Categories
Geek transport

Some phones can read #Myki cards. Could you one day check your expiry/balance on a phone?

For anybody with an NFC (Near Field Contact)-compatible phone (such as my new Google Nexus 5), you can use the this little app — Tag Info Lite to read Myki cards. Not that it’ll tell you very much — see below. All the actual useful information appears to be encrypted. Apparently in some parts of  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Pics from November 2003

Another of my collections of ten year old photos, this from November 2003. This rather striking (I thought) image is from near Seymour. I don’t remember the circumstances, but evidently it looked like a storm was coming across the hills. I’m working on a new blog template, to fix some bugs in the current one  ... [More]

Categories
Doctor Who

This tram is bigger on the inside #SaveTheDay

This tram is bigger on the inside: The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is fast approaching, and fans are getting into a fervour. Normally it’s only sports fans who wake up early to watch live TV. Sci-fi fans? Not so much. All that will change next Sunday morning, when the special anniversary episode Day Of  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Flinders St platform 11 would provide much-needed capacity – alas, they’re building a cafe instead

Regular passengers using Flinders Street Station will have noticed that while the platforms are numbered from 1 to 14, there’s no platform 11. It’s not a Harry Potter scenario with a hidden platform. There used to be a platform 11, the twin of 10, facing the river, and commonly used by St Kilda and Port  ... [More]

Categories
Geek

New phone: Google Nexus 5, first impressions

Over the years I’ve tried to avoid being sucked into buying the latest and greatest technology just for the sake of it. But I must admit being keen to check out the new Android 4.4 (Kit Kat) and Google Nexus 5 phone. What would I need a new phone for? I could put Kit Kat  ... [More]

Categories
transport

EWL “congestion-busting”? They promised that for Citylink, and it wasn’t.

Veteran road industry figure Max Lay made something of a startling admission last week in an opinion piece in The Age on the proposed East West Link: that the intent of major road projects isn’t to fix congestion: Opponents play the congestion card, arguing that previous projects have not eliminated congestion, forgetting that this was  ... [More]

Categories
transport

PTV unified rebranding – pros, cons, and is it the last ever?

The PTV logo is gradually replacing the Metlink and Viclink logos across the public transport network. It’s just the latest rebranding — remember, some trains and stations have had up to seven different logos in the last 20 years… from the old The Met three-pronged logo, to the newer Met logos, to Hillside/Bayside trains, to  ... [More]

Categories
transport

A look inside the new E-class trams

Melbourne’s first new trams in years — and the first Australian-built trams in about twenty years — were officially launched yesterday, after months of testing around the network. The first two “E-class” trams, numbered 6001 and 6002 started service. I managed to catch one for a ride at lunchtime. As you can see from the  ... [More]

Categories
Culture transport

New sculpture: W-class tram

Speaking of sculpture, there’s a rather splendid new one at the corner of Spencer and Flinders Streets — a full-size replica of a W-class tram. Officially titled “Raising the Rattler Pole – The Last of the Connies”, it was installed last week, and when I went by a day or two later, appeared to be  ... [More]

Categories
Sport Travel

Nagambie’s new life-size statue of Black Caviar

On the way up to Rutherglen for the wedding, we detoured past Nagambie on family business and to stop for lunch. Nagambie’s bypass opened earlier this year. Traffic between Melbourne and Shepparton therefore no longer goes via the town, and it’s obvious that they’ve been trying to work out how to ensure some people still  ... [More]

Categories
Friends and loved ones Retrospectives

VCE exams – good luck everybody

I was 25 when I first had kids. One outcome of this is that my eldest son’s education is running 25 years after mine. The dates don’t match up completely — the main event, the English exam, for me was on 7th November 1988. For this year’s VCE, it’s today. Good luck Isaac, and all  ... [More]

Categories
Friends and loved ones

A glorious day, and a country wedding

It was a glorious weekend in Rutherglen, where I had the privilege of attending a family wedding. Here’s one shot the official photographer didn’t get… Congratulations, Adrian and Donna.