This is becoming a far-to-frequent scene in Australia. Oddly, I don't feel the slightest bit sorry for these two, if anything I'm thankful they didn't take any innocent bystander with them, and I hope the car owner had insurance.
The Australian government cannot get a handle on road fatalities due to speeding and/or drinking, especially amongst the younger generations.
So I'd like to offer a 4-step solution to the problem.
Step 1: Mandatory driver education. I'm not talking about some tax-payer funded fuddy-duddy coming into a classroom for a day. I'm talking parent-funded, after-school accredited course as part of an L-Plater permit. None of this crap with driver logs which parents can't be bothered, or don't have time to be honest about. New drivers should attend courses every week, either evenings or weekends, and they should be tested by professional drivers at intervals. They pull any kind of crap, no license. If parents can't afford to pay for their kids to go, or can't make time to arrange to get their kids to the lessons, well, they can wait to learn to drive, it obviously isn't that important.
Step 2: Stringent P-Plate restrictions on allowable family vehicles. 1.5L maximum engine volume, and no after-market accessories. If a cop spots a "P" sticker on a non-conforming vehicle, warning fine, and then loss of license. Special exemptions can be granted for tradies and the like that may need access to drive a Ute or a Van as part of their job while on a "P"-Plate. If the family car is a Commodore V8? sorry, get sonny a used Metro or Barina to park out front. You'll save most of the purchase price, and resale value on the insurance premium.
Step 3: Setup legal, and reasonably safe outlets for driving enthusiasm. Race tracks staffed by professional drivers. Let people hire cars, or sign a disclaimer and use their own car. Drag races, lap-timed rounds on a closed circuit, and scheduled multi-car races. Have an ambulance standing by on-site for races with a simple rule. No ambulance, no race. Someone does something stupid and gets hurt, no one has any fun until the ambulance comes back. Let people keep themselves in check. They muck up their car? Too bad, call a tow-truck.
Step 4: Adopt a no-strikes attitude to wreckless driving behaviour. Pull any kind of crap on public roads and you lose your license and your car. It's a family car? Too bad, you and your parents should have thought of that before they let you take it out. No, and I mean NO give-backs. Too many deaths are caused as a result of 2nd or 3rd offences where an idiot's parents got back the confiscated vehicle, and the kid went out and killed themselves, or worse, someone else as a result. If parents are inconvenienced because "their" stupid kid lost them their car, then GOOD. They can always get another car, and keep the keys away from the kid until they've taught or beat some sense into them. They can't go out and buy a new kid.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
They're at it again.
Lowering prices? That's anti-competitive!
This has to be an Australian tradition, something they should add to the citizen test if they want to reduce the number of immigrants to this country. "Define how capitalist competition works in Australia." Every rational attempt at an answer would automatically be wrong.
Telstra, one of the most grossly, over-expensive, piece of poo Internet service providers on the market, actually wants to lower its prices? BOOO!! That's anti-competitive! The problem? Internet, like groceries, and pretty much any consumer goods provider or service in Australia is based on a Fat-Cat sense of economy. Companies love this economy because the biggest cats nudge prices ever upwards, while reducing costs (and quality of service) downwards, leaving lots of room for "healthy competition." Except when that competition has it so easy, there is no competition. Each cat is as fat as the next, and 20% market share or 25% market share doesn't matter in the slightest. Except in Internet there are some 100+ players comfortably splitting the market. Australia is more competitive! See, we have over 100 competing internet providers! (Disclaimer: operating off of one of two networks) Dave! That's not competition, that's collusion!
And Telstra, who own the largest chunk of the network that this "competition" operates on goes and says: "They can get access to our network for as little as $2.50 a month and use their own equipment to make healthy margins," $2.50 a month?? Where the CHEAPEST plan you can typically get (where you don't get fiscally molested for not obeying a legion of conditions) is around $30/month.
Fat, fat cats.
This has to be an Australian tradition, something they should add to the citizen test if they want to reduce the number of immigrants to this country. "Define how capitalist competition works in Australia." Every rational attempt at an answer would automatically be wrong.
Telstra, one of the most grossly, over-expensive, piece of poo Internet service providers on the market, actually wants to lower its prices? BOOO!! That's anti-competitive! The problem? Internet, like groceries, and pretty much any consumer goods provider or service in Australia is based on a Fat-Cat sense of economy. Companies love this economy because the biggest cats nudge prices ever upwards, while reducing costs (and quality of service) downwards, leaving lots of room for "healthy competition." Except when that competition has it so easy, there is no competition. Each cat is as fat as the next, and 20% market share or 25% market share doesn't matter in the slightest. Except in Internet there are some 100+ players comfortably splitting the market. Australia is more competitive! See, we have over 100 competing internet providers! (Disclaimer: operating off of one of two networks) Dave! That's not competition, that's collusion!
And Telstra, who own the largest chunk of the network that this "competition" operates on goes and says: "They can get access to our network for as little as $2.50 a month and use their own equipment to make healthy margins," $2.50 a month?? Where the CHEAPEST plan you can typically get (where you don't get fiscally molested for not obeying a legion of conditions) is around $30/month.
Fat, fat cats.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Bureaucrats 0, Cyclists 0, Police Coffers +158
A classic in bureaucratic short-sightedness. Brisbane and other Australian cities have been coming under fire to provide green solutions to traffic congestion issues in and around the CBD areas. At some point they clued into programs running in Europe for cycle hire stations. Think of them like shopping cart bays scattered around the city where you can hire a bike for a modest fee so long as the bike is returned to any of the other docking stations. A perfect solution for people looking to get between key places around the city without waiting for overcrowded busses, provided they're willing to put in the pedal-power. Sounds like a good idea, a pretty good idea, until you catch one itsy-bitsy detail that differs between Australian and European cities... Cycle helmet laws.
Australia is a nanny state. In participating European cities, wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle is recommended, but optional, however in Australia it is compulsary. And guess what: at cycle hire stations, helmets are not provided.
So people are expected to carry around a bike helmet in their travels so that they can catch a train to the city and ride a bike over the river to SouthBank. Yeah, ok.
A recent protest of sorts to promote the cycle-hire scheme and ditch the goofy helmet law was arranged in Melbourne, where the first few months saw only around 70 trips on their initial 600 bike setup. (After a nice tax-funded $5.5M setup fee) People showed up to hire bikes wearing no helmet or other recommended safety gear. Their point? That in a country where over 1 in 10 people is overweight the focus should be on ensuring cycling is accessible and safe without scaring people away from it. Of course the police showed up in 3 cruisers and issued $158 fines to everyone that rode more than 200m without a helmet, forcing everyone to walk the remainder of the trip. Nice to know the police are handy to stop this kind of nonsense instead of helping people on the trams threatened within an inch of their life. Your average Tram attack in Melbourne according to the driver. Of course if police were there to help out they'd probably be putting themselves in harms way, and wouldn't have collected $158 a head.
So in total, the various state governments will spend over $14M setting up cycle hires that will be woefully under-used due to a dumb-ass law. Maybe they'll plan to raid Police coffers for some of the expected helmet offence revenue.
Australia is a nanny state. In participating European cities, wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle is recommended, but optional, however in Australia it is compulsary. And guess what: at cycle hire stations, helmets are not provided.
So people are expected to carry around a bike helmet in their travels so that they can catch a train to the city and ride a bike over the river to SouthBank. Yeah, ok.
A recent protest of sorts to promote the cycle-hire scheme and ditch the goofy helmet law was arranged in Melbourne, where the first few months saw only around 70 trips on their initial 600 bike setup. (After a nice tax-funded $5.5M setup fee) People showed up to hire bikes wearing no helmet or other recommended safety gear. Their point? That in a country where over 1 in 10 people is overweight the focus should be on ensuring cycling is accessible and safe without scaring people away from it. Of course the police showed up in 3 cruisers and issued $158 fines to everyone that rode more than 200m without a helmet, forcing everyone to walk the remainder of the trip. Nice to know the police are handy to stop this kind of nonsense instead of helping people on the trams threatened within an inch of their life. Your average Tram attack in Melbourne according to the driver. Of course if police were there to help out they'd probably be putting themselves in harms way, and wouldn't have collected $158 a head.
So in total, the various state governments will spend over $14M setting up cycle hires that will be woefully under-used due to a dumb-ass law. Maybe they'll plan to raid Police coffers for some of the expected helmet offence revenue.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Griffith cracks me up.
Griffith University has a habit of periodically creating some inspirational commercials for television and radio for various courses they offer. Whether for Engineering, showing graduates heading over to Malaysia, Business, which featured a graduate I worked with when I first came to Australia, or something like Forensic Science. They do a good job making everything sound so damned, well, interesting.
This morning on the short drive to work, I was listening to their latest campaign. Aimed at people that had a passion for law, and making a difference in the community. Here I was thinking they were describing a course for people to become a judge, or maybe law enforcement, or politics? That was until the ending address:
"Come into Griffith and find out why the world needs more lawyers."
This morning on the short drive to work, I was listening to their latest campaign. Aimed at people that had a passion for law, and making a difference in the community. Here I was thinking they were describing a course for people to become a judge, or maybe law enforcement, or politics? That was until the ending address:
"Come into Griffith and find out why the world needs more lawyers."
Thursday, July 15, 2010
World Cup 2010
Well, it's over and done, and another year of seriously boring matches, a few gems of matches, and a good dose of controversy.
First and foremost I think Luis Suarez deserves to burn in Hell for degrading the sport of football to his pathetic level after deliberately hand-balling a well fought-for Ghana goal which would have saw Ghana playing Holland, then likely Germany for 3rd place. Both teams were tied at 2 all well into extra time when Ghana got a rebound past the keeper. Two Uruguay players were camped out on the goal line and when the first missed heading it away, Suarex batted the ball away with both hands. A handball around goal is typically an automatic Red card and match ban for the offender, plus a penalty kick. Now in cases where a goal isn't clearly able to be determined (such as a ball hitting an arm before reaching the keeper) this is sufficient, but for a player to make a deliberate act at stopping a goal by accepting a red card, that is absolutely against the spirit of the game. The sad thing was that Ghana's striker missed the penalty kick which meant the game went to penalties and Uruguay eeked out an advance. It doesn't get more deliberate than this:
http://www.sportpost.com/video/view/Uruguay+hand+ball+and+Red+Card+vs+Ghana+World+Cup
Uruguay's coach defended the red card stating the player has been adequately penalized and he had no way of knowing that Ghana would have missed the penalty kick. That's completely beside the point. The player knew full well that ball was going in, and that there was at least a chance that Ghana would miss their penalty shot.
FIFA is apparently considering allowing for penalty goals after this incident, but I doubt they'll change the rules.
There are also calls for an introduction to technological aides for referees after the Germany - England match where England was very unluckily denied an equalizer goal just before half-time when a shot off the crossbar landed a good foot or so behind the goal line, then bounced back up to the cross bar, and bounced back on the goal line before the German keeper recovered it and cleared it downfield with a hurried kick. The referee had not seen the first bounce behind the goal line. While Germany went on to win 4-2, it's interesting to think what a difference in momentum there might have been had England equalized before the break.
Still I'm sure more than a few fans that travelled to South Africa might have felt a bit ripped off with some of the games. Notably the Spain vs. Portugal first round game where the teams were already 1-2 so they played to a nil-nil draw to advance. (yawn) I don't think I could have sat to 90+ minutes of continuous droning from those bloody Vuvuzelas. IMO, Africans have a few screws loose when it comes to celebrating during a game, but I guess it beats gunfire. The Spain - Holland final wasn't particularly entertaining, decided only in the last few minutes of extra time.
For me, the match of the tournament was the 3rd place bout between Germany and Uruguay. Uruguay went up 2-1 with what I consider one of the best strikes of the tournament from Diego Forlan. He didn't hit the ball square, and instead of heading at the net it headed at high-speed for the turf and after a rocket of a bounce, streaked into the net well within reach of an awestruck (or screened) German keeper. Germany managed to equalize shortly after, but right up until the last 10 minutes Germany appeared to have run out of steam and were looking pretty desperate to fend off constant presses from Uruguay. Their final goal in the dying minutes was sheer magic. Still one German player deserved a good slap across the back of the head for drawing a penalty during Uruguay's last desperate ghasp. Fortunately Forlan couldn't summon up the magic for his free kick, sending their last chance off the crossbar.
First and foremost I think Luis Suarez deserves to burn in Hell for degrading the sport of football to his pathetic level after deliberately hand-balling a well fought-for Ghana goal which would have saw Ghana playing Holland, then likely Germany for 3rd place. Both teams were tied at 2 all well into extra time when Ghana got a rebound past the keeper. Two Uruguay players were camped out on the goal line and when the first missed heading it away, Suarex batted the ball away with both hands. A handball around goal is typically an automatic Red card and match ban for the offender, plus a penalty kick. Now in cases where a goal isn't clearly able to be determined (such as a ball hitting an arm before reaching the keeper) this is sufficient, but for a player to make a deliberate act at stopping a goal by accepting a red card, that is absolutely against the spirit of the game. The sad thing was that Ghana's striker missed the penalty kick which meant the game went to penalties and Uruguay eeked out an advance. It doesn't get more deliberate than this:
http://www.sportpost.com/video/view/Uruguay+hand+ball+and+Red+Card+vs+Ghana+World+Cup
Uruguay's coach defended the red card stating the player has been adequately penalized and he had no way of knowing that Ghana would have missed the penalty kick. That's completely beside the point. The player knew full well that ball was going in, and that there was at least a chance that Ghana would miss their penalty shot.
FIFA is apparently considering allowing for penalty goals after this incident, but I doubt they'll change the rules.
There are also calls for an introduction to technological aides for referees after the Germany - England match where England was very unluckily denied an equalizer goal just before half-time when a shot off the crossbar landed a good foot or so behind the goal line, then bounced back up to the cross bar, and bounced back on the goal line before the German keeper recovered it and cleared it downfield with a hurried kick. The referee had not seen the first bounce behind the goal line. While Germany went on to win 4-2, it's interesting to think what a difference in momentum there might have been had England equalized before the break.
Still I'm sure more than a few fans that travelled to South Africa might have felt a bit ripped off with some of the games. Notably the Spain vs. Portugal first round game where the teams were already 1-2 so they played to a nil-nil draw to advance. (yawn) I don't think I could have sat to 90+ minutes of continuous droning from those bloody Vuvuzelas. IMO, Africans have a few screws loose when it comes to celebrating during a game, but I guess it beats gunfire. The Spain - Holland final wasn't particularly entertaining, decided only in the last few minutes of extra time.
For me, the match of the tournament was the 3rd place bout between Germany and Uruguay. Uruguay went up 2-1 with what I consider one of the best strikes of the tournament from Diego Forlan. He didn't hit the ball square, and instead of heading at the net it headed at high-speed for the turf and after a rocket of a bounce, streaked into the net well within reach of an awestruck (or screened) German keeper. Germany managed to equalize shortly after, but right up until the last 10 minutes Germany appeared to have run out of steam and were looking pretty desperate to fend off constant presses from Uruguay. Their final goal in the dying minutes was sheer magic. Still one German player deserved a good slap across the back of the head for drawing a penalty during Uruguay's last desperate ghasp. Fortunately Forlan couldn't summon up the magic for his free kick, sending their last chance off the crossbar.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Nothing says "you eat too much" quite like a stomache flu
I've been wrestling with a bug since last Tuesday morning, I'm pretty sure I'm over the worst of it now, but I'm still well on guard. Combine the lack of appetite, expedited exit of pretty much anything I eat or drink, and the extra excercise sprinting to the washroom, needless to say I've lost a few kilos. And that is a good thing.
Probably the only good thing that can come from a stomache flu is the chance to "reset" your appetite. Not only in what you eat, but more importantly, how much you eat. As I've begun gingerly returning to the dinner table to eat something, just enough to not provoke a rapid sprint a hour later, I realized how much beyond "enough" I put away every meal. Right now I'm eating probably a bit less than 1/2 what I normally do, and I'm not getting hungry.
I know that when you eat too much, your stomache stretches which means it doesn't feel full next time until you put more food in it. Then when you over-do it again it stretches more, leaving you eating far more than you should be. The fix is to eat slower, and eat less, so that the stomache starts to shrink back down to normal size. But the stomache sends powerful signals, so sometimes you need something that sends a more powerful signal.
So, the next time you feel the motivation to start losing weight, give yourself the edge and catch a good strong bug. The urge NOT to end up spending 5/10 minutes on the toilet completely blocks the normal "Feed me Seymour!"
Probably the only good thing that can come from a stomache flu is the chance to "reset" your appetite. Not only in what you eat, but more importantly, how much you eat. As I've begun gingerly returning to the dinner table to eat something, just enough to not provoke a rapid sprint a hour later, I realized how much beyond "enough" I put away every meal. Right now I'm eating probably a bit less than 1/2 what I normally do, and I'm not getting hungry.
I know that when you eat too much, your stomache stretches which means it doesn't feel full next time until you put more food in it. Then when you over-do it again it stretches more, leaving you eating far more than you should be. The fix is to eat slower, and eat less, so that the stomache starts to shrink back down to normal size. But the stomache sends powerful signals, so sometimes you need something that sends a more powerful signal.
So, the next time you feel the motivation to start losing weight, give yourself the edge and catch a good strong bug. The urge NOT to end up spending 5/10 minutes on the toilet completely blocks the normal "Feed me Seymour!"
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Goodness! There is something in Oz with a volume discount.
Shopping in Oz makes me twitch and occassionally burst out into uncontrollable chuckling. Australians don't get the joke, they've live here their whole life so it's perfectly normal to them.
Australian products do not offer volume discounting. You can buy various products in various sizes/quantities, but your price per item or per g/kg remains typically the same. What I find strange is that the advertising on the product even bothers to use terms like "value pack". Value pack?? just where is the value in 6 for $2.95, 12 for $5.90, or a 24 "value pack" for $11.80? When there is a discount, it's rarely even 1%. Competitors confuse matters by ensuring products are offered with different volumes, weights, or quantities. The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has recently stepped in and started requiring retailers, particularly grocery retailers to display prices per unit or per 100g as applicable. Perhaps a few Australians will start to question why a retailer sells three different sizes for each brand and variety of toothpaste for virtually the same price per 100g.
However, I have finally found something sold in Australia where buying in volume does have a noticeable effect on price. Paint and the like. While shopping for floor finishes for my stair project I was shocked to see floor coverings sold in 1, 4, and 10L containers, for $30, $65, and $105 respectively.
Unbelievable.
Australian products do not offer volume discounting. You can buy various products in various sizes/quantities, but your price per item or per g/kg remains typically the same. What I find strange is that the advertising on the product even bothers to use terms like "value pack". Value pack?? just where is the value in 6 for $2.95, 12 for $5.90, or a 24 "value pack" for $11.80? When there is a discount, it's rarely even 1%. Competitors confuse matters by ensuring products are offered with different volumes, weights, or quantities. The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has recently stepped in and started requiring retailers, particularly grocery retailers to display prices per unit or per 100g as applicable. Perhaps a few Australians will start to question why a retailer sells three different sizes for each brand and variety of toothpaste for virtually the same price per 100g.
However, I have finally found something sold in Australia where buying in volume does have a noticeable effect on price. Paint and the like. While shopping for floor finishes for my stair project I was shocked to see floor coverings sold in 1, 4, and 10L containers, for $30, $65, and $105 respectively.
Unbelievable.
Stairs & Roof
What a curious couple of weekends this has been. Since we bought our house it has been in pretty desperate need of some TLC. The roof and stairs have been particular eyesores I've had to look at every day since moving in. The roof is Concrete tile, an extremely common roofing material in this region, and must be a major nightmare for Australian firefighers. I've got to figure there is at least a tonne or two of concrete covering the average house. Durable stuff, but with time it develops some pretty catastrophic faults if it's not maintained. 1. Tiles crack, break, and slip out of position. This lets water in. 2. Ridge caps (points) need to be cemented down in place, these can work loose, and in severe winds from an unfortunate direction, lifted out of place. This lets water in. Combine these faults with the potential for torrential drenchings through the summer, then a roof containing around 2-dozen cracked tiles, and loose points left me really uneasy last summer.
But finally it's no longer an issue. We've contracted in a pretty good roofing company who've replaced all of those cracked tiles, re-bedded all of the points, cleaned it all up, and given it a beautiful couple of coats of paint. Scratch one off the list.
Now for the stairs. This was one I was determined to tackle myself. It looked like one of the previous 2 owners had made an attempt at re-coating the oak staircase in the house, but they did a pretty half-assed job of it. The stain / coating had gone seriously yellow, and the edges and corners of the steps appeared faded or chipped. Obviously they had at least attempted to sand back the previous coating before applying new Polyurethane, but hadn't sanded back into the corners and sides. I was determined to correct this issue. At first I was wondering what stain to use, but after a couple trips to Bunnings to compare samples it looked like a nice Oil-based Polyurethane on the raw timber would produce the look we wanted. I picked up a $35 orbital sander which I didn't expect to get through much more than this set of stairs but it has been holding up magnificently, barely heating up at all with several hours of continuous sanding. I had been working the sides and corners using paper and a small wooden toy triangle block (handy having a baby:) but wasn't fully happy with the result. It was a lot cleaner than the previous attempt had gone over, but not quite.
A chance conversation with the painter who was working on the roof as he was cleaning up proved to be an ace. Use a file. I had to make a trip to Bunnings before I started staining to upgrade the amount of Poly for the stairs, so I started looking around at files before settling on a small, half-curve file for $10. It worked out better than I could have imagined at cleaning out the corners, sides, and even running down the back edge to scrape away stuff. In the end I still managed to miss one corner. (bugger) I just put down the second coat this morning and will do the third coat this evening but already the stairs look 10x better than they did. Still, it's turning into a 3-weekend job when I had thought originally it would only take 1 weekend. I had guessed that the initial sanding would take about 3 hours. It took over 9, even with a powered sander. In sanding the stairs I originally didn't plan to do any risers until I got a close look at the risers on the 2nd half of the staircase. Ah well, it did mean we could spend extra time planning and preparing. Next weekend will be the risers.
And that will be the first 2 off the list. Only 98 remaining. :)
But finally it's no longer an issue. We've contracted in a pretty good roofing company who've replaced all of those cracked tiles, re-bedded all of the points, cleaned it all up, and given it a beautiful couple of coats of paint. Scratch one off the list.
Now for the stairs. This was one I was determined to tackle myself. It looked like one of the previous 2 owners had made an attempt at re-coating the oak staircase in the house, but they did a pretty half-assed job of it. The stain / coating had gone seriously yellow, and the edges and corners of the steps appeared faded or chipped. Obviously they had at least attempted to sand back the previous coating before applying new Polyurethane, but hadn't sanded back into the corners and sides. I was determined to correct this issue. At first I was wondering what stain to use, but after a couple trips to Bunnings to compare samples it looked like a nice Oil-based Polyurethane on the raw timber would produce the look we wanted. I picked up a $35 orbital sander which I didn't expect to get through much more than this set of stairs but it has been holding up magnificently, barely heating up at all with several hours of continuous sanding. I had been working the sides and corners using paper and a small wooden toy triangle block (handy having a baby:) but wasn't fully happy with the result. It was a lot cleaner than the previous attempt had gone over, but not quite.
A chance conversation with the painter who was working on the roof as he was cleaning up proved to be an ace. Use a file. I had to make a trip to Bunnings before I started staining to upgrade the amount of Poly for the stairs, so I started looking around at files before settling on a small, half-curve file for $10. It worked out better than I could have imagined at cleaning out the corners, sides, and even running down the back edge to scrape away stuff. In the end I still managed to miss one corner. (bugger) I just put down the second coat this morning and will do the third coat this evening but already the stairs look 10x better than they did. Still, it's turning into a 3-weekend job when I had thought originally it would only take 1 weekend. I had guessed that the initial sanding would take about 3 hours. It took over 9, even with a powered sander. In sanding the stairs I originally didn't plan to do any risers until I got a close look at the risers on the 2nd half of the staircase. Ah well, it did mean we could spend extra time planning and preparing. Next weekend will be the risers.
And that will be the first 2 off the list. Only 98 remaining. :)
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