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The Thinking Man's Eddie
Melbourne identity Steve Vizard rightly raises the population issue and this author is not against the concept of raising public debate or Mr.Vizard - who was recently described by an ABC talkback caller as ‘the thinking man’s Eddie McGuire’.
But when is a journalist or editor going to pick up on these two points:
This is a national issue, so why is a State Premier pushing it instead of handing it to the federal head of his party?
It has all been done before by Barry Jones’ Committee Investigating Sustainable Development which included many wise people and was science-based.
Why rake over old ground? If Steve wants to read its outcome, why doesn’t he just go to the Parliamentary Library or, better still, ring Barry Jones?
Alas, it appears that no-one in the media can remember back to the late 1980s.
Maybe those who would have their names associated with this weeks’ expensive summit have no interest in just sitting quietly and applauding the excellent work of those who have gone before.
The fact that an airline will be flying many 'snout-in-the-trough' representatives to Melbourne for free during Grand Prix week has probably got nothing to do with it at all ...
February 23rd 2002
Postscript: 0930 Monday 25th Feb 2002. At the start of the summit it was announced that Barry Jones was being invited to speak ... Hear Hear
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In an uncertain world...
The aviation industry has been decimated, tourism flattened. Airport throughput times blown-out because of 100% security screening.
Cockpit doors cannot easily be sufficiently strengthened because of pressurization concerns. The USA policy of sterile flight decks has proven flawed.
Airports that have mistakenly imagined themselves as shopping centres are in for a shock.
Business travel needs a quantum leap. The last one was the birth of the 747 and Concorde generations ago ... Perhaps the next quantum leap is nowhere near the airport. Coming instead in the form of upgraded video conferencing.
Live, real-time, desktop, broadcast quality, three dimensional video and 'stand next to you' audio earpieces combined with instant document transfer and 'sign on the screen with a pen' real time deal completion.
Maybe the world's aviation designers who have come up with such nifty gadgets as the Flight Management Computer could turn their minds to it and, in the process, save their companies from lean times ahead.
JamesNixon, 29th September 2001
Followup:
Boeing technology to cut film distribution costs by two-thirds
ABC Online Posted: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 23:07 AEDT
Aircraft maker Boeing says it will soon roll out a digital cinema, allowing movie theatres to download movies directly from Hollywood via satellite.
Bob Dean, Boeing's vice president for business development, says the digital cinema service is expected to start in the United States within five months, before being extended worldwide.
Under the system, a theatre would send a signal to Hollywood through a Boeing network operations centre for a movie selection.
The theatre needed a server on which to download the movie, which could then be shown anytime.
The system is expected to cut movie distribution costs by two-thirds.
The service is part of Boeing's operating networks and applications business.
Aside from aircraft manufacturing, Boeing's businesses also include technology for missile defence, integrated battle space, human space flights and launch platforms
POSTCODE 3000
Great Place To Visit, But Why Would You Live There?
Imagine how you’d feel if you had believed the publicity, sold up your house in the suburbs and moved into Melbourne CBD. Postcode 3000. Many people did.
High priced housing commission apartments, paper thin walls, no parking for friends to come and visit, walk blocks to find the one useless supermarket, no nearby convenience stores, you can’t buy petrol or wash your car; the streets cleaners and rubbish trucks drive through your bedroom at four every morning … there are druggies on every second corner.
But wait, there’s more.
When you slink home to hide from the ever-present noise you can’t even watch television! In the centre of Australia’s second-largest city the only TV you can receive is from Win and Prime TV in Bendigo and Ballarat. True Story.
Channels 2, 7, 9,10, SBS and 31 all broadcast into the region but none, repeat none, can make it into Elizabeth Street, less than two hundred metres from the GPO.
One resident has a country address, so they conned a satellite dish and contract out of the Government. They get to watch programs that come from central western South Australia. Their local news features the Port Lincoln Angling Club.
It’s get cable – or get stuffed.
If postcode 3000 residents had free tram travel, they could inexpensively move around the city.
A small price to pay to placate the residents who must wonder if they have made the biggest mistakes of their lives.
(C)jamesnixon.com May 2001
It All Happens In The Ground
If you contracted a company to provide a service, say - to provide you with access through their tunnel to another part of your city - should that company not feel compelled to offer a discount or rebate if the service is diminished in any way?
If, for example, one of the three lanes of the tunnel is closed because the tunnel leaks and needs repairing – doesn’t that limit the tunnel’s capacity by 33%?
Then, for ‘safety reasons’ if the speed along two thirds of the tunnel is reduced from 80 kilometres an hour (50mph) to 60 kilometres an hour (35 mph); does it not follow that it’s a reduction in speed of 20% for the affected two-thirds?
Surely, it has to be worth some sort of a discount.
That sound you can hear? It's not water dripping ... just dollars falling out of your wallet.
It's A Sign
At another part of the private road, if there was an ever-tightening 300 degree corner, shouldn’t the owners be expected to place a road sign indicating an upcoming corner commensurate with reality – or is it ok to get away with a standard, off the shelf, ‘curve ahead’ sign. Do private roads have no requirement to meet any national standards? And do the owners of the two semi-trailers that have speared-off in the middle of the corner have any comeback?
In fact, shouldn’t all the ‘curve ahead’ signs reflect the fact that the 'private road' corners tighten considerably after their apexes?
So if your car leaves the road on a corner whose sign doesn’t reflect the actual road conditions; don’t despair. Somewhere there’s a lawyer who would love to help you.
Meanwhile, back in Australia, I have a contract with CITILINK. Their service is excellent; it allows me to get to work faster and more efficiently. More importantly, it's safer than tangling with the western ring road or traffic lights.
White Man's Magic?
How come all the chain-smoking journalists write stories about globalisation, decrying Gap, Nike and other companies for outsourcing manufacturing to sweat shops in third world countries, yet fail to tell the world what the cigarette companies are doing?
In Australia, we have banned smoking advertising. As a result, all our scratched and faded hoardings and outdoor umbrellas have been sent to nearby third world island nations like Vanuatu and Tonga.
The natives are being addicted to the dreaded weed.
In Vanuatu, for example, cigarettes are sold one-by-one at the supermarket checkout. The natives are too poor to buy a packet or carton, but can buy one or two with their change.
The average Australian male smoker dies at 75 years, from smoking-related complications, from a kind of prolonged hypoxia – attended by the best medical carers. The terror in his eyes; as he realises his biggest lung-fulls of air are unable to alleviate the CO2 tremors; vanishes as the expensive morphine washes over him. Only the best will do …
In the third world the hospital bed is covered in plastic, there is no air-conditioning, the entire family comes and sleeps on the floor. Toilet paper must be bought from the Red Cross trolley and there is no money for supplemental oxygen. Morphine is prohibitive and death comes with a rattle after hours of tremors. Little kids are sensibly terrified.
In thirty years, the wards will be full of these patients who will probably never make the connection. Can you name one country that is adequately planning to care for its future AIDS sufferers, alcoholics and smokers?
Why don’t Australian journalists write about this? Would they much rather pretend it’s not happening?
Or perhaps they are hoping for a cure ...
NOTE: The Author was a heavy smoker until 9 years ago (come May the 28th at 2.15pm). His Dad died from lung cancer, even after giving up 11 years earlier. The cigarette companies will tell you it’s a coincidence that smokers get cancer. It only takes one cell in your precious lung wall to get corrupted and set off the cancer. If you smoke, you’ll probably die a rotten death … well before your time. Give up now and fight back.
Oh, and I don’t buy Gap or Nike products on principle.
* The photo above of an Australian Aboriginal dancer at the opening of the new National Museum, was taken by James Nixon.
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