I've put a little graphic embedded on the site above (below the "Taipei Life" header image) which shows the internet speeds we achieve here in our suburb. I'm constantly amazed and appalled in equal measure at the measures taken in Australia to drag Australia into the 21st century. While the NBN has been trumpeted as being the panacea for all IT ills, it certainly is not, as this latest article from the Sydney Morning Herald points out (Australia's download speeds)
That article indicates that the NBN company has re-badged some of their products and streamlined their services. The advertised highest possible speed is meant to be adequate for any possible eventuality in online communication, including high speed, high resolution, data rich graphics and gaming. This speed is the rather mid-range capability of 100 Mbps download and the slowish capabilty of 40ish Mbps upload. If you look at the little graphic above again, you'll see that we're already achieving that and more for both upload and download speeds.
The most disturbing part of this whole chapter is that I am being offered (for a fee about half of that asked for the NBN) speeds in the range of 300 Mbps by my ISP company in their regular bills and promotion material. This article (Taiwan's download speeds) also points out that Kbro, our ISP, is under discussions to increase their speeds to 1 Gbps, approximately ten times as fast as Australia's fastest possible capability.
Cass and I have long lamented the seeming intransigence of the Australian government to do anything meaningful concerning the country's lagging status among the worlds tech leaders. As we look towards a not-to-distant return home, things like this worry us a lot. Someone needs to be more prescient!
I'll step off my soap box now to discuss more everyday matters of immediate import! We had a fairly quiet weekend despite me being enticed over to the Greenball surfing spot on a craggy point on the northcoast, all blustery and frigid with the promise of reasonable conditions. Not a ringing endorsement, wouldn't you agree? Dan hoped that his mediocre encouragement via text would tempt me, but he was wrong!
Cass had an enjoyable Book Club meeting with the "girls", who were all in attendance and in fine form. As usual, they enjoyed each others company, ate fine and unusual foods, and sipped delicate wines while discussing one of their latest reads, The Green Road. The night turned into quite a late affair and Cass wandered through the park and across the river in the early hours of Saturday morning ready for a well earned sleep-in later that day!
We scootered around and did some bread and specialty shopping at the local SOGO before eating at the sterling establishment, Din Tai Feng. We often rave about this Taiwanese culinary jewel and we wondered again whether the Australian branches shine with the same lustre: we're quite determined to find out, so may even drop off at a Sydney branch on one of our trips this winter! Sated by dumplings, rice and soy, we dropped off some produce and readied ourselves to scooter across in turn to the gleaming edifice on the other side of the suburb, the cinema-housing, Shinkong Mitsukoshi building.
Hidden Figures was a sweet movie, yet the over-layered saccharin and slightly annoying jingoism spoiled the movie a bit for us. I think we've become used to cinema and TV with at least a bit of "edge", after dining on a pretty constant menu of contemporary spare cinema and televisual fare for an extended period now. While the movie was perfectly competent, it was all just a bit too pat to be wholly believable. A film based on a true story could have had a bit more of a "real" feel...I mean, come on, who makes a PG movie for adults these days?.....this should have been a warning to us!
A couple of old geezers who live in Taipei, Taiwan have been married for 29 years today and both of them celebrated being 20,000 days old in the last two weeks as well! Guess who? Full report on our celebration next week.
Photos: Marcus with older son Logan, some of Marcus's pots on display, a classic old Honda on display in a local restaurant, a pretty girl doing the grocery shopping, Hello Kitty embraces racial non-stereotyping, and a hand made sign indicating your dog should urinate elsewhere! I'm reading the Murder of Sonny Liston and Cass is reading Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson.
