The Collectables Fair is in Parramatta on May 19. Our roving collectables correspondent, Scott M, reports that he went last year and “Star Wars paraphernalia seemed to predominate, along with collectable card sets, Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Lost In Space and a myriad of other themes”.
Looks interesting although Bart Simpson and ‘join us dudes who share this cool passion’ is making me wince.
Full details at: collectableandmusicfairs.com.au
Dr Who may well be the perfect theme for a pop-up shop.
Our sharp-eyed Timelord correspondent, Scott M, sent in a photo of the shiny new Dr Who Pop-Up Shop in Newtown. The shop is selling a range of merchandise not normally available in Australia including the Doctor Who home range which “boasts a selection of stylish teapots, mugs, tea towels, notebooks, laptop covers and more!” It all comes direct from the BBC and is in Sydney nicely ahead of the upcoming Dr Who 50th anniversary on November 23rd.
The shop is at 7 Wilson Street Newtown, for a short time only. Apparently we can expect the shop to dematerialise in a welter of wheezing and grinding sounds on June 20.
This app aims to encourage kids to walk to school on the upcoming Walk Safely to School Day.
The app appears fairly straightforward. You start it up and press the big green arrow button and the app will track your walk via GPS and end up telling you how far you’ve walked. It keeps a record of your walks although I struggle to see enormous utility in this. If you’re only walking on the one day, the official Day, an on-going record isn’t much use. Even if you walk every day, you are presumably walking the same route. Perhaps seeing if it takes you different times might be a challenge but then having some metric or table to indicate that would be good. I’m guessing that isn’t there partly because having kids rush to school doesn’t seem all that clever given road-crossing and so on; and, realistically because this is aimed a primary school kids, in most cases the app will be being carried by an accompanying parent who may well not want to rush like a mad thing. There’s also a point system
The interface is simple and nicely designed. The tracking seems to work well. There is a bog limitation in that the app seems to need to be open and at the front of your screen on an iPhone to work. So if you check your mail,. take a call or do anything else the app stops tracking you until you bring it back to being centre of attention. Especially given that this app is focused on results on a single day, i can see that being frustrating.
More concerning than these quibbles is the aggregation facility. You can register your details and your information will be captured and sent to your school via somewhere. That allows the school to see who’s walking and how far they’ve walked. It’s in this area that things get a little hazy. It’s not clear who you are sending the information to – the information on how old you are, where you live and the route you take walking to school. It’s not clear how long the information might be held and what if anything might be done with it. It’s not clear how securely it is being held. It’s not clear if you’re dealing with the developer, under whose name you downloaded the app, or the Pedestrian Council who organise Walk to School Day. The app does not appear to include a privacy policy.
Look, if this app encourages people to walk then it’s a good thing. It looks good and works fine, especially for something designed to be used in limited circumstances. A little more thought abound the privacy issues wouldn’t have gone amiss though.
If you are simply looking for way of seeing how far you have walked just search iTunes for “GPS tracker” to get a range of free and paid-for apps that will do the job. For more information on Walk Safely to School Day, an initiative I heartily endorse, see: www.walk.com.au.
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Walk Safely to School DayView in ITunes. $free |
PAX Aus is in Melbourne in July. Why do these things always seem to be in Melbourne? Doesn’t everyone know Sydney is the cool city? Apparently not.
PAX is a show exclusively for gaming. It may well be the THE show for gaming. The fact it’s coming to Australia is big news in the gaming world and it looks set to be amazing: from panels to the chance to play games to seeing what’s new and shiny to just soaking in the atmosphere. It looks like PAX Aus will have all the features we’re come to read about with increasing jealousy when watching PAX in the USA. Nicely, the show will also highlight the best of the Australian and New Zealand indie game scene.
Registration is $50 for a day or $125 for a three-day pass which is surprisingly good value. Full details are at: paxaustralia.com.au.
While I truly am envious that Melbourne is hosting PAX, I’m happy that it’s coming to Australia. I had to laugh at these two lines from the FAQ:
Why is PAX going to Australia and not (insert country here)?
Because (insert your country here) doesn’t have (insert thing your country doesn’t have). That’s not to say PAX won’t get to (insert your country here) eventually, but only if (insert frustratingly vague insert text here).
Isn’t it hard to get games in Australia because they’re so expensive/they don’t get released?
Absolutely. Please bring over any spare games you have and give generously to the locals.
Combining Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) with Sydney’s real estate obsession – here’s how to calculate the cost of Yoda’s hut.
And don’t forget it’s Free Comic Book Day today as well.
It never fails to amaze me how much can be created with LEGO. The creativity and loving attention to detail on display at the Sydney Brick Show is truly inspiring. In particular the enormous heavy-lifting helicopter and the Loveboat models were of a size and accuracy to be something to be proud of in any medium, let alone one with the blocky limitations of LEGO.
While the creativity was inspiring, there didn’t seem to be quite as many inspired creations as last year. There were more predictable Star Wars and Harry Potter themed builds. I’ve nothing against them, but I really loved some of the more original and whimsical ideas at last year’s show.
One of the dangers of taking your kids to any LEGO show is that they are desperate to touch and play. And some parents were distressingly happy for their kids to touch things that had taken hundreds of hours to put together. For most kids though the huge mosh pit filled with thousands of LEGO blocks was enough to keep their creative juices flowing for a while. And if that failed there was always the David Jones toy shop to fall back on – I’m still not sure if putting the show on in a department store is a good idea or a bad idea in an overall sense, but I do still feel the Powerhouse was a more appropriate venue.
Anyway the show is on until the 28th although, tickets are only available for limited afternoon sessions. Adults are $10 and children are $6; a family of four is $26 and I reckon it’s w0rth a visit at that price as long as you can resist the pester-power of the toyshop. For more information see www.sydneybrickshow.com (although as I write this, that site is down) or buy tickets through Eventix.
Zombie-hunters in bullet-proof vests buying medieval swords; quadcopters hovering in the smoke from Napoleonic-War guns; steampunk ninjas watching jousting: Ironfest was again a joy to behold.
