Click here to see:  https://myalbum.com/embed/qEoK9KDDlpz4

There’s a Facebook challenge in progress, seven images in seven days. I have a few more to show.

I walked from the Convention Centre train station to the Mount Medical Centre on Friday, and while I was walking in the bright sunshine, I was thinking, “Gee, Perth’s a lovely city.” It’s not all good, and the destruction of our heritage buildings is atrocious, but there are pockets where you can be right next to the city, yet in a nature world as above.

This is the lake between Mount’s Bay Rd and the freeway entrances and exits. There’s quite a good bird population there.

Looking over the Canning River to the Swan River. Fremantle cranes just visible. Rottnest Is. on the horizon. © PJ Croft 2016

Endeavour   1988, Rottnest Is. in background.   © PJ Croft 2016

While walking, I was noticing the apartment blocks on Mount’s Bay Rd and thinking, Phwooaar, wouldn’t it be a good place to live. Well, I did some web looking and it turns out they are quite affordable, around the $400K – $500K mark, The trouble is, they’re so small! Most at that price are about 85-95 m². My place here is approx. 180m². I very much doubt I’d be happy in such cramped quarters.

I notice there’s another new hotel/apartment block approved for Milligan St. The hotel rooms are going to be 22-28m² ! The rooms I’ve been staying at in Bali have ranged from 35 – 45m², and these are just three star hotels. I can tell you, 45m² felt fantastic, just about right. Perth developers build small!

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My walk to the Mount was to see the gastric surgeon. I’ve waited nearly two months for that appointment – it seems a lifetime.

It was to see if I need to have my gastric band removed. Good news: he doesn’t think so. Oh good, I save $2,500. That’s how much he charges, and it’s not refundable from Medicare. HBF pays for the room, but not for the surgery.

I have to go back, maybe this week, to have a drink of barium and a CT scan to see what’s happening to my stomach when I eat and drink. I’ve been feeling odd when I do, so this is to figure out why. Then I make another appointment to see him to discuss the results, but he’s going on holidays for all of August, so it looks as if this is going to drag out to September, at least. This is not good. I first asked to see him in early May, and it’ll be September and I still won’t be finished. Dammit.

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The election’s over, but it’s not over. Unfortunately, I live in a solidly blue ribbon Liberal electorate (Pearce) so my vote didn’t make much difference. But while I was leaving, I wanted to shout out: “If you vote Liberal, you’ll be voting for:

1. A government of climate science deniers and climate change sceptics.

2. A government that loves coal mines and coal fired power generation. A government that has killed investment in renewable energy in this country.

3. A government that proposes to grant logging leases in National Parks.

4. That is going to bequeath this country a second rate fibre optic network that can’t cope with future advances and will cost billions to fix. That not a single engineer in the NBN Co believes in.

5. A government that has ripped $2.5bn out of the aged care system and is set to take more.

6. A government that is going to give a $48bn tax cut to big business, of which $22bn will go to foreign companies.

7. A government that is sitting on its hands while the Great Barrier Reef is destroyed by ocean warming and CO2 emissions.

8. A government that has pulled $54bn out of hospitals and health care and told the states to find the money.

9. A government that is prepared to “crack down” on pensioners and Centrelink clients, but won’t tackle tax avoidance and fraud by big business.

10. A government of members who are funded by a corrupt organisation, the Liberal Party of Australia, and are ripping off your taxpayer dollars by using public servants to do its work.” [Parakeelia – Google it, it’s a scandal.]

My shot of the Sony building, 1992.  © PJ Croft 2016

From The Guardian:   For half a century, the Sony Building in Tokyo has attracted domestic and foreign tourists to the upmarket Ginza district. The flagship building went up in 1966 at a time when the high-rise megalopolis that would eventually provide the setting for Blade Runner and the inspiration for Akira was still in its infancy, and displayed world-changing products such as the Walkman and Trinitron TV.

Now, the consumer electronics company plans to demolish its own flagship store and temporarily replace it with a park. The loss of Yoshinobu Ashihara’s building will be felt in a Tokyo that constantly demolishes and rebuilds, wiping out its architectural heritage. But in a city like Tokyo where public space is woefully lacking – most of it indoors and devoted to retail – an urban oasis could actually help the city, not to mention the once-mighty company’s struggling brand.

Brutal and concrete from the outside, the Sony Building’s interior is something entirely different. Typical of Ashihara’s other buildings from this period, it has multiple-level floors that defy the conventions of the common retail complex. “I made the entire interior space continuous by placing 27 floors on successive different levels,” the architect wrote of the building. The result is a store where floors spiral round, like a staircase.

I was there in 1992. I went through this Sony building.

This was in the days of analogue High Definition TV broadcasting. MUSE they called it, Multiple Sub-Nyquist Sampling Encoding. Japan had HD TV in the early 1990s, ten years before us.

Problem was, it was analogue and before its time. Europe came up with DVB-T, Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial and it was goodbye Japan.

Airlie Beach, Qld.    © PJ Croft 2016

Brrrr. It would be nice to be there. I’m told there’s a cool wet snap has descended on Bali, forecast to last a week. The cool air is sweeping up from Australia, i.e. here, outside my door. Go air, go.

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Brexit! What a disaster! This will go down in history as the ultimate cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face decision of all time.

It has divided the UK, almost literally. North vs South, young vs old, intelligent vs dumb bums, Scotland vs England, Northern Ireland vs England and Wales, and possibly N. Ireland vs “southern” Ireland.

This is all the doing of that idiot Tory, Cameron. He will go down in history as one of the great failures.

Now the racists are ratcheting up. They’ve been stirred up by that Oswald Mosely of the 21st century, Nigel Farage. A racist xenophobic stirrer with nothing real to contribute, just slogans.

Make no mistake, this is a disaster. This will play out for years and we’ll all suffer. As The Economist said on the cover last week, Divided We Fall. Putin will be rubbing his hands with glee. It’s just what he wants, disunity in Europe. What fools are the Poms.

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I’ve spent a lot of time today fixing my main desktop PC. I can’t remember what happened a few days ago, but it wouldn’t boot up any more.

So I pulled it out into the dining area (for the daylight), and proceeded to reseat all the memory strips (DIMMs), the PCI cards and the plugs and sockets. What a job. PCs are hard on the fingers. All the DIMMs and plugs use clips which are not only stiff and hard, but have sharp edges. My cold fingers are sore.

I found one of the memory modules was improperly inserted (my fault) and that was making the power supply cycle, i.e. protect itself. Thank goodness for this bit of good design. In the old days – 30 years ago – the power supply would have died or the module would have been destroyed.

OTOH, I would still have a job fixing power supplies 😦

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Anyway, I’m back in business and it was a chance to clean the filters, rearrange a mess of cables and generally wipe it down.

In the process I used an HDMI to DVI adapter from another monitor and had a terrible time getting it off the base. The designers placed it underneath a recessed bit, so that you can’t see it without upending the monitor. The thumbscrews were so tight I had to use pliers. Try doing that by feel.

Then when I put it back again later, I spent about 5 minutes cursing, swearing and busting my fingers trying to get it back into place again. Why not upend the monitor? I had to, in the end, but this is a heavy item and the space is limited and I don’t want to scratch the desk or wall.

Why can’t Dell make it easy for us?????

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I’ve just seen this: http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/rottnest-police-target-students-carrying-drugs-to-island/news-story/2e9eea50c089dc283bd68bcbb19dd58d

I admit that at Easter 1964, I, with some other guys from The Hut, was ejected from the island, told to catch the next day’s ferry and go home. Why? We chose to camp under the lighthouse rather than in the camping area. Why? I think it was because we didn’t have any camping gear. We had a few bottles of Swan Lager beer, and in those days we were under-age drinkers. the drinking age was 21.

But drugs?? No, not even in our minds. What a change has happened in 50 years. Lamentable.

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I read a review of a new tablet PC the other day, and got the hots for it a bit. It was the ASUS Transformer T300 Chi. It looked juicy and I started looking up the price. I found a few prices, but left it for a week.

Today I went back to the ASUS site and found it’s gone from their product list! There used to be a T100, T200 and T300. Only the first one is left.

OK, it’s been replaced, and I’ve read a review of the ASUS Transformer 3 Pro, shown in Taiwan in May. But that’s not up on ASUS’s web site. Huh?

ASUS Transformer 3 Pro.

Why am I looking at this? On my last trip I took my Dell 15″ laptop, weighing nearly 2Kg all up, and my Samsung Tab S tablet, weighing about 800g.

The Samsung uses Android and I found it surprisingly useful. Mainly for reading the news and emails at breakfast, I must admit. But I don’t like using Android. I’ve got used to it, but it’s a dog compared to Windows.

This new ASUS uses Windows, but still gives full touch control. The Dell laptop is a touch screen as well, and I found it surprisingly usable.

If I could only take one 800g device with me when travelling, which gave me all the functionality of Windows (10 or 7), had a 2880 x 1920 display, a Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, for around $1,000, I’m interested.

I’m not sure it’s available yet, and I’m not planning a trip in the near future, but …

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I have an appointment on Friday with the gastric surgeon to, I hope, remove my gastric band. The thing is, I asked for an appointment in early May. I’ve had to wait over two months. This is unconscionable! This the doctors’ union in operation. The AMA artificially restricts the number of doctors who can become specialists so as to keep a big waiting list.

This is wrong! Why should someone with a serious bodily problem have to wait two months to get to see a doctor? This is no different to any union or “restraint of trade”issue.

But on Friday, I’ll have to keep a straight face and be polite. After all, he’s going to cut into me. NB: he takes his fee up front. The bill comes through immediately, even before the service is provided. Even plumbers don’t do that. Nice going.  I spit!

The first CEO of the National Broadband Network (NBN), Mike Quigley, has hit out at the shambles that Malcolm Turnbull has made of our national fibre optic network:

In the speech, Mr Quigley rubbished the copper-based fibre-to-the-node technology, a centrepiece of the Coalition’s rollout, and said fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) “is the only safe long-term bet for Australia’s fixed broadband network”.

“To spend billions of dollars to build a major piece of national infrastructure that just about meets demand today, but doesn’t allow for any significant growth in that demand over the next 10 or 20 years, without large upgrade costs, is incredibly short-sighted,” he said.

“It is such a pity that so much time and effort has been spent on trying to discredit and destroy the original FTTP-based NBN.

“And equally a pity that the Coalition has put their faith in what has turned out to be a short-sighted, expensive and backward-looking MTM [mixed technology model] based on copper.

“The nation is going to be bearing the consequences of those decisions for years to come in higher costs and poorer performance in an area that is critical to its long-term future.

“Betting tens of billions of taxpayers dollars at this time on copper access technologies, as the Coalition has done, is a huge miscalculation.”

Optic fiber cable

I got my latest three monthly blood test results today, and the doctor was very pleased. So am I.

The main one is HbA1c, the three monthly average blood glucose. The last four quarterly readings have been 8.1, 8.2, 7.1 and the latest one 7.0. That’s “Satisfactory glycaemic control.” Very satisfying. It would be better if it was 6.0, but this’ll do.

Kidneys? All readings normal. Liver? Same. Cholesterol? 3.2! All the LDL, HDL and Triglycerides are within the target range. I do not have a cholesterol or lipids problem. “Good lipaemic control.”

My weight continues to fall. I came back from Bali 0.5Kg lighter than when I left, and I’ve kept it off since I’ve been home. The key? Good breakfast of low GI foods (porridge, multigrain toast), light lunch, sometimes only a handful of nuts, and importantly, only a very small dinner, often just a cup-a-soup. I’m just eating less and less.

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The lies being told by Turnbull and Christopher Pyne, the so called minister for Science and Innovation about the NBN are just breathtaking!

They say there’s been more progress connecting premises in the past month than there was in the first three years under Labor’s FTTP plan.

They conveniently don’t mention that it was always going to be necessary for there to be around 3 – 5 years’ planning before the first premises could be connected. Of course there’s more progress now, that’s because the planning phase is largely over and the connection phase is running! There was no way that connections could start in the first three years under Labor! This is just another Liberal Party lie.

Look at the WA state government’s latest backflip. In 2013 they announced that a light rail nline would be built to Perth’s NE suburbs. They said repeatedly, it was “fully funded and costed”.

Now they’ve announced, three years later, that the plan has been abandoned as too expensive. But it was “fully funded and costed”! Where did the funding go? It was just another Barnett government lie. Like the electricity prices that would be tied to “at or near the CPI”. The fact is that electricity prices have risen at more than triple the CPI. Barnett just brushes it off as not a commitment. It was a lie.

The Liberal Party deliberately lies to you.

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The UK votes today to stay in the EU or leave. I HOPE THEY STAY! It will be a tragedy if they leave.

Why?The main thing for me is that a leave vote will almost certainly trigger another referendum in Scotland on whether to leave the United Kingdom. Scotland is a big beneficiary of the EU and wants to stay in. If England votes to leave, it will probably break the union. Contrary to my views last year, I would say Scotland should leave the UK this time around. It would be a tragedy, however.

Also, the Republic of Ireland is a member of the EU and uses the Euro as its currency. But the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is open – no passports are needed as both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland (UK) are members of the EU. But if Britain leaves, the border controls will have to be reimposed, renewing the divisions between northern and southern Ireland that have taken decades to mend.

There’s also the loss of London as the finance and banking capital of the world, although since London has been voted the most corrupt city in the world recently, maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Finally, have you heard the phrase “Perfidious Albion”? Perfidious means untrustworthy. That would be entirely appropriate if Britain ran away, in my opinion. It would be yet another example that Britain can’t be trusted, and never has been trustworthy. That phrase Perfidious Albion didn’t just spring up for no reason.

Another point: voting is not compulsory. On such a vital question, how can they ever be sure that the result reflects the real wishes of the people? This is a crazy system.

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The West Australian published an item about Perth radio stations today: http://www.lookatwa.com.au/Entertainment/radiostations.html which lists all the stations in Perth. Quite useful. I have the feeling the list might be out of date, but I need to check further.

There’s also a list of TV stations and I’m not too impressed with that list. They say “Access 31 was a public access station that operated from 1999 and closed in 2008 due to insolvency.” That may be so, but West TV is still operating and doing a great job, but they don’t mention it. Black mark.

Click on this link to see the album.

This is volume 3 of my best over the last 40 years.

I finished assembling that desk today, and it looks gruk! (That’s “good”.)  This is my guest bedroom.  It’s an IKEA desk, costing only $69. Surprisingly tricky to assemble, it had me scratching my head at times, because it can be assembled in either left or right hand configuration, so you have to mentally adjust.

The room is very masculine, but I don’t have many female visitors. Applications are welcome. 🙂

That lamp came from a verge throw out in Trigg in about 2012. I picked up several very nice items and said to the guy, “Are you moving?” He said, no, he just wanted to get rid of them. Well, throw some more my way, mate.

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Now for a few big IKEA items, a 6-drawer chest for the main bedroom and two large book cases for the living area. These are heavy items, so I’ll be assembling them right near the final resting place.

I love assembling IKEA stuff. It’s like a big toy/mind exercise.

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Aaah, midwinter. Shortest day of the year, and we can look forward to longer days and some warm weather again. I must admit, my right hip is giving me curry in the cold.

Click on this link to see a show.

These are 40 page hard cover books, beautifully printed and bound, available for $39.95 + $10 p&p.

Click here to go to MyAlbum

This is a book I’ve made and had printed containing a range of my favourite shots from over 40 years of my photography. As it says, this is volume 1, and there are two more volumes. I’ll put selected shots up in the next day or so. Naturally, there are captions to the photos in the books.

The books cost $39.95 + $10 postage and packing.