Time for a shower and then Atlantis. I’ve hit a plateau with rock climbing I think – I can do most of the yellow routes (18-20 difficulty), but the oranges are too tough (21-22).
Link of the half hour: Rock climbing forearm exercises.
Whoops waylaid on the way back.
Checking in.
Checking in.
Checking in.
Checking in.
Going indoor rock climbing. Will be mobile posting to “check in” every 30 mins, depending on the circumstances.
Going out to buy some bacon to cook with pasta for tonight’s dinner.
With the new Core 2 Duo CPUs out, soon might be a good time to upgrade…
Link of the half-hour: Lake Peigneur. How does a 3m deep lake turn into a 400m+ deep lake?
Link of the half-hour: 715 megapixel photo of the Sydney CBD. It’s a stiched copy of 170 images taken with a Canon 10D fitted with a 100-400mm L lens. Most photos were shot at 400mm, at ISO 200, 6s, f/6.7 (manual mode). The original image is a 1.3Gb Photoshop file.
Link of the half-hour: A Foreign Affair. It’s an interesting read.
There’s some sort of market that runs every Sunday, only about 100 metres down the road from my place, that I’ve never been to. So I just dropped by and had a bit of a squiz.
It’s a pretty tatty flea market where a motley crew of vendors have thrown together a completely random selection of paraphrenalia. There’s disordered piles of second hand clothing, toiletries by the pallet-load, sort of fresh fruits and vegetables, snack food, books, taps and faucets, fishing equipment, cheap jewellery, golf bags, shoes and packs of 48 rolls of toilet paper going for $8. There’s even a damn tarot card reader in amongst the stalls. However, the prize for most random stall goes to the guy selling motherboards, keyboards and bikinis. The crowd is predominantly composed of elderly mediterraneans and an assortment of Asians, all out hunting for the odd bargain (and there probably are some decent ones floating around, if you’re willing to wade in and get your hands dirty… literally).
I’m going for a walk outside. It’s too nice a day to be stuck inside. I’m bringing my camera along, not that there’s much to photograph in Kingsford!
Hmm, it’ll be lunchtime soon. ING raised their Savings Maximiser account interest rates to 5.85% a few days ago (which is actually above the current RBA cash rate, but not for long). BankWest is also offering a 6.4% interest rate for the first 12 months.
Link of the half-hour: How the benefits of internet accounts stack up.
This is a census year and the first where Australians can fill out the census form online. The census is a statistics gathering exercise where the ABS attempts to get the various details of every single person living in Australia on the census night (which is 8 August). It’s a tremendous task. I remember a series of Full Frontal skits (which must be either 10 or 15 years ago now) where they showed a census collector popping up in the weirdest places (an Aboriginal tribe in the outback, someone lost on a desert island off the coast of northern Queensland, etc).
Filling out a census form is a legal requirement, and it is regulated by the Census and Statistics Act 1905. While it’s not illegal to fail to fill out the form, per se, the “Australian Statistician” (a person in the ABS) can direct a person (in writing) to answer any unanswered census questions (which are not optional to answer). It is a criminal offence to fail to comply with such a direction. The maximum penalty is one penalty unit (or $110)… per day (and not $100 like the census booklet says). Which makes it more expensive than failing to get your name marked off the electoral roll during elections.
In terms of privacy, each member of a household is entitled to a separate form if they want one. Your details are kept confidential, and the Australian Statistician can be whacked with a $13,200 fine and/or 2 years’ imprisonment if they divulge any information given to them (in a manner not authorised by the Act). Furthermore, a “person who is or has been the Statistician or an officer must not, at any time during the period of 99 years beginning on the Census day for a Census: (a) be required to divulge or communicate to an Agency any information that is contained in a form that is given to the Statistician or an authorised officer under section 10 in relation to that Census…”. They same exemption applies against providing such information in courts and tribunals. Therefore it sounds like census details are safe from the prying eyes of the intelligence officers at ASIO. After 99 years, we have the option of having our details released so future generations can study this generation.
There are a few interesting things I’ve noted about this year’s questions. Question 12 asks country of birth, and the options are Australia, England, NZ, Italy, Viet Nam, Scotland, Greece and Other. It’s logical to assume that these countries reflect the most frequently selected options. (Also interesting is that they’ve decided to spell Viet Nam in two words, like it’s done natively. Vietnamese used to be written in Chinese characters before a missionary romanicised their language. Therefore, Vietnam actually is two words, but when it’s Anglicised, it’s normally written as a single word – just as how “China” is the Anglicised version of China, which is written as two Chinese characters which, when translated, have nothing to do with the word “China”.)
Question 19 asks about religion. It’s an optional question, as always. In the examples of ‘Other’ religions, one example specified is “Salvation Army”. I wasn’t aware it was a religion. In the last census, over 70,000 Star Wars fans decided to write “Jedi” as an answer. However, their ploy failed and the ABS refused to recognise “Jedi” as a religion.
Finally, I think question 59 is new: “Can the Internet be accessed at this dwelling?”
I got my census delivered yesterday. I’ll write a bit about it in the next post.
Admittedly, Sydney property prices have been ranked as among the most unaffordable in the world (relative to cost of living) in recent years, but you might also like to remember that during the 1980s, the cash rate soared way above 10% for several years.
With the RBA set to raise interest rates by at least 0.25% next week (if not 0.5%), I really don’t envy people holding mortgages. Not only that, but some believe property prices will drop up to 10% as a result of interest rates making it unattractive for property to be used as an investment. People will therefore get hit with a negative capital return, plus an increased loss due to higher interest payments (so what if it’s tax deductible? A loss caused by higher interest payments is still a loss, even if it’s discounted by your marginal tax rate.)
On the flipside, rental rates will rise as more people decide to rent rather than buy. However, property in Sydney is already quite overpriced. Rental yields only pay for a fraction of the mortgage payments. It’s not a great time for new home owners.
Link of the half-hour: Lifetime mortgages.
| 139 days spent in current location | |
| Previously | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| » Currently | San Francisco, CA (28/12/25 1:19am) |
| View full itinerary... | |
7:22pm (GMT +10.00) 
