Funny people

I get a lot of ridicule for my opinions. Often times it is only because I go against the grain. I tend to dislike something that isn't status quo, even before I realise it is the status quo.

Comedians are one example. There are many out there. Some who think they're funny because everyone they know thinks they are funny. Then there are the few genuinely funny ones that can make you laugh.

The news and Internet is full of Ricky Gervais' recent exploits at the Grammys or something. This is where he gets up and says things that are bold, taboo, and crass. Yet everyone seems to think it's funny.

He isn't. His humour seems to relentlessly pry on other peoples misfortunes, mistakes and general mishaps. He takes a persons character and bastardises it to the point where everyone is shocked he said something like that, but laugh anyway. A bit like an accident where the victims head has been taken off. You know it's bad but you look anyway.

Since I'm a man of extremes, I'm going to compare Mr. Gervais to the Marx Brothers. A group of louts where humour is actually funny. It's harmless. It's laughable and no one gets hurt in the end. While there's a level of intelligence involved with constructing a joke, it's obvious one doesn't need much thought to come up with something crass. This is the opposite of the Marx Brothers. Where jokes are well constructed, thought out and delivered in such a witty manner, you don't know what hit you or how it hit you, because you're laughing so hard that you're about to bust a gut.

Gervais' jokes seem to hint of sarcasm. And sarcasm is the worst form of putting down known.

And while this is all in good humour. I would imagine the people Gervais has offended may take it in their stride, laugh about it. Deep down, I would imagine a tiny inkling of contempt and hatred for the man. Which I imagine is also part of his entire guise.

If so, job well done on being an in-humorous dick. You should get an award for that, and stand in line next to Kyle Sandilands and Russell Brand. You can take the Three Stooges to a whole new level, down.

Out of reach

For a lot of people, the idea of being green, environmentally friendly and energy conscious is a good thing. We all want to be this. We all want to do our best.

As a general rule going green costs money. However it is usually just the initial outlay to fund the infrastructure of things like solar panels, inverters, wiring, labour unless you're doing it yourself.

However, sometimes things don't add up.

For example, I've started to shop around for solar panels for my house. I was holding out until we built a new home, however, I don't know when that's going to happen, so I want to start being a bit greener now.

My reasons aren't just about the environment. I also want to have less reliance on the mains electricity, and less dependence on their supply. At the same time I also want to save money. Who doesn't. However, as the cost of installing a solar array can get pricey, I started to look at cheaper alternatives.

Here's where my brain started to hurt.

A 1.5kW system that comes with 8x190W panels, an inverter, fully installed and ready to go, also allowing the option to feed excessive power back into the grid and get some money back for it, or a credit on your on-grid account.

All that for a measly (From) $1050.00

Sounds affordable. A 1.5kW system will pump about 3-4kW of energy back into the grid based on an average household usage of 15-18kW per day. Thus reducing your energy bill, decreasing your reliance on dirty power supplied from Australia's favourite power station, coal powered.

Don't check my maths, it was my worst subject at school.

Where's the bit where my brain starts to hurt?

Here:
The next system is a 2kW system. A few thousand more. But where it really aches is the 3kW system. $7080.00

It comes with twice as many solar panels, 18x190W panels. And obviously a bigger inverter.

Lets assume it takes twice as long to install, since there are twice as many panels, otherwise, the additional wiring is hardly worth the $7000 price tag. The inverter? This is the only item I can think of that will increase the price from $1050 to $7080. But even then, I can't seem to wrap my head around it.

I'd be more inclined to buy and install two 1.5kW systems and split the circuits in the house. Half the house on one circuit and the other half using the other 1.5kW system.

If both units are connected to the grid, then technically I'd still be pumping twice as many kW's back into the grid. Not to mention the fact that I've spent a little over $2,000 rather than $14,000.

Heck, I'd even go with another installation and bump things up to 4.5kW and this amount of solar power would actually provide me with enough power to go off the grid in suburbia.

Only issue with that last bit is that I don't plan on using batteries for storage of that power. I'm happy with having power fed into my house from the grid when the sun isn't out. However, I'm happy to also light a candle since I don't watch TV. Email and using the laptop may pose a problem. I'd have to charge my mobile phone during the day or at my music school. Though charging it off the solar power makes more sense.

I got my first power bill for the music school. $45 per quarter. All because I open windows instead of turning on the air con, though sometimes I do blast the air con just to clear out the heat in the room that's been shut all day. Then when that initial bite has gone, I'll open everything up. And since its summer, we have plenty of natural sunlight still coming into the school thanks to all the windows in the place I found.

I was asked about a water cooler. And I've decided that I'll be getting a hand made clay cooler I found that is pricey, but no more expensive than a refrigerated water cooler, and it will use no power what so ever, it'll keep water at a nice, cool and comfortable temperature and also looks a hell of a lot nicer than a plastic water cooler waiting for the water to heat up so it can waste more power cooling it down.

I still can't get my head around the cost difference from the 1.5kW system to the 3kW system. Surely, it's the inverter causing the major price difference.

Cheerio

12 Days of my Christmas

Last week I was invited to play percussion music for my friend Craig. It was the fbi-Radio Christmas party. One of the many I've attended this year.

Normally my Christmas time is quiet time and I seldom do anything other than get together with the wife's family and celebrate by having a few drinks, sharing presents and enjoying the evening.

This year has been different. I got to do the family thing, but every day before hand was party time with others.

Between gigging, and attending Christmas parties of every nature. I have been busy ramping up business. My wife and I did a small letterbox drop for my guitar school and I have to say that it has been a small success. With only 500 flyers distributed around my neighbourhood, I have had almost 20 email and phone enquiries. Out of them, almost all of them are sales. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the hit rate is impressive for my first attempt.

I'm planning on attending the local Fete soon with a stall. It's $40 for the day and I imagine it will bring in a great deal more business. So, that stuff is going well.

On another note, Christmas last year made me change a little and Christmas this year made me change a little more again. Last year both my wife and myself were completely shocked at the display we witnessed at a Christmas gathering we use to attend every Christmas Eve. It was at my sister-in-laws family (My brother's wife). Last Christmas was pathetically unreal. Why?

Because the tree had that many presents around it, that it circled the tree with a radius of about 3 metres. Traditionally someone dresses as Santa and hands out the presents. The family hasn't grown much since we started going there. Maybe an additional baby or two, with another on the way, but back over ten years ago when we started going there handing out presents took about 10 minutes. Last time took 3 hours.

When people received their gifts, the didn't actually know who it was from. In other words, they didn't read the cards attached to the box, or stuck to the wrapping.

When I was shown some presents people got, ones which I had bought for them, I said "That's a great gift, who got that for you?" They had no idea.

This disgusted both my wife and myself. And the fact that presents took 3 hours to hand out wasn't adding to the special day. In fact, we both felt sick of the gluttony we witnessed. We went home after midnight and both commented on what we saw. We vowed to never go there again because it just got ridiculous. At one stage we recalled seeing one person get multiple presents from one other person. And it wasn't something like socks, or a nice picture frame at best. It was iPod, PSP, Digital Camera, and so on.

It was disgusting.

This year was much more pleasant. Gifts meant giving, not competing over who could buy the most expensive present, and then double it by adding more expensive presents to the list. It was about giving. It was about family. It was about being together and enjoying the day.

It was also nice to see my rather stern brother-in-law (Wife's brother), loosen up and have a few drinks. However, he turned it into a crazy drinking game, and really REALLY loosened up, drank his heart out, competing with us youngins and saying "Old school will win".

30 minutes later, he was asleep in his chair. Us "new schoolers" kept drinking. We dragged him to the couch and placed a bucket near him just in case. It was great to see him relaxing. Last time we saw him like this was for my wedding.

Continuing with Christmas news, I have been very well behaved this year. I haven't over eaten once. Besides Christmas drinking and the prompting from the bro-in-law, I haven't been drunk. I've been careful and enjoyed the food at Christmas instead of the usual over eating and regret afterwards when I can't move.

My 12 days of Christmas consisted of Christmas parties every day. Business associates, friends, family, and all up, a well behaved silly season.

I hope your Christmas has been just as pleasant and here's looking forward to a great New Years Eve. And a brilliant 2011.

Electric cars

I was recently reading an article on the Nissan Leaf. Being an electric only car, it needs to be plugged in unlike a hybrid, where if the batter power does deplete, the petrol engine kicks in and away you go.

The article I was reading was concentrating around the fact that you only have 100 miles, or 160 kilometres in my language, range from full charge. I would imagine this doesn't take into account aircon, playing music on the stereo, using lights. sitting in traffic, large hills and so on. Much like how fuel economy is derived with a car sitting in a giant conveyor belt and put through various "real" driving experiences. It'll be a stale test of how long the battery will last. And to be honest, I can drive 160 kms in a day quite easily. Sometimes 200 kms, which would require me to a recharging station.

And that's the crux of my post today. Recharging your electric car. The biggest issue is the infrastructure. Manufacturers are investing millions into electric cars, battery performance and life. However, when you mention charging stations, all of a sudden it sounds like a brick wall has been hit. An invisible barrier.

You mean we will have to install these charging stations everywhere? That sounds like too much effort. Yet when you think about it.... and you will once I tell you, it's not really that bad. Well, it kinda still is.... perhaps not as bad as you thought at first.

In Australia, we currently have a big debate over the roll out of a new Internet infrastructure. It's called the NBN, National Broadband Network. What it actually is, is fibre optic cables from the telephone exchange straight to your home. Bumping our currently theoretical maximum speed of 24Mbit (that's Mega bits) per second to a Japan and Korea equalling 100Mbit connection.

Meanwhile Japan is upgrading their infrastructure to go to 1Gbps (that's 1 Giga bit per second). If that means nothing to you, picture yourself doing 100 miles and hour (160 km/h). Now imagine yourself doing 1000 miles and hour (1600 km/h). It's a significant increase. And will aid our country in keeping up with the rest of the planet who are already on this technology because in a sad but honest way, the Internet and connectivity as a whole is where our future is. The world will continue to get smaller.

Now, the debate with the NBN is if our country really needs it. Or do we keep using the old infrastructure, which consists of copper telephone lines which have corroded since their installation back in 1948?

Much in the same way, we keep saying that charging stations are going to cost an arm and a leg to set up in every country, every state of that country, every city of that state, every suburb of that city and every home in that suburb. But it's imperative. It must be done in order to support our future mode of personal transport, the electric car, which sadly still has a dismal range before it needs charging, which means it won't be popular in Australia, because your next door neighbour can be 50 km in that direction, and your battery isn't going to last the drive home unless your neighbour gives you a couple of hours charging time as well as that sugar you drove all the way there for.

And do you seriously see a charging station in the middle of the Stuart Hwy? There are parts of that road that roadkill avoids.

But I'm here to shed a positive light on the charging station.

When countries started to develop, and I'm thinking Industrial Revolution here. They created infrastructure because it was needed. The cost was important, but it took a back seat because it was needed. Rail systems. They were needed. Yet when our government speaks of additional tracks on our current rail system. It costs us as tax payers billions of dollars. Yet, back then, it cost us, the general public nothing, because people found investors. And investors knew, it had to be done.

Power lines are just as new, if not newer than the rail system. Think of how much power lines cover the country. That's a lot of work. A lot of money. But guess what? It had to be done in order for everyone to have affordable power to their homes.

Infrastructure shouldn't have a cost associated with it. It shouldn't have a price tage to help determine if it's worth it or not. It should just be done because it will benefit. Charging stations will benefit electric car owners because they'll have convenient locations to top up their charge. As convenient as a petrol station is now.

If however, you find one every 10 kilometres in built up suburban areas, then there will be issues. Sure you can charge at home, but that's not really convenient when you're already out and about. You want to return home, and not have to head out again.

What happens when there's a black out? Brown out? Electrical storm? Surges?

Sorry, I just thought of that while I was thinking of all the positive aspects.

I really want to see a good electric car. One that will get me from Sydney to Melbourne on one charge just like my diesel car can now, on $45 dollars worth of fuel. That's 1100 kms and 13 hours of driving.

When will this likely happen? Maybe by 2040. The way manufacturers are currently claiming battery life, they're saying that 160 km is normal now. By 2015 they are expecting maybe 190 km per charge.

Maybe I'm asking for too much, I'm being too harsh on the chemists who are playing with the chemicals used to make battery technology improve. Maybe too many people have been nice to them for too long and they're too comfortable in their cushy labs. Maybe someone needs to light a fire under their arses and get things cooking.

I'll let the early adopters buy the first, second and maybe third generation electric cars. I'll wait until I can genuinely replace my diesel with electric power that can last 13 hours of driving. Not one hour.

My theory

Yes, another one.

If you look back, you'll see that I have some good theories and other not so good ones, but I like them anyway because they're mine. :)

Today I'm going to theorise the way we came to living on planet Earth.


We, not as humans, but living creatures have evolved enough to already transport ourselves from one planet to the next. How so? We started out on Mercury but as the sun grew, Mercury got too hot. So we moved to Venus. It was a larger planet that allowed our population to grow. However, it could not sustain us due to the ever increasing size of the sun, getting closer and closer.

Next was Earth. Which is where we are now. However, at the present we are unable to travel to other parts of the solar system due to an accident that shut down the space travel program a long time ago. The entire idea was erased from all history books, and memories of people. Though some people have had relapse and have created space travel ideas from scratch. Maybe their brains weren't wiped entirely.

The space race wasn't about who gets to the moon first, but who could travel in space first. Now Richard Branson is working on the space travel thing for everyday people like you and me. Soon we will be able to travel to other parts of the galaxy, and maybe the solar system.

In the meantime the sun is growing bigger. It is getting hotter on Earth, not only because of global harming. Once the sun is close enough to start kill us, we will have to resurrect the galaxy quest and move on to the next planet. Which planet will it be? Mars of course. The idea that it has polar caps, and signs of water illustrate to me two things. One is that it could harbour life, and two.... it will. You see, once the sun gets close enough to Earth to heat it up enough for life to become unbearable and make us move to the next planet in line, by that stage Mars will have transformed itself due to the ideal proximity of the sun into a planet that miraculously become habitable.

What of the other planets?

Jupiter is a giant. And there's a reason why.

Overpopulation. Currently we are at that turning point on Earth where life is becoming unsustainable. Food is now mass produced, and we will eventually run out of land, and water. If it were not for the sun's appetite to grow and devour planets, we'd stay here, die, but those self sustaining would remain, unless their crops got stolen, which is highly likely, given the fickle nature of humans.

Jupiter is large because it is preparing itself for the advent of us coming over there to live. Once we arrive, the mass of the plant will allow humans to multiply and take over the planet. Keep in mind that at this point in time the planet is inhabitable but what's to say that it too cannot transform like Mars did once the sun reached the appropriate distance to provide a catalystic change in Jupiter that made it ideal for us. And what's to say that at this stage we still resemble our human form as we know it. After all, history shows us to be more ape-like when Earth was still new.

Jupiter allows us to grow as one living race. However, with all that population, something happens. It causes a big riot and at this stage we must move on to the next planet. Saturn, it's slightly smaller. But that's because the events that happened to Jupiter caused a severe decrease in population and we now no longer require a planet the size of Jupiter to support ourselves.

From then on, the planets decrease in size significantly, and that's because our form dies off, we start to mutate into another being. We can survive on smaller planets that have less to offer. Pluto gets put back on the list of planets in our solar system and we end up searching for other planets ofter Pluto because at this stage the sun is still drawing near.

The cycle never ends, until the sun turns to solid rock. Where we might decide that this is the end or at that stage we have discovered a comparable solar system which allows us to habit that environment, and off we go again doing what humans do best, taking over what isn't ours, calling it ours and eradicating the existing life wherever we please.

What if? What if my brain exploded? Read below to see the aftermath

People procrastinate. We all do in one way, shape or form.

There's always "what if's?" Usually it's because of fear.

The "What if's" are usually bad. It's never "What if I enjoy this?" Oh my!

It's usually "What if I die"", "What if I lose?" and so on.

I'm guilty of it. But at this moment in my life, I am least affected by it. The "What if's" have gotten a bit more serious, but I have become more laid back.

Now I have thrown caution to the wind, while still keeping an eye on things so they don't orbit into chaos. But I'm letting whatever happens, happen.

You can only stop the water flow as high as the damn wall. Right now the water is starting to overflow the wall, and I'm enjoying the trickle, and can't wait for the torrent to break through.

I'm going to be busy. But I know it's going to be worth it.

Failure is an option. But success is where I'm heading. I know what I want, and what I don't. My what if's are more like "I can't wait". I have almost no fear, just a few nerves, which are okay. We're allowed to have butterflies in our stomach. We're only human.

What's the point

The prompt to this story has nothing to do with it, per sé. Truth is, yesterday I went to my office of my old IT business. The office is technically a glorified storage unit right now. I'm slowly shifting stuff out of it, but there's still a lot of things to clear out. However, I have until December to get it all out of there as this is where my rent is paid up to.

While at the office, I spoke to the other IT guy next door to me. Somehow the topic of time came up. He said that there are measurements for everything. However, time has always eluded people.

I retorted with "Well, time is made up, perhaps not time itself, but the value it has had put on it was made up based on observations over a long period of.... well... time. Everything is made up. It's all invented."

There was a moment of silence.

Much deep thought over what I just said. There was very little spoken, but a lot to digest.

Instead of 60 seconds in a minute, why not 75 or 80. Then maybe we'd only work 6 hours a day instead of 8. Don't do the maths on that, I could be way off. But that's the point. I could make up any number. The number 8 has that value because it was made up. Much in the same way one minute equals sixty seconds and not sixty one or more. Or less!

Prices are made up. When you decide to sell your house, there's no value on it. The real estate agent comes in and guesses a price based on what other agents guessed around your neighbourhood. A $5 dollar note is printed on the same piece of paper as the $50 note. So why are the two not the same value?

My house is just as nice as the one next door. But theirs might sell for $50,000 more. Why? They're both identical.

Words are made up too. They're all just stupid sounds when you think about it. Yet somehow we make them just right so we all understand each other.

The letter "E" makes an "eh" sound. But why doesn't it make a "joo" sound?

If you think that sounds silly, an "E" can't possibly make a "joo" sound. Then think about how in other languages an "X" has an "heh" sound, or the letter "J" makes a "ye" sound.

And when I later thought about it all, I asked myself, "What IS the point of it all?"

Why is there money when we use to live for hundreds if not thousands of years before hand using a barter system just fine?

Why do we have to "work" for someone else, so we can survive?

Think about that for a minute. Why do you work? To get money.

Why do you need money? To pay bills and buy things.

Why do you need to pay bills? Because you use other peoples things.

Why do you need to buy things? Because we want something or need it but don't have it.

Why do we need it? Because we've been told so.

What if everyone took their money out of the bank tomorrow and kept it under their pillow? All the banks would go broke. But how will you get paid? Well, it worked in the good ol' days when you got an actual pay packet. An envelope with money in it. In fact, I use to get paid like that only 10 years ago when I was a motorcycle mechanic.

Then I could use my money to save or to spend.

I still have to pay my bills. So I get some solar panels, cut myself off the grid and no longer have an electricity bill. Phone? Nah, just allow people to pop in if they're passing by, again, like the good ol' days.

What about land rates? Last time I looked, I bought my land. But I still have to pay someone else rates on my own land. And that someone else is the government. So there's almost no choice there. But what if you didn't pay your land rates? What's the point of the rates? I understand water rates, power, waste disposal. But land tax, on land I already bought and paid tax on when I bought it? Hmm, why?

What's the point?

It's all made up. Someone, one day decided to create land rates. And everyone paid it. And now, hundreds of years later, it has morphed from bully tactics of the chief or king to our dark overlords, otherwise known as Government.

I once read a book that suggested the more money you make, the more expenses you have. At the time I thought it was stupid. Now, I think it's even dumber!

Why? Because as your wages go up, so does the cost of living. I know when I bought my house 10 years ago. Our power bill was $140 per quarter. Now it's up around $320. Our water bill use to be $80 a quarter. Now it's $180. We could fill a grocery cart at the supermarket and not spend over $100. Now I spend $100 bucks and walk out with two plastic bags.

I don't want to make it sound like doom and gloom. But I can't help but think that a group of people, or in fact many groups of people someone pulled the wool over everyones eyes. And the general public is paying for it.

The other day I was listening to the radio and they were talking about the safety signs that go up in school areas to remind motorists to slow down, reducing or preventing the likelihood of children getting killed during the times when school is about to start, and finish. This gives children a safe period of time to walk home, or to the car, or cross the street.

The subject on the radio was about the cost of the signs. These signs are large, have flashing, high brightness LED's. And are also solar powered. A couple of three metre tall poles, and add some labour to erect each sign and according to our latest government information via the budget reports, each sign cost $90,000 to erect.

Ninety Thousand Dollars!!!

I think each sign is worth about $2000, and a lot of the cost would be shared between the labour hire and the solar panels. The rest is a $5 electronics kit from Dick Smith.

$90,000.00

Talk about making up stuff. Someone made that price up, and some other idiot agreed to it, spent millions on a couple of flashing lights and walked away, proud of themselves because they are looking after our community.

But then, my friend would say "But you voted for the government". Which makes it my problem because it was my choice. I voted for these idiots.

Truth is, the people I vote for never end up in power. But I don't even want to vote. Though I have to because it's compulsory.

The real truth is, I'm starting to lose the plot. I can't see the point of working so damn hard to enjoy what little time I have left in the day to enjoy my life.

Maybe that's a really negative way to look at things. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just the same old guy I always was. Realistic. Or I'm talking complete crap and you can tell me to shut up. Either way. I'm done for now.