It's all just ice - right?

OK, as usual, this is me being picky. Our first image is from the SMH, and it shows a story that Ben Cubby ran about melting arctic sea ice. Someone forgot to tell Ben that back in 2011, some kraut dudes from the Max Planck institute wrote a paper saying that we'd never reach a "tipping point" as far as melting Arctic ice is concerned. Anyway, cast your eyes over the photo that the SMH ran to accompany this story about melting Arctic ice.

I did a tineye search on that picture and got quite a few hits. Interestingly, two of those hits were from Time and the Grauniad. Both described the photo as showing melting water in Greenland. 

Time story.

Grauniad story.

So why has the SMH chosen a picture that appears to be of Greenland to illustrate a story about the Arctic? Laziness? Sloppiness? I notice they only mentioned Getty Images, and left off Uriel Sinai in the credits. 

I visited the website for Uriel Sinai. He has an entire folder there of shots from Greenland. In fact, this was his home page when I dropped by. So I guess it is pretty clear that this is a photo of Greenland. And it is by Uriel Sinai, who is not credited.

Does this matter?

It matters to me. If the story is about the Arctic, use a photo of the Arctic. Don't use a photo from another region entirely. Be accurate and truthful.

Could sausage rolls get you fired?

After viewing this episode of "bike riders can't cook", which features some chilli laden sausage rolls and a few unsuspecting managers, you realise you could only pull this sort of trick in a workplace with a lot of trust and camaraderie.

I tried making sausage rolls for the kids last week (except I left out the six types of chilli). The kids demolished them. There's a lot to be said for the humble sausage roll.

It gets worse

I took the kids to the park. Whilst one of them was playing on a slide, a little girl came up to me and said, "Are you one of the Masterchef judges?"

Dear God.........do I look like the bald, short stumpy Greek git; the fat, overdressed pompous git or the other git?

I think I will ride 1,000 miles this week.

Low Life

I was reading a copy of The Spectator at the dining table. Specifically, I was reading Jeremy Clarke's Low Life column.

The youngest looked at the caricature and said, "Daddy, that's you".

No matter how hard I tried, I could not convince him that it wasn't me.

Maybe I need to clean up my act......

The dominant left

Another fascinating article - this time on our tendency to crash to the left.


“…This left twist effect seems to be generally apparent in animals. Circus horses enter traditionally the arena on the right and circle left wards. Foresters know that a wounded deer will always run away left wards, even if the closest forest is to its right. Even bees tend to circle leftwards when they spiral upwards to gain height in the air.

The basic driver behind this phenomenon seems to be the fact that all cells in nature are composed of amino acids which have a left spin. Chemists can manufacture amino acids with a right spin, yet we can’t use them. Apparently both types of amino acids existed in the primordial soup at the beginning of life hundreds of million years ago. Yet life developed only from those with a left spin. The favorite theory is that at that time – when the earth did not yet have the protective ozone shield – radioactive rays from the cosmos did more harm to the amino acids with a right spin. Yet why those with a left spin would be more protected – if at all – is still a mystery.”

People who are lost in the desert tend to walk in circles with a left spin, i.e. counter-clockwise.

Most or our supermarkets are organized the same way: entrance is on the right, the cashier on the left. Studies have shown that customers tend to feel slightly stressed – increased cardiac pulse, elevated blood pressure, slightly faster walking pace – and buy less when they have to walk in the opposite direction.

Same on the sports field: most track and field sports – from the 400 meter distance runner to the hurdle racer, they all run towards their left. Even the everyday jogger tends to run counter clockwise around the field or lake if he has free choice…”

Except from when I've been hit by cars, all my crashes have been to the right - so I am the odd man out here. I have noticed though that when I stop, I unclip my right foot. Most cyclists unclip their left foot.

I liked the bit about running around a track - I haven't run around a track in decades, but last time I did, I always ran counter clockwise. Weird!

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning

I just love the recent tone Fairfax has taken regarding the misdemeanours of our Prime Minister.

Consider their lines of thinking:

1. Fraud, corruption and illegal conduct by Police must be investigated by a Royal Commission. Right now. However, fraud corruption and illegal conduct by union officials and their hangers on are very ho-hum and of no interest to anyone.
2. Julian Assange must be not be silenced, and he must be given every opportunity to distribute his sensitive, stolen material. However, Larry Pickering has to be muzzled, and his attempts to uncover and distribute material that should be in the public domain are an affront to democracy.
3. Pickering has been drawing rude cartoons about the political elite since I was a boy. For instance, here's Malcolm Fraser and here's Gough. However, drawing rude cartoons of the current PM is  sexist. I guess when Abbott becomes PM and Pickering starts drawing him without his budgie smugglers on, Fairfax will find that hilarious and will eagerly print his work.
4. Fairfax thinks that Pickering should not be published because he writes rude and racey things and has a controversial past. Yet they employed writers such as Catherine Deveny and Marieke Hardy who are quite notorious for their low rent, filthy, controversial musings.

Add your own examples as you see fit.

In slush we trust

You can have fun creating your own posters here.

Nutrition and fitness

A couple of interesting posts of training and nutrition from Cycling Tips:

Five sports nutrition myths: the info I got out of it is that cramps are not caused by electrolyte shortages and supplements have the most impact on unfit people.

Chocolate milk - the perfect sports drink. Should be a welcome message for anyone addicted to that stuff. Pity it says nothing about iced coffee.

Coming back from a fitness slump - the comments are well worth a read in order to gain an insight into how some of these super skinny, mega fit people operate and think.

Greendoggle fail

From Carpe Diem:

Layoffs mount at U.S. wind power manufacturing plants as the production tax credit for wind nears its expiration. Another greendoggle for an energy source that can't survive without massive taxpayer life support.

Fail baby, fail.

Local elections - Part II

Disclosure - I'm not terribly keen on Angelo. My dislike for him started when he tried to sleaze onto the missus at a council event. If I'd been at the event rather than minding the kids, his nose might be a bit bent to one side in the above photo. But now that is over and done with, let's look at the guff.

This pamphlet is a lot larger and wordier than the Liberal party version. However, it boils down to the same sort of solid, boring, local government stuff. Libraries, parks, playgrounds, footpaths, roads and rates. The only thing that doesn't get a mention is rubbish. Good.

The top group photo shows Angelo in front of a crowd of locals. The bloke on the far left is a Labor counciller and the bloke on the far right is also a Labor councillor - and he was investigated by ICAC in 2010 over some property that his wife owned, but was renovated using Burwood Council staff and resources. I presume everyone else in that photo represents every last Labor party member in the area.

I have to chuckle at the last promise, which is about "fighting overdevelopment". Angelo has been Mayor during the development of the Rhodes peninsular, which is a massively built up residential area. I see nothing wrong with that - it's a good shopping precinct now, a former industrial wasteland now has homes on it for about 10,000 people and it's right on the train line. What the hell is wrong with development? And how do you define "overdevelopment"? Is it like pornography - "I know it when I see it?"

Soot - the carbon behind the melting in Greenland?

What causes melting in Greenland - CO2 or plain old C?

The soot from forest fires in Asia and factories in China might be more to blame than the CO2 produced by you and me.

Running the numbers on wind power

An interesting view on how wind power actually produces more CO2 than gas fired generation - when you take into account the impact of wind on the rest of the power generation system.

[A]s wind rarely produces more than 25% of its faceplate capacity it needs 75% backup - which due to the necessity of fast response times needs OCGT generation (CCGT can respond quickly but the heat-exchanger systems upon which their increased efficiency relies, cannot - so CCGT behaves like OCGT under these circumstances). CCGT produces 0.4 tonnes of CO2 per MWh, OCGT produces 0.6 tonnes. Thus 0.6 tonnes x 75% = 0.45 tonnes. Conclusion: Wind + OCGT backup produces more 0.05 tonnes of CO2 per MWh than continuous CCGT.

I love this comment, although he proceeds to go over the top by invoking Godwin's Law:

the purpose of the windmills is not to save CO2. it's to provide carbon trading/offset receipts for the banks and to support the Euro by a non-national taxation. There is also the political narrative: they are like the Easter Island Statures, a symbol of the power of the ruling elite whilst the workers willingly toil at green jobs.

More on BBC bias

More on the favouritism the BBC shows the Grauniad.

The Guardian takes a number of assumptions for granted: police are racist, businesses are corrupt, Israel is wrong, US Republicans are extreme, the welfare system is ungenerous, immigration is desirable, austerity and growth are antonyms. All newspapers have prejudices, of course: they would be extremely dull if they didn’t. The difference is that the BBC is taxpayer-funded and obliged by its Charter to be neutral.

You could substitute the ABC and Fairfax in there without any issues at all.

How to make a Ford go faster

How do you make a Ford ute go faster?

Put it on a tow truck.

If I get away from work and the weather is nice, I like to extend my ride home sometimes by heading up to the Abbotsford Rowing Club. I'm not heading up there for dinner or a beer - it's just a nice ride up the Abbotsford peninsular, and on the way back, I can treat myself to the occasional gellato from Trovatino. It's worth the extra few kilometres in order to get one of those inside me.

Post gellato, I generally don't take the most direct route home - I meander around the suburbs for a bit, looking at this and that. If you've got time to stop for a gellato, there's no need to go racing home at 100mph. Sometimes I'll head down to the water, and at other times, I'll go "inland".

And that's how I spotted this ute being towed away. Serendipity.

They've all scone - just like that

When I was a young bloke, morning tea ("smoko") was part of the daily pattern of life, and scones were a regular occurrence at morning tea.

(As an aside, I wonder how many shearing sheds now come equipped with fancy coffee makers? Back then, you either brought your own coffee in a thermos, or put up with whatever instant muck was available in the shed. Or you had tea. Have shearers also been infected with the fancy coffee virus?)

I can't remember the last time I had home made scones - probably decades ago. Sure, I've had them in tea rooms from time to time, but never as part of a work break and freshly made on the spot.

I had a go at making them last weekend, using a Delia Smith recipe for buttermilk scones. Of course I had no buttermilk, and used plain old milk instead. They seemed to be a bit dry, but they came out fine. They were gone in about 10 minutes.

I just had to repeat the exercise this weekend. This time, I had buttermilk, but not enough butter. Ah well, they seemed to work when topped up with margarine. I felt that the batter was just a little bit dry, so I put in a teaspoon more buttermilk. The scones rose all right - they pretty much exploded upwards. And then they fell over like a tower constructed by dodgy Pisan builders. I used the smallest cookie cutter that we have - maybe they would have worked better if I'd used the next size up...more base for the height.

And who cares? No one. Once broken in half and smothered with jam and cream, they were scoffed in minutes.

Good BBC doco

If you've got a spare 50 minutes and are interested in the fall of the Ancient Kingdom in Egypt, this is worth a look.

Cyclists and third party insurance

Being election time for local government, it's policy silly season. The Tele ran a story today on the Living Sydney candidate and their policy to force cyclists to take out third party insurance.

I'm not against cyclists having insurance - I buy cyclist specific insurance every year that covers the whole family, and I'll continue to do so as long as we're all cycling regularly. You'd be a bloody nong to ride a lot and not be covered by insurance of some sort. If my experience is any guide, the more miles you do, the greater the chance that you'll be coming off - either through your own fault or someone else's.

I haven't had to make a claim on my insurance yet, even though I've been hit twice by motorists. I sued one bloke, and it cost his insurance company a fair whack to cover my medical bills and time off work. I was a bit tougher when the next bloke hit me - I wasn't damaged badly enough to bother with lawyering up. It still cost me a few grand in lost wages and medical expenses, but I figure it's not worth pursuing if it's less than $5,000.

So I believe whole heartedly in insurance.

However, I don't see how they're going to make cyclists travelling through the city prove that they have it. Unless they are thinking of forcing cyclists to get a number plate, which is just whacko. Do they have the power to force cyclists using public roads to register? I think not - that would be a state government prerogative.

By the way, I had a look at the Living Sydney website in order to have a proper read of their detailed policy on this matter. Click on this link to see their policies - I promise you won't be disappointed.

(Hint - there's nothing there - just a typical management wank diagram - the sort dreamed up in strategic planning sessions).

The libertarian streak in me also says that taking out insurance as a cyclist should be a purely voluntary decision. On the whole, cyclists don't do a lot of damage to other road users. They're usually the ones who  come off worse in a collision. Sure, the odd pedestrian gets knocked down once in a blue moon, but does that mean that hundreds of thousands of cyclists must then be forced to do something because of the actions of a few? I haven't hit a pedestrian yet, but that is due more to my vigilance, situational awareness, reactions and sixth sense for pedestrian stupidity than anything else. One day, The Force is going to fail me, and I am going to clock some idiot really hard - of course they'll be texting and not looking as they run across the road against a red light at the time - but that won't make me feel much better as I impact with the concrete.

Bugger me

It's local government election time soon, so signs are appearing in front yards and election guff is being stuffed into letter boxes.

The first political pamphlet hit the letter box this week. Bugger me if this isn't the most straightforward bit of electioneering for local government that I have ever seen. All these guys want to do is fix our footpaths, give us somewhere to park when we go to the shops and spruce up the local shopping strip (which is a complete dump by the way).

There's no mention of the usual bete noires of local government - saving the whales, the Palestinians, no nukes, federal industrial relations policy and so on. In short, everything that local government has no control over and no responsibility for.

It's nice to see a return to things like the three Rs - roads, rates and rubbish. I can't wait to see what the other mobs are proposing.

Blow me down

Blow me down, if we don't get yet another storm today. Trees down, probably places without power. All the usual stuff that happens when the wind blows hard.

It's days like today that I normally try to split from work a bit early to avoid the worst of it. Of course, Sod's Law had to kick in today. I left early, rode during the worst of it, just about killed myself battling the head winds...and then an hour after I got home, about the time I would normally be leaving.......dead calm. Not even the merest zephyr of a breeze.

I'm so knackered, I'm almost falling asleep standing up.

Scolded by a cop

I had the unusual experience this week of being scolded by a motorcycle cop - whilst we were both in motion. He didn't pull me over - he pulled up alongside, lifted his visor and told me that although I was breaking no laws and had every right to ride where I was, I shouldn't be doing it!

Here's the background.

I was riding through The Rocks, which is a heavily pedestrianised, historical, touristy area. The roads are narrow, twisty and speed limited to 40km/h. Most traffic never gets up to that speed - there are too many speed humps and pedestrian crossings for vehicles to ever get over about 30. Plus there are all the tourist buses crawling along, taxis looking for fares and tourists blundering around in cars (looking for a non-existent parking spot) or on foot (taking photos of the various sights).

The road itself has also been excavated in quite a few spots of late to lay cables and repair pipes, and the crews that do that never fill the trenches in properly, so you've got these canyons running every which way across the tarmac which are hell to ride in or ride across. Where there aren't any tarmac canyons, there are sunken manhole covers and pit hatches.

I upset this particular cop by taking a wide line when I hit one particularly bad stretch of blind corners, tourist bus activity, canyons and manholes. You've got two choices as a cyclist - ride to the left of these hazards, which would mean weaving in and out like a drunken Irishman staggering between pubs (and putting yourself in the door zone), or riding to the right, where you can take an almost dead straight line and are well out of the door zone.

I of course always plump for the safer option, which means I am blocking the lane. Did I mention it's also a double white line area, which means no overtaking?

Since all of this is on a slight downhill slope, I have no problem getting up to 35km/h without any effort. I usually don't go any faster, as I don't want to slam into the road canyons that I can't avoid any faster than that. This cop though wanted to go faster than 35 - he wanted to go 40, and he was mighty annoyed that he couldn't overtake.

Normally, the cops are telling us to slow down and take it easy. To not speed like maniacs. Due to the truckloads of glazed eyed tourists in this area, going 40 is always a risk. Just before he overtook me, I kept well to the right to avoid a gaggle of Asian tourists who were stepping out onto the street from behind a van without looking. Common sense says you just don't ride right up alongside cars when this sort of thing can happen.

Oh, and did I mention that I almost bowled over a cop last week doing just that? There is a police station in the Rocks, and they park their vehicles on the street. A young cop walked around the front of a police van and stepped out in front of me without looking first, and I narrowly avoided an "assault police" charge by swerving hard right. He was about as surprised as me. I've learned my lesson - I stay well away from the cars in this area. To cap it off, tourist buses drive through that spot all the time, and they are too wide for the road. It's not unusual to be approaching one of the blind bends and to find a double decker bus coming at you on the wrong side of the road. It's horrible when there's a car next to you trying to overtake, and they suddenly desperately want to get out of the way of the oncoming bus - except you are next to them. No thanks. I'm not getting squashed that way.

After he told me off, I respectfully replied (using his rank) that there was no way I was going to comply - that it simply isn't safe to ride in the zone he wanted me in. He frowned his cop frown - the frown they get when civilians don't comply with directions - and told me off again. I pointed out that there was a bike lane coming up ahead, and that was a safe zone to ride in. The bit we had just been through had no bike lane, and riding to the left is simply stupid. I noticed he wouldn't ride his motorbike where he expected me to ride my bike.

He then gestured at his speedo and said I was going to slow.

Then he noticed that we were doing nearly 40 - the speed limit - and I was able to hold a sensible conversation with him without breathing hard. He frowned at me once more, hit his right indicator and shot off up a side street. Conversation over.

On the way home yesterday, I passed a different motorcycle cop in almost the same spot where I was told off.

He was ticketing a driver for speeding!