…and lead you through the streets of London…
Quota music video after this comment on my last post. This was undoubtedly Ralph McTell’s biggest hit, re-released in 1974 – I haven’t heard it in years, but the busy guitar work does remind me of bustling London.
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…
It’s a public holiday in South Africa, but TB has no respect for days off, so I didn’t have a day off.
In fact, it seems that having any time at all is a bit of a luxury at the moment. Anyone else ever have this feeling?
As someone once kindly said:
Simplicity is more often than not, a thousand times MORE.
And that’s probably why I love this picture taken at Strandveld Winery so very much.
I spotted it in the Cape Agulhas 2012 Tourist Guide and it popped up on my timeline again today. It’s almost as though it’s hinting about getting a spot on 6000 miles… Who am I to deny it that honour?
Gorgeous.
Wow. This is huge.
The contents of a previously confidential and completely fictitious City of Cape Town report which were revealed during routine business in the Western Cape High Court this morning look set to cause outrage across the city.
The report, commissioned late last year, outlines details of plans to move the Cenotaph from its present site on Adderley Street in the City Centre to a disused quarry on Chapman’s Peak Drive where it would be used as part of a hydraulic fracturing rig to extract the rich deposits of natural gas discovered at the site during preliminary survey work by the toll company Entilini last year.
The plan marries together three contentious issues which are described by the report’s anonymous author as “awkward problems which could prove potentially costly vote-wise at the next election, but which require addressing”. The author goes on to suggest that “tying the three together would likely limit the amount of negative PR generated by these issues should we address them separately”, but notes:
On face value, this plan makes good financial and political sense and makes the best of several difficult situations facing the City; namely, (a) that the position currently occupied by the Cenotaph is the preferred site for a MyCiti bus station, (b) that the City contract with Entilini requires that we must upgrade the Chapman’s Peak Drive toll plaza and a huge office park, and (c) that the natural gas deposits beneath Chapman’s Peak Drive are of such value that it would be foolish not to act upon them.
However, we should expect stiff opposition to each of these issues, given the historical significance of the Cenotaph, the emotional attachment of Hout Bay residents to Chapman’s Peak Drive, and the current negative publicity surrounding the process of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).
The report suggests that certain environmental and financial points regarding the plans should be emphasised in media releases and interviews, including:
- The convenience and improved carbon footprint of public transport when compared to private cars.
- The recycling of the Cenotaph material and the return of those stones to their natural home in a quarry.
- The cleanliness of natural gas when compared to electricity from coal.
- The offset of expensive costs of new toll plaza and first stages of the Entilini office park through selling natural gas fracked from the Chapman’s Peak Drive site.
The confidential report appears to have been distributed to appropriate departments within the municipality.
City officials were unable to comment on the report at the time of writing.
Watch this one folks – I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about it.