Brief things and followups
Star Trek TNG — We started watching them all about a year ago, and are so far up to season 6. I wonder if in remastering for DVD, they changed the framing of some shots — it’s surprising how often we spot a boom mike in shot. (Reminds me: Must watch the “Car Pool” interview with Patrick Stewart, being driven around by Robert “Kryten” Llewellyn.)
Washing machine — I’m liking the new washing machine, but the 6.5 Kg capacity does have some disadvantages. I feel guilty about running it when it’s not full, so it’s taken a little re-organising of the schedule to work out the best days to run it. And when it does get used, hanging it all out on the line seems like a much bigger job than it used to be.
Grey water — I try and save my grey water; specifically I have a bucket underneath the shower which we fill up while waiting for the water to get hot. But sometimes if I’m slack at emptying the bucket, it sits there in the shower, full of water. Sometimes I notice this attracts mosquitos. I’m not sure how they get in, but listening to this Background Briefing programme on mozzies and dengue fever in Queensland recently has prompted me to ensure the buckets are emptied promptly.
The Weber Q barbecue which I got on points — I love it. Everything tastes better when cooked on it.
UPDATE — Mucho amusement that XKCD from the other day references a Star Trek TNG episode we watched on Monday.
Metlink’s revenue protection plan
The Metlink Revenue Protection Plan published by The Age on Saturday had some interesting points. Some notes I made while looking through it (some of which were not included in the article):
Page 12 seems to accept that in most cases, more staff will reduce most types of evasion. Can’t argue with that — most types of automated checking (eg validators and fare gates) can’t catch evaders:
(Strategies to reduce evasion include) Increased staffing, improve use and deployment of staff.
Page 14 spells out that the policy is not to fine people who don’t re-validate their already valid tickets:
By law, passengers are required to validate a ticket before every journey, and it is desirable to encourage this behaviour where possible, particularly in the light of the impending new ticketing system. However, it is not intended to enforce this by issuing a RONC in cases where an otherwise valid ticket has been initially validated but not re-validated for that journey as this behaviour is not classified as fare evasion.
This one issue is likely to continue to be vexed under the new ticketing system.
Page 21 considers attitudes to Authorised Offices and fines, noting that most people consider the size of fine is “out of touch”. Can only agree. $174 for a first fare evasion offence; and it goes up from there. The problem is a lot of regular evaders don’t get caught, so they’ve made the fine high to try and convince people to pay. I think a lower fine, with more regular checking, is a better way to cut evasion rates.
Customers also believe the size of the fine is ‘out of touch’ with the magnitude of the offence.
Page 26 notes that the ticket system needs to be easy to understand, and consistent (maybe they should fix the first validation requirement on Myki Short Term tickets bought from railway station machines then):
Depending on where you are in the system, as a consumer you will be faced with differences in ticket range, methods of payment, customer information and with a ticket which may be validated or not.
Page 47 spells out that the CBD station gates are staffed only from 7am to 10pm. This was written by Connex, under their contract, but it doesn’t seem to have changed under Metro (I need to check the contract though).
…all CBD barriers are under supervision by staff from 7.00am to 10.00pm daily…
I find it surprising and disappointing they don’t staff until the last train, given large numbers of people still in the CBD most nights – surely consistency is important to remind people that you must have a ticket, no matter what time you’re travelling?
And what happens when they close off the Elizabeth Street exit to Flinders Street after 10pm, and leave it unstaffed? This:
Page 52 says there are only 12 bus AOs for the whole of Victoria. Mind you, most bus tickets get checked by the driver, so evasion is low, and is mostly concession fraud rather than not having a ticket at all.
The majority of offences detected on buses relate to concession eligibility.
…the Bus Association of Victoria has employed 12 full-time AOs to help reduce fare evasion across Melbourne and Regional Victoria.
Page 54: Did they really not gazette (eg introduce into law) the Myki Fares+Ticketing Manual until well after Myki commenced on regional town buses?! That’s weird.
There have been no reports of non compliance submitted since myki has commenced trialling, as the myki fares and ticketing manual has not been gazetted.
Page 57 talks about V/Line, but makes no mention of problems with conductors being unable to walk through multiple-unit V/Locity trains to check tickets on the whole train. So on long trains they can only move through by swapping carriages at stations.
Page 66 includes the total network-wide cost of fare evasion: $62,018,697 million per year, as-of the first half of 2009. The biggest cost is on trams ($35 million), followed by trains ($21.5 million) and buses ($5.5 million).
Page 72 notes that only around 2.39% of tram passengers get their tickets checked by Authorised Officers. It also includes figures for other modes (pages 67-72), but remember, on buses almost all tickets are checked by bus drivers as well, and on trains most passengers going through CBD and other major stations effectively get their tickets checked at the gates.
The difference on trams is that tickets are only checked by AOs. So in other words, on any tram trip, you’ve only got a 1 in 41 chance of getting your ticket checked. No wonder tram fare evasion is costing the most of the three modes.
- You can read the entire report yourself by accessing it from The Age’s web site.
Cluster headaches are back for autumn
On Friday night at my sister’s place, we were were swapping war stories of head pains. She had a read of the Wikipedia article on cluster headaches and, noting the description, the illustration by J.D.Fletcher, and nickname “suicide headache”, she had to admit they piss all over her puny migraines.
“Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience. I know that’s quite a strong remark to make, but if you ask a cluster headache patient if they’ve had a worse experience, they’ll universally say they haven’t. Women with cluster headache will tell you that an attack is worse than giving birth. So you can imagine that these people give birth without anesthetic once or twice a day, for six, eight, or ten weeks at a time, and then have a break. It’s just awful.”
My cluster headaches are back for autumn — only mildly, I must emphasise. It took until the third day to realise that the headache I had wasn’t going away with Aspirin or Paracetamol. Sure enough popping one of the previously medicated pills and slurping down lots of caffeine in strongly brewed tea and Coke in the afternoon and evening helped sooth the pain. That was Thursday. The catch was I found myself wide-awake at 2am on Friday morning…
While I’ve had some pretty bad ones in the past (particularly before they were properly diagnosed and the medication prescribed), they’re nowhere near as bad as they once were, and nowhere near as bad as some others have them. I’m just glad I know the medication (Veracaps) that helps me.
And I have nothing but sympathy for those who manage with them, without help.
PS. Forgot the worst bit about re-reading the article on cluster headaches: Ingestion of alcohol or chocolate is recognized as a common trigger of cluster headaches when a person is in cycle or susceptible. I don’t really care about alcohol, but chocolate — oh no!
The walk to the station is doing you good
Seems some people can’t see the trees for the forest.
A HIGH school has banned bicycles because it has no bike shed and it doesn’t want to encourage students who refuse to wear helmets.
Hume Central Secondary College’s policy has puzzled health and cycling groups amid growing concern about childhood obesity.
…
In the same newsletter, she [Principal Bronwyn Meek] complained about the dangerous congestion caused by too many cars around afternoon pick-up time.– Herald Sun: Hume Central Secondary College bans bikes
Meanwhile, a study by BusVic concluded that users of public transport get an average five times more walking time per day than those who use private transport.
- Public transport (all users): 41 mins
- Public transport, no private transport: 47 mins
- Private transport (cars, taxis, motorcycles), but no public transport: 8 mins
- Overall Melbourne average: 15 mins
And they looked at which areas of Melbourne have the lowest average minutes per day walking and cycling. Hardly surprising that it’s the areas which have the poorest public transport, where people are dependent on their cars for most trips.
And people wonder why there’s an obesity crisis.
I may not always enjoy the walk to the station, but I know it’s good for me, and because it’s built into my daily routine, it always happens.
I’m just lucky I live in an area where I’ve got that choice.
Parking too close
You’re meant to park at least one metre away from other cars, I guess so they have a chance of getting out of their parking spot:
If parking bays are not marked, you must leave at least one metre between your vehicle and those in front and behind.
– VicRoads
But how does anybody get booked for breaking that rule? How would a parking inspector know who had done the wrong thing?
That’s my car on the left. Nobody else was there when I parked; I came back to find the other car behind me. There was plenty of space — a driveway if I recall correctly — in front. So it wasn’t a problem.
The new computer
Every 3-4 years I’ll buy a new computer. Here’s the latest, a reconditioned (with warranty) HP Pavilion a6760a, to be called “Haddock”.
For the record (because often years later I come back and compare what I got for how much) the specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, 2Gb RAM, 500 Gb hard disk, NVidia GeForce 9300 GE (256 Mb video memory), DVB TV tuner, and a bunch of other stuff. All up $750 from GraysOnline ($609 plus some strange 15% fee called a buyer’s premium, plus delivery, but at least you know all that up-front).
Unfortunately it came with Windows Vista, so I’m taking the opportunity to upgrade it and the older computer (”Tintin”, which got an upgrade last year) I’m keeping for desktop use to Windows 7. The new one will do the games and video stuff, the old one I’ll chop back to basics: email and web and stuff.
Now I just have to work out what to do with “Snowy”. (Perhaps it’s time for it to upgrade the server, “Nestor”.)
Almost sci-fi pictures
There was a bloke on the train covering his eyes. A picture of him could be captioned: Don’t blink!
But it would be wrong to publish such a photo without his permission.
Instead I give you this, found in a street in Footscray. Let’s hope it’s bigger on the inside.
And it was nice to see this in Dudley Street, West Melbourne.
The storm
It just took almost two and a half hours to drive from Glen Huntly to Footscray. Here’s why.
Glen Huntly. The hail was bouncing off the cars.
…and the gutters quickly flooded…
…but that was nothing to Caulfield North…
…and St Kilda Road.
Kingsway wasn’t pretty — much under water, traffic lights out, and lots of traffic.
This street between Kingsway and Sturt Street/Eastern Road had a couple of cars which will have water damage.
All was quiet at this SES building in Sturt Street. Perhaps they were all out on calls. Note the hail stacked up by the building.
(Thanks to Marita for taking some of these.)
Update 9pm: Show pictures individually.
