If you are like us, the Christmas period offered the first chance to visit family and friends since the arrival of COVID-19. Unfortunately, the resurgence of the virus during our time in Melbourne has meant that we wanted to the monitor the list of exposure sites as listed on the DHHS website, a task which is well suited to a python script rather than one of us.
Read MoreCycling in Melbourne can be a risky business. Over the years I have had my share of close calls and unfortunately a few incidents and accidents. Spurred on by the trend of dashcams, I was inspired to hunt down a “handlebar cam”. Once I started recording my commute, I started to amass footage of mainly near misses, and I thought that it might serve a purpose to show cyclists and non-cyclists alike what it looks like on the streets of Melbourne from a cyclist’s point of view.
Read MoreIn the quest for the perfect hiking tent, we found ourselves with a Nemo equipment Dagger Ultralight backpacking tent. Our friend had recently purchased the 3-person tent and the tent was (at the time) the number one pick on OutdoorGearLab, which meant that even though we had not tired the tent ourselves, it was likely going to be a good-quality tent. Given the Australia Tax can be particularly brutal for outdoor gear, we elected to purchase the tent in the USA and have it shipped to a friend living in Washington DC who was very kind and offered to forward it onto us. In the end it would turn out that his partner would be coming to Australia for a visit, so she took it directly with her on the plane and avoided the shipping kerfuffle. The first thing we did with the tent was take it on an eight day walk: the South Coast Track in Tasmania’s wilderness and delightfully the tent was up to the task.
Read MoreDirectly following on from my previous post TPG: a scourge to society, this post could be entitled
TPG: a scourge to society II. The quality of our internet connection was appalling, but TPG would not believe me. I saw this as a challenge, and subsequently set out to prove to them our connection was junk. Previously, I was monitoring if I could connect to google; however, I also wanted to monitor our internet speed. Using speedtest.net I was able to create a picture of what was happening with our connection, but the results were not entirely clear.
According to their website, “TPG is a leading Australian ISP Telco providing cost effective and reliable NBN, ADSL2+, Fibre, DSL Internet Broadband with Phone and BYO Mobile plans”. In my experience, TPG is the bottom rung of the Australian internet ladder - which is no mean feat - and unable to deliver an acceptable quality of internet service. Moreover, their ability to gag their own support staff and find seemingly the least competent technicians and engineers is simply astounding. Unfortunately, what adds the salt to this festering wound is the state internet infrastructure in Australia, which has been purposely crippled by commercial interests to the detriment of all. The result is that you have no choice but to accept your lot. During my fight for a better internet connection, I made a few scripts which might be useful to others and also produced some neat plots, so if that is your thing please, take a look around.
Read MoreI was fortunate to stumble upon podcasts relatively early in the game as they are absolutely delightful. What could be described as a well-produced radio show curated for specific audiences, one can most certainly find people and communities discussing almost any topic of which one can think. I cannot think of a more major shift in my media/content consummation habits other than my introduction to the Internet many years ago. Due to being a fierce advocate for the medium, I am often asked for podcast recommendations, and hereI have compiled a list of my favourites for your listening pleasure.
Read MoreI have a deep hatred for advertising, and advertising on the internet is basically the most insidious form of advertising. This is why for the longest time I have used browsers which support ad-blocking extensions (I recommend uBlock origin) but in early 2019 I came across Pi-hole, a network wide ad-blocking solution. In an attempt to get more people using it and reduce their exposure to advertising and therefore increase their quality of life, I thought I would document my Pi-hole journey.
Read MoreI enjoy both looking at at making maps, and given my penchant for travel it seems only natural to make travel maps. Previous mapping projects have involved the locations at which I have taken photos and travel expenses at various European locations. At some point, I decided that it would be cool to visualise the flights I have taken during my lifetime, and so here we are.
Read MoreDuring my time in Europe, I was fortunate enough to travel quite extensively (an index of my travels can be found here). During my travels, I also took quite a few photos. With some time and determination, I tried to produce some figures whose content would be interesting to traveller and photographer alike. I have also included some snippets of code to help anyone should they wish to perform something similar.
Read MoreWhilst we were living in Europe, my partner and I did a lot of travelling, and this means spending money. As I was earning euros and Mia was earning francs, it was often advantageous for one of us to pay for the other when we were out and about; to keep things fair, we kept a ledger. It was only after we had left Europe, I realised what we had was not just a way to balance the books, it was also valuable data on the cost of travelling in Europe. Consequently, I analysed the data and voilà.
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