Ordering from the USA

I need to order an item from the USA for one of my clients. The cost of the unit is about US$180. But it seems that all the suppliers refuse to use anyone other than the normal expensive courier companies like DHL, FedEx and UPS. That means that it will cost US$100-$180 to ship the product over here. Adding customs clearance fees it becomes cheaper to but the unit locally at A$479 rather than A$230 + Postage. Of course I might be able to get a friend of mine to pick it up and ship it across but that becomes messy when the credit card does not line up at all with anything else.

On another work subject I have just outsourced some more work. Hopefully this work will be better than the last lot I outsourced. The price is good. It would take me a good 1/2 day to do the work I have just outsourced for US$40. The bid came in below this but I got the guy to increase it slightly. This is business, but I like to pay a reasonable fee for the work I get done.

Anto-Smog Devices

A friend of mine sent me a link to Engadget.Com where they have a story that reports that scientists are debunking a $299 disc that people put in their fuel tank to reduce their care engine emissions. The disc was supposed to emit “holographic frequencies into the gas tank and change the molecular structure of the fuel”. Another interesting WWW site is BoingBoing.Net

They link to a project that turns an old rotary phone into a cellphone. Also a Wooden Laptop can be found here. Wow.

Music:

I mentioned ‘Say Goodbye to it all’ yesterday… It is now on Random play. I was wrong about what this song was about. The person singing is talking about how they were a refugee from presumably WWII. I though that the person was a soldier.