travelling light : a bad trip

A trip to a Sydney shouldn’t be this hard! The signs were not good at Melbourne Airport when I arrived at 11:20 yesterday morning. The longest queue I have ever seen stretched from one end of the QANTAS domestic terminal to the other… broken baggage conveyer. Half an hour in the queue and my flight gets called out for special treatment, I check in, but they don’t take my bag, I have to queue again to place my bag on a pile in the terminal.

In the plane now, and waiting again – the captain says they’re putting in the last containers of luggage. Uneventful flight and then we’re waiting on the tarmac at Sydney Airport while they find us an airbridge. Delay after delay – people are starting to get tetchy.

Now waiting at the baggage carousel – waiting, waiting. 40 minutes later the crowd starts to thin as some people catch on that they need to see Baggage services. Mass exodus – now everyone’s waiting in a queue for paperwork for missing baggage. An hour after the plane lands there is finally an official announcement that passengers should see Baggage services.

They take our details – too many people to be dealt with by the counter staff, so we just fill out forms and leave on a promise. That was more than a day and a half ago – still no bag, still no word. Phone calls to QANTAS are fruitless – they tell you nothing, simply referring you to Sydney Baggage Services, who in turn fail to answer the phone. I tried ringing the airport general number, but as soon as I mentioned baggage, I was cut off. Incredulous, I decided it was an unfortunate coincidence, so I rang again… once again, as soon as baggage is mentioned, the nice man hangs up on me.

I find it frustrating, expensive and inconvenient, but there were people on that flight bound for international connections, I feel sorry for them.

Apple’s forgotten placeholder

lorem ipsum on the apple web siteShouldn’t laugh at the misfortune of others – however small – but Apple’s website is usually so perfect, everything in its place, that when there is a problem you’ve gotta make the most of it! In this case, the hoary old chestnut, the nemesis of graphic designers everywhere – forgotten placeholder text.

On the Australian store’s iPod Nano page, right down the bottom in small, pale text, is that old designer’s friend: Lorem Ipsum.

On the US site, this paragraph is used to run some copyright fluff about movies and iTunes so it’s just a little slip, but all the same, I’ll be interested to see how long it survives in this form.

Just keep Grand Final day clear!

Collingwood logoDon’t you just love it? Unbridled, blind optimism is virtually mandatory if you want to be a Collingwood fan, but with the triumphant and emphatic return of Nathan Buckley, the imminent return of Josh Fraser and the return of belief and form for the rest of the team, optimism is running at such high levels that there are probably even some fans who think Anthony Rocca won’t get suspended.

But the best bit is the way fans start to keep Grand Final day clear of commitments… “Just in case!”. Don’t plan a wedding, auction, election, birth or funeral for September 29 because it’s guaranteed to upset someone.

Google finally embeds My Maps

Like every other Google map geek in the world, I’ve been waiting with anticipation for the release of embedded ‘My Maps’. Most unusual for Google to announce a feature before it’s released, usually it’s just a matter of keeping an eye on the blogs or looking for the “New” at the top of the various Google services. This time, however, the news was out more than a week ago, so I’ve been checking daily to see what form the new feature would take. Finally, it’s here with lots of good points and a couple of bad ones. Continue reading “Google finally embeds My Maps”

the only good thing about an election…

How about this kerfuffle about whether Peter Costello said whatever about John Howard to some journalists? Are you interested? No, I thought not. I mean, it doesn’t matter who you vote for, this sort of episode will only confirm your already held suspicions.

I mean, hands up who thinks the pollies are lying? … ’nuff said 😉

BUT!!! – that’s not the good thing I referred to in the title of this post. No, the good thing is that John Howard has started blogging again. He always does at politically sensitive times and for him at least, in his political dotage, this is probably the most sensitive time of all. The really wierd thing is that he is a surprisingly entertaining blogger.

Still on the subject: are Firefox users more likely to be politically left of centre? Place your vote.

RACV misses the point… again!

Don’t get me wrong – the RACV does a good job, I’ve been a member for over 25 years and have little cause for complaint, but the “A” in their name is really what they are about. It’s cars they care about, they do consider bicycles and motorcycles, but it’s patchy and somehow always dismissive. Take this month’s Royalauto magazine as an example.

The article asks: “Can two wheels be better than four?” and more or less concludes that fuel economy is the only advantage. Based on their flawed information, this is a reasonable conclusion, but they’ve chosen to ignore a number of important factors.

All through the article, it talks about ‘big bikes’ – the 900cc+ machines (A Ducati 916 is mentioned) with high price tags, expensive spares and fiddly maintenance. These bikes are the performance equivalents of Ferarris, but the article compares them with the ‘average family car’ (a Camry is mentioned). Sorry, did I miss something there? Hands up who thinks a Ducati 916 compares in any way with a Toyota Camry? What about comparing these bikes with their equivalents – top of the line sports cars – the sums might even out a little there.

That’s one myth exploded, but it’s only a minor one.

They talk about the time taken to ‘get your gear on’ as negating any advantage to the trip time. OK, it does contribute, but when I take my bike to work, I park outside the door, not a ten minute walk away. Oh, and I park for free. That’s right, it doesn’t cost me any money to park my motorbike. In time, I expect this will change for the really busy areas of the city, but by then car drivers will be paying a congestion tax… I look forward to it!

Here’s another one to really rile the poor old cage dwellers: Motorcycles pay no tolls. That’s right, at least for now, there is no satisfactory way to attach an eTag to a bike and the law does not require a font number plate, so it’s too hard to charge tolls. So, while an average trip on Citylink racks up a toll charge of at least $5 your average motorcyclist pays nuthin!

Finally, if we get real and start talking about a commuter bike like my dear little CB250, you would be amazed how the dollars vanish from the balance sheet. It cost me less than $2000 to buy in good nick (30,000k) second hand. It hasn’t been off the road once in 2 years. Because it’s a very basic bike, I service it myself for typically less than $50 parts + liquid. I put a new (top quality) battery in it the other day for just $50… and it takes just $12 to run it for over 300km! (yep, just over 3l./100km.)

So, let’s say I lived in Essendon, commuted to South Melbourne five days a week. If you just count the tolls, petrol and parking, I’m going to be something like $20 a day better off. Over a typical working year of 220 days I’ve saved $4,400!

Unfortunately, I don’t have the readership of the Royalauto, so I doubt the truth will leak out and convert many car drivers any time soon – especially in the depths of winter as we are! Maybe the ‘journalist‘, David Morley, will read this, realise his mistake and take appropriate steps to rectify it in the next issue… maybe!

annoying news

Two items on tonight’s news got me annoyed for different reasons.

1. Politicians pay rises. No, I’m not against them getting a pay rise… lets face it, it’s a shit job!. No, the annoying thing was the smug way they say the raise was ‘fair‘ because it was awarded by an ‘independent judge’. That sounds alarmingly like the old Wage Tribunal process dismantled by this government in the process of setting up it’s current unfair system. In fact, isn’t it almost collective bargaining? I thought that had been outlawed? Truly, one law for them, another for all the rest of us.

2. Chris Hurley found not guilty of killing an Aboriginal man in custody. No, I’m not saying he’s guilty or any of that. Like anyone, he’s entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and there is room for doubt in the circumstances (it’s a squeeze, but it’s definitely there!). No, the really sad thing about this story is the perpetuation of mistrust and division, when 17 years ago a Royal Commission made recommendations that, if implemented, could possibly have avoided this terrible situation altogether. Another life lost and another ruined, arguably through government inaction.

Google is the new axis of evil

The Fairfax created “Brisbane Times” site blares out Terrorists also find Google useful, obviously this google maps thing is a threat to all of us! Presumably the terrorists also found computers rather useful – oh, and the internet! and probably Microsoft’s operating system… yep, we should ban the lot of them.

Alternatively, perhaps we could look at treating the cause of these problems rather than patching over the symptoms… nah! way too hard.

Apple’s new browser ;-)

Another Apple browser?Was doing a bit of ‘drag and drop’ on my mac a while back, when I accidentally ‘dropped’ in the wrong place. The result was a web page that rendered in the software update window.

Not really so surprising given the ubiquity of the webkit in Mac OSX, but to have it render pages so nicely – even with Javascript – was an amusing find.

I don’t know if this opens up a potential security issue, but I could see it as attractive to a nefarious person if they could render their own content into this window in an attempt to trick a user into doing something stupid.

So, how did Google do it?

Well, the fact is, they didn’t – entirely. Sure, it appears in Google’s wonderful maps, but the images were captured by a company called Immersive Media, who have developed these innovative products.

Immersive Media's wonder carIt seems that Immersive’s main thrust is moving images – spherical video with embedded geodata – very impressive stuff. In typical Google fashion, however, they’ve released a lo-fi version that really hits the spot. Other blogs have pointed out that the flash player used by google references individual tiles and stitches them together on the fly – very clever stuff.

Immersive say they’ve been taking these photos since 2005. I don’t know what the schedule was, but there is ample evidence of an improvement in the technology over time – the more recent images are substantially higher resolution – compare a New York shot at full zoom with one from San Francisco.

Further evidence of a time lag can be found by comparing the racy little VW with the groovy little camera – which you can occasionally catch a shadow of, with the shadow of a much less streamlined version.

All interesting enough – but really, we know it’s just damn good fun!

newly found – great close up of the van, and a blog post about google van self portraits too!.

google maps street view – amazing

When I first used google maps I was utterly speechless at the smooth way they could present the incredible amount of data that the system held. Well, they’ve done it again – in spades!

There are plenty of blog posts talking about it, but the instructions found at googlemapsmania are simple and easy:

head over to Google Maps, center the map on the US and click “Street View”. Click a city with a camera marker and zoom in to have a play.

Once you’re there, click anywhere on a blue outlined street and suspend all disbelief… this is a ‘virtual tour’ on a scale no-one has even dared dream about. For a quick way in, try this view of the Golden Gate Bay bridge (thanks Jeff), which Product Manager, Stephen Chau rates as his favourite.

The big question is HOW? This is a lot of work, in anyone’s language, so how have they done it? Not hard to see that the images are taken in sequence, about 25m apart, and there are reflections that suggest some sort of plastic bubble – probably mounted on top of a car. I would have expected this to be done with a one-shot pano camera, but some images show signs of being stitched (though maybe it’s those reflections again). I’m assuming they are located using geocodes, so that’s probably automated into the exif data… incredible stuff!

Another aspect which should not be overlooked, is that the ‘Link to this page’ link works as you’d hope (better than you’d expect!). It takes you to the map, the location, the view and the zoom level – all in one hit. Business is going to love this!

Just imagine what implications this has if they release some API hooks for the pano viewer!