For his birthday, Andrew asked for a few bloggers to post something on a topic of his choosing. He asked me for:

The time you had such a bad experience on public transport that you rang the minister or one of his minions, or similar.

I had a think about this, and I don’t think I’ve directly had a whinge to a contact about something that only affected me. But I’ve certainly seen and been annoyed by plenty of things which were more systemic problems that needed fixing, and have passed that feedback on.

For instance, my brother-in-law catches the train from Bentleigh to South Yarra (zone 1) but can’t catch the connecting 703 bus to the station without paying a premium because it only accepts zone 2, even though it connects to two zone 1 stations and a zone 1 tram. I’ve raised that and other cases with the fares people.

On New Year’s Morning last year at about 1am I noticed about 30 people waiting at Footscray for the 82 tram, which unlike most others, wasn’t running all night. I called to the people to say it wasn’t running, but they’d heard all trams were. Maybe after an hour or two of waiting they eventually did believe me. That got fed back to the CEOs at Yarra Trams and Metlink: either run all routes all night, or be very very clear about what is and isn’t running.

The lack of bus services in the evening and Sundays, despite shopping hours at the big centres like Chadstone and Southland hampered me for years. With recent upgrades, this has now been mostly resolved, and although they’re infrequent (mostly hourly) you can at least now go shopping at those places on Friday night or Sunday afternoon and not have to deal with the parking.

A friend drives to Epping Station (and sometimes all the way to the city) because the South Morang rail extension still hasn’t been built, despite being promised in 1999. A lot of local residents are up in arms about that. I had them all in mind when I raised that with the (previous) minister one time I ran into him at a function.

And one Sunday morning last year I was with the kids on the train, and it was a short train, and really crowded. Not the first time I’d seen that and complained about it, but this time, I got my camera out to document it, and gave it to Channel 7 the following week.

I blogged about it here, and have followed-up by raising it in meetings with Connex and the government. Connex don’t have a good excuse for it (eg it really is just cost-cutting), and some bureaucrats are quite appalled that this sort of thing occurs, but can do little about it. It’s actually a really good example of why privatisation in its current form doesn’t work. Will keep pushing.

The more observant amongst you may have noticed the Twitter Updates thingy on the right hand side of the web page.

Yes, I’m dabbling in micro-blogging. I’m not totally convinced it’s worth the trouble, but having seen examples where it’s shown its uses, I thought I’d give it a go, particularly when I found the Twitter Tools plug-in for Wordpress, which can show my Twitter updates here.

(I also experimented with relaying updates onto Facebook, which I’ve also dabbled with. Then I found Facebook specifically prohibits this kind of thing… Oh well. See the details. They can keep their fancy-schmanzy walled garden.)

It’s handy in that you can post a brief update from virtually anywhere; via IM, web, or from a mobile phone (though the latter costs me 50 cents a pop in international SMS fees). So like they say, it’s handy for brief — but hopefully mildly interesting — stuff that happens through the day that wouldn’t be worthy of a full blog post.

So I’ll give it a go, and see if it inspires. And if it quietly disappears again, you’ll know it didn’t.

• Twitter

The results from the birthday extravanganza of comments, as at this morning (80 responses, in 84 comments)…

Average age: 38.21

Median age: 36

Range: 18 to 65

Wow.

Thanks to all who responded, and thanks for the birthday wishes!

And a special happy birthday also to Paul, Shaun and Graeme, who it turns out also share my birthday! (What are the odds?)

I write on various blogs regularly. (Okay, some aren’t really meant to be blogs, but use blogging software.) You bash out some text, hit Post and you’re done.

Just try writing for a paper medium though. I’ve been putting together the latest PTUA newsletter, which gets posted out on (recycled) paper to members. 7 pages of fun-filled fabulous facts, plus a cover-sheet. It can be an absolute bugger editing it. Once all the articles are in, they have to be arranged into a semi-logical sequence in the newsletter, any corrections done, and laid out so that they fill the pages. I’ve got a nice template working that has a pleasing 3-column format, and often some of the text will need to be trimmed to make it all fit.

At its worst, it can drive me absolutely spare. Many times I’ve been scanning through it, all looking lovely, then I’ll notice a comma or something missing, insert it at the point it’s needed, and the computer will re-arrange the entire page based on that tiny bit of punctuation. The comma makes the last word on that line bounce into the next line; everything else shifts over, and suddenly the last three words of the article have gone over the page, and you’ve got a page-too-many.

Another thing that used to drive me equally crazy was a bug in Microsoft Word that continually changed the page footer. Seriously, I’d change it, close the Footer window, and it’d change back. Thankfully I found a way around that.

Writing blog posts? Luxury. Believe me, typing as much as you like then hitting a button to publish is heaps easier than trying to fit everything onto a page.

Wikipedia started a fundraising drive in December, and given the value I get out of it, I decided to contribute. Happily, I chose a day when all donations were being matched by some anonymous donor, which was a bonus.

Imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks after Christmas, I got a Christmas card from the Wikimedia Foundation, as thanks. I don’t know if all donors get such a card, or you have to meet a particular level, but it was most appreciated (especially as, unlike US donors, it’s not tax-deductable).

I was even more surprised when, about a week later, Josh pointed out there’s now a Wikipedia entry for one Daniel Bowen of Melbourne, Australia. Gosh. (No it’s not connected to the donation; I won’t name names, but someone I know has decided I get my name in the papers often enough to be worthy.) Wow. I’m humbled. That’s inestimably cool.

I’ll try to do the right thing and not edit my own entry. Well, not unless one of you punks vandalises it.

Star “Sarcasmo” Foster has passed away, aged 33. (via Ren)

I have to admit I didn’t regularly read her blog, but it’s always sad to hear a peer (of sorts; however distant) is no more, especially at such a young age.

PS. Andy’s pulled together a list of posts on this sad event.

• Tue 31 May 2005 - Will your web site live on after you die?

Before there was this blog on danielbowen.com, it was on toxiccustard.com. And before it was a blog at all, it was an email list.

And actually the email list still exists, sending out the weekly extract of this blog, as well as the Guide to Australia (when I get around to updating it) and News You Had To Have (which has become my weird news blog), along with some headlines from Geekrant. One day I also hope to update the Great Vomits page.

The 800th edition of the weekly email is going out tonight. I must say, way back in 1990 when it started, I had no idea I’d still be doing it all these years later.

“Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.”
– Aaron Sorkin (creator of the West Wing)

I don’t know if the people who leave comments here necessarily disagree with me, but they do seem to be pretty smart. Over the past week I’ve learnt of doubts over recycling (plastics 4-7 will definitely be collected, but they may just get thrown away), and had confirmed my doubts over the lack of energy efficiency of halogen bulbs (downlights). And learnt more about the colour lime green than I knew before. All good stuff.

The human comment spammers, however, apparently aren’t smart enough to have worked out that I delete their comments on sight.