It's interesting that car engine diagnostics have been standardised in the US since 1996, and you can buy consumer grade readout devices for your car. I wonder if that means that they're standardised in Australia and that I never realized? This sort of thing is probably of interest to lots of hardware hackers.
I worked at the Australian Trade Mark office when Cadbury applied for their purple trade mark. That mark has now been litigated on a couple of times and it looks like it's not so certain a thing. Interesting, especially given the IPAustralia web site still has information about the original grant online, without any mention of the ensuing court action.
A most excellent hallucination if i do say so myself.
Apparently people's morals evaporate at around $1.39 a litre. That's good to know. Is it therefore safe to predict widespread anarchy when fuel gets to $2 a litre?
I don't know if this is the perfect question or not, but it is certainly a first order approximation.
Guy Kawasaki tells CEOs how to fire people, he makes an interesting point, although I've never worked somewhere going through layoffs, and hopefully never will.
It must be a hard life being a ceremonial goat, especially when you can be demoted for trying to "butt the drummers nether regions".
This article seems to confirm that my parents generation isn't saving enough for retirement, and I think that's true of my generation as well. The problem is that it simply isn't sexy to save money in a super fund, or a 401k as they're called in the US. I think it's even worse for the average American though, because the cost of living in the places with the jobs is a lot higher, 401k saving is optional (so people don't do it as much), and you get direct control over your investments (which means people make poor choices like putting all their money in Enron or Vonage). Oh, and don't start me on the complications of earning retirement income in US dollars when I retire. I don't even want to think about that at the moment.
I've been noticing that the ride to and from work has been becoming more and more effort. At first I thought it was just that I am getting slacker in my old age or something, but tonight on the way home I noticed that the rear tire was looking a little squooshed when I sat on the bike. I therefore gave in and performed some basic bike maintenance tonight -- removed the 5mm of mud from the frame (pretty good given it hasn't rained here in months), the general layer of dirt and grime on everything, and the grease buildup I get on the rear wheel which I assume is caused by the grease from the rear hub). I checked the tire pressure as well... It was a third of what it should have been, so hopefully I am staring down the barrel of a much lower rolling resistance.