Things they could fix in Canberra #2

Another aspect of Canberra that really lets it down is the problem of car parking.

I believe this comes down to two things:

1. Canberra is overly planned - without much thought of the future.
2. The residence of Canberra just accept things as they are.

This is not the first time this topic has been brought up for discussion on the web. It has already been raised on Canberra's own soapboax website. For a city of around 400,000 people, why does the "metered" parking locations charge as much as cities like Melbourne? They recently raised the price of all day parking in the satellite cities of Canberra from $5 to $6. While I don't have a problem in that, I'd like to know why it was raised. What was the reason it was raised? It was just accepted.

My main gripe with the problem of parking in Canberra is not the city parking, but with the on-street parking in the suburbs. Where is it? Why are there signs around the suburbs during weekdays that prohibit parking in the streets? That one should be obvious to most people - it is to stop people from parking in the streets, and then funnel them into the government paid parking lots, or the commercial parking lots. That is unfair!!

Secondly, on the same point of above, why are the streets so poorly designed? The streets are narrow, but looking at houses that come off them, the front common area on them (ie. the land between the border of their property and the street) is sometimes as wide as 30m. This is truly a waste of space, and shows a considerable short-sightedness when it comes to planning. While this may have kept Canberra attractive in 1920, it really did not have the future vision of cars included or a population of over 20,000.

As a side note, I've been doing some thinking about Canberra and what makes it the way it is. Speaking with the locals that live in Canberra, the term "planned city" comes up a lot. Doing some searching on the internet gave this interesting article: "New Towns for the 21st Century: The Planned vs. the Unplanned City". Simply stating it, the planning may have worked at one time, for a certain set of people - including the planner themselves, but if it has not evolved in the correct manner, the result is a souless city. Canberra could have been better. Melbourne is an example of a planned city that evolved.

Things they could fix in Canberra #1

I've decided to come up with a mini-series in this blog, on where I've been working for about 2 years - Canberra. I keep hearing nice things about Canberra - and it's mainly from the locals that do not know any better, as they like their little village in the middle of no where.

I started off with doing some searching on the web to see if there was any pro-Canberra discussions. I found this interesting article on the travelmsn website: Canberra: Near the beaten track by Sophie Lamond. The author has really done a good attempt of selling the whole concept that Canberra is a great place, and has something for everyone. The article reads well - but the "kick-in-the-guts" for the article is the comments to the article. Most of them comment about Canberra being an awful place to be. Sadly, after working there for 2 years, I would have to agree with them. The author herself also mentioned on her profile page, that when she gets a long weekend, she would rather leave Canberra than stay in it.

Stating that, I thought I would compile a series of posts, based on what I think could be fixed in Canberra. They will all be titled "Things they could fix in Canberra #n". Feel free to comment on them.

So...

Things they could fix in Canberra #1: The single lane of the Gungahlin Drive Extension, and additionally around the Glenloch interchange - who's idea was it for a single lane? The instant someone slows to admire the scenery - that is the whole of the peak hour traffic coming to a complete stop. I do not think I know of one motorist that loves the concept of a bottleneck while trying to get somewhere.

Look for more quick comments about Canberra in the future...

Macarons in Melbourne

Not to be confused with the biscuits you have with coffee (ie. macaroons), if you are in Melbourne, you should make the effort to find La Tropezienne (Glenferrie Road, Hawthrown) and try their delicious macarons.

La Tropezienne macarons

Awesome with coffee... not easy to resist...

Magic the card gathering game...

I recently started getting into Magic The Gathering. For those of you that have never heard of it, it's essentially a card game where competing players "cast" spells that result in damaging each other (or themselves). Damage your opponent more, and you win. I had played it many years ago, and also the PC video game version, but I have never had the cards to play. I do not intend to spend hundreds on it, and it is more of a social thing than a competitive aspect.

Does this summarise me well?

You are Red/Blue!
Take The Magic Dual Colour Test - Beta today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what I create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.

Once in a while, you see something special...

I will admit it's not that special, but it took me a while to do it...

Perfect Wii Sports Resort 100 Pin Bowling Game

Not the easiest thing to do... no cheating involved, no use of the secret strike.

Basketball shoes (again)...

As some of you may know, I like basketball shoes in particular the Air Jordan branded ones - but only some of them. I've owned several different shoes in my lifetime, but now I have decided to do something I have never thought of doing before. I have purchased shoes with the idea not to wear them.

The idea behind this is to possibly make money through purchasing shoes which may become desirable in the future, but as many of you know that know me personally, I like to purchase several items of the same model if I like something. I always hate buying a pair of shoes and then finding them really comfortable, then when they wear out, I can't purchase a replacement for them. So now, I have purchased some shoes that I have no intention of wearing immediately. This is opposed to my current "working" shoes which I do wear - the Jordan 6 Rings being apart of the ones I rotate and wear. So here are the shoes I currently wear:

Air Jordan 6 Rings

More Air Jordan 6 Rings

I'll post up pictures of the other shoes purchases I've made in the near future. Feel free to comment or query on the shoes I've featured.

Help out with some causes...

If you looking to help out a charity (and score yourself a tax deductible donation - in Australia, at least), a few people I know have donated their time and efforts to raise money.

• Marcus - Yoga for MS
• Nathan - Ride for MS
• Jackie - Shave for Leukaemia Foundation
  

Help out if you can. And if you are looking for goofy comments to write, use the page that I got inspiration from - "Strangest Comments on Ebay".

Open Source saves power grid

I was reading in the news recently that a power grid in Australia was infected by a Windows virus. The quick thinking technical specialists there quickly swapped over to Linux machines that they were using for another use, and thus no major outage occurred.

This is a great example of how Open Source is not cheaper, but better than the proprietary offerings from major companies that are only in it to make profit. It came down to "security through transparency" over "security through obscurity". I have no real problem with people making money from their work, but when it comes to systems that are mission and life critical, I do not think they have their customer interests in their agendas. It may sound like a conspiracy against the major organisations, but how far fetched is it, really? Short term plans may be to enable their customers to do what they need to do, but long term strategies would be to ensure that customers do not leave to utilise the services and products of another competitor.

"Security through transparency" is not new - although it may have only been termed recently. The person who came up with the concept, Auguste Kerckhoffs, did it over 100 years ago. "Security through obscurity" is marketed by proprietary companies that are hoping that no one will be able to figure out their secrets, and thus keeping their systems safe and working as expected. The problem is that over time, someone seems to always figure this stuff out, and then figure out how to exploit it. It tends to give individuals and companies that rely on these systems a "false sense of security".

Why don't people just censor themselves?

Someone once told me "If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all!" I'm sure this is good and all when it comes to being polite, since everyone appears to be very sensitive but let's just apply that to other things around us.

If you don't like what's on the internet, then disconnect yourself and don't search for information.

If you don't like what's on the TV, turn it off.

If you don't like what's on the radio, change to another channel or turn it off.

If you don't like what you're reading, put down the piece of text you're reading, and do something else.

If you don't like someone, don't spend your time researching / stalkbooking / googling them.

Do the things in life that matters. Take care of the people that count. Look after yourselves and each other. And if you don't like what you're reading on this blog, why are you reading it then? I'm not forcing you to read it...

Cyber terrorists, or information freedom fighters?

The good Senator Conroy appears to have some interesting opposition. A group or a person known as Anonymous has decided to take up the battle against internet censorship. They have set up a Youtube message, as well as declaring their actions. They have their own wiki page. The main thing is they're going to fight this unfair censorship of the internet.

Are they cyber terrorists? Or are they information freedom fighters? What they are will be how the media spins it - and which side of the fence you decide to sit on. If you don't know what I am talking about - learn more about the problem.

STOP INTERNET CENSORSHIP!