This post is in response to the recent South Australian state government decision to levy fines against the bus companies which are contracted to providing the metropolitan bus services in and around Adelaide. The fines were levied because the busses have been consistently running "late" compared to the timetables.
I find the whole episode disturbing.
Here's why:
Over recent years, the bus timetables have been put together by a government department, because instead of a single bus company doing the majority of the work, there are now several which operate in different parts of the metro area (though there is some overlap due to continuance of services). This has meant that it seems, to one outside this whole shamozzle looking in, that the bureaucrats putting the timetables together and updating them have lost a vital connection to the bus drivers: the bus drivers are the ones who can report on problems with the timetables... but instead of being listened to, they are simply told "keep up with the timetable, or else."
As a case in point: I used to live in a place where the bus would have to cross South Rd on Pym St in the Croydon area. There are stops on either side of South Rd (not right next to it, though). and the bus would have to wait sometimes 4 or 5 minutes to cross South Rd (because South Rd is a massively major thoroughfare, and the lights at the intersection heavily prioritise South Rd traffic because there is so much more of it!). The problem is, the timetables in recent years don't take local factors into account and only ever allow 1 minute between stops... So, just having to run this route will automatically put a bus behind by several minutes when it gets to South Rd. The curious thing is that 2 or 3 stops further on from the ones on either side of South Rd are classed as "timed stops", that is, the bus is not allowed to go past them early. So, wouldn't a more logical thing be to add considerably more time to cross the road, and make the stop immediately after South Rd a timed stop (so if it gets a shorter change in the sequence of lights, it then sits the extra bit of time at the stop so as not to inconvenience anyone; otherwise if it gets a shorter sequence but is already behind for some other reason, it has a chance to catch up!).
Over the last decade, I've been injured several times on busses because the driver was behaving as a leadfoot to try to keep up with unrealistic schedules. I've had some compensation payouts as a result (though not through litigation, just claiming on their insurance). Most recently, I had been injured after starting a new job: both on the bus into work that day and on the way home again. I haven't bothered to lodge a complaint, but after what Ms Portolesi did with the bus companies, I'm very tempted to do so - to make a point.
I don't catch the busses now. My wife (bless her special heart) now drives me to work and picks me up afterwards. This is a considerable strain on her; it's a strain on our budget. But I don't trust the busses any more.
They just aren't a safe alternative to travel on.
And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I have several friends who have had incidents where they have been trapped in doors and risked being dragged along as the bus took off from the stop if it had not been for other passengers alerting the driver to what he/she had done. The drivers are impatient to take off, because waiting for slower passengers to embark/alight costs them time against the already too compressed timetable.
It's time for a different tack, Ms Portolesi. How about emphasising passenger safety by reversing the overly tight schedules next time the timetables are re-drawn?
Monday, 14 May 2012
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Coeliac Awareness Week 2012
Today is the start of Coeliac (not to Americans: we don't drop the "o" out!) Awareness Week for 2012, and is the inspiration for today's post. I thought it might be good to share some of my thoughts and feelings about this topic - especially in the hope that someone might read it and be inspired to help or seek help if you find yourself in the same boat.
I was officially diagnosed in October 2004. It is scary to think that I've now been gluten free (apart from the occasional mistake!) for 7.5 years. Up to that point, I struggled with my health: all through school, university, and some of my working life. Many of us take our health for granted, but when things just aren't quite right, you become aware of how massively that little bit of difference can make.
The old adage of "you are what you eat" is fairly accurate: our bodies' cells require all sorts of nutrients from a wide variety of sources to keep going. Proteins (for example, for cell membrane formation), carbohydrates (the energy powerhouse for our bodies), fats (that fish you ate just a little while ago with its omega-3? That omega-3 is a type of fat!), water...
When your body decides somehow to reject one of the things you're eating, it does amazing and bad things to your entire body. My body, for some reason, finds gluten (that sticky protein in wheat, oats, rye and barley) to be extremely toxic (actually, that isn't strictly true, since the mechanism is much more complex than that, but it'll do as a good first approximation... Heh, typical of a good engineer, will assume a horse is a sphere to make the math easier! :-D ). That seems to be the case all the way since probably sometime very soon after I was born, and has been that way the entire time since.
After my diagnosis and going gluten-free, I've been in significantly better health. And the health isn't just physical, it's emotional and mental health as well. It should be pretty obvious why, if you think about it: if your body is rejecting some of the food you eat, and therefore not absorbing all the nutrients you need for proper functioning, of course your emotional and mental health will suffer. These are, quite naturally, based on the operation of the cells in your brain (neurones, which form interconnected loops and chains from which we get the term "neural network"); if your neurones aren't functioning 100%, then naturally whatever your neurones are doing isn't going to be 100% either!
Anyway, it feels fantastic to be in good health! If you aren't in good health, or your health is not quite as good as you find in a lot of those around you, you could do worse than getting yourself checked. Yes, the gluten-free diet is more expensive. Yes, it's annoying having to ask about ingredients everywhere you go. Yes, it's sometimes depressing to miss out at shared meals (though this isn't too much the case for me these days: my wife's family and my own family are pretty gluten savvy these days -- we've trained them well! -- and often make things gluten free, likewise at church functions... plus I love to cook so I'll usually take along something scrumptious that I can eat).
But at the end of the day, a little bit of depression about these things is a lot better, than, say, a lot of depression and other sickness caused by not being gluten free! And besides, when I do feel down from those more minor things, it's an excuse for yet another lovely hug from my gorgeous wife :-D .
And I'm not even mentioning the massive increased risk of bowel cancer and osteoporosis and other nutrient non-absorption diseases caused as side effects of not being gluten free.
So, happy Coeliac Awareness Week 2012! If you want more info, visit the Coeliac Society of Australia.
PS. A big thanks to the large supermarket chains who over last and next week have lots of gluten-free specials! We've certainly stocked up (like we do every year)!
I was officially diagnosed in October 2004. It is scary to think that I've now been gluten free (apart from the occasional mistake!) for 7.5 years. Up to that point, I struggled with my health: all through school, university, and some of my working life. Many of us take our health for granted, but when things just aren't quite right, you become aware of how massively that little bit of difference can make.
The old adage of "you are what you eat" is fairly accurate: our bodies' cells require all sorts of nutrients from a wide variety of sources to keep going. Proteins (for example, for cell membrane formation), carbohydrates (the energy powerhouse for our bodies), fats (that fish you ate just a little while ago with its omega-3? That omega-3 is a type of fat!), water...
When your body decides somehow to reject one of the things you're eating, it does amazing and bad things to your entire body. My body, for some reason, finds gluten (that sticky protein in wheat, oats, rye and barley) to be extremely toxic (actually, that isn't strictly true, since the mechanism is much more complex than that, but it'll do as a good first approximation... Heh, typical of a good engineer, will assume a horse is a sphere to make the math easier! :-D ). That seems to be the case all the way since probably sometime very soon after I was born, and has been that way the entire time since.
After my diagnosis and going gluten-free, I've been in significantly better health. And the health isn't just physical, it's emotional and mental health as well. It should be pretty obvious why, if you think about it: if your body is rejecting some of the food you eat, and therefore not absorbing all the nutrients you need for proper functioning, of course your emotional and mental health will suffer. These are, quite naturally, based on the operation of the cells in your brain (neurones, which form interconnected loops and chains from which we get the term "neural network"); if your neurones aren't functioning 100%, then naturally whatever your neurones are doing isn't going to be 100% either!
Anyway, it feels fantastic to be in good health! If you aren't in good health, or your health is not quite as good as you find in a lot of those around you, you could do worse than getting yourself checked. Yes, the gluten-free diet is more expensive. Yes, it's annoying having to ask about ingredients everywhere you go. Yes, it's sometimes depressing to miss out at shared meals (though this isn't too much the case for me these days: my wife's family and my own family are pretty gluten savvy these days -- we've trained them well! -- and often make things gluten free, likewise at church functions... plus I love to cook so I'll usually take along something scrumptious that I can eat).
But at the end of the day, a little bit of depression about these things is a lot better, than, say, a lot of depression and other sickness caused by not being gluten free! And besides, when I do feel down from those more minor things, it's an excuse for yet another lovely hug from my gorgeous wife :-D .
And I'm not even mentioning the massive increased risk of bowel cancer and osteoporosis and other nutrient non-absorption diseases caused as side effects of not being gluten free.
So, happy Coeliac Awareness Week 2012! If you want more info, visit the Coeliac Society of Australia.
PS. A big thanks to the large supermarket chains who over last and next week have lots of gluten-free specials! We've certainly stocked up (like we do every year)!
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Illogical advertisements!
Maybe I'm just overly critical, but there are some recent television advertisements that have wedged themselves under my skin; not because of the product or service, but simply because there is something in the ad that doesn't match real life terribly well or is otherwise illogical.
The worst offender is a recent ad for an insurance company. In the ad, a woman's car has been hit from behind by another driver's car. The woman's perfectly cool, calm and collected as if nothing really has happened -- and having been in some accidents I know that is the last thing I feel like and that's probably true with most other people. Secondly, she gets on the phone to... no, not the police (as she would be required to do in this case, given the amount of damage)... no, not the ambulance or paramedics... her insurance company!?!!! Who rings their insurance company first off when they've been in an accident??? Now this insurance company (supposedly a competitor to the one which is advertising) has a "feature" on their phone where you speak your first name. In this case her name is "Moira" and the computer's voice recognition reckons she's said "moron"... but can someone please tell me of an insurance company -- any company in fact! -- where they get you to state your name over the phone? It's usually some sort of ID code or policy number since the computer database lookup (preparing a particular customer's entry to be viewed/modified by the eventual person who will handle the call) typically requires a special unique identifier (hence the policy/customer number) since this is less prone to error than using a person's name... Finally, the ad states that when you call the company being advertised you'll always speak to a real person... but every other insurance company I've contacted over the phone for the entire time I've had insurance I've eventually spoken to a real person -- albeit after a menu selection, which at least means I might be speaking to people in the right department!
A second, and massively less annoying one, is an ad we've seen the last couple of summers for an apple cider style alcoholic beverage (are you admiring my restraint in not mentioning the companies? :-) ). In this case, there is a very large apple tree covered with flowers and in fact dropping huge amounts of petals around so that the surrounds look like they've had snow -- except the lovely young men and women are clad in summerwear/swimwear. The first problem lies in the amount of petal litter (the tree would need to be at least 10 times the size to emit that many petals and would probably fall over under its own weight!). The second is that all these petals have drifted off the tree - but they are all pristine white and not a hint that the petals are in any way beyond their prime... except that flowers don't drop their petals until the fruit has started to form, right? Which means the petals will be old and probably crusty... The third problem is that sitting right under the tree (still covered in blossoms) are several cases of freshly picked apples. Now I don't know terribly much about apples but I'm fairly sure that you can't have the one tree being covered in blossoms and yet have fruit picked from it...
Any ads you find to be illogical like these? Ad (sorry, couldn't resist!) them to the comments. Or if you've got any information that might suggest that I'm wrong about the apple tree...
The worst offender is a recent ad for an insurance company. In the ad, a woman's car has been hit from behind by another driver's car. The woman's perfectly cool, calm and collected as if nothing really has happened -- and having been in some accidents I know that is the last thing I feel like and that's probably true with most other people. Secondly, she gets on the phone to... no, not the police (as she would be required to do in this case, given the amount of damage)... no, not the ambulance or paramedics... her insurance company!?!!! Who rings their insurance company first off when they've been in an accident??? Now this insurance company (supposedly a competitor to the one which is advertising) has a "feature" on their phone where you speak your first name. In this case her name is "Moira" and the computer's voice recognition reckons she's said "moron"... but can someone please tell me of an insurance company -- any company in fact! -- where they get you to state your name over the phone? It's usually some sort of ID code or policy number since the computer database lookup (preparing a particular customer's entry to be viewed/modified by the eventual person who will handle the call) typically requires a special unique identifier (hence the policy/customer number) since this is less prone to error than using a person's name... Finally, the ad states that when you call the company being advertised you'll always speak to a real person... but every other insurance company I've contacted over the phone for the entire time I've had insurance I've eventually spoken to a real person -- albeit after a menu selection, which at least means I might be speaking to people in the right department!
A second, and massively less annoying one, is an ad we've seen the last couple of summers for an apple cider style alcoholic beverage (are you admiring my restraint in not mentioning the companies? :-) ). In this case, there is a very large apple tree covered with flowers and in fact dropping huge amounts of petals around so that the surrounds look like they've had snow -- except the lovely young men and women are clad in summerwear/swimwear. The first problem lies in the amount of petal litter (the tree would need to be at least 10 times the size to emit that many petals and would probably fall over under its own weight!). The second is that all these petals have drifted off the tree - but they are all pristine white and not a hint that the petals are in any way beyond their prime... except that flowers don't drop their petals until the fruit has started to form, right? Which means the petals will be old and probably crusty... The third problem is that sitting right under the tree (still covered in blossoms) are several cases of freshly picked apples. Now I don't know terribly much about apples but I'm fairly sure that you can't have the one tree being covered in blossoms and yet have fruit picked from it...
Any ads you find to be illogical like these? Ad (sorry, couldn't resist!) them to the comments. Or if you've got any information that might suggest that I'm wrong about the apple tree...
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Cricket is not boring!
On the subject of cricket (see my other post for today), I have a comment about the game of cricket. Or rather, some people's responses to cricket.
Many people say it is boring. In doing so in that manner, they are really saying it is an absolute thing - which means that they are effectively disregarding my opinion on the matter.
Be warned - if you are one of these people, your comment is "unliked".
I've played cricket. I would have kept playing if a team would have taken me and if my eyesight hadn't gone bad (thankfully, it's quite well corrected now so I could probably play but I now lack the skills to do so). I am passionate about the game and don't find it much boring at all (not quite true: I do find the T20's reasonably boring... they don't last very long and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of strategy or tactics, just go out and smack the bowling or try to bowl wide yorkers outside off stump to restrict the batting).
I love strategy and so the longer the game form, the better I like it. And so, in one fell swoop, I prove that cricket is not boring as an absolute - only in your opinion, to which you are freely entitled even if I disagree with you (which I probably will).
Just don't tell me my opinion does not matter. My opinion matters, at least to me!
Many people say it is boring. In doing so in that manner, they are really saying it is an absolute thing - which means that they are effectively disregarding my opinion on the matter.
Be warned - if you are one of these people, your comment is "unliked".
I've played cricket. I would have kept playing if a team would have taken me and if my eyesight hadn't gone bad (thankfully, it's quite well corrected now so I could probably play but I now lack the skills to do so). I am passionate about the game and don't find it much boring at all (not quite true: I do find the T20's reasonably boring... they don't last very long and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of strategy or tactics, just go out and smack the bowling or try to bowl wide yorkers outside off stump to restrict the batting).
I love strategy and so the longer the game form, the better I like it. And so, in one fell swoop, I prove that cricket is not boring as an absolute - only in your opinion, to which you are freely entitled even if I disagree with you (which I probably will).
Just don't tell me my opinion does not matter. My opinion matters, at least to me!
The drama of trying to watch digital TV
Here in Oz we once again have a 3-way one-day cricket tournament. Channel 9 have the rights to broadcast it free-to-air, but the matches which don't have Australia in them seem to be broadcast on one of the channel 9 digital channels.
This is a problem for us as we don't yet have a digital TV nor a set-top box to watch these channels - they are only being mandatory here in December 2013 (most of 2 years away yet) so we haven't bothered.
What we do have is a TV tuner card in one computer (but like our TV it is only analogue and therefore can't get the digital channels) and we have a USB digital TV tuner stick. I thought, "Great! Just plug that in and away we go!"
Not so :-(
I plugged it into my laptop running Win7 expecting it to simply try to download the driver and install and then I could use a program to access it - it is USB after all! Instead, Windows told me it knew nothing about the driver... so I went and downloaded it (not being able to find the install disk). I went to run the driver install program, and Windows told me that I needed to actually log in as the administrator (not just use admin privileges) in order to install hardware! So I did, and guess what? Windows failed to install it... because when I'd set my computer up I'd left the admin password blank (I'm the only one using this computer and quite frankly I couldn't be bothered with yet another password) - and Windows told me that it would not install stuff if the admin password is blank. Grrrr.
So, now I'm currently downloading a CD image for a program that will let me set the administrator password, so I can install the driver, so I can watch TV...
In the meantime, while that was downloading (it's currently up to 40% and taken 2 hours to get that far :-( ) I decided to try it out on my old WinXP machine which would just barely keep up the frame rate - not an issue since at least I'd be watching something. Sure enough, installed the driver, installed the software, and up and running within about 10 minutes. With one exception.
I still can't watch the cricket. The receiver I'm using is at the other end of the house to the TV antenna point (which is actually unusable as it is an old type of socket and I haven't got onto our landlord yet to get it changed over!) so I hooked up a "rabbit's ears" antenna - only to find that the receiver can only find ABC and SBS digital channels since the commercial channels (including 9) are too stingy to use high-powered transmitters for their digital signals... and only a roof-mounted antenna has sufficient gain to extract the digital signal properly.
Sigh.
At least there's still cricinfo.com.au's live scorecard, so long as our Internet connection doesn't go down...
Edit (24 Feb 2012): today we bought a cheap HD set top box with PVR function via external USB hard disk, and set it up to see if it would work off the rabbit's ears antenna... and it did, so now I'm watching the current cricket match on HD through it and it is sensational!
This is a problem for us as we don't yet have a digital TV nor a set-top box to watch these channels - they are only being mandatory here in December 2013 (most of 2 years away yet) so we haven't bothered.
What we do have is a TV tuner card in one computer (but like our TV it is only analogue and therefore can't get the digital channels) and we have a USB digital TV tuner stick. I thought, "Great! Just plug that in and away we go!"
Not so :-(
I plugged it into my laptop running Win7 expecting it to simply try to download the driver and install and then I could use a program to access it - it is USB after all! Instead, Windows told me it knew nothing about the driver... so I went and downloaded it (not being able to find the install disk). I went to run the driver install program, and Windows told me that I needed to actually log in as the administrator (not just use admin privileges) in order to install hardware! So I did, and guess what? Windows failed to install it... because when I'd set my computer up I'd left the admin password blank (I'm the only one using this computer and quite frankly I couldn't be bothered with yet another password) - and Windows told me that it would not install stuff if the admin password is blank. Grrrr.
So, now I'm currently downloading a CD image for a program that will let me set the administrator password, so I can install the driver, so I can watch TV...
In the meantime, while that was downloading (it's currently up to 40% and taken 2 hours to get that far :-( ) I decided to try it out on my old WinXP machine which would just barely keep up the frame rate - not an issue since at least I'd be watching something. Sure enough, installed the driver, installed the software, and up and running within about 10 minutes. With one exception.
I still can't watch the cricket. The receiver I'm using is at the other end of the house to the TV antenna point (which is actually unusable as it is an old type of socket and I haven't got onto our landlord yet to get it changed over!) so I hooked up a "rabbit's ears" antenna - only to find that the receiver can only find ABC and SBS digital channels since the commercial channels (including 9) are too stingy to use high-powered transmitters for their digital signals... and only a roof-mounted antenna has sufficient gain to extract the digital signal properly.
Sigh.
At least there's still cricinfo.com.au's live scorecard, so long as our Internet connection doesn't go down...
Edit (24 Feb 2012): today we bought a cheap HD set top box with PVR function via external USB hard disk, and set it up to see if it would work off the rabbit's ears antenna... and it did, so now I'm watching the current cricket match on HD through it and it is sensational!
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