Alpha 680 first Google Android to ARM-wrestle us to a new low-cost netbook platform? #tech #marketing

For a while there things were looking predictable, mature, even lazy. The next model would be smaller, faster, have more style, more color, with a bigger HDD, bigger screen and a smaller price. And it would trendily (and casually) drop legacy features in favour of ubiquitous unwired networking and further convergence with, say, the TV or the dishwasher. Of course the operating system would bulk up as we all headed to a multi-core, 64 bit world of living room and kitchen computing. PC Next would come in 2 tasty flavours: the delicious desktop or the desirable laptop. Yawn.

And then laptops became notebooks before morphing into something else again. Like an organic lifeform reaching some critical neuronal mass and gaining consciousness, the notebook became smaller, less powerful and yet, somehow, infinitely more attractive. The netbook was born and the PC marketplace began to look a bit different.

But the PC marketplace is a fascinating and wonderful thing, and more change is afoot. And this could be the most interesting recent play yet. Rather than a PC player invading the cell phone market, here we suspect it's a new broom, unencumbered with baggage: a low-cost Chinese maker wielding a smartphone's ARM chip, merging it with the Google Android OS and morphing the whole thing into a low-cost netbook. Well we knew it had to happen, and now it's here: the Alpha 680.

So what? Well, whilst it continues to follow the now well-trodden path to PC commoditisation that's seen margins fall and prices drop (less so with closed-shop proprietary boxes like Apple's) it's the first concrete sign that new players from left-field are about to wreak havoc on Intel's and Microsoft's respective cash cows. They have faced competition in the past and largely seen them all off, marginalised and niched into small pockets of loyalty, but this is different. Or is it?

A longtime engineer in the satellite industry, Wu, a 50-year-old Hong Kong native, co-founded Skytone in 2005 with another partner. Contrary to some reports, Skytone is unrelated to a similarly named maker of Skype telephone handsets. The company didn't have a firm direction until an encounter with American retailing giant Wal-Mart in 2006 turned them toward the low-cost PC market. "They were looking for ways to build a $100 PC. We had expertise in porting Linux to embedded systems, and so they found us," Wu said. "At the end of the day, we couldn't meet Wal-Mart's target, but we continued on this path, anyway."

The InfoWorld article gives some fascinating detail on what to expect next, including that vaunted $100 PC... and a taste of what the newly-enthused competition will do next.

Airliner incident blamed on settings punched into laptop - you mean it's manual? #airlines

Hmmm. Got the weight wrong by 100 tonnes. That's a large error. Trying to save fuel they set thrust at just enough for ambient conditions and runway length... or so they thought. I can understand how this happened.. it's easy enough to do some calculations and punch the worgn, umm, wrong keys in the wrong order... but why don't sophisticated airliners actually weigh themselves? They could (easily, I would have thought, with some sensors in the hydraulics) measure weight and the balance of that weight fore and aft on the undercarriage, before committing to a thrust value. In fact I thought they did do that?

The wrong calculation was made when pre-take-off calculations were made prior to departure, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau reported. It was found that the calculations were based on a take-off weight that was 100 tonnes below the actual take-off weight of the aircraft. The result was a thrust setting and take-off reference speeds that were lower than those required for the aircraft's actual weight.

There have been many, many incidents like this where the results were more drastic, including navigational blunders blamed on similar human error. So why isn't it automated, with a human over-ride?

Picky picky picky - I can't help myself (report on lost baggage) #logical reasoning #airlines

I don't know why I was reading an article on lost baggage, but this extract links to a Forbes report on the decreasing rate of lost items on US carriers, and the disproportionate "success" of low-cost airlines in not losing stuff:

The data seems to reveal some good news for travelers: Airlines are mishandling fewer bags than they used to. In 2007, fliers reported between six and eight bag screw-ups per thousand. In 2008, that number fell to 4.88 per thousand. But it may be that the numbers have come down because fewer people are flying in the economic downturn, and travelers are schlepping fewer bags.

What interested me most was the reasoning. Note that we are talking about a rate of loss per thousand passengers, not absolute values, therefore thinking that "the numbers have come down because fewer people are flying in the economic downturn" doesn't make any sense. That quibble aside (a big one, really) the fact that - for various reasons - people are checking fewer baggage items per trip does make a difference. To be fair to the writer, mention is also made that the low-cost carriers have fewer connection points (ie opportunities to lose stuff) and generally discourage check-in baggage anyway, hence better results. You can't lose what you don't have.

I'd still like to read the full report, if only to help grasp what this statement means:

The December data alone show sharp improvement. Though the number of passengers only fell by 2.5 million from 2007 to 2008 (5.3%) the number of baggage reports plummeted 27%.

So this is "December data alone", which sounds like one month, yet the figures quoted "from 2007 to 2008" are for what seems to be a full year? And suddenly we appear to be reading about a percentage decline in absolute values, rather than the previously quoted "per passenger" values. If we are comparing December 2007 with December 2008, as I suspect, then it could indeed be good news for December travellers. Did they check-in fewer items? Did they choose to fly more direct flights? Did they forget to report what they lost? Did airline staff simply try harder for Christmas? 27% is a big fall - almost unbelievably so, even year-on-year.

Not that I really care, I was just sidetracked. Hmmm, I wonder what the lost-item recovery rate per thousand passengers is?

Well I find it interesting: virtualization, Windows 7 and XP mode - quick fix or not? #Microsoft #tech

But then again I find everything interesting. I can even sit and watch grass growing. (It's quite relaxing.)

With Windows 7, it's putting the legacy Win32 API genie back in the bottle -- or more precisely, tucking it inside a custom-integrated virtual machine where it, and its notoriously hard-to-kill XP underpinnings, can coexist peacefully alongside newer, hipper versions of Windows.

If you have chosen to stay with Windoze XP then you'll have an opinion on Vista (and not a good one). And being a pragmatist you'll recognise that at some point you'll want to bite the bullet and install Windows 7 instead (or maybe give it all the flick and go to Linux, or even switch to that overpriced UNIX-derived proprietary product named after a fruit). So knowing what Microsoft is planning is not just interesting but perhaps essential if you want to keep running some legacy apps into the future.

Fairfax 'Drive' redefines 'rational' in context of emotional car purchase #car #language

Obviously this is a new way to define the word rational - in the context of 'improved fuel consumption' for a $Aus155K car this motoring journo states that "in the case of the CaymanS... its emotional appeal remains overwhelming, its improved economy rationally pleasing."

Exactly how a rational person can be pleased about a slightly improved rate of gas guzzling when they have shelled out a small hill of cash is beyond me. OK, it's laudable that they have done something positive about the fuel consumption, but (as the writer noted) this is a self-indulgent, emotional purchase, not a rational one.

Cars that still sell, despite the fear and loathing: Hyundai, Kia, Subaru...Jeep? #cars #marketing

I can't verify this statement for accuracy, but here it is, from Forbes mag: A handful of car models, such as the Jeep Wrangler and the Smart, are maintaining their sales despite the general auto collapse. But the only full-sized companies that are holding their own are Korea's Hyundai and Kia, and Subaru. I think he's looking at the US market, but let's look more widely at why these brands are successful.

First up, the Smart makes sense in these difficult times, although I do wonder which model is holding up best. I suspect it's the tiny, cultish FourTwo. It's both an economical, sensible city car and a niche hit. Just search YouTube for the whacky variations and mods you'll find for that diminutive sub-compact. Because it's a bit - or a lot - different, it stands out in the market - whilst garnering some respect via owner Daimler. And it doesn't hurt that it has green cred attached to it, either. If you drive one of these cars you are definitely making a statement, like it or not. Although it's had a rocky road at times, it's now doing exactly what the brand was created to do. It could be a car for the times.

Of course the Jeep Wrangler is another cult hit in a niche market, albeit a very different one to the Smart. Indeed it's almost exactly the opposite in every aspect, with street cred based on roots going back 65 years or so to the original general purpose vehicle. It thus couples a spared-back historical military style (think 'MASH') with a go-anywhere, thumb-your-nose-at-climate-change sort of "freedom" feel. Again, it makes a clear statement about you and your beliefs, or so we may think. Whilst it may not be the most economical car in the world it has a style and a practicality about it that has led to a self-perpetuating following.

On the other hand Hyundai and (Hyundai-owned) Kia are upstart Korean mass producers of a range of increasingly well-built but clone-like cars with little innovation in style, packaging or performance. Like the Smart brand they were created as a product line, rather than evolving out of the bicycle or horse-driven coachbuilding industries, car racing or from post-world-war reconstruction like many 'traditional' European (and Japanese) brands. As such, being late to the party as it were, they have leveraged the manufacturing lessons (and technical input) of companies like Ford and Mitsubishi and designers like Giugiaro to create a line of carefully targeted, inoffensively-styled lower-cost cars. They have also got a sizable local market to fall back on (something the Aussie car makers can only dream of). Whilst they lack the street cred of more traditional brands, their lower unit cost of production has meant that they can sell harder to gain market share, at times burdening each individual vehicle sale with thousands of dollars worth of advertising. To the company's credit they have continually reinvested in quality, style and dynamics, largely closing the gap on the class leaders whilst maintaining their cost advantage. So they have achieved market visibility, acceptance and a lower price point against their competitors. No wonder they are holding their own - surely they are now 'stealing' market share from Toyota, GM and the like.

Which brings me to Subaru, famously the 'ugly duckling' of Japan's auto industry. Subaru does have a legacy (US-market pun intended!) to draw upon, having evolved out of Fuji Heavy Industry's history of aircraft and motor scooter production. In many ways the company has paralleled the traditional car makers with their deep technological and evolutionary roots whilst keeping themselves firmly rooted in the "but strangely different" category. They have also indulged in some 'cred-creation' via motor sports, especially rallying. However their main claim to differentiation has been their strangely awkward approach to exterior car design and their dogged determination to hang on to horizontally-opposed 'boxer' style engines. Coupled with the more recent leveraging of their rallying heritage via a marketing-lead commitment to all-wheel-drive, Subaru has ended up making a name for themselves across a range of seemingly opposing niches. For example their WRX model achieved notoriety both as a world-class rally winner and the car of choice for Australian bank robbers; whilst their Outback model leveraged quirky styling, solid reliability and a bit of Aussie bushbashing charm. (Australia being both a key test market and the source of Paul Hogan, an advertising hit for Subaru in the US.) And as the Forbes article states, it helps sales in snowy or slippery climes if you offer traction built-in. In all, a strange brew.

There is a common theme to all of these brands. Firstly, none are the market leaders, although each may have a model in the top 3 in a segment, somewhere - so they are the underdogs in a way. (People like underdogs, generally, as long as they deliver.) Secondly, they successfully occupy - perhaps dominate - one or more sizable niches. But can they maintain these positions during challenging times? Indeed it will be interesting to see how the car market evolves over the coming months and years, given the spectacular changes afoot. This is a time of financial drama coupled with a game-changing conversion to alternative fuels. Whilst we may get another 50 years out of petrol, we will see increasing opportunities for new players to come in and undermine both the current oil-based fuel refiners and the current vehicle manufacturers. Hybrids and electric cars are just the start. Deep pockets will be needed to fund this shift.

Likely as not we will see struggling companies like Ford, Chrysler and GM partly consumed by - or partnered with - competitors like FIAT, Toyota and VW. And we will doubtless see the rise of Indian and Chinese manufacturers, playing a similar game as the Korean makers have done, leveraging huge local markets first before staking global claims. Whilst the big fish like VW and Toyota will probably maintain their overall positions, the niche players will be joined by companies on the way down, looking to hang on - somewhere, anywhere - and newcomers on the way up. Will trendy quirkiness be enough for Subaru and Smart? Will the up-to-now agile and lower-cost Korean makers cement their current Top 5 position and move up, or will upstarts like India's Tata consume the ground underneath their metaphorical feet?

Miranda Devine argues that one opinion beats 5 on Climate Change #environment

Well that's a simplification, but you'll see what I mean in a second. Miranda is a well-known right-leaning columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, in case you want context. She quite reasonably (in a democratic freedom-of-speech kind of way) states an opposing view to that of the reportedly vast majority of climatologists, i.e. that there is no believable evidence of humankind's involvement in the current experience of climate change. But she does it in such an unreasoning way that it's funny. Well I think she's funny - often the funniest read in the whole paper. (I'm sure she doesn't actually believe what she writes, either - and neither does this commenter (via Deltoid's blog): I used to get annoyed reading M. Devine's drivel until somebody told me that they had been told by MD herself that she doesn't really believe what she writes, she only writes to be provocative. Nowadays, it's impossible for me to take her seriously. Bravo and cheers to that.)

Anyway, getting back to last Saturday (yes, I know, I'm slow off the mark again) she rambled on a bit like this: The global warming scare campaign is reaching fever pitch. We have had one eminent Australian scientist claim this week to the senate inquiry on climate policy that global warming has already killed people in Australia.

Well there's a dramatic start, eh? This opinion piece makes it obvious that she doesn't believe it (even if she really does), but it seems obvious enough to me that if there is climate change (an assumption based on copious evidence), and things are hotting up and drying out, that people who are exposed to that increased heat and dryness will also be exposed to ever-mounting heat stress, worsening drought, increased risk of bushfire severity, frequency and longevity and so on. It seems pretty obvious to me that - sadly - some people will have died 'from climate change' already. Now you can argue the toss over it, endlessly, as we can't run some sort of parallel, controlled experiment with another identical Earth and see what would have happened without humankind's atmospheric interference. Sometimes you just have to go with a probability. (I can almost hear the shrill cries, 'but that's not science!' For goodness sake sit down and read on.)

Anyway, she gets better. "It seems that when it comes to convincing the Government to take drastic, jobs-killing, economy-crushing and ultimately futile unilateral action on climate change, the ends justify the means." Well that's an emotionally-charged overstatement of the situation, as what the Rudd government has proposed is no more economy-crushing that introducing, say, a 10% GST on the basis of an ideological whim. (Oh sorry, that was labelled "tax reform". Much, much more important than cutting back on carbon emissions.) Indeed if we do have a choice between frying the planet or not, I'd vote to take a bit of pain for a significant (probable) gain.

Miranda of course "believes" it's all futile, so why waste our time, money and effort? She says that "since Australia accounts for just 1.4 per cent of global emissions, even if we shut down all industry and move into caves, how would any theoretical effect on climate be more than negligible?" Well there's a 1.4% improvement right away, if we took Miranda's sage advice. Now you could view it as a start, or as an indication of global commitment (albeit a ludicrous commitment at that - I'm not moving into a cave anytime soon). Or you could just say that 1.4% is too small to worry about and just give up. It's a glass half full vs glass half empty sort of thing, isn't it?

That aside, Ms Devine doesn't quite understand what pollution is, so I will attempt to help her out (not that she doesn't actually know this already). She states that the whole debate is over "so-called 'carbon pollution'". Well it's broader than that as it's really about greenhouse gas emissions (first point worth making) and these emissions are called 'pollution' because we (ie humankind) are deliberately exhausting these gases into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled and up to recently unmonitored way. Nature hasn't decided to do this, we have. Be it oil, coal or whatever, point is that we are choosing to burn the stuff in vast quantities and simply allowing the exhaust to vent, no questions asked. Now we may not be able to see it, but I think we all can agree it's being added to the atmosphere, and dissolving into our oceans. Even if we don't believe it's a problem, it's still pollution. As it happens plenty of people actually believe that it is causing a problem, and others simply believe that it's a waste of resources and a potential risk into the future. So hey, why not slow down or even plan to stop this pollution? Seems reasonable risk management to me.

Of course it's not just this so-called "carbon pollution" that's thought to be causing our climate change problem, it's land-clearing as well. Thought I'd mention that.

I'm getting to the point now. Miranda has discovered a geologist with an opinion that she likes: University of Adelaide geologist, Dr Ian Plimer, writes in his new book, Heaven And Earth, Global Warming: The Missing Science, scientists are usually "anarchic, bow to no authority and construct conclusions based on evidence … Science is not dogmatic and the science of any phenomenon is never settled." Well yeah, evidence.. tick. Prepared to keep reviewing the data.. check. I think we are all on the same page (although I sense that Miranda and Ian Plimer may disagree). Attempting to stir up controversy in effort to publicise book... check. Ooops, sorry.

Note that we have a respected geologist here, not a climatologist. So it's someone who understands that the Earth's processes work over a very, very long period of time. Not just 10 years, or even a hundred. To quote: "From the geologist's perspective he says our climate has always changed in cycles, affected by such variables as the orbit of the planet and our distance from the sun, which itself produces variable amounts of radiation." Well, yes, I think we have copied that already and dealt with it. But there's more: "One of the lessons of 500 million years of history, he says, is that there is no relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature." Here we go, focusing on carbon dioxide again (admittedly it is the main player, and we do have some pre-exisiting dispute over the issue). Indeed it's not as simple as emitting a gas and finding it simply stays there.. in fact it gets absorbed by plants, takes part in various chemical reactions and gets dissolved in the oceans - another unfortunate side-effect of this man-made pollution of the planet. There's even a notable lag between historical emissions and temperature change, such that it looks like temperature is the driver of change, rather than carbon dioxide. But the explanations are sound and well aired: in short the issue has been addressed and rebutted many times. There is nothing new here, so why pretend that it's somehow a revelation?

Ah yes, selling newspapers and books. (To be fair, Plimer may add some revelation to the discussion, but Devine has opted not to disclose it. Secret knowledge.)

More interestingly, Plimer, as a geologist familiar with long cycles of slow geological change, reportedly makes a stunningly naive comment: "Governments are planning to structurally change their nations' economies where most people will suffer from increased taxes and costs … based on the opinion of the fabulous five whose computer models have not been able to accurately predict the cooling that has occurred since 1998". Whoa, I thought we were talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years? Now, suddenly, just 10 or so years matters! This is a geologist talking?

The rest of the article reads like a very biased book review by a worshipping fan, although it's also worth noting that a point is made that the "crucial section 5" of the IPCC report is "based on the opinions of just five independent scientists".. Well maybe so, but it's been reviewed and signed off by many, many more. In any case, should we discard the opinion of these 5 independent scientists on the basis of the opinion of just one (admittedly heroic) geologist?

Phew, I finally got to the point. Independence. And without even hinting that a geologist - not any particular geologist, mind, but any geologist speaking out on climate change in particular - needs to clearly enunciate any vested or conflicting interests they may have in regard to work done for, say, mining companies, or in relation to any interest in ongoing mining exploration. (It seems likely that geologists may have a genuine interest in continuing the status quo, and that should be made clear.) Not that it need inhibit them from stating their case and advancing an opinion, but we all look at things through the filters of our lives and it helps to keep an open mind on such things. Like Miranda does.

Why just blame 200kmh+ "hoons" for speeding? #cars #language #society

The old-world media love to beat this stuff up:

Last year three of the highest speeds recorded on Queensland roads occurred on the M1, including two at Stapylton of 243km/h and 237km/h and one at Helensvale, of 235km/h.

Let me guess, they were probably young males in one of (a) turbocharged grey market Nissan Skylines; (b) another brand of after-market hotted up Japanese car or (c) high-end US-style V8 sedans (what some of us imagine to be "Aussie" cars, simply because we build or assemble some part of them here). But they could just have easily have been white-shoed cardigan wearers in their Maseratis, Ferraris or Astons. Except they aren't as news-worthy, unless of course they are a "celebrity" or a politician responsible for road safety.

Of course it goes without saying that the police are "exasperated". And naturally it's downplayed as just lucky that there have been "no fatal crashes on the motorway so far this year.

We can all draw the pictures in our minds, of these criminally insane law-breakers tearing around at stupidly excessive speed, but truth be told every motorist exceeds the posted speed limit at some point in their driving lives. Perhaps not by these speeds, but certainly by non-trivial amounts. Perhaps you choose to do it, I don't know. But whereas here in this article we are looking at just 3 incidences of clearly deliberate and excessive speeding on one motorway, the majority of otherwise law-abiding "speeders" are equally deliberately going 10, 20 or 30 kilometres an hour over the limit, usually on potholed suburban streets littered with intersections, driveways, cyclists and pedestrians to boot. Now whilst we can easily say that "if they crash (at these extreme speeds), they'll likely die - police" we can also quite justifiably say that far more people are taking equally life-threatening risks on a daily basis. Sometimes they do it deliberately, sometimes by carelessness or ignorance. But tell me, why focus on the extreme "hoons" when the greater risk is all around us?

Why indeed do we make, sell or modify road-registerable cars that can easily double the speed limit? And why do we spend so much money replacing narrow, curvy roads with straighter, safer and faster multi-lane motorways? If we seriously wanted to reduce speeding we'd govern cars and restrict traffic flow (ok, we do that now - they are called traffic jams). Fact is, humans like to get places faster, not slower, and they enjoy some degree of personal risk-taking; indeed some of our community simply enjoy living closer to the edge.

None of which is particularly helpful in reducing death or injury on our roads, or saving us from our wasteful, unsustainable selves. But it does give us something to read in the press.

When good ideas go bad...free public transport? Imagine the chaos! #transport

Here we go, another speculative old-media story that will test run another half-baked idea.

In short, it's a good idea that surely would get plenty more people off the roads and into trains, buses and ferries (but presumably not onto Sydney's private light rail, which would have to be compensated). And it's also a bad idea that would suddenly flood an already strained system with more frustrated commuters... imagine the queues, the packed trains and buses... potentially driving many of these new public transport users back into their cars. If you think the public (and the old media) complain about the lack of on-time running now, imagine what will happen with thousands of extra 'customers'!

Every trip will take longer as these extra travellers get on an off, so timetables will go out the window. (OTOH buses will have less overall traffic congestion to deal with, so that will compensate to some degree.) The current so-called 'peak hour' won't double, but it will extend by perhaps 30% or so. People with a disability will find it harder to get on and off at these times, and perhaps the aged, kids and pregnant women will be deterred, too. Perhaps some public transport will become more of a shuttle service to cope, but with many services converging on the CBD and a limited range of terminals that just won't work... it will clog up, logjam, and shut down.

Here's the story that got me onto this topic: PREMIER Nathan Rees is being urged from within his own government to make public transport free for everybody as part of a radical bid to win the next election.

As the article says, fares don't cover the cost of public transport - they simply add to the pricing mechanism (which includes the queue and the uncomfortable seats) and assist with matching demand with a limited supply. If you take away the cost of a ticket many more people will jump onto the system and - unless someone waves a magic wand to up the capacity - break it. The deterrant to use - and perhaps over-use - will be extended queuing or the next (uncomfortably packed) bus or train.

The cost of running the system will also rise - even without adding any new services, the extra loadings will cause additional regular maintenance and add more wear and tear to roads and track. So the real cost to the community will not be just fares foregone but the extra maintenance plus more frequent replacement of components and complete vehicles/rolling stock; and probably extra labour to deal both with the extended queues and the safety requirements of packed station platforms. And so on. It won't be cheap.

On the other hand, whilst not everyone can use public transport - sometimes it just doesn't go where you want to go - it will remove lost of private vehicles from the roads. And that can't be a bad thing. Some savings will also be made by removing ticket sellers and inspectors, plus the back-end systems that must manage and account for the cash (won't the unions love that). But they will be re-assigned to other work. Perhaps.

If we are to offer free - or even much cheaper - public transport then we need to plan and do this properly. We need to build a system that can cope with the extra users. Which has been the sticking point for the last decade at least. Exactly how do you make these sorts of massive investments in, for example, new trainlines, when you are under pressure to "fix" hospitals and education and all the rest? Successive state treasurers have been unable to do it. What will it take?

Of course we could just trim the fares gradually whilst we phase in new infrastructure. And won't the media love that - another bright new shiny public transport plan doomed for the dustbin as we realise just how expensive that new trainset will be.

Technology and uptake is not just about the young #demographics

It really should be put to rest, this idea that the younger you are the more adaptable, motivated and interested you are in today's technology. It's assumed that new tech uptake is aligned (magically) with your label: ie Baby boomers vs Gen X or Y or even Next; when these are really just vaguely useful pop culture demographic labels with little or no correlation with anything, other than age and raw number.

Take this for example: Radwanick concluded that current assumptions about who might use a technology first might need to be reconsidered. “Not only teenagers and college students can be counted among the technologically inclined,” she said. “With those age 25 and older representing a much bigger segment of the population than the under 25 crowd, it might help explain why Twitter has expanded its reach so broadly so quickly over the past few months.”

Rather than assume that the young will drive new tech uptake, look instead at the real drivers (and/or impediments to uptake) like access, need, wealth, depth of responsibilities and available time. These things can occur at almost any age, and to varying degrees - but we can generalise a bit about who typically has a need for a short-message, quick contact microblogging service; who has the time, or lack of time to use it; and who has the connectivity and hardware platforms to make it happen. And who's mature enough to appreciate it, too.

Quick and dirty assumptions don't always stack up.

I can't believe I'm testing another aggregator... Posterous, anyone?

Here we go again... another post-once, post-to-many service. At first
glance it's slick, but without the finer control of some:
http://posterous.com/

Posted via email from gtveloce's posterous

Stating the obvious (again) - Qantas in trouble #airlines

Having just recovered from the amazing revelation that 'coal mines may close', now I'm reading this gem:

Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation director Peter Harbison said that a currently unprofitable Qantas faces being gutted and reconstructed around a more profitable Jetstar model.

Well the language is tabloid-style, where any restructure is labelled as 'gutted and reconstructed', but the point is made that seeking bigger margins via lower costs will mean a mix of sharper scheduling, more layoffs, increased outsourcing, fleet sales and further creative reorganisation. Of course the Jetstar model is not the only one, just the most likely - given that it's one that appears to work. However Qantas may seek to retain some premium services, at premium prices, with a tightly targeted approach, and it may contract its network of routes. It could also re-engage in merger or 'partnering' talks with other airlines in the hope that size will help.

So where's the surprise in all of this? Hasn't Qantas already telegraphed many of these changes? Given the current global economic situation, drastically falling seat sales and the looming impact of carbon emission schemes, which will surely force fuel costs back up, what else could they reasonably do? Even a return to economic 'good times' will only mean rising fuel prices - and restructuring. So they may as well get it over and done with... and bear the pain.

Carbon scheme may close some coal mines... isn't that the idea? #climate

We have a carbon pollution addiction and it will hurt to get off it. Whether we use a carbon tax or the planned cap-and-trade emissions reduction scheme doesn't really matter - the gross polluters will have to stump up extra cost in order to continue. That will encourage the shift of investment from coal and oil to more sustainable, less polluting forms of energy production. If we don't do that then we'll simply continue to pollute.

We know this adjustment will hurt. In the short to medium term jobs will be lost in one area, as new jobs are created in another sector (eg solar panel production). There will be a painful lag as we adjust, and some individuals will suffer more than others.

And we know people will defend their indefensible positions with leaks to the press:

A CONFIDENTIAL industry briefing to Federal MPs warned at least two NSW coal mines would close under planned climate change laws. Mining giant Xstrata Australia's chairman Peter Coates said the Emissions Trading Scheme would make some mines unprofitable and cut new investment.

At some point we have to decide what we want - a cleaner, more sustainable economy or something else again.

The twisted language of the motor-journo: safety is optional #car #language

I've just about done this to death, but here's another example of language twisted to suit a purpose. In this example a "journalist" has decided that "safety" is a bolt-on thing, an option; a box that when ticked, renders you "safe":

Sadly, though, safety is still an option on the most basic Mazda3.

Now no-one believes that, surely, but then again... words have power. Standard car - unsafe. With fresh bright new safety options fitted, safe. What a magical world we live in.

What the journo means is that additional passive safety features that may prove usefully protective in a range of crash situations are an optional extra, at additional cost. In the journo's view it should not be by choice, rather we should be compelled to have the maximum array of explosive air bags around us at all times. Heaven help bike riders, then. They just lose skin.

Now I do agree cars should be rendered as 'safe' as possible, including by the wearing of helmets and multi-point harnesses. But that's (sadly) not an option - and is often illegal (don't ask why). Cars should also be agile, smaller, and less powerful; and I also think that we (as drivers) should remain focused, aware and law-abiding on the roads, but that's apparently less useful than a set of explosive devices.

I'll do my best to avoid writing about this for a while.

Bigger heavier cars are safer - part 2 #cars #safety

The media loves to digest press releases and spit them back at us, with varying levels of additional balancing research added to counter the spin that the originator intended. Yesterday was the NYT, today it's Forbes mag: "So all things being equal, if you're concerned about safety, you want a bigger, heavier car." Well, that's the insurance organisation's spin on it, anyway.

And of course it's correct - the bigger the crush zone, the less force we experience in a prang. But it's not the only way to be "concerned about safety". For example we could simply drive smarter, take fewer risks and obey the road rules more religiously. Sure, accidents happen, but force being mass times acceleration means we could lop off some of that mass, which ironically could mean a smaller car, or ease off on acceleration. But the car industry thrives on acceleration - and emotion. The rational rarely gets a look in when it comes to cars, because "faster" and "more powerful" is portrayed as better. When we couple that with passive safety equipment and a host of gadgets to distract us we get fatter, heavier, bigger and more wasteful cars. And then one person will drive that 5-seater car to work. It's not rational.

Historically, we made some sort of decision in the 1970s to ditch some proportion of fuel economy in favour of cleaner air, and that indeed made some sense, at least if you don't consider driving less a valid option. We also dumped weight reduction for passive safety devices like airbags, which also made sense, at least if we don't consider helmets and harnesses acceptable alternatives. But life isn't black and white and our choices - or those made for us - have shaped the cars and the carbon pollution we face today. The net result of safety and clean air regulations has been heavier cars with poorer fuel consumption, with bigger, more powerful engines to make up for the extra flab. And more carbon released at every step, from manufacture to the actual driving. Were these the right choices, in the right proportions? Well who knows?

Just to illustrate what we have concocted with these legislated changes, I have a 1982 Alfa Romeo GTV coupe in the garage that weighs 1100kg and is propelled by a twin cam, carburetted 2litre four cylinder motor. That engine (in local Aussie spec) provides 175Nm of torque and 90kW of power (or 12.2 kg per W). For some odd reason we thought such specs not only sufficient but also quite sporty back in 1982. It was also quite expensive, relatively, which helped keep that sort of power out of inexperienced hands. Whereas today with cheap gas and cheaper cars we can get Subaru Impreza Turbo 4WD machines of 195kW/343Nm for much less money. And they weigh a mammoth 1425kg. Despite the weight gain (which has seen the WRX grow from a more reasonable 1200kg when released in the early '90s) we have here a car with a power to weight ratio of just 7.5kg per W. So it's waaaaay faster than a 1980's 4 cylinder Alfa, or a 6 cylinder one for that matter! We could call that progress.

The Alfa was about $15,000 (Aussie dollars) new, which is roughly equivalent to $43k today. The much more potent (but arguably safer and cleaner, if you want to justify these things) WRX is just $39,990 RRP. It could be considered safer, in the passive sense that the forces of any collision will be dispersed away from the humans on board; and it has improved active mechanical and electronic aids to assist in avoiding an accident in the first place. In theory, at least. Balanced against that is the extra weight, meaning more force to disperse, and extra power, meaning both increased acceleration (and thus force) and a greater potential for accessing the additional force. Now that sounds like a lot of fun, but is it safer?

The WRX example is played out in the sedan car market, too. Heavier, faster, more powerful - and bigger - cars - for less money, all wrapped in a purported "safety" blanket. To me it seems a contradiction of terms to have 'heavier, faster and more powerful' yet 'safer' cars, but you can make a case for anything if you want to sell cars, can't you?

And of course it's all about freedom of choice, isn't it?

If small cars are unsafe - what about bicycles? #cars #safety

An insurance "institute" crashes big cars into small ones and declares: ...that while driving smaller and lighter cars saves fuel, “downsizing and down-weighting is also associated with an increase in deaths on the highway”. Yet they don't actually nominate how many extra deaths will result, presumably because the crash scenarios are quite rare and the increase statistically difficult to pin down. Or maybe they are just scared to say.

Perhaps they also realise that big cars use more resources to start with - in manufacture alone - and that combined with their fat-car petrol consumption they will drive us to our destruction anyway. Dead is dead, no matter how we get there.

Now everyone has an axe to grind, and it's hard to know the truth. You could be forgiven for thinking that an insurance-funded body may actually want to see fewer crashes, and lesser-value claims. However the insurance companies may also just want to instil some fear and trepidation, in hope of raising premiums on smaller cars. Who can tell? In this instance they nominate small cars as the "compromise", suggesting that people are trading some measure of "safety" for better fuel consumption. Perhaps they should have turned it around and suggested that people who buy larger, thirstier cars are compromising the safety of smaller vehicles and their passengers? So why are small cars seen as the compromise?

Ahh, fact is, there is no absolute "truth". There are no guarantees, nothing is truly "safe" and all is relative. If a big car hits a truck, they are in the same position as the small car. And if a small car hits a bike rider, well you can see where that will lead. So should we ban bikes and small cars and run out of gas a whole lot quicker? I don't think so.

So if we accept that they are disadvantaged in size, why not propose a new deal for small cars? Or for bike riders, for that matter? Currently we only get the vehicle safety features we are offered - crumple zones and amazing exploding bags - rather than the roll cages, helmets and harnesses that would make cars truly safer. Indeed, car manufacturers compromise our safety by offering only complex, heavy and sub-optimal passive safety devices that are least likely to reduce car sales. And we are complicit in this by accepting these compromised solutions. Most likely because we don't want to have helmet hair after a drive to the shops. But in many places (including Australia) bike riders are compelled to wear helmets. It could be time to even up the score.

Should we bother to save GM and brands like Holden and SAAB? #cars #meltdown

What will it take to save these giant auto-manufacturing dinosaurs, and should we bother?

GM, like Ford, has been on the brink for years, selling off assets to stave off the inevitable. Bad bets on dumb cars made in the face of rising fuel and resource prices have only compounded the problem - and now the financial crisis is hitting hard, forcing GM to consider bankruptcy and break-up. If the US government stumps up enough cash, it can be saved - but why? As an unemployment relief scheme, or as a going concern? Can it be a going concern again? Will saving it only preserve the bad investments and poor management that got it where it is today?

It's worthwhile to look at the overall industry. It's past mature, it's commoditizing. Relatively fresh, new brands from Asia are pumping out cheap cars that match - perhaps even better - what the old guard has been offering. These new brands are agile, and they are better prepared to adapt to new fuels and new ways. But these are game-changing times and competive threats will come from unexpected places as new players, armed with new ideas, attempt to leverage the chaos.

This is not a new problem and hardly a surprise. Manufacturing has largely shifted out of the developed world, and services dominate those economies. Big auto companies do represent prestige as well as jobs, though, and nations are reluctant to let them go. Politicians, in defence of subsidies for these doddering corporations often rely on a combination of prestige and the old-world thought of preserving these 'seeds' from which a war machine could be built. 'If we let go of this capability we may not be able to defend ourselves', goes the argument. However we need more than just heavy manufacturing to 'defend ourselves' these days. It's an argument that needs to be answered carefully, but the thought strikes immediately that we probably need diplomacy, trade and strong, positive relations with other nations as much - or more - than we need an auto industry. If you really believe that an auto industry is an essential building block that can't be lost, then you'd have to believe that of all industries - from clothing to agriculture, from electronics to aircraft manufacture - and seek to preserve all of them. But of course we don't, do we? In the end we are pragmatic, and seek to trade with other nations that are better suited to making these things. And instead turn to our own strengths.

Now GM is really a cluster of brands, rather than a brand of its own - which works to the good in a break up. It's not hard to imagine a fire-sale where the best bits are taken over by competitors. Whilst that may happen with Vauxhall and SAAB, less attractive is the Aussie GM brand, Holden. It's outdated, reliant upon subsidies and a long way from other markets. It could possibly be shrunk down to focus on some key competency, if you could determine which competency that may be. As I established some time ago, it's way off the mark in terms of competively manufacturing cars, even the "big Aussie cars" it claims as its heritage:

I have to tell you I was somewhat surprised at the estimated factory cost of the Alfa Brera. It must be wrong, surely? Somewhere my assumptions have gone awry, because seemingly the prestige European sports luxury car has a lower base cost per vehicle than the locally built sedan. But then I wondered if the still-somewhat protected nature of the small Aussie car manufacturing industry may have distorted the real cost of manufacture.

I'm not the only one to crunch the numbers, either: "The Australian government can throw $6 billion or $600 billion at these car plants, but they still won't be economically feasible," he said.

So if Holden goes on the market, who will buy it? The obvious choices will be the extant manufacturers in Australia, namely Ford or Toyota. Ford has its own problems of course, but buying out its traditional foe would surely be tempting, if only to close it down. After all, we don't need - and probably can't afford - 3 manufacturers in Australia. But Toyota is a more logical choice. But why should either bother? If no buyer can be found and Holden closes, the problem is solved. If anything's to be bought here at a decent price it will be brand name itself.

Which leads to a more efficient local industry - 2 manufacturers plus importers. Jobs will still be shed and many tears as well - the Holden name will not rest easily on the shoulders of either Toyota or Ford, after all. But will that be enough to prompt the Rudd federal government to dive in and "save" the company? For the sake of the nation let's hope not. Instead let's seize the day, support the workers in more practical ways and take action that improves the efficiency and sustainability of the industry. Before its all too late.

When not ranting (or working) I'm mashing images... #photoshop

PS_Mashup_3d
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Maybe not very sucessfully, but it's what I like to do.

Chasing a niche market even if it kills us: BMW's M-series 4WDs

I think even Porsche realised that releasing ever-less-logical and humungous 4WDs was eroding the traditional brand values... or at least dampening sports car sales. Which is to say that 911 owners in general were put off by fat trucks with Porsche badges. It's brand dilution, spreading a good thing too far. Perhaps it works overall, by creating a better model spread and lowering the risk profile. Perhaps it gets people in the door and welds them to the brand. Perhaps there are existing owners who hanker after something nice to tow the boat. Maybe. Whatever Porsche may be thinking, and hopefully they are thinking of downsizing, BMW are still at it - diluting the brand.

Check this out: a potent truck, large beyond belief, chasing an ever-smaller niche:

BMW’s renowned M division has finally succumbed to 10 years of temptation by creating its first high-performance versions of the company’s luxury
off-roaders.

By gosh it's quick for a fat truck:

Both the X5 M and X6 M are propelled by the same twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre V8 with 408kW of power and 680Nm of torque – the most powerful BMW production engine currently available. That’s enough poke for the 4WDs to sprint from 0-100km/h in a claimed 4.7 seconds – a tenth quicker than the current segment benchmark for acceleration, the 404kW twin-turbo V8 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.

But why do it? Is the world crying out for this?

It's meant to be a "hero" car, one that creates a halo effect around the brand. But to me it's taking an unnecessarily large car with rarely-used 4WD abilities and making it go faster, whilst drinking more fuel of course. Maybe it will make them more money but it surely won't be making them any friends with the green set, or even the average guy who just wants a planet to live on into the future.

If you want an uninformed opinion on broadband, ask a stockbroker

You can say what you want about Chairman Rudd's National Broadband Network, but this statement surely takes the cake: "I've got no idea what's driving the Government to do this," Ivor Ries, an analyst with EL and C Baillieu Stockbroking, says. Hmm, not reading the papers lately, Ivor? Can't even make a decent guess at it?

Mr Ries goes on (somewhat tediously) to speculate that"what it will do is create a market for people selling downloads to homes - people selling movies for downloads to homes will obviously be big winners from this. "But is it going to provide some sort of magic shot in the arm to productivity? Probably not.".

We may as well have stuck with dial-up modems then, eh? All it's really good for is movie downloads. So much for companies with a need to move drawings or artwork around between offices or to staff who work from home. So much for teleworkers who may appreciate the extra speed of file transfer and multi-user VoIP teleconferences; or educators in remote schools who want to tap into virtual classroom material; or hospital staff who may want to send diagnostic images quickly (or at all) to services in capital cities, or to get second opinions from specialists 'over the wire'.

Bravo Rudd and Co.. Nice solution to what was looking like a sub-optimal solution. Instead we make friends with Telstra again, if only just to avoid litigation, potentially get a big, new competitive telecoms landscape and please the small operators as well. Let's hope it all comes to pass quickly with no further hiccups.

'Undersized' car boom in Germany? We can only hope #autos #language

Apparently there's a bonus on offer in Germany to junk your old car and update to a new one - and it's favouring small cars over larger ones. (We can only hope this is a continuing downsizing trend, not a flash in the pan. German cars may be well engineered but tend to the porky rather than trim side).

Interesting use of the language here: A sharp fall in demand from overseas is compounding premium carmakers' problem as makers of undersized vehicles rejoice.. Apparently small cars are 'undersized', rather than right-sized or appropriate. Does that mean that large cars are by definition over-sized?

EVs 'no better than current polluters' yet 'far better' - confused? #environment

The journos - if that's what they are - at Fairfax's Drive.com continue to pollute the Internet with their confusion. The headline reads Plug-in cars no better for the environment and they go on to explain that in Victoria, where 85 per cent of electricity comes from power stations burning more highly polluting brown coal, the figures show an electric vehicle will produce the equivalent of about 130 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometre - about the same as small-engined petrol hatchback. No problem, except that they then completely and utterly expose their own headline as misleading.

How do they do this? By turning the story on its head: But recharge the same electric car in Tasmania, where almost all the electricity is generated using more environmentally friendly hydroelectric power plants, and the equivalent carbon dioxide output falls to about 13 grams. This is far better than any car on our roads today - including petrol-electric hybrids - and lower even than the next wave of ultra-efficient vehicles slated for Australia.

Bizarre. Why write a headline like that - except to get people to read it I guess. And of course its all true - if utterly self-evident. Of course hydro-power is going to be cleaner than brown - or even black coal. Same with wind or solar powered grids. It's a no-brainer. Or is it?

They could have engaged their brains further and mentioned that hydro-power floods an entire valley, wiping out (in Tasmania's case) substantial forest ecosystems and replacing it with cold, 'dead' water. Apart from the environmental vandalism, there has to be a carbon cost to building a dam in the first place. Now it could be that hydro in the right place makes great sense, but we need to do a comparison with the carbon cost of building an equivalent scale of solar cell or wind farms, or building tidal generators. Such a comparison would include actual carbon emitted in construction and maintenance, the expected replacement life-cycle (ie when do we need to build another one?) and the extra cost of building the connection to the grid (which could be a very long wire indeed). And then do a comparo with current black and brown coal (or even nuclear power) power plants.

Until we do that analysis we are just making stuff up and generating misleading statements.

Is it still April 1? Keith Richards and the Shepherd's pie incident #music

I almost believe it, and I want to believe it: Former Stereophonics drummer Stuart Cable - who supported The Rolling Stones on a European tour - was amazed when the band's frontman Sir Mick Jagger warned him he was in trouble for helping himself to a portion of the mashed potato-topped treat before Keith had eaten.

I mean it sounds believable in that I'll believe anything about the Stones kinda way: "He said, 'Do you know the rules? You never, ever, take the shepherd's pie unless Keith's broken the crust first.' He twirled on his heels and said jokingly, 'Enjoy the show, boys. If there will be a show. I'm not sure if he'll go on after this.' At least I thought it was a joke."

The show went on but the punchline is: He added: "Later that night we were invited to play pool with them. Suddenly Keith stopped the game in mid-stroke. The lines on his face were more prominent than normal. Then he potted the yellow, placed his cue down and wandered over to me, a joint dangling on the edge of his lips. 'You ate my shepherd's pie, didn't you?' he whispered."

Subaru says Stella "clean" but Drive.com says it's a "dirty" EV #environment

Who do we believe?

My confusion is all about the Subaru Stella EV. Apparently Subaru (in a press release) says: Based on power supplied from a coal-fired power station, STELLA produces an estimated 12.5 kilograms (kg) of Carbondioxide (CO2) per 100 kilometres of travel, compared to 20.24 kg of CO2 for a typical 2.0 litre small car.

So it's cleaner, no risk.

But Fairfax via its Drive.com site says the opposite (seemingly): Recent research has shown that electric cars don’t necessarily reduce the carbon footprint. Subaru recently said its electric Stella would account for 20 per cent more carbon dioxide emissions if recharged from a coal-fired power station.

Did Subaru say that? I didn't see that. But wait...

If we pull that apart a bit... Subaru compared the Stella, a small - in fact quite small, if heavy at 1,000kg - car, with a much larger "typical" 2.0l car. I assume they mean larger, because Subaru's 2.0l cars are "typically" Imprezas and the like... so it's not apples vs apples, is it? If we compared tiny Stella with a micro car with a 660cc engine we'd probably see around 10kg of CO2 per 100km, which is indeed somewhat less than the Stella and backs Drive.com up. You'd probably pick the petrol car over the EV for environmental reasons.

I do wonder though if Drive.com actually thought it through. It's not actually what Subaru said, although it's what we can derive from their statement. They are being a bit narky here, to use the Aussie idiom. Indeed Drive.com had a go at Subaru when it earlier reviewed the Stella, here: One thing the Stella not completely free of, though, is guilt. Despite no greenhouse emissions coming from its electric engine, Subaru says using Australia's coal-fired electricity would produce about 125g of carbon dioxide for each kilometre travelled in the Stella - almost 20g more than a Toyota Prius hybrid car that uses a 1.6-litre petrol engine alongside its electric motor.

Interestingly I think they meant 1.5-litre rather than 1.6, but they are the experts so let's go with that. So we can assume (so many assumptions!) Drive.com is actually comparing the Stella with the "1.6l", 1325kg Prius, which opens up a can of worms indeed.

All of these things are worked out by average use, of course, but nothing is ever really average, and it's not just about use. We need to look at the manufacturing footprint, too. If you are heavy-footed in your somewhat porky Prius, what happens to your carbon footprint? It goes up, obviously, and probably more so than an EV (better check that). And what of the extra complexity of the petrol/electric hybrid, with 2 power sources, a petrol tank and batteries? Which of these 2 cars (the Stella EV vs the Prius "1.6") is less resource-hungry - and has the lesser overall carbon footprint - to make and maintain? I'm guessing (so much guesswork!) the Subaru EV wins hands down if we look at it that way; but there's no denying, either, that a 660cc petrol Stella will beat both by a wide margin.

Of course none of this really stacks up, if it's not what you need in a car. You may drive short distances and the Stella EV will be ideal. Or you may travel long distances at a steady speed and can make the most of a hybrid's advantages. Indeed the Stella may be a perfect fit for me but too small for you. It all depends.