Categories
TV

The digital TV re-tune 7th Feb – and: It’s nice to know genuine technological reform can happen

This Friday 7th February is Melbourne’s re-tune day for digital television. This is when the frequencies of some channels change, so they can make more efficient use of the spectrum. If you don’t re-tune your digital TV devices, you may find some channels don’t work after this. Hopefully most people will figure out how to  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

For sale: Idyllic home

What do you think of this house for sale? Inner-city location, described by the real estate agents as an “Idyllic home/Office”. Very cute. Wait a minute. Zoom out. Zoom out a bit more. Turns out it’s on Kings Way, dwarfed by surrounding buildings, and almost drowning in passing traffic. It reminds me a bit of  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Are the PSOs having an effect? Survey suggests no, but anecdotal evidence suggests yes.

Interesting article: PSOs do little for train passenger confidence: Data from a survey conducted by the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency shows in 2012-13, 24.2 per cent of Victorians reported feeling safe or very safe on public transport at night. This was a small increase on the previous year, in which 23.7 per cent  ... [More]

Categories
books

Beware of being distracted by portable reading devices

These days, some people are so addicted to their portable reading devices that they barely look where they’re going.

Categories
transport

The 601 is the most important train-bus connection at Huntingdale. Why is it missing from the signs?

The 601 Monash University express shuttle service runs every four minutes during semester time weekdays. It provides a high-frequency, rapid connection from the station to the university campus. Thanks to good publicity from the University, it has a high level of awareness among students and staff, and is used for tens of thousands of trips  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne transport

Service Kilometres Per Capita – are public transport services keeping up with population growth?

In the face of Labor’s proposal for 24-hour trains and trams at weekends, the State Coalition has been talking up its credentials in public transport. This tweet from Acting Public Transport Minister David Hodgett for example: Only the Coalition can be trusted to deliver better public transport for Victoria: 1,078 extra metro trains &3,870 extra  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism Geek

Daniel vs the ATM

My recollection is that Automatic Teller Machines used to be much simpler devices, and much faster. I’m sure back in the day I timed myself getting cash using the basic buttons and 1-2 line dot-matrix LED “display” they had back then and had it down to under 30 seconds. These days ATMs are complex beasts  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Labor’s all-night PT proposal (and how do other cities manage 24-hour trains?)

Sometimes you see claims that lots of other major cities have all-night trains (so we should have them too). Recently I went looking to see which do. Well, a lot of the world’s biggest cities don’t. Paris — last train around 12:30am Hong Kong — last train around midnight (some earlier, some 1am) London —  ... [More]

Categories
Home life

Standing on the inside looking out – graphing my house temperature in the heatwave

So, how did my old wooden house cope with the heat? It’s not brilliant, but it’s also not unbearable. I was at home most of Tuesday, and graphed the temperature rise. Inside temperature from the thermostat / Outside from the BOM Moorabbin Airport readings. Unlike last time (2010), the overnight temperature had been a lot  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from January 2004

Another batch of photos from ten years ago: January 2004. My old kitchen in the house I rented in Carnegie for two years, with the horrible lime green bench tops. Also showing old toaster, the old milk I used to buy, an old land line phone (now plugged into the VOIP modem/router) and the kettle  ... [More]

Categories
Home life

Ceiling fan – and the forthcoming heat apocalypse

I’ve got a new ceiling fan in the kitchen. The bloke at the lighting shop said that in a kitchen, a metal fan is good because it can be easily cleaned — whereas in a bedroom, quieter wooden fans are more often used. He also reckoned for the size of the room, the larger 52  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Summer timetables = planned train crowding (See a problem? Get the evidence)

If you missed it last night: Channel 7: Frustration over summer timetable: Scores of train services have been cancelled and the Metro system will run to a limited summer timetable, even though most people will have returned to work. Jacqueline Felgate reports. Here’s a PTUA press release, and the raw footage: It was shot on  ... [More]