Just a few random observations of the day

You can turn air conditioning down, but if the thing is already at 100% and it’s still not cutting the mustard – it’s inadequate.  Fix this.  This applies to airline operators, building superintendants and hotel owners.   In the case of the latter, setting the thermostat to 17° to produce a 100% duty cycle appears to be an interim fix.

Sitting next to women on aircraft is annoying.  The amount of crap they cart around is incredible.  Foot space?   Forget it.

Access to the member’s lounge is a good thing.  The toasted sourdough is particularly good, and the girl on the coffee machine has a pretty good idea of what she is doing.  Thank you for that, the first long black of the morning was downright awesome.

It takes about 150 pages of a Matthew Reilly novel to get from Melbourne to Sydney.  Providing you have a pilot willing to forgo the concept of a base leg and kind of meld downwind and final into one rolling maneuver.

Why do all taxis have that characteristic smell?  Is it the odour of 10,000 impatient people, or their 20,000 (presumably equally impatient) feet?

Jura make a pretty damn good coffee machine.  I hope we get one like that.  Push button, coffee appears.  Do this several times and WHEE!!

Contractors are always a useless waste of space.  Why fly me to Sydney only to be told the goddamn rack doesn’t have network patching yet?  Or a fucking circuit breaker??  Might get to see an install tomorrow afternoon, maybe.

I remember why I hate Sydney.  I think it’s the unique combination of incomprehensible one-way streets and busses.  And the arseholes that live here.

I do not really like chicklet keyboards.  They are not as good as softtouch keyboards.  Laptop manufacturers, stop it immediately.

I went for a walk to the Coles supermarket at the corner of George and King Sts this afternoon as a kind of pilgrimage.  I stood less than 2’ behind Sol Trujillo in this shop in late 2007 and failed to murder him.  Note to self: lost opportunity there.  On the other hand, it still sells Tooheys beer.

I also stood less than 10’ behind Kyle Sandilands at the hotel reception this evening, and failed to kill him too.  But the evening is yet young.

Telstra wireless broadband access smartens up immensely during the evening.  Hellloooo network congestion.

Who designed Sydney’s street layout?  I am still trying to decide if they are a genius or need badly beating to death.  You do NOT need that many tunnels.

It is unacceptable to be >3 weeks into employment and still not have an employee card, despite having 4 prox cards.  I could have collected the card from the CBD on Friday but that would have meant doing so on my own time, and more importantly missing the window before rush hour home.

These digs are very nice, but not worth $240 a night.  Nor is the breakfast worth $45 a head.  This will not stop me having the breakfast.

I have to leave work early on Friday to sign the builder’s contract, and offered to make up the time.  Given the 2 hours I had to get up early this morning to make the flight, and the2 hours it will extend my day on Wednesday, this agreement is being retracted.

Marble bathrooms are cool, but so are marble toilets seats on the buttocks.  Is there such a thing as a heated toilet seat, and if not, is there a market?  (I consider USB versions to be superfluous.)

Why can’t I buy an eSATA thumb drive for a reasonable cost?

The current rating on the power brick for this laptop is only 3.42MAh @ 19VDC, which makes it pleasantly cool.  We like Core i3. (We like Core i5 even better but for a non-production laptop, there are allowable compromises.)

The dudes in Sydney doing GIS production have some FUCKING SERIOUS desktop hardware.  Core i7 kit and they still happily max every core at 100% overnight.]

Bed time now, need to fortify myself fora serious foray with the morning kitchen.

Definition of a pain in the arse:

Getting to the airport an hour early to check in, so I can watch a bunch of people who can't get their shit together get prioritised to the front of the line so they won't miss their flights.

Upside:  discovering my tickets give me free access to the member's lounge...

You've got mail!

A more ironic and fitting end I could not conceive of for yet another scumbag islamic terrorist.

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/unexpected-text-message-blows-up-suicide-bomber-in-safe-house-20110127/

Hope you meet allah in there somewhere.  Here's your head, you will be wanting that later.

But hey - she looks hot!

Lauren Caitlin Upton (born March 27, 1989) is best known for her incoherent response to a question during the Miss Teen USA 2007 pageant.

Question:
“Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Upton’s response:
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our [children].”

Yay, fire alarm...

Let’s all go for a little walk outside then and watch the fire units pull up.

 

Let’s watch the somewhat irate MFB bill the company $5,500 for a false callout.  For the third time in two months, apparently.

 

Here's your Monday morning wedge, thin end first.

My new employer has a workplace drug and alcohol testing policy.

Doesn’t sound too worrisome for anyone who’s doing the right thing, right?

This means actual random workplace drug and alcohol testing – oral swab I suppose.  It’s a bit like being a sports competitor at a major event, or being pulled over for an RBT.

Personally it doesn’t affect me; I have no intention of fronting for work pissed, and the only drugs I take apart from alcohol are caffeine and paracetamol – the latter generally as a response to too much of the former.  However, I think there are some philosophical issues that this sort of thing raises.

I’ll be the first to fully acknowledge the right of the employer to have a fit-for-duty employee when they clock in.  It doesn’t matter if they are operating heavy machinery or just fully productive in an office, the employer is paying the wages and they have a right to expect the employee is 100% on the ball.  However, how does that interface with the issue of, for instance, cannabis or “party drugs”?  These can linger in the system for literally weeks and months.  So if the employee in question enjoys a spliff on the weekend or drops an E at a party, it’s still very much in their system on the Monday morning when the narcs bust them, even though they’re long over any possible performance impairment.

Does any company have a right to impose these sort of value judgements on people?  I have no interest in drugs myself, but I refuse to believe that a couple of cones on a weekend is going to be the death of anyone, and it’s their own damn business as long as they keep it to themselves.  (My attitude will change here if they try to do stupid stuff like drive while toking, but if they want to blaze up in their backyard then I say go for it.)  But, under the testing scheme as I understand it, they’re gone a million when they front on Monday.

This is, in my opinion, the thin edge of the wedge, and a dangerous precedent.  I’m sure that some company talking head (and I have to go and be lectured at for an hour next week by one re this little gem of a policy) will argue that that’s as good as the testing is, and that it also serves as a gauge as to the reliability of that person’s character.  But hang on a minute, isn’t that the company trying to dictate morals and actions to me outside company time?  I’m very much of the opinion that while I’m being paid then I do as required, but when I clock out, my thoughts, feelings and actions are mine and mine alone.  If the company feels and wishes otherwise, they can pay me for that time too.

What if I drive like an idiot to and from work?  Does the company have the right to say they are spending a lot of money training me, and that I have an obligation to protect that investment and not get myself killed?

What if I decide to take up freeface rock climbing, sky diving or something else dangerous for a sport?  Do I have to get the permission of the company to do that, as they’ve got a vested interest in me turning up next week?

Hmm, I’m buying a new car.  Am I required to buy one with curtain airbags, and only a bright colour, to ensure it’s as safe as possible?  Wouldn’t want the resource injured and unable to work, would we?

When will my diet be subject to employer control to ensure I’m not going to have a heart attack, and I’m required to attend the company doctor monthly for health and fitness checks, with any “recommendations” mandatory as a condition of continuing employment?

Gee... does being an employee grant the company the right to dictate my thoughts regarding other issues that might affect it... like which government gets elected, or what industry laws get passed?

You see where I’m going with this?  Yes, it’s a long way from the perfectly reasonable expectation that I won’t stagger back in for the afternoon after drinking lunch to telling me who to vote for at the next election, but it’s the same slope, just further down the path.  How quickly we get there depends on how well we let that slope get greased.

And that worries me, because there seems to be no shortage of people around the place with no sense of proportion or scale.  Just look at what HR is today, and what do you want to bet that HR started as a basic and entirely reasonable concept of ensuring fair treatment?  Here we are 20 years later with HR being a subject regarded by most people as somewhere between a joke and an atrocity, staffed by Catbert, and existing solely to ensure that in the event of someone getting the shaft, the employee is very much going to be the shaftee.

Drug and alcohol testing?  Prepare for shaftage.  And possibly mandatory bimonthly colonoscopies.

Traffic management

Here's a short video to illustrate the concept of "flow".  Note that everything keeps moving, melding, accomodating, conforming, basically getting there with minimum fuss and effort.



Now, here's how the BRAIN DEAD FUCKING RETARD who designed Melbourne's traffic system thought it should work.