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Geek Melbourne

Visitors and cameras

The Rugby State of Origin game was last night. You can tell the tourists are in town, from the number of cars with interstate numberplates rolling unwittingly down Swanston Street Walk, and the confused questions on the tram about using the ticket machines, and getting to St Kilda Beach.

Oh yeah, I just got a camera phone. So now I’ll have a camera with me virtually everywhere I go.

Ten years ago, I was in the States for a few weeks, and I recall a big concert to raise funds to give citizens camcorders, to capture the next big Rodney King beating-style incident. To help bring justice to the masses. Funny to think these days the technology’s so cheap many people have cameras in their phones.

Has it brought justice to the masses? Well increasingly images make the news these days, and the media are certainly making more and more use of pictures provided by the general public.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

7 replies on “Visitors and cameras”

I’ve only had it a few days. No drama (uhh apart from an initial phone which had a faulty button and had to go back to the shop). I’ll probably post a detailed assessment in a week or two on geekrant.

The photo of the bin the other day was also taken with the phone.

Funny how some cameras these days never seem to capture number plates properly. I wonder if they have that problem with speed cameras.

Philip, it came out legible and clear (in fact before I shrunk it down, you could make out the smaller “New South Wales” lettering too). I’ve blurred it because I don’t want our poor visitors to get into trouble for something they’re ignorant of. They came straight down Swanston St, across LaTrobe St. It would seem the signage there wasn’t clear enough to stop them.

I think the presence of vehicles in that street should be a signal to the MCC traffic engineers that this road closure just isn’t credible, and doesn’t appear to be a ‘walk’. Part of the problem will be all the taxis and delivery vehicles using the road, together with the non-walk-like appearance of the street (compared with Bourke St).

But this argument has been worked through before and the result is still on the ground so I’ll shut up…..

Dear Daniel, the State of Origin match was in Rugby League. Now I know it is difficult for the majority of Victorians to even recognise another code besides AFL but they do exist.

There is Rugby – short for Rugby Union played with 15 men on the field most of whom come from posh private schools and who have, until recently, pretended to be amatuers.

There is League – short for Rugby League which is played with 13 men on the field most of whom don’t come from posh private schools and who have always been professional footballers. This is the code in which State of Origin is played.

There is Football – the name by which Soccer afficionados prefer their game to be known. And, I know that AFL people think they have the copright on the word Footy but they don’t. What do you think Australians in the other codes of football have been going to on a Saturday afternoon for generation after generation – footy, of course. The one difference is that while AFL refuses to concede the term to anyone else, Rugby and League supporters recognise Soccer as the oldest game – and in fact the game from which Rugby and League derive – and if they want to claim the term Football or Footy they won’t argue – but you don’t see them removing the F from their names either.

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