The peoples' democratic blog of Matt Hayward

Streaming media from your computer to the TV is a fiddly exercise. It’s a tenuous and fiddly exercise at the best of times, but well worth it. It means no computers, keyboards or messy wires in the living room, but not without a lot of hard graft. Over the last few years, I’ve tried quite [...]

A word of warning to anyone that’s not yet an audiophile – turntables are a gateway drug for more addictive high quality audio equipment! In the past I’ve been a bit pragmatic and cheap with audio gear. But there comes a point when you can’t be bothered with bargain basement, consumer stuff from your national [...]

It’s said absence makes the heart grow fonder. I can vouch that this is absolutely true of Japan. After visiting in 1991 I have vowed to go back. Despite a high Aussie dollar making Europe being relatively accessible I finally succumbed to the addiction in May of 2010. Some itches have to be scratched.
It’s not [...]

So I’ve been using Microsoft Hotmail for a while because I’m a little bit paranoid about Gmail. If only because Google have your mail, web analytics tracking, calendar, browser, applications, potentially everything they would ever want to know about a human being. Which brings me to my point.
Frankly you could never expect much of Hotmail. [...]

OK, a while ago I posted something about an Israeli art scam occurring in the inner city suburbs of Melbourne. And for a two bit blog like this one the response has been overwhelming, 80 comments of peoples experiences all over the world and counting. From Brisbane to Ireland to Arizona, people have been having [...]

OK, twice in a month I’ve been asked what are some cool things to do in KL if you only have a few days in town. I put this list together for a friend and thought it might be useful for some. These are selected highlights. Virtually all of them will be between 30 minutes [...]