> I keep thinking that there's a limit to the meddling that normal
> people will tolerate

JT> A short while back, my BIL said one town was geared to ban
JT> plastic bags after ONE bag blocked a drain and caused a major
JT> flood. I said it was bullshit, and was probably popular
JT> political propaganda. Not one week later, a local pollie was
JT> 'proudly' stating their town was now plastic bag free.
JT> Kachiiing. That's gotta be worth extra points that. 

 Just wait till the women turn nasty. Australian women are the most
vicious in the World (they have to be, to put up with Aussie males).
Just wait till Mum forgets her canvas bag and some dork tells her
she'll have to take her dozen oranges home separately...

 I only hope it happens in a distant suburb, far away.

> I was actually operating in the era *before* plastic bags, but
> that was before supermarkets too, when the grocer put your stuff
> in a cardboard box, when he was just around the corner, and you
> shopped every day.

JT> Back in the old days when coles didn't run all the smaller
JT> grocers out of business?

 Back in the old days when Coles sold hair clips and pencils and
called it Variety. I could never work that out. How much variety is
there in a fucking pencil anyway? Grocers groced and Butchers
butched...

> I am *stunned* to see those wankers with their calico bags!
> Hasn't anyone told them where calico comes from? You need six
> calico bags, multiplied by 5 million families, 30 million bags
> that will last less than a year... $50M and the Gwydir River run
> dry to grow the extra cotton! Fuckn hell!

JT> That's ok, there's plenty of plastic to replace those
JT> expensive, now unattainable calico bags.

 If you ever need to work out the energy content of anything, just
work out something simple and scale it against money. If a plastic bag
is cheap, it's because it's shit-easy to make with hardly any energy.

JT> Yeah, that's the small area where we can see sharply,
JT> everything else is a vague blur of shadows. Your brain fills in
JT> the rest. They warned us of "tunnel vision", to keep looking
JT> around. It gives your brain a chance to fill in the blanks with
JT> *usable* data, rather than make assumptions. 

 It's exactly true. Have you ever seen something big and black out of
the corner of your eye? Suddenly... full attention! You don't even
have to think about it.

> It happenswhen you drive fast... things slow down. They don't
> actually, and your brain doesn't speed up... it just ignores a
> whole lot of happening shit.

JT> You somewhat get better at this, but it only looks impressive
JT> that race drivers know where they're going, it's only that
JT> they've run around the track that many times, that they know it
JT> blind. It's one less thing their brains have to fill in looking
JT> for, it reserves a bit of concentration for the useful things,
JT> like what the other runner is doing (or mistakes their making)
JT> giving you a chance to overtake.

 Yair... even if you lose the car in a corner, all the brain does is
trigger the cerebellum, which is somethign like fast ROM, already
programmed to respond quickly to simple stimuli. That'show we play a
piano, or type. The whole thing is a real-time fake.

JT> This doesn't apply to the road, where things are different ever
JT> time you go out there. You can't make assumptions otherwise you
JT> start to hit things. But that doesn't matter, because it's
JT> always the *other* guy's fault. 

 Ahh... but then we use *generic* corners, generic intersections,
situations that remind us of other things we have already experienced.
That's why a Learner does it so tough. I can still remember the first
time I went out at night in the rain. I could not see a thing! I had
to pull over and let my brother drive me home. Obviously, things
haven't changed, I *still* can't see a thing, but now I know where to
look, and what to expect.

JT> No, next they're going to tell us that speed cameras are placed
JT> at statistical "black" spots, not statistical speeding spots to
JT> make more money. Never mind the RTA web site notes the 85th
JT> percentile speed over their camera loctaions, coincedently all
JT> well over the limit. Concord Road is a prime example. Used to
JT> be laced with cops all over the place. One camera later
JT> (obviously that exact location was the root of all deaths in
JT> concord) not a cop to be seen. Well, actually, I lie, I've seen
JT> one cop, off-duy with no radar attached, probably on their way
JT> to stock up on doughnuts. However, I may be mistaken, the lack
JT> of cops in the area may be just coincedence that about the same
JT> time, the last doughnut shop in Concord closed down. Not sure,
JT> plausible reasons either way...

 No... the cops now patrol Majors Bay Road, Cabarita Road, and the
run up to Broughton Street. They leave Concord Road to the camera.
It's a joke, now. You come off the bridge headign south and everyone
does 75K, you come over the hill to the traffic lights, everyoen drops
to 50K to be on the safe side, past the cameras, the up the hill and
everyone speeds up to 70K through the shopping centre, past the
primary school, pity about the kids crossing the road...

 You don't even have to know it's there now - everyone around you
suddenly slows to 50K. If you're on a strange road and that happens,
slow down!

JT> On the other hand, that camera is placed directly opposite that
JT> small park, could be lots of children crossing to get to that
JT> park right? Not that I've actually SEEN anyone in that park
JT> EVER, but obviously the RTA statistitians know more about that
JT> than I do.

 I was put there for the downhill run past the shopping centre, nice
open safe road... and it really worked, at first. Got *heaps* of
speeding fines. Now I wonder if they've even got a camera in there...

> on the back road around Oran Park I let the Skyline have its
> head. The spped limit was 90, which is pathetic, but I didn't top
> 120. That's all I'm good for now.

JT> You're getting old Bob. (couldn't resist that stab)

 No, it's true. I can even drive at 50K in a 50K limit. It sort-of
turns your awareness down. I don't know how it afects other people,
but when I drove at 80K (normal in a 60K limit) I was alert and
watched everything. Now, at 60K (or 70, 90, whatever they post) I just
drift along half-asleep.

> You'd see it coming, whoops... gentle, foot off, cut the entry as
> close as possible, gentle, let it drift scrub off speed...
> straighten, don't run off it's better to spin... okay. Whew!

JT> Driver inability has nothing to do with road death statistics.
JT> Everyone knows that. Duh, the RTA and cops keep telling us
JT> that.

 That's what annoyed me! Not one mention that it was relatively easy
to negotiate that corner at that speed... just that "the speed was
excessive."

> Bad driver, probably panicked. But the fuckwit cops put it down
> to speed. Durr... *every* crash is caused by speed.

JT> I love the "there's no such thing as safe speeding" cry. True,
JT> the only safe speed is 0. You can't hit anything if you're not
JT> moving.

 Unless a truck runs up your arse.

> I don't actually disagree with the P plate, but I can't see how a
> two-stage P makes it safer.

JT> It makes it harder if you ask me. I can't remember that far
JT> back to my car P plates

 When I got my licence there was no P, and no 100K limit on the
highway, either.

JT> but while on the bike P's, I remember "losing" my P plate on
JT> the freeway, (no really, I DID loose it on the freeway, I just
JT> didn't notice till four months later when I was fully licenced
JT> and tried to remove the plate). Anyway, it was amazing that
JT> overnight, everyone stops aiming for you, and actually treats
JT> you like every other road user, more or less indifferent. 

 Does it? I never treat P plates any differently, expect perhaps I
don't monster them (in case they do something unexpected).

Regards,
Bob
       

--- BQWK Alpha 0.5