Inaccuracies in Google Maps Australia

I was driving with Michelle over to a housewarming party of sorts when, following the directions provided by Google Maps (from my desktop), I ran into a dead-end. While we resolved this moments later by doing our own re-routing, I later on decided to test the Nav4All GPS/navigational program that I had installed earlier on my BlackBerry and to my surprise it correctly showed the dead-end!

When I checked again with Google Maps I noticed that when trying to go into Street View mode it does recognize that Niara Rd is a dead-end and does not continue onto Aitchandar Rd as you can see from the blue outline below:

Dead-end on Niara Rd

However, when I got Google to create a simple navigational instruction from one side to the other it again gave directions to drive onto Niara Rd and continuing onto Aitchandar Rd. Turning on Street View turns it into a rather comical directional aid (click for larger image), one that made me think there’s a Hibiki Ryouga working at Google Maps Australia:

Straight through the front yard!

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and frankly I’m quite annoyed. I used to use MS Streets’n Trips while in the US and given that it was “offline” you’d think there would be more inaccuracies with that program. Nope! So you’d think an online program with Street View, satellite view and all would be a lot more accurate. Not sure what’s going on with Google Maps Australia but I do hope they fix this crap soon.

Recently …

Well, the return of my interest in politics was decidedly short, and probably for the better for most people. After all, who’d want a sane person actually running the country. Ron Paul may not have been the most charismatic talker or most uplifting, but the man is a damn genius, of sound mind, and … well, just too good for the American public. My good friend Mr. Pengo provides a far better discourse on this topic over various entries at his blog. Check it out if you’re interested.

That aside, I finally got Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii last week. Not sure about elsewhere, but here in Australia Activision recently released a “limited edition” double-guitar set for the Wii and with a 15% pre-Easter sale I got the whole thing for AUD 170 (it was 169.something). Not a bad purchase especially as it already had a chance to liven-up a party.

Also of recent interest was my work trip to Tokyo. Not much to say as I was pretty much working every day but I did get a free day on my day of arrival (Sunday) and an old friend from Wesleyan, Janice, was kind enough to take me around Ginza, which happened to be just next door to where I was staying, Marunouchi. My last night there, a Friday night, was mostly a blur with much drinking and laughing capped by a 4.30am trip to Tsukiji Fish Market for some fresh sushi breakfast. Unfortunately for me I was rather ill after staying up the whole night and just managed to wolf down my food. But yes, it was fresh.

On this trip I discovered that Banana Republic now has a store at Paragon in Singapore and also at multiple locations in Tokyo (one of which was practically across the street from my hotel)! Now if only their American website will ship internationally.

I attended the Easter Mass this past Sunday but was mostly bored and falling asleep as I stayed-up rather late the night before watching The Prestige and it was standing room only at St. Mary’s Cathedral. Thankfully I had a pillar to lean on. I have to admit I still have mixed feelings about attending a Novus Ordo mass, even if this was a “Solemn” Mass (is there any other kind?) which apparently meant that much of it was sung (in English). I can only imagine a Latin High Mass being celebrated inside St. Mary’s–it’s actually quite a decent cathedral.

The SonyEricsson W910i phone is a pretty damn sexy phone, especially the red colored one. I got one for my girlfriend as her old Nokia guaranteed a one-sided conversation for anyone whom she called (or called her on) from it and now I can’t help but drool over it every time I see it. Between the crappy 5MP camera on my new K850i (the old K800i produced far better images than this) and the stupid firmware issues SE has with this phone I wish I could exchange it. The biggest reason though is the little “H” icon at the top of her display that I see all the time. I switched to Telstra as I was getting fed-up with Optus (for a variety of reasons) and also because I wanted to get on their NextG network (their branding for HSDPA). Telstra, however used the 850 frequency–unlike all the other local provider or most of the world for that matter–so I had to make sure my phone would be able to use the 850 frequency. However, ever since I brought this phone back from Singapore all I see is “3G” and “H” only very rarely. Her phone (which is only capable of using UMTS 2100), on the other hand, is always showing “H” on Optus’ network. -sigh-

Thank you Ralph Fiennes …

First of all, on behalf of all of us men who have to fly for work (either twice a year or twice a week), thank you Ralph Fiennes for boning your flight attendant on flight QF123 Darwin (DRW) to Mumbai (BOM). After all that’s been written-up in the papers in the past few days I can only imagine that the incident has been noted by all the major airlines’ HR departments and then forwarded to all their cabin staff and also attached would be each airline’s relevant guidelines on the matter.

This is bad because it’s just gotten THAT much harder to pick-up a flight attendant.

I can only imagine now:

Me: *smiles* Thank you very much.
Hot Flight Attendant: Mr. Tanone, that is inappropriate behavior. I will have to ask you to stop smiling at me.
Me: …

Yeeesh.

You’re a freakin’ movie start for crying out loud. Did you have to pick a flight attendant and create an incident like this?! Do you realize just how much harder you’ve made life for all of us regular guys? -sigh- Furthermore, what were you thinking of? A QF flight attendant? I’d have more respect if it had been Virgin Blue. Or any of the other airlines known for their flight attendants.

Ah, whatever. In the end, you’ve made life hard for us. Thank you.

(BTW- I noted that in the articles the “mile-high club” has now become the “five mile high club”. Granted the latter is more accurate, but I’ve always thought it’s the “mile-high club” and not the “five mile high club”.)

Beyond 1.5Mbps/256kbps

Well well well … After Telstra opened-up the dam and allowed 8Mbps ADSL all the wholesalers jumped on it fairly quickly. As for my own provider, Westnet, they were planning a closed public test of their ADSL2 system but they now say that internal testing has shown major deficiencies that they’re going to hold-off for now on the public testing. -sigh-

That said, I immediately signed-up for their 8Mbps plan which now gives me 8Mbps/384kbps.

The plan is supposed to go into effect on the first of January 2007 and I’ve pretty much left it at that until I stumbled across a thread in Whirlpool about people who’ve gotten it activated early. I fiddled around with my router until I figured out that I was indeed already on the 8/384 plan.

But my speed doesn’t seem to reflect that?

A reboot here and there and then a firmware upgrade and … well, look at that, Oz Broadband Speed Test (how I miss Speakeasy’s speed test site at the first hop … ) said I was at 4Mpbs! W00t!

And this here was how I wasted my afternoon trying to figure out why my ports were inaccessible from the outside world. I checked and re-checked that the firewall on the router was disabled and that my firewall server didn’t just suddenly die on me. About an hour or two later it dawned on me that leaving the firewall open meant nothing if I didn’t configure port-forwarding …

And I get paid to do this kind of thing. Sheeesh.

Needless to say, I’m a happy camper. 384kbps is really about rock-bottom for me. I’ve always thought of “high speed” and “DSL” upstream as 384kbps and upward. Anything below that, to me, was not a “proper” high-speed connection. When I first subscribed to DSL in the US my speed was 768kbps/384kbps and looks like I’m about where I started, which is allright, especially since the downstream has jumped up from 1.5mbps to 8mbps.

That said, I am really considering switching to Internode‘s ADSL2+ with Annex M which allows for a theoretical maximum of 3.5Mbps upstream. (Downstream is set at 24Mbps.) I can get back to running my own servers for testing and all that. According to the theoretical speed calculator, I’m about 1086 meters away from the Exchange and that I can expect nearly maxing the downstream at about 22Mbps.

Tempting …

Office chatter

Maybe it’s just our office, but one social characteristic of the Sydney office that I found to be extremely different from the Boston office (that is, where I work) is that people here talk. But they don’t really talk.

One thing that I still miss, after over 2 years of working in Sydney, is the office banter where a few people would get into really focused discussions on one thing or another. It’s not unusual to hear two or three people discussing something with a certain dedication, whether it be a discussion of the Matrix trilogy, the latest bone-headed move by our government, whatever. Or heck, even celebrity gossip.

Steve Irwin’s death, had he been an American, would’ve provoked major congregations at the helpdesk and at other spots around the department in our Boston office. In Sydney?

“Hey, guys, did you know Steve Irwin’s dead?”

“Yeah … read it earlier, that was sad.”

That was the extent of the response that I got. And I didn’t see anyone really discussing it either.

Maybe we just work harder.

RIP, Steve Irwin

Or, as I call him, “The Crikey! Guy”. I was quite surprised at my own reaction when I read the news earlier Monday afternoon. I don’t particularly care much for him since I don’t have a TV, and the last time I saw him behind a TV screen he was lecturing passengers in my flight about Australia’s quarantine laws and whatnots, cutting off my movie. Grrr.

But, as I said, I was quite shocked. He really is such an Australian icon that even to a non-fan like me his death made an impact. But afterward, reading and thinking some more about it, something familiar surfaced.

“Freak death.”
“Accidental death.”
“He probably died almost instantly.”
“He died doing what he loved best.”

Reading these words triggered something in me. They sounded so familiar, not to mention outright banal and empty. If you think for a second that telling his closest friends and family that Irwin died “doing what he loved best” is going to comfort them, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

I truly and absolutely despise that phrase. It is such a common utterance completely devoid of sensitivity, care, and emotion. It is not at all comforting to the person grieving. In fact, it is the most positive and upbeat thing one could say, but no more comforting than “He’s dead Jim.”

The next time one of your close friends is grieving, do not tell them that “at least” their friend/family/etc. died doing what they loved best. If you think they’re in any shape or form to be positive or upbeat, do you think they would be grieving? To make matters worse, “at least”? What do you mean, “at least”?

Insensitive bastards.

Are Aussies that rich?

One thing that still rankles me about living in Australia is just how insanely marked-up prices are. This always happens whenever I walk into a bookstore, shop for electronic goods, or clothes. The only redeeming pricing is food.

Books: unless I want to wait for a British/Australian print, most of the time I’d have to settle by picking-up the imported American print. Earlier in April I wanted to pick-up a copy of Suzuki Koji’s third book in the Ring trilogy, Loop. The MSRP for the book is USD 24.95. At Amazon I picked it up for USD 15.72. According to Yahoo’s currency history chart, at the time USD 1.00 was buying about AUD 1.40, which gives us a price of about AUD 22.01.

Kinokuniya in Sydney is still selling this book at AUD 37.82 today, which translates to USD 29.01. That’s USD 5 more expensive than the USD MSRP!

Let’s move on to electronics, which is what sparked this entry today. I “discovered” last night that my motherboard has an on-board RAID controller, and since hard drive prices in the US were so ridiculously low I’m thinking of buying 2x250GB or 2x320GB drives and setting it up as a RAID0 drive with my current drive as backup.

Hitachi 250GB

At Newegg.com: USD 74.99 = AUD 97.76
At Techbuy.com.au: AUD 150.55 = USD 115.48

Seagate 320GB

At Newegg.com: USD 94.99 = AUD 123.84
At Techbuy.com.au: AUD 177.10 = USD 135.85

Look at the mark-ups I have to deal with. In each case I’m looking at an additional AUD 100 if I were to buy it locally! I certainly hope the IT sector isn’t a priority in Australia because with these prices, they’re not going to sell to the Average Bruce.

I remember when one of my younger brothers was in junior high school he saved-up his money from his paper route and then built his own system after comparing prices online and doing his research. I get the feeling it’s a tad harder to do that here than over in the US.

Clothes. Okay, so my taste does lean a bit toward the higher-end but what was expensive in the US is even more ridiculously expensive here. I’ll spare you the price comparison of your typical Italian fashion-houses. Instead, I’ll go back to electronics for a bit.

Tumi sells a really nice plug converter. It is a compact unit that takes all four types (AU, US, UK, EU) plugs, which is standard, but then it also has outputs for all four as well! The one I’ve had for the longest time was made by Brookstone and was compact, took all four inputs, but only had 3 outputs, with the UK one using the EU prongs and a little plastic bit that you stick into the ground when needed.

My friend who showed this to me wanted to buy one while he was in Sydney so off we went to the Tumi store.

Him: So, how much is this?
Saleslady: It is …. One hundred twenty-five.
Him: Oh.
Me (thinking): ZOMGWTFHOLYSHIT! Heh, welcome to my world.
Him: Hmm…
Saleslady: It’s a GREAT product. Everyone who has one really raves about it!
Him: Hmm…
Me (thinking): Of course they would. They paid a fucking AUD 125.00 for a fucking plug converter. They better rave about it or they’re going to realize the idiots that they really are.
Him: Whatcha think dude?
Me: Pick it up at the Duty Free in Singapore. This is a bit pricey.

I mean, who the fuck prices these things? AUD 125.00 for a plug converter? The original price in the US is USD 50. AUD 125? That’s USD 92.05! Yes, that’s including 10% GST, but that still gives us an original price of USD 83.68!

(USD 50? That’s more expensive that the last time I saw it. I remember it was around USD 30-40 when we first looked at it.)

In the end, he picked-up an exact look-alike at about SGD 30 (which is AUD 24.88 and USD 19.08) at the Changi Airport Duty-Free. Our guess is that this is the original manufacturer and Tumi simply re-branded it and marked-it up. The design is the exact same and includes the replaceable fuse as well (yes, another reason this plug converter is special), the “convenient case” the only missing component.

Lastly, food, the light at the end of the tunnel. I try my hardest not to eat at the food-courts in the US. But food-halls (as they’re called here) in Sydney are not bad at all. The quality is actually quite high, and, much like needing to know which stall to choose when going to a hawker center in Singapore, food-halls in Sydney often has just one highlight which often will have a long queue while the others will have only three or four customers waiting to be served.

My favorite example is a recent find from a few months ago. At AUD 8.50 I can get a decent and authentic dolsot bibimbap (the hot pot one) at a food-hall! No way in hell you’ll find that in a food-court in the US. So it’s a bit skimpy on the beef, but it’s a food-hall serving for crying out loud!

As I’ve mentioned in the past, restaurants in general are actually not bad at all. But, that being said, food alone does not make-up for the mark-ups elsewhere.

And don’t get me started on air-fares here. -sigh-