For those of you who actually read this, the best way to contact meis via my email address. For everyone else…It’ll be a fun experiment finding out how long it takes for people to notice.

My idea is to build a gym that instead of costing people money, allows them to make money from their exercise efforts. It would be a gym that harnesses people power to generate electricity and sell it back to the power companies. I realise that the amount of money people would be getting wouldn’t really amount to much, but it would be a small step to a greener world.

Imaging a place that doesn’t cost you $7 a visit, but instead will pay you a fee for the energy you generate. Given the current energy issues in the world, this idea kills 2 birds with the one stone. It reduces the consumption of exercise equipment that requires power to work and gives energy back into the system. It would also give people that added incentive to exercise knowing that they are contributing to reducing a problem.

So, anyone want to help me develop this small idea into reality?

The latest of these issues is that of an ACTION Bus employee who was stood down because he put 15 school kids off a bus when they were misbehaving.  In my mind he did the right thing, however parents and ACTION themselves obviously think he was wrong.  The issue itself however is only a small issue that leads to a biggest issue, and then to a massive one…  The bus company and parents are blaming the bus driver for putting these kids in potential harms way by leaving them unsupervised, which brings us to the issue of the current nanny state we are making for ourselves.  We “Blame” people for taking a stand on their beliefs and make laws to limit how they will behave.  We compartmentalise these rules and the people who look after them and administer them really only deal with the local issues.  I really wonder whether they see the natural progression of this.

We make laws to protect our kids, kids who are newly developing and who learn and form their own idea’s much more easily than us adults who have been set in our way.  These kids see that everyone else is responsible for them and if people don’t do “the right thing” then there are repercussions.  These kids grow up with an idea that someone else is always responsible, they get jobs, they have opinions, they vote…  This leads to people with their values of someone else is responsible getting into power and forming policy, the rules that govern society tighten ever so slightly, that generation has kids, the kids grow up with similar if not even more tightly controlled society where they are not responsible…  You see where I’m going here?

I’m not saying rules are bad, and I’m not saying that in some cases there isn’t someone responsible, but what I am saying is that what we seem to be loosing is freedom to think for ourselves and to take responsibility for our own actions.  I am proud of the fact that I grew up in a society that had more freedom, that was less restricted by inane laws to try and limit our own stupidity.  This current society where we have so many laws dictating exactly what we can and can not do I believe is leading to a society that doesn’t think and is scared to take action because of the potential consequences.  Loosing your job over putting 15 kids on the street who obviously needed to learn a lesson would certainly make me think twice about taking a stand next time which means that the only lesson these kids learn is that they can do what they like and they only get slightly inconvenienced.  And teachers wonder why there are more and more unruly kids at school…

Hmmm, another rant from me, someone who just couldn’t be bothered any more.

Let me clarify… I’m usually wearing a different colour shirt, a visible ID tag that identifies me as not an employee of the store as well as a sticker from the store that clearly says visitor.

Maybe it’s because I have been doing this job for 18+ months that I actually look at the person and make sure they are actually serving people, but I like to think I have always paid attention to the person potentially serving me. Meh, it’s just weird how some people don’t actually look for the “corporate image” that these companies spend a fortune to develop and maintain. Just sayin’.

Photo by Matt Sutton

Here are some loose facts…  Lake Burley Giffen, and Scrivener Dam hold about 3,300 Megalitres of water.  It is a recognised fact that floodplains reduce the damaging effects of high flow floods, and an emptier lake would effectively be a flood plain.  We get warnings of flooding down the Mologolo river before the river starts rising.  The gates of Scrivener Dam can lower by around 2 meter (this is a guess as I can’t find a reference).   With 3 gates open just a touch over 0.5 Mega litres per second of water can flow through them, 0.85 Mega litres with all 5 gates open.   If with notice and only releasing 0.2 ML/s of water we can reduce the water in the lake by 720ML per hour or in general terms drop the water level by 2000ML in about 3 hours.  With 0.5 ML/s of water flowing in from upstream and maintaining the 0.2ML/s out flow this would only give the lake a buffering capacity of about a 2 hours before we would be back to full capacity and having to again allow the full flow back into the downstream river.

So, I guess I have my answer.   Though I do still see a benefit of reducing the lake level to allow more water to flow through the Mologolo and potentially reduce the flooding levels in Queanbeyan, however I’m guessing engineers have also looked into this option and already decided on its merits.  Either way…  that is a hell of a lot of water.

In our current nanny state there are so many laws that need to be complied with just to set-up a business and start trading.  Then there are all the laws that dictate how and when you can trade.  It’s now at the point that in order to set up a legitimate business requires a lawyer and an accounted on speed dial as well as a great deal of capital to get started.

I can understand how we got to this point, in a past, where knowledge was limited to books and getting access to books was a time consuming process it was necessary for those in power to disseminate information by making laws and enforcing them, however we are now in the age of the Internet, where information is freely available to a huge portion of the civilised world.  I would like to see a simplification of the laws we currently have, and an introduction to a Standards system where instead of laws for consumer products and services, there are Official Standards that manufacturers have the option to adhere to.  These would be backed up by larger penalties for failures, and even larger ones for failures from products that do not opt to comply to a standard.  But then I don’t necessarily think the death penalty is a bad thing either.

Death is a part of life.  Maybe CEO’s would take things more seriously if the death penalty was an option if their product/service caused death.   Cause all the ridiculous fines that are currently imposed do is provide the accounts with a means of calculating of where the line is.  Yes, it’s rather extreme, but currently it seems so is our lack of freedom.

There used to be a time when the police would ask if there was a reason, or what happened, now they just seem to be revenue collectors out to get the easy ticket offences and when you need them for real crimes they are too busy chasing down people for minor speeding or traffic offences.

I get that prevention is is better than having to deal with the results of an accident…  I get that too many innocent people get killed or injured because of a few peoples indiscretions.  What I don’t get is that the measures we are taking to to try and minimise these things from happening is having more of an effect on our normal day to day lives.  The effect that I see this having is to limit the accidental death rate and effectively put a speed bump on Darwinism.  It’s also sheltering us from the possibilities of what can happen when we are stupid.  Personally I would prefer more freedom and higher penalties for stupidity than having my freedom and right to live my life restricted.

I was just listing to your Friday show about the issues involved in the online piracy debate.  There are a few points that I feel weren’t brought up and I thought I would send you a message just in case you feel they could be important in the future.  Sorry I couldn’t call in during the show, I’m usually driving home and need to concentrate on the small country road.

Firstly I’m not much of a music buyer, in fact I listen to Triple J and that’s about all the music I need.  All of my media purchases are TV or Movies.

Whilst the iTunes price may be fair according to industry people, there are a large number of people out there that can’t afford or think that it’s too expensive.  I for one am not willing to pay that price for unknown content.  I have been burnt too many times with shows or movies that just aren’t worth the plastic they are printed on and in the age of the Internet a lot of us aren’t willing to take that risk at the prices they are charging.  Back to the people can’t afford it…  Is it not better to make it cheaper, and therefore more accessible to the greater population than put it in a price range that only allows it to be affordable to those who aren’t earning around the average wage?  Surely this would give more value to the product placement they seem to be placing into films these days.  If we all purchased the content we wanted to these days then there would be a lot of people missing out on things that they should be spending their money on.  Like food, rent and other necessities.

Another issue is that I’m not a Mac or Windows user, I use Linux on my computer.  Now whilst I am aware that I am part of a very small percentage of the potential market, there is no real alternative as iTunes does not have a Linux install.  I therefore must either choose to use a commercial OS, or make do with what is available to me.  The world is moving away from expensive products and embracing the free communities out there, it’s no longer easy for big business to make an easy buck, and it seems more and more like these big businesses just don’t know how to deal with that so they are throwing their tantrums and taking their bat and ball as well as the park.  The whole concept isn’t about not paying for stuff, but it’s about having more choice about what we want to pay for.

The content industries seem to have tunnel vision, they see that there’s big money to be made in content and the best way to make everyone pay to see that content.  They fail to see that by making it cheaper  and more accessible not only will they have more sales, but their carefully placed product placements that earn them money will in fact get more views.  There are loads of content creators out there offering cheap stuff and raising the money themselves without the help of big business.  I would much rather these people got my money than big business that tries to dictate terms.

Finally, what about the issue of borrowing content from friends?  We like to know what we are paying for before we purchase it.  Even if they did bring in laws that prevent online piracy, they couldn’t stop legitimate copies being loaned amongst friends.  They don’t seem to be putting GPS trackers in DVD’s these days to track who watches what.  The whole idea that something that is designed to be shown to the public is then regulated with huge legal consequences seems ridiculous when you think about the fact that these issues have been building since the invention of the portable cassette player.  Content is meant to be shared and watched, charging for the right to listen/watch it is not the best way to make money from it.  The content is a means to creating the branding, and it’s the branding that they should be making money from, not the content itself.  The idea that trying to view that content through online means should be illegal is in fact almost offensive to some when they are giving it away for the small price of having ads incorporated.  Most people will only buy DVD of TV shows because they have seen the shows on “Free to Air” TV.   If they provided free legitimate copies on a website, even with small incorporated banner ads, they would get more support.  All these law and lawsuits are doing is disenfranchising the viewing public from the production companies and Movie/TV Execs and giving the public more of a desire to “Steal” their product.  After all, “it’s only the big companies that can afford to loose stuff” isn’t it?

I’m sure the issue arises because the Exec’s say that they are loosing sales because of Internet piracy.  The truth for me is that I will only buy stuff I really like, I won’t spend money on crap, and I won’t spend money on something I don’t think is worth the price they are asking.  A lot of the time that means I miss out on having a shiny well presented package.  It certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t buy things that I think are worth it.  TV and Movie Exec’s are greedy dicks, they prove that time and time again…  Just look at some of Joss Whedon’s work.   I’ll happily spend money on good stuff, and I’ll happily collect DVD’s and Blueray.  But the idea that I’m stealing by downloading their stuff and watching it before I buy a collection I find offensive.  If they don’t want people to watch it, then find another means of making money.

Interesting side note…  Most of the stuff I buy is not the big budget stuff, it’s the small budget stuff where you can tell the people making the production are really into it and aren’t just there to make as much money as possible.  I find the Hollywood big budget films mostly crap and even try and avoid them at the movies, waiting until they are weekly hires at the video shop.

This is no small issue and I’m sure if you wanted to you could almost devote an entire week of shows to the various aspects of the discussion.

Yours in friendly free and open discussion,
Syridian.

The rule states that you give way to anyone already on the roundabout, that’s pretty much it. For anyone about to enter a roundabout they need to give way to any car on it, or any car that has the potential to be in the roundabout before they enter it. So for all you out there who don’t slow down because there is a car entering from your left beware! If that car is in the round about before you they have right of way and you could be potentially blamed for any collision. That said, if there is someone approaching the roundabout from your right but you are at the round about, you don’t have to wait for them! They have to give way to you unless you do wait for them and they get on the round about first.

Roundabouts are not 4 way giveaway sign intersections or stop sign intersections they are designed to allow traffic to keep flowing and if used properly they work very well, however if abused by both aggressive and passive drivers they become annoying intersections that can slow traffic to a stop.

Slow down when approaching a round about and be ready to give way to anyone on it, whether they enter from the left or the right. When you slow down you have a better chance of timing your entry to slot in and get through without stopping. This is what roundabouts are designed for and if people start learning to use them correctly then everyone benefits.

Christmas just seems to be nothing more than an excuse make us feel guilty enough to spend far too much on plastic crap decorations and presents. It really seems to me that the commercial industry has taken Christmas as it’s means of screwing as much money as possible out of all of us. My memories of Christmas as a kid tend to back up that thought. All Christmas seemed to teach me was that on December 25th I would get stuff, and I learnt to expect that, to want that… It was a way of buying my loyalty to tradition. All of the Christmas traditions seem to teach kids who are innocent that they can get what they want at that time of the year, including lollies, toys and the attention of there parents who spend a good portion of the year trying to save enough to make up for it in December.  Christmas these days seems to me to be a persons way of justifying a year of not being around for family and treating those around you right for the last 11 months. Maybe I’m just too cynical about the whole thing, maybe I have lost my Christmas Spirit…

Those cynical thoughts are also mirrored by the fact that I do enjoy certain aspects of Christmas.. I like the joy it puts on peoples faces, I enjoy seeing other peoples Christmas lights displays and I enjoy all the Christmas folklore and stories.  Even whilst not being a religious person, I do enjoy seeing the whole Christian side of Christmas being displayed.

So, where does all of this but me in terms of participating in the festivities of this time of year?  I guess it puts me on the outside looking in and vicariously enjoying the celebrations of others whilst hypocritically shaking my head and scoffing at the hypocrisy of it all.  Hopefully the fact that I know here I stand will be enough to get me through the next 12 days.

Merry Christmas to All.