Recent content by matthew

I'm only looking in from afar and are not aware of which line broke down - but the first trains started running in 1987. Nearly 30 years. Their design life was probably 30 years. Those original trains have run long and hard. At 15-20 years they should have gotten nearly totally rebuilt to...

Probably all OPEC are trying to do is bankrupt the US Shale oil producers and the Canadian tar sands outfits. Those operations are only profitable with $100 oil. With the current price crash bought on by OPEC not cutting production those 'tight' oil producers are now losing money. The same...

You can get M4/3 to FD adaptors referred to as a 'speed booster'. Instead of just being a passive adaptor tube with different mounts on each end they contain lens elements that focus down the image circle (thus increasing the brightness, hence the 'speed booster' label). Some even have...

At lot of DSLRs are made to a price and are in the hands of (admittedly some times very competent) amateurs. The product lines offered reflect this span of users, from beginner to highly skilled and sought after 'pro'. DSLRs will never go away entirely, like medium format never entirely went...

I give the DSLRs 5 at the most 10 years as a 'main stream' product. The only people using them will be pros (and then only in specific situations) and the 'wanabe' pros. Canon/Nikon will have one or two high end DSLRs in their line up for the pro market, but most of their line will also be...

There are enough conservative hold outs that a prepared to spend big bucks that the DSLR will always be around. But for most people, the extra size required by the mirror and prism mech is just wasted space. I see many DSLR users these days, now that most models have live view, are not using...

It really comes down to personal preference and price vs size and that sort of thing. My only worry about some of the newer Macs is the batteries are not replaceable. And given the first thing to go on a laptop generally is the batteries.... I just replaced a 7 year old Dell laptop - mostly...

Italy is really easy to get around by train. Unless you want to vist some rual attraction, pretty well every thing is easily reached by public transport networks. Italians have a 'relaxed' additude to road rules that gets more relaxed the futher south you go which could make driving less than...

This isn't true. Australia requires boat operators license and boat registration for any boat capable of 10knots or more. See How to Get a Boat Licence - NSW Maritime I have a small boat in Sydney - but since it's a 'traditional' displacement launch with a low power engine, it doesn't go...

Sounds like a great way to turn a friend into an ex friend. All comes down to how much you trust them to take care of your equipment and if the worst happens do you think your friendship would survive it - especially if they really don't have the capacity to pay for a replacement. That is...

The line may be closed to passenger services, but it may not be closed to trains yet. KTM may still run freight, but also they may run works trains 'recovering' equipment for reuse else where on their network. They will almost certainly want to remove the signalling equipment for spares to use...

The Kangaroo is doing a pretty good job of eating itself. (Jetstar crews are paid less than their Qantas counterparts, Qantas routes being replaced by Jetstar routes) However personally I don't think the Ryan Air business model that Tiger was following will be good for the industry as a whole...

While SAI might own 49% of Tiger, look who one of the other significant share holders is - Tony Ryan of Ryan Air fame. Seems they have been using the Ryan Air business model of 'race to the bottom', turning air travel into something like long distance bus travel. Cheap, but nasty and...

Yep - I have a 12-24v DC, 100-250v AC 50/60Hz power brick. An all in one jobbie. However I notice on our last order, Dell have started shipping a smaller DC only 'auto-air' power supply that's about 1/4 the size of the mains power brick, but no longer takes mains as well, so you need to carry...

If all you want to do is run a laptop , you will be better off getting a 'auto-air' laptop power supply - then you only have one conversion happing instead of two. When I travel I take the 'Auto-Air' power supply for my dell - it takes AC power AND DC from car (and aircraft) power sockets. I...