Technology fetishism
Posted 27/11/2015. Back-dated. The third and final day of my obsessively-blogged short trip to Sydney, and it was destined to be pretty geeky. After breakfast and checking out, we caught a train to Penshurst (changing at Wolli Creek, which I assume is a pretty new interchange station), then a walk in the sun to The ... [More]
I quite liked the old blog template, but I know there were a few issues with it on mobile devices, and I didn’t have the time/energy to fix it. So as part of trying out new web hosting, and making sure WordPress is all updated, I’m trying out a new template. Again, I don’t have ... [More]
Bernard Salt writing in The Australian today implies that Y2K was a hoax: Do you remember the Y2K bug, the computer programming flaw that threatened to reset the digital world to the year zero at the turn of the century? Hospital life support systems might stop. Planes might lose navigation. Everyoneâs bank accounts might reset ... [More]
Science fiction and fantasy conventions used to be a homespun affair, run by the local clubs, featuring broadcasts of rare episodes and out-takes (before it all got released on DVD) and fan films. If there were guest artists, often they would appear only if they happened to be in the country at the time, and ... [More]
I love using Google’s services, but I think everybody knows they (and Facebook and Twitter and many other big internet companies) make most of their money via advertising, and that’s based on what they know about YOU. Like they say, the service is not the product — you are. How much do they know about ... [More]
Here’s another in my series of ten year old photos. Arise Lord Vader — episode 3 got a lot of promotion. Or, as I joked at the time: Connex was aligned with the Dark Side. The Dungeon: platform 13 at Flinders Street. The screens have been replaced with a flat model, and an escalator was ... [More]
I’m aware that my blog has evolved… these days most of the posts are about transport, reflecting my current interests. I wonder if this is a bit dull for those who have been on the old Toxic Custard mailing list, which is the descendant of the humour-based email list I started while at uni. Yet ... [More]
I’ve had a few issues with the iiNet Bob2 modem/router in the past week or two, and rang up support on Sunday to get it sorted out. At one stage the nice chap asked how many devices are using the modem. That’s a really good question, and one that I hadn’t previously thought about. The ... [More]
Last night this Google Streetview car was cruising along William Street outside Flagstaff station. The driver waved back as I took the photo. It’ll be interesting to see how long the photos it was (well, may have been) gathering take to get online. Last time it was over a year, but from what I hear ... [More]
After buying the new livingroom hi-fi, my thinking was I want a device for the kitchen that does DAB+ for digital radio (eg music such as Double-J without relying on the vagaries of the internet connection) and can also do AirPlay (eg for music from iTunes on the Mac). Devices that do both DAB+ and ... [More]
In Parks and Recreation they celebrate an annual Treat Yo’self day. Mine was last week. I took my birthday and the next day off work. After much pondering, I bought a new home theatre setup. I’d spent way too much time pondering what I was going to buy. For a while I considered buying into ... [More]
One of my long-term objectives is to update my sound system. My current system is a mix of devices collected over many years. The horrible old brown Sanyo speakers I’ve had since I was a teenager, which originally came with a Sanyo DC J3K receiver and turntable (click through for some photos of what this ... [More]
Those of you who read the blog regularly might know that it started in my university days in 1990, with a twice-weekly email called the “Toxic Custard Workshop Files“. You can still subscribe to it, via YahooGroups — it’s got about 650 members. I never quite imagined when I sent the first edition that it ... [More]
My recollection is that Automatic Teller Machines used to be much simpler devices, and much faster. I’m sure back in the day I timed myself getting cash using the basic buttons and 1-2 line dot-matrix LED “display” they had back then and had it down to under 30 seconds. These days ATMs are complex beasts ... [More]
I’m wrestling with a new blog template at the moment. It’s kind of mostly working…ish, but there are still a few little issues, such as the main content doesn’t line up with the page header quite right. But once the quirks have been fixed, the site should look better, particularly on mobile devices such as ... [More]
My new Google Nexus 5 phone is going very nicely, thanks very much. But I was pondering getting a case for it. The last thing I’d want is for it to be dropped and damaged. Fortuitously, the good people at MobileZap asked me if there was a product on their site I’d like to review ... [More]