Saturday, April 26, 2008

ANZAC Day

Really enjoyed watching some of the documentaries on television on ANZAC day. It really makes you think about what people went through in their lives, so that we can have nice easy ones.
This particular documentary was about Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop, who did some amazing things during the second world war, but also thereafter. You imagine people such as him to be people from 'ordinary' backgrounds doing extraordinary things. This man won many awards whilst studying medicine, was a champion boxer, played for the national rubgy team, The Wallabies.
Before joining the army, and doing the amazing things he did, this man had already done more than most people would achieve in their lives.

The man chose to stay in Java, Indonesia, and became a prisoner of war, because he didn't want to leave his patients. He used his position as a doctor as well as being an officer to get the Japanese keeping them prisoner to agree to things, or prevent them from killing the prisoners, as was the case with Bill Griffiths.
Sir Edward kept alive a lot of his colleagues who were literally overworked and underfed, and often beaten by the Japanese keeping them prisoner, for relatively minor things. The man himself appeared to have suffered a few beatings during his time in the prisoner of war camp, for standing up for his friends.

This man put himself in danger so many times to take part in smuggling in medical supplies to keep his friends well.

Absolutely amazing to watch what the man went through, and the conditions that he and his friends went through, so that they could serve out their time during the war as prisoners.

Makes you realise how lucky you are as a free individual, and how things like work worries are really nothing much at all, and pale in comparison.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

That Drives me mad!

I see clipping from the government of plans to increase learner driver training hours, force the display of learner and probationary plates and so on, in an attempt to cut down on young driver accidents on the roads. I think these ideas are great, but what happens once the driver is out of the probationary period, who will their role models then be?

What I'm getting at here, in the complete lack of courtesy most drivers exhibit when driving. It's a case of squeeze through on an undertaking manouvre, and overtaking manouvre or whatever is required to get the overtaking car's nose in front of the other car. What happened to merging traffic giving way?

When I learnt to drive, part of the rules were that you had to give way, that when you pull out into traffic, you are not to slow the progress of traffic, and also when someone is nice enough to let you in, generally it is good form to wave thanks to them. Perhaps if drivers are taught to be courteous that will slow down the onset of road rage?

I still haven't found the section in a driver handbook that states that the driver of a V8 automatically has right of way, no matter how late that driver leaves the overtaking, over any driver of a 4 cylinder car.

Indicators, now there's a misunderstood tool. My driving instructor, and my driving handbook told me that when I intended to make a manouvre, I should put my indicator on, in enough time to show the drivers nearby that I was intending to do just that. My next task was to check if the way was clear, and finally if it was, to complete the manouvre and cancel the indicator. What I see is the indicator used as a right of way signal, or worse still put on for such a small time that it is almost a rebuke. Personally I blame that on guidance in driver handbooks that say that you should always signal, as that gets the driver into a habit of signalling without considering any further. If the driver had instead to figure out if the way was clear by looking over their shoulder first, then deciding if the signal was required, they would be much less likely to be driving inconsiderately. This is more the way of advanced drivers, and I think that it is good to involve the thought process instead of stating that something should always happen without regard for it's usefulness.

Tailgating - now that's just plain stupid. People should be stopped for doing that, if you don't leave a two second gap at least, and you're caught by police, you should be fined. That's an accident waiting to happen, and therefore is premeditated.

Whilst driving at speed is dangerous, I think the extreme manouvres, tailgating, not indicating and the like are much more dangerous. Perhaps if people improved in these areas, then the speeding would not be as necessary, and road rage would be so much less, as people simply wouldn't get stressed.

Before anyone asks, no, I'm not some old person at all. In my past I did sucessfully complete and advanced driving course, the same as the police drivers have to do. It really does teach you some good things, including how to control the car properly, and avoid accidents before they even get a chance to occur. Of late, I have found that I am forced to use those skills more and more to get myself out of the way of some bad driver who thinks that they're good doing stupid things on the road.

You can't force idiots to do advanced courses, as they'd do it, then only take what they wanted to from it, and thus probably be more dangerous than before. However, I do think that it would be good to be able to punish these people for making everyone else drive in a much more stresses state because of the stupid few.

I also think that it's about time the road layouts were changed instead of these extra lanes appearing then disappearing in such a way that they give these idiots the idea that they can hammer through the small space easily. Those lanes should be for left or right turnsonly, and anyone doing overtaking in them should be penalized.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Broadband infrastructure - yeah right.

We have a 7-8 year old house, we wanted a broadband connection. We can't get a broadband connection, effectively because our telephone provider, a well know Australian telecommunications company from Australia starting with 'T' wants to make more money.

We are on a pair-gain system, which makes us unable to connect using ADSL services. The reason for this is that the one copper line is shared with two houses. Do we pay half the line rental for our line? Not at all. We pay full price, for our line that can connect for dial-up networking at a maximum of 28kbps. I've been told that the line isn't half a line, but that really seems like it to me.

What annoys me is that the said telephone provider is allowed to charge the same money in either instance. There is only one incentive in this situation, and that is to put more people on to a pair-gain system. Okay, so we could go to a different telephone provider couldn't we? If you know which telecommunications provider I am talking about, you will know that we can't. There is no alternative.

Okay, so hands up, who thinks that that sounds like a monopoly?

And is this situation good for anyone, including the telephone provider? Absolutely not. There is no competition to keep them sharp, to drive them to find better solutions to problems, to find yet better ways to make money. Is it good for the consumer? Well, you wouldn't be reading this if it was. I extensively use the internet for my job, well, I did in a past life anyway. Is this good for the country? Well, one thing is, the tax man can't get his hands on the money that I don't make from the broadband internet connection that I don't have can he?

So where can we go now? Well, ADSL is out, clearly, as why would the telecommunications company put in full copper lines, so that we can pick whatever ISP we wanted to use and they miss out on the money. They won't, plus they'd have to give the pair-gain line to someone else, and they might not accept it, whereas we're stuck. It's too late for us really.

Our other option is wireless. That's very expensive for what it is, we live in amongst some trees, so signal strength isn't the best, and the plans for these are not very generous.
So our alternatives are: live with 28 kbps dial up, and pay loads more on phone calls so that telecommunication company can make more money, and we can never get ADSL.
Get wireless and pay more money, as well as having half-line for telephone at same money, and in so doing, end up paying a lot more than we normally would.

I tell you one thing, if we do go wireless, I'm not going near said telecommunications company again due to their complete lack of interest in customer service.

By the way, just in case there are some of your searching for Telstra, there's some information here about them!