Hmmmm. Which one do you think I’d go for?

I’m usually always a person who will shop locally to support local businesses, but there is a limit to my support of businesses where the cost is double.

[Price comparison correct using the exchange rate as at Dec 20, 2008]

It’s that time of year when, more than others, we are asked to think of those who are less fortunate than ourselves. To be charitable. To think of, and give to, those who may otherwise have a less than cheery time this festive season. But charities must be having a tougher time than usual themselves.

Those people who may once have given willingly to charities may themselves now be less able to repeat that gesture this year given global economic hardships (albeit, though, most of us are still way better off than the vast majority of the populations of third world countries).

How can charities compensate for this reduction in their income?

It’s a tough one. I don’t have any suggestions. I can suggest to them, though, what not to do (based on my reaction to a couple of their tactics).

One. Don’t cold call me on the telephone. I’ve become conditioned to not give out my credit card information over the phone to somebody I don’t know and haven’t called. After I decline to hand over those credit card details, don’t abuse me and patronise me. If I ask for information to be sent to me in the mail, do it – otherwise I might be believe that the phone call was a scam in the first place.

Two. Don’t bail me up in the street. Don’t attempt to flatter me. Don’t ask me to fill out my credit card details on a piece of paper there and then. Don’t abuse me for declining to handover my card details to somebody I’ve never met before even if they have an “ID card” dangling from their neck (I can laminate a piece of laser-printed cardboard as well as the next person). Don’t then swear at me. Don’t call me stupid for declining to comply the now more excited demand for cash and tell me the “hundreds of other people do it”. Don’t call me a miser for not acquiescing to the collector’s continuing harassment. And then, after the collector tells me that he gets a portion of the “donation”, don’t expect me to ever donate cash to you ever again.

Three. Don’t expect me to hand over cash when the collector doesn’t share the values that the charity itself is supposed to hold. Do charities actually put their collectors though a selection process? Or do the charities take just anybody and hope that luck is on their side.

… and I’m talking about major, globally recognised, household-name charities here.

What works for me? Well definitely not being approached by a charity! It’s pretty much the case that I will only donate to those that I seek out.

In fact, in much the same way that Matt Cutts is, and has been, doing.

So, having travelled to Sydney, I took advantage of a wait for a train to give Cycorder a workout in a less well lit location; the place being Museum Station on Sydney’s underground rail network. From memory, I think the iPhone/Cycorder combination can record 12 to 15 frames per second.

The result is a 90 second clip hosted at Vimeo.

[Hungerford, Queensland, looking south]

Today saw me organising an electronics funds transfer to the dealer to pay for the vehicle, and organising insurance to cover Tristan plus accessories.

Those tasks have been completed; just another 24 hours to wait!

If it’s not ready a few days into next week then it’ll be a further fortnight before I’m in a position to take delivery.

[Camel by the side of the Birdsville Track].

The suspense mounts (given that it’s now getting close to being 9 months since the vehicle was ordered).

“Man critically injured in train platform accident” (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/19/2142088.htm)

“A man is in critical condition after colliding with a train on a platform of Carnegie Station in Melbourne on Friday afternoon.

Police say the 62-year-old approached the empty express train before he was hit.”

A man collided … (objects collide with objects; in common usage, people don’t collide with trains)

… on a platform … (the train must have risen up from the track)

… the 62-year-old approached the empty express train … (“approached”? – like he was going to ask it for the time?)

My solution to this issue was to turn to Google Reader (again). I had tried Google Reader some time previously but, at the time, I didn’t like its user interface. And some time before that I had used Bloglines as an online reader before likewise becoming frustrated by its user interface.

In the intervening time Google had released a new version of their Reader. And I liked it. Google looked after the periodic checking for new blog articles – my own bandwidth use was reduced. Google Reader used Ajax to feed me only a couple of handfuls of blog articles at a time, thus trickling the data to me rather than spiking my bandwidth use.

And them came feed overload. Each time I came across an interesting blog article from a person whose blog I wasn’t subscribed to, I would immediately subscribe in the hope of continuing to find similarly interesting articles.

After I had reached some 535 feed subscriptions I came to the realisation that the signal to noise ration wasn’t especially good. I was having to wade through far too many articles that I wasn’t interested in before coming across something that was of interest.

So began the Great Cull.

Over a period of weeks I unsubscribed from over 200 blog feeds – I’m currently subscribed to about 320. That’s manageable. It now takes me less time to reading a larger number of interesting articles. I win.

Once again, though, without thinking anything of it, I uncapped the tube of toothpaste and, squiiiiiirt, the toothpaste tube gushes more toothpaste than any toothbrush can usefully use until the pressure is equalised.