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This week Google announced (yet) another new feature of it’s mapping toolset. For a little while now, we’ve been able to ’submit’ alterations via the maps interface - moving things here and there - a quick look at Google Maps Recent Edits shows that it’s quite popular. The latest thing is Map Maker, which is a bit like My Maps, except your edits may eventually find their way into the public maps.

Nice idea, but if you have a close look, you don’t get a lot for your efforts. Pan around google maps and you’ll see the copyright message in the lower corner that attributes the data source of the various providers, but don’t expect to see your name there any time soon… no, if you submit data via mapmaker (assuming you are in one of the areas currently open), that’s the last you’ll see of that little piece of intellectual property. Furthermore, if your edits ever do make it to the public maps, they’ll be under the same restrictions as all the commercial data. Google might be touting this as some kind of community effort, but it aint.

Contrast their approach with that of Open Street Map: an active supportive community; great editing tools; open to anyone; your edits appear on the main map within a week; infinite detail; the list goes on. Sure OSM doesn’t yet have the detail of Google in all areas, but where the community is active and strong, the data is way better than Google’s.

Just around the corner from my work is an example. The Elizabeth Street roundabout is one of the busiest intersections in Melbourne. It’s daunting enough for locals, but if you’re from out of town, it would help to have a good map. Superficially, OSM and Google are similar, but if you look closely you start to see the problems:

• For a start, the Dental Hospital hasn’t been there for about 10 years. The building is derelict. OSM knows where it is now.
• According to Google, it looks like Grattan street doesn’t make it all the way across Royal Parade, which Google thinks is the Hume Highway… hmm!
• and what is it with the way all the service lanes join the roads as they approach the roundabout on Google? I can assure you - this is fantasy.
• OSM aso seems to know what it’s doing with one way streets - something Google has real trouble with. Maybe they don’t know we drive on the left in Australia, but my colleague big ben pointed out the other day that following Google’s directions from one part of Grattan Street to another will get you into a lot of trouble!

Anyway, the point of this is not to bag Google maps - they are fantastic, they have popularised digital mapping and changed the way we get from one place to another… but, they are still a company and you we still rely on them to provide the service and the tools to go with it. OSM on the other hand is open source - the data is there for everyone to use - tools can be created, crafted, improved and distributed without messy licencing. Wikipedia was recently shown to be every bit as comprehensive and accurate as the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica and so it will be with OSM. It will be the mapping tool by which all others are judged. So if you’re thinking of making maps - do it the open way!

The web keeps popping up interesting experiences all the time - today I had another.

I subscribe to Get Up!. They are an activist group. I have to admit, I don’t really know who is behind them, but they don’t seem to be directly affiliated with any mainstream political group. Get Up harness the power of the web to promote well thought out campaigns on a wide variety of issues… Cluster bombs to saying Sorry. The most recent one was Public Transport.

Get Up asked its 280,000 odd members to write a message to their local member of parliament, which they said would be duly delivered. It’s an issue close to my heart, so I wrote to Kelvin Thompson - I thought it was a good little letter. I hope he liked it.

Now sometime over the weekend I got a message from a friend of mine, (a far more politically motivated person than I), about the launch of OpenAustralia.org, a website that lets you track the performance of your local member of parliament via email alerts, and just generally simplifies access to the formidable amount of information passing through parliament. So, naturally, I sign up to receive alerts about Kelvin - he’s not a high profile pollie, so I’ve no idea how active he is in the house and whether he’s earning my vote. OA tells me that he got really busy around the end of May, but has been pretty quiet since, so I was confident I wasn’t going to be swamped by email alerts.

Imagine my surprise when this afternoon, I get an alert… Kelvin said something! So, I head off to the site to see what he’s banging on about and what do you know?

In the last couple of weeks GetUp! has engaged in a follow-up to that initiative, with an email campaign promoting the need for public transport infrastructure. I have received around 200 of these emails and I dare say other MPs would have received similar correspondence. The GetUp! members take the trouble to personalise their emails, which I think is a good thing.

I think he’s read my email! … I am mildly impressed to have seen the political wheels turn so quickly.

Oh, and by the way, subscribe to Get Up! they do good stuff!

Does anyone else find the recent debate over petrol tax just a little bit pathetic? 4 cents, 5 cents, myopic politicians taking cheap shots, pretending they can do anything about fuel prices. It’s all such a load of crap.

Firstly, I’m no economist, but as I understand it, the price is high because of the old supply/demand equation. What’s dropping the price going to do? I’ll help: it’ll increase demand, raise the price and before a few weeks have gone by any, gains will have evaporated faster than if you put a match to it.

Obviously the only thing that is going to make any difference is a drop in demand. If you want to save 20% on your petrol bill, try catching the train or riding a bike one day a week.

It’s sunset on the day of the car. When I travel to work, I am just sickened and amazed at the number of cars with only one occupant - these will be the same people whinging about petrol prices - are they completely stupid? They are racing headlong to a future of congestion taxes and greenhouse taxes - five cents is going to look cheap when they start having to pay the real cost of their addiction.

I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the secondary effects of a fuel price crunch - farmers, miners, primary producers and manufacturers everywhere are already dropping out of business. We’re seeing protests across the world in rich and poor countries. What happens when our shops can’t get adequate stock of fresh fruit, fish, and milk? The writing has been on the wall since the first ‘oil shock’ in the ’70s, but little has been done to change course. If not this crunch, maybe the next one, but you know, it’s really going to hurt unless we start making other plans.

And in a perverse little postscript: Our local paper ran a front page story this week about a councilor calling for trams to be banned on Sydney Road… wait for it: because they cause congestion! Hang on a minute, last time I was on Sydney Road, there were about 300 cars for every tram. Wouldn’t that indicate it’s the cars causing the congestion? Bingo! Maths isn’t my strong suit, but I think I nailed that one.

I remember waiting with huge anticipation for Apple to launch iTunes in Australia - the rumours got thicker and faster until it finally arrived. The store finally launched with tracks selling at $1.69 each.

At the time, as I recall, the aussie dollar was about $us0.65¢ so we were effectively paying about $us1.10 while the US pricing was only $us0.99¢ - that seemed a little unfair at the time, but no-one seemed too fussed.

Roll forward to today: the aussie dollar is sitting on $us0.95¢, but tracks are still the same price, which means we’re actually paying a little over $us 1.60 per track! That’s quite a bit more than our US counterparts - certainly enough to make most CDs better value.

With the parlous state of the US economy and their sliding dollar, I’m sure we’re not the only market where iTunes is starting to look expensive.

I’ve had the pleasure of using an iPod Touch for the last week. As much as I like my music, I’ve never really felt the need to upgrade from my old ‘gumstick’ 1Gb shuffle, but we’ve got one at work with the intention mainly of testing podcasts and public facing services.

Yes, the multi touch is cool, the screen is brilliant, the wifi easy to use - all just so sweet. So, what can I say about my week that hasn’t already been said a million times in a million other reviews? I’ll try to stick to a couple of things that have impressed me.
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News reports tonight are describing the people of Burma as ‘resilient‘.

Certainly they are resilient. When we visited, we saw these people living in pretty ordinary circumstances - poverty, lack of basic services, poor to non-existent infrastucture, all against a constant undercurrent of oppression. Despite their obvious hardships, they were friendly and open, with a ‘can-do’ attitude and beautiful smiling faces.

They certainly don’t need this latest obstacle.

If you’re feeling a little compassionate, don’t be put off by the fact that Burma is run by a cadre of self serving military officials. I’m sure they’ll find a way to get their grubby hands on a portion of your money, but trust the aid agencies to do their best and get your money to the people who need it. Head over to the Red Cross Donations page and be generous.

Am I imagining things? Perhaps there’s someone out there that can help me with this.

As a kid, (many years ago!) I remember all the bad weather came from the south west. Cold, rainy days, cold fronts, storms - you name it, they all came out of the south west… as I remember, anyway. These days, when rain approaches Melbourne it is just as often from the north west and seems to get scattered by the ranges on that side of the city. I also remember summer storms - cracking shows with thunder and lightning and winds so strong that they swept the rain in spirals down our driveway. Obviously, we are still in drought and weather patterns are pretty grim, but this is one trend I feel has happened over the last 10 years.

So, the question - has anyone else noticed the relative lack of the old sou’wester? and storms, weren’t they almost inevitable after a hot day in summer?

Of course, those days we never had the wonderful BOM radar and all I remember is wonky lines on the ABC news weather map. I’m intending to look back over what records I can glean from the extensive bureau archives, but I thought I’d just pop the question here too, in case others have noticed it.

Dear reader: Take the first couple of paragraphs with a grain of salt as they are based on comments as reported in the Moreland Leader. Seems there is a possibility that this wasn’t exactly what was said. All the same, the stuff I said isn’t all suddenly wrong either, so I’ll leave it here.

Breathtaking arrogance and stupidity demonstrated this week on the old car vs. bike debate: this time, reportedly, from a cyclist.

Joel Mayesat and Bill Bretherton of ‘Human Powered Cycles’ were apparently “appalled to discover” that Bicycle Victoria had sold advertising space to Subaru, who were in turn, getting into the spirit by offering bicycle related incentives to test drive and ultimately purchase a Subaru 4WD.
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Got a laugh out of this one:

A well organised march in support of the Chinese government’s position on Tibet. Most of the participants were university students - organised through the Chinese Student societies at various universities.

A few points…

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