source : the age
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I support Steve Martinuzzo (Comment, 24/9) regarding touch screen controls in cars. I cannot understand why using a phone while driving is (rightfully) illegal, yet drivers of newer cars are forced to look at touch screens repeatedly and somehow this is OK. You cannot use a touch screen and scroll through options to operate basic functions without looking at it, and thus a driver is distracted for quite some time. Unlike my safer older car where I can control radio stations, volume, heating/aircon temp, fan speed, demisting, hazard lights, washer/wipers etc purely by touch without ever taking my eyes off the road.
Julie Christensen, Blackburn Nth
Please, can it just be a simple device?
To Steve Martinuzzo’s list, I would add TV sets that have become computers of such complexity that without accompanying instructions you need to be a digital whiz to operate them. Even worse examples of “entshittification” (or “Undesign” in Martinuzzo’s terms) are in late model android phones which seem to be designed primarily as devices to channel advertisements, unwanted Facebook messages or AI junk directly into our brains. I neither need nor want an AI message to pop up and give me a version in AI-speak of a message that someone has sent me, before I read the actual message, and neither do I want a crass AI-supplied emoji to pop itself automatically in the middle of a message as I compose it. Worst of all is the deliberate limitation of incoming call ring time to 15 seconds. As an elderly person, I’m often unable to get to my phone quickly enough to answer calls when the phone is just a few feet away, causing daily inconvenience and anxiety. No doubt there is a profit motive behind this most user-unfriendly design element.
Jill Sanguinetti, East Brunswick
Not green envy with this product
Further to the article on product design, why are gardening tools mostly green? Not necessarily dangerous, but how often do we lose a weeding tool among the plants? Why are they not, pink, yellow? Is this a cunning plan to make us buy more?
Jules Klok, Noble Park
Appearance over practicality
I really warmed to Steve Martinuzzo’s article. Having just replaced my faithful, old microwave with a recommended new one, I too have had to make adjustments. The functions are a complicated mystery but that was the least of problems. So that I can see the faint white writing on the built-in black dials (hard to press too), I use a small torch which now hangs on a hook nearby. And I no longer fumble around trying to find the invisible door release/opener, as I have glued a small white button on to it. Elegant appearance is more important than practicality in modern ″Undesign″ but the challenges keep us thinking and provide something to complain about.
Jan Roberts, Lower Templestowe
THE FORUM
Conduct is conduct
I still can’t understand why Lachie Neale playing in the grand final is the “right thing” (“Flawed reasons for a just outcome”, 24/9). The video shows Neale committing unprovoked, intentional physical violence against another player. And he admits it. Conduct that is prohibited by AFL rules and would probably constitute assault if committed off a footy ground. Yet somehow his senior standing and the importance of the occasion are invoked to explain why he should escape the consequences. Surely these are reasons to expect better of him, not less – and of ourselves too.
Way too many of us ought to take a good hard look at ourselves. We readily tut-tut about thuggishness, intimidation, violence and failures of accountability in our politics, institutions and communities, globally and locally, yet here we are finding reasons to excuse the same conduct because we don’t like the consequences.
There’s a fundamental question being missed. How would we regard the same conduct at a polling booth, school car park, shopping centre, workplace, or in the MCG stands? Putting on a football jumper shouldn’t change our answer.
That contradiction fills me with despair. Rules, values and standards mean something when they’re tested against an outcome we don’t like, not just when they suit us.
Matthew Rocks, Reservoir
Wishful thinking (1)
I wish that in 1977, the tribunal had shown leniency when suspending Collingwood’s Phil Carmen for two matches, which turned out to be the grand final and the grand final replay.
Neale Woods, Wattle Glen
Wishful thinking (2)
It remains a blot on the AFL (then the VFL) that in 1951 the Essendon star John Coleman was suspended for the entire finals series for retaliating for a blatant punch. Some supporters have long memories.
Kerry Breen, Kew
It’s in the interpreting
It’s cruel to miss a grand final due to a one-game suspension. For many, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Many suspensions are due to interpretation, as proved by Lachie Neale, so how about allowing the player to serve a three-game penalty next season plus a $10,000 fine (“The unequal playing field of a grand final”, 24/9).
Christo Krousoratis, Templestowe
Just a disgrace
It is nothing short of a disgrace that a player reported on eight occasions, three of which were for striking other players but received no suspensions due to his “unblemished record”, yet again has a suspension overturned for his “unblemished record”.
I bet plenty of us wish driving fines worked along this same premise. I wonder if this just sends the message players can be as violent as they want in a final series and just pay the AFL the big bucks, because it’s always an exceptional circumstance to get in a grand final.
Teresa Dowding, Hoppers Crossing
Memo to players
Memo to all AFL players re preliminary final matches: Feel free to belt an opposition player and take the fine. You won’t get suspended, the grand final is far too important to miss.
Tim Habben, Hawthorn
Kudos to AFLW
Having an AFLW double or even triple header at Marvel on grand final eve would not only be good for AFLW, it would be good for football (“What about AFLW games at Marvel on grand final eve?“, 25/9). One of the remaining joys of our game is seeing the diversity at our games.
The number of passionate women and girls there has always been is a unique feature and giving those passionate supporters something of their own on grand final weekend is a sign of the value we place on that diversity. I think it may also open a few jaundiced eyes to the progress the women’s game is making.
Rafael Sanchez, Mitcham
Where’s the spine, PM
Ben Quilty (“Nice work on the hack, Albo,but AI still steals my art”, 25/9) writes eloquently of the Albanese government’s “pathological spinelessness” for capitulating to artificial intelligence giants.
Quilty understandably scorns the digital “opt-out” option, because those giants have “already stolen everything we’ve made before 2023″.
Kevin Burke, Sandringham
Dumber and dangerous
Has the Coalition got a “death wish”? Hard not to believe given its full-blown climate denialism policy just announced. Angus Taylor has said within a month of being elected, a Coalition government will repeal a raft of emissions reduction and renewable energy policies. A Coalition press release declared, “Australians need cheaper power, not more ideology”. Taylor and friends seem not to understand that net-zero targets follow from physics, not ideology. Asked why he wanted to reverse laws driving down emissions, Taylor’s enigmatic response was, “Australia has done its bit”. To commit to fossil fuels and nuclear power over renewables is breathtakingly stupid. Independent MP Monique Ryan described it best: the Coalition’s proposal was “dumb, dangerous and desperate”.
Neil Hudson, East Melbourne
Still communication . . .
I feel compelled to respond to your correspondent (Letters, 25/9) as I am in the demographic he speaks of that is still reading the paper regularly. My son, is also in his 20s now, and won’t be reading his words, or listening to talkback radio, or listening to the evening news. He is on his own journey through life, getting his information from his phone.
At least we can keep each other amused.
Eric Kopp, Flinders
. . . No breakdown here
Sometimes the younger generation can surprise us. We have robust debate within the family online chat about topics raised in The Age and a variety of online, visual and print media with our young adult children. In fact, we often have trouble keeping up!
Shelley Durance, Beaumaris
Good morning, sunshine
Following the announcements by Ben Carroll for pubs and music venues to extend their opening hours and to allow your dog to join you at the pub, perhaps it is the time to announce the wish of this voter that the beginning of Daylight Savings Time be delayed by one week. For those who enjoy the current sun-filled mornings, its end could then be brought forward by a week. The result will be Bonus Morning Sunshine (BMS).
It could be brought into an effect this year without much bother, especially if you and your dog are having a few ales late into the night at your local. Your curtains will thank you for it.
Chris Wheeler, Sandringham
Welcome to Victoria
I’m visiting for the grand final and in my driving I’ve never seen so many unfilled, deep and dangerous potholes on highways and major regional roads. Is it time to update your number plates to read Victoria – The pothole state?
Roger Fletcher, Subiaco, WA
Trees for the centres
Along with generating their own electricity and using recycled water, it should be mandatory that data centres include a minimum amount of tree planting on their perimeter. If nothing else, it would make them look a lot less ugly and maybe dampen the noise a little.
Barbara Hilling, Watsonia North
Fog is closing in
“The cloud” does sit on the ground, in the form of energy hungry data centres, as your correspondent (Letters, 25/9) pointed out. Better to call it “the fog” for now and later “the smog”.
Geoff Allen, Parkdale
It’s not perfect
I can’t think of anything worse than going into a hotel with dogs around me. Also, it’s discriminating against cats and other animals.
Mary Fenelon, Doncaster East
AND ANOTHER THING
Pubs and dogs
With pubs being open for longer anddogs being allowed into the pubs, I guess the woofers can drive their owner/s home.
Greig Morris, Essendon
One dog in a pub with 20 people may be OK. What about 20 dogs and 20 people. That sounds like fun.
Paul Cockayne, Greensborough
This will be heard in Brighton pubs if Ben Carroll wins. “My dog will have a G&T thank you”!
Margaret Skeen, Ocean Grove
Please ban humans from pubs. Dogs have much more empathy.
Jewel (Pete Tighe’s best friend and border collie, Ascot Vale)
AFL
The world breathes a sigh of relief now that Lachie Neale’s record of never having been suspended for any of his striking charges remains unblemished.
Peter McGill, Lancefield
What message has the AFL just given to players in metropolitan, country and junior football leagues?
Arthur Pritchard, Ascot Vale
What message does this send to young, impressionable AFL fans?
Wendy Brennan, Bendigo
Punch someone in the guts and get off. Our code remains firmly provincial.
Kevin Rugg, Beaumaris
It is now official. AFL player suspension is a joke.
Dan Drummond, Leongatha
The ″broken hearted″ reader will only be 110 when St Kilda looks for its second premiership (Letters, 25/9). I’ll be 136, not only crestfallen, but devastated.
Myra Fisher, Brighton East
Furthermore
Re your correspondent’s suggestion (Letters, 25/9) to rename AI as American intelligence. My Dad always referred to a hammer as an American screwdriver.
Greg Williams, West Footscray
If someone weaves erratically on the road then rather than DUI they are more likely DPI – Dodging Potholes Insanely.
Jan Newmarch, Oakleigh
