Category: rant’n’rave

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.

Radio Parts have a customer service problem…

… and sadly, I appear to be the victim.

About 6 months ago, I bought a PVR/set top box. I went with Wintal for a few reasons: I already had a non-recording Wintal set top box which had given no trouble; and the retailer, Radio Parts Group, assured me that they have their own repairers and could offer great backup. I have to say, apart from a slightly mystifying interface, the unit has been great… well it was great until it stopped. Don’t know why, but one day it just wouldn’t turn on, so it was time to try out Radio Parts’ great backup.

Continue reading Radio Parts have a customer service problem…

your mileage may vary

Watched a very interesting documentary on SBS the other night: Car of the Future, where two charismatic brothers – one a host of a radio car show, explore future trends in car design in a lighthearted, but well informed way. It was certainly entertaining, but I want to share the two big points that came out of it.

1. Around 1% of the fuel we put in our car is actually used in moving the driver. What? 1%?? are you kidding? So while we’re howling about paying $1.75 per litre for petrol, the way we use it means that we are essentially burning $1.73 of it for nothing? Well, not quite – the waste is in moving the car – friction, heat, and of course, the engine itself cannot perfectly convert petrol to motion. All the same, it’s an incredibly sobering to realise just how far we’ve got to go with fuel efficiency in motoring.

2. We blew our last big chance to build more efficient cars. Yes, back in 1975 the world experienced its first major oil crisis. Legislation was introduced in the US to mandate minimum mileage efficiencies and between 1975 and 1982 the average mileage increased from 13mpg to 22mpg. During this period, the price of oil actually fell!

Unfortunately, instead of continuing with these gains, having achieved the required standards, future efficiency gains were used to increase speed and vehicle size. The average mileage has not increased since 1982, in fact, it’s gone slightly south, to about 20.8mpg, while fuel prices have steadily risen.

So there it was, as clear as day, the correlation between demand and price, and yet we still have brainless, populist fools like the RACV, and the opposition (my favourite targets), as well as many others, who think that cutting fuel taxes to provide a few weeks price relief is a good thing. How stupid and short-sighted can you get?

The lesson to be learned is clear, the only thing that is going to make drivers and manufacturers change their ways is to allow market forces to take their toll. Market forces that include the true cost of fossil fuels, and include a carbon tax. It’s going to hurt, but it must be done.

petrol addicts, go cold turkey!

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.

Apple’s iTunes rip-off

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.

resilient

hatsNews 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.

a bullbar for my bicycle…

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.

some cyclists in morelandJoel 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.

Continue reading a bullbar for my bicycle…

negative feedback

In these days of social networks, recommendations and feedback, how do you give seriously negative feedback?

I would like the world to know how useless a former staff member was, but can’t bring myself to write comments directly on their linkedin profile (christ, we were just glad to get rid of them!), but almost every day at the moment, I am picking up the pieces of this person’s appallingly unprofessional work and cursing that my employer was somehow tricked into paying them twice as much as they pay me! Pity the next poor bastard that has to work with them.

Ballina’s last resort

Well here I am at Ballina Beach Resort, the venue for Ausweb08 – one of the world’s oldest internet based conferences. It doesn’t have the cachet of the newcomers like Web Directions, but it still attracts some good thinkers and some interesting topics.

One of the features of this conference, however, is that it is always in rather nice beachside locations. This gives the poor old academic a welcome break from the humdrum of campus, but I suspect it has in some ways cheapened the message being delivered.

Anyway, this one, as I said, is in Ballina. The location is just a few minutes walk from the beach, the venue is comfortable, but – and this is a big but – why do conference venues think it’s OK to serve such god awful food? I’ve had bad, but this is utterly woeful. The breakfast this morning nominally cost $20. What I got was a choice of: toast with peanut butter and jam; some basic cereals; a bain-marie which was mostly empty but occasionally topped up with some greasy bacon, and rubbery scrambled eggs; no decent fruit; no pastries. Totally pathetic, when you consider that just up the road in Byron Bay, there are creators of some of the best coffee, jams, spreads, muesli, and organic foods in Australia.

The empty bain-marie at Ballina Beach Resort
The most pathetic breakfast ever!

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Before the conference program kicked in and I was able to choose my own food, we found some absolute gems. Thai by Night, on the main stret in Ballina served up the best Thai food I’ve had since I left Chiang Mai. Then we had breakfast at The Harvest Cafe in Newrybar just a few k. north of Ballina. Sensational… utterly beautiful. Oh, and after that we went on the the Byron Bay Sunday market – more great food and snacks. While I’m stuck in the conference my travel partners have sampled the excellent food at the local RSL. So there’s plenty of choice if you look around – just don’t even think about eating at Ballina Beach Resort… they don’t deserve a second chance.

RACV – fossils fuel the road debate

Each month I get the RACV magazine, Royalauto; and almost without fail, I am appalled by their dated, conservative, tunnel-vision approach to problems on our roads.

This month, the cover boasts a “Special Roads Report. Congestion: the solutions“, so I thought I’d see what the 1950’s think tank had come up with this time. Living in an inner suburb that is already suffering under the effects of Citylink and now in the firing line of the new ‘East-West’ proposals – I have a vested interest in a creative solution that works for all.

The article heads off in a predictable manner, mostly just stating the totally bleeding obvious, it’s getting worse (oh, duh!). Then it goes to a series of bullet point ‘solutions‘. For the sake of brevity, I won’t demolish these one by one, but sufffice to say that all, (yes, 100%) of the short term solutions offered are focussed on making driving easier. Getting more people on the road, to their destination etc. In other words, a Growth Model.

Now, any fool with a pocket calculator can see that growth models are unsustainable. If you don’t know what that means (say you’re from the RACV), it means that it might be a solution now, but it’s just delaying the crunch. As if to highlight their stupidity, the article points out that in the 90’s things were better. What’s happened in the interim? – Growth! So, they’ve provided an example of why their own arguments are wrong.

What’s missing from their solutions? Well, things with two wheels for a start, but so much more… I’ve got a few of my own to throw into the mix 🙂

  • Aim for zero growth – no new roads. Road spending to be limited to maintenance and safety works. Safety works to be focussed on speed reduction, not fitting more cars onto the road.
  • Ban single occupant vehicles from the CBD, except for designated routes to drop-off/pickup points
  • Halve the cost of public transport during low use periods – eg: before 6:30am, 10am – 3pm, after 7pm
  • Dramatically improve the lot of cyclists and small capacity (<500cc) motorcyclists through provision of on road facilities, adjustments to road use legislation, parking facilities, reduced fees and charges.

OK, so it’s just a few off-the-cuff ideas, but I’m serious about the ‘no growth’. I remember when I got my licence so many years ago, I was told that driving was a privilege, not a right. If our city is to avoid drowning in bitumen, oil and exhaust fumes, we have to realise that it’s a privilege we can no longer afford to indulge on a daily basis. Discretionary car travel is a thing of the past, if there is an alternative, we will soon be forced to use it – whether by economic or legislative forces. It’s as simple as that.

False start for China?

All eyes on China at the moment – they must have expected that, but what the world wanted to see was a new approach. Awarding the Olympics is defended as an incentive – a carrot, if you like – to lure China away from it’s old ways. Sadly, it looks like that’s not gonna happen. A few interesting events this week to illustrate the problem.

Tibet: it’s a tricky issue and I won’t pretend it’s a simple right and wrong, but if the Chinese want Tibetans to feel like part of China, then they’ll need to start treating them as equals. It’s never been that way, and recent events indicate, it’s not going to be that way any time soon. A bunch of foreign journalists are led on a tightly controlled tour of Lhasa, but the tour gets out of control and a few, incredibly brave monks mob the journalists and attempt to get their side of the story heard. Reports on Xinhua, put their own spin on the event, but the most telling piece of commentary is a story that has China’s foreign ministry condemning the western news services for ‘distorting’ the news and applauding an anti-cnn website as a “reflection of the chinese people’s condemnation”… which people? certainly not the monks. Ironic stuff.

Olympics: no point saying they shouldn’t have got the games – it was done and dusted years ago. Totally unfair to all involved to talk of boycotts; athletes have given up years of their lives in preparation for this, they shouldn’t be asked to make a political statement when it was the politicians’ mistake in the first place. The athletes never chose Beijing. Heartening to see the approach of the Czech and Polish leaders, boycotting the Opening ceremony is the perfect way to deliver the snub that would sting China’s leadership most. A loss of face. The French president is considering the same.

and finally Maps: another report from Xinhua, so you can be assured that the point of view is strictly pro government, however it shouldn’t alter the facts… apparently: “10,000 online map websites operated in China, most of them showing maps without approval”… that’s right, maps without approval! “A hotline has been set up for the public to report illegal websites” – the walls have ears – and “those websites would be closed down”. My favourite quote:

“The campaign would also target websites that made mistakes such as labeling Taiwan a “country”, wrongly drawing national boundaries, or omitting important islands including the South China Islands, Diaoyu Islands and Chiwei Island”

The only site that seems to have the official blessing is the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM), which has a whopping 418 Chinese and world maps, that obviously give the Chinese people all the information they’re ever going to be allowed to need.