Sydney is a truly magnificent city, blessed with friendly people, great restaurants and one of the most spectacular natural settings of any city in the world. But there’s one area that Sydney is well below par, and it’s even led the proud locals to admit – shock, horror – that they’re being beaten by rival city Melbourne.

Sydney is a terrible place for a drink.

Sydney: Sure it’s pretty, but can you find a bloody drink anywhere?

Until now your choices for an after-work tipple or a lazy Sunday afternoon session have been the pub (big, noisy, packed beer barns) and the club (big, noisy, packed beer barns… with poker machines).

All that is soon to change with the introduction of legislation aimed at reducing the licence fee for small venues. Current fees (around $15,000) are set to plummet to as little as $500 for small-capacity licensed premises. The bill, introduced to Parliament by Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore, states that Sydney should boast “a night economy that is diverse and in line with other cities - Australian cities like Melbourne and Perth, and European, American and Asian cities, such as Paris, Florence, San Francisco and Shanghai.â€

Supporters of the change are excitedly predicting a rebirth of Sydney nightlife. No longer will those wanting a quiet drink with friends be forced to run the raucous gauntlet of George Street on a Saturday night. Smaller European-style bars and wine bars (so successful in Melbourne since similar licensing deregulation in the mid-1980s) will soon grace the back lanes and third-storeys of CBD buildings.

Not everyone is welcoming the change. Predictably, the Australian Hotels Association is opposing the liberalisation of licensing laws, with the Association’s president stating, “We (people from Sydney) don’t want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book.†It seems, though, that as with cultured cities the world over, some Sydneysiders want to do just that.

As usual in a bar fight in Australia, the last word goes to a Labor Party identity. This time it was former Prime Minister and withering orator Paul Keating, who weighed in on the issue late last year: “The pub culture in Sydney is stultifyingly bad. It’s raucous and it’s noisy in the Klondike-like saloons. All that’s missing is Lola Montez. The idea that you have to go into these swills to get a drink, and not in some more beguiling place, is a shame.â€

Bring it on!

–John Ryan

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s tours and things to do in Sydney, including Sydney food, bar & nightlife tours. Also read John’s previous post about finding a decent place to drink in Melbourne.

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WordPress 2.3.1 Release Candidate 1 has been released, time to upgrade!

WordPress 2.3.1 is almost ready to go. Before we send it out the door, we’re making a release candidate available so everyone can give it a last look.

2.3.1 fixes over twenty bugs. Some of the notable fixes are:

• Tagging support for Windows Live Writer
• A login bug that affected those with a Blog Address different than
  their WordPress Address is fixed
• Faster taxonomy database queries, especially tag intersection queries
• Link importer fixes

More details will be provided in the final release announcement. Until then, download RC1 and let us know if it fixes a particular bug in 2.3 that was annoying you. If you find that something has broken since 2.3, please open a ticket so we can address the problem before the final 2.3.1 release.

A freaky procedure was carried out to turn a body-art fan’s eye blue, ala. Dune.

And it took FORTY insertions of the needle to get the job done.

Volunteer Pauly Unstoppable, from Canada, has perfect vision but jumped at the chance to be the first for this unusual work.

See some nasty shots in the gallery. But be warned - the pictures are very graphic. The one with the guy with dirty finger nails made me cringe.

Brave Pauly said he had, had full confidence in the team working on him - but urged people not to try it at home. He then said, and I quote “The procedure was extensively researched and done by people who were aware of the risks and possible complications and that it should not be casually attempted.

“Now that this experiment has been started, please wait for us to either heal or go blind before trying it.”

I haven’t seen a follow up that said he had gone blind. But I assume that the healing process takes a while.

[Story from The Sun]

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A portion of a CheatCC review…

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a must-buy for fans of the series. The amazing amount of features and characters included in the game plus the online gameplay make Brawl one of Nintendo’s best titles to date. Even those Nintendo fans who are not interested in fighting titles will find this one appealing. It’s not just a game; it’s a Nintendo museum!

Full review here

Seems RED Camera is going to give us some information about Scarlet, a camera they have kept under wraps for the last few years at NAB 2008
Information about said camera is Sketchy at best.

RED
Pocket
Professional [not prosumer]
Named Scarlet
Will not compete with or replace the RED ONE
To be introduced at NAB 2008
It’ll have a sensor
And [metric] buttons
Jim has confirmed it is a “motion capture camera” so not a still camera.

Will it be?
“Tomorrow is another day,”
“I’ll never go hungry again!â€

If you are wondering about quotes, another famous Scarlett, not to be confused with a color

From a list:

Subject: Nikon at Imaging USA (Tampa, FL), MacWorld (San Francisco, CA), PMA (Las Vegas, NV)
From: Michael Rubin
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01?? +0900

Howdy folks,

If you are going to be at any of these shows, so will I. Please stop by and say hello. We’ll have presentations on hardware and software at Imaging USA & PMA and software at MacWorld.

We’ll have experts on the D3, D300 and other products at all 3.

And you can come meet me in person and complain about or compliment Nikon!

If you would like a free pass for MacWorld, please email me privately: mrubin !-at-! nikon.net and I will send you a pass code and registration code.
…
Hope to see a bunch of you soon!

Michael

Just attended a forum sponsored by my alumni association (UPLSAA) on Web 2.0. The speaker was Jonas de los Reyes of Yehey.com’s ecommerce unit. Jonas is also a blogger and a very active one, unlike me. (more…)

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p2pnet MPAA News | RIAA News:- “The RIAA may be merging with the IFPI,” p2pnet posted at the beginning of the year, going on, “No, this isn’t a p2pnet spoof similar to the one in 2004 where we had the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) merging with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).”

The RIAA and IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) are nought but Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG enforcement outfits, so putting the two together doesn’t require a huge stretch of imagination.

And when you get right down to it, an RIAA / MPAA merger isn’t so far-fetched either. After all, the two entertainment cartel ‘trade’ associations are mirror images of each other, working to plant dis- and misinformation in the minds of the general public, and scam the media into carrying heavily spun, and highly inaccurate, PR puff pieces dressed up as press releases.

The two often pool resources for the common bad and now, “Yesterday, while researching an old New York Global Times edition of April 1, 1910, I discovered this amazing article, which I can reproduce here, not because the article’s copyright has expired (they never do) but because the New York Global Times no longer exists due to the collapse of paper based newspaper readership in America,” says a p2pnet Reader’s Write.

Slugged RIAA Aand MPAA join forces against music sharing, it goes >>>

Reporter for New York Global Times: Robert Von Haggard

The Restaurant Industries Association of America (RIAA) and the Music Performers Association of America (MPAA) have, we have learned, joined forces to prevent the sharing of music though the new device known as vitrola, an invention of Thomas Edison and radio, an Italian invention, a fact denied by most Americans.

Mr. Al Capone has been hired to represent RIAA and MPAA.

John Rice, a restaurant owner and the president of RIAA, and Bill Singer of MPAA have issued a joint letter to the membership of RIAA and MPAA. We have obtained a copy of the letter from a RIAA employee that asked that his name not be given because he has not been authorized to speak of the letter. This is the text of the letter

Dear RIAA and MPAA members:

Our industry and jobs depends heavily on the music performed at restaurants to bring in customers. We see this new device invented by that phony and unschooled inventor, Edison, as a threat to the livelihood of the artists and chefs that we develop and work in our restaurants. Our consultant, Mr. Albert Capone of Capone Law (Capone), of Chicago tell us that each song shared to the public by the recording companies will result in 10 less customers visits to a restaurant, as customers stay at home to listen to music. The customer loss could be as much as 100 customers per record sold, Capone tells us, if that other new invention, the radio, is purchased by as low as 10 percent of the population. We, and the American economy, could, says Capone’s statistics, loose 44 percent of restaurant customers and jobs.

While Capone advises that it is very unlikely that radio will be successful he suggests that we be on the watch, just in case.

Because the livelihood of musical performers that work in restaurants is at risk, the Restaurant Industries Association of America (RIAA) and the Musical Performers Association of America (MPAA) have joined forces to fight the illegal sharing of music through new technologies such the vitrola and the radio. Capone estimates that about one million music performers will loose their jobs as restaurants and clubs and piano bars are shut down as customers stay home to listen to a vitrola to satisfy their crave for music.

Therefore we announce that we have designated Capone as our congressional lobbyist and legal representative. Capone will also advise us on tax and general legal matters. We picked Capone because of their experience and reputation. Capone’s mission will be to obtain changes in the copyright law and judicial decisions to make sure that sharing music through new inventions is prohibited. Capone will also identify and make settlement offers on our behalf to persons that may already be sharing music by playing their vitrola or radios in public places such as offices, workplaces and living rooms. Settlement offers will be made too to companies that manufacture the vitrola and radio devices and the records played therein.

Capone will pursue, in the event that vitrolas and radios are allowed to share music, legislation to add a Restaurant and Performer tax levy to the devices.

Capone will also advise us on the possibility of buying the vitrola and radio patents. We then would not license anyone for manufacturing the devices. This of course would be a temporary solution, as patents, unlike copyrights, do expire in a reasonably short time Capone is already negotiating with the inventors.

We are defending the rights of performers and chefs and our investments in their careers as well as protecting the American economy from a possible depression due to reduced eating by the American public.

As Capone makes progress on this pursuit, we will keep you informed.

Please keep this letter is confidential.

Sincerely

John Rice (RIAA) and Bill Singer (MPAA)

The New York Global Times tried to contact RIAA and MPAA for comment and were referred to Capone Law. The New York Global Times tried to contact Mr. Albert Capone.

A Capone Law employee who answered the telephone said Mr. Capone was doing time on some tax matters and was unavailable.

Stay tuned

Jon Newton - p2pnet

[NOTE - p2pnet is running a special reader’s survey. It only takes 20-30 seconds —- literally —- and it’d be a huge help if you’d fill it in. Please click here. Cheers! And thanks … Jon]

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Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.

This has been nicked from: p2pnet.net - not the lamescream media

On Friday night, I went to the Cherry Hill Linux Users Group monthly meeting. The main reason I went was because David Bicking was presenting his thoughts on OLPC. Also on the agenda was a presentation by Dave Harding on The Gimp. Although I have my own OLPC, I wanted to hear someone else’s thoughts on it, and even more so, wanted to try the application sharing feature. Once we shared a document, it was really neat to see how you could really work together with it. I’m sure there are ways to do this with other GNU/Linux distros (and probably OS/X or Windows) but it is so easy with the OLPC’s SUGAR interface. I really liked how it worked. I personally find the OLPC quite usable, but Dave Bicking wasn’t as impressed with its usability, but we both agreed, or at least I think we did, it was a nice piece of equipment for the target audience and showed a lot of promise.

Dave Harding’s talked about The GIMP was very well done. Maybe we can get him to do it at LUG/IP sometime!. Dave started off with a good introduction to his topic by talking about the idea of photos expressing in one image what would take many, many words to explain. He started off with talking about the ideas of layers, and the use of the opacity feature. One of the neat hints Dave gave was talking about paste people’s faces over another was to line up the eyes.

After that, he discussed Fuzzy Select (Dave calls it Magic Select). It find patterns in images. This is helpful if you want to erase things in the background.

He also showed off filters. I liked the embossing filter he showed. There are many different filters to try. I must admit I never really played with them, but Dave showed some neat thing that can be done with them. He also showed Script-Fu options. Script-Fu appears to be similar to filters, but works slightly different. Like filters, there are some neat possibilities.

After the meeting we went and had some pizza and talked more about Free and Open Source software. All-in-all, a enjoyable evening.

Update! Last month I commented on some developments here in Canada that saw a closed end fund converted into an ETF. I asked if that was the beginning of a trend.

Maybe not a massive trend, but I now see that First Trust is doing the same with one of their closed end funds. It’s the First Trust Value Line® 100 Fund (FVL) and here’s the press release discussing the conversion. First Trust must really be commended for providing A LOT of information on their funds online.

Unlike the Claymore conversion in Canada that has a truly active manager with a classic active management mandate, the First Trust closed end fund seems to fit the model of other rules-based “quasi-active” ETFs such as their own new AlphaDex funds as well as the IntelliDex and fundamental weighted (FTSE-RAFI) funds both from PowerShares.

The question is if and when we’ll see more traditional closed end funds converting into exchange traded funds? Furthermore, if by doing so, would we hopefully see a minimal spread (premium/discount) between the funds’ market price and the underlying net asset value.  I’m sure that many investors who have exposures to the various country specific funds and thematic funds (infrastructure, for example) on the NYSE would be interested to see a structure, if possible, that would reduce, if not eliminate, this problem with closed end funds.

I’m fairly sure that a part three in this series will follow quite soon.