The Little World

The computer rules nearly every room of our house – save the toilet. There are still uses for paper…

I’m not a Luddite. I like my computer and the facility it gives me to communicate to others…until they block me. Sometimes that can be done in remarkably short order. But until then, the net is a wonderful delivery vehicle.

How do you use your net?

a. Browsing for new models at the on-line shops. Whether they are Australian-based or overseas, the on-line shops have been a real boon in these last five years. They can deliver what we desire, as long as we desire what they can deliver.

The prices of desire are never as cheap as we might wish. In the case of some local shops the costs they incur to be where we can pull into the carpark and load the kit into the hatchback are such that we will pay more. Deal with the O/S or interstate bucket shop if you wish, but spare a few of your purchasing dollars for the local HobbyHell – here will come a day when you will need that jar of RLM 4 urgently and you need a local place for that.

b. Browsing for information. Where once you would have scoured the public library or the latest copy of AIRFIX magazine for your scale model lies, you now go to Google and type in the key words.

The range of inaccuracies that you will be presented with are staggering, and it is really only your stamina that will stop you gathering information. Not everything you see will be wrong, but you will have the task of sorting it out from the other sort of data.

C. Looking for painting and colour scheme ideas. Again the images section of Google will deliver any number of views. Some of them will be so imaginative that they capture your heart instantly. However, it is not your heart that you are painting.

Beware the clever computer-generated images that accompany video simulation games. They will supply any fantasy that you wish to pay for so what you see may not be what really existed.

d. Looking for good advice. Like the stuff you’re getting right now? Well, go off and look at YouTube and see what free advice is worth, eh?

The truth is out there, but you’ll have to do a bit of Scullying to find it. As you look, you’ll be made aware of the fact that possessing a video camera does not make a competent video presenter out of everyone…nor does the fact that it is free make the time spent watching it valuable. Some people can tell you a minute’s worth of news in an hour, and it will be your hour…

e. Looking to see how someone else does it. Phil Flory will show you how he does it, and with less language than you get on Tuesday at the club. However, he does it for a living with materials and goods that he sells…for a living. You can watch me do something for nothing. I’m good for that…ie good for nothing.