It’s been a long time coming, the MyKi system to be introduced soon so let me summarize the main points THIS Age article covers.

• Nobody knows when it will be released in Melbourne
• Rather than buy an off-the-shelf smartcard system and adapting Victoria’s fare structure to suit, the Government opted to start from scratchContract delays
• The US company Keane — operating as Keane Australia Micropayments, or Kamco — won the bid in 2005. “Keane had no corporate experience in developing, implementing and operating a ticketing system,” the leaked audit report said. “Keane has barely demonstrated adequate capability.” The report also revealed that the Transport Ticketing Authority had employed Keane in 2004 to design crucial elements of the tendering brief.”
• “After the long delays came the budget blow-out: last June Premier John Brumby announced Keane would receive another $350 million, for reasons that are still unclear”
• “myki will cost at least $1.35 billion over the next decade”
• 3 years late in Melbourne
• Brisbane agency Clemenger Harvey Edge paid $400,000 for a MyKi Campaign Melbourne never got to see
• 10,850 cases of overcharging on regional buses
• Tickets were taking more than one second to register each smartcard – imagine this at Metro peak time
• “Myki’s billion-dollar price tag is the equivalent of buying, over the next decade, at least 65 new trains, which could solve the city’s current overcrowding problems.”
• “The Metcard system could also have been turned into a basic smartcard system for about $220 million”

Die Kosky

New Animal Species

I read today about exciting discoveries found in a remote volcanic crater of Papua New Guinea. This is exciting, to see hear about new species of animals never before seen or heard of.

Put Them In The Zoo!!

My only gripe is, will this be the last I hear of this wacky animals. I’ve read accounts of newly discovered animals before to never hear of them before. Why aren’t we breeding them or cloning them and adding them to our zoos. As cruel as zoos are, I’m sure they could justify the addition of these freaky animals to the zoo as a research and breeding program.

May not put them in Zoos. But at least document them for us so we can appreciate and learn more about them.

Other Freak Animals I Don’t See Enough Of

I first saw reports of these deep sea creatures 5 years ago in the paper. There were also hoax emails with fake stories behind why the deep sea creatures came to be, real pictures, but fake stories. Since these were first reported, I have been happy to see them pop up on deep sea documentaries, can’t recall which though.

Just wish we saw more of them and unfortunately don’t think we have the means of bringing them to the surface alive.

Prehistoric worms: http://big5.lrn.cn/gate/big5/www.globalgeopark.org/publish/portal1/tab80/info4101.htm

Just received this interesting and exciting news in my Bicycle Victoria News Letter

20,000 bike spaces for NY car parks

12 August 2009. Commercial car parks in New York City will be compelled to provide bike parking, under new laws to take effect in three months.

Commercial garages and parking lots with more than 50 car spaces are required to provide one bike parking space for every ten car parking spaces, up to a threshold of 200 car spaces. Beyond the threshold, one bike spot will be required for every 100 additional car spots.

Aimed at encouraging bike commuting, the law applies to about 1700 locations, mostly in Manhattan. Pricing will be set by the operators.

NYC also introduced regulations requiring new buildings to be provided with bike parking.

The car parking industry has two years to fully comply with the new laws.

Under its Transport Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, New York is taking massive steps to advance the level of bike riding in the metropolis.

Such a smart City making more smart decisions to futher itself as a metropolis with the future in mind. Melbourne is trying and making little changes here and there but NYC is making changes in leaps and bounds while we’re still pussy footing around.

Drugs Today and Gen Y

The rampant drug use amongst Generation Y and the normality of it all (speaking of this in earlier posts) is obvious. But I think the focus on recreational drug use amongst Gen Y is so highly exposed, that the social changes that have been bought about about by Generation X go relatively unoticed. I think there are a few reasons for this.

Generation X & The Change In Drug Culture

Though recreational drug usage amongst teens may have been less mainstream and widespread in the 70’s to 90’s, drugs were still common, present in the media  and heavily experimented with. They were taboo (as they still are to an extent) and as Gen X teenagers turned into adults, drugs and the stigma attached to them loosened.

As a guy who is myself in my 30’s, recerational drug use amongst my generation does appear to be quite loose and less hormonally driven in nature. Though Generation X is still happy to include recreational drugs in celebrations, concerts and parties, marijuana in particular has become a fairly acceptable drug in a range of more casual social situations such as BBQs or other house gatherings.

 TAC advertisement

Recently when the new Austrlian TAC (Transport Accident Corporation) anti-drug and driving advertisement was launched, there was a scene of middle aged adults at a casual afternoon gathering involved in the passing of a marijuana joint.  I didn’t think too much of this until I read a youtube comment

“”xxindeedxx
middle aged family men do not smoke dope?”"

But they do! And the depiction of adults sharing this joint at a gathering was not unrealistic. This isn’t to say that all middle aged adults are comfortable and happy to partake in a joint at a BBQ, I’m not saying this, but I do thinkit is not all that uncommon amongst middle aged adults, even those with families.  Drug use by middle aged persons is less likely to be of a nature that invites attention or public exposure.

Baby Boomers, Your Parents & Drugs

When generation X teenagers were tucked away in bed, were their parents quietly sharing a joint with the family friends? Perhaps not as many.

I Got Hate Mail

After my post yesterday, understandably I received some serious hate mail. I could only allow one comment to remain, the rest were unpostable.  So instead of trying to explain myself and my post, I’ll like to bring attention to this article in The Age that quotes a Mr. Yadu Singh about the situation of racism, Australia and India.

Article Here

“Dr Singh said his committee was working to educate Indian students about behaviour that placed them at risk of being targeted, such as travelling alone on trains, walking and dressing “without confidence”, and identifying themselves as recent arrivals in Australia by speaking loudly in their native language.”

Telling People To Stop Being Racist Isn’t Enough

Thank you Dr. Singh! It’s good to see people who understand that being politically correct alone has little power against an ongoing and arduos fight. There are other more effective ways of fighting the problem, or at least ways to tackling the problem from multiple angles.

You Can Still Be Indian

It doesn’t mean that to be safe you have to hide your culture altogether, that’s not right. But as with Australians travelling overseas, a certain level of caution, education of a new culture you are immersing yourself in and compromise can go a long way.

Recently we’ve been treated to media coverage on the tension between Indian people and everyone else in Australia resulting in a epidemic of Indian beatings. Once such place Indian beatings are on the rise is Melbourne where thousands of Indians (and friends of Indians) congregated to rally peacefully against racism towards Indians.

Not So Peaceful Rally?

Unfortunately as with most things, not everyone was okay with the peaceful part. Indians are angry over the racist attacks so tensions ran high, people were arrested and windows on Flinders Street station were smashed. These are the pictures we are seeing of the Rally by the media today.

Soooo…Why are Indians disliked and targeted?

Personally, I know many people from many different backgrounds and the one race that cops the most negativety are the Indians. So what are some of the negative traits things that people attach to Indians as a race. But more importantly, what can be done about these things to reduce tensions.

• “They smell bad” is a common gripe. Some may argue though that everyone else may smell bad to them and it comes down to diet and other cultural factors. But at the end of the day it is a cultural factor and sense of smell evolves and is subjective.
  • How people can learn to tolerate each others odours, I don’t know.
• “The men are sleazy.” Many woman are completely grossed out by the Indian man and some say that they don’t like the way they look at them or speak to them. I’ve had more then one female say to me, I don’t hate Indian woman, I hate Indian men. So this is a combination of sexism AND racism. Rexism.
  • Education of Australia’s so called stance in respect to sexism and the equality of sexes could be the ticket here. In india, sexual equality is probably not that high and this is a culture that is far removed from a culture such as Australia where questionable treatment, including staring, towards woman is frowned upon. That’s not to say that Australians and other cultures are not guilty of misconduct, but politically correct conduct in Australia should be put forward in the interests of avoiding tension.
• “Their Music is horrible” Indian inspired music has actually been peaking its way into the mainstream with a few progressive artists, clever sampling the success of movies like Slumdog Millionaire. However, at the end of the day, the sound of loud Indian music is something of a loud and annoying ringing in the ears of the non-Indian. This means that the music can actually make non-Indians feel quite irritable, perhaps angry or even scared when subject to it particularly at high volumes.
  • A friend tried to convince me once that Indian and non-Indian people were biologically different in a way that meant ears were shaped differently and music is heard differently. Consequently, what may be music to an Indians ears, could be a mish mash of squeely random noises to a non-Indian. If this is the case, there is not much that can be done about this.
  • Maybe again it is just cultural and a matter of the music one has adapted too. So perhaps as Indian music continues to fuse with music we are more familiar with, hearing Indian music will not result in anger and irritability as much.
  • In the meantime, any music that is too loud and forced to be heard by others is annoying. Not just in public, but also in your own home when those that live around you have to hear it. That too is annoying.
• They are loud and obnoxious in public
  • This is actually an issue that was bought up by the government when this issue of Indian attacks first started to appear in the media. http://www.theage.com.au/national/indians-told-to-keep-low-profile-20090218-8bjz.html
  • Generally speaking, non-Indian people find loud talking obnoxious. Indians however do not and as the previous article suggests, this results in tension and irritability amongst the remaining population who do. This on top of the already negative views on Indian people just fuels the fire. So maybe, especially the adults, keep the tone on public transport and in public to a level that is more in tune with the surrounds.
  • As with music, speaking too loud isn’t just annoying in public, it’s annoying any place that others have to be subject to it such as for neighbours in a residential street.
• They speak their language and its annoying
  • Again, as with the music, this could just come down to sound phonetics. We may sound just as annoying to them speakin our English. So to help this problem the speaking at an appropriate level is probably best.
• They just want your money
  • Most Indians want to study here or migrate here with the motivation of improving their lives. It is a part of a bigger plan and as such, Indians are generally keen and motivated. This motivation can be seen as materialistic and money orientated and perhaps there is a fine line. I have no advice here, at the end of the day it is a cultural stereotype and every person has an ambitious aspect to their personality and more importantly, other aspects.

Wow! Was fortunate enough to get a great seat with 300 other patrons at IMAX Melbourne for the Star Trek movie of 2009.

Expectations Low & Exceeded

I went in with a very clean slate, low expectations and no understanding of the plot or cast. The cast suprised me, in a good way, with people I were not expecting. I wasn’t even sure if some of the cast members were who I thought they may have been until the end credits.

Some people might say that the movie went for some easy way outs but overall I think the plot of the movie was fantastic. The cast was great and the movie was well updated without losing its roots. Trekkies and some of the oldies in the crowd jumped with glee and expressed their delight during and after the movie.

There were more humerous scenes then I expected with a little bit of cornball but otherwise nice and subtle. There have been comparisons between the Star Trek and Wolverine, mostly because they’ve been released at the same time. From my initial impressions (having not watch Wolverine) and feedback from those who have watched both, there is no competition or comparison. Star Trek Trumps.

Musical Score

Orchestral music ushered in calm space and earth scenery beautifully while the horror of alien monsters and enormous alien warcraft sent deep vibrations through the walls and floor appropriately. I sat through the entire ending credits hoping for a cameo of the theme to “Star Trek – The Next Generation“, but no go.

Gripes – Action

The only thing I was expecting from Star Trek 2009 was some good action scenes and it did deliver but it was very difficult to follow. It was very difficult to see who was who or what was going on in the faster moving scenes, that was a bit of a shame and I longed for more slow moving scenes.

IMAX Appropriate?

I am not sure if it is. Because the camera work, action and fast moving scenes were difficult to follow even though they had engulfed the room. Space scenes and those which were trying to capture the enormity of space and alien lands were fantastic but there were suprisingly few of them and this is were IMAX excels.

I find close up scenes of people in IMAX format a little on the weird side, like we are watching giants rather then life sized people and their seemed to be a lot of scenes like this. Skin pores of actors faces must have been the size of my head.

Having said that, I am so glad I watched it in IMAX because it was a BIG movie and a good one at that. It was also suggested to me that the action and fast moving speeds would have been even more difficult to follow on a regular sized screen.

Rating: 8/10

I say this in response to the response to the Age artical today about the many people who will be missing out on the Rudd Stimulus payment.

http://business.theage.com.au/business/millions-to-miss-out-on-rudds-stimulus-payment-20090511-azp5.html

Why Rely On It?“So even though I’m a low-income earner and my children both live at home and I was really depending on that $900…The fact that I’ve fallen through the cracks has absolutely destroyed me.”

 I’m as sensitive to the plight of low income parents with kids as anybody, but why would anybody rely on the stimilus payment. I can understand people being fustrated by not being eligible while their friends and collegues receive the payment, but I don’t think anybody should have ever factored it into their budget forecast to the extent that not receiving the payment means they have been “destroyed”.

By The Way

I didn’t get it. No $1000 flights to New York for me.

All The Pictures of Kellie Crawford In Ralph

Kellie Crawford Hi-5 Hottie Pictures

I’m a MASSIVE fan of Kellie Crawford from Hi-5. She’s smart, super hot, 34 and has just posed for Ralph. There are the usual family groups who have hammered her, saying it’s inappropriate given her time in Hi-5 for the last 10 years.

Let Her Pose!

She quite Hi-5 last year. If parents are concerned about their kids seeing Kellie in Ralph maybe they should be more concerned about their kids accessing the magazine and photos to begin with. Typical family groups and parents not addressing and taking responsibility for the core of their own issues.

Jealous

I listened to an online archive of a woman caller on talkback saying she’d cancelled her Herald Sun subscription because she thought it was sad that this story was deemed important enough to be on page 3. I’m all for her cancelling her subscription but certainly not for her reasoning. Newspapers aren’t there to make you feel good about yourself. Use the money you save on your subscription for some therapy.

I was just thinking about this movie the other day and one of the best scenes involving a song from our own John Farnham.

A hilarious movie, a hilarious scene with a classic song! 

Original Song by John Farnham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99P7TTvpO1g