What's up with Google Maps?

Once upon a time, if you went to maps.google.com.au, the Australian site, and searched for "Ipswich" it would assume that you meant the one in Queensland, just to the south-west of Brisbane, on the way to Toowoomba.

But not any more. Suddenly it's defaulting to Ipswich in Suffolk, UK. Whyfor it go to UK when I'm on the Australian site?

Furthermore, searching for "One Mile, Ipswich" gets you 1 Mile Ln in Ipswich in Massachusetts, USA. searching for "One Mile, Ipswich, Qld" gets you 1 Ipswich City mall (near One Mile). To get the actual region of One Mile, in Ispwich, you need to search for "One Mile, Qld".

I think this merits an AAAAAARRRGGHHHHH!

GODDAMN YOU EBAY

Here I am, scratching to save 5-cent pieces for the next, oh, several months, recklessly throwing on a batch of experimental home-brew before guaranteeing the immediate availability of enough long-necks, and then think: Hmm... Should probably get a capper more sophisticated than the hit-with-hammer variety...

So I check eBay. Because of course you do. And there is a lever-action capper, Italian made (hey, why not?), for $10, in Ipswich so I can pick it up and not pay postage, with no bids....

I have a confession to make.

Yes. I finally gave into a combination of repressed no-new-gadget frustration, too much time analysing fripperies, and an unpleasantly opportunistic, almost sneakily coincidental offer from those conniving bastards at Vodafone (no, I'm still not prepared to forgive them their inanely cheerful voice-recognition telephone support line). As a result of which, I traded up from a competent but flawed feature phone to what was Nokia's codpiece of a flagship when it came out, and has been kept one of the best through software updates and having had so much put in when it was new, and don't have to pay anything up front. I'm just indentured to the bastards for two years worth of contract.

And I'm still making manic chortling noises over this.

It has now been more than a week since I picked it up, since which time I have had no time to comment on it, having been to a motorbike rally in Mingoola, a delayed mothers'-day visit in Buderim, a Jaguar Driver's Club meeting in Newstead, a couple of instalments of work, and lots of scrabbling-to-catch-up-with-things time.

A brief rundown: It has GPS, which drains the battery but is a really cool toy. It has WiFi, which means that I can sit at home, where I already have two perfectly good computers, and not pay data charges for Internet access. It has a good music player, it has surprisingly good stereo speakers, it has a radio which unfortunately needs the wired hands-free plugged in, because that's the aerial. It has a proper mini-computer operating system and the advantages of that are even bigger than I had been hoping for.

I am sincerely hoping that from this point onwards, everything I notice about my phone will be either intriguing or amusing, not baffling or enraging.

Of course, I may be kidding myself there...

STOP IT! YOU'RE RUINING MY PLACEBO EFFECT!

I make no secret of that fact that I like editorial cartoonists. Maybe it's that they make their living from observing the world instead of making up stories, and have the court-jester's licence to mock instead of the journalist's assumed responsibility to be unbiased and non-editorial, but some of them (and I am particularly fond of Kudelka and Michael Leunig here) are so much more entertaining than regular cartoonists who just have a cool idea for a story. I have been keeping an eye on Matt Bors for my dose of fear-and-loathing-at-a-distance American news, and then he drops this gem:

Placebo Effect. Click on the image for the full size cartoon.

Mainstream medical news makes me go AAAAAGGGGH!

First, the background: Somebody once made the observation that in people with ADHD and other attention-style disorders (let's not get into an argument about the validity of ADHD as a diagnosis or definition), the Cerebellum, which sits at the base of the brain, handles coordination and is structurally different to the rest of the brain, being much denser and, in evolutionary terms, older, is about 4% smaller than in their peers.

Valid hypothesis one was: The cerebellum is linked to control of attentional processing in the prefrontal lobes.

Completely off-base kooky assumption one was: If we make someone with ADHD perform coordination exercises, we are stressing the cerebellum, so it'll get bigger, and because it's linked to attentional processing, their ADHD will improve! Yay! And we'll call it the Dore program, and charge people $5,000 for the privilege!

I don't have the mental strength to get into everything that's wrong with the Dore program and how it operates, but let's start with the fact that none of their scientific claims have been validated. None of them: "The scientific evidence to support the claims of the Dore program has not yet been established," the Macquarie University authors wrote. "There are two flawed studies, both carried out by the same group who were not independent of the Dore program."

In fact, if memory serves, the editor of one particular paediatric journal was forced to resign in disgrace after allowing one of those studies to be published. The possible explanations for observed effectiveness of the Dore program start with the Placebo effect, move through the fact that children are being given structured, regimented exercises at all, regardless of what they are and what they are for, and even include the possibility of children growing out of it during the 12-month duration of the program.

Now, don't you think that for $5000 and 12 months you'd want the improvements to be really good and for the premises to be proven as vital? I mean, $5,000 would pay for your child to attend Karate lessons for several years. In fact, I want to see a study done on rates of ADHD among children who attend a structured physical discipline such as a martial art, gymnastics, dance or good-quality sports coaching (Christ, don't tell me that the annoying little pick-tutu wearing female human larvae that jump up and down on the wooden floor across the road every fucking weekend might be doing some good).

That quote above comes from this article, and it has the latest subtle cock-up headline to make me see red:

Medics blast Dore program that gets results for ADHD (Courier Mail)

"Gets results"? Gets results? See above about placebo effect, etc. In fact, read the article, where somebody actually says that. The article itself isn't too bad: Not much analysis, not much actual journalism, a couple of quotes, but have a look at that headline again: Notice the sly suggestion that not only does Dore work, but that "medics" somehow don't like it despite the "fact" that it works? With the implication being that if it's not drugs, then mainstream medicine doesn't want to know? Would this be the same mainstream medicine that embraces physiotherapy?

And see the end of the article: "We're not trying to "cure", we're trying to "improve" ". I'm sorry, what? "It's pretty difficult to scientifically prove exactly what happens." No it isn't, you ignorant fuck. If you're trying to change sensory paths to and from the cerebellum, then use the scanning techniques you started with. Use fMRI scans to show brain activity. Use blind reassessment of program children and control children who got enrolled for a couple of sessions of bare-foot kata in white pyjamas each week instead. We use drugs because drugs, in the majority of cases, get results. You can't show results. Shut up and go away, please, before you do real damage to the fragile hopes of a family who don't have much left.

A word about that Scarlet 'A' on the left.

It's the certified Richard Dawkins label of Say It Loud, Say It Proud Atheism.

For those who are reading this in a feed reader and can't see it, here it is again:

Now, my attitude towards protestations of atheism is similar to that expressed by Douglas Adams (I hope I'm not misinterpreting him here) who, in an interview with American Atheist magazine, answered several questions in a baffled sort of way with answers along the lines of "That question isn't really relevant... It's just not important in England. Maybe it's because I only know atheists, but it's just not something that people care about..." In addition, although I have deeply negative thoughts about the brain-washing, progress-denying, crusade-promoting, deeply sexist and anti-thought organised religions we're expected to subsidise and share our society with, I really couldn't care about someone's personal beliefs or sense of spiritualism provided they don't cross the line into trying to make me care, through personal interaction or public policy.

Unfortunately, like Richard Dawkins I have been confronted with so much religion-sponsored idiocy that it's really starting to piss me off and I return to the violent rejection of religion that I used to entertain, then grew out of, then began pondering again, and now can't seem to be able to avoid.

I am therefore, despite hating the idea that it should be necessary for atheists - a group which should be identified only by not belonging to a group - to identify themselves, letting visitors to this blog know that I believe in critical thought and not the tooth fairy.

Motorbike technology: Pretty much anything can be bolted on.

Technology in motorbikes is not so much going ahead in leaps and bounds as completely running amok. It took ages for fuel injection to find its way onto two wheels, helped by the fact that it's insanely difficult to get injection to work on a two-stroke, and it took ABS even longer. But all of a sudden you can get ABS on budget bikes (Suzuki even lifted the ABS system on the Bandit from a fucking scooter, ferchrissakes) and now racing is working the kinks out of traction control.

And the cool part, the really cool part is that so much is available aftermarket, so that even if you can't afford a new BMW you can still slowly add the rest of it (not linkage forks, that would take some serious modding) as the budget allows. Including all sorts of luggage at way lower prices than Genuine and heated hand grips.

And now you can plug in traction control (story courtesy Hell For Leather Magazine). Now, I am of the opinion that if you need ABS you need to learn to a.) brake properly and b.) ride with more awareness and paranoia, and if you need traction control on the road you need to a.) learn to ride properly and b.) trade in for a more useful bike. But, to give them their due, Bazzazz Performance (I don't want to know where that name came from, I really don't) are selling this as race-track only. Yeah, right. This one works on limiting rev increases in each gear, avoiding the need for wheel sensors, so it's a pretty cool example of lateral thinking as well.

My absolute all-time favourite add-on, however, is a set of replacement tyre valves that not only have a right-angle bend in them (so that you can actually get at them with service station air hoses) but which are wireless temperature and pressure sensors. The unit which bolts onto your handlebars will tell you data for both tyres, flash warning lights at you if either one drops below preset limits, flash warning lights at you if the temperature drops below 3 degrees (very European thing this - warns you of potential ice on the road) and, because they're temperature sensors as well, tell sportsbike riders when their tyres are actually working properly! All this for less than $400, the batteries in the valves last for 3 years and I'd give you the website of particular brand I prefer if they had a decent presence on Google.

Question: At what point does adding on aftermarket extras leave you with a.) not enough space around the engine for proper cooling and b.) start to weigh so much that it slows you down?