Petrol Prices

PETROL thefts, that is, motorists driving off without paying, have risen 16 per cent during the past 12 months in Tassie. The number of people driving off without paying for petrol has risen steadily over the past four years. For many years, petrol hovered below one dollar per litre, but it didn't take a genius to realise that as soon as it went over that psychologically-significant mark, it would go up and up in a relatively short period of time. Sure enough, Tasmanians have seen petrol go from 98¢ per litre to $1.49 per litre in those same four years, with more hikes in fuel costs soon to come because of record crude oil prices.

According to the Shell website, "Large increases in oil prices have not resulted in increased earnings for fuel refineries and wholesalers because competition in the Australian petrol market is so intense. The Australian petroleum and diesel markets are among the most competitive in the world. This results in Australians being able to purchase some of the cheapest petrol in the world." (My emphasis)

Yeah, sure. In 1999, Hobart was paying 82¢ per litre and Brisbane 68¢*. The average wage that year was $961. In 2006, we are paying $1.49 in Hobart and in Brisbane $1.21, average wage is $984. In other words, living in Hobart in 1999 you could buy 1,172 litres of petrol a week, now you can only afford 660 litres on the same income level. Living in Brisbane, you could buy 1,413 litres in 1999, now you can only afford 813 litres on your average wage.

And that comment from Shell about "Australians being able to purchase some of the cheapest petrol in the world"? Petrol in the US is currently about $us2.88 per gallon, or $au3.83. A gallon is 3.79 litres, so we are paying $au5.64 or $us4.24 per gallon, or about 50% more. Some of the cheapest petrol in the world? Yeah, sure.


*http://www.gpoc.tas.gov.au/domino/gpoc.nsf/LookupFiles/seppetrpt.pdf/$file/seppetrpt.pdf

Dam or Damn the Money

Dams are never far from the news in Tassie. For a state which relies so much on hydro-electric power, you'd think a sensible, consistent policy would mean everyone knew exactly where they stood, dam-wise. A quick history of Tassie's dam/damn worries:

The 1950's to 70's saw a massive campaign of building a hydro-electric dam on any river, creek, or street gutter that came to the government's attention. The most controversial of these was the Peddar Dam, which was going to provide Tasmania's power needs well into the future. The building of it created a wonderful recreational lake and power generation source, as well as flooding pristine world-heritage standard forests, historically significant aboriginal caves, and providing such a change in the environment that clouds passing overhead began to react by dropping their water where they never previously did. Recently, the government spent half a million dollars on a feasibility study on how to drain and dismantle the dam, on the ground we don't need it any more. We recently installed the BassLink power cable across Bass Strait - Tassie had so much power, we could now sell the extra to the Mainland. Except that since the opening of the BassLink cable, we've been buying power off the Mainland because we don't have enough to meet our demand. This would mean the Peddar-draining plan was scrapped then? No, thats still on the cards, on the grounds that we have more power than we need. Remember, that half million was for a study, not to do the job itself. Here's an idea - give me half a million dollars and I'll drain it - with a teaspoon if necessary, or by drinking it all and emptying my bladder on the other side of the dam wall.

In the mid 70's, the government tried to put a dam up on one of the world's last wilderness rivers, the famous Gordon. Public protest was overwhelming, so the government decided to hold a referendum to let the people decide. When the referendum came around, there were two choices: Will we dam the Gordon (a) below the Franklin, or (b) above the Olga. Many people wrote 'NO DAMS' across the ballot paper in protest. This made the vote informal. So many, in fact, wrote 'NO DAMS' that almost half the vote was informal. When the results were tallied, there weren't enough votes for either of the options to be valid, so all those 'informal' votes which had 'NO DAMS' on them were counted anyway - any sort of mark over either of the vote boxes was a vote for that dam. Anybody who went down to the organised protests was arrested for trespassing on public land.

In the news over the last couple of years is the Meander dam. This colossal waste of taxpayers money isn't for electricity, its to provide irrigation for between 5 and 10 farmers who say they can't continue to be viable without it. If they had to build the dam themselves, they could never hope to pay even a fraction of it off. So we, the taxpayers, pay for it instead. How does this make economic sense? If the benefit it provides will never pay for the cost of its construction, why build it? And does it mean we will be entitled to free meat and milk from these farmers from now on?

And there's more, in fact heaps more. Every dam in Tasmania's history has its story.

Map Fever

I have a few more maps ready for Lux. They all play pretty well but because of the 'one map per week' rule it will be a few weeks until you see them in Lux's Plugin Manager, so I may as well use the time to test-play them some more and maybe tweak a few things at the same time. From top to bottom, they are:

Monopoluxy - essentially four L-shaped corners with airports in the centre of each side giving accessibility and making them vulnerable if you don't leave fortification troops. Each L-shape contains positive AND negative bonuses, so to secure the full bonuses for the country group you can't help but pick up a negative or two as well. The top-left and bottom-right corners make a net of 5 bonus points each, and the bottom-left and top-right are worth 4 each if you don't own both munitions companies, or 5 each if you do.

Borg - An experiment in one-way columns, which I think was quite successful. It can be very challenging to play because the top bar, which you MUST go through to get from one column to the next, will make sure you get minimal income while you possess it. Towards the end of the game, this means no income at all so be sure you have enough men to clear the map, or else the last computer player will be gaining numbers on you.

Campus Capers - a romp around a College Campus, quite challenging because of the number of paths from one area to another.

Tasmania - I really like this one, my bit for tourism and a Lux map all rolled into one. The connecting roads are factual and as such there are a number of easily defended dead-ends at the southern end of the state, but this is compensated for by the fact that 3 of the 4 cities are in the north, and all cities are worth a bonus.

Hounding Howard

Years ago we had a Premier in Tasmania called Robin Grey. He was a pig-headed man who stuck to his guns even when he was blatantly in the wrong, as for example in the Franklin Dam issue where he wanted the dam built and passed legislation that anyone who was on public land near the dam site was now trespassing, and was arrested for it, despite a record vote by the population for no dam at all. But when the Federal Government stepped in and halted the dam, Robin Grey didn't spit and pout; he simply accepted that if that was the situation, he'd make the best of it for Tasmania, and now fought tooth and nail for compensation for the state because of the intervention. I had to admire that about him.

Fast forward to 2006, and John Howard is under pressure this last week or two to resign and hand the leadership of the Party over. Why? Because 12 years ago he said he would serve 1-2 terms as Prime Minister if the Party got elected, and now Peter Costello is beating that memo up into a major power play. If broken promises were grounds for dismissal in politics, there wouldn't be a single player who lasted more than a week. Its the nature of the game that you tell people what they want to hear, and then try to deliver the goods afterward. If you can't, so be it.

The big question is, why should John Howard resign? I compare him to Robin Grey because, like Mr Grey, Mr Howard has beliefs and isn't afraid to stick to them. Sure a lot of his decisions are unpopular. The Liberals brought in GST; there were lots of horror stories and muddy campaigns against it, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in Australia these days who doesn't think the new tax system is fairer and easier than we used to have. In a time where gay marriages are legitimized in countries such as the US, John Howard took a stand and said "No, we won't". It may have lost him a lot of gay votes but I'll guarantee it won him more from the straight population. The recent industrial relations legislation has been the subject of a smear campaign since its inception, and although you can certainly find some people who were hard done by as a result of it if you look hard enough, the average worker is much better off now. Like the GST, in 10 years time people will look back and say "Why did we complain so much about that?"

Then, of course, there's the Opposition to consider. The Labor Party has no chance of ever being elected while Kim Beazley is its leader; the fact that Labor doesn't realise this is proof of how out-of-touch with the general population and its feelings they are. Like Alexander Downer, Kim Beazley just doesn't have that "je ne sais quoi" that electors want. Peter Costello knows this, and that's why he sees his best chance at being PM to be now - provided he can get Howard out of the way.

John Howard and his Liberal Party have consistently, since gaining office, passed family- and moral-supportive laws, showed compassion to our neighbours, been tough when they had to be, and had the strength to pass legislation which made them unpopular in the short term, but ultimately was for the country's good. Australia has thrived under their leadership. I'm not a person who votes for a particular Party, but John Howard is a man I will tolerate as Prime Minister for as long as he wants to be its leader, because, like him or loathe him, his record speaks for itself.

Dear Blog

Dear Blog, sorry I haven't got time to write much to you today. I've been making Lux maps flat out, but don't worry, I'm sure I will tire of it quickly and return to you. See you soon.

Fired Up

A spate of house fires over the last year in Rosebery, an isolated town on the far west coast of Tassie, has locals worried, according to The Advocate, the north-west's newspaper. Rosebery is one of those mining towns which rise and fall with the prosperity of the mines, and the mines in the region are continually being kept open by government handouts and intervention. Ten years ago you could buy a house in Rosebery for $10,000, but today's fire 'caused damage [to the latest house] estimated at $220,000'. Why the big difference? Well, we have had a real estate price boom in the state over recent years - as more Mainlanders discovered the idyllic life down here and the comparitively cheap cost of housing, the local market naturally went up, so that values soon fell into line with the rest of Australia. But those West Coast mines just aren't ever going to be viable ever again. What goes up must come down, and housing values in Rosebery and other mining towns will drop again as they become mining ghost towns in the future. It must be a hell of a temptation for a person who had a house that was worth $10,000 a few years ago, is insured for $220,000 now, and who knows that it will only drop in value in the future. I'm not saying that people are burning their own houses down for the insurance money. Just that it could be very tempting.

Explaining Lux

Yesterday's comments about Lux were answered by Mark Bauer, one of the MapLAB testing team. You can read the entire answer by clicking on the 'Comments' link to yesterday's article, but for those who don't bother, here are the main points:

SillySoft is a small company, and thus the MapLAB was formed, made up of unpaid volunteers independent of SillySoft. Their main task is not to eliminate maps but to test for bugs; once there were many hence the insistence on time and quality by instituting the one-per-week rule. EVERY map for Lux was made by a user. ALL the maps ever submitted can be accessed in the Plugin Manager by entering /set showAllMaps (join an internet game as a guest and then type it into the chat bit at the bottom). The rating system means nothing. Make maps that you enjoy and want to play, because the point the of Lux and the point of map making, is not to be on the top of a heap, it's to have fun.

Yes, I agree, the main criticism I had was that maps could be lost to users on the whim of a few map testers, and that is totally negated by the /set showAllMaps command which allows you to see everything. I should also perhaps mention something else: in all of my contacts with the Lux forums or via email so far, I've received replies within hours. This is in sharp contrast to many companies or forums where posts are ignored or flamed, where questions elicit not meaningful answers but comments like 'ya nOOb ur oWnEd'. Mark reckons Lux's main strength is that the users create all the maps; I would make that half the main strength, the other half being a user community which accepts new users quickly and helpfully. In my other posts re Lux I was quite picky and bordering on uncomplimentary; when you slap someone they can respond in two ways - fight back, or turn the other cheek. Lux and its users were put to the test by me in the last couple of days, and passed with flying colors.

So get out there and buy Lux, and start making maps people. We want these MapLAB testers to be so busy their girlfriends leave them. If taking over the world is fun, then taking over a thousand worlds will be a blast!

Links
SillySoft
Lux maps

Lux Lament

They're a fickle lot over at SillySoft. Lux has been around for years, but the lack of maps was always the problem. In such circumstance, you'd think SillySoft would welcome any and all efforts to expand the mapbase, but instead, all maps submitted are first sent to MapLAB users to test-play (which isn't such a bad idea at all, it keeps out the absolute garbage and stops porn-based maps etc). After they've contacted you with suggestions, if they think its good enough, it gets added to the database of maps which the Lux Plugin Manager accesses. My map from yesterday scored a 4.1 out of 5, and elicited the comments "blast to play and looks very nice!" and "Quite a success for your first map… Very nice… I think it will be warmly recieved." Great, makes me feel it was well worth the effort.

Except that after one day and only 5 votes, its been rated down to 2.4 - and that means that, after only one day, no-one can see it on the website or Plugin Manager since they only show maps of rating 3 or higher. That didn't impress me very much, it made me wonder how many other excellent maps have been created by users only to be thrown into the deepest darkest dungeon of SillySoft never to appear again. A total of 5 people have rated my map, and because 1 of them didn't like it, it will forever be lost to the rest of the Lux community. Those few people have decided on behalf of the many.

Lux's main problem was always its lack of maps and this is no way to fix it. The program has an ideal marketing strategy in that the Plugin Manager only downloads maps if you paid for the program, so SillySoft should half the price (and thereby get 10 times the sales - sound business sense) and make every map available to users. Better yet, install a popup that says 'Show me only maps rated (x) or higher'. Then every user would have access to all maps of a quality threshold they wanted, whether a select few individuals at the MapLAB thought they were good enough or not. And because they could still access all the maps, some of those less-than-3 maps might get more ratings and come back above 3 again, whereas the way the current system works they're gone for good.

Since designing 'Circuit Showdown', I've done 4 new maps, but I can only submit one a week ('to keep quality up' says SillySoft's submit page). I think they're all excellent, but already, one week into owning Lux, I wonder if I will bother making any more. I enjoy making them, and I'm a good graphic designer, but I'm just not going to bother if 1 or 2 individuals can take my efforts away from everyone else. My second map, 'Space Invaders', is ready to upload. It would have been easy to rip some graphics off the web for it, but for copyright reasons I created all the graphics from scratch. It took quite some time, but perhaps all that effort will be wasted. I'll submit it when SillySoft's system decides to let me, and we'll see how long it survives. This is no way to build a thriving user community.

First Lux Map

I bought Lux, that risk-style game from SillySoft, a few days ago. Its been around for quite some time but I was always put off buying it because there weren't a lot of maps. Well, now there are over 200 downloadable, and with a Map Editor built in, you can be sure many more will come. My map is called 'Circuit Showdown', and after a day or two of testing by the MapLab people, will be available through Lux's built-in Plugin Manager.

Aztec Festival

Just returned from taking the kids out to the Aztec Chocolate Festival at Latrobe. For those interested in attending next year, don't bother. I rate the whole thing one big Chocolate Starfish. More details later.

Shuttle Shakes

NASA (Need Another Seven Astronauts) today extended the mission of the space shuttle by another day, and added another spacewalk to the schedule. If the astronauts spacewalk any further, they will have walked far enough to have got home without the shuttle. While this could be handy in future missions if the astronauts forget where they parked, it suggests that maybe they might need to walk home. How sure is NASA that the shuttle can get home in one piece? Two shuttles have already been lost (a nice way of saying they fell to pieces), and shortly before the launch, pieces of foam fell off this one because of overnight ice. Has NASA forgotten that its cold in space? Prior to the eventual launch, it was postponed a number of times due to weather, something the shuttle has to pass through a lot of on the way home. This is the Big One for NASA, if anything goes wrong with this mission they are likely to be grounded for a very, very long time, if not forever. So pray that the pilots don't have sudden need of that billion-dollar toilet during re-entry.

Your Horoscope for Today

Today is a good day to look both ways before crossing the road, and you should be careful with your finances because if you spend money today, the stars predict you will certainly have less than you did. Unfortunately, the Guiding Star of your life has turned out on closer inspection to be a chunk of SkyLab still in orbit, so everything you've ever read regarding your horoscopes until now has been wrong. Your lucky number for today is 51,692, which is not a number found in very many lotteries so it isn't going to be much use to you. The influence of Mars and Venus on the conjunction of a four-petalled rose in Melbourne Botanical Gardens will almost certainly have had nothing to do with you getting any phone calls you might receive today. Your lucky colour is 'transparent', but it isn't recommended that you paint the house in it or it may lead to some embarrassing moments when people walk past. On the plus side, you and the other 552,510,503 people in the world who share the same zodiac sign will meet a tall dark stranger, fall instantly in love, get married and be taken away to Penthouse Suite No 12 at 18 Conroy Road, Cambamattin, but the night will turn sour as over five hundred million people keep taking all the blankets from each other all night, not to mention the queue for the toilet. Finally, the Psychic you are going to see on April 8th next year will ring to say she's had to cancel your appointment because her mother will die unexpectedly the day before.

The Sky is Falling

Tasmania has a fox problem. At least, we have if the media are to believed. Or the experts on the Mainland, who say that if we would only believe the problem was real, it would be. Sounds like they've got a ex-Shrink or two on their staff. The fact that there hasn't been one single fox found in the wild since the multi-million-dollar task force was formed 8 years ago to combat the problem doesn't sway them - the latest result of all that wasted money is the supposed discovery that 'environmental vandals' deliberately released 20 or so cubs, though if you're asking why anyone would want to do that, you'd probably be best asking the loonies at this weekend's Psychic Expo in Launceston - you'd probably get a halfway-believable answer, which is more than the authorities have come up with so far. Not to mention that quarantine procedures are so tight in Tassie that you can't even get an apple past the guys doing the checking, yet somehow someone managed to get an entire truckload of yowling, frightened, smelly baby animals through? Was Blind Freddy rostered on at Quarantine that day, with his iPod at full blast and a peg on his nose?

Are there foxes here? Well there been over a hundred sightings, but in this humble writer's opinion that's nowhere near as many sightings as Tasmanian Tigers (and they're listed as completely extinct), just short of the number of sightings of UFO's, and slightly more than the number of sightings of Elvis in Wrest Point Casino's gaming lounge. We've been told for decades that even if there are still Tigers out there, unless they number sufficient for a viable breeding population, ie about five hundred, then they're doomed anyway. Yet somehow one inkling of a possibility of a remote chance of a prospect of an outside chance of there being a fox or two somewhere in the state, somehow amounts to a plague. Yes, the sky is certainly falling, Foxy Loxy - in fact, I think its already hit some people on the head.

Links
Parks & Wildlife Service
Department of Primary Industries and Water
National Geographic

Tourist's Guide to Tassie Part 2 - Latrobe

Latrobe's main claim to fame is that its old and was once a lot bigger than Devonport. In its heyday it had four daily newspapers, whereas these days the council produces an 8 page rag once a month and the entire State has only three newspapers. It has a main street lined with old buildings, just like a thousand other Australian towns, and every second shop is either Antiques or a Bakery. Oh, and despite there being more platypus in many other places, it calls itself the Platypus Capital of the World; better than "Old Derelict Buildings Capital" I suppose. A lot of money has been spent on the grammatically incorrect "Australian Axeman's Hall of Fame" which houses yet one more Dave Foster-established shrine to himself. Down by the river, Bells Parade is a nice picnic area when there's water there, but the council can't decide whether it likes water or not and keeps constructing and demolishing the weir on a regular basis. My advice on Latrobe? Before you go spending good money there, check the back of your yard at home to make sure you haven't got the same 'rare antique' hidden in the junkpile, and bread is cheaper at the supermarket.

Links
Discover Tasmania - Latrobe
Latrobe Council

Declaration of Dependence

Click on the picture above for a larger view

Happy Birthday,
America!

Blog Redesign

Now that I've been on blogspot.com for a whole 2 weeks, I've decided to redesign my blog to a custom look instead of using one of the built-in templates. It should be up in the next day or so, but here's a sneak preview (click on the image for a larger view).

Howdy Neighbours

I notice from the ClusterMap at the bottom of my blog that I've had a few visitors from New Zealand. I'd just like to make it clear that you're not at all welcome. I've worked hard for almost 2 weeks on my blog and I don't want it being ruined by a bunch of sheep-shoving kiwi frodo's. Go look at a geyser or write a new treaty or something.

New Zealand native language translation
E neetice frem the ClesterMip et the bettim of me bleg thet E've hid a few vesitors frem Nee Zeelend. E'd jist leak te meke et clear thet ye're net et ill wilcome. E've wirked herd fer elmist 2 wicks en me bleg ind E den't went et bing reined be a binch ef ship-shiving kiwi frido's. Ge lick et e geyser ir wrete e nee tritty er semething.

PS :) Ne offense meant, neighbours!

Links
New Zealand on the web
Tourism
The Allblacks
Greenpeace flagship 'Rainbow Warrior'

Tourist's Guide to Tassie Part 1 - Devonport

My advice is get off the Spirit of Tasmania and head straight out of town. If you really must see Devonport, here are the main tourist attractions:

Imagine riding on the steam train Puffing Billy in Dandenong, and now imagine the train breaks down soon after the start of the journey so you only cover 2 km. Now take the part of the journey you did complete, take out anything not flat, and replace it with a monotonous view of river mudflats. You've just had a ride on the Don River Railway, Devonport's best-known attraction. Drive around to the Bluff beach and look at some scratches in the rocks some vandals did a long time ago, then wander into the incredibly overpriced non-interactive wooden shed. That's Tiagarra, the Tasmanian aboriginal experience, done. Along the road a bit, after driving past the skate ramp and having abuse shouted at you by the local yobbos with nothing better to do, you'll find the Maritime Museum. Don't bother going in, its been open for a lifetime and no-one has yet. After lunch at the uniquely Tasmanian McDonalds, head for Home Hill where Tassie's only national Prime Minister once lived. Sure it looks like every house in the better Melbourne suburbs, but at least you had to pay to get into this one! Finally, drive up the big hill behind Devonport, go for a short walk to Allison Lookout, and see the city all in one glance. While you're there, scan the place carefully to see if you've missed anything of interest. Nope? Ok, time to hit the highway - its that thing that looks slightly wider than a back street. When you arrive back here in two week's time, be sure to check out the Tourist Information layover just east of the city. Why not check it out now, before you go touring, you ask? Because its on the wrong side of the split highway, so its only useful to tourists about to get back on the Spirit. Don't ask me why.

Links
Discover Tasmania - Devonport
TravelMate - Devonport
Devonport City Council

Uncle Crooked

Yes, some of you have traced my family tree, and its true, my uncle is the famous "Crooked Mick of the Speewah". For the benefit of our Overseas readers, the Speewah is the biggest cattle and sheep Station in Australia. It lies out west of the sunset, and is so big that the men who repair the boundary fences take their wives with them, raise their kids along the way and retire about midway; their sons finish the second half of the job and arrive back at the Homestead to their own retirement, with their own sons ready to start out again.

The trees are so big on the Speewah that the tops are hinged to let the sun past, and it gets so hot there that freezing point is set at 99 degrees. At dusk, the temperature drops so quickly even the mirages freeze over. On the east side of the Speewah it can be so swelteringly hot that drovers need to wear an asbestos suit; the crows fly backwards to keep the dust out of their eyes, and the dust storms are so thick that you can build a house on them. Folk on that side of the Speewah count themselves lucky when they can start putting water in their tea again. On the west side its so cold that the horses have to be defrosted before you can put their saddles on, and words freeze as they come out of your mouth, so your mate has to pick them up and thaw them on the campfire before he can hear what you said.

My uncle, Crooked Mick, is a giant of a man who was born way back when the Jenolan Caves were just wombat holes and the River Murray was a possum having a pee. He's so big he has to go outside whenever he wants to turn around, eats two sheep for lunch and uses small trees for toothpicks. At birth he started growing so fast his father tried to slow his growth by ring-barking his legs; it didn't work but it did give him a nasty limp, hence his name. Mick is a helluva shearer and works so hard and fast that he keeps a rouseabout busy putting ice cubes in a bucket Mick uses to cool down the shears. One morning the boss told him to hop over and help the Cook; Mick had shorn another thirty-two sheep before his shears touched the floor. Another time, a crow was bothering him by blocking out the sun so he picked up a rock and threw it at the mongrel; the local aborigines complained and told him to put Uluru back where it was. Mick's best mate is Big Bill, the guy who made his fortune on the Broken Hill goldfields cutting up mining shafts and selling them as post holes.

Of course it's not only the men who are big on the Speewah. The mosquitoes have been known to blow out a station hand's candle in the evening while he's reading in his bunk, so they can get started on their bloodthirsty work, and they often steal the blankets to wipe their noses after a feast. There are the giant wombats, rabbits as large as sheep, crows like condors and kangaroos so big they make an emu look like a canary. And there's the famous hoop snake, which grabs its own tail in its mouth, leaps up and rolls after men on horseback. He needs a good horse to outrun one.

Such is life in the great Australian Outback. If any of you are interested, I might tell you how Crooked Mick built the railroad, or about the Great Speewah Flood. Post a comment if you want to hear more.

Links
The Museum of Hoaxes
An Aussie in London
Tall Tales from Around the World

Xevious on PSP?

Question: What happens when you drop your PlayStation Portable in the swimming pool?

I found out the hard way, and it couldn't be replaced under warranty because it was my own fault. So what to do with a dead PSP? Turn it into the world's smallest MAME machine, of course! For those who don't know, MAME stands for Multi Arcade Machine Emulator, that is, a free program that runs all those old arcade machine ROMs. I contacted the makers of the Space Cube, a cool PC that measures only 2 x 2 x 2.2 inches in size, and asked did they have one that was cosmetically damaged but running. I explained what I wanted it for, they were only too happy to sell it to me at a discount when they found out, because they were as interested as I was to see if it could be done. In order to fit all the components into my PSP case, I had to strip the PC of all its ports, cut extra ventilation holes into the back of the case (ventilation remains a problem, the unit still tends to run hot), bump up the flash memory capacity, and fit a (stripped down) SD card reader. I then copied all my game ROMs onto 4 gig SD cards. Remapping the PSP controls to the PC was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, eventually I gave up on the PSP signals and installed membrane switches directly onto the PCB under the PSP controls. This meant I had to move quite a few components of the PC which were already in place, and that would have been next to impossible if I hadn't used Schmartboards for the project. It took a fair bit of tweaking, but I finally got the whole thing fully functional - the world's smallest MAME machine, and the only PSP with 3,412 games at your fingertips!

Links
Space Cube
MAME Net
SchmartBoards