writing about IT, aus politics, music and genre fiction
writing about IT, aus politics, music and genre fiction
About
This is the archive page for Polly Morgan. Click to go to the frontpage of this site.
Last Comments
Melbcity (ALP may lose 2nd …): If you ca I would appreci… Melbcity (ALP may lose 2nd …): Hi Just an update a copy … Alex Makin (Time for a change…): Polly,
Good luck with m… Daniel (Bite My Shiny, Me…): I’m sure it will be good … Conrad Leviston (Election Scorecar…): That’s weird. The Christi… Vivienne (Tarja's My Winter…): I think I might skip foll… Polly Morgan (Tarja's My Winter…): The clip could definitely… vivienne (Tarja's My Winter…): Thanks for posting the yo… Daniel (Preference decisi…): Hey Libertarians
I am s… Conrad Leviston (Nightwish announc…): The web site I sometimes …
The PTUA has conducted a study into the delays tram travellers face due to trams constantly getting stuck at traffic lights. Within central Melbourne, trams can spend up to a 3rd of their journey stuck at traffic lights. I've noticed that I can often beat them by walking on my lunch break when I go out to do things like go to Australia on Collins from Docklands - and I'm unfit and overweight. Outside of central Melbourne, dead time counts for approx 13% of overall travel time.
I'd imagine that figures could be similar for buses. I've spent a fair amount of time stuck in traffic in buses on Wellington Rd and Springvale Road. Road-sharing public transport vehicles need to be given signaling priority over cars. The only way to get more people to use public transport (and thus ease traffic congestion, pollution and reduce the impact from transport on our environment) is to make it an attractive alternative to using a car, but being stuck at the lights in a tram or a bus for a significant part of your journey isn't going to entice any one away from cars.
If you want to have a fantastic parma, go to The Leveson in North Melbourne - it lives up to its reputation. I went there last Saturday night for my sister's hens night dinner, and the parma was fantastic. It was packed - but there were a hell of a lot of Kangaroos supporters drowning their sorrows. I'm hoping that now there no-smoking ban is in, I'll be able to convince Olav to go out to pubs more often. I also haven't been to the Nott in ages, so it might be good to go there with a few people and catch up. I'm interested in checking out good pubs in the south eastern suburbs that aren't full of bloody poker machines, so if anyone has any recommendations, let me know.
25 September 07 - 18:43Lyn Allison on the government's citizenship test
Lyn Allison takes on the Howard Government's proposed citizenship test in her latest youtube post:
She points out how ridiculous it is to require new citizens to know that Don Bradman is famous for being a cricketer, and more importantly she questions why the Howard Government - which claims that equality under the law is an Australian value - still discriminates against same sex attracted people when it comes to financial and workplace rights. Even George W Bush reportedly doesn't agree with the Howard Government on this issue.
21 September 07 - 16:39Laura Chipp stands for the Dems in Isaacs
Laura Chipp is running for the Democrats in the seat of Isaacs at the next federal election.
Isaacs covers some of the outer south eastern suburbs of Melbourne, including Chelsea, Patterson Lakes, parts of Noble Park, and Keysborough.
Some of the issues she is campaigning on are better health services and a fair IR system.
Parallel NFS (pNFS) is an extension to NFSv4. It's a parallel filesystem (along with lustre) that I need to look into more for possible use at work.
I'd be curious if anyone has any experience with it yet (although it's almost certainly too soon - we're not even looking at using NFSv4 just yet).
21 September 07 - 15:11Albert Park by-election results
The Albert Park by-election was held last Saturday, and our candidate for the Vic Democrats, Paul Kavanagh polled solidly. He ended up getting 5.75% of the primary vote, and came equal 3rd on primaries.
It's the highest vote by an endorsed democrat candidate since the leadership controversy in 2002. It's also significantly higher than we polled in the Vic state election in 2006.
Being an evil Collingwood supporter, I'm currently living the dream, and hoping for a miracle grand final win so Nathan Buckley can end his career on a high note. Of course, for that to happen we have to win in the West - so I'll be channelling my inner bogan and screaming at the tv tonight, along with all the other millions of Aussies who support the mighty Pies.
13 September 07 - 12:52Andrew Bolt compares John Howard to Gollum
I regularly read Andrew Bolt's columns in the Herald Sun, as well as his blog.
It has been worth it over the last few days, as he has written extensively about the federal Liberal Party's leadership turmoils, including quoting from a highly amusing Annabel Crabb article, where she describes attempts to get the Prime Minister to stand down in the following way: Every time a tiny public jab is made against the Prime Minister, a
great squeal goes up and everybody dashes for cover, and shooshes each
other until the next poke of the stick occurs. Honestly, it's like
watching a pack of seven-year-old girls going at a brown snake.
And yesterday, he compared John Howard to Gollum: Summary: Please don't take this job from me, please, please, please.
One more turn - is that too much to ask?
I've read this before, of course, in Prime Minister of the Ring:
Downer saw Howard's long hands draw upwards to his mouth; his white
fangs gleamed, and then snapped as they bit. Costello gave a cry, and
there he was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Howard,
dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust
within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living
fire.
'Precious, precious, precious!' Howard cried. 'My Precious! O my
Precious!' And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on
his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the
brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last
wail Precious, and he was gone."
There is an excellent article at Possums Pollytics about the leaked Crosby-Textor polling analysis of the Coalition's chances in the upcoming election.
07 September 07 - 20:21A Progressive Voice For Albert Park
The Victorian Democrats are running Paul Kavanagh as our candidate for the Albert Park By-Election on September 15th.
Here is a message from Paul on youtube:
I'm going to be letterboxing for Paul with Daniel this weekend, so I hope the weather stays good.
Pivot, the blogging software I use, somehow lost my blog entries for August, so I'm reposting them now
I've had some time off work over the last week (in part due to being sick with a fairly bad virus), so I've been watching seasons 2 and 3 of Law and Order: SVU, which I hadn't seen before. They're actually really good, particularly as there's a whole lot more of Munch and Fin, and it doesn't feel so much like the Benson & Stabler Show. Hey, I like Olivia and Elliot as much as the next fan of the show, but it's good to see more of the other characters. The best thing about these seasons, though, is Alex Cabot. I'd only seen a couple of episodes with Alex in them, and really had no idea how cool the character was. Can they get rid of Casey and bring back Alex?
I particularly liked Manhunt and Guilt, but the overall quality of seasons 2 and 3 was really good.
I've also been wasting time on youtube, and found this excellent Law and Order parody from MAD TV:
07 September 07 - 17:59Sarah Silverman on Global Warming
Pivot, the blogging software I use, somehow lost my blog entries for August, so I'm reposting them now Sarah Silverman is a politically incorrect and brutally funny U.S. comedienne.
After having sat through both An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle, I just couldn't stop laughing the first time I saw this sketch. I especially loved the bit where she shoves the cyclist off the road.
Sun is acquiring Cluster File Systems Inc, the company who owns Lustre, the parallel filesystem. It should be interesting to see how they integrate this into their product offerings (vendor support for a parallel file system is A Good Thing).
via Slashdot.
