dates

In Australia the word "date" is often used colloquially to refer to your anus ... your arse hole. So when people speak of "Date Roll" they may be talking about a type of cake (which is a cylinder not usually a proper roll) or good old fashioned dunny paper.

Another pearl of Australian (and I believe British) english is to suggest to someone when expressing dislike for their idea to "stick it up their arse". Indeed this can be extended to the idea that someone else "stuck something up my arse" when expressing how your own fate on a matter evolved.

So with this metaphor firmly in mind I'd like to discuss how I feel about "updates" ... or as I often term it "up the date".

All too often "updates" are when companies push out (and you often can't prevent it) ideas which make you feel like something unwanted was shoved up your arse.

I've had experiences on this "dating" back many years, when a Microsoft "up the date" of Windows 2000 Professional essentially broke the relationship between CPU Fan and temperature sensors on the motherboard on my computer. I initially thought I had a bung CPU fan (because the computer went into thermal overload shutdown every time it was on more than a while) but traced it back to being "up the dated" by an update.

These days being "up the dated" is getting so common that we even have our phones set so that you don't download "up the dates" by 3G or 4G but we wait till we're on WiFi so that it doesn't blow out our quota.

I mean seriously folks, this has got out of hand. Things do not need to be "updated" that fucking much.

For instance I read that the latest "up the date" from OnePlus rendered issues to their phones:

so you got billed for having this jamed up their date, and then they pull it out (what and like and wipe it on the curtains ...) because it wasn't properly tested.

You often don't even have capacity to govern this as there is now precedent with makers obsoleting their phones by "up the date"

So you buy the phone, you happen to like it, yours is not presenting a problem, you've put hours of work customising it, you need it reliably daily ... you don't have time to take it back and suddently Samsung shoves it up your arse that you are going to be taking it back.

Wake up folks.

Given the massive rate of turn over on phones (to essentially do nothing more than cater to software updates that do nothing more than bloat things out in many cases) you may as well be just renting it.

Of course this is the best of both worlds, you pay for it (yes even on a plan) and then its junk in a little while. Meaning that essentially (in essence) you are renting it but you get less of the benefits of renting with none of the long term benefits of ownership ... oh ... I forgot ... people don't know what long term means anymore.

Yet you love it?

Seems to me people have been up-the-dated so long that they are suffering from identification with their captor.

Hare Brained

I was reading in New Scientist today about Snowshoe Hares and how they are becoming increasingly out of step with the environment in which they live.

Snowshoe Hare (image by http://goeddelphotography.com/©)

Climate change is meaning that snow melts sooner and the hares white coats cease to be camouflage and become instead "target identification" for some predators.

So while the white stands the Hare in good stead in the snow time, by it being white during the early melt changes this attribute from a survival attribute to an early death attribute.

I thought it interesting that the researchers identified that the Hares seemed to not be aware of this coat coloring and did not alter their behavior in response to the changed environmental conditions.

Snowshoe hares appear to be oblivious to whether or not they are camouflaged. "They do not act in any way to reduce colour mismatch, or to reduce the negative consequences of mismatch," says Zimova. When mismatched with their environment, they don't hide more, flee more or hang out in areas that match their coat. In short, these hare-brained creatures don't seem very smart.

Interesting ... I immediately thought that applied to humans  as well. I don't think we are much smarter, in fact as we are aware of the issues we do not change, so we are dumber for it. For instance Urban Development goes on willy nilly , despite great evidence to demonstrate that what we are doing is neither the best nor good for us (even in the medium term) nor good for the environment.

This graph shows the general trends of population growth rates in Australia:



So its fairly clear that our population is increasing at a high rate, yet what is our response to this? Well so far it seems to be "clear more land, increase urban sprawl, and make things worse for every other living creature" (and perhaps even for ourselves).

Back in 2011 I wrote (over here) that the infrastructure supporting our lifestyle was under stress and that (for instance) the roads are unable to sustain our needs (let alone support growth, which in my view is actually the problem).

I happen to live in Southport and commute to a small town for work (the city of Logan). It is 51Km from my door to my work door, which isn't a long commute by modern standards but forces me up and down the highway every day.

The other day an event occurred which  is perhaps a bit more drastic than usual, but as anyone who travels that road knows was only a matter of time.

Yep, you read that right closed for 6 hours.

The population density of this region is not really high by European standards, yet (I would argue) that due to urban sprawl and geography there is really no alternative but to accept that this madness is the only alternative if we want to live in the way we do here.

With a population growth rate that's actually the highest in Australia ...



I don't see that the congestion is going to ease until the population growth does.

I live in an area of the world which was once a beautiful natural haven and has for the last 40 years been fast paced into becoming the most overcrowded and over developed part of Australia (well except for perhaps Sydney). This Google Maps screen shot shows the area, hard to find anywhere now that's natural which will support construction. Indeed the only areas as National Park are swamps, wetlands and tidal sand islands.

In fact not yet appearing on that map is a bunch of new clearing (the last patches of bush) in that bit of green up near Coomera. So more population to be going up and down that highway ... more congestion longer delays and an erosion of lifestyle. It doesn't look good for the environment either.  In fact since I put that graph together the data has emerged that the population here has gone to over 700,000. Which from less than 50,000 is a massive change. Of course water will be the next problem....

Who benefits from this? Its not the people who really have no choice but to live in this "pseudo-planned sprawl" and its sure not the ecology or the wildlife (which we seem to say we love so much). Is it just the greedy few? Or is it that as a society we are just stupid and greedy?

As I wrote back in 2008, its bye bye Koala and hello urban sprawl, roads and cars.
So you tell me ... are we much smarter than the hare?

SlowMo HighSpeed Jets

The Gold Coast 600 was on this weekend gone and there was an FA18 flyover to mark the beginning



I'd rate this as the most boring flyover I've ever witnessed. What it lacked in quality it did make up for in quantity and duration. I guess this is what the bogans want right?

I wonder how much it cost to have that many Jets in the air for that long (and getting them all rallied together)