It's that time of year when there's too many expenses and not enough money.
So says Glen Fredericks, of Adamstown Heights.
"I thought I'd get on top of it by organising my finances very, very carefully," Glen quipped.
That's what we call ... errr ... smart money.
In The Same Boat
You know tourist season has begun when you spot a boat on roof racks at Hawks Nest.
"First time I've seen a boat strapped to roof racks like this. Is this a standard way of getting your tinnie to camp?" Hogsy from the Central Coast quipped on Facebook.
His mate Martin responded: "We used to strap a 12-foot tinnie to the roof of an '81 Corolla. Did the trick. Motor went in the boot."
Hogsy: "With the boat turned the other way?"
Martin: "Yep, upside down, better in the wind."
Hogsy told Topics the photo was taken at Jimmys Beach caravan park.
"I couldn't believe it when I saw it. Flipped the other way I can understand. Imagine the upwind on the freeway doing 110km/h.
"Dude had bikes and luggage in the boat."
Pool Games
Marco .... polo. Marco ... polo.
Ahh, long-gone memories of fun and games in summers past.
Port Stephens Council seems intent on bringing those memories back. It's holding a bunch of "pool parties" on Australia Day with "pool games".
Robot Cars
Australian scientists have shown that driverless cars can "see people around corners and even through buildings, as well as dodge running pedestrians and errant joggers".
They can apparently do so using a "promising and emerging technology called co-operative perception, or collective perception messaging" [hopefully those technical terms didn't send you to sleep and you're still reading].
The University of Sydney's Australian Centre for Field Robotics showed how a vehicle stopped for a person running to make a pedestrian crossing "although he had not physically entered the crossing yet".
Experiments proved that the technology could enable vehicles to "see" a pedestrian around corners, said Dr Mao Shan, the lead researcher of the project.
"More importantly, we demonstrate how [the vehicles] can autonomously and safely interact with walking and running pedestrians."
Topics reckons this is great, but what if the robot car gets stuck in a dilemma?
Here's one scenario: If the vehicle swerves left, it hits a group of nuns; if it stays straight, it hits a child running across the road; if it swerves right, it hits an oncoming motorcyclist. Faced with that choice, even a human would go haywire.
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