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 and leaving the option of appeal for a to-be-decided minor charge?
Also: What, exactly, are the Victorian guidelines on police chases? There has been a bit of a debate and revision going on in other states recently and I'm sure public safety advocates would have something to say about this story.
Also December 15, the ABC gave us Motorcyclist killed at Thornlands, which is interesting because the Courier Mail had Motorcyclist killed at Thornlands.
Oooh, spooky! Actually, the weirdest part here is how short the Mail's headline is.
The Mail's report has slightly more detail but worse editing ("his motorcycle and vehicle crashed at Thornlands"), but the ABC has attached a video from the night's news, which is the sort of thing you can do if you're a multimedia broadcaster and publisher.
Jumping ahead to December 22, there's Moped driver who injured child pleads guilty from the ABC.
The lead paragraph is clunky but the rest of the report is fair enough, if baffling. If he was running away from "a group of youths" at the time, it looks suspiciously as though he was riding his moped through the park when they took offence to him (and, well, that may have been perfectly understandable), so he was probably eligible for at least one more charge into the bargain.
Some more background would have really fleshed out this story.
The Courier Mail also has the report, in Moped rider Michael Andrew Bolitho blasted for hitting boy, 6, on Gold Coast and speeding off.
A definitive Courier Mail headline: Too long, too informative for a headline and contains a carefully selected, emotive, value-laden phrase.
This report has the background, including the claims he was panic-stricken and couldn't get to the road because his tormentors were in the way.
The article, in fact, does the neat trick of painting the accused as both cowardly, callous and quite possibly deviant and, at the same time, a victim of "youths". Talk about spoiled for righteously indignant choice.
And that is the complaint I have about the CM article. It almost buries the fate of the boy, and the legal process, under social judgements. On the other hand, the ABC article goes to the other length and suffers only from being too concise.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Friday, 24 December 2010
Smartphone, n.: A device with not quite the lot
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...
Then you notice that it doesn't have an interior rear-view mirror and the wing mirrors are adjusted manually. The salesman looks baffled and says "It's got mirrors, doesn't it?"
That's how I feel we're being treated by smartphone manufacturers.
Item: HTC still hasn't worked out how to build a decent loudspeaker or camera.
Item: Nexus S, built by Samsung to be Google's next developer phone, doesn't have a memory card slot.
Item: my current shiny, with which I am still mostly very happy, the Nokia N900, doesn't have a now-and-even-when-it-was-new standard magnetometer to go with its not having MMS inbuilt and the version of Ovi Maps installed not having any facility for storing bookmarks.
Seriously, what are the thought processes going on in their heads?
With the iPhone, you knew you weren't going to get a feature until Apple was good and ready to give it to you, and that's a perfectly fair and reasonable decision.
With Windows Phone 7, they appear to have deliberately decided to cripple it by denying it memory cards or cut and paste and, well, at least they're being consistent.
But nobody else has that explanation. Even when you get the hardware it may not be activated - the N900 has FM transmitters and receivers, but there was no radio software in early firmwares to use the receiver.
Then there's Samsung, who produced one of the best mobile phone cameras in the i8910 but haven't put anything remotely as worthy in any Android phone.
Then you have screens. Motorola came out with the XT720, which had all the potential to be a great tablet phone, with good speaker and even good camera. And a screen so mirror-finish you can't use it outdoors in sunlight.
Even Nokia have been guilty of this, perversely removing the sunlight-friendly transflective layer from the N97 mini.
There appears to be a "95 per cent" attitude in the technology world at the moment. Apple gives you 95 per cent of the features you want, but does them really well. Everyone else tries to give you all the features, but only gets it 95 per cent correct.
Only one company seems to have the commitment and meticulous dedication to engineering perfection that even justifies a label like "flagship" and they're such control freaks I couldn't justify giving them money even if I could justify their prices.
And yes, I'm aware of the irony.
It's been a truism for a while now that Nokia doesn't release new phones when they're finished - you need to wait for a couple of firmware releases for that.
At the same time, the hardware set of top Android phones is the reason I've bought two more Nokias in a row. Samsung and Motorola are getting very close to convincing me, but Motorola have done stupid, unfriendly things with locked bootloaders - preventing custom firmwares while not committing to prompt and guaranteed updates themselves - and Samsung goes and does something like the Nexus S with no card slot and an average camera.
What I want is an N900, next generation, all updated and upgraded hardware, maybe the N8 camera (we can dream), still the keyboard, and Maemo 6, not MeeGo. And now that's doomed forever. Do I think the first MeeGo device will be worthy, and complete?
Don't make me laugh bitterly.
Then you notice that it doesn't have an interior rear-view mirror and the wing mirrors are adjusted manually. The salesman looks baffled and says "It's got mirrors, doesn't it?"
That's how I feel we're being treated by smartphone manufacturers.
Item: HTC still hasn't worked out how to build a decent loudspeaker or camera.
Item: Nexus S, built by Samsung to be Google's next developer phone, doesn't have a memory card slot.
Item: my current shiny, with which I am still mostly very happy, the Nokia N900, doesn't have a now-and-even-when-it-was-new standard magnetometer to go with its not having MMS inbuilt and the version of Ovi Maps installed not having any facility for storing bookmarks.
Seriously, what are the thought processes going on in their heads?
With the iPhone, you knew you weren't going to get a feature until Apple was good and ready to give it to you, and that's a perfectly fair and reasonable decision.
With Windows Phone 7, they appear to have deliberately decided to cripple it by denying it memory cards or cut and paste and, well, at least they're being consistent.
But nobody else has that explanation. Even when you get the hardware it may not be activated - the N900 has FM transmitters and receivers, but there was no radio software in early firmwares to use the receiver.
Then there's Samsung, who produced one of the best mobile phone cameras in the i8910 but haven't put anything remotely as worthy in any Android phone.
Then you have screens. Motorola came out with the XT720, which had all the potential to be a great tablet phone, with good speaker and even good camera. And a screen so mirror-finish you can't use it outdoors in sunlight.
Even Nokia have been guilty of this, perversely removing the sunlight-friendly transflective layer from the N97 mini.
There appears to be a "95 per cent" attitude in the technology world at the moment. Apple gives you 95 per cent of the features you want, but does them really well. Everyone else tries to give you all the features, but only gets it 95 per cent correct.
Only one company seems to have the commitment and meticulous dedication to engineering perfection that even justifies a label like "flagship" and they're such control freaks I couldn't justify giving them money even if I could justify their prices.
And yes, I'm aware of the irony.
It's been a truism for a while now that Nokia doesn't release new phones when they're finished - you need to wait for a couple of firmware releases for that.
At the same time, the hardware set of top Android phones is the reason I've bought two more Nokias in a row. Samsung and Motorola are getting very close to convincing me, but Motorola have done stupid, unfriendly things with locked bootloaders - preventing custom firmwares while not committing to prompt and guaranteed updates themselves - and Samsung goes and does something like the Nexus S with no card slot and an average camera.
What I want is an N900, next generation, all updated and upgraded hardware, maybe the N8 camera (we can dream), still the keyboard, and Maemo 6, not MeeGo. And now that's doomed forever. Do I think the first MeeGo device will be worthy, and complete?
Don't make me laugh bitterly.
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 24
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: Scooter road rage driver loses appeal (December 8).
First of all, that headline is ambiguous about whether the scooter was the perpetrator or the victim. Yes, it says "driver", but stranger things have been done in the non-specialist media.
The summary is: A "pensioner" (at 50, that surely means either a disability pension or self-funded retiree because he's not yet eligible for the aged pension) chased a former work colleague in his car, shouted death threats and then ran over his scooter three or four times.
For this, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail and that, to a rider, is actually gratifying to see.
The driver argued his sentence was excessive but his appeal was unanimously rejected, and that forces me to ask: If you chase someone while shouting death threats, force them to take evasive action in fear of their life, and then destroy property, what exactly is an "appropriate" sentence?
The article is quite clean and, apart from the headline, unproblematic, but I can guarantee you there will have been riders reading it thinking "Yep, they really are out to get us."
The Courier Mail had a different and more informative take, published on the same day, with Road rage driver ran over man's scooter four times, then exchanges punches.
In this case, "Road rage driver" is clearer, but the entire headline is still too long and the comma is completely misplaced.
As the article points out, the case deals with using a vehicle as a weapon. All vehicles are always potential weapons. More people need to remember that.
There are a lot more details in this story and it is better for them. However, it is not so cleanly written and almost falls into the old "He said... then... then..." tedious-to-read list problem that commonly afflicts court reports where a record of events needs to be reported clear of any editorialising or risk of being held in contempt of court.
There are also some areas where punctuation actually would have been a good idea.
And while we're talking about appropriateness of sentencing, the comments on this article are entertaining as well: "Should have been longer," "Suck it up and deal with it," and the nicely worded "reckless endangerment and childish behaviour have no place in society."
Alas, most articles deal with deaths.
The CM has Motorcyclist killed in Bundaberg (December 9), a startlingly efficient headlines.
He was negotiating a bend on Quay St (which appears to be straight with a slight curve) when he struck a guard rail and fell down an embankment.
Once again, we have the old nonsense of "his bike lost control and crashed."
I'm also not sure if Bundaberg, which is coastal, is really "central Queensland".
If I'm nitpicking, the third sentence needs the first "and" replaced by a comma.
From the ABC, a two-paragraph story: Man dies in quad bike accident (December 12).
Does that suggest to you that there were four bikes involved in one accident? I'm no expert, but the basic rule of thumb is to hyphenate compound adjectives and "quad bike" is, in this case, the adjective to the noun "accident", meaning "quad-bike accident" would make fractionally more sense.
As rules of thumb go, however, there are always debates ongoing.
I'll avoid arguing whether a quad is a bike.
I will point out that "was thrown from" is perilously close to ascribing intent to the quad, and that "thrown from it and pinned down by the vehicle" is a clumsy sentence construction.
Because that was short, one more:
On December 13 (not a Friday, sadly), after an RSS headline of "Two road deaths in southeast," which is perfectly fine, the Courier Mail give us Crash kills motorcyclist on Pacific Motorway at Pimpama; driver at Helensvale dies after his car leaves suburban road.
A truck, a minibus and a motorbike collided. It's like the start to a bad joke. No indication of how three vehicles came to come together, but it should surprise nobody that the rider died.
The editing in this article is not quite as I would do it, and there's an extra blank line towards the end, something the Mail does fairly regularly. I thought I would have a quick peak at the page source and noticed that HTML for a sidebar had been inserted in the middle of the article text.
I suggest there needs to be some debugging of the website management software.
For the sheer scale of the accident, this article begs out for a follow up.
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: Scooter road rage driver loses appeal (December 8).
First of all, that headline is ambiguous about whether the scooter was the perpetrator or the victim. Yes, it says "driver", but stranger things have been done in the non-specialist media.
The summary is: A "pensioner" (at 50, that surely means either a disability pension or self-funded retiree because he's not yet eligible for the aged pension) chased a former work colleague in his car, shouted death threats and then ran over his scooter three or four times.
For this, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail and that, to a rider, is actually gratifying to see.
The driver argued his sentence was excessive but his appeal was unanimously rejected, and that forces me to ask: If you chase someone while shouting death threats, force them to take evasive action in fear of their life, and then destroy property, what exactly is an "appropriate" sentence?
The article is quite clean and, apart from the headline, unproblematic, but I can guarantee you there will have been riders reading it thinking "Yep, they really are out to get us."
The Courier Mail had a different and more informative take, published on the same day, with Road rage driver ran over man's scooter four times, then exchanges punches.
In this case, "Road rage driver" is clearer, but the entire headline is still too long and the comma is completely misplaced.
As the article points out, the case deals with using a vehicle as a weapon. All vehicles are always potential weapons. More people need to remember that.
There are a lot more details in this story and it is better for them. However, it is not so cleanly written and almost falls into the old "He said... then... then..." tedious-to-read list problem that commonly afflicts court reports where a record of events needs to be reported clear of any editorialising or risk of being held in contempt of court.
There are also some areas where punctuation actually would have been a good idea.
And while we're talking about appropriateness of sentencing, the comments on this article are entertaining as well: "Should have been longer," "Suck it up and deal with it," and the nicely worded "reckless endangerment and childish behaviour have no place in society."
Alas, most articles deal with deaths.
The CM has Motorcyclist killed in Bundaberg (December 9), a startlingly efficient headlines.
He was negotiating a bend on Quay St (which appears to be straight with a slight curve) when he struck a guard rail and fell down an embankment.
Once again, we have the old nonsense of "his bike lost control and crashed."
I'm also not sure if Bundaberg, which is coastal, is really "central Queensland".
If I'm nitpicking, the third sentence needs the first "and" replaced by a comma.
From the ABC, a two-paragraph story: Man dies in quad bike accident (December 12).
Does that suggest to you that there were four bikes involved in one accident? I'm no expert, but the basic rule of thumb is to hyphenate compound adjectives and "quad bike" is, in this case, the adjective to the noun "accident", meaning "quad-bike accident" would make fractionally more sense.
As rules of thumb go, however, there are always debates ongoing.
I'll avoid arguing whether a quad is a bike.
I will point out that "was thrown from" is perilously close to ascribing intent to the quad, and that "thrown from it and pinned down by the vehicle" is a clumsy sentence construction.
Because that was short, one more:
On December 13 (not a Friday, sadly), after an RSS headline of "Two road deaths in southeast," which is perfectly fine, the Courier Mail give us Crash kills motorcyclist on Pacific Motorway at Pimpama; driver at Helensvale dies after his car leaves suburban road.
A truck, a minibus and a motorbike collided. It's like the start to a bad joke. No indication of how three vehicles came to come together, but it should surprise nobody that the rider died.
The editing in this article is not quite as I would do it, and there's an extra blank line towards the end, something the Mail does fairly regularly. I thought I would have a quick peak at the page source and noticed that HTML for a sidebar had been inserted in the middle of the article text.
I suggest there needs to be some debugging of the website management software.
For the sheer scale of the accident, this article begs out for a follow up.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Queensland solar power: covered in coal soot
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 December 15 that:
Queensland could become home to one of the world's largest solar power stations, Energy Minister Stephen Robertson says.
This tendency to make unjustified, definitive claims in headlines (ie, "lying") is one of my biggest complaints against editorial practices in poor-quality journalism. Bald statements tend to get remembered, and headlines tend to get remembered, so the end result is the perpetuation of inaccurate perceptions. This, particularly in science journalism where a nuanced discussion of uncertainty is paramount, is unnecessary, destructive to an informed public and unforgivable.
But I digress.
The fact is that for a state blessed with wide open spaces and lots of sunlight (anyone not associate Queensland with sunlight? No? Didn't think so), Queensland has been as backwards as the state's reputation, and needs to stop being proud of plans that will barely even catch us up to where we should be.
This is a state addicted to burning things. Electricity generation is built on a platform of coal, and more coal. Even "renewables" production depends heavily on burning things. According to a 2009 report to the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE), in 2007 bagasse (sugar cane mulch after the sugar is extracted) provided a third of all electricity produced in Queensland from renewable means. Surprisingly, hydroelectricity was most of the rest. Biogass and wood pulp contributed and there was a frankly surprising contribution from wind. Solar, including solar hot water heating, barely even registered.
To be clear: Even if you don't accept global warming, a heavy reliance on a finite resource has never been intelligent. Any manager with half a brain plans for things like expansion and increase, and any geologist, geometrician or anybody capable of acknowledging the spherical nature of the earth can tell you that no fossil fuel is available in unlimited supply.
If you do accept global warming, something it's becoming harder and harder for even the obstinately ignorant to avoid, burning agricultural by-products is questionable and burning fossil fuels is asking for trouble we've already started getting.
Nor is it acceptable to hide beyond excuses that "the technology wasn't ready".
Let's recap, shall we: Solar concentration through lenses was achieved BC and the first solar hot water heater was build pre-1900.
The photovoltaic effect was recognised in 1839, exploited in 1883 and explained by Albert Einstein in 1905, for which he won the Nobel Prize.
The United Nations held a conference on solar power in 1961 and spacecraft were solar-powered in 1967 (only the electrics, obviously).
The first solar car race in Australia was run while I was in primary school, and Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House in 1977 - they were later taken down by Ronald Reagan, who believed that the job of a leader and government is to prevent, at all costs, doing any actual leading or governing.
I believe that governments are elected, and paid out of our tax money, to lead, govern and look to the future. I'm also disappointed in their response to water management, but that's another rant entirely.
At this moment, in Australia, we have companies developing quite exciting concentrating dish photovoltaics, concentrating dish solar thermal and dye-sensitised photovoltaic solutions in addition to the more conventional solar photovoltaic panels. And that's just what I uncovered in five minutes googling.
Whyalla in South Australia (40MW) and Mildura in Victoria (154MW) are both planning, or even constructing, large-scale plants. Yet the best the Queensland Government can do is a lot of plans, high-sounding words, ambitious statements and a couple of measly little power stations rating in the hundreds of kilowatts. Wizard Power is building a 40 megawatt, 4,000 kilowatt, station in Whyalla, a city a lot further south than the Queensland border. That plant is expected to produce 66 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.
According to that ministerial statement, Queensland's "first solar farm" will produce 335 megawatt hours of energy per year.
The state-government-owned CS Energy is building a solar thermal add-on to a polluting power plant, and it's planned for a capacity of 44MW and all it has to do is pre-heat water entering a coal-fired plant rated at 750MW.
For a state that prides itself on self-sufficiency and is selling itself as "the smart state" and "ClimateSmart" and the "Solar State", there is an awful lot of catching up to do and a deplorable lack of ambition. And that's even before we factor in the fact we export more coal than we burn.
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 December 15 that:
Queensland could become home to one of the world's largest solar power stations, Energy Minister Stephen Robertson says.
This tendency to make unjustified, definitive claims in headlines (ie, "lying") is one of my biggest complaints against editorial practices in poor-quality journalism. Bald statements tend to get remembered, and headlines tend to get remembered, so the end result is the perpetuation of inaccurate perceptions. This, particularly in science journalism where a nuanced discussion of uncertainty is paramount, is unnecessary, destructive to an informed public and unforgivable.
But I digress.
The fact is that for a state blessed with wide open spaces and lots of sunlight (anyone not associate Queensland with sunlight? No? Didn't think so), Queensland has been as backwards as the state's reputation, and needs to stop being proud of plans that will barely even catch us up to where we should be.
This is a state addicted to burning things. Electricity generation is built on a platform of coal, and more coal. Even "renewables" production depends heavily on burning things. According to a 2009 report to the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE), in 2007 bagasse (sugar cane mulch after the sugar is extracted) provided a third of all electricity produced in Queensland from renewable means. Surprisingly, hydroelectricity was most of the rest. Biogass and wood pulp contributed and there was a frankly surprising contribution from wind. Solar, including solar hot water heating, barely even registered.
To be clear: Even if you don't accept global warming, a heavy reliance on a finite resource has never been intelligent. Any manager with half a brain plans for things like expansion and increase, and any geologist, geometrician or anybody capable of acknowledging the spherical nature of the earth can tell you that no fossil fuel is available in unlimited supply.
If you do accept global warming, something it's becoming harder and harder for even the obstinately ignorant to avoid, burning agricultural by-products is questionable and burning fossil fuels is asking for trouble we've already started getting.
Nor is it acceptable to hide beyond excuses that "the technology wasn't ready".
Let's recap, shall we: Solar concentration through lenses was achieved BC and the first solar hot water heater was build pre-1900.
The photovoltaic effect was recognised in 1839, exploited in 1883 and explained by Albert Einstein in 1905, for which he won the Nobel Prize.
The United Nations held a conference on solar power in 1961 and spacecraft were solar-powered in 1967 (only the electrics, obviously).
The first solar car race in Australia was run while I was in primary school, and Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House in 1977 - they were later taken down by Ronald Reagan, who believed that the job of a leader and government is to prevent, at all costs, doing any actual leading or governing.
I believe that governments are elected, and paid out of our tax money, to lead, govern and look to the future. I'm also disappointed in their response to water management, but that's another rant entirely.
At this moment, in Australia, we have companies developing quite exciting concentrating dish photovoltaics, concentrating dish solar thermal and dye-sensitised photovoltaic solutions in addition to the more conventional solar photovoltaic panels. And that's just what I uncovered in five minutes googling.
Whyalla in South Australia (40MW) and Mildura in Victoria (154MW) are both planning, or even constructing, large-scale plants. Yet the best the Queensland Government can do is a lot of plans, high-sounding words, ambitious statements and a couple of measly little power stations rating in the hundreds of kilowatts. Wizard Power is building a 40 megawatt, 4,000 kilowatt, station in Whyalla, a city a lot further south than the Queensland border. That plant is expected to produce 66 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.
According to that ministerial statement, Queensland's "first solar farm" will produce 335 megawatt hours of energy per year.
The state-government-owned CS Energy is building a solar thermal add-on to a polluting power plant, and it's planned for a capacity of 44MW and all it has to do is pre-heat water entering a coal-fired plant rated at 750MW.
For a state that prides itself on self-sufficiency and is selling itself as "the smart state" and "ClimateSmart" and the "Solar State", there is an awful lot of catching up to do and a deplorable lack of ambition. And that's even before we factor in the fact we export more coal than we burn.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 23
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 organisations.
December 1 was a little rich for stories of bike accidents and general shenanigans. I'm not sure why - it was a Wednesday, so there was no weekend backlog to clear.
First up, and first series, Oxley traffic branch cop killed, from the QT.
The headline doesn't reveal that he was a fair way from Oxley when he died, or that he wasn't in fact shot in a drive-way revenge attack by mafiosi. He was way up north between Gladstone and Rockhampton when he hit a truck.
Once again, we have "his service motorcycle collided" as though no human had anything to say in the matter.
There's sad quotes from the Commissioner, but little actual details on the accident. He was riding escort, and there was a collision with a truck. I would love to hear the outcome of that investigation.
Also: Would a commissioner ever come out and say that an officer was anything but a "valued member of the Service"?
I suspect there was a web glitch and the last paragraph was supposed to be split into two.
Same day, the ABC has considerably more in Motorcycle cop killed on duty.
There are more quotes here, and some information about the accident. Bizarrely, there appears to be a paragraph or two missing.
We are first told "his motorcycle collided with a truck" but no more.
Then, at the end of the article, there is mention of a review of training of officers escorting wide loads - probably fair enough - and then "it does not appear the truck's speed was a factor in today's crash." This may be just another knee-jerk because-it's-expected reference to speed, but: "The truck driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries."
Um, what? The only way a truck driver could get injured in a collision with a motorbike, while they're driving the truck, is if they have a heart attack out of shock, bump their head from surprise or the bike flips up and comes through the windscreen, and that would be newsworthy.
Perhaps the answer comes from the Courier Mail, who had their say on December 7 with (deep breath, now) Wildlife corridor to be named after fallen policeman Dan Stiller, killed by jack-knife truck on highway.
Oh, right, that's why they collided! (You did get to the end of that headline, didn't you?)
Apart from that critical piece of information, the article is basically a long eulogy, with lots of regrets being voiced and a wider-perspective version of the same official photo used by the ABC.
Notice, however, that this article shows the value of subheadings. The ABC is not afraid of breaking up an article at logical places, and it helps the reader. The Courier Mail hasn't, but there is an extra blank line inserted towards the end which looks like a missing headline. I even highlighted the text in case my web browser was doing something funny and it was there, just invisible to me. No, it's just a redundant blank line.
The second story arc, also beginning December 1, is just two stories long and both from the ABC, beginning with Dirt bike rider in serious condition after crash.
Apart from the usual language issues ("fell off") it's a good story, perhaps less crisp than most ABC pieces are and has a good set of quotes from the organiser.
The follow up, from December 6, is unfortunately Injured dirt bike rider dies in hospital.
This story is shorter and has no byline, and is blunt and to the point. The lead par is perhaps a little clunky, but there's not really anything missing and not really anything wrong.
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 organisations.
December 1 was a little rich for stories of bike accidents and general shenanigans. I'm not sure why - it was a Wednesday, so there was no weekend backlog to clear.
First up, and first series, Oxley traffic branch cop killed, from the QT.
The headline doesn't reveal that he was a fair way from Oxley when he died, or that he wasn't in fact shot in a drive-way revenge attack by mafiosi. He was way up north between Gladstone and Rockhampton when he hit a truck.
Once again, we have "his service motorcycle collided" as though no human had anything to say in the matter.
There's sad quotes from the Commissioner, but little actual details on the accident. He was riding escort, and there was a collision with a truck. I would love to hear the outcome of that investigation.
Also: Would a commissioner ever come out and say that an officer was anything but a "valued member of the Service"?
I suspect there was a web glitch and the last paragraph was supposed to be split into two.
Same day, the ABC has considerably more in Motorcycle cop killed on duty.
There are more quotes here, and some information about the accident. Bizarrely, there appears to be a paragraph or two missing.
We are first told "his motorcycle collided with a truck" but no more.
Then, at the end of the article, there is mention of a review of training of officers escorting wide loads - probably fair enough - and then "it does not appear the truck's speed was a factor in today's crash." This may be just another knee-jerk because-it's-expected reference to speed, but: "The truck driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries."
Um, what? The only way a truck driver could get injured in a collision with a motorbike, while they're driving the truck, is if they have a heart attack out of shock, bump their head from surprise or the bike flips up and comes through the windscreen, and that would be newsworthy.
Perhaps the answer comes from the Courier Mail, who had their say on December 7 with (deep breath, now) Wildlife corridor to be named after fallen policeman Dan Stiller, killed by jack-knife truck on highway.
Oh, right, that's why they collided! (You did get to the end of that headline, didn't you?)
Apart from that critical piece of information, the article is basically a long eulogy, with lots of regrets being voiced and a wider-perspective version of the same official photo used by the ABC.
Notice, however, that this article shows the value of subheadings. The ABC is not afraid of breaking up an article at logical places, and it helps the reader. The Courier Mail hasn't, but there is an extra blank line inserted towards the end which looks like a missing headline. I even highlighted the text in case my web browser was doing something funny and it was there, just invisible to me. No, it's just a redundant blank line.
The second story arc, also beginning December 1, is just two stories long and both from the ABC, beginning with Dirt bike rider in serious condition after crash.
Apart from the usual language issues ("fell off") it's a good story, perhaps less crisp than most ABC pieces are and has a good set of quotes from the organiser.
The follow up, from December 6, is unfortunately Injured dirt bike rider dies in hospital.
This story is shorter and has no byline, and is blunt and to the point. The lead par is perhaps a little clunky, but there's not really anything missing and not really anything wrong.
Friday, 10 December 2010
Of motorbikes and weighty matters
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 exceptions.
Another trend is that sports tourers have settled into having weights of above 260 kg wet. 'Wet' in this case means all operating fluids and a full tank.
On the other hand, my K100RS came from BMW with a claimed fully-fueled road-ready weight of 249kg, and the its bigger-fairinged and touring-focused RT brother came in at a positively gossamer 253kg. I take those numbers from my increasingly-fragile copy of the owner's handbook - interestingly, bikez.com disagrees on the RT's weight. By contrast, Kawasaki's attempt at a cheap RT, the original and still loved 1000GTR, came in at 307kg (bikez.com).
But let's see where we're at with modern bikes (all weights from, and links to, company's websites, we may as well grant them conditional trust and let them trade creative accountancy).
BMW's closest current equivalent to the RS is the K1300S, which claims to be a sports bike but, like all Beemers (with the exception of the S1000RR superbike), makes an admirable tourer (at launch, the K1200 came in an 'S Sport' version with a sexy and RS-esque half-fairing, but sadly no longer), which claims a respectable 254kg wet. A bigger engine, more plastic and fancier suspension for only 5kg above the original sounds pretty good. The all-the-toys-but-not-a-leadwing K1300GT claims 288kg. The twin-cylinder beloved-by-police R1200RT claims a frankly surprisingly svelte 259kg (or 400kg with police gear in the panniers, I suspect). NB: BMW have built their Australian website so direct links are difficult, so sod them: They don't get any.
On the other hand, Honda's brand new and highly hyped (and ugly - my opinion) VFR1200F has a "kerb weight" claim of 267kg and the established, more GT-esque ST1300 sits at 289kg (frankly, I'll have the Beemer). Triumph's new Sprint GT, a closer comparison to these shaft-drive sports tourers than the slightly smaller Sprint ST despite its chain, claims 268kg.
Suzuki haven't quite got the hang of tourers, but the Bandit-with-a-full-fairing GSX1200FA, which isn't really sophisticated enough to play in this company, still claims a "kerb mass" of 257kg.
Yamaha's famously potent FJR1300 claims 291kg "with 25.0 litres of fuel", which happens to be the tank capacity, putting it in GT company. Kawasaki's current, king-of-the-engine-hill-and-we're-going-after-BMW-levels-of-technology-too GTR, the 1400GTR (interestingly, they don't have a "touring" section on their website and put it in Sport) claims a whopping and all too believable 304kg with a full tank and no panniers.
Most of the Italians no longer do this sort of sports-tourer, preferring to pursue the adventure-tourer style (Ducati Multistrada, Benelli TreK) but the Moto Guzzi Norge GT (PDF link, for the stats) lists a dry weight of 257kg, which puts it up near 290kg wet.
Even Honda's baby tourer NT700V Deauville (Doughville, Dulls-ville ...) with its built-in panniers comes in at a decidedly non-middleweight 257kg.
The cynic may point at all these similar-ballpark figures and suggest they're keeping more of an eye on other people than on possibilities, and an engineer may say there are only so many techniques you can use when you want to build a bike with that capacity and that level of ride comfort and weather protection without going totally overboard on costs.
But: Why? When the first K100RT came in under anything comparable today, and the RS ditto, where has it all come from? One answer is bigger engines, one answer is more plastic in the fairings, and the becoming-standard ABS hardware weighs a little, as well. On the other hand: 20 years of development.
Now, the original flying brick Ks had an aluminium engine that did most of the structural work, and an aluminium tank. Were BMW cleverer then than they are now? Did they decide the effort put into an aluminium engine block wasn't financially viable, worth it or the best engineering solution as power outputs climbed?
Or is there a "good enough" guide that even the famously individualistic engineers at BMW follow?
Which would be a great pity. My partner wants to stay with shaft drive motorbikes because she's sick of oiling, checking and adjusting chains, but wants something lighter than the RS without sacrificing power. Clearly, that's going to be difficult if not impossible and the best option seems to be a BMW F800ST, which has a low-maintenance belt drive and the same claimed power output as the K but 40kg less mass. And much more sex appeal.
And unlike cars, which have bloated with airbags, crumple zones, side-impact anti-intrusion beams, heavier laminated windscreens and a general increase in size of car and wheels, bikes haven't really added that much except cubic inches and ABS. So, clearly, experience and improved technology have not translated into net weight savings.
What I want is a shaft-drive, 1Litre semi-faired sports tourer for about 200kg. Clearly, I'm not going to get it. My best bet will probably be either an it-can't-be-can-it? 229kg R1200GS or sticking a windscreen on a 223kg naked R1200R, and no naked bike has ever looked good with a windscreen bolted on.
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 exceptions.
Another trend is that sports tourers have settled into having weights of above 260 kg wet. 'Wet' in this case means all operating fluids and a full tank.
On the other hand, my K100RS came from BMW with a claimed fully-fueled road-ready weight of 249kg, and the its bigger-fairinged and touring-focused RT brother came in at a positively gossamer 253kg. I take those numbers from my increasingly-fragile copy of the owner's handbook - interestingly, bikez.com disagrees on the RT's weight. By contrast, Kawasaki's attempt at a cheap RT, the original and still loved 1000GTR, came in at 307kg (bikez.com).
But let's see where we're at with modern bikes (all weights from, and links to, company's websites, we may as well grant them conditional trust and let them trade creative accountancy).
BMW's closest current equivalent to the RS is the K1300S, which claims to be a sports bike but, like all Beemers (with the exception of the S1000RR superbike), makes an admirable tourer (at launch, the K1200 came in an 'S Sport' version with a sexy and RS-esque half-fairing, but sadly no longer), which claims a respectable 254kg wet. A bigger engine, more plastic and fancier suspension for only 5kg above the original sounds pretty good. The all-the-toys-but-not-a-leadwing K1300GT claims 288kg. The twin-cylinder beloved-by-police R1200RT claims a frankly surprisingly svelte 259kg (or 400kg with police gear in the panniers, I suspect). NB: BMW have built their Australian website so direct links are difficult, so sod them: They don't get any.
On the other hand, Honda's brand new and highly hyped (and ugly - my opinion) VFR1200F has a "kerb weight" claim of 267kg and the established, more GT-esque ST1300 sits at 289kg (frankly, I'll have the Beemer). Triumph's new Sprint GT, a closer comparison to these shaft-drive sports tourers than the slightly smaller Sprint ST despite its chain, claims 268kg.
Suzuki haven't quite got the hang of tourers, but the Bandit-with-a-full-fairing GSX1200FA, which isn't really sophisticated enough to play in this company, still claims a "kerb mass" of 257kg.
Yamaha's famously potent FJR1300 claims 291kg "with 25.0 litres of fuel", which happens to be the tank capacity, putting it in GT company. Kawasaki's current, king-of-the-engine-hill-and-we're-going-after-BMW-levels-of-technology-too GTR, the 1400GTR (interestingly, they don't have a "touring" section on their website and put it in Sport) claims a whopping and all too believable 304kg with a full tank and no panniers.
Most of the Italians no longer do this sort of sports-tourer, preferring to pursue the adventure-tourer style (Ducati Multistrada, Benelli TreK) but the Moto Guzzi Norge GT (PDF link, for the stats) lists a dry weight of 257kg, which puts it up near 290kg wet.
Even Honda's baby tourer NT700V Deauville (Doughville, Dulls-ville ...) with its built-in panniers comes in at a decidedly non-middleweight 257kg.
The cynic may point at all these similar-ballpark figures and suggest they're keeping more of an eye on other people than on possibilities, and an engineer may say there are only so many techniques you can use when you want to build a bike with that capacity and that level of ride comfort and weather protection without going totally overboard on costs.
But: Why? When the first K100RT came in under anything comparable today, and the RS ditto, where has it all come from? One answer is bigger engines, one answer is more plastic in the fairings, and the becoming-standard ABS hardware weighs a little, as well. On the other hand: 20 years of development.
Now, the original flying brick Ks had an aluminium engine that did most of the structural work, and an aluminium tank. Were BMW cleverer then than they are now? Did they decide the effort put into an aluminium engine block wasn't financially viable, worth it or the best engineering solution as power outputs climbed?
Or is there a "good enough" guide that even the famously individualistic engineers at BMW follow?
Which would be a great pity. My partner wants to stay with shaft drive motorbikes because she's sick of oiling, checking and adjusting chains, but wants something lighter than the RS without sacrificing power. Clearly, that's going to be difficult if not impossible and the best option seems to be a BMW F800ST, which has a low-maintenance belt drive and the same claimed power output as the K but 40kg less mass. And much more sex appeal.
And unlike cars, which have bloated with airbags, crumple zones, side-impact anti-intrusion beams, heavier laminated windscreens and a general increase in size of car and wheels, bikes haven't really added that much except cubic inches and ABS. So, clearly, experience and improved technology have not translated into net weight savings.
What I want is a shaft-drive, 1Litre semi-faired sports tourer for about 200kg. Clearly, I'm not going to get it. My best bet will probably be either an it-can't-be-can-it? 229kg R1200GS or sticking a windscreen on a 223kg naked R1200R, and no naked bike has ever looked good with a windscreen bolted on.
Motorcycle accidents in the media: Part 22
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.
The ute was being followed by police, who hadn't got to the point of putting on lights and therefore making it a 'pursuit', and had a reported speed (which is probably accurate, from the police and all) of 140km/h. Which is 'speeding' anywhere but a couple of roads in the NT.
Quotes all too often make headlines look messy.
My other problem with this headline is that, as reported by the police and as demonstrated by the photo accompanying the article, the ute struck the bike. So why phrase the headline so a logical reading suggests the rider struck the ute? Yes, the ute is identified as being in the wrong in one sense, but 'bike - collides - ute' implicitly puts blame for the collision upon the rider. 'Collides with' is a much cleaner construct than 'being struck by', and it can be argued that 'ute - strikes and kills - biker' is too close to an attribution of blame prior to a judicial judgement, but this headline feels like an unsatisfactory compromise.
It's a well written article, though, and provides much scope for discussion on whether the "technically it was not a police pursuit" is sarcasm from the writer - particularly given the last paragraph, where we are told the police investigation will be overseen by the ethical standards department.
What interests me here is that there is no quote from the police concerning the state of the driver. 140 is not actually all that fast, even at dark, with full-beam headlights on. I don't know what the state of lighting on that section of road was, but either the driver really wasn't (in a state to be) paying attention until the last minute, or the rider wasn't and merged at a fatally stupid wrong moment.
The lesson for all road users is: pay attention!
(As a side-note: I noticed when doing a final read-through that I had Freudianly written "full-beam headlines on".)
Now, from November 19, the Courier Mail went past over-long headline territory and into just plain actually wrong (language-wise, not fact-wise): Woman motorcycle rider killed crash at Withcott, east of Toowoomba.
Also: Why "Woman motorcyclist" in the headline, but "A female motorcyclist" in the opening par?
Interestingly, the RSS headline was "Warrego delays after fatal crash" which is slightly ambiguous (Who is Warrego, and what are they delaying?) but much cleaner.
Withcott is right at the bottom of the ranges, and marks a sort of gateway to Toowoomba. Murphy's Creek Rd is east of Withcott, and fairly major. The Warrego Highway is littered with uncontrolled intersections like that and there have already been speed limit reductions and serious signage put elsewhere at major blackspots. There needs to be a lot more flyovers. Oh, and better drivers.
10am means the sun shouldn't have been too low and in the eyes, a 50yo driver shouldn't have been so young they're getting eyesight or judgement problems, and there's no information given about who was doing what. As a motorcyclist, it's far too easy to put all blame on a driver who wasn't paying attention.
Apart from that, an okay article.
The ABC also covered it, same day - Motorcyclist killed on Warrego Highway.
Less information, nothing to complain about. Except the usual "her motorbike collided with" humanising of machines.
So, that's November out of the way. Again.
Leaping straight into December 1 with Crash survivor faces jail from the QT.
Apart from a confusing opening par, this one confuses me in general.
There's no mention of how the speed of "about 100kmh" (shouldn't that be km/h?) was judged, and I'm always confused when I see that someone who was unlicensed has had their licence suspended.
I would also dearly love to know how magistrates react when they hear someone has "struggled for many years with alcohol issues but was now getting counselling." My instinct would be to give them a harder penalty for not having sought help sooner for something that encourages illegal behaviours.
There is a whole other, highly entertaining, argument around whether psychiatric disorders, mental health conditions or substance use/addictive behaviour problems are "explanations", "mitigating factors" or "excuses", in decreasing order of personal responsibility. From my experience after nearly a decade working with people with various behaviour-modifying conditions, the professional viewpoint is: "You know you have {condition}, you know what it does, you have a responsibility to get help. If you can't control yourself in this service, get out."
Getting back to the article - there's some clunky sentence structures, but it reads less like a list of facts than most court reports do, and I only have one other quibble: Was it really necessary to write "Shaking her head, Magistrate Donna MacCallum sentenced ... "?
At this point, I'd like to point out that there was a rash of reporting: Reader still has six items with a date stamp of December 1. Now, some of those may have been starred on December 1 but have been published earlier, still in November.
There are some double-ups and some running stories and I'd like to keep those together, so I'll do one more in this entry and it's from December 5, from the ABC: Motorbike rider dies on sand dunes.
It's a simple and straightforward report, and the only quibble I have is punctuation: In the second paragraph there should probably either be a second comma after Perth to close a subordinate clause, or no comma at all and run the sentence on. I would go with an Oxford double comma bracketing the clause, myself, but ABC style is to minimise commas where possible.
Today's lesson is: There are some really dangerous road users out there.
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.
The ute was being followed by police, who hadn't got to the point of putting on lights and therefore making it a 'pursuit', and had a reported speed (which is probably accurate, from the police and all) of 140km/h. Which is 'speeding' anywhere but a couple of roads in the NT.
Quotes all too often make headlines look messy.
My other problem with this headline is that, as reported by the police and as demonstrated by the photo accompanying the article, the ute struck the bike. So why phrase the headline so a logical reading suggests the rider struck the ute? Yes, the ute is identified as being in the wrong in one sense, but 'bike - collides - ute' implicitly puts blame for the collision upon the rider. 'Collides with' is a much cleaner construct than 'being struck by', and it can be argued that 'ute - strikes and kills - biker' is too close to an attribution of blame prior to a judicial judgement, but this headline feels like an unsatisfactory compromise.
It's a well written article, though, and provides much scope for discussion on whether the "technically it was not a police pursuit" is sarcasm from the writer - particularly given the last paragraph, where we are told the police investigation will be overseen by the ethical standards department.
What interests me here is that there is no quote from the police concerning the state of the driver. 140 is not actually all that fast, even at dark, with full-beam headlights on. I don't know what the state of lighting on that section of road was, but either the driver really wasn't (in a state to be) paying attention until the last minute, or the rider wasn't and merged at a fatally stupid wrong moment.
The lesson for all road users is: pay attention!
(As a side-note: I noticed when doing a final read-through that I had Freudianly written "full-beam headlines on".)
Now, from November 19, the Courier Mail went past over-long headline territory and into just plain actually wrong (language-wise, not fact-wise): Woman motorcycle rider killed crash at Withcott, east of Toowoomba.
Also: Why "Woman motorcyclist" in the headline, but "A female motorcyclist" in the opening par?
Interestingly, the RSS headline was "Warrego delays after fatal crash" which is slightly ambiguous (Who is Warrego, and what are they delaying?) but much cleaner.
Withcott is right at the bottom of the ranges, and marks a sort of gateway to Toowoomba. Murphy's Creek Rd is east of Withcott, and fairly major. The Warrego Highway is littered with uncontrolled intersections like that and there have already been speed limit reductions and serious signage put elsewhere at major blackspots. There needs to be a lot more flyovers. Oh, and better drivers.
10am means the sun shouldn't have been too low and in the eyes, a 50yo driver shouldn't have been so young they're getting eyesight or judgement problems, and there's no information given about who was doing what. As a motorcyclist, it's far too easy to put all blame on a driver who wasn't paying attention.
Apart from that, an okay article.
The ABC also covered it, same day - Motorcyclist killed on Warrego Highway.
Less information, nothing to complain about. Except the usual "her motorbike collided with" humanising of machines.
So, that's November out of the way. Again.
Leaping straight into December 1 with Crash survivor faces jail from the QT.
Apart from a confusing opening par, this one confuses me in general.
There's no mention of how the speed of "about 100kmh" (shouldn't that be km/h?) was judged, and I'm always confused when I see that someone who was unlicensed has had their licence suspended.
I would also dearly love to know how magistrates react when they hear someone has "struggled for many years with alcohol issues but was now getting counselling." My instinct would be to give them a harder penalty for not having sought help sooner for something that encourages illegal behaviours.
There is a whole other, highly entertaining, argument around whether psychiatric disorders, mental health conditions or substance use/addictive behaviour problems are "explanations", "mitigating factors" or "excuses", in decreasing order of personal responsibility. From my experience after nearly a decade working with people with various behaviour-modifying conditions, the professional viewpoint is: "You know you have {condition}, you know what it does, you have a responsibility to get help. If you can't control yourself in this service, get out."
Getting back to the article - there's some clunky sentence structures, but it reads less like a list of facts than most court reports do, and I only have one other quibble: Was it really necessary to write "Shaking her head, Magistrate Donna MacCallum sentenced ... "?
At this point, I'd like to point out that there was a rash of reporting: Reader still has six items with a date stamp of December 1. Now, some of those may have been starred on December 1 but have been published earlier, still in November.
There are some double-ups and some running stories and I'd like to keep those together, so I'll do one more in this entry and it's from December 5, from the ABC: Motorbike rider dies on sand dunes.
It's a simple and straightforward report, and the only quibble I have is punctuation: In the second paragraph there should probably either be a second comma after Perth to close a subordinate clause, or no comma at all and run the sentence on. I would go with an Oxford double comma bracketing the clause, myself, but ABC style is to minimise commas where possible.
Today's lesson is: There are some really dangerous road users out there.
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