This one time I left my car door open overnight and the battery went flat. When the AA came and started it for me in the morning he told me my battery was old and needed replacing that day.
The previous year I had taken an old car battery to the metal recylers I knew that they were worth about $5 each, and just a week previous I had noticed a really big old car battery under the house left here by the previous owner.
I went to the dump the next day, and what do you know, there were 2 more car batteries sitting right beside the pit! So I put them in the car and took them home (one leaked a bit of acid and burnt a whole in the concrete in my garage).
I now had 4 batteries – about $20 worth!
With a smug look on my face, I drove to work the next day with the batteries in the back of the car, and took them in during my lunch break.
How much did I get?
$8.
Not $8 each. $8 total!
Despite the increase in lead price over the last few years (driven by an increase in demand for motorbikes and cars in China), the metal recyclers had decided to decrease their payout.
$20 is a decent bit of cash, but $8 was an insult for all the time and effort I had put into this project.
Next time, I just bury my old car battery in the garden.
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This one time when I was 13 years old, my uncle let me drive his 1984 Isuzu 4 ton truck in his citrus orchard.
That was a mistake on his part.
I misjudged my approach on a corner and completely flattened one of his orange trees.
Oops.
He had a good laugh though.
This one time I thought it would be fun if I climbed inside a locker at The Geyserland Hotel in Rotorua.
There was barely enough room for me. I basically had to contort to fit in there.
The locking mechanism was completely exposed, I was confident there would be no problem opening it once I got inside.
I crammed myself in there and closed the door, and peaked out through the tiny vent and felt very proud of myself.
After a few moments I decided I had enough and tried to turn the latch.
It wouldn’t budge!
To my dismay it became evident that it wouldn’t move without the key!
I started to panic. It got hot in there very quickly and since I was half way between sitting and standing it was terribly uncomfortable.
I started yelling for help but no-one came.
I kept screaming until someone finally came running in.
It took him a while to find out where I was.
“In here! In here!” I was yelling.
“Where? Where?” he yelled back and I could see him running around the room.
He found my locker at last and tried the handle but it wouldn’t move.
“Where’s the key?” he asked.
“Here” I sobbed and tried to poke the key with it’s huge keyring through the tiny ventilation slots, but it wouldn’t fit.
“I’ll go and get a manager with a master key!”
“Hurry!” I yelled as he left.
Finally a manager came to let me out. I was drenched in sweat, shaking and whimpering, but I survived.
I’ve been mildly claustrophobic ever since.
This one time at school camp in a hut on Mount Tongariro, 2 mates and I thought it would be good fun to light our farts.
One mate announced he was ready and got into position with just his undies on.
My job was to hold the lighter in position, but I got too close and burnt a hole in his undies and singed his nut sack.
He howled in pain while we howled with laughter.
Good times. 
Want to see some video footage of people lighting their farts?
Did you notice that last year the rate of increase on the Gmail homepage slowed considerably?
In fact, the current rate increases storage by just 4 bytes per second with is only 345.6 Kb per day. Equivalent to one unoptimised photo from your digital camera.
So how long will it take for online storage to grow from today’s 7.3GB to 10GB?
- 4 bytes per second growth
- 7438.721503: Current MB
- 7438721503: Current bytes
- 10000: Target MB
- 10000000000: Target bytes
- 2561278497: Shortfall in bytes
- 640319624.3: Seconds to get there
- 7411.106762: Days
- 20.30440209: Years
20 more years until Gmail online storage grows to 10GB!
I thought the answer would be interesting.
But it isn’t. It’s boring.
What will happen
- The internet will take an ever increasing share of advertising expenditure
- The quality of TV programming may reduce because of less advertising dollars sponsoring development
- The audience will continue to fragment between an ever increasing number of channels
But TV won’t become redundant.
Why?
4 Reasons Why The Internet Hasn’t Made TV Redundant Yet (And Never Will)
1. Watching TV Requires Less Equipment
To watch TV you just need 3 things: a TV, a remote control and some potato chips.
To watch videos on the internet you need keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, computer (or a laptop with all this build in), internet connection, desk (or a lap).
2. You Can Sit On The Couch When You Watch TV
That is more comfortable and more social than sitting on an office chair in the spare room.
And TV’s are big.
Who has a TV that is smaller than their computer monitor?
No one, that’s who.
3. TV Content Is Always Playing
Just change the channel to change the content. One press of a button is all you need. The channels are running 24 hours a day, you don’t have to click the “Play” button.
For videos on the internet you have the additional hassle of searching for them. Exhausting.
And then you have to click the “Play” button!
And then you have the added hassle of wading through all the garbage before you find something funny. At least on TV another human has deemed the content of interest to most people, with YouTube videos you’ll get all sorts of pointless shit in your face. It feels like your life is draining away.
4. TV Demands Your Attention Right Now Because Of The Schedule
If you don’t watch the TV show now, you’ll miss it. (Yes, yes, I’ve heard of TiVo, but most of the time a show is interesting enough to sit and watch it right now, but not valuable enough to actually bother to record it)
Videos on the internet are there forever, there’s no hurry.
Do you agree? Do you disagree?
Add your comments below, don’t just sit there like a passive vegetable, speak up!
More eloquent than “non-fiction” don’t you think?
That’s all my dad wants in a cellphone.
Just 2 functions:
1. Phone Calls
- Huge “Dial” and “Hang Up” buttons
- Huge characters on screen so he can see his address book
2. Text Messages
- A mind reading interface would be good here because the current system with “every key makes 3 letters” nor a QWERTY keyboard are going to help
So when is the cellphone manufacturers going to start taking away features rather than adding more on?
I have 2 bikes: a road bike that I used for triathlons in 2008/2009, and a mountain bike for commuting (with road slicks).
Road Bike Costs (3 years)
- Initial purchase (second hand): $600
- Initial upgrades: $600
- Servicing, tyres, cables, brakes, innertubes, puncture kits: $460
- Residual cost: -$400
- Total Costs: $1200
Kilometres travelled:
- 9 months x 100km/week = 4,000 km
Cost per kilometre:
- $1200/4000 = 30.0c/km
Mountain Bike Costs (6 years)
- Initial purchase (new): $500
- Lights, night gear: $300
- Tyres: $80 x 6 = $480
- Innertubes, puncture kits: $10 x 16 = $160
- Servicing, cables, brakes: $400
- Residual cost: -$100
- Total: $1440
Kilometres travelled:
- 3 years commuting = 50 weeks x 4 days/week x 15km/day = 3000km
- 3 years casual = 150 weeks x 5 days/week x 6km/day = 4000km
- Total: 7000km
Cost per kilometre:
- $1440/7000 = 20.6c/km
Conclusion
- The bicycle running costs overall are $2640/11,000 = 24c per kilometre