Here’s a little advice on which cards to bring if you want to use them in Japan.

Mastercard is useless.

And Maestro (your normal ATM card) is just as bad.

Visa is the way to go. Accepted in more places overseas. Their ads are actually true. In China it was also easier to use Visa than Mastercard (but that was before the Olympics, not sure what the situation is since).

Many hotels and large department stores will accept both Mastercard and Visa, however, if you want to withdraw money from an ATM (which is a better idea as the bank charges you a fee each time you use your card overseas, as well as a % of the amount as a fee for currency exchange) it is virtually impossible to withdraw using Mastercard or Maestro.

If you want to withdraw money from the local 7-11 (which are everywhere), they only accept Visa. If you go to the ATM inside a shopping centre, they only accept Visa (if they accept foreign cards at all). The Mastercard ATM locator said that there were bank ATMs (located in/near banks) that did Mastercard but they were out of the way and inconvienent to get to. Whereas 7-11’s are everywhere.

So that’s my rant.

And if someone from the Commonwealth Bank reads this, please consider offering debit Visa cards instead of just debit Mastercard. I’ll have to keep my St George account with its debit Visa card open until Commbank changes its mind.

I really do hope we get a white christmas.

Snow = win!

So step into an Asian country, like China, where the majority of toilets are squat toilets. It may look super disgusting, or it could be super clean. But the fact remains that that it is a squat toilet. You have to squat. And I cannot do the asian squat (where your heels are down when squatting), so it is quite oft uncomfortable for me to squat (at any time).

I spent over a year in China, and it was only in the LAST month that I had to succumb and use a squat toilet at the nearest store, courtesy of a dicey stomach after a dodgy dinner.

Yet, come to Japan, the land of toilets which clean your bum and all technologically wonderful things.

I’ve only used the one at home, which has direct, diffused, female and a dryer options. You can choose the angle and the strength. Fun eh? There likely are more souped up versions with more options. But I mean. The toilet cleans your bum!!

So in a land of all that bliss, WHY is it that I had to use a squat toilet. They really are uncomfortable. Most shopping centres, schools, etc had TWO toilets, one normal one and one squat one. Which is good. The really posh places have toilets that clean, but normally they’re just, well, normal sit-down toilets.

Yet, on that woe-begotten day, the toilet, my normal toilet, my sit-down and relax toilet, was out of order. With not another toilet in sight, or ‘need-to-go-to-the-toilet’ walkable distance, I had to succumb and use the squat toilet. I shall endeavour to use squat toilets as little as possible for the rest of my trip.

Well, that was a little random, but a necessary rant about toilets. We’ll go back to our normal broadcast tomorrow.

The world has rolled forward, propelled by greed and the internet. Two key forces that have morphed the world beyond recognition. Fueled by the snaking pathways of the ever expanding internet super-highway, a new culture has arisen. Dubbed Generation Y, we stand at the fore of a decadent culture that threatens to overrun, and relegate to mere dusty wiki-pedia entries, the finesse and refinement of centuries of development. From the deep belief of our forefathers in the Enlightenment, we have advanced to become mere shadows, shallow creatures, only concerned with our immediate wants and desires.

Yet we are victims of our own success. It has devoured what little decency we have left. It has scared the old white men, the men of ‘power’. But resistance is futile. Embrace of be swept away.

Communication has become instant, spanning the globe in seconds and for a few mere cents. Purchasing items has shifted online, and ever increasingly, we are buying what we are told we want, rather than what we need. The consumeristic wave has been engulfed by the internet and propelled to starry heights. Knowledge has been reduced to wikipedia and google searches. Discourse has changed from indepth precis to 160 character messages, thirty second forum replies and ever increasing self-centered blogs. The English language has been forgotten and dissected to abbreviations and lol’s.

The world, all at once, has become so much smaller, yet is so much bigger.

Yet my train ride home takes longer now than it did a century ago.

Irony is…ironic.

INFORMATION technology is often viewed as a “polluter” in the current climate change debate, but it has a critical role to play in addressing the problem, a report finds.

The University of Wollongong Working Group on the Carbon-Centric Computing Initiative has released a study that suggests IT could fundamentally alter the climate change debate.

IT-enabled smart logistics, smart energy use, smart utilities and ubiquitous optimisation could support a global online collaboration infrastructure that ensures minimisation of the global carbon footprint, said the report’s co-author Professor Aditya Ghose, director of the Decision Systems Laboratory in the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering at UOW.

The report describes how existing web infrastructure could be leveraged to devise the optimising web to deliver a large-scale, global network of optimisers helping support decisions that would reduce the carbon footprint and improve business efficiency.

Computer-based simulation technology could enable sustainable manufacturing and environmental management at the enterprise level, it said.

The other two authors of the report are: UOW academics Associate Professor Helen Hasan (Activity Theory Usability Laboratory director in the School of Economics) and Professor Trevor Spedding (School of Management and Marketing head).

Business should receive “credits” for putting in place IT-based optimisation solutions, which would reduce the carbon footprint, the authors said.

The CCCI seeks to seed research that addresses the climate change problem with a range of computing technologies including optimisation technologies, supply chain management technologies, business process management/process improvement technologies and grid computing.
- The Australian – Jennifer Foreshew | September 23, 2008

Is the idea of tackling climate change with a range of computing technologies really that new? Or does this report merely showcase how ineffectual our decision making process is? Must there be dozens of reports and studies into the same issue to prompt change?

Indeed, it does make sense that there should be consensus on a given issue, and the issue of climate change STILL today receives much criticism from all levels of society. Regardless of whether or not global warming is caused by humans, I am of the opinion that we should nevertheless change our ways and become more environmentally friendly, and work towards reducing the impact that we, as humans, have on the world and its environments.

But seriously, a report saying that “Computer-based simulation technology could enable sustainable manufacturing and environmental management at the enterprise level”, who are they kidding? This idea is so old, and used so often nowadays, it’s not funny. But no doubt it is a reminder that something NEEDS to start. Something needs to happen. As a society, around the world, we are moving too slowly. We are being pressured by companies who don’t want to foot the costs, who don’t want to have to take accountability for externalities. Which in turn usually means that weak, uesless legislation is passed, that is a nod, but not a firm blow, to the issue at hand.

It appears that being connected is no longer just the domain of Generation Y (and whatever they call the generation after us). Generation Y consists of late teens to 26 year olds, so I’ve been told. GenY is the iPod/ mp3, laptop, instant messaging, social networking, always connected generation. We think we’re cool, hip and suave.

So why do I find it so concerning when I see that my friends parents have joined Facebook? They’re the baby boomers. They’re our parents, they’re the ones that never seemed to get it, never understood how important it was to always be on MSN and how we could do our homework while listening to mp3’s, chatting, and watching the TV. Now they’re having conversations with their kids on their FB walls, checking out what their kids and friends did on the weekend, and probably doing background checks on everyone, all courtesy of them having found out how to be ’switched on’.

What’s even MORE disconcerting is when my 86 year old grandma gets a computer and internet connection. Did they even have switches back then?

But order restores itself in the world when they come asking me how to send an e-mail. For the 52nd time.

So here I take up the mantle of blogging once again. To establish that yes, I am a GenY’er, and that I am more connected and ‘hip’ than my parents.

What has the world come to?

I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It’s been about two months since I’ve worked out. And I just don’t have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.
- Ellen DeGeneres

It’s so true. It’s funny how you can find time for some things, and can’t find time for others. I should really work out as well. I’ll get to it soon. Very soon. Super soon. Right after I finish saving the world, and that latte. Oh and that latest anime series I’m watching. And I mustn’t forget…

We live in what is fast becoming the digital era. Everyone wants everything now. We eat more and more fast food because we don’t take the time to make proper meals. Roadrage has increased remarkably in Australia, with people wanting to go places faster. Ire at Telstra and its crappy internet is on a rise. I order things usually based on a cheapest/fastest ratio. Everything is about Express. I mean I even just joined a frequent flyer program. People now download TV shows and Movies because they want them now. The time between movie release in cinemas and DVD has shortened remarkably. It’s gotten rather crazy.

I’m off to get some food. NOW!

I never want to be stuck in a crowded train next to someone TALLER than me. And who hasn’t been introduced to a shower. Ever. Again. kthnx =)