Categories
Melbourne

The Age is moving

It’s just not a pretty building, 250 Spencer Street. It’s hard to believe it was ever considered to be so. The Age is moving this weekend, out of this brown monstrosity and into the new building on the other side of Southern Cross Station. Hopefully the move goes smoothly for them, and the new place  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech

Media Centre PC vs PVR

My main requirements for my next move into digital TV, and doing away with the VCR: Watch and record digital TV, record two channels at once HD not essential (apart from ABC1 HD offering Sydney news, there’s no unique programming on HD at this stage) Transfer recordings off to the PC for keeping Quiet and  ... [More]

Categories
transport

The benefits of WestLink

Letter in The Age today from Tim Pallas, Roads and Ports Minister: I AM happy to assure people (Letters, 5/12) that 1000 homes will certainly not be acquired for the WestLink project. The Government recently announced a $10 million study to work with the community to develop the best location for the tunnel and road.  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism Net

Finding an ATM

Having moved offices to Latrobe Street, I wanted to know where the nearest ATM is — that is, those of my preferred (no fee) banks, St George or Westpac. The St George ATM/Branch locator will only show five results — including Westpac ATMs. Searching postcode 3000, it shows me those closest to the the corner  ... [More]

Categories
TV

ABC: wall-to-wall kids shows

An opinion piece in The Age yesterday comments about the introduction of kids’ channel ABC3. What I can’t figure out is why, about the same time ABC3 has started up, ABC2 has dropped most of its non-kids programming on weekends during the daytime (eg before 6pm) and replaced it with more kids’ programmes. Compare for  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism

The AMEX ads are freaking me out

The American Express ads are still freaking me out. (Advert spotted here. It includes Laura too.)

Categories
Consumerism Home life

Smug – the washing machine

Should I peel the water/energy rating stickers off the new washing machine, or leave them on for continued smugness?

Categories
Consumerism Melbourne

South Wharf

DFO has moved from Spencer Street to South Wharf. Oh, well done fellas — a move from an easy-to-get-to spot, to some godforsaken new place which nobody can find. Apparently they weren’t happy with their high-profile location, being next to a major railway station. For motorists they also had a big car park underneath (though  ... [More]

Categories
Net

Searching for Google

Google has announced (somewhat early, and amongst other things) the top Australian searches of 2009. Most popular searches of 2009FacebookYouTubeHotmaileBayMySpaceGoogleYahooGmailBeboSeek So plenty of people search for Google in Google, despite the idiocy in doing so, and more significantly, the inherent dangers:

Categories
Photos

Poor Mr Pictogram

Poor pictogram man; he’s obviously in a state of complete despair over the loss of his car. I wonder if he’s based on someone real? Has anybody compiled a web site of unlucky pictogram people? That’d be a fun project. Actually maybe he didn’t lose his car. Maybe he just got outbid on the signed  ... [More]

Categories
books

The mathematics of school textbooks

It’s all easy in primary school. You send the money in, you get a box of goodies. There’s few textbooks, and almost all are kept at and owned by the school. It gets more complicated and expensive in secondary school. So here’s the scenario: Two kids, two years apart. The school has a secondhand book  ... [More]

Categories
transport

…and hello Metro

New uniforms for most staff, and new automated announcements (“Welcome to Metro”) are the only noticeable changes so far. My train was on time, but others were cancelled according to the upgraded Metro web site. Channels 7, 9 and 10 were all down at Flinders St Station along with The Age Online to interview passengers,  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Farewell Connex

Connex took over running the Caulfield and Northern group lines on 18th April 2004, and to mark the occasion they put up a Welcome to Connex banner at Caulfield station. Evidently from day one, things didn’t go entirely to plan. Over the past five years they’ve seen the strain of record numbers of passenger trips,  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism

Hey you! Daniel!

American Express have this advertising campaign going on. Every time I open a newspaper or pass an Amex billboard, I do a double-take. Perhaps this isn’t happening to people who are not called Daniel. Please note: This Daniel does not recommend or endorse American Express products. They’d have to pay me first.

Categories
Net transport

A new tool for spying on the neighbours

Yesterday’s great website discovery: nearmap.com, which shows high resolution (and recent) satellite pictures of Melbourne and other places — a leapfrog over anything currently on Google Maps. And I discovered that Ormond station has its official three-letter code, OMD, written on the top of it. How odd; I wonder why? View it at nearmap.com Alas,  ... [More]

Categories
Home life

Moving house (literally)

I hate moving house. Glad it’s not me.