geek heaven

Went to the computer swap meet here in Box Hill today... errr... yesterday (it is now 3am), Gee... it is amazing to see how prices of computer equipment continue to just fall and fall. DVD writable blanks are down to just $5 -- it was not too long ago that CD-Rs were $5... amazing!!

Let's just hope technology continues to accelerate like this and prices continue to plummet -- we might just make it thru the next few decades relatively intact.

As friend of mine said: so many toys, so little time.

Speaking of toys, I got the latest part for my robot the other day. It now acts so very cute running around avoiding obstructions with its ultrasonic sonar. It is very giggle-worthy. Soooo cute!

Anybody hear the Background Briefing broadcast yesterday? It was an edited down version of a talk given at Princeton University recently by the brilliant Jared Diamond, titled Why Societies Collapse. A neat thing that the Background Briefing team are doing is making the complete, unedited talk available on the net so you can listen to it at your leisure. It is well worth hearing. It gives matter-of-factly scary descriptions of the way some civilisations have brought about their own ruin in the past, and what we can learn from them. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/

[Update: they only keep the last 4 weeks' episodes online. If you want this one I can send it to you -- it is well worth hearing.]