Category: learning curve

Waze and means…

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I’ve been fiddling with the Waze app on my Android phone this week. It’s not the first time I have played with it, but I found that it was of very limited use last time out (probably about a year ago), simply because I was the only (slight exaggeration) person in South Africa bothering to use it.

Described as:

…a free social mobile app that enables drivers to build and use live maps, real-time traffic updates and turn-by-turn navigation for an optimal commute. 100% powered by users, the more you drive the better it gets.

Waze allows you to send information about your journey to other Wazers on the road, so that a real-time map can be built up and the app can help other users to avoid troublespots. Because of this, it requires a “critical mass” of users to make it worthwhile and, as I pointed up above, it didn’t have that. Now, however, it has joined forces with MiX Telematics who already have 30,000 users using realtime reporting through their vehicle tracking services.

I found out about this from a rather enthusiastic John Maytham on Cape Talk, who has been enthusing enthusiastically about Waze ever since. Quite how this sits with Primedia’s support of the Lead SA campaign, I’m not sure. After all, they aren’t usually very impressed with people using their cellphones while driving.

My first impressions haven’t been brilliant. There are still very few users in Cape Town, and the information seems only to state the bleeding obvious: traffic is bad into town in the morning, traffic is bad out of town in the evening. Add to that the fact that because of the MASSIVE lump of rock we like to call “The Mountain” and its proximity to Table Bay, there aren’t an awful lot of alternative routes to take in the Mother City and Waze’s usefulness is immediately limited.

And then there’s the battery drain. Wow. I have never known an app like it for using power. A journey from Ysterplaat, via town, to home (about 30km) took over 50% of my (admittedly old) battery life. All of which means that even with a fully charged phone, you aren’t going to get much more than 90 minutes of Waze-related driving fun.

I’m too worldly wise to give up on apps very quickly, but Waze is already on the danger list.
Anyone care to tell me why it deserves to stay on my phone?

More on Waze in SA.
Waze on Android Market Google Play Store [QR].

UPDATE: Ooh – looks like 5fm Breakfast is running a Waze promotion next week as well. 6000 miles… slightly ahead of the curve again…

What exactly happened up at the university?

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Ah, the bizarre otherworldliness of the Southern Suburbs Tatler letters page. We’ve mentioned it here several times before, but yesterday’s edition gave us no less than two (2) examples of just how odd the folk that write into this freebie rag are.

Firstly, a simple and straightforward request from Douglas Rose-innes of Rondebosch:

I am requesting that homeowners do not pull up lawn and replace it with chipped stone, which is sterile and does not attract birds and life as grass does.

Short, sweet, to the point. I like it, Douglas. And it’s a reasonable request as well, although as a microbiologist, I can inform you that chipped stone is anything but sterile, its many tiny nooks and crannies harbouring a multitude of forms of microbial life.
Also, I have to ask whether this is a one off letter or whether this forms the early stages of a wider, multimedia campaign in order to prevent the life-attracting lawns of Rondebosch being pulled up and replaced with chipped stone? To be honest Douglas, if this is the only effort on your part to stop this scourge of the suburban gardens in your area, I think that you should be prepared to fail. Hard.
Perhaps learn lessons from the #Kony2012 campaign and misinform people that children are being kidnapped and used to pull up the lawns of Rondebosch and replace them with sterile chipped stone. Ask for donations which you will then quietly channel to the armed militia behind a despotic leader who will (possibly) use the money to buy lawnmowers and weedeaters to defend the lawns of Rondebosch from complete desecration.

Or not. It’s just a thought.

Robin Bond, also of Rondebosch, is far less direct. He rambles on for over 1000 words about two specific incidents in which red traffic lights were ignored and he nearly got flattened. You can read the whole lot on a quick and dirty scan here, but there were, for me, a couple of highlights amongst the waffle. (Mmm… Waffle…)

Last night, Tuesday at about 9:45pm, I was walking home from ballroom dancing. Coming to the pedestrian robot opposite Stardust, I noted two cars, one coming from the Wynberg side and one coming from the Cape Town side, both approaching the robot.

OK. Stop. While Robin has set the scene beautifully, I need to do some explaining for you foreigners:
Robots are a colloquialism for Traffic Lights.
Stardust is a restaurant and bar in Rondebosch, where people dance on the tables. Mad! It’s on Main Road, which goes from Cape Town towards (and beyond) Wynberg, which helps to explain Robin’s description of the cars’ direction.

Oh, and Robin does ballroom dancing on Tuesdays. This isn’t pertinent to the story, but it does give us a quick glimpse into the chaotic workings of Robin’s mind. Not only does Robin partake in ballroom dancing on Tuesdays, he also feels it necessary to tell us that he partakes in ballroom dancing on Tuesdays.

I pushed the button for pedestrians and the robot went red.
Both cars were a way off and had plenty of time to stop, but I was vigilant enough to be circumspect.

Vigilance and circumspection – the keywords of Tuesday night ballroom dancers across the nation.
But anyway…

The car on my side of the road (the mountain side) ran through the red robot, after which I proceeded to cross with caution, watching the oncoming car from the left.

Vigilance, circumspection and caution. Belt, braces and some more braces.

The car did not slow down and swerved to around me to get through the red robot. The car then pulled off onto the parking area opposite Stardust and the driver got out and looked at me.

Uh-oh. Hier kom kak, as the locals might say.
But then Robin just nonchalantly chucks the following line into the tale:

I had already had a bad experience up at the university, so I didn’t want to engage in any interaction.

Wait. What? Why? What “bad experience” happened up at the university? Did you perhaps kill a driver in a road rage incident up at the university, Robin? Because with the meagre information I’m given here, that’s what I’m imagining. What other “bad experience” could cause you to not want to engage in any interaction with a driver who has stopped and is looking at you? Was the red mist starting to descend again? I’m picturing you, swaying slightly (perhaps in the style of a gentle waltz) holding you head in your hands and praying for the demons to stop telling you to get the still-bloodied axe out of your ballroom dancing bag.

No. Please. Don’t make me do it again. He only ignored a traffic signal.

So – what was this “bad experience”? Well – there is no further elaboration in Robin’s letter, merely an appeal to the traffic department to clarify some methods of improving pedestrian safety. Which is all well and good, but leaves an mysterious and scary story hanging over what exactly happened up at the university, where they are still looking for the infamous and elusive Ballroom Beheader…

Muhahahahahahaha!  [with echo, repeat to fade]

Yeah, but what if…

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Yeah, but what if Darth Vader had had a kilt, bagpipes and a unicycle?

Well, obviously, it would look something like this:

While the internet has many, many uses: communication and sharing ideas, informing us of offers on Viagra and similar drugs, keeping us up to date with the latest news and sport, and providing us with access to information 24/7 wherever we are, it seems to me that being able to watch a video of Darth Vader in a kilt, playing bagpipes while riding a unicycle actually sums up what the internet is all about.

Fantastic.

6 months on…

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UPDATES in the comments section below.

…and a day, because I forgot to post this yesterday.

Remember this post, when I suggested that things are slowly but surely falling apart in the City of Cape Town. Well, here’s a good example – a pothole on a shared pavement/cycle path that I reported back on the 7th September last year.

(as long as you don’t expect a pothole filled in within 6 months) (and one day)

Looking at the email thread, I reported it to the appropriate city email address at 9:18am and received a reply:

Dear Sir
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your e-mail dated 07/09/2011
Please be advised that we have forwarded your concern to the relevant department for their action.

together with a case number, at 9:44am – a turnaround time of 26 minutes. Brilliant.

Sadly, in the intervening 263,520 minutes (yes, that took some rudimentary calculations on my part), precisely bugger all has been done about fixing said pothole.

During these minutes (each one of which I have paid my municipal rates for), I enquired why there had been no progress on the 26th September and was told:

All complaints are worked on a first come first to be served basis and on the availability of manpower and equipment. So we cannot determine or give out timeframes.

I reported the pothole again on 2nd November and got this:

Please be advised that we will follow up with the relevant department and will keep you informed of the outcome of this issue.

But they didn’t. And I had cause to report it again on 24th November after a little kid (not mine) fell off his bike having hit it.

Guess what?

Dear Sir/Madam
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your e-mail dated  2011/11/24.
Please be advised that we will follow up with the relevant department and will keep you informed of the outcome of this issue.

And guess what? They didn’t.

Yesterday marked 6 months of constant inactivity on the City’s part. If this pothole was an e-toll, millions would be vocal in support of me withholding my rates until it was scrapped. Or filled in. Whatever – you get the analogy.

I’m sure that someone will forward this to @HelenZille – even though this is a City issue and she doesn’t really have anything to do with the City. Sadly, no-one will forward it to our actual mayor, @PatriciadeLille, because we all know that that would be a complete waste of pixels.

Dilbert does fracking

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This morning’s offering from Dilbert:

Of course, as Ivo Vegter pointed out, fracking doesn’t really cause earthquakes and as New Scientist recently told us, any water pollution is generally due to poor management of waste water – a hazard in many other industrial processes. So his evil plan wouldn’t really work.

Still, nice to see Dilbert’s company president using Christine’s Brilliant Idea. Fine work, Christine.