pass than can an expat bar. However, it depends on the circumstances. There is a particularly good free internet terminal in Tokyo Narita airport, even if the security requirements are irritating. There is one at Changi, but when I was there it only had four terminals, and two were out of order. This meant endless queueing for a short period on the internet, which made it possible to check e-mail, but no good for making time pass. To while the time when I was waiting, I did take a photo, but the lighting was weird, and my digital camera does not handle weird lighting very well.
While the bar would certainly have taken Australian dollars or sterling, as it happened I had spent all my sterling in the bar at Heathrow, and I didn't want to spend my Australian dollars because I still wanted to have some when I arrived in Melbourne, so I got 20 Singapore dollars (about A$20 or £8) out of a cash machine. I didn't spend all of them, because I thought it would be good to still have some when changing planes in Singapore on the way back, which I was intending to do.
As it happened, though, I have delayed my departure from Australia by four days and the only flight I could get back was via Tokyo. (I have a four hour layover in Tokyo in fact). It is quite possible (indeed likely) that the bar in Tokyo will take Singapore dollars, but it is not quite as certain. So I may have to keep the Singapore dollars in my wallet until next time I find myself in Singapore. But that will no doubt not be before too long.
And by coming back via Tokyo instead of the Sydney-Singapore-Frankfurt-London routing I was taking originally, I have lost the two days in Germany I was intending to reward myself with on the way back. Oh well. It is at least possible to buy draught Erdinger in London.
Friday, April 16, 2004
For those who are wondering
What I am presently doing in Australia is assisting my parents, who are moving house. My father has lived in the same house for more than 50 years, and my mother has lived there for nearly 40. It is a deeply strange and in some ways disturbing experience, because a lot of it involves sorting through childhood possessions, school books, university notes, and all sorts of relics of the first 20 years of my life, and figuring out just what to keep. Many of these things are things I would never look at again, but they have very distinct memories attached to them. It's very difficult, and at times quite painful.
What I am presently doing in Australia is assisting my parents, who are moving house. My father has lived in the same house for more than 50 years, and my mother has lived there for nearly 40. It is a deeply strange and in some ways disturbing experience, because a lot of it involves sorting through childhood possessions, school books, university notes, and all sorts of relics of the first 20 years of my life, and figuring out just what to keep. Many of these things are things I would never look at again, but they have very distinct memories attached to them. It's very difficult, and at times quite painful.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Redirection
I have a piece in which I basically just quote Bruce Schneier at length as to why ID cards will not make us safer over at The White Rose.
I have a piece in which I basically just quote Bruce Schneier at length as to why ID cards will not make us safer over at The White Rose.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Redirection
I have a piece that ended up being about Brian Lara's triple century against England over at ubersportingpundit.
I have a piece that ended up being about Brian Lara's triple century against England over at ubersportingpundit.
Stuff I didn't get around to posting before I left England
Southall is an Indian dominated district in West London. (If you have seen the film Bend it Like Beckham, much of the movie is set there). I am more familiar with the Indian dominated districts in South London, for instance the area around Tooting. However, while that are contains a lot of muslims as well as hindus, Southall contains fewer muslims and a lot of sikhs. Like Tooting, Southall is full of extraordinarily useful shops. For instance, there are none of those problems you sometimes run into when you need pooja accessories.
And although there are fewer muslims than in some areas, they are certainly not entirely absent.
And I don't know quite what to make of this extraordinary vehicle. It is parked outside a Tandoori house. In fact, the proprieter of the restaurant claims to have invented the word "tandoori" in the 1960s, and that is entirely possible. I believe it is possible to hire the vehicle for use as a party room or similar.
And the vehicle is a subcontinental model of bus, and does not satisfy British road standards and apparently cannot be registered in Britain. However, it is on the road, and it has Pakistani number plates. Presumably it was driven all the way from Pakistan.
How cool.
Southall is an Indian dominated district in West London. (If you have seen the film Bend it Like Beckham, much of the movie is set there). I am more familiar with the Indian dominated districts in South London, for instance the area around Tooting. However, while that are contains a lot of muslims as well as hindus, Southall contains fewer muslims and a lot of sikhs. Like Tooting, Southall is full of extraordinarily useful shops. For instance, there are none of those problems you sometimes run into when you need pooja accessories.
And although there are fewer muslims than in some areas, they are certainly not entirely absent.
And I don't know quite what to make of this extraordinary vehicle. It is parked outside a Tandoori house. In fact, the proprieter of the restaurant claims to have invented the word "tandoori" in the 1960s, and that is entirely possible. I believe it is possible to hire the vehicle for use as a party room or similar.
And the vehicle is a subcontinental model of bus, and does not satisfy British road standards and apparently cannot be registered in Britain. However, it is on the road, and it has Pakistani number plates. Presumably it was driven all the way from Pakistan.
How cool.
Mr Blair, pay attention
Non-Australians may be unaware that the city of Melbourne is an extremely Greek place. Australia received a large number of immigrants from Greece in the second half of the 20th century and for some reason most of them settled in Melbourne. (A factoid you hear in Australia is that Melbourne contains the second largest number of Greek people of any city in the world, after Athens. This may or may not actually be true).
In any event, the Greeks of Melbourne are on the whole good people, and one finds famous Australian footballers with names like Demetriou, and Greek restaurants that in the middle of Melbourne that are still open at four in the morning, something that was quite useful when I was there over the weekend. But of course despite being as Australian as can be, the Greeks are still Greek.
Clearly, there is a lot of anger amongst the Greeks of Melbourne. They want the Elgin Marbles back in Greece and they are not ashamed to say so (although for calling them the Elgin Marbles I will no doubt never be served breakfast in any of their restaurants again - which is a shame because the breakfast I had on Saturday was excellent). Tony Blair must surely be influenced by this. The power of Greek Orthodox Community Centres in Melbourne must surely be deferred to.
Non-Australians may be unaware that the city of Melbourne is an extremely Greek place. Australia received a large number of immigrants from Greece in the second half of the 20th century and for some reason most of them settled in Melbourne. (A factoid you hear in Australia is that Melbourne contains the second largest number of Greek people of any city in the world, after Athens. This may or may not actually be true).
In any event, the Greeks of Melbourne are on the whole good people, and one finds famous Australian footballers with names like Demetriou, and Greek restaurants that in the middle of Melbourne that are still open at four in the morning, something that was quite useful when I was there over the weekend. But of course despite being as Australian as can be, the Greeks are still Greek.
Clearly, there is a lot of anger amongst the Greeks of Melbourne. They want the Elgin Marbles back in Greece and they are not ashamed to say so (although for calling them the Elgin Marbles I will no doubt never be served breakfast in any of their restaurants again - which is a shame because the breakfast I had on Saturday was excellent). Tony Blair must surely be influenced by this. The power of Greek Orthodox Community Centres in Melbourne must surely be deferred to.
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