You see it nearly every time there is a car crash where someone gets killed, particularly a young driver. Some kneejerk reaction from politicians or motoring organisations (or in Australia, that clown Harold Scruby who won’t be happy till there are no cars on the road at all) calling for restrictions on the number of passengers a newly-licensed driver may carry, lowering speed limits, more speed cameras (sorry, road safety cameras), even GPS speed tracking.

It was always my thought that driver training would be the answer - I attended a driver training course a number of years ago, and it was an excellent learning experience. In fact, I still highly recommend anyone to attend one of these. But I found a link to a report (in pdf format, briefer version here) prepared for the RACV that noted that it may not have much effect. Its author found that what was learned during the training would drop off in time - people would forget most of what they were taught. It also noted the ‘low individual crash risk’ of drivers - I believe it refers to the actual chances of being in a position, where a crash is imminent, being so remote for the average driver. The other factor, widely expressed, is that the increased level of skill following training would lead to an increase in confidence of the driver, therefore encouraging more risk-taking behaviour. An example of this is “Hey, I learned how to recover from a slide, lets try one around this corner.”

This latter opinion is what concerned me - surely having knowledge of how to control a car is better than none? I wouldn’t get into a plane whose pilots were not told how to recover from a stall, for instance, but rather told “Just don’t get into one in the first place.” A vague analogy, but hopefully you follow my thoughts.

I still believe there is a place for advanced, or defensive, driver training. Not the sort of higher level stuff that was mentioned in the above paragraph, with stuff taught on skidpans and the like, but just the basic stuff like what I was taught, like how to brake in an emergency, to not look at what you are about to hit, but rather where you want to go to avoid the obstacle. To check your tyre pressures regularly. To look further down the road for any dangers, rather than the bumper of the car in front.

Experience is the main thing the report suggested, particularly supervised training while a learner driver. This I can understand. But some of that training should also include just some basic emergency skills, like trying out the ABS brakes on a quiet wet road, to know what it feels like when they activate. The report also suggested a graduated licence scheme, with further tests to be passed to get less and less restricted licenses. I agree with this. But the main suggestion of the report, in my opinion, is buying more crashworthy cars - cars that can better survive an accident. Even better is a car that can avoid an accident with better active safety.

I’m finally getting around to my main point. Active safety in cars, such as better brakes, ABS, traction control, and in particular, Electronic Stability Control. My next car will definitely be fitted with ESC. Basically, the common factor in crashes is overwhelmingly human error. The more ways you can take human fallibility out of the equation, the safer the roads will become.

If you take that last point to the extreme, the only ways you would end up with zero road deaths would be to limit them to 20km/h, or remove humans from the control of cars altogether. Have each car computer controlled, with sensors taking in information about the surroundings, lane markings, radars picking up obstacles to the front and side. Communication between other vehicles, using a common standard, that lets each car know what others in its vicinity are doing, so they don’t hit.

Even then, there are still factors that will cause possible deaths. Mechanical failure, or errors in programming; after all, the human factor is still in the design and construction stages. Pedestrians, particularly drunk ones, or suicidal ones, will still find a way to jump in front of a car.

In the end, is this a situation we want? It would be a massive cost to replace all vehicles on the road with automatic travel pod-type things (I don’t know if you could call them cars). There would be massive opposition. I happen to like driving - so do millions of others. People would not trust these automatic drivers, even if they could be feasibly developed - there is no chance at today’s level of technology. I guess the moral of the story is, you make something foolproof, they will just make better fools…

Today I thought of something that would be rather cool. It is probably not feasible yet, but given another few years of processor power increase for mobile devices, it could be. I’m thinking of a mobile phone that, after setting the speaker’s and the listener’s languages, could translate between the two.

It would record what you spoke, process the sentence - probably into text - then translate that sentence into another language. That translated sentence would then be sent to the earpiece of the person you’re talking to.

Some of the technology is here - speech recognition exists, with software like Dragon Naturally Speaking. That is one half of the equation. Translation tools exist - look at Google’s language tools. Text-to-speech synthesisers are easy, too, and are already in some phones I think - for reading out emails and text messages.

Problems? There are a few. It wouldn’t be able to translate on the fly - there would be pauses in conversation, like speaking with a human interpreter. This ties into the second problem - using Google’s translator, it often translates word-for-word, meaning sentences can be all out of order due to different language structures. Unless the translating algorithm can adjust sentence structure, it’s going to sound weird. It would also be part of the reason why it would have to listen to the whole sentence before beginning the translation.

Another problem would be potential market - who calls people who don’t speak their language? I guess the pauses would be quite off-putting to someone unfamiliar with what’s going on. Maybe it would need a little pre-recorded message at the beginning of the call letting the recipient know what’s happening. Anyway, it could have uses in emergencies, such as tourists in foreign countries trying to call an ambulance.

 I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thought of this, but it’s the first time it’s come into my head, anyway. The first example could be PC-based (maybe even using a VOIP service like skype). Even if the phone idea doesn’t work, just a dictation-style device, that speaks out what you just said into it (again, as a tool for foreign tourists) could be doable.

If it happens, hell, remember where you read it first. 

I just thought I’d share with you some insights into my life that I have observed.

1. I am crap at computer and video games. Even after playing them from the age of about 8, I never really got much better at them. About the only ones that held my interest for more than an hour or so at a time were simulators - driving and flight. And with flight simulators, they’re not really games as such. But nowadays, I can’t spare the time to sit down for a three hour interstate flight. Oh well. One of the last games I bought was Doom 3. It was interesting for a few levels, but after a while it got too hard for me, so I basically played it in ‘god’ invincible mode as basically a sightseer, just to see the ending.

 Ahh, yes. Game endings. I haven’t seen too many - a lot of the games I bought I did the training missions and hardly scratched the surface of the actual missions. Jane’s F-15 comes to mind here. An awesome game, frighteningly realistic in its detail. 350-ish page manual, discussing stuff like switching how to make the radar scan in different orientations for different targets, and setting the altitude at which the low altitude alarm went off. You had to play it daily almost, just to keep all the key commands and sequences fresh in your memory. Unfortunately, my game playing usually comes in the form of a frenzy for a few days, then not touching it for months.

Anyway, being bad a games at least means I only had to buy a $100 graphics card, rather than a $1000 card that uses as much power as the rest of the system put together.

2. Most wines and beers taste the same to me - I can barely taste any difference. I don’t mean that wine tastes like beer - I’m not that taste-blind (if that is even a word). I remember reading an article on the net where a study was done where some wine experts were given either a red or a white wine, with all visual cues removed. The glasses were black, so the colour could not be seen. they were served at the same temperature, so the standard chilled white/room temperature red difference didn’t come into play. Apparently, even some of these people couldn’t tell the taste difference between a white and a red, let alone whether there was a hint of peach, pineapple or bloody chocolate in the wine.

I still like the odd wine though, and I can taste some difference, but it’s hard to identify. Guess I’m not edumacated enough in wine tasting… 

I’m the same with beers, to a lesser extent. Although I can tell some difference between beers, I’d be hard pressed to identify which was which in a blind taste test.

3. Blogs are hard to keep writing regularly. I admire Scott Adams’ ability to come up with something good every day, but that’s all he does apart from the comic strip and public speaking. It’s his job to write blog entries. Another difference is he has people who actually read his stuff. This blog is the equivalent of running around nude by yourself in the middle of the desert - nobody else ever sees it.

I really should keep making entries more regularly.

Since one of the work laptops was stolen from the office recently, I had to order a new one to replace it. We had bought Dell PCs before, and found the service to be pretty good, especially in after sales support - stuff like warranty repairs. So I went onto the Dell site to place an order. I had done a bit of browsing last week there, but since January 30 or so, when Vista was released, that is all you can get with the notebook I wanted (A Latitude D820). Since I was going to be using it with some rather memory-hungry software that runs, and works with data from, a 3D Laser Scanner, I wanted the memory to be available for the program, not hogged by the operating system. Not to mention the possible compatibility issues and bugs that will emerge.

I don’t think I am the only one who doesn’t want to go to Vista in the workplace yet, and I think Dell are shooting themselves in the foot with the Vista-only PCs they are selling. In the end, I managed to get the Latitude with XP after calling them, but they gave the impression that I was getting one of the few remaining ones left with that operating system. My workplace is thinking of getting another desktop as well, to replace one that is a bit flaky, but again, I had difficulty ordering one without Vista. This could lose them quite a few sales, particularly in the conservative business PC sector.

At least I’m not trying to order a laptop without any operating system, that’s another world of pain… 

Every time I hear of some new 16 year old dipshit with a record deal with some mindless bubble-gum pop tune, or a new Celine Dion album, a little piece of me dies. Because what it means is that you and me will be subjected to that for the rest of our lives. It will be on the radio, on TV, everywhere. It is unavoidable. People say, "Just turn off/switch stations on the radio/TV", but you can’t escape it everywhere. It will be coming out of someone’s ipod headphones while you’re on the train. It will be the hold music when you’re calling a company. It will be playing in shops.

Eventually though, it will fade away, not getting as much airtime, but it will never completely go away. Like herpes. Then, without warning, you will hear it again and the feeling of dread will come over you as you hear the first few notes.

This happened to me last night. I was at a chinese restaurant, which has Karaoke on some nights. Other nights, it plays music videos. After an Everly Brothers reunion concert DVD finished, it started playing some love songs from the 1980s and 1990s, including the slightly creepy, stalker-ish video to Lionel Richie’s Hello. That wasn’t what bothered me. A while later on came Glenn Medeiros’ one, and as far as I know, thankfully only video, Nothing’s gonna change my love for you. Years of repressing it got it virtually out of my consciousness, until it came on the screen last night. There was no escape. Damn you Glenn, damn you to hell. I still have the song stuck in my head as I type this.

There has been a small amount of distress in the Bort Household, as Mrs Bort’s favourite breakfast cereal has vanished from supermarket shelves - Uncle Toby’s Plus - Lite Start. Virtually all the other varieties are still available, including my favourite, Plus - Fibre Mix. Or, as my wife calls it, Shit Mix.

There has been difficulty finding a replacement too - as she doesn’t like sultanas, it rules out nearly all other types. Special K has been bought for now, but it is bloody expensive. An email has been sent to Uncle Toby’s, but so far there is no reply.

Things look pretty grim though, as on the box of the new cereal they have, Protein Mix, the list of other flavours (yes, including Shit Mix) does not show Lite Start any more.

If a reply ever arrives, I’ll let you know.