If you support the AFL's only purple team then you might think that it was about time your fortunes changed. However, some other clubs have been without Premiership success for much longer. Here's a chart of years since each club last won a Premiership (or, in the Docker's case, since they entered the competition):
Though I'm not a fan of Starforce I have been living with it on my PC due my desire to race cars around the weird and wacky courses of (the free) Trackmania. When I heard that there was a new free version of this game without Starforce I rushed to install it, and finding it to my liking, removed all traces of Starforce from my machine (uninstalling the old Trackmania does not remove Starforce, you need to run the linked driver-removal software too). To my delight, the removal of Starforce also cured a seemingly unrelated fault. Whenever I started any program my whole computer would hang for a few seconds - even the mouse cursor would seize up. Now that no longer happens.
Goodbye Starforce, you won't be missed,
I got a slightly digital radio for my birthday. In their marketing manufacturers and sellers of such devices try to obfuscate the fact that the radio is not a "proper" digital radio, but they're easy to spot when you know what to look for. See below for my guide to the complete range, from 100% analogue to 100% digital.
fully analogue AM/FM ($10): tuning performed by knob rather than buttons. Current frequency indicated by physical movement of bar, dial or similar. Their technology hasn't changed much since the first transistor radios arrived in the 1950s.
slightly digital AM/FM ($20) - again tuning performed by knob rather than buttons, but with frequency indicated by digital display. Stations can't be stored, and frequency can drift with temperature, time and orientation. Mine [see top photo, zoom in for closer look], a Digitech AR1740 from Jaycar, was described as "Radio Receiver AM/FM/SW with LCD and Clock. This multi-band pocket radio has digital scanning and has a large backlit LCD." They've tried to hide its lack of digital functionality by including clock and alarm buttons obtrusively on the front of the radio. What looks like a huge jog dial is actually the hours and minutes setting buttons. The tuning is all done by a dial on the right-hand side.
Finally, we come to true digital radio. No longer AM/FM, this is a digital signal that requires a whole new radio. Listeners in Australian capital cities can expect to hear DAB+ in January 2009, though as of yet there are no consumer DAB+ receivers available to purchase. Other countries have been using an earlier standard, DAB, for a number of years, and users seem happy. However, due to the low bit rates that stations generally transmit in the quality has not been an improvement on FM. DAB+ promises better quality at lower bit rates.One question I have is why FM tuners are so common in mobile phones and MP3 players, but none have AM tuners. Most of my listening is of AM, so I am stuck with single-function radios. I don't have an active mobile phone, but I'd certainly consider buying a new one if it came with an AM tuner.
(CC-licenced pictures from Roadsidepictures, johnmuk and me!)
Update 25-Apr-2008: The Sydney Morning Herald describes in detail the exciting new world of digital radio in Australia.
The Graphical AFL Ladder is back for 2008. This is my (not so secret) weapon in the office tipping competition. I wonder how I'd go if I based my tips each week purely on percentage or ladder position.
Tibet, land of lamas, has been in the news recently. Geographically-challenged people may be surprised to know that if it were a country it would be about the tenth largest in the world. It makes up over a quarter of China's surface area.
I was going to display a lovely map from Google or Yahoo indicating Tibet's size and location, but the entire region appears to have gone missing. If anyone finds it, please notify someone tall.
Bonus titbit: According to the Dialecticon tidbit is preferred over titbit by 98% of Americans and 92% of Australians.
Here's a problem you might think could be solved by a little redistribution of food. However, it's slightly complicated by the fact it's generally the poor people in a population who are either overweight or unable to obtain enough food.
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