Local Unmentionables: Notes on YOUR corner of the world

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Tony Leggett
YMMV though. You might like Sydney - I've never been to Perth so I have no basis for comparison.

Sydney has just been run down and neglected ever since the Olympics. It's very big and very crowded with terrible traffic and even worse public transport. After 13 years in Sydney I personally found Brisbane a breath of fresh air - but I was very lucky with the suburb I picked up here. Not sure I'd feel the same way if I'd moved to Logan or Forest Lake.

The first time I went to Sydney was for the Olympics. I've been there a few times since because my brother lived their for a few years and my aunt and uncle live there as well (they'll be putting me up initially too). The public transport is better than Perth from my experience, although if my hairdresser is to be believed the public transport in Brisbane is the best in Australia :)

The only time I've spent in Brisbane was driving through late one night on a road trip with my brother a couple of years ago. I'll come visit again (properly) when I'm settled in.

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johnny k
Let us know how it goes, Simon. I'll keep you in mind in case I run across friends' needs for UI/icon design.

Thanks Johnny, I'll keep you in mind.

Wow. I always thought Perth was highly regarded for its public transport. I guess I should remember that I view public transport through the prism of wheelchair accessibility.

I am very lucky where I am. There's an accessible bus that goes to the city every 10-15 minutes at a bus stop 1 block from my house. Right next door to that they are upgrading the ferry terminal so I can catch an accessible citycat ferry into the city. It's so ridiculously good - you'd think it was socialists in charge of city hall, not Liberals.

That said, the ferry from circular quay to manly is still my favourite ferry trip ever (with mandatory 4 hour session at the Steyn hotel beer garden). I do miss the harbour - a muddy river ain't quite the same...

The problem with public transport is kinda catch 22, we don't have a huge population so it hasn't been built up as much as it could, which means it's not very convenient for a lot of people, and because its not that convenient, people don't bother using it, because people don't bother using it the government doesn't invest in building up the infrastructure. It's also set up radially so it's usually pretty easy to get into and out of the CBD, but if you're not doing that it's a PITA. When I worked in the CBD it was a 15 min bus ride into the city, and it was a 5 min walk to a bus stop. Now that I work out of the city it would take me over an hour to get to work via public transport because I'd have to catch a bus to the city and then a train out to work. Instead it takes me 12-15 min to drive.

The other problem is frequency of services. If you're traveling during peak periods you won't ever have to wait more than 10 mins if you miss your bus or train. Outside of those times you will usually have to wait at least 30 minutes, often an hour. Few people consider living in Perth and not owning a car, while I have friends who've lived in sydney and melbourne for years and have never needed to own a car.

As far as accessibility is concerned, all the new buses are very accessible for wheelchairs with hydraulic ramps and suspension to make boarding easy. There are still some older buses in service though they will continue to be removed from service over time. Trains and train stations are all very accessible for wheel chairs and have been for a long time.

The other problem is frequency of services. If you're traveling during peak periods you won't ever have to wait more than 10 mins if you miss your bus or train. Outside of those times you will usually have to wait at least 30 minutes, often an hour.

Grumpy MBTA rider
You don't know you're born....

Our middle (son) got results from exit testing at end of last year's school.
He was in 7th grade. He is in an advanced type class. He got a perfect score for this high-school level Algebra comprehensive test!!
He and his parents are happy.

flip-side - I made a big boo boo at work. Tomorrow will be potentially painful.

Oh .... WELL !!! :)

Smart kid - shame about the father?

yeah - no hope

I haven't talked about social gifting much lately, but it's still there and if any of you have favorite local vendors, feel free to recommend the service to them. ;-)

What I'm posting about tonight though is an addition to the service to elicit social good from the same people who are stuck to their keyboards, specifically in the form of a program to help get school supplies into the hands of those who need them: Supply the Future.

If you're interested in reading more about it, who to suggest it to, how to participate, etc. here's the link:

http://playerspot.com/itsonmegifts/soar/supply-the-future/

Thanks!

-brad

Very cool! Can't do much recommending from here, but remind me when I get back to the States in Sept... .

If you'd like some UI/crankyoldman suggestions (along the lines of "don't make the target areas of menu items change when mouseover'd"), feel free to email me directly and I'll try to help... .

ddt

ddt, lol re: movement, are you referring to the twitter plugin? I go back and forth on that one (and yes, moving targets are less than optimal objectively). If you're talking about the main "sliding door" menu, well... ;-)

I'm always open for suggestions, complaints, whatever, as long as it's understood that I take all comments seriously even if it's beyond my skill or available time to do something about some of the things that I agree with.

CB would be shocked at how much CSS I've had my hands in lately. And probably even more shocked at how I've avoided mangling things TOO badly. :-D

But thanks for the vote of confidence overall. I'll remind you later when you're back.

Ha -- in the interim, I'd be glad to help out in things like logo design, looking at user interaction flow.

Yes, the "sliding door". I hadn't even thought of that physical metaphor for it! Huh.

ddt

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ddt
Ha -- in the interim, I'd be glad to help out in things like logo design, looking at user interaction flow.

Yes, the "sliding door". I hadn't even thought of that physical metaphor for it! Huh.

ddt

I can't claim originality on the "sliding door" idea - that's the name of the theme. :-D

And as always, whatever feedback you (or anyone) wants to take the time to give is welcome!

Oh, and the logo... has multiple meanings embedded, but clearly I'm not a graphic designer, either.

I like that wordpress theme. I've been hand-coding some simple stuff from scratch but it looked pretty awful. I think it's time I bit the gullet and went wordpress-only.

Fair warning, Tony, the theme *is* nice IMO, and it comes with a sample image to modify, which is good. The images you see on this site are all from my own archives.

Regardless, I'm finding it much easier to (a) find a theme and hack it, or (b) find someone graphically competent to do a theme, than to roll-my-own from scratch. I still have content in the m.e CMS codebase, and it was decent for the time, but these days, there's almost no reason not to use one of the main platforms.

I'll have to brush up on the latest wordpress version too. I've only fiddled with 3.0

3.2 is nice, but I haven't had to mess under the hood all that much with it.

The sliding door theme (the one used here) uses the 3.x custom menus, so when you go theme hunting, look for reasonably current ones.

almost forgot until I saw some weird looking guy that gencon is on (here in Indy)

Hey ddt,

I am residing in 94610 starting next week.

That's near the Grand Lake theatre, right? Cool! A fave dive bar (the Alley) is near there, too, and good restaurants, a nice used bookstore on Grand, one of the best local farmers' market on Saturday mornings, I think, and not far from Piedmont Ave. I'm not sure where I'll be crashing when I get back to the States but I could definitely show you around. Same job or new one?

ddt

My Lord, you left LA? Anybody left there now or have we abandoned a smoldering pile of ash… ?