As mentioned before, Childs Play is spreading to Australia this year.

DStore has come to the party, and set up some Childs Play charity “wish lists” for Brisbane Mater Childrens Hospital, and Sydney Childrens Hospital, Randwick.
I’m assuming that the stock levels for each product are set at the quantities the hospital would like — so, if something is sold out, just pick another. Oh, and FYI -

For anyone wondering where their gift from me is this year - I suggest calling Sydney Children’s Hospital. (I havn’t done it yet, the stores only came up today! :P)

Your local Childrens Hospital not there? Then hurry up and contact the Hospital, and Childsplay. There’s not much time left.

I’ll probably be in Brisbane (near Roma St, CBD) for 3-ish days (2 nights), for work. It’s not quite during Schoolies, but it should be pretty busy I’m guessing.

I’ve got nfi yet what I’m going to do while “off duty”.

 Joel has written an article about the amount of options related to going away from your PC (shutting down, logging off, etc) in Windows Vista.

Joel’s got a nice screen shot, which I’ll nick for the purposes of this article (I’m not near my Vista box).

Basically, you could summarise Joel’s article down to this, since it seems to be the root of Joel’s annoyance with Vista:

Every time you want to leave your computer, you have to choose between nine, count them, nine options: two icons and seven menu items. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. I’m guessing the lock icon does the same thing as the lock menu item, but I’m not sure which menu item the on/off icon corresponds to.

I’m stunned, really - They give you two options. “Turn it off” or “Lock it”. I’m guessing if you’ve got a “Home” edition with no passwords on, it’ll get rid of the Lock option too (though, I can’t verify it).

Inevitably, you are going to think of a long list of intelligent, defensible reasons why each of these options is absolutely, positively essential. Don’t bother. I know. Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop.

Dude, seriously - tell your Uncle to hit the power button on the start menu. It’s what I do, I’ve never seen anyone (even the computer-phobic people) who has had an issue with clicking “Start” and then “Shut down” and then “OK” under the Windows 9x/2000/XP line, a simple “Start” then “Power off” should be even easier on Vista.

Yes, you get inquisitive users that’ll call you up at odd hours going “I’ve got this flashing c colon slash Microsoft thing — what do I need to use this for?”.
I don’t see Joel asking for the Run command to be taken away though.

Joel ends up asking for one giant “b’bye” button which locks the PC initially, and then uses power management to eventually decide to hibernate the PC.  Joel advocates pulling the plug if you really want the machine off right now,  and trusting in new (more expensive) Hybrid hard drives to keep all our data safe.
Because, y’know - telling a user to yank the power out at random times helps keep your hardware in good working order, and your data safe. 

I do agree on a few things though - giving users too many options leads to confusion generally. The “Just click OK” syndrome.  Which is why the power off has a hilight vs the padlock. It’s also a bit of a recognition thing - their vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, TV, and DVD Player all have that same “Power off” logo on their on/off buttons.

I saw these Banana and Nutella Crepes whilst I was in Paris, but never actually had one.

I guess they’re a good enough reason to head back, just on general principle.

Watch this, very very cool

Slashdot reports on a media release by the Internet Industry Association a few weeks ago.

Said IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos: “We can’t be sure if this is the government’s intent, or whether there has been a terrible oversight in the drafting of this Bill. Either way, the consequences for the average Australian family could be devastating.”

“As an example,” said Mr Coroneos, “a family who holds a birthday picnic in a place of public entertainment (for example, the grounds of a zoo) and sings ‘Happy Birthday’ in a manner that can be heard by others, risks an infringement notice carrying a fine of up to $1320. If they make a video recording of the event, they risk a further fine for the possession of a device for the purpose of making an infringing copy of a song. And if they go home and upload the clip to the internet where it can be accessed by others, they risk a further fine of up to $1320 for illegal distribution. All in all, possible fines of up to $3960 for this series of acts – and the new offences do not require knowledge or improper intent. Just the doing of the acts is enough to ground a legal liability under the new ‘strict liability’ offences.”

As I’ve written a few times, this bill is terrible.

Edit:
There are some risk matrices available for Families (PDF), Teenagers (PDF), Small-Business (PDF) and Industry (PDF).

Scary stuff, really.

The most desired keyboard ever goes on pre-order from December 12th, according to their blog.

No prices available yet, but guesstimates by others based on previous commentary by Art Lebdev (the folks making/designing it) puts it at around USD$400-500 - So probably AUD$550 to AUD$700.

Yes, it’s a keyboard. No, it’s not just a keyboard. Every Single Key can be reprogrammed to alter its function (and the display on the key-face too) upon a series of parameters: what application is running, whether you have shift, alt, or ctrl pressed.

For people who aren’t familiar with the key-combinations of their game or application - this can let them learn those key combos to make them faster. 

For those who are familiar with the key-combos, they can record macros (series of keystrokes or other actions) to rapidly fire off a series of events.

You can even re-assign those keys you don’t normally use, to something useful - eg: Photoshop, Firefox, Trillian, etc.

Very Very Very Cool.

Love this story, absolute crackup.

“A SPICY sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.”

- Timesonline

Read the full article here.

(Via Whirlpool’s TPR)

(PLEASE NOTE: This information was gathered by me, from www.workingintheuk.gov.uk - accuracy and currency is not guaranteed, so please check their site directly for the latest information)

Possible Working Visas I might be elligible for:

Working Holiday Maker

This is meant for people who are working incidentally in the UK, to support their holiday for up to 24 months.

Key Points:

• Cannot work for more than 12 months during the Holiday.
• Cannot re-apply for this at the end of the Holiday.
• Must intend to leave at the end of the holiday.
• Only for use as a support to holidaying in the UK (i.e you’re not travelling specificly to work in the UK)
• Available to Commonwealth citizens aged 17-30.  (Not 26, as I had been informed by others)
• You must get a Visa prior to travelling to the UK.

Highly Skilled Migrants Programme

This is meant for people who are highly skilled, to travel to the UK to work for up to 24 months.  Cost is £315 to apply - about AUD$776 at the moment. (No refunds if you don’t succeed).

Key Points:

• Initial Work Permit limit of 24 months, however this can be extended and you may get granted up to a further three years’ leave.
• If you live in the UK continously for five years, you can make application for Indefinite leave to remain.
• Takes between 5-14 Weeks (typically) to process.
• Must apply for Entry Clearance (Visa?) at a British Embasy (in Australia) within 6 Months from the date of your Approval letter.

Forms, and Guidance information are available over on their “All Forms” page.

Paul has a good writeup of his experience of the eGames Expo - a real pity about the no-cameras rule. Very stupid of them, imo.

If I wern’t going overseas (still not certain on when I’m doing that), I might consider getting a Wii… it’s the only console I’ve actually thought was really cool.
Other consoles have had lightguns and things like that, but the Wii Controller is… really interesting.