Its been an interesting week. More delving into the guts of Sony Vaio's, a few little jobs here and there. A couple of new websites (well to us.. really they are just updates), a support client wanting us to develop a couple of shopfront websites for him, and I have remote desktop.. and actually all remote services on private LAN's sussed. Even have a how to document together on my hot little macbook. And remote desktop enabled on one of my machines. and visible from the web. Even though we have a dynamic IP address that changes often
Here is the web server on the machine in the corner. If its not there its because I turned it off not cos its down, Totally reliable.. although it of course comes with security issues. And simple in the end. Cool huh? Got that wired now.
A few days ago we went to my old mate Ian and his wife Lisa's for a barbie. I amused myself by hacking Ians router on the fly with my macbook and actually setting up some security. Wide open network. Since then I have read of an astonishing plugin for the firefox web browser called firesheep. It works like this.. if you use a nonsecure network at the same time as someone is using firesheep and you go to any of a myriad non secure sites.. including amongst many others facebook.. Mr firesheep has your username and password. Scarey huh? To beat it you probably need to force the non secure site to run https.. but that makes it harder apparently to deliver advertisements, so may not always even be possible. Its probably why so many of these sites are not secure anyway... that and the overhead in encrypting each bit of data. I have had a look at firesheep and its now on my Macbook.. more when I know more. But this is scary scary stuff
Ian became my mate for life after an accident a trillion years ago when I broke my hip. All other visitors bought flowers. Cept my mum who bought clean underwear in the wrong size. Ian bought scotch. A good mate.
Team Splat! returned to DISC last week for some training. While warming up.. my tire went down. Result a fall and a lack of confidence for the rest of the night. The tire was at 120 psi and at 80 psi in the bend at 25 kph the front wheel tucked under. Not saveable. Not impressed. I caught the replacement tube at 80 psi later too. Not confidence inspiring. Cost me some skin and a good pair of knicks to figure out that if the tire should squeal on a painted line at DISC its a really really good time to stop and check tire pressures.
Sally later on had a 0 kph fall out of the starting gate. Sally was having a slightly nervy night herself. In fact the only confident happy member of Team Splat! was Jenny. Who rode confidently and well Sunday week at Blackburn Velo is Team Splat!'s next official outing.. come along and support us.
Just heard that the Brumby Government has just revisited its abandoned election promise of a rail link to Tullamarine Airport. It helped get em elected last time and then was dumped, this election is looking pretty dodgy, trot it out again. Cos Victorians are stupid. We must be.. look at our pollies. :P But seriously how cynical are these people? Brumby probably thinks he has my vote because he is a cyclist. Think again mate. I know of few people who could not do a better job than you.. and almost no one who could not do it cheaper.
Showing posts with label social comment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social comment. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Of business and bikes.
Wednesday, supposedly a really good day to do a blog post. Lets see how this one does on the statistics. I am trying to write the blog 3 times a week, honestly, its just not always happening.
Interesting week. Kathy just fielded a phone call. Do we want to send a couple of representatives up to the Gold Coast to tout for Government Contracts. 11 guaranteed meetings, the people on the other side of the table prepared to sign off on 5 million bucks worth of contracts at a minimum on the spot. Mostly interested in data recovery IT consultancy and Plone. Interesting huh? Would cost us 35K and that all a tax write off.
Bit rich for our blood just atm.. for that I would certainly finish writing our bit of Data Recovery software. I can see it happening tho.. next year or the year after. We dont need much more momentum to be doing all right. And from all right to really good is not nearly as big a step. Their really is a market for companies like us. The big players mostly want to deal with the rich companies.. its small business thats vibrant, interesting, much more involved in networking and personal relationships and actually needs us.. instead of some big player, to sort out their issues.. which are as diverse as a single printer giving them grief, a web site that needs work, or some documentation that needs polishing. I am going into Carlton in a while to look at why one employees Outlook isn't This area is fun.. not boring in the slightest. Its where we want to be.
The evil laptop that has come to give me nightmares has finally got spares on the way. Maybe even the right spares. Its sorta hard to tell. I have hopes. I really really want that done. On that front its almost completely together now. and quite reliable.
I definitely need to pick the brains of a VPN network expert. I have 3 clients requiring a little bit of help in this area and while I am getting there... its a bit trickier than I thought; if you are a VPN expert and prepared to give us a hand send me an email. Kathy is snowed under with web development work. This is all php and other language programming and not simple stuff. Plenty happening on that front.
We are going ahead with the Bendigo expansion. Its a gamble but what in life isn't? At some point I probably need to find a smart, savvy trustworthy (because we dont want them to run away and do their own thing) IT savvy person to be the Bendigo face of Perfect Notes. And in fact we probably want to set them up with a VPN to our server farm I have just realised. So if thats you.. maybe drop us a line. Either Kathy or I and occasionally (as in next week) both of us will be plodding up to Bendigo fairly often. Its obviously time to sort our second car. Sigh. I try for a low impact life style honestly.
Ok... and now for our customary cycling rave.
The sprint series race is happening on Sunday week. My entry is in. I have had many comments to the effect that if I can win D grade so can anyone. I expect some competition in D grade.. and I seriously have to lift my game by maybe 2 seconds a lap to have much of a shot at C grade. Oh their are people in C grade I can beat.. but, there are people I possibly cannot. Sigh. That bike frame prize is looking pretty safe. Team Splat! will be their in its entirety. And we will of course give it our usual red hot go.
I am really proud of Team Splat!. We never set out to set the world on fire.. or win everything we entered.. we set out to have fun.. to give the two girls (I was never going to race track again) a decent support structure and to give it a go. I think our result hugely surpass that. We are a actual force to if not actually be reckoned with at least to be taken seriously. Our first effort with more than one rider entered and we got 1st and 2nd in D grade.
One thing that I feel strongly about in racing is that while its OK to finish last, and its OK to not train every minute, and its OK to not have it be the most important thing in your life its not OK to not take it seriously. Its not OK to not give it a decent try. Its not OK to not train at all. This is especially true of 1 on 1 competition like match sprinting or pursuits. And I,ll tell you why. If you race an opponent who does not do you the credit of putting in and you win.. then you win nothing. Your opponent was unprepared and not serious Your effort is wasted. And if they perchance should win (unlikely because not training tends to go with poor results but some people do have natural talent) then it is even a worse insult to you. It says "I can beat you without even putting in an effort, you are worth nothing, why are you here?" Its positively insulting. Not everyone agrees with me.. perhaps you need to have done Karate or another combat sport to see it this way. What do you think?
This past Sunday was the annual Around The Bay ride. The ATB is the ultimate goal of many recreational riders. Bitch Road fills up with riders of less than ordinary skill for weeks beforehand as they train for it. Sally and I decided to go for a ride.. and take in some of the atmosphere but both of us have done the event before.. and Sally had to be back early for family reasons so we decided to only go as far as Mornington.
I rode in, met Sally at the agreed rendezvous and set off. We went very hard... working mainly in with each other. pointedly staying away from the bunches although very often we ended up towing large bunches of our own. Several times in characteristic ATB style big bunches pushed past us, died instantly and we rode around the outside of them. We saw many interesting examples of inadequate roadcraft, amusing levels of non skill and amazing idioticity I mean really.. riding a TT bike.. in the bars in a bunch, and an average bunch at that.
We stopped several times for coffee and to watch the passing parade, saw the aftermath of a fatal heart attack on Olivers, Hill in Frankston (A likely place for a heart attack I must say) and stopped for coffee whenever it started raining.
On the return we followed the same procedure.. riding side by side chatting or doing bit and bit.. Sally and I riding very well together.. the trust built up by riding track very evident. Once or twice we worked in with other people one of who was on a Bike Friday. Wow you can draft those small wheeled bikes close . I figured out that you need not ever hit the back wheel, you could always put out an arm and push the bloke away. And the draft that close was amazing. I want a Bike Friday.
Afterwards Sally and I parted company on Princes Bridge. I went to the finish. Met many people I know. Drank beer. Had dinner with Kathy, and our friends Robyn and Ros. Robyn and I co own a unit in Glen Iris. Ros came down from Darwin to stay with her for the ATB. And then I rode home. Finishing off with a good hard 170 km for the day. And more hills than the ATB. A wonderful wonderful day.
Interesting week. Kathy just fielded a phone call. Do we want to send a couple of representatives up to the Gold Coast to tout for Government Contracts. 11 guaranteed meetings, the people on the other side of the table prepared to sign off on 5 million bucks worth of contracts at a minimum on the spot. Mostly interested in data recovery IT consultancy and Plone. Interesting huh? Would cost us 35K and that all a tax write off.
Bit rich for our blood just atm.. for that I would certainly finish writing our bit of Data Recovery software. I can see it happening tho.. next year or the year after. We dont need much more momentum to be doing all right. And from all right to really good is not nearly as big a step. Their really is a market for companies like us. The big players mostly want to deal with the rich companies.. its small business thats vibrant, interesting, much more involved in networking and personal relationships and actually needs us.. instead of some big player, to sort out their issues.. which are as diverse as a single printer giving them grief, a web site that needs work, or some documentation that needs polishing. I am going into Carlton in a while to look at why one employees Outlook isn't This area is fun.. not boring in the slightest. Its where we want to be.
The evil laptop that has come to give me nightmares has finally got spares on the way. Maybe even the right spares. Its sorta hard to tell. I have hopes. I really really want that done. On that front its almost completely together now. and quite reliable.
I definitely need to pick the brains of a VPN network expert. I have 3 clients requiring a little bit of help in this area and while I am getting there... its a bit trickier than I thought; if you are a VPN expert and prepared to give us a hand send me an email. Kathy is snowed under with web development work. This is all php and other language programming and not simple stuff. Plenty happening on that front.
We are going ahead with the Bendigo expansion. Its a gamble but what in life isn't? At some point I probably need to find a smart, savvy trustworthy (because we dont want them to run away and do their own thing) IT savvy person to be the Bendigo face of Perfect Notes. And in fact we probably want to set them up with a VPN to our server farm I have just realised. So if thats you.. maybe drop us a line. Either Kathy or I and occasionally (as in next week) both of us will be plodding up to Bendigo fairly often. Its obviously time to sort our second car. Sigh. I try for a low impact life style honestly.
Ok... and now for our customary cycling rave.
The sprint series race is happening on Sunday week. My entry is in. I have had many comments to the effect that if I can win D grade so can anyone. I expect some competition in D grade.. and I seriously have to lift my game by maybe 2 seconds a lap to have much of a shot at C grade. Oh their are people in C grade I can beat.. but, there are people I possibly cannot. Sigh. That bike frame prize is looking pretty safe. Team Splat! will be their in its entirety. And we will of course give it our usual red hot go.
I am really proud of Team Splat!. We never set out to set the world on fire.. or win everything we entered.. we set out to have fun.. to give the two girls (I was never going to race track again) a decent support structure and to give it a go. I think our result hugely surpass that. We are a actual force to if not actually be reckoned with at least to be taken seriously. Our first effort with more than one rider entered and we got 1st and 2nd in D grade.
One thing that I feel strongly about in racing is that while its OK to finish last, and its OK to not train every minute, and its OK to not have it be the most important thing in your life its not OK to not take it seriously. Its not OK to not give it a decent try. Its not OK to not train at all. This is especially true of 1 on 1 competition like match sprinting or pursuits. And I,ll tell you why. If you race an opponent who does not do you the credit of putting in and you win.. then you win nothing. Your opponent was unprepared and not serious Your effort is wasted. And if they perchance should win (unlikely because not training tends to go with poor results but some people do have natural talent) then it is even a worse insult to you. It says "I can beat you without even putting in an effort, you are worth nothing, why are you here?" Its positively insulting. Not everyone agrees with me.. perhaps you need to have done Karate or another combat sport to see it this way. What do you think?
This past Sunday was the annual Around The Bay ride. The ATB is the ultimate goal of many recreational riders. Bitch Road fills up with riders of less than ordinary skill for weeks beforehand as they train for it. Sally and I decided to go for a ride.. and take in some of the atmosphere but both of us have done the event before.. and Sally had to be back early for family reasons so we decided to only go as far as Mornington.
I rode in, met Sally at the agreed rendezvous and set off. We went very hard... working mainly in with each other. pointedly staying away from the bunches although very often we ended up towing large bunches of our own. Several times in characteristic ATB style big bunches pushed past us, died instantly and we rode around the outside of them. We saw many interesting examples of inadequate roadcraft, amusing levels of non skill and amazing idioticity I mean really.. riding a TT bike.. in the bars in a bunch, and an average bunch at that.
We stopped several times for coffee and to watch the passing parade, saw the aftermath of a fatal heart attack on Olivers, Hill in Frankston (A likely place for a heart attack I must say) and stopped for coffee whenever it started raining.
On the return we followed the same procedure.. riding side by side chatting or doing bit and bit.. Sally and I riding very well together.. the trust built up by riding track very evident. Once or twice we worked in with other people one of who was on a Bike Friday. Wow you can draft those small wheeled bikes close . I figured out that you need not ever hit the back wheel, you could always put out an arm and push the bloke away. And the draft that close was amazing. I want a Bike Friday.
Afterwards Sally and I parted company on Princes Bridge. I went to the finish. Met many people I know. Drank beer. Had dinner with Kathy, and our friends Robyn and Ros. Robyn and I co own a unit in Glen Iris. Ros came down from Darwin to stay with her for the ATB. And then I rode home. Finishing off with a good hard 170 km for the day. And more hills than the ATB. A wonderful wonderful day.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Its been a while
Its a week since I did a post. Oops. And that was on a Monday too.. Supposedly the worst day to do a post. At least according to my teammate Sally who is supposed to know about social media.
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m162/percrime/DISC/SallyDISC1.jpg
I don't know why so long.. lack of inspiration or something. Nothing I felt strongly enough to comment on perhaps. So I will try and make up for it all over the next few days. Writing or at least writing intelligently as I try and do can be just a bit difficult to start. Its ok IF you have something to say.. hard otherwise. I always find something to say but that blank LCD screen can be a bit intimidating.
OK lets briefly cover all the bases today. Cycling, well we did the inaugural 'waffle ride' last Sunday. Sally and I represented Team Splat! Sally posting as 'Elefunksoup' posted a hilarious ride report on BV forums. The waffles were provided by Rebecca, a truly lovely Canadian imput. It was a great day.. decent training into a punishing headwind on the return, and the event is a keeper.
It was the last winter training effort at DISC last night. It came to a choice between doing some gardening and attending DISC or going to Ballarat and watching the amazing Jeannie Longo race. At 51 Jeannie is the current outright womens TT champion of France. Sadly gardening won. I had to deliver Sally's track bike to her as it was at my place anyway. Another skills session. 3 handicap races.. Sally is easily the faster rider over 100 metres.. but over 500 I made her work for her 2 wins. There were 3 of us in those races.. I scored one win and 2 seconds to Sally. Of course the third rider is about 12 :( Sigh. Age may not weary us, but it makes everyone except Jeannie Longo slower. Sally bought along her own cheer squad. Her fella and her dad. So sweet. We are a bunch of nostalgic softies us trackies.
TRACK season starts. The worlds are here and is not the footy going to play hell with that? I think I will write on that more in another post but the draw in the footy is a terrible result for the UCI. Sad huh? Anyway the sprint series starts for Team Splat! next weekend. We have 3 riders up for it.. including me. We have approached informally another girl from DUCC's to perhaps join the team. Is it coincidence that Team Splat! is pretty girl heavy? Even I have been told I ride like a girl.. which er.. I dont think was meant as a compliment even tho I took it as one. :D Very very proud of my girls
Come and watch Team Splat! race. And let us know if you are interested in a jersey. I need about 50 firm orders. Can't be too hard. It will be a plain jersey.. in grey represent concrete or bitumen... with the Team Splat! blood splatter pattern front and rear.
I notice that my lovely niece Leah "Little Miss Scribble" is still reading my ramblings. Leah is one of the most important people in the world and I find that immensely satisfying and shall try and lift my game here to do her proud. Its been a while but I shall likely be catching up with her today in the remote wilderness stone fortress in which she, and her heavily armed retainers and guardians reside. Because PerfectNotes is going bush.. to talk to some country people, do some county networking and hopefully chase up some business. We have a networking meeting scheduled in Bendigo which we hope will lead to something worthwhile. Fingers crossed. We shall be pushing the Virtual Assistant service heavily. In fact since I imagine that Bendigo has some decent techs.. we shall be concentrating on the VA side of things.
Its scary to realise that Leah is now the same age her mum was when I first met her. I remember that meeting with her mum too. Hi Jeannine. Put the kettle on please.
One of my camera's has turned up. Its the Sony. It would be. I am still resurrecting this Sony laptop.. one of the connectors has what looks like a factory fix on it and I cannot for the life of me manage a decent connection. Sucks. My opinion of Sony has gone through the floor and I will never be recommending Sony products again. If the damn manufacturer does not have service manuals available deal with some one who does. Its a simple rule. Follow it.
OK Social Comment. The winging by the people of Geelong over hosting the world cycling championships is pathetic. I wont be going down more than a couple of times because I dont want to spend time and money in such a bogan backwater.. If the event fails, its going to be down to the losers of Geelong doing all they can to make it fail. Football is pretty much it for sport down there. Geelong always represents itself as a pro cycling city but that has never been my experience. I had a long term girlfriend in Geelong once and the city has never endeared itself to me in any way on my commutes to her. Its a bustling city with all the charm of a small hillbilly town. And the ceaseless complaints about having a couple of streets blocked off for something that is not the footy are annoying me.
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m162/percrime/DISC/SallyDISC1.jpg
I don't know why so long.. lack of inspiration or something. Nothing I felt strongly enough to comment on perhaps. So I will try and make up for it all over the next few days. Writing or at least writing intelligently as I try and do can be just a bit difficult to start. Its ok IF you have something to say.. hard otherwise. I always find something to say but that blank LCD screen can be a bit intimidating.
OK lets briefly cover all the bases today. Cycling, well we did the inaugural 'waffle ride' last Sunday. Sally and I represented Team Splat! Sally posting as 'Elefunksoup' posted a hilarious ride report on BV forums. The waffles were provided by Rebecca, a truly lovely Canadian imput. It was a great day.. decent training into a punishing headwind on the return, and the event is a keeper.
It was the last winter training effort at DISC last night. It came to a choice between doing some gardening and attending DISC or going to Ballarat and watching the amazing Jeannie Longo race. At 51 Jeannie is the current outright womens TT champion of France. Sadly gardening won. I had to deliver Sally's track bike to her as it was at my place anyway. Another skills session. 3 handicap races.. Sally is easily the faster rider over 100 metres.. but over 500 I made her work for her 2 wins. There were 3 of us in those races.. I scored one win and 2 seconds to Sally. Of course the third rider is about 12 :( Sigh. Age may not weary us, but it makes everyone except Jeannie Longo slower. Sally bought along her own cheer squad. Her fella and her dad. So sweet. We are a bunch of nostalgic softies us trackies.
TRACK season starts. The worlds are here and is not the footy going to play hell with that? I think I will write on that more in another post but the draw in the footy is a terrible result for the UCI. Sad huh? Anyway the sprint series starts for Team Splat! next weekend. We have 3 riders up for it.. including me. We have approached informally another girl from DUCC's to perhaps join the team. Is it coincidence that Team Splat! is pretty girl heavy? Even I have been told I ride like a girl.. which er.. I dont think was meant as a compliment even tho I took it as one. :D Very very proud of my girls
Come and watch Team Splat! race. And let us know if you are interested in a jersey. I need about 50 firm orders. Can't be too hard. It will be a plain jersey.. in grey represent concrete or bitumen... with the Team Splat! blood splatter pattern front and rear.
I notice that my lovely niece Leah "Little Miss Scribble" is still reading my ramblings. Leah is one of the most important people in the world and I find that immensely satisfying and shall try and lift my game here to do her proud. Its been a while but I shall likely be catching up with her today in the remote wilderness stone fortress in which she, and her heavily armed retainers and guardians reside. Because PerfectNotes is going bush.. to talk to some country people, do some county networking and hopefully chase up some business. We have a networking meeting scheduled in Bendigo which we hope will lead to something worthwhile. Fingers crossed. We shall be pushing the Virtual Assistant service heavily. In fact since I imagine that Bendigo has some decent techs.. we shall be concentrating on the VA side of things.
Its scary to realise that Leah is now the same age her mum was when I first met her. I remember that meeting with her mum too. Hi Jeannine. Put the kettle on please.
One of my camera's has turned up. Its the Sony. It would be. I am still resurrecting this Sony laptop.. one of the connectors has what looks like a factory fix on it and I cannot for the life of me manage a decent connection. Sucks. My opinion of Sony has gone through the floor and I will never be recommending Sony products again. If the damn manufacturer does not have service manuals available deal with some one who does. Its a simple rule. Follow it.
OK Social Comment. The winging by the people of Geelong over hosting the world cycling championships is pathetic. I wont be going down more than a couple of times because I dont want to spend time and money in such a bogan backwater.. If the event fails, its going to be down to the losers of Geelong doing all they can to make it fail. Football is pretty much it for sport down there. Geelong always represents itself as a pro cycling city but that has never been my experience. I had a long term girlfriend in Geelong once and the city has never endeared itself to me in any way on my commutes to her. Its a bustling city with all the charm of a small hillbilly town. And the ceaseless complaints about having a couple of streets blocked off for something that is not the footy are annoying me.
Monday, September 20, 2010
It lives Igor!
There has been a new twist in this saga of the dead laptop. Marky came over to have a look at the dismembered corpse on the autopsy table.. er workbench. Aside from pointing out that I need a bigger and better magnifying glass on a long flexible mount.. and yes I do, he said some actually useful stuff. Mark knows a bit more about the electronics than I and since all my attempts to actually find an engineer just lead to many suggestions to just replace the mother board. Nearly all of them from people totally technically not up to replacing this particular mother board. Anyway it led to a result.
Mark said.. "Hmm, I wonder if this track is supposed to be there" I peered through the magnifying glass at a solder track between a power transformer and a transistor on the power bus that was the size of a flake of dandruff. "Looks factory" I commented. Mark expressed some doubt. "Lets scrape it off and see" I suggested.. "Re soldering that is no problem. He did. We tested. Power lights and a BIOS screen. OK thats a way from actually having this machine running but hey...
So now I have a theory. This box had been dropped on the back right corner. That side of the frame had twisted out of alignment and broken the dvd player.. by moving it so it had no connection. I fixed all that then discovered a damaged cable.. and lifted the thing to get its model number. I think that in fixing all that I released a single dandruff speck sized flake of solder that managed to find exactly the one worst place to lodge itself. Wow. Its only a theory.. but it holds up and fits all the facts. Now to try reassembly of a really complex machine for which the company releases no manuals.. but yeah I can do that. Still don,t know if anything electronic is damaged but I have hopes.
So I didn't kill it. I feel much much happier about myself as a tech now. Depressed for a week over that. Wow. And now we go back to the client. But first lets see if I can get this machine running an OS.
EDIT... machine now boots.
I went looking for DDR1 ram yesterday for a client laptop. and found 2 sticks of1 Gb Kingston (manufacturer of quality RAM) RAM, at almost the last place I tried. That machine goes from a dog with 256 Mb ram to a decent useful machine for the cost of about $150.. Its a huge difference and probably the last upgrade that machine will ever have. As also detailed in this post the answer is indeed more RAM
FInally went and saw "Tomorrow when the war began" last night with Kathy and a couple of close friends. I was looking forward to this movie as detailed in this blog post And it lived very much up to the hype. I thought it was well done.. smart and rang true. It seemed to me to be very very faithful to the book. The hardware was right. The one criticism I have heard that was worrying was the absurdity of one bunch of kids fighting back against an invasion.. in the context of the book they were one bunch in one area amongst many instances of insurrection... but luckier, faster learning and more successful than most. And this turned out in the end to be the case in the movie as well.. they heard about other unluckier rebels and the RAAF put in a brief appearance. So the movie was very very good. I loved it. There were 7 books in the series and 3 books in another continuing series about the central character after the war.. where she had a few issues. This might turn into a fun movie franchise.
Mark said.. "Hmm, I wonder if this track is supposed to be there" I peered through the magnifying glass at a solder track between a power transformer and a transistor on the power bus that was the size of a flake of dandruff. "Looks factory" I commented. Mark expressed some doubt. "Lets scrape it off and see" I suggested.. "Re soldering that is no problem. He did. We tested. Power lights and a BIOS screen. OK thats a way from actually having this machine running but hey...
So now I have a theory. This box had been dropped on the back right corner. That side of the frame had twisted out of alignment and broken the dvd player.. by moving it so it had no connection. I fixed all that then discovered a damaged cable.. and lifted the thing to get its model number. I think that in fixing all that I released a single dandruff speck sized flake of solder that managed to find exactly the one worst place to lodge itself. Wow. Its only a theory.. but it holds up and fits all the facts. Now to try reassembly of a really complex machine for which the company releases no manuals.. but yeah I can do that. Still don,t know if anything electronic is damaged but I have hopes.
So I didn't kill it. I feel much much happier about myself as a tech now. Depressed for a week over that. Wow. And now we go back to the client. But first lets see if I can get this machine running an OS.
EDIT... machine now boots.
I went looking for DDR1 ram yesterday for a client laptop. and found 2 sticks of1 Gb Kingston (manufacturer of quality RAM) RAM, at almost the last place I tried. That machine goes from a dog with 256 Mb ram to a decent useful machine for the cost of about $150.. Its a huge difference and probably the last upgrade that machine will ever have. As also detailed in this post the answer is indeed more RAM
FInally went and saw "Tomorrow when the war began" last night with Kathy and a couple of close friends. I was looking forward to this movie as detailed in this blog post And it lived very much up to the hype. I thought it was well done.. smart and rang true. It seemed to me to be very very faithful to the book. The hardware was right. The one criticism I have heard that was worrying was the absurdity of one bunch of kids fighting back against an invasion.. in the context of the book they were one bunch in one area amongst many instances of insurrection... but luckier, faster learning and more successful than most. And this turned out in the end to be the case in the movie as well.. they heard about other unluckier rebels and the RAAF put in a brief appearance. So the movie was very very good. I loved it. There were 7 books in the series and 3 books in another continuing series about the central character after the war.. where she had a few issues. This might turn into a fun movie franchise.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Tomorrow when the government began
Apparently we are going to get a government this weekend. And purely by coincidence the heaviest rain of the year and gales and thunderstorms. I suspect that there is a God and s/he has an evil sense of humor.
The helmet law that has foredoomed the bluebike hire scheme in Melbourne city has finally come into open discussion. In fact what moved me to comment was this thread on BV forums. Its just another of the endless helmet threads that usually are only fought out by those who have long established their position. But over the years a noticeable shift has occurred, few now are overwhelmingly in favor of compulsion, nearly all accept that less people cycle because of helmet laws and their is some derision, not entirely all down to me, when someone claims that their helmet saved their lives, leaving them with not a hair out of place or a scratch. We have even seen crashes on BV forums in recent weeks where bones were broken without the words "my helmet saved my life" appearing at all. And now TV and news stories questioning the helmet law. And some well known personalities
However this post by taka
The argument that the helmet law is a bad thing goes like this. Firstly the helmet law dooms bike hire schemes like the Melbourne scene. Secondly the evidence that bicycle helmets actually save lives (as opposed to stitches, mild concussions and the odd ear) is far from totally convincing. The statistical studies that claim to prove it are clearly crap when you actually look at how the data was obtained. All the ones that see no such proof appear far better designed And the fact that motorcycle helmets, seatbelts, airbags, and the like actually work is perfectly clear from similar studies. And at best arguably not so in this case. So if the evidence is not clear why legislate? Its nanny state nuttiness.
But its the third argument that is totally convincing. To even the most callous pragmatist such as taka. Provided they are capable of clear thinking at any rate. And that is the economic argument
I,ll keep this really simple and let my readers do the research. Or not I guess, depending on how interested they are. But essentially this argument goes like this. Obesity, diabetes and heart disease are huge killers. Therefore they cost the health system a packet
Cycle commuting and cycling generally are both environmentally nice and an effective defense against these issues A helmet law clearly decreases cycling use. Lots of pro helmet people say not by very much.. but personally I think the evidence is hugely against them in this. The failure of the bike hire scheme, the only place in the world such a scheme has failed, seems a pointer to me. However lets concede the point.. absurd to do so but for the sake of the exercise lets. Even a few % discouragement is still discouragement
On average IF bicycle helmets cut fatal accidents by half (of which their is no evidence) and if helmets discourage cycling by only 10 % or so of people then on any possible set of figures more of these people will die from disease bought on by the lack of exercise than will die by accident on a bicycle due to not wearing a helmet. That is to say that the best case you can make for a helmet law still has more people dying because of it than are saved by it.
And that is ignoring completely some of the more subtle issues of a helmet law.. for example the UK studies that show that motorists give helmet less riders more space, maybe you are more likely to be hit wearing a helmet. Risk compensation theory says you are more likely to take risks wearing a helmet. Its widely accepted that the more cyclists that are on the roads, the more likely car drivers are to behave sensibly around cyclists and the less risk per cyclist. The public perception of cycling as dangerous only seems to actually exist in countries with high rates of helmet use. These sort of effects are likely to more than negate any beneficial effects of a helmet law in themselves.
And of course repealing a helmet law does not make it illegal to use a helmet. It just means one can hire a blue bike to get across town without having to go and buy a helmet.
Australia has one of the lowest commuter cycling rates in the world. And we have helmet laws. Good laws travel. Practically no one else has helmet laws. Seems pretty obvious to me. I find the economic argument to be totally convincing. Its a bad law.
But maybe I don,t understand economics. Was a story on the news this morning. In the US many people are defaulting on their house mortgages. Apparently many mortgages are far more than the property is worth. And apparently if someone walks away from a mortgage, then the moment it is reclaimed by the bank its worth 10% of what it was worth hours before. So why does this not push the mortgage rates down? Why are people not giving loans to people who have defaulted on a house loan to buy their house back for 10 cents on the dollar?. What am I missing?
The movie Tomorrow when the war began, which I have previously discussed on this blog, is now showing. Its going to be a smash. I shall go and see it in the next few days and report on it
We have two web sites probably going live this weekend.
dromanamowerservice.com.au which is Dromana mowers... Gozzo from BV forums, and plantsupplies.com.au which is a joint venture between us at PerfectNotes and our occasional staffer Mark Condron. Don't buy anything on the plantsupplies site just at the moment.. the shopping cart stuff is in final testing.
The helmet law that has foredoomed the bluebike hire scheme in Melbourne city has finally come into open discussion. In fact what moved me to comment was this thread on BV forums. Its just another of the endless helmet threads that usually are only fought out by those who have long established their position. But over the years a noticeable shift has occurred, few now are overwhelmingly in favor of compulsion, nearly all accept that less people cycle because of helmet laws and their is some derision, not entirely all down to me, when someone claims that their helmet saved their lives, leaving them with not a hair out of place or a scratch. We have even seen crashes on BV forums in recent weeks where bones were broken without the words "my helmet saved my life" appearing at all. And now TV and news stories questioning the helmet law. And some well known personalities
However this post by taka
( demonstrates that some people totally lack empathy and the ability to think)
Dear Sue, I am sorry you feel so strongly about helmet. But if you want my rego's TAC money to cover your head injury, well ... that is so unfair.
Yes I totally agree that you should have your freedom of choice, as long as I don't friking pay for it at the end.
I am no saint. I don't care if u die. I just don't want to be worse off in my pocket. Not to mention you have created more work for a pathologist who has to do your autopsy.
The argument that the helmet law is a bad thing goes like this. Firstly the helmet law dooms bike hire schemes like the Melbourne scene. Secondly the evidence that bicycle helmets actually save lives (as opposed to stitches, mild concussions and the odd ear) is far from totally convincing. The statistical studies that claim to prove it are clearly crap when you actually look at how the data was obtained. All the ones that see no such proof appear far better designed And the fact that motorcycle helmets, seatbelts, airbags, and the like actually work is perfectly clear from similar studies. And at best arguably not so in this case. So if the evidence is not clear why legislate? Its nanny state nuttiness.
But its the third argument that is totally convincing. To even the most callous pragmatist such as taka. Provided they are capable of clear thinking at any rate. And that is the economic argument
I,ll keep this really simple and let my readers do the research. Or not I guess, depending on how interested they are. But essentially this argument goes like this. Obesity, diabetes and heart disease are huge killers. Therefore they cost the health system a packet
Cycle commuting and cycling generally are both environmentally nice and an effective defense against these issues A helmet law clearly decreases cycling use. Lots of pro helmet people say not by very much.. but personally I think the evidence is hugely against them in this. The failure of the bike hire scheme, the only place in the world such a scheme has failed, seems a pointer to me. However lets concede the point.. absurd to do so but for the sake of the exercise lets. Even a few % discouragement is still discouragement
On average IF bicycle helmets cut fatal accidents by half (of which their is no evidence) and if helmets discourage cycling by only 10 % or so of people then on any possible set of figures more of these people will die from disease bought on by the lack of exercise than will die by accident on a bicycle due to not wearing a helmet. That is to say that the best case you can make for a helmet law still has more people dying because of it than are saved by it.
And that is ignoring completely some of the more subtle issues of a helmet law.. for example the UK studies that show that motorists give helmet less riders more space, maybe you are more likely to be hit wearing a helmet. Risk compensation theory says you are more likely to take risks wearing a helmet. Its widely accepted that the more cyclists that are on the roads, the more likely car drivers are to behave sensibly around cyclists and the less risk per cyclist. The public perception of cycling as dangerous only seems to actually exist in countries with high rates of helmet use. These sort of effects are likely to more than negate any beneficial effects of a helmet law in themselves.
And of course repealing a helmet law does not make it illegal to use a helmet. It just means one can hire a blue bike to get across town without having to go and buy a helmet.
Australia has one of the lowest commuter cycling rates in the world. And we have helmet laws. Good laws travel. Practically no one else has helmet laws. Seems pretty obvious to me. I find the economic argument to be totally convincing. Its a bad law.
But maybe I don,t understand economics. Was a story on the news this morning. In the US many people are defaulting on their house mortgages. Apparently many mortgages are far more than the property is worth. And apparently if someone walks away from a mortgage, then the moment it is reclaimed by the bank its worth 10% of what it was worth hours before. So why does this not push the mortgage rates down? Why are people not giving loans to people who have defaulted on a house loan to buy their house back for 10 cents on the dollar?. What am I missing?
The movie Tomorrow when the war began, which I have previously discussed on this blog, is now showing. Its going to be a smash. I shall go and see it in the next few days and report on it
We have two web sites probably going live this weekend.
dromanamowerservice.com.au which is Dromana mowers... Gozzo from BV forums, and plantsupplies.com.au which is a joint venture between us at PerfectNotes and our occasional staffer Mark Condron. Don't buy anything on the plantsupplies site just at the moment.. the shopping cart stuff is in final testing.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
3 strikes and you are.....slightly embarrassed.
Might be a long and somewhat rambling discourse today, unlike my normal swift, tightly edited and targeted posts. (Falls over laughing) I have much on which I wish to comment.. so if I can remember any of it at this silly hour I shall do so.
Was told.. by someone who as far as I know is in absolutely no position to know, that the ideal number of blog posts is 3 a week and never on a Monday. I have not the slightest clue if their is any truth to this whatsoever yet I notice that I do seem to average about 3 posts a week, and my Monday posts do seem to not score many hits. Interesting. I wonder if their is anything to it.
Cycling is a sport where a lot of drug cheats are caught, and expelled from the sport. We claim it as a clean sport because we catch cheats. Other sports claim it as a dirty sport for exactly the same reason. I love the irony in this In very topical news under the laughably weak Australian Footy League drug testing policy.. which essentially consists of waiting for Victoria Police to catch someone using drugs (usually after the hospital runs blood tests after they have rolled their car up into a ball) well known Hawthorn footballer Travis Tuck has now be caught 3 times using drugs. He is not well known to me by the way.. hopefully I have the club right. 12 week suspension. Heh.. try getting a 12 week suspension for your third offence in cycling mate. And yes he was caught by Victoria Police.
He is the first bloke to be caught under the 3 strikes and we will tell your club you have been a naughty boy and let the media know about it policy of the league. Its not surprising, I have never been drug tested by the cops.. or by the footy league. The last time I looked at this the league averaged one drug test per player per year. In cycling I have heard of pro riders having a team of testers cooling their heels in a riders lounge while a second group of testers had a go. In off season. And 3 strikes before drug use is alleged.. bet Lance wishes that was the case.
In cycling we find and deal with our drug cheats. Footy hides theirs. Pretty obvious which sport is really the cleaner. To a thinking audience.
Speaking of the Police, I was passing Box Hill cop shop last night on my commute home. Cop car out the front. RACV van in front of it. RACV man changing the Cop Cars flat tire. Sigh. I remember when cops could change a flat themselves. My dad remembers when they might stop and give you a hand.
The last combat troops pulled out of Iraq today. Mind you they are leaving 50,000 heavily armed and armoured non combat troops and any number of heavily armed and armoured private security people in the county. But essentially Iraq,lacking a government and most essential services is running its own security. By any measure the US had firm if not total control of the country...a few people killed daily is not the same as not having control. And clearly no one wanted the US there. But its going to be interesting to see what happens. The Iraqi army was never much chop, how its going to stop the country becoming a toy for warlords and mullah's is beyond me. The problem of course is all the real normal people stuck in the middle of it all. I don,t have any answers, well I do have one very politically incorrect answer that I won,t share here. I hope the optimism is warranted.
The cost of the Iraq war to the US... well 3/4 of a trillion dollars US. Could be looked on as a financial stimulus package I guess. 4000 ish US soldiers dead. In 7 years Which sounds a lot. But its actually less than a 10th of a years road toll. In fact its less than the number of Americans shot dead in America yearly. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Australia also has no real government after the election last week. Which major party wins is going to come down to the independents. Who are negotiating for stupid little concessions for their own electorates like a pimp looking for a good price. It looks like Senator Conways bill for internet censorship is dead.. but he is going to keep his job. Dammit. Family firsts senator is still around. Ahhh... those keen, incisive and very forgiving and tolerant religious types. The national broadband network is going to go ahead too.. all of the independents are in country areas and strangely the country seems to be in favor of moving telecommunications into the 21'st century. All in all I guess its a win.. it certainly makes the point that the electorate is a bit fed up with politicians. It does however leave our country with a government in exactly the same deadlocked situation as the government of Iraq. Hopefully not for as long.
We have quite a lot of work on at the moment. I,ll write on that in the next post I think.. Cos I had better go and do some
Was told.. by someone who as far as I know is in absolutely no position to know, that the ideal number of blog posts is 3 a week and never on a Monday. I have not the slightest clue if their is any truth to this whatsoever yet I notice that I do seem to average about 3 posts a week, and my Monday posts do seem to not score many hits. Interesting. I wonder if their is anything to it.
Cycling is a sport where a lot of drug cheats are caught, and expelled from the sport. We claim it as a clean sport because we catch cheats. Other sports claim it as a dirty sport for exactly the same reason. I love the irony in this In very topical news under the laughably weak Australian Footy League drug testing policy.. which essentially consists of waiting for Victoria Police to catch someone using drugs (usually after the hospital runs blood tests after they have rolled their car up into a ball) well known Hawthorn footballer Travis Tuck has now be caught 3 times using drugs. He is not well known to me by the way.. hopefully I have the club right. 12 week suspension. Heh.. try getting a 12 week suspension for your third offence in cycling mate. And yes he was caught by Victoria Police.
He is the first bloke to be caught under the 3 strikes and we will tell your club you have been a naughty boy and let the media know about it policy of the league. Its not surprising, I have never been drug tested by the cops.. or by the footy league. The last time I looked at this the league averaged one drug test per player per year. In cycling I have heard of pro riders having a team of testers cooling their heels in a riders lounge while a second group of testers had a go. In off season. And 3 strikes before drug use is alleged.. bet Lance wishes that was the case.
In cycling we find and deal with our drug cheats. Footy hides theirs. Pretty obvious which sport is really the cleaner. To a thinking audience.
Speaking of the Police, I was passing Box Hill cop shop last night on my commute home. Cop car out the front. RACV van in front of it. RACV man changing the Cop Cars flat tire. Sigh. I remember when cops could change a flat themselves. My dad remembers when they might stop and give you a hand.
The last combat troops pulled out of Iraq today. Mind you they are leaving 50,000 heavily armed and armoured non combat troops and any number of heavily armed and armoured private security people in the county. But essentially Iraq,lacking a government and most essential services is running its own security. By any measure the US had firm if not total control of the country...a few people killed daily is not the same as not having control. And clearly no one wanted the US there. But its going to be interesting to see what happens. The Iraqi army was never much chop, how its going to stop the country becoming a toy for warlords and mullah's is beyond me. The problem of course is all the real normal people stuck in the middle of it all. I don,t have any answers, well I do have one very politically incorrect answer that I won,t share here. I hope the optimism is warranted.
The cost of the Iraq war to the US... well 3/4 of a trillion dollars US. Could be looked on as a financial stimulus package I guess. 4000 ish US soldiers dead. In 7 years Which sounds a lot. But its actually less than a 10th of a years road toll. In fact its less than the number of Americans shot dead in America yearly. Makes you think, doesn't it?
Australia also has no real government after the election last week. Which major party wins is going to come down to the independents. Who are negotiating for stupid little concessions for their own electorates like a pimp looking for a good price. It looks like Senator Conways bill for internet censorship is dead.. but he is going to keep his job. Dammit. Family firsts senator is still around. Ahhh... those keen, incisive and very forgiving and tolerant religious types. The national broadband network is going to go ahead too.. all of the independents are in country areas and strangely the country seems to be in favor of moving telecommunications into the 21'st century. All in all I guess its a win.. it certainly makes the point that the electorate is a bit fed up with politicians. It does however leave our country with a government in exactly the same deadlocked situation as the government of Iraq. Hopefully not for as long.
We have quite a lot of work on at the moment. I,ll write on that in the next post I think.. Cos I had better go and do some
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Well it WAS a good day.
THere is always so much I want to fit in these blogs. I always post so much less than I want to say. Sometimes I go back and edit but there are few of them I am really happy with. ,starting to try to segment the cycling, social comment and work bits..but life does not come neatly parcelled and mostly neither do my posts.
On Tuesday evening I went to the aid (sorta ) of a mate who is going through a difficult time. Aiding him consisted of listening to him while eating his pasta. Its the sort of thing I do for my mates.. eat their pasta. As to my enemies... well actually I have no enemies.. a few people I hold in total contempt but I digress.
On the way there I saw the single stupidest pedestrian of the year. I was at the intersection of Brunswick St and Johnston... heading north. Red light. Off to the right is an ambo with lights and sirens in splendid working order coming towards us. We get a green light. Amazingly no one moves. The ambo moves into the intersection at barely walking pace. Tall young african girl pushes through all the 20 or so peds waiting for the ambulance on the SW corner of the intersection and ambles across. The ambo has his hand on the horn.. both sirens working and has stopped a metre from her before she notices. She does a classic double take and still takes another few seconds to get out of the way. Some of the other people gave her a spontaneous ironic clap. Which in Brunswick St.. not the home of the worlds smartest pedestrians, has to mark her as something very 'special'.
Seriously. Aside from the fact you are just not a useful person if all you contribute to the world is getting in the way of an ambo.. what sort of person goes through life that enclosed in their own mind that they miss that much of the world? And what is the point of living with that minimal amount of awareness of the world you live in? I see dumb people all the time.. people with minimal awareness of anything outside themselves Wake up guys. Smell the roses. Have a look around. The life you save may be mine. Besides if you don.t notice anything of life.. how much point is there?
We did a seminar in Docklands, the Melbourne Bayside and up and coming area. It was on small business opportunities and directions.. and part of the state government's month long push to promote small business. By weird coincidence I ran into a bloke I had just met the day before at Monash. And a bloke studying business at Swinburne Uni where I have my degree from. And made a bunch of potentially useful contacts. Kathy and I got up early and went into town two up on the motorcycle.
I cannot understand why anyone would commute by car.. I would commit suicide or homicide in a month. I guess many do. Some drivers out there were insane... Would the woman in the Honda Jazz please put her book down. And you the loon in the silver Audi (why does no one sane own a silver or black Audi, is it some sort of sales requirement.. "Oh look a loon.. lets sell him a silver one") 6 inches from Kathys left boot at 60 KPH is not as smart as you think it it. I know you think you won,t get hurt in the .. and I use the word loosely... accident... don't take that for granted. :( Was fun watching you squeal to a stop in Victoria St when you realised you were not going to fit through the gap we did tho. Heh. Get a motorbike mate. Or a pushbike. Then it will be you that your inappropriate overly agressive driving hurts. Which seems far more morally acceptable to me.
We went in by the MRR. The Maling Room Ride. A regular bicycle training ride that ends at the Maling Room Cafe. I do the ride pretty regularly and Kathy caught up with some old friends. It was cool turning up on the motorcycle. No one wanted to take me on in the hill climb. And surrounded by the shivering lycra clad, us two leather clad people felt smugly warm. :D
The seminar was great. Took a phonecall from a client about a dead laptop during it. Not actually when one of the speakers was up...unlike the loud woman nearby. She probably did not need the phone.. was talking loudly enough to be heard by the person she was speaking to, without telecommunications. About time we started telling people like this how bloody rude they are. Anyway I arranged to call in on the client on the way back to PNHQ (Perfect Notes Head Quarters) Got a lot of ideas out of it all. Starting to implement them now.
What do you think of this as an elevator pitch for PerfectNotes?
Yes? I really think that that one works. Would appreciate feedback tho. A bunch of stuff to implement. Mark and my website for Marks online plant sales is up at plantsupplies.com.au It has no content yet but it will happen pretty soon. Quite a lot happening at the moment.
We left.. swung by the client and I sorted his machine in... oh.. 15 mins. Smug grin. We went to Lygon St and ate lunch, then went home. And thats when I discovered I had lost my new camera. Bummer. I am seriously depressed. Must have put it down when I answered the phone. Idiot. Total idiot. Seriously upset about that. Spoilt my day.
Ok in an attempt to cheer myself up this really good Vidman pic from Sundays ABOC session
Most of Team Splat! training
.
On Tuesday evening I went to the aid (sorta ) of a mate who is going through a difficult time. Aiding him consisted of listening to him while eating his pasta. Its the sort of thing I do for my mates.. eat their pasta. As to my enemies... well actually I have no enemies.. a few people I hold in total contempt but I digress.
On the way there I saw the single stupidest pedestrian of the year. I was at the intersection of Brunswick St and Johnston... heading north. Red light. Off to the right is an ambo with lights and sirens in splendid working order coming towards us. We get a green light. Amazingly no one moves. The ambo moves into the intersection at barely walking pace. Tall young african girl pushes through all the 20 or so peds waiting for the ambulance on the SW corner of the intersection and ambles across. The ambo has his hand on the horn.. both sirens working and has stopped a metre from her before she notices. She does a classic double take and still takes another few seconds to get out of the way. Some of the other people gave her a spontaneous ironic clap. Which in Brunswick St.. not the home of the worlds smartest pedestrians, has to mark her as something very 'special'.
Seriously. Aside from the fact you are just not a useful person if all you contribute to the world is getting in the way of an ambo.. what sort of person goes through life that enclosed in their own mind that they miss that much of the world? And what is the point of living with that minimal amount of awareness of the world you live in? I see dumb people all the time.. people with minimal awareness of anything outside themselves Wake up guys. Smell the roses. Have a look around. The life you save may be mine. Besides if you don.t notice anything of life.. how much point is there?
We did a seminar in Docklands, the Melbourne Bayside and up and coming area. It was on small business opportunities and directions.. and part of the state government's month long push to promote small business. By weird coincidence I ran into a bloke I had just met the day before at Monash. And a bloke studying business at Swinburne Uni where I have my degree from. And made a bunch of potentially useful contacts. Kathy and I got up early and went into town two up on the motorcycle.
I cannot understand why anyone would commute by car.. I would commit suicide or homicide in a month. I guess many do. Some drivers out there were insane... Would the woman in the Honda Jazz please put her book down. And you the loon in the silver Audi (why does no one sane own a silver or black Audi, is it some sort of sales requirement.. "Oh look a loon.. lets sell him a silver one") 6 inches from Kathys left boot at 60 KPH is not as smart as you think it it. I know you think you won,t get hurt in the .. and I use the word loosely... accident... don't take that for granted. :( Was fun watching you squeal to a stop in Victoria St when you realised you were not going to fit through the gap we did tho. Heh. Get a motorbike mate. Or a pushbike. Then it will be you that your inappropriate overly agressive driving hurts. Which seems far more morally acceptable to me.
We went in by the MRR. The Maling Room Ride. A regular bicycle training ride that ends at the Maling Room Cafe. I do the ride pretty regularly and Kathy caught up with some old friends. It was cool turning up on the motorcycle. No one wanted to take me on in the hill climb. And surrounded by the shivering lycra clad, us two leather clad people felt smugly warm. :D
The seminar was great. Took a phonecall from a client about a dead laptop during it. Not actually when one of the speakers was up...unlike the loud woman nearby. She probably did not need the phone.. was talking loudly enough to be heard by the person she was speaking to, without telecommunications. About time we started telling people like this how bloody rude they are. Anyway I arranged to call in on the client on the way back to PNHQ (Perfect Notes Head Quarters) Got a lot of ideas out of it all. Starting to implement them now.
What do you think of this as an elevator pitch for PerfectNotes?
We do IT related support for your small business
Yes? I really think that that one works. Would appreciate feedback tho. A bunch of stuff to implement. Mark and my website for Marks online plant sales is up at plantsupplies.com.au It has no content yet but it will happen pretty soon. Quite a lot happening at the moment.
We left.. swung by the client and I sorted his machine in... oh.. 15 mins. Smug grin. We went to Lygon St and ate lunch, then went home. And thats when I discovered I had lost my new camera. Bummer. I am seriously depressed. Must have put it down when I answered the phone. Idiot. Total idiot. Seriously upset about that. Spoilt my day.
Ok in an attempt to cheer myself up this really good Vidman pic from Sundays ABOC session
Most of Team Splat! training
.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
One less car! :D
I cannot believe it. 6 days without a new post and wow.. a new highest number of hits.. and a steady climb in readership. Must be a lot of intelligent articulate types out there just discovering my verbose nature.
The toyota has finally gone. A young bloke won it for.. oh about $225 so about 75 bucks less than the first time it was up for auction.. but still about $100 more than it was worth as razor blades. Its in the area I could live with. So its gone. Our dweeb tombro1546 who won it the first time but never responded has er.. left ebay.. time wasting piece of cow dung that he was. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
When the boys turned up they spent so long playing with the thing I honestly thought they were going to give us issues. I mean honestly.. its straight.. never been seriously hit.. has no rust.. moves under its own power both forwards and backwards and they got it for pocket money. But the buyer did not seem totally happy.. It did turn out that every battery I had was incapable of keeping the thing running. They ran it out of fuel on the test drive. And in the end took off with one of my fuel cans. Sigh. Nothing is simple. They turned out to be ok. Maybe they will bring it back. My can that is. NOT THE CAR
I went out before they took it away. Took a couple of pics with Kathy on the bonnet. Meh. Here is the good one. I swear the other one is one of the more unflattering pics I have ever taken. If enough people ask I might just put it up. But for the moment I shall be kind.
The BMW in the pic behind Kathy is the next thing to go. Kathy has some time ago devalued it by a few K in about 0.5 second. Its not worth heaps. Want it?
We went to DISC again Sunday. Sally managed to have a light fall.. dodgy tire.. and my mate David who I had dragged along.. in his first 10 seconds or so riding on wood managed to run over her. And stay up Nothing wrong with his bike skills. I have quite a few pics to put up this time. Mostly taken by Jenny who did not ride this time.. the dreaded lurgy. Convincing proof that I am crap at holding a wheel Here is one shot. I,ll put up another couple later.
The pic below was taken by Rach. Pretty good shot of a pretty bad paceline.
I have a couple of jobs at the moment I have way underquoted on. Always depressing. Not big jobs tho. Finally have bits of the plantsupplies.com.au site happening.. in fact I will spend some of tonight getting some of the nursery pics in shape for it. Is going to be really cool. That site is going to make us some real money. Just as soon as I figure out how. Sigh.
The Mullum Mullum trail post I did spawned a thread on BV forums here. It did not lead to the huge explosion in comments I was hoping for.. with plans eventually to maybe make a reporter notice it, instead leading to a couple of pages of discussion on the forum. But its all totally solidly in support of my point. For example rjk starts off like this
The election is 4 days away.. I have no clue how I am going to vote on that. But Sally has made her own points in her own blog I will be putting Conroy last. Way last. Very last. I hope its last enough.
The toyota has finally gone. A young bloke won it for.. oh about $225 so about 75 bucks less than the first time it was up for auction.. but still about $100 more than it was worth as razor blades. Its in the area I could live with. So its gone. Our dweeb tombro1546 who won it the first time but never responded has er.. left ebay.. time wasting piece of cow dung that he was. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
When the boys turned up they spent so long playing with the thing I honestly thought they were going to give us issues. I mean honestly.. its straight.. never been seriously hit.. has no rust.. moves under its own power both forwards and backwards and they got it for pocket money. But the buyer did not seem totally happy.. It did turn out that every battery I had was incapable of keeping the thing running. They ran it out of fuel on the test drive. And in the end took off with one of my fuel cans. Sigh. Nothing is simple. They turned out to be ok. Maybe they will bring it back. My can that is. NOT THE CAR
I went out before they took it away. Took a couple of pics with Kathy on the bonnet. Meh. Here is the good one. I swear the other one is one of the more unflattering pics I have ever taken. If enough people ask I might just put it up. But for the moment I shall be kind.
The BMW in the pic behind Kathy is the next thing to go. Kathy has some time ago devalued it by a few K in about 0.5 second. Its not worth heaps. Want it?
We went to DISC again Sunday. Sally managed to have a light fall.. dodgy tire.. and my mate David who I had dragged along.. in his first 10 seconds or so riding on wood managed to run over her. And stay up Nothing wrong with his bike skills. I have quite a few pics to put up this time. Mostly taken by Jenny who did not ride this time.. the dreaded lurgy. Convincing proof that I am crap at holding a wheel Here is one shot. I,ll put up another couple later.
The pic below was taken by Rach. Pretty good shot of a pretty bad paceline.
I have a couple of jobs at the moment I have way underquoted on. Always depressing. Not big jobs tho. Finally have bits of the plantsupplies.com.au site happening.. in fact I will spend some of tonight getting some of the nursery pics in shape for it. Is going to be really cool. That site is going to make us some real money. Just as soon as I figure out how. Sigh.
The Mullum Mullum trail post I did spawned a thread on BV forums here. It did not lead to the huge explosion in comments I was hoping for.. with plans eventually to maybe make a reporter notice it, instead leading to a couple of pages of discussion on the forum. But its all totally solidly in support of my point. For example rjk starts off like this
The wooden bridge i had the off was on the one just past quarry road on the way to Mitcham damage 2 ribs and bottom bracket axle, right pedal and crank, also probably weakened my handlebars which might have caused my big off 6 months later.
Also this grate gave my a brown pants moment
The election is 4 days away.. I have no clue how I am going to vote on that. But Sally has made her own points in her own blog I will be putting Conroy last. Way last. Very last. I hope its last enough.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Its election time.
Oh boy this is going to be a tough one. Julia cannot be trusted. Already posted on that subject here. And some of her maths is decidedly odd. She seems to be giving away rather more money than she actually has. But on the plus side she is the prettier candidate, seems personable and likable, seems to have only run 20% or so over reasonable costs in her job running school upgrades (can you spell Miki?) and is definitely not dumb.
The opposition led by Abbott hold political views to the right of my own. ... slightly to the left of Hitlers. No that is slightly unfair of me but Abbott is on the record as having rejected the government’s fairly pathetic climate policies and as having moved the party to the right. The opposition are also against the resources tax which I strongly support.. and I am already disenchanted by Julia,s weakened stance on that issue. They are getting hammered by union adds on the likelihood of Abbott bringing back workchoices under another name which while alarmist in the extreme is somehow rather convincing. I can see Abbott making the same mistake twice somehow. And Abbot is getting hammered for his poor understanding of economics. Which is interesting because it seems to be Guillard making all the big spending promises.
Abbott to me comes across as a weaselly shifty creep. But that is entirely my impression based on seeing him on TV. Means nothing compared to how he does his job. Its Julia that has stabbed her boss in the back after all
The Greens are likely to have rather more power after this election. Although you need to be careful where your preferences go.
To my mind the most important issue this election is Internet Censorship. I have spoken on this before here and here . Stephen Conroy is the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. His position on internet censorship is that he is highly in favor. The family first nutters have significant power in politics in Australia and a so not in favor of internet freedom. Conroy is as I have said in the past, "the wrong man in the wrong job in the wrong century"
Its not my ability to trowel for porn that I am worried about. Any filter the government puts up is going to take me about 5 seconds to get through. Open proxy anyone. No its your ability in the future to become informed about nastier effects of the government policy and the like that matters. Not to mention the waste of money involved in slowing the interweb. And of course the fact its a stupid idea that speaks to a lack of understanding of the technologies involved by a so called 'broadband' minister. A broadband minister with narrowband ideas. Heh... I like that.
Want to beat an internet filter? There you go Hope your connection is fast enough to see it.
This is how I will decide my vote anyway. And no I have not yet decided. But this issue is the decider for me
The opposition led by Abbott hold political views to the right of my own. ... slightly to the left of Hitlers. No that is slightly unfair of me but Abbott is on the record as having rejected the government’s fairly pathetic climate policies and as having moved the party to the right. The opposition are also against the resources tax which I strongly support.. and I am already disenchanted by Julia,s weakened stance on that issue. They are getting hammered by union adds on the likelihood of Abbott bringing back workchoices under another name which while alarmist in the extreme is somehow rather convincing. I can see Abbott making the same mistake twice somehow. And Abbot is getting hammered for his poor understanding of economics. Which is interesting because it seems to be Guillard making all the big spending promises.
Abbott to me comes across as a weaselly shifty creep. But that is entirely my impression based on seeing him on TV. Means nothing compared to how he does his job. Its Julia that has stabbed her boss in the back after all
The Greens are likely to have rather more power after this election. Although you need to be careful where your preferences go.
To my mind the most important issue this election is Internet Censorship. I have spoken on this before here and here . Stephen Conroy is the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. His position on internet censorship is that he is highly in favor. The family first nutters have significant power in politics in Australia and a so not in favor of internet freedom. Conroy is as I have said in the past, "the wrong man in the wrong job in the wrong century"
Its not my ability to trowel for porn that I am worried about. Any filter the government puts up is going to take me about 5 seconds to get through. Open proxy anyone. No its your ability in the future to become informed about nastier effects of the government policy and the like that matters. Not to mention the waste of money involved in slowing the interweb. And of course the fact its a stupid idea that speaks to a lack of understanding of the technologies involved by a so called 'broadband' minister. A broadband minister with narrowband ideas. Heh... I like that.
Want to beat an internet filter? There you go Hope your connection is fast enough to see it.
This is how I will decide my vote anyway. And no I have not yet decided. But this issue is the decider for me
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Maybe we should have let an engineer design it?
Instead of the work experience kid.
On the other hand not just everyone would give an 18 year old engineer a budget of $21.95 and responsibility for an entire bike path.. and even fewer would give him a case of booze before turning him loose with a drafting table. And the results have given us all so many giggles.
So on Saturday I was woken up by Kathy.. server had fallen over at a clients work place. Eventually I drove in and checked it out.. Server had fallen over because the UPS had gone flat. Because it was getting no power. Because the floor had no power. Hmmm. No immediate solution but I do now have a cunning plan. (to quote Blackadder) Next post may elaborate. Or not. Guess you will just have to read it to find out.
So back home. Young Jenny turned up and we decided to go for a ride. I have long meant to comment on the superb design qualities of the mightly Eastlink bike path and so I took my new camera and we set off. And just a couple of klicks from home is the first interesting bit of er 'innovative' design. Entertaining design anyway.
Just a tunnel you say. Nothing bad about that. No at that point 15 feet or so from the end it looks fine.. just a blind left turn.. keep left and you will be fine... Except for this
A steel grate hidden just around the bend exactly square in the middle of the left side of the path. If you do not know its there then its potentially lethal and why would anyone expect it to be there? But if you do know its there then the safe way to pass it and avoid any chance of a head on with an oncoming cyclist or jogger is to pass the grate on the left. Which means your helmet clears the corner of the tunnel entrance, which is hard edged concrete, by a few inches. If it were wet or icy and there was traffic going the other way it could end in tears. Total genius. Someone who owned a funeral parlor contributed to that design.
See what gets me most about this sort of stupidity is that no one would ever do it on a road. They would expect to get their ass sued off when inevitably some less than bright person stuffed up and got hurt. But its a bike path so who cares? Its a foreseeable hazard so take care and if not, too bad. But really.. no one expects freeways for bikes.. but surely we can do better than this.
This bit is cute. Its not actually dangerous.. and in fact its fun. But really.... either this is a path for saturday pootles or one for commuting.. This is a bit experts only.. Oh the path is just barely visible in the top of the pic to the right. Well maybe only cos I know its there. Thats right.. they could have done it all in a straight line
Wooden bridges and especially curved downhill wooden bridges with camber are sort of dangerous to bicycles, I have already written about one recent death on one. There have been others. Really a stupid thing to put on a bike path therefore... a wooden bridge. Like this.
How about this? Jenny propped in the middle of the path?
Or not.
Amusing huh? The road actually goes no where. Its a dead end. And the car traffic faces a give way sign for the bike path. So I guess bothering cyclists by telling them of the road would just bother them unnecessarily. I mean the cars are going to stop. Right?
To keep us amused the path has a couple of little road sections. This is one.
Yes.. Thats all of it. Cute huh?
Lots of the path is really really pretty. Lots of the corners have little streams running across the path after our recent rains. To be fair Easlink undoubtedly spent more on drainage for the tollway than they did on the whole path. The other amusement is the rises and falls in the path. While cars have to manage with pesky engines and so need a near flat surface bicycles suffer no such issues. Here our lead climber tackles a steep pitch without even a rope to save her from certain death.
The slow sign is totally redundant. Personally I think it a sick joke on the part of the designer, The path goes around that bend then kicks up steeper for a couple more hundred metres with (of course) another 'slow' sign. No problem for grandad on the K mart roady and the 5 year old on the tricycle. Not much.
The path is more than twice the distance of the on road route. At a guess it has more than 4 times the amount of climbing. Its probably 3 times the distance of the onroad route if bicycles could use the tollway. So as a commuting route its rubbish. As a jogging path its fine...as a sunday ride path for families its rubbish.. As a skills session for the reasonably quick who are decent climbers and not totally adverse to sharing the path with the odd rabid out of control dog and its rabid out of control owner its wonderful... just not sure that thats the target market for this sort of infrastructure.
Let me know if you want to see more?
On the other hand not just everyone would give an 18 year old engineer a budget of $21.95 and responsibility for an entire bike path.. and even fewer would give him a case of booze before turning him loose with a drafting table. And the results have given us all so many giggles.
So on Saturday I was woken up by Kathy.. server had fallen over at a clients work place. Eventually I drove in and checked it out.. Server had fallen over because the UPS had gone flat. Because it was getting no power. Because the floor had no power. Hmmm. No immediate solution but I do now have a cunning plan. (to quote Blackadder) Next post may elaborate. Or not. Guess you will just have to read it to find out.
So back home. Young Jenny turned up and we decided to go for a ride. I have long meant to comment on the superb design qualities of the mightly Eastlink bike path and so I took my new camera and we set off. And just a couple of klicks from home is the first interesting bit of er 'innovative' design. Entertaining design anyway.
Just a tunnel you say. Nothing bad about that. No at that point 15 feet or so from the end it looks fine.. just a blind left turn.. keep left and you will be fine... Except for this
A steel grate hidden just around the bend exactly square in the middle of the left side of the path. If you do not know its there then its potentially lethal and why would anyone expect it to be there? But if you do know its there then the safe way to pass it and avoid any chance of a head on with an oncoming cyclist or jogger is to pass the grate on the left. Which means your helmet clears the corner of the tunnel entrance, which is hard edged concrete, by a few inches. If it were wet or icy and there was traffic going the other way it could end in tears. Total genius. Someone who owned a funeral parlor contributed to that design.See what gets me most about this sort of stupidity is that no one would ever do it on a road. They would expect to get their ass sued off when inevitably some less than bright person stuffed up and got hurt. But its a bike path so who cares? Its a foreseeable hazard so take care and if not, too bad. But really.. no one expects freeways for bikes.. but surely we can do better than this.
This bit is cute. Its not actually dangerous.. and in fact its fun. But really.... either this is a path for saturday pootles or one for commuting.. This is a bit experts only.. Oh the path is just barely visible in the top of the pic to the right. Well maybe only cos I know its there. Thats right.. they could have done it all in a straight line
Wooden bridges and especially curved downhill wooden bridges with camber are sort of dangerous to bicycles, I have already written about one recent death on one. There have been others. Really a stupid thing to put on a bike path therefore... a wooden bridge. Like this.
Slippery when wetAnd when dry. When covered in leaf litter. When frosty. When cold. In fact slippery all the time except for at noon on a hot day in summer. All of em are curved. Mostly downhill or uphill. One of them leads straight onto another one turning the other way. The one below has wire netting into the braking zone.. to improve traction. Its the only one. I guess someone got badly hurt their and the Parks people decided to do something. Hmmm. Something is wrong with that plan I think
How about this? Jenny propped in the middle of the path?
Or not.
Amusing huh? The road actually goes no where. Its a dead end. And the car traffic faces a give way sign for the bike path. So I guess bothering cyclists by telling them of the road would just bother them unnecessarily. I mean the cars are going to stop. Right?
To keep us amused the path has a couple of little road sections. This is one.
Yes.. Thats all of it. Cute huh?
Lots of the path is really really pretty. Lots of the corners have little streams running across the path after our recent rains. To be fair Easlink undoubtedly spent more on drainage for the tollway than they did on the whole path. The other amusement is the rises and falls in the path. While cars have to manage with pesky engines and so need a near flat surface bicycles suffer no such issues. Here our lead climber tackles a steep pitch without even a rope to save her from certain death.
The slow sign is totally redundant. Personally I think it a sick joke on the part of the designer, The path goes around that bend then kicks up steeper for a couple more hundred metres with (of course) another 'slow' sign. No problem for grandad on the K mart roady and the 5 year old on the tricycle. Not much. The path is more than twice the distance of the on road route. At a guess it has more than 4 times the amount of climbing. Its probably 3 times the distance of the onroad route if bicycles could use the tollway. So as a commuting route its rubbish. As a jogging path its fine...as a sunday ride path for families its rubbish.. As a skills session for the reasonably quick who are decent climbers and not totally adverse to sharing the path with the odd rabid out of control dog and its rabid out of control owner its wonderful... just not sure that thats the target market for this sort of infrastructure.
Let me know if you want to see more?
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Harden up princess.
from a sign that hung in Christopher Reeve's therapy gym
For everyone who thought I couldn't do it
For everyone who thought I shouldn't do it
For everyone who said I didn't have it in me
See you at the finish line.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
On ebay no one can hear you scream
Well that was a waste of two weeks.
I week selling our toyota on Ebay . I was pretty happy to see some serious bidding for it. And some bloke won it for $300. Happy with that. Even though it took a week
And then another week trying to contact the fool. And raising a dispute. And hopefully ruining his Ebay rating forever. Because after he won it the flea infested illegitimate offspring of the mating between a camel and a slime mold was never heard from again. No phone calls and his was never answered. and zero response to emails. Really annoying. Even if by some miracle the first Ebay issue I have ever had.
Fool had 100 % rating. Mind you I still have to figure out how to give him bad rating so at the moment he still has. Has bought 3 cars with good feedback in the last couple of years. I sort of have this image of him as a petrol sniffing bogan living in the back seat of his commodore somewhere in Sunshine but that is obviously just my annoyance showing.
Really really annoyed with Mr tombro1546 I would not be going far out of my way to spoil the annoying person's day because really he is not worth the effort but I would probably feel cheated if I forced my way though a raging bushfire to save an innocent person and got.. (sniff of disgust) him. Ahhh well, as I said he is my first bad experience with Ebay.
One reason for my extreme irritation with this waste of oxygen is that I have actually organised it to sell this car twice before. Once with a tenant of Marks (our occasional staff member) who at the last minute decided that he could negotiate a hire purchase agreement with me on a $150 car (what I was willing to sell it too) and once to Kathy's former partner who decided that it was a bit beyond him given his current ill health. Marks tenant is a nice guy.. but my cat is smarter, and I cannot really argue with ill health. But this thing is becoming a millstone. IT MUST GO
<img src="
" alt="Smartcat" />
The Toyota is up for sale again. Hopefully this time someone real buys it. Hopefully our friend Tom cops the appropriate amount of kharma. Hopefully I will be back to my normal warm and cuddly self tomorrow.
I week selling our toyota on Ebay . I was pretty happy to see some serious bidding for it. And some bloke won it for $300. Happy with that. Even though it took a week
And then another week trying to contact the fool. And raising a dispute. And hopefully ruining his Ebay rating forever. Because after he won it the flea infested illegitimate offspring of the mating between a camel and a slime mold was never heard from again. No phone calls and his was never answered. and zero response to emails. Really annoying. Even if by some miracle the first Ebay issue I have ever had.
Fool had 100 % rating. Mind you I still have to figure out how to give him bad rating so at the moment he still has. Has bought 3 cars with good feedback in the last couple of years. I sort of have this image of him as a petrol sniffing bogan living in the back seat of his commodore somewhere in Sunshine but that is obviously just my annoyance showing.
Really really annoyed with Mr tombro1546 I would not be going far out of my way to spoil the annoying person's day because really he is not worth the effort but I would probably feel cheated if I forced my way though a raging bushfire to save an innocent person and got.. (sniff of disgust) him. Ahhh well, as I said he is my first bad experience with Ebay.
One reason for my extreme irritation with this waste of oxygen is that I have actually organised it to sell this car twice before. Once with a tenant of Marks (our occasional staff member) who at the last minute decided that he could negotiate a hire purchase agreement with me on a $150 car (what I was willing to sell it too) and once to Kathy's former partner who decided that it was a bit beyond him given his current ill health. Marks tenant is a nice guy.. but my cat is smarter, and I cannot really argue with ill health. But this thing is becoming a millstone. IT MUST GO
<img src="
" alt="Smartcat" />The Toyota is up for sale again. Hopefully this time someone real buys it. Hopefully our friend Tom cops the appropriate amount of kharma. Hopefully I will be back to my normal warm and cuddly self tomorrow.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Election 2010
Not been much to write about this week. The Virtual Assistant stuff is happening. I wasted a day trying to figure a way to reliably back up files from a virtual Linux server to an actual Windows server. There must be a million ways to do this.. and the way I picked just decided to be unduly uncooperative. And I took Carl out to the airport Thursday...and have the exotic powertap wheel in the back room to deliver to a future Olympic Sprinter (I think anyway) 
Other than that a dead, cold and depressing week
I have finally cracked the shits with the fool that had promised to buy Kathys Toyota. Its on Ebay...finishing in a couple of days. Its going for more than $100 more than I offered it to him for. Here is the listing. Hopefully this thing goes. I have a lot more stuff to get rid off. And some to acquire. Specifically I need bookshelves and office chairs. Oh and cartridges for a Lexmark 1255. Got any?
Did the RRR this morning. Followed by brecky. And tomorrow is track. And since this post is light on content.. perhaps a support story from well in the past.. involving of course customers I do not deal with any more. And should not deal with for the sake of my sanity
OK teacher at old employer. A Hawthorn Melbourne Secondary College that shall remain nameless... mostly for the sake of the many useful and smart people that work there. Certainly not for the sake of the few wastes of food and air that worked their. Some few of the staff decided I was their private resource for unpaid work... in a couple of instances I was OK with that.. in a couple of instances.. not on your life.. possibly literally. Anyway.. get rung one evening at home.. "My home computer will not start" "Really", I reply.. "How sad" "Can you come and have a look" "Well indeed I could" (But no chance) "What is it doing?" Apparently nothing. No lights.. etc. "Can you check its plugged in and switched on" "I have already done that.. do you think I am stupid" "Not at all ..... could you just check the plug is in properly and switched on at the wall". "I am sure it is" Sigh.. "Could you please humor me and check" "Just a moment, I,ll have to get a torch?" Huh? "Why do you need a torch" "Cos the lights are all out" Boom tish. Yes indeed I think you are stupid. And why are you not ringing the power company?
Think about the fact that this person may be teaching your children. Scary huh? I have a client at Pyalong. Which is a small country town quite a long way away. He is a very valued client.. on mates rates in spite of the trip. I have loved friends up their.. and when I go up often stay either at the clients or my friends. But he has a terrible environment for computers. Its a commercial hydroponics facility. No its a legitimate one.. they are actually tomatoes. And the office computers have been known to have a half inch or more of mud in them, and in one case actual growing things. Just think of that as proof of how reliable modern electronic equipment actually is. We have in fact come a long way. Which means the machines are tougher and smarter. The people. nah. I am in one of my cynical moods
Because the election has been announced. Our new PM did not completely cave on the mining tax. Its going to apply to only about a quarter of the businesses it was going to apply too. Its going to come in at a higher rate. Yet apparently generate the same income. Not the complete cave I was expecting.. but close. Apparently she saved the country by negotiating it. Anyway.. her election cry will be.. I predict "Moving Forward" The opposition is going to go with the cry.. "Disloyal backstabbing untrustworthy cow who stabbed her boss in the back and wants your trust" Hard to argue with.. being true and all. The opposition does not impress. And the greens do not believe in nuclear power. Who the hell am I going to vote for?
Other than that a dead, cold and depressing week
I have finally cracked the shits with the fool that had promised to buy Kathys Toyota. Its on Ebay...finishing in a couple of days. Its going for more than $100 more than I offered it to him for. Here is the listing. Hopefully this thing goes. I have a lot more stuff to get rid off. And some to acquire. Specifically I need bookshelves and office chairs. Oh and cartridges for a Lexmark 1255. Got any?
Did the RRR this morning. Followed by brecky. And tomorrow is track. And since this post is light on content.. perhaps a support story from well in the past.. involving of course customers I do not deal with any more. And should not deal with for the sake of my sanity
OK teacher at old employer. A Hawthorn Melbourne Secondary College that shall remain nameless... mostly for the sake of the many useful and smart people that work there. Certainly not for the sake of the few wastes of food and air that worked their. Some few of the staff decided I was their private resource for unpaid work... in a couple of instances I was OK with that.. in a couple of instances.. not on your life.. possibly literally. Anyway.. get rung one evening at home.. "My home computer will not start" "Really", I reply.. "How sad" "Can you come and have a look" "Well indeed I could" (But no chance) "What is it doing?" Apparently nothing. No lights.. etc. "Can you check its plugged in and switched on" "I have already done that.. do you think I am stupid" "Not at all ..... could you just check the plug is in properly and switched on at the wall". "I am sure it is" Sigh.. "Could you please humor me and check" "Just a moment, I,ll have to get a torch?" Huh? "Why do you need a torch" "Cos the lights are all out" Boom tish. Yes indeed I think you are stupid. And why are you not ringing the power company?
Think about the fact that this person may be teaching your children. Scary huh? I have a client at Pyalong. Which is a small country town quite a long way away. He is a very valued client.. on mates rates in spite of the trip. I have loved friends up their.. and when I go up often stay either at the clients or my friends. But he has a terrible environment for computers. Its a commercial hydroponics facility. No its a legitimate one.. they are actually tomatoes. And the office computers have been known to have a half inch or more of mud in them, and in one case actual growing things. Just think of that as proof of how reliable modern electronic equipment actually is. We have in fact come a long way. Which means the machines are tougher and smarter. The people. nah. I am in one of my cynical moods
Because the election has been announced. Our new PM did not completely cave on the mining tax. Its going to apply to only about a quarter of the businesses it was going to apply too. Its going to come in at a higher rate. Yet apparently generate the same income. Not the complete cave I was expecting.. but close. Apparently she saved the country by negotiating it. Anyway.. her election cry will be.. I predict "Moving Forward" The opposition is going to go with the cry.. "Disloyal backstabbing untrustworthy cow who stabbed her boss in the back and wants your trust" Hard to argue with.. being true and all. The opposition does not impress. And the greens do not believe in nuclear power. Who the hell am I going to vote for?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Small world innit?
Today was our monthly Box Hill TAFE organized Networking night. I was in the city and rode in and met Kathy there. The topic was an interesting look at the person presenting its own little bit of small business cash management software. Finetunebiz Cashbook. Runs on windows... and has a complicated authentication setup but does seem a thoroughly decent bit of software. Runs on what essentially is an excell spreadsheet which is nice.
A girl came up afterwords.. who hit me with the classic.. "you don,t remember me do you" "Alas... there have been so many...." Nah I managed nothing as 'stylish' as that. A student at Swinnie when I was there.. now starting a small business doing oil paintings and web design. Her name was Kate.. and while (amazingly ) I actually remember her last name, I think putting it here not appropriate
I gave her Kathys card as with brilliant forward planning I had none on me. I can see her being a useful contact. Actually I can see a couple of useful contacts coming out of the night. Kathy had a solid half dozen inquiries about her virtual assistant offering. All looking very very promising after a lack lustre start to the week.
In keeping with my plan to do a very local leaflet drop I have done a very local leaflet. What do you think?
I decided the back office has to be more organized. Went looking on Ebay for bookcases.. with no luck.. nothing local and immediate for money I was willing to pay. Also went looking for a chest. Something to put the large pile of rarely used but valuable motorcycle leathers and helmets in. Found a nice one.. In Moe. Which is a bit of a bummer. Decided it was worth one bid. Bid $66. One and only bid. Won as I often seem too. That was Sunday evening. Still have not heard from 'marnieb' Ok there are actually a lot of legitimate possibilities why this might be the case. However I may rethink this buying from Moe thing. Let us wait and see.
Dentist tomorrow. Oh joy. I like 'my' dentist.. but generically ... mmmm... dentists. Phobic and don,t care who knows it. Got rung at like 6:30 by her assistant.. nurse... dental technician.. receptionist.. I don.t actually know the job description.. but one of her people. To see if I had fled the country. Sigh.
A girl came up afterwords.. who hit me with the classic.. "you don,t remember me do you" "Alas... there have been so many...." Nah I managed nothing as 'stylish' as that. A student at Swinnie when I was there.. now starting a small business doing oil paintings and web design. Her name was Kate.. and while (amazingly ) I actually remember her last name, I think putting it here not appropriate
I gave her Kathys card as with brilliant forward planning I had none on me. I can see her being a useful contact. Actually I can see a couple of useful contacts coming out of the night. Kathy had a solid half dozen inquiries about her virtual assistant offering. All looking very very promising after a lack lustre start to the week.
In keeping with my plan to do a very local leaflet drop I have done a very local leaflet. What do you think?
I decided the back office has to be more organized. Went looking on Ebay for bookcases.. with no luck.. nothing local and immediate for money I was willing to pay. Also went looking for a chest. Something to put the large pile of rarely used but valuable motorcycle leathers and helmets in. Found a nice one.. In Moe. Which is a bit of a bummer. Decided it was worth one bid. Bid $66. One and only bid. Won as I often seem too. That was Sunday evening. Still have not heard from 'marnieb' Ok there are actually a lot of legitimate possibilities why this might be the case. However I may rethink this buying from Moe thing. Let us wait and see.
Dentist tomorrow. Oh joy. I like 'my' dentist.. but generically ... mmmm... dentists. Phobic and don,t care who knows it. Got rung at like 6:30 by her assistant.. nurse... dental technician.. receptionist.. I don.t actually know the job description.. but one of her people. To see if I had fled the country. Sigh.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The nanny state
Well today was a waste of time. My brother had organized a wrecked lancer to donate an engine to replace the slightly ill one in my lancer. I organized to have the day off, went over their on three cylinders and in a blue cloud, to meet the towie with it. Very bent lancer. Right engine.. cept it wasnt. Faced the wrong way.. had a fuel injection rail and a distributor at the wrong end.. and worse when I checked the vicroads site, the car was not stolen.. but had finance owing. I would have rung the finance company but vic roads wants you to pay $26 to have information like that. Which strikes me as insane.. assuming they want their car back surely they should pay vicroads. Or me for recovering it Why would I pay to help them out? So .. got it towed back to where he got it from. Sigh. That was a waste of time and money I left my Lancer (and apparently my wallet) at my brothers workshop where doubtless.. like other cars I have left their over the years it will gradually vanish from human knowledge.
Not a good day at all.
But in breaking news the terrafugia-transition flying car has passed its FAA approvals and is now legal as a light sports aircraft.. and presumably road legal somewhere.. probably not Victoria. Which as an Australian F1 driver is on record as saying recently truly is the nanny state.
But mostly where car driving is concerned. By coincidence a friend turned up here last night with her son. She is in the process of teaching him to drive. And out of curiosity I wondered if she was going to buy him a Terrafugia-Transition, as of course you would
But here is the thing.
In order to get his license her son has to comply with the following lifted from VicRoads
You must be at least 18 years of age and a Victorian resident to be eligible to apply for a probationary licence. You will need to pass a Hazard Perception Test and Drive Test at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre.
Learner permit holding period requirements and supervised driving experience
There are different requirements you must meet before applying for a probationary licence, depending on your age and when you obtained your learner permit:
* if you are under the age of 21, you must have held your learner permit for at least twelve months and completed a minimum of 120 hours (including at least 10 hours at night) of driving with an experienced driver before you take your licence test. You must have recorded these hours in an official Learner Log Book signed by you and your supervising experienced driver.
What are the requirements to fly you ask? Well I am glad you bought that up. From the Horsham flying club in Victoria it states the following
Age Requirements
The minimum age to learn is 15 years. There is no maximum age. Students under the age of 18 must have written consent from a parent or guardian.
Hours Required for a RAAus Pilot Certificate
Student without previous flying experience
MINIMUM of 20 hours for Restricted Pilot Certificate. A further 5 hours is required for a Cross-Country Endorsement .
In other words its a heap easier to get your pilots license than your probationary car license. And what this means is of course that at 15 its perfectly possible for you to be allowed to take off and fly and land your flying car. But absolutely illegal for you to drive it on a public road. Cos of course in Victoria that is the dangerous bit.
I want one anyway.. I want to take it out.. and swoop at speed camera's with it.
Speaking of speed camera,s; its not impossible to have a win with even them. On Thursday evening I was riding home on the pushie down Whitehorse road.
Of all things a Lancer forced its way past way too close at one set of lights.. middle aged couple in it. Caught em at the next set.. gave them 'the look' whearas they went past again.. very close.. way over the limit.. obviously deliberate; a high speed buzz of the sort that appeals to a certain very stupid kind of bogan that usually does not make it to middle age. (Even the road toll occasionally has an upside if one believes in evolution)
Flash from the roadside ahead. RAV 4 parked on the median strip. Engine running.. camera on the dash. Karma (Carma) . :D
Not a good day at all.
But in breaking news the terrafugia-transition flying car has passed its FAA approvals and is now legal as a light sports aircraft.. and presumably road legal somewhere.. probably not Victoria. Which as an Australian F1 driver is on record as saying recently truly is the nanny state.
But mostly where car driving is concerned. By coincidence a friend turned up here last night with her son. She is in the process of teaching him to drive. And out of curiosity I wondered if she was going to buy him a Terrafugia-Transition, as of course you would
But here is the thing.
In order to get his license her son has to comply with the following lifted from VicRoads
You must be at least 18 years of age and a Victorian resident to be eligible to apply for a probationary licence. You will need to pass a Hazard Perception Test and Drive Test at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre.
Learner permit holding period requirements and supervised driving experience
There are different requirements you must meet before applying for a probationary licence, depending on your age and when you obtained your learner permit:
* if you are under the age of 21, you must have held your learner permit for at least twelve months and completed a minimum of 120 hours (including at least 10 hours at night) of driving with an experienced driver before you take your licence test. You must have recorded these hours in an official Learner Log Book signed by you and your supervising experienced driver.
What are the requirements to fly you ask? Well I am glad you bought that up. From the Horsham flying club in Victoria it states the following
Age Requirements
The minimum age to learn is 15 years. There is no maximum age. Students under the age of 18 must have written consent from a parent or guardian.
Hours Required for a RAAus Pilot Certificate
Student without previous flying experience
MINIMUM of 20 hours for Restricted Pilot Certificate. A further 5 hours is required for a Cross-Country Endorsement .
In other words its a heap easier to get your pilots license than your probationary car license. And what this means is of course that at 15 its perfectly possible for you to be allowed to take off and fly and land your flying car. But absolutely illegal for you to drive it on a public road. Cos of course in Victoria that is the dangerous bit.
I want one anyway.. I want to take it out.. and swoop at speed camera's with it.
Speaking of speed camera,s; its not impossible to have a win with even them. On Thursday evening I was riding home on the pushie down Whitehorse road.
Of all things a Lancer forced its way past way too close at one set of lights.. middle aged couple in it. Caught em at the next set.. gave them 'the look' whearas they went past again.. very close.. way over the limit.. obviously deliberate; a high speed buzz of the sort that appeals to a certain very stupid kind of bogan that usually does not make it to middle age. (Even the road toll occasionally has an upside if one believes in evolution)
Flash from the roadside ahead. RAV 4 parked on the median strip. Engine running.. camera on the dash. Karma (Carma) . :D
bikebitsuk.com
Its actually Bikebits UK .com. but Bikebit SUK .com gets it absolutely right
Was I you I would not give them the time of day.
Clincher tires that are suitable for the wood at DISC are rare. And hard to find. And Expensive
So Jenny and I were happy to find them for a very cheap price at bikebitsuk. And Jenny promptly put in an order for two pair. And I told Carl Brewer of ABOC that he could have the tires I have borrowed off him for months (made out of recycled condoms.. best fu$$ing compound around) back
However bikebitsuk.com screwed us around. Not with non recycled condoms.. I speak metaphorically. Asswipes. The tires never turned up.. because they never had them. Bikebitsuk.com are now in my list of things I must do next time I visit my lovely mate Sara and her hubby in Hampton London.UK.
This is a picture of me and the lovely Sa on my motorcycle the second last time she was in Melbourne.
I really want to tell Malcolm face to face how impressed with his customer service I am. Class, all the way NOT. Will my annoyance last long enough to actually visit? Well I guess it depends on how many people annoy me this much in the next few months. Malcolm will be a hard act to beat.
Jenny did get her money back today. But still. It was well over a month of buggering around. And with no contact from bikebitsuk for most of that time. At least it means I have her permission to express my annoyance with the joke that is bikebitsuk.com
That is the thing about the internet. You have to actually make an effort. One dissatisfied customer can do you a lot of damage. Me being a dissatisfied customer, I am happy to do bikebitsuk.com a lot of damage. OK they are probably a little start up like us. OK they are probably trying hard. But they made no effort to make up for their oops. They could have done a lot. Even sent Jenny a bunch of flowers or something. And possibly gained a customer. I would never not try and square it with a customer. So stuff em. Asswipes. One internet company to not deal with. Make a note and don't. I never got a reply to the below email.
Was I you I would not give them the time of day.
Clincher tires that are suitable for the wood at DISC are rare. And hard to find. And Expensive
So Jenny and I were happy to find them for a very cheap price at bikebitsuk. And Jenny promptly put in an order for two pair. And I told Carl Brewer of ABOC that he could have the tires I have borrowed off him for months (made out of recycled condoms.. best fu$$ing compound around) back
However bikebitsuk.com screwed us around. Not with non recycled condoms.. I speak metaphorically. Asswipes. The tires never turned up.. because they never had them. Bikebitsuk.com are now in my list of things I must do next time I visit my lovely mate Sara and her hubby in Hampton London.UK.
This is a picture of me and the lovely Sa on my motorcycle the second last time she was in Melbourne. I really want to tell Malcolm face to face how impressed with his customer service I am. Class, all the way NOT. Will my annoyance last long enough to actually visit? Well I guess it depends on how many people annoy me this much in the next few months. Malcolm will be a hard act to beat.
Jenny did get her money back today. But still. It was well over a month of buggering around. And with no contact from bikebitsuk for most of that time. At least it means I have her permission to express my annoyance with the joke that is bikebitsuk.com
That is the thing about the internet. You have to actually make an effort. One dissatisfied customer can do you a lot of damage. Me being a dissatisfied customer, I am happy to do bikebitsuk.com a lot of damage. OK they are probably a little start up like us. OK they are probably trying hard. But they made no effort to make up for their oops. They could have done a lot. Even sent Jenny a bunch of flowers or something. And possibly gained a customer. I would never not try and square it with a customer. So stuff em. Asswipes. One internet company to not deal with. Make a note and don't. I never got a reply to the below email.
No Malcolm. Not good enough.
Get us these bloody tires or its unlikely you will sell anything to Oz
again.. and nearly certain that visiting Victoria is not something you
ever want to do. And since I am in the UK every couple of years.... way
to get annoyed.
Or alternatively find some acceptable way to make our experience with you
at least ok if not an overwhelmingly positive experience. Pull the digit
out and sort it.
4 suppliers.... riiiiiiighhht..... Pretty sure I could find a nuclear
reactor..or at least a MBT with less effort than that.
Regards
David Thomas.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "malcolm"
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 7:36 PM
> To: "'Jennifer Campbell'"
> Subject: RE: Order Update urgently required.
>
>> Jennifer
>> As you have started the process of reclaiming the money paid my hands
>> are
>> tie and I have to wait for the process to take its course.
>>
>> I have been trying and trying to get hold of the tyres you order and I
>> have
>> placed order with 4 different suppliers to get supplies. All have
>> confirmed
>> my order but none have delivered to date. This applies not only to the
>> Diamante Pro light but various other Vittoria tyres and tubular. Nobody
>> at
>> this end of the world is saying what is going on whether it is a
>> production
>> problem and or commercial problem. I have been inform that a new price
>> list
>> has been announced taking effect from 1st July and prices are
>> considerable
>> higher than they were and perhaps this has been the problem with all the
>> currency fluctuations prevailing at the moment.
>>
>> As soon as I here from the chargeback dept of Natwest Streamline I will
>> instruct them to refund immediately.
>>
>> Sorry we were unable to help at this time
>>
>> Regards
>> Malcolm Cross
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jennifer Campbell [mailto:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: 29 June 2010 07:18
>> To: info@bikebitsuk.com
>> Subject: Order Update urgently required.
>> Importance: High
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hi Malcolm,
>>>
>>> You have charged me for my 4 tyres on 15th May 2010. I have NOT
>>> received
>>> them. You have NOT responded to my emails.
>>> I will be contacting my credit card provider to have this payment
>>> cancelled.
>>>
>>> I am unimpressed with your lack of customer service.
>>>
>>> Jennifer Campbell
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>> From: "Jennifer Campbell"
>>> Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 12:09 PM
>>> To: "International Cycle Components"
>>> Subject: Re: Order Update
>>>
>>>> Malcolm Cross,
>>>>
>>>> Hi Malcolm,
>>>>
>>>> Tyres haven't arrived yet - can you confirm when they were posted?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Jennifer Campbell
>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>> From: "International Cycle Components"
>>>> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 12:15 AM
>>>> To: "Jennifer Campbell"
>>>> Subject: Order Update
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Bike Bits UK
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Order Number: 1845
>>>>> Date Ordered: Saturday 15 May, 2010
>>>>>
>>>>> The comments for your order are
>>>>>
>>>>> Jennifer, thanks for the order. The postage for the 4 tyres will be
>>>>> GBP13.00 via Royal Mail airmall small packets. Please confirm your
>>>>> acceptance so that we can ship quickly and ask Sage Pay to debit yor
>>>>> card with the additional cost. Thanks Malcolm Cross
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Your order has been updated to the following status.
>>>>>
Monday, June 28, 2010
Addwords
We have been playing with google adwords for the last few days. Its a brilliant concept. I think I wasted the $30 we at 'Perfect Notes' invested in it. But for some businesses.. possibly not ours, its the most brilliant brilliant marketing possible. Even though it has some issues. Let me explain
The way adwords works is you can essentially pay google to return an add about you if a search contains certain key words. It all depends on just how targeted those words are how effective an advertisement is. If you can figure out exactly what search a savvy person would use to find your business and the words in that search are specific enough to get to you and not 75 000 other people then adwords is way going to work for you. Otherwise probably not
So if you are one of 3 suppliers of bronze hyperdrive assemblies in Australia, then the search .. bronze hyperdrive with returns limited to Australia is absolutely going to work. But if you are selling batteries in Hong Kong, probably not. One of our customers is selling fire control equipment in Melbourne.. another is a mower repair shop in Portsea... and a future customer is.. heh.. a dentist in an undisclosed suburb.. you can see that certain keywords are likely to work for them.. and for the customer when it comes to that. But you can also see that 'computer support' meh.. there are a lot of competitors out there. They mostly are not very good, but its first contact we are seeking.
Problems.. the narrowing down to geographic areas possibilities in adwords suck. We will go anywhere in Melbourne for a customer.. but close is nice. Dedicated as we are to minimizing time spent stuck in traffic. Its nice for customers in a lot of cases too. really good for both business and customer to hook up if they are close geographically. Not always but often. Adds a little bit to the community feeling too. A friend of mine is trying to get a sharehood off the ground in Surrey Hills I do not like her chances.. but all these little attempts to build local communities are to be applauded in my opinion.
Brilliant stuff... the Google analytics stuff works right in with adwords. Meaning that you can tell if it works. Or not. And you can set a daily budget. Absolutely brilliant. Oh and its going to push your site up the google returns list. For most business sites (maybe not for the CIA) more traffic is good.
Mark has been targeting his bonsai stuff heavily with Google adwords. With a very small budget he is moving as much of this stuff as he wants too. And now that we understand how it works we have approached a couple of the customers we think it will work for and now have at least one campaign to run. Its important to us that your businesses succeed, cos that is the only way we succeed for one thing.. but it also goes to that entire neighborhood thing.
Set off for my training ride this morning.. at dark oclock.. rugged up like a very warm thing. Hard to get out of bed it was. A kilometer down the road and right on time my front light fell off. I spent 30 minutes finding all the pieces then slunk home and back to bed. Feeling very like an evil stealth cyclist. Arggghhhhhhhhhh
The way adwords works is you can essentially pay google to return an add about you if a search contains certain key words. It all depends on just how targeted those words are how effective an advertisement is. If you can figure out exactly what search a savvy person would use to find your business and the words in that search are specific enough to get to you and not 75 000 other people then adwords is way going to work for you. Otherwise probably not
So if you are one of 3 suppliers of bronze hyperdrive assemblies in Australia, then the search .. bronze hyperdrive with returns limited to Australia is absolutely going to work. But if you are selling batteries in Hong Kong, probably not. One of our customers is selling fire control equipment in Melbourne.. another is a mower repair shop in Portsea... and a future customer is.. heh.. a dentist in an undisclosed suburb.. you can see that certain keywords are likely to work for them.. and for the customer when it comes to that. But you can also see that 'computer support' meh.. there are a lot of competitors out there. They mostly are not very good, but its first contact we are seeking.
Problems.. the narrowing down to geographic areas possibilities in adwords suck. We will go anywhere in Melbourne for a customer.. but close is nice. Dedicated as we are to minimizing time spent stuck in traffic. Its nice for customers in a lot of cases too. really good for both business and customer to hook up if they are close geographically. Not always but often. Adds a little bit to the community feeling too. A friend of mine is trying to get a sharehood off the ground in Surrey Hills I do not like her chances.. but all these little attempts to build local communities are to be applauded in my opinion.
Brilliant stuff... the Google analytics stuff works right in with adwords. Meaning that you can tell if it works. Or not. And you can set a daily budget. Absolutely brilliant. Oh and its going to push your site up the google returns list. For most business sites (maybe not for the CIA) more traffic is good.
Mark has been targeting his bonsai stuff heavily with Google adwords. With a very small budget he is moving as much of this stuff as he wants too. And now that we understand how it works we have approached a couple of the customers we think it will work for and now have at least one campaign to run. Its important to us that your businesses succeed, cos that is the only way we succeed for one thing.. but it also goes to that entire neighborhood thing.
Set off for my training ride this morning.. at dark oclock.. rugged up like a very warm thing. Hard to get out of bed it was. A kilometer down the road and right on time my front light fell off. I spent 30 minutes finding all the pieces then slunk home and back to bed. Feeling very like an evil stealth cyclist. Arggghhhhhhhhhh
Thursday, June 24, 2010
On reasonable care
I finally remembered what the hell it was I wanted to post on the other day. I remembered while riding into town on Gardiners Creek bike path tonight. This bike path has two detours on it at the moment.. both arguably very very lethal and it occurred to me that no one would dare do something equivalent on a major road. Someone would get seriously hurt... the appropriate authority would get their ass sued off... and while I am not in favor of the current massively litigious nature of society, they would deserve it. And everyone concerned knows it. And so the really stupid does not happen. But bike paths are open slather. And the truly stupid happens all the time
I have probably raved about this before. But it deserves a rave. Eastlink bike path has bits only experts can ride up. It has wooden bridges.. lethal when damp and when icy with downhill curves on them and grates in the middle of the path on blind corners. Gardiners creek currently has a plywood 180 degree 1 metre radius downhill corner on a detour in a part of the path prone to ice. The Dandenong creek path has seen a guy killed recently on a part of the path that Parks Victoria had been warned about repeatedly. They have effectively and competently solved the problem tho. Or not.
There have been other fatal accidents on Melbourne bike paths And oopses beyond number.
As I said you could not get away with doing this sort of thing on the road. And the idea of getting cyclists.. wearing cleated shoes as many will be, to get off and walk, is just insane. Way more dangerous walking than riding. A sign saying "ride at walking pace' would at least make some sense. You think 40 kph zones are nuts try.. "walking pace only signs" The problem is that bikes are supposed to be an actual mode of transport. The way the councils get away with it is to say that all bike paths are shared paths and that they only have to make them safe for pedestrians. And pedestrians not wearing bike shoes at that. Its nuts.
And bike paths do appear to be designed by the work experience guy. Drunk. A man who has never actually seen a bike. And thinks of them as.. maybe roller blades. Rather than the most efficient mode of transport in a energy expended sense ever. As I said nuts.
I went to a seminar on motorcycle safety earlier this year. I suggested that people hired as road engineers by VicRoads should at least be able to ride a motorcycle and drive a truck. Not that hard one would have thought. Nope. Heaven forbid people design stuff they have a clue about. Was not an idea that met with much approval. Bugger.
We pay insurance in case we actually screw a clients data up accidently, and we make seriously best efforts to not do this. My dentist rings up to make sure nothing went wrong. Reasonable care is required by the law in many endeavors and its a reasonable requirement. Why then when its absolutely obvious, at least to any thinking person with a clue about cycling that a bit of cycling infrastructure is lethal do the people concerned not have a duty.. or even think they have a moral duty, to take reasonable care? Its not actually very much to ask.
Heavy experimentation with google addwords at PerfectNotes at the moment. This sort of targeted advertising is brilliant. Am talking to a couple of clients about targeted advertising on their behalf. This stuff is absolutely brilliant. Mark has been using it to sell his bonsai for a while already.
I have probably raved about this before. But it deserves a rave. Eastlink bike path has bits only experts can ride up. It has wooden bridges.. lethal when damp and when icy with downhill curves on them and grates in the middle of the path on blind corners. Gardiners creek currently has a plywood 180 degree 1 metre radius downhill corner on a detour in a part of the path prone to ice. The Dandenong creek path has seen a guy killed recently on a part of the path that Parks Victoria had been warned about repeatedly. They have effectively and competently solved the problem tho. Or not.
There have been other fatal accidents on Melbourne bike paths And oopses beyond number. As I said you could not get away with doing this sort of thing on the road. And the idea of getting cyclists.. wearing cleated shoes as many will be, to get off and walk, is just insane. Way more dangerous walking than riding. A sign saying "ride at walking pace' would at least make some sense. You think 40 kph zones are nuts try.. "walking pace only signs" The problem is that bikes are supposed to be an actual mode of transport. The way the councils get away with it is to say that all bike paths are shared paths and that they only have to make them safe for pedestrians. And pedestrians not wearing bike shoes at that. Its nuts.
And bike paths do appear to be designed by the work experience guy. Drunk. A man who has never actually seen a bike. And thinks of them as.. maybe roller blades. Rather than the most efficient mode of transport in a energy expended sense ever. As I said nuts.
I went to a seminar on motorcycle safety earlier this year. I suggested that people hired as road engineers by VicRoads should at least be able to ride a motorcycle and drive a truck. Not that hard one would have thought. Nope. Heaven forbid people design stuff they have a clue about. Was not an idea that met with much approval. Bugger.
We pay insurance in case we actually screw a clients data up accidently, and we make seriously best efforts to not do this. My dentist rings up to make sure nothing went wrong. Reasonable care is required by the law in many endeavors and its a reasonable requirement. Why then when its absolutely obvious, at least to any thinking person with a clue about cycling that a bit of cycling infrastructure is lethal do the people concerned not have a duty.. or even think they have a moral duty, to take reasonable care? Its not actually very much to ask.
Heavy experimentation with google addwords at PerfectNotes at the moment. This sort of targeted advertising is brilliant. Am talking to a couple of clients about targeted advertising on their behalf. This stuff is absolutely brilliant. Mark has been using it to sell his bonsai for a while already.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Semper Fi
I had a great topic for yesterdays blog. I composed it while riding from the dentist to a client and then on to Monash. It was going to be a terrific topical post. Hmmm. Pity I cannot remember what it was going to be about. Sigh.
Ahhh yes the dentist. Not being able to feel my nose was less fun than most things. I did think it was probably a really good time to get it broken and reset properly. But amazingly no one at Monash seemed interested in smacking it for me. A difficult day.
Clients business was locked up. I suspect the staff member I found them may not be working out. Seems to not be there a lot. Oh I don,t know.. fairly sure its not good. Will chase him up today.
Paid (and transferred) the registration on the Scooby Doo ( Subaru ) yesterday. And the Lancer. $1300. Sheesh. I,m paying 2000 bucks a year in reg. Nearly all of it the Transport Accident Commision component of registration. 3rd party accident insurane for injury. But I can only have one accident at a time. Sucks. I do trivial kilometers these days too. The sooner the TAC is linked to your license rather than the registration the better. All I can say.. anyone who says cyclists do not pay their share to me in the next few days is going to wish they had an anesthetized nose. Grrrrrrr
Much reconfiguring of PNHQ networks the last week. At least a couple of days have been spent in the totally non profitable setting up of virtual machines and (gasp) Windoze servers to give Kathy a couple of new testing environments. Impacting significantly on Mark and myself trying to chase new customers. Tricky.
Anyway to the subject of this blog. Leadership challenge for the PM,s job this morning. Hmmmmm Julia Gillard is challenging for the top job. According to the ABC story that woke me up she is challenging because it came to her attention that Kevin Rudd was not totally convinced by her protestations of loyalty and her denials of any intention to challenge. And so.. offended by the slight on her integrity she challenged. And in so doing proved him right. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Is it just me who is somewhat offended by this? Imagine, a disloyal pollie, how unbelievable? (Snicker) But really, using someones doubts of your loyalty as an excuse to prove em right. Way to go Julia. Class all the way. Pah.
Not that I am a fan of the Ruddster. But still. I am a fan of the mining tax. Hurting big mining...as if. We get to dig the stuff up and sell it once.. its an appreciating asset while its in the ground. Unless civilization collapses, in which case we will starve to death in a disintegrating society.. a bit poorer than we would have starved to death otherwise. Funnily enough if Julia gets up (heh) I bet that the mining tax quietly goes away. Interesting.
Semper Fi Julia.
Ahhh yes the dentist. Not being able to feel my nose was less fun than most things. I did think it was probably a really good time to get it broken and reset properly. But amazingly no one at Monash seemed interested in smacking it for me. A difficult day.
Clients business was locked up. I suspect the staff member I found them may not be working out. Seems to not be there a lot. Oh I don,t know.. fairly sure its not good. Will chase him up today.
Paid (and transferred) the registration on the Scooby Doo ( Subaru ) yesterday. And the Lancer. $1300. Sheesh. I,m paying 2000 bucks a year in reg. Nearly all of it the Transport Accident Commision component of registration. 3rd party accident insurane for injury. But I can only have one accident at a time. Sucks. I do trivial kilometers these days too. The sooner the TAC is linked to your license rather than the registration the better. All I can say.. anyone who says cyclists do not pay their share to me in the next few days is going to wish they had an anesthetized nose. Grrrrrrr
Much reconfiguring of PNHQ networks the last week. At least a couple of days have been spent in the totally non profitable setting up of virtual machines and (gasp) Windoze servers to give Kathy a couple of new testing environments. Impacting significantly on Mark and myself trying to chase new customers. Tricky.
Anyway to the subject of this blog. Leadership challenge for the PM,s job this morning. Hmmmmm Julia Gillard is challenging for the top job. According to the ABC story that woke me up she is challenging because it came to her attention that Kevin Rudd was not totally convinced by her protestations of loyalty and her denials of any intention to challenge. And so.. offended by the slight on her integrity she challenged. And in so doing proved him right. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Is it just me who is somewhat offended by this? Imagine, a disloyal pollie, how unbelievable? (Snicker) But really, using someones doubts of your loyalty as an excuse to prove em right. Way to go Julia. Class all the way. Pah.
Not that I am a fan of the Ruddster. But still. I am a fan of the mining tax. Hurting big mining...as if. We get to dig the stuff up and sell it once.. its an appreciating asset while its in the ground. Unless civilization collapses, in which case we will starve to death in a disintegrating society.. a bit poorer than we would have starved to death otherwise. Funnily enough if Julia gets up (heh) I bet that the mining tax quietly goes away. Interesting.
Semper Fi Julia.
Friday, June 18, 2010
It seems like the little details that stress us the most.
It does not seem to matter whats going on in ones life, or business. Little things seem to take the longest time to sort out and create the most stress. It all falls into perspective when something really serious happens. when for example the doctor says you have cancer but until then.. its awful hard to keep perspective.
Did not get much riding in this week... let me share one amusing incident.. I have a friend.. lets call her SS (for Squeeza sibling.. doubtless some readers will recognize from that description) Anyway she is an enthusiastic cyclist, improving and strong. SS has Aspergers Syndrome and doubtless as a result she learns differently from the rest of us. Generally slower, although not always... generally she seems to learn very specifically, and the multitasking is a bit poor as she learns the new thing. Teaching her skills has involved me patiently (people who know me feel free to fall over and laugh at this point.. but I do try) explain how it works.. and watch it slowly come.
WRONG!!!! Very Very Wrong!!!
Fairly fastish ride with hills on the monday (a public holiday here in OZ for most.. it being Lizzies birthday. And SS was off the back up every hill. Not such a big deal... but SS did not actually appear to be killing herself trying. I trailed along with her trying to figure out what she was doing wrong. As did Ms J9. A former army drill sergeant. (in a former life) Ms J9 took over. "Push... Push... PUSH.... you will not change gear until I tells ya..... wait.. WAIT... change one gear up NOW " Push.. PUSH, GETOUTOFTHESADDLE NOW!!!!!!" And much much more in a similar style. I was waiting for her to say "YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE GIRL" I hurt a rib laughing. And the result. SS panting for breath. And pouring with sweat. A speed increase of at least 25%. Sustained. Up serious hills.
Way interesting. What SS needs is to be told in absolutely unambiguous terms what to do and when to do it. Eventually doubtless she will include all this in her database of learning experience and will do in her own way what we all do in new situations.. this hill is like that hill.. and so I handle it like I handled that one. May take her more time to do that, and may be applied more rigorously than most of us would. Most of us have a whole bunch of tricks for handling new situations.. and a bunch of techniques for climbing hills and are pretty good at improvisation. I think SS is always going to be a bit rigid at such things, but at least if she knows how it should be done some of the time its bound to help. And the improvement was so dramatic. Shows that the army approach has its place.
I am sure it will apply to other situations other than cycling. I am also sure that SS has an abundance of independent will. Way too much for this to go down well. Yet some of the time this technique obviously needs to apply. Tricky. I hasten to add that SS is also as tough as a thing that is very very tough indeed. And has the scars to prove it. And she is very smart.
Another little amusement. Did the MRR recovery ride on Thursday.. Sorta. I rolled out the drive.. flashed past Karen's driveway at 50 kph.. just in time to see her riding down it.. turned onto Whitehorse just in time to meet two other MRR riders. Tagged along with WAK and Mrs WAK who were trialing Mrs WAK's new headlights. Lets just say the rest of the MRR never looked like catching us. Lian kept us moving right along.. average of 27. Some people do much better when they can see where they are going. Whereas others will wheel suck without once looking up all the way till they hit the side of the bus. :D Another bit of philosophy I have picked up from cycling that applies so well to the rest of life.
The John Marsden Book.."Tomorrow when the war began" which is an absolutely brilliant book, supposedly for teenagers about the effect on teenagers on finding themselves in the middle of a war, set in an Australian bush town in the middle of a massive invasion of Australia by some unnamed country is being made into a major film to be released in September If the film remains true to the book it will be great. It will be everything that the film Red Dawn was not. Hell in the book John Marsden does not even name the invading power. Its going to be great. Marsden wrote a series of books set during and after the mythical war, all written in the first person.. his protagonist Ellie There could be sequels
This book is pretty solid. The bullets have no friends. It was on some of the schools reading lists and rightly so. The series of books has only one flaw. As if New Zealand would come to our aid. And as if they could. Treaty obligations with NZ are a totally one way obligation... NZ has decided to rely upon isolation as its only defense. Not a policy I particularly agree with (to put it mildly) Looking forward to the movie. Hopefully it lives up to the books
But to bring me back to my original point, the link to the description of the book Tomorrow when the war began was by a bloke called Richard Simpson who I don't know. But he did the book report because his late friend Jessica was a fan. And to get back a little perspective after being annoyed by little things all week you might like to read about Jessica on his website. I warn you.. its pretty sad.
Another good thing happened this week. Friends of mine.. in fact rather a lot of friends of mine, raced in the three day tour held over the long weekend. I shall not expand on all the events, you can read some really well written race reports here. Me and Jenny did go and watch the racing in freezing conditions on the Sunday. I will just mention that after his appalling crash last year David Rafferton of Vidman Designs got 4th in D overall.. well done you. The gorgeous Lisa was apparently the fastest of the girls who could be considered amateurs. Tho she certainly looks pro to me. NGN is tough as nails to finish after that crash. the unlucky Kitten and many others all put in the ride of their lives.
Kitten, Rich and unnamed rider breakaway in Sundays stage race
David Rafferton on the right.. in the sprint for the line
The always pro looking Lisa Coutts
Thanks to Richard for permission to link to the pics
As you may guess my week has itself been full of trivial yet annoying (and mostly not chargeable for) irritations that have screwed my perspective somewhat. However in retrospect I will save writing about my week of tribulations for another post
Did not get much riding in this week... let me share one amusing incident.. I have a friend.. lets call her SS (for Squeeza sibling.. doubtless some readers will recognize from that description) Anyway she is an enthusiastic cyclist, improving and strong. SS has Aspergers Syndrome and doubtless as a result she learns differently from the rest of us. Generally slower, although not always... generally she seems to learn very specifically, and the multitasking is a bit poor as she learns the new thing. Teaching her skills has involved me patiently (people who know me feel free to fall over and laugh at this point.. but I do try) explain how it works.. and watch it slowly come.
WRONG!!!! Very Very Wrong!!!
Fairly fastish ride with hills on the monday (a public holiday here in OZ for most.. it being Lizzies birthday. And SS was off the back up every hill. Not such a big deal... but SS did not actually appear to be killing herself trying. I trailed along with her trying to figure out what she was doing wrong. As did Ms J9. A former army drill sergeant. (in a former life) Ms J9 took over. "Push... Push... PUSH.... you will not change gear until I tells ya..... wait.. WAIT... change one gear up NOW " Push.. PUSH, GETOUTOFTHESADDLE NOW!!!!!!" And much much more in a similar style. I was waiting for her to say "YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE GIRL" I hurt a rib laughing. And the result. SS panting for breath. And pouring with sweat. A speed increase of at least 25%. Sustained. Up serious hills.
Way interesting. What SS needs is to be told in absolutely unambiguous terms what to do and when to do it. Eventually doubtless she will include all this in her database of learning experience and will do in her own way what we all do in new situations.. this hill is like that hill.. and so I handle it like I handled that one. May take her more time to do that, and may be applied more rigorously than most of us would. Most of us have a whole bunch of tricks for handling new situations.. and a bunch of techniques for climbing hills and are pretty good at improvisation. I think SS is always going to be a bit rigid at such things, but at least if she knows how it should be done some of the time its bound to help. And the improvement was so dramatic. Shows that the army approach has its place.
I am sure it will apply to other situations other than cycling. I am also sure that SS has an abundance of independent will. Way too much for this to go down well. Yet some of the time this technique obviously needs to apply. Tricky. I hasten to add that SS is also as tough as a thing that is very very tough indeed. And has the scars to prove it. And she is very smart.
Another little amusement. Did the MRR recovery ride on Thursday.. Sorta. I rolled out the drive.. flashed past Karen's driveway at 50 kph.. just in time to see her riding down it.. turned onto Whitehorse just in time to meet two other MRR riders. Tagged along with WAK and Mrs WAK who were trialing Mrs WAK's new headlights. Lets just say the rest of the MRR never looked like catching us. Lian kept us moving right along.. average of 27. Some people do much better when they can see where they are going. Whereas others will wheel suck without once looking up all the way till they hit the side of the bus. :D Another bit of philosophy I have picked up from cycling that applies so well to the rest of life.
The John Marsden Book.."Tomorrow when the war began" which is an absolutely brilliant book, supposedly for teenagers about the effect on teenagers on finding themselves in the middle of a war, set in an Australian bush town in the middle of a massive invasion of Australia by some unnamed country is being made into a major film to be released in September If the film remains true to the book it will be great. It will be everything that the film Red Dawn was not. Hell in the book John Marsden does not even name the invading power. Its going to be great. Marsden wrote a series of books set during and after the mythical war, all written in the first person.. his protagonist Ellie There could be sequels
This book is pretty solid. The bullets have no friends. It was on some of the schools reading lists and rightly so. The series of books has only one flaw. As if New Zealand would come to our aid. And as if they could. Treaty obligations with NZ are a totally one way obligation... NZ has decided to rely upon isolation as its only defense. Not a policy I particularly agree with (to put it mildly) Looking forward to the movie. Hopefully it lives up to the books
But to bring me back to my original point, the link to the description of the book Tomorrow when the war began was by a bloke called Richard Simpson who I don't know. But he did the book report because his late friend Jessica was a fan. And to get back a little perspective after being annoyed by little things all week you might like to read about Jessica on his website. I warn you.. its pretty sad.
Another good thing happened this week. Friends of mine.. in fact rather a lot of friends of mine, raced in the three day tour held over the long weekend. I shall not expand on all the events, you can read some really well written race reports here. Me and Jenny did go and watch the racing in freezing conditions on the Sunday. I will just mention that after his appalling crash last year David Rafferton of Vidman Designs got 4th in D overall.. well done you. The gorgeous Lisa was apparently the fastest of the girls who could be considered amateurs. Tho she certainly looks pro to me. NGN is tough as nails to finish after that crash. the unlucky Kitten and many others all put in the ride of their lives.
Kitten, Rich and unnamed rider breakaway in Sundays stage race
David Rafferton on the right.. in the sprint for the line
The always pro looking Lisa Coutts
Thanks to Richard for permission to link to the pics
As you may guess my week has itself been full of trivial yet annoying (and mostly not chargeable for) irritations that have screwed my perspective somewhat. However in retrospect I will save writing about my week of tribulations for another post
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