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 No, they’ve well and truly been replaced by VW Golfs – especially the silver ones!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 😉

Manly part two

manly panoramaStill 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 layerI 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…

the city bikeIf 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!

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 🙂

Domain – first to market with Street View?

Checking my moderation queue, and noticed a comment on yesterday’s street view post, that seems to be from someone on the Domain team. I didn’t see the comment until this morning, but I did receive an announcement email from Domain yesterday and was mightily impressed with their use of streetview.

Obviously, they’ve had access to the service for a little while now and have implemented a slick tab method of switching between street view and map view. In fact, I think it’s better, or at least more intuitive than the default ‘balloon’ that most google maps use.

With this release, Australians are entering a whole new dimension of real estate and travel. Without even thinking about it, I have already checked out a hotel I am hoping to book in Adelaide (confirmed easy access to the Torrens and gardens), I also poked around a couple of interesting properties in Fitzroy ad noted that while the real estate pages mention nothing about graffiti, the street view shot clearly shows that the property is regarded as a bit of a ‘canvas’ by locals.

What I can’t quite fathom about Street View in Australia, is the incredible coverage. I can understand the Google investment in cities and tourism areas – there’s an obvious commercial return there, but I am completely puzzled (and delighted) that they seem to have driven from Jamieson up the Woods Point road to Gaffney’s Creek! That’s impressive!

I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot about this in the coming weeks. My congratulations to the team at Google for such an impressive launch and also to Domain for an excellent commercial implementation. Go check it out!

Street view invades Australia

I can’t wait for the conspiracy theorists to get going on this one – Google have released Street View on their maps in Australia. Unlike earlier releases, this is a massive and dense coverage… amazing detail.

The face blurring technology is in full swing, and not very discriminate – blurring both the wheels on my car, as well as heaps of other vaguely face like things.

Anyway, I’m pleased I wasn’t imagining things when I spotted the Google car last March.

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.

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