about:toys

audio/video

Inger, Brendan and I enjoy spending time watching TV shows and movies on DVD or TiVo, and listening to music on our entertainment system, which comprises of the following components:

Sony Bravia NX710 40" LED television; custom mounting bracket by Michael Mewburn.
Sony STRDH810 audio/visual amplifier and receiver.
Sony SAVS350H speakers, with WAHTSA1 S-AIR wireless speaker kit.
Sony PlayStation 3.
Nintendo Wii game console.
TiVo (series 3, 160 GiB) PVR.

We replaced our previous setup in late 2010 with updated technology, freeing up space in our apartment's living room. The custom designed and built Class A-A-AB power amplifier is on long-term loan to my brother, Michael.

books

We have a large collection of books (catalog hosted at LibraryThing).

Most of my stuff is Science Fiction, with a bit of fantasy from my younger days, as well as a smattering of other genres. Some of my favourite authors include: Isaac Asimov, Iain Banks, Greg Bear, Greg Benford, K.J Bishop, David Brin, Charlie Stross, Kim Newman, Alistair Reynolds, Dan Simmons, and Vernor Vinge.

transport

bikes

My road bike is a Trek Madone 4.5.

My commuter bike is a Trek Soho 4.0, with a Shimano Alfine 8-speed internal hub gearbox, and disc brakes.

Inger rides a Giant Cypress City.

Brendan rides an Apollo Mayhem 20" BMX.

public transport

We're regular users of Melbourne's Metlink public transport system. We are well serviced by trams at our apartment (seven routes past the front door; 3, 5, 6, 16, 64, 67, 72), and it's a fifteen minute journey to Flinders Street railway station.

I have a Yearly Zone 1/2 Metcard. Inger has a Yearly Zone 1 Metcard.

car

We've been Car Free since September 2005.

We're members of Flexicar Car Sharing.

we've previously had a MY03 Subaru Liberty Heritage wagon, and a more stylish yet less reliable MY99 Audi S3.

computers

Being a computer geek, I've obviously got a fair collection of hardware lying around. Here's an (incomplete) list of stuff that is in use:

argo - Dell PowerEdge SC430 (P-D 2.8 GHz, 3 GiB RAM, 2 x 500 GiB HD) running NetBSD/i386. The home file server.
athene - Dell Mini 9, 1280x1024 external display, running Windows XP. Inger's netbook.
charon - Billion BiPAC 7404VGO-M ADSL2+M router / 802.11g access point / VoIP ATA. The external router/firewall.
karybdis - PC (i7 920, 6 GiB RAM, 500 GiB HD), 1920x1080 and 1680x1050 display, running Windows 7. Luke's main workstation.
odysseus - Apple MacBook Pro (2.4 GiHz CPU, 4096 MiB RAM, 160 GiB HD) running OS X.5. Luke's work laptop.
scylla - PC (Core2Duo 1.8 GHz, 4 GiB RAM, 120 GiB HD), 1920x1080 and 1680x1050 display, running Windows 7. Inger's main workstation.

music

We have a reasonable large and diverse music collection, including: ambient, blues, pop, rock, soundtracks, trance, and techno. One day I may put my CD database on the web, which makes it easier to work out who borrowed my CD's.

DVDs & videos

We've got a reasonable collection of DVDs, both movies and TV series that we enjoy.

photography

I currently use a Canon Digital IXUS SD750 camera to take my photos. We previously owned a Digital IXUS S100, which served us well for nearly 5 years and over 5500 photos before the screen developed a crack and ceased to function.

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