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 :)
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
How to set up a blog website
Hey I noticed when I typed into Google search "how to set up" that 'website' and 'blog' were suggestions made by Google, therefore they must be somewhat popular searches.
I'll be honest, if I can create a blog and maintain it for a considerable amount of time anybody can match that :P
I've been blogging with Google Blogspot (Blogger) for around 5 years now however I only really got into it last year because I realised the potential to earn some potential passive income via ad hosting.
Google have made the process of having a website or a blog as easy as creating an account and creating pages...which is like creating any other word processing document, as well as having options to link to YouTube videos, images (upload or direction to image that is online) and text options...not to mention options on how the blog itself actually looks!
I created my first website with Geocities...anyone remember that?
I would encourage anyone that likes to share thoughts, ideas, findings, and anything worth documenting should create a blog...I would remind anyone interested to just be mindful that people will be able to view what you have posted - Some may not agree with your opinion, so if you're intending to be offensive confess to it upfront.
If you have a blog existing or just created I invite you to follow me as I generally will follow back those that have interesting blogs :)
I'll be honest, if I can create a blog and maintain it for a considerable amount of time anybody can match that :P
I've been blogging with Google Blogspot (Blogger) for around 5 years now however I only really got into it last year because I realised the potential to earn some potential passive income via ad hosting.
Google have made the process of having a website or a blog as easy as creating an account and creating pages...which is like creating any other word processing document, as well as having options to link to YouTube videos, images (upload or direction to image that is online) and text options...not to mention options on how the blog itself actually looks!
I created my first website with Geocities...anyone remember that?
I would encourage anyone that likes to share thoughts, ideas, findings, and anything worth documenting should create a blog...I would remind anyone interested to just be mindful that people will be able to view what you have posted - Some may not agree with your opinion, so if you're intending to be offensive confess to it upfront.
If you have a blog existing or just created I invite you to follow me as I generally will follow back those that have interesting blogs :)
The Australian 'Drug War' - Finally a topic of discussion
Recently Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr (to those that forgot, Kevin Rudd quit the position) spoke up about the Drug War being a failure in Australia with a report to come.
Think about that for a second. The former premier of New South Wales (NSW) and current foreign minister...along with a former Australian Federal Police Chief and former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions believe Australia has progressed to the stage where sensible drug policy is at least a topic of discussion in an political environment usually consisting of mining assets, 'education', climate change, and who the leader is.
Bob Carr stated the obvious in saying that police resources are wasted hunting down cannabis users and those outside nightclubs with ecstasy....and that people that use certain drugs should not be labeled as criminals and suffer the consequences of such a label (i.e. inability to travel to certain areas)
Already the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, has expressed an opposing view to that of...you know, experts.
According to Sydney Morning Herald:
What irritates me perhaps the most are those that dismiss the concept of discussion of the subject - Old school prohibitionists with their blinders on.
When anyone questioned the carbon tax they were labelled as people living in the dark ages and spoken down to being told something along the lines of "ZOMG the sky isn't going to fall!"
However it seems the sky would in fact fall if cannabis or MDMA (ecstasy) were to be legalised :S
Other interesting points of note about this recent news is that Bob Carr's brother reportedly died of a heroin overdose in the 80's and that Bob Carr was the premier of NSW when the 'Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre' was opened, which has since been proven to be a success and made a permanent fixture.
In other drug news "Ecstasy with a street value of $120,000 has been seized in the NSW city of Wollongong. A police raid on a home at Blackbutt yesterday uncovered 150 ecstasy tablets, worth $2000"
$2000 / 150 tablets = ~$13.35 per tablet, considerably cheaper than what most would price ecstasy at in Australia - So where's the effectiveness in the disruption to drug supply the 'drug war' seeks? It seems that these drugs are cheaper than ever.
I'll end it here before I write a novel.
Thoughts?
According to ABC News:
A group of eminent Australians, including former federal police chief Mick Palmer and former New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, are about to hand down a report which says the 'war on drugs' has failed and concluding that Australia should consider legalising some substances.
...Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton also believes a debate about how best to tackle drugs is overdue.
Think about that for a second. The former premier of New South Wales (NSW) and current foreign minister...along with a former Australian Federal Police Chief and former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions believe Australia has progressed to the stage where sensible drug policy is at least a topic of discussion in an political environment usually consisting of mining assets, 'education', climate change, and who the leader is.
Bob Carr stated the obvious in saying that police resources are wasted hunting down cannabis users and those outside nightclubs with ecstasy....and that people that use certain drugs should not be labeled as criminals and suffer the consequences of such a label (i.e. inability to travel to certain areas)
Already the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, has expressed an opposing view to that of...you know, experts.
According to Sydney Morning Herald:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has rejected the idea of decriminalising narcotics, saying tough policing is necessary instead to prevent the devastating consequences of drug use.Which just goes to show that she only supports scientifically backed evidence when it supports her decision to introduce a new tax on everyday Australians.
What irritates me perhaps the most are those that dismiss the concept of discussion of the subject - Old school prohibitionists with their blinders on.
When anyone questioned the carbon tax they were labelled as people living in the dark ages and spoken down to being told something along the lines of "ZOMG the sky isn't going to fall!"
However it seems the sky would in fact fall if cannabis or MDMA (ecstasy) were to be legalised :S
Other interesting points of note about this recent news is that Bob Carr's brother reportedly died of a heroin overdose in the 80's and that Bob Carr was the premier of NSW when the 'Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre' was opened, which has since been proven to be a success and made a permanent fixture.
In other drug news "Ecstasy with a street value of $120,000 has been seized in the NSW city of Wollongong. A police raid on a home at Blackbutt yesterday uncovered 150 ecstasy tablets, worth $2000"
$2000 / 150 tablets = ~$13.35 per tablet, considerably cheaper than what most would price ecstasy at in Australia - So where's the effectiveness in the disruption to drug supply the 'drug war' seeks? It seems that these drugs are cheaper than ever.
I'll end it here before I write a novel.
Thoughts?
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Breakdown of Electricity Bill
Sounds interesting? Well...maybe. I was just curious to know for myself the facts considering electricity costs contribute to a considerable amount of most people's income.
Well we're all friends here...my last bill was for $321.35. Ever wondered if I can back up my 'green' talk? Well my last electricity bill cost over double my last one AKA cutting consumption in half. And the money I saved was an awesome bonus and gets me closer to my goal of eliminating my electricity bills completely by installing solar cells and keeping usage to a minimum.
GENERAL SALES TAX
I'm living in Australia and a utility bill is apparently subject to General Sales Tax (GST)...think that sucks? Don't forget most electricity here will be further taxed as it will be subject to the Carbon Tax.
So 10% (cost of GST) of the bill straight-up isn't even for electricity. The GST on this bill totaled $29.20, what the Government spends it on I wouldn't have a clue - Repaying the debt they generated I suppose...
PRICING OPTIONS + CHARGES
*sigh* Moving on...I have two methods of metering my electricity usage - Peak Hours and Off Peak Hours.
The peak hours are (my understanding) times in which there are high demands placed on electricity providers to...provide electricity i.e. at around 6pm when everyone's gone home from work and turned on the Air Conditioning, Television and cooked their dinner. Off peak refers to times when there isn't as much demand such as the early hours when people are generally expected to be in bed asleep with most appliances turned off.
The cost of electricity is charged as units...these units are Kilowatt Hours or kWh for short; equal to an appliance consuming one thousand watts for one hour.
Another charge is the 'Access Charge'. A fee charged simply to have access to the electricity in the first place. I know, right?
MY COSTS
Note: I receive a "4% discount", the costings below reflect this so-called 'discount'
The Access Charge for OFF PEAK is $0.0943 per day or ~$34.40 per year provided that the charge doesn't increase in cost. A kWh of OFF PEAK electricity in my last bill was costed at $0.1445
The Access Charge for PEAK is $0.9408 per day or ~$343 per year provided that the charge doesn't increase in cost. A kWh of PEAK electricity in my last bill was costed at $0.2517
FINAL COSTING
Between the OFF PEAK and the PEAK electricity I racked up electricity costs of $192.78
The bill period covered 96 days so the combined ACCESS CHARGES costs were $99.37
THE BREAKDOWN/CONCLUSION
For an electricity bill total of $321.35...
$29.20 (~10%) was for GST
$99.37 (~30%) was for Access Charges
$192.78 (~60% was for electricity
As you can see close to half a electricity bill isn't for electricity consumed by the user...provided you are provided with electricity the same way I am :P
Well we're all friends here...my last bill was for $321.35. Ever wondered if I can back up my 'green' talk? Well my last electricity bill cost over double my last one AKA cutting consumption in half. And the money I saved was an awesome bonus and gets me closer to my goal of eliminating my electricity bills completely by installing solar cells and keeping usage to a minimum.
GENERAL SALES TAX
I'm living in Australia and a utility bill is apparently subject to General Sales Tax (GST)...think that sucks? Don't forget most electricity here will be further taxed as it will be subject to the Carbon Tax.
So 10% (cost of GST) of the bill straight-up isn't even for electricity. The GST on this bill totaled $29.20, what the Government spends it on I wouldn't have a clue - Repaying the debt they generated I suppose...
PRICING OPTIONS + CHARGES
*sigh* Moving on...I have two methods of metering my electricity usage - Peak Hours and Off Peak Hours.
The peak hours are (my understanding) times in which there are high demands placed on electricity providers to...provide electricity i.e. at around 6pm when everyone's gone home from work and turned on the Air Conditioning, Television and cooked their dinner. Off peak refers to times when there isn't as much demand such as the early hours when people are generally expected to be in bed asleep with most appliances turned off.
The cost of electricity is charged as units...these units are Kilowatt Hours or kWh for short; equal to an appliance consuming one thousand watts for one hour.
Another charge is the 'Access Charge'. A fee charged simply to have access to the electricity in the first place. I know, right?
MY COSTS
Note: I receive a "4% discount", the costings below reflect this so-called 'discount'
The Access Charge for OFF PEAK is $0.0943 per day or ~$34.40 per year provided that the charge doesn't increase in cost. A kWh of OFF PEAK electricity in my last bill was costed at $0.1445
The Access Charge for PEAK is $0.9408 per day or ~$343 per year provided that the charge doesn't increase in cost. A kWh of PEAK electricity in my last bill was costed at $0.2517
FINAL COSTING
Between the OFF PEAK and the PEAK electricity I racked up electricity costs of $192.78
The bill period covered 96 days so the combined ACCESS CHARGES costs were $99.37
THE BREAKDOWN/CONCLUSION
For an electricity bill total of $321.35...
$29.20 (~10%) was for GST
$99.37 (~30%) was for Access Charges
$192.78 (~60% was for electricity
As you can see close to half a electricity bill isn't for electricity consumed by the user...provided you are provided with electricity the same way I am :P
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Coca Cola prices: Then (2008) and Now (2012)
Years ago I saw 2 Litre bottles of Coca-Cola selling for an all time high price...at $3.14 I snapped a photo :P I have held onto it for all these years. Here it is.
I always figured if I held onto it long enough that it would be an interesting look back. And now it is. I still remember thinking how expensive this price tag was back in May 2008 when I took it. The other day, in the same supermarket I saw what I thought was an odd "special". It just didn't seem that cheap. I lifted the tag and guess how much a 2L bottle is in March 2012?
Have a look for yourself...
I always figured if I held onto it long enough that it would be an interesting look back. And now it is. I still remember thinking how expensive this price tag was back in May 2008 when I took it. The other day, in the same supermarket I saw what I thought was an odd "special". It just didn't seem that cheap. I lifted the tag and guess how much a 2L bottle is in March 2012?
Have a look for yourself...
As you can also see, the price tags now have unit pricing...and the quality my camera produces has improved :D These prices are in AU$ - In US$ this product would cost $4.01 according to www.xe.com at the time of writing.
Do you think this is overly expensive? Please note that this is on a regular store shelf, it is not provided chilled.
Friday, March 16, 2012
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...
Marijuana Figures for Australia
Yes sorry everyone, it's another Cannabis-related article. The figures surrounding it are interesting to note.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics: "On 17 March 2012 at 11:55:22 AM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be: 22,860,514" (Source www.abs.gov.au)
Whilst the director of the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre estimates that 750,000 Australians use cannabis every week, and approximately 300,000 smoke it on a daily basis (Source)
The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey published in April 2008 by The Australian Institute of Health demonstrated that "Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in Australia, with a reported one-third of all Australians aged 14 or older (33.5%, about 5.8 million) having tried cannabis and 1.6 million using it in the past year" (Wikipedia Article: 'Cannabis in Australia')
Okay all this got me thinking some things...
Firstly, despite the laws imposed on Marijuana, evidence shows it to be readily available considering the amount Australian's are purported to consume in a week.
Secondly, the disconnected policy surrounding the States and Territories of Australia not only makes things confusing but it also provides prospects to drug suppliers residing in areas where the penalties are not as severe.
And finally the amount of money that the industry as a whole must make is insane (a technical financial term).
Let's use the figures provided and make some assumptions. 750,000 Australians use cannabis 'every week' - Alright let's say they use it during that week and between everyone combined each of the 750,000 users consume 1 gram of marijuana...that combines for a total of 750kg of Marijuana for one week...or about 39-40 tonnes a year...a little over 105kg on average, per day.
And how much does Marijuana sell for in Australia? According to the Australian Crime Commission (Illicit Drug Data Report 2007-08) "the average price for one gram of cannabis ranged from A$20–A$35, although prices in remote areas can be significantly higher" (Wikipedia Article 'Cannabis in Australia)
...but using prices for one gram wouldn't be accurate. Others say they 'bush weed' can sell for $200 for an ounce (28 grams), which sounds strange but I wanted to use the lowest figures anyhow. So 1g @ $200/oz. prices is equal to ~$7.14 per gram... Multiply that by the 750,000 weekly users @ 1g each and that is equal to $5,355,000 a week.
Of course some smokers wouldn't pay anything for their Marijuana, whilst others would pay a lot more than $200 for 'bush weed'. In any case at the $7.14 per gram price, the 750,000 weekly smokers and based on the figure of an average of 1g for each of them...the supply chain would still make $278,460,000 per year from a total population (i.e. babies, kids, adults, the elderly combined) of less than 23 million.
I think it's about time the Drug Laws associated with Cannabis in Australia reflected reality somewhat and stopped incriminating the unlucky ones that get caught and remove the money supply from the seedy illegal street dealers that can sell for as much as they like and to whoever they want to.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics: "On 17 March 2012 at 11:55:22 AM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be: 22,860,514" (Source www.abs.gov.au)
Whilst the director of the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre estimates that 750,000 Australians use cannabis every week, and approximately 300,000 smoke it on a daily basis (Source)
The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey published in April 2008 by The Australian Institute of Health demonstrated that "Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in Australia, with a reported one-third of all Australians aged 14 or older (33.5%, about 5.8 million) having tried cannabis and 1.6 million using it in the past year" (Wikipedia Article: 'Cannabis in Australia')
Okay all this got me thinking some things...
Firstly, despite the laws imposed on Marijuana, evidence shows it to be readily available considering the amount Australian's are purported to consume in a week.
Secondly, the disconnected policy surrounding the States and Territories of Australia not only makes things confusing but it also provides prospects to drug suppliers residing in areas where the penalties are not as severe.
And finally the amount of money that the industry as a whole must make is insane (a technical financial term).
Let's use the figures provided and make some assumptions. 750,000 Australians use cannabis 'every week' - Alright let's say they use it during that week and between everyone combined each of the 750,000 users consume 1 gram of marijuana...that combines for a total of 750kg of Marijuana for one week...or about 39-40 tonnes a year...a little over 105kg on average, per day.
And how much does Marijuana sell for in Australia? According to the Australian Crime Commission (Illicit Drug Data Report 2007-08) "the average price for one gram of cannabis ranged from A$20–A$35, although prices in remote areas can be significantly higher" (Wikipedia Article 'Cannabis in Australia)
...but using prices for one gram wouldn't be accurate. Others say they 'bush weed' can sell for $200 for an ounce (28 grams), which sounds strange but I wanted to use the lowest figures anyhow. So 1g @ $200/oz. prices is equal to ~$7.14 per gram... Multiply that by the 750,000 weekly users @ 1g each and that is equal to $5,355,000 a week.
Of course some smokers wouldn't pay anything for their Marijuana, whilst others would pay a lot more than $200 for 'bush weed'. In any case at the $7.14 per gram price, the 750,000 weekly smokers and based on the figure of an average of 1g for each of them...the supply chain would still make $278,460,000 per year from a total population (i.e. babies, kids, adults, the elderly combined) of less than 23 million.
I think it's about time the Drug Laws associated with Cannabis in Australia reflected reality somewhat and stopped incriminating the unlucky ones that get caught and remove the money supply from the seedy illegal street dealers that can sell for as much as they like and to whoever they want to.
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