It always irritated me that there was no easy way to find out the current date on my Mac. It told me what day it was just fine, but I’d have to go finding a calendar to see what the actual date was. No longer thanks to a few simple steps described in Lifehacker. My menu bar now displays the day, month and date along with the current time. That just makes sense. [via Lifehacker]
Archive for October, 2007
I like vinyl, and I’ve written about it before. I read an article today that talks about vinyl out lasting CD’s, and the increase in vinyl sales in recent years. The major labels haven’t recognized this yet (so says the article) but they are confident it is becoming more popular again. They suggest that people prefer to by the vinyl for home listening, and mp3′s for portable music. A number of record labels are including free downloads of albums in mp3 when you purchase the vinyl record. Sounds like a great deal to me. [via wired]
Three imaginative thieves used a cardboard box as a disguise for their month long burglary tirade. They would drop off an empty 1m square cardboard box out front fast food restaurants, and climb inside the box to cut holes in the glass — looking like a delivery from the street. Ridiculous. [via Globe and Mail]
With this little terminal code you can View HD trailers in Front Row. You’ll need a fast internet connection, and it’s probably only really useful if you have your Mac plugged into a nice big screen. [via Macworld]
To be honest I haven’t read the article yet, and I assume they were using ‘fake’ jousting sticks, but can you really call it a freak accident when two people are riding directly at each other, on horses, holding pointy sticks at their opponents body? You have to think something bad could happen. [via ABC]
The World Solar Challenge is a solar powered-car race over 3021 km through the centre Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. The race is underway! The teams left Darwin on October 21st with teams expected to reach Adelaide on October 28th. Teams representing Canada are: University of , Queens University University of Calgary (to name a few).
It seems intuitive but until know there has been no research to back up the claim. A new report finds the virus lasts longer in cold, dry air, and our sluggish, cold-weather mucus cannot clear it out. It has been difficult to examine the flu virus because traditional lab animals do not get it the same way as humans. Ferrets are the best choice, but as the article points out the are expensive and they bite. The discovery of documents from US Army doctors in 1919 have lead to experiments with Guinea pigs, who do not cough or sneeze when they have the flu, that proves it can be spread by the air we exhale. [via New Scientist]
I doubt this car while be back on the road. Berry, NSW, Australia.
Sadly the CBC doesn’t believe in an easy way to share clips from it’s top notch programing.
On last nights episode of the Rick Mercer Report they did a bit titled “Everything you always wanted to know about electoral reform, but weren’t interested enough to ask”. To watch the 3 minute clip head over to the Rick Mercer Report and select the video ‘Mercer: Electoral Reform’ (It aired Tuesday October 9, 2007 if you need to change days).
Happy voting day Ontario; I’ve cast my ballot and I’m in Australia so you’ll have to find a better excuse.
A week ago was the final holiday break of the term and I decided to spend the week surfing and camping up the coast of New South Wales. With no clue where to surf, or access to car and camping gear etc. the logical method of travel was bus. Luckily a number of companies offer just such surfing trips from Sydney to Byron Bay, and after doing some research I decided to travel with Surfaris. Off the top I can say that I was completely satisfied with their trip. The food was good and plentiful, the locations were fantastic, and the group leader was solid. A number of the other trips seem to stay at one beach for 4 days, then high tail it to Byron. Surfaris visits two beaches, and these beaches change depending on the predicted swell, so they have the ability to always provide great waves out of the wind. They also cater to beginners and intermediate ability surfers alike.
We (a friend Nikole decided to join me on the trip, and we had a great time) departed Sydney bright and early Monday morning on the Surfaris bus heading north. Our first camp was at Point Plomer, just south of Crescent Heads near Kempsey. Point Plomer provides a number of surfing options, with north and south facing beaches of varying protection. Every day of the surf trip saw myself and a number of other keen intermediate surfers up at 5am with the guide Ross to go in search of waves. Ross likes to grab some larger waves before providing lessons to the beginner surfers at 9am. Unfortunately Mother Nature wasn’t completely cooperative this week, as we didn’t run into swell much larger than 3ft, but the weather was sunny and warm, so it was hard to be upset. There is something to be said for camping next to the beach, and having your only responsibilities for the week being: eat, sleep, surf.
All of our time was spent surfing and camping in National Parks, and this resulted in numerous encounters with whales, dolphins and other wildlife. We saw at least five whales a day, and one particular morning a whale came within 10m of a lady on our trip and decided to roll over and ‘wave’ at her. It was amazing to view from shore, and I can only imagine how awe-struck she was sitting out on her board experiencing it. I had my own dolphin experience when a pod of dolphins came leaping out of a wave i was just about to stand up on. Best wave of the day too I reckon. It sounds like a movie, but it all happened and it was pretty amazing.
A great crew and a great trip we ended the week on Friday in Byron Bay, a fairly touristy town in northern NSW. It’s a beach side town and lays claim to having the most eastern point on mainland Australia. We spent 2 days in Byron and walked out to the lighthouse and aforementioned ‘most eastern point’. Byron is very much a party town, with the typical backpacker schedules appearing to be: beach at noon, nap, dinner, bar, repeat. 2 days was plenty for me in Byron as the town didn’t offer me much beyond shopping and ocean views. To be honest there are plenty of nicer beaches that are less busy.
We took the Surfaris bus back down to Sydney on the Sunday, as it is a free trip they provide since they are going that way anyway. What typically takes almost 14h with stops was done in about 11 this day as the Grand Finals of the Rugby were on. We didn’t cut time by speeding, we cut it by having extremely short breaks and trading off the trailer to the Ute that was taking people directly to Point Plomer for the next weeks trip.
And now, a short video of the surf trip. I cut my surfing out of the main video, mixed it with some of my own footage, and added a new soundtrack. I felt that I had heaps of better waves than what was filmed, but that is how it goes — it always feels better than it looks. But hey, the best surfer in the water is the one with the biggest smile.
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