Featherdale Wildlife Park

When B organised a trip to Featherdale Wildlife Park with her friends I was less than enthused. After all, I've been to many Australian native wildlife parks over the years. Australian wildlife tends to lack the grandeur of megafauna or the antics of primates. I was concerned that Alex would be somewhat disinterested as well, as he shows more fascination with the mechanical over the biological.

The drive out to Featherdale along the M5 and M7 was surprisingly pleasant. It was nice to get out of the urban environment for a while and let the car have a good run.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. Almost as soon as you enter the park you are greeted by tame wallabies hopping around your legs. Alex loved feeding them grass filled ice cream cones. Wombats made an appearance and even some of the koalas were awake. One was available for touching. We were in time to feed the pelicans, tossing the raw fish away from the annoying ibis.

Tawny frogmouths (one strokable) and kookaburras sat around near the koala enclosures. There were young farm animals, dingoes, emus, reptiles and a wide variety of native birds. What Alex liked best was the bat enclosure, but mainly because it was a dark tunnel and he could chase other kids around in it.

There was enough to see that we ran out of time, as Alex got tired and needed his afternoon sleep. Quite a nice  way to spend Sunday and he won't lack for things to talk about at preschool this week.

Controlling choice online

I sat through a Sitecore content management system presentation this morning where the representative used every buzzword under the Sun. In it he spruiked the software's Web Engagement Management capabilities, tracking and profiling visitors and serving up personalised content without them having control over the process. As he related how delighted he was that sites like Amazon knew what he liked and used that to tempt him to buy more I joked to colleagues that the definition of a marketing person is someone who doesn't find personalisation creepy. I do.

I guess that I appreciate personalisation of a non-financial service, such as a government website serving up only those documents and forms I need based upon information that I have given them. But I generally reject website applications that try to lead me on a path based upon what the site thinks I like. The problem is that you lose trust in them. What are they trying to hide from you?

If a website serves up different information based upon personalisation, what happens if you want something different? It's like foreign airline websites that only give you flights out of Australia when what you actually want to look up is for their fares domestically or between other countries. It really irritates me.

Not everyone obviously. Apparently regional personalisation worked wonders for EasyJet, filling the equivalent of two extra aircraft a day (or was it every hour?). For me, I would rather have the power of choice. Not them.

Doctors for the [Christian Only] Family?

A group of prominent doctors put in a senate submission opposing same sex marriage on the basis that children do better in heterosexual marriages. You've got to ask yourself if they are speaking from a genuine medical perspective or their own religious beliefs.

The first signature is from a Dr Priscilla Tan who thanks God when writing reports for a medical insurer. The next one, Dr Yoke Mei Neoh, has written for the Christian Sight magazine. Another prominent signature was from the Victorian Deputy Chief Psychiatrist and HREOC member Professor Kuruvilla George. A little searching reveals that he is an ex-Christian missionary. I leave it as an exercise to check the other names on the submission. Yet check out the website for Doctors For The Family and nowhere do they seem to explicitly mention Christianity. But neither do their "supporting arguments" seem based on science.

If they wanted to sign a petition as a private citizen, fine, that's their right. It is very difficult for me to trust a doctor who is prepared to let their non-evidence based beliefs interfere with their work. Who are they working for, the patient, or their god? Whose happiness matters more?

Give me a happy and loving homosexual family any day over a dysfunctional or violent heterosexual one.

All a twitter on Apps Day

I posted over 100 tweets today under the username @AppsDay on behalf of the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation's Broadband Apps Day 2012 at the Australian Technology Park. The day featured a speakers from organisations ranging from Google and Microsoft to Woolworths and Ausgrid discussing potential applications for the National Broadband Network (NBN) and the issues associated with them.

Topics included home automation, health applications (including Dance Dance Revolution for seniors), application development and e-commerce.

There was a disappointing lack of discussion on the security and privacy issues associated with these applications. For instance, a Samsung rep was spruiking the control of household whitegoods from their televisions, phones and tablets. Yet there was a recent report of vulnerabilities in Samsung electronics, one of which could cause endless restarts in their televisions. Who might be watching you on those televisions as well?

The point about who owns your household data was also raised. Some of your devices like smart electricity and water meters may report directly back to suppliers via the NBN without the household owner being able to directly access that data. What about other devices sending usage information out to marketers. One speaker thought that users might want Harvey Norman to contact them to offer more energy saving devices based upon usage. That's actually quite scary.

There is a lot to think about with the potential for a ubiquitous broadband network with similarly ubiquitous connected devices.

A few speakers commented that the way people consumed entertainment has changed and that their children expected on demand video rather than traditional television and to interact with devices via touch, voice or gesture rather than the normal remote control. It's certainly been our experience with Alex.

I don't think that Twitter is the best medium for conference commentary. I quite miss IRC's live chatting and channels, though I think we could do even better today. I have some ideas for the ideal online conference tool...

Rather than use the big work laptop I brought in my trusty Sony VAIO P to do the tweeting. The keyboard is great for fast typing and quiet. Even better it's light and cool - important if you don't have a desk.

What I derived the most pleasure from was developing a web display of the conference tweets, which we put up on a big screen outside the lecture theatre. I wasn't happy with the lack of customisation options with other tools like Twitterfall, so I decided to write my own.

It took me around a day to combine the Twitter Search API with Javascript and PHP, along the way reminding myself how to use jQuery, AJAX and parse JSON formatted data, plus do some cool CSS3 effects. The actual programming is surprisingly simple, it's the eye-candy that took the time. Screenshots of the results below:

Opening logo screen

Twitter feed, updated every minute

Let's safety!

The modern office is full of hazards and we aren't doing enough to make our employees aware of the dangers they face everyday from seemingly innocuous actions. For example, a simple paper cut can become infected, leading to limb amputation or even death. That is why I propose the following measures to help ensure a safe working environment.

1. Every action item raised in a meeting should be accompanied by a full evaluation of the potential safety risks associated with that action.
2. When a user clicks on a print button they should be presented with a screen which includes, but is not limited to, warning of the potential health implications of inhaling toner particles and the possibility for paper cuts. The user must accept that they have read the contents of the screen before the document will print.
3. All documents should be prefaced by the above warnings and any others associated with activities specified within the document. This should be signed by the reader prior to their continuing on with reading the remaining contents of said document. The text of a document should also be interspersed with messages recommending that the reader stop reading and engage in a set of exercises designed to promote good circulation.
4. For content designed to be viewed on a computer (for example; web pages) the content should be prefaced by instructions for setting up their computer environment to ensure the correct posture and optimal viewing, as well as listing hazards associated with printing the content. The viewer should click an acceptance button before they can proceed to the content. The content should also be interspersed with suggestions for regular exercise breaks.
5. All staff should have a Safe Working Instructions (SWI) document associated with them. This should detail any risks associated with interactions with the staff member, including, but not limited to, potential sources of stress and sensitive topics likely to result in physical or verbal violence. The staff member should ensure that the SWI are kept up to date, including the potential health risks associated with any transmissible diseases that the staff member is currently suffering. To enable the potential interactee to formulate an optimal method of interaction the SWI should include risks associated all possible methods of disease transmission (respiratory, blood, sexual, etc).

I would like to see a work environment where a Health and Safety Representative plays a role in every meeting, in every document written and in every personal interaction that takes place. Let's safety!

A row and a flutter

Such a gorgeous Easter Saturday that we just couldn't stay at home. After some debate we drove down to Audley Weir in the Royal National Park. It's a pretty spot with traces of an old fashioned vacation spot. After a picnic by the river we hired a row boat for a couple of hours. I rowed while B and Alex relaxed. It was windy and both their hats escaped into the water, but we managed to retrieve them.

Despite the number of fellow picnickers on the shore and aqua bikes, kayaks, canoes and rowboats on the river it really was very relaxing. The waters were clear, though often filled with water weed. Alex fell asleep for a little while.

A number of other paddlers, generally in kayaks, ended up in the river. We had to laugh when we saw Mr Cool Muscles and his fashionable girlfriend walk past both drenched.

Once we had returned the boat, with the wind still blowing strongly, we followed Alex's instructions and drove out to Ramsgate, on the shores of Botany Bay. There we unfurled his kite, gradually figuring out how to use it as seagulls attempted to mimic its flight in the air.

Alex was more interested in building sandcastles on the beach (until he got sand in his eyes) or climbing around the playground. I watched the big jets fly southwards across Botany Bay, imagining myself in one.

Energy discrimination

Energy efficiency is supposed to save you money. It would seem to me to be logical that the poorer you are, the more you should benefit from using less and thus spending less on electricity. Unfortunately, it often doesn't work out like that.

We went shopping for combination fridge/freezers on the weekend. Two models caught our eye, an Electrolux and a Westinghouse. Both are manufactured in the same factory and share the same basic shells, but the premium Electrolux branded models come with a newer and significantly more energy efficient compressor. The Electrolux fridges were also far more expensive.

So what you save in electricity you probably spend in upfront costs. So much for encouraging energy efficiency! I wonder if the new more energy efficient compressors cost more money and energy to manufacture. How much energy, especially in comparison to that saved in usage?