TED Talks

A while ago, I was telling Adele about a TED Talk that I had seen and she said she had never heard of a TED talk. This kind of shocked me but I understand that not everyone has heard of TED so I thought I would write a short blog post for her.
What is TED From the Wikipedia Entry :
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a US private nonprofit foundation best known for its conferences, now held in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S., devoted to what it calls "ideas worth spreading". Its lectures or TED Talks, widely disseminated on the internet, are not subject to a time limit.
TED was founded in 1984; the first conference happened in 1990.

You can find talks and more info and talks at the TED website. I personally just check them out on YouTube. Alot of famous people give talks but I tend to find the real amazing ones are unknown people to me. Here are a few that I found interesting :
Aimee Mullins "How My Legs gave me Superpowers"


Robert Full "Learning from a Gecko's Tail"


Michael Pritchard makes filthy water drinkable


Thats 3, there are heaps more. Check out YouTube or the TED Website for more. Bye.

ACDC

The Concert i`ve been waiting years for. ACDC February 18, ANZ Stadium. Tickets went on sale at 9am on the 25th of May 2009. After refreshing the webpage for an hour I finally got 2 tickets at $150 a piece :
in General Admission, Arena C :
We rocked into Sydney from Ballina at around 2:30. By the time we picked up our car and got to the Marriot Courtyard Hotel in Parramatta, (this hotel should be in Adele and I`s credits : Adele and Daniel choose to stay at the Marriott Courtyard Parramatta, LOL) it was about 5 o'clock thanks to having to navigate Parramatta Road in peak hour.

Adele had worked out from the net that ACDC weren't onstage till 8:55pm so we headed over the road to P.J Gallaghers Irish Pub across the road, where we enjoyed a relaxing pizza (Adele discovered that fresh tomato is included on a traditional Margarita pizza). Then we headed back to our room, picked up our trusty little point and shoot camera and headed to the train station, we caught the train to Lidcombe station(I have caught a number of trains here thanks to my grandparents living in Livinstone Road Lidcombe), then switched over for the train to Homebush.

Once we hit Homebush it`s the busiest I have ever seen this place. People everywhere, probably not well demonstrated by this shot but :
So we lined up to get to the Merchandising tent :
An hour later after much discussion about if they would have EFTPOS facilities(they did) we finally got away $80 poorer but richer by one ACDC T-Shirt and an official Program :
I have since ordered the ACDC Tie which I didn`t see but it should be delivered shortly.

Next we searched for an ATM and finally found one, then we found some flashing devil horns for Adele, which everyone was wearing :
The guy selling these things at$20 a pop must have been making a fortune cause they were Everywhere.

We then entered the stadium and watched the end of Wolfmothers set. Overall, Wolfmother didn`t have the sound mixed correctly so came out a bit distorted. But they ended around 8:20pm so we then waited for half an hour for the main show.
Boy did they not disappoint
They came out with Runaway Train from their current album, the middle screen split and a Huge train came through the middle :
Anyway here`s the setlist for the Concert :

1. Rock N' Roll Train
2. Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be
3. Back in Black
4. Big Jack
5. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
6. Shot Down in Flames
7. Thunderstruck
8. Black Ice
9. The Jack
10. Hells Bells
11. Shoot to Thrill
12. War Machine
13. High Voltage
14. You Shook Me All Night Long
15. T.N.T.
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. Let There Be Rock (Angus did a 20 Minute Solo On Let There Be Rock)

Encore:

18. Highway to Hell
19. For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

Concert finished at around 11pm with a fireworks show. We were back in our hotel room by 11:30 which we thought was extremely impressive.

Unfortunately not too many good shots with the camera, should have read the manual for it before we left for the concert. But we had an AWESOME time. Well I did anyway, even after standing for 3 and half hours :). Adele had her horns knocked off by an exuberant concert goer who was apologising profusely and then proceeded to nearly sh*t himself when I turned around and asked what was going on. I have video but I don`t think I should upload them for legal reasons anyway.

So that was our ACDC outing :
Bye.

Greyhounds

Adele and I decided to go for an adventure last night. We decided to go to the Greyhounds.

The track is just off Hindmarsh drive opposite the Best Western Sundown Motel. $5.50 each Entry fee to get us both in and we settled down to have a bit of a gamble.

We had a great time, we arrived just as Race 1 started. And we got to see a dog cartwheel along, it then picked itself up off the ground and continued.

Race 2, We picked Happy Glow who managed to come in third. Yay we thought, Money back. Until we found out they only pay place for 2nd :(.

Race 3, Adele`s pick Milly Moo managed to shoot out of the barriers in first:
The Greyhound then ran along in the lead till about 3/4 of the way through the race, when it decided to turn around and go back the other way. We were laughing about it and then Adele realised that the owners were sitting behind us.

Race 4 :

- We picked Demon Fighter, but we came in third again. No money back :(

Race 5 :
The Anytime Fitness Stakes(Huge Cash Prize to the winner of $770) over 440m, we picked Chocolate Cobber initially but was told it was scratched late. So we picked Apidra. Again, Third :(.

We decided to save our money and head to the Tigers club where we drowned our sorrows in food and diet soft drinks. Still a good night out had by both of us :)

Cricket

Whilst on holiday I made it to the Gabba to see a One Day Internationl Cricket match between Australia and the West Indies. Ticket supplied by my sister Clare(Good seats, I feel I need box seats for the next game to top these) as a Christmas present, one of the best christmas presents i`ve ever had, Cheers.

I only had my phone to take photo`s on so the quality is not great, we have since bought a little point and shoot for occasions such as this, but I feel next time i`ll chance taking the DSLR. So now some photo`s :
Al in his umbrella hat, he was asked to remove it after a couple of hours, I was going to offer to forcibly remove him from the stadium but he complied with directions.

We got to our seats, just near the side screen at the Stanley St end, I`ve circled in red where we sat(or thereabouts).

The West Indies won the toss and elected to field.

We saw the Gatorade cart come onto the field for drinks.

Halfway through the West Indies innings we saw a sky writer. There were initials but we couldn`t read them.

So Australia ended up on 7/324 after 50 overs and then took to the field, was great to see Ricky Ponting getting a century.

After Gayle got out for 34 off 21 balls it was pretty much a boring game after that. But we did see a few players right in front of us :

Ryan Harris (2/64 off 10 Overs).

Mitchell Johnson (1/54 off 10) came to sign some autographs for the kids.

Adam Voges 16 runs off 10 balls (Great shot I know).

Finally Mike Hussey (42 off 21 balls), dissapointment for the kids as apparently he doesn`t sign autographs whilst fielding. But he did take a great catch right in front of us.

Found some video highlights of the game which should work:


West Indies lost the game, ending up on 8/274, we ended up leaving at the 49th over to beat the traffic. So, big thanks to my sister Clare who provided me a great Christmas present. To my brother Kim for driving us up there in the nice new car. To my Father Al (whose birthday it was on the day), and brothers in law Michael and Shane a big thanks as well for attending with me and enjoying the day. Thats it I think. Bye.

Lake George

On our way home from holiday, I sent tweet from the lookout at Lake George saying there was water in it. I received some replies saying that wasn`t much, now that was the best I could do with a camera phone at the time, but here is a couple of shots taken from our DSLR :

Note the wind turbines in the background, they are now fully operational.
1st pic taken with the standard 18-55mm lens, the 2nd with the bigger 55-200mm lens.

So thats a little bit better, I imagine the water has probably dried up by now, but thats the most water I`ve seen in Lake George for a long time. Bye.

Apple`s iPad

I`ve been waiting to see hard info on this product, this since the rumours started flying thick and fast, i`ve never been an Apple fan due to the limitations on them set by Apple, but i`m looking around, and Apple have done really good things as far as mass marketing gadgets, so here`s what I think of the iPad :

Pros :

• eBook Store (ePub format) - Very interested to see how this pushes the eBook format, also no info on the DRM etc on it.
  
• Battery Life, 10 Hours is stunning, I would say due to the 1GHz Apple A4 CPU but interested to see more about this CPU.
  
• Looks Good, even i`ll admit it looks good
• 9.7" Screen looks good, but 1024x768 res is a little disappointing but size of screen is limited.

Cons :

• No GPS, Kinda limits the possibilities.
  
• No HDMI or DVI Output - Big Disappointment.
  
• Only 64Gb Max??
• No Flash integration.
  
• No camera, Yeah it has an option for an add-0n but come on.
• No multitasking, maybe an OS update this year will do something about it?
  
• Soft Keyboard, No really positive reviews on it yet.
  

Pricing :
Biggest disappointment is the price, as usual for Apple there is a big premium for slapping a fruit logo on the back :
WiFi Only : $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32Gb and $699 for 64GB
Adding 3G costs a $130 per model So :
WiFi/3G : $629 for 16Gb, $729 for 32Gb and $829 for 64Gb
- Bear in mind these are US dollars and will be a premium markup when it hits Australia presumably around June/July this year.

Overall :
I was seriously looking at this device as my first Apple product (bar an iPod I never actually used except as a portable HDD), but the Cons column quickly outweighed the pros, the price also makes it look unattractive. The one thing I am really excited about is the iBook stuff, I read...A Lot, I don`t listen to music much so iTunes never really excited me, but I do read, extensively and quickly and I like to own original legit copies of books, so i`m quite frankly excited to see what Apple can do for ebook readers. Hardware wise, i'd like to see some things fixed up, mainly the stuff in the Cons column. Overall i`ll wait to see what other tablet options come out maybe the next version of the iPad may convince me, or it may be the Asus Eee Pad or the HP, Who knows? But I do know I like the look of tablet PC`s.


EDIT : Forgot, The Name : iPad, sounds like a female sanitary product, Really.

Last minute Christmas Ideas

A Branding Iron that fits on a lighter :

A PlayTV setup for my PS3 :
Should be about $125 from BigW, Joyce Mayne in Ballina had a good deal on it too, Hint Hint Mary/Al/Amy

A Remote Control for the PS3 :
This was at BigW for about $40-50

Now Cool things i`ve seen :

The Guy is apparently getting 30Million to make it into a full length Feature film, more info here

Really must do my post about our shower getting fixed, its soo good, anyway, later. Bye.