The USS Quad Damage

Lila Dreams is a flash-based indie MMO being built on Kongregate. It sounds amazing, and I hope it comes through with everything it promises.

Freeness would be good too.

Ordinary mosh pits are good, clean, sweaty fun. You get to jump around like an idiot and expend vast amounts of energy listening to your favourite music alongside a bunch of similar idiots. It’s a little bit smelly in there but it’s not really that bad until you get out and you’re drenched in other people’s sweat that you go “if I wasn’t so tired I’d want to throw up”.

Owing to Dream Theater coming down I was exposed to another kind of moshpit: The nerd pit. In order to explain what happens here, I have to explain the physics of an ordinary moshpit.

In a normal ‘pit, everyone is pushing forward and there’s generally very little room between you and everyone around you. All you have to do is make sure you don’t go too far sideways and you’re sweet. You’re pretty much held vertical by people on every side of you, so balance is not an issue. If someone pushes back (which usually happens if someone’s had enough) there are people behind you or just behind the pit who will push forward, hard, to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Friendly. Also, just behind the pit and the people pushing forward is a small gap and a bunch of people just standing there. This is, amazingly, the most dangerous part of the pit. This is the point where there’s enough room for a circle pit to form. A circle pit is a little gap within which insane people throw their limbs at one another. If you get a black eye from a moshpit, it’s probably in the circle. The general guide is, if you’re right next to a circle, you throw people who are already inside back into the pit, unless they want out. This stops the circle from injuring people outside the circle.

Sounds downright civilised, right? And you’d be right. It is! Nerd pits, however, aren’t so civil. First, in a nerd pit everyone stands back a fair bit more, creating a lot more room. It kinda makes sense, since nerds don’t bathe as much as everyone else, they really do pang and you want to stay away from their frizzy orange excuse for metal hair. They also don’t push forwards, which is bad for both room and balance. You generally have enough room to fall over or otherwise hurt yourself. Crowd-surfing also becomes more dangerous (“ow my spleen” as opposed to “shit I lost my car keys”). A lot of them also think it’s a great idea to record a video or take a picture, which makes things quite bad, since you don’t want to ruin their picture and it generally takes the energy away from the people moshing.

Second, when a circle does form, the nerds don’t push to keep the people in the circle inside. They just back up and start pushing people who are moshing around them, which is everywhere, since a circle can now form anywhere instead of behind the moshpit proper.

So it’s stinky, unsafe, and generally doesn’t have a lot of energy, unless you’re right at the front.

So my sister recieved a notice from the state debt recovery agency or what ever it’s called about doing 93kph in an 80 zone headed north on the eastern distributor at oxford street at 5:33pm 3 weeks ago. Is this a variable speed zone?Iif so whey don’t they also list when the zone last become an 80 zone?

Anyway she’s on her P plates which basically means that she’s apparently still learning to drive thus can’t take alcohol, is restricted from using powerful cars and has a maximum speed limit below the highest posted speed limits within NSW.

Now here’s the problem. Lets say your pulled over by a police officer. First up since you’ve been pulled over you’ve probably automatically decided that the last few minutes of driving are important so it’s been classified as longterm memory and you’ll replay them in your mind again and again and again until you’ve taken all the relevant experience from it.

Next they’ll tell you what you did wrong. You’ll run over the last few minutes, traffic conditions, signs, what was going through you head. Basically piece together what happened such that you may have commited an offense.

If your lucky and it was a mistake you might get let off with a warning. If not you’ll receive a ticket either then or in the mail. Either way the event and events leading upto it will stand out in your mind and be remembered allowing you to draw on the experience of those events to avoid breaking the law later on.

Now lets say you were done in by a fixed place speeding camera. First up the RTA only supplies a date, time and place. If you want a photo it’s $11. Ofcourse that photo won’t tell you about the events leading upto the event and is only really useful for identifying your car to make sure no one has ripped off your plates.

So you have very little if any memory of the events leading upto the offense thus no real experience to draw on. Thus no chance to learn.

If you really wanted to you could retrace the route which leads to the fixed place camera and try and work out why you went too fast. However this also requires you to risk being fined again at the same location. Additionally most speed cameras are located on busy roads so you can’t take your time crusing well below the speed limit to take in everything. Thus you’ll need to find parking and walk potentially being mugged or hit by a car in the blackspot where most fixed place cameras are.

Not only that but because of the delay you may have offended multiple times and already inadvertantly learned behaviour which is against the law. Coupled with your almost complete lack of feedback makes it much more likely that you’ll reoffend even while attempting to do the right thing.

I suppose in summery the difference between being pulled over by a police officer and being fined by a fixed place camera is that with the police the result is getting bad/inexperienced drivers to drive better by having them draw on their experience leading upto an offense. With a fixed place cameras it is to make bad/inexperienced drivers not drive by taking their licence away and throwing them in goal if they drive without a licence.

An interesting read on speeding in Australia which I recommend is an article in The Australian called Lost in the rush by Bill Tuckey | January 09, 2008.

Since Railcorp has been so slow in calling me back I fired off two applications for other jobs in the south west of Sydney.

The first one is less than a 3.6km drive from my house. How do I know? Because thats the furthest point in Smeaton Grange by road. It’d be less than 2.5km as the crow flies.

Anyway it’s some labourering job for a company that makes pre-cast concrete. They’ve listed it multiple times since early december when I started semi looking for jobs. The down side is that it has a 6am start which I assume is causing people to quit or simply stop turning up. The good news is that I live so freaken close and the day ends at 2:30pm. Plenty of time to do what ever I want all afternoon and evening.

The other job is for a paint mixer in Wetherill Park. The major two things with this job is the possibility of getting a forklift licence. Hello motorcycle and car licence on my resumé. Plus the place apparently has a bad smell. Infact half the add is in caps talking about how it smells bad and there’s dust. So I added on my covering email that I have no sense of smell.

I’ll have to see what happens tomorrow as I sent the emails after business hours.

Lunch

Next we had another theory talk followed by a lunch break. We walked to Macarthur Square via Macarthus Station and all grabbed some Subway and a drink for lunch. Which was good. I only had riding boots. Which was bad. Infact I’ve got blisters on my heels and the walk back was painful.

Not only that but I walked down with my bike pants on with the sun out in it’s full, lets rain my Michaels P test parade, glory. So not only did I get blisters I was very, very sweaty and hot when I arrived back. Luckily there was aircon on inside the daycare centre and I ate my lunch and chilled in there.

Road ride

After lunch we went on the road ride. It wasn’t too bad, everyone passed, the only problem was the intense heat and that we stopped every 5-10 minutes of riding for a quick chat.

The worst part was when we stopped for about 5 minutes to talk about cornering in the heat.

Final Practice

Alright back to the daycare centre we went and we talked about the ride, more theory stuff and then finally got 15 minutes to practice for the MOST. It was hot, the sun was out, I’d been sweating most of the day and I was tired from all the riding and heat.

The track was left up as before with the other two guys doing their thing. I went through once, not very well and was like. Ok I’m fucked, hello fail. So then I was like. Hey if I’m going to fail then I might as well fail my way. So for the next 15 minutes I think I did the course 3 maybe 4 more times and skipped the obstacle and quick stop everytime. For comparison there was probably time to do atleast 20 attempts.

What did I do with the rest of my time you ask? Well I just did like I’d normally do out the back of some industrial area. Slow speeds, switching between holding my clutch in and rolling, finding a good throttle/friction point, stopping and generally just turning and getting comfortable with my bike. Nothing too fancy and I felt alot less tense and not at all cramped or constrained by the cones on the course.

For some reason the car park has 4 marked joint P/L courses with only 3 being used so I found the left hand turn and did two then found the U-Turn bay and did one U-Turn and then it was time for the test.

The Test

It was hot, took the instructor a while to setup the course, oh and I was first up. He ran through the first left and turn and where I had to stop. I waited for him to saw go and I went off. I made the turn and stopped with my wheel in the white box. Yay I done the easiest one. Oh crap!!! I forgot to head check!

So yeah one test, the easiest one, and I’d already lost 3 points.

Obviously I was freaking out by now. I tried to remember to head check everytime before I moved the bike. I did my best on the cone weave, the U-Turn, emergency stop and put both feet down and finally did the obstacle avoidance test and headed into where the instructor was and prepared to be told I’d failed.

The outcome

So obviously I’d failed, rocked up to the instructor to hear the bad news. “ok here’s your points, 5, congrats you passed”. It was kinda disappointing, 2 weeks really wasn’t enough, I really should have gone out and practiced more, 1200km’s total. What was I thinking. I’m faily sure Harpreet is upto 5000k’s on his ZZR. Wait did he just say I passed? It didn’t sink in, I think he said I passed but maybe I was mistaken. It still hadn’t sunk in.

We headed back into the class room and I got my certificate. It still hadn’t fully sunk in yet.

I headed home told my parents I’d passed. Nope still hasn’t sunk in yet.

Infact it’s only now that I have my P plates and a licence in my hot little hands that it has fully sunk in that I passed.

Test Summery

I failed to perform two head checks which was 5 of my 8 points down the drain.

Other that that I pwned the cone weave, was the only one to do the U-Turn without putting a foot down or touching a line, stopped on a dime for the emergency stop and breezed through the obstacle avoidance like it was nothing. Infact I had to pick some rocks out off the grooves and rubber, yes they were stuck to the rubber and left a mark because there was that much down force on the front wheel by the end of the emergency brake. So except for the two failed head checks it was a flawless technical ride.

Oh but our story doesn’t end here. Next we went inside, got our certificates, had a debriefing and then it was time to head home. You know what happened then? It started to rain. My wet weather gear finally paid off.

How did I manage to pull it off?

With only 1200k’s to my name, 2 weeks since I got my L’s this time, 18 months since I last had my L’s, screwing up all the organised training before hand?

Apart from already having my full car licence…

Probably because almost every single time I went out to ride when I previously had my L’s I’d do atleast 10-20 minutes of slow speed practice in the industrial area next to Blair Athol. It was all their in my head, earlier in the day I’d just been trying to relearn in a way that simply wasn’t working. So when I finally just did my thing without trying to do it as the instructor told me and instead just concentrated on doing it that when it all came together. Just like when I was practicing the course with Harpreet and when I’d practiced the few other times to remind myself of how I used to slow speed manouver.

Thus I passed because I drew on all my previous practice rather than the limited and poor practice attempts on the day.

Intro

Well not everything but alot of stuff was stacked against me for my pre-provisional licence course and test. Not the least of which was the fact that I’d only had time to ride my bike about 1/3-2/5’s of the days I’ve had my L’s for the 2nd time. Which wasn’t alot as I’ve only had my L’s for 2 weeks as the RTA couldn’t work out how give me the month I would have liked. Yes normally it’s 3 months minimum however I’ve held my L’s before so I don’t have to wait 3 months.

The sleep

First up, I had very little sleep. For some reason I lay in my bed until atleast 12pm before I nodded off to sleep only to wake up for some reason at 4:40am. Yeah my sleeping patterns suck.

I got out of bed at 6am, had a shower, breakfast, got everything ready, put on my gear and moved my bike out of the garage. I then proceeded to stall my bike prior to attempting to move it.

I somehow got bogged/wedged for a minute or two in the grass between our driveway and our neighbors driveway. Ok it was more like a really bad angle which wedged the bike between the elevated side of our driveway and the large rocks are used as a border to seperate my neighbors garden and lawn near our drive way.

So far so good, I headed off to the UWS Macarthur Daycare centre.

Now the course starts at 8am. I was there at around 7:10am. Way too early so I just stood around for ages wishing I’d have slept in for 30 more minutes.

The course starts

Now anticipating rain I’d taken all my wet weather gear which ofcourse had to be worn. This obviously was a mistake because not only did it not rain on the way there but as we entered the daycare centre at around 10 minutes to 8 the sun came out. Which ofcourse spelled the beginning of a hot and humid day.

Alright next we did some road theory in one of the class rooms and headed out to the training area / weekday parking lot for UWS. Yes I was starting to feel the heat even then. The instructor checked out our bikes and mine was fine. Or were you expecting something to be wrong with it? :P

By some twist of fate I happened to be other only person doing the course on their own bike rather than one of the hire bikes.

Training Starts

The first exercise was a slow straight ride for about 30 meters with your throttle constant and your clutch held at friction point. Speed was controlled by the application of your rear brake. I wasn’t crash hot at it but I managed to do it.

Leading on from that as the second section of the exercise which was an acceleration up to 20-25, a shift into 2nd gear and a controlled brake. Easy as.

We went inside, had another talk about, well about something but I can’t for the life of me remember right now. Anyway it would have been about how to avoid accidents on your bike as they are all talks about how to avoid accidents on your bike.

Next we went out and started practicing more specifically for the MOST (Motorcycle Operator Skill Test).

For those whom aren’t aware there are 3 sections to an “oval” or rectangular area with the track followin a counter clock wise direction. Each section deals with some aspect of slow speed manouvering.

The first is weaving in and out of cones and I was terrible at it. Now ideally your supposed to keep your throttle constant, your clutch at friction point and control your speed, which should be really slow, via your rear brake. Just like the straight line in exercise one except with cones to avoid.

I couldn’t figure out why I was sucking so horribly. My revs kept jumping up on right hand turns, falling and almost stalling on left hand turns, I kept putting my foot down, stalling, messing up the turns, almost dropped my bike atleast twice, once with the clutch comming in and reving really high. In general I sucked da big one.

Next was a right hand U-turn into four cones marking the boundaries of a tight left hand turn.

Again I messed it up time and time again. To be fair the “U-turn” was more like a 270+ degree turn which lead into a 135 degree left hand turn. Atleast thats how it played out on my bike. I had alot less trouble with it when instead of trying to stay inside the cones the instructor had placed for the U-Turn I ignored them and lined up my “U-Turn” to end facing the sharp left hand turn. However I still generally stuffed the turns up, stalled, put my foot down, etc,... I felt tense and really cramped on the course and it was showing.

Next we had the duel purpose emergency stop and obstacle avoidance section. My braking was sub par and I’d always prelead into the left or right of the obstacle and possibly turn early.

All in all things were not looking good. Infact I was semi scared I’d fail and had no real idea what was going wrong because I thought I’d been able to do everything satisfactorily when I’d come down here earlier in the week and Harpreet ran me through the course.

I’m not entirely sure but I think everyone else expected me to fail the MOST as well, though I didn’t find out that until after the test.

In Australia, one thing you might not know about your 3G mobile is that you can actually connect your mobile phone to your laptop and use it to connect to the internet. However, you’d never really do this. You’d probably do what Tim’s done, and get a three mobile, and separately get a three broadband connection. The broadband connection will get you a USB modem and cheaper internet access, and the phone connection will get you a phone with really expensive internet access.

Basically, if you want to add internet access to your phone, which will effectively be the same as the broadband connection, except you can make phone calls, you will have to pay, on top of your plan, $40 for 2 GB on x-series. If you don’t want the extra crap that x-series provides, and simply want internet on your mobile, you have to pay only… wait for it… $49 for 2GB.

Contrast this with the $25 if you get a USB modem and a whole new account with 3. Basically, the less you ask for, the more you pay. What the fuck? To be fair, the $25 deal is a special “half-price” deal which only goes until tuesday, but using your mobile phone to access the internet does not have that special apply to it.

My guess is that this happens likely because the part of the organisation which handlesphones is different from the organisation which handles broadband, and they’re possibly competing with one another. This is kind of the suck. I wouldn’t be interested in mobile internet unless I can get it without having to lug around another device. Hopefully 3 will fix this up sometime…

really? why would Penny Arcade even mention deaf pornography. must… resist… compulsion…

I’m watching east west 101 because a friend recommended it. The claim made was that because it was set in Sydney’s west, and it had actors of more diverse backgrounds. Watching it… I noticed the diverse backgrounds of the actors less, and the acting more…

Maybe I’m just not that sensitive to race, but the first thing I noticed wasn’t that everyone was a leb or asian, it was that they were terrible actors. Every terrible cop-show cliche is there: the talking really fast to glaze over the details, the horrible overstatements: “I want that grain of sand found even of you have to go through every one at the beach”. On top of that… they’re just so bad at acting. The bit parts mostly, but no one is inspiringly good.

Perhaps I’m being harsh. I hate TV cop shows, and I’m sure if people looked at House they’d find at least as much bullshit fast-talking as in this cop show, but the show’s Aussie. I expected more. Clearly, that’s a mistake…

The Federal minister for the environment, Peter Garrett, apparently wants to ban plastic bags.

Ok. Which ones?

Every single conceivable plastic bag or just some specific ones. Without such knowledge any sort of debate on the pros or cons of banning plastic bags is moot. The sheer different of types businesses that used plastic bags and their function for each business and how those bags are used by consumers makes debate practically impossible.

A new day, a new year… just another marker for the passage of time. So many people go about trying to find a reason for that jump start… beit in the form of a resolution, or another special event in their calendar – a birthday, an anniversary, a milestone.

Maybe, just maybe this point will allow you to better yourself, find the courage to challenge your willpower, your fear, your desires. Maybe this time you can delude yourself into that reality, fleeting as it may be… maybe not.

The year gone by saw me back in the workforce. I purchased a motorbike. I shared in my friends lives… saw their joys and sorrows and I shared what I could of my own. Looking back allows a great degree of perspective. I gained so many things I cannot yet appreciate. And I lost. Some lessons I just cannot seem to learn.

Some days my delusions do not offer me my solace.

The NSW opposition wants the NSW government to extend the double demert points scheme until the end of the school holidays. Their reasoning is because ”...many people who go away for Christmas and New Year are travelling back on the roads in mid to late January”

Why stop there. Many people use the roads during non holiday periods to travel to and from work. Generally during peak hour. So lets make double demerit points during peak hours.

Oh and what about people running early or late for work. Surely they’d be speeding due to the lack of other cars on the road or the fact that they are late. So lets impliment double demert points outside of peak hour traffic.

Since double demerit points exist all the time now, people will become immune to the whole double demerit point system. I guess then we’ll have to use quadruple demerit points during the old pre-tweaked double demerit point system so people pay extra special attention during those periods.

Plus lets make sure that there’s speed cameras everywhere. I mean why should people who speed at places without police and speed cameras get away with it. Maybe have a system of back to base GPS/Speed trackers for all cars.

Oh and lets up the gaol time for people who drive without a licence since so many people will be losing their licences because of the double and quadruple demerit point systems.

Infact lets make it a crime just to own a car without a licence since so few people will be able to legally drive them.

Then lets fine people for being late to work because our economy is suffering because we no longer have a mobile work force able to travel from areas of poor public transport.

Then lets spend the fine revenue on projects that don’t increase public transport. Such as on the prison system for all those people put in there because they drove or owned a car without a licence.

After that it’s the next governments problem.

???

Profit!!