We are now connected to the NBN. Here's a run-down on the install. And the speed!

Today was the long-awaited connect to the National Broadband Network day. Yay!

After being involved for years in the community campaign to get Gungahlin's parlous internet access upgraded, it was lovely to be able to see the end result.

We've been paying Telstra the same price as someone in Sydney pays for an ADSL2+ service running at 20Mbps, but getting only an 8Mbps service. Except what it really ran like was this (speedtest.net):

And that was at a good time, with low congestion.

We went looking a while back for the NBN package that seemed the best-rounded solution of the well-respected major providers, so we'd already changed our internet and phone service to iiNet in preparation.

So as soon as we knew the NBN was ready in our area we got the install booked through iiNet, for "between 8 and 10am" today. The process of the install kicked off well, with a reminder call the day before from the contractor, who I found out later has been brought in from Melbourne because NBN Co has been having troubles with their prime contractor. I'll explain the whole process here so you know what is involved and can plan your conversion without surprises.

Before the Canberra storm was the build-up... My 1:20 timelapse

iPhone shot out the other side of the house while the timelapse was shooting

No fireworks for this Australia Day - not the artificial kind anyway. But plenty of the natural white kind!

And before the big storm hit Canberra, there were some dramatic clouds during the build-up.

It was all very reminiscent of South-East Queensland actually...

Enjoy my first YouTube upload—1849 frames, four seconds apart, covering from 3:56pm to 6:20pm in one minute 19 seconds:



Pity Picasa doesn't fade out the sound at the end...

A still from the series

Related articles

• My photos of all the Enlighten projections for the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
• My photos of all the Enlighten projections for Old Parliament House, Canberra

Listen to our frogs celebrating the rains

Have a listen to the wonderful sounds of the frogs in the pond outside our kitchen. Glad we put this away from the bedrooms!


And they got a lot more into the swing of things shortly after I recorded this. It was during the rain Christmas Eve.


Apart from the three or four of one (loudest) species playing ping pong, you can hear two other quieter species chirping and squeaking in the background. Then around 70% through, another deep sounding species chimes in, and then the whole lot get really wound up...

As you can see from the photo, in winter the pond gets pretty cold! Yet the fish and tadpoles survive...

My readings over the last month or so...

Another catch-up of my readings via various sites and social media forums, for anyone interested (but mainly just for my own record), through the Paper.li automatic magazine tool.

There's something in here for everyone...

Week to 26 November
Week to 19 November
Week to 12 November
Week to 5 November
Week to 29 October
Week to 22 October
Week to 15 October

I think I lost a little bit of my soul today... #ACTvotes

As I write this, I'm sitting on a gutter in the shade of a tree, resting legs that simply can't go further for a while.

I'm leafleting all of Gungahlin - a snippet of information explaining why I've moved on from my volunteer work with Gungahlin Community Council and am now asking people to vote for me and the Greens for the ACT election. Why I think I could do so much more for the community from this elected role than I could by continuing the rewarding but frustrating community role, shoehorned around a day job and a family.

But as the legs hit a wall, the mind also hits the realisation that a huge proportion of these leaflets will be discarded without a glance. More often than you'd expect discarded straight onto the footpath. And it's the same outcome for the leaflets of other parties too. (Much more so for some of them!)

And that's a little bit soul-destroying.

ACT grant to the National Folk Festival much needed

The ACT Government has provided the National Folk Festival with $134,000 to ensure the event can go ahead in 2013 and beyond.

They say that the NFF asked the Government for an urgent meeting and advised that they would experience cashflow difficulties by July if they were not able to secure financial assistance.

Treasury looked at the NFF financial reports for the past five years, and recommended that $134,000 be given to give the NFF time to undertake a detailed business plan to support a return to sustainable operations.

I for one am glad to see this support. The National Folk Festival is an important event on the region's cultural calendar and does indeed bring a lot of money and cash to town, not to mention fantastic musical talents.

Streetlight repairs? Some of us would be happy to see some of them left broken...

Canberra lights clearly visible from the top of Mt Ainslie.
And a beautiful comet! Photo: Richard McDonald

It appears that Katy Gallagher is copping some flack about slow repairs of streetlights in the older suburbs of Canberra. And understandably so - some of the old "heritage" lights do very little for pedestrian safety. Even less when broken...

But it is precisely the opposite in any newer areas. We have lights on steroids. I can do the gardening at night time by the street lights. Literally!

And forget looking at the stars except in the back yard where the house partially shields some of the worst ones.

The worst of it though is that we can go up to any high point around Canberra and see virtually every street light. What's that about? Any street light so poorly designed as to project light upwards should never be installed - it is just wasting energy and taxpayer money for no benefit at all.

Ringleader of anti-Muslim protests outs himself as a twit

For Gungahlin folk who've been wondering about the so-called "Concerned Citizens of Canberra" and their dog-whistle objections against the mosque to be built in our town centre, this interview with the ringleader on 2CC today is essential listening.

I think Mike Welsh tried really hard to be fair, but this guy is pathetic, and his own worst enemy.

Listen for yourself:

http://www.2cc.net.au/mp3/MW-Irwin-Ross-Gungahlin-Mosque.mp3

Do you support light rail for Canberra's public transport? Here's a dead easy way to have your say.

Canberra Loves 40 is a local lobby group representing a coalition of community groups all supporting the ambitious ACT target for reducing greenhouse emissions to 40% of 1990 levels by 2020.

They have set up a really simple way that you can voice your support for their campaign to get the ACT Government to get serious about light rail as a solution for Canberra's public transport woes.


Just jump over to this web page, plug in your postcode, and up will come a list of your current local ACT MLAs. Select those you want to email, modify the draft email text if desired, then click Get On Board, and the rest is done for you. 

Then enjoy this short video by the group of what a light rail car could look like down Northbourne Avenue - it was shown on the big screen at the latest Raiders game at Bruce Stadium - great to have the Raiders on board with this campaign!

Opposition to the Muslim church in Gungahlin is being led by Christian evangelists with links to the US.

The letter circulated in Gungahlin, via www.the-riotact.com 

I can’t believe we are here again, with yet another protest action against the proposal by the Canberra Muslim Community to build a church in the Gungahlin district.

Except of course I can believe it. Nay - I fully expected it once the development application went in. But that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

What is even more disappointing though is to find that it seems to be led by a so-called "Christian" pastor who is practising here in Canberra.


Canberra Times journalist Lisa Cox (to her great credit) has been working all week to try to get to the bottom of who the organisers are. She has identified this pastor as Irwin Ross - who doesn't even live in Gungahlin. He's from the Belconnen area. And he identifies himself as belonging to Olive Tree Ministries - a Jewish-Christian evangelist group based in the USA.


Cox has also reported that in the same week these objections were circulated in Gungahlin, other anti-Islamic leaflets were also circulated in Canberra. These ones were produced by "Chick Publications" - another USA evangelist organisation that is blatantly pushing anti-Islamic propaganda.


Despite these extremely concerning revelations, let's consider whether the opponents have any valid points in their claims against the Gungahlin mosque - a church by another name, and in a street where two other churches have already even approved (one built so far):

What a lovely surprise from a group of enthusiastic young stargazers

Recently I took the telescope to the Harrison School so my daughter's class could witness the Transit of Venus. As I wrote here, it ended up being a LOT more than just her class!

It was a lot of fun on the day. And I hope that it's one of those events that sticks in these children's minds for years to come - like how I vividly remember witnessing Armstrong step on the Moon at Canberra's Red Hill Primary School, even though I was only six years old.

But there was a real surprise in store for me a few days later. Every child in her class made up their own thank you cards.

Click on the picture to see the wonderful messages and pictures from the children. And some pretty good recall of the Dobsonian telescope design too!

Really made my day.

ACT Greens statement on Gungahlin to Civic Public Transport Priority Study release - comical list of prior promises...

ACT Transport Minister Simon Corbell released an important study study that has given estimates of time savings that would result for both public transport and car-bound commuters between Gungahlin and Civic, if priority bus lanes or light rail was built.

And viewed in isolation, this report and the words couching its release would sound very promising for a long-overdue solution to Canberra's worst commute.

Except that we've been here before.

The following release by the ACT Greens Transport spokesperson Amanda Bresnan includes a timeline of past reports and statements that really would be funny if it didn't read like such an indictment of the ALP Government, and such a litany of lost opportunity, lost revenue and increased costs/taxes.

Photos over Gungahlin of last night's very bright ISS pass

Gradually getting the hang of doing dark sky photography with the new camera. Purchase of a locking remote release helps no end.

Trickiest part is the manual focussing when you really have nothing to focus on...

There was a six minute pass of the International Space Station last night at magnitude -3.0 - very bright and close to as bright as Venus is lately.

These were taken from near "Up On Top" - the hilltop cottage on Well Station and looking towards the north-east. To the right are Mars and the star Regulus. Actually Regulus is a four-star system - two pairs. Click on the pics to embiggerate.

Yes I have nominated for Greens pre-selection for the ACT election

It’s now public knowledge that I have nominated for pre-selection for the Greens party for the upcoming ACT elections.

It’s important to note though that nominating for pre-selection does not mean I am now a candidate. It means that mine is one of a few names that will be put to the Greens membership later this month, and the members will vote on who they want as their candidates. When the results are announced in March, then everyone will know who the candidates are going forward into the final months before the election. It’s a reality of the Greens that a surprising number of commentators don’t seem able to grasp—a political party where decisions are actually made by the membership rather than a faceless cadre. Perhaps they are just too used to the way the old parties work...

So despite the coverage given by the Canberra Times, no candidates have been chosen, and until today the members of the party didn’t even know who has put their hand up. In fact, they still don’t because the Times only chose to discuss me. There are two other electorates, and nominees in all of them. I would have preferred to wait out due process before talking publicly if selected. But there are some comments made in the Times and elsewhere that need to be put to rights.

Picks from my readings and posts over the last week - the Weekly Beach House Wrap.

Here's the weekly paper.li sieve of my week's posts.

Canberra is the nation's capital - a showcase city. But flagging maintenance is taking a toll and needs a fundamental rethink.

As previously described, the ACT Government is running a Facebook page to gauge public thoughts on their upcoming budget. On it, Treasurer Andrew Barr has asked: "Should the Government maintain its current suite of services?"

The problem with this question is that it implies a reduction in services, much as was put by Gary Byers (TaMS boss) to a community forum some months back - "should we reduce public toilet cleaning by 25%?" etc.

The question should be framed more around what can be done to reduce the actual need for the service frequency in the first place.

Can facilities be upgraded to make them easier to maintain? If you treat the budget as an accrual accounting function rather than cash accounting, you can easily come to the conclusion that it is often better to spend some money up front on capital works - even if you have to borrow to do it - in order to reduce ongoing expenditure.

The problem comes when bureaucrats focus on capex but ignore expenditure. Compounded by elected reps who are scared of borrowing.

Venus and Neptune in conjunction tonight

Evening space fans. For your viewing pleasure tonight a special treat: Venus and Neptune right on top of each other.

As per this screen from the wonderful free smartphone app Star Walk. With Uranus not too far behind, but only visible with a scope.

Venus will be very bright in the west after sunset if the high level cloud allows. Neptune may be visible just below and to the right of it. But it is only 100,000th the brightness of Venus. So it may be hard to see! Through our 8" scope it is a small blue disc. And Venus is a yellow disc to bright to discern any features.

Jupiter is much better - stripes and red spot. It will be further up and slightly north.

I'm going to look around for a close location but away from the light pollution where we can have a local little star party for anyone interested in checking out a few features.

Great news for Gungahlin - the first major offices are getting closer.

Great news for residents in our neck of the woods - Gungahlin. The ACT Government has received nine expressions of interest to build the new ACT Government office block in Gungahlin town centre.

And the Government has also advised that the 500 staff to be relocated to Gungahlin will be the Shared Services department, currently housed in Woden. Apparently the existing staff are about 50/50 north and south residents, so no prizes for guessing how many of them will be pleased/not pleased about the announcement. But there are at least two years to allow for a gradual transition.

Gungahlin Community Council meetings have featured presentations by two of these proponents (both already owning land behind the Emergency Services and with plans ready to go), so to know there are another seven out there is quite intriguing.

But it does underline exactly what we have been saying to the ACT Government for more than five years - instead of guessing what the commercial market is like, put the land out there and see. From our discussions with various developers, we've always known that the limiting factor has not been interest, but land released to the market.

It's harder now, with the squeeze of commercial credit, and had land been released four years ago, we'd probably already have office blocks by now.
And this is where having the ACT Government put their 'money where their mouth is' has been the necessary catalyst.

We believe that once this goes in, the whole local jobs situation will start to snowball.
Most welcome to see after so many years of GCC lobbying.

And if you'd like to work locally, you now know what vacancies to start targeting!

ACT Budget summary

Media release I wrote for GCC on local impacts of the ACT Budget:

The 2010–11 ACT Budget has been largely welcomed by GCC as a solid further step towards correcting years of lagging infrastructure, as the population surges past 41,000, on its way towards 100,000 people.

Transport

“This budget includes some very important projects for improving public transport services for Gungahlin commuters, over and above the most welcome continuation of the Gungahlin REDEX bus service” said GCC President Ashley Kerlin.

“For more than three years we have been asking for a major Park’n’Ride to be built at EPIC, for a ‘tidal’ bus lane down the centre of Northbourne Avenue, and a fix to the major congestion woes at the Phillip Avenue/Majura Avenue intersection.

Whatever you do, don't mention population...

At a 2020 Planning Forum in Canberra on 27/02/2010, ACT Liberal Opposition Leader Zed Seselja said:

“I believe that a bigger Canberra is a good thing.”

He went on to describe a number of reasons why he believes this. Not mentioned was keeping revenue flows up to the development industry that funds so much of the Liberal Party support mechanisms.

Opposing this line was Mark O’Connor, author of This Tired Brown Land – a book at the vanguard of the argument that population growth is pivotal to all environmental degradation we are suffering and our children will suffer into the future.

Other speakers at the forum appeared to dance around the population issue. It begs the question why?

In one of those curious little coincidences in life, this was summarised quite well in an opinion piece by Melvin Bolton on Science Alert: