For a long time, I resisted getting a SodaStream and I'll explain why shortly. However, if someone gives you one for a present, that changes things. Who doesn't love a present?
My reasoning was fairly simple. First the SodaStream unit costs money. Then there's flavouring at $7 a bottle that makes 9 litres. That's 78 cents a litre just for flavouring. I'd estimated from online research people were getting around 20-30 litres from a SodaStream cylinder. Exchange cylinders at $19 which means 63-95 cents per litre. So, with just the cost of the cylinder and flavouring the cost per litre I'd estimated to be $1.41 to $1.73 and that's not taking into account the cost of the SodaStream itself.
I decided now having become the owner of a SodaStream this would enable me to do some testing. The first cylinder that came with the SodaStream I used to determine how much gas to add to my drinks. I tend to be a light fizzer. The second bottle I recorded each time I refilled the bottles. So how did it go?
I have 500ml and 1L bottles. For 500ml bottles I'd pump for one second three times. For 1L bottles I'd pump for one second five times. At the end I had to use triple the number of pumps for about three 1L bottles and then the cylinder was done. Yes, I didn't use twice the number of pumps for 1L compared to 500ml. That's just how it worked out for me, for my tastes.
500ml bottles - 33 refills of 3 one second pumps
1L bottles - 16 refills of 5 one second pumps
Plus, at end of cylinder life about 3 1L bottles so equivalent of 5 one second pumps.
That's a total of 194 one second pumps. In terms of litres if I'd just used 1L bottles that would be approximately 39 litres and for 500ml bottles, that would be 32 litres.
The cost per litre for my usage works out at 49-59 cents per litre, or an average of 55 cents per litre. People who prefer more fizz will find the cost per litre greater.
Sadly, if you add the 55 cents to the 78 cents for the cost of flavouring ($1.33/L) that's more expensive than home brand drinks from Woolworths, Coles, or Aldi.
But wait, there's savings to be had.
First, I wait until the flavouring have been on half price specials and then stock up. That means the cost has been 39 cents/L, reducing the cost to 94 cents/L.
I've tried other brands of flavouring but haven't been a fan.
Cordial can make a good drink with the carbonated water. Aldi cordial is $2.69 a bottle and makes up 10 litres. That's 27 cents per litre for flavouring.
Getting creative with lemon and lime trees.
Yes, we all have someone we know that has a lemon tree, and sometimes a lime tree. Often people are happy to give away excess fruit.
I found dissolving a cup of sugar with a cup of lemon/line juice plus half a cup of water, produced a very nice syrup for flavouring. There are about 5 cups of sugar in a kg of sugar. A Coles 2kg bag of sugar costs $2.85 so the cost is 29 cents per litre. OK. Aldi cordial is cheaper than making your own. Didn't know that until now but isn't that the point of testing.
At say 30 cents per litre for cordial/syrup plus 55 cents per litre for gas, that's 85 cents per litre. Keep in mind, that's not taking into account the cost of the SodaStream
Comparing that to Coles home brand fizzy drinks at $1.20/1.25L less 10 cents refund on the bottle, that gives us 1.10/1.25 = 88 cents per litre. Slightly cheaper in Aldi.
So, in summary, if you use full price SodaStream flavouring it simply costs more to use a SodaStream for drinks than buying home brand drinks. Yes, the flavouring from SodaStream are name brands like Pepsi/Pepsi Max, but to me they're not the same as the bottled versions, so in effect I'd put them on par with the home brands. That's just how I see it, you may not.
Add the cost of the SodaStream appliance spread over say three years at my usage (about 30 cents/L) and it's costing more than home brand drinks. Also, I purchased additional bottles which don't come cheap. SodaKing bottles are cheaper and also work.
There is one advantage that is worth noting. Your groceries are lighter each week if you don't buy the pre-bottled drinks.
The bottom line. Drinks made using the SodaStream, from my testing, are more expensive than home brand bottles of fizzy drink. That's just the way it is.
Kelvin
NOTE: The full SodaStream cylinder weighed 1,168g. Empty cylinder weighed 744g. Weight of gas/contents 424g.
Update: 09/12/2024 Empty SodaStream cylinder 742g
Update: 20/05/2025
Two things to note. I've now reduced the number of pumps to 2 one second pumps for 500ml and 4 one second pumps for 1L. Seems to work well until near the end of the cylinder. This reduces the cost per litre,
Secondly, I'd not thought about this, but Sodastream makes it more convenient to have a fizzy drink. Previously fizzy drink was more of a treat, but now with Sodastream it's basically daily instead of perhaps maybe once a week. Now this hasn't been an issue until I realised, SodaStream is costing us more because we're using cordial less. Cordial as mentioned above is about 27 cents/litre and SodaStream using discounted syrup is about 88 cents/litre. We go through roughly half a litre per day with SodaStream which is approximately $160 a year. If we used cordial only it would be about $49 a year. SodaStream has increased our costs considerably and that's using half price syrup when it's on special. Who would have thought.
Today I read this article about Australians dobbing in their fellow Australians for breaking the road rules and using dashcam footage and reporting the footage to police.
Aussie road users hit with more fines as drivers use dash cam to dob others in (yahoo.com)
I find this quite perplexing as those dobbing in others are likely to also be breaking the road rules quite a bit of the time whether they realise it or not. The dobbers should realise that if the matter goes to court, they may be required to give evidence, and their personal details could become available.
Common ways I see people every day breaking the road rules are: crossing single white lines, not stopping at a stop sign (rolling through it is not stopping), not stopping on amber when they could, driving over the white stop line, exceeding the speed limit whilst overtaking, etc., etc. We all see drivers every time we go out driving who break the road rules.
Don't get me wrong. I would dob in a driver if that driver caused harm to another person or their property. But it is easy to ramp people up, to get them angry at other drivers, to get them to dob in others. We need to remain tolerant and be considerate to others on the road. To have patience. Yes, others will drive in a manner that you're not happy with (those who cut in early when changing lanes, those who speed past at a zip merge making it dangerous), but you can only control what you do.
If everyone dobbed in everyone else who did something wrong on the road, it's only a matter of time before you get dobbed in. I'm thankful to those who have tolerated me when I've made mistakes.
For those interest Yahoo published the survey result and here's what it showed when I did the survey. Credit to Yahoo for the graphic.
It is interesting to see around a fifth of people answering the survey have dobbed in someone else. That's interesting and good to know about our fellow Australians.
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
I often thought it was only a matter of time before the cameras used to monitor heaving vehicles would start to be used as point-to-point cameras to monitor speeding cars. The cynic would say it's a quick, cheap and easy way to increase fines and revenue for the state governments. The less cynically would say the more people that get fined the more people are likely to comply with the speed limits, thus increasing road safety.
The following article appeared on the News.com.au site today.
Across NSW there's quite a large number of routes where there's point-to-point cameras that by current legislation can only be used to monitor heavy vehicle traffic. It makes sense to extend this network of cameras to cover light vehicles. The hardware is already in place and only software needs to be changed, albeit at what would be a sizeable software contract.
The word trial is used and I have to say this misleads me. I think of a trial as meaning to test something out and if it doesn't achieve the results, to then cease the trail. I've come to understand that a trial when used by the government is more likely to mean, a testing phase followed by going live.
For example, if we use the stats provided in the article, we can instantly see the effect on the road toll will hardly be noticeable. Over a four-year period there were six deaths and 33 injuries on the two lengths of road nominated for the trial. Speed is considered a factor in 44% of road fatalities. That means each year, based on these figures we'd expect to see the road toll reduced by 6 deaths /4 year * 44% which is 0.66 of a person. We should keep in mind the injuries are also important and would equate to 3-4 per year. This is not a significant outcome in terms of road safety. In terms of revenue, that will be significant.
As this change permeates across Australia, as the heavy vehicle monitoring is Australia wide, I'll update the Speed Camera Locations site to also include the heavy vehicle point-to-point cameras as speed cameras.
When driving it is a good idea to use an app such as Waze (or my own Speed Limit Alerts web app) to help comply with the speed limit. It's easy to make a mistake, drive with the flow of the traffic, and get a fine for doing so. As cars are updated these features will be built into the cars, but for now, there's a few software tools that can help.
I often read people quoting there's a 10% tolerance before you'll get fined for speeding. This is a myth. The following is for the tolerance in fixed and mobile speed cameras which can be found in the following regulations document. The information here is for Victorians, but hopefully it also relates to the situation in other states.
https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-06/19-88sra016-authorised.pdf
Division 3—Fixed digital road safety cameras
35 Testing of fixed digital RSC
(b) is satisfied that the speed calculation unit is
properly calibrated so that it indicates speed
readings within a limit of error not greater
than or less than 2 kilometres per hour or
2 per cent (whichever is greater) of the true
speeds.
Division 4—Mobile digital road safety cameras
38 Testing of mobile digital RSC
(b) is satisfied that the speed calculation unit is
properly calibrated so that it indicates speed
readings within a limit of error not greater
than or less than 3 kilometres per hour or
3 per cent (whichever is greater) of the true
speeds.
Division 5—Speed detectors
42 Testing of speed detectors
(b) is satisfied that the device is properly
calibrated so that it indicates the speed
readings within a limit of error not greater or
less than 2 km per hour of the true speeds.
We need to keep in mind, this is the tolerance the government allows in their own equipment. If the government's equipment is accurate, then for a fixed camera that means we'd get a tolerance of 2 km/h for roads with a speed limit up to 100km/h, and 2% for roads above 100km/h.
However, if their equipment is not accurate, then their equipment could record you as going up to 2km/h (or 2% for roads above 100km/h) faster than you're actually going or record you as going slower than you're actually going.
What's important to note is the legislation is for their equipment, not your equipment or the speed you're going.
For example, let's say the speed limit is 60km/h and you're travelling at 60km/h, but their equipment can read you as going anywhere between 58km/h to 62km/h. Let's say you were actually doing 61km/h. The detected speed could be 63km/h and your alleged speed would then be 61km/h. In theory you could get fined for driving at 61km/h. I've read if you took this to court you could lose. Whilst at this stage I have no evidence for Victoria, I'd suspect the government would not take you to court for such a low infraction. It doesn't look good for the government and it could cause the community to lose faith in the system. Both outcomes the government wouldn't want.
In terms of evidence for an additional tolerance however, we can see for South Australia, from the data they release for their SAPOL Expiations (think fines), for fixed and mobile speed cameras for a 60km/h speed zone, the alleged speed starts at 68km/h for fines. This indicates the South Australian government does have an additional tolerance and I suspect this would be true of other states as well. Although my instinct is that some states will have a tighter tolerance than SA. However, for speeding fines other than fixed or mobile speed cameras, (categorised as "other", which I suspect would be by police) the data does show the alleged speed can be as low as 64km/h.
Kelvin
Various things happen on YouTube once some unknown point is reached. In YouTube there's a graph like the following, which shows when your viewers are on YouTube.
Until yesterday all I had in this section was a message that I think was "Not enough viewer data to show this report". The above graph appeared today (3rd January 2024) for the first time and I wanted to share my statistics in case it helps other determine when this might happen for them.
I started my 360 4K video channel on the 4th of October 2023, which is 91 days ago.
Since starting the channel my stats for the period 4 Oct 2023 to 1 Jan 23 are:
Views: 79,608 (Shorts: 75,425, Videos: 4,191)
Watch time: 367.0 hours
Subscribers: 117
The difference between the individual figures in brackets is because they are until the 3rd of January, whereas the other figures are for the period up until two days ago, the 1st of January 2024.
Looking at the last 48 hours of views there's only one hour where there were no views.
It may be the graph appears after 90 days, but I think this is unlikely, although I can't be sure. If you hover your mouse over the different shaded bars on the graph you get further information which states: "Very few of your viewers are on YouTube", "Few of your viewers are on YouTube", "Some of your viewers are on YouTube", "Many of your viewers are on YouTube" and "Very many of your viewers are on YouTube".
There is no "None of your viewers are on YouTube" at a particular hour, which I find interesting. If I were to guess, it may be this graph only appears once there are one or more viewers in each hourly bucket for the 24 hours for the 7 days. Keep in mind this graph is for the most recent 28 day period, so each hour on each day is the sum of 4 days from each of the weeks.
I don't know why or when the "When your viewers are on YouTube" graph appears, but hopefully by sharing my information it will provide clues to others should a pattern appear.
I should add my first channel is very different from my 360 4K channel as to when viewers are on YouTube. The main reason I think is when I started my first channel it is based on content largely from Australia and published based on the time in Australia. Currently 70% of my viewers are from Australia. For my 360 4K channel which this graph is from, the content started based on a recent trip to Europe and the viewers came mostly from Europe. I've focused on using Shorts to build the audience and currently the top viewers for All Viewers come from Russia, United States, India, Germany, Uzbekistan, whereas if just looking at long form video the top viewers are from: Fance, India, Australia, Brazil, Italy. Sometimes I wonder if the graph is for all viewers, or just long form videos. Again, I don't know the answer, but I thought I'd put the thought out there.
Kelvin
My first channel
Ride, Drive, Walk by Kelvin
My 360 4K channel
360 4K UHD videos
I recently read people in Queensland were now getting fined when speeding very close to the speed signs when the speed limit zone changes. This concerned me as it appeared to be an easy way to increase revenue. Yes, people shouldn't speed. Being a good driver also means obeying the road laws. None of us obey the letter of the law, all the time. I decided to do some research.
After finding a few articles with photos showing the same location, things didn't make sense to me. The road markings did not match where the speed signs were located. The following is the article on Yahoo News, but I think I also saw headline from the Courier Mail.
Aussie driver caught twice by 'sneaky' placement of speed camera on highway (yahoo.com)
It turns out the driver was mistaken (along with many others), who believed the sign in their picture was a speed limit sign. It isn't a speed limit sign. It is an informational sign for a camping area and the road name.
The following video is from my travels and starts just before the sign shown in the speeding fines and then continues on to the speed limit change, about 220m further on.
Driving Queensland, Agnes Water to Gladstone - Tour #3 - YouTube
People are speeding up before reaching the sign and from the other direction, not slowing down to the speed limit as they reach the sign. This is normal driving behaviour, but it isn't legal behaviour. You have to at or below the signed speed limit for the section of road you are travelling on. If you're approaching a 60km/h sign from a faster section of road, you need to be at or below 60km/h when you reach the sign. If you're approaching a 100km/h sign from a lower speed limit zone, you can't speed up before you reach the speed limit sign. Not what we all do, but something we should be doing.
So in this case the media reports are based on incorrect information, and unfortunately, lack of fact checking.
In February I moved to Aldimobile. Overall it's been a good service, but then recently something unexpected happened.
It was after midnight and I received an SMS, "Hi, Your ALDImobile PAYG credit is fully depleted. Please go online or use your mobile app to recharge."
My first reaction was to go and top up the account.
My next reaction was what the? I'm on Auto Recharge. Shouldn't I be covered?
Turns out at the end of the month the Auto Recharge can take up to a day to be applied. So for hours and up to a day, anything you use is taken out of your PAYG balance. Luckily there was only a $4.88 balance which was cleared out by Aldimobile. Never knew where that 12 cents went, but my guess now is data use during the time Auto Recharge hadn't been applied in the past. A second service also had money taken out.
To me the worst-case scenario is you have a large PAYG balance and you're watching a movie online and your balance is cleared out.
Of course, all of this can be found online, as long as you make the effort to read further than the first screens. ALDImobile also states "No bill shock", but isn't an unexpected and an unknown amount being charged what bill shock is?
I didn't know ALDImobile's Auto Recharge meant you weren't fully covered with your monthly payment. Perhaps others don't know as well, which is why I'm sharing this story.
I don't think ALDImobile's Auto Recharge is good enough and as a result, have moved to another provider so this is not an issue.
Kelvin
