There’s a lot of praise for Nelson Mandela and I’ll contribute my bit. He was universally admired for being “a good bloke”.

© P.J. Croft 2013

It’s not hard to be “good”. It’s the default condition for humans, I think. You don’t have to work at it. Just live by the Golden Rule  — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Just relax and be polite, considerate of others’ feelings, easy to get along with, uncritical, truthfull, honest and non violent. It’s not hard!

But to be bad, you have to work at it. If you have any self respect, the bad things you do will eat at you. If you are amoral, maybe not, but you’ll always have to watch your back, deal carefully with others, take criticism, and if you aspire to be a leader, you’ll probably have to fight your way to the top by doing wrong to others. That means you’ll always be wary of being toppled, knifed. You’ll probably need paid bodyguards whose loyalty you can’t be sure of.

Mandela probably had bodyguards or protectors from people who saw him as a threat to their schemes, but I think they were volunteers who did it for love.

If you do good, you’ll almost certainly receive it too.

The title picture is intentional. Dad was pretty universally regarded a “a good bloke”. I try to emulate him.

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Aaaargh, that beach stair climb on Sunday seemed OK at the time, but I’m suffering for it now – sore thigh muscles! I could hardly walk last night, especially as I did a lot of walking at the Joondalup Lakeside shops yesterday. I won’t give up, though. It does me good.

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How much longer must we put up with the traffic blockages in Marmion Ave near the tip?!! They’re building a new intersection, but it’s been nearly 4 months now of one lane closed in each direction. The tailbacks extend for a Km or so as people try to merge.

So I try to avoid it by using Connolly Drive, but there are road works there too! Same deal, down to one lane. Not as bad as the traffic is not as dense. I’m sick of it all as there are only those two connections from here and to block them both at the same time seems very stupid to me.

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I bought a Blu Ray player yesterday, a Pioneer BDR-160, $146. That meant I could move my Pioneer DVD to the computer room where I can enjoy its smooth, musical sound with CDs. And I bought a cheap indoor TV antenna (just a coupla rods) and now I can get DAB+ in here too. I think the Mindarie repeater has made the difference as I couldn’t get a signal 6 months ago.

Now I’ve got two great sound locations, one with DVD, CD and DAB+, with DVDs if I set up a screen, and a nice pair of speakers (Tannoys) that I’ve had for 20 years.

In the other, I’ve got TV, Blu Ray, DVDs, and a big 75W/channel amp with really good speakers, KEF Q7s, bought in 2003. Big sound. Now that my 32″ Sony screen is installed in its proper place, I find it adequate. I don’t need anything bigger.

I’m really settling into this house now. It was very hard at the beginning, but it’s becoming much more like home now, much more comfortable. And it’s cool, but if I need aircon, it’s there.

Happy Xmas and New Year.

I’ve just done the beach stairs for the first time in over three months. Sense of achievement. I was slow, but I got to the bottom and up again. It took a few stops, but it wasn’t that difficult. If I can keep this up, I might get my travel legs back. I can go away now without worrying about Minnie.

The widest angle of my Panasonic FZ70 zoom, 20mm. Note the far distant headland at top.

This is that far headland! The same view but at the longest, 1200mm. Hard to hold steady in the wind, and it’s not that sharp, but …

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I was walking back from the shops across the car park behind the pub at about 5.20pm yesterday, and saw two young women followed by two blokes coming out of the pub. One of the women got into the driver’s seat of the car.

The other young woman was staggering toward the car and said, “I think I’m going to be sick” a couple of times. I got out of her way. She looked sick. Very unattractive, actually in that state.

Then she said, shouted, “Get the f..k out. I’m driving. F..k, I wanna drive!” She repeated this a couple of times and tried to pull the other woman out of the driver’s seat.

I walked on but I was looking back in amazement. Luckily one of the guys got in to drive, but I don’t know what state he was in either.

The message doesn’t get through, does it.

It's easy, man.

Although the phrase makes little sense, it was able to completely defeat volunteers taking part in a US speech study, researchers said.

Asked to repeat the phrase 10 times at speed, many of the participants simply stopped speaking altogether, according to lead researcher Dr Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

“If anyone can say this 10 times quickly, they get a prize,” she said.   [The Independent]

What’s the problem? I can say this easily, even ten times. Maybe it’s an American accent thing. I should claim the prize!

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Sometimes you have a win. I like digital DAB+ radio but reception up here has been marginal – lots of fading.  I read about a month ago that Perth had been approved for a “black hole” reception boost and we were going to get a repeater at Mindarie, just down the road. Oh yeah, I thought, in 2015 maybe?

Then yesterday I read in Silicon Chip that it’s done – Mindarie is up and transmitting. Sure enough, I can move the radios around now with minimal fading.

My car radio also has DAB+ reception, so it should make that work well too. Finally, Perth gets some attention. We were the first Australian city to get DAB+ in 2009 as well. Well, well, well.

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I’d be out shopping today or tomorrow, but the crowds and full car parks at the major shopping centres put me off completely. I’ve sussed out the way to bus and train to Joondalup Lakeside and it’s not too hard (the bus stop is only 150m away), but it will take the best part of an hour to get there. Then, with no car, you’re restricted in what you can carry. If I want to drive and park, I’ll just have to get going early. At least I can use the Seniors bays now.

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I watched a BluRay I bought from Amazon last night. I only ordered from them because it doesn’t seem to be available in Australia. It cost $17 approx. It’s a US Region A disc, meaning you can only play it with a Region A player. Lucky mine allows changing regions. I’ve got a half dozen or so Region As now.

I need another BluRay player – I’ve got two viewing rooms now. How decadent.  You can buy multi-region players in Australia, but it seems to add $200 to the cost of locked players. Why?? It’s a very minor change in the electronics. I think it’s the Australia Tax at work again.

The movie? It’s about a six person mission to Europa in 2200 I think, but it was never deemed good enough to go to cinemas. I can see why. The idea is good, but it’s just another American plot with clashes between the crew, grumpy astronauts, venturing onto the surface without testing it first, lots and lots of sparks and radiation and equipment failures and so on. The camera work is jerky, hard to watch and very jumpy.

I watched right through, but (a) how come astronauts who can’t get along with each other are selected for a two year mission? (b) why are grumpy, argumentative guys chosen who don’t seem smart enough to have any science knowledge? (c) why are all the computer display graphics so crude and hard to interpret 100 years after the invention of graphical user interfaces?  Finally, why couldn’t we have had a storyline which showed the awesome sight of this ice and water world? All the scenes are dark, close up and dirty.  4/10

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I look at BBC Australia on the web most days and I’ve long noticed that the weather forecasts for Perth are wildly out. Almost every day they say Max 4C Min -1 or similar. I thought this was just an HTML oddity.

But a few days ago I got sick of it and tried to change my location. I typed in Butler WA but all I got to choose from was UK addresses. Then it dawned on me – the Perth on the BBC page is Perth, Scotland. So much for BBC Australia. 🙂

Kingsbridge. Read any Ken Follett?

First, about drone copters from yesterday – a friend of mine owns one quite like the one in the photo. His cost him in the thousands of dollars, being designed for serious lifting of video cameras, but he uses it for commercial video work (as well as fun).

He said today that he thinks this is a very bad idea, because these large drone copters are heavy. If one falls out of the sky it could kill someone. To illustrate, his crashed last week on landing and it flipped over, breaking all the rotors, a couple of the arms and generally causing mayhem. If there’d been anyone underneath it, KAPOW.

So how Amazon hopes to guard against this and get FAA permission to fly them in residential areas seems a bit er, pie in the sky. A very heavy pie.

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Now to the title. For months I’ve woken in the night (not sleeping too well these days) to hear rustling, scratching sounds and occasional shimmies of the venetian blind in my bedroom. Of course, by the time I take my CPAP mask off, put my glasses on and grab the torch, it’s gone. Not a chance of seeing anything. Lucky it doesn’t worry me. I don’t believe in giant man eating mice 🙂

I’ve known for a few weeks that there’s a small mouse in the house because I see him/her speeding across the floor from time to time. I don’t mind.

Last evening I was sitting at the computer and saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. There he was, running across the carpet and he actually bumped into my foot.

So I think I’m right, it is a mouse rattling my venetians. I have my bedroom door closed at night, so he must go in there earlier. Maybe under the bed. Too bad.

However, I’m not so happy about someone knocking on my front door at night. Twice last week, once at about 3am and the next right on midnight. It’s very clear – a serious knock, knock, knock on wood.

I hear it but I don’t respond. If it’s genuine, they’ll knock again and then I’ll investigate, but what kind of mind does this stupid act? There’s no second knock. Grrrr.

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More locals, using my new 1200mm lens camera yesterday.

I was talking about this concept to a mate around the beginning of this year. I don’t know what made me think about it then, but I did. Not in connection with Amazon, but for small firms in Perth that need to deliver small packages to the suburbs.

Amazon Prime Air: Delivery by Drones Could Arrive As Early as 2015

With Prime Air, Amazon is hoping to deliver packages
with drones.   Courtesy Amazon

For the next few weeks UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service will be working overtime to make sure you get your holiday gifts on time, but if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos gets his way, in the future, it might be delivery drones working those extra hours.

In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening, Bezos unveiled Amazon Prime Air, a service that delivers packages via autonomous drones. With the service, Bezos said he hopes that the company will be able to deliver packages into customers hands within 30 minutes of the time they place an order.

Yes, with GPS on the drone, just enter the delivery address and phone to tell the customer to expect a parcel on his front lawn within the hour. The drone then does another drop, or returns to the shop.

BUT!  How are they going to cope with:

• The danger of hitting power lines if too low.
• The danger of interfering with aircraft if too high.
• The danger of hitting other firms’ drones. (I’ve always wondered how the hell flying cars would work. It would be chaos in the skies, and people would die from collisions. Stupid idea, unless the flying cars are restricted to defined paths, and that would lead to traffic jams. Also, interference with aircraft … )
• The cost of insurance! The consequences of hitting anything could be very, very expensive, not to mention dangerous.
• Getting approval from the Civil Aviation authorities. Hah.

And it would only apply to cities with an Amazon distribution centre. That rules Perth out. So it’s a great idea and may get up some day, but pigs might fly first.

My local. My place is 100m behind it. 
Nice, but I only have a coupla pints once a 
week (for my behaviour policewoman's info!)
This shot was taken only 30 mins ago.

First day of summer 2013. It seems as if we’ve had summer already. I like this cool, wet weather.

I’ve had an idea for a new goal. Dell has released a new laptop, the M3800 which must be the nicest, most powerful ever released. It’s a 15″ 3200 x 1800 pixel screen (higher than Full HD), quad core Core i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, solid state hard drive, weighing only 1.88Kg. Oh, and it’s only 18mm thick, about the same a MacBook Air.

Do I need one? Not really. Do I want one? Yeah.

In the USA it is priced at US$1799.  The price here? A$3799 !!!  I was shocked. This is price gouging of the first order and I vented my anger on their contact form. I told them it would be cheaper to fly to the US and buy one there, and get a holiday in the price.

That started me thinking: hmmm, round the world air ticket? About A$2,500. Buy the laptop in LA at A$1955, if I can’t find a discounter there.

So that started the process – Sydney to LA, across country by train to NY, Boston, fly Boston to Shannon or Dublin, see Ireland and make my way to London. Get to Croft Castle and all the things I’ve missed so far.

Chunnell to Paris, train around Europe a bit, then repeat my return journey from 2008 – Milan to Dubai to KL, train to Singapore, then Free-quent Flyer home. A bit ambitious I think, but …

But the time of year is important. My 2008 trip was perfect, September and October. Still warm enough to wear shorts and T shirts, and past the worst of the European holiday season, but not yet winter.

That’s a long time to wait, but I’d have to regain some fitness anyway and that will take time.

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Crumbs (or pants, as Stephen Fry says), I didn’t think Popes had much relevance to the world. But maybe this one is different.

This is good stuff: http://mathbabe.org/2013/11/28/today-im-thankful-for-the-pope/

I agree. Except that. as one of the commenters says, the Catholic church is one of the richest institutions on Earth. How about spreading some of that gold, Popey baby?

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I forgot to mention — the photo above comes from my walk around the lakes this afternoon carrying my camera.

Last week a West Australian judge said we have to recognise that there are paedophiles out there who take pictures of kids and that it is probably time we stopped allowing photos to be taken at sporting events and such like.

WHAT???!!!  On 1 May 2008 I was doing my usual, regular (>20 years) walk around the Trigg ovals carrying my Canon 40D and new 10-20mm lens for it. I was taking photos in the late, slanting, golden autumn light. The ovals were full of kids playing sport. I thought nothing of it.

When I went back to the car, I was confronted by two guys standing each side of me saying, “Taking photos are we mate?”

“Yes, I said, as I have been doing for the last 20 years.”  “Well, the women are asking why you’re taking photos of their kids.” “I’m not taking photos of kids!”, I said. “I’ve just got a new lens and I’m trying it out.” This was a super wide angle lens where people in the shots are very small. Nonetheless, I felt obliged to show my pictures on the camera screen.

But bloody hell, I was shocked and shaken. I was being intimidated and harassed by these guys, at the instigation of women!

In the next few days I looked up the legalities of photographing people. The result was, I now carry a Photographer’s Guide to the Law on Photographing in Australia in my wallet.

The legal position, as of 2008, is that I am absolutely within my rights to photograph anyone, including children, in a public place. Therefore, if you don’t like your kids appearing in photos, don’t expose them in these public spaces. And DON’T DEMONISE ME for taking photos when I have a perfect legal right to do so.

A shopping centre or a school grounds are not public places, they are private places and so we are not allowed, unless we have permission, to take photos. But a park, beach, sports ground, city street, any street, is a public space. No-one can stop me taking photos.

I’m currently writing my memoirs. Luckily, I have literally hundreds of photos going back to the 1920s or before of our family in all its generations. If photographing kids in public is banned or demonised, where are the memories going to come from. This is stupid.

So I say to this judge, if it’s not advisable, too bad. I am within my legal rights to do so, and if anyone tackles me, I’ll be straight onto my phone calling the police and laying charges of harassment and threats. What a stupid thing to say. He should have emphasised the law’s position. If he doesn’t like the law, then let him lobby to change it. Meanwhile, go away.