It’s great. I’ve been away long enough that the culture has changed in Australia. I have run a cable through the house where I’m staying so that I can get onto the net without having to bother my friends on their PC. Using their’s usually means booting it up rather than booting them off. If it’s not in use for half an hour, they’ll shut it down. Now I don’t have to worry about that, but it seems that they even shut down the DSL modem if it’s not obvious that I’m using it, so I have to keep switching it back on and renewing my IP.
They even go so far as to turn off the power at the wall, which just didn’t make any sense to me. Of course, I could ask them why, but that takes all the fun out of discovering a new culture. My first plan was to watch what others did to see if this power panic is cultural or just an isolated thing. My cousins don’t but my aunt suggested that many people do probably because of a campaign by the electricity commission saying that you can save 11% on your energy bill by turning appliances off at the wall.
So not only is Australia extremely water conscious, but we’re power conscious as well. Howard may not have signed the Kyoto Protocol, but much of the country is trying to enforce it anyway.