I'm often waffling on about the breakneck internet speeds here in Taiwan and the fact that my ISP seems to think my connection speed is inadequate: not a week goes by without some further entreaty to upgrade. The facts of the matter are that we have more than enough speed and bandwidth to operate our not inconsiderable needs at present and I can't envisage that changing anytime soon. I tend to have lots of stuff downloading while streaming live programming in HD on at least one device, sometimes I'm even streaming two live sports events in HD while downloading and nothing ever stops or slows down.
I lament the debacle happening back in Australia at the moment. As far as I can tell, with my limited or rudimentary knowledge, the system that is in place there will never achieve the speeds that we're enjoying here now, and have been for the past 5 years or so. To make this point even more clearly, I'm being offered standard home packages at virtually the same price we are paying now which are three times faster! I don't know if a solution is possible: to get a system similar to most that operate in Asia, they'd have to rip everything out and start again from scratch. That's obviously not going to happen.
A reason for my spike in itntrest in this topic, which is no doubt terribly tedious to our readers (sorry!), is that I finally bought a new phone! The old Samsung Galaxy 3 was virtally grinding to a halt and all remedies and fixes were having no effect. I secured a pretty sweet deal on the latest Smasung Galaxy 8 and it's a pretty tidy bit of gear. It's taking me a while to learn to drive it and understand the myriad of bells and whistles hidden away behind each new swipe and widget. One of the first things I did was check the internet speed, and although not as fast as the stand alone computer, it's not too shabby. (see screen shot of the speedtest and my second screen above)
Harking back to our more Luddite practices on the weekend, Cass hosted her instalment of the Book Club on Friday night. As usual, it was a huge effort of organizing, cleaning and cooking and she spent many days preparing. The night was a triumph, of course, and she cooked her chicken pasta with olives dish with the signature dessert of pavlova. The Moet champagne was a winner as were the selection of cheeses and crackers and various other accouterments. The weather bothered and sprayed around, making it awkward for her guests to arrive and depart without getting drenched and whipped around, but apart from that, it was a highly successful evening.
I extited stage left just as the start time approached in the mid-evening and didn't dare venture back till the early hours, just to make sure all the guests had left! Wal and I had our own adventures trying to avoid the squally rains moving between various venues and the rest of the weekend was a shut-in. Luckily, Cass had cooked a huge pot of food so we managed to huddle indoors resisting the storms for the entire weekend without the necessity of going out to source food or supplies. We've cleaned the place out now though, so we'll need to scurry over to the supermarket after work today.
Cass has read about three or four books since I last updated our reading status, so I'll update you in turn soon. Photos are screen shots from my new phone, Halloween pumpkins appearing in the food stores and a plumped up super pavlova a'cookin' in our tiny toaster oven!