In my current workplace, most of the people I am dealing with have a Blackberry. I have a mobile phone that went out of production 3 or 4 years ago.
I had a Blackberry at one stage, and had it for over a year. I barely used it - couldn't see the point of it. If one is organised, and has a team trained to take over your responsibilities when you are not around, then there is no need to be contactable 24 hours a day. The Blackberry is an unfortunate symbol of managers who are disorganised and unable to delegate or give their staff some latitude when it comes to decision making.
It's something I will look at when interviewing people in future. Have they polished their shoes? Are they nervously fingering their Blackberry? I don't care if the shoes are scuffed, but if they have a Blackberry, they ain't getting the job.
Monday, 12 November 2007
Pack of pain
A story yesterday about the Army's useless backpacks.
I thought the were useless back in 1985, which is why I bought an ALICE pack as soon as I could afford one. There may be better packs on the market these days, but back then, they were the duck's nuts. Everyone that wanted to make a statement about being a serious infantryman had one.
I also bought my own boots, at considerable expense, and outlayed a lot of money on a good waterproof coat. The Army used to issue these paper thin useless bits of plastic that wouldn't save you from getting wet whilst doing the washing up. Again, those of us that were serious about our comfort invested in a Japara. Back then, it was cutting edge in terms of using Gore-tex and all that sort of stuff.
We also bought out own knives, better mess tins and webbing. At the time, the Army was still using WWII type webbing with eyelets and hooks. It was pretty useless. There was a place in Perth that made up webbing using the same stuff as seat belts with a good clasp at the front, and many of us invested in that. They also sold padded shoulder straps, which were essential for carrying heavy loads. Camel-baks were also privately purchased when they hit the market.
Soldiers have always been buying their own kit. The Army provides you with stuff that is serviceable but nothing more. The Army sleeping bags were a joke. I bought one that was lightweight and good down to about minus 2 degrees. Others bought good quality thermal underwear (something I should have bought) and good quality socks. Leatherman tools were also popular amongst those that could afford them.
I see nothing has changed, except for the belief by some soldiers these days that they should have every whim catered to. Well, that would be nice, but no one ever stopped us from fielding our own kit. So long as it didn't look wildly out of place, no one objected to anything we carried once we were out in the field.
These idiots with sore backs simply need to be directed to the nearest quality camping store that also caters to military types. There are heaps of them on the internet. If you want good gear, get it yourself.
I thought the were useless back in 1985, which is why I bought an ALICE pack as soon as I could afford one. There may be better packs on the market these days, but back then, they were the duck's nuts. Everyone that wanted to make a statement about being a serious infantryman had one.
I also bought my own boots, at considerable expense, and outlayed a lot of money on a good waterproof coat. The Army used to issue these paper thin useless bits of plastic that wouldn't save you from getting wet whilst doing the washing up. Again, those of us that were serious about our comfort invested in a Japara. Back then, it was cutting edge in terms of using Gore-tex and all that sort of stuff.
We also bought out own knives, better mess tins and webbing. At the time, the Army was still using WWII type webbing with eyelets and hooks. It was pretty useless. There was a place in Perth that made up webbing using the same stuff as seat belts with a good clasp at the front, and many of us invested in that. They also sold padded shoulder straps, which were essential for carrying heavy loads. Camel-baks were also privately purchased when they hit the market.
Soldiers have always been buying their own kit. The Army provides you with stuff that is serviceable but nothing more. The Army sleeping bags were a joke. I bought one that was lightweight and good down to about minus 2 degrees. Others bought good quality thermal underwear (something I should have bought) and good quality socks. Leatherman tools were also popular amongst those that could afford them.
I see nothing has changed, except for the belief by some soldiers these days that they should have every whim catered to. Well, that would be nice, but no one ever stopped us from fielding our own kit. So long as it didn't look wildly out of place, no one objected to anything we carried once we were out in the field.
These idiots with sore backs simply need to be directed to the nearest quality camping store that also caters to military types. There are heaps of them on the internet. If you want good gear, get it yourself.
Sunday, 11 November 2007
Parramatta is a urinal
Don't take my word for it. Just go out there and observe how the locals behave.
I have been to Paramatta twice this year by car. On both occasions, I have witnessed people pissing in public.
The first time was when I pulled up at a set of lights. A bloke jumped out of the car in front and proceeded to wee all over the road. The lights changed, he kept on pissing, and I just sat there quietly and waited for it to be over. No sense in trying to take on the four drunks in that car.
It's not like it was a quiet back street. It was a major intersection with 3 lanes or more in each direction.
Today, I stopped at another set of lights outside the Albion Hotel. Two young boys were standing at the fence with their pants down, having a piss into the garden surrounding the hotel. Just as the lights changed, Mum busted them.
I laughed all the way home.
And people wonder why houses around here cost a lot more than houses out there. It's because people will pay huge amounts of money and go into debt up to their eyelids to stay the hell away from people like that.
I have been to Paramatta twice this year by car. On both occasions, I have witnessed people pissing in public.
The first time was when I pulled up at a set of lights. A bloke jumped out of the car in front and proceeded to wee all over the road. The lights changed, he kept on pissing, and I just sat there quietly and waited for it to be over. No sense in trying to take on the four drunks in that car.
It's not like it was a quiet back street. It was a major intersection with 3 lanes or more in each direction.
Today, I stopped at another set of lights outside the Albion Hotel. Two young boys were standing at the fence with their pants down, having a piss into the garden surrounding the hotel. Just as the lights changed, Mum busted them.
I laughed all the way home.
And people wonder why houses around here cost a lot more than houses out there. It's because people will pay huge amounts of money and go into debt up to their eyelids to stay the hell away from people like that.
So much for "lions for lambs"
I have been watching the lavish marketing campaign on TV for "Lions for lambs" for at least a week now, and for the life of me, I can't fathom what this movie is supposed to be about at all. I don't know who cut this trailer together, but they need to be sent back to film school with their diploma shoved up their arse.
I have watched the trailer again and again on TV. I have watched it on the interweb. I have tried reading some of the promotional material on the interweb thingy and still can't make head nor tail of it.
In short, I am as confused as buggery. What is this movie about?
Thank goodness for Google. I happened upon a review today (a scathing review at that) and decided to Google it. I have never had to Google a film before to find out what it is about. There is a DVD rental machine at our local supermarket, and it has a big TV screen on top that shows an endless series of shorts for its contents. I have watched dozens of shorts on that screen, and often they are only 15 seconds long. And they are silent. And I have walked away with a pretty firm idea of what those movies are about.
But I have watched the "Lions" trailers again and again - in full surround sound - and still been none the wiser.
Having read half a dozen reviews, I think it can be summarised as a three part bag of wind starring three people that nobody cares about anymore. They might have made interesting movies back in the stone ages, but the Cabbage Patch doll was all the rage once as well. I have more interest in going out into the backyard and salting slugs than I do in watching Redford, Streeeep and Cruise.
The only interesting thing is the reviews. The Australian reviews in papers like the Age were generally positive, whilst the overseas reviews generally seemed to call it a boring bucket of shite.
All I can say now is that after reading 10 or so reviews, I think I finally have a grip on what this movie is about. It's no wonder the trailer is so confused and disjointed and unwatchable. I get the feeling the movie is just more of the same.
A movie has to give you something. You pay your money - anywhere from $3 to rent a DVD from our supermarket to $13 to see it at a cinema, and you expect something back for that. You want to buy 90 minutes of laughter or fantasy or action, and you want the maximum return for your money.
What does "Lions" give you? If you are wet, fishy type of person, I guess it gives you a belly full of smug, self-satisfaction. An ego bulging with moral superiority.
I think it would just give me a dose of the shits.
I have one good thing to say about it. At least it was funded by people who put their money where their mouth is. If this was made over here, the poor deluded tax payer would have be paying for this bucket of tripe. Even if it is shite, it is privately funded, privately made shite. That to me says a lot of good things about America, although it will probably piss the producers off no end to hear me say that.
PS - what really ticks me off about the trailers is that they spend 50% of their time telling us that two of the actors have won an Academy Award and one has been nominated.
So what? Just because someone made a good movie years ago doesn't mean that they have made a good movie today. It's irrelvent. It's like saying that past stock market performance is an indicator of future performance. It's meaningless, and it is so pretentious, it gets right up my nose. A film is the product of many people - carpenters, cinematographers, lighting people, stunt men, writers, directors, editors, sound, music etc etc. To say that all it takes is one person to do a good job to make a film great is just ridiculous. Many people have to do a great job, or the whole lot is garbage. In fact all it takes is one person to screw up, and the whole lot falls over. No one person can make a great film, but one person can ruin it.
Maybe awards should be given to the fuckwits that ruin great films - assuming they can be singled out and identified.
I have watched the trailer again and again on TV. I have watched it on the interweb. I have tried reading some of the promotional material on the interweb thingy and still can't make head nor tail of it.
In short, I am as confused as buggery. What is this movie about?
Thank goodness for Google. I happened upon a review today (a scathing review at that) and decided to Google it. I have never had to Google a film before to find out what it is about. There is a DVD rental machine at our local supermarket, and it has a big TV screen on top that shows an endless series of shorts for its contents. I have watched dozens of shorts on that screen, and often they are only 15 seconds long. And they are silent. And I have walked away with a pretty firm idea of what those movies are about.
But I have watched the "Lions" trailers again and again - in full surround sound - and still been none the wiser.
Having read half a dozen reviews, I think it can be summarised as a three part bag of wind starring three people that nobody cares about anymore. They might have made interesting movies back in the stone ages, but the Cabbage Patch doll was all the rage once as well. I have more interest in going out into the backyard and salting slugs than I do in watching Redford, Streeeep and Cruise.
The only interesting thing is the reviews. The Australian reviews in papers like the Age were generally positive, whilst the overseas reviews generally seemed to call it a boring bucket of shite.
All I can say now is that after reading 10 or so reviews, I think I finally have a grip on what this movie is about. It's no wonder the trailer is so confused and disjointed and unwatchable. I get the feeling the movie is just more of the same.
A movie has to give you something. You pay your money - anywhere from $3 to rent a DVD from our supermarket to $13 to see it at a cinema, and you expect something back for that. You want to buy 90 minutes of laughter or fantasy or action, and you want the maximum return for your money.
What does "Lions" give you? If you are wet, fishy type of person, I guess it gives you a belly full of smug, self-satisfaction. An ego bulging with moral superiority.
I think it would just give me a dose of the shits.
I have one good thing to say about it. At least it was funded by people who put their money where their mouth is. If this was made over here, the poor deluded tax payer would have be paying for this bucket of tripe. Even if it is shite, it is privately funded, privately made shite. That to me says a lot of good things about America, although it will probably piss the producers off no end to hear me say that.
PS - what really ticks me off about the trailers is that they spend 50% of their time telling us that two of the actors have won an Academy Award and one has been nominated.
So what? Just because someone made a good movie years ago doesn't mean that they have made a good movie today. It's irrelvent. It's like saying that past stock market performance is an indicator of future performance. It's meaningless, and it is so pretentious, it gets right up my nose. A film is the product of many people - carpenters, cinematographers, lighting people, stunt men, writers, directors, editors, sound, music etc etc. To say that all it takes is one person to do a good job to make a film great is just ridiculous. Many people have to do a great job, or the whole lot is garbage. In fact all it takes is one person to screw up, and the whole lot falls over. No one person can make a great film, but one person can ruin it.
Maybe awards should be given to the fuckwits that ruin great films - assuming they can be singled out and identified.
DVD vs hard disk - no contest
Do you care about Blu-Ray vs whatever the other standard is? I don't. I doubt I will ever own a Blu-gay thingy. I never want to see another DVD player ever again. I am a serious convert to the idea of using hard disk to store everything.
Yes, I know, there are problems with relying on disk. They fail. From time to time. Like once in a zillion years. (Touch wood).
But DVD has an even bigger problem - the amount of time it takes from wanting to watch something to being able to actually watch it.
Consider this. I pulled out a DVD for the monkey to watch this morning. A Wiggles movie. To start with, it takes the DVD player about 20 seconds to wake up. Then I press the "open" button, and it whirrs and clunks for another minute while it decides whether to spit out the DVD tray or not. Sometimes it clatters away for a minute, then refuses to do anything. I hit the button again and am rewarded by a tray holding the last DVD we were watching.
Take that out, find the case for it, put new DVD in, close the tray. More whirring and clunking. Sometimes the tray comes out again. Eventually, the player recognises there is a DVD in there, and it proceeds to reading it.
After 30 seconds of reading it, up comes a stack of copyright information in 27 languages, and then an ABC logo, and then another ABC logo, and finally we get to the menu. Except it takes 10 seconds for the menu to load.
Hooray! I can start the DVD!
Whoops, it is not the one the Monkey wanted to watch. Monkey is having a tantrum and smashing up his Thomas train set. So Itry to go through the whole process as rapidly as possible in order to put in the Wiggles movie he wants to watch before the floor is covered in train splinters. Five minutes later, and one destroyed train carriage, he is happily lying on the floor in front of his movie. Lying in a cloud of train splinters. He's lucky he is not lying in a pile of smashed up DVD parts.
The alternative is to fire up PVR, which admitadly takes a while as it boots the OS, hit the menu button, select the movie, and it is playing 1 second later. Don't like that movie? Hit the menu button, select another and it is playing 1 second later.
When the DVD came out, it wiped the floor with the competition because the competition was the even more clunky video tape. The worst thing about video tapes is that the last person to watch it invariably didn't bother to rewind it, so you sat there for 5 minutes whilst the tape rewound. DVD was a great leap forward.
But that is not enough to protect it from an even more convenient technology. Know how many CD's I have listened to this year?
Zero. The whole lot have been ripped, and I hope to never load another CD again, except to rip it. I simply have to buy enough hard disk capacity to hold the DVDs that we watch regularly.
It can't be that long before bandwidth (video on demand) kills the DVD.
Yes, I know, there are problems with relying on disk. They fail. From time to time. Like once in a zillion years. (Touch wood).
But DVD has an even bigger problem - the amount of time it takes from wanting to watch something to being able to actually watch it.
Consider this. I pulled out a DVD for the monkey to watch this morning. A Wiggles movie. To start with, it takes the DVD player about 20 seconds to wake up. Then I press the "open" button, and it whirrs and clunks for another minute while it decides whether to spit out the DVD tray or not. Sometimes it clatters away for a minute, then refuses to do anything. I hit the button again and am rewarded by a tray holding the last DVD we were watching.
Take that out, find the case for it, put new DVD in, close the tray. More whirring and clunking. Sometimes the tray comes out again. Eventually, the player recognises there is a DVD in there, and it proceeds to reading it.
After 30 seconds of reading it, up comes a stack of copyright information in 27 languages, and then an ABC logo, and then another ABC logo, and finally we get to the menu. Except it takes 10 seconds for the menu to load.
Hooray! I can start the DVD!
Whoops, it is not the one the Monkey wanted to watch. Monkey is having a tantrum and smashing up his Thomas train set. So Itry to go through the whole process as rapidly as possible in order to put in the Wiggles movie he wants to watch before the floor is covered in train splinters. Five minutes later, and one destroyed train carriage, he is happily lying on the floor in front of his movie. Lying in a cloud of train splinters. He's lucky he is not lying in a pile of smashed up DVD parts.
The alternative is to fire up PVR, which admitadly takes a while as it boots the OS, hit the menu button, select the movie, and it is playing 1 second later. Don't like that movie? Hit the menu button, select another and it is playing 1 second later.
When the DVD came out, it wiped the floor with the competition because the competition was the even more clunky video tape. The worst thing about video tapes is that the last person to watch it invariably didn't bother to rewind it, so you sat there for 5 minutes whilst the tape rewound. DVD was a great leap forward.
But that is not enough to protect it from an even more convenient technology. Know how many CD's I have listened to this year?
Zero. The whole lot have been ripped, and I hope to never load another CD again, except to rip it. I simply have to buy enough hard disk capacity to hold the DVDs that we watch regularly.
It can't be that long before bandwidth (video on demand) kills the DVD.
Saturday, 10 November 2007
No use asking the Greenies for money
I bumped into one of our local labor party members today. We were walking up the street and chatting about stuff and he gave me a fund raising pamphlet. The idea was that we buy a case of plonk for a good cause.
Which we'll probably do.
The hilarious thing was that as we walked up the road, we stopped at a Green electioneering stand. He had a chat with the greenies, but didn't give them a pamphlet. As we walked away, he said, "No point in giving them one - they never have any money".
On the next corner, there was a Liberal party election stand. He gave the woman staffing that stand a pamphlet. Obviously, capitalists are good when it comes to fund raising.
Which we'll probably do.
The hilarious thing was that as we walked up the road, we stopped at a Green electioneering stand. He had a chat with the greenies, but didn't give them a pamphlet. As we walked away, he said, "No point in giving them one - they never have any money".
On the next corner, there was a Liberal party election stand. He gave the woman staffing that stand a pamphlet. Obviously, capitalists are good when it comes to fund raising.
Star Wars is a dust free environment
Just sat through most of the second episode of Star Wars - the one where the clone war starts at the end.
The main characters land on some sort of desert planet (don't ask me to name it - I am not some sort of Star Wars geek.) The landing of the spaceship throws up no dust at all. None.
Then the scene cuts to people walking down the street, speeders speeding down the street, wierd taxis pulled by odd looking animals etc - and none of them kick up any dust either.
I've worked in a few dry areas, and the one constant is the dust. The dust that gets up your nose, in your eyes, in your lungs, into everything. There's the crust that forms on your eyelids each morning when you wake up. There's the awful taste in your mouth. There's the crap that you are constantly blowing out of your nose - big chunks of dried snot and dust merged into sharp, rock hard lumps.
Every movement of every thing throws up dust. Walking people. Moving animals. Vehicles. The wind. Trees moving in the wind that scrape along the ground.
Evidently, in the future, dust is not a problem anymore.
Mr Sheen will be put out of business. Sell Mr Sheen shares now.
The main characters land on some sort of desert planet (don't ask me to name it - I am not some sort of Star Wars geek.) The landing of the spaceship throws up no dust at all. None.
Then the scene cuts to people walking down the street, speeders speeding down the street, wierd taxis pulled by odd looking animals etc - and none of them kick up any dust either.
I've worked in a few dry areas, and the one constant is the dust. The dust that gets up your nose, in your eyes, in your lungs, into everything. There's the crust that forms on your eyelids each morning when you wake up. There's the awful taste in your mouth. There's the crap that you are constantly blowing out of your nose - big chunks of dried snot and dust merged into sharp, rock hard lumps.
Every movement of every thing throws up dust. Walking people. Moving animals. Vehicles. The wind. Trees moving in the wind that scrape along the ground.
Evidently, in the future, dust is not a problem anymore.
Mr Sheen will be put out of business. Sell Mr Sheen shares now.
Interesting social phone-mon
I'm watching "Mercury Rising", which was made maybe 10 years ago. Bruce Willis has the lead. In one scene, he is talking to another FBI agent and he's told that his boss wants to talk to him. Bruce asks this other guy if he has a phone, and the other bloke throws him one of those ancient Motorola flip phones.
Remember the days when not everyone had a mobile phone? When you maybe had to share a pool phone from work and justify every call?
How quickly things change.
Remember the days when not everyone had a mobile phone? When you maybe had to share a pool phone from work and justify every call?
How quickly things change.
Training is a load of bollocks
Another day of election campaigning, and I get stuck listening to Kevin for 1 minute. He was dribbling on about the need for spending a small fortune on training schemes.
Training programs. Pfft. What a load of unmitigated flim-flam.
I have worked with a lot of people. Some good. Some excellent. Some truly atrocious. Some of the worst of the lot have been on more training courses than I've had drunken nights out on the town. If someone is a complete waste of space, all the training in the world will do nothing to make them a better worker. If anything, it can make the situation worse, as all you are doing is creating a know-it-all moron. Much better to have a moron that knows very little - they are less dangerous that way. A moron with a head full of ideas is just a recipe for disaster - they're constantly suggesting the stupidest things you've ever heard, and then getting all petulant when you tell them to go knob themselves.
Face it. There are only so many people in the world with innate talents in certain areas. All the training in the world is not going to make me a great football player. In any code. The same goes for work skills. Some people are very good at their jobs - not because they have been through lots of training courses, but because they have that certain special something inside them that makes them great. Sending them on a training course is very worthwhile - it builds on their existing talents and can make someone who is good, but has potential, into someone who is great.
But face it, we are talking about 10-20% of the entire population here. There is another 50% of the population that are just scraping by. They need just enough training to keep them productive. Those at the bottom of the heap are essentially not worth worrying about, and no amount of training is going to turn them into the high tech work force of the future.
The money would be better spent keeping the useless in beer and cigarettes and not letting them get in the way of those that are actually capable of doing a full days work.
Training programs. Pfft. What a load of unmitigated flim-flam.
I have worked with a lot of people. Some good. Some excellent. Some truly atrocious. Some of the worst of the lot have been on more training courses than I've had drunken nights out on the town. If someone is a complete waste of space, all the training in the world will do nothing to make them a better worker. If anything, it can make the situation worse, as all you are doing is creating a know-it-all moron. Much better to have a moron that knows very little - they are less dangerous that way. A moron with a head full of ideas is just a recipe for disaster - they're constantly suggesting the stupidest things you've ever heard, and then getting all petulant when you tell them to go knob themselves.
Face it. There are only so many people in the world with innate talents in certain areas. All the training in the world is not going to make me a great football player. In any code. The same goes for work skills. Some people are very good at their jobs - not because they have been through lots of training courses, but because they have that certain special something inside them that makes them great. Sending them on a training course is very worthwhile - it builds on their existing talents and can make someone who is good, but has potential, into someone who is great.
But face it, we are talking about 10-20% of the entire population here. There is another 50% of the population that are just scraping by. They need just enough training to keep them productive. Those at the bottom of the heap are essentially not worth worrying about, and no amount of training is going to turn them into the high tech work force of the future.
The money would be better spent keeping the useless in beer and cigarettes and not letting them get in the way of those that are actually capable of doing a full days work.
Garcon! More eggs!
Here is a study in coincidences. Last week, I had wonderful scrambled eggs at a bakery in Drummoyne. I could not remember the name of it. This morning, I went and had my knee x-rayed. Whilst sitting in the waiting room, I picked up a 1994 copy of Vogue Entertaining, flipped it open and there was a story on the same bakery. It is called the Bowan Island Bakery, after an island off Vancouver.
By the way, the people in the waiting room were a 50/50 mix between men and women, but the magazines were 100% female interest. Why is that so?
On Friday, I had scrambled eggs again, but this time at a place called Macchiato in town. The plate arrived. There were two bits of toast. They were obvious. There was a small pile of mushrooms (which I had ordered as an extra). They stood out due to their colour against the white plate. I searched for about 30 seconds before finding the eggs, which were a small dollop in the middle of the plate.
There are several possibilities.
It was a scrambled egg. Note the lack of an 's' after egg.
They had switched to quail's eggs.
They thought it was time I went on a diet.
The cook needs someone to job his elbow when he is tipping the egg mixture into the pan.
Whatever it is, I was unimpressed. They were nice, but completely measly. If it wasn't for the mushrooms, I would have been ordering seconds. Eating two breakfasts is not a good look.
By the way, the people in the waiting room were a 50/50 mix between men and women, but the magazines were 100% female interest. Why is that so?
On Friday, I had scrambled eggs again, but this time at a place called Macchiato in town. The plate arrived. There were two bits of toast. They were obvious. There was a small pile of mushrooms (which I had ordered as an extra). They stood out due to their colour against the white plate. I searched for about 30 seconds before finding the eggs, which were a small dollop in the middle of the plate.
There are several possibilities.
It was a scrambled egg. Note the lack of an 's' after egg.
They had switched to quail's eggs.
They thought it was time I went on a diet.
The cook needs someone to job his elbow when he is tipping the egg mixture into the pan.
Whatever it is, I was unimpressed. They were nice, but completely measly. If it wasn't for the mushrooms, I would have been ordering seconds. Eating two breakfasts is not a good look.
Watkins misses the bus
For crying out loud, do they have anyone with any brains at the SMH? They ran a story about bus numbers today without even considering one obvious factor - the number of buses that are retired from the fleet each year.
I think there is a rule somewhere that the bus operators are not allowed to let the average age of their fleet get older than 10 years. In order to do that, you need to keep a constant stream of new buses coming on line, and get rid of the old ones as well. I think a pile of old ones were donated to East Timor not long ago, and they found that they were too big for the local roads. After going to great expense to transport them up there, they've been sitting idle gathering rust ever since.
The Minister can talk all he likes about buying new buses, but he's being disingenuous if he fails to mention the number that are being put out to pasture. If the number of new buses is not greater than the number of exited buses, then the fleet is shrinking. Simple. Even I can do an equation along the lines of 10+5-6 = 9.
If you are worried about being busted about the fleet getting smaller, then the ideal antidote is to talk about seat numbers. I have a feeling that the new buses are longer and thus hold more seats, so you could have a smaller fleet with more seats. But a smaller fleet means you have to run fewer services, and if my experience is any guide, those services will be slower with big buses than small. That's because they take longer to steer around corners, and if you have a route like mine with lots and lots and lots and lots of corners, the trip home becomes bloody endless.
I imagine the Minister has also tried the old wheeze of fiddling with the year in which buses are delivered. You might make one announcement based on say 2006 (Jan-Dec) and then make the next announcement based on the 2006-2007 financial year (July 2006 - June 2007). There are endless ways to screw with the numbers.
All I know is this. By the time my bus gets to Parramatta Rd, which is about halfway along its route, it is generally full. The driver will go blasting past stops that are packed with potential passengers because the bus is already bulging. I am thankful that I live near the start of the run, so I can always get a seat. But you wouldn't want to live near the Annandale Hotel.
I think there is a rule somewhere that the bus operators are not allowed to let the average age of their fleet get older than 10 years. In order to do that, you need to keep a constant stream of new buses coming on line, and get rid of the old ones as well. I think a pile of old ones were donated to East Timor not long ago, and they found that they were too big for the local roads. After going to great expense to transport them up there, they've been sitting idle gathering rust ever since.
The Minister can talk all he likes about buying new buses, but he's being disingenuous if he fails to mention the number that are being put out to pasture. If the number of new buses is not greater than the number of exited buses, then the fleet is shrinking. Simple. Even I can do an equation along the lines of 10+5-6 = 9.
If you are worried about being busted about the fleet getting smaller, then the ideal antidote is to talk about seat numbers. I have a feeling that the new buses are longer and thus hold more seats, so you could have a smaller fleet with more seats. But a smaller fleet means you have to run fewer services, and if my experience is any guide, those services will be slower with big buses than small. That's because they take longer to steer around corners, and if you have a route like mine with lots and lots and lots and lots of corners, the trip home becomes bloody endless.
I imagine the Minister has also tried the old wheeze of fiddling with the year in which buses are delivered. You might make one announcement based on say 2006 (Jan-Dec) and then make the next announcement based on the 2006-2007 financial year (July 2006 - June 2007). There are endless ways to screw with the numbers.
All I know is this. By the time my bus gets to Parramatta Rd, which is about halfway along its route, it is generally full. The driver will go blasting past stops that are packed with potential passengers because the bus is already bulging. I am thankful that I live near the start of the run, so I can always get a seat. But you wouldn't want to live near the Annandale Hotel.
A toe death
I blogged a little while ago about the imminent demise of my ski-induced black toenail. It is now on its last legs - or is that toes? The grey/white patches that are now visible are where the dead toenail has lifted away from the nail bed underneath. The black patches are dried blood, and they are where the nail is still firmly affixed to the nail bed.
The thing that I have to watch for now is the white patches coming to totally dominate the nail. When that happens, it starts to lift up at the front and it will catch on anything, such as a sock (as you pull it on) or the inside of a shoe (if worn without socks) or even a sheet whilst having a snooze. When it catches, it simply rips away from the nail bed and ends up standing completely upright, attached only at the base of the toenail. At that point, the only solution is to rip it off.
I hate doing that.
You can also see a white line running across the toenail about 25% up from the base of the toenail. That is the new nail growing out underneath. I'd prefer it if it had made more progress, because once the nail comes off, 75% of the nail bed will be exposed, and it is quite sensitive. I normally have to wrap a band aid around the toe for a month or two until the bed hardens up and the nail grows out a bit more.
It's particularly uncomfortable when going for a swim - especially with flippers. The biggest impediment to me swimming is not the cold - it's a 25% toe nail. The flippers push onto the exposed nail bed with each downward "flip" and it's a horrible feeling.
Just wait for the next photo - the one that shows the nail mostly off and flapping by a hinge of skin across the bottom of the nail.
The worst part about it is the way the flies love to feast on the nail bed. They sit on the nail and suck away at the little trough between the bottom of the nail and the skin - like pigs with their snouts in the trough. Or they stick their probiscus under the nail at the front and gulp away at the black goo that is stuck in there.
The thing that I have to watch for now is the white patches coming to totally dominate the nail. When that happens, it starts to lift up at the front and it will catch on anything, such as a sock (as you pull it on) or the inside of a shoe (if worn without socks) or even a sheet whilst having a snooze. When it catches, it simply rips away from the nail bed and ends up standing completely upright, attached only at the base of the toenail. At that point, the only solution is to rip it off.
I hate doing that.
You can also see a white line running across the toenail about 25% up from the base of the toenail. That is the new nail growing out underneath. I'd prefer it if it had made more progress, because once the nail comes off, 75% of the nail bed will be exposed, and it is quite sensitive. I normally have to wrap a band aid around the toe for a month or two until the bed hardens up and the nail grows out a bit more.
It's particularly uncomfortable when going for a swim - especially with flippers. The biggest impediment to me swimming is not the cold - it's a 25% toe nail. The flippers push onto the exposed nail bed with each downward "flip" and it's a horrible feeling.
Just wait for the next photo - the one that shows the nail mostly off and flapping by a hinge of skin across the bottom of the nail.
The worst part about it is the way the flies love to feast on the nail bed. They sit on the nail and suck away at the little trough between the bottom of the nail and the skin - like pigs with their snouts in the trough. Or they stick their probiscus under the nail at the front and gulp away at the black goo that is stuck in there.
Well, which is it?
The media must have more schizoid personalities within its ranks than the hordes of muttering nutters hanging around the CBD with a brown bottle in one hand and poo from inside their pants in the other.
One moment, the news is screaming about a "housing affordability crisis" with first home buyers being locked out of the market. Boo-hoo. I'm one of them, and I'm not complaining. It's a market. It's not meant to be nice or a social justice tool. It's a device for setting prices at the appropriate level. Market clearing prices. If you don't understand the concept of market clearing, shut up and go and read an economics text book. Or just shut up and go back to reading comics.
One day later, the same media is in a lather about house values in freefall and mortgage defaults going up.
To me, the only way to increase the affordability of housing is to reduce the price of it. So if you think there is a crisis, then values going into freefall is a good thing. I'm certainly hanging on here waiting for a few more interest rate rises in the hope that it will knock the props out from under the local market. I could do with paying $600,000 for a house rather than $800,000. Wouldn't you?
Too bad if you are selling, but that's the nature of the market. It doesn't owe you anything.
I just wish that more readers of the fish wrappers would wake up and realise that the media doesn't give a damn about rising interest rates or plunging house values - they just care about whipping up enough hysteria in order to sell more fish wrappers. Whatever you think of Mark Latham and his article in the Fin Review yesterday, he did hit the nail on the head when it comes to the "manufacturing of crisis".
He's right - there is no housing affordability crisis. When we last moved, we had a simple choice. We could pay more money to live in our preferred area, or we could move further out into bogan-land and pay less and possibly get a bigger house and block. We could go right out into the boonies and pay about half what we are paying now and live in a McMansion - 4 or 5 bedrooms, enough bathrooms for Cleopatra and a garage that would hold the entire Sydney taxi fleet. Only problem is that a place like that is pretty much closer to Canberra or Bathurst than it is to Sydney. And I hear that the neighbours have six fingers and smell. They're the type of people that eat each other's ear wax for breakfast.
There are plenty of places available out there, and they are cheap. But it means a trade off for us in terms of amenity. We'd face a longer drive to get Junior to school - or he'd have to change schools. I'd face a longer commute. The places we enjoy going to would be further away. We'd have to put up with a longer drive to get to leisure activities, or stop going to them and switch to activities closer to our new abode. Friends and family would not be an issue, as they are already scattered all over Sydney and NSW.
The thing is, why should the government have to step in to ensure that I can get to Bondi in 25 minutes rather than 45? Why should some other poor sap have to subsidise my leisure time? We made a choice to stay here and pay more, because the things we do around here are worth the extra money, and we can afford to pay that little bit extra. If you can't afford it, well, tough shit. Not my problem. Not the government's problem either. It's your problem. Do what I do - work long hours, build up a pile of valuable skills and experience and get paid well for your endeavours. Don't go hog wild with debt and live within your means. Like I said, if you can't do that, then take your problems and fuck off. Go and talk to someone who cares, because I certainly don't.
As for an increasing level of defaults, I also see that as a good sign. It means that all the poor quality mortgages are being cleaned out. Those completely crap mortgages to people that couldn't afford them are a symbol of the "wall of money" that surged into the market over the last decade and bid up prices to silly levels. Defaults to me say that the tidal wave of money should be drying up, meaning that a lot of pressure will be taken off house prices. (I wish).
Rising defaults to me are also a sign that the "bell hop" moment has come and gone. By "bell hop", I refer to the old saying that when the bell hops (or taxi drivers) start offering you share tips, it is time to get out of the market. It's over heated, and a stack of idiots and their money have invaded. Those now defaulting are the idiots of the housing market. They need to be cleaned out for normality to return. That can be a nasty process, but it is not the job of the market to be "nice". It is the job of the market to be efficient.
Heartless bastard, signing out.
One moment, the news is screaming about a "housing affordability crisis" with first home buyers being locked out of the market. Boo-hoo. I'm one of them, and I'm not complaining. It's a market. It's not meant to be nice or a social justice tool. It's a device for setting prices at the appropriate level. Market clearing prices. If you don't understand the concept of market clearing, shut up and go and read an economics text book. Or just shut up and go back to reading comics.
One day later, the same media is in a lather about house values in freefall and mortgage defaults going up.
To me, the only way to increase the affordability of housing is to reduce the price of it. So if you think there is a crisis, then values going into freefall is a good thing. I'm certainly hanging on here waiting for a few more interest rate rises in the hope that it will knock the props out from under the local market. I could do with paying $600,000 for a house rather than $800,000. Wouldn't you?
Too bad if you are selling, but that's the nature of the market. It doesn't owe you anything.
I just wish that more readers of the fish wrappers would wake up and realise that the media doesn't give a damn about rising interest rates or plunging house values - they just care about whipping up enough hysteria in order to sell more fish wrappers. Whatever you think of Mark Latham and his article in the Fin Review yesterday, he did hit the nail on the head when it comes to the "manufacturing of crisis".
He's right - there is no housing affordability crisis. When we last moved, we had a simple choice. We could pay more money to live in our preferred area, or we could move further out into bogan-land and pay less and possibly get a bigger house and block. We could go right out into the boonies and pay about half what we are paying now and live in a McMansion - 4 or 5 bedrooms, enough bathrooms for Cleopatra and a garage that would hold the entire Sydney taxi fleet. Only problem is that a place like that is pretty much closer to Canberra or Bathurst than it is to Sydney. And I hear that the neighbours have six fingers and smell. They're the type of people that eat each other's ear wax for breakfast.
There are plenty of places available out there, and they are cheap. But it means a trade off for us in terms of amenity. We'd face a longer drive to get Junior to school - or he'd have to change schools. I'd face a longer commute. The places we enjoy going to would be further away. We'd have to put up with a longer drive to get to leisure activities, or stop going to them and switch to activities closer to our new abode. Friends and family would not be an issue, as they are already scattered all over Sydney and NSW.
The thing is, why should the government have to step in to ensure that I can get to Bondi in 25 minutes rather than 45? Why should some other poor sap have to subsidise my leisure time? We made a choice to stay here and pay more, because the things we do around here are worth the extra money, and we can afford to pay that little bit extra. If you can't afford it, well, tough shit. Not my problem. Not the government's problem either. It's your problem. Do what I do - work long hours, build up a pile of valuable skills and experience and get paid well for your endeavours. Don't go hog wild with debt and live within your means. Like I said, if you can't do that, then take your problems and fuck off. Go and talk to someone who cares, because I certainly don't.
As for an increasing level of defaults, I also see that as a good sign. It means that all the poor quality mortgages are being cleaned out. Those completely crap mortgages to people that couldn't afford them are a symbol of the "wall of money" that surged into the market over the last decade and bid up prices to silly levels. Defaults to me say that the tidal wave of money should be drying up, meaning that a lot of pressure will be taken off house prices. (I wish).
Rising defaults to me are also a sign that the "bell hop" moment has come and gone. By "bell hop", I refer to the old saying that when the bell hops (or taxi drivers) start offering you share tips, it is time to get out of the market. It's over heated, and a stack of idiots and their money have invaded. Those now defaulting are the idiots of the housing market. They need to be cleaned out for normality to return. That can be a nasty process, but it is not the job of the market to be "nice". It is the job of the market to be efficient.
Heartless bastard, signing out.
The egalitarian ABC way
I am currently reading "Who killed channel 9?" by Gerald Stone. After trying to get into it a few times, I finally got a grip on it today and am now over halfway through it.
There is a very telling story about the ABC in there. A certain executive was sacked. He was replaced by a manager from the ABC. Christmas was looming, and the Christmas party had to be organised. The ex-ABC manager decided that there would be two Christmas parties - one for the reporters and producers etc - an expensive river cruise, and a cheap, land-bound affair for the technicians and cameramen.
That's an interesting attitude to bring over from the ABC - the concept of a flash party for the barons and a dreggs party for the plebs. Next time I see those leftie maggots at the ABC droning on about inequality and the evils of capitalism, I'll remember that.
Wankers.
There is a very telling story about the ABC in there. A certain executive was sacked. He was replaced by a manager from the ABC. Christmas was looming, and the Christmas party had to be organised. The ex-ABC manager decided that there would be two Christmas parties - one for the reporters and producers etc - an expensive river cruise, and a cheap, land-bound affair for the technicians and cameramen.
That's an interesting attitude to bring over from the ABC - the concept of a flash party for the barons and a dreggs party for the plebs. Next time I see those leftie maggots at the ABC droning on about inequality and the evils of capitalism, I'll remember that.
Wankers.
Plug pulled at last
The NSW government has managed to flush $64 million of our cash down the toilet thanks to the T-card project.
They'll blame ERG of course, and I think that is quite unfair. Sydney has an amazingly convoluted and disjointed public transport fare system. Instead of simplifying and harmonising the fare systems first, and then computerising them, some dick came up with the idea of using technology to mask the complexity. Someone should have told them that this never works.
I have a very good management textbook lurking around here somewhere. It was written back in the 1960's and it is called "Up the organisation". The author had been the CEO of a car rental company before writing the book, so he had a pretty good idea what he was on about. He was not some dry academic tool that had never set foot outside an ivory tower and gotten his hands dirty.
One chapter described the efforts of his company to computerise certain functions, and how to ensure that it doesn't go pear shaped. The idiots at the DoT should have spent ten bucks to buy a book that is nearly 40 years old. It might have saved us $64 million. You can computerise just about anything, but the more complex it is, the more it will cost to computerise it. A cheap system is a simple system - and a simple system tends to be a lot more robust than a complex one.
I could try and spend a few minutes explaining how the public transport fare structures are setup in Sydney, but I don't understand them myself. I think only a few very specialised people at Sydney Buses and CityRail understand how they work. When you have that kind of mess, no amount of computing power will solve it for you.
They'll blame ERG of course, and I think that is quite unfair. Sydney has an amazingly convoluted and disjointed public transport fare system. Instead of simplifying and harmonising the fare systems first, and then computerising them, some dick came up with the idea of using technology to mask the complexity. Someone should have told them that this never works.
I have a very good management textbook lurking around here somewhere. It was written back in the 1960's and it is called "Up the organisation". The author had been the CEO of a car rental company before writing the book, so he had a pretty good idea what he was on about. He was not some dry academic tool that had never set foot outside an ivory tower and gotten his hands dirty.
One chapter described the efforts of his company to computerise certain functions, and how to ensure that it doesn't go pear shaped. The idiots at the DoT should have spent ten bucks to buy a book that is nearly 40 years old. It might have saved us $64 million. You can computerise just about anything, but the more complex it is, the more it will cost to computerise it. A cheap system is a simple system - and a simple system tends to be a lot more robust than a complex one.
I could try and spend a few minutes explaining how the public transport fare structures are setup in Sydney, but I don't understand them myself. I think only a few very specialised people at Sydney Buses and CityRail understand how they work. When you have that kind of mess, no amount of computing power will solve it for you.
How rich are you?
Thanks to the silly, I got to read this ABS report on wealth.
As usual, the silly just glossed over it and presented a single whoopee-do figure telling us that we are worth $500,000 on average.
The poor old ABS must feel a bit dark about that. They've gone to the trouble of doing a stack of research and producing an 80 page report with lots of tables and breakdowns of statistics, and the silly condenses the whole thing to a headline that says, "Yeeha, we're rich".
I dug into the report and found a few interesting things. There are just under 8 million households in Australia, and around 1% of them are worth more than $1 million.
Ponder that for a moment. We're told we are in the middle of an enormous property boom, and the "life style" shows are full of stories about expensive properties and the like, yet very, very few people are worth over $1 million. Why is that? How can it be that we have all these people in million dollar houses, yet so few are worth that much?
Hell, we're renting a house that must be worth close to a million - if not more. It's not that flash. There's a house a few doors down that is on the market for $1.6 million. You cannot buy a house in this suburb for under $700,000 (that being defined as a liveable place with three or more bedrooms). In fact if you want to live around here, you need to get used to the idea of paying $800k - $900k for a house. If you pay less than that, you're unlikely to want to invite your friends around for a drink. Slums are not a good look.
The kicker though is that the ABS pulls a nasty trick by subtracting debt, which means we are looking at net worth figures. Once you do that, it appears that most people aren't worth a whole lot.
The numbers on superannuating, shares and unit trust ownership are not that special either. We are always reading that we are a nation of shareholders, but the top quintile (that's 20% to those of you that failed maths) has an average shareholding of $97,000. The top 20% has average superannuation of $264,000. The other 80% makes depressing reading.
The average household value of the top 20% is $644,000 - like I said, that won't buy you a house around here. The average value of household goods (furniture, clothing, TV etc) in the top 20% is only $84,000.
I'm not going to run around telling you how much we are worth, but these numbers did provide some comfort. We are well ahead of most of the Joneses, so I can sleep comfortably tonight knowing that I am not the poverty stricken wretch that I thought I was.
I'll just have to avoid visiting my friends on the North Shore in the multi-million dollar mansions.
Bastards.
What really surprised me about the way the silly covered this report is that they didn't get some dick from ACOSS on the phone and get them to have a long whinge about how the poor are getting poorer and the rich should be taxed until their eyeballs bleed. If anyone from ACOSS ever turns up on my doorstep, I am going to set their nostril hairs on fire.
As usual, the silly just glossed over it and presented a single whoopee-do figure telling us that we are worth $500,000 on average.
The poor old ABS must feel a bit dark about that. They've gone to the trouble of doing a stack of research and producing an 80 page report with lots of tables and breakdowns of statistics, and the silly condenses the whole thing to a headline that says, "Yeeha, we're rich".
I dug into the report and found a few interesting things. There are just under 8 million households in Australia, and around 1% of them are worth more than $1 million.
Ponder that for a moment. We're told we are in the middle of an enormous property boom, and the "life style" shows are full of stories about expensive properties and the like, yet very, very few people are worth over $1 million. Why is that? How can it be that we have all these people in million dollar houses, yet so few are worth that much?
Hell, we're renting a house that must be worth close to a million - if not more. It's not that flash. There's a house a few doors down that is on the market for $1.6 million. You cannot buy a house in this suburb for under $700,000 (that being defined as a liveable place with three or more bedrooms). In fact if you want to live around here, you need to get used to the idea of paying $800k - $900k for a house. If you pay less than that, you're unlikely to want to invite your friends around for a drink. Slums are not a good look.
The kicker though is that the ABS pulls a nasty trick by subtracting debt, which means we are looking at net worth figures. Once you do that, it appears that most people aren't worth a whole lot.
The numbers on superannuating, shares and unit trust ownership are not that special either. We are always reading that we are a nation of shareholders, but the top quintile (that's 20% to those of you that failed maths) has an average shareholding of $97,000. The top 20% has average superannuation of $264,000. The other 80% makes depressing reading.
The average household value of the top 20% is $644,000 - like I said, that won't buy you a house around here. The average value of household goods (furniture, clothing, TV etc) in the top 20% is only $84,000.
I'm not going to run around telling you how much we are worth, but these numbers did provide some comfort. We are well ahead of most of the Joneses, so I can sleep comfortably tonight knowing that I am not the poverty stricken wretch that I thought I was.
I'll just have to avoid visiting my friends on the North Shore in the multi-million dollar mansions.
Bastards.
What really surprised me about the way the silly covered this report is that they didn't get some dick from ACOSS on the phone and get them to have a long whinge about how the poor are getting poorer and the rich should be taxed until their eyeballs bleed. If anyone from ACOSS ever turns up on my doorstep, I am going to set their nostril hairs on fire.
Friday, 9 November 2007
Divorce your parents
Page 3 on our local rag this week - I open up the paper and there are three young boys in a photo.
Their names are:
Their names are:
- Shardyn
- Tayzim
- Makirum
A stack of interesting statistics
Bugger this blogger stuff - I can't figure out how to put a table into it without rooting around with the HTML, and I do not want to get into that. There lies a night of dicking around with little chance of a good result.
I have lifted this table of stats from the latest crime report for the Sydney CBD (see next blog thingy). You had better keep on reading. It took me half an hour to type these numbers into Excel and fiddle with them.
Right, here is what I found.
Contrary to what the tabloids want to tell us, little old ladies get beaten up and robbed extremely rarely. That could be due to them never reporting it, or they are locking themselves in their homes and never going out.
More likely is the fact that little old ladies are unlikely to be found in a pub in Kings Cross or Taylor Square between midnight on Saturday and 6am on Sunday, which is when most assaults and robberies occur. Women in the 20-29 age group are 10 times more likely to be robbed than an old duck. A 20-29 year old woman is 15 times more likely to be beaten up that a grannie.
But as far as bashings go, men in the 20-29 age group are 3 times more likely to be beaten up than a woman in the same group. Go have a look at the crime maps - fascinating things. I love messing around with spatial info like that.
I have lifted this table of stats from the latest crime report for the Sydney CBD (see next blog thingy). You had better keep on reading. It took me half an hour to type these numbers into Excel and fiddle with them.
Right, here is what I found.
Contrary to what the tabloids want to tell us, little old ladies get beaten up and robbed extremely rarely. That could be due to them never reporting it, or they are locking themselves in their homes and never going out.
More likely is the fact that little old ladies are unlikely to be found in a pub in Kings Cross or Taylor Square between midnight on Saturday and 6am on Sunday, which is when most assaults and robberies occur. Women in the 20-29 age group are 10 times more likely to be robbed than an old duck. A 20-29 year old woman is 15 times more likely to be beaten up that a grannie.
But as far as bashings go, men in the 20-29 age group are 3 times more likely to be beaten up than a woman in the same group. Go have a look at the crime maps - fascinating things. I love messing around with spatial info like that.
| age | Dom | Bash | non-dom | Rob | total |
| Male <> | 0.34% | 1.75% | 1.04% | 0.61% | 3.74% |
| 19 | 0.14% | 3.48% | 1.45% | 0.88% | 5.95% |
| 20 - 29 | 1.50% | 23.71% | 9.76% | 9.09% | 44.06% |
| 30 - 39 | 1.54% | 14.28% | 3.97% | 3.77% | 23.55% |
| 40 - 49 | 0.79% | 8.05% | 1.95% | 2.20% | 13.00% |
| 50 - 59 | 0.44% | 3.60% | 0.84% | 1.25% | 6.13% |
| 60 + | 0.08% | 1.71% | 0.64% | 1.14% | 3.57% |
| Total | 4.82% | 56.58% | 19.65% | 18.95% | 100.00% |
| Female <> | 0.48% | 1.07% | 0.26% | 1.24% | 3.06% |
| 18 - 19 | 0.43% | 1.50% | 0.91% | 4.06% | 6.89% |
| 20 - 29 | 3.98% | 7.95% | 3.87% | 30.14% | 45.93% |
| 30 - 39 | 3.33% | 4.33% | 1.82% | 11.04% | 20.52% |
| 40 - 49 | 1.74% | 2.39% | 1.11% | 6.70% | 11.95% |
| 50 - 59 | 0.59% | 1.04% | 0.59% | 5.17% | 7.39% |
| 60 + | 0.26% | 0.59% | 0.26% | 3.15% | 4.26% |
| total | 10.82% | 18.87% | 8.82% | 61.49% | 100.00% |
Where is the URL, you bone headed nut-freaks
Fuck, the SMH drives me completely crazy. I think the only reason I read it is to raise my blood pressure. That, and the fact that Metro (the free give-away thing that they hand out on train stations) is not long enough to sustain me through breakfast.
The dingbats are at it again. They ran a very interesting story today on how the Bureau of Crime Stats and Research had released a set of crime maps. Good. The maps are available as a PDF from the BOCARS website, which is even better.
You can read the report here.
If it was that easy for me to put the URL into this blog, WHY CAN'T THE FUCKING SMH DO IT?
Like I said, boneheads. Don't they get this whole "new media" thing? If you have a website, with online stories, you are allowed to put in links to other websites.
These twits should just abandon the whole on-line effort and go back to operating in the fish-wrap medium only.
The dingbats are at it again. They ran a very interesting story today on how the Bureau of Crime Stats and Research had released a set of crime maps. Good. The maps are available as a PDF from the BOCARS website, which is even better.
You can read the report here.
If it was that easy for me to put the URL into this blog, WHY CAN'T THE FUCKING SMH DO IT?
Like I said, boneheads. Don't they get this whole "new media" thing? If you have a website, with online stories, you are allowed to put in links to other websites.
These twits should just abandon the whole on-line effort and go back to operating in the fish-wrap medium only.
Thursday, 8 November 2007
How does this headline read to you?
This was in the SMH today:
Homeless: 'one in four military vets'
The way I first read that, I thought it meant that one in four veterans was homeless. What they actually meant that out of the homeless, one in four is a vet.Just goes to show how misleading a badly written can be.
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