I'm currently making this update from my new PDA :D The letter and cursive writing recognition works surprisingly well and it's quite fast to use once you adapt to writing again after only typing for so many years.

Meanwhile I'm checking flight times and car hire options for a little trip to Victoria a few weeks from now. I'll be heading off from Brisbane to either Melbourne or Albury depending on how things pan out, then heading to Anglesea, Mt. Beauty and Falls Creek. Should be fun :) I don't think there will me much/any snow at Falls Creek yet, but I plan on heading back at some point anyway.

Now that I have a CompactFlash GPS card it'll make navigating the unknown roads easier too, although it's a great toy to play with as well, especially combined with WiFiFoFum ;) I now have complete maps of here and Brisbane loaded into the PDA using a program called OziExplorerCE, which provides realtime position and moving-map display, waypoint navigation and track recording.

In other completely unrelated news, I just mailed a Wi-Fi Warrior beanie away to the founding chairman of ICANN in New York, New York.

Anyway, time to get back to work :)

A 512 MB SD card and GSP CompactFlash receiver should be arriving next week along with the e750 \o/

Woo @ first tests of dye sub and heat press this week for kitesurfing designs.

Also, the e750 I bought on eBay has been shipped.

I picked up my o-silly-scope this afternoon. Unfortunately it's destined for that big workshop in the sky: the tube is dead and a replacement can't be sourced :( It's a shame because it's a good quality scope and it would have been handy. Throwing it in the bin will be difficult to do (and not because of how much it weighs).

While I'm on the subject of electronics (there's a surprise), I purchased a Toshiba e750 PDA with integrated Wi-Fi through eBay today. It's an older model so I could get it at a good price. I'm planning on buying a CompactFlash 12-satellite GPS receiver to go with it, along with a 256 MB SecureDigital card for storage. It should make a nice portable notes system and it'll be useful for wireless experimentation. There are a few universal remote learning IR apps around, too.

I've become predictable at Subway, the chick there knows the two subs I have most often off by heart. If only the Java Sea Noodle Bar and Cafe wasn't so far away.

"Do you feel loved?"

Recently I've been reading some of Andrew Fuller's work, which covers psychology, brain development and modern society. I'll have the chance to meet him later in the year, which will be great. He expressed in one of his articles a belief that I've come to realise over the last year: people these days think that the world is controllable, everything is negotiable, and further, that if something (or someone) doesn't suit them, they can throw it away; that people are seemingly expendable. He made a good observation that many people of our generation have plenty of people they can text message, but no one they can call if they need to talk.

People are full of flaws - that's what makes us interesting. If your friends were just as you wanted them to be, life sure would be boring. An endless stream of emptiness, one without a real feeling of belonging.

On a different note, I'd like to get a GPS receiver card. It'd make these look a lot more interesting:



But there are a lot of things I'd like to get, so it'll have to wait. It's time to get to sleep, I have an early start... and it appears that I have no pillow. >_<

"it's just technology taking over"

and keep running.



On the weekend there was a weird power failure at the office and when the power came back on it caused a surge that knocked out the ethernet print server and its transformer. I was hoping only the transformer was fried so I hunted around town and finally found a suitable replacement, only to plug it in and find that the print server was dead as well. It's now been replaced with a completely new print server and I was luckily able to return the replacement transformer and get my money back. A lot of running around for nothing and Ergon Energy again is the source of the problem. There might be a possibility of making a successful claim with them for damage of property.

Meanwhile I've undertaken and just completed one of those "have to squeeze in" jobs. They're friends of ours so I couldn't really say no, even though I have a lot of other work to get done. Although there were originally going to be no or very few database-driven elements, I ended up making the whole thing database-driven to future-proof it more and make it easier to keep up to date. It came out looking OK too, especially considering the timeframe and the amount of source material to work with.

The Prodigy have just released the store date for their new album. 16th of August is when it hits the shelves; finally, it's only been 7 years since the last album! Its title hasn't changed in that time though: Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. Liam has been quoted as saying it's back to what the Prodigy is all about and back to the days of Jilted. \o/

People are amazingly complex.

I still have the effects of the flu hanging around but it's slowly subsiding. Things got a lot worse before they got better. Mid last week I could hardly speak but now I've only got a slightly sore throat and the cough is gone.

I've got the place to myself again this weekend. As much as I would have liked to get out of town, I really wasn't up to it. I probably wouldn't have had much to do even if I had gone as usually the people I'd like to catch up with are busy doing other things anyway. But I can't complain, in terms of health things could be worse - much worse. When I think of the situation some people are in right now it makes the flu seem rather insignificant. By the way if you're reading this, Chris, I hope things have improved.

I was thinking of Pryde the other day... I realised that it's coming up to a year since he killed himself (20/06/2003). I've sought rationalisation but I always came up empty-handed. The process of trying to understand the reasons has to be replaced by simple acceptance. He would have been 21 this month.

On a brighter note I think I'm starting to get back to my old self again. Oh, and I got annoyed by two dogs tonight (how's that for an obscure aside?). There's nothing but infomercials and black and white movies on TV, which must mean it's bedtime!

g'night :)