Last week I gave $100 to my old school’s building fund.
I figure I can give at least double that to Burma cyclone disaster relief.
Donations in Australia can be made through:
There’s probably others; these are the first four I found. For those overseas, Google has a page for donations to Unicef and Direct Relief — this appears to work for all countries, not just the US.
It was easy to find a taxi this morning in the city, but more difficult to find a driver — or at least one who would take you anywhere.
Taxi drivers were protesting about driver safety, blocking the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Quite a few empty cabs were parked nearby.
Despite claims of massive traffic disruption, most people seemed to be working around it okay. The trams have a fairly-well established plan for this kind of thing. Buses too would have been diverted. The trains weren’t affected — in fact it made it easier to get out of the station and across the street.
Cars? Who cares. Only a minority of people drive into the city anyway, and usually it’s cars blocking other cars. Not that that stopped the radio traffic people from moaning about it.
Fair enough that the cabbies should protest. Everyone has a right to feel safe at work. Tram drivers have metal cages to lock them away. So do many bus drivers. The transparent protective screens proposed (and already used in Sydney and other cities) seem a good idea. And if my memory serves me correctly, the authorities have been talking about this for a decade or more.
In the end it seems the government has seen sense, with safety screens to be fitted, and other measures to be taken. By 2pm the blockade was disbanding. When I went past at 2:30, all the leaflets had been picked up, and it was like it had never happened.
(If you’re wondering, the PTUA does not normally get involved in taxi-related issues.)
Tomorrow is ANZAC Day. Obviously up until now I haven’t really been paying attention, because this week I’ve read things I didn’t know about it until now:
It would seem that there’s always something new to learn about days gone past. And that the knowledge of what our forebears fought achieved will continue on. Lest we forget.
One of those frantic days.
E Day — the Eddington report came out. Age story. In summary: do we really want to blow $20 billion on tunnels, when one (the road tunnel) appears to serve no purpose (hardly anybody drives NE to W) and the other (the rail tunnel) tries to solve a capacity problem that shouldn’t exist if we run the infrastructure we’ve got properly?
Spending all that money means nothing left for the new rail lines we need to Doncaster, Rowville, Melton… And the report appears to include some major flaws which follow the old “predict and provide” road-supply formula: predict lots of traffic, then build the roads to make sure it happens. Never a good idea.
The crazy weather meant a thing at ABC radio that should have been just after 5pm got bumped to about 5:40. After that I headed home, and having just missed a tram, ended up getting a tad lost in Southbank walking to Flinders Street Station. It’s a pretty big building to lose, but in that area there seem to be zero signs directing pedestrians to points of interest, and the streets are so curvy there’s no line of sight more than a few hundred metres.
Found it eventually, got on a train… and it sat there for a bit. In the rear cab we could hear a Connex bloke on a radio talking about something being wrong, and noting that it was “full of people” and agonising over what was going to happen. Sure enough they kicked us all off (by announcing it initially on the platform, not on the train.. umm.. good one) and we changed platforms, got onto a working train, and headed off.
Not that any of this was as bad as on some lines: the Ringwood, Alamein, Glen Waverley, Frankston and Craigieburn lines all had problems with power and/or falling trees. At the radio station I’d heard John Rees at Connex, also agonising.
Got to my car and found on the way back that police were at one set of traffic lights, which had broken down, directing traffic through slowly.
Eventually got home, to find a tree branch in the front garden had (almost) broken off in the wind. At least we hadn’t lost power though.
Ah, one of those days.
PS. Thursday 9pm. ABC Opinion article: An unhealthy dose of bitumen for Melbourne
Proposal for a Yarra car ferry.
Google Australia introduces predictive web searching, which can show you how the Web will look tomorrow.
Google USA and Virgin have combined to form Virgle: sending a human colony to Mars.
Andrew Bolt to run for parliament in Peter Costello’s seat.
A bunch of stories: SCG stand to be named after Warrick Capper; Beijing Olympics women’s events to be run two weeks after the men’s; Virgin Blue offers half-price air fares for those willing to stand.
It was Fossil Fools Day.
NZ radio station cancels this morning’s Foo Fighters gig.
And Sanitarium are going to stop manufacturing Weetbix. At least, that’s what I told my kids at breakfast this morning. For a few seconds they believed it.
After a little cynicism, I did in fact join in Earth Hour. Over at Marita’s, we shut off all the lights for an hour and survived by the light of the TV, candles and a torch. In fact there seemed to be few lights on in the street, and it was hard to tell how many of the neighbours had joined in. Hopefully most of them.
The whole thing did get me thinking more about my energy consumption, and after some useful comments on my post about power, I’m going to ring up this week and switch to 100% Green Power.
On Friday I was at the launch of the first Wind-Powered Tram. That’s not to say that it has a big sail on the top. Nor does it really only use power generated from a wind turbine. They buy the equivalent of its power consumption from a wind installation. Which is good; it will act as a mobile billboard for Green Power, and should remind us that PT (even coal-powered) is a cleaner way to get around.
I got chatting to one of the guys from the power company, Pacific Hydro. He was saying that things are really looking up for renewable energy at the moment, and that the Howard years had not been easy for them. I guess I’m not too surprised, but it was interesting hearing it from someone at the coalface (if you’ll forgive the expression) of it.
Finally, if you want a laugh, check this press release from the Citizens Electoral Council: Earth Hour: Turn out your lights for World Wide Fascism (WWF)
I’m not convinced that I’ll participate in Earth Hour. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a terrific idea for raising awareness of climate change and energy issues. But I’m already well aware of those issues, thanks, and I’m working on reducing my emissions every day, not just one hour per year.
And besides, I’m enjoying watching Big Love (and, I’ll admit, Top Gear — Jeremy Clarkson may be an idiot, but he’s a very entertaining idiot) on a Saturday night, and I don’t particularly want to sit in the dark.
The saving in emissions is said to be 5% if you switch off the lights for an hour. But lighting only accounts for 3% of the average household’s emissions. Let’s see that graph again:
Another way of putting it is this: if you save 1kWh of electricity by switching off for an hour (which might be 8 x 100watt lights if you’re still using the old ones and you normally leave ten of them blazing) and a big television, you’ve saved about 1kg of CO2. But the average car will generate that in travelling less than 4 kilometres.
Which means when last weekend I twice travelled by bus to Monash Medical Centre and back (about 7.5km each way, so 30km in total), I actually saved 7.5 times the equivalent of turning off the power for an hour.
I also saved money; it costs $6+ to park there, though now I come to think of it, I spent some money on bus tickets and a snack in the hospital cafeteria. Still ahead overall though, even before taking petrol into account. The problem is I had to put up with 40 minute bus services to do it… which of course is why more people don’t do it.
Businesses participating will make more of a difference. The Age reports: At David Jones, non-essential lights and electrical equipment in 35 stores, offices and warehouses will be switched off. Staff are being asked to ensure all computers and lights in their work space are turned off..
But hold on. This is 8pm on a Saturday, when David Jones stores would be closed. Isn’t all this stuff they should be doing anyway, every night when they’re closed? With the exception of emergency lighting, refrigeration for food, and arguably advertising/shop window displays, at that time of night they should be using hardly any power anyway.
These days, all workplaces should automatically shut off power outside working hours (with overrides if people are working late), including putting computers to sleep if possible.
So anyway, Earth Hour itself will barely make a difference to emissions, especially for households. But in terms of raising awareness, hopefully it makes some impact, and people get better at conserving energy right through the year, not just for an hour.
PS. 10pm.
Given how their parliament occasionally carries-on, I wonder if the Taiwanese politicians campaigned on how good they are at hand-to-hand combat?
That level crossing smash near Geelong is tragic, and the government should do more on improving crossing conditions. But one radio jock was almost making excuses for the car driver, not just missing the Stop sign, the Railway Crossing sign and the rumble strips, but also not noticing the express train roaring down the line. Would the same apply if it had been a road intersection, rather than a level crossing, and the car had smashed into a B-double?
Fancy a bit of gaming on a Thursday night? Turns out you can present a valid Metcard at ACMI’s Game On (which I’m telling you, is excellent), and get in for the concession rate of $10.
I frequently use lifts that have two lights above the doors, one on top of the other. How is it that so many visitors to that building can’t figure out that when the top light goes on, the arriving lift is going up, and when the bottom light goes on, it’s going down?
Maybe I need to re-arrange the cards in my wallet. I’m concerned that the garish black and gold of my ATM card may be clashing with the green and yellow of my Medicare card.