Party Games 2025 - Pauline Hanson's One Nation - 17/TBD

Pauline Hanson's One Nation remains a bastion of right wing conservative culture war nonsense. They still don't have much that appeals to me, given they continue to deny the reality of climate change, are anti-abortion, xenophobic, and more. The only newish policy I can see is in relation to housing costs, and their plan for that is to exempt materials from new homes from GST for 5 years, which I feel is just a gift to construction companies absent some mechanism to force them to pass on the savings, and doesn't really do anything for the two thirds of home buyers who buy an existing property.

The party's representatives have been disruptive in parliament, haven't really contributed to improving policy, and often talk up conspiracy theories, so I can't in any way recommend them.

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Party Games 2025 - LIbertarian Party - 16/TBD

The Libertarian Party continue their pursuit of their ideological purity at the expense of ordinary Australians. They are opposed to any form of government regulation, and consider government not being an appropriate solution to any problem as axiomatic. For those of us who recognise that modern day life involves a lot of areas where coordination problems exist and that money is not the sole means of working out how to weigh competing interests the is a clear need for a proactive and capable government.

The Libertarian Party describe themselves as helping people, but don't actually have any policies that seem to achieve that. They want to privatise the ABC and SBS, get rid of all company taxes and replace income tax with a flat tax, significantly cut government expenditure and sell off assets to reduce government debt.

They promote bitcoin as an alternative currency, when the last 20ish years have shown that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are not fit for purpose for use as general currency (for example, how bad does the guy who bought a pizza for 10,000 bitcoin in 2010 feel today).

Their policy for women is pure transphobia. The existence of trans people is the only thing they bring up in their section on protecting the family. They don't bring up the pay gap (which they would support as they don't think the government should interfere with private contracts), they don't have anything to support victims of domestic violence, nor any other issue impacting women.

They don't want to do anything to protect the environment and want to repeal existing regulations.

All in all, their plan is to let the rich do what they want because they don't want to hold anyone to any sort of account other than a bank account. Don't vote for them.

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Party Games 2025 - Legalise Cannabis Australia - 15/TBD

No real changes in policy in the last few years from Legalise Cannabis Australia and so no real change in my opinion of them. I agree with decriminalising marijuana, but I don't think that's a suitable foundation for a party's environmental policy, nor it's human rights policy.

 They're not terrible, but they're not really prepped enough to be ranked highly.

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Party Games 2025 - Katter's Australian Party - 14/TBD

Katter's Australian Party has one thing that sets it apart from most other parties named after a founder, which is that the party is no longer led by said founder. In this case, it's officially led by the founders son, so I'm sure Bob still has a fair bit of sway. 

KAP is very much a north Queensland focused party, and reading through their policies it reads a bit more like they haven't been updated from the last state election. The policies are a mix of cruel on crime, overfunding rural areas at the expense of urban areas, and a protectionist economic plan. They're also the only party I've come across with a specific policy on crocodiles.

I'm not opposed to ensuring that rural areas get adequate services, but you can't justify every expenditure by saying rural areas need more support and underfunding urban areas to make up for it. They'll be late middle of my ballot

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Party Games 2025 - Jacqui Lambie Network - 13/TBD

The Jacqui Lambie Network is another leader-centric party that comes from a senator who left their original party but wanted to stay in politics. This time it is Jacqui Lambie, one of the few positives to come out of Clive Palmer's political shenanigans. I don't always agree with her positions, but I appreciate the effort and care she puts into the job.

The few policies they've listed on their party page are some economic nationalism/protectionism, anti-China rhetoric, and anti-corruption efforts to get money out of politics. The first I don't agree with, the second I feel they have a point but don't like how they deal with it, and the third I can get behind.

They have a few senate candidates, but they'll probably end up between the two majors for me.

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Party Games 2025 - Indigenous - Aboriginal Party of Australia - 12/TBD

The Indigenous - Aboriginal Party of Australia suffers two issues that I can see. First, they need a better web designer. Second, they fall into the trap that many single issues do, which is that they only have policies related to their main focus and don't have any indication of how they'd handle other issues which will be 95% of things dealt with in parliament.

As the name suggests, they are focused on issues affecting Indigenous Australians, and in that area I don't see anything I disagree with. 

They do have candidates for the senate in QLD, so I think they'll end up around the middle of my ballot

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2022

The Many Iterations of Harry August

At the start of the year as a way of being a bit more social I joined a book club that was being formed on the Brisbane subreddit. It's been good experience and it has got me reading more than I have in recent years and reading some things I wouldn't normally have given a go. There's usually some good discussion and the meetings are held at a pub on the night they do cheap steaks so there's good food as well. This month I'm not going to be able to make the meeting due to working a night shift so I'm putting down some thoughts on this month's book (I've kind of wanted to do it for each book, but haven't gotten around to it).

 This month's book was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It was a refreshing change from the previous two months which were both rather heavy (physically and metaphorically) tomes. It is a sci-fi novel about a man who lives his life over and over again, and focuses on how he deals with a problem that affects him and his fellow Groundhog Day-ers.

The story takes a while to develop, and starts out with exploring what life looks like for someone who experiences life like this. This is a bit of a mix, and it was at this point I started trying to work out how this works in universe. Like the titular character, I take a multiversal view of how things work (the alternative being a single universe that doesn't work with how things are described). Initially I assumed that the rebirths happen straight away as there is zero perceived time between death and rebirth (although it does take a few years before memories start coming back). However I started considering how this would work with people who had short lives compared to someone who lived a longer life and this just led to paradox or complex schemes with variable speed time. In the end my working model is that upon death the GroundHog Day-ers go into a sort of limbo until the end of the current universe, then they all move to the next universe and remain in limbo until it is time for them to be born again. 

The plot resolution does build on the early set up, but also feels a bit deus ex machina.

Normally I've taken some notes of the books to record some bits that have particularly stood out for me in the previous books, but this time my notes have mostly been keeping track of Harry's various lives (they aren't presented entirely in order) and the ongoing work to have a proper model of how the Groundhog Dayism works. Also, this wasn't as literary a tome as the last two books, so the crafting of the language used was more matter of fact. 

Overall I'd give it 3-3.5 our of 5 stars,

Party Games 2025 - Health Environment Accountability Rights Transparency (HEART) - 11/TBD

Health Environment Accountability Rights Transparency (HEART) have changed their name to somthing with a better acronym than their previous name which sounded like something a cleaner does (Informed Medical Options Party or IMOP for short), but they're still antivax, anti climate change, anti-education, small government nonsense peddlers.

I'm not going to waste my time with them, and you shouldn't either. Don't vote for them. 

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2022

Party Games 2025 - Gerard Rennick People First Party - 10/TBD

Gerard Rennick People First Party is another senator splitting from a major party to form their own party. As the name suggests, the senator in question is Gerard Rennick who was a member of the LNP until he lost preselection for the 2025 election at which point he left the party and set up his own party of which he is the president for at least the first 3 years (as per the party constitution which has some weird redactions like in half the instances where Gerard's full name is listed his middle name is redacted). 

Having split from the LNP, his policies are a mix of economic populism and scientific misunderstanding. He wants to shut down all action on climate change and put a 10% tax on all renewable energy to cover end of life site clean up, which one seems excessive for the amounts involved, and two I'd be willing to consider if it was applied all energy wholesalers regardless of how the power is generated. And saying "oh no, look how much resources goes into building a wind turbine, how detrimental to the environment that is" while completely ignoring that building a fossil fuel power plant also takes resources is just disingenuous.

On the economic side he wants to make super entirely voluntary because people retiring still need pensions, and I'm not sure how allowing people to put less into super solves that problem. He proposes allowing the first $25,000 put into super each year to be tax free, but that you can also withdraw money from your super at any time for any reason, which is a roundabout way of saying you want to increase the tax free threshold by $25k (actually by about $45k as he also wants to raise the base tax free threshold to $40,000).

He wants a people's bank and insurance company to provide affordable financial and insurance services, but seemingly expects these to run without cost to the tax payer and doesn't realise that if they want to undercut commercial providers they will likely need ongoing financial contributions from the government.

Not a lot to recommend this one other than they don't seem to indulge in some of the cruelty to minorities other similarly aligned parties do, but that's faint praise.

Party Games 2025 - Fusion - 9/TBD

The Fusion Party, or to use their more unwieldy full name FUSION | Planet Rescue | Whistleblower Protection | Innovation, is a progressive party with a reasonable mix of policies. The policies are a nice mix of progressive priorities including action on climate change, more investment in education and research, and a good balance on civil right.

 It does worry me a little that this hybrid party made by multiple small parties still can't muster enough candidates on their own. Their lead Queensland candidate is listed as a dual candidate with Democracy First, which isn't a party, but I guess is an organisation with aspirations to partyhood, as their website lists some policies. Democracy First's policies are mainly about limiting peoples ability to work in government in any role, and I really don't like the way they want to do this. They want all elected representatives and public service staff to have at least 10 years non-government experience before being able to get the role, and for public servants limit their time in service to 10 years. I really don't like this for public servants as limiting people to only 10 years in the public service means they can't build a career in public service, and also means a frequent turnover in roles that are potentially very niche and don't have large pools of candidates with suitable experience in the private sector, which means a regular loss of institutional knowledge which is one of the public service's strengths. 

This association, along with their use of AI generated art, has made me lower the Fusion Party on my list of preferences, but they'll still come ahead of the two majors.

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2022

Party Games 2025 - Family First - 7/TBD

Despite having the same name as a previous party, Family First are not the same party as covered here and here. The old Family First merged with the Australian Conservatives formed by Cory Bernardi which folded a few years later, and then a few years later the current Family First was established. 

However, it looks to be a very similar beast. It has strong ties to conservative Christianity (the party director is the former director of the Australian Christian Lobby), and policies to match. They have a very narrow definition of the type of family they want to put first, and not much to appeal to people who fall outside that definition. They are transphobic, anti-abortion, and opposed to any action on climate change. 

They're running candidates everywhere and will be towards the bottom of my ballot.

Party Games 2025 - David Pocock - 6/TBD

David Pocock while nominally a party, is an independent who has set up a party just to ensure they can appear above the line on the senate ballot paper, but since I've set my standard for which parties I'll review as registered parties that actually have candidates on a ballot paper, he makes the cut. David has been a senator for the ACT for the last term of parliament, and was a bit of a surprise win due to the nature of the ACT's senate representation. He's been reasonably effective as an independent senator and policy wise I like most of what he's done, and if I was an ACT resident I'd be voting for him. 

There is a second person on the parties senate slate, but given the ACT only gets two senators, there's zero chance the second candidate gets elected as well.

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2022

Party Games 2025 - Australia's Voice - 5/TBD

The first of the new parties this time round, Australia's Voice is one of the family of sitting member of parliament leaving the party they were elected with and starting their own party. In this instance Australia's Voice has been formed by former Labor senator Fatima Payman who split from Labor over their handling of the Gaza situation.

Policy wise Australia's Voice is a bit to the left of Labor, which isn't surprising based on where Fatima stood within the Labor Party, The policy page is a bit light, but does include limiting negative gearing and lower the Capital Gains Tax discount (which I'm for even though this is my first election as a property owner), taxing mining companies more, and a more proactive stance on Gaza.

Party structure wise Fatima has a lot of control over the party having final say on all policies and candidates. This isn't unusual for parties set up around a single person, but does limit the development of the party as a self sustaining entity.

Australia's Voice has five candidates (one for the senate in each state except for Tasmania), and I guess they'll end up somewhere between the Greens and Labor on my ballot.

 

Party Games 2025 - Australian Democrats - 4/TBD

The Australian Democrats continue to exist as a shadow of their former selves. They have a similar mix of centrist policies to the past, and still use the "Keep the bastards honest" tag line, even though there's little chance they'll get enough people into the senate to be able to effectuate that. 

It does seem that a lot of the vote they got at their peak have moved on to other parties (the socially progressive side to the Greens, and I think the centrist side will have found the Teals attractive), and I don't expect that it will ever get them back.

Policy wise I do see a fair bit to agree with, including better support for higher education and the arts, more action on climate change, more investment in science, improving public transport nationwide, and more. 

They'll probably come ahead of the two majors, but I think they'll have other parties ahead of them. The Democrats also remain the only party I've met a former leader of.

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2013

Party Games 2025 - Australian Citizen's Party - 3/TBD

The Australian Citizen's Party has removed a lot of the conspiracy and craziness from the website over the years while keeping the economic populism, but there are signs it is still there lurking beneath the surface. There's still a bit of stuff about a loss of sovereignty to London/international banks, and the candidate profiles reinforce their outsider self perception.

Their main solution for all our ills is the institution of a national bank to fund infrastructure projects, which thinking about it why do we need a bank rather than just having the government fund infrastructure development directly through taxes? They also want to set up the post office to act as a bank, with the idea that the post office will better service regional areas without noticing that the post office already has limited services in regional Australia.

They'll end up after the majors but before the deplorables.

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Party Games 2025 - Australian Christians - 2/TBD

Australian Christians continue their strong held tradition of wrapping up bigotry in religious freedom while failing to appreciate that the religious freedom they advocate should apply to people with religions other than theirs. Including a statement like "Protect the right of parents to instruct and train their children according to The Bible. " in their section of religious freedom just highlights how they see religious freedom as a privilege for themselves rather than a right for all. 

 Policy wise there are no real surprises. Anti-abortion, anti marriage equality, transphobic, pro internet censorship. One of the few positives I could find was their support for the Nordic Model which suggests support for more investment in education and social services, but I suspect they'd set these up with moralistic strings attached.

They only have candidates in WA & NSW so I won't have to work out where they'd go on my ballot, but they'd be after the majors and before the truly horrendous.

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Party Games 2025 - The Animal Justice Party - 1/TBD

I think a challenge with this series this time around is going to be I've done this a lot and the parties aren't changing much election to election, so I won't have much to say that I haven't already said before. The Animal Justice Party is definitely one of these. Greens but with a focus on specifically animals rather than the environment as a whole (although the do support environmental protection to ensure habitats for animals). 

On non animal issues they mostly take positions I support, things like taking rapid action to transition to clean energy, protecting human rights, better treatment of refugees, etc. When it comes to matters involving animals I'm not as gung ho. Eliminating all farming of animals for example is a huge and unnecessary change, not selling processed meats to people under 18 is impractical (are they going to lock the meats behind a counter along with the cigarettes?), and ending animal experimentation will impact scientific research. I can get behind things like banning greyhound racing, but there's too many big swings they take for me to be comfortable.

 They do have candidates for the QLD senate, so like last election I think they'll be before the two majors, but there will be other parties ahead of them.

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Alfred Aftermath

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for me, mostly due to the fine gentleman at one time known as Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

 Alfred after a while of lurking off the coast of Queensland decided it was going to hit around Brisbane. This is a bit unusual as Brisbane is by no means tropical, and cyclones have generally been things that happen to other parts of Queensland. 

 With the way my schedule work, I was going to be working day shift the day before and after it was due to hit, and night shifts the next two days. However, due to Alfred deciding to hang off the coast overnight, the worst of it was on my first night shift.

Works prep for the cyclone was a bit mixed. It's unusual to get so much notice of a natural disaster like this (the last one was the floods a few years ago which we were about two days into before it became apparent just how bad it was going to be), so there was a fair bit of prep down. Preparations for remote work was done, sites were prepped and in some cases equipment removed to avoid it getting damaged by flooding, and so on. When the cyclone didn't hit on the expected day, it caused a little problem as some of the preparations were only practical for a limited time and stretching them out an extra day would cause some problems in and of itself. Some were easy to resolve such as allowing crews back on some sites to check up on equipment and do some more prep, others couldn't be changed and we just had to deal with more overflows.

 The night of the storm hitting was rather stressful. There were some things that came up that normally wouldn't be too much, but due to the weather we couldn't respond in a BAU fashion. The biggest was probably a water main burst due to a fallen tree. Normally, we'd work to fix it straight away, but in this case the winds were too strong and all we could do was isolate the burst and get out of dodge, which left a bunch of people without water until it was safe to go back almost a day and a half later. The stress was also piled on by the cyclone's impacts to the teams internet connectivity. My team was working from home, and half of us didn't have internet for a large part of the night, leaving the other half (of which I was part) to cover everything. Fortunately we were able to get someone from another team to join us on short notice to help out.

 On Sunday we were given the ok to return to the office (if it was safe to travel) which I did. The systems are much more reliable on the dedicated computers and there were fewer worries about losing internet or power. Two of my team couldn't get in and worked remotely, and one of them lost power partway through the night. 

In the days off post that block of shifts, I slept a lot of Monday and took Tuesday as a relaxation day. I went to a local City Cave and did a sauna, float session, and got a massage, and then went to a showing of Sister Act that night (I was impressed at how quick QPAC got back into action, actually I'm impressed overall at how quick Brisbane got back to normal even if there was a lot of small things still to be fixed up). On the way home I ran into a friend from uni who now lives in the apartment building next to mine and rather than chat in the street I invited her to my place where we spent about 2 hours talking. I'll admit I'm a pretty poor host as I didn't really have anything to offer by way of food or drink. I had planned to check in with the office on Wednesday and offer an 8 hour shift if needed, but I overslept and didn't wake up until almost noon, which was a sign of how tired I was. Thursday I had a PT session, then I went in to the office to catch up on where things were at so I didn't have to catch up on too much the next morning, and in the evening went to the book club I'm part of (Rump and Reading, we meet up at a bar on their discount steak night). I think only 2 of the 8 or so people who could make it actually finished this month's book East of Eden (I was one of the 2 who had). I'll try and put up a review soon.

Friday was back into work and while the situation wasn't great, it was better than I'd been expecting. There was still a fair bit of the business leaning in to support the recovery effort which was a help, but there were times over the weekend where a new team came on where it felt I was having to cover territory that had been sorted out the day before and getting them up to speed on areas that weren't my area of focus.

One thing I want to loop back to was the Friday night before the cyclone hit. After I finished work at 6, I spent a few hours finishing East of Eden, and then around 10pm I went out on my balcony to look out on the storm. There wasn't too much wind or rain at the time, and I stood out on my balcony looking up at the sky. At the time I was overcome by a feeling of powerlessness and a feeling that despite all the preparations I'd made both for work and for my home, ultimately there was little I could control in regards to the cyclone. This was a nearly overwhelming feeling, and lasted about half an hour before I was able to put myself together. In part this was because this was the first time in two days I'd not been overwhelmingly focused on something else, and possibly a bit due to hunger as after I'd collected myself I'd realised I'd not had a meal since breakfast, and after that realisation eating something did a lot help me pull myself together. I don't often experience strong emotions, and fear was not a pleasant one to have to wallow in.

I'm now on days off again, and tomorrow I'm flying down to Sydney to visit my sister and go to two recordings of Taskmaster Aus season 5 episodes which will be a good way to get out of the cyclone stress.

Two New Games

 I'm not sure what I want to write about today. There's some stuff going on at work that is causing me some stress, but it's not the sort of thing I can write about so I'm not going to. The downfall of the USA is a thing but is too big to deal with. 

I've been playing two new games lately. The big name one is Civ VII, which has some new ideas that are novel and distinguish it from previous iterations. The big one is the splitting the game into 3 ages with there being a soft reset at the end of each era and your civilization changing to a new one more relevant to the new era, e.g. Antiquity Age Rome can transition into Exploration Age Spain which can transition into Modern Age France. Your leader stays the same so there's continuity. I'm still also getting my head around some of the new building mechanics. One thing the game does well is end in a timely fashion, often with previous editions I'd get stuck taking so long to finish a science or culture victory and with nothing else to do would build a huge army and after 6000 years of peaceful development just let loose on the world for something to do while building up my interstellar spaceship.

 The other game is Against the Storm, which is a rouge-like town building game. I do have some reservations still about the term rogue-like having evolved into "game with a core gameplay mechanic and only one life that gets enhanced as you play more" from the original "dungeon crawler like Rogue or Nethack" but that battle has been lost for a while now. Anyway, it's a good mix of managing production chains with some varying twists thrown in for extra challenges. It's a good way to kill an hour or two.

 End Post
Writing time: a while (I got interrupted by the people doing pest control so had to leave my unit for an hour and a bit)
Time since last post: 8 days
Current media:Make Some Noise season 3 episode 18

Phoenix dactylifera

Two weeks ago I did something I haven't done in a while. I went on a date. It was with a woman I'd met through a dating app, and I think the most positive I can be is that it was a learning experience. 

 We'd chatted through the app for about two weeks before I felt comfortable suggesting a meet up, and we met up Saturday afternoon at a cafe. We spent 2 and a bit hours talking (mostly her). 

Things I learned include I'm still not good at holding up a conversation, I'm not as open as I think to getting involved with someone with kids, I had no idea what a proper amount of time to budget for such an event, if I have tickets for something that evening I should disclose that ahead of time rather than having to wrap things up abruptly, and I still don't really understand my own reactions to some things.

The outcome was a sort of fizzle out. No red flags, but no green flags either. The uncertainty caused me to delay following up for a few days to the point where I felt like I was on the verge of ghosting her. I ultimately came to the conclusion that if I was still uncertain if I wanted to see her again after that time, it wasn't meant to be. It then took a bit of time to work out a tactful way of saying so. 

I'm still looking, and as usual not getting a lot back. I'll stick with it for a while longer, but also thinking about some other options.

Parkrunning

Last weekend I did my 10th recorded Parkrun so thought I'd reflect a little on it. I started a few months ago as I'd been making good progress with bringing my weight down and the strength work I do with a personal trainer, I thought maybe I'd be up to do a park run. The distance was 5km but I figured I regularly do walks of that length and I thought I'd be able to handle it.

I was wrong. On my first attempt I managed to jog about 1.7km before I had to slow down and walk for a while. I did jog some more stretches but I think I walked at least half the 5km. Since then I've been aiming to improve how far I can go without walking, figuring once I can do that I can start to work on improving the overall time. I've done 3 all the way through now, and I feel at this stage barring something external I should be able to continue doing so. 

Some lessons learnt along the way are that I can't do a 5k run after a night shift. My thinking had been along the lines of "I've done exercise after work before, I usually stay up until a few hours after the run is done, and I'll have a nap around 3am just to be safe so I should be right." This was incorrect. I got my worst time ever, the amount of walking increased instead of decreasing, and while I was alert during the run, the commute home I was a zombie staggering through the Valley.

There was also one run where I turned up mainly for spite. During the week I'd been speaking to someone at work and explained due to a combination of traveling away while on holiday and some sickness I'd gone nearly a month between runs 2 and 3, and they made a comment along the lines of "I didn't think it would last," which did indeed get me to the park Saturday morning. I would have gone anyway, but it was an extra bit of motivation. Fortunately, most people have been more positive about it, and there was one week where I encountered my boss's boss at the run (well, during the run I heard someone yell "Hi Kevin" but had no idea who it was, and then later in the week at work they came in and asked if that was me at the Parkrun which solved that mystery as I'd had no idea who it was at the time since they were on the return leg and had passed me before I could even look to see who it had been).

As is usual for myself, I don't really interact with anyone there. I usually get there 10 minutes before the start and there's a run briefing and then the run itself. Afterwards I'm too exhausted to be social, although I usually cool down by taking a walk through the markets and getting some breakfast before heading home, but that's again a solo thing.

I haven't  gotten into the Parkrun tourist thing yet where you go to Parkruns at lots of different locations (someone I used to work with does this). All but one of the Parkruns I've done have been at New Farm Park, the exception was a Christmas day run at Southbank since New Farm Park didn't hold one on Christmas day. So people at work have said they're looking to get started, and if they do I might make a trip to do a run with them, but we'll see if/when that happens.

A History of Me in terms of the Computers I've Owned

It's a minute to midnight and I've marked this as complete on my habit tracking app so I need to write something up, so let's think about what's gone on this week.

I bought a new desktop computer. My old one had a problem with the cooling unit and would be ok when it started up but after a while would get really slow (presumably the CPU was getting too hot) which combined with the constant noise got frustrating. And since it was 7 years old and finding a replacement cooling unit that would fit would be a challenge, I just went ahead and bought a new one. Maybe not the most thrifty option but an easy one. It was nice for a change to just go ahead and buy one, rather than have to plan out the purchase ahead of time and put together money for it. One computer I bought was the only time I used consumer financing for a purchase (which after working for the company I went through in the past, I wasn't too keen on and was surprised with how much they approved me for), one was paid for with a stats scholarship, and the one I've just replaced was bought with some of my redundancy payout. 

In some ways you can mark out periods of my life based on my primary personal computer which go as follows

• Apple IIc (1987 to 1996) - a small compact machine with a whopping 128kB of ram (good for its day) and a 5.25" floppy drive built in, this is what I learned to program on. My family got it before I started school and it was for various purposes until year 10 when it was replaced by
• a Pentium 100 with windows 95 and a 33.6kb modem built in (1996 - 2000). It had 16MB of ram but in a weird set up only 13MB could be used as ram because 3 was dedicated to the onboard graphics. Initially a family computer but I used it the most  and when I moved to Brisbane for uni it came with me and was the first computer I had that could access the internet. During the 2nd year of uni I got a scholarship from the Bureau of Statistics and used that to purchase
• a Pentium III 800 with a 1.6GB hard drive and windows 98SE (2000-2005). This was a big step up and I got a decent amount of use out of this. It is the first machine I used while having broadband, and the first that could burn CDs and then DVDs. It lasted a few years until it was replaced while I was at the Boom with an
• AMD home brew machine (2005 - 2007). While I put it together myself, I cribbed the parts list from a housemate who'd built a similar machine a little while before. I used the case from the previous machine. My only foray into AMD chipsets (not that that makes much of a difference from a user experience). When I moved to Japan this stayed in Australia and in Japan I bought
• a Macbook (2007- 2010). A return to the Apple fold after many year in the realm of Windows, and my only laptop. I bought this while in Japan, and while my intention had been to get a windows laptop, this was just after Windows Vista came out and all the Windows laptops I tried at the shop were really slow and laggy, while the Macbook just worked and was nice and responsive, so I went with it. It was a good device and I did like having a Japanese keyboard even if it did end up being replaced with a regular keyboard several years later back in Australia. This traveled with me in Japan, Korea, while backpacking across Europe and then back home to Australia. Eventually though the fan started to die and it was time to replace it with
• A Mac Mini (2010 - 2017). After enjoying the macbook I wanted to stick with apple, but couldn't afford the more high end devices. Actually, at the time I couldn't really afford anything, and I got a 2 year interest free loan for it from GE Money. When I worked there there were requirements that to get approved for more than $x you needed to show some proof of income (a payslip or two), for $1.6x you needed proof of address (a bill sent to your home address) and for $3x you had to provide both, so I was a little surprised when I got approved for $4.5x without being asked for either, and after resisting the temptation to get something more expensive or buying some fancy extras, the first thing I did when I got home was call to reduce my limit. I used this for 3-4 years before starting to get frustrated with the lack of gaming options on the device and so when I was made redundant I spent part of my payout on
• an Mwave gaming machine (2017-2025). Mwave was the company at the time that provided the gaming PCs for PAXAus, and they offered machines with the config used at PAX for sale so I got one (I'm not sure if it was a PAXAus one they then sold or just built to the same config). I've upgraded it a few times with more ram and more hard drive space, and in the last year I'd started thinking it might be time to upgrade as I was starting to see some games coming up that it couldn't run (Kerbal Space Program 2 which is kind of a good thing given how that's gone, and the upcoming Civilization VII would have challenged it, so when the cooling unit started to die I started looking around and got 
• a gaming PC from Umart.Umart is where I got the parts for the computer I built back in 2004 and I've gotten various parts over the years. Dollar wise it's similar price to the Pention III I got back in 2000 but obviously way better performance.I expect this will last me a while. I've still got to fully set it up as I want to transfer some of the hard drives from the last machine into this one, and there's still a bit of data I need to transfer over as well.

So there's the history of me in terms of my computers. It's one of two main ways I divide phases of my life up, the other being where I've lived, and both show different aspects of my life (I suppose you could include jobs as a third measure, but that starts a lot later in life and I don't think I've ever felt myself as defined by a job as much).

The year that was: 2024

2024 was overall a good year for me. I've made progress on a number of fronts that for a long time had seem kind of stalled and I'm looking to keep that going in the coming year.

Work

Work has been good this year. In May my team leader decided to take an extended period of leave and I stepped up to fill in for him while he's away. This was a bit daunting as I've never really considered myself a leader per se, and my ambitions have always been more along the lines of trusted adviser than top dog. Some aspects of the job have been straight forward such as the admin that comes with the job, but others have been learning experiences. Early in my tenure as lead one of the team members put in their resignation, which meant I had to go through the recruitment process on the hiring side of things. Reading resumes, conducting interviews, assessing people, delivering the bad news to those who weren't successful were all things I hadn't planned on having to do when I stepped up. It was very educational and I I'll be better prepared for future interviews as the applicant in the future from the experience. 

On the primary side of the job, I think I'm mostly going OK. There's been a few learning experiences, and a few situations that would have challenged any of the more experienced leads as well, so while I know I can (and will) do better, I don't think I'm doing too bad, and am still working to do better. 

Currently my higher duties is set to expire in May even though my lead is away until September. That's because that's the longest it can go without being made a secondment which requires an EOI to be put out and interviews done, so when that happens I'll be applying to stay in the role. And who knows if he'll feel like coming back after 18 months away traveling.

Finances

Stepping up to team lead isn't as lucrative as you might think, only 6-7 dollars an hour more, for a fair bit more stress and responsibility. However, moving into the control room 5 years ago still remains the best thing that ever happened to my finances. having finally been made permanent last year I bought a unit and left the renter class for the foreseeable future.While my living expenses have trended up over the years since, I'm still saving a fair chunk of money. I'm well ahead on my mortgage having paid off more than 10% where minimum payments would be only a bit over 2%, and since I have unlimited withdraw if something happens I can still use the extra I've paid. A chunk of that was done by taking money in my savings account and moving it over so I don't expect to be able to pay off as much next year.

The unit is still going good, it's got lots of room, a good location for me, and I'm still working to make it a bit more me rather than a blank canvas. I've started on phase 2 of furnishing, which is replacing some old items that were OK but I want something a bit nicer. The biggest part of this is a fancy dining/gaming table that will replace the plastic trestle table I bought as a desk when I first moved out as a uni student which has been serving faithfully since then. This will cost about $5500 total. The rest is replacing some old book shelves that have too much curvature on the shelves and some chairs to go with the new table.

Health

I've made some good progress this year. In addition to regular PT sessions, I've been seeing a nutritionist about once a month. This combo has seen me lose 24 kilos this year, and my pants size has dropped from 44 to 38 (I've had to buy two new belts this year and spent more on clothes than in some time). I have kind of plateaued at 105kg for the last 2-3 months, but I do want to at least get under 100kg. I've started going to a nearby Parkrun, and intend to keep going as my work schedule allows. I've only once done the 5km without having to walk at least 1km, but I'm improving and with time will get more consistent and can then work on speeding up. I still don't know how people manage times in the 16-20 minute range, but I'll be happy if I can get down to the low 30 minutes (by best time so far is 37:04, but that's an outlier and the rest are 39-42 minutes).

Social

This is probably the one area that I haven't made any progress in. A few random catch ups with friends but not much consistent contact. PAX was a good experience but it does highlight how it's a limited time only event and outside that not much happens. Similarly, Bordercon feels different now that there's fewer people I know going as well and that I'm traveling by myself rather than as a group which was how it was when I started attending. There were a few moments with people that made me feel its still worthwhile going.

One thing that is new in this space is that I started using a dating app. I've not actually gone on any dates, and only had a few matches that resulted in some chats that sort of petered out (once on my part, the rest on theirs), but actually doing this is something new. The fact that I feel like I'm ready is a step forward, and I'll see what the new year brings. 

I've been to a lot more live shows this year of a wider variety of events. TISM was a really good concert, and probably something it would have been good to be more aware of back in the day instead of just enjoying them on JJJ. They Might Be Giants was the other concert I went to that I really enjoyed. Finishing with Istanbul and Dr Worm was a great end to the show. That said both of those I went by myself and was a lone individual in a crowd. I don't mind going to shows alone, but larger events make it clear that I'm an outlier in this regards.

Looking forward

So what do I want to get out of 2025. I hope to spend most if it still acting as the team lead. There's been a few times since starting that I've filled in as a controller and it felt like I was operating on easy mode and I missed the stress/challenge of the new role. I'm not sure how I'll go when the permanent lead comes back, as I wouldn't want to go long term feeling underutilised.

I'll try and be more engaged with other people, but I'm not sure how well I'll go with that. I should try and do more in person board gaming, but my work roster makes it tricky.

Another year has gone without getting around to getting a new passport. Not that I have any plans for international travel, but it would be nice to have one again. I'm going to try and visit Adelaide this year when I take time off in October. I had planned to go this year but cancelled due to not feeling well. Add in the usual trips to Albury, Melbourne, and Innisfail, and I'll still rack up a fair few kilometres.