Conditioning

Back in the early sixties, behavioral researchers conducted a series of experiments that should privide you with a real explaination for your own behaviour, and the behaviour of the people around you.

Think this through, because that reserach has far reaching implications.

Here's what they did...

They put a large school of mackarel in a tank. They then put their natural predator in the tank, a barracuda.

They let the barracuda happily enjoy mackarel smorgasbord for a couple of weeks, and then they introduced a glass barrier into the centre of the tank. For a couple of days, this didn't effect the barracuda at all. There were plenty of mackarel on his side of the glass.

However, as the fish stocks started to run out, the barracuda would start to attack the mackarel on the other side of the glass.

Smack. Ramming into glass hurts. So each time the barracuda tried to eat a mackarel, he got a large dose of negative re-inforcement, and each subsequent time, his enthusiasm diminished. Eventually, and if I recall, it was after 30 such attempts, he lost interest.

The researchers then removed the glass from the tank, and the barracuda was once again surrounded by mackarel smorgasbord. He starved to death.

That barracuda had been so negatively conditioned to failure, that he gave up. He 'knew' he would fail, and that there were negative consequences of trying to eat mackarel.

The researchers then correlated that observation to humans, and estimated that while it took the mackarel 30 attempts to negatively condition himself, it will only take a human two or three negative experiences.

These experiences shape your life, your reactions, your confidence, and your chances of success at whatever it is you do.

Here's an example. If you're in a relationship, and it ends with your partner running off with someone else, it might distress you, but it's unlikely to effect your behaviour in your next relationship. However, if your next partner does the same, from now on, you'll subconsciously enter every subsequent relationship with a dual expectation, that a) it will fail, and b) your partner will be unfaithful and run off with someone else. That expectation will manifest itself in the way you relate to your partner, a self fulfilling pattern that will further entrench your now solidly ingrained attitude.

None More Deserved

For those who've been living under a rock for the last ten years, or perhaps living in the Excited States, where such things would be less than relevant, the bloke in the pic is soccer super-megastar-demigod Mr David Spice.

First of all, let me state this clearly in the most unambiguous language I can use in a family blog... I think soccer is a boring waste of a good football field. It's played by high diving pansies who think deliberately falling over and staying down until the tissues arrive and the whistle is blown is all part of the strategy of the game. It's corrupt to the core, and is followed in most parts of the world by thick headed thugs for whom rare moments of cognitive function would raise behaviour to levels unprecedented among ovines.

So with that qualification out of the way, let me get to the point.

It's not often I read The Times of London, but with looney Islamists up to their usual trickery, I spent a few minutes on its website this morning. It was there that I found an article by Matthew Syed who I'm guessing is one of The Times' better sports scribblers.

He was writing of the tradition whereby outgoing British Prime Ministers are able to nominate a handful of knighthoods, a favour bestowed on them by the King or Queen since the days of... um... some dead monarch with roman numerals after their name.

These gongs (that's what a Knighthood is called here in Oz) usually go to political mates or over-generous supporters of the Party, in much the same way that the outgoing US President is able to grant pardons (the latter being a far more honest reflection of the true nature of the political process).

Syed suggested that with Tony Blair's retirement, a natural candidate for such a gong would be the ubiquitous David Beckham, formerly of Manchester United and Real Madrid, and lately strapping on boots and jockstrap for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

And not, as you might imagine, for services to sport. After all, Mr Spice is no Sir Johnny Wilkinson, the freak rugby half whose golden boot snatched the World Cup from Australia a few years back, and whose mortal remains shall surely be laid to rest under said boots in Westminster Abbey along with other great contributors to England and Empire like Newton, Chaucer, Kipling, Darwin, Dickens, Olivier and Stevenson.

Sadly, under Beckham's captaincy, you can count the number of international tournaments the English Football Team has won on less than one finger.

No. Syed's reasoning is rather different...
"Beckham has been the single most significant catalyst in the metrosexual revolution, changing the contemporary notion of masculinity, softening it, smoothing it, widening it, diversifying it. He has not only made it possible to be a real man and gay. He has also made it possible to be a real man and sensitive; to be a real man and concerned about one’s appearance; to be a real man and to cry in public; to be a real man and to wear dresses and high heels."

If ever there was a reason for Knighthood, Order of Australia, Congressional Medal of Honour or whatever the gong is in your part of the world, "Contribution to Metrosexuality" is surely compelling.

The full article is HERE.

Cancer Link Confirmed (Again!)

First, go HERE (it opens in a new window).

There's something I just don't understand, and Aspartame (or NutraSweet), the artificial sweetener commonly found in Diet Coke, Pepsi Max, Coke Zero and just about any food marketed as "sugarless", is a glaring example.

By way of background, let me tell you a story...

In the late '70s, Searle Laboratories applied to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval to market a revolutionary new sugar replacement as a food additive.

The company presented a great deal of research that they claimed proved this new chemical was perfectly safe. The regulators from the FDA that evaluated this data raised a significant number of red flags. It was clear that, at best, the the conduct of the research was incompetent. At worst, it was fraudulent.

For example, a couple of rats in one of the studies (each rat having a number) were recorded as having died, and then, miraculously, were then recorded as being alive again some weeks later.

When rats did die, they were autopsied to determine the cause of death. The rats were dissected, and tissue sample taken and stored for later examination, which would have been great if they hadn't waited more than a year, by which time, brain tissue had degraded to a point where it was impossible to determine of there had been any tumour.

The regulators unanimously recommended against approval, but the company applied significant political pressure so the FDA relented, granting "conditional" approval... the condition being that the company refrain from marketing the substance as a human food additive until such time as a further review was conducted, and new studies carried out.

Aspartame looked dead in the water.

Enter Donald Rumsfeld. Yes. THAT Donald Rumsfeld, who was appointed CEO of Searle with the specific brief to get Aspartame approved. Rumsefeld, of course, looked at this as a political problem, and was uninterested in research findings, product safety or any of the other things rational people would have concerned themselves with.

Once you take the facts out of the equation, politics becomes a much easier environment, and the way Rumsfeld got Aspartame approved demonstrated his mastery of the dark political arts.

He went to his friends in the US Congress and suggested that the problems with the Aspartame approval process was indicative of a lack of regulatory framework. "What we need", he said, "are minimum standards for safety testing, so that companies know the rules, and this sort of stand-off can't happen again."

It's difficult to argue with that position, and a Bill setting down such standards seemed certain to pass through both Houses of Congress. President Reagan, being a long time friend and supporter of Rumsfeld, would rubber stamp it if it was passed.

The problem was, that Bill wasn't going to help Searle because it would have meant they would need to redo all of their safety testing. It would cost millions, take years, and, given what they knew, would probably fail...

...which is where Rumsfeld played his hand. At the 11th hour, Rumsfeld's buddies in Congress inserted at clause into the bill dictating the compliance with the standards shall not be applied retrospectively. The Bill passed and was signed into law, which then allowed Searle to tell the FDA that its "conditional" approval could no longer be enforced. Aspartame was "approved", and approved by stealth rather than by real science.

(By the way, the bureaucrat in the FDA that gave Aspartame its final rubber stamp resigned within weeks to take up a position as spokesman for the US Soft Drink Industry. Similarly, the lead attorney representing the FDA through all the approval hearings resigned within weeks of the approval to take up a partnership in the law firm representing Searle.)

The sweetener was an instant hit, and the hundreds of millions of dollars it was now earning its makers would be put back into re-doing human safety trials for other jurisdictions (like Europe and Australia). Those trials would be manipulated to deliver the desired outcome.

For example, another rat trial was conducted, and rats were fed pellets of food that were either laced with Aspartame, or not. That trial showed NO difference in mortality or cancer rates between the two groups, and this is one of the key trials upon which approval in other jurisdictions was granted. It wasn't until years later that one of the researchers came forward with a startling admission.

When the pellets were prepared, little attempt was made to properly blend the Aspartame into the food. That meant the pellets were filled with chunks of Aspartame, and the clever rats were simply eating around those chunks. That meant the mortality and cancer rates were the same because the rats in the "Aspartame" group weren't actually consuming any Aspartame.

Since the initial approval, there have been more than 140 studies into Aspartame's human safety. Of these, roughly half either find Aspartame to be safe, or find it probably safe with additional research required. The other half find Aspartame unsafe, or probably unsafe with additional research required.

When that happens, follow the money. The "safe" half were mostly funded by the food industry, while the "unsafe" half were mostly funded from outside the food industry.

Ok. That's the background, and I apologise for the length of the story but it was needed to get to the core of this post.

Given the balance of evidence, how is it possible for regulators to continue to allow this poison into our food supply. It's been linked to more than 90 serious medical conditions including brain tumours, liver cancer, chronic fatigue, Parkinson's Disease (ironically for Diet Pepsi poster boy, Michael J Fox) and Alzheimer's Disease (ironically for Ronald Reagan). It's also been linked to reduction in intelligence and cognitive ability. And here's the kicker... it's marketed as a "diet" sweetener to help people lose weight, but it appears to do exactly the opposite.

Would you drink a Diet Coke? Would you let your kids drink a Pepsi Max?

Even if the 50/50 split in research is the reflection of some bias on either side, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, isn't there enough doubt to say "no". After all, that's the argument the climate change doomsayers use when they tell us to cut the carbon.

I just don't understand how bureaucrats are more concerned with following rules and regulations than they are about the real job they're there to do. The FDA in the USA, or the ANZFSA here downunder, are charged with the responsibility of ensuring something like Aspartame doesn't enter our food supply.

Even more of a mystery is why, in a hyper-litigious environment like the USA, the courts haven't been overloaded with lawsuits.

Somehow, money speaks, and when it speaks, those in power and in the bureaucracy listen.

Let me tell you how to get money to speak even louder. Stop buying the stuff.

Footnote.

A few weeks ago, Coca Cola announced that it had patented a "new" sweetener derived from a South American plant called Stevia. This sweetener isn't new, and it's safe. Coca Cola's "patented" form will get FDA approval. Natural Stevia still isn't formally approved for human consumption in the USA or Australia.

Another natural sweetener with significant health benefits is curiously called "Xylitol", though why you'd want to name something natural so that it sounded artificial must have something to do with fashion. Xylitol is a restricted import in Australia.

Mind Control

The web is full of absolute gems.

I found these otters while searching for something else a few days ago.

Enjoy!

Beached

Any of my readers who live here in Oz will know that Sydney and surrounds have been pounded by some pretty foul weather over the last couple of weeks.

Early on in the storm, a 76,000 tonne, 225m long (738ft) bulk coal carrier at anchor off the port of Newcastle (about a hundred nautical miles north of Sydney) ended up on Nobby's Beach, right near the mouth of the port.

Here are a few pics taken from the deck of the ship as the storm worsened... and I think they might explain how she ended up where she is.

You're on a very big ship. How bad can it get?

Ok. So there's waves. Big deal. This ship can handle a little water splashing over the deck.

Hmmm... ok... more than a little water. Are you sure those hatches are closed?

Shiiiite. You know when green sea (I know, it's blue... it's called "green sea") is breaking over the deck of a ship this size, you're in trouble.

Favourite Things

My most excellent friend, CAW, has a list of favourite things on her blog, and I thought it was a good idea.

Hmmm... it's a tough list to compile, but here's a few of my favourite things, in no particular order:

HEAD - The stone 'split personality' sculpture I carved at a weekend long art retreat a few years back.

OCEAN - The blue watery looking painting above my bed, and
DESERT - Ocean's 'partner', still unframed in my cupboard

THE MUZONDO - A single breasted torso sculpture which may or may not be from the semi-famous African sculptor, Joseph Muzondo, which I bought for a few bucks from 'a connection close to the artist' . If it really is an original Muzondo, it may well be the most valuable thing I own by multiples... my one and only 'art investment'. If it isn't, I don't care... it's a fabulous piece of art.

THE BIG BASKET - Belonged to my grandfather, and was used as a shipping container for fabric before there were shipping containers. It's large enough to store a body in (no comments please), and dates back to the 1930's

SYDNEY HARBOUR - and especially Balmoral Beach, one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

AND, OF COURSE, THE STUFFED CHESTER (AND ANGUS) - It's a pretty good likeness.

If I've offended anyone by leaving things off the list, too bloody bad.

Where Are My Keys?

As tantrums go, yesterday's was a beauty... scoring at least a 7 on the 10 point Trantrum Scale and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake that will take days, and perhaps months to clean up.

I was running late. The weather had been more suited to ark building than going to the office, and the shirt I'd just ironed had a stain on the last panel to go under the steam. (Why does that always happen... the shirt thing?)

So where are my keys? They're usually on the little table right next to the front door. That's a strategy I developed a very long time ago... open door... enter house... place keys on table. I know from experience that if I don't do that, they could end up anywhere.

I looked down at the designated key point and they weren't there. "Farque", or words to that effect. "I don't have time for this."

I tried the coffee table. I tried the desk in my home office. I tried the bathroom. I tried the kitchen benchtop. No keys.

So I did what anyone would do... I threw a full blown tantrum, yelling at myself... calling myself stupid, hopeless and a few more colourful things that generally indicated that I am not worthy. I started to empty drawers, push contents of the desk onto the floor, and tear the cushions off the lounge. "Ransacked" would be the descriptor.

This was a full ten minute tantie, and when there was no more havoc to wreak, I calmed down, said something like "stuff it", and headed off to the fridge for a Chocolate Royal (one of those chocolate covered marshmellow things).

And there were my keys... sitting right next to the cheese, on the shelf above the confectionary.

Words aren't going to describe the feeling.

And Speaking Of Ghosts...

Dr J and I went to a wedding on Monday night, in the main hall of the Sydney Town Hall.

It was a grand affair... the groom was a florist so the space was filled with carnations, tulips, and more than 25,000 roses among others.

There were hundreds of people, the formal sit-down dinner... you know... the usual wedding that cost way too much money where the bride and groom, in five or six years, will say something to each other like "why didn't we spend that loot on an investment property somewhere?".

Before the reception started they had someone playing the magnificant Town Hall Organ, and I snapped the above pic on my ultra low quality phone camera.

See the ghost of the little girl?

Yes. It's real! The Bear was there.

It Comes From Where?

This, from the Science Daily website today...

Before your food makes it to your refrigerator or even the supermarket, it often starts on a farm.

"Often"? Don't they mean "nearly always"?

Zac

That's Zac, with his favourite toy, "Dolly".

So far, he's managed to chew through my internet cable, hide one shoe from at least two pairs, bite through my thumb, and relieve himself in every corner of every room in the house.

Good 'Old Fashioned' Spam

It was somewhat reassuring, today, to see my mailbox filling up with spam offering to make my penis bigger.

One displayed an excellence in copywriting normally well beyond the skills of the average spammer...

"People judge your dick size by your shoes size. With megadick you don't have to wear bigger shoes to make women think you have a huge dick."

Um... Ok. Thanks for the tip. I always thought female pre-occupation with shoes was far more narcissistic.

In Another Language, All Games Sound The Same

Photo lifted from worldpokertour.com without permission. I hope they don't mind.

Long term readers of these musings will know that I'm a fan of the World Poker Tour.

I've said before that I don't know what it is about that show, but it's absolutely rivetting. One just sits there, sucked into the whole circus, hypnotised by the turning of the cards. There are other poker shows on TV, and they're about as interesting as watching paint peel, but Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten do a job behind the microphone on the WPT that's worthy of any commentary team in any sport around the world. If you didn't understand English and didn't know they were calling a poker game, you'd absolutely believe it was football, baseball, hockey, cricket, basketball, or any other game of the day. It's none of those. It's poker which, last time I checked, wasn't a sport (though it is marginally more physical than chess, which is... go figure). And the "unique" terminology of the game starts to stick in your head when these two prattle on about Rivers, Flops, Dolly Partons, Gut Shot Straight Draws, and a whole dictionary of other things make up the jargon of their trade

That's not the point of this rant though...

Last night Zac wanted to get up at 4am and there were two choices... get up, or be jumped on.

I tried the second choice for a while, but it became clear that the first was the only real option, so we found ourselves camped downstairs in front of the TV watching WPT.

Getting horizontal on the lounge is very dangerous for this bear, because I can enter alpha sleep rather quickly and external auditory stimulii can influence my dream state.

So there I was, curled up, "asleep", with the brilliance of the WPT commentary in the background, and I started creating a WPT tournament in my dream.

No. I didn't win it. I wasn't even in it.

It was as though I was still awake, still watching TV. But it wasn't the tournament flickering in front of me... it was a very diffeent game where the players were "pairs", that is, two players playing the same hand together. That led to the inevitable conflict of playing styles, a fight, and someone shouting "fuck you, you bastard, you don't even have the balls to tell me you're having an affair", which was pretty much the end of that couple as they went "All In" with Big Slick against this other team that had Six Two on Suite, Flopped a Pair of Twos, and drew a Flush on the River.

Bizarre, especially as I have absolutely no idea where the whole "affair" thing came from.

Not to worry... if you see a doubles tournament on the WPT anytime soon, you'll know you heard about it here first!

Good Guys 1 - Bad Guys 0

Some excellent news from the USA today, in the form of a Federal Grand Jury Indictment of Robert Solway. This is a name that isn't likely to be immediately familiar to you, but it's oh-so-familiar to this bear, who for ten years has been waging the war against spam.

Solway owns a company called "Newport Marketing", and he's the lowlife who harvested your email address, either by scanning websites, or by infecting your friend's computer with a virus and stealing it from their address book.

He's also the mongrel who's been sending billions of emails to you every day, cloggin up the web network and swamping mine, yours and just about everyone elses mailbox with ads for viarga, mortgages, stocks and other crap you're not interested in.

My first run-in with Solway came about 5 years ago, not long after I started my little internet company. An otherwise reputable company had been sucked in by Solway's advertising of "Mass Email Marketing Campaigns" to "Strictly Opt-In" recipients. I wrote to that company advising them that they had committed a criminal offence in Australia. You see, under a largely toothless piece of legislation called the Australian Spam Act, it's a crime to traffic in mailing lists that have been harvested by electronic means. It's the only part of the law that has any real bite, and because most of the spam we get comes from outside Australia, our Parliament added a clause which set down that so long as the recipient of spam email was in Australia, any offence under the Act, including the sending of spam or the sale/purchase of lists, would be deemed to have been committed within Australia.

That led me to Solway because it was relatively simple to suggest that, unless the company sending me the spam revealed the source of the list, they risked prosection under the Act. It helped that Australia and the USA have a robust extradition treaty, and that, at the time, someone in Texas had been arrested for some sort of electronic fraud and was being sent down-under.

Sadly, approaches to Solway and Newport Marketing to remove email addresses from their lists had absolutely no effect. This scum just kept on doing what he was doing, with utter disregard for the damage he was doing or the cost to anyone else of him doing it.

His activities got so bad that Microsoft won a US$7m civil judgement against him, as did a small Oklahoma internet provider (awarded $10m). Did that stop him? No. He just went on spamming. He couldn't give a stuff.

Well maybe he'll be a little more concerned now, because he's been charged with

• mail fraud,
• wire fraud,
• email fraud,
• aggravated identity theft,
• and money laundering.

These are serious charges, folks, and if found guilty, he faces decades as a guest of the US Federal Department of Corrections (which, when I was growing up, I always thought was the government agency that would correct my homework if I lived in America, but that's for another blog).

If you think 20 years is harsh for sending out "free" email, think about this...

It's been estimated that about 40% of all email traffic globally is spam. In 2006, that meant around 12.4 billion emails per day. Yes. 12.4 BILLION SPAM EMAILS PER DAY!

The cost of that to the world economy can be measured threefold.

First, there's the cost of increased capacity needed in the infrastructure to make sure spam doesn't drown the web and grind it to a halt (which it almost did, for a time, in 2003). Who do you think pays for all that? Yup. You and me.

Next, there's the cost of the bandwidth consumed. It doesn't directly effect you if you have an "unlimited" web access plan, but if you don't, that means some of the megabytes you pay for are stolen from you by the spammers. It's the same as someone stealing a couple of cents out of your bank account every month, or sneaking your car out for a drive to the shops and back when you're not watching, and not bothering to replace the fuel they've just used.

Finally, there's the cost to global productivity, and here's some more of The Bear's marvelous Arithmetic in Very Big Numbers just to make sure you're paying attention...

Let's take the 12.2 billion spam emails sent each day last year, and let's assume that spam filters catch about 50% of them. For the sake of round numbers, let's call it six billion spam emails getting through each day. Let's say it takes a second for someone somewhere to deal with each email (the actual estimate, by the way, is an average of 4.7 seconds, but for these calculations, let's just stick with 1). That's six billion seconds wasted globally each day. At $10 an hour, that's around $10.7million dollars each day, or around $3.9 billion a year in lost productivity. That $10 is very conservative, by the way.

Solway is accused of sending about 20% of the world's spam, which means he's stolen $780million dollars from us.

Now ask yourself what sort of prison time this low-life deserves.

Lost In Translation

I was listening to BBC World on the way home tonight. There was a piece about FIFA banning the playing of football internationals at high altitude, which is about as much of interest to me as my bowling scores were to you.

However, there was interest in the story in the form of this quote, from Bolivia's president, Evo Morales...

"Playing at altitude is playing at the highest level."

Yes. It is. I don't speak enough Spanish to know what he actually said, but I'm sure we know what he meant.

Better Than Kittens

I find my life radically changed this week, with new routines, new perspectives, and a newfound sense of responsibility.

I go to bed earlier. I get up earlier and actually go outside for a walk before breakfast. I've even cleaned the house, probably better than it's ever been cleaned before.

I'm more focused, more determined. More... um... maybe the expression I'm searching for is 'grown-up'.

The diet's changed too. Less chocolate. More fruit. Less KFC (though on that, it is perhaps a little too soon to make the call). More fresh cooking. Less chips. More... (what are these things? They's supposed to be 'good for me" but they taste disgusting... ah well).

All this on account of one little puppy.

I know. Dr J has new kittens, and they're sweethearts. But I'm a dog person... always have been... always will be. Even my cat Stranger thought he was a dog.

When the kittens joined the family, it was always the intention to get a puppy too, and when Dr J called me on Saturday afternoon and said "I think we need to get the puppy in here before the kittens are too grown up", it was inevitable that we'd have Zac by the end of the weekend. I don't actually think she meant "lets get a puppy today", but events have a way of unfolding on themselves, and all outcomes are predetermined.

Actually, it was when she followed "...grown up" with "Have you thought about the type of dog you'd like?" that the wheels really set themselves in motion.

"A Spoodle" was the reply. All the personality of a Cocker Spaniel, and all the street smarts of a Poodle (without the neuroses carried through life by most Poodles in their typically French "you call this dinner?" attitude).

It took me about 10 minutes to find a litter of Spoodle pups, and about 10 minutes more to call the breeder, bundle Dr J into the car and set off for what would end up being a very long trek into a wilderness that seems to exist on the edge of any big city anywhere... that undefined place where rural and urban collide.

Camden is a town about an hour's drive south west of Sydney. Well it would have been an hour's drive if I hadn't missed the turn off.

We'd set out at 5ish. It was well after 8 before we finally navigated our way through back streets and country lanes to the semi-rural acreage that the breeder called home. It didn't help that it was pitch black by the time we arrived, but it was worth it.

So... back to the change of life...

There's a responsibility now... this little bundle of fluff is my responsibility. He needs to eat well, exercise often and learn stuff. All of that is my responsibility.

So far, the eating and exercising have been no problem at all. Leaning's been easy too, for the most part. It took him less than a day to learn his name, and only about an hour longer to learn to play fetch. But the house training... Little Zac just doesn't get it. He thinks the absorbant mats scattered around the house are extra Zac beds, and he'll actually get off one to go and wee. He doesn't get the whole "yes, we're outside, I can do it here" thing either, and this morning, he actually waited until he got back into the house.

Proper sleeping arrangements are yet to be codified too. He just gets separation anxiety if he's more than a foot away from me for more than ten seconds. On Sunday night, I slept on the lounge, so that he could sleep on his bed on the floor next to me. Last night, I tried a night in my own very comfy bed with the same intention. It didn't work, and the elabourate step construction to help Zac get up and down is a fine work of engineering.

Ah well. We start puppy pre-school next Tuesday, "Toilet Training" is the second lesson on day one, and "Separation Anxiety" is the fourth. I hope they can do a better job with those than I'm doing.

The kittens, by the way, think this new fluffy thing is a bit of a curiosity. They just sit there when Zac wanders by, tilting their heads as if to say "what the?". Scooter lets him get closer, but Mini isn't so sure. Zac pretty much ignores them most of the time.

A Most Excellent Game

This post will be about as interesting to most of you as a story about dust on my bookshelf.

I don't care, because the miracle I'm about to describe made me feel pretty bloody good for at least ten minutes afterwards.

You see, dear reader, I bowled my highest ever official league score last Wednesday. 210. And in that, I closed EVERY FRAME. If you don't know that that means, don't worry about it.

For those that do, here's the scoresheet...

[ X ][ X ][ 9/][ 9/][ 5/][ X ][8/ ][ X ][ X ][7/X]
[ 29][ 49][ 68][ 83][103][123][143][170][190][210]

And it means that new ball works a treat.

It felt good. I just wish I could remember how I did it, because the previous two games were less than average and I don't actually recall doing anything different, other than just relaxing a bit. Maybe that was the secret.

Kitten Caboodle

I've always wanted to name a cat Caboodle, just so that I could show off the Kit 'n Caboodle. It would be funny the first time. It might even draw a smile the second time, but I suppose, after that, it would get a little tiresome.

Sort of like the guy in England who murdered his parents, Mr & Mrs Russel, for calling him Jack. With him, tiresome led to unintended consequences. Go HERE. Fortunately, when it came to naming the kittens, Dr J said "I don't think so".

We've had them more than a month now and they're still kittens. I find it amazing that two little furry things raised in the same house at the same time with the same games, food, litter tray and bed can have such radically different personalities. Scooter is an explorer and bit of a loner, and Mini is a sook with a daredevil streak (yesterday, she leapt from the top of the lounge, across the metre and a half wide canyon to the dining table).

Just for fun, here are a few pics...

That's Scooter bringing a whole new meaning to the term "comfortable shoes".

For kittens, happiness is a brown paper bag. Sadly, there's only enough room in there for one, and Mini got there first.

Scooter did get her turn in the bag, and took the opportunity to chew carpet.

A rare pic of two small furry animals being still and together for long enough for a photo to be taken. That's Mini in the front.

Terrorists Strike In Second Life

I'm sorry. I thought I was kidding with my last post. I thought that talk of virtual terrorists detonating virtual bombs and destroying virtual buildings was... um... just a very bad joke.

Apparently not.

THIS happened, and Auntie's island in Second Life was decimated by a terrorist bomb.

(For those non-Aussie's among my readers, "Auntie" is the term of endearment we use to refer to the ABC, our national government owned radio and TV broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.)

Here's a pic of the devastation...

Inset is how the island looked before the attack.

And I promise, this is my last Second Life rant.

Crime, Money, Terrorism And The Need To Get Out More

Following on from last week's quest for sexuality in a Second Life comes a warning from Scotland Yard about the way this and other virtual worlds are becoming the new homes of crime gangs, money launderers and terrorists.

And I still don't get it.

Ok. I understand the money thing... well... actually... I don't understand the money thing, but if what I've read is true, about US$1.8million Lindens (that's 2nd Life money) are exchanged for real US dollars every day, and apparently, there's even some woman in Asia somewhere who became a property development millionaire by developing virtual 2nd Life land.

Yesterday's warning from Scotland Yard even suggested that the laws as they apply in Real Life ought also to apply in the other place.

Now I'm getting REALLY confused.

Um... I know there have been movies about this sort of thing, going way back to Tron in the 70s. There was an episode of Star Trek when the holodeck goes haywire and the crew is stuck there with the 'safety' off, and even an episode or two of Stargate where one or other of the team has their consciousness taken over by some super computer or other, but I have never, not even for a moment, suspected that it might really be happening.

But apparently it is, and at such a dangerous pace that law enforcement feels the need to have a presence there.

What I want to know is what do the crime gangs do when they get there, and why is this a problem in Real Life? I mean, how do you do virtual crack or set up a virtual crack lab? Does it make your monitor go all psychadelic?

And how do you send 'da boyz' around to rough someone up, or break someone's kneecap for not paying 'protection' or gambling debts?

Then I want to know what the terrorists do there? Or maybe I don't, because I can't get an image of camels out of my head.

No... focus Chester...
... do they use immaginary explosives to blow up buildings that don't exist? Do they hijack non existant 767s belonging to virtual airlines and fly them into buildings that aren't really there?

I say "great... maybe they can all move there", and then we can pull the plug on the game and send them effortlessly to After Life, which is where they belong (sans virgins, of course).

The geeks already there have the ultimate advantage, of course. They can click faster, type faster and cut code faster than any suicide bomber, and with a little hacking practice, they could conjure up their very own WMDs (Weapons of Matrix Destruction) that would fix the problem once and for all.

People... Second Life is a 'virtual' world, which means it doesn't actually exist. There is no money. There is no land. There are no clothes. There are no children (or adults, for that matter) to have sex with. There's no food. No life. No plants, buildings, trees, earth, or anything else. There are no explosives, soft targets, hard targets or any other kinds of targets.

There is no airline either, though I do wonder if it's possible to lose my virtual luggage when I take a virtual flight on a virtual airline, and does my travel insurance policy cover that?

I think I need a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.

Actually, what I really want is to know is what the game's creators put in the water at the pitch to investors...

"So, we're going to create this world that doesn't actually exist, and people will pay real money to buy land that doesn't exist, food they never get to eat, clothes they never get to wear, drugs that have no effect on their brain, and sex they never get to have (with avatars that may or may not be children)."

And the investors apparently must have said "Oh. Ok. We're in."

Second Life... bringing Descarte into the 21st century.

Also Brilliant...

My dad was given one of these chocolate bars by the importer today.

I LOVE great marketing, and companies with immagination. Here's more chocolate from the fab range at Bloomberry & Co...

Beats a plain old Cadbury Dairy Milk any day.

Simple Life 5

I see Paris Hilton's sentence has been cut to 23 days. Isn't that roughly the same number as episodes you need to have to make a series?

Co-incidence? Or is A Simple Life : Behind Bars coming to your little screen soon?

Brilliant.

For those of you who appreciate really great marketing and advertising, there's this...


and there should be more of it!

Life Needs To Be More Like This

Of Course He Was Bloody Naked, You Ass

Journalists are really starting to piss me off.

There was a story today in one of our papers... it doesn't matter which one or where it was because they're all the same everywhere these days... and it's the sort of journalism that my editor, back in my 'cadet' days, would have thrown me out of his office for.

The headline reads "Police seek naked lawyer's mystery visitor", and the story goes on to describe how a lawyer was found naked and unconscious in his hotel room.

Bloody hell... come around to any hotel room I'm in at 3am and you'll find me naked and unconscious too... that's how I sleep. Actually, that's how most people I know sleep.

Was it the truth? Yes, I suppose it was. He was probably naked, BECAUSE HE WAS ASLEEP you idiot! (Not you... the dumb lazy talentless journalist who wrote the piece.)

It would be like me writing about going to a business meeting or the local supermarket 'fully clothed'. "Man Shops Fully Clothed At Local Supermarket"

There used to be rules in journalism...
First, report only the facts.
Second, report only those facts which are relevant to the story. No. That doesn't mean you leave out the facts that don't work for your story... it means there's no need to say stuff just for the sake of a headline if what you want to say isn't relevant.
Third, check the facts again.
Finally, it's the news. It's not your opinion of the news.

Sadly, none of those rules seems to apply. What do they teach in journalism school these days?

I Want!

Sunday mornings are normally a bit of a quiet time at my place... time I can spend catching up on some of the more interesting work stuff that I usually don't get to during the week. This morning, I was doing some real and rather important product research and found myself HERE, at PerpetualKid.com.

"How did you end up there?" I hear you ask. "Didn't you say you were working?"

Yes. Working. Trying to find the minimum size for a barcode, a quest that went seriously pear shaped as soon as I found the Barcode doormat. From there, it was pretty much all down hill. I decided I must have this...It's called "The Ex", and this fine voodoo knife holder comes with 5 sharp kitchen knives for the bargain price of US$59.99. (Am I still bitter and twisted... you bloody bet!)

Then I found these standard ballpoint pens, and decided they're the perfect executive accessory for those important "suit" meetings...
I MUST HAVE some of these emoticon paper clips too...

And I know more than one of you will want one of these...

I love this idea too...

It's Eau de Play Doh, from the exceptional Demeter Fragrance Company, where the scents are a little more fun than you'll find at Channel... fragrances like Fairy Floss (that's what Aussies call cotton candy), Laundromat, Salt Air, and even Car Vinyl.

And just to prove that I really was looking for stuff about barcodes, go HERE, where readers like me who need to get out more can play Barcode Bedlam on line.

Ah well. At least it's Mothers' Day, so I have an excuse to go outside a little later.

What Kind Of Sex?

I could pick up this "girl" at a Second Life party. Sure, on the surface she's cute I suppose, but I have absolutely no idea how I'd have sex with her, or even if I'd want to. In fact, I know nothing about her. She could be Stephen Hawking or George Bush for all I know.

There's an interesting, and rather weird legal case coming together in Germany, and it's got this Bear's brain cells frying.

Police in Germany are trying to track down people whose avatars had sex with other avatars that looked like children in the on-line game "Second Life". Apparently, in Germany, having virtual sex with a virtual minor is a criminal offence.

I want to state this up front... anybody who even thinks about having sex with small children is a very sick individual who ought to be taken out the back, flogged to within an inch of their life and then locked away on the inhospitable and very cold Heard Island for the rest of what remains of their pathetic life.

But...

This case troubles me on so many levels, I'm not even sure I know where to start.

"Virtual Sex"? What the fuck is that? You either have sex, or you don't. Call me old fashioned, but the way I see it, for two people to have sex one of two conditions need to exist. Either, they have to be in the same room together, or they have to be able to see each other, the latter being way less fun than the first, and it was only once and we did meet for real sex... oh... no... too weird.

When your avatar has sex with someone elses avatar, neither of these conditions exists... and how does an avatar have sex anyway? Unless the graphics capabilities of Second Life are Star Trekesque, I can't even begin to imagine how two 2 dimensional cartoon figures get down and dirty with some horizontal folk dancing.

All right. It apparently happens. So let's just assume, for the sake of the argument, that there is some weird sex act performed here. Then we have to deal with the whole business of that being a criminal offence.

Now as my opening statement might have demonstrated, I'm no friend of the paedophile, but thinking about committing any crime is NOT a crime. Is it?

IS IT?

And is getting your avatar to hit on some other avatar any more than just thinking about it? Yes. It's sick. Yes, the thinker clearly needs help... but come on people... it's only THINKING!

Let's put it in perspective... nearly every time I drive through the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, I think about doing it at 200kph. If I actually did it, that would be a bloody dangerous and criminal offence, and by the time I got to the end of the freeway, the boys in blue would be getting ready to introduce me to Bubba, and reminding me not to drop the soap in the shower.

But I only THINK about speeding through the tunnel. If Second Life rules apply, I have committed a criminal offence and you'd have to wait until I get out to read the next installment.

Not the same? Ok. Then what about all that time I spent in my teens fantasizing about having sex with Marcia Brady? There's no statute of limitations on sex crimes, so I hope I can serve the sentence concurrently with that for the driving offence.

Or what about the time I spend thinking about creative uses for nuclear weapons when I read about the latest terrorist atrocity. That would make me a war criminal, and all I can do is pray that they have TV1 in my prison cell.

I know. I'm being a little flippant... or am I? Second Life is a GAME. Despite what some of its inhabitants might think, IT'S NOT REAL. Each day, millions of people all over the world play games, and each day, many of them break the law playing those games. They drive too fast, commit horrible and violent crimes or go to war for no better reason than they could.

Dig a little deeper into the Second Life story, and it turns out that the child avatars these sickos "paid" to have sex with weren't actually children at all, which makes this all the more puzzling because if I'm interpreting this right, under German law (and, I believe, under laws in at least one state in Australia), a person can be prosecuted for "paying" for "sex" with a "child", even though the money doesn't exist, the sex never actually happened, and the person controlling the avatar it didn't happen to wasn't actually a child at all. And let's not forget that the alleged offence took place in a world that doesn't actually exist either. Um... what crime your worship?

Take it one step further. What if the avatar the person had "sex" with was a child that was pretending to be an adult. Is that statutory rape?

I don't know about you, but my straw brain is starting to hurt, and I have some very loud alarm bells ringing in my left ear.

And Speaking of Dogs, There's This...

Also in today's Herald is a story from the Excited States about a 13 year old Golden Retriever named Alex. The custody battle for Alex, who's owner had commited suicide, was so intense that the judge appointed a lawyer to represent the dog's interests.

Ge HERE.

Brave George

Readers of my blog will know I have a very major soft spot for dogs.

THIS STORY in the Sydney Morning Herald about brave Greorge, who received postumous bravery award for his action in warding off two pit bulls who were attacking his family, really touched my heart.

I know. The Bear's just a big sook, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Barbarians At The Gate

There are a few things that drive this bear crazy, and one of them is a call from a foreign call centre trying to get me to switch my telephone account.

First of all, I don't have a "home phone" in the conventional sense... I use VoIP because I can call just about anywhere in the world for a few cents.

Second, I don't have a degree in quantum mathematics, so I am unable to work out how a phone bill actually works,

And third, my hearing's not so great, so I have a little difficulty understanding anyone trying to sell me something with a heavy Indian or Asian accent.

Enter the "Do Not Call" register, launched by our Federal Government early this month. That ought to have been the end of it.

But last night, there was a knock at the door.

"Who is it?", I shouted. No answer, just another knock.
"Who is it?" I shouted again.

"Good evening sir, I wonder if I might be having just one minute of your time."

I opened the door.

"Good evening sir, my name is Sanjay, and I would very much like to be talking about your telephone service, because the telephone cables in this area have not been very reliable."

"WHAT?", I said, somewhat taken aback by the appearance of a call centre person on my very doorstep.

"Perhaps you might be liking to switch to our new telephone service," he replied, following the same tired old script he was using when he called a few weeks back.

Dr J quipped that what we're going to need now is a "Do Not Knock" register.

Dishwasher Safe

I looked down at my keyboard the morning, and am overtaken by this urge to put it in the dishwasher.

You see, I work from home, or maybe that should actually be 'I sleep at work' because the time that I spend at home seems to be spent bowing down at the altar of my 19" flat panel and stroking the Holy Keyboard in vain supplication to the gods of Word, Excel, php and Outlook. My faith is strong, and one day, I know, these gods will reward my devotion by filling my bank account with the fruits of my labour. You seek evidence of such a reward? There is no evidence. Only faith.

So I'm eating a bowl of Just Right this morning while I type the Holy Formula to the god of Excel, when I accidentally drop the spoon. It was Excel's way of punishing me for using just one hand for my devotion.

Splash. There's bits of milk and cerial splattered inconveniently around the Holy Tab Key. Yuk.

But what's even more yuk is that this caused me to take a good hard look the other detritus... crumbs from a Vita Wheat, fragments of peanut from a Picnic, a tiny splash of sauce from last week's Carbonara, a sticky bit that may or may not have been either Iced Tea or Coke. It's enough food to keep a colony of ants very comfortable through the long hard winter ahead. Fortunately, there's a great abundance on the surrounding floor... truly a Land of Milk and Honey where Bounty rains from the sky... so the ants need not be bothered with the climb up Desk Mountain as they can grow fat off the surrounding timber plain.

I'm not really a disgusting pig, but this morning, the scene around my keyboard seems to tell a different story.

The Real Cause Of Global Warming

Thanks to Si for sending me this. Love it!

Click on the image... there's some animation!

Where Can I Get Me A Gun?

Today marks a real milestone in this bear's life. Today, I had my first up close, personal experience with The United States Postal Service. Faarrrqque! It makes me want to move to America just so I can buy a gun and go and shoot someone there. Seriously. What a bunch of bloody useless pencil necked bozos. I mean, we have some inept government agencies here in Oz, but NONE of them even come close to the uselessness I experienced today.

Here's the problem...

We have a number of US suppliers who send us stuff. The trouble is, via UPS or FedEx, sometimes it costs more to send than it does to buy it. USPS International Priority Mail costs less than half, so we went to the USPS website and set up an account.

The account creation form let us create an account at our address, right here in Australia. It even let us enter our credit card details, with the card holder's address right here in Australia.

If you've ever used Click'n'Pay before, you'll know that you create a label, then print it out to stick on your package, and on the way, you pay for it.

And that's where my evening got interesting.

You see, their stupid credit card form, like credit card validation forms on just about every website you buy stuff from, asks for the card holder's address, and when you get to "State", up pops a list of 50 familiar states, none of which are here in Australia... and that's that. You can't go any further.

"Must be me", I thought, so I picked up the phone and called the USPS "Customer Service" 800 number. "Customer Service"? Not.

First, I had to negotiate my way through one of those bloody infuriating automated call routing systems. "No, I DO NOT want to hear about your bloody new postage rates."

When I finally got to talk to an operator, she was clueless. More than capable, I'm sure, if I'd had a question about the new postage rates, but as for my issue, clueless. She transferred me to the Internation Package Tracking Desk. This operator was even more clueless, if that's possible, in that she didn't even know there were new rates, and the best suggestion she could make was to give me the numebr of the USPS Post Office nearest the pick-up address for the package we're trying to ship.

My second call got off to a better start, once I'd negotiated the automated call router. "No, I DO NOT want to hear about your bloody new postage rates." The operator still couldn't help, and did offer to discuss the new postal rates before she finally transferred me to "Technical Support".

"Yay!", I stupidly thought. Finally, someone who can help.

He listened to my problem, and then said "I'm sorry sir, you can not send packages to the United States. The USPS can only be used to send packages FROM the United States."

"No, you IDIOT. You're not bloody listening. I am NOT trying to send a package to the United States, I'm trying to send one FROM the United States." Of course, I didn't actually say that... but I desperately wanted to.

I explained the story again, and he then said accounts could not be created from outside the United States, which he stuck with until I explained, for the fourth time, that the account creation page specifically allowed non-US accounts.

In the end, he told me to make other arrangements.

I am not easily defeated. "I'll email someone." I went back to the USPS website and clicked "email us". I filled in the form to the best of my ability, and just about the only personal imformation they didn't ask for was a Social Security Number.

There was a teeny weeny little space to "type my question", which should probably have been "Are you people serious?" because that's just about all the space was big enough for. Then I had to select the subject from a list. My subject wasn't there. I picked another subject, and then had to pick a sub-subject from another list. Not surprisingly, my sub-subject wasn't there either. No problem. Send. My email was rejected.

Perhaps I should have selected "Tell Me About The New Postage Rates" from the subject box.

ADDENDUM

I sent them an email. They wrote back saying something to the effect that the internet is a wild and evil place, full of foreign bad guys out to do harm to every American, and that they only accept US Credit Cards to "protect their customers from fraud". I wrote back asking them how a foreign credit card might expose their customers to fraud, but there has been no reply. I hope they're thinking about it. I desperately wanted to write back that the foreign bad guys weren't out to do harm to every American at all... just USPS workers, and in that, they're joined by most Americans. Fortunately, I didn't. Instead, I'm writing to Jack Potter.

No Limits To Stupidity

Do these look the same to you? I hope not. The one on the left is a sheep, yes? And the one on the right? Come on, you know this... that's right, it's a poodle.

Not, apparently, in Japan, where an enterprising company called Pets as Poodles has been selling the left hand side animals, passing them off as the animals on the right hand side... at $1,600 each!

They were caught out when one of the buyers, Japanese film star Maiko Kawamaki took her new poodle on a TV talk-show and wondered why the animal didn't bark or eat dog food.

She was shattered when she was told it wasn't actually a poodle, that it was, in fact, a sheep. Not embarrassed, or ashamed... but very upset.

Once the dog was off the leash, more women began calling police complaining that they, too, had been delivered the ovine substitute. According to the story, in News Ltd's on line site today, one couple was distraught when they took their "poodle" to the vet to have its claws clipped and were told they weren't claws, they were hooves. "Distraught". Really?

Seriously Icky

I learned new stuff today...

There are about 100 trillion living cells in the human body.

90% of them are NOT human.

Those cells belong to all of the symbiotic or parasitic organisms that live in/on us.

For instance, there's a little critter who lives on the edge of your eyelid. That's his world, and his job is to keep the the base of your eyelashes clean. No-one has the slightest clue how he got there, but there he is.

There's another one, a bacteria, that lives inside your mitochondria. That's the little battery inside every (human) cell in your body. His job is to repair your DNA when it gets broken by free radicals.

Your gut hosts 490 known species of "good bacteria", which makes the one or two they stick in yoghurt look a bit lame. Their job is to help you break down your food. The problem is, they're at war with the "bad bacteria" who just want to come along for the ride, and in most of us, it's a war the good guys always lose.

One of those good guys is responsible for the production of lactase. That's an enzyme the body needs to break down lactose. Without those particular good guys, you'll be lactose intolerant.

There's another couple implicated in your propensity to get fat or stay thin. A coroner somewhere in the Excited States spent 20 years taking samples from the guts of each autopsy he did, and he correlated species with the weight of the individual. He found that naturally thin people have lots of one kind, while obese people have lots of another kind.

Another of those bad gut guys secretes an enzyme that some scientists think is a neurotoxin, and if you have enough of them, that toxin starts making symptoms that look remarkable like MS.

And if there aren't enough good guys in your small intestine, it can get overgrown with Candida, and THAT's bad, because the shape of the intestine wall means the fungus makes holes allowing partly digested food to leak into your bloodstream.

One parasite has been shown to make girls promiscuous, and men stupid. I thought that was what beer was for.

Personally, I find the whole idea a bit icky, and it makes me ask... if 90% of me is not really me, then who am I? Ugh! It makes my head spin!

Stunning

With a tear in my eye, I've just watched the last of the stunning ten part mini series, Band Of Brothers.

For those who haven't seen it, it's a dramatisation of the true story of Easy Company, a unit of the 101st Airborne in WWII, from their training camp in England, through the Normandie landings, Operation Market Garden and the Siege of Bastonge, and then all the way to the end of the war.

This film is a moving tribute to a small group of men... men without whom our world would have been a very different place... so much so that at the end, I found myself spontaneously standing in ovation, as much for the 'real' men of Easy Company, who are interviewed at the beginning and end of each episode, as for the brilliance of Speilberg and Hanks who co-produced the series.

It's not so much a war story as it is the story of extraordinary cammeraderie and bravery, of human tragedy, survival and the senselessness of war. It conveys an unpaletable truth, that sometimes war is an horrific, necessary evil.

If you haven't seen Band of Brothers, put it on your 'must see' list.

Vegetarian Goose

We were at the Chinese Reataurant near my parents' place the other day, and I spotted this dish...

Maybe it says something different in Chinese.

Kittens

This is the hyperactive Scooter, top, in a rare moment when she was still enough to pose for a pic, and above, this evening, after a very long day.

This is tiny little Mini. She's actually spending the night in hospital tonight... four out of the five kittens from her litter have all come down with some mystery bug. She's eating, drinking and generally comfortable, but it is a bit of a worry.

I did try to take one of the two of them together. Not possible I'm afraid.

And here's one way you can identify someone who's just acquired a kitten or two... this cut was inflicted when we first cuddled Scooter at the Pet Store. Sharpest claws I've ever felt, and probably just as well the pic's blurry.

A Damned Good Book

I've taken a bit of time out over the last few days, to re-read The Walled Orchard by Tom Holt.

There's something about books written in the first person... I loved Interview with A Vampire and The Seventh Scroll, so The Walled Orchard is a real pleasure.

It's a narrative set in the glory days of ancient Athens, a funny, very human portrayal that's more personality than event. It probably helps that I did a little Ancient History in high school, but don't be deterred if you didn't. Walled Orchard is a bloody good read. Witty, sophisticated, sarcastic and a lot of fun. It gets four paws up from this bear and if you spot it in your local bookstore or library, you're in for a treat.

Kitten Shopping

I know it's only been a few weeks, but Dr J has been an empty shell without a furry animal in her life, so yesterday I managed to bundle her in the car and take her out to Windsor, which is about 50km away on the fringe of Sydney, to visit a cat rescue shelter. It was an idea with noble intent... in that we could rescue a little pussy cat that otherwise wouldn't have had a great life.

The trouble is, the cats at the shelter were all fully grown, and part of the bonding process between humans and their animal friends is being there through the formative years so they can properly take on all of your neuroses.

Sadly, the cats at the shelter, beautiful as they were, were a bit too grown up. I'd actually expected that, and the purpose of the drive wasn't necessarily to find some new friends (Dr J had decided she wanted two), but more to try to ease her into the idea that a new animal is never going to replace Sooty, but will, nevertheless provide companionship and a whole new personality to boss her around, as cats do.

We set off for home, but decided that the 500m we spent on the new tollway wasn't worth the toll so we'd take the alternate route.

...which is where the plan seriously came off the rails.

About a kilometre down Windsor Road past for fork where it joins Old Windsor Road and the freeway, we passed a pet megastore.

We'd just had the discussion about kittens v adolescents, so we thought "let's just wander in and see if they have any kittens. That way we'll have something to compare the cats we've just seen with."

I should have understood how dangerous that might be. Kittens, you see, are irresistable. They're tiny, fluffy, and extremely cute, with huge round eyes and tiny little squeaks when they're trying to meow. And, of course, the very first thing we saw, right at the entrance to the store, was the giant cage with about a dozen of the fluffy buggers in it, climbing all over each other vying for either our attention or the food and water bowls.

"Aaaawww, look! Kittens", we both said.

"They're Bermans, or Berman crosses", said the young shop assistant. "Except for that one." She pointed to a kitten slightly larger than the others, with light in her eyes, an over abundance of legendary feline curiosity, and an athletic ability of Olympic standard. "Just a domestic", she said with classist disdain, as though the lack of one or other parent with the right 'papers' somehow made her inferior. That probably sealed it there and then, and it's just a shame the store assistant didn't understand the psychological manipulation.

Ah well... I guess that's how Dr J eneded up adopting (which is a nice way of saying we paid what seemed like way too much money) the domestic, Scooter, and one of the Berman crosses, Mini, a tiny little thing who seemed the most curious of the other kittens in the enclosure.

And then we got them home.

Oh dear!

Scooter has ADHD. Really. She does... actual, real, attention defitic hyperactivity disorder... which is how she got her name... every few seconds she'd scoot across the loungeroom, or up the stairs, or back down the stairs, or in and out of any one of the dozens of little hidey holes modern decorating can create. Her attention on any one thing in the loungeroom could not be sustained for more than about 5 seconds before something else caught her eye. She approached the task of soaking up the her new surroundings with more enthusiasm than is possible for any human without the assistance of very powerful recreational drugs.

Mini tried ever so hard to keep up, but she's a couple of weeks younger, in cat terms, a very long time, and after an hour or so she was content to just curl up on Dr J and go to sleep, waking every fifteen minutes or so to have another crack at tagging Scooter.

Scooter, in return, would give Mini hell, probably because dear little Min is that week or two younger, and just a little smaller than Miss Scooter, so she's fairly easy pickings. Dr J's Idea was to have this 'happy family', but I suspect she's forgotten that she didn't actually get on much with her brothers and sisters either.

For a few hours last night, the place was chaos. Mini would hide, not hide, attack, roll over in submission, or curl up. Scooter would just do what, we suspect, Scooter will always do, which is to explore, chase, run about, jump on Mini, tackle Mini, stalk Mini, and generally go beserk. Later in the night, she couldn't decide whether to keep running around or curl up and have a sleep, so she draped herself over the arm of the lounge, positioned just right so that she could observe the room, yet comfy enough to doze off every now and then. She only settled when I dimmed the lights, which was a beautiful thing because by bedtime, Dr J could just plonk her in her igloo bed in the laundry with Mini (who'd retired at a much more civilised hour).

This morning, they were curled up together, oblivious to the routine of mornings, but once they were up, the chaos started all over again, only this time, it was daylight outside so they could actually see what was on the other side of the glass. Birds. Given Scooter's hunting practice, I suspect their days of leisurely flying into the courtyard are numbered. That's Ok. They're African Minor Birds, not welcome in our country at all.

I'm not going to get obsessive about writing up their formitive years, but I will post a pic or two of Scooter and Mini in the next couple of days.

Evil Dihydrogen Monoxide

Thanks to my former global travelling work colleague, Si for sending this to me this morning.

What more can one say?

Spare A Thought...

I don't know why, but the story of Titanic has always had a very special place in my heart. No... not the Cate and Leo version... the real story, and it's been that way for as long as I can remember.

I'm a little better now, but there was a time when I'd just have to see a photo of the ship and I'd burst into tears. I will admit that I sobbed through Cameron's movie, from the moment the ship appeared on the screen, right through to the very end.

So spare a thought then... for today, 95 years ago, the unsinkable Titanic stood perpendicular with her stern facing the stars then slowly, deliberately, plunged forever into the deep of the Atlantic.

1503 people lost their lives. Maybe I was there.

2.10am, April 15, 1912.

Oops! Damned Decimal Places!

Ok. I promise that this is my last rant for a while about global warming and carbon emissions, but I need to give you some stats, because there's some confusion about exactly how much CO2 25 billions tonnes is, and I might have put a decimal in the wrong place last week.

So I whipped out the trusty Excel spreadsheet, and this time, I figured it out as a proportion of the total of the world's atmosphere. I did this because a)I was bored, b)I need to get out more, and c)I was filling in for Amanda, our brilliant retail manager, on a day when nothing much else was happening.

Whatever. I'm sure there could have been a more productive use of the energy consumed by my braincells, so I'm sorry, Al Gore, if all that thought energy has contributed to global warming on Titan.

Ok... here it is... for anyone remotely interested, and get ready for some numbers so big they're incomprehensible...

The total weight of the world's atmosphere is around five million billion tonnes, which is the number 5 with fifteen zeros on the end. Of course, you already knew that, didn't you?

Depending on what part of the world you're in, I think you can call it five thousand trillion tonnes, of five quadrillion tonnes. Or not. Let's just call it "a lot". You can work it out by multiplying the surface area of the earth, which is 510 million sq km, by the air pressure (which is the weight of the air, 1kg per sq cm (14.7lb/sq in), or 10,000 tonnes per sq km.).

Which means the total man made CO2 going into the atmosphere every year (if you were paying attention, you'll remember that as 25 billion tonnes a year) is 0.0003%, or 3 thousandths of one percent of the total volume.

This is about 3% of the total CO2 pouring into the atmosphere from all sources, which means natural CO2 accounts for 97%.

Here are some more stupid meaningless comparisons...

If I wanted to show it on a graph, the line would stretch from Sydney to LA, and the man made CO2 would be the first 40cm (about 15.5") of that line.

If it was a proportion of total Government spending in 2007, it would run whatever country you live in for about a hundred and three seconds out of the year.

People, these numbers are about as easy to understand as your mobile phone plan.

Here's a thought though... breathing by every human on earth produces about 1kg of CO2 a day each, which, given our population of five billion people, accounts for a staggering 7% of the total man made CO2 emission around the world...

...so if we could just get rid of some people... now wouldn't THAT be an inconvenient truth!