Re: [Linux-aus] Grant request: GPL3 summit

[Paul Wayper <paul.wayper@anu.edu.au>]

Jeff Waugh wrote:
> Clearly Melbourne is the centre of the universe, because all the roads go
> around it.
>   
I don't think you've seen enough of Melbourne cartography.  Melbourne
roads clearly go through it, allowing Melbournites the ability to choose
one of a dozen or more roads to end up in a traffic jam on.  The
exception is the Western Ring Road, which is to divert all the
northerners away from the city and on toward better places like...
Werribee and Geelong.

Sydney, on the other hand, is a maze of twisty little roads, all alike. 
It's like a whole room full of roads shouting "You want to go over
there?  Take me!  I lead... sort of that way..."  In this way it has the
same inconvenience factor as Brisbane, but at least with Brisbane you
only have the River making it impossible to get from one place to
another less than a kilometer away except via a fifteen kilometer
detour.  With Sydney, you have to do the same detour, but with about
three picturesque sandstone cuttings, five major hills, a ferry journey,
two sections where the road goes through period slums and has been
artificially narrowed for your convenience, and eight bits where the
road you wanted has been blocked off and you're diverted somewhere
else.  Prominent signs on the street directories say "Sydney.  Good luck!"

Perth is like Sydney, but upside-down; Darwin and Hobart too small to
notice.  In Canberra the roads go around, but they don't go around
/anything/ - they just go around for their own sinusoid sake.  The only
place where Jeff's observation is true is Adelaide, where they built
special ring-roads around the city early on in its development,
specially designed to keep the populace out.

Have fun,

Paul, who is trying to avoid working...