Spring forward, Fall back

Yes, it's that time of year again. Springing forward or falling back depending on which hemisphere you live in. Honestly, I feel like it would be better if we just stuck to one and stop this non-sense of moving the clock backwards and forwards every autumn and spring. It is artificial and doesn't really exert the control that we think we are imposing.

Select photos of Sydney's LGBT Mardi Gras

Photos of school...

Yeah, I know it's been like 10 months since I've been here and I finally add some pics of where I go to school. Honestly, it's just not that exciting. And it's only recently that I discovered this blog could host pics, but whatever...

Lush summer greenery in front of the library.

Palms lining some of the buildings.

Soccer field at one of the campus.

Prototypical Aussie building, with steel roof and veranda.

Some classmates doing the same program.

What did I expect from Microsoft?!

I should have saved my money and waited for PS3. In December with all the other crazed gamers waiting to get a new Xbox 360 I managed to snag one. I didn't care about the new 360 games coming out. I just wanted to be able to play my old Xbox games on it because Microsoft had touted that their new system would be backwards compatible with ALL their games from the previous Xbox. Surprise! Not all games are compatible. In fact, none of the games I own are compatible wih the new 360. I only found out when I tried to paly one tonight. Come to find out, from Xbox's website, that only some games are compatible and that they are slowly adding more games from their old system. A little more digging on the site and I find out that they are using software emulation to make the old games work on the new Xbox 360. Software emulation?! What the FUCK!!!! You have to download each set of emulation software as they become available from Microsoft. After months of proclaiming that their new system would be backwards compatible and flogging this info in all the gaming press I naturally assumed that any game would work in the new system. There was never any small print stating otherwise.

When Sony launched their PS2, it was backwards compatible right out of the box. Microsoft should take some lessons from Sony.

PS3 hasn't launched yet. There's still time to recoup my losses and wait for PS3.

Xbox 360, say bye bye. Game Over.

Why do we accept below quality audio files from Apple?

In my genereation there was the audio cassette tape. Slow (fast) forward and rewind. Scratchy sound. There were the occassional eaten (by the player) tapes. But, by george, you could make copies to your heart's content! Give music to your friends. Make copies of the new album they just bought. Then came the compact disc (CD) with its high quality audio. Real track or fast forward/rewind. And spinning just like the LP. And LASER! There was a laser in every CD player. LASER! OK, only I got excited about lasers. This was the mid 80's, we didn't have PS2 back then. Eventually, recordable CD-ROMS became affordable enough where everyone and their dog could have one in their computer. Let the boot-leggin' good times roll. Copy, copy, remix, remake. We now progress into the internet era and eventually download our music, whether legal or illegal.

And here is my gripe. When did we all accept that our music doesn't get reproduced at high quality anymore? Remember when there was such a phrase as "CD quality"? Now everyone buys music from Apple's iTunes at 128kbps compression. And we all accept it. We pay for compressed music that still costs about as much as if we were to buy the whole album on CD. Sure it's more convenient and there's instant gratification. Companies have gone out of business building all this fat bandwidth fiber optics in order for us to have broadband. Let's move forward and not backwards to the cassette tapes. It's time we complain to Steve Jobs and demand that our music is sold to us uncompressed! Or you can continue to buy music CD's. Which I think is better because you get liner notes, photos, and info about the music and band you're buying. Plus, you can then rip it to your own computer using a lossless compression for full high fidelity surround sound.

Happy Sydney Lesbian, Gay, Bi & Trans Mardi Gras 2006!

Happy Mardi Gras to all those who descended onto Oxford Street tonight for the festivities!

I am happy to report that my flatmate got me into the parade with a all access press pass so I was able to take pics from within the parade and not over the heads of onlookers. Score!

Will try to post pics somewhere for all my loyal readers soon...

Why I hate the US wireless telecom industry...

Let see, where to begin? How about the one-size-fits-all mentality. Then there's the "you don't want that new phone" attitude. Or the fact that they control distribution of phones so that if you want a particular new, tech-ladden phone you have to go and switch away from their service. If only they'd realise that if that left the distribution to someone else, techno geeks like me would upgrade our phones a lot more often than we can usually do now under the current scheme.

If I had the ability to buy a new phone anytime I want, I would only probably switch phones and stay with the same provider. OK, I hear all you Americans say that you can buy a new phone anytime you want. BUT, you can't! When was the last time you actually paid for a new phone for what it actually costs. And, that you can use with any service, not with just Cingular or T-Mobile. Or you weren't required to sign another 1 or 2 year contract. So I see you've all run into this pesky situation before. Not to mention the locking of cell phones. A carrier locks "your" new phone into their service only, making it impossible for you to use it with any other providers. Unless of course you have it unlocked (but that's another discussion).

Again, another situation of where you don't realise what you don't have until you move away from that former system. How I wish it were true that you can go into any cellular shop, buy the latest Nokia, SonyEricsson or Motorola, slip in your simcard and be on your merry way. So why can't US consumers have it this way? Probably, because long before anyone can remember, some phone manufacturing executives somewhere made some deal with some wireless communications executives and now we're stuck with this plan.

However, there is hope. I think cell phones and service providers, are slowly trying to untangle themselves. Recently I saw a phone, for sale at a Sony store in San Francisco, that was independent of any service carrier. Let's hope more phone manufacturers follow suit.

Time for catch up...

Sorry for the silence in the last couple of weeks. I've had a visitor from San Francisco, a final exam and a final paper all due in the same week.

Let's see...autumn semester has started up again. First week of classes is over. I get the feeling this semester will whiz by really fast. This semester will have another two 2-weeks of hospital training sprinkled in between now and June. And even more papers and presentations than last two semesters. I even went to the library to get started on two papers. Got half the research out of the way. I guess the work will have to be done now or later and I'd rather get it done now so it doesn't all end up due later at the same time.