Links

Audax Australia
This is the umbrella organisation running long distance cycling events in Australia Their website includes a calendar of events.

Bikejournal
A place where cyclist can keep track of their mileage and any number of other statistics, as well as an attached forum.

Bikeforums
A set of discussion forums covering almost every conceivable cycling related topic.

Cycling Adventurer
The Cycling Adventurer has tossed in the structured life of an urbanite to explore the world by bicycle. A well-written site detailing how he came to cycling, and what he learned along the way.

Crazy Guy on a Bike

Bicycle touring journals from all over the world, including a couple of my own.

Johns Cycles

This is my LBS on the Gold Coast. While they cater more to the racing market, their service, advice and workmanship is the best on the coast.

St Kilda Cycles

Importers of all manner of things hard to find in Australia, including the legendary Schmidt hub dynamo & E6 lights.

Blogs

Bicycle-eye
Wonderings and wanderings out and about in Portland, Oregon, US

The Journey
The journey begins in Perth, Western Australia.

Lance Notstrong
The "other" Lance!

Ms Mittens
The Wired Cat on-line

Iron Gambit
.

Aussie Writer and Cycletourist
A blog chronicling the writing and cycling of a seaside baby boomer.

Up in Alaska
Jill's subarctic journal about ice, bears and distant dreams of the midnight sun.

The Kin Chronicles
Taking mediocrity to a new level of ordinary.

Allez
Riding and running with a vengeance.

London Cycling Diary
Pedalling across the capital since August 2005.

CouchPilot-2-BikePilot (Zin's cycling blog)
Living an adventurous life with Type-2-Diabetes.

The adventures of Crazy Biker Chick
... Including cycling, adventuring, cooking, knitting and ranting.

Redneck Espanol
The two wheeled Spanish redneck.

Treadly and me
"Work is something I do between riding my bicycle".

Crowlie
Womanist philosophy and theology. Cycling, climbing, art, single-motherhood and fire-twirling.

Adrian Fitch's random rambling.
A bit about cycling, a bit about genealogy, a bit about radio but mostly a lot about nothing at all.

Geo's big adventure
The life and times of Geo.

It's about the bike
Musings on the cycling life.

Spinopsys
Various cycling tidbits.

Industry Outsider
A blog about bikes and stuff.

Tweed Coast Treadly
An old man's bicycle riding diary.

A cyclist's life in Tenerife
(Canary Islands).

Bike to work to live to bike
It's never too late to get back on the bike

Stupid Hurts
Just the random scribblings of a guy with a bicycle

I'm not drunk enough for this
Really, I'm not.

BikeHacks
What can I say? Just read it.

Mozam's cycling adventures
A random collection of the things I like to do most, and mostly that is to ride my bikes, bicycles that is... My musings from competitive riding, long distance endurance to puttering around the neighborhood..

More cycling blogs

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Time to go to war on "voice recognition"

If anybody reading this feels the way I do, you will no doubt have one major pet peeve when dealing with seemingly any large company these days: calling them up and hearing a computer-generated voice on the other end saying "speak to select the option" or something of that nature. Apart from the fact that speaking to a machine makes us feel like idiots, as often as not the voice on the other end will then say "I didn't hear that, speak to select your option (again)". However, it was when contacting Telstra earlier to sort out yet another overbilling issue, that the simplicity of the solution dawned on me.

I made the call during my lunchbreak at work, simply because the billing enquiries line isn't open hours that are at all convenient. When the voice prompt came on, I simply said nothing. The voice prompted again, I said nothing again. After the third voice prompt, I was (wait for it) actually transferred to a real human being. No frustration, no looking (or sounding) like an idiot, and surprisingly, no problems. Then it dawned on me, if more people did this, those companies would end up transferring more callers to real people, which would either force them to implement another menu selection option, or simply refrain from sacking human beings to force their customers to talk to a computer. Either way, it would be the end of this rather annoying "technology".

Consequently, I propose a quiet revolution. The next time you call a company and get one of these stupid options, simply sit there in silence. Eventually you'll go through to customer service, at which point you can actually talk to a person and get some answers. It's not difficult, but if enough people do it, we might get somewhere.

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