Will’s View

As it’s been a while since I’ve had a proper whinge at the Public View of something, I thought it was time that changed:

Planned Obsolescence is something which I have despised ever since one of my English teachers at high school went out on a tangent and talked about our increasing consumerist culture (it was an interesting year of English, enough said!). He went on to talk about how most things are manufactured in order to make it to the warranty date (typically one year from purchase) and then promptly fall to pieces (or suddenly lose all semblance of battery power, *cough* iPod *cough*).

The extent of this mindset in the General Public hadn’t really hit home - partly because I’m still a student, and as such I run everything until it breaks and even then try and tape it together for another semester - until late last week. I was talking to someone who had recently bought a new TV. “Wow,” you’re all saying “So what’s the big deal?”. Well the deal is that the only reason they bought a new one was because the old one had started “buzzing”. It wasn’t taken in for repairs, or even smacked light-heartedly on the side a couple of times until everything was restored to normal. Instead they bought a new one and relegated the old one to the garage. This isn’t a personal vendetta, the TV was at least a couple of years old, and well past its warranty, this is more of a vendetta against the Views of the General Public.

We live in a world where you can renew your mobile phone for free every 24 months if you stay on a contract - just so you can get video-calling or picture messaging - even if your current phone has nothing wrong with it. Where we buy bottles of water every day and toss them in the recycling instead of simply re-using the bottles the next day. Where if you don’t have this season’s brand of ridiculous sunglasses then you may as well not have any.

Okay, so you get my gist. It’s not a huge thing, just something that gets on my nerves a bit, when people just “go out and buy a new one” instead of taking the time to get it fixed. I have little doubt that once I’m in the ‘real world’ and earning ‘real money’ I will change my opinion, but for now it stays!

P.S. Think twice before buying a Dell laptop lest it explode on you!

--> As it’s been a while since I’ve had a proper whinge at the Public View of something, I thought it was time that changed: Planned Obsolescence is something which I have despised ever since one of my English teachers at high school went out on a tangent and talked about our increasing consumerist culture (it was an interesting year of English, enough said!). He went on to talk about how most things are manufactured in order to make (More...)

Whilst browsing the local liquor store, as one often does of a Friday afternoon, I saw this peculiar advertisement. I know there are many cool and ingenious inventions out there - many of which we take for granted - but this one, I reckon, shows a certain creativity and blatant profiteering which I admire (the full-size image is here). It’s a nice blend of social conscience “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” and well-placed advertising (at the counter of a liquor store). I’m assuming it works just like the old chemical breath-testers the police used to use, and it’s most impressive that the technology has been miniaturised (like pretty-much everything else these days, more on that another time methinks).

Another one I only just found out about this morning is a wonderful thing called a “crumb sweeper” (and no, I don’t have a clue who Harriet Carter is), which apparently is just a small vacuum cleaner run off a couple of AA batteries. But the genius here is the shape. Can’t you imagine the design meetings:

Designer 1: “I reckon we have an ultra-smart, brushed steel exterior.”
Designer 2: “Nah, too expensive, let’s go for a metal-looking plastic exterior.”
Intern: “Hey! I know!” he says, with youthful enthusiasm “How about we make it look like a pig, it’ll be funny, ‘cos it will eat the crumbs, and pigs are hungry, and they eat anything, and they eat fast, and it’ll be funny”
Designer 1&2: Stifle their sniggers
Project Manager: “I love it, great idea, the public will love it!”

And that is how we came to have high-quality pig-shaped crumb sweepers being recommended by Harriet Carter for only US$6.50. A bargain at twice the price. God bless great inventions.

--> Whilst browsing the local liquor store, as one often does of a Friday afternoon, I saw this peculiar advertisement. I know there are many cool and ingenious inventions out there - many of which we take for granted - but this one, I reckon, shows a certain creativity and blatant profiteering which I admire (the full-size image is here). It’s a nice blend of social conscience “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” and well-placed advertising (at the counter (More...)

I’m not going to sit here and say I know everything. I might say it if we were in person, but declaring things like that on the Internet is just plain egotistical. But while I was wandering around the lovely city of Melbourne this afternoon I was struck by one of the most absurd sights I have ever seen: Someone dusting/cleaning the traffic lights.

I know there must be heaps of jobs undertaken by the council in order to maintain the continuity of society and the successful running of Melbourne, but dusting the lights? I realise that there are indispensible jobs to be done in Melbourne, such as re-planting the lovely flower bed on St. Kilda Road and hosing down Fed. Square after the Socceroos have played. But dusting the lights? Truth be told they did look a lot better (see photo on the left) after a bit of a dusting, but one must wonder if there are possibly more constructive things they could be doing? I don’t expect miracles like the saving of light aircraft or anything, but maybe reminding people to put their phones on silent before entering a lecture theatre, or stopping people from disrupting lectures by berating us with political campaigns. Maybe even filtering spam by hand, I don’t know! I just figure that enough rain falls in Melbourne to avoid the necessity of cleaning traffic lights.

I suppose I’m going to end, yet again with unanswered questions: What other jobs are there out in the real world which just don’t make sense? How quickly can we replace these silly jobs with robots? Are they even necessary?!

--> I’m not going to sit here and say I know everything. I might say it if we were in person, but declaring things like that on the Internet is just plain egotistical. But while I was wandering around the lovely city of Melbourne this afternoon I was struck by one of the most absurd sights I have ever seen: Someone dusting/cleaning the traffic lights. I know there must be heaps of jobs undertaken by the council in order (More...)

The Eden Project was amazing! What a fascinating
fusion between engineering and horticulture. The tropical ‘biome’ (it’s what you call them don’t ya know) is the biggest, and where most of my photos have been taken. Its atmosphere is kept between 60-80% humidity and about 30-35 degrees C, not the most pleasant atmosphere to be walking around in!

We were staying in Newquay, a small town not all that far from the Eden Project. It had a fantastic beach (where the beach photos were taken, unsurprisingly) on which we enjoyed several cold beers - they come in 500mL cans here - and some good ol’ fashioned fish and chips. Choice!

--> The Eden Project was amazing! What a fascinating fusion between engineering and horticulture. The tropical ‘biome’ (it’s what you call them don’t ya know) is the biggest, and where most of my photos have been taken. Its atmosphere is kept between 60-80% humidity and about 30-35 degrees C, not the most pleasant atmosphere to be walking around in! We were staying in Newquay, a small town not all that far from the Eden Project. It had a fantastic beach (where the beach photos were taken, unsurprisingly) on which we enjoyed several cold beers - they come in 500mL cans here - and some good ol’ fashioned fish and chips. Choice!

The home of intellectual pursuits. Not likely, instead all we found were students who were glad to be rid of exams, going around in a punt with a stereo on. And this is where some of the greatest minds come from?

The ability of the English to preserve historic buildings is laudable. Even though this means that anywhere one goes there is almost definitely an historic building shrouded by green cloth and scaffolding, it means they are remarkable to look at and take artsy photos of!

--> The home of intellectual pursuits. Not likely, instead all we found were students who were glad to be rid of exams, going around in a punt with a stereo on. And this is where some of the greatest minds come from? The ability of the English to preserve historic buildings is laudable. Even though this means that anywhere one goes there is almost definitely an historic building shrouded by green cloth and scaffolding, it means they are remarkable to look at and take artsy photos of!