Fractional Reserve Banking System

Banks don't lend money, they create it from debit. As debit is potentially unlimited, so is the supply of money. The opposite is also true: no debit, no money.

Just watched an interesting animation about the fractional reserve banking system, and how really money is debt.

moneyasdebit.com | On YouTube (while it lasts)

I'm well familiar with exponential curves, and this revelation terrifies me. Suddenly it all falls into place - the seemlingly endless appetite for the consumption of resources, the futility of "voting" one politcal party into power over another in a "democratic" government, the pull in society towards becoming indebted to banks in order to be able to provide a home for our families.

The presentation is definitely an eye opener. Admitedly, I was naive (or lazy) enough to believe tha banks mostly leant money they'd acquired from deposits and their own capital raising exercises. At the same time, it doesn't present any concise alternatives, but made hints at a few possibilities.

One sounded a lot like socialism, another reminded me a lot of Japan's "construction economy", where the government pours money into the economy in the form of public works like bridges, roads, infrastructure etc, and banks use these to only lend against value, as opposed to debit. Or at least I think that's what was suggested.

Renewable energy was presented as the most promising alternative to creating money from debit - only use, and re-use what limited resources we have. Maybe that's why in recent times most attempts to bring renewable energy sources to market have been suppressed.

Scary stuff.

Maybe this is part of the reason why the real estate situation here in Australia has gotten so out of hand - if people weren't taking on loans to buy houses, the banks would run out of money. At the same time, the amount being borrowed must increase infinitely and that's the point that's so easy to miss when ignorantly believing the misconception that money is leant against value and not debit. As most houses are bought with money borrowed against other debits, the average house price must allways rise, regardless of it's rate of change relative to the average income and cost of living.

Right now in Ausralia it is terribly askew, with the mean house price in Sydney of about $500K being about 10 times the averge income of maybe $50K, while a mortgage for that amount requires a combined income of $145K/year to pay off the interest and feed the insatiable appetite of the fractional reserve banking system.

It's also now the main reason why I never enrolled to vote, and will never be able to buy a house in Australia. Japan on the other hand...

First Impressions - Altec Lansing mx5021

First impressions: Holy Shit!!!

My last stereo speakers were a pair of bar-fridge sized boxes made by Cerwin Vega with some cheap-ass replacement 12" drivers in them. Needless to say, my expectations were high, especially in the bass response department.

The mx5021 are a 2.1 stereo system consisting of 2 x 20 watt sattelites, each with 2 x 3" midrange drivers and one tweeter. The subwoofer is a 6" driver in a large, wooden, ported enclosure that is driven by a separate 50 watt amplifier.

The specs are deceptive though, the sound coming out of these things is HUGE! The bass especially, if anything it's a little overpowering on the default setting. I can't over-emphasise how massive the bass is, just unbelievable. The subwoofer does has a particularly large enclosure, but I never thought a little 6" driver could rumble like that. Just amazing.

It uses a digital controller with an infra-red remote for volume, bass, and treble which has the usual problem of not providing enough resolution at lower settings - there's a big gap between too quiet and slightly too loud. Also, there is a noticeable 50Hz mains hum coming from the subwoofer at all times which is really inexcusable for such an expensive system - I paid $AU290 because I couldn't be bothered ordering one from ebay - probably caused by the fact that the mains power cable is only a two pin, double insulated type. Hacking in a earth lead might cure the hum, or electrocute you in the process of trying.

Aside from that, the sound is increadible, I was definitely not expecting anything near as good. The mids are lacking slightly, or perhaps I still need to wind the bass back some more. Overall, completely awe-struck.


Update - a week later:

Still amazed by these speakers, but one thing lacking is any chest sensations. I'm not able to really crank these things in our little apartment, but one thing I've noticed is that when they are turned up loud enough to fear invoking the wrath of disgruntled neighbours there's still no floor-shaking, chest-rattling levels of bass. I mean, you can really *hear* the bass, but you can't really feal it. The one thing about my old 12" speaker boxes was that you could use them as a pace maker if you turned them up a bit.


Update - movie listening: earth shaking bass!

Well, a few weeks into my experience with the mx5021 I finally just had a chance to try them out with a movie and the volume up a bit. Keeping in mind that in our apartment building I'm afraid to turn it up past the second lowest volume setting, it seems that any volume settings after the second LED comes on is really where it comes to life. I'd previously mentioned that you can hear the bass but not feel it, but it seems this is really only true for music at reasonable listening levels. For movies where sound effects like explosions are loaded with low frequency energy, the THX certification demonstrates it's worth by punching your chest and shaking the walls and furniture without any trace of distortion. It makes for a truly exhilarating movie experience.

I'd imagine if you could get the third LED (of 5 total) to come on with a movie you'd experience a whole new world of rib cage rattling bass that is belied by the softer, more accurate bass produced at comfortable listening levels by music tracks.

UF Student tasered at John Kerry Speech

Holy fucking shit...

Social vs Anti-social: torrents & recording "industries"

Just had a small revelation:

P2P file-sharing networks encourage social behaviour by the nature of download speeds being improved by larger numbers of people "seeding" after their downloads have completed rather than just getting what they want and then closing the transfer.

The RIAA on the other hand dictates how, when, and where you will make your acquisition, and exactly how much you must pay. If you break any of their terms, they will sue.

Fair's fair, but I know who I'd rather play with...

Computer Choppers

Computer Choppers do some awesome case mods!

Can't wait to see the finished MacBook Pro:

A word on un-capped bandwidth

I just realised, in Japan where bandwidth is cheap and unlimited, the thought is never on your mind that you have to try to get your money's worth. You pay a reasonable, flat rate per month, and as such you don't feel compelled to try and squeeze every last MB out of your monthly plan.

Here is Aus, where bandwidth is expensive, and limited, we employ bandwidth throttling in out bittorrent clients, and install dahsboard widgets that meter our usage down to the MB to make sure we don't get speed throttled, or let any of our precious, pre-paid MBs go to waste.

And come to think of it, I don't think I've ever download more stuff in my life. I mean just yesterday was the last day of our billing cycle, and I found myself on YouTube with one eye on the bandwidth meter trying to make sure that Optus only got to keep the minimum of bandwidth which I've already paid for. They only ended up with a few MB in their pocket in the end.

If it was uncapped, I'd only download stuff when I really had to, as opposed to actively seeking out things to download in order to utilise the last of my bandwidth. Another example of corporate fear and greed causing more harm than good.

cool nerd

79% Jazz

Geek alert: I am 79% Jazz...

I AM
79%
JAZZTake the Transformers Quiz

Explanation »

Mobile Marketing

I just started a blog on mobile marketing at http://smallbuismobilemarketing.blogspot.com titled Mobile Marketing for Small Business. Someone else registered the mobilemarketing subdomain over the weekend...

I'm not an authority on the subject, but it's something I've been watching closely and needed a public forum to discuss relavent news and share some loud thinking.

Dalai Lama in Sydney

Today we had the privilege of seeing the Dalia Lama speak about compassion at The Domain in Sydney. There seemed to be even more people there than I'm used to seeing at a Homebake concert in the same venue, it was increadible, especially considering the poor weather.



The key points I picked out of his talk were that everyone, no matter what race, religeon, or creeed, needs compassion in their lives, and that showing compassion for others makes the world better for everyone. To that end we should all work seriously towards putting an end to hatred and anger and the conflict they result it, particularly war.



When asked "What is the meaning of life" (seriously!) he simply answered "I don't know" to the applause of the many thousands in attendance. He then went went on to elaborate on that, saying that we should all strive towards happiness.



I loved that he considered compassion from the perspectives of other theistic religeons, atheism, and even science, and demonstrated how compassion can benefit us all.



As he left in his motorcade he was applauded by the enamored crowds and even followed down the street, but not in an idolistic way as you'd associate with a pop or movie star. People were smiling happily but besides the applause were otherwise silent. It was more like a gesture of appreciation.




Notice the hands clasped together in the photo of the Dalai Lama leaving in his motorcade? I thought I'd just captured someone clapping at the moment when their hands were pressed together. Actually, I had my camera in burst mode as he drove past and looking at the sequence of images I realised that the owner of those hands actually held them pressed together like that the entire time the Dalai Lama drove past.

iPods to blame for total eclipse of the art, says Hockney

iPods to blame for total eclipse of the art, says Hockney

"I think it's all about sound. People plug in their ears and don't look much..."

"You notice that on buses. People don't look out of the window; they are plugged in and listening to something."

Maybe because the scenery outside the bus is dull and boring? Not much art to see in modern architecture, wheras our iPod's are loaded up with audio AND visual expressions from both commercial artists, as well as from indiviuals around the world.

Wake up to the 21t century and get a copy of PhotoShop or iMovie, post something on YouTube, put out a podcast, but don't go crying to printed newspapers because kids listen to music.

Arse

Movies in the cinema?

$15 x 2 adults
$13 x 1 child

$43 for couple of hours in the cinema.

They have this wonderful new thing here called designated seating. As we entered the cinema there was a large, angry woman stationed at the door who warned us in no unclear terms that we would be asked to leave if we even thought about sitting somewhere other than our designated seats. I was made to feel like a miscreant, and it cost $43 for the privilege.

Let's compare that to, say, downloading movies from the internet:

2GB + 6GB high-speed bandwith per month - $39.95 bundled

At least one movie a week and all the email, browsing, etc you want from the safety and comfort of your own home. It's strange, I feel like less of a miscreant for stealing movies than for actually walking into a cinema.

Kuding Tea

Kuding Tea is amazing, just tried some. Have to get some on the way home.

good to be back (?)

kinda...

Just saw an ad on TV for iinet where the bearded geek guy says that Japan has had high speed broad band since the nineties, but iinet are building out their broadband network in Austraiia so it's better unless you're thinking about moving to Japan... what a kick in the teeth!

When I moved to Japan in 2001 we were paying the equivalent of about $AU30/month for *uncapped* bandwidth. I just moved back to Australia at the end of last year. It's now 2007. If you check iinet's broadband plans you'll see that you couldn't even get 2Gb a month for that today. Yeah, iinet, I am actually thinking about moving back to Japan, everytime I pop up my bandwidth usage dashboard widget to make sure I'm not going to have my speed throttled I think about moving back to Japan. It's safer, cleaner, and cheaper to live in than Australia anyway.

The worst thing is that iinet are actually the best in Australia. I'm on Optus, and they suck ass!


video rental... as if you would

We made our first trip into a local video store. We're used to Tsutaya where you can rent vids for a few bucks. Hell, it's even cool to rent an armfull of audio cd's, and buy a spindle of blank cd's at the same time, what do they care? Well, I guess Blockbuster are really scared of being put out of business by kids with internet connections. Can't imagine why when no-one in Australia can get any real bandwidth down here, but try finding a price on their website - give up? I'll tell you: they want $AU15 to rent 3 videos on the weekend. About ¥1,500? No wonder they're ashamed to post prices like that on their website.

The thing I don't get is the stupidity. For an extra $15 a month I could up my broadband bandwidth by a good few gigbytes, and instead of being expected to return the ARccOS protected discs the next day, I could download and watch them os often as I liked. I could even legitimately purchase them from itunes for little more. Why do Blockbuster still exist?

A year and a half later...

...and not in Japan anymore!

Crazy. Lauched a language school scheduling service, wrote 3 handbooks about Linux, built a massive Rails site for a client, and then last November 2006, moved back down to Australia! Been back about 6 months but still can't believe it.

So a lot has changed since my last post here.

I finally worked out how to log back in here and discovered that Google has well and truly taken over. Great! Dropped in my Google Reader feed up the top there.

I've abandoned Linux and finally switched to a Mac!

Now I'm actually working full time for a startup developing with Ruby on Rails on a Mac. In Sydney.

So, not in Japan anymore, but planning to be back again soon. Allways been very sporadic in nature, so this might mark the ushering in of a new era of blogging, or it might be another few years before I post anything here. Who knows.

Easy-Online-Schedule - Demo launched!

Finally!

First it was writing several books - Linux for Home Computing, and then issue 4 of the Australian Linux Journal - that pushed the release back from August to September.

Then it was Ruby on Rails - the decision was made to abandon PHP as the backend architecture and switch to the Rails application framework - and so September was spent actually building a Rails application for a third party to gauge how realistic our expectations were of being able to re-build the entire system in Rails in a short amount of time (quite realistic it now seems).

Today, after months of delays, the live demo of the online scheduling system I've devoted the last year and a half to developing is finally open to the public.

If you have a school and would like to manage your teaching schedule online, and maybe even offer online booking to your students, then please drop into Easy-Online-Schedule.com and give it a try.

Now the real fun begins - rebuilding the entire system from the ground up to join the ranks of Web 2.0 applications in the AJAX revolution.

Easy-Online-Schedule.com - Easy schedule management for schools

Easy-Online-Schedule.com launched!



During the months of inactivity here I've been busily preparing my new website: Easy-Online-Schedule.com has been launched and is currently serving to promote the online scheduling and booking web application for schools that I've been developing here in Japan for the last year or so.

Please drop in, take a tour of the system, and leave a comment on the discussion forum. Cheers.

Easy-Online-Schedule.com - Manage your school's classroom schedule online

Suma Aquarium, January 2005

Sometime around the end of January we drove down to Suma to visit the aquarium with Tyler.

Upon entering the aquarium, visitors are greated by a massive fish tank housing many large stingrays, sea-turtles and a multitude of fish in all shapes and sizes. It was difficult to get even a half-decent decent photo while observing their no-flash policy, but this ray drifted by the glass wall slowly enough to allow it's photo to be taken.

We watched the standard dolphin show which amused Tyler at least. Here's one riding it's tail backwards...

...and making a big splash. Dolphins are big and displace a lot of water when they land

The fish petting zoo was a more exciting prospect, yay, fish! Off we go for a hands-on experience.

Misaki befriends an orange starfish. I'm sure it didn't mind at all.

It was quite sociable actually and got along with Tyler famously.

The scary sea-gerkin didn't have a lot to say though.

Tyler instead opted to pluck a slightly less interesting starfish from it's aquatic play pen. Try as hard as we did, we just couldn't convince him that sea creatures don't much appreciate being tossed back into the water.

His imagination must have conjured all kinds of images of what treasures might have been hiding within this shell. If there was anyone home they weren't making any appearances today.

We retreated back inside from the cold to take a tour of some of the smaller fish tanks. We'd missed the pirana feeding frenzy, but found this cozy eel community amusing. Except Tyler who found it quite unsettling.

I found these fancy, frilly fish fascinating, and fortunately they were well enough lit to allow some good pics to be taken, so I now feel compelled to aflict you with my boring, frilly, fancy fish collection:

I mean, they're quite bizarre...

...and who's going to take you seriously with a face like that? Still, very cool.

Finally, I came across this guy. He's huge, but his tank wasn't much bigger than he was, and he was just sitting there, suspended motionless, watching us go by. So I stopped and spent a few minutes trying to find any signs of sentience - a fish that big must have been around for a while. I might have registered some eye movement, but that was about it.

Yay, fish!

Daibutsu Nara

On the last day of our christmas/new-year's holidays we decided to drive out to Nara to visit the giant statue of Budda. The temple grounds are considered to be a national treasure and would easily live up to anyone's expectations of "traditional" Japan.

I've been out there quite a few times now, but the temple complex is huge and a day is not enough to explore everything so it warrants regular return trips. On this occasion we just wandered along sampling hot food from the various street stalls along the way to temple of the fat happy chappy...

"Beware deer leaping gracefully into the air"
The temple grounds are home to a large number of wild deer who are allowed to roam around freely, and pose for photographs with tourists in return for snacks or money. (They have their own union)

Profile of one of the younger deers. My nature photography has a long way to go, but this will serve as the rudimentary sensible animal shot. The larger deers had all had their antlers removed for obvious safety reasons and weren't quite as photogenic.

Misaki and Tyler captured moments before the one closest to Tyler pawed the stick he was trying to feed it out his hand. He was very upset because he was genuinely trying to feed it but in his 3 year-old innocense had to learn the hard way that deers don't eat wood.
I was too busy trying to warn him to actually capture that moment, and then too busy laughing.

Misaki bought some crackers to feed the deers with Tyler, but delegated the task to me soon after discovering how un-shy they are when it comes to accepting snacks from strangers.
I thought I'd use my height to my advantage but they just one-up'ed me and started eating my jacket. It's plastic too!
The street stall attendant did a fine job of ignoring the spectacle, but in another shot taken of the same moment there's a guy in the background fully pissing himself laughing as he walks past, it's great.

Here we are doing the standard tourist pose in front of the temple housing the giant Budda. It really doesn't give any hint of the scale of the thing - it's at least 100-200 meters behind us.
Let's just take a look at it front on:

That's much more betterer - notice how the people on the walkway approaching it diminish into indiscernable specs in the entrance.
The Daibutsu Toudaiji is the largest wooden structure in the world as I recall, even though what stands today is a reconstruction of what was originally a much larger building again. It's just massive.

Once inside it takes quite a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness before you can really take in the enormity of the giant Budda. Strangely enough there are signs up everywhere banning the use of camera tripods, but their attempts to foil our photographic efforts were in vein as we were armed with 420mm of optical zoom and intelligent optical image stabilisation which allowed us to snap off this pic hand-held with no flash. Yes, I'm quite chuffed about our camera but will resist raving about it too much.
His head itself is probably about the same height as a person.

This slightly scary looking guy is seated off to Budda's right, and despite being twice a person's height is dwarfed by his spiritual mentor.
There are a couple of really scary looking guys carved out of wood too, but they didn't turn out too well. Maybe next time.

There's a huge wooden pylon with a small slot cut in it's base which has some superstitious quality like bringing good luck to those who pass through it. As you can see, if you're not a toddler you'd have to be lucky to get through. Last time we visited I made it with the assistance of several people dragging me out the other side, but this time Misaki and I both declined and settled for watching Tyler doing laps through it until he had to be dragged away.
Funny, last time we had to drag him through, he's really growing up fast.
And my programmer's muscle has grown to the point where I wouldn't want to try. (read: beer belly)

Misaki hits the gong of gongyness. Behind her is part of a life-size reproduction of the lotus petals at the base of the statue of Budda. Each petal is about the size of a person. Check out the red wooden railing behind to get an idea of scale from the next and final image:

The Daibutsu.
It still doesn't really convey it's size, but here, captured with modern technology, is the Daibutsu of Nara.

It's really big.

So there you have it. Head out there if you get the chance, and as tempting as they may look, those crackers are for the deer, not people. It's happened, tourists have unwittingly consumed the sacred wafers, but I'm sure they're quite nutritious for people and deer alike, I know I've been tempted.

Mochi-tsuki, Dec 2004

Finally, after about a month I've gotten around to preparing some pics from last year's mochi-tsuki - a day of making Japanese sticky rice the traditional way. It's one of Misaki's family traditions, and for me a great day outside pounding rice with huge wooden mallets, warming ourselves over fires and finally chilling with some beers.

The is the base of the rice steamer boiling up some water.

The rice is placed in bamboo steamers, not unlike those used for Chinese yum-cha, and stacked above the boiling water. The most favoured position in the yard is directly behind the opening to the steamer's fire.

A huge stone bowl is used to grind and pound the rice into sticky goodness. Two large wooden mallets are used simultaneously with ninja-like precision by any two people able to heft them.

Having already been crushed and ground together, some rice is seen about to recive one of many blows from the wooden mallets as it is slowly coverted into mochi.

Showing fine form, one team expertly focuses their ki and conducts it efficiently into the steaming rice with their wooden implements of culinary weaponry.

Between each deft stroke of the mallets, one person, the only one who carries the knowledge, skillfully turns the rice to avoid it melding with the stone under their amazing wooden force.

The foreigners make a valiant effort in a guesture which is appreciated by the local veterens. While their form may be lacking, their enthusiastic spirit could not be faulted.

As the rice achieves a stickier consistancy it steams from the heat and friction and requires the practiced hand of an expert to keep it from being lost to the stone walls of the pounding bowl.

The masters give an impressive performace. This grueling ritual was repeated as many as twenty times over the course of the brisk yet sunny morning.

Tyler and Ace were sitting in awe of the spectacle which they observed safely from outside the range of steaming water and hot molten rice debris being flung from the pounding pit.

Once the mochi making festivities have drawn to an end, the rice steamers are replaced by a grating and the oyster feast commences. This too is part of the anual event, but I have yet to determine if this custom is unique to our family or common to all Japanese observers of the ancient sticky rice custom.

Once we've eaten our fill of shelled delicacies and the sun has retreated below the horizon, with our stomachs warm and content we break open the beer and sit in quiet appreciation of the glowing flames and the warm tiredness in our joints and muscles from a job well done.

The finished product - Mochi.
Enough for an army no less. While there is an abense of images here depicting mochi being either formed into cakes, or being eaten which is an art in itself, this year's mochi-tsuki I'm sure not will not dissapoint. Indeed, I for one am looking forward to it already.