In a moment of weakness I altered some images… like these… using Photoshop. Basically using the artistic filters to blur, resize, change aspect ratios and then alter the texture and colour with brushes and effects. Using the brushes effectively – to digitally repaint the picture takes time (I use a mouse, not a tablet or anything fancy). It can get bizarre, layering effect upon filter… but it can also result in interesting new images.

In a moment of weakness I altered some images… like these… using Photoshop. Basically using the artistic filters to blur, resize, change aspect ratios and then alter the texture and colour with brushes and effects. Using the brushes effectively – to digitally repaint the picture takes time (I use a mouse, not a tablet or anything fancy). It can get bizarre, layering effect upon filter… but it can also result in interesting new images.

Folks, I have updated the CCCC Adcock park track records. Via Paul Craft. So blame him for any errors!

Folks, I have updated the CCCC Adcock park track records. Via Paul Craft. So blame him for any errors!

Interesting story at Cyclingnews.com of a rider (Rachel Dard, by name) caught out in several ways – back in the old days- 1976 in fact. He was apparently cheating by doping, then cheating the test by swapping urine, then cheating by pressuring the doctor to let him off by destroying his report. Upon realising he hadn’t completed the job thoroughly enough he chased said doctor and pressured him again to destroy the empty vials, only to come undone when the doctor finally spilled the beans anyway. Now one must wonder exactly how many got away with it. Plenty, one suspects. But these were days before EPO, so we are talking (presumably) of steroids, cortisone and amphetamines.

Not good, certainly, and even in the amateur ranks it was common enough to know of this sort of thing. Drinks that were “special” and only for a given rider – laced with brandy or whatever alcohol they preferred, to be used prior to the sprint… although what effect that may have had is difficult to judge – maybe the effect was in their head? Or bananas with amphetamines for that lift you need, or think you need, just before a sprint or major climb. And the ever-present No-doze tabs. It can’t have been just me hearing these stories, or watching riders throwing tantrums when they got the “wrong” banana… can it?

Interesting story at Cyclingnews.com of a rider (Rachel Dard, by name) caught out in several ways – back in the old days- 1976 in fact. He was apparently cheating by doping, then cheating the test by swapping urine, then cheating by pressuring the doctor to let him off by destroying his report. Upon realising he hadn’t completed the job thoroughly enough he chased said doctor and pressured him again to destroy the empty vials, only to come undone when the doctor finally spilled the beans anyway. Now one must wonder exactly how many got away with it. Plenty, one suspects. But these were days before EPO, so we are talking (presumably) of steroids, cortisone and amphetamines.

Not good, certainly, and even in the amateur ranks it was common enough to know of this sort of thing. Drinks that were “special” and only for a given rider – laced with brandy or whatever alcohol they preferred, to be used prior to the sprint… although what effect that may have had is difficult to judge – maybe the effect was in their head? Or bananas with amphetamines for that lift you need, or think you need, just before a sprint or major climb. And the ever-present No-doze tabs. It can’t have been just me hearing these stories, or watching riders throwing tantrums when they got the “wrong” banana… can it?

At Christmas I get lazy and start summarising my own writing…

1. Google and the ripoff merchants

   18 days ago

   Google tries hard – perhaps too hard – to use its “smarts” (the fancy, arcane and secret algorithms it’s famous for) to outwit the shonky operators who lure lots of clicks via cheap Adwords search terms, only to offer them pages of hi-return ads. And gets written up in Forbes. Another fascinating read, from any perspective. …

2. Resources for business brains

   20 days ago

   My online strategy? Basically look at and subscribe to everything then slowly weed out the chaff. Let things percolate slowly. You may think YouTube a dud but 6 months later it’s gained critical mass. It happens over and over again. Look at MySpace, or the fast growing virtual world at Second Life. Now one day someone will integrate all of these social networks and kaboom. In the business of online business it’s keeping your eyes open to new ideas that matters …

3. The Reserve Bank’s virtual museum

   27 days ago

   Well it’s an interesting diversion from working on spreadsheets. Check it out here. It’s pretty cool in a central-bankish sort of way. The description: “A virtual tour of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Museum of Australian Currency Notes is now available. The interactive features of the tour include zoomable images, 360° panoramas and streaming video.” …

4. Not sure this is a good idea but here it is…

   36 days ago

   I’m not sure that Forbes intends to bring anything remotely resembling positive attention to the evil and corrupted forces behind email scams, but they have made it mildly amusing:”making his Fictional 15 debut: spam entrepreneur Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria. Abakaliki is notable for being the only fictional character on our list who regularly e-mails real people, usually begging for assistance in recovering large sums of money. We estimate Abakaliki to be worth more than $2.8 billion.” The Forbes Fictional 15 here ( …

5. War between the formats hurts uptake

   40 days ago

   Well price hurts uptake too. Why don’t you toss a coin and pick between Blu-ray and HD-DVD? (Wharton’s excellent article here.)I suspect that the cashed up early adopters will buy both and the less affluent will go with what looks coolest, spec-wise. So we’ll see sales of both for a while until content kicks in… since you can’t as yet record to either format content will be king. Which looks like a Blu-ray win to me, at this stage. But is it so? History tells us that the ‘better’ Beta lost to VHS because of content – but the proliferation …

I don’t care what you believe, really. On one level I do – if it hurts or restrains me in some way I care, and my degree of caring depends upon how much I really believe that you – or whomever is responsible – is wrong. If you are right then I’ll pull my head in. If you have no basis in logic but are drawing upon false conclusions – then I’ll get riled. I also care if you – or anyone, really – is hurting themsleves or others through false beliefs or actions based upon illogical premises. I don’t want to get all post-modern about it but if there is some form of harm in what you say or promote – be it physical or psychic – then you should desist; and you must at least acknowledge that others may have other opinions and are entitled to them. Especially at Christmas time, or at any “holy day”, irrespective of religion or belief.

Consider that my all-encompassing disclaimer for 2006. Who knows what I may think in 2007!

Please folks, acronyms are a special type of abbreviation. They are pronounced as a word. They are not simply initials. IBM is an abbreviation; QANTAS is an acronym. Got it? Now imagine my fury when I read THIS:

Four braking system acronyms
The LS 460L also has an extensive array of braking technologies designed for safety and handling that go under various acronyms, such as ECB (electronically controlled braking), ABS (anti-lock braking system), EBD (electronic brakeforce distribution), and BA (brake assist). In our use, we always found the brakes responsive, without being too grippy. Even the parking brake is electronic.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!! Not ONE of these abbreviations is actually an acronym! NOT ONE! I must take a rest and a lie-down.

I think not. It seems odd that CNET even tries to review cars… but they do. And they think the Lexus LS460L is one “L” of a car, apparently. Mostly because of the gadgetry, I guess. OK, I love cars, but I prefer small, fuel efficient cars that take up less space and use fewer resources… and this Lexus lump is not small. And I don’t mind parking by sight rather than sensor. I like maps on paper and don’t really see a need to have a machine read it to me. And I prefer manuals over automatics. So perfect? I think not. What about you? If it’s so perfect do you think everyone should have one, and would that improve their lives?

Well I’m always ready to discuss global warming, and to change my stance. Indeed I’ve gone from ‘yes, in theory that’s true’ in the mid-1970s to ‘by golly this is bad’ by 2005. If evidence turns up to the contrary I’ll have an open mind… but so far it just gets grimmer. Ice caps melting, species dieing, bears failing to hibernate… and it hasn’t rained to our expectations here in Sydney, Australia for nigh on 10 years. But what has puzzled me most are the people willing to just argue a minor point – namely that “the Earth has always done this”, ie that we have a natural cycle of warming and cooling anyway, so what’s the big deal? Well I’ve tried to say sure, there is a natural cycle – indeed we are in the latter stages of the warm phase now – but this time around we have added our own little carbon dioxide experiment to the mix. We didn’t run this experiment in the last ice age, in fact we’ve never run this little game before – certainly not at this scale. So to my mind we – not nature (whatever that is) – may have added too much oomph to the warm phase – and we may not pull up into another ice age at all. At the very least we are foolish to run experiments like this when we don’t know what the real impacts may be. What if it’s a threshold-based system, where you reach a ceratin point and it simply takes off - do we want to sit on our hands waiting to see what happens, or do we take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing – with some luck – end them?

Yes, we even have a few military aircraft in the gallery, like these… an ex-RAAF Mustang, flame-throwing F111s and some RAN A4 Skyhawks.

Yes folks, like the sharemarket, planes can crash. This is what was left of the fuselage of East West F27 VH-PWM after it struck the ground on approach near Bathurst, NSW. (Pic taken at Bankstown airport months later, circa 1977. (Someone look that up please.) Basically it slid wheels-up and flattened the bottom. Not the worst crash but one of the more common. Still it’s safer – far safer – than driving on public roads.

Again – still dealing with the letter A – we have many Air India shots, also at Sydney. Both 707s and 747s, individual and in sequence (as in taxying, more taxying, taking off and disappearing…). Samples include this 747 disappearing behind a house (actually my house at the time!) on approach to Sydney’s runway 16 and a 707 taking off in a cloud of smoke from the same runway.

Folks, I have updated the galleries… airliner, military, historical and light/executive. Here’s a sample…

From 1975 we have a series of images of an Air New Zealand DC10 taxying at Sydney Airport… and from 1976 a shot of ZK-NZG in the air on approach to Sydney. Both images are shot with a Pentax K2 or KX loaded with Kodak Tri-X, 1/125th sec .

I’ve always liked Cronulla - wide streets, endless beaches… and the ferry to Bundeena. The fact that it’s almost on a peninsula – surrounded on 3 sides by water – Botany Bay, Port Hacking and the Pacific Ocean – has arguably preserved its charm, high rise blemishes not withstanding. Strangely it has a heavy rail line (which replaced the old steam tram, but I guess that’s another story) a bit of a luxury for such a small pocket of Sydney. It’s a great place to hold a bike race. And so they did.

Now it was great to get live TV coverage – but as usual we had ill-timed ad breaks when riders went away, and when we came back to the action we got a long interview with a rugby league coach. Oh well.

Great, dominating ride by Kate Nicols to win the women’s crit. As for the elite male racing, it was great to see Rabo’s Brown win and Disco’s White making impressive attacks… but it had a feel to it, somewhat akin to “off season” or “staged”. Now it may have been absolutely legit, but firstly we saw McEwen go away in a break and then get caught (so the public got to see the road sprinter in action); followed by a successful break and a home-town win (just!) by the pro sprinter. Hmmm. Local boy Whitey was 3rd. Hmmm. Now I’m convinced the locals were indeed trying – no question about it (great rides by local crit specialists Jose Rodriguez and Peter McDonald, btw) – but the pros were taking it a bit easy, surely? I have seen similar local crit fields blown apart (and lapped) by just one pro on his “off season” break… but who would profit from seeing that under the gaze of the crowds and TV cameras? No-one one, really. The pros want to put on a show – that’s their job – and don’t want to crush the locals just for the sake of it. And that’s exactly what we got. It was great to watch, anyway.

I’ve always liked Cronulla - wide streets, endless beaches… and the ferry to Bundeena. The fact that it’s almost on a peninsula – surrounded on 3 sides by water – Botany Bay, Port Hacking and the Pacific Ocean – has arguably preserved its charm, high rise blemishes not withstanding. Strangely it has a heavy rail line (which replaced the old steam tram, but I guess that’s another story) a bit of a luxury for such a small pocket of Sydney. It’s a great place to hold a bike race. And so they did.

Now it was great to get live TV coverage – but as usual we had ill-timed ad breaks when riders went away, and when we came back to the action we got a long interview with a rugby league coach. Oh well.

Great, dominating ride by Kate Nicols to win the women’s crit. As for the elite male racing, it was great to see Rabo’s Brown win and Disco’s White making impressive attacks… but it had a feel to it, somewhat akin to “off season” or “staged”. Now it may have been absolutely legit, but firstly we saw McEwen go away in a break and then get caught (so the public got to see the road sprinter in action); followed by a successful break and a home-town win (just!) by the pro sprinter. Hmmm. Local boy Whitey was 3rd. Hmmm. Now I’m convinced the locals were indeed trying – no question about it (great rides by local crit specialists Jose Rodriguez and Peter McDonald, btw) – but the pros were taking it a bit easy, surely? I have seen similar local crit fields blown apart (and lapped) by just one pro on his “off season” break… but who would profit from seeing that under the gaze of the crowds and TV cameras? No-one one, really. The pros want to put on a show – that’s their job – and don’t want to crush the locals just for the sake of it. And that’s exactly what we got. It was great to watch, anyway.

Why does it have to be a war, anyway? Why do we portray these things as ‘fights’, ‘stoushes’ or ‘wars’? Yes, we need to protect riders from the longer-term effects of various ‘medications’, particularly when they don’t understand what may happen later; and we need to ensure that the competition is fair (if we can define ‘fair’ at all). But is our only option to go to war? In every war there is collateral damage, in this case to the sport itself, the riders and to the crews that staff the support teams.

Good quote from Neil Stephens via Cyclingnews:
“But there are guys involved in all this and all they want to do is keep their kids in school and to be able to feed them. I feel very sorry for them. My situation is different – I am walking away because I want to…but all these other guys just want to put bread and butter on their tables. They should just let them get on with their jobs” – Neil Stephens on the never-ending Operación Puerto

Pick your strategy. Leverage your core competence by diversifying into related fields, and risk straying from that core skill area, or stay strictly doing what you are best at and risk low growth? Well it depends, doesn’t it? Honda’s core competence is reputedly in engines, and whilst they have repeatedly struck out in new areas there’s always an engine attached. But isn’t that a stretch? Shouldn’t they stick with just the engines? Why bother with a complete lawnmower, or bike, or car or – more recently – executive jet? Why risk that enormous leap from building great engines to building the whole contraption? Well the finished good garners a better overall price, for starters. But it is a stretch, isn’t it? From a lawnmower engine to a jet!

Still, it seems to work. Perhaps it’s all in the execution and Honda’s core competence is actually in making complicated mechanical things work. Wharton has an interesting article on this topic, focusing on Amazon, Google and Yahoo and their varying diversification strategies. A good read.

Excellent essay by Australian playwright David Williamson really captures the essence of the cultural divide in this country. That ‘us vs them’ feeling that you get from PM John Howard, or that queasy feeling you get when you realise that many people won’t even think of reading this essay – or any essay. You wonder where people get their opinions about other people, when their lives are constrained by limited education, poverty or a sameness-culture that looks inward. What you don’t know about – or haven’t met – you may fear, or despise… and you get one of those tingles of fear when caught as David was in a cross-cultural divide. It’s in the SMH… highly recommended…‘Ordinary’ Australians have much to lose if the values of compassion and humanity are cast aside in the tribal stoush between the hard right and the soft left. By David Williamson.

When Astana rider Davis went down 5 metres shy of getting on the back of the breakaway, 2 things happened. 1, an opportunity was lost and hard work was wasted. And 2, they were relegated to the chase bunch (ie the peleton). Now from Davis and company’s viewpoint it was unfair. 5m is hardly a gap at all and for riders of this caliber they would have made it across, for sure. So morally they expected to join the break after the lap out (which they duly did, but got pulled out by race officals). Now I can see their point – a crash is a race incident deserving of lap-out consideration; but equally they should have taken due care to negotiate the corner without incident, just like the breakaway did. After all, if that breakaway was able to make the corner safely at similar pace then maybe they should also expect not to be penalised for their skill in doing so.

Now it may have been a mechanical incident that brought Davis down, but it didn’t look mechanical. And why didn’t the chasers simply pass Davis and continue the chase? I can understand Davis taking a lap out and (in theory) rejoining the chase bunch, but what about Brown and co? I’m not sure what held them up (did they all fall, or have ‘mechanicals’?) but by taking a lap out and they rejoining the breakaway that they had nearly caught seems a bit rich. 5m is still 5m guys. Now if it had been a club race we’d just get up and chase again. Or did I miss something?

When Astana rider Davis went down 5 metres shy of getting on the back of the breakaway, 2 things happened. 1, an opportunity was lost and hard work was wasted. And 2, they were relegated to the chase bunch (ie the peleton). Now from Davis and company’s viewpoint it was unfair. 5m is hardly a gap at all and for riders of this caliber they would have made it across, for sure. So morally they expected to join the break after the lap out (which they duly did, but got pulled out by race officals). Now I can see their point – a crash is a race incident deserving of lap-out consideration; but equally they should have taken due care to negotiate the corner without incident, just like the breakaway did. After all, if that breakaway was able to make the corner safely at similar pace then maybe they should also expect not to be penalised for their skill in doing so.

Now it may have been a mechanical incident that brought Davis down, but it didn’t look mechanical. And why didn’t the chasers simply pass Davis and continue the chase? I can understand Davis taking a lap out and (in theory) rejoining the chase bunch, but what about Brown and co? I’m not sure what held them up (did they all fall, or have ‘mechanicals’?) but by taking a lap out and they rejoining the breakaway that they had nearly caught seems a bit rich. 5m is still 5m guys. Now if it had been a club race we’d just get up and chase again. Or did I miss something?

Looks like a useful aviation news aggregator, if you don’t already get enough news…

Cyclingnews has another good interview with Neil Stephens, Aussie bike legend. I don’t know Neil personally although I’ve ridden with him a couple of times – in a large bunch! I do know a man who claims to have helped the Stephens brothers off to their start in bike racing back in Canberra (and yes I believe him); and I also know about the Rookwood cemetery training loop, so there’s scope for scandal there surely?

Maybe not. Point is that someone got Neil on a bike, riding, then racing, then winning. You and I know that winning – or at least having a sniff – is enough motivation to train and train some more. Neil’s never shirked training. For me it was gentle persistence by the then Randwick Botany club president (thanks Col) that finally got me racing. Sometimes it takes some nudging. Neil surely had a host of other, different factors that got him going and kept him going. And now he’s ‘putting back’ into the sport. I’m not a great fan of nationalism, indeed it’s high on my list of the cheap tricks and bread and circuses used by politicians and power brokers to distract us from thinking straight, but I can see the excitement that will surround any ‘national’ team entering the pro peleton, be it Kazahk or Aussie. Anything that gets what amounts to an alternative sport (an alternative to footy and cricket!)’out there’ in public view is good. If not great.

Cyclingnews has another good interview with Neil Stephens, Aussie bike legend. I don’t know Neil personally although I’ve ridden with him a couple of times – in a large bunch! I do know a man who claims to have helped the Stephens brothers off to their start in bike racing back in Canberra (and yes I believe him); and I also know about the Rookwood cemetery training loop, so there’s scope for scandal there surely?

Maybe not. Point is that someone got Neil on a bike, riding, then racing, then winning. You and I know that winning – or at least having a sniff – is enough motivation to train and train some more. Neil’s never shirked training. For me it was gentle persistence by the then Randwick Botany club president (thanks Col) that finally got me racing. Sometimes it takes some nudging. Neil surely had a host of other, different factors that got him going and kept him going. And now he’s ‘putting back’ into the sport. I’m not a great fan of nationalism, indeed it’s high on my list of the cheap tricks and bread and circuses used by politicians and power brokers to distract us from thinking straight, but I can see the excitement that will surround any ‘national’ team entering the pro peleton, be it Kazahk or Aussie. Anything that gets what amounts to an alternative sport (an alternative to footy and cricket!)’out there’ in public view is good. If not great.

Not new but amusing enough. Follow the links at the bottom as well. At least it’s Javascript.

Not new but amusing enough. Follow the links at the bottom as well. At least it’s Javascript.

Not the most exciting topic, but here it is. Personally I’d throw in MS-DOS 3.11 and CP/M86, but this is sooo PC-centric.

Not the most exciting topic, but here it is. Personally I’d throw in MS-DOS 3.11 and CP/M86, but this is sooo PC-centric.

Here’s a shot a TAA DC9 lining up for Runway 25 at Sydney, sometime in 1974…I’m hanging off that rusty fence near the Adastra hangar, or maybe sitting on a shipping container…

Yes, I do it too. There’s a DC3 at the southern end of Warnervale strip, Wyong NSW Australia for example. And here’s an interesting crash site (no fatalities, if it’s the crash people think it was). Personally I just like looking at the airports and their facilities and seeing what’s there. And sometimes tilting the view and pretending to land. Hey, some people like Flight Simulator, too