woowoowoo – Page 28

the other street view

…there’s another one? I hear you gasp! Yes, it seems the old one about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery has struck a chord at streetdirectory.com.au – and they obviously love Google!

This is sort of amazing to me – I mean it’s incredible enough that a giant corporation like google pushes forward with a program of driving a car down every little lane and street in town and then stitching together the visuals, now we’ve got our own home-grown version!

Try it out at this intersection in Brunswick. Wierdly, that link, which I copied from the ‘send a link’ tool on their site, ends up displaying a street 300m to the north, so there’s obviously a bug or two there, but ignore that and start counting the similarities.

For a start, it’s called “Street View” – I’m sure the big G will have something to say about that.
You can tell which streets have the imagery by the ~~blue~~ purple outline.
How cute, they’ve got a little yellow man on a green arrow the you can drag and drop on aforementioned outlined streets. Where have I seen that before?
There are similar navigation tools to Google’s, but they’re terribly ugly and as soon as you try to drag an image around, you’ll see that they don’t work like Google’s – they really don’t work at all! (browser hangs… doh!)
On the positive side, the images are much higher resolution than you get in Google. The ‘large view’ shows it off very nicely. On the flipside, the bigger images completely break the experience of ‘moving’ along a street as each image takes it’s sweet time to refresh.
Just like Google, faces are blurry, but unlike Google, it’s obviously been done manually, by someone with photoshop and a blur tool
There’s a little ‘BETA’ tag to let us know that this software might have some bugs – well, they got that right!

OK, so I’m a big fan of the Melways street directory: it’s a great publication and I’ve worn out more copies than I can remember – they draw great maps. Due to peculiarities of projection, it’s never translated comfortably to the online version, but this latest venture just seems preposterous – especially when it’s been released with so many shortcomings. Isn’t there some business rule about playing to your strengths?

a change in the weather

Melburnians are obsessed with weather. More accurately, we are obsessed with predicting the weather. Of course it’s a national joke that we can have four seasons in one day, but we don’t mind that as long as we can tell when those seasons will fall. Our chief tool in this quest, is the venerable BOM – the Bureau of Meteorology website.

The buzz among Melbourne’s weather nerds this morning is the change of format on the forecast pages. It’s gone from the old ‘typerwriter’ format to a newly styled html format and I have to ask… why?

OK, I’m not questioning why you would change, there are benefits to structuring html instead of the old ‘blob’ of text. Well structured html can enable all sorts of wonderful trickery – especially when it’s data related. The more granular and identifiable the pieces of data, the more useful they become. Of course, along with well structured html comes the opportunity to introduce richer and more meaningful style. So there are two really compelling reasons why this move by the BOM might have been a good idea. Unfortunately, and mysteriously, they’ve missed both opportunities!

I don’t want to get too long winded with this, but let’s start with a simple example of what they could have done and completely missed… warnings. There is a section at the top of the page, which lists current warnings. The heading has been given a class of ‘warning’, but the paragraphs that follow are simply styled with a class of ‘sl’ – a generic class that has been used repeatedly all over the page. So, if I wanted to create a tool that automatically extracted warning information from this page, I could easily look for the ‘warning’ heading, but determining how much of what followed was the text of the warning would be much harder and involve a degree of guesswork. Compare this with how I think it should have been done: a div of id=’warnings’ containing a heading and an unordered list. Easy to identify on the page, simple to extract the information, easy to target with styles. This sort of problem is repeated throughout the page. Such a shame to see a rich source of information such as this wasted by poorly structured data.

So, we’ve established there are problems with the html, but there is still a fair bit of scope in the new structure for styling it reasonably to at least make it easy to read on screen. So what did they do? It seems as though they have attempted to make the new html look as much as possible like the old teletype. It’s horrible! They could have used size, font, indents – all sorts of typographic devices – to break this information into more easily digested visual bites, but no, we have a slab of ‘monotext’. It lacks variety, relief, hierarchy and interest. I think, if anything, it’s harder to read than the old format. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the ‘Around Melbourne’ section – where the forecast maximum temperature for Frankston is actually closer on the page to the word ‘Geelong’ with no visual clues as to which is related to which. OK, our logic tells us that the temp follows the name, but a page shouldn’t be relying on the user’s knowledge of data structures in order to get it’s message across.

I’ve said enough – it’s a good example of a badly done redevelopment – shame!

crisis, what crisis?

I am the only one that’s had enough of the ‘Economic Crisis’? It covers every newspaper and leads every bulletin. Apparently, it was caused by greedy people, but the general obsession with every rise and fall of ‘the market’ shows me we’ve learned nothing.

More than this though, it’s made me quite angry that this economic crunch has governments freely dipping into their pockets in a way that none have even considered in combating climate change. Yet, this economic ‘blip’ is nothing but a pimple compared to the problems we’ll face when crops fail and water becomes scarce.

I suppose I should take some small comfort from the fact that governments can act quickly and substantially when faced with a problem. However, I dread to think what sort of a crisis it will require before they seriously tackle climate change.

hell on wheels

Another case of a driver attacking a cyclist with their vehicle… when you consider the number of deaths caused by vehicles compared to other better known ‘offensive weapons’ it is simply nothing short of attempted murder.

The latest report I heard was that police were seeking a late model ford with an EVK or EVQ number plate. What is it about ford? I mean, all generalisations are false, so I’m not pointing the finger at all ford drivers, but there seems to be something about the marque that attracts young men of questionable intellect. I don’t get anywhere near the same level of grief from holden hoons.

Just up the street from where I work is a ford dealership and workshop. I ride my bike past it almost every night and, while I’m cautious, I often see appalling behaviour from the drivers coming to or leaving the dealership. I wonder if the people who leave their cars for service are aware of the ‘testing’ the mechanics seem to do up and down the street? Curious that we don’t see the same behaviour from the Peugeot dealership next door.

I also ride a motorbike, so I’ve got a natural streak of suspicion about Volvos. It’s an old cliche, but I have to say, times have changed (or maybe I have), but Volvo drivers don’t seem to be the problem they used to be. No, they’ve well and truly been replaced by VW Golfs – especially the silver ones! Don’t know what’s going on here, but if you want to find an impatient, pushy, lead-footed lunatic, look no further than your nearest silver Golf. (Actually, there’s one parks in the office car park, so I’d better cover myself by saying that it probably doesn’t apply to all silver golf drivers 😉

yay for lolcats!

I am soooo web 2 point OH! I have just created my first lolcat using a photo I took of Viv enjoying yesterday’s warm weather. If you’re a member of ichc, you should definitely click on the picture and vote for my pic.

Manly part two

Still banging on about my recent Sydney trip. I took an extra day in my schedule for a bit of tourism. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to head for the Spit Bridge and did the Spit to Manly Scenic Walkway.

Beautiful! Unlike anything else I’ve done in Sydney. There were some places which really take your breath away. It’s not just the views either, there’s constant entertainment as you pass amazing sculptured sandstone cliffs, sudden changes in microclimate, aboriginal rock carvings, brilliant wildflowers, secluded beaches. I passed a fairly constant stream of european tourists, chattering in french, german and I think even russian.

A fabulous place for a walk. Nice accurate map of it all on Open Street Map, so you can download it to your GPS 🙂

Manly vs. Melbourne

I was in Sydney last week for the excellent WDS08, but it was some other aspects of Sydney that I want to write about this time.

1. Soul

Sydney doesn’t seem to have one. I find it an intensely sad city – I’m sure there are exceptions, but Sydney is beautiful in spite of what has been done to it, not because of it. I’ll admit that the areas I visited probably skewed my view, but at any time you can see thousands of people rushing along and not noticing the real world around them. It’s hard not to lust after harbour views, a fancy boat and a sports car when there is so much wealth so obviously on display, but I reckon Sydneysiders have forgotten how to be happy in themselves. A shame.

2. Rugby

While I was in Sydney, there was an incredible build up to the Rugby League Semi Final between the Cronulla Sharks and (the common enemy), Melbourne Storm. I honestly don’t give a toss about Rugby – the game bores me to tears, but I was amazed at the level of vitriol and wildly biased reporting that flooded the press and airways before the game. They had totally written Melbourne off well before the game started. Of course, Melbourne trounced Cronulla something like 26-0. I went back to my hotel room and watched the last 30 minutes or so, but the commentators wouldn’t give up… with literally minutes to go and a huge deficit – they continued to call the Melbourne players slow and tired. Obviously not as slow and tired as the Cronulla players, but that didn’t seem to register.

I can sort of understand the controversial comments from Melbourne Storm’s coach and Manager, I’ll be they get thoroughly sick of listening to that sort of garbage all season. Anyway, it’s all down to a Grand Final against Manly, who also thrashed their opposition, so they seem to be a worthy opponent.

3. Coffee

It’s a long standing joke that you can’t get a decent coffee in Sydney. I don’t think it’s really that bad, but there are still plenty of fancy cafés that don’t seem to worked it out. However, I am delighted to report that things are improving and I have found at least one place where the fussiest coffee snob can get a brew that is nothing short of superlative. It’s Manly once again – hmm… is there a pattern here? no! – but tucked away, just off the garish Corso, is Scuzi Mi (sorry, I can’t remember the name exactly) in Darley Road. You really can’t miss it – amongst the franchise cafés Sydney seems to be flooded with it, stands out like a sore thumb. I chose it because it looked like it belonged in Sydney Road and the long macchiato I had was nothing short of sensational.

Flickr’s open (street) map

osm flickr layer I don’t know when this happened, but last night when I placed some photos on my flickr map, I was delighted to see that (in certain areas, and at certain magnifications) they have started to use OpenStreetMap for the map layer.

Yahoo were generous enough to allow OSM to use their satellite data as a reference overlay for constructing maps, so I think this is a natural flipside of that. Personally, I think it’s great that I can place photos on a map that I also contribute to. Three cheers for open source!

the city bike…

If you’re visiting Adelaide and you like to ride a bike, you’re in luck. The city has a scheme of free bicycle hire it calls City Bikes. Yep, totally free – all you have to do is provide some sort of ID as collateral (eg: licence, passport), and you’re on your way, with a bike, helmet and lock.
The city is as flat as a pancake, the roads are generally wide and almost always quiet, and the parks have a network of well maintained trails. It is paradise on two wheels!

Daisy

Had to take dear old Daisy to the vet for the last time this morning.

Advanced kidney disease; she wasn’t eating and got thinner every day. The basket seemed heavier when I carried it home empty.

Thanks my sweet girl.

now THIS is a bike path!

… but what are all those cars doing on it?

According to Google Maps ‘blue outlined streets’ have Street View, so I was surprised to see that they must have left the car behind one day and hopped on a bicycle, because the Moonee Ponds Creek bicycle trail was outlined in blue just near my house. Alas, the Street View pics don’t give a true representation of the bike path – it seems wider and busier than I remember it.

The Moonee Ponds Creek Tollway

Uh-oh! algorithm troubles! That looks very much like the nearby tulla freeway. I’m sure we’re going to see a lot more interesting anomolies among the new Australian images.

where was their spirit of adventure?

One of the fascinating things about Google’s Street View coverage of Australia is the amazingly out of the way places they got to. I love this aspect – dirt roads that wind along in the back blocks of the never never.

Anyway, I was panning around the Gulf Country of far north Queensland when I noticed the blue line didn’t go all the way to Normanton. Odd – so I dropped the little yellow guy as close as I could to the end of the line and saw in the distance what looked like… yes, I think it is… water! Ha! that’s the Gulf Country for you.

Burke development road

No wonder they never got to Normanton 🙂