Some quizes

While browsing the blogosphere (or at least the blogspot sector thereof) I came across a few quizes. Lacking much to write right now, I'm going to post the results.

What Power is Compatible With You?

Your power is: Clairvoyance

Explanation: Your power is that you can look into the future and see what is coming. How far and long you can look is all depending on your skill level. This can, as all powers, be used in both evil and good. Even if it may seem like a boring ability it is a huge responsibility for the carrier, becase they are constantly tempted with doing the wrongs deeds (e.g. cheat on a test). It takes high morals to not be brought down with it.
Therefor you fit with this power quite well. You take responsibility and do what is the right thing to do. This does not make you a saint, since you're only human after all. But it makes a trustworthy person and you are loyal to camrades and/or team mates. In school you were probably a good student. If you were social varies from person to person, but most clairvoyant people tend to prefer their own company or that of close friends and family. That is because you are wise and knows how to treasure the reliable in your life, since you know popularity can be a false element. You are also not that big on taking risks and prefer what is already explored. That is because you don't like suprises, they can turn out bad and then you won't be in control.
Negative aspects: Since you're always doing the right thing and being trustworthy all the time you can become frustrated. Also, all that you carry on your shoulders may stress you out. You need to relax to be in good mental shape.

Take this quiz!

How do you see life?

Life is all about balance. Darkness can't be without light, and light can't be without darkness. You see everything through different angeles to gain perspective over situations. You act rather rational and people can find you stiff and/or emotionless due to this. Life is not really that good to you, yet it's not so bad. Like everything else, you need to balance it in order to find peace.
Take this quiz!

What wise quote fits you?

Your wise quote is: "Reality bites with a variety of sizes of teeth"(-Tony Follari)
As a person, you think life is just plain painful, horrible and everything else you don't like. Happy people confuse you. Alot. I mean, why are they so happy anyway? You are depressed and perhaps utterly alone and live life rather montone. You feel there is no reason to really be here and feel helpless.
Take this quiz!

What Type of Killer Are You?

You are an assassin.
That means you are a proffessional and do your job without mixing any emotions in it. In your life you have probably been hurt many times and have gotten some mental scars. This results in you being distant from people. Though many think that you are evil, you are not. What you really are is a person, trying to forget your pain and past. You are the person who never seems to care and that is why being an assassin fits you good. Atleast, that's what people think. Even if you don't care that much for your victims, you still have the ability to care and to generally feel. It is not lost, just a little forgotten. In crowds you tend to not get to noticed, and dress in black or other discrete colours. You don't being in the spotlight and wish people would just leave you alone. But once you do get close to someone you have a hard time letting go and get real down if you loose him/her.

Main weapon: Sniper
Quote:"The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy" -Jim Rohn
Facial expression: Narrowed eyes
Take this quiz!
What is your element?

Your element is Earth. You have your feet on the ground and are in touch with reality. Some may say you need to lighten up, but you are just not that way. It's not that you don't enjoy having fun, you only find it in more calmer activities such as writing or reading a book. But before you have your fun you always make sure your work is done. You are considered the reliable one among your friends, you would never betray anyone just like and are not influenced on peer-pressure. Friends and family can always come to you for guidance because you are wise and smart. You know what is right and what is wrong and you study hard to become something big in the future. The bad side is that your friend/s feel ignored when you spend more time with books and papers rather with them. You are not such a people person and are sometimes a question-mark on how to behave around them at certain times. Luckily it always works out, somehow. Love is not really desired in your world right now, maybe in the future when you've got a work and so on under control. After all, you are a perfectionist.
Take this quiz!

Why are you sad?

You are sad because of your grief
Take this quiz!

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Writing time: 1 hour (mainly html tweaking
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: none
Technorati tags: not going to bother tonight
Edit Notes: removed excessive spacing due to annoying copy and pasted html code, no actual text removed

One Small Change

For a long time I've bitched and made snide remarks and otherwise talked big while never putting up or shutting up. A lot of this is on the way things work, and how governments are no longer representing the people as they should be (although governments representing all the people is a relatively recent concept, it's not one we should lose). And I've had ideas on how to improve things, mainly wild crazy ones that involve a small change to the way things get done, but that should have many beneficial follow on effects.

So today I started another blog. This one is actually meant for people other than me. It's called One Small Change. My original title of fix the world was already taken on Blogspot (by a single post lamenting how the DMCA is unconstitutional because it denies liberty to people from more than two years ago), so I thought up a new name, and I think it works better. Now I just have the challenge of building up some sort of readership. This will be somewhat of a challenge, but we'll see what happens.

In other news my birthday wasn't as depressing as I thought it might be. A friend came over and we spent most the day talking and watching DVDs, and it turned out better than I expected.
I've been a bit worried in the past day or two regarding the references I've been asked to provide for the job I'm currently applying for. It seems the interviews have gone quite well (after the first in person one, they said it would probably be about a week before they decided who they'd progress to the next stage, and then I got a call the day after to organise the next interview), so I've kind of freaked out regarding them. But things seem slightly more in order now, and so we'll see how things progress.

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Writing time: 9 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Stargate SG-1 season 5
Technorati tags: birthday, politics, blog

Rated Voting

I doubt I would be able to find many people who would argue that a system of government that is democratic is not the best option of the various kinds of governments. Nor am I going to argue that democracy is bad. However one of the requirements of a truly functional democracy is that the people are informed upon the issues that they make decisions on. This is not the case for a large number of citizens in many countries. The reasons for this numerous. Voter apathy, a feeling that an individuals vote doesn't count is part of it. Other demands on peoples' time means that they don't pay attention to the actions of government that don't affect them directly.

So how do we encourage the citizens to pay more attention to what is going on. The simple answer is to provide an incentive. Simple monetary compensation for such a thing is impractical, expensive, and is only rather limited a motivation. This also goes for other material considerations.

What I propose is to weight individuals votes. In addition to marking the relevant choices on the ballot, there would be a small test. For ease of processing the questions would be multiple choice, and there would be about 10. The questions would be on current affairs and the current political landscape. In Australia, for example, two of the questions could be who is the current Prime Minister and who is the leader of the opposition. There could also be some short term historical questions.

Every person would receive at least one vote, regardless of how or if they answer the questions. For each correct answer that persons vote would be worth an extra vote. Thus those that know what is going on and keep themselves informed would have a greater say in matters.

The questions, and indeed the elections as a whole, would be administered by a body independent of any political party or existing government body. The questions would be checked over and accepted by all candidates before being placed on the ballot, in much the same way as candidates scrutinise counting of ballots in many countries.

Now a look at some of the disadvantages of such a scheme. Firstly it will complicate tallying of votes, and thus increase the time and expense of the count, but the question of how much effort we are willing to put in to maintaining our government is not one on which we should scrimp. Second, it does abandon the principle of one person, one vote. But each person still has the same potential vote, but it is up to the individual to determine how much effort they wish to put into ensuring that they are able to participate to the fullest. Third is the potential for cheating on the test. This could be reduced by producing a number of sets of questions, and random ordering of the questions within the sets.

Another objection is that groups that have special interests could make special efforts to ensure that they're members are tutored on current events near an election to increase the voting power of their members. This is no different from groups encouraging their members to just get out and vote.

In conclusion, this small change is a way to encourage people to pay attention to what is going on, and so induce greater participation in democracy.

9131 days and counting

First up, a bit of bitching. The interview on Tuesday went well, and now the people for the data analyst job have gotten to the last stage of the recruitment process, which is to check my references. In fact, they want three references. Unfortunately I've only got two references, and one of those I haven't talked to in about a year and a half. I asked one of my supervisors from when I was doing a PhD, and they said kind of sort of, but they didn't know how positive he could be. So now I need to find another reference, maybe two more. My team leader from my last job hasn't got back to me yet to let me know if she still is willing to give me a reference. So now I may have issues getting this really good job, because I haven't had that many jobs, and decided a while ago to burn a bridge to stop me going back to bad place. I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do. I'm going to call my former team leader tomorrow, but for he rest, I don't know.

Tomorrow is my 25th birthday. The last week or so I've kind of had mixed feelings about it. I've got the feeling I haven't done much with my life. I've never had a girlfriend. I've never kissed a girl. I've never had a real job (one that involved more than answering phones or cooking lots of chicken). I'm rapidly depleting my savings. I'm overweight and unfit. I've got very few friends. For the past month or two, I've rarely left my house except to go to the store, visit the gym or go out to play games.

So do I have anything to balance all that? I've completed an honours degree in physics, something most people would automatically assume meant I'm very, very smart. I'm the main author on a scientific paper, and a coauthor on another. I've traveled to several countries, America, Italy, France and Thailand, as well as passing through a few others en route. I've submitted a story to Slashdot (not that impressive, but I was pleased when I saw it on the main page). I can juggle three balls well enough that I wouldn't feel a fool if I were to try and busk. I got a best painted prize at a warhammer tournament. I can type while keeping my eyes closed (although I'm sure the spell checker will have a rougher time with this post).

These don't seem to quite outweigh the negatives I've listed.

I'm rather tired and it's getting late, so I'm going to do the following

to be continued...

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Writing time: 40 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: Firefly

Missing post

I've just been playing with the settings in blogger, and found a post I thought I'd published but hadn't. I've put it up now, but it's where it was chronologically. so here is a link to that post.

That is all.

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writing time: 1 minute
time since last post: 2 days
Current media: silence

edit notes: it helps if you include the link.

Interviewing some more

Today I had an interview for the data analyst job I discussed two posts ago. After the phone interview, which got postponed to a day later (I only got notified this half an hour after it should have started), I did some more testing. Some psychometrics, which I did from at home, and then I went into the recruitment company to do some verbal and mathematical problem solving tests, which were also done online with the same system as the psychometrics, but I guess they wanted to make sure that it was actually me doing the test.

The interview today consisted of a teleconference with the director of the division I'd be working in, which was the longest and toughest part, a shorter interview with the person who would be my immediate supervisor, who I had the phone interview with earlier, and a short session with the HR and IT managers.

I thought it went ok, some parts were tough, but others went well, so I was a bit concerned and anxious about finding out how I went, as they said it would take maybe a week to shortlist people for the next stage.

Since I started typing I've found out that it went better than I thought, and I am going onto the next stage, which will be a teleconference with one of the owners. They also asked me to get a police certificate showing that I don't have a criminal record. I'm going to sort this out on Monday.

On another topic, I'm actually becoming active in an online forum. It's a forum for a podcast I listen to, geeknights. I've done the classic just hang around thing, and slowly interact more and more. The people on the forum are from all over the place (mainly the US and Australia), but the number of shared interests are pretty impressive. Anyway, this is something new for me, as I don't really do the chat, bulletin board thing despite the amount of time I spend online. I remember when I first got an internet connection at home using ICQ to chat with random people, but stopped doing that during uni because my university provided account blocked chat programs.

Well that's it for now. I'm going to stick with the technorati tags, see if I can't get some readers.

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Writing time: 1 hour 31 minutes
Time since last post: 5 days

V for lack of moral fortitude

Since V for Vendetta opened in the cinemas here this week, I made the effort to read the comic, and then I went and saw it this afternoon. As with all of Alan Moore's work, it's quite impressive and very deep. The main idea of the comic is battle between the ideals of anarchy and fascism. In such a battle I of course side with anarchy, especially as V sees it, as not being the opposite of order, which is chaos, but as a true society of equals, with no-one placed above others.

Another facet is that the protagonist, while not what I'd call a villain, is definitely not a good guy. He kills many people, and blows up several buildings, but is brutally up front about it, and when asked about it makes no denials. He tortures the only character who can really be called an ally, albeit to bring about a change in her for the better.

This aspect of V I disagree with. I think that violence against people is wrong in any situation, with the sole exception of preventing someone else doing likewise in the immediate future (ie, stopping someone from punching someone else, not killing someone because they might shoot someone next week). Likewise the destruction of others in a violent manner also falls into the wrong category.

I also feel that an immediate wrong for a better future is not a justification for such actions. This belief is obviously more easy to keep when one lives in a participatory democracy with little restrictions on one's rights, but I feel that non-violent methods should be preferred.

One thing I do admire in V is his conviction in his beliefs. At the moment, I don't think there is anything I feel strongly enough to be willing to die for. I recently emailed a senator who was proposing a policy of mandatory blocking at the ISP level of objectionable material outlining how I felt it was a usurpation of parental responsibility and unconscionable restriction of peoples rights by the government, as well as being practically impossible to do in practice. I have never been to a rally or protest, but that is mainly because while I usually agree with the main point being protested, ie don't invade Iraq, the groups running such things tend to bring in a lot of other ideological baggage that I don't agree with and don't want to be associated with. I wonder if protest rallies would be more successful if they were solely about the issue at hand, and didn't try to become recruiting and marketing opportunities for all these groups. Sure their ideas can inform their decision to attend, and can illustrate some points of discussion, but if the rallies about Iraq, don't bring in the ailing welfare and health systems, aboriginal land rights and everything else.

While I admire V's conviction, I also see it as one of his flaws. Believe in anything too much, too passionately, and you start to put that thing above all else. Take anything to an extreme, and it becomes a bad thing. I feel a strong point of the story of V is that he does realise that his path has an end. He realises that while bringing down the old and opening the door for the new are things he can accomplish, he is not the one to build the new order, that is something for others. This is a realisation that while what he is doing is needed now, and can accomplish something, if taken too far will become just as bad as what he wanted to get rid of. This point is more blatant in the movie, but by doing so they have removed some of the self-realisation of Evey, and reduced the subtlety of what V told her.

The other main change the movie made from the comic was to make the Norsefire government a lot more sinister, in that they committed atrocities and manipulated the people to establish their control of the government, and to introduce their harsh regime. The actions of Norsefire have many parallels with the current American administration, which is the intention of the producers.

Having nothing more to say on this right now, and since I have to get up early for a meeting regarding a potential job, I'm going to finish here with an attempt at using some technorati tags.

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Writing time: 1 hour 3 minutes
time since last post: 10 days
current media: Bill Hicks
Technorati tags: V for Vendetta, movies, philosophy

PS: curious tidbit. Bloggers spell check came up with the suggestion degenerate for Technorati

Interview pending

So, I heard back about the data analyst job I went to the test on last Friday. Apparently I did quite well on the test, and I have a phone interview with the data teams manager on Monday morning. As interviews go, phone interviews are ok. You don't need to get dressed up for a start. So I just need to make sure I'm up and alert by 8 am on Monday, and all should go well. It is kind of odd in that they've said they don't want someone who wants a career in finance, or sort of high flyer type people. I guess it depends on how you interpret it. The spin the recruitment company has put on it is that they want people who like what they do and want to do it, and that they reward those who do good work, not people who are looking at it as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

In terms of where I want to go with jobs I don't know. I do know I don't want to go into management type stuff. Leading is not my strong suit. I'm much more comfortable and capable in a supporting role. Once we know what needs doing, I can get things done. I think a military analogy would be senior NCO as opposed to officer. I would like a job that becomes bigger as I learn more and become more capable. And I wouldn't mind staying in the one job for a few years if it was a good job that continued to interest me.

In other news, I got into the google pages beta the other day. Check out http://kevin.brake.googlepages.com. It's got a rough version of the website I'm putting together for the house. However the content is mostly mine (there's a link to one of my housemate's blog, but that's about it).

My hometown got hit by Cyclone Larry earlier this week. My grandmothers roof was damaged, and the house Mum owns up there was destroyed. Given that it needed some major work to bring it back up to scratch, and that Mum had rented it out to a few people who needed a hand but decided to then bite that hand, some would make the case that so long as the insurance is enough to pay of the loan, she should sell the land and find something better to invest in. And leave the management of any future rental properties to a rental agency. I know if I ever get a rental property, I'm going to go to a real estate agent and say "Here is my property. I would like you to rent it for me. I would like to receive some money each month, and have you take care of everything else, and you can have a cut of the action", and let them take it from there. Of course, that assumes I ever get enough money to buy a rental property.

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writing time: 40 minutes
time since last post: 6 days
current media: geeknights

Testing

I kind of had an interview today. It was actually a test. The questions were a combination of a few simple puzzles (magic square, a variation on the Monty hall problem), and a few were programming methods of doing certain tasks. I think it went pretty well, my main concern leaving was if they would be able to read my handwriting (there's a reason why all of my submitted work at university, and indeed high school was typed wherever possible). They said they'll get back to me on Monday to let me know if I've made it to the next stage of the selection process. It actually looks like an interesting job, and it's the first time I've gone into a company after sending in a resume and they've actually tested the ability to work things out, rather than doing psychological tests or just testing your ability to remember details.

This afternoon after seeing a link to one in a forum I've started lurking in (I think today I made my second post in about 3 weeks) I did a few online personality tests. These sort of thing usually only tell you things you already know, but sometimes an outside perspective can make things clearer, but I don't really make life changing decisions based on them. The three tests I did there were the Nerd? Geek? or Dork? test, the which Buffy character are you, and cause there was a link at the end of each of those, the lover style test. Results are as follows.

Pure Nerd
60 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 47% Dork
For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendencies associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.


Willow Rosenberg
45% amorality, 63% passion, 72% spirituality, 27% selflessness
Likely you're stronger on the inside than most people would give you credit for: like Willow, you're a decent person with both passions and a spiritual side, sometimes struggling for control.

The Exotic Lover
45% partner focus, 9% aggressiveness, 55% adventurousness Based on the results of this test, it is highly likely that:
You prefer your romance and love to wild and daring rather than typical or boring, you would rather be pursued than do the pursuing and, when it comes to physical love, you concentrate more on enjoying the experience rather than worrying about your performance.

This places you in the Lover Style of: The Exotic Lover.
The Exotic Lover is a wonderful Lover Style, and conjures images of the exotic, romantic hero out of a romance novel, or perhaps a slightly dangerous and deadly sexy femme fatale from a noir mystery. The Exotic Lover loves pleasure and is a treasure to date, though it can be difficult to do so because they sometimes tend to be mysterious and reluctant to commit.

In terms of physical love, the Exotic Lover can be quite surprising, as they are often more exciting and adventurous than predicted. Given a little freedom, and the right lover, the Exotic Lover can be a delight in bed.

Best Compatibility can probably be found with: The Liberated Lover (most of all) or the Devoted Lover, or the Romantic Lover.

These sorts of test have a curious attraction. I remember a few years ago the purity test was popular in my social group. Some people got surprisingly low scores. My score was rather high. That sort of thing occasionally sort of gets me feeling that I'm not doing enough with life. I think I should try and find a new hobby, something with a bit wider appeal that is also social. That would at least get me out there meeting new people. I don't like dancing, so that's not an option. If anyone actually reads this and has a suggestion, please leave a comment.

Finally, I'm going to give the Japanese place down the road a try tonight. I just hope they do teriyaki, otherwise I may have to reconsider.

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writing time: 50 minutes
time since last post: 6 days
current media: Itunes on party shuffle (Currently part of Carmina Burana is playing)

Survival of the fittest

So last Sunday I joined up to the university's gym. A few weeks ago I had some medical issues, and the advice the doctor gave me was to improve my general fitness. Since then I've started taking walks around the university, a distance of about 4 or so kilometers. One of my housemates is also wanting to get fitter, and was planning joining up, and so encouraged me to do the same. So I joined up. And I've gone to use some of the exercise machines most days since then. Most days I've just done 20 minutes on an exercise bike, but on Thursday there were no spare bikes so I used an elliptical walking machine. That was a lot more strenuous then the bike.

I've also been applying for a few jobs. One of them had me do some online test about what I thought good management was. Given that it was for a graduate entry position and not a management one I'm not quite sure why they were asking the questions they did. Perhaps they're looking for people who accept what they think is bad management. But there were two things about the online testing that got to me. First, the recruitment company, which was itself acting on behalf of the company actually looking for a new employee, got another company to do the testing. The other thing is the terms of use for the testing site were rather onerous, and the privacy policy can be summarized as: we won't give out your name, address and date of birth. Although they termed it as personally identifying information. They also demanded perpetual rights to use your responses in any media they saw fit. It was very much one sided. I did consider sending an email to the recruitment company saying I wasn't comfortable with the terms, but in the end decided to go ahead with it, mainly because I didn't think they'd be very receptive to this and the fact that apart from a few personal details, all of it was answers to their questions. But if I get any further with the recruitment process, I'll bring it up with them.

A few days ago I tried to put together a few thoughts on the role of government in modern society and what I thought were effective ways to moderate the powers and responsibilities of government, but I got bogged down in how to start the whole thing and what points I wanted to make. I shall make another attempt later on, and hopefully actually get something down in type.

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writing time: 2 hours 30 minutes
time since last post: 7 days
Current media: The Combat Information Center

Ten years, web stuff and a new keyboard

Today I got a new keyboard and mouse. My main motivation for doing so was that I wanted a wireless keyboard, so that I can type without having to be right up at my desk. Right now, I'm leaning back in by chair with the keyboard in my lap. It also has lots of extra buttons to do things like close windows, start programs and control media. The media buttons work pretty well with I tunes, so that's good.

Going over the news at wikinews, I noticed that not only has it recently been the tenth anniversary of John Howard becoming PM, it's ten years since Bob Brown got elected to the senate. Bob is a leader within the Green movement, and certainly the preeminent Green in parliament, indeed for the first four years, the only Green. Since his election, the Greens have made gains at each subsequent election, and if they keep things going the way they have, look poised to replace the Democrats as the third party of Australian politics.

I think it's good to have more than just (effectively) two parties in the government. For some time, the Democrats were making an effort to fill that role, but given a rapid turnover of party leaders and other factors, have begun what seems to be a self destruct sequence. Thus, while I don't agree with all of the Greens policies, I look forward to them becoming a more significant factor in politics in the future.

Given my lack of work at the moment, I've been spending more time than usual on the web. For the past few days I've been reading Questionable Content. QC is a web comic about a few people, two of whom live together and seem to be interested in each other, but for various reasons don't act on it. It's a pretty good comic, and has also prompted some introspection. It's also made me think if the friend who showed it to me didn't have some sort of ulterior motive in doing so, as I can see certain parallels between some of the characters and certain facets of my own life.

I've also joined up to listal.com, a service that allows you to list all the media (books, cds, dvds, games) that you own, and lets you see what other people who have the same things you have also have. It also has forums and groups. I was quite disappointed to find out that my bookshelf, that on each shelf has books, then books in front of books, books on top of books and books on top of books in front of books, only actually holds about 230 books. It also allows you to see who your preferred authors, actors, directors, etc are by showing you who you have the most of in those various categories. It also allows you to enter items that you want. My main gripe against listal is that it focuses on the US and England media, so very little of the Australian books, and none of the region 4 dvds were recognized. While this mostly has to do with the fact that it rips most of the data from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, it is a bit frustrating.

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writing time: 1 hour (includes a trip to the shops)
time since last post: 4 days
current media: You by VAST (iTunes on shuffle)

Too Crazy to Work

Last week I went in to do some psychometric tests for a job I'd applied for. So after doing all the tests, they said they'd get back to me in the next day or two. The day after, I got a call from the person I'd met at the recruitment place, and she told me that based on the tests they weren't going any further with my application. She then told me that she personally couldn't give me any feedback on the test results because "she wasn't a trained psychologist". She then went on to say that if I wanted to I could make an appointment with someone else there who was to go over the tests.

I haven't as yet decided if I want to find out. From previous job interview type psych testing I've been told I'm borderline unstable. So partly I kind of know some of what they would tell me. Also there's some desire not to know about potential problems. I think I'm sane, but I know I'm not exactly an unbiased observer.

Writing time: 28 minutes
Days since last post: 12 days
Current Media: Serenity Soundtrack

Are You for RU486

Today the House of Representatives passed a motion to remove the veto power of the health minister over approval of whether the abortion inducing drug RU486 can be used in Australia. Based on the reading and history of the debate, I think that this was the right decision.

RU486, or more correctly Mifepristone is a drug that affects hormones and can be used in combination with other drugs to induce an abortion. It has been used in many European countries since the late 80s, early 90s, and was approved by the US FDA in 2000.

In Australia, the equivalent of the FDA is the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). They are an expert body set up to evaluate goods that are used in treating and diagnosing medical problems. Basicly, before a drug can be used in Australia, the TGA has to approve it. Their authority comes from parliament, but they have the final decision in what drugs are allowed.

Now in around 1996 the current government was wanting to sell off part of the national phone company Telstra. Due to the balance of power at the time, they had to do a deal with an indpendent senator, Brian Harradine. Brian Harridine was quite conservative, and part of the deal was a change to the act that established the TGA, giving the health minister a veto over the TGA regarding RU486.

Fast forward to today, and in past weeks there has been a bit of an uproar about the whole thing because recently a few doctors have started trying to go through the process to get permission to prescribe the drug to their patients. This process includes getting approval from an ethics commitee at a local hospital who take into consideration the use the drug will be put to, the nature of the drug, the competance of the person requesting the permission and other factors. If this stage is approved, it goes through a few more similar steps at higher levels culminating with the TGA. Now with most drugs, if the TGA said yes, that would be it. But RU486 has a ministerial veto.

In response to this a group of women senators from several parties put forward a bill to remove the ministerial veto. The major parties allowed a conciense vote on the matter and it passed both houses without ammendment.

My main reason for agreeing with this decision is that it reverses something that created a special exception for this one specific drug, and while not bypassing allowed the decision of an expert group put in place by the government to make decisions regarding the safety of drugs to be ignored. The Health minister is not an expert on medicine, and the TGA's decision is that of a group who are qualified in the field and have researched the safety and effectiveness of the drug in question, and we should allow them to do the job that we have asked them to do.

I will admit that initially I was opposed to the bill for similar reasons, in that I thought it was changing the process for political reasons, but now that I know that the bill is just reversing something that was what I this bill was I now stand behind it.

I also want to point out that the main reason behind why I support this bill does not alter if you are for or against abortion, so long as you feel that if you set up a process to evaluate if things are safe or not, you shouldn't set up ways to sidestep that process for things you don't like.

One argument that was put forward as to why the minister should have a veto over this drug is that it different from something that just cures a cold, because it causes an abortion. The drug is used under the supervision of a doctor, and so in practise involves a similar amount of consultation with a doctor as a clinical abortion.

Finally, I will state that while I support the right of a woman to get an abortion, I don't think it is something that should be done lightly, or without considering all options.

End Post
Writing time: 1 hour 45 minutes (a friend came over for about an hour or so in that time)
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: The Prologue from Fiddler on the Roof

Apathy, prevarication and procrastination

As mentioned previously mentioned, I had considered sending in some details to a valentines day match making thingy. Well, while it's not yet Valentine's day, the time frame for doing so has passed. The main reason I didn't was because I left off making a decision until not doing so was the only option left. A few decisions have been made like that.

Sometimes it's because that's the decision I really want to make, I just don't want to close off options too soon. That's not that bad. But sometime it's because I can't make a decision until it's almost or just past crunch time, and those are the ones that aren't so good.

Given that the last two paragraphs have taken an hour, I'll leave it at that.

End post
writing time: 1 hour
time since last post: 2 days
current media: Scrubs season 1 DVD extras

Rockets go Boom (perhaps)

8am: wake up, have a glass of water, played podcasts downloaded overnight, and get back into bed to listen, go back to sleep.
11am: get up, play some computer games, have a shower. Start messing around with my computer, as I've been having issues with my dvd drive. Part way through get dressed (about 20% of the way in).
2pm: lunch from subway. Watched some episodes of scrubs. Played some of the Undead campaign from Warcraft III.
6pm: watched an episode of The Simpsons, the one where Apu gets married. Some general computer gaming (solitaire, etc). After that some general stargate discussion with one of my housemates prompted by recent progress on my model of the stargate.
8pm: blogging, and some general web browsing.

A podcast I started subscribing to recently is offering a matchmaker thing for Valentines day. I'm considering sending in my details, but I'm not sure. First there's the fact that given the demographic most likely to watch a video podcast, the odds aren't very good in the first place. Although I think my main objection would be that do so would be to admit I do want that sort of thing, something which while I haven't exactly ruled out, I haven't made the whole romance, or even social thing a big priority in my life. It's not that I don't want romance, right now I'm not willing to look for it. If it comes by, I'll see where it goes. If I do send in an email to Rocketboom, I'll put something up here.

End post
writing time: 1 hour 33 minutes
days since last post: 3 days
current media: Scrubs season 1

Bow Chica Bow Wow

I've been doing a bit more learning how to use Blender. I started from scratch again to get more details on the model. The latest iteration is below. I've twigged to a few things that make it easier to do things and that it's a good idea to use lot's of little objects than one big complicated one. I also found out how to put in a general background, with stars, rather than putting in a big black plane behind the actual object. Positioning the camera still frustrates me though.

Job hunting sucks. No jobs advertised look interesting. I really don't want to go to another job that's just menial busywork. There were a few government jobs, but the job description says one thing and the selection criteria were wanting to show how you can do something else.

Since I stopped working my sleep pattern has really changed. I'm now staying up until about 2 or 3 in the morning and waking up about 11 or 12.

I've had a few very good games of nethack recently. I got two valkyries a little past Medusa, one down about 10 levels down into Gehemmon. Both deaths came about by being too confident about combat, and not considering other ways to deal with monsters.

writing time: 30 minutes
time since last post: 7 days
Current media: Season three of Red Vs Blue

Seeing Red Book

I tried doing a post yesterday, but didn't get much written, and then I lost what little there was when I tried to get a picture included the way I wanted it, so gave it up. So I'm trying again today.

I'm still enjoying the easy life. I'll start looking for a job on Saturday when the careers section is in the newspaper. I'll also try a few places that actively look for jobs for you. When you're on government assistance you're forced to go to meetings with companies who say they do that for you, but in the few months I've had to be associated with those companies, I haven't had one contact with a potential employer I didn't find myself, so I don't think that much of the ones that get paid by the government. But I have had one recommended to me where they work by taking a cut of your pay for the first few months, so they will obviously be motivated to get you out there and working quickly.

Now for a bit of a rant. For various reasons, I've been looking to find out the value of a motorbike. The one seemingly useful place I've found is Red Book. They have a nice big collection of vehicles by make, model, age, etc and give a trade in value and a private sale value. But their conditions of use are a bit harsh. There are two main things that annoy me. The first term is

Red Book has provided the material contained on this website in good faith. Red Book does not represent or warrant that the material is reliable, accurate or complete, or that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free.

So from the start. The information is provided in good faith. Nothing bad, pretty much all information is provided in good faith. The next bit is interesting. Red Book does not represent or warrant that the material is reliable, accurate or complete. The complete bit isn't a problem. No one can have info on every possible variation of cars. But their not even willing to claim that the information is reliable or accurate. I would point out at this stage, the company providing this information to the public for no charge actually sells it to businesses. If you're going to provide this sort of information, at least have the courage to stand up for what you say. Sure there will be people who try and get more for their car than it's worth, and people might sell for less, and sometimes it may be a while between updates, but make it clear that what you're showing is an average price range, and when it was last updated. Don't just say that we've put these numbers up, they may or may not be related to what an actual person will expect for their vehicle.

The second part that is frustrating is their conditions on who can put a link to their site, which is as follows:
Any linked site must not contain any information that is:

• unlawful;
• an infringement of any third party's rights;
• disparaging of Red Book's goods or services; or
• offensive, obscene or pornographic.

I'll start out by saying that while sites falling under 1 and 2 should not exist under most current legal environments, all of these are essentially restrictions on where and how you can talk about their website. If anyone asks, I'm not disparaging their goods or services, just their legal section. No entity has the right to stop how others can talk about them on services or at locations they don't own. If someone went to their office and started telling anyone who went in bad things, sure they can have the person taken from their property, but they can't make that person not talk about them in that person's home. They might not like how others talk about them, but if I want to do so from a porn site, that's my call, not theirs.

And finally, below is the latest iteration of my stargate I'm making with a 3d modeling program (Blender for the curious)

End post
writing time: 23 mintues
time since last post: 4 days

Cool things on the web

Since I've got my Ipod, I've increased my listening of podcasts. I kind of listened to a few just on my computer, but generally while I'm at my computer I'm doing stuff, so I wouldn't really pay attention. But with the it is easy to listen while traveling, so I listened to stuff while commuting around. The range of stuff I listen too is pretty broad as well. There's commentaries both official and fan on Battlestar Galactica, local current affairs, military history, for a while Russian lessons (it petered out after a while), weekly speeches by both the governator and George W, and some general geek discussion.

I've now started getting some videocasts as well. This is mainly because I found one that is very cool and well worth the effort of downloading. Ask A Ninja. A wonderful concept, and done well.

I'm unemployed right now. The basic story goes like this. I was a temp, on a seemingly ever extending contract. Back in about September/October they told me my contract had been extended again until the middle of January. Then at the end of December, they put out the January roster and I had shifts up until the 29th, which is well past the middle of January, so I thought, OK, my contracts been extended again. Then on the 16th of January, an email comes out to most of the temps, myself included saying that your contracts end on the 26th, so on your last shift make sure you hand in all the security stuff we gave you, and a comment that it was unlikely that contracts would be extended. At this point, I assumed that since my roster went past that point in time, the unlikely had already happened. But then last Monday the online timesheet system wouldn't let me log on, so I called the person responsible, and she told me to just email it to her, and to do the same on Thursday when I'd finished. I replied, but I'm rostered on for shifts after that, and her response was a that it was a business thing, and I was finishing on Thursday. Then at the end of Monday an email came out saying that we might be able to extend a few of the temp contracts, and wanted to know who was interested. At that point I'd kind of already moved on, and was planning to enjoy my third full weekend without work in over eight months, and finding a better job and not having to put up with all the crap work forced on you (stupid customers, stupid merchants, stupid policies) so I told them no. So now I'm unemployed. Fortunately, they paid me about 50% more than I'd usually spend, so I've managed to save a fair bit, so I'm not going to starve immediately (I can probably last about 16 weeks without having to be too frugal).

So now the challenge is to find something new to do to fill my coffers and my hours.

One of the ways I'm filling time is I'm learning how to use a 3d modeling program. My first project is to make a stargate from Stargate Atlantis. So far I've got some of the fancy bits that sit on the stargate done. I'll add more pictures as it gets a bit more developed.



writing time: 50 minutes
time since last post: 18 days
current music: MC Hawking - Fuck the Creationists

The deeply unfortunate doings of an ill-fated life

Funerals suck. Everyone who is already sad, upset, or otherwise unhappy about the discontinued existence of the person being commemorated gather together and remind each other that a tragedy has happened and that it a terrible thing to have happened, and it all feeds on itself making everyone more upset.

It was the second time after Mal's death I'd cried. There was a bit just after finding out, but after that I'd managed to be able to keep it together. But the actual event itself got to me. It started just going through the memorial garden where they've got parts of lots of other cremated people buried. I don't like graveyards. It's too much concentrated death, which in this type of situation just brings you back to why your there.

I was one of the pall bearers (I think I spelt pall right), along with one of Mal's sons, his two brothers, his brother in law (sisters husband) and an old (long time) friend of his. I was actually surprised at the size of the coffin. It was a lot narrower and shallower than I would have thought he'd have fit in. I wasn't able to get their in time for the viewing the day before the funeral, so I don't know if death made a hug difference in size, or I just am bad at estimating that sort of thing.

I'm considering making an offer to buy his motorbike off Mum, but before I do so I need to work out if I can afford it, not just the buying but the running of it. Also, a friend of his had first option on it if Mal didn't want it anymore, so that will probably have to be considered as well. And of course I need to get a motorcycle license, which will add to the cost (there exist 3 day courses for people with regular car licenses to get a motorcycle license if they can learn quick enough that cost ~$500). If I do, I might take a week of, visit Mum for a few days and then ride back to Brisbane.

A friend gave me a journal type book the other day. The title of this post is taken from the cover. Just looking at it, I've noticed that it's got a copyright notice on it. I guess they're really protective of their cover design, because I don't really think they can get away with copyrighting a bunch of blank pages with lines on them. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to put in there yet, but it will be something more profound than shopping lists and the like.

Have I mentioned that tax sucks. Not so much in and of itself, but in how it applies to work and motivation. At the moment, in a usual week I pay a certain amount of tax. If I do some overtime, or the rosters work out that a given pay week has more than the usual number of hours in it, I go over a certain point and get taxed at a higher rate. It's not as motivating when thinking about doing more when you realize that although you're being paid a certain amount per hour, for the extra hours you only see about half of that. I know it all balances out in the end, but still it frustrates at times.

End Post
writing time: 25 minutes

Death

On new year's eve Mum's fiancee, Mal, died. He was 48. He was fine the day before, then in the morning had some chest pains, and the kaput. It was all very abrupt. Mum's very upset, although I've only spoken to her twice since it happened. They were going to get married in April, and as my grandfather died while I was young, I was going to take the role of the father of the bride (without the whole paying for the whole thing bit).

It's not a good thing. I'm feeling rather mopey. Not all that surprising. Work on Saturday was pretty tough. On Sunday night I went to my uncles place as my sister and aunt had flown in to Brisbane then. That was a bit depressing, the gathering together of sad people, especially my sister. She has a tendency to take my not showing much emotion externally as me not giving a damn. So far that has happened this time.

My uncle and I are driving up to Rockhampton tomorrow, and will be coming back on Friday, maybe with my aunt as well.

Work for once has not been a bunch of prats. My request for Thursday off got approved within a few hours.

Anyway, in summary, a really good guy is gone, and it really sucks.

End Post
Writing time 1 hour 12 minutes

Christmas is here

So Christmas is 2/3s over. I was up until 1 this morning having a chat with a friend on the phone. I set a record for the length of a phone call, 1 hour and 9 minutes. My personal phonecalls are usual on the order of a few minutes, if that. Then I went to sleep and had a nice sleep in.

I woke up and had breakfast, and opened up a few presents with a housemate. I'm currently watching (listening) to one of the DVDs I got. Three family members gave me cash. I also got a watch with a waving chairman Mao, a shirt with the Turkish flag on it (my aunt went to Turkey a few months ago), and a chairman Mao satchel.

My uncle came over for lunch. It was ok, we talked about stuff. He brought some prawns with him, and I tried one. For a long time I've avoided prawns, in earlier years going to extremes to avoid them. It was nowhere near as bad as what I recalled, but not anything wonderful. They won't be added to my favorite food list, but I may not outright refuse things including them in the future.

Once again, Christmas was spent partly with housemates and my uncle came over. When I was young, most of my family would gather at either our house or my grandmother's house for Christmas. As time has gone by, less gathering has gone by. Last year was the first time when no more than two family members were in the one area. My sister is in Thailand, my aunt in Western Australia. Mum is near Townsville, and my grandmother lives south of Cairns. That leaves me and my uncle in Brisbane.

While I'm generally not keen on family gatherings, Christmas is the one time I do miss that type of gathering. I'm not sure why.

End Post
writing time: 34 minutes

Sydney goes to Hell

Sunday was the start of some of the most fucked up shit I've seen go down in Australia. A crowd of 5000 people got together and thought it was a good idea to go around bashing people whose family background is from the middle east. And then when the police and ambulance service tried to help out those unfortunate people, the crowd decided to start throwing bottles and stuff at them as well.

Things have continued in a similar fashion, with people shooting cars parked outside a church Christmas event, groups on both sides planning on big fights, drive by assaults, and it seems to be spreading.

This is not cool.

In fact, until it happened, I'd have thought this sort of large scale stupidity wouldn't have happened in Australia. I sure as hell am not going to have anything to do with continuing it. I just hope this settles down quicker than Paris did.

End Post
writing time: 36 minutes
time since last post: 11 days

Musings on Wikipedia

I got a story posted on slashdot yesterday. A former aide to Robert Kennedy kicked up a bit of a fuss about his entry on wikipedia being likely false and possibly libelous. Despite the fact that as soon as he pointed it out wikipedia fixed it up, he decided to go on a rant about how vandals and idiots these days can spread their nuisance around more, and that internet providers and websites should be made responsible for preventing this sort of thing happening. In a bit of irony, he is associated with the center for the first ammendment. His entry is now a lot more than two sentences and a lot more researched.

I noticed the story when I checked out wikipedia the other day, and it was the first time I submitted a story to slashdot, so I was pretty happy when I saw it up on the main page.

I've spent a fair amount of time reading wikipedia, having killed a lot of time going through the kings and queens of England, presidents of the US, Australian and British prime ministers, and Popes, along with more random browsing. I have also made some contributions, mainly in a few specific areas I'm interested in, as well as some general fix up work as well. The list of articles I've contributed to include comic books, movies, a pope or two, novels, and cds. I've created most of the content on wikipedia relating to Velvet Chain, a very good band I enjoy, as well as adding info to topics I know a bit about.

Wikipedia matches my ideal of how infomation should be available. Anyone can get access to it, and everyone can contribute back. The system has a few problems where errors in obscure areas doesn't get fixed quickly, but I have found it to be a very good reference for expanding my general knowledge.

End post
writing time: 25 minutes

What to write about this time

Work still sucks. The roster for December was given out on Monday. I get two days off during weekends this time round, Christmas and new years day. The two days that the place won't be open for business. But I have volunteered to work on Boxing Day, as they are offering 13.5 hours worth of pay for 5.5 hours worth of work.

I'm currently painting up a fancy tank for one of my warhammer armies. If I had thought ahead, I wouldn't have put the whole thing together before painting it, as some of the parts are very tricky to reach now that the tank is fully assembled. Anyway, progress is being made, slowly but surely.

My housemate has broken her leg, and is getting around on crutches.

I bought season one of Farscape last week, and have got through to the last episode at the moment. I enjoyed it when I first watched it and it's still good this time round. If they're still at half price I may pick up some further seasons in the coming weeks.

I saw a movie today in Gold class. I had a voucher for a free upgrade, and while the chairs were nice, as was having my drink brought in for me as the movie started, and there was little noise from others (there were only 30 seats), I don't think the full price is something I'd pay.

Well, that's a bit of prattle about nothing too significant, and I've kept it to less than two weeks between posts.

End post
writing time: 2 hours 20 minutes

Learning opportunity for France

It looks as though the riots in Paris are continuing, but are beginning to settle down. I'm still amazed at just how messed up things have gotten, and how wide spread (7 other countries have had related incidents) it has become. But the thing that really surprises me is just how little attention it seems to be getting in the rest of the world. It barely rates a mention on the two main Australian new websites (news.com.au and the Australian). CNN doesnt seem to think it should be on the front page of their site, nor do reuters.

This is something big. It is more important than the trial of some model foolish enough to have drugs in a foreign country with harsher drug laws than our own. It's more significant than some guy going through Princess Mary's trash for photos. This is 12 days of rioting in one of the worlds major cities, that has spread throughout the country and the continent.

The fact that this much violence has erupted shows that there were problems that needed addressing that weren't. And while that may explain the violence, it doesn't condone it. I would advocate as rapid a resolution as possible to the actual violence, followed by a serious look at the causes and fixing them.

I hope that the French people and the French government are sensible in the aftermath. This should not be used to make a more authoritarian government. The American goverment used the aftermath of September 11 to strengthen the goverments powers at the expense of the rights of the people. France I hope will be wiser, and will learn from this.

Anyway, heres hoping it finishes soon and France comes out a better country for it afterwards. While this is not a good thing, if nothing comes of it, it will just be a waste, and probably only a prequal.

End Post
writing time: 3 hours 4 minutes (including heading down to the shops, having dinner and watching some tv)

Six

Someone brought all the other bins in last night. I'm not sure who, but someone did it at about midnight last night. So I guess I won't get to feel the self righteousness of having brought them all in.

Damn

End post
writing time: 1 hour 26 minutes (I got distracted)

Two

I brought the second bin in this evening.

Works shitting me. Last week I asked for the weekend of the 19th and 20th of November off as my family is planning a surprise birthday party for my grandmother, who turned 70 earlier this year. Now work is telling me that even though they haven't done rosters for that week, or indeed for anything past next Thursday, because that's going to be the busiest weekend in November, their having a really hard time being able to give me the weekend off. It's not like I've only had one weekend since May where I haven't worked both Saturday and Sunday. It's not like I'm one of only two or three out of 10 people in my team who had their average call time at less than the expected 250 seconds. It's not like I've turned up to every single shift I've been rostered on for and have never taken any sick leave (not that I'd get paid if I did). It's not like I let them change shifts that were organised almost a month ago with two or three days notice. It's not like I've applied for a permanent position three times, and been told, you can do the job, but your attitude towards the job isn't what we'd like it to be. Is one weekend that much to ask? I'll tell you what, my attitude towards the job won't be all that crash hot if the expect me to work that weekend.

I wonder if now is a good time to ask my team leader if I can use her as a reference?

End Post (Rant)
writing time: 27 minutes

One

Last night I put out all the bins for our place for weekly collection.
Tonight I brought the first of them in.
We'll see how many I have to bring in.

End post
writing time: 1 minute

Too soon to come up with something

Well, a mere one day after the last time I put something here, I'm typing again. Unfortunately I can't really think of anything to write about.

Let's see. Iraq ratified it's new constitution, paving the way for elections at the end of the year. Quite frankly, the sooner things get set up and Iraq can be run by Iraq the better. I don't believe the reason Iraq was invaded were legitimate, and since then things have not been handled well, and I think overall things would have been better if it had never happened. But given that it has, I feel we have to make sure that things won't go to crap once we leave. We fucked things up, so we have to make sure things are put back, hopefully we make it a bit better than it was before, but we should get the hell out as soon as is responisble. Pity the people in charge won't do that.

Apparently there is rioting happening in Paris. I'll admit I don't pay much attention to the news, but rioting in one of the most well known cities in the world should surely get some airtime.

There was an article on slashdot about how copy protected cds from Sony makes several changes to your computer, which make it more vulnerable to others trying to do the same, and that unless you really know what your doing, can mess up your computer if you try and get rid of it. The DRM prevents you from seeing any files with a certain name, and also installs drivers that sit between your cd drive and the operating system, so that any time you use a cd, it goes through their program. And if you get rid of it without being careful, it'll mess up your computer so you can't use your cd drives. When they start messing up your computer that much, and putting in jeopardy your ability to use your own computer, that's going to far.

End post
Writing time: 1 hour

iTunes not so impressive

So, Apple started iTunes store in Australia this week, and since I've already got an ipod and use iTunes to play my music, so I shelled out for a pre paid card and had a play. In terms of convenience it's on a par with other means of downloading music, and I'll probably check in once a week to see what the free song is. But I wont be spending any more money on it. Where it's less useful than other sources I use is in finding new stuff. When I don't have to pay, I'm much more likely to experiment and try something just because it's there and I can, but at $1.69 a song, it's not all that practical or affordable.

I've also tried using it to find new podcasts, but again other methods are more fruitful. Word of mouth is the main one I use, seeing what other podcasters recommend. What iTunes lacks is a sorting mechanism. One big long list with only a few broad categories doesn't help out a lot in deciding if I want to listen to something or not.

So, I'll stick with iTunes to manage my iPod, and play music, but once the credit I've already bought is used up, I'll let it be.

End Post
Writing time: 10 minutes

Drats

Once again I've left it a few weeks since I last put anything up here. So what's been going on in my world.

A few days ago I had a monthly review meeting with my team leader at work. One of the things discussed was if I wanted to apply for the latest round of permanent recruitment. It's very frustrating because she was saying things like my performance speaks for itself, when the facts of the matter clearly show that while my performance may speak for itself, that's not the thing their listening to.

Next weekend I won't be working. Since I went back to work after my overseas trip, I have worked every Saturday and Sunday since the middle of May. The only downside is I left it too late to enter the event I was planning on going to on that weekend. A few of my friends who were also going to go are in the same boat, so we're going to have our own mini event somewhere else, so I'll still have something to do.

Now for a bit of a rant. A while ago on a current affairs show there was a story about people protesting a meeting of white supremists. The thing I found worst about the whole thing was how the people protesting were saying that the people at the meeting had no right to say the things they were saying. This is not right. Freedom of speech is not conditional. It's not just for those who agree with what you think. Anyone who has an opinion can state their opinion. What they can't do is force that opinion on others. So while I don't agree with the white supremists, I'm not going to stop them speaking about what they want to speak about. I don't know who said it, but the phrase "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it with my life" is close to the right attitude. Add in something about listening and judging what people say on the merits of what they say and not who they is probably another good thing. For example Nathan Bedford Forrest was a pretty good military leader, and has likely said some useful things in the area of military tactics, and should not be dismissed just because he's the founder of the KKK. His ideas on racial harmony, though I probably wouldn't give as much credence. Anyway, in conclusion, it pisses me off when people who are for mulitculturalism and the freedom to be who you want to be say that people who disagree with them have no right to say what they want to say. If your free to be a diverse, accepting person, they're free to be narrowminded. You don't have to agree with them or like them for it, and surely don't take any bullshit from them, but they're allowed to have their say.

Before this year, I never really managed to save any money. Now admittedly during my undergrad years I didn't really get that much in the first place ($350 a fortnight isn't all that much, especially when you $250 a fortnight board), but a few bonus bits of cash that came through got put aside and then gradually drawn from over time. Over the past few months, I've managed to put a lot more aside. When I got back from Thailand, I had about $700 or so cash to my name. Since then I've been able to save about a third of what I actually earn, with no real cut backs in other expenditure. I've been able to do this because compared to last year where I didn't save anything, I'm paying less rent and I'm earning about 50% more, while still having a similar lifestyle. Putting it like that it doesn't seem so remarkable, but I now have a lot of money that is just sitting there. This is a new thing for me. A few months ago I upgraded my computer, and bought a new chair (an arm rest on the old one came of, and as it was reasonably important in terms of structural integrity, that chair was laid to rest), but that's about it. I'm now considering buying a new bookcase, as my current one is so full that each shelf has two rows of books on it and then books on top of the books filling the gaps between shelves. I'm also giving a bit of thought to acquiring a motorbike, but there is the little matter of getting a motorbike license before that can go ahead.

No news yet on the Iraqi referendum on the new constitution. Saddam is on trial for the first of several cases, this one seems rather minor, but is pretty clear cut, so is probably a good starting point from a procedural sense.

I'm going to try and go to a play during the next week, Interesting Times. It's an adaption of a Terry Pratchett novel put on by the Brisbane Arts Theatre, who do a Terry Pratchett play each year. I've enjoyed the previous shows they've done, so it's just a matter of making sure I get a ticket.

That's all for now, I'll try and do a new post by the 30th of October, 2005 (being overly precise means I can't do any wriggling out of things).

End post
writing time: 1 hour, 1 minute

Another long pause

Again I've let it go a few weeks without writing anything, so I'll put in a few things that have been on my mind.

First, one of my friends recently broke up with his long time girlfriend. He then proceeded to get quite drunk and then come to my place. It was a bit awkward as I really don't know what to do or how to help out in that kind of situation other than trying to make sure he didn't do anything to foolhardy. We did talk a lot, more so as he started to sober up. Romance is still a mostly closed book to me, and I think if I had more experience in the area I would have been able to help him more.

Daylight savings has started, so even though Queensland doesn't have it, because the place I work takes calls from all over Australia I've started getting shifts that start at 7:30 in the morning. This means I have to wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 which isn't really fun.

I recently noticed a comment that wasn't spam. I initially thought it was as it said something I thought was stupid, but I checked the facts and it turns out that I had assumed two different individuals were the one person. Anyway I learnt something, and it shows someone is reading this so that's two good things.

I've recently finished playing Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (I know the double colon doesn't look the best, but that's what the game is called). It's a pretty good game, the story is intriguing. There are a number of different styles of play, depending on what aspects of the character you focus on. The first time I played, I was a sneaky fighter type, and most things weren't too difficult. This time I'm playing as a magic user and trying to concentrate on ranged combat, but it's not working too well. There are too many places where the way forward is to just lay the smack down, and if I invest experience in the areas to make that ok, it won't leave enough to specialize as much as I would want to.

Anyway, I thought I had more to say, but it would appear I don't, so this will be it for now.

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writing time: 26 minutes

Many Thoughts

I got really pissed off with the place I work at the other day. I'm currently working as a temp and recently there was some recruitment for permanent positions. I put in an application, and got an interview. That part I kind of expected as this is the third time I've gone through the process. And again I went through the interview and again they said no. The bit that really got me peeved though is why they wouldn't give me a permanent job. Basically they said I sucked in the interview. There's no problem with the way I do the job, no doubts if I can do it or not, just I didn't answer their silly human resource type questions well, and that was so more important than actually being able to do the job.

On a different note I was talking with a few people I know and somehow the topic of abortion came up, and was rather abruptly stopped when one of the girls there came out with the idea that men had absolutely no say in the matter. She also put forth the proposition that if you eat meat, you can't be against abortion. I think each of these positions is wrong. The first because preventing a great number of people having a say just because the procedure won't be done on them is silly. I don't think anyone would try and claim no woman should have a say on issues relating to vasectomies. Any issue needs to be discussed by people, and even people not directly involved are able to contribute. And this doesn't just apply to general principles. If I were to be in the unlikely situation where my actions had put a woman in the position considering an abortion, I would like to be consulted, and would be offended if she went ahead and did it without discussing it with me.

The thing about eating meat and opposing abortion being morally inconsistent, well that's just taking two completely separate matters and trying to force them together in a way that does not gel. Abortion and the way animals raised for food are treated are both serious issues, but the killing of an animal for meat is a very different thing to an abortion. The claim that killing a cow is worse than terminating a fetus is not going to hold water with everyone, indeed I think most people would disagree with the idea.

At this point I'd like to mention that I'm not against abortion, but I'm not for it. It's a complicated issue. The main thing to try and work out is when does the fetus become a human. Find a way to get everyone to agree on that, and they'd probably agree on a position on abortion. But people don't. People who oppose abortion tend to be those who say once sperm meets egg you've got a human, whose life should be protected. On the other end there are people who consider that you don't get a human until you reach a certain point in the development process, and until that point is reached, it's just a thing inside a woman, and see no problem in preventing it's continued existence. I lean towards the latter position, but have yet to make a decision on the transition from thing to human. It's not conception, it's not birth. It's after cells start differentiating. Also, I don't really know enough about the process to make a fully informed call.

The main problem I had with both of my friends claims is that they were quite extreme, and she wasn't open to any discussion on the matter, let alone the underlying ideas that led her to those positions. And as I've mentioned before, it's that type of extremism and inconsideration of other people's perspectives that lead to problems.

In recent news New Zealand had an election last weekend, and the reasonable sounding labor party looks to have continued is position as a dominant player in a coalition government. In reading up on the events surrounding the election, I find I agree with most of what they aim to do (the nuclear free policy is the main one I disagree with), so I think that it's a good result, especially as they need to work with a few of the minor parties to get a majority. All in all, the kind of result I'd like to see over here.

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Writing Time: 2 hours

A pleasant meeting

The other day I saw Kylie on the bus. We had a little bit of a chat, and then went our separate ways. The unusual thing was I didn't go away afterwards feeling unhappy, bitter or in anyway messed up about the experience. Perhaps its a sign I'm actually moved on.

Speaking of moving on, Danielle doesn't seem to be able to do so. Since I turned her down, she's had two bad relationships, stopped going to uni, moved out of home, had a job, quit a job, moved in with some junkies, moved back into home, got another job, quit another job and so on and so forth. And often when we discuss her current situation the phrase "It's all because you turned me down" comes up. The first bad relationship was a rebound, and the second was a rebound because of the 1st, and so on and so forth.

Now I know the way I handled things back then wasn't the best way to do so, and have since apologized for it. But it annoys me to be blamed for the everything that goes wrong for her. A lot of the stuff since then has been due to either herself or others, and I hardly think it's fair to keep blaming me for it.

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Writing time: 48 minutes

I got spammed

The other day I was having a look at this blog, and I noticed that one of the posts had a comment on it. Previous comments had been made by my sister, but after a few of those I decided I didn't want people I knew reading the stuff I put up here. And so I changed the url, and didn't let anyone know (an earlier post discusses this further).

So I was initialy pleasantly surprised by the comment. It suggested that someone had read what I'd written, and thought it worthwhile to respond. And then I read the comment, which had nothing to do with what I'd written but plenty to do with the wonderful features of some obscure make of car. It was spam.

I've deleted the said comment, as it doesn't contribute anything, and keeping it would just encourage that sort of pissantness to continue.

Spams an annoying thing that has developed on the internet. First on BBSs, then email, and later websites, forums and blogs. Soon there will probably be podcast spam. And the vast volume of it continues simply because people make money from it. Sending emails is cheap, and if only one in ten thousand end up buying something, the spammer is still getting back a lot more than they pay in sending the spam.

Given human nature and the lucrative nature of spamming, technical measures to prevent spam will never completely succeed. Now admitedly mail filters now seem to work pretty well, and my gmail inbox hasn't had a spam in quite some time, but the spam folder is pretty full. The way to stop spam is to take away their money, which is what their in it for. All spam is selling stuff, and they accept payment by credit card.

So who are the people able to shut down spam once and for all. Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, American Express. The credit card companies. Stop letting spammers get payments by credit card, and they will shrivel up and die. If they can't make money, they'll find something else to do with their time. I've seen one propsal where credit card companies set up a few spam detecting card numbers, and let people use those to make purchases from spam they recieve. Then when the spammers try and claim the money for the sale, they know exactly who's spamming the masses and can tell them to get lost. Unfortunately, I suspect that credit card companies enjoy their share of credit card purchases from spam too much to take such drastic measures.

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Writing time: 17 minutes

The title goes here

A few weeks ago I had dinner with my uncle and grandmother. And while I was there we were watching the news and there was a bit about how Italy was bringing in laws making it illegal to cover your face in public. I was a bit outraged and was all sort of, 'that's very uncool, we shouldn't be restricting peoples rights for non-existent gains in security'. And then my grandmother said that people shouldn't cover their faces in this climate of terror, and generally coming down on the side of paranoia.

This is the first time I've ever really taken a greatly different political position with another family member. Admittedly I haven't really spoken all that much politics with the generations before me, but they've always given the impression of moderation and reasonableness. Now I'm left to wonder what else do we disagree on.

My politics aren't very rigorously defined, but ultimately they come down to the side of personal liberty and social responsibility. Let people be free to do as they will, but ensure they don't get screwed over by others. I think corporations have too much power, or more accurately are too unconstrained, and that essential services such as health and education are at the moment not sufficiently funded. I also have a strong dislike of extremism. By that I mean taking things too far. Everything becomes dangerous if taken to an extreme. There's a book I've read called Jennifer Government, where corpratism is taken to an extreme, and society as whole has become much more dysfunctional. Perhaps the problem with extreme solutions is that they only work when things are very black and white, whereas the world is a large spectrum of grays.

When it comes to politicians, I think the first principle to apply is one that doctors live by, first, do no harm. The world today is a complicated place, and lots of stuff happens all the time, some good, some bad. Not adding more to the bad pile is a good place to start. That's why I think the state premier isn't too bad, because he hasn't gone around doing stuff making things worse for people. The prime minister however, has brought in a whole load of bad things. The messed up treatment of refugees, the complete and utter willingness to go along with anything America proposes (I'm not saying everything America proposes is good or bad (but recent stuff hasn't really been to our advantage), it's the going along without any real consideration or consultation that isn't good), the changes to higher education, the war on terror bullshit, and other messed up stuff.

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A lot of talking

I recently had a very long talk with a friend about past romances, hers and mine. Overall neither of us have had much success. It was an interesting experience talking about such things, as I don't really open up all that much. It confirmed some conclusions I'd already come to, namely that next time some sort of romantic interest develops a middle path should be followed. The first time I messed something up, it was by going to far to one extreme, and the next time I went too far the other way. Next time I will attempt a more balanced approach.

Another thing that came up was that my friend thinks I'm paranoid. A combination of bitterness and cynicism which I'll happily admit to may work together to produce some mild paranoia, but I'd never thought of myself as such. But then a few days later I did an online quiz about what do you think the right thing to do in various circumstances and I got a fair few wrong because I chose answers that were too uncompromising, so perhaps there is some claim to the statement.

Work is ok at the moment, but I got a bit depressed the other day when it turned out I got the best results for call quality in my team. It wouldn't have been quite so bad except for that month a bit of a competition was going with the winner getting some dodgy cap celebrating the introduction of call recording, so an email went around boldly proclaiming the fact. Now don't get me wrong, I don't intend to do a half assed job, but I really wasn't planning on becoming exceptionally good at the job. The other worrying aspect of things is that all the things I got bonus marks for was me going through short cuts to save some hassles with the person on the other end of the phone. At least it should mean they'll be a bit lenient about the fact I didn't meet the required average call length for the month, although I think that because I got put on the newbie kpis, this month I might actually be a bit under the official number, but I've been trying to meet the standard one, which is 20 seconds less than the one I think I'm on, but I ended up being about 10 seconds over.

Today is also the end of an era. This evening I will be upgrading my computer, which will effectively be a replacement of my current one. Although it will still be in the same case, the only component that came with it from the store when I bought it is a cd burner. Today I'm changing the motherboard, ram, cpu, graphics card, one hard drive and a dvd burner for a cd burner. The new cd burner is going because its stopped opening and closing properly, and seems intent on ruining cds that are put inside it, so it's going. The original hard drive died a few years back, and the current sound card and network card are being replaced by onboard versions.

This will be the fourth computer I've had. The first was an apple IIc that Mum bought a year or two before I began school, on which I learnt to program. Many years later that was replaced with a brand spanking new pentium 100, which was good for it's time. I'm still actually using the harddrive from the pentium 100, just as a temp directory because it's a whopping 1.6GB in size. That came with me down to uni, but was replaced in the middle of second year for my current computer, which is a pentium III 800. And tonight I will gut that machine, and like a phoenix it will be reborn, bigger and better than before (all going well of course).

End Post
Write time: 40 minutes

Pride in achievements

To the left is one of my more recent painting efforts, although it is about two months old at the moment. Last week I entered the model in a painting competition at the local games store. I doubt it will win, but the whole showing off aspect of putting in an entry to such a competition appeals to me. I've previously got a best painted at a competition, which was a bit of a surprise, but given that there were only six people in the tournament, and three of them had not fully painted their army, so it wasn't that much of an achievement, but I was pretty stoked by that.

My approach to painting has also changed over time. It started out as a very methodical, production line type activity, which is ok when your just starting as you have a large number of very similar models to paint. But now I tend to get more satisfaction out of doing the more unique members of the army and taking a lot of time and care with them. I also use a lot more colors now. My first few models were done with only about 8 or so colors. Now I have about 30 or so different colors, and doing mixing and stuff as well, so get a lot finer detail.

I had to call up one of my banks today, and the hold music there is so much better than the stuff at the place I work. It was some nice jazz type music, without any interruptions. At the place I work the hold music is a trashy bit of pop music that repeats and is constanly interrupted by someone saying either that someone will answer soon or trying to sell other ways to get into debt with us. It really starts to grate if you have to listen to it for too long.

I think I'm coming up with a list of things that if I ever start a business I'm going to make sure aren't done. These are just the petty things which just work to make it less pleasant for people to deal with. I'd make sure that different groups that had to interact all had an idea of what the other groups did, and who was responsible for what. I wouldn't skimp and provide single ply toilet paper. But no matter what, stupid people will still cause problems, so I don't know what I'd do to help with that. Hold music is one of the things that for very little effort can be so much less annoying.

Anyway, that's it for now.

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Writing time: 3 hours (including tv watching and dinner eating)

The Invitation

I got an invitation the other day to an engagement party. The invitation was from Kylie, someone I once thought I cared a lot about. However things were not seen the same way by both parties, and so I got to experience heartbreak for the first time. Since then I've tried to move on. A few months after things didn't work out I went to a party which she attended with her boyfriend. I did not handle it well, and ended up not talking for about a week. I scared my grandmother into thinking I might be on drugs or something. A month or so after that while catching a train, I came to the realization I could keep being unhappy about it, or just say fuck it, and get on with my life. I've generally tried to do so since then, but every now and then, something happens that makes me feel morose again. Like being invited to the housewarming party when she moved in with the other guy. And now being invited to the engagement party.

At least this time I responded to the invitation. When I got the invitation to the hosewarming party I just said fuck to myself and ignored it.

The fallout from my first attempt at romance is still sort of hanging around. While we used to be good friends I haven't spoken to her more than once or twice in the past two years. I've avoided romance for most of the time since then, thoroughly rebuking those who have made advances toward me. And though I've sorted of started to change my position on the matter, to the point that if someone were to make some sort of advance, I wouldn't reject it outright but go with it. But I'm still not actively looking.

I don't think I'm going to go to the engagement party. While I'd like to be able to say I wish them all the best, a long and happy life and all that and actually mean it, I can't. Or at least not in a specifc them sense. In an abstract, they're people and so as people deserve the best they can get out of life, sure. But not in the specifc them sense.

And so I sit here, typing but not entirely happy with the way things are.

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writing time: 44 minutes