A NSW Police trainee has been arrested and stood down after he paraded his personal collection of illegal replica firearms at the Goulburn Police Academy. How a trainee cop came to class armed to the teeth.
A fair few people have asked me about relocating to the US from Australia, so I figured it was time to do a little write up. Specifically the question I want to consider here is "how much do I need to earn to live in the US?". I didn't really know the answer to that when I moved, and simply moved in the faith that I would be able to afford to live. At the time it was stressful, but it's all worked out for the best. So, let's try to answer that question... Visa status What visa are you going to be on when you live in the US? There are three main versions that I can think of off the top of my head. There is the E-3, which is what I am on, which allows your spouse to work if he wants, but is only open to Australian citizens. There is the H-1B, which is open to citizens of all nations, but doesn't let your spouse work. Then there are the L "internal skills transfer" visas, which I believe don't let your spouse work, but I could be wrong on that one. To be eligible, the move…
One of the flaws with Microsoft's Media Center flavour of Windows XP when it was released in Australia, was that it suffered from the same inherent flaw as every other PVR option in Australia. No guide data. It really says something about Australia's television networks that they don't want to help people with even vaguely modern computing setups watch their content -- it's a situation which reminds me a lot of the RIAA's stand over tactics, and I think it's equally doomed. That's one of the joys of my MythTV setup in the US -- the guide data is trivially available in return for doing a simple four or five question survey every three months or so. What could be easier than that? Well, when I was using a TiVo in Australia the OzTiVo folk had a solution to these problems, and were working with the XMLTV / MythTV people to make it more generic. I hadn't been paying much attention to it until today when I was randomly surfing on the topic, but it's interesting to see that they also now provide instructions for how to import their guide data into a Windows Media Center PC. It's cool to…
Andrew points out a couple of translation problems we had yesterday. I'm pretty sure the real estate salesman thought we said "Master bedroom is shit" instead of "Master bedroom ensuite" from the look he was giving me...
Microsoft Australia's profit drops by 40%. Interesting given that I haven't noticed a marked drop in their sales of desktops and office... The market has grown, and I suspect their share of that market has therefore fallen, but I didn't realize that they were less profitable. Is this because they're not innovating fast enough and there are large gaps between product releases? [icbm: dcs]
Steve Walsh from CLUG is associated with the free Internet access at the Pancake Parlour in Canberra. It's a small planet.
I'm glad James appreciates the mirror. Perhaps it's worth using the mirrors in the XML feeds for the podcast? [icbm: home]
So, we're still pulling stuff, although a bit of that has been deciding what to pull... [icbm: home]
The Vines resort (where the Jonny Walker Classic is played) is nice, if you like early 1990 architecture, and golf. Just don't try to have a shower in your unit, as the hot water system is the size of a thimble. Hire cars are good, because they take you away from the Vines. Freemantle and Perth are both good, with the Halo resturant in Perth being the producer of one of the best meals I have had in a long time. Photos online soo...
Pia has nice things to say about the mirror project, but I thought I should chime in and mention that Andrew has done by far the most work so far. [btags:] [icbm: home]