Daisy? What Sort Of Nancy Boy Flower Is That?

Hmmmm.

At the suggestion of CAW and Mrs Mouse, I took the "What Flower Are You?" test.

Here's what I got...

I am a Daisy What Flower Are You?

"You are just a sweet person. When a friend needs a shoulder to cry on, you are happy to offer yours with a box of tissues as well. Once in a while, you wish you could be a little more dramatic but then sensibility sets back in and you know that you are perfect the way you are."

Let me simply say this...
a) The last person to describe me as "sweet" was gorgeous, brunette, and about 3 seconds away from breaking up with me.
b) With two notable exceptions (you know who you are), the shoulder is closed.
c) There are no tissues. There are no handkerchiefs either.
d) It isn't possible for me to be more dramatic.
e) Yes. Perfect.

Bah!
I feel like I've just been tricked into reading a girlie mag at the doc's office.

The Scent Of Christmas

I was musing over the weekend, during the long stretches of time between customers, about the true meaning of my Christmas, and the innocence of a simpler time.

Remember, I'm Jewish, so your traditional "Offspring of God born to Virgin in Manger because the King David was booked out for a gynacologists convention" thing doesn't hold much sway with me, though I have to say it's a more compelling story than the "lamp in the Temple burned for eight days when there was only enough oil in the lamp for one" Hannukah story, which, on the Miracle scale, would barely rate a 2, as against a 7 or 8 for the Virgin.

No. When I talk about Christmas, I'm really talking about "Fat-Man-In-Red-Suit Day", which I believe is also celebrated with enthusiasm in Japan and Singapore and is spreading across an increasingly consumerist China. (Like many things in Asia that they've tried to import from the West, they'll get it right soon, but the Santa at Singapore's Changi Airport a few years back handing out Chocolate Easter Eggs to random passing children demonstrated that they still have a little way to go.)

In adulthood, FMIRS Day tends to get lost, both in the baggage of our lives, and in the pressure we put ourselves under to get exactly the right presents.

I remember Christmas better as a time when kids could play at the beach without their parents watching for paedophiles with cameras, or when we could get on our bikes and ride off to wherever just because it was there. A traffic jam was something that happened around road works, and neighbourhood dogs would wander into the front yard on their own just because they could. Our garden especially. They'd wander in, wee on a patch of grass that must have had a big sign in doggie that said "marking spot here" and then wander off again.

We would spend hours walking on our own around the streets of Dover Heights where I grew up. No kids disappeared. No unspeakable crimes were committed. We were unsupervised and relatively safe. The world was a different colour. The sky was more blue and the trees and grass were green. We had a drought then, too, of course. This is Australia, there's always a drought, but there was a faith that sooner or later the rain would come and if it didn't, the government would just build another dam (I know, there's a certain logic void in that but hey, we were eight... what did we know).

The only really dark cloud on the horizon was that nuclear apocalypse clock, ticking perilously close to midnight, but even in that, there was rational reservation. "We could go and hide in the cave", we say to each other. My best friend Johhny J and I would sit on the edge of the park they'd built over the top of the water storage reserviour (known universally as "The Rezza") and stare out over the panoramic view of a very different Sydney, arguing over just how big the blast would be. It'd reach Rose Bay, I'd say. No, Double Bay. It didn't matter. After all, Christmas was summertime... 6 weeks of school holidays, a 5 speed dragster bike and a whole world to explore.

There was the mocking laugh of the Kookaburras who clearly knew a great deal more than we did about the time ahead, and the cacophany of cicadas, as far as I know a uniquely Australian phenomenon. I don't remember the last time I heard cicadas and while a part of me is thankful for the quiet, I do wonder what happened to them. And then there were the smells... the fresh cut grass, the lingering sea salt in the air, and a world without air conditioning or unleaded petrol. Even now, the slightest whiff of pina colada can transport me back to Bondi Beach, not because of the drink, but for the scent of coconut in the suntan lotion and an oblivious ignorance of the need for a real sunscreen.

Christmas time was also the season of the backyard or beach cricket match, which I was never really good at because for reasons of genetic destiny I can't catch, can't bat and can't throw. My job, therefore, was to do what all unathletic kids did, which was to sit on the sidelines and commentate, or worse, stand behind the stumps and umpire. These days, it wouldn't matter so much because athletic ability isn't a prerequisite for X-Box.

We had a pool when I was growing up too, in a time when hardly anyone had a pool, so each Christmas our place was the centre of the neighbourhood universe. (That pool, by the way, was less a reflection of our economic status and more a tribute to my dad's lateral thinking ability, but that's a story for another time.)

I really mean "centre" too. EVERYONE used to drop in to our place. On some days in summer, there were enough lilos, inner tubes and other assorted inflatables in the water that you could walk from one side of the pool to the other.

Dad's standing joke was that he should be charging admission. It was a permanent open house at Christmas time and on Christmas Day, we knew we had until about 11 to get the presents opened and either hiddden away where the other kids couldn't break them, or placed stragetically where they'd be seen. After 11, Central Station would have been a quieter place and getting a space for the towel by the pool would, today, be an elimination challenge on reality TV.

Of course, to get to Christmas Day, you had to get through Christmas Eve, and like children the world over, there was a determination to stay awake so that I might catch a glimpse of the sleigh. Then, as now, this was futile, because it's well known that parents the world over drug their children on Christmas Eve, and have done so for generations. How else can you explain the impossibility for any child young enough to believe in Santa remaining awake for the entire night before Christmas?

I never did see the Fat Man, though I am sure I heard him once, and the next day, the evidence of his passing through was right there in my room... a model fort, complete with cowboys, indians, Davey Crockett and a long list of other very un-Australian cultural icons, all set up and ready to play right there next to my bed. I've still got those little plastic figures somewhere.

And in Sydney, the day after Christmas is Boxing Day, which meant more people, another barbecue and the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, one of the toughest open ocean yacht races in the world. We had an uninterupted view of the Sydney Heads from our place, and we'd catch the start of the race on TV, then head outside, binoculars at the ready, to see the boats come out of the Harbour.

The barbecue was dad's pride and joy. And we're not talking about some mamby pamby stainless steel gas fired thing with a hood here. If that's what you've got, you might as well just cook in the kichen. We're talking about a REAL barbecue, with charcoal that you'd need to light an hour before you wanted to start cooking, and that you'd need to nurture until the flame and heat was just right before the meat was thrown on the grill.

Yup. That's was Christmas for me... Fat Man in Red Suit Day for a family of clearly not very religious Jews living in what, then, was a predominantly White, Anglo Saxon Christian Australia. About the only concession we ever made to our non-Christianity was that mum and dad refused to have Christmas decorations. I actually suspect they were more concerned with cleaning up post tree, but I do recall an itty bitty little one I bought one year, about ten inches high (they were still inches then), all cone shaped and covered with something that looked almost exactly not unlike snow (for those of you who recognise that phrase, my apologies to Douglas Addams). For years after that, my little tree did its job, right next to the fireplace where it was supposed to be.

Snow? Fireplace? It's a curiosity here in Australia, where Christmas falls in the middle of summer, that we still decorate cold climate pine trees with fake snow and send each other Christmas cards with pictures of white landscapes more suited to my skis than my surfboard.

We even dress some poor guy up in this wooly fur trimmed red suit, make him put on a fake bushy white beard and wear a fur lined hat, just to sit with screaming children on his lap in 35degC (90+F) heat. Not that this matters if you're 7. Or maybe it's 5 these days... I don't remember how old I was when I figured out that Santa wasn't real, but I do remember that defining moment, hand firmly held by my mother as we crossed Oxford Street at Bondi Junction, when my brain said "hey, didn't I just see Santa over at David Jones, and here he is again at Grace Brothers... now that's not right."

Aussies even persist with the traditional English Christmas dinner with a menu definitely more suited to a dark mid-winter's evening in front of an open fire with the snow gently falling outside than it is to a blue skied, balmy, summer twighlight when you're hoping the cool change arrives before the pudding...

...which is why my family ditched the heavy meal and opted for a lunch menu of barbecued cow and sausages (that may or may not have contained cow, but certainly didn't contain spicy Thai seasoning), all served by the pool with charcoal potato and salad on the side, and followed, of course by pavlova instead of pudding. My favourite was the carrot and pineapple salad, which I think mum found in a recipe book somewhere and which, back then, was about as exotic as food got if you weren't at our local Chinese restaurant.

"And no-one's allowed to go swimming for the next two hours!" It didn't matter. Bing was still singing White Christmas and there was some umpiring that needed doing in the afternoon sunshine...

Rocky II

For those of you who are even remotely interested in Rocky, here he is with his owner, Manuel de Silva, in Town Hall Square today after getting his bravery award. De Silva put it rather well I think... "Rocky would be proud, if only he knew what was going on. Unfortunately they don't realise these things." The story's HERE.

And no, I didn't get to the ceremony. I really do have a life.

Heroes Come In All Sizes

Meet Rocky.

He's described by people who know him as "definitely not a guard dog... he's the sort of dog who'd lick you to death", but a little while back, he stepped up and did what all great dogs do... he defended his owner's home.

Rocky took two bullets for his trouble, and I hope the low life bastards who pulled the trigger rot for eternity.

It's been a long, hard road to recovery... surgery to remove the bullets, blood transfusions and two months in hospital, but on Monday, the City of Sydney is presenting Rocky with a bravery award. The story is here.

I don't know Rocky or his owner, but stories like this warm my heart, and this bear may well be a face in the crowd at that ceremony.

Climate Change - Maybe The Bear Was Right!

A mid-ocean smoker... a mini volcano where the centre of the earth oozes out at the bottom of the ocean. Is this the real global warming culprit? (Photo courtesy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

It's not often I'm wrong (about just about anything really), and a couple of blogs back, I wrote that I might have been wrong about volcanoes and global warming. Deep down inside, I had this nagging feeling that this admission may have been premature, and that my original thinking was close to the truth.

In a way only synchronicity can explain, a few days after that 'retraction', a doco popped up on National Geographic Channel that added some clarity and evidence to the debate that fills up the empty spaces inside my straw brain.

Let's do a quick recap...

Do you remember that I'd dredged some stats out of the Smithsonian archive that showed that the rate of volcanic activity appears to be increasing? Ok... and I made the retraction based on the fact that those eruptions pump gasses and dust into the atmosphere that might, in fact, actually cool the world. Chester may have been wrong! Except that he may not be...

Let me explain.

Have you ever heard of the mid-ocean rifts? These are the places on the floor of the ocean where the crust of the world is cracked. The plates on either side of those cracks are moving apart, which makes the mid-ocean rifts the most volcanically active places on the planet.

Wait... don't yawn yet... this is important...

The activity at these rifts means 90% (maybe more) of the world's volcanic activity happens on the bottom of the ocean, well out of sight. So well out of sight, in fact, that only a handful of people have ever been down there to take a look.

What those who dared found when they got there was astounding, and the energy output (in the form of heat) at the place where the inside of the world oozes out into the ocean is estimated as greater than all of the energy production of all of mankind, and that's based on old, incomplete estimates of just how much volcanic activity is there.

The temperature of the water down there is thousands of degrees. It's hot enough to melt the aluminium in the submersibles they've sent down to take a look, and this molten goo bubles out of the centre of the earth 24/7/365, right along the entire length of the rift. We're talking about places so deep that the pressure is so great the water can't boil.

Think this through people. Here's a little experiment for you to think about. Take two buckets of water, and two heating elements. With the first one, just put it over the top of the water, and with the second one, immerse it, all the way to the bottom of the bucket. Now switch both heaters on.

Which bucket do you think might heat up quicker? (If you said the first one, then stop reading because this is clearly beyond you.)

So...

What causes most of the weather on earth? The oceans.

And what do the climatologists say is happenng to those oceans? They're getting warmer.

Why? "Oh, because humans are heating up the world." Yeah, right. Little insignificant humans. And an increase in the heat at the bottom of the ocean has nothing to do with it? Pfft!

Remember, the amount of volcanic activity has doubled in the last 200 years. Is this reflected at the rifts? They don't know, because these rifts are so poorly studied that the first photos were only taken in the late seventies, and the number of submersibles in the world capable of going there can be counted on less than your fingers.

Like I said in my original post on this, there's no doubt we've been reckless in the way we've treated the world around us and there's no doubt we need to change our habits, but to blame climate change on humans?

I think not.

Boring Is Relative II

This week, we all need to get ourselves to the Sheraton College Park Hotel in Beltsville, Maryland, where they're having the "National Carcass Disposal Symposium", organised by the University of Maine's School of Compost.

It's 4 days of rivetting discussion about what do do with all those animal carcasses we have lying around in our garages.

I want to be there just after lunch on Wednesday for Road Kill Composting in Montana - a Seasonal Rotation Approach.

Really. It's all true... America, this is where your tax dollars go. Go HERE.

And while we're on disposal issues, you've just gotta love professors Al-Houty and Al-Musalam of Kuwait University for a paper published in the so-rivetting-I-can't-put-it-down Journal Of Arid Environments (Vol 35 #3).

Here's the abstract...
Adult dung beetles, Scarabaeus cristatus , consume the fluid components of dung and bury whole dung as food for their larvae. When dung from three herbivorous animals, horse, camel and sheep, was offered, the beetles preferred the more fluid horse dung to the others. Sheep dung was preferred to the camel dung. The dungs of two carnivores, dog and fox, were also accepted but to a lesser extent than the herbivore dung.

Thank you for sharing that with us.

If you'd like the full text, you can buy it on line for the bargain price of US$58.93 (+ tax). Really. Go HERE, though I think I'll wait for the National Geographic doco.

Oh God. I really need to get out more.

Brain Branding

You'll recall, a couple of blogs back, that I wrote a piece about perception, In it, I described how marketers take advantage of your preconceptions to sell you stuff.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, there's a fascinating study reported on the Science Daily website that explains some of the brain function associated with brand familiarity.

Researchers at at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich monitored the brain activity of test subjects with an MRI while they showed them images of "strong" (very well known) and "weak" (not so well known) brands.

When the subjects were shown strong brand images, the parts of their brains responsible for familiarity and positive emotional association lit up. When they were shown weak brands, the parts of their brains responsible for memory retrieval and negative emotion lit up.

Of course, if you understood the power of Form over Substance, this will come as no surprise but now, it's measureable. Scientists can now quantify in hard data what focus groups could only guess at. The consequences are both fascinating and terrifying.

I wish Pandora wouldn't keep leaving so many boxes around for guys like these to open.

Secret Mens' Business

Ever since I was old enough to realise that girls who can't (or won't) be your girlfriend make really cool friends, these buddies of the opposite sex have often turned to me for advice on catching (or keeping) that elusive 'perfect man'.

Maybe that's because, when I'm not distracted, I can be a good listener and my keen ADD enhanced powers of observation allow me to dispense some pretty solid advice. I'm also brutally honest, not necessarily because I'm brutally honest, but more because that same ADD means that, at times, the filters on my brain that should stop me from blurting out what I really think don't work so well. (Like the other day when I told our new PR person that she should take a tub of whey home because "it's a great way to shed a few kilos"... oops!)

If you're female, single, contemplating being single again, or in a relationship that involves the half of the species that has a dangly bit in the front, then pay careful attention, because I probably won't let you in on any Secret Mens' Business ever again.

Are you listening?

WE'RE DIFFERENT! Our brains are wired differently to yours, and are actually a little bigger (which doesn't make us smarter, by the way... but more on that later).

We're also EXTREMELY PREDICTABLE, and that you are constantly surprised or disappointed by our behaviour only underscores the fact that YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.

So stop judging the behaviour of the men around you as though they are your girlfriends. We're not, and it's time you learned why not.

I'm going to preface this advice with a warning. If you're easily offended, or if you can't accept harsh reality, please stop reading, switch off the computer and head down to Borders, Angus & Robertson or some other purveyor of fine books. Buy yourself a Jackie Collins Bodice Ripper and be done with the whole courting thing because if you don't understand some of this, then you're never going to be in the game.

Really. I mean it. What follows here has no judgement or moral assessment attached to it... it's just the way it is, because that's how we're wired.

The FIRST RULE...
Men are basic creatures, driven by a very small, reptillian brain that is remarkable in its simplicity...

...because all straight men, from the age of around 15 or 16 to so old it's no longer relevant, perform a stunning little "cost/benefit analysis" on every female they meet. It's a subconscious thing, and it happens in a blink, but its outcome dictates much of our behaviour towards women.

What we're talking about here is the cost/benefit of sleeping with you.

STOP. I know what you're thinking, because I've had this conversation too many times and the initial reaction is always the same so before you judge us by your girl standards, just stay with this a little while longer.

The cost/benefit analysis goes something like this...
Will the benefits of getting to sleep with you outweigh the cost? Notice that I said "benefits of getting to sleep with you" and not just "sleeping with you".

The assessment might be that in order to sleep with you, the guy would need to court you, date you for years and eventually marry you. The cost, therefore, is extremely high. The benefit, though is that not only does he get to sleep with you, he gets to marry you as well.

Or... The assessment might be that in order to sleep with you, the guy just needs to buy you a drink. The cost, therefore is low, but the benefit, being an hour or two of gratuitous sex, may be perceived to be higher than the cost, in which case he'll buy you that drink. If he doesn't have that perception, take it personally... he just not attracted to you. I know. I know. I've heard it before... not all men are interested in gratuitous sex. Wanna bet? Those that you think are not are just pretending, and often pretending to themselves, because that's the way our reptillian brains are wired.

This cost/benefit thing works on all sorts of levels, sometimes simplistically...

...she's 17, gorgeous and the boss's daughter... so the cost is likely to be far higher than the benefit. Or she's 60, overweight and lives in a caravan (trailer) park... so while the cost might potentially be very low, the benefit is extremely low. Or it might be that you live 50km away, which means his cost is the $20 on fuel every time he comes to pick you up for a date. If he doesn't continue to perceive a greater benefit in getting to sleep with you (whenever that might be) than that $20 in fuel, he won't keep coming.

Somethimes, though, there are so many layers of what construes cost and/or benefit that it's no wonder our brains are bigger than yours.

The trick for you, girls, is to know what this cost/benefit means, and how it works. It's to understand that your job is to make the benefit greater than the cost, whatever that cost might be, because the cost/benefit analysis isn't what we use to decide whether or not to stay in a relationship... it's what we use to decide whether we want to be bothered chasing it in the first place.

This means you have to set the benefit high enough to keep him interested long enough to really get to know you. Brutal honesty coming here and I don't care what your pesonal morality is. The cost of getting to sleep with you can NEVER be higher than the perceived benefit. Therefore, if you're a fifth date kind of girl, make him think it's the third date until the benefit justifies the fifth. You can take that literally or figuratively... just understand what it means, which is that even if you're a marry-me-first girl, you're unlikely to be able to draw that boundary on the first date... you have to paint the benefit that justifies the cost and that's going to take time.

The SECOND RULE...
Men do NOT live in the now. We live some little way into the future, and expend a great deal of brainpower exploring the world that might be instead of trying on endless pairs of shoes or reading about why Jennifer and Brad will never get back together.

Yes... we have a different set of priorities when we're devoting brainpower resources, which is frustrating for you because it sometimes means we don't want to talk about some of the stuff you want to talk about, especially if it's trying to over-analyse some past event.

For example, generally, we don't need to be told more than once that we've screwed up. Talking about it over and over does not help us undetrstand it better. We've moved on, ok?

It also means that if you talk to us about a problem of yours, no matter how personal, we'll try to come up with a solution. So many of my female friends say something like "I didn't need him to try and fix it, I just wanted to talk about it." Sorry... for us, talking about it IS trying to fix it... otherwise, what's the point of talking about it?

The THIRD RULE...
We don't like to be ambushed. It's biology. We didn't like to be ambushed by that sabre toothed tiger when we're out hunting for dinner, and we sure as hell don't like to be ambushed at home even more.

Therefore, don't set us up to get into trouble by asking some leading question. We'll only fall for that once, after which our answers to your questions will become more and more obtuse.

The FOURTH RULE...
It is possible for a man's brain to be completely blank. It's biology. We expend a great deal of brain power just keeping our model of the world in our heads (see below). Sometimes we don't feel the need to overlay that with anything at all. Therefore, just because we're quiet doesn't mean we're thinking about anything in particular and it especially doesn't mean we're thinking bad things about you. If we say "nothing" when you ask us "what are you thinking?", the chances are we're telling the truth.

Or if we are thinking about something and don't want to share it with you, it's almost certainly not because it's about you. The reality is, if we tried to tell you what we're really thinking, you're a)not going to believe us, and b)aren't going to understand or be interested in the boy things we think about (which often involve speculative engineering or tomorrow's hunt).

The FIFTH RULE...
While it IS possible for a man to multi-task, often we choose not to. In other words, don't try to talk to us while we're watching the football.

And FINALLY...
Our brains are bigger than yours not because we're smarter, but because we have superior spatial and temporal perception. That is, the model of the world we hold in our brain has more geographic detail than yours, and we're also more aware of how that geographic detail relates to time. It's just biology... we are the hunters, so it's important for us to track the animal through the forest, kill it, AND find our way back to the village with it before you starve to death.

Ok. I'm done. This was your first and only opportunity to get a glimpse into the complex world of male psychology. Ignore it at your peril.

Boring Is Relative

Our weekend "store manager" at our little baby retail store has finished her law degree and has headed off to do whatever it is young lawyers do these days, and until we find a replacement, that means the duty falls to moi.

Being there has given me an opportunity to contemplate the meaning of "boring job". You see dear reader, this store, quite deliberately, isn't in a high traffic location and there's a limit to the amount of shelf cleaning and stock filling we can do before it's all done. After that? Well let's just say the internet connection at the sales desk gets a bit of a work-out.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying retail is boring. I used to do Thursday nights and Saturdays at our local department store when I was in high school, and it seemed like an ok life, even if it wasn't going to be my career. I just started wondering, though, about "boring" and "interesting" jobs.

If I'd asked you to describe life with the US Military fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, you probably wouldn't use the word "boring". There are lots of words you might use and your choice will probably be influenced by your political perception, but I'm reasonably certain that without first hand knowledge, "boring" isn't on your list. However, before you decide, read this blog from a soldier on the front line. (It will open in a new window or tab.)

Ok. Maybe fighting the Taliban is an extreme example. It's not so much a career choice as a policy position for whatever politician sent you there, so what about a career behind the camera in TV or the movies?

Our office is right next door to Fox Studios in Sydney, which means we often see film crews out and about doing whatever it is they do. From the outside, this looks like not much at all. There's a lot of people standing around and by the look of them, each has about 5 minutes of very specialised work to do at some point during the day-long shoot. The rest of the time.... hmmmm... apparently you can't even whip out a book because you're supposed to look interested and be alert in case your five minutes comes up in the next five minutes.

A friend of mine used to be what's loosely described as a "top fashion model", except that she had (has) a brain, which, if you're a model, isn't a great asset. Her common description of her modelling career is "tediously boring", which she acknowleges is a tautology, but which she uses anyway to somehow add additional emphasis.

And can someone tell me what an Astronaut does? I mean, career "astronauts" get to fly into space maybe two or three times in their lives, IF they're lucky. That's maybe twenty or thirty days tops. The rest of the time is spent on terra firma with the rest of us, training, and going to parties where you get to tell people you're an astronaut.

These are supposed to be the cool jobs people... glam, exiting, dream jobs that always get a "wow" from whoever asks the "what do you do?" question. Bah!

Ok... so let's look at the slightly more mundane... at what my parents would have called "a real job", like being a 747 pilot flying between Sydney and LA? Sounds great, yeah? I'm sure it gets the right reaction at those same parties but let's see... you arrive at work, spend forever going through a tedious but very necessary pre-flight check list, and then you drive the bus out to the end of the runway, push the throttle forward and whoosh... off you and your flight computer go. The next 30 minutes climbing to cruising altitude would go by rather quickly and...

... for the next 13 hours, there's really not much for you to do. You can't even sit back and watch a movie or play chess with the co-pilot. And post 9/11, you can't even talk about gladiator movies with young cockpit guests. At the end of the flight, you have 30 minutes of being told "descend", "turn left", "turn some more", "climb", "hold", "change radio channels", "turn right", and then you land. Doing rolls or loop-the-loops isn't allowed under any circumstances. The job generally only gets "not-so-boring" if you're not doing it properly, or if some idiot in maintenance didn't do his properly, but on balance, this doesn't happen nearly often enough to keep things interesting. Of course, you get paid quite well, which is the only reason another friend of mine keeps doing it.

An ex girlfriend is a "plant pathologist". When she first told me, I had this image flash into my straw brain of a tree walking into her office to get a sap test. She used to get really excited about plant pathology. For me... well let's just say I have difficulty deciding if the plant in my office is real or plastic. She spends her day staring down a microscope in some CSI style government agriculture lab trying to decide if the Wheat Blight came from the field to the north or the east. Exciting huh?

Our recently departed law grad isn't going into law. To quote her... "are you serious? Can you actually see me processing damned property contracts for the rest of my life? I think not." She hasn't decided what she wants to do... she just knows it won't be either law or retail. I think she wants to try a modelling career.

A guy I went to school with is a procedures analyst for a major supermarket chain. His job is to look at the day-to-day procedures of running a store and make recommendations that are supposed to make the stores run better.

Seriously. This is what he does... He observes how a store runs and writes up store manuals that stay stuff like "Twenty Dollar Notes shall be removed from the register and folded so that the picture of Hargraves faces out. This will allow for easier counting when the cash reaches the store's counting room." Clearly, he hasn't spent any time standing at the checkout that's emptying its register because otherwise he'd know just how pissed off those of us standing there get while the check out chick takes the time to properly turn and fold the cash. Actually, he's now the Procedures Analysis Manager, which means he trains and runs a team of people formulating these policies. Inevitably, of course, local store staff just think it's all a joke, which means he suffers terribly from depression and feelings of insignificance.

I was at the local Police Station the other day (perhaps a story for another time) and the officer was complaining about the amount of admin she has to do each day. I asked her how much of her time is actually devoted to catching bad guys or running crowd control duty at some local event. "Oh, about 5%". The rest, she said, is just boring paperwork. "But at least I'm not the security guard standing outside the local bank", she added, as though the tedium of others somehow made it all ok.

The most boring job on the planet was, in my estimation, that of a toll collector on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At least that's what I thought until just after 9/11 when some great mind in the Government decided that we'd better put a security guard on the pedestrian walkway to guard against a terrorist attack.

This, of course, is an utterly failed strategy because if a terrorist was going to hit our most famous icon, they'd probably just drive onto the bridge in a truck filled with something that goes boom, about which there's little a lone guard could do because a)trucks can't get onto the walkway and b)he's not going to last long wandering across the lanes of 70kph traffic checking trucks for people who may or may not be terrorists. He's therefore left to spend his day wandering aimlessly backwards and forwards among the walk-to-workers, joggers and tourists.

At least, sitting behind this sales desk, I can ramble on in a blog to kill a few minutes.

A Thanksgiving Travel Tip

Here's a tip for anyone who wants to go to Disneyland or Universal Studios. Go on the Monday after Thanksgiving... there's absolutely NO-ONE there.

Dr J and I were in the Excited States this time a couple of years back, and went to Universal on the Monday. Seriously, Hamas could have detonated a suicide bomber in the Back To The Future queue and not hurt anyone. The place was empty.

You know the big signs that say "Wait Time From This Point". Zero Minutes. We'd get off Jurassic Park, and just get straight back on. A couple of times, they didn't even make us get out of the boat. Waterworld was about as well patronised as the Monday of a NSWvSA Pura Cup Cricket Match (4 people and the ubiquitous cocker spaniel routinely turn up to day 4). On the Studio Tram Tour, they actually suggested that we bunch up into one tram carriage. No-one paid attention of course.

We went to Disneyland the next day. Same thing. No-one there. Well, hardly anyone anyway. The longest we stood in line for anything was at the Churros stand. (I have a bit of a weakness for a good crunchy Churros. Fortunately, they're hard to find in Oz.) Imagine turning up at the Indianna Jones ride at 11am and walking straight on. Or being able to have your photo taken with Mickey at Mickey's house twice in the same session. Or being the only people in the stretching room at the Haunted Mansion. Or not even having to get out of the Splash Mountain log/boat thingmy.

Speaking of which, here's me at Splash Mountain.

I have no idea who anyone else in the log was. Dr J hates roller coasters so she wouldn't come on this one (she'd had quite enough of Jurassic Park the day before). And notice that I was the only one in the log who went over the waterfall with their arms in the air. So there!

I was talking to one of the park managers on the way out. Her name was Bobby-Joe. Really. It said so on her badge. She said the few days after Thanksgiving were their quietest days of the year, and she said it was the same for every park and major tourist attraction in the USA.

So there's a tip for you.

I Can See! I Can See! Oh... Never Mind.

It's one of the curses of growing old... you just can't see like you used to. For me, it's not the distance stuff that's deteriorating. I've worn coke bottle glasses (can I say that without incurring the wrath of the coca-cola company?) since I was in the 3rd grade and without glasses or contacts, I absolutely can not see the clock next to the bed without physically picking it up and bringing it to within about two inches of my nose.

Actually, without my contacts, I think I'd be legally blind. I'm wondering whether that qualifies me for a diabled parking permit... you know... being blind is classed as a disability.

No, it's not he distance stuff. Like most people in their 40's, it's the close up stuff that starts to disappear. You start grumbling about why there's an inverse relationship between the price of the meal and the size of the type the restaurant writes its menu in. Or you start to wish you'd bought the street directory with "NOW IN EXTRA LARGE PRINT" emblazoned across the front.

So a few years ago, my friendly local optomestrist suggested that I try "dual focus contact lenses". Now before you get all excited, what he really meant was "let's put a contact in your right eye that's great for distance stuff, and one in your left eye that's not quite strong enough, which means the distance stuff will be a little blurry but reading will be easier". "Ok", I said, let's give that a try.Just to put you in the picture, here's what I've been seeing when I look out of my window.

Apparently, the brain figures it out, overlays the blurry image with the sharp image and I end up with "acceptable" vision.

That's all well and good, but I had the opportunity this week to try out a few different combinations. I'm getting older, so my eyes are getting worse, which meant the optometrist wanted to recommend a bigger gap between what I get and what I need. I hated it, so he gave me some different strengths to play with.

The last one I've tried throws away the whole dual focus thing and gives me 20/20 vision.
WOW!!! FECKEN WOW!!! I can see!

Basically, anything more than about a metre away is now in PERFECT focus. The TV, the clock on the clubhouse wall, the lint on my floor, the dead cockroach just outside my front door, the people sunbaking topless across the bay... oh... wait... one of them's a bloke. As long as it's more than a metre away... WOWEEEEE.

Then I sat down at the keyboard to do some real work. Ah well. I've been able to push the monitor to the back of the desk so it's almost a metre away, and who needs to see a bloody menu anyway... just bring food.

The Icecap Still Melteth

I'm still wrestling with this whole global warming thing, and the problem this bear has with the debate is twofold.

First, we're basing our judgement on changing climate using records that are only slightly more than a couple of hundred years old. That would be like trying to gauge the health of a human based on something that happens in their bodies for a nanosecond.

And second, yes, we're polluting this planet and there can be no doubt that we've had a significant and negative impact on the environment, but the total concentration of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by all of the industrial activities of humanity has resulted in increases in total atmospheric CO2 that's measured in parts per million. Maybe this is enough to tip a balance, maybe not. I don't know.

I want to take you back, though, to the "hole in the ozone layer" issue of ten or twenty years ago.

You remember... a big hole appeared over the Antarctic, and apparently it was growing at such an alarming rate that we were all going to die of skin cancer by the end of the millenium. Yes, THAT end of the millenium. (I'll bet you've still got that stockpile of candles you secretly bought because the Y2K bug was going to take out the power grid. )

So here's this hole over the ozone layer. We were told that it was caused by CFCs and other man made chemicals. We all stopped using spray cans for about a week because we were so concerned. Of course, once we found out how bloody inconvenient roll-on deodorant was, we went back to our bad habits but that was ok because by then they'd started using hydrocarbons instead of those evil CFCs, and even if this wasn't better for the environment, it was more fun because a spray can and a box of matches could now provide hours of entertainment for the whole family.

The story of the hole sounded plausible... except for one rather large detail that no-one has ever been able to explain... it was over the SOUTHERN hemisphere.

You may not know that the atmospheres of the Northern and Southern hemispheres barely mix. People in the US and Soviet militaries figured that out as a matter of priority at the height of the cold war when they were looking for some place to stash their families in a post nuclear apocalypse world. Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires all looked pretty good, though the Soviets never did have much influence south of the equator. Anyway, as usual, I digress.

Atmospheres... don't mix... let me think...
Where were the CFCs? Hmmm... wait... I know I can answer that... just give me a second or two... ummm... they'd be in those places where most of the people and most of the industrial development was... places like... ummm... North America, or um... Asia or... wait... there's another one... don't help me... ummm.. ah... Europe. These are all in... ummm... [Chester reaches for an Atlas]... oh yes... there they are.

Now that line across the map is the equator, so that must mean all of those places, and hence nearly all of the CFCs, would have been in the NORTHERN hemisphere. So why was/is the hole over the Southern hemisphere?

Because NASA found it there. They sent up a satellite to measure the ozone layer and whammo... there it was... this bloody great hole exactly where no-one expected a hole to be. I wish I'd been at the press conference...
ME: Was it there before?
NASA: Well we hadn't ever measured it before.
ME: But wasn't this satellite equipped with all sorts of fancy new gizmos that had been put there just to measure the ozone?
NASA: Yes. That was the point. It was the first satellite we've put up just for measuring the ozone layer.
ME: So it could have been there before.
NASA: We've never measured it before.
ME: But it could have been there, you just hadn't measured it.
NASA: Our satellite has detected a growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.
ME: Maybe I'll try another tack... how long has the hole been there?
NASA: We first saw it last year, and it's growing.
ME: But was it there the year before?
NASA: If we extrapolate the growth rate backwards, it first appeared in 1952.
ME: So you're confident that the growth of the hole has been constant.
NASA: We don't have any data. We first saw the hole last year, and this year it's grown.

They detected a hole, and made an immediate assumption that the hole wasn't there before. I know. I'm speaking herasy here, but think about it people... the bloody hole was over the WRONG hemisphere. There's still argument about the hole. It gets bigger. It gets smaller. It gets bigger again, and the longer we watch it (now that we actually can), the more we learn that we don't understand it.

Back to global warming. There is no doubt that climates change. The 16th century in Europe was described as being a "mini ice age". (Ok, it might have been the 14th... my knowledge of European Dark Age & Renaissance history is a little scratchy.)

We know sea levels rise and fall. There are entire cities and ports in parts of the Med that are metres under water. They didn't sink... the sea level rose. (Ok, maybe one or two of them sank, but mostly, the sea level rose, ok!)

The point is, the earth's climate is not some static thing we can absolutely rely on from year to year. That the last hundred years or so have been relatively stable simply underscores the point that we can only measure the last hundred years or so.

We don't really know what the weather was like the day Mark Antony started bonking Cleopatra. We don't know what the temperature was when Martin Luther nailed that proclaimation to the church door. We don't know what the weather was like when Leif Ericson first landed in Iceland, or when Ming took delivery of his first vase.

There isn't any dopler radar image or five day forecast for January 26, 1788, the day Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet sailed into Sydney. They just described it as "hot". But what is "hot"?

I'll tell you what "hot" is... hot is somewhere warmer than wherever it was that you were before. So if it was bloody cold in England, and warm and mild in Sydney Town, then 22C (71F) would be hot. Then again, if you've lived in Singapore all your life, and you arrive in Sydney on a mild summer's day, it's cold. You see? It's all relative.

I've seen it myself... go to the tropics... Cairns or Miami, on a cool day in the middle of winter. There will be dozens of tourists walking around wearing T-Shirts while the locals rug up.

So, back to global warming. Apparently, the last 5 years have been the hottest 5 years on record. Hmmm... age of earth is 5 billion years + (or 5 thousand years + depending on your religious belief). And accurate, objective records go back... um... about 160 years. So I'm happy to accept that the last 5 years might have been hotter than the 160 years before that, but what about the 4,999,999,840 years/4,840 years (pick one) before that?

Ok... I hear you... botanists tell us that they can get a longer measurement by looking at tree rings. Really? Just remember the piece I wrote yesterday about subjectivity. If you go into the forest looking for something to validate whatever it is you believe, you'll find it.

Ice core scientists tell us they can give you an accurate picture too... but that's over, say, a hundred years. They have to make assumptions about how much snow fell, not just in the period they're looking at, but each year since. They make educated guesses but the chances are those guesses will be influenced by the same subjectivity.

We may be responsible for global warming, or we may not. If we are, and if the politicians REALLY believe we are, then there's a simple solution... spend whatever it takes to develop the technology to fix the problem. The Americans did it during WWII with the Manhattan Project, and the world could do it again right now. Actually, the immediate job wouldn't be that difficult because most of the technology already exists for a short term fix.

If we're not, and I'm not convinced either way just yet, then this seems like a very convenient issue to allow politicians the world over to prance about and make us think they're doing something, because right now, they're not doing much more than prancing.

One more thought on the environment... back in the early 1500s, Henry the VIIIth was so concerned about preserving the forests that he enacted what is widely considered the world's first environmental conservation law. You see, back in those days, most of England was covered by huge and mighty oak trees. Henry was so worried about the rate at which the oaks were being cut down and turned into wood coke that he outlawed the felling of oak trees for fuel. Like many things back then, including stealing a loaf of bread or marrying the King, it was a capital offence.

That lead to two things... first, it meant that when Elizabeth I took the throne, there were huge forests of oak trees available out of which she could build a navy, thus setting up Britannia to rule the waves for the next 400 years.

Second, people had to find some other way to keep warm (remember the mini ice age?). They turned to a curious black rock that you could dig out of the ground in parts of Wales that burned hotter and longer than the wood coke. They soon found out it was a much better fuel, and because they could now burn the furnaces hotter, they could make stronger steel, out of which they could build the machines of the industrial revolution, which, of course, needed even more of that black rock to make steam so they could make more machines to burn more black rock to make steam.

Within a couple of hundred years, the acid rain from burning all that coal the peasants had learned to burn because some conservationist wanted to save the trees, had decimated the forests Henry's law was supposed to save, which, in turn, meant the British had to learn how to build their ships out of iron or steel, which meant they could build the ships bigger, which meant more people could now travel more cheaply, which meant ideas were more readily exchanged, which meant the pace of technology could accellerate, which, if we're responsible for global warming, caused the whole bloody problem in the first place.

So blame Henry VIII.

Overwhelmed & Biased

I found myself an unwilling participant, yesterday, in a study into the nature of perception. Not that there really was a "study" in any formal sense of the word. No. It was more an observation following on from several real studies that took place around the world when nations were debating the whole WMD thing.

Back then, the research discovered something disturbing, especially to people like me who claim to have the power of objectivity. It discovered that when assessing evidence, our brains subconsciously assign "importance points", and the closer the evidence is to what we already believe, or the closer the information is in its presentation to the presentation we would expect from information that is accurate, the more importance points are assigned. Conversely, the brain assigns less points to information that contradicts what we believe, or is presented to us in a format that is not what we would expect for accurate data. In other words, when you come across information supporting your belief, or which conforms with your expectation of accurate presentation, you are more likely to see it and pay attention to it, not matter how unlikely it is, and when you come across information that contradicts what you believe, or is presented in a manner not consistent with your expectation of accuacy, you are more likely to miss it, or ignore it, no matter how likely it is.

Here's a simplistic example. You're handed information scribbled on a scrunched up piece of paper. The spelling is poor, the grammar worse and the handwriting is child-like. You're handed other information presented to you beautifully printed and bound, with an official looking insignia on the cover. If you have no preconception, you're more likely to believe the bound report. You are only more likely to believe the scribble if it supports a fundamental belief, or if the bound report contradicts some fundamental belief.

Let me give you another simplistic, though marginally more complex example. Let's say you believe the earth is flat, and you're standing on a high cliff looking out over the ocean. Your brain will not see the curve of the earth at the horizon, even though it is there and is objectively measurable. The person standing next to you believes the earth is round, and says "wow, look at that curve". Your most likely reaction will be "what curve?", and you still won't see it, even though it's been pointed out to you AND it's there.

I was doing some research yesterday, trawling through hundreds of research papers looking for links between whey protein and a beneficial effect in preventing or fighting cancer, and especially breast cancer.

Hundreds of papers.

And suddenly, I noticed that I was either subconsciously dismissing or glossing over papers which did not support the belief, or I was overly critical of such studies, and far more accepting of studies which confirmed the link, even though some of those studies were poorly constructed.

I realised that this sort of filtering happens every day. Our brains look for information that validates our pre-existing understanding of the world. We're far more likely to notice things that fit into the little model of the world that sits inside our heads, and equally likely to ignore things that do not fit into that model.

Even more important, is that our brains add more importance or credence to information that comes to us in a form that is either more expected, or more attractive than other information.

Think about that, and what it means to the way companies sell stuff to you. Many years ago, when marketing was more a dark art and less an evil science, a gin company had a leading brand. They were losing market share so they decided to find out why.

When they did a blind taste test, their brand ALWAYS scored higher for taste than the competitors brand. That is, more people thought their brand tasted better. They then repeated the experiment (with different subjects), but this time, those subjects could see the bottles from which the gin was poured. The competitor's brand ALWAYS scored higher. Finally, they repeated the experiment again, but this time, they switched the contents of the bottles, that is, they put their gin in their competitor's bottle, and vice versa. The one in the competitors bottle (theirs) now scored higher again.

The test subjects perceptions of what they were about to taste was influenced more by the way they saw the product, and less by the actual taste. The company changed their bottle and regained market dominance.

If you doubt whether this applies to just about everything we buy, take a look at the cosmetic industry. Here, form over substance triumphs, because the consumers' brains are far more likely to believe something in a beautiful package is going to make them beautiful than something in a plain dull package.

I read a book once called "Supressed Inventions and Other Discoveries". It had stories about a whole raft of "new technologies" that its author was suggesting had been supressed, either by government or by competing commercial interests. I will tell you that I have no doubt that some of the stories in that book were more likely to be true than not, but one less paranoid explanation may be that those evaluating the new technology simply couldn't see the evidence that it worked.

We see it in medicine every day. As recently as last year, an Australian doctor was being investigated because his patients were claiming that he had cured their incurable cancers. He was using microwave radiation therapy, and setting the wave lengths of the microwaves to specifically target individual types of cancers.

There were hundreds of patient files, almost all of which showed near miraculous recovery from cancer previously diagnosed by another, more recognised oncologist as terminal, Almost all of those patients were still alive, years after they were expected to have died, and almost all of them were cancer free.

The authorities charged with the responsibility of evaluating this radical new treatment ignored the patient files and instead focused on the mechanism. Their conclusion was that as there was no known mechanism by which this treatment could be killing the tumours, the treatment therefore had no validity and did not warrant further investigation. The investigative team did not talk to a single patient, and did not refer, in its final report, to any patient files.

For some, this was clear evidence of conspiracy by the evil drug companies. I think the explaination is a great deal simpler. The investigators just didn't believe the treatment could work (probably because they had been indoctrinated by the aforementioned evil drug companies), so they only gave credence to evidence that would support that position.

What I'm trying to say here is that the same mental processes are at work. We see stuff that we want to believe. That belief may be that a particular fact is true, or it may be that something more beautiful works better than something less beautiful.

Sadly, though, there's no solution. We're overwhelmed by input and all of it is subjectively dealt with in our brains. If you start second guessing your motivation for assigning validity to one piece of information, or one product over another, I suspect you'll go nuts. But maybe knowing why people don't see what you see might help keep you out of an argument or two.

Invitation to Sydney

If you don't understand just how stunningly beautiful Sydney really is, here are some pics of a typical New Year's Eve.

Seriously readers. If you don't live here, you just don't know what you're missing.

It's not too late. There are flights here from just about anywhere and we're coming into summer. Yes... summer... where the days are hot, there's barely a cloud in the sky, and the nights are mild and balmy.

If I've neglected to give proper credit to the photographer, please accept my apologies. The pictures arrived in my mailbox today as part of a powerpoint presentation, and had no crdits.

I Might Have Been Mistaken

This bear has never had a problem admitting he may have been in error. After all, it is only by recognising one's mistakes that we can learn and grow.

A few weeks back, I wrote a piece suggesting that an increase in volcanic activity rather than industrialisation might be the root cause of global warming.

What I've discovered since then is that geologists think the total CO2 released by volcanoes of all types amounts is anywhere between a half and one percent of the total CO2 created by anually by industry.

If you're remotely interested, there's a report from the British Geological Survey HERE.

I'm not going to totally concede just yet though. There are some significant inconsistencies in the data across a number of sources, bringing the total CO2 emission estimate into some question. For example, in that report, the total CO2 emission from Pinatubo was estimated at 60million tonnes, yet extrapolation of USGS data would indicate that it might have been 10 times that amount. And no-one seems to be able to explain the near parallel between increasing global temperature and increasing volcanic activity so maybe there's something missing in the puzzle.

However, I if my somewhat simplistic expose has caused any further damage to the environment by allowing people to think driving a V8 SUV was ok, then I wish to unreservedly apologise.

Screw You

A month or so back, I deviated from my usual dull and benign musings on every day life to comment on the over sensitivity and hypocracy of some in the Islamic world.

I'm sorry readers, but I'm compelled to do it again, because today, Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, announced the winner of its deplorable, tasteless and disgusting "International Holocaust Cartoons Competition".

If you can be bothered, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story. Click here.

Let me get this right...
It's ok to deny the holocaust, and make jokes at the expense of the 6 million Jews who were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis, but it's not ok for the Pope to make a comment that might reflect poorly in Islam.

Or it's ok for the Mufti of Australia, in a sermon last week, to suggest that women who dress inappropriately in public (that is, not covered head to toe by a hijab) deserve to be raped because they are akin to a piece of meat left outside uncovered and eaten by a cat, but it's not ok for those of us with any shred of decency to object. Yes... he really did say it, though at first he denied it, then when presented with the tape and transcript, said he had been misinterpreted. Yeah. Right..

You know what? Screw you. I'm sick and tired of the double standard. Whatever caused that chip on your shoulder, get over it. Devote your energy to making a positive contribution to the world instead of blaming the Americans and the Jews for your problems.

Sleep Deprivation

It's about two hours after "bedtime" and I'm still sitting here wasting time in front of this keyboard.

I'll eventually get to bed, and I'll get about four or five hours' sleep. Tommorrow will be somewhat wasted because my brain won't actually start functioning until after 11, which is about an hour after my first meeting ends.

I wish I could say this was unusual but I'm almost ashamed to admit that it's the norm. Yes... "ashamed", because the way I figure it, I don't have enough self discipline to know when to get some sleep. It's rare that I'm in bed much before midnight. 1 or 2 am is "normal".

They say most of the western world suffers chronic sleep deprivation. Then again, "they" say a lot of things, and the more I read what they say, the more cynical I get about their motivation for saying it.

See? Sleep deprivation also leads to mild paranoia.

Irreverent, But I Like It

Like many others who clearly need to get out more, I've found myself spending a little time lately trawling through the moderately amusing at YouTube.

Most of it... well... it's marginally better than many of the offerings on Foxtel (Rupert's cable company here in Oz), but like any mining, hitting paydirt is rare.

Then I found this...

Bloody Bureaucrats

Those of you who read this blog who know me in real life know how much loathing I have for bureaucrats.

"Mindless." "Stupid." "Totally Fucked." These are just a few of the things I call them.

Now before we all get into a pissing competition about which country/state/city has the dumbest, most mindless bureaucrats, I will say that wherever you find bureaucrate, they are the dumbest and most mindless.

I think it was one of Newton's Laws... the one that says that for every action, there must be an equal and opposit reaction. Or to translate... wherever there's someone trying to get something done, there's a bureaucrat standing in his or her way with a list of extremely stupid rules.

Right here in Oz, we have bureaucrats who can hold their own with the best of them... like my friends over at the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (the government body that looks after drugs, vitamins and things medicinal). They tried explaining why it's illegal in Australia to make a health claim about food by saying, and this is a direct quote, "food is for nutrition, and nutrition has nothing to do with your health". Sadly, I couldn't convince them to put that in writing on government letterhead.

Today, another shipment of Whey Protein arrived from the Excited States. This time, we were reasonably sure we'd crossed all the "t's" and dotted all the "i's" because we definitely didn't want a repeat of what happened with the last shipment.

And the Quarantine Inspector looks over the paperwork and says "where's the Jembrana Certificate?"

"The what?", says I, frantically running my finger down the conditions in our import permit, trying to see whatever it was I'd missed.

"Jembrana. You're supposed to have a certificate".

Oh. Um. Ok. That it wasn't in the conditions of the import permit is covered by the clause that says stuff like "AQIS (that's what they're called... the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service) can alter the conditions of the permit at any time. Great. Well done AQIS. It might have helped in you'd actually told me.

So I headed back to the office to look it up and before I tell you what I found, let me give you a bit of background. We get our Whey Protein Shakes mix from a little factory in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. It's truly yummy. They get the raw whey isolate from whoever it is that extracts the whey from the milk after the cheesmakers have thrown it away. The cheesemakers get the milk from... um... milk factories I suppose, who get it from farms anyplace they can.

Last time, the Quarantine inspectors wanted a certificate, signed by the USDA Chief Veterenarian, certifying that the farm the milk came from was BSE free. Stupidly, I wrote back telling them that the cow's name was Daisy, and she grazed on the south west pasture of a farm on Skunk Creek Road, Beaver Falls Minnesota. I shouldn't have done that. One of the prerequisites for getting a job in the bureaucracy is that you must have no sense of humour. Eventually, we reached the conclusion that if it was a bloody certificate they wanted, then we'd better get them one.

They also wanted a certificate from the USDA stating that no milk from sick cows is used for human consumption in the United States, to which the USDA vet I was speaking to replied "don't be insulting". AQIS explained that they can't have one rule for countries that know what they're doing, and another rule for the countries that suck. I said "yes you can, you have dozens of rules like that", but no-one was listening so eventually, they got that certificate too..

The other thing they wanted, and this was where we REALLY came unstuck last time, was a certificate showing that the meat and eggs used to make the whey came from cows that are BSE free. (That cows don't lay eggs seemed to have escaped the sharp minds at AQIS.)

It took four weeks to get past that condition, because I just couldn't provide that certificate. Why? No... it wasn't because of the cow/egg thing, though come to think of it, that might have been a big hurdle. I couldn't get that certificate because there is NO meat or eggs in whey protein... it's made from milk. Therefore, no-one could give me a certificate saying it was anything in relation to eggs or meat. It wasn't good enough that I provided a manufacturer's declaration to that effect... the certificate was on the list, so the certificate I had to get!

Oh... I digress... sorry... back to Jembrana. I looked it up...

It's a disease found in ONE very specific breed of cattle that's ONLY found in East Java, Indonesia, not to far from Bali.

"But we've already provided documentation that this product is manufactured in the USA, from American milk. Um... Bali's nowhere near Pennsylvania."

The shipment's still in quarantine pending the arrival of new paperwork.

Common Language

My friends used to laugh at me during my "way too much traveling" days. I'd come back from a trip to the Excited States with a very slight American accent.

I'd tell tham that I actually speak fluent American and they'd roll their eyes and say something like "Chester, you're a wanker, there is no such thing as fluent American".

"Just because they speak with an accent", they'd say, "doesn't make it a different language."

"It's still English", they'd contend.

How bloody wrong they are.

Forget the accent. Americans speak a different language. Yes, we... what is it they call us... ah, yes... "Aliens"... we aliens can understand the words, so we can make sense of about 80% of what they say, but the devil's in the detail of that last 20%, and people ignore it at their peril.

"What's different?" I hear my reader ask.

It's idiom. It's sentence structure. It's thought process. It's a need to fill the silence.

No, I can't give you a specific example right now... it's 12.45am and more than a few of my brain cells have gone nigh nigh.

But I'll tell you a short story...

A few years ago, I was at a business meeting in LA. We were negotiating to go into jv with a US company. Picture the meeting... Americans on one side of the table, Aussies on the other, and much agreement, shaking of hands and slapping of backs. We were all agreed. The deal was done, or so my colleagues thought.

I speak fluent American. I knew what had been agreed, but when I spoke with the boss from down under, he had a totally different take on the outcome of the meeting.

We managed to stitch the deal back together again so all was well, but what brought this to the front of my brain tonight was an embarrasing miscommunication I had with one of my present American partners. And it's been an extremely costly miscommunication.

Same language? Bah!

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the Australians and the Americans are two peoples separated by a common language.

Nano Power

While we're on the environment, and on a slightly cheerier note, I was at the barber's shop today and read an article in the New Scientist that was pretty bloody fascinating.

If the amazing scientists at The Oak Ridge National Laboratory are on the right track, the fuel of the future won't be hydrogen or some biofuel, but a tank full of metal. Basically, you'll fill your tank with iron filings (nano sized iron filings) and whoosh... a fuel more powerful than gasoline.

If you're remotely interested, I rummaged around the net and found a copy of the article HERE...

The Icecap Melteth

I heard an interview on the radio on the way to my office this morning, about global warming and the impending total loss of the Arctic Ice Cap.

Apparently, the climate expert claimed, we're to blame. Yes. All of us, and especially we Australians because per head of population, Aussies are allegedly the most polluting people on the face of the planet. This guy was blaming everything from the hole in the ozone layer to the loss of the Titanic on us, and it got me thinking... could he be right?

I mean, I know I'm guilty of leaving the occasional light switched on, but I do drive a car that does 5 litres per 100km (or around 45 miles per gallon), so I think I can be cut a little slack there. Then again, I do sometimes forget to separate my recyclables and I am known for spending too long in the shower.

He went on to say the last 10 years have been the hottest 10 years in human history, that the polar ice caps are melting and that any minute now, the entire Greenland Ice Shelf is going to slide off into the North Atlantic, raising the sea level by some 15 metres. And it's all our fault...

Or is it?

I remembered something I'd read a few years back about the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, and as I don't actually have a life and have ADD (which means I get distracted by useless stuff like this when I should be working), I decided to dig a little.

Now when I say "dig", I really mean "use Google", because while I'm happy to let the web slog through records for me, actually going out and trawling through a library seems a little too much like hard work.

I discovered something a scary. Really. I'm not trying to be funny here... this is disturbing.

Stay with me for a mo while I bore you with statistics...
Between 1700 and 1799, there were around 34 cataclysmic explosive volcanic eruptions around the world. The geologists say it's very difficult to get an accurate statistic before 1700, and even the figure for that hundred years might be a little rubbery because so much of the world was unexplored by people who gave a shit.

Between 1800 and 1899, there were 41 of these eruptions, and that's more likely to be a close enough to reliable figure because those explorers covered a great deal of territory in a hundred years.

Here's where it gets interesting...

Between 1900 and 1999 there were 69 of these catastrophic explosive eruptions. That's around double the rate for the preceeding two centuries.

And between 2000 and 2006, we're running at one a year, or almost three times the rate for 1700-1899.

Let me get back to Pinatubo... where 15 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide was pumped into the atmosphere in 15 seconds. Fifteen million... that's equivalent to the entire annual sulphur dioxide generation from all of the activities of man. The total amount of carbon dioxide generated in that eruption is estimated as greater than that generated by all of industry and technology for the preceeding hundred years. From one eruption.

Are you getting a picture here, or do I need to spell it out for you?

Global warming is real... so real that, if you believe the guy in the interview, it's going to kill most of us in the next 20-30 years.

But did we do it?

Mt Pinatubo taken from Clarke Air Force Base. Photo Courtesy of the USGS.

Caution?

I bought a new mop the other day. You know the type... one of those squeegee mop things that isn't really a mop, but more a sponge on the end of a stick. It's got one of those handles you push down on to fold the sponge in half to squeeze the water out.

It has a curious warning on the handle, in big red letters...

CAUTION
Wet mop before
wringing out

Um? Ok.

So WHY would someone want to wring out a DRY mop?

Come to think of it, is it actually possible to wring out something that isn't wet?

There are lots of useful CAUTION notes on products these days, like the one on the iron I bought last week that says "Caution. Do not use in bath." I can see that some lame idiot might try bathing and ironing at the same time, and that the company has to protect itself (though it's debatable whether in doing so, they're protecting or harming the future of the gene pool).

I can understand why a bottle of Children's Cough Medicine would contain a warning that says "Caution, do not drive or operate heavy machinery while on this medication." Those sand pits can be a pretty dangerous place if people aren't in proper control of their Tonka Trucks.

I can even understand why a packet of cigarettes has the warning "Caution. Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health". There must be at least one person in the western world who isn't aware of the danger, and it's very important that we make sure he knows as soon as possible.

But "Caution. Wet mop before wringing out"? What's going to happen if I don't? Is this a warning that some harm might come to me? How? Will the sponge explode? Will it release some toxic spores? What should I be watching out for? Should I be wearning protective clothing when using the mop? Should I make sure I never use the mop alone? I'm sorry. I just don't understand.

Unsuitably Qualified

Hiring. It's nearly as bad as firing. You know you want an eagle, but you have to interview too many turkeys to find one.

The unsuitable qualifications in some applicants absolutely amazes me. I mean, I know getting the "right job" is hard, but if we're advertising for a "Receptionist/Marketing Assistant", why on earth would you send a resume highlighting your love for and experience in interior decorating?

Or why would you send a resume with a covering letter that says "I look forward to discussing the position of Warehouse Manager with you soon"? Um... Ok... We can talk about our Warehouse Manager but I quite like him and don't plan on replacing him anytime soon. I'd much rather talk about the RECEPTIONIST / MARKETING ASSISTANT you dumb ass.

Then there's the interview process itself. Here's a tip... LOOK IN THE MIRROR before you leave the house. Dress like you mean it. Don't turn up to the interview looking like you're on the way home from a rave, and while I think of it, don't bring your friends... they just clutter up our reception.

I know it's tough out there, especially when you're just starting out. I know you didn't know that a Diploma in Marketing is about as useful as a fork lift certificate when you're looking for the right break but people, please, think about what we want before you send your resume.

And let me ask you this... What's the main job of a "Receptionist"?

Anyone?

Come on people. This is not a difficult question... the main job of a "Receptionist" is to answer the telephone, and meet and greet people as they arrive at your office.

Yes? Agreed? Ok.

So can anyone explain to me why I got an application from a mute? Seriously. "Selective Childhood Mutism Disorder", which means she only talks to some people and not others, can't answer the phone, and won't talk to strangers.

"I have this keyboard thingmy where I type in what I want to say, and the machine kind of says it for me."

Oh yes. That's going to work. Think about it. You call my company and the phone is answered by sound effects of someone typing, followed by a monotone computer voice.

Now I'm not a totally callous bastard. I really feel for this girl. Whatever happened to her in her childhood that's caused this must have been awful. Her resume put her #1 on our short-list and in every other respect she was a great candidate...
...but the job was for a fecken "Receptionist".

Ah well. Anyone out there looking for a job?

Insufferably Cheery

We had to let a long time employee go today. Now when I say "long time", I mean someone who's been with us for two years.

A rethink on some business priorities forced the decision, and it really was tough, but for the long term future of the company and the survival of everyone elses jobs we need to make some changes. Life is a bit like that. Sometimes you have to make decisions that you'd rather avoid, either because you care about the impact your actions have on fellow human beings, or you're a complete wooss and can't face life's unpleasantries.

Either way, it's a dilemma people in management everywhere face. I don't think I've ever met anyone who enjoyed this part of running a business (or a department).

So how do you tell someone in their late fifties that they don't have a job with you any more? How do you deal with the expected emotion, and how do you offer the right sort of "support".

You sit them down, tell them that they have been loyal and hardworking, and then you somehow work the fact that you don't want them any more into the conversation. I've been on the receiving end a few times in my life, and I don't like it. I also know first hand how potentially devastating losing your job can be.

It had to be done...

But what I didn't expect was the insufferable cheeriness that greeted the news. Our employee was just too nice. She smiled a lot, and said words like "yes, I completely understand".

Ok. We gave her a nice little payout, and maybe she was thinking "wow, there's that Cruise to Alaska I've been saving up for". Or maybe she was just good at pretending, and I'd better look under the car before I turn the ignition key each morning.

One More Thing...

I don't want to turn this into some rant, which is why I've tried to avoid politics, but a friend sent me this link today and I want to share it with you.

Click HERE. There's troubled times ahead.

One Rule For Them

I've tried very hard to make this blog non-political, and to keep it focused on the more mundane aspects of life. Today, though, it's different, and I'm going to do something I never thought I'd be doing in my life, which is defending the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

Last week Pope Benedict was in Germany. He made a reference to an ancient description of Islam that was less than complimentary. This provoked outrage across the Muslim world, and now you have half the Christian world in Europe groveling before Islam. Yes, groveling. European leaders can’t say “sorry” fast enough.

I'm going to declare an interest here... I am Jewish... not a practicing Jew by any means, and I can't actually remember the last time I attended a Synagogue or Temple service. But I am a Jew nevertheless, and proud of the history of my people.

For that reason alone, I abhor racism of any kind. I wrote this two weeks ago as a comment on Blog-a-licious…

Care not for the colour of their skin, or their eyes, or their hair.
Care not what God (or Gods) they worship, or indeed whether they choose to worship a God at all.
Care not what language they speak, or what car they drive, or what clothes they wear.
Care only about whether they care, because if any of the above bothers them or causes them to act, say or do differently to one person as to another, then smack them down.

It therefore saddens me that I feel the need to write this blog at all, but to me, it’s more than a little rich that Islam rises up in protest whenever it perceives (or wishes to fabricate) some insult from the West, when every day, all over the world, Clerics and Imams preach the vilest anti-Semitism in history.

It is preached from pulpits, in village squares, in towns and in cities from Morocco to Jakarta. It is taught in schools as part of a formal curriculum. It fills newspapers and television. Don’t believe me? Go here and see what Arab TV teaches children about the Jews.

There is a common theme… that Jews are all liars, that it is the sacred duty of Muslims everywhere to kill Jews (and Christians too, I might add), that the Holocaust never happened and was Jewish conspiracy to gain sympathy from the rest of the world. Their anti-Semitism compresses all of the anti-Semitism in history, delivering it as truth to a people too uneducated to understand the manipulation.

And it’s not just Islam that has institutionalized this hatred. Anti-Semitism is an instrument of power, and is defacto state policy across more countries that I could name. I’m not talking about the loony Iranians here. Muhatir Mohammed, the former president of Malaysia, once banned Schindler’s List because, in his words, “this film perpetuates the myth of the holocaust”.

In the Jews, the failed states of the Middle East have found an easy “common enemy” against which they can unite their people.

In the Jews, the extremist Islamicists have found a common evil and simplistic explaination for why the rest of the world seems to enjoy prosperity while much of the Muslim world, and especially the middle east, is a cesspit of poverty and despair.

(That’s a topic for another time, but if you want a fresh perspective on politics in the middle east, go here.)

And remember the Danish cartoon fiasco? The same day that cartoon was published in Denmark, dozens of vile, anti-Semitic cartoons were published in newspapers across the Arab world.

Cartoons like this from Ash-Sharq, February 19, 2006.

"Islam" is caricatured on the left, peaceful and scholarly, about to be stabbed by the pen of "Western Media". On the right, the "Western Media" bows in front of a toilet bowl, labeled "Zionism," from which fire, labeled "the Holocaust," emanates. Behind stands the devil, above which are the Menorah and the Star of David.

Or this, from Al-Watan, March 18, 2006.

The headline reads “Bird Flu In Israel”.

So, when I hear that “the whole of Islam” is offended by the words of the Pope, I have but one thing to say…

Go away you pathetic little people.

Until you get your own house in order, your whining is meaningless. It has no moral authority and no credibility. Western Civilisation makes the mistake of dealing with you as though you share at least some of our values. By your actions, you demonstrate that you do not.

We react with political correctness to a foe that laughs at our weakness. I have always believed that there comes a time in the history of any civilization that it must draw that proverbial line in the sand. THIS is such a time.


I will qualify all of the above by saying I still believe that, mostly, people are just people. Some are misguided and others are poorly led, but most are decent folk. I’d also like to acknowledge (and encourage) the moderate voice of Islam, in which values of peace, harmony and tolerance are central.

Oops!

We're trying to implement a new accounting system that's integrated into our on-line ordering system. Sounds boring, right? Yeah. It is. Really tedious. There's a reason accountants have that sort of reputation... they deserve it. And computer geeks... they might inherit the earth, but they will have absolutely no idea what to do with it when they get it.

I digress. This was supposed to be about 'Oops!'.

We're trying to take people out of the equation. That is, we're trying to automate the system so that there's no possibility our people can 'forget' to do whatever it is they forgot to do that made me decide to automate the process in the first place. (People do that... they forget stuff. Mostly, machines don't.)

To bring the system on line, we had to write a little script that... oh fuck it... you don't care what the little script was supposed to do, and frankly, neither do I. I just know it didn't do it right.

What it did do was send out an invoice this morning to our best customer...

... for forty seven million, two hundred and sixty eight thousand, one hundred and ninety one dollars and fifty three cents.

That's an awful lot of whatever it is we sell... even the expensive stuff.

It got me to thinking about the nature of intelligence and whether these machines of ours will ever be able to look at the invoice before it goes out and say "that doesn't look right".

I suspect never, but when we discovered the error, we called that machine a great many names, many of which involved gratuitous use of that F word and that other C word, and even a B word and a P word or two. All of those words were intended to hurt its feelings.

At least the customer has a sense of humour.

Drunken Bastards

I got a call from my Sales & Marketing Manager last Sunday morning. She was going to be late to the most important trade show of the year.

This is why...


Yes, that's her company car, a Smart fourtwo. For my American reader, that's a car that's the size of a shoebox. It gets around 90mpg.

The neighbours told her that a pack of drunken early twenty somethings, all men of course, did this. They thought it was ever so funny. They pushed and pushed and pushed. After all, the whole car only weighs 700kg. I'm just glad I believe in karma.

What is it with boys, alcohol and Saturday nights?

Can't Say I Wasn't Warned

I should have heeded my own warning. SLOW, or Sudden Leisure Onset Wellness is real, and it causes irrepairable brain damage.

Actually, I should have paid more attention to the very clear sign posting at the entrance to Denarau Island.
There were other, less obvious signs of SLOW everywhere too, if only I'd known then just where to look...

...clocks with the numbers mysteriously jumbled and out of order, bookstores with nothing but titles by Clive Cussler, Danielle Steele, Dan Brown, Anne Rice, Wilbur Smith and a raft of others, none of whom had ever won a litterary award of any note. Add the very awful Malaysian Star TV Satellite network that seemed to be running Really Bad Science Fiction Week. It took me too long to realise that each of these was a sign of impaired cognitive ability.

Let's not forget the drinks with fruit and little umbrellas too... a different one each day. At $10 a hit, that we kept buying them was a true indication of the rapid degenerative progress of this disease.

And it's Fiji, where it seems anyone within 50 metres of you has to shout "Bula", which the locals claim is "Hello" in whatever language they speak when we're not watching, but which I'm actually fairly certain roughly translates to "oh look... another stupid foreigner". It has to be an in joke. Why else would they smile every bloody time they shouted it at you? It's not like western tourists are actually likeable.

I've been back for nearly two full days now, and fear it might be too late. I recognise some of the symptoms. I've been wearing very bright shirts around the house, and even up to the local store once. Short sleeve. In the middle of winter. There 's the pile of mail that was in my mailbox too. It just sits there unopened, and my interest in its contents is best described as CGAF. I can't even remember where the washing machine is. I just stuffed my clothes in a big plastic bag and left them at the door. I can't understand why they're still there, nor do I comprehend why the fridge hasn't been filled up with beer, wine and coke while I've been out. Somethings just not right.

Ah well. They say if one heads for a warm oceanside tropical climate, the symptoms of SLOW are less noticeable. Maybe I'd better start looking at real estate with coconut palms.