Seems some people can’t see the trees for the forest. A HIGH school has banned bicycles because it has no bike shed and it doesn’t want to encourage students who refuse to wear helmets. Hume Central Secondary College’s policy has puzzled health and cycling groups amid growing concern about childhood obesity. … In the same ... [More]
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Parking too close
You’re meant to park at least one metre away from other cars, I guess so they have a chance of getting out of their parking spot: If parking bays are not marked, you must leave at least one metre between your vehicle and those in front and behind. — VicRoads But how does anybody get ... [More]
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The new computer
Every 3-4 years I’ll buy a new computer. Here’s the latest, a reconditioned (with warranty) HP Pavilion a6760a, to be called “Haddock”. For the record (because often years later I come back and compare what I got for how much) the specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 (2.8 GHz), 2Gb RAM, 500 Gb hard ... [More]
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Almost sci-fi pictures
There was a bloke on the train covering his eyes. A picture of him could be captioned: Don’t blink! But it would be wrong to publish such a photo without his permission. Instead I give you this, found in a street in Footscray. Let’s hope it’s bigger on the inside. And it was nice to ... [More]
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The storm
It just took almost two and a half hours to drive from Glen Huntly to Footscray. Here’s why. Glen Huntly. The hail was bouncing off the cars. …and the gutters quickly flooded… …but that was nothing to Caulfield North… …and St Kilda Road. Kingsway wasn’t pretty — much under water, traffic lights out, and lots ... [More]
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Diversity of culture
In the history of recorded music, given the choice, there are few tunes I would be less inclined to listen to than “Careless Whisper” (perhaps better known by the lyric “Never gonna dance again”) by George Michael. Yet a lady on the train on Wednesday morning was listening to it on her iPod. All the ... [More]
Metro Trains boss Andrew Lezala remarked on Tuesday at the Parliamentary Select Committee on Train Services that he hoped to see rail patronage double by 2020. “Our overall plan is to double patronage on the railway during the life of the franchise, which requires a major increase in the system’s capacity.” I think there’s two ... [More]
A few quick reviews of things I’ve read or watched recently… (The DVDs fall into the category of “I’ve been meaning to watch that; I’ll buy that if it’s less than $10. Ooh, there it is!” One book was borrowed, the other I got for Christmas.) A Hard Day’s Night — got this cheap on ... [More]
This is not progress. This is the corner of Flinders Lane and Spring Street, in the CBD. Should be a priority pedestrian area — it’s certainly flagged that way under the SmartRoads strategy. But the zebra crossing that was here before has been removed and replaced with a traffic light. Which means that while before ... [More]
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The timewaster
The curse of the Internet and the short attention span — there’s too much stuff to look at. So I check my email. Then I have a look in Google Reader. What’s Twitter doing? Okay. Facebook? My turn in Scrabble yet? Might check a couple of the news sites and see what’s happening. And the ... [More]
For a while now, VicRoads has been working on a plan to allocate different priorities to different roads around Melbourne. Rather than the free-for-all we sometimes see now, some roads would be setup to emphasise pedestrian priority, some bus, some tram, and some would be “preferred traffic routes” and lesser “other traffic routes”. I suspect ... [More]
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The quest for policies
Some of the letters in the papers (particularly the local paper) are obviously from cranks, but many are worthwhile, and this one in this week’s Moorabbin Glen Eira Leader just perfectly enunciates what I suspect a lot of people are thinking: Libs need to state policies IN RESPONSE to the letter by the Liberal candidate ... [More]
It must be an election year — in the past few weeks we’ve got fridge magnets with emergency numbers, from both our federal Member of Parliament Andrew Robb (Liberal) and also from state MP Rob Hudson (Labor). So, you know how I like to treat political issues seriously. Which fridge magnet is better? Rob Hudson ... [More]
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ISP shopping part 2
An update on my ISP shopping post from a couple of weeks ago: Netspace rang me up to discuss my concerns (they found the post themselves), and to let me know there was some progress on resolving them: Advice of network outages — they said there is already a project underway to advise of outages ... [More]
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Frequency vs no transfer
I was pondering the airport “shuttle” services. Take the Frankston/Peninsula one. It picks up in Moorabbin about once an hour on weekdays. It gets to the airport 80-90 minutes later, charging $28 for an adult. Across the street from the bus stop is Moorabbin station. The train runs every 15 minutes on weekdays, takes 27-34 ... [More]
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The Age’s new home page
This is what appeared on The Age’s home page this morning (with my additions). They explained that thereโs a new video tab, which youโll see when the lead story is best told in video. Eh? How is Ultimate Fighting in any way to be regarded as the lead story? Unless Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott ... [More]