Guy Sebastian's media persona stinks like a rodent with particularly poor hygiene but with less appeal

Just checked to if anyone of my 'Friends' like 'Guy Sebastian' on Facebook. I couldn't see that anyone of you did. That's good, I'm glad...I really do know you all :)

Seeing as we are all friends let's discuss this one...he's #1 on some rubbish TV chart -I thought he pissed off the religious fan-base by saying he loves his wife and family more than Jesus...so with those lost why is there still a market for this product of a, what? 2003? Reality TV fad?

If he were a race horse he'd already be the adhesive holding up portraits of Black Caviar.

The fact that energy and resources are invested into burning his 'art' onto polymer compact discs and using wood pulp for booklets/promotional works for his brand of expired fad-core 'music', let alone transportation (physical and digital) of the audio and visual pollution bound for any poor saps A/V system to reproduce the atrocity which is, Guy 'Lord Douchebag' Sebastian, makes me want to write something about it...which I have and now offer to you at no cost to share and muse over.

Yours in good taste,

-Anon2012

Email in 2012

Hi everybody,

I've been watching 'did you know' videos on YouTube for years. The figures that they have on the World's population and what the upcoming trends in technology are projected to be are amazing.

The newest one for 2012 is reasonably predictable - It's geared around social media, notably Facebook (for obvious reasons, I hope if you're reading this). Predictable because it is used by millions of users and because it has made many people connected online for large amounts of time. The internet has been populated, in fact if Facebook itself were a Country it would be the world's third largest by population with a greater population than the United States of America.  The video goes on to say that 50% of the world's population (3.5 billion people...me being one of them) are under 30 and that 96% of Millennial's have joined a social network.

Now to the statement it makes which is entry is all about, there is a part of the video that states "Generation Y and Z consider email passe" and that "some universities have stopped distributing email accounts" adding that they distribute 'e-readers', iPads, and tablets (PC's I would imagine!).

It was this that really got me thinking. Is it true that email is on the way out?

Personally I consider email to be alive and well, it just may not be as recognizable as it once was - To me an SMS or MMS is simply a watered down version of an email that has limited formatting options and greater size restrictions on the amount of content you send...oh and email is cheaper for the user (at least where I come from...with SMS's costing far too much for what it is).

The Facebook inbox or Twitter interactions I don't see as becoming a replacement for email, nor SMS...I'm not sure how Apple ID's (is that what they are called?) work but if that's touted as a email killer I really hope the concept sinks.

Thanks for reading - I'm not going to host the video to which I have referred to in this entry, however if you are interested it will be a top result of searching for 'Social Media Revolution 2012' into a YouTube Search.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share, leave a comment, etc :)

Beer production in Australia

I didn't find it fair to talk about Marijuana in Australia without pointing out Australia's "Beer Culture". So I did something I've wanted to do personally for awhile now, determine exactly how much beer is produced in Australia. So I turned to Wikipedia...

The 'Breweries in Australia' Wikipedia article divides breweries into 3 categories.'Major Breweries', 'Microbreweries' and 'Brewpubs'.

'Major Breweries' currently consists of 9 breweries consisting of nationally recognizable beer brands.

'Microbreweries' are distinguished by adding that "The maximum amount of beer a brewery can produce and still be classed as a microbrewery varies by region and by authority, though is usually around 15,000 barrels (18,000 hectolitres/ 475,000 US gallons) a year."

There are a total of 114 Microbreweries listed in the article. I did note that one microbrewery was closed, so I am unsure how many are still active in the complete list (sorry, no. I won't be crecking them all individually :P)

Brewpubs; restaurants or pubs that have breweries attached to them...34 of them make the Wikipedia list.

157 recognised breweries in total...now for some figures.


Carlton & United Breweries

Producers of Victoria Bitter (VB), Carlton Draught, Melbourne Bitter, Carlton Cold, Carlton Midstrength, Carlton Black, Crown Lager...although I could only produce figures for how much Victoria Bitter (VB) that they produce.

"VB is Australia's only billion dollar retail beer brand and sells the equivalent of one slab (24x375ml cans/bottles (9 Litres) every second"  

9L X 60secs X 60mins X 24hrs X 365days = 283,824,000 Litres per year
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Bitter)

Cascade Brewery

36 million litres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Brewery)

Coopers Brewery


"Production during 2010-11 reached a record 62.9 million litres"
http://www.coopers.com.au/about-us/news - "Coopers continues Record Production" 21/12/2011

Boag's Brewery


J. Boag and Son currently (2010) employes over 150 people and produces over 76,000,000 litres of beer annually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Boag_%26_Sons

Tooheys Brewery


Production output: 300 million litres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooheys - Citation provided

Providing these figures are true, between these 4 breweries and the most successful beer of just one other major brewery, a total of 758,724,000 litres are brewed! If Australia's population were to be 23 million (it's less) there would be enough beer produced to give everyone over 32 litres.

Thanks for reading :) To wrap things up here's a picture that illustrates what Australian's today think of our collective alcohol consumption...

Internet as "the cloud"

Hi all, sorry again...it's been awhile. I've been seeking inner peace :P

Anyhow I got looking at my old files from when my house first got the internet in the year 2000 (what I asked for for my birthday present that year). A lot of files originated in the years 2000 and 2001 then pretty much stop. Why was that? I got a job in 2001 and did 2 "Information Technology" type subjects in my final 2 years of university which I found I just had "the knack" for and used most of my time looking up old text files, playing games, and playing videos and music...so I didn't really need to use the now aging home PC. That and with my brother and father now using the internet themselves they were infecting the machine with all sorts of malware, including some nasty viruses that gave me nightmares considering I had become the house PC technician.

I got thinking today how things are different now on the internet. Apple Inc and Microsoft (among others?) have really been pushing "cloud computing". So I asked a friend online "Isn't the whole internet pretty much one big open public 'cloud' from a single users perspective? It's someone elses content (or your own) served/provided by someone else" - To which they told me yes as the internet has always been illustrated in network diagram as a cloud...saying this about them"it's out there somewhere, but we're not exactly sure where"...and all websites are 'clouds'.

I quipped saying I thought it was because it's a 'fluffy term' :P He agreed with amusement.

Being a fan of Free Alternatives I am a fan of Google figured that YouTube could be considered a cloud owned by Google that offers legitimate content such as VEVO music video services that is supported via ads and a storefront to purchase?

Whereas other companies using different business models offer the same thing...only more restricted, they don't always offer the ad supported content, and are probably provided at a cost (perhaps hidden).

In any case something else that got me reminiscing was thinking how all my 2000/2001files came from an old Windows 98 computer shared with my dad and my brother using 56.6k dial up using 32MB RAM and a HDD of 4.3GB...which is less than a typical modern-day personal 'cloud' storage space of 5GB providers are offering.

I got back into computers in late 2004 after saving some money from a new full time job and buying a laptop of my own...complete with DVD BURNER! OMG!

Now I'm thinking a phone/portable internet device capable of running Google Apps like Docs, YouTube, Gmail, News, and the Search Engines...as well as other websites such as Facebook which provide free messaging/community BBS's (essentially) these cheap and available and ultra portable, energy efficient-you name it devices are outperforming  pioneer equipment of the information age.

Now that single devices can provide pretty much everything you could ever want of it, and then some...the question really is what do YOU want to use it for? And when is a full shift to these systems going to occur within the wider population?

The sad truth about Australian Retail

Recently I've read speculative reports that 2012 will see mass lay off's in the Australian retail sector. The thought of this coming to fruition unsettles me. Why? Because I too believe that there is a good chance that this scenario may be experienced.

A local trade 'n' sell page on Facebook saw one individual listing for sale a copy of a particular SONY PS3 game for $75 (firm lulz) that they had only played once but didn't like, adding that they had only recently paid $109 for it.

See the thing is I can buy this on-line at a vendor I know of for $57.99...it's overseas of course but it does offer free shipping and secure payment methods. To those wondering if $109 for a game is a ridiculous claim...sadly, it might not be as Australian gamers suffer having to pay premium prices for pretty much everything gaming such as software and hardware (those following from the earlier days might remember THIS older post about Australian video discrimination when it comes to release dates and prices http://viewknowdo.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-it-sucks-to-be-aussie-gamer.html

Apple were (/are still??) doing something similar; read about that HERE 

If these offers are recognised by the surging numbers of people activating Android and iOS devices (especially over Christmas + Boxing Day Holiday's) and Facebook being a massive scale Bulletin Board System (BBS) chances are word will get out and become 'viral' as they say these days...which could be catastrophic to 'traditional' stores.

What's worse for retailers is so-called 'Smart Phones' capability to act as a sophisticated bar code reading  device that can potentially return price results from a number of stores advertising their price and categorizing them by parameters such as how has the cheapest price.

I guess the real winner where all this takes off, will be the consumer. The effects of everyone having everything they could ever want and need plus more? That's a little harder to predict this early :P 

Thanks for reading, if you know anyone that might enjoy this site please let them know about the place. 

Seeing as how my visitors like pictures here is one of Gil from The Simpson's with a timeless quote that may unfortunately be echoed by some retailers here in Australia. I do not own this image it is merely a URL so if you are the owner and have objections please speak with me...Using the work in good faith

Going out?

Hi everyone, to my regulars I apologize for my infrequent posts - I am actually trying to reduce how much time I spend on the computer and the internet. Although, ironically enough, the more I "live my life" the more content I find myself with to share on this very blog.

Anyhow here's something I noticed as I made sure to log out of Facebook (time sinkhole, privacy black hole). Facebook offers a prompt after logging out "Heading out? Stay connected Visit facebook.com on your mobile phone.


I'm trying to escape Facebook and it wants me to operate it on my phone? I never liked the locations feature on Facebook for one reason - I don't like to advertise to everyone my whereabouts. 


Something else about Facebook I noticed recently (After Steve Jobs died) is that if a number of 'friends' say a particular word such as a name, place, event, movie, etc Facebook files them together and bumps them up your news feed.

It's pretty amazing the influence one website can have over a person...although people have been going to Google for guidance for years now :P

Invitation to earn revenue from your YouTube videos

The title of this blog entry is the email subject received recently. It was good to finally see this particular email arrive in the email inbox - YouTube is great.

Unfortunately the ideas one may have about video content for YouTube may consist of content which would render the video ineligible for earning income with - Content including video game/software footage, favorite music and video scenes.

These restrictions are what some would call unfair. On one hand people are encouraged to 'share' YouTube content on popular online networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger etc promoting things like songs and movie/video game trailers...on the other hand, individuals don't have the rights to "use" the content to liven up their own videos.

One can 'favorite' items, subscribe, comment on videos, link to, 'share' and so on...but to include any content that isn't yours, and making money from it is out of the question.

As an individual, what chances would one person have in gaining permission from a major copyright holder to use their material in order to make a few extra dollars on the side? Extra dollars earned online, with the proceeds spent on internet access.

Apparently recording software (i.e. A video demonstrating what Apple iOS 5 is capable of/how it works/what it looks like) is deemed more 'commercial' than educational  and it is not permissible where one intends to generate income from the video (yet some people pay for private education all the time).

You'd hate to think that people that create good video content will stop because what they can and cannot do is controlled to the point where it's not worth the trouble in trying to do something good both for themselves, as well as for others.

Selling Movies - Wasting potential

"Potential what?" I hear you ask...well I'll type my thoughts out and let you answer that yourselves :)

Recently I noticed something...it seems most places you go, no matter really where you are there's always someone trying to sell you a movie. What am I talking about? The advertising for the movie Bridesmaids.

It's everywhere, it's available on DVD and Blu Ray, Movies on Demand (PayTV), as well as download for rent or to own. Supermarkets are trying to sell it, department stores, internet stores, video libraries...you get junk mail where the cover of it alone takes up about 1/3 of the page, it's sponsored on websites like YouTube and the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and I bet it's been promoted on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Considering the movie costs typically about $20 at most of the places selling it I believe everyone actively promoting it are running a significant risk seeing as how competitors doing exactly the same thing they are.

I doubt I'll ever buy that particular movie, if I do chances are someone will show it to me, or I'll rent it... preferably when it gets cheaper to rent seeing how I'm not running out to see it. This means all the promotions and advertising was wasted on me, buy a lot of different businesses.

The philosophy behind advertising and persuading a consumer aside...

What I don't like is the grade of film that has this financial risk associated to it. Discs, cases, covers, posters, junk mail (printed catalogs - paper, ink, graphical designers, printers, delivers), transporting and someone putting them up for display/sale...all for the price of $20. How many people do they expect to buy it for $20 before copies end up in bargain bins for $5 a pop?

I can envision that this movie also has some product placement, which I have written about previously about a somewhat similar production The 40 Year Old Virgin

The budget for the project has been estimated at $32.5 million (IMDB) and has generated $281 million worldwide as of September 4 2011 (IMDB).

I can't help but think of how that money could have been spent, and the time and effort people put into it from the beginning the the end of production, distribution and sale.

Advertising - Banks, Charities, Booze and Insurance

Today I logged into Facebook, had a quick look to see if anyone said anything original, shared anything entertaining or enlightening, or if anyone had posted on my wall or anyone had requested friendship - You know, the usual...I spent about 5 minutes there :P

One thing jumped out at me, a 'sponsor' ad for my financial institute. They have turned 100 years old (or are going to shortly) and are offering $100 to those that sign up two different account types with them by the end of the month AND use their card 5 times by December 14. It turns out you have to apply in-branch and it applies for the first 10,000 customers only - Meaning if they all take up the offer, the bank is giving away 1 million dollars...Brilliant.

This really irritates me. I mean it's my bank paying money to run an ad, trying to capture more clients and doing this by giving away funds. I've been a member of the bank since I was like 3, that's just over 20 years. I'd rather they look after loyal clients like me than run with these gimmicks.

I understand some believe that you have to spend money to make money and that this will be a good investment in the long run but I have different thoughts on the matter. If customer satisfaction were to be increased and clients of the bank seemed to be well of financially, these people would be more inclined to recommend the bank to their friends, family, peers, work colleagues, etc and anyone else that might ask.

I got thinking about other advertising that I can remember off the top of my head.

Red Cross Blood Donations - I saw this on Windows Live Messenger. The first thing I did was open a chat window with a friend that is Anti-Microsoft and asked him if he figured the Red Cross paid for the ads or if Microsoft gave it to them for free, or gave it to them and claimed it on tax somehow. He figured the latter, I still wonder...

Everything else I notice tends to be for Alcohol and Insurance...oh and Fast Food too I suppose.And I tend not to notice ads on websites...

Time spent on Facebook

Hi all, I was looking at a few old text files I authored just now and came across 'Facebook Timewaster.txt' - In the past I used to write about things and post them on forums online, or on Facebook as notes...sometimes I used to just write them out and send them to people I knew because I thought they might be interested to read what I had created.

This file was created on April 29th 2011 and gives a source...which is now out of date, as it no longer gives the figure - But I assure you at the time of creation it was given, and I recorded it accurately.

Anyhow the information is about how much time is spent on Facebook in a month, I did some calculations (if you notice an error I'm happy to have it pointed out).

Enjoy.

"People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook"

Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

**********************

60 minutes * 24 hours of a day

= 1,440 minutes

1,440 minutes (one day)

**********************

700,000,000,000 minutes (Spent on Facebook) / 31 days (longest month used)

= 22,580,645,161 minutes (spent every day on Facebook)

/

1,440 minutes of a day

= 15,681,003 days spent a day on Facebook

/

36,600 days (100 Earth leap years)

= 428 (100 year lifespans where every year was a 366 day leap year)

**********************

I still think that although that much time is spent logged into Facebook, it doesn't represent the reality, as their is no indication of things like how much of that time users are logged in represents idle time...or any suggestion as to how many 'real' accounts exist (i.e. One could be logged into multiple accounts at the same time).

TODAY, October 4, 2011 Facebook's statistics page boasts that there are "More than 800 million active users" and that "More than 50% of our active users log into Facebook in any given day".

I want to crunch some more numbers (I have a problem :P)

Using a figure of 50% of the active users logging in for say, today...and using a flat figure of 800 million users we could assume 400 million users will log in. There ARE 31 days in this month so we'll use the (dated) figure of daily minutes spent calculated above of 22,580,645,161 minutes and we'll average it out across those 400 million users; giving us the result of each of the 400mil users spending ~56.5 minutes on Facebook.

I don't know about you but the thought of 400 million people (big assumption) spending just under 1/24 (4.16%) of their day on Facebook boggles my mind...

Names on Coke Bottles

Hi everyone,

I'm unsure whether this is just an Australian thing or if it's happening in other places but a new marketing campaign of Coca Cola is to put peoples names (150 different boys and girls names) on the bottles (just 600ml I think) and suggesting that you share a coke with them.

Now I've got a bit of research behind me in regards to Coca Cola and how it promotes the brand, especially their signature cola product. This one seems fairly straightforward...put popular names on the label of the bottles - people with those names will want one; people will wonder why names are on the bottles and look it up on the internet - BOOM the company peddling the stuff get their attention.

One other thing they may or may not have predicted (I'd imagine they'd have expected it) is people are taking photos of the bottles, and tagging Friends on Facebook in the photo because it has their name on it. Coca Cola really are, even if in a very small way, integrating themselves into another element of modern culture.

Personally I just wish Coca Cola would reduce their prices, I mean last time I checked a 2L bottle from the Coca Cola soft drink range (Colas, Lift, Fanta, Sprite) they were $3.45 a unit...more than the price of fuel for the car. Sure most of the year there are multi-buy deals they aren't really good if you only really want one bottle and don't want to hoard a bunch of bottles around your place until a time you might want them. Though reducing the price wouldn't be a gimmick I suppose, and wouldn't make the company as much money...so why would they?

Below is a picture of these new bottles that I am describing in this post. One final thing I'll say is my name is never on the trinket ranges you see in gift and souvenir places. I always used to check, often I still will...but these days I'm glad that my name doesn't appear on things. It's like I fall outside the marketing campaign, that I am free and liberated from being a target audience...the joy of not being sold anything!

My brother did visit Hawaii last year and my name must be more common over there as I finally have a key-ring that bears my name on it :P Also, before I show you the picture, have you ever known anyone with the name Aarav? I sure have haven't. No disrespect to the name or anyone named Aarav but I put this in the same classification as 'BORT' license plates on The Simpsons. Perhaps those that were informing Coca Cola the 150 most popular names decided to troll them a bit and threw that little gem in?

Mark Zuckerberg...God Tier Troll?

Oh man Facebook drains me, I swear I only have a Facebook profile because I'm single (boredom, potentially met someone on there)...and I suppose I'm too cheap/lazy to text message certain people :P 

I think the image hosting has always been stupid because you don't refer strangers to your personal profile...unless of course you're one of those 1000+ "friends" types...The video hosting never presented a real challenge to YouTube, Celebrities don't seem to use Facebook much as other services, and well I find most of the 'content' that is on Facebook to be incredibly shallow.

Anyhow I digress :P Today a whole bunch of people expressed a dislike for the new look and feel of Facebook. Now I've been using the site for a few years now (casually) and it's changed a fair few times already, but this new change is a whole new ball game. It's upset a lot of people which makes me wonder if those that are in charge of design are just massive trolls :D

Suspiciously Google's Social Network venture gets opened to everyone around (same day?) the same time. It's like Google knew something was going to happen. * Que Twilight Zone Theme Music*

Here's a relevant picture :) Thanks for reading

Invitation to Google+

Well I get the invite to join Google+ this morning. "Great" I think, I missed out on testing it earlier this year and I think it's great a likable powerhouse like Google is throwing down a challenge to Facebook.

When I go to sign up though I notice all my Google Services will be consolidated to the one name, yes even retrospectively. I've had a gmail account from back when you needed an invitation from someone, I've started blogs and sites that have failed and had embarrassing content. One thing I seriously don't want is my real identity attached to all these things. I mean this blog alone is a retreat for me from those I deal with in person. I wouldn't mind if people I know in real life knew about and visited this site (some do), but really this is a means of sharing and communicating with people from all walks of life, and the issue of identity doesn't come into it...and that, to me, is a good thing.

So I won't be establishing a Google+ account, which is a true shame. The concept seems really promising to me and I was really looking forward to perhaps promoting this site and its content on the Google+ platform, but if that is what it involves, I can pass up the opportunity a little bit easier.

Expensive cities and minimum wage

Have you ever wondered how people living in expensive cities make ends meet working at an inner city mega takeaway food joint? ...Probably not, right?

Well I did, it seemed impossible...like a job that shouldn't even be able to exist! I mean inner city real estate would not be affordable in addition to other living expenses, therefore they would have to live in the outer suburbs, requiring a means of transportation which is just another expensive to be afforded.

I asked some anonymous people online how it was possible. One response struck me


They used to live in New York sharing a "huge" apartment with 8 people. The anonymous replier worked 2 jobs and they barely made ends meet. Stated "Not even worth the experience".


When asked "What Was the 'experience'? Big City Living?"


They responded again stating "Yup, being in NYC itself is the experience. It was fun but I wouldn't do it again. A bunch of my friends went to live there after college and we tried to hang out be we all worked too much. 
Expectation: Would be like Friends
Reality: All of us working back to back jobs with schedules that never meet up.


Oh joy, another reason to lament how big business is shaping modern civilization in the many parts of the,so-called, developed World.

All this information exchange came about when I noticed that a lot of my 'Friends' on Facebook (from Australia) have been visiting New York...and by the photographic evidence doing some pretty cool, yet predictable, activities and being the 100th Millionth person to photographic the Statue of Liberty.

Personally, if I were to visit New York City, my #1 destination would be the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, as pictured below...and then off to have a slice of NY Pizza with a frosty Coca Cola :)

How about you?