Sum ergo cogito, cogito ergo dubito

#UKriots: A personal timeline and call for some rationality.

2011-08-12T03:26:00.002+10:00

The big news story at the moment, probably in some small part related to but currently eclipsing the global financial "whoops," is the little breakdown in law and order in the UK, where the world is now observing that America and Arab, African and poor countries have no monopoly on rioting and looting. Human behaviour is never simple, and society is never a simple collection of humans. Perhaps

A brief rant on evidence and debate quality - wind turbine edition

2011-07-25T22:24:00.001+10:00

The ABC's 4 Corners has just broadcast an episode on wind farms and the people who claim they're hazardous to human health. I knew it was going to annoy me and it did. Even ignoring the people who say inane tripe like "What if a piece the size of a Commodore broke off?" (gee, what if a Commodore ran into someone? Or they, you know, like, built it properly?), the entire debate is, no real

Arguing from ignorance only makes you look ignorant

2011-06-25T02:05:00.000+10:00

God, is this thing still here? Over the past six months or, to be perfectly honest, year, my rant/discuss energy has been diluted by twitter, which makes it too easy to make simple statements of opinion or belief without developing the argument, and Facebook, which does something similar. Which is of course the trouble with most social media - it makes it far too easy to comment, argue and

How (not) to manage a trial version of software

2011-03-11T01:17:00.000+10:00

There are essentially five models to selling software over the internet: Don't, it's free Allow download only after purchase Give away a limited free trial Give away an "ad-supported" version that uses up your bandwidth and screen real-estate and, sometimes, time, by displaying ads but is otherwise fully functional. The "freemium" model: A limited free version missing functions that are

Ride report: KTM 990SMT, 990 Adventure R, 990 Super Duke

2011-02-02T01:11:00.001+10:00

Sometime last year, in mid November I think, I saw notification of a KTM ride day and, ever the opportunist, registered. And promptly forgot all about it until, five days beforehand, someone from Moorooka Yamaha rang me to confirm. Did I still want to take part? Like hell, yes! KTM is Austrian and, although Germany tends to think of the country as the hick cousin everyone’s

Yes, Virginia, epidemiology is really hard

2011-01-04T09:57:00.000+10:00

I had been trying to get away from these road safety rants of mine, I really had. But this was too interesting to pass up: An interesting, amusing (as in "funny hmmm....") and self-aggrandising article from the Courier Mail: Fast-aid cuts road toll to lowest since 1952 (January 04). What does? I thought it was speed cameras! Also: Where, dear deity, did that hyphen come from? "Fast-aid" isn't

How road safety articles should be

2011-01-03T11:08:00.000+10:00

After so much ranting and so many brickbats, I felt I should really present a bouquet. This is now three weeks out of date because, well, that's what the past month's been like. It was from the Queensland Times, by staff journalist Andrew Korner (who's also a nice bloke) and it's the first halfway lengthy newspaper/online article on road safety I've seen in quite some time that hasn't lowered

There is an art to good coffee and there should be

2011-01-03T09:30:00.000+10:00

Nearly three years ago now I was pushed into rant mode by the then-new coffee machines using little prepackaged pods of coffee. Nespresso machines are clean and neat and easy but generate huge amounts of excess waste packaging and take all the fun out of making coffee and the website is built using flash. I've recently encountered one of these machines again and, I have to say, they can make a

Do we make them justify anything?

2011-01-02T18:15:00.000+10:00

In case you haven't worked this out already: I really, really don't think much of the road safety discussion currently being played out in the state and national media. It's important but it's crude, simplistic, over-wrought and driven far too much by government and police sound bites, and I don't even mean the almost exclusive focus on deaths to the exclusion of permanent trauma causing

Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 25

2010-12-26T20:40:00.000+10:00

If you cross your fingers and wish very, very hard this may be the last one for the year! On December 15, the ABC gave us Motorcyclist charged over 260kph chase. Not an accident report, but worth noting for the sheer stupidity. What is going through the mind of somebody who decides that running, which is a definite charge and likely to get considerably worse, is better than playing by the rules

Smartphone, n.: A device with not quite the lot

2010-12-24T12:05:00.000+10:00

Picture this: you're shopping for a new luxury car, and the salesman is explaining that the seat can be adjusted in seven different ways via the one control and it can save settings for seven different people, and the steering wheel can control the radio, gears, cruise control and climate control, and it can steer itself between the lines and control distance to the car in front via radar, and...

Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 24

2010-12-23T20:33:00.000+10:00

A sense of inevitable horror lead me to search and, guess what? There has been at least one 24-cylinder motorbike made. It has 24 chainsaw engines, was built by their manufacturer as an advertising stunt, basically, and apparently they all have to be pull started. I almost wish I didn't know that. At the other end of the scale, we have two stories concerning the same scooter. From ABC:

Queensland solar power: covered in coal soot

2010-12-18T16:20:00.000+10:00

I stared at this story for a while, wondering what my response would be. Then the Government published a media release as well, and I decided to go with: Pathetic, foot-dragging pack of short-sighted hypocrites. The story is: Under the definite headline Queensland to host one of the world's largest solar power stations, says Stephen Robertson, the Courier Mail reported conditionally on

Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 23

2010-12-16T14:56:00.000+10:00

I love it when media organisations follow minor stories. It goes without saying that big events will be given their endless, excruciatingly detailed days in the sun, but it's nice when small stories get updates. How many times have you thought "Hey, I wonder what happened to...?" Well, then. More entertaining, however, is when the same story gets progress notes from different media

Of motorbikes and weighty matters

2010-12-10T17:48:00.000+10:00

I have noticed certain trends in motorcycle design. One is that three quarters of all bikes from mid to massive have a fuel consumption of 5.something L/100km. The bigger ones are up over 5.6, but even 660 singles are at 5.07 or thereabouts. Bikes like BMW's F800 or (don't laugh, it's true) Ducati's 1000DS and 1100DS air-cooled twins, with consumption figures around or even below 4, are

Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 22

2010-12-10T12:45:00.000+10:00

I really thought I had cleared my November backlog, but it appears not: Somehow, the chronological order of items in my Reader starred list had become messed up. Le Sigh. Okay, here goes: Motorcyclist dies after collision with 'speeding' ute (ABC News Online, November 16). There are many reasons in journalism to use quotes, including in headlines, but I'm not sure what the reason here was.

No, that memory card slot is not optional

2010-12-09T16:49:00.000+10:00

The more we demand our smartphones do, the more on-board storage they need. As cameras get bigger and better quality, image files increase. Music playback is now standard, so we need somewhere to put the music files. Many devices still remember when "smartphone" meant being able to edit documents, and we still need somewhere to put them. Podcasts. Ebook readers. High quality video playback.

Motorbike accidents in the media - part 21

2010-12-09T16:14:00.000+10:00

Feast your eyes on this one: From November 24 from the Queensland Times, Man caught doing 300 metre wheelie. That's: Caught on a public road, doing two wheelies, on an unregistered trail bike. It would only have been better if the cop in the unmarked car had been in a marked car. Seriously, how selfish/stupid (delete by personal preference) do you have to be? He said he felt he was in control

You can take your guilt trip and shove it

2010-12-07T18:38:00.000+10:00

Our electricity bill landed the other day. There's nothing particularly special about that fact - it happens with depressing regularity, four times a year. What is interesting, however, is this little snippet: "You generated 1.9176 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions during this period. To reduce your environmental impact, switch to Government accredited GreenPower, and offset the the carbon

Motorbike accidents in the media - part 20

2010-12-07T13:47:00.000+10:00

Here we go again and I'm now a month behind thanks to a massive surge in reporting and the complete inability of my free time to return to normal levels. Excuses, excuses. Five pieces here. Because. There are two longer pieces I want to take a brief look at first. Not too surprisingly, they're both court reports. Court appearances are scheduled, predictable and full of quotable quotes as well

Motorbike accidents in the media - part 19

2010-11-29T19:17:00.000+10:00

Well, gawd. When I promised to examine all media reports of motorcycle accidents that came my way, I had wondered if I'd be able to keep it up all year. I hadn't realised that my free time wouldn't match my obligations. Since handing in my thesis, I've had what feels like less time to blog or anything else. Two three-day weekends away, a bike rally and a romantic jaunt with my fabulous

N900: Ah, Linux in your pocket

2010-11-24T14:11:00.000+10:00

I recently, as anybody who keeps an eye on this blog may have noticed, got my hands on an N97 mini and found it nice but wanting. Then, in a rare (not being sarcastic, it really was rare) moment of brain-fartery I left it on the roof of my friend's car, from where it hit the ground and was run over by a tram in Melbourne. Which left me back on the old N95. Which is now unusable because the

Treating drivers as simpletons is a major cause of road accidents

2010-11-24T12:25:00.000+10:00

All of a sudden, five stories from the Queensland Times appeared in my RSS reader. They are, in the order in which they appeared: Speed cameras do help save lives, Drivers disregard the Fatal Four, Forget the phone, you're driving, Enough is enough - Drive 2 Stay Alive and Count the cost of careless driving. Spot the theme? It appears that Drive 2 Stay Alive (I will withhold my comments on

A brief motorcycle accidents diversion: safety initiatives in the media

2010-11-02T16:16:00.001+10:00

As I see it, there are three components to motorcycle safety: Motorcyclists looking out for themselves, paying attention and not making stupid decisions Car drivers looking out for other road users, paying attention and not making stupid decisions Not building roads and road furniture which will compromise, slice, dice, pulverise or flatten motorcyclists who do happen to come off because of

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part 18

2010-10-31T14:41:00.000+10:00

Alrighty, time for another one: First up, Biker dead in Woodridge crash (Courier Mail, October 03) Now, this is a very straightforward article, basic and complete as far as it goes, with just one problem: "he was dislodged from his bike after veering into a median strip." What? "Dislodged"? and "veering"? Without an eye witness, "veering" is an assumption. And "dislodged" is just plain stupid.

Yes, I wish we could all ignore reality and use all the water we wanted to, as well

2010-10-26T21:44:00.000+10:00

This post will prioritise an angry response over diplomacy, and as such I'm about to make a lot of people very angry. Many of whom are very big men who think fights solve things. I shall rely on my relative anonymity to go sailing past unnoticed. One of the biggest issues I have with my fellow human beings is short-term thinking. Take the current argument over the extremely sick Murray-Darling

Motorbike accidents in the media, part 17

2010-10-26T13:48:00.000+10:00

The big problem with having things you have to write is that it doesn't leave you any time for things you want to write. Which means that thesis has taken a huge priority over blogging and randomly scrawled fiction. So I'm about two months behind, here, and am only going to comment briefly. Straight out of the blocks with: Man's leg broken in trail-bike accident at Dayboro (Courier Mail,

Speed camera defences are facile and unhelpful

2010-09-23T15:29:00.000+10:00

Recently, while riding or driving, I have done the following obviously dangerous things Strayed onto a white line in the pouring rain, and had the bike slip sideways in the middle of a corner. Almost pulled out in front of a car because it was 2am and I had a lapse of concentration. I have been threatened by other road users in the following ways: Overtaking vehicle leaving its wheels in my

The only motivational technique you will ever need!

2010-09-21T17:00:00.000+10:00

I believe I have found the most reliable possible method of overcoming procrastination. Oh, the internet is full of them - planning, project-management, Gantt charts, timers long or short, quiet environments, music (but only the right sort), changes of scenery, turning off the internet, using different web browsers for work and for play, caffeine, alcohol where appropriate, abstinence from

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part 16

2010-09-21T13:57:00.000+10:00

Anyone want to guess if there are 16-cylinder motorbikes out there? Drop me a line if you find one. A brief four articles today, to catch up to mid September: We start with a rare report of a non-fatal collision, from August 27, the Courier Mail giving us Woman hurt in crash between motorbike and lorry at New Farm. Another CM story, another tedious headline. There is a weird atypical

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part 15

2010-09-20T11:33:00.000+10:00

I shouldn't need to say this, but: No, I don't know of any 15-cylinder motorbikes. It's been three weeks since my last post - where did they go? Before I start: I have, in the past, abused (with love) the Queensland Times for their RSS feeds, which consisted of a headline and then a description field filled with a copy of the headline. They have now fixed that, and have a proper, informative,

There is no such thing as a "will of the people"

2010-09-01T17:37:00.000+10:00

I have tried to avoid this. I really have.Commenting on this farce of an election. I was not an angry voter, but I was not an undecided voter either.I was disappointed by Kevin Rudd's managerial style after being elected, but pleased by many of his policy initiatives. I was disappointed when he caved on emissions trading, but more by his failure to more vigorously pursue the carrot approach of

Nokia N97 mini: SlideIT and LightNotePad

2010-09-01T16:14:00.000+10:00

(Prescriptus: I finally fixed Blogger's formatting bizareness: There is a button for "remove formatting", which finally returns things to nice, simple HTML. I have no idea why, after I copied the text from a plain text file, it was messy, complicated and wrong HTML in the first place.)Part of the challenge faced by smartphone manufacturers is how to get text from the user's mind onto the screen.

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part 14

2010-08-29T17:52:00.000+10:00

No, I don't know of any 14-cylinder motorbikes, either. Also: Yes, I know the formatting is a little strange. I don't know why, it's Blogger's fault. Something strange happened. Stories dried up. I'm not sure if I just missed a lot, or if there really was a late-winter lull, or if suddenly they weren't being reported, but August was a barren month for motorbike crash stories. Then, suddenly,

Nokia N97 mini: Pity they stopped before finishing it

2010-08-26T14:50:00.000+10:00

After two years and no little agonising (look back over this blog's archives if you really want to know) I ended up, thanks to a ridiculously cheap contract which is technically cheaper than buying it outright, but amortised over two years, I have a Nokia N97 mini (Nokia site). The main reasons for buying, apart from the price, being that it has a good camera, OK speakers, mature OS that I

Motorbike accidents in the media, part 13

2010-08-05T01:08:00.000+10:00

If there has ever been a 13 cylinder motorbike I really don't want to know about it. (Actually I do, but I hope there hasn't been!) The Courier Mail are keeping up their habit of long headlines: "Car mounts footpath in rush hour, injures pedestrian and motorcyclst in Fortitude Valley" (July 21). Three paragraphs, but bad formatting makes it look like two at first. It doesn't say how exactly the

Thoughts on writing and sleep, written while unable to sleep

2010-07-19T10:20:00.001+10:00

I have recently been working to a roster that doesn't even bear a passing resemblance to 9-5 or even daylight hours.That's not a problem - I don't have any particular attachment to concepts of normalcy, and I work well after dark. It's not even the first time I've worked bizarre hours, although it's a lot less physical than serving food and it's a whole lot more regular than the weird, scattered

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part the V12

2010-07-17T17:57:00.000+10:00

Knowing that people have put V8 and V10 car engines in motorbikes, it shouldn't surprise you to hear that they've done it with automotive V12s as well. In this case, a BMW V12 in a drag bike, god help us all. Perhaps the most well-executed monstrosity I have seen for a while, however, is the Millyard V12, a Kawasaki with two Z1300 inline six engines grafted onto a common crankcase to make a 2.6

Motorbike accidents in the media, part 11.

2010-07-12T15:58:00.003+10:00

Has there been an eleven cylinder motorbike? Possibly, but I can't find it, and for that I am profoundly glad.This is really getting away from me. I have several stories open in Firefox tabs, several more waiting to be opened, and there's almost a complete row of tabs. At this point, I'm not sure if this represents an increase in accidents or an increase in reporting.From the Courier Mail, May 31

You paid how much for that bottle? You twit.

2010-07-04T18:30:00.000+10:00

The concept of "value" is rather an amusing one. It should mean what something's worth but it doesn't, or we wouldn't have old sayings like "he knows the worth of everything, but the value of nothing." What it means is what something's worth, and right there we have the main reason why sticklers for language can't get along with normal people and why the phrase "that's not what I meant" has

Motorcycle accidents in the media, part the V-10

2010-07-01T14:44:00.000+10:00

Wait, what? A V-10 motorcycle? Yes, I'm afraid so. At least, sort of. The Dodge Tomahawk Concept Motorcycle is, natch, a concept. It is also not technically speaking a motorcycle - it has four wheels, just a very, very narrow wheelbase so it sort of behaves like a motorcycle. It's a lot better executed and more interesting than most massive-car-engine motorcycle concepts but, as with the

In praise of hackers and modders

2010-06-22T15:49:00.001+10:00

(Edit: I called the i8910 the Omnia Icon in Australia. Actually, that's a winmob device. The i8910 is the HD Icon. Which doesn't sound any less stupid.)Before I start, let's get a little something out of the way, first:A hacker is someone who tries to take things apart in order to understand them, and fiddle with them in order to improve them.A cracker is someone who tries to break things in

Motorbike accidents in the media: part the .... 9

2010-06-22T14:31:00.000+10:00

I really, really didn't think I'd be able to find a 9-cylinder motorbike. Well, guess what? I couldn't. There are rumours and hints, the most promising ones centred around another aircraft rotary engine, but I couldn't pin down anything definite. The best lead, complete with photo, turned out to be somebody who didn't check their facts thinking that a monster W3 engine had nine-cylinders. Uh,

Motorbike accidents in the media: part the V-8.

2010-06-04T19:36:00.000+10:00

There have been many V8 motorcycles, many of them made as cruisers with a car V8 with bits attached, no gearbox, neutral created by locking the clutch open and a disconcerting tendency to flip over backwards if you're not paying attention. But the one to care about is Moto Guzzi's abortive racer, a difficult and mechanically complex (duh) bike which they campaigned for two years before retiring

Lies, damned lies, and headlines

2010-05-18T10:14:00.001+10:00

(Updated, to add a headline. Oh, the irony).This is, maybe, a story of how crap science reporting starts with the headline.Actually, it hardly ever does: The story arrives, gets written by a journalist, and the headline is probably the last piece of the puzzle, going through sub-editors and final print editors before being set in stone (or, well, type. Or hypertext).But how does the innocent

Motorbike accidents in the media: part the radial 7.

2010-05-17T10:00:00.001+10:00

Hmmm... There is a lesson in the fact that my only blog posts have late have been ones I felt obliged to write, because I had promised to...But: Yes! For better or worse, there has been at least one 7-cylinder motorbike.Anyway, a small bag today, of small articles.Story 1:First up is four pars from the ABC back on Sunday May 2: "Biker dies after hitting gutter".Police say it appears the 30-

Motorbike accidents in the media, part the inline-6

2010-04-23T16:19:00.000+10:00

Okay, it's been a while and there are some old stories (blame the fact that I had to do things I was a.) getting paid for or b.) getting marked on.) So, I'm going to be dealing with several stories at once. And, incidentally, one point before I start: If you make your websites auto-refresh through javascript every couple of minutes, you will go to hell where demons will boil your genitals in

Motorbike accidents in the media: Part the V-five

2010-04-06T15:45:00.002+10:00

What's that you ask?Of course motorbikes have used V-5 engines. Honda has been very fond of them in GP racing for ages.Anyway.Here's another example of an incident which seems unbelievable to anyone who hasn't become tediously familiar with its sort through long and bitter experience:Harley rider breaks legs, pelvis after smashing into car reversing from driveway at Capalaba West (Courier Mail

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part the flat four

2010-03-18T17:39:00.000+10:00

The last piece I commented on, from the Courier Mail, came with a list of "related stories", pulled not just from their own website, but from News Ltd sites around Australia. So, I'm going to do a quick analysis of motorbike accident reports from those sites. First up: The Herald Sun (Melbourne) gives us Motorcyclist killed in head-on collision with car on the Maroondah Hwy in Mansfield.

Please sir, Godot asked if you could wait a little longer

2010-03-18T16:55:00.000+10:00

Excuse me while I waffle for a moment. Samuel Beckett was a genius. No, I won't hear anything else. There was a period many years ago - it was while I was still living in Tasmania, so at least 7 years ago - when Sam had an anniversary, or something, and a project was begun to film all of his plays, using Irish actors. I saw as many of those as I could, and may even have some of them on tape

Motorbike accidents in the media - Part the inline triple

2010-03-16T21:56:00.001+10:00

I have been unconscionably late with this. The news report I will be discussing is dated 11 days ago, as I start typing. Blame real life assaulting me in a dark alley.It's this one: Motorbike rider hit by car backing out of driveway in Newtown, Toowoomba, from the Courier Mail.Fairly unambiguous headline, no?Also, the editor in me says, too bloody long by half. You can cut out "rider", you can

How to replace a photocopier with a good camera phone and your own printer.

2010-03-16T16:42:00.000+10:00

There is a problem with photocopiers in libraries - University or public. You need money, for a start. Then you need time, you need a photocopier not being used by anyone else, it can be highly wasteful of paper, and of time. You can get a much more flexible and useful result by using a digital camera and a few minutes of image processing when back at your PC. Photographing pages and then

In praise of sports-tourers

2010-03-01T13:36:00.000+10:00

I have a theory. More of a conviction, really. In scientific terms, I'll defend it as halfway between a hypothesis and a theory. My theory is this: Sports tourers are the most useful, versatile and worthwhile species of motorbike, and more rides should be buying them. It's not that we're talking about a particularly narrow definition, here, though. I'll get to categories in a moment. But it

Android versus Symbian. Fight!

2010-02-28T21:20:00.000+10:00

While I am struggling with the question of whether I replace my current Symbian smartphone with a resistive touch-screen Symbian phone (N97 mini) or a capacitive touch-screen Android phone (Motorola Milestone), I thought it was about bloody time I made a list of vital functions and tried to find replacement Android software, before making the jump. This is prompted by Steve Litchfield's flawed

Oooh, the shiny! Ooooooh, the SHINY!

2010-02-18T22:43:00.003+10:00

This is a rambling tale of two superphones. I'll use that term, obnoxious as I may usually find it, to highlight the fact the I am not talking about mere smartphones, with good hardware and maybe a specialisation or two, but the cream of the crop - two of the premier mobile devices on sale today. From Finland, the N97 Mini. One of the best 5MP cameras on any mobile device, all

How to ruin a perfectly good tool by taking it up-market

2010-02-17T22:44:00.003+10:00

A brief diversion, if I may (I'm going to anyway, so: deal), to discuss a subject near to my cynical heart: The prettification of tools is not inherently bad - just witness a damask steel blade, or a swept-hilt rapier. Hell, even a cavalry sabre from recent centuries is gorgeous, and no less deadly for all the decoration.And then there are Japanese knives, possibly the greatest thing that country

Nokia really, seriously, desperately need to work on their sense of timing, the bastards

2010-02-16T16:08:00.004+10:00

I was walking through my local shopping centre yesterday afternoon, hunting down a dry-cleaners I knew was there but I knew not where, when I passed the Crazy Johns shop.What to my wondering eye should appear but a hastily printed flyer stapled to the front of their catalogue, advertising the immediate availability of the Nokia N97 Mini.Yes, those callous, casually cruel bastards from Espoo have

Dysfunctional health system: Break the law, go to hospital

2010-02-15T15:46:00.000+10:00

I have commented before in this blog about the fact that, although I am cautiously against the death penalty, I find the way it is implemented to be balmy and generally offensive. But there is one thing that is just ridiculous. Item, overheard from somebody else's TV: mass murderer in Africa, HIV positive, gets full medical care and anti-retro-viral drugs while in prison. His wife and child,

We need more Travel Advisory Warnings

2010-02-08T11:13:00.001+10:00

Let's have a look, for a moment, at three countries it's not worth visiting because they shouldn't be encouraged, or it's not worth the risk.Let's start with the United States of America.This country has produced some of the most fantastic human achievements of modern times, it has produced great artists in all media, it has generated or contributed to some of the most fundamental aspects of

Motorbike accidents in the media - part the V-twin

2010-02-07T13:50:00.000+10:00

Okay, time for the second installment in an ongoing series, where I analyse the media's reporting of motorbike accidents. And, for the second time, it's a bit anticlimactic. This second post is a two-in-one, starting with Three die on roads by the Brisbane Courier Mail. The relevant section is this: In a separate incident, a motorcycle rider was killed in a two-vehicle crash at

Watching the watchers - bike accidents in the media

2010-02-01T18:42:00.000+10:00

I promised, more than a year ago, to analyse all of the motorcycle accident media reports I came across. I promptly forgot. This year, I may just be able to do that. I will be looking for judgemental language, any hint of editorial disapproval of motorbikes, any missing information which the content of the report suggests should have been available to the journalist, and evidence of the media

Are Nokia confused, or taking the piss?

2010-02-01T12:45:00.002+10:00

Nokia unquestionably build some of the most comprehensively specc'd, durable and versatile mobile devices on the market.They have no real sense of style, and they are in the uncomfortable position of having the most advanced, specialised, sophisticated operating system sitting under the most dated user interface (well, except for Windows Mobile. I keep forgetting that abortion exists), but if you

Sods laws of motorcycling:

2010-01-31T09:06:00.001+10:00

(These will be updated, of course) When riding in town on a hot day, there will be shade on the road, just not where you have to stop. When riding in town, the light will turn green ten seconds after you decide to put it in neutral and stretch. No matter how little rain you ride through, you will still get wet underpants. Any attempt to find a quicker back-roads route because the highway is

Airheads, engineering and "Character"

2009-12-12T17:11:00.000+10:00

From out of the blue, an unexpected post! Due to a combination of circumstances starting with a friend unexpectedly purchasing two new bikes, fed by my curiosity and ultimately allowed by an unexpected and hugely appreciated financial windfall, I have upgraded from my old 1994 Yamaha XJ600S Seca II, a wonderful little cheap bike and a perfect first bike, to a 1985 BMW K100RS, a

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result" - road safety edition.

2009-09-16T13:21:00.000+10:00

Excuse me while I rant about blatant idiocy in positions of power. I am a motorcyclist. Anyone who has ever read this blog may have picked up on this. This means that I have fairly strong opinions about other road users - if you put yourself in a position this vulnerable, with no safety cage around you and a much lower visual area from any angle, you either die or develop a deep and abiding

How you use a tool determines what tool you use, which determines how you use it...

2009-07-22T10:15:00.000+10:00

I am a big fan of the fact (I'm not even going to call it a principle, concept or idea: It's a fact) that usage determines need. I'm talking about mobile phones here, but any technology will do. I, for example, am extremely unlikely to ever buy an iPhone, because recent usage of my N95 has shown that I need a better camera, stereo speakers, a hardware keyboard, the ability to use it wearing

"Predictive text" that actually is.

2009-07-21T15:19:00.007+10:00

(This has been updated, because I was an idiot. For some reason, I attributed the software to the wrong company. Ah, the power of Twitter and a company that knows how to use it.) Some time ago, I got unduly optimistic and went looking for a proper predictive text solution for S60, assuming that somebody had implemented one. What I found was a couple of commercial betas and vague promises. But

This has been awhile: Another Microsoft failure

2009-07-20T11:36:00.000+10:00

I have been so successful at avoiding Microsoft products lately that they haven't had an opportunity to seriously annoy me.But some people just have to try and drag me back in.My work insists upon using Outlook Web Access for out of office email which, considering my at-home employment, includes me.I have asked most of my colleagues to use my personal address, which has the added advantage that I

Libel has no place in science

2009-06-04T11:23:00.004+10:00

This is a slightly messy post, because I do not have the time to make a cleaner one.The central problem is this: Libel and defamation laws (in Australian law, defamation is anything spoken and libel is anything printed, recorded or transmitted, but we can safely ignore that distinction) exist for the very important purpose of protecting the very valuable social and professional reputations of

Notes from the N95: v6

2009-05-23T12:22:00.004+10:00

Another, quite short, collection of random notes from the new smartphone, composed on the phone:AppManager really needs to be able to filter by first letter, at the very least. It's so crude it looks as though they threw it together as a stop-gap and forgot to go back and fix it. "Broken gets fixed, mediocre lasts forever."No facility to set appointments, memos or to-dos to repeat at set

Updated: Why feature-rich social networking clients for smartphones aren't really there yet.

2009-05-21T17:14:00.001+10:00

(Edited to update: See below)There is a beguiling seductiveness to the thought that, on a modern smartphone where the menu structure may be a little hectic already, you may be able to install just one multi-function client for all your social networking needs.Have a care, however, should one of these clients try to attract your gaze with a come-hither look.Jacks of all trades are frequently, as

Random headline wool-gathering and commentary - 3

2009-05-12T10:09:00.000+10:00

Greetings all, Another collection of more-or-less random gems pulled from the news this chilly morning: Vitamin supplements may cut benefits of exercise - New Scientist. Ha! Suck on that, supplement freaks! Question, however: What about eating fruit after exercise? Via William Gibson's twitter (@GreatDismal): Cave Panting Depicts Extinct Marsupial Lion - LiveScience. That's rather cool.

Apparently, reading really is outdated

2009-05-03T17:32:00.001+10:00

The requirements for an ebook reader for a mobile phone would appear to be fairly simple: It can read plain text files, html, and the old Palm pdb/prc would be nice. The ability to read zipped files would be nice, as well. Other formats, like mobi and lit, have more options but can all be converted into plain text, which is how files from places like Project Gutenberg tend to come. It can

Some suggestions for bio-fuels

2009-04-28T18:45:00.000+10:00

The world has gone biofuel crazy. Ethanol and biodiesel are apparently going to save the planet and our effluent ways of life. The problem beings first, that ethanol is really nasty to engines that aren't engineered to cope, and secondly that we have to produce tonnes upon tonnes of biomass to convert into biofuels, and it's a loss-making sum at the moment. We need oily plants for biodiesel,

Drivers die in hot cars

2009-04-27T10:18:00.002+10:00

Road safety just never goes away as a news item. People continue to die in ludicrous numbers, the police continue to labour under the delusion that hiding speed cameras is an effective deterrent, and the media continue to not point out the obvious questions.Take the article on the front cover of last Friday's Courier Mail: "Highway hoons on M1 race at triple the speed limit."Now, obviously,

Here's yet another opportunity for Twitter.

2009-04-17T18:41:00.005+10:00

I have been working for a few months now as an after-hours Emergency On-Call Officer. Which means that whenever there is a risk to any of the clients my employer has around South Brisbane, and it happens after hours, I get rung.Problems include clients getting sick, clients having a crisis when they don't have a rostered worker on, workers getting sick so they can't go to clients, and workers

Being reasonable as an offence against reason.

2009-03-29T16:56:00.000+10:00

The ABC in Australia has started an interesting little panel question-and-answer program called, unsurprisingly enough, Q&A, in which highly experienced journalist Tony Jones moderates a panel of guests and fields questions from the website (in real-time, even) in text and video, and from the audience. On it, this week, were Federal Minister for Telecommunications and Messing With it, Stephen

Random headline wool-gathering and commentary - 2

2009-03-26T12:26:00.000+10:00

First up this morning, we have this absolute gem: "BMW driver follows satnav to edge of cliff" from The Register (tagline: "Biting the hand that feeds IT". Why is it that I can only recall ever hearing these stories from the UK? What's wrong with them? Thankfully, he's on a careless driving charge. Next up: "Trial aims to tame bad behaviour in classroom" from The Courier Mail. What's

Customer service - getting better

2009-03-25T10:25:00.001+10:00

Having bitched and griped before the way that Nuance Communication delayed the commerical launchof T9Nav until a week after the beta period ended, I have to give credit where credit is due.I bought T9Nav, one of my rare treats to myself, from Nokia's Appstore (sorry! Software Market!).Today, I received an email directly from Nuance Communications, saying:"Attached is the upgrade version of T9 Nav

After the Internet, let's burn all the books. Nobody'll mind that, will they?

2009-03-20T15:47:00.001+10:00

When I was in high school, and a keen but untutored debater, my team were affirmative in a debate on the topic "That censorship is an insult to the intelligent." At one point, one member of the opposing, negative, team pointed at various military hardware posters around the room and tried to use them as an example for a point he was making, but clearly didn't know what any of them were.When I

Computers and customer service

2009-03-18T09:28:00.000+10:00

I have just paid my electricity bill to Origin. Quite apart from the sense of piercing pain that this always promotes, I noticed a few things about the automated phone system. First of all, it doesn't make you talk to it and it's quite quick and efficient. So kudos there, then. However... You dial, it is answered almost immediately, and it says "To continue, press 1." You what? Dial, wait

Sensible medical reporting from surprising sources.

2009-03-12T12:13:00.000+10:00

I am quite surprised to find myself mildly impressed by the Courier Mail. Not an improved standard of journalism or decreased tabloidship - we're not that lucky. They do, however, throw themselves behind awareness-raising and fund-raising for young carers, and now we have measles. Over the past few years, the anti-vaccination madness which has seen the UK spiralling into an epidemic, and the

Shock: Personalities affect lifestyle choices

2009-03-08T09:17:00.000+10:00

Vaughan over at the always good value Mind Hacks has found a study which claims that People who buy dog breeds recognised as being "vicious", tend to be arseholes themselves. I paraphrase, of course. Basically, a psychologist has used an anonymous online questionnaire (hmmm...) of uni students, assessing criminality and various personality traits associated with being a not-nice person, and

I'd like to think that the Church had a limited life expectancy, instead.

2009-02-17T13:16:00.000+10:00

Now, this makes me really angry. Church contests age expectancy of brain injured Myles Hill (Courier Mail) That's not a very helpful headline, so let me give you the synopsis: Myles Hill, now 17, suffered a serious brain injury while boogie-boarding at the Southport School in 2003. The Anglican Church, who I can only assume are responsible for the school, are denying culpability, pointing the

Community needs to understand mental health, before commenting on it

2009-02-15T09:29:00.000+10:00

I direct you to the ABC Online article Community urged to weigh in on forced mental illness treatment. The gist is that a parliamentary committee in Tasmania has heard that the community needs to debate when it is okay to force treatment on someone who has a mental illness. Michelle Swallow from the Mental Health Council, which is an advocacy group, so therefore Michelle is someone who is paid

T9Nav versus SkyeQuiKey

2009-02-12T10:21:00.019+10:00

In reference to my last post, where I said that I may well try the 1-day trial version of the it's-still-got-a-bloody-stupid-name SkyeQuiKey: Yes, of course I did, what did you expect? And I have this to say: The established SkyeQuiKey loses, big time, to T9Nav. I knew this after ten seconds. How did I come to this seemingly knee-jerk reaction? This is why SkyeQuiKey loses, and T9Nav is just

Things to avoid when inviting the public to a beta trial

2009-02-10T09:23:00.006+10:00

Arguably the most useful, and used, application I have installed on my N95 is T9Nav.I have written about this brilliant piece of life-make-easy-fying software before, and my opinion hasn't changed in the slightest. It's still brilliant, and it still makes life so much easier on an S60 phone, it's not funny.But here's the caveat: The beta period ended.Actually, it ended once before, and was

This is why psychiatry is important.

2009-01-28T15:45:00.004+10:00

I am infuriated by the "all in your head" school of denial of mental illness, or the "just get over it" approach. My very simple response to these sorts of crashingly ignorant attitudes is to point to a line which occurs, as far as I'm aware, in basically every definition in the DSM, and which says "Causes signifcant impairment in school, work or social functioning." For there, you see, is the

Random headline wool-gathering and commentary

2009-01-27T11:23:00.005+10:00

I was lying in bed last night, too tired to sleep or concentrate, and squinting at the screen of my phone as I scrolled through page after page of news, scanning the headlines for anything interesting or relevant and tagging it to read later.Suddenly I realised that my brain had been digesting a headline it had read five items ago, and that it read "NZ man finds US military files on MP3 player" (

I am thinking of the children. That's why I think you're an idiot

2009-01-23T09:19:00.003+10:00

What's going on with politics at the moment?I tend to be more Labour than Liberal in Australia, and decidely not National. This isn't due to any sort of Union tendencies, blue-collar sense of camaraderie or anti-bourgeoise sentiments - it's because, when social policies are discussed, the Liberals tend to sicken and disgust me, and only Labour (of the major parties) has a history of being

High-octane kelp

2009-01-22T08:27:00.004+10:00

I'm torn.On the one hand, I don't believe in using ethanol for fuel. It's really great for drinking, cleaning optics and sterilising skin, but fuel? No. Bad. It's harder to build an engine that can cope with the corrosive powers of ethanol than one that can cope with petrol or diesel. And where does it come from? Food stocks, mostly. So, no: We need better electricity production and usage, and we

Yes, religion really is child abuse

2009-01-21T20:33:00.008+10:00

This may well be the most disgusting thing I've read about any apparently modern democracy, in a lifetime of being cynical and disgusted by other apparently human beings:"About 300 children have died in the United States in the last 25 years after medical care was withheld on religious grounds, said Rita Swan, executive director of Children’s Health Care Is a Legal Duty, a group based in Iowa

You'll be eight alive.

2009-01-14T20:46:00.003+10:00

Just a short note, because I think everyone should read this, but I really can't add anything to it:Explaining the Curse of work (New Scientist).It's wonderful. Finally, Science(tm) explains: Parkinson's Law (Work expands to fill the space avaialble); Why big decision-making groups are bad; Why Terry Pratchett and Chinese numerology chose 8 as the most evil number (I'm extrapolating here, but I

The idiocy that is Centrelink

2009-01-14T17:59:00.004+10:00

This is going to be an ongoing series, you see if it doesn't.Centrelink, as the Australian Federal Government agency which administers a range of services and programs that fall under the banner of "social services" has a nightmare on its hands trying to make them all work together, and deal with a population of clients who are more likely than most of the population to be stressed, frayed,

Notes from the N95: v5

2009-01-14T15:39:00.002+10:00

Another, quite short, collection of random notes from the (no longer) new smartphone, composed on the phone:Amazingly, I've only just noticed this: when you add an email to an entry in the Address Book, you can't read it. What happens is that you move the highlight down to the email entry, and you see as much as will fit on screen, and a couple of dots to let you know there's more. It doesn't

This does not give me confidence

2009-01-14T11:38:00.004+10:00

For a few weeks now, my drinking water has tasted earthy/metallic. This is nothing new - the water coming out of our taps is so crap that I got a filter jug, something I would normally scorn as being an affectation, and have to regularly clean the faint red deposit off the sides of the unfiltered water part of it (hundred+ year old clay pipes). There are even times when water first thing in the

Random beauty

2009-01-14T10:08:00.002+10:00

I have just noticed something quite bizarre and incredible, while reading a blog entry with a compressed Archives list down one side. The entry itself is this one about anti-vaccination idiocy, on Respectful Insolence.To simplify matters, I will attempt to recreate what I noticed here. It's simply the names of the months (with years, but they don't matter so I'll leave them out):

Blinkers, blinders and bloody-mindedness: road safety

2009-01-14T09:06:00.003+10:00

Few things are more indicative of how we, as a species, just aren't built to inhabit complex, multi-cultural and diverse societies than the opinion poll.The latest example, dealing with matters particularly close to my heart, is this piece of actually fairly good journalism from the Courier Mail: Car drivers cut motorbike riders little slack - research.To summarise the background: Bikers are

You don't have to be an expert - that'll just annoy you even more.

2009-01-09T17:46:00.008+10:00

There are a few things that really shit me about most science fiction, and that includes the new series of Doctor Who. I'm not talking about the big things, like having force fields or faster than light travel. I mean the easy bits of physics (and other sciences), the little bits of detail that just plain aren't necessary to break:"200%": the point to 100%, you see, is that it's ALL. As in,

This is why Clarkson patronises us.

2009-01-06T16:00:00.005+10:00

Due to a massive corporate sponsorship deal, tax breaks for non-profit service organisations, and an 18,000km lifecycle, my new employer actually makes a profit on using XR6 Falcons as company cars.Now, I'm pretty sure they'd make a profit on using base-model Falcons as company cars as well, but what fun would that be?What this means, however, is that for one week out of every three, I have an