Hackpacker

If you’ve ever waited by your broken computer all morning to finally get a pasty kid in a Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt to visit and tell your machine is broken then you’ve already met a princeling of the geekocracy. The geeks have inherited the earth in a bloodless coup of confusing jargon such as power-cycling (switching your machine on/off), user error (blaming you for computer breakdown) or server issues (meaning “We have no idea what just happened”). The kings of the geekocracy rarely leave their courts. With titles like Sys Admin or Chief Architect of All Time they are guarded by banks of servers and rarely deign to answer the phone preferring you “Fill out the email form and we’ll get back to you”. You are as likely to see a Sys Admin as Queen Elizabeth II popping around to explain why Windows keeps crashing. In Other Words is a regular on the Big Issue 's Ointment page. Geekocracy appeared in Issue No. 362. 

With the talk that e-books have finally arrived in Australia and that app reading with iBooks will open new markets , writers are getting forgotten. There's no doubt new markets and new readers are opening up with new technology, but few of these new revenue streams are passed on to writers. Including a forthcoming app on Sydney, I've written for five apps and the experience has varied considerably as publishers try to work out the rules. Mostly these projects have been re-purposing of text - that is getting text from a print project and using it in an app. In print this would be called syndication and an additional fee would be offered - often less than the original fee. By re-naming syndication re-purposing, publishers sidestep writer's fees. And there are good arguments for publishers making money off the digital frontier. They've invested in developing an app, gambled on costly technologies and have to work with unfamiliar distribution methods. But when publi

You’re probably already overwhelmed by iAnxiety – that rising mania as everyone you know has bought at least one iPad. Plus your inbox is full, you’ve got 14 unanswered Twitter DMs and they’ve probably just invented a new social network for you to be behind on. It’s time you embraced off gridding. Author Susan Maushart took the off gridder experiment, telling her family they’d live screen-free, truly cordless lives for six months. The connected kids LOLed, but Maushart’s book Winter of Our Disconnect has become a bible to turn off, tune out and drop out. Though they talk about increased attention spans and appreciating boredom, off gridders are commonly mistaken for Amish. In Other Words is a regular on the Big Issue 's Ointment page. Off Gridding appeared in Issue No. 356.

Photo: Jeff Burton In the dying days of his book tour promoting his latest Imperial Bedrooms , cult author Bret Easton Ellis is so over answering questions about his novels. “I have a completely different relationship with the novel than the reader does,” he sighs. “Which is why it’s very hard to sit here and answer questions about the book, because it’s such a disconnect.” Imperial Bedrooms uses the characters of his 1985 debut, Less Than Zero , 25 years later and looks at how time has scarred both the characters and the once enfant terrible himself. On this tour he’s survived that interview at Byron Bay Writer’s Festival where he repelled questions from Ramona Koval about his role as a satirist by joshing about his newfound crush on Delta Goodrem. Koval in turn scolded him for treating the interview as “a stand-up routine”. But in person Ellis is entertaining yet open – his powerful chin is blunted by a navy Nike cap and his playboy image muted by glasses and an overcoat

One of Adelaide's biggest landmarks is the corner of Rundle Mall and King William Street, known as Beehive Corner. If you look up you'll spot the landmark insect buzzing over Haigh's Chocolate . Almost ready for its 100th birthday, the first store appeared here in 1915 and their luxury chocolates have spread to Victoria and New South Wales. But there's something special about getting them here at the source. Their chocolate frogs pre-date Harry Potter's sweet-tooth as they've been selling them for 67 years. Today they offer them in peppermint and dark and reckon they sell more than a million a year. But the frogs are getting pushed aside by Adelaide's Panda-monium and you can now buy large chocolate blocks in the shape of Adelaide Zoo's Wang Wang and Funi . Plus there's truffles, blocks and choc-coated fruit. But the best thing about visiting the Haigh's store is coming out with a free sample - they usually insist on giving you a taster at th