Secret Chiefs 3 return to Australia!  #
Monday, 26 Feb 2007 10:13PM
Corner Hotel Sunday 13th May.

The East Brunswick Club Saturday 12th May.

Both $40 + booking fee.

I think I'll have to go to both. I think I'll have to buy tickets now.


TV  #
Monday, 26 Feb 2007 05:07PM
An article on The Age website about the future of TV, or at least, what the Australian networks plan to do to combat, and work with, the internet.

Another thing audiences want is to keep up to date with their favourite foreign TV shows. If they think the networks are being tardy in showing new episodes, they're more than willing to resort to online piracy to see what they want. Last year, Ten avoided this problem with Jericho by screening it on the same day it appeared in the US and Smith says the network would definitely be open to doing that again - whether to reduce piracy or just to keep viewers satisfied. "To the extent that we can make that work, we're happy to do it," he says. "The days when Australia's going to be two or three seasons behind the US are gone forever."

Meanwhile, TV Delays Driving Australian Viewers To Piracy [Slashdot].

Personally advertising kills all of my TV watching enjoyment and I have often waiting patiently and purchased a season of a show I know I like on DVD just to avoid adverts or the frustrations of missing an episode.

The example of perfect TV show broadcasting I'd hold up to any network is the ABC's handling of West Wing. Two episodes back to back every week in a solid timeslot with no advertising. Glorious.

As advertising is basically the point of commercial TV I think they may have a little problem with customers like me.

I suppose advertising is the price the public pays to watch a show immediately.

Good things come to those who wait. Or those who pirate.

And it's not like they teach patience at school is it?


JB HiFi observations  #
Monday, 26 Feb 2007 04:13PM
Visited JB HiFi today in a failed attempt to make myself a list of birthday ideas (I came out with one idea, and I only wanted it because it was $10).

I've been visiting JB fairly regularly for the past decade or so, since well before DVDs became popular. I think it's fair to say that 70% of the commercial music on CD that I buy is bought at JB.

Some notes between then and now:

  • Average CD price is pretty much the same for non-discounted CDs (around $27)
  • There seems to be a lot more mega-discounting going on, with many CDs from pretty popular bands as low as $10 or less
  • Much less variety per band and less obscure acts

The variety thing could all be in my head. Perhaps now I know more acts and so it seems the variety is reduced. And in the 90s the music that was popular matched pretty well with what I wanted, so music stores seemed filled with my desires, while now they seem to be filled with poo.

Meanwhile, DVDs are now so popular that they warrant their own store, with as much space for DVDs as the old JB has for CDs.

Of interest today was that right up front of the DVD store were a good five full racks of TV show seasons, while the movies and music DVDs were shoved up the back like an afterthought. The TV sections were even ordered into type: comedy, drama, Sci-Fi, new release.

TV on DVD is definitely the current big thing.

The price level of TV on DVD has dropped significantly of late. Previously a full season could be found for under $60 if you were really lucky. Usually that was half a season.

These days a full season can be bought for under $50 when newly released, and usually discounted to under $40 within a few months.

Now if only they'd release DVD seasons for $30 before they were finished showing on TV and I'd be happy!


House update  #
Monday, 26 Feb 2007 02:26PM
We had a security screen door installed on the weekend. Every time I open the front door now it shocks the heck out of me. Looks great. Very happy. It's blue. Haven't tried it against the dog yet.

Had a vague scrape of the back fence. After the band has done it's thing in March I hope to start sanding it. I don't think I can stand the RSI of work + band + sanding.

We now have a nice little compost bin. The wasps have discovered our other pile. We may have to call the exterminators.

We also have a new shower head, a three star 9L per minute job covered with green knobs. It's better than expected. Better than the horror week of no water pressure anyway.

Speaking of knobs, I replaced the door knob on the study yesterday, as the other had broken off in my hand last month.

All this house stuff makes us feel so adult.

It stings.

A few more cracks have opened up around the house. Makes me want to kill every tree within a 1km radius. I blame the idiots in Toorak sucking up all the ground water so their cherub fountains can keep pissing.


Storage watch  #
Monday, 26 Feb 2007 01:33PM
4Gb thumb drives are out there for $55.

2Gb easily found for under $50.

Makes my old 1Gb for $50 limit seem pretty sad, and the $80 I spent on a 512Mb drive back in mid 2005 seem outright criminal.

But that's PC hardware for ya.

250Gb 7200rpm hard drives drives can be had for little more than $100.

My magic number with hard drives is $50 for 255Gb. My backup solution is currently DVDs. Each DVD of files I burn I make two copies of. 100 DVDr is around $50, for 450Gb. Because I double each one it's really $50 for 225Gb (assuming none fail, which a few always do).

It's probably worth noting that each DVD burnt is never full. So a hard drive would replace a lot more than X DVDrs. So I'd probably be happy with around $50 for 200Gb.

I don't think it will be very long before you can get 500Gb for $100, but I'd prefer smaller amounts as cheap single units so I can have multiple drives. I don't like to have my eggs in one basket.

Of course, by the time hard drives are that cheap, DVDr will be cheaper too.

So my magic number is really a ratio. When the price of hard drives per meg drops below the price of DVDr per meg. Which I presume has to happen eventually, just as it has for CDr.

But then we'll have writeable Blue-Ray...