I initially wrote this as part of a speech to read out to Kristy on her 40th birthday, but the opportunity to have speeches didn't present itself at that wonderful evening! I felt that I wanted to surprise her with this post, so I've just kept it quietly here, waiting for the chance to spring it upon her. Well, she's collapsed on the bed asleep after another long day at work, so I think that this qualifies as a time when she will be surprised to see a post extolling her many virtues appear. Also, there's been too many horrible events lately and we need an antidote to all that pain and anguish.
Looking at the outpourings of compliments that have accompanied Gough Whitlam into his grave, it occurs to me that too often we wait until someone who is dear to us has gone before we express how we feel about them.
I don't want Kristy to have that experience, so I took the opportunity to contact many of her friends , family and colleagues and asked them to to share some of their thoughts about what makes Kristy special and what they appreciate about her.
The response was wonderful! Thanks to all who sent something! It's been a privilege and a pleasure to read these little missives, and to discover that other people see in Kristy the wonderful things that Cassie and I see in her.
I'm not going to identify the people that I am quoting although I think they will recognise themselves and I expect Kristy will usually know who has said what :)
I have edited people's comments lightly, one advantage of writing a blog post instead of giving a speech was that I could quote extensively whereas for the speech I had simply selected some representative quotes.
Kristy, here are some of the thoughts of the people in your life:
"When I first met dear Kristy, I thought she had no sense of humour and was unable to get on with the general public, but having seen beyond the facade I have seen Kristy the compassionate, the loyalist, the team player who never bad mouths others or lies and actually possesses a very warped sense of humour. Seeing these qualities helps me forget my anger as she hangs up on me routinely! I salute you Kristy with your charms *and* your shortcomings."
"Kristy has a lovely heart, a little tough on the outside but soft on the inside, a true friend."
" Kristy, you have a big personality in a quiet way, I love your no bull approach. You're interesting, smart, great to talk to and all round great company!"
" I like the love you put into the food you cook."
"Kristy, you are a kind and generous person with a big heart. You are a loyal and caring person to family and friends alike."
" You're there to help without even needing to be asked."
"Kristy's a great friend and I value her very much, she's always been fun to be around - being a fellow geek girl we've headed off for adventures, sci-fi conventions and yum-cha. She shows her care and love for others and how she values her friends and family through all the organising of things that she does, whether it's craft days, parties or Games Nights. I think she throws herself into everything she does - hardworking wife, mother, Mum, Aunty, friend and gardener."
"You put so much love and generosity into the food that you cook for people. I love and appreciate your cooking"
"Kristy makes an awesome meatloaf."
"She's just a very thoughtful, caring, person."
"She's caring, creative, friendly and well, I just love it when she takes care of me and takes me to yum cha!"
"She's a very loving person who takes me to fun places!"
"Kristy is a beautiful soul, she is extremely kind and often puts others ahead of herself, she's hardworking and does everything she can to support her family. A loving and supportive sister, she's always been there to help without being asked, she shows her generosity with her yummy 'care packages' that the whole family have loved!"
"Kristy's kind and a great mother, I am proud of the way she works hard to help with the life of her family. She has a good sense of humour and she's loyal, always was. She's very forgiving when things go wrong and I love her to bits!"
"You are hard working and very determined, when you get an idea you won't give up until you achieve your goal. She always gives 100 percent to commitment, I couldn't be any prouder of her and I love her with all my heart. She deserves the best."
It wasn't all bouquets my love, your occasional willingness to call a spade a bloody shovel was noted, but your willingness to stand up for yourself and the true softness that lies beneath was noted too.
On the other hand, one of my friends felt that he missed a real opportunity when he didn't go after you! He never had a chance anyway, I'd have done anything to win your love!
These are the words of those who know you best and love you for who you are, because who you are is so much. It is, indeed, more than enough.
Kristy, the day you sent me that RSVP kiss was the dividing day in my life, separating my life into BK (Before Kristy) and AK (After Kristy). AK has been the most wonderful time of my life.
The moment I saw your profile, I knew that if you were who you said you were, then there was real potential there. I didn't know then, but do now, that you are remarkably free from artifice or pretense. What you see is what you get. Which is fairly true of me too, but even more so of you. I'd looked at thousands of profiles over the years on RSVP and dated many women from it. Yours was the first profile I ever sent to my closest friends, telling them this one looked really good. Sometimes you can just tell. 6 months later we were engaged and Cassie, unbeknown to us, was on the way.
I feel privileged that I get to spend part of every day with you, I feel joy to know that of all the people in the world, it's my bed that you choose to share. I know that someone there loves me for who I am and loves me unconditionally.
Kristy, I love how you make me laugh, I am thankful for how tolerant you are of my many foibles and flaws, I love seeing you express your love for Cassie and watching how excited she is when she's spending time with Mummy.
I appreciate you for keeping an ear open when I go into one of my rambling raves and just have to have an ear to bash! I bore you often, yet I find out later that you have invariably listened to my rants and thought about them too. I'm thankful for how you support me and believe in me, that can make all the difference.
You've got the most wonderful hands, very soft, smooth, warm and I love them. We hold hands when we walk together and I feel a little thrill when I hear you at the door after your day's work.
I like it when you're in your creative moods and making things, I think you're at your best when you're doing things. You like to keep busy and you have certainly succeeded at that. Cassie loves spending time with you, and so do I! I love how we like to be close to each other even when we're both doing our own thing. My computer will always be in the loungeroom because I want to be close to you, not hiding away from you.
I respect you for your willingness to discuss issues and to work on our relationship every day. Making our relationship work every day has been a big priority for both of us and is, I think, a big part of the reason why we are happy together. Living with you continues to be an experience that makes my life better and more enjoyable than it was before, you give me space to be myself and to relax and you rarely try to control or change me.
Nevertheless, you have changed me, I think I am more sensitive and understanding than I was when we started. I am certainly more content in myself and confident in myself. That's what having the love of a good woman has done for me. You are, and always will be, my good woman and I love you very much.
Happy Birthday Kristy!
Your loving husband,
Lindsay
Wednesday 17 December 2014
Wednesday 10 December 2014
Obesity and personal responsibility
This is a post in response to a Facebook discussion, a view was expressed that parents were completely responsible if their kids become obese and someone asked for the other side of that debate, so I'm providing it :). Whilst I have read on the issue, I haven't done any additional research for this, it's just a lengthy Facebook post :).
A century ago, obesity was extremely rare in Australia, as were the obesity related conditions. Obviously that's not the case now. It could be that the modern parent isn't concerned about their child's health or safety but given the incredibly close levels of supervision applied to the modern child as compared to a century ago, my view is that claiming parental negligence is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic isn't backed up by the overall ways in which parents raise their children. I think modern parents are generally more concerned over their kids, if anything, rather than less concerned, compared to a century ago.
What's changed from a century ago? The onslaught of sugar, fat and highly processed foods. A century ago it was common for people to grow quite a bit of their own food and the food they ate was lightly processed. Food was generally cooked domestically, from the raw materials that had been grown or purchased by the adult, usually a woman, who worked domestically and not outside the home. They ate some fat but not a lot of sugar. The current diet is one hundred and eighty degrees away from that. People were also far less sedentary and that's surely played a role in the obesity epidemic. Interestingly, the diseases we associate with obesity are also associated with thin people who consume lots of sugar, so the point might be a little moot.
This modern diet is awash in sugar, which is being consumed in quantities unprecedented in human history and is the biggest dietary change from a century ago. High fat diets have been followed previously that didn't have as many negative outcomes as high sugar (not saying that a high fat diet is a brilliant idea - just that it's not an unprecedented part of a human diet).
Not only is the diet awash in sugar but it's incredibly cheap PLUS it's sold to us using the full force of the modern advertising industry. Sugar and highly processed foods are the dominant food culture in this country. So parents trying to get their kids to eat lots of whole foods are pushing against that culture on every level.There are no protections against sugar consumption, either on a price level or on an advertising level. It's as damaging as tobacco but completely free to peddle its wares.
The breakfast cereals that most people consume are incredibly bad for us yet have a very wholesome image, that's the power of that advertising. The amount of sugar in those products has consistently gone up over the decades, and the range of products that sugar is added to has also considerably expanded. When you're buying processed foods, it's very hard to dodge it.
Juices, which contain just as much sugar as Coke, even more, also have a wholesome reputation. Our bodies treat the sugar in juice the same way they treat the sugar in Coke so it's not there on health grounds! The idea that eating vitamins in pills is all useful as opposed to eating them in whole foods isn't particularly supported by the evidence either, but look at how many of us do it! I mention these things to make the point that pushing back against the dominant eating culture of the country is damned hard. Of course it's not impossible, but you need a lot going in your favour.
A whole foods diet is expensive in terms of money and time. Low income parents or time poor parents are going to struggle on both grounds, and they do. Highly processed foods such as confectionery, soft drinks, potato chips, ice creams are the most heavily and regularly discounted items in a supermarket and are constantly in your face. Worse, they're also superbly located at levels that your little children can reach. Fast foods are also quite cheap and they are fairly fast, as the name says. The combination is enticing. They are also advertised heavily in children's television programs.
A factor that I think is important is that the kids themselves push very hard to be given these bad foods and it's a constant struggle, I know Cassie's had her victories that she's won through her bloody minded persistence on the matter. Cassie's a pretty and charming child, the combination means that she gets offered more than her fair share of treats by shopkeepers and other strangers - due to that dominant culture, these treats are, without exception, high sugar and often high fat to boot! Combine that with the advertising and you have a little girl who thinks that sugar is a really good thing and a lot of fun!
The strength of the dominant culture leads to some scary compromises, McDonalds in schools with their vouchers, the menus in our school canteens despite years of claims that we are changing the rules to make them healthy, the National Heart Foundation giving the tick to numerous high sugar foods. I'm sure the people responsible for those decisions weren't thrilled with them, but they're getting pushed very hard.
The argument that we can just blame the individual for their decisions is one that has many corollaries, and I'm going to use one from my field, education. I have worked in many disadvantaged schools, I have taught children who've come from very poor homes, and from broken homes where there was a lot of violence and not a lot of educational opportunity being offered. Nevertheless, some of those children did fine at school, some of them have overcome all of those difficulties and earnt university degrees and other qualifications. Since some kids can overcome those problems, does that mean that we do not need to give more money and resources to poorer schools? That it's just up to the individual kid and there's no need for any systemic approach to educational disadvantage? It's the same argument, and I think that argument is just as empty in education as it is in public health.
The identical argument was made with regard to anti smoking measures, was consistently made every time a new measure was raised, and continues to be made throughout the 3rd World where the smoking epidemic has reached new heights. But individual choice wasn't enough to dent smoking rates significantly, it took a systemic approach from all levels of government to do it. Advertising bans, hefty price increases, age based restrictions and restrictions of when and where smoking is permitted have all combined to push smoking rates down. Obesity rates can't be pushed down by relying on individual parents to restrict the intake of their kids, a systemic approach has to be taken.
I'm going to close with some personal anecdotes. This is a subject close to my heart. I am morbidly obese. My parents weren't although my father was certainly overweight. My grandparents weren't obese nor were my great grandparents. My three older brothers are all morbidly obese. My older sister isn't, she had a fat period in her youth and has fought a very determined war to eat whole foods consistently ever since. I use the term war because that's the sort of intensity she's had to strive with to maintain her slim appearance. It's not surprising that she has not been able to quit smoking in that period, a war on two fronts becomes too much to fight.
Like Cassie, I learnt young that sugar was a great thing, and I found it to be strongly addictive. As a growing boy I avoided putting on weight but once I hit my 20's that changed. The sugary foods have done most of the damage. Three years ago, I managed to go 11 months consuming almost no sugar in processed foods. I lost weight easily for the first time, without feeling hungry. Previous diets had taken weight off for a while, but ended in an orgy of bingeing.
The problem was when I left the house. I could keep sugar out of the house, but once you leave it's fucking everywhere. Shopping at Woolworths? chocolate, ice cream, biscuits, sauces, breads, et bloody cetera. Birthday dinner in the family? Here, have some cake! Morning tea at school? Here, have some biscuits, have some cake. Go to the pub for trivia? Here, have a soft drink (I don't drink alcohol). It's just a constant fight to keep buying the right foods whilst surrounded by the pressures to buy the fucking poison.
I finally cracked on the day of Cassie's 2nd birthday party - there was just too much sugary crap in the house and I ate some. Being addicted to the bloody shit, that was the end of that. Subsequent efforts haven't lasted long and I've put all the weight back on and then some. My latest blood test says I'm currently diabetes free but I can't keep avoiding the major consequences forever. Indeed, the arthritic pain in the knee and the back pain are surely related to the block of flats those areas are keeping up. I'm not unaware of the facts here. But knowing the number of the train bearing down on you and getting out of its way are two different things.
I don't think it's impossible to lose weight or avoid the heavily processed shit, my sister's done it, as have many other people. But it is very hard. And it's very hard because we, as a society, are awash with sugar and highly processed foods which are continually presented as good things. I think that to blame the parents for their kids being obese and, by inference, to blame the obese for being obese, is to ignore the reality of the food consuming system that we live in. It's cheap and easy easy to eat sugar and highly processed foods in our society, expensive and difficult not to do so. I don't think we should be surprised that most of us choose the quick and easy path, even when we know it leads to the Dark Side.
A century ago, obesity was extremely rare in Australia, as were the obesity related conditions. Obviously that's not the case now. It could be that the modern parent isn't concerned about their child's health or safety but given the incredibly close levels of supervision applied to the modern child as compared to a century ago, my view is that claiming parental negligence is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic isn't backed up by the overall ways in which parents raise their children. I think modern parents are generally more concerned over their kids, if anything, rather than less concerned, compared to a century ago.
What's changed from a century ago? The onslaught of sugar, fat and highly processed foods. A century ago it was common for people to grow quite a bit of their own food and the food they ate was lightly processed. Food was generally cooked domestically, from the raw materials that had been grown or purchased by the adult, usually a woman, who worked domestically and not outside the home. They ate some fat but not a lot of sugar. The current diet is one hundred and eighty degrees away from that. People were also far less sedentary and that's surely played a role in the obesity epidemic. Interestingly, the diseases we associate with obesity are also associated with thin people who consume lots of sugar, so the point might be a little moot.
This modern diet is awash in sugar, which is being consumed in quantities unprecedented in human history and is the biggest dietary change from a century ago. High fat diets have been followed previously that didn't have as many negative outcomes as high sugar (not saying that a high fat diet is a brilliant idea - just that it's not an unprecedented part of a human diet).
Not only is the diet awash in sugar but it's incredibly cheap PLUS it's sold to us using the full force of the modern advertising industry. Sugar and highly processed foods are the dominant food culture in this country. So parents trying to get their kids to eat lots of whole foods are pushing against that culture on every level.There are no protections against sugar consumption, either on a price level or on an advertising level. It's as damaging as tobacco but completely free to peddle its wares.
The breakfast cereals that most people consume are incredibly bad for us yet have a very wholesome image, that's the power of that advertising. The amount of sugar in those products has consistently gone up over the decades, and the range of products that sugar is added to has also considerably expanded. When you're buying processed foods, it's very hard to dodge it.
Juices, which contain just as much sugar as Coke, even more, also have a wholesome reputation. Our bodies treat the sugar in juice the same way they treat the sugar in Coke so it's not there on health grounds! The idea that eating vitamins in pills is all useful as opposed to eating them in whole foods isn't particularly supported by the evidence either, but look at how many of us do it! I mention these things to make the point that pushing back against the dominant eating culture of the country is damned hard. Of course it's not impossible, but you need a lot going in your favour.
A whole foods diet is expensive in terms of money and time. Low income parents or time poor parents are going to struggle on both grounds, and they do. Highly processed foods such as confectionery, soft drinks, potato chips, ice creams are the most heavily and regularly discounted items in a supermarket and are constantly in your face. Worse, they're also superbly located at levels that your little children can reach. Fast foods are also quite cheap and they are fairly fast, as the name says. The combination is enticing. They are also advertised heavily in children's television programs.
A factor that I think is important is that the kids themselves push very hard to be given these bad foods and it's a constant struggle, I know Cassie's had her victories that she's won through her bloody minded persistence on the matter. Cassie's a pretty and charming child, the combination means that she gets offered more than her fair share of treats by shopkeepers and other strangers - due to that dominant culture, these treats are, without exception, high sugar and often high fat to boot! Combine that with the advertising and you have a little girl who thinks that sugar is a really good thing and a lot of fun!
The strength of the dominant culture leads to some scary compromises, McDonalds in schools with their vouchers, the menus in our school canteens despite years of claims that we are changing the rules to make them healthy, the National Heart Foundation giving the tick to numerous high sugar foods. I'm sure the people responsible for those decisions weren't thrilled with them, but they're getting pushed very hard.
The argument that we can just blame the individual for their decisions is one that has many corollaries, and I'm going to use one from my field, education. I have worked in many disadvantaged schools, I have taught children who've come from very poor homes, and from broken homes where there was a lot of violence and not a lot of educational opportunity being offered. Nevertheless, some of those children did fine at school, some of them have overcome all of those difficulties and earnt university degrees and other qualifications. Since some kids can overcome those problems, does that mean that we do not need to give more money and resources to poorer schools? That it's just up to the individual kid and there's no need for any systemic approach to educational disadvantage? It's the same argument, and I think that argument is just as empty in education as it is in public health.
The identical argument was made with regard to anti smoking measures, was consistently made every time a new measure was raised, and continues to be made throughout the 3rd World where the smoking epidemic has reached new heights. But individual choice wasn't enough to dent smoking rates significantly, it took a systemic approach from all levels of government to do it. Advertising bans, hefty price increases, age based restrictions and restrictions of when and where smoking is permitted have all combined to push smoking rates down. Obesity rates can't be pushed down by relying on individual parents to restrict the intake of their kids, a systemic approach has to be taken.
I'm going to close with some personal anecdotes. This is a subject close to my heart. I am morbidly obese. My parents weren't although my father was certainly overweight. My grandparents weren't obese nor were my great grandparents. My three older brothers are all morbidly obese. My older sister isn't, she had a fat period in her youth and has fought a very determined war to eat whole foods consistently ever since. I use the term war because that's the sort of intensity she's had to strive with to maintain her slim appearance. It's not surprising that she has not been able to quit smoking in that period, a war on two fronts becomes too much to fight.
Like Cassie, I learnt young that sugar was a great thing, and I found it to be strongly addictive. As a growing boy I avoided putting on weight but once I hit my 20's that changed. The sugary foods have done most of the damage. Three years ago, I managed to go 11 months consuming almost no sugar in processed foods. I lost weight easily for the first time, without feeling hungry. Previous diets had taken weight off for a while, but ended in an orgy of bingeing.
The problem was when I left the house. I could keep sugar out of the house, but once you leave it's fucking everywhere. Shopping at Woolworths? chocolate, ice cream, biscuits, sauces, breads, et bloody cetera. Birthday dinner in the family? Here, have some cake! Morning tea at school? Here, have some biscuits, have some cake. Go to the pub for trivia? Here, have a soft drink (I don't drink alcohol). It's just a constant fight to keep buying the right foods whilst surrounded by the pressures to buy the fucking poison.
I finally cracked on the day of Cassie's 2nd birthday party - there was just too much sugary crap in the house and I ate some. Being addicted to the bloody shit, that was the end of that. Subsequent efforts haven't lasted long and I've put all the weight back on and then some. My latest blood test says I'm currently diabetes free but I can't keep avoiding the major consequences forever. Indeed, the arthritic pain in the knee and the back pain are surely related to the block of flats those areas are keeping up. I'm not unaware of the facts here. But knowing the number of the train bearing down on you and getting out of its way are two different things.
I don't think it's impossible to lose weight or avoid the heavily processed shit, my sister's done it, as have many other people. But it is very hard. And it's very hard because we, as a society, are awash with sugar and highly processed foods which are continually presented as good things. I think that to blame the parents for their kids being obese and, by inference, to blame the obese for being obese, is to ignore the reality of the food consuming system that we live in. It's cheap and easy easy to eat sugar and highly processed foods in our society, expensive and difficult not to do so. I don't think we should be surprised that most of us choose the quick and easy path, even when we know it leads to the Dark Side.
Tuesday 30 September 2014
Help George Piggins attend the NRL grand final.
43 years ago, South Sydney played in the NSWRL grand final and won their 20th premiership in 64 seasons with a hard fought 16-10 victory over St George. One of the players in the winning team was George Piggins.
George Piggins, the saviour of the South Sydney rugby league football club after they were unceremoniously booted out following Super League.
George Piggins, who has not attended a game of rugby league since Souths were taken over by Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court. This Sunday, South Sydney play their first grand final for 43 years.George Piggins, former captain of the club, former coach, former CEO, does not propose to attend.
However, George Piggins, the man who should be at the game, has promised he will attend here. All we have to do is raise one hundred thousand dollars to be shared between The Sydney Children's hospitals at Randwick and Westmead.
I am not a Souths fan, I am not a VIP, I am not special (except to my daughter), I am simply a fan of rugby league. I just cannot get past the fact that South Sydney are only playing this weekend because of the passion and drive and courage of one man, George Piggins. The man who will not be going to that game unless we give him a little help. The man has finally provided an opening that will allow him to reconcile with the game and the club that he loves so much and has given so much for.
I don't know the man, but I just cannot imagine him wanting some rich person to hand over a hundred grand the way I hand over 20 bucks for Oporto and say "Well, George, you're coming now." I don't think he wants to be invited by the NRL elite, they've tried many times. He's always said no. He won't listen to the big end of town.
He needs to be invited by us, the ordinary rugby league fan, not just the Souths fans whose club he saved, but by the ordinary men, women and children who have nurtured this game since that bell was first rung at Birchgrove Oval in 1908.
That's the invitation that George Piggins needs, the one given to him by us, the ordinary fans of this great game, in our great country.
So, I am taking him up on his promise, I am sufficiently ordinary for the task at hand!
I have established a crowd funding website at Causevox
You can invite him to our grand final simply by clicking here and sending $10 to be shared between 2 great hospitals, The Sydney Children's Hospitals at Randwick and Westmead.
If we build it, he will come.
George Piggins, the saviour of the South Sydney rugby league football club after they were unceremoniously booted out following Super League.
George Piggins, who has not attended a game of rugby league since Souths were taken over by Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court. This Sunday, South Sydney play their first grand final for 43 years.George Piggins, former captain of the club, former coach, former CEO, does not propose to attend.
However, George Piggins, the man who should be at the game, has promised he will attend here. All we have to do is raise one hundred thousand dollars to be shared between The Sydney Children's hospitals at Randwick and Westmead.
I am not a Souths fan, I am not a VIP, I am not special (except to my daughter), I am simply a fan of rugby league. I just cannot get past the fact that South Sydney are only playing this weekend because of the passion and drive and courage of one man, George Piggins. The man who will not be going to that game unless we give him a little help. The man has finally provided an opening that will allow him to reconcile with the game and the club that he loves so much and has given so much for.
I don't know the man, but I just cannot imagine him wanting some rich person to hand over a hundred grand the way I hand over 20 bucks for Oporto and say "Well, George, you're coming now." I don't think he wants to be invited by the NRL elite, they've tried many times. He's always said no. He won't listen to the big end of town.
He needs to be invited by us, the ordinary rugby league fan, not just the Souths fans whose club he saved, but by the ordinary men, women and children who have nurtured this game since that bell was first rung at Birchgrove Oval in 1908.
That's the invitation that George Piggins needs, the one given to him by us, the ordinary fans of this great game, in our great country.
So, I am taking him up on his promise, I am sufficiently ordinary for the task at hand!
I have established a crowd funding website at Causevox
You can invite him to our grand final simply by clicking here and sending $10 to be shared between 2 great hospitals, The Sydney Children's Hospitals at Randwick and Westmead.
If we build it, he will come.
Thursday 28 August 2014
The war with Microsoft Part II
With my money still being possessed by Redmond, and my software also being located somewhere in the Microsoft product vaults, I was sent a link requesting feedback about my engagement with them the other day that I outlined here.
Well, they certainly got some feedback! Unfortunately most of it was of the 1-10 kind but on the last page they gave me some comment boxes... Thank you, Microsoft, the first decent thing you've done in this affair so far.
Please share any suggestions for how we can improve the Microsoft Store website:
You could start by making it work. I understand that's a real challenge for you. I've purchased and downloaded software from a lot of small operations and they all seem to be able to manage to take my money easily and provide me a link so I can download the product. Microsoft took 2 shots at taking my money, succeeding on the 2nd occasion, but still managed to fail to provide me with the product.
I was then told the transaction was cancelled, but my money is still a safe part of the Microsoft cash mountain. The product, on the other hand, remains in your software vaults somewhere. I'm about to start three weeks of 70 hour weeks so it's highly unlikely I'm going to be able to chase this up in that time frame but I strongly suspect the issue will still be waiting for me at the end of that time period.
Please tell us about factors that influenced your survey responses or share any other comments about your support experience:
Try training your people to talk like members of the human race, not brain dead morons, I thought Microsoft prided itself on hiring intelligent people.
The script that he was obviously required to use was patronising in the extreme. My evaluation of his performance is an evaluation of his training, I'm sure he was doing *exactly* what he was supposed to. The fact that he is required to talk in such a ludicrous manner is what needs to be addressed here. Microsoft isn't functioning as a dynamic, innovative, receptive software company, it's functioning as a staid bureaucractic behemoth, and it's little wonder that it's struggling to put together quality products.
Even if my purchase goes through, my first act if I ever get a hold of Office 365 will be to buy an add on to restore the highly efficient structures of Office 2003 as opposed to the farcically organised current model which still alternately bemuses and infuriates me after years of use.
I didn't want them to be under any illusions about my thoughts regarding their performance in this matter, amongst the confusing messages I got last time was that the issue would be passed upwards and would take 48-72 hours to be looked at. If I don't work at school tomorrow, I will chase them up some more, as long as I'm feeling brave that is!
Well, they certainly got some feedback! Unfortunately most of it was of the 1-10 kind but on the last page they gave me some comment boxes... Thank you, Microsoft, the first decent thing you've done in this affair so far.
Please share any suggestions for how we can improve the Microsoft Store website:
You could start by making it work. I understand that's a real challenge for you. I've purchased and downloaded software from a lot of small operations and they all seem to be able to manage to take my money easily and provide me a link so I can download the product. Microsoft took 2 shots at taking my money, succeeding on the 2nd occasion, but still managed to fail to provide me with the product.
I was then told the transaction was cancelled, but my money is still a safe part of the Microsoft cash mountain. The product, on the other hand, remains in your software vaults somewhere. I'm about to start three weeks of 70 hour weeks so it's highly unlikely I'm going to be able to chase this up in that time frame but I strongly suspect the issue will still be waiting for me at the end of that time period.
Please tell us about factors that influenced your survey responses or share any other comments about your support experience:
Try training your people to talk like members of the human race, not brain dead morons, I thought Microsoft prided itself on hiring intelligent people.
The script that he was obviously required to use was patronising in the extreme. My evaluation of his performance is an evaluation of his training, I'm sure he was doing *exactly* what he was supposed to. The fact that he is required to talk in such a ludicrous manner is what needs to be addressed here. Microsoft isn't functioning as a dynamic, innovative, receptive software company, it's functioning as a staid bureaucractic behemoth, and it's little wonder that it's struggling to put together quality products.
Even if my purchase goes through, my first act if I ever get a hold of Office 365 will be to buy an add on to restore the highly efficient structures of Office 2003 as opposed to the farcically organised current model which still alternately bemuses and infuriates me after years of use.
I didn't want them to be under any illusions about my thoughts regarding their performance in this matter, amongst the confusing messages I got last time was that the issue would be passed upwards and would take 48-72 hours to be looked at. If I don't work at school tomorrow, I will chase them up some more, as long as I'm feeling brave that is!
Wednesday 27 August 2014
Kristy and Lindsay see Queen with Adam Lambert!
The wonderful Kristy has always been a big Queen fan. Once I told her that Queen were touring with Adam Lambert there was never any doubt about whether or not we would be going, I'll concede I had some concerns about the $160 price tag but these were brushed aside! So, last night was spent at Allphones Arena or whatever it's called these days at Homebush, watching Brian May, Roger Taylor, Adam Lambert and a group of other musicians perform from the Queen catalogue. The boys are certainly respecting John Deacon's retirement as he was never mentioned. Freddie, of course, was mentioned quite often.
One might think that holding a QUEEN concert without Freddie Mercury is a bit of a stretch and that's a legitimate view. As Adam Lambert put it, one does have to "suspend one's disbelief." Lambert made that a pretty easy job. He's got a superb voice, which easily hits all the high notes that Freddie's left for him. He's bold on stage, campy, delightfully gay and thus makes an excellent fit with Queen. He made some nods towards Freddy without pretending to be anything other than Adam Lambert. Lambert performed with Queen during his American Idol season and clearly made an impression on Taylor and May. His version of Killer Queen was especially wicked. I found that he occasionally got drowned out by the loudness of the band but that might just be a personal quibble.
There was a long session in the middle of the concert where Adam was off stage and Brian May and Roger Taylor tried to carry the concert on their own, with a series of solos and a few songs where they took the microphone. While I found myself in awe of their technical skills, both clearly remaining at the summit of their profession, as entertainment it paled a little. I think had they shrunk that session considerably and kept Lambert out the front it would have worked better. Why on earth would you hire a voice like that and leave it in the dressing room?!
The technical proficiency of the concert was consistently in evidence, the light were blinding, the sound was explosive yet very clear, these were professional entertainers who knew what they were doing. But the hits were so loud and that reduced the ability of the audience to involve themselves in the singing - despite Queen possessing an almost unmatchable catalogue of concert ready singalong anthems! Maybe it works better in the stadiums where there's more audience members to push back against the loudness. So, for me, that was a bit of a letdown.
Overall though, it was a strong concert. It was great to see Roger Taylor and Dr Brian May looking so happy and enjoying themselves dusting off the Queen catalogue. They're so good that I'd quite like it if they drag John Deacon out of retirement, pull Adam Lambert into a studio with them and have a crack at making some new music. Just as Dr May found he had unfinished business with his Phd thesis and finished it off, possibly there's some unfinished musical business too.
Kristy had a great time, she resisted the lure of the overpriced T-shirts but the power of the program was not to be denied - $35 later she had her souvenir of the evening! She was thrilled and that was the point of the evening.
One might think that holding a QUEEN concert without Freddie Mercury is a bit of a stretch and that's a legitimate view. As Adam Lambert put it, one does have to "suspend one's disbelief." Lambert made that a pretty easy job. He's got a superb voice, which easily hits all the high notes that Freddie's left for him. He's bold on stage, campy, delightfully gay and thus makes an excellent fit with Queen. He made some nods towards Freddy without pretending to be anything other than Adam Lambert. Lambert performed with Queen during his American Idol season and clearly made an impression on Taylor and May. His version of Killer Queen was especially wicked. I found that he occasionally got drowned out by the loudness of the band but that might just be a personal quibble.
There was a long session in the middle of the concert where Adam was off stage and Brian May and Roger Taylor tried to carry the concert on their own, with a series of solos and a few songs where they took the microphone. While I found myself in awe of their technical skills, both clearly remaining at the summit of their profession, as entertainment it paled a little. I think had they shrunk that session considerably and kept Lambert out the front it would have worked better. Why on earth would you hire a voice like that and leave it in the dressing room?!
The technical proficiency of the concert was consistently in evidence, the light were blinding, the sound was explosive yet very clear, these were professional entertainers who knew what they were doing. But the hits were so loud and that reduced the ability of the audience to involve themselves in the singing - despite Queen possessing an almost unmatchable catalogue of concert ready singalong anthems! Maybe it works better in the stadiums where there's more audience members to push back against the loudness. So, for me, that was a bit of a letdown.
Overall though, it was a strong concert. It was great to see Roger Taylor and Dr Brian May looking so happy and enjoying themselves dusting off the Queen catalogue. They're so good that I'd quite like it if they drag John Deacon out of retirement, pull Adam Lambert into a studio with them and have a crack at making some new music. Just as Dr May found he had unfinished business with his Phd thesis and finished it off, possibly there's some unfinished musical business too.
Kristy had a great time, she resisted the lure of the overpriced T-shirts but the power of the program was not to be denied - $35 later she had her souvenir of the evening! She was thrilled and that was the point of the evening.
Monday 25 August 2014
Microsoft, Office 365 and how 78 billion dollars in yearly revenue doesn't mean you know shit about online sales!
I have always preferred Windows based systems to Apple and I have used MS Office for many years, periodically buying new editions.
In line with the above, it occurred to me several weeks ago that it was time to update my current MS Office suite, some of the kids I tutor bring assignments in and so it's useful to have MS Office on all my computers and not just some of them as is currently the case. MS Office provides a good solution as it allows you to put MS Office on 5 PC's and 5 tablets, which is certainly enough to cover my needs. And at $119 a year, tax deductible given it's for the business, it didn't seem like a totally unreasonable price to me. I'm well aware of Open Office but it can be bit of a nuisance when the kids don't use it so I prefer to have the standard behemoth.
So, decision made, I clicked into the Microsoft web store, found my way to the product and tried to order it. Epic fail #1. It failed to put my order through. While this doesn't happen often, these things do occur so I just left it for a couple of weeks and came back on Saturday. Order goes through, I get the confirmation email and told that another email including the download link will be sent soon. I've purchased software online many times and it's quite common for the product link to be sent to you in a separate email, although it's also common for you to be taken directly to the download site upon paying. Clearly, Microsoft don't want to be common.
I did note that there was a warning that not all people were getting the confirmation email but I figured that a company which managed 78 billion dollars in revenue last year would have managed to fix that.
Sunday morning - check emails no dice, but I decided to give them another 24 hours as Microsoft is an older company and probably only works Monday to Friday. Monday morning - no dice again so I took my courage in both my hands and contacted the online help.
"Hi! Thank you for visiting Microsoft Store Customer Support! My name is Joe Bloggs *. How may I help you today?"
I explained how I'd paid for Office 365 without getting the payment...
"I'm so sorry to know that. But don't worry, I will do all my best to help you with this concern."
The patronising tone evident in the call centre style greeting continues - I don't want your best - losers always whine about their best - I want the problem solved!
We got through the procedures to verify my order and the account and then he drops the bomb on me...
"I understand how important this purchase is to you. Sadly,our system encountered an error within the order placing process. Sadly your order has been cancelled."
Gee, great way to do your best people and thanks again for more of your patronising attitude! Your company's incompetence isn't sad, it's downright shameful!
I decided it was time to give him a free assessment of his company's skills:
"This is twice that I have tried to buy Office 365 and not been able to. Pass on to your superiors that your company's incompetence in putting together a basic online sales interface astounds me. I've purchased online from many a small operation and, astonishing as this concept may be to you, they manage to take my payment and give me access to the downloadable items."
Perhaps the dripping sarcasm might provoke a real response:
"I'm so sorry for this inconvenience."
Wishful thinking on my part. Still, I keep telling my students that persistence is important so I try again:
"Please also suggest to them that encouraging their salespeople to talk like members of the human race and not robots wouldn't be a bad idea, either! As for the product, I'm sick of trying to buy it and will use Open Office instead."
A lie re Open Office but I'm getting desperate.
"I will escalate your case to our higher level of Department it takes for about 48-72 hours."
I'm starting to question whether it's a human or a robot on the other end of this conversation, a train of thought encouraged by 'his' next few comments:
"Nothing to worry, I will personally monitor your order here in my end. I will also send you available email updates."
"You are not currently connected to an Answer Tech (Microsoft sales specialist)."
"FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Spoken out loud.
I'm awaiting further developments, I will note that I do not currently have access to Office 365 while according to Teachers Mutual Bank and Paypal, Microsoft still have access to my 119 dollars!
Further updates as they come to hand.
* Name changed to protect the 'salesperson', if he was a real person he was doing 'everything' he was trained to do and I have no particular beef with him other than his choice of career, surely he can do better.
In line with the above, it occurred to me several weeks ago that it was time to update my current MS Office suite, some of the kids I tutor bring assignments in and so it's useful to have MS Office on all my computers and not just some of them as is currently the case. MS Office provides a good solution as it allows you to put MS Office on 5 PC's and 5 tablets, which is certainly enough to cover my needs. And at $119 a year, tax deductible given it's for the business, it didn't seem like a totally unreasonable price to me. I'm well aware of Open Office but it can be bit of a nuisance when the kids don't use it so I prefer to have the standard behemoth.
So, decision made, I clicked into the Microsoft web store, found my way to the product and tried to order it. Epic fail #1. It failed to put my order through. While this doesn't happen often, these things do occur so I just left it for a couple of weeks and came back on Saturday. Order goes through, I get the confirmation email and told that another email including the download link will be sent soon. I've purchased software online many times and it's quite common for the product link to be sent to you in a separate email, although it's also common for you to be taken directly to the download site upon paying. Clearly, Microsoft don't want to be common.
I did note that there was a warning that not all people were getting the confirmation email but I figured that a company which managed 78 billion dollars in revenue last year would have managed to fix that.
Sunday morning - check emails no dice, but I decided to give them another 24 hours as Microsoft is an older company and probably only works Monday to Friday. Monday morning - no dice again so I took my courage in both my hands and contacted the online help.
"Hi! Thank you for visiting Microsoft Store Customer Support! My name is Joe Bloggs *. How may I help you today?"
I explained how I'd paid for Office 365 without getting the payment...
"I'm so sorry to know that. But don't worry, I will do all my best to help you with this concern."
The patronising tone evident in the call centre style greeting continues - I don't want your best - losers always whine about their best - I want the problem solved!
We got through the procedures to verify my order and the account and then he drops the bomb on me...
"I understand how important this purchase is to you. Sadly,our system encountered an error within the order placing process. Sadly your order has been cancelled."
Gee, great way to do your best people and thanks again for more of your patronising attitude! Your company's incompetence isn't sad, it's downright shameful!
I decided it was time to give him a free assessment of his company's skills:
"This is twice that I have tried to buy Office 365 and not been able to. Pass on to your superiors that your company's incompetence in putting together a basic online sales interface astounds me. I've purchased online from many a small operation and, astonishing as this concept may be to you, they manage to take my payment and give me access to the downloadable items."
Perhaps the dripping sarcasm might provoke a real response:
"I'm so sorry for this inconvenience."
Wishful thinking on my part. Still, I keep telling my students that persistence is important so I try again:
"Please also suggest to them that encouraging their salespeople to talk like members of the human race and not robots wouldn't be a bad idea, either! As for the product, I'm sick of trying to buy it and will use Open Office instead."
A lie re Open Office but I'm getting desperate.
"I will escalate your case to our higher level of Department it takes for about 48-72 hours."
I'm starting to question whether it's a human or a robot on the other end of this conversation, a train of thought encouraged by 'his' next few comments:
"Nothing to worry, I will personally monitor your order here in my end. I will also send you available email updates."
"You are not currently connected to an Answer Tech (Microsoft sales specialist)."
"FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Spoken out loud.
I'm awaiting further developments, I will note that I do not currently have access to Office 365 while according to Teachers Mutual Bank and Paypal, Microsoft still have access to my 119 dollars!
Further updates as they come to hand.
* Name changed to protect the 'salesperson', if he was a real person he was doing 'everything' he was trained to do and I have no particular beef with him other than his choice of career, surely he can do better.
Friday 8 August 2014
NRL Thoughts - the semis approach
My Dragons are definitely doing better than at previous writing, but we are clearly short of some firepower. I think we're struggling a little in the forwards, Benji Marshall is trying hard but is very hit and miss, and I'm not convinced about Dugan in the centres! 4/5 is a pretty big ask for us to make the semis - particularly as one of the 5 is Canberra and Saints fans these days just put a cross next to that game at the start of the season and concentrate on all the others. The fact they're running last is irrelevant, they start as overwhelming favourites to beat us.
Kristy's Doggies haven't looked good these last few weeks but I expect them to find some form when it matters and compete well into September. Having said that, it's hard to go past Manly as premiership favourites for this year, they just seem to have a little more than most teams, particularly as the Roosters just haven't looked as sharp in their premiership defence.
I'm unconvinced by Souths, the nature of their collapse against Manly last year leaves me concerned that they simply won't perform when needed, and it's not like they've looked incredibly dominating so far this year anyway.
Parramatta look good to make the semis with their favourable draw coming home, and to do so would be a great credit to all after some awful seasons. I still will be carrying my voodoo doll for them, though, as some of their supporters are pretty relentless when things are going their way!
Kristy's Doggies haven't looked good these last few weeks but I expect them to find some form when it matters and compete well into September. Having said that, it's hard to go past Manly as premiership favourites for this year, they just seem to have a little more than most teams, particularly as the Roosters just haven't looked as sharp in their premiership defence.
I'm unconvinced by Souths, the nature of their collapse against Manly last year leaves me concerned that they simply won't perform when needed, and it's not like they've looked incredibly dominating so far this year anyway.
Parramatta look good to make the semis with their favourable draw coming home, and to do so would be a great credit to all after some awful seasons. I still will be carrying my voodoo doll for them, though, as some of their supporters are pretty relentless when things are going their way!
Wednesday 2 July 2014
The cheat I respect
"My name is Lou Vincent and I am a cheat."
Lou Vincent is a former New Zealand Test cricketer who was heavily involved in match fixing in English county cricket. He has, correctly, been suspended for life from involvement in cricket.
Unlike so many in the same situation, however, he has placed the blame where it rests, upon his own shoulders! His statement above is remarkably free of the bullshit that characterises similar statements from business people, journalists, politicians, sportspeople and other celebrities who have been caught doing the wrong thing. He admits his guilt, without qualification. He acknowledges that he has depression, but states bluntly that his depression never prevented him from knowing "right from wrong". He has fully co-operated with the relevant authorities.
He accepts the penalty that he has been given because for a professional sport to prosper, there can be no tolerance of match fixing. The days where one could claim naivete are long past. This is a serious matter for a sport, this isn't some drunken idiot playing games with his own urine. That we have all paid so much attention to Todd Carney's photo yet so little attention to the recent story about NRL players gambling on the game says volumes about the importance we, as fans, place upon the integrity of the game that we follow. Why weren't we all making comments about that? We can't just blame the mass media because with our own social networking choices, we help drive how that mass media acts.
I respect Lou Vincent for looking himself in the mirror and deciding that his own personal integrity going forward is more important than his future cricketing career or maintaining respect for his past performances as a professional sportsman. The man shouldn't be involved with cricket again but I would be willing to buy something off him or avail myself of his services in a different field because he has demonstrated honesty when self interest bade him otherwise. He cheated the game, but he had also cheated himself. He's stopped cheating himself, and he can move forward.
I wish him all the best in his future endeavours and thank him for making it clear that match fixing in cricket isn't just something being perpetrated on the sub continent by cricketers who aren't white!
Lou Vincent is a former New Zealand Test cricketer who was heavily involved in match fixing in English county cricket. He has, correctly, been suspended for life from involvement in cricket.
Unlike so many in the same situation, however, he has placed the blame where it rests, upon his own shoulders! His statement above is remarkably free of the bullshit that characterises similar statements from business people, journalists, politicians, sportspeople and other celebrities who have been caught doing the wrong thing. He admits his guilt, without qualification. He acknowledges that he has depression, but states bluntly that his depression never prevented him from knowing "right from wrong". He has fully co-operated with the relevant authorities.
He accepts the penalty that he has been given because for a professional sport to prosper, there can be no tolerance of match fixing. The days where one could claim naivete are long past. This is a serious matter for a sport, this isn't some drunken idiot playing games with his own urine. That we have all paid so much attention to Todd Carney's photo yet so little attention to the recent story about NRL players gambling on the game says volumes about the importance we, as fans, place upon the integrity of the game that we follow. Why weren't we all making comments about that? We can't just blame the mass media because with our own social networking choices, we help drive how that mass media acts.
I respect Lou Vincent for looking himself in the mirror and deciding that his own personal integrity going forward is more important than his future cricketing career or maintaining respect for his past performances as a professional sportsman. The man shouldn't be involved with cricket again but I would be willing to buy something off him or avail myself of his services in a different field because he has demonstrated honesty when self interest bade him otherwise. He cheated the game, but he had also cheated himself. He's stopped cheating himself, and he can move forward.
I wish him all the best in his future endeavours and thank him for making it clear that match fixing in cricket isn't just something being perpetrated on the sub continent by cricketers who aren't white!
Thursday 19 June 2014
Improving at chess.
There are three areas where I've tried to improve myself this year: Maths, writing and chess. I've written about my efforts to improve in Maths here but I haven't discussed my efforts to become a better chessplayer.
I first purchased a PC and connected to the Internet back in January 1997, by July 1997 I had signed up to play at the Internet Chess Club (ICC) and I remain a member today. As I will elaborate upon down the track, the ICC became the focus of my online existence for many years and I was one serious ICC addict. In my early years, my chess improved quite a bit as I purchased some books, played a lot of games online and played a few over the board (OTB) tournaments and got better. However, my major focus was the social activity on ICC and not the game itself.
In recent years, the exhilarating array of social contacts that characterised my first decade on ICC has faded, many people I knew then have moved on and with the rise of social networking, ICC is no longer a place which people use to fulfil their social needs online. It's become rather staid and boring. It's still a good place to play the game. I still found myself playing chess, but it was the same fast chess games I'd been playing for fun when ICC was at its peak. You don't get better by simply playing fast games, chess involves thinking and unless you're prepared to do some, you won't improve much.
As I eventually found fast games unfulfilling and didn't have enough online friends to justify spending a lot of time there, I was considering just quitting the game. But I kept logging on, which made me realise that I still liked the game. So, it was clear I had a choice, I could keep playing crappy games, or I could try to actually get better.
I consulted Google University about how to do this and perusing a range of articles led me to Dan Heisman ,among others and they suggested that the key things needed for below average players to improve were tactics, playing long games, tactics, developing one's skills with chess strategy along with a mild focus on openings and endgames. For extra work, they suggested tactics. For advanced work, they suggested more tactics. For non chessplayers, a tactic is a forcing move or set of moves that wins you some of your opponent's army. Strategy is about where you should put your pieces so that they have some chance of participating in a tactic. Openings and endgames, as you just may have guessed, have to do with the start and end phases of the game.
Despite all the years of playing quick games of chess, I am shit at tactics, which is why I'm not that good at the game. I have signed up to Chess Tempo which a website devoted to helping chess shmucks like yours truly develop their tactical skills. It has an extensive free section but the extras were, I think, worth the small cost. I have been following the advice of Dan Heisman in how I am using Chess Tempo. Lots of repetition and lots of problems that are simple as I need to become exceptionally accurate at those problems and I need to be able to recognise those patterns consistently. Good chessplayers are not better at random pattern recognition than ordinary people, but they are superb at recognising chess patterns. I am a regular visitor to Chess Tempo and I am taking its problems seriously.
I have also started playing longer games, I am aiming to play 3 long games during a normal week and 6 long games during a holiday week. A long game is one with a time control of 45 45 or longer, so it should take at least 2 hours if both sides use their time well and will generally take more.
One of the attractions of Bejeweled Blitz was the idea that I could become good at something like I was able to when I was younger. Now I'm wondering how much an old dog, who's played a game for a long time, can improve if he sets his mind to it. Despite all the chess I've played, I have never embarked upon a systematic program of improvement in the game before.
I started about a month ago and I've noticed some small improvements, but I am still well below the heights I reached on ICC at my best, which was a over a decade ago now! When I started my program of improvement, my ICC bullet, blitz and standard ratings hovered around 1600, my Australian Chess Federation (ACF) rating for over the board play was 1341.
I played the NSW Open under 1600 over the June long weekend and achieved an unspectacular 3.5/7, beating 3 weak players and losing to 3 players who were rated a little higher than me, indicating that my rating is pretty accurate for my current level of skill. I missed basic tactics in all 3 of my losses and in 2 of my wins as well, so the decision to focus on basic tactics is clearly wise.
I'm not sure how good I can get, not having seriously tried to improve before. I'm hoping that I can become good enough to seriously compete in an under 1600 tournament with a view to getting a rating of over 1600 so I can play against good players. Online, I'd like to have a rating that hovered in the 2000's on ICC, rather than the 1600's. Neither of those would suddenly make me a great chessplayer, but I think it would be a good indication that being a little older won't prevent you improving at a skill as long as you put in the appropriate effort.
I'm enjoying the process so far so I anticipate it will continue, if it doesn't, it's not critical as this is for fun. I intend to re-visit this post from time to time and see how much I have improved. While the journey is definitely more important than the destination, I am rather curious about where this will all end up!
I first purchased a PC and connected to the Internet back in January 1997, by July 1997 I had signed up to play at the Internet Chess Club (ICC) and I remain a member today. As I will elaborate upon down the track, the ICC became the focus of my online existence for many years and I was one serious ICC addict. In my early years, my chess improved quite a bit as I purchased some books, played a lot of games online and played a few over the board (OTB) tournaments and got better. However, my major focus was the social activity on ICC and not the game itself.
In recent years, the exhilarating array of social contacts that characterised my first decade on ICC has faded, many people I knew then have moved on and with the rise of social networking, ICC is no longer a place which people use to fulfil their social needs online. It's become rather staid and boring. It's still a good place to play the game. I still found myself playing chess, but it was the same fast chess games I'd been playing for fun when ICC was at its peak. You don't get better by simply playing fast games, chess involves thinking and unless you're prepared to do some, you won't improve much.
As I eventually found fast games unfulfilling and didn't have enough online friends to justify spending a lot of time there, I was considering just quitting the game. But I kept logging on, which made me realise that I still liked the game. So, it was clear I had a choice, I could keep playing crappy games, or I could try to actually get better.
I consulted Google University about how to do this and perusing a range of articles led me to Dan Heisman ,among others and they suggested that the key things needed for below average players to improve were tactics, playing long games, tactics, developing one's skills with chess strategy along with a mild focus on openings and endgames. For extra work, they suggested tactics. For advanced work, they suggested more tactics. For non chessplayers, a tactic is a forcing move or set of moves that wins you some of your opponent's army. Strategy is about where you should put your pieces so that they have some chance of participating in a tactic. Openings and endgames, as you just may have guessed, have to do with the start and end phases of the game.
Despite all the years of playing quick games of chess, I am shit at tactics, which is why I'm not that good at the game. I have signed up to Chess Tempo which a website devoted to helping chess shmucks like yours truly develop their tactical skills. It has an extensive free section but the extras were, I think, worth the small cost. I have been following the advice of Dan Heisman in how I am using Chess Tempo. Lots of repetition and lots of problems that are simple as I need to become exceptionally accurate at those problems and I need to be able to recognise those patterns consistently. Good chessplayers are not better at random pattern recognition than ordinary people, but they are superb at recognising chess patterns. I am a regular visitor to Chess Tempo and I am taking its problems seriously.
I have also started playing longer games, I am aiming to play 3 long games during a normal week and 6 long games during a holiday week. A long game is one with a time control of 45 45 or longer, so it should take at least 2 hours if both sides use their time well and will generally take more.
One of the attractions of Bejeweled Blitz was the idea that I could become good at something like I was able to when I was younger. Now I'm wondering how much an old dog, who's played a game for a long time, can improve if he sets his mind to it. Despite all the chess I've played, I have never embarked upon a systematic program of improvement in the game before.
I started about a month ago and I've noticed some small improvements, but I am still well below the heights I reached on ICC at my best, which was a over a decade ago now! When I started my program of improvement, my ICC bullet, blitz and standard ratings hovered around 1600, my Australian Chess Federation (ACF) rating for over the board play was 1341.
I played the NSW Open under 1600 over the June long weekend and achieved an unspectacular 3.5/7, beating 3 weak players and losing to 3 players who were rated a little higher than me, indicating that my rating is pretty accurate for my current level of skill. I missed basic tactics in all 3 of my losses and in 2 of my wins as well, so the decision to focus on basic tactics is clearly wise.
I'm not sure how good I can get, not having seriously tried to improve before. I'm hoping that I can become good enough to seriously compete in an under 1600 tournament with a view to getting a rating of over 1600 so I can play against good players. Online, I'd like to have a rating that hovered in the 2000's on ICC, rather than the 1600's. Neither of those would suddenly make me a great chessplayer, but I think it would be a good indication that being a little older won't prevent you improving at a skill as long as you put in the appropriate effort.
I'm enjoying the process so far so I anticipate it will continue, if it doesn't, it's not critical as this is for fun. I intend to re-visit this post from time to time and see how much I have improved. While the journey is definitely more important than the destination, I am rather curious about where this will all end up!
Tuesday 10 June 2014
Movie of the Week: ESPN 30 for 30: Broke
Another in the absorbing series of ESPN 30 from 30 documentaries, director Billy Corben explores the failure of many American professional athletes to keep the seemingly enormous sums of money that they have earnt from their varying sports, despite the massive increases in remuneration that these sports have experienced in recent decades.
The numbers vary, but what is certain is that a large percentage of athletes in the NFL, the NBA and the MLB end up broke within 5 years of retirement.
Broke is an absorbing ride, Corben's approach is to divide the film into sections with each section outlining one of the ways that athletes struggle to deal with the income that they have and how it gets away from them. Interviews with many former players such as Curt Schilling, Keith McCants, Bernie Kosar and Andre Rison along with financial experts and commentators form the core of the film.
Corben appears to be more interested in presenting that individual stories of the players than in conducting a systematic analysis of why the problem exists or what can be done to resolve it. It's a discussion starter. Only Curt Schilling was at all familiar to me so the stories had to stand on their own merits and they did.
Looking at the stories as presented by Corben, some of the problem is that the players themselves are young and living shallow lives as many young people would, spending big, partying hard, attracting women and generally having a great time without thinking about tomorrow. An additional difficulty is that that athletes don't have the types of tax deductions available to companies and businessmen so they're actually paying their fair share of tax and lose more than they expect to it.
The athletes that have the most trouble seem to be those from disadvantaged backgrounds whose families never had to worry about the need to teach their children how to handle having too much money. While there's more blacks than whites getting in trouble, as there are also more blacks than whites in the NBA and the NFL, that's not a huge shock and the number of whites in trouble was enough to demonstrate that labelling the problem as a racial one is too simplistic by far.
Athletes found themselves unable to deal with the demands for money from family, friends and the communities they were raised in, it's easy for them to acquire large entourages while the money is there Injuries also proved to be a big problem, the salaries didn't last as long as they had expected and so they didn't end up make the sort of money they actually budgeted for when they got their first contract or 2.
Most of us will tend to live a much more expensive lifestyle if given a larger income. For young athletes in American sports, this has proved to be quite the mixed blessing, as too much money often is. Billy Corben's Broke presents an absorbing account of the people behind the cliche of the spoilt, broke, former athlete. 7/10
The numbers vary, but what is certain is that a large percentage of athletes in the NFL, the NBA and the MLB end up broke within 5 years of retirement.
Broke is an absorbing ride, Corben's approach is to divide the film into sections with each section outlining one of the ways that athletes struggle to deal with the income that they have and how it gets away from them. Interviews with many former players such as Curt Schilling, Keith McCants, Bernie Kosar and Andre Rison along with financial experts and commentators form the core of the film.
Corben appears to be more interested in presenting that individual stories of the players than in conducting a systematic analysis of why the problem exists or what can be done to resolve it. It's a discussion starter. Only Curt Schilling was at all familiar to me so the stories had to stand on their own merits and they did.
Looking at the stories as presented by Corben, some of the problem is that the players themselves are young and living shallow lives as many young people would, spending big, partying hard, attracting women and generally having a great time without thinking about tomorrow. An additional difficulty is that that athletes don't have the types of tax deductions available to companies and businessmen so they're actually paying their fair share of tax and lose more than they expect to it.
The athletes that have the most trouble seem to be those from disadvantaged backgrounds whose families never had to worry about the need to teach their children how to handle having too much money. While there's more blacks than whites getting in trouble, as there are also more blacks than whites in the NBA and the NFL, that's not a huge shock and the number of whites in trouble was enough to demonstrate that labelling the problem as a racial one is too simplistic by far.
Athletes found themselves unable to deal with the demands for money from family, friends and the communities they were raised in, it's easy for them to acquire large entourages while the money is there Injuries also proved to be a big problem, the salaries didn't last as long as they had expected and so they didn't end up make the sort of money they actually budgeted for when they got their first contract or 2.
Most of us will tend to live a much more expensive lifestyle if given a larger income. For young athletes in American sports, this has proved to be quite the mixed blessing, as too much money often is. Billy Corben's Broke presents an absorbing account of the people behind the cliche of the spoilt, broke, former athlete. 7/10
Monday 2 June 2014
The state of the blog and the week ahead for The Went Report
On the 30th April, I wrote a rather dispirited post where I acknowledged that I did not anticipate that I would be able to turn this into a fully functioning blog as I'd written precisely nothing in 8 days despite having given myself, as I thought, the freedom to do so.
Since that post I have written 22 posts, comfortably exceeding my output in the previous 6 years! In addition , I have 2 drafts close to publication and a post with the best part of five thousand words nearing publication readiness. For an encore, I adjusted the settings on the blog and added some links so it functions like a real blog! Most of my posts have gained a small audience, smaller than what I am hoping I will have down the track, but better than nothing. My review of The Announcement has been picked up somewhere, as it continues to steadily add viewers, it is now past the 100 mark and gets a few views every day. Consequently, I upgraded the post last week in response to that as it was a pretty thin review.
I usually advertise my posts on Facebook, and I have mentioned a couple of them on reddit and Stumble Upon and in varying Facebook forums. I will continue to do this and I hope some people will end up reading the blog on a regular basis.
I'm anticipating that my upcoming Bejweled Blitz series of posts will set some blog records for me. I think they are more likely than most of my posts to attract search engine attention over time and I think they will get a fair number of visits from Facebook too, and the posts will remain topical for quite a while so I'll mention them periodically on the Bejeweled Blitz fan forums. I'm thinking that a thousand views isn't an unreasonable expectation for them to get over time, and that higher than that is not impossible.
My old list of possible blog topics has been organised, updated and is being added to as ideas occur to me. While I primarily write for myself I believe that there are other people who share some of my interests and feelings and will enjoy reading some of the things that I have to say.
This week I'm looking to develop and post an account of my Tuesdays with Cassie, as I want a detailed post recording what she and I have done during her pre-school years to be available as she ages. I intend to post Part I of my Bejeweled series next Sunday, and publish the other parts on the following 2 Sundays. My book of the week post for this week will be about the Hairy Maclary books which Cassie and I have been having a ball with lately. My movie of the week for next week only needs some polishing and it's done, it's about the ESPN 30-30 documentary Broke.
This post actually started changing into something different about the nature of writing and the nature of my involvement with writing and I think it's the most deeply personal thing I've written, it's not done yet but I already feel the blood dripping onto the keyboard from the veins I opened up while I was writing it. That will be posted tomorrow.
Since that post I have written 22 posts, comfortably exceeding my output in the previous 6 years! In addition , I have 2 drafts close to publication and a post with the best part of five thousand words nearing publication readiness. For an encore, I adjusted the settings on the blog and added some links so it functions like a real blog! Most of my posts have gained a small audience, smaller than what I am hoping I will have down the track, but better than nothing. My review of The Announcement has been picked up somewhere, as it continues to steadily add viewers, it is now past the 100 mark and gets a few views every day. Consequently, I upgraded the post last week in response to that as it was a pretty thin review.
I usually advertise my posts on Facebook, and I have mentioned a couple of them on reddit and Stumble Upon and in varying Facebook forums. I will continue to do this and I hope some people will end up reading the blog on a regular basis.
I'm anticipating that my upcoming Bejweled Blitz series of posts will set some blog records for me. I think they are more likely than most of my posts to attract search engine attention over time and I think they will get a fair number of visits from Facebook too, and the posts will remain topical for quite a while so I'll mention them periodically on the Bejeweled Blitz fan forums. I'm thinking that a thousand views isn't an unreasonable expectation for them to get over time, and that higher than that is not impossible.
My old list of possible blog topics has been organised, updated and is being added to as ideas occur to me. While I primarily write for myself I believe that there are other people who share some of my interests and feelings and will enjoy reading some of the things that I have to say.
This week I'm looking to develop and post an account of my Tuesdays with Cassie, as I want a detailed post recording what she and I have done during her pre-school years to be available as she ages. I intend to post Part I of my Bejeweled series next Sunday, and publish the other parts on the following 2 Sundays. My book of the week post for this week will be about the Hairy Maclary books which Cassie and I have been having a ball with lately. My movie of the week for next week only needs some polishing and it's done, it's about the ESPN 30-30 documentary Broke.
This post actually started changing into something different about the nature of writing and the nature of my involvement with writing and I think it's the most deeply personal thing I've written, it's not done yet but I already feel the blood dripping onto the keyboard from the veins I opened up while I was writing it. That will be posted tomorrow.
Sunday 1 June 2014
Movie of the Week: ESPN 30 from 30 Soccer Stories: Hillsborough
The debut entry in ESPN 30 from 30 Soccer series is a brilliantly crafted, devastating account of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. Ninety three Liverpool supporters died on the 15 April 1989 when they were crushed against the fence due to overcrowding in the pens behind the goalposts for the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. An additional three supporters died later in hospital.
Director Daniel Gordon investigates how and why the disaster happened, he details the process by which the Liverpool fans themselves were falsely blamed for the disaster leading to a 25 year battle by the relatives of the victims to have the truth revealed. He reveals that there was a systematic program of altering statements by police and other relevant witnesses to hide the shortcomings of police management that was largely responsible for the disaster that day. Gordon explores how this program was aided and abetted by a mass media campaign spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch's The Sun newspaper, whose false headlines and allegations were as confronting as any of the visual images presented in the film, leading to a boycott of The Sun in Liverpool that has lasted to this day.
This is a captivating film. Daniel Gordon uses a mix of interviews with the leading players, including several of the police officers who haven't spoken in public before about their experiences, along with the use of footage from the day to explain in chilling clarity just what went wrong. The relatives who are interviewed are articulate, thoughtful and impressive witnesses who have a story to tell that is important and moving. Gordon does them justice. The film shows confronting scenes of people being crushed, not in close up, but clearly visible. This adds to the drama and tension one feels while watching this film and is critical to helping the viewer understand what happened that day. It is not exploitation.
The tragic irony of the disaster was that, due to an unrelated police scandal, the former police superintendent of the area, Brian Mole, had been transferred out of the position only 3 weeks before the disaster. He had a long and successful history of managing stadium events at Hillsborough, and was well aware of the possible difficulties involved with that management. His successor, David Duckenfield, did not have this experience and it led him to make a series of highly criticised decisions and non decisions that contributed to the disaster.
At the time, it was common to have supporters at the each end of the field standing and watching in the game in unseated terraces. Due to problems with soccer hooliganism, these terraces had high fences at the front, preventing easy access to the pitch. At Hillsborough, fences dividing the terrace into four pens had also been installed, preventing free movement across the terrace which had been the standard way for people who were feeling crushed to get out. Gordon explores the parade of errors made by the management of the stadium and the police in dealing with the problems involved with the entry to the ground and to the management of the spectators at the Leppings Lane end of the ground, problems that had been apparent to the extent that there had been a near fatal crush at the same end just 8 years before.
The game had been going for 6 minutes when it became clear that there were problems in the pens and play was suspended. As the scale of the disaster became obvious, the head of British Football Association went into the police box, he was told by Superintendent Duckenfield that Liverpool fans had drunkenly broken into a side gate and flooded the pens with people. The side gate had been ordered open by Duckenfield himself, in response to frantic requests from officers outside afraid that people were going to be crushed to death trying to get in. This lie was the foundation of the allegations that Liverpool fans were drunk and that the disaster was their fault.
Gordon investigates the allegations along with the attempts to discover the truth in detail. This is headed by the pivotal contribution of Professor Phil Scraton, an articulate, authoritative interviewee, whose research led to discoveries which contradicted the official account of events, demonstrating that the official account had been 'sanitised' at best and criminally altered at worst. These discoveries led to an overturning of the original inquest and to the opening of new inquests into the 96 deaths. Therese inquests are continuing at time of writing and the film is not currently available for viewing in the United Kingdom as a result.
Daniel Gordon has created a definitive documentary, a superb account of the Hillsborough disaster that will surely move and anger most people who watch it. This is not a great documentary, it's a great film. 9/10.
At the time of writing, the film was available here
Wednesday 28 May 2014
NRL Thoughts: State of Origin I
Watch out Queensland, Blues on their way!
It was another titanic clash, but this time, for once, despite so many 50-50 calls coming up Queensland's way, New South Wales have managed to take themselves into the lion's den of Suncorp Stadium and come away with a superb victory!
It was a magnificent second half effort in defence that proved the decisive factor, although NSW will surely regret some missed opportunities when they were on top to extend the lead. Dragon superstar winger Brett Morris was superb in defence in the 2nd half despite hurting his shoulder when scoring in the first half! His effort to prevent Darius Boyd from tying the game up could be long remembered - if NSW win the series.
There was no question that the key for NSW was Jarryd Hayne, a constant menace in attack, very heavily involved, while also defusing numerous Queensland raids with aplomb. How good is this man?!
Queensland played well, although they probably lost some of their fluency in attack due to Cronk's injury. Cherry-Evans looked far from overawed though and will only be better for the run. I can't imagine too many NSW fans thinking anything other than this is going to be a tough task to get that second win and clinch the series
I was thinking in the first 20 minutes that maybe the intensity of this game wasn't that far above that of an ordinary game, but it just got tougher and tougher as the game went on. Josh Reynolds, who performed capably in his first game as a starting five-eighth, seemed a little awestruck when commenting immediately after the game about just how tough it was, how he'd never played a game like it. Reynolds has played a grand final, he's played big games, but even so this was something else.NSW haven't been good enough to win very often this last 10 years, but very few of those losses have been thrashings. So often they've given us hope.
Origin provides a level of the game that is simply unmatched, as is perhaps reflected in how many players get injured, there was no shortage of walking wounded among those who didn't end up in hospital. I thought the Bulldogs players in the NSW side were superb, with the partial exception of Tony Williams, a player that one is always expecting to destroy an opposition with his obvious pace and power, only to be disappointed by how rarely it actually happens. I do wonder though, what price will the Bulldogs pay for the obvious intensity that their players brought to this contest. In 2011 St George were going swimmingly into Origin, half our team got picked and after the series our season imploded. And that's hardly a rare event for teams that are heavily involved in Origin.
Well, we're onto Sydney, it's been 11 years since NSW took Game 1 in Brisbane, and we won that year. Could this be a turning point in our long period of inferiority to the Cane Toads? Go the Blues!
It was another titanic clash, but this time, for once, despite so many 50-50 calls coming up Queensland's way, New South Wales have managed to take themselves into the lion's den of Suncorp Stadium and come away with a superb victory!
It was a magnificent second half effort in defence that proved the decisive factor, although NSW will surely regret some missed opportunities when they were on top to extend the lead. Dragon superstar winger Brett Morris was superb in defence in the 2nd half despite hurting his shoulder when scoring in the first half! His effort to prevent Darius Boyd from tying the game up could be long remembered - if NSW win the series.
There was no question that the key for NSW was Jarryd Hayne, a constant menace in attack, very heavily involved, while also defusing numerous Queensland raids with aplomb. How good is this man?!
Queensland played well, although they probably lost some of their fluency in attack due to Cronk's injury. Cherry-Evans looked far from overawed though and will only be better for the run. I can't imagine too many NSW fans thinking anything other than this is going to be a tough task to get that second win and clinch the series
I was thinking in the first 20 minutes that maybe the intensity of this game wasn't that far above that of an ordinary game, but it just got tougher and tougher as the game went on. Josh Reynolds, who performed capably in his first game as a starting five-eighth, seemed a little awestruck when commenting immediately after the game about just how tough it was, how he'd never played a game like it. Reynolds has played a grand final, he's played big games, but even so this was something else.NSW haven't been good enough to win very often this last 10 years, but very few of those losses have been thrashings. So often they've given us hope.
Origin provides a level of the game that is simply unmatched, as is perhaps reflected in how many players get injured, there was no shortage of walking wounded among those who didn't end up in hospital. I thought the Bulldogs players in the NSW side were superb, with the partial exception of Tony Williams, a player that one is always expecting to destroy an opposition with his obvious pace and power, only to be disappointed by how rarely it actually happens. I do wonder though, what price will the Bulldogs pay for the obvious intensity that their players brought to this contest. In 2011 St George were going swimmingly into Origin, half our team got picked and after the series our season imploded. And that's hardly a rare event for teams that are heavily involved in Origin.
Well, we're onto Sydney, it's been 11 years since NSW took Game 1 in Brisbane, and we won that year. Could this be a turning point in our long period of inferiority to the Cane Toads? Go the Blues!
Tuesday 27 May 2014
Lindsay's Movie of the Week: Field of Dreams: A 25th Anniversary Retrospective.
Field of Dreams was my brother Peter's favourite film. Peter is notorious amongst the brothers for being a sucker for any film that has a boat or plane in it and consequently his opinion of films doesn't always get a lot of respect from his 3 younger brothers. Thus his high opinion of Field of Dreams didn't exactly have me rushing to borrow the VCR off him. It was baseball and I didn't really like baseball, and I certainly didn't like Kevin Costner. Several years later, possibly many years later, in a period of extreme boredom in those pre-Internet days, I finally decided to borrow the VCR off him.
It turned out that I was enchanted. Kevin Costner was engaging and charming, ideal for the role, Amy Madigan was superb, James Earl Jones was strong and dynamic, Burt Lancaster's brief appearance was a show-stealer, the acting was flawless, the music accompanied the story so beautifully. What really enchanted me wasn't the acting, it was the quality of the story and the film. This was a film that was willing to take chances, that was willing to treat the journey of the heart seriously. A film that was prepared to say that dreams matter, and that those dreams can be very personal and not world shattering. As someone who didn't have a great relationship with his own father, the ending held special power for me.
Watching it again, I found the movie was, if anything, even more powerful. Burt Lancaster's scenes strike home to an older man, I can look at moments in my own life where I didn't realise that it was one of the "most significant moments of my life" that was happening. Kristy's first RSVP contact with me, waiting for the results of the pregnancy test, my life has changed and Field of Dreams is very honest about change.
I look at the relationship the couple had in the film and identify with it - I think Kristy would let me build that field, her support of me is strong, even when she may not agree with me. I'd always wanted to be a good father. Now that I am one, that desire to get it right, to have a better relationship with my children than I had with my father is even more pervasive.
My copy of the DVD includes a wonderful documentary about the making of the film and I have found the documentary to be almost as watchable as the film itself. Discovering that the director and script adapter Phil Alden Robinson found the whole process of making the film to be incredibly stressful and that despite its success, he's carefully avoided making films subsequently adds nuance to the tale being told.
Discovering that it took years to make because most studios were understandably concerned that a film of this nature wouldn't work at the box office, that the part of Terrence Mann was specifically written for James Earl Jones, that tourists have visited the movie site in Iowa from 1990 to this day, that all the cast members seemed to remember the film with much greater affection than an ordinary film simply adds to one's affections for this great film.
The coup de grace was was the revelation that the character of Moonlight Graham was closely based on the real Moonlight Graham, who truly only played one innings of 1 Major League Baseball game before retiring to become a beloved doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota. Would that man have ever imagined, when taking time out to watch a Burt Lancaster film, that he was watching a man who would one day portray him?!
Field of Dreams continues to be a film that moves me and I can only agree with Timothy Busfield who pointed out that there are very few films that move men in the way that this film does. The Shawshank Redemption comes to mind, but it's a rare thing. It's that ability to tug my heartstrings that has made Field of Dreams one of my favourite films of all time.10/10.
It turned out that I was enchanted. Kevin Costner was engaging and charming, ideal for the role, Amy Madigan was superb, James Earl Jones was strong and dynamic, Burt Lancaster's brief appearance was a show-stealer, the acting was flawless, the music accompanied the story so beautifully. What really enchanted me wasn't the acting, it was the quality of the story and the film. This was a film that was willing to take chances, that was willing to treat the journey of the heart seriously. A film that was prepared to say that dreams matter, and that those dreams can be very personal and not world shattering. As someone who didn't have a great relationship with his own father, the ending held special power for me.
Watching it again, I found the movie was, if anything, even more powerful. Burt Lancaster's scenes strike home to an older man, I can look at moments in my own life where I didn't realise that it was one of the "most significant moments of my life" that was happening. Kristy's first RSVP contact with me, waiting for the results of the pregnancy test, my life has changed and Field of Dreams is very honest about change.
I look at the relationship the couple had in the film and identify with it - I think Kristy would let me build that field, her support of me is strong, even when she may not agree with me. I'd always wanted to be a good father. Now that I am one, that desire to get it right, to have a better relationship with my children than I had with my father is even more pervasive.
My copy of the DVD includes a wonderful documentary about the making of the film and I have found the documentary to be almost as watchable as the film itself. Discovering that the director and script adapter Phil Alden Robinson found the whole process of making the film to be incredibly stressful and that despite its success, he's carefully avoided making films subsequently adds nuance to the tale being told.
Discovering that it took years to make because most studios were understandably concerned that a film of this nature wouldn't work at the box office, that the part of Terrence Mann was specifically written for James Earl Jones, that tourists have visited the movie site in Iowa from 1990 to this day, that all the cast members seemed to remember the film with much greater affection than an ordinary film simply adds to one's affections for this great film.
The coup de grace was was the revelation that the character of Moonlight Graham was closely based on the real Moonlight Graham, who truly only played one innings of 1 Major League Baseball game before retiring to become a beloved doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota. Would that man have ever imagined, when taking time out to watch a Burt Lancaster film, that he was watching a man who would one day portray him?!
Field of Dreams continues to be a film that moves me and I can only agree with Timothy Busfield who pointed out that there are very few films that move men in the way that this film does. The Shawshank Redemption comes to mind, but it's a rare thing. It's that ability to tug my heartstrings that has made Field of Dreams one of my favourite films of all time.10/10.
Monday 26 May 2014
NRL Thoughts - Steve Price - This is the end.
This time it's my club that's pulled the pin on a coach and fired him. After 6 losses in 7 games, with the last three being absolute thrashings characterised by shoddy ball control and feeble defence, St George Illawarra sacked head coach Steve Price this morning, effective immediately, with assistant coach Paul McGregor stepping into the head coach position for the remainder of the season.
This wasn't an unexpected decision, despite St George's history of not sacking coaches mid season - they haven't done it before. Ever. They've sacked premiership winning coaches at the end of a season, but they normally do it at the end. It's been clear for a long time that they weren't happy with what Steve Price had to offer, having made a huge offer to Craig Bellamy last year in a bid to entice him to sign. Price was only given this season after Bellamy knocked them back. I read stories last year stating the most of the recruitment decisions for this year were made by Peter Doust and Craig Young with Price having minimal input into those decisions. Nevertheless, as is usual in professional sports, he's the one who gets the axe.
As an interested but not obsessed fan, there's hasn't been a lot to indicate that Price had the makings of a top class coach, he didn't seem to know how to use Jamie Soward and there wasn't a lot of imagination in attack over his first two seasons. Whilst we now have a Rolls Royce backline, the forwards are weak, and the overall package isn't working. Consequently I don't have any major issues with the decision, the last 3 games indicated that we were a long way off being competitive and I think that the side should be competitive with that roster. There was a lot of talk in Price's first season about maintaining our defensive culture, but it was obvious even then that it had gone and wasn't coming back.
I always feel sympathy for the fallen in these situations. By all accounts, Steve Price is a hard worker and a very good, kind, man. I have no doubt that he's poured his heart and soul into the job these last 2 and a bit years and that the lack of success has hurt him as much as anyone. Failure is always hard to deal with and being declared a failure in such a blunt manner has to hurt. I hope that he finds his way back into an assistant coaching position at another club, it may well be that he is more suited to those at this stage of his coaching career. He probably won't get another NRL position, but he's young enough to develop more skills and hope that luck comes his way.
Looking forward, I'm hoping that Saints can find an experienced coach to take them forward and that they can develop a long term recruiting plan, there's been little evidence of a plan in recruitment decisions in recent years. I'd be happy with Bennett returning or Bellamy changing his mind. I probably wouldn't be that keen on Paul McGregor getting the job as he's not experienced at head coach level, and we've tended to struggle with inexperienced coaches. That said, if results turned around, he'd have to be a chance of getting the job. Nathan Brown's record wasn't too bad actually, but he may have managed to win premierships had he possessed the experience he has subsequently acquired. If the Tigers don't want Michael Potter, I'd love to have him back.
Somewhat unusually for a sports fan, the long awaited premiership in 2010 really did sate my appetite, and the fact we've taken a big tumble hasn't particularly bothered me, it's a tough competition to win and if you have to risk subsequent seasons to get that win, well it's worth it. Steve Price was unlucky and hopefully his successors will have better opportunities to achieve NRL success!
This wasn't an unexpected decision, despite St George's history of not sacking coaches mid season - they haven't done it before. Ever. They've sacked premiership winning coaches at the end of a season, but they normally do it at the end. It's been clear for a long time that they weren't happy with what Steve Price had to offer, having made a huge offer to Craig Bellamy last year in a bid to entice him to sign. Price was only given this season after Bellamy knocked them back. I read stories last year stating the most of the recruitment decisions for this year were made by Peter Doust and Craig Young with Price having minimal input into those decisions. Nevertheless, as is usual in professional sports, he's the one who gets the axe.
As an interested but not obsessed fan, there's hasn't been a lot to indicate that Price had the makings of a top class coach, he didn't seem to know how to use Jamie Soward and there wasn't a lot of imagination in attack over his first two seasons. Whilst we now have a Rolls Royce backline, the forwards are weak, and the overall package isn't working. Consequently I don't have any major issues with the decision, the last 3 games indicated that we were a long way off being competitive and I think that the side should be competitive with that roster. There was a lot of talk in Price's first season about maintaining our defensive culture, but it was obvious even then that it had gone and wasn't coming back.
I always feel sympathy for the fallen in these situations. By all accounts, Steve Price is a hard worker and a very good, kind, man. I have no doubt that he's poured his heart and soul into the job these last 2 and a bit years and that the lack of success has hurt him as much as anyone. Failure is always hard to deal with and being declared a failure in such a blunt manner has to hurt. I hope that he finds his way back into an assistant coaching position at another club, it may well be that he is more suited to those at this stage of his coaching career. He probably won't get another NRL position, but he's young enough to develop more skills and hope that luck comes his way.
Looking forward, I'm hoping that Saints can find an experienced coach to take them forward and that they can develop a long term recruiting plan, there's been little evidence of a plan in recruitment decisions in recent years. I'd be happy with Bennett returning or Bellamy changing his mind. I probably wouldn't be that keen on Paul McGregor getting the job as he's not experienced at head coach level, and we've tended to struggle with inexperienced coaches. That said, if results turned around, he'd have to be a chance of getting the job. Nathan Brown's record wasn't too bad actually, but he may have managed to win premierships had he possessed the experience he has subsequently acquired. If the Tigers don't want Michael Potter, I'd love to have him back.
Somewhat unusually for a sports fan, the long awaited premiership in 2010 really did sate my appetite, and the fact we've taken a big tumble hasn't particularly bothered me, it's a tough competition to win and if you have to risk subsequent seasons to get that win, well it's worth it. Steve Price was unlucky and hopefully his successors will have better opportunities to achieve NRL success!
Sunday 25 May 2014
How to make a website less useful and fun: The PGA Tour website revamp.
One of the sites I have followed faithfully for the last 14 years is the US PGA Tour website. I first hooked into following the Pga Tour carefully after reading John Feinstein's magnificent A Good Walk Spoiled which is one of the finest sports books I have ever read.
Feinstein gave me a taste for following the lesser players who are battling to make it in golf and it's a habit I still have today, with my favourite player being the little known Australian, Gavin Coles, who has won several times on the secondary tours over there, but has never managed to keep his playing privileges when he's played the main tour. Gavin's only 5 foot 5 and wears glasses more befitting a university academic than a professional athlete, which only adds to his appeal for me!
My primary method of following these players has been via the PGA Tour website, which provided articles, video clips and live leaderboards! It's a habit of mine on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings to check the scores on the varying tours.
The site was well laid out and provided a simpler leaderboard if you had trouble with the main leaderboard that had a few more bells and whistles. Both leaderboards usually loaded quickly. The mobile leaderboard was actually better as that provided the full record of the player's round with 1 click, you could read through every shot the player had made, on every hole, as just the player's scores don't give you a great picture of the sort of round that they had. Was it a par where they missed a 3 foot birdie putt? Or a par where they hold out from a bunker? Same result, but a very different path to it. I never quite understood why that wasn't added to the main site but enjoyed it as a perk when I was reading the site on my smartphone, which I usually do as checking the sites is largely a morning thing due to the time difference between USA and Australia.
The layout had been much the same for a long time now, so it wasn't a total surprise to log on to a new site one morning. It was a surprise to find just how much functionality was sacrificed with the upgrade. The new leaderboards are far slower to load, they're also gigantic compared to the others, so the amount of scrolling required is considerable, so it's very time consuming. Finding articles and videos is much harder as the the site has also been made considerably larger, which means seeing things at a glance is much harder as there's less to see.
The latest 'improvement' is that they make the bells and whistles load for whoever is leading. I can make my own damn decision about whose details I want to see! And the bells and whistles are quite clunky and sloooooow so I rarely use them even though the information is good. It was such a shock yesterday to click on the Senior PGA Championship leaderboard and have it all up in a second or 2, with only a small touch required to view the leaderboard from top to bottom!
The bottom line is that I'm not visiting the site as often, nor am I clicking on the leaderboards as often and I'm reading less articles than I used to. This has become a permanent shift. Most website upgrades do take a little while to get used to. This revamp involved so large a loss of functionality that I can't adapt to it without a frontal lobotomy to remove my memory of when the site was quick, simple and easy to use!
Are there any website upgrades that have pissed you off? Let me know in the comments
Feinstein gave me a taste for following the lesser players who are battling to make it in golf and it's a habit I still have today, with my favourite player being the little known Australian, Gavin Coles, who has won several times on the secondary tours over there, but has never managed to keep his playing privileges when he's played the main tour. Gavin's only 5 foot 5 and wears glasses more befitting a university academic than a professional athlete, which only adds to his appeal for me!
My primary method of following these players has been via the PGA Tour website, which provided articles, video clips and live leaderboards! It's a habit of mine on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings to check the scores on the varying tours.
The site was well laid out and provided a simpler leaderboard if you had trouble with the main leaderboard that had a few more bells and whistles. Both leaderboards usually loaded quickly. The mobile leaderboard was actually better as that provided the full record of the player's round with 1 click, you could read through every shot the player had made, on every hole, as just the player's scores don't give you a great picture of the sort of round that they had. Was it a par where they missed a 3 foot birdie putt? Or a par where they hold out from a bunker? Same result, but a very different path to it. I never quite understood why that wasn't added to the main site but enjoyed it as a perk when I was reading the site on my smartphone, which I usually do as checking the sites is largely a morning thing due to the time difference between USA and Australia.
The layout had been much the same for a long time now, so it wasn't a total surprise to log on to a new site one morning. It was a surprise to find just how much functionality was sacrificed with the upgrade. The new leaderboards are far slower to load, they're also gigantic compared to the others, so the amount of scrolling required is considerable, so it's very time consuming. Finding articles and videos is much harder as the the site has also been made considerably larger, which means seeing things at a glance is much harder as there's less to see.
The latest 'improvement' is that they make the bells and whistles load for whoever is leading. I can make my own damn decision about whose details I want to see! And the bells and whistles are quite clunky and sloooooow so I rarely use them even though the information is good. It was such a shock yesterday to click on the Senior PGA Championship leaderboard and have it all up in a second or 2, with only a small touch required to view the leaderboard from top to bottom!
The bottom line is that I'm not visiting the site as often, nor am I clicking on the leaderboards as often and I'm reading less articles than I used to. This has become a permanent shift. Most website upgrades do take a little while to get used to. This revamp involved so large a loss of functionality that I can't adapt to it without a frontal lobotomy to remove my memory of when the site was quick, simple and easy to use!
Are there any website upgrades that have pissed you off? Let me know in the comments
Friday 23 May 2014
A considered assessment of the 2014 Budget
My response to this Budget has been a real slow burn. It was the deceit that got me going initially, but a Budget could be totally deceitful and still be good. So I've taken my time to read up on it, to get different perspectives about what it's done, to understand it better, to consider what the underlying philosophy is. Having done so, I've been able to come to a considered conclusion about it:
This Budget is about taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich. That's the underlying philosophy, pure, plain and simple. If there's a better rationale for what they've done, I'd like to see the evidence for it. They aren't serious about cutting spending or else they wouldn't be carrying out a whole lot of additional, new, spending, most of which is of little benefit to the country and is certainly not critical!
I have common ground with the desire to reduce the Budget deficit. While it's not a huge percentage of GDP and we don't have much government debt, it doesn't take long for these things to spiral out of control, especially given we haven't had a recession in 21 years and we currently have quite a few economic clouds on the horizon. Also, there's common ground that the previous government's Budgets were going to blow out big time to accommodate additional spending for education and health. We also have a growing problem with welfare payments due to the ageing population. More people are needing welfare but a smaller proportion of people are going to be earning the revenue that pays for it.
The Rudd-Gillard governments actually did cut government spending in several of their Budgets. The primary cause of the deficits was their insane decision to match the Howard income tax cuts, it shattered the revenue base as taxation fell from 25% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product - the total value of all the paid for goods and services produced in a country over a year) when they came in to 21.5% of GDP in 2010-11, which was the lowest level of taxation since the Whitlam government! No wonder we had deficits!
The majority of the planned return to surplus is the Abbott government re-building the tax base back up to 25% of GDP. Most of the money obtained by the spending cuts are being re-allocated to extra spending such as the health research fund so we can spend money on curing conditions we don't know about instead of spending it to treat people with conditions we do know or on preventative strategies that we know work. It's also being spent on 58 brand new, untried, unproven, fighter planes so we can go and bomb anyone who gives us trouble, like asylum seekers.
The government is also going to set up an additional Paid Parental Leave system so families earning 100 000 dollars or more a year can get 50 thousand dollars extra for having a baby and poor people having a baby can get stuff all because it's important to make sure that wealthier people get more money for their children.
The government is also spending billions on new roads because brand new roads are the best way to get more traffic on the roads and create bigger traffic jams. A government that was serious about spending cuts would not be introducing so much new spending, spending that wipes out most of those cuts.
The cuts force the bottom 20% of people to lose about 5% of their incomes, and ask the top 20% to lose 0.3% of theirs, with that 0.3% to be removed in 3 years and to be totally eradicated if you happen to be having a baby in that time! This is not fair, just or moral! If this is "sharing the burden" I'd hate to see what not sharing it looks like.
As for the utter disgrace that is introducing co-payments to visit the doctor I would like to point out that I make a contribution to going to the doctor, it's called tax. If the tax isn't enough, raise the tax! But don't penalise people for doing what they're supposed to do if they're sick, which is going to the doctor and finding out before they get very sick. Co-payments don't even save money - they're expensive to administer and some of the people discouraged from going to the doctor will get much sicker and treating them will be far more expensive than it would have been.
This isn't a Budget designed to reduce spending and balance the Budget, it's a Budget designed to reduce the income of people who the government doesn't approve of. I'm wary of that, for I was a child raised in a single parent family. I went to university and paid cheap, accessible fees, with financial support from the government due to my mother's low income and subsequently endured a period of unemployment, where I received unemployment benefits that assisted me whilst I waited to re-do a failed subject in my course. Without that support, my life would have been considerably more difficult. The government is now going to make life considerably more difficult for people in situations I was once in, and they seem to be keen on making it tough for people in situations I may find myself in down the track! There's very little being done to make life more difficult for those have a lot easier than the poor, however, and that's at the core of my disapproval.
I am, you are, we are Australian. That means we need to look out for all Australians, not just those who can make huge donations to our political party!
This Budget is about taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich. That's the underlying philosophy, pure, plain and simple. If there's a better rationale for what they've done, I'd like to see the evidence for it. They aren't serious about cutting spending or else they wouldn't be carrying out a whole lot of additional, new, spending, most of which is of little benefit to the country and is certainly not critical!
I have common ground with the desire to reduce the Budget deficit. While it's not a huge percentage of GDP and we don't have much government debt, it doesn't take long for these things to spiral out of control, especially given we haven't had a recession in 21 years and we currently have quite a few economic clouds on the horizon. Also, there's common ground that the previous government's Budgets were going to blow out big time to accommodate additional spending for education and health. We also have a growing problem with welfare payments due to the ageing population. More people are needing welfare but a smaller proportion of people are going to be earning the revenue that pays for it.
The Rudd-Gillard governments actually did cut government spending in several of their Budgets. The primary cause of the deficits was their insane decision to match the Howard income tax cuts, it shattered the revenue base as taxation fell from 25% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product - the total value of all the paid for goods and services produced in a country over a year) when they came in to 21.5% of GDP in 2010-11, which was the lowest level of taxation since the Whitlam government! No wonder we had deficits!
The majority of the planned return to surplus is the Abbott government re-building the tax base back up to 25% of GDP. Most of the money obtained by the spending cuts are being re-allocated to extra spending such as the health research fund so we can spend money on curing conditions we don't know about instead of spending it to treat people with conditions we do know or on preventative strategies that we know work. It's also being spent on 58 brand new, untried, unproven, fighter planes so we can go and bomb anyone who gives us trouble, like asylum seekers.
The government is also going to set up an additional Paid Parental Leave system so families earning 100 000 dollars or more a year can get 50 thousand dollars extra for having a baby and poor people having a baby can get stuff all because it's important to make sure that wealthier people get more money for their children.
The government is also spending billions on new roads because brand new roads are the best way to get more traffic on the roads and create bigger traffic jams. A government that was serious about spending cuts would not be introducing so much new spending, spending that wipes out most of those cuts.
The cuts force the bottom 20% of people to lose about 5% of their incomes, and ask the top 20% to lose 0.3% of theirs, with that 0.3% to be removed in 3 years and to be totally eradicated if you happen to be having a baby in that time! This is not fair, just or moral! If this is "sharing the burden" I'd hate to see what not sharing it looks like.
As for the utter disgrace that is introducing co-payments to visit the doctor I would like to point out that I make a contribution to going to the doctor, it's called tax. If the tax isn't enough, raise the tax! But don't penalise people for doing what they're supposed to do if they're sick, which is going to the doctor and finding out before they get very sick. Co-payments don't even save money - they're expensive to administer and some of the people discouraged from going to the doctor will get much sicker and treating them will be far more expensive than it would have been.
This isn't a Budget designed to reduce spending and balance the Budget, it's a Budget designed to reduce the income of people who the government doesn't approve of. I'm wary of that, for I was a child raised in a single parent family. I went to university and paid cheap, accessible fees, with financial support from the government due to my mother's low income and subsequently endured a period of unemployment, where I received unemployment benefits that assisted me whilst I waited to re-do a failed subject in my course. Without that support, my life would have been considerably more difficult. The government is now going to make life considerably more difficult for people in situations I was once in, and they seem to be keen on making it tough for people in situations I may find myself in down the track! There's very little being done to make life more difficult for those have a lot easier than the poor, however, and that's at the core of my disapproval.
I am, you are, we are Australian. That means we need to look out for all Australians, not just those who can make huge donations to our political party!
Sunday 18 May 2014
NRL Thoughts
Well, this wasn't a good week for Saints fans, it's one thing getting thumped by the defending premiers and competition leaders in consecutive games, it's another conceding 36 unanswered points to the reigning wooden spooners! A title we may well be putting in an application for if this form continues.
I thought Benji Marshall did OK for his first week, his involvement was good and he made some solid moves in defence, if his effort and commitment are there, I think he'll find some form. But it's very hard to win games when the ball control is so weak. Even harder when defence is non-existent. One wonders how long Steve Price has with this sort of form.
And gee, well, Canberra finally manage to at least get close to their opponents whilst still managing to add another loss to their cupboard full of them so naturally Ricky Stuart goes off on a tear and blames the referee. Yes, Mr Stuart, I'm sure that Canberra's Dragon like defence and dreadful completion rates are all the fault of the referee. How can you expect your players to take responsibility for their mistakes or to think that they have control over their results when you so consistently allow them to lay the blame somewhere else?!
I seem to recall that St George Illawarra suffered a close loss to Melbourne the other week partly due to some questionable refereeing at the end and my response was to point out that we'd led by 14 points with 14 minutes to go so we might want to look in the mirror before we started blaming anyone else for our problems!
I thought Benji Marshall did OK for his first week, his involvement was good and he made some solid moves in defence, if his effort and commitment are there, I think he'll find some form. But it's very hard to win games when the ball control is so weak. Even harder when defence is non-existent. One wonders how long Steve Price has with this sort of form.
And gee, well, Canberra finally manage to at least get close to their opponents whilst still managing to add another loss to their cupboard full of them so naturally Ricky Stuart goes off on a tear and blames the referee. Yes, Mr Stuart, I'm sure that Canberra's Dragon like defence and dreadful completion rates are all the fault of the referee. How can you expect your players to take responsibility for their mistakes or to think that they have control over their results when you so consistently allow them to lay the blame somewhere else?!
I seem to recall that St George Illawarra suffered a close loss to Melbourne the other week partly due to some questionable refereeing at the end and my response was to point out that we'd led by 14 points with 14 minutes to go so we might want to look in the mirror before we started blaming anyone else for our problems!
Book of the Week: The Racket - How Abortion Became Legal in Australia by Gideon Haigh
Gideon Haigh is best known as the premier cricket writer in the world, but his interests and skills stretch far beyond cricket, as his absorbing and confronting account of abortion in Australia demonstrates.
The Racket is a history of abortion practices in Melbourne prior to decriminalisation. Haigh explores the relationship between the police and abortion and demonstrates how it wasn't a law that the police regularly enforced due to a mix of heftty, payoffs, difficulties in obtaining convictions and a feeling that it wasn't as important as some of their other duties.
The books greatest strength is Haigh's trenchant exploration of the reality of abortion when it was banned. A piece of paper declaring it illegal wasn't going to stop women who did not want the baby from not having the baby. What it did very well was force them to abort themselves in dangerous, unhygenic manner or work with abortionists who would do the job for them, often in a dangerous, unhygenic, manner for a great deal of money. Many abortionists charged according to how expensive your car was.
I did find it difficult to identify with any of the characters from the book, possibly because the major characters were largely dead when Haigh wrote the book and a great deal of their motivations and concerns could only be inferred. Consequently the book was slow going at times and it wasn't an easy book to read in any case due to the subject matter. Nevertheless, it comes highly recommended as an account of what illegal abortion looks like in practice.
At time of writing, the book could be found on sale here
The Racket is a history of abortion practices in Melbourne prior to decriminalisation. Haigh explores the relationship between the police and abortion and demonstrates how it wasn't a law that the police regularly enforced due to a mix of heftty, payoffs, difficulties in obtaining convictions and a feeling that it wasn't as important as some of their other duties.
The books greatest strength is Haigh's trenchant exploration of the reality of abortion when it was banned. A piece of paper declaring it illegal wasn't going to stop women who did not want the baby from not having the baby. What it did very well was force them to abort themselves in dangerous, unhygenic manner or work with abortionists who would do the job for them, often in a dangerous, unhygenic, manner for a great deal of money. Many abortionists charged according to how expensive your car was.
I did find it difficult to identify with any of the characters from the book, possibly because the major characters were largely dead when Haigh wrote the book and a great deal of their motivations and concerns could only be inferred. Consequently the book was slow going at times and it wasn't an easy book to read in any case due to the subject matter. Nevertheless, it comes highly recommended as an account of what illegal abortion looks like in practice.
At time of writing, the book could be found on sale here
Thursday 15 May 2014
The 'Honourable' Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia.
We are privileged to live in Australia, in a great country, in a representative democracy, where we elect men and women to make most of the decisions about leading the country for us whilst asking us to pass judgement on them at each election. We expect those men and women to keep us informed about the decisions that they make and to act with integrity in the execution of their duties. The higher up the chain of representation that an MP progresses, the more important it is that they demonstrate honour. That is why all Australian ministers are given the style "The Honourable" and referred to accordingly. Similarly, we expect an Opposition to give us some idea of what they will do in government, whilst understanding that, as our representatives, they are entitled to make changes to those policies in response to circumstances.
Some policies will change after an election. The previous government, having promised that they would place a price on carbon via an emission tradings scheme prior to the election, found themselves in a minority government post election and in exchange for their support, the Greens required that they start pricing carbon with a tax instead. The government had said that they would not place a direct tax on carbon prior to the election. As an emissions trading scheme is a tax by another name, this was not a major violation of precedent in Australian politics. This was not a case of Paul Keating's L-A-W tax cuts, which were a major plank of his 1993 election victory, when he reneged on them afterwards, his chances of winning the 1996 election took a well deserved nosedive.
Tony Abbott's Opposition, ably supported by the mass media, made out that the policy change was a major breach of trust. He ran a lengthy campaign, pounding away at the Gillard government over the carbon tax lie. He scored enormous political capital through his repeated thrusts about trust, honesty and how he could be trusted when his opponents could not be. A short list of his oft repeated promises includes no cuts to health, no cuts to education, Gonski will be implemented, NDIS will be implemented, no cuts to SBS and the ABC. All of those promises, along with many others were resoundingly broken in this week's Budget.
It turns out that those who said that Tony Abbott was simply saying whatever he felt was necessary to win an election were absolutely right. He didn't have the fallback position of previous governments that the Budget figures were wrong, as accurate Budget figures were provided during the election campaign, which was only a few months after the previous Budget anyway. He intentionally made those promises, knowing the situation of the Budget.
The campaign was effective. He won the election. Won it convincingly. Won it because because he had lied both comprehensively and effectively. Tony Abbott is Prime Minister today because of a deliberate, systematic, intentional campaign of deception.
I was disgusted with his approach prior to the election and I am straight out appalled now. There are serious discussions that we need to be having as a society about our expenses.We have an ageing population, so healthcare and welfare costs go up while the percentage of people working to provide revenue for those costs goes down. We have housing prices that are at unprecedented levels as a percentage of median income, with more people than ever needing two income households to pay those mortgages. If the unemployment rate goes up and some day it must, quite a few of those people will end up losing their houses, if enough people lose their houses, our financial institutions that have grown fat on mortgage loans that looked safe in the good times, will also end up in trouble as it's not like they have used those fat profits to buffer them for difficult times. Will those debts also have to be paid by the taxpayer?
It has been twenty three years since we had a recession, do we think we'll never have one again? Our economy is tied to Chinese prosperity and they've blown housing and building bubbles to make ours look mild! There are storm clouds on the horizon. Every year we burn and sell more of our coal, more of our oil, sell more of our gold, more of our uranium, more of our nickel, more of our aluminum, more of our zinc more of our diamonds and more of our other minerals! None of them can be replaced! Every time we sell some or use some, they're not available for our children and our grandchildren. Those profits for selling *our* natural resources have been lightly taxed and considerable portions of them are sent overseas, despite the fact that billions of *our* dollars has been spent on assisting these companies to mine and sell those resources. Norway has built the largest sovereign savings fund in the world with its natural resources - we're spending the fucking lot on middle and upper class welfare! We are living high on the hog and expecting our children to pay the price.
These are critical issues that need to be discussed, they don't get discussed because there isn't enough trust within the community to tackle these issues. Our representatives are unable to trust each other and we are increasingly unable to trust them. And trust is critical to a democracy.
Mr Abbott has set a very shoddy example, the next time I have to deal with a child at school for being dishonest, which isn't exactly unheard of amongst children, what precisely should my response be when the child says "Well the Prime Minister lies on purpose all the time and he seems to be doing OK?" because I don't think that "I have higher expectations of children than I do of the elected leader of my country" is a fair response!
The next time my wife and I walk back from the car into Woolworths to point out that Cassie didn't give me the cold meat that we ordered at the cashier's so we need to pay for it, will they be even more shocked than they were the last time? Instead of half of the railway ticket sellers being surprised at my asking for a ticket for 4 year old Cassie as she still looks 3, will they all be surprised? Will all of my friends be shocked the next time I get robbed and don't make an insurance claim because I left the big window open, in blatant violation of my insurance policy?
I do these things because I believe that personal honesty and integrity matters, and I believe it matters even more when you are the Prime Minister of this country! If it's good enough for me to accept difficulties in the name of being honest, than it can be good enough for you!
Mr Abbott, if you wish to convince me that you have introduced this Budget to benefit Australians because you are so concerned about the deficit, then *you* will need to take responsibility for *your* decision to take the Prime Ministership of Australia by deceit. Barry O'Farrell resigned because he didn't recall receiving a bottle of wine yet he had received it. He had been dishonest, so he resigned. There was no memory lapse on your part, just contempt for the people that you purport to represent. We need better than that from our leaders and since you clearly can't provide it, the best thing you can do is to make way for someone who can. Only by leaving your office can you restore the honour to it that your actions have taken away from it.
Some policies will change after an election. The previous government, having promised that they would place a price on carbon via an emission tradings scheme prior to the election, found themselves in a minority government post election and in exchange for their support, the Greens required that they start pricing carbon with a tax instead. The government had said that they would not place a direct tax on carbon prior to the election. As an emissions trading scheme is a tax by another name, this was not a major violation of precedent in Australian politics. This was not a case of Paul Keating's L-A-W tax cuts, which were a major plank of his 1993 election victory, when he reneged on them afterwards, his chances of winning the 1996 election took a well deserved nosedive.
Tony Abbott's Opposition, ably supported by the mass media, made out that the policy change was a major breach of trust. He ran a lengthy campaign, pounding away at the Gillard government over the carbon tax lie. He scored enormous political capital through his repeated thrusts about trust, honesty and how he could be trusted when his opponents could not be. A short list of his oft repeated promises includes no cuts to health, no cuts to education, Gonski will be implemented, NDIS will be implemented, no cuts to SBS and the ABC. All of those promises, along with many others were resoundingly broken in this week's Budget.
It turns out that those who said that Tony Abbott was simply saying whatever he felt was necessary to win an election were absolutely right. He didn't have the fallback position of previous governments that the Budget figures were wrong, as accurate Budget figures were provided during the election campaign, which was only a few months after the previous Budget anyway. He intentionally made those promises, knowing the situation of the Budget.
The campaign was effective. He won the election. Won it convincingly. Won it because because he had lied both comprehensively and effectively. Tony Abbott is Prime Minister today because of a deliberate, systematic, intentional campaign of deception.
I was disgusted with his approach prior to the election and I am straight out appalled now. There are serious discussions that we need to be having as a society about our expenses.We have an ageing population, so healthcare and welfare costs go up while the percentage of people working to provide revenue for those costs goes down. We have housing prices that are at unprecedented levels as a percentage of median income, with more people than ever needing two income households to pay those mortgages. If the unemployment rate goes up and some day it must, quite a few of those people will end up losing their houses, if enough people lose their houses, our financial institutions that have grown fat on mortgage loans that looked safe in the good times, will also end up in trouble as it's not like they have used those fat profits to buffer them for difficult times. Will those debts also have to be paid by the taxpayer?
It has been twenty three years since we had a recession, do we think we'll never have one again? Our economy is tied to Chinese prosperity and they've blown housing and building bubbles to make ours look mild! There are storm clouds on the horizon. Every year we burn and sell more of our coal, more of our oil, sell more of our gold, more of our uranium, more of our nickel, more of our aluminum, more of our zinc more of our diamonds and more of our other minerals! None of them can be replaced! Every time we sell some or use some, they're not available for our children and our grandchildren. Those profits for selling *our* natural resources have been lightly taxed and considerable portions of them are sent overseas, despite the fact that billions of *our* dollars has been spent on assisting these companies to mine and sell those resources. Norway has built the largest sovereign savings fund in the world with its natural resources - we're spending the fucking lot on middle and upper class welfare! We are living high on the hog and expecting our children to pay the price.
These are critical issues that need to be discussed, they don't get discussed because there isn't enough trust within the community to tackle these issues. Our representatives are unable to trust each other and we are increasingly unable to trust them. And trust is critical to a democracy.
Mr Abbott has set a very shoddy example, the next time I have to deal with a child at school for being dishonest, which isn't exactly unheard of amongst children, what precisely should my response be when the child says "Well the Prime Minister lies on purpose all the time and he seems to be doing OK?" because I don't think that "I have higher expectations of children than I do of the elected leader of my country" is a fair response!
The next time my wife and I walk back from the car into Woolworths to point out that Cassie didn't give me the cold meat that we ordered at the cashier's so we need to pay for it, will they be even more shocked than they were the last time? Instead of half of the railway ticket sellers being surprised at my asking for a ticket for 4 year old Cassie as she still looks 3, will they all be surprised? Will all of my friends be shocked the next time I get robbed and don't make an insurance claim because I left the big window open, in blatant violation of my insurance policy?
I do these things because I believe that personal honesty and integrity matters, and I believe it matters even more when you are the Prime Minister of this country! If it's good enough for me to accept difficulties in the name of being honest, than it can be good enough for you!
Mr Abbott, if you wish to convince me that you have introduced this Budget to benefit Australians because you are so concerned about the deficit, then *you* will need to take responsibility for *your* decision to take the Prime Ministership of Australia by deceit. Barry O'Farrell resigned because he didn't recall receiving a bottle of wine yet he had received it. He had been dishonest, so he resigned. There was no memory lapse on your part, just contempt for the people that you purport to represent. We need better than that from our leaders and since you clearly can't provide it, the best thing you can do is to make way for someone who can. Only by leaving your office can you restore the honour to it that your actions have taken away from it.
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Movie of the Week: ESPN 30 from 30 - This is What They Want
ESPN 30 for 30: THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT
Lindsay's Label: 8/10In 1991, the 8 time Grand Slam champion, 5 time US Open champion, the 174th best player in the world, Jimmy Connors, on the brink of his 39th birthday, needed a wildcard to gain entry into the tournament after having missed almost all of 1990 due to a severe wrist injury.
Having not exactly cut a swathe through world tennis in his 1991 expeditions, little was expected of Connors at the US Open. But part of the joy in sport is that what you expect isn't always what you get, after spending a couple of hours getting clobbered by Patrick McEnroe, Connors turned his 1st round match around to win 6-4 in the 5th, thumped his next couple of opponents, celebrated his 39th birthday by beating friend and regular hitting partner Aaron Krickstein, who happened to be a 5 set expert, in an epic 5th set tiebreak.
This vintage run, which included one of the most dramatic points ever played in his following match against Paul Haarhuis, is the subject of ESPN's 30 from 30 documentary, This is What They Want. The title came from a Connors quote at the start of *that* 5th set tiebreak against Krickstein, when he looked into the camera and said "This is what they came for, this is what they want!"
Connors, his son, several commentators, Patrick McEnroe, his older brother John, Aaron Krickstein and his ultimate conqueror, Jim Courier are among the people interviewed for the movie. Barring one over zealous commentator who was allegedly there to provide a comic touch, all the participants speak intelligently and thoughtfully, their pieces are skilfully combined with cuts from footage of the tournament, the directing is slick and the pacing excellent.
The directors included some comments of their own as a part of the film and made it quite clear that they were Connors fans and adored his run at the 1991 US Open. Consequently, I found it fascinating that Connors himself came across very poorly for mine, he seems to be a very selfish and hard man who makes no apology for anything that he did during his career. Some of those things included calling the umpire in the Krickstein Connors match an abortion so perhaps there could be the odd thing that he might regret. Despite the fact that Krickstein was his friend, after winning that epic match, he never again spoke to him. I found that to be quite extraordinary and would have liked to have seen Connors pressed more about that.
Anyone who remembers the 1991 US Open is going to like this film, it's a wonderful retrospective of the Connors run. I can't recommend it highly for non tennis fans though, I think that if you don't have a prior interest in the sport or the participants in this documentary, then you may find the movie struggles to hold your interest.
At the time of writing, the preview for this film can be found here
Sunday 11 May 2014
The week ahead for the Went Report
I've been blogging regularly for the last week and a bit and I've really been enjoying it, none of my posts have attracted a lot of viewers yet but there's been the odd look and I expect this will increase over time. As I'm enjoying it, there's a fair chance I'll keep doing it and that should help me find an audience!
There's a number of posts in the pipeline for this week, I watched another of those thoroughly absorbing ESPN sports documentaries last week about Jimmy Connors' 1991 run at the US Open tennis and I'll be putting up a review about that. I'm currently reading Gideon Haigh's confronting account of pre-abortion Victoria, the Racket, and I'll be reviewing that once it's done as well.
One of my Facebook obsessions in recent years has been Bejeweled Blitz so I'm putting together a guide to playing it. This is already a long post and I haven't even finished the first section yet. So it'll be divided into several sections once finished and posted over a number of days. I have hopes that this series will eventually attract a good number of readers, Bejeweled Blitz has over 6 million followers and I'm hoping a few of them will end up reading my posts.
Improving at chess is one of my current obsessions, after a decade of playing it with no attempts to improve, and I'll be putting together a post about my plans to do so, that will probably appear next week.
I've been keeping my powder dry about the upcoming Australian Budget, but there's going to be quite a bit in there for me to take aim at, and I anticipate a long, fiery post or 2 about it! And there should be time for several short posts about whatever crosses my keyboard at the right time.
I am just so stoked to finally be out there writing regularly, even without much of an audience yet, this is a drug! The more I'm getting , the more I want.
There's a number of posts in the pipeline for this week, I watched another of those thoroughly absorbing ESPN sports documentaries last week about Jimmy Connors' 1991 run at the US Open tennis and I'll be putting up a review about that. I'm currently reading Gideon Haigh's confronting account of pre-abortion Victoria, the Racket, and I'll be reviewing that once it's done as well.
One of my Facebook obsessions in recent years has been Bejeweled Blitz so I'm putting together a guide to playing it. This is already a long post and I haven't even finished the first section yet. So it'll be divided into several sections once finished and posted over a number of days. I have hopes that this series will eventually attract a good number of readers, Bejeweled Blitz has over 6 million followers and I'm hoping a few of them will end up reading my posts.
Improving at chess is one of my current obsessions, after a decade of playing it with no attempts to improve, and I'll be putting together a post about my plans to do so, that will probably appear next week.
I've been keeping my powder dry about the upcoming Australian Budget, but there's going to be quite a bit in there for me to take aim at, and I anticipate a long, fiery post or 2 about it! And there should be time for several short posts about whatever crosses my keyboard at the right time.
I am just so stoked to finally be out there writing regularly, even without much of an audience yet, this is a drug! The more I'm getting , the more I want.
Some NRL Thoughts
I wasn't pleased to see the Dragons humbled by the Dogs today, but not totally surprised either. Our defence is very weak this year and consequently good sides are creaming us. I didn't think the Roosters were that good in demolishing us 2 weeks ago.
The attack is very promising and while I feel Benji Marshall has quite a bit to prove after his last 2 seasons, if he gets serious that attack will have enormous potential. Unfortunately, the ability to score points matters little if your forwards can't get you upfield into scoring areas or if your defence consistently leaks 20-30 points a game! This appears to be our problem currently.
I was happy to see Steve Price retained for this year as I felt he hadn't been given much of a chance with a team on the slide after winning the premiership in 2010. Unfortunately the claims about maintaining the culture established before he took over have not eventuated. The only pride in defence they are showing is pride in their ability to get set under the goalposts in a hurry so the kicker can convert! I don't think his position is solid and will be surprised if he's still coaching the team next year. Possibly he can join Ricky Stuart in looking for a job. Canberra must already be regretting that decision, they were a team that was considered to have potential! It's one thing to get thumped by Manly, but to have the Warriors put 50 on you?!! Please!
The attack is very promising and while I feel Benji Marshall has quite a bit to prove after his last 2 seasons, if he gets serious that attack will have enormous potential. Unfortunately, the ability to score points matters little if your forwards can't get you upfield into scoring areas or if your defence consistently leaks 20-30 points a game! This appears to be our problem currently.
I was happy to see Steve Price retained for this year as I felt he hadn't been given much of a chance with a team on the slide after winning the premiership in 2010. Unfortunately the claims about maintaining the culture established before he took over have not eventuated. The only pride in defence they are showing is pride in their ability to get set under the goalposts in a hurry so the kicker can convert! I don't think his position is solid and will be surprised if he's still coaching the team next year. Possibly he can join Ricky Stuart in looking for a job. Canberra must already be regretting that decision, they were a team that was considered to have potential! It's one thing to get thumped by Manly, but to have the Warriors put 50 on you?!! Please!
Thursday 8 May 2014
New NSW trains
The NSW government announced today that they will be replacing the old intercity trains with new trains. See here and here for details.
As a non-driver who loves public transport, I'm always excited to hear about new trains! Trains are awesome! I rarely use intercity services but with the exception of the Oscar trains serving the routes, the others are old and quite horrible. I find the seats to be uncomfortable and movement inside the carriages is restricted, making getting on and off at peak times difficult.
I love the fact that the government is going to pay for the trains itself, probably getting its own loans for it. Public/private financing is simply a way of keeping government debt off the books and funneling huge amounts of taxpayer money into the hands of lawyers, consultants, financiers and the like. The private institutions have to get a loan anyway and the rates they are charged are higher than what the government would be charged, ensuring that the overall costs will be higher. Also, if the project happens to make money, the private companies will keep it, in the far more common outcome that it doesn't the taxpayer ends up on the hook for it as the infrastructure needs to be finished.
The proposed design for the trains seems OK, double deckers fit the network and 4 seats across the width of the train allows for more width in the seats, which is also fine. I'm not a big fan of the idea of premium seating, the journeys aren't that long.
I would prefer if the trains were built here and feel that surely the Waratahs could be adjusted to suit the purpose better. Why send so much money overseas? Surely it will do more good paying our workers and their families? I do have some sympathy with the government's desire to buy a train off the shelf, we've been ordering new trains for decades in NSW and they constantly come in well after proposed delivery dates and well over budget. New trains take a lot of testing to get right.
As a non-driver who loves public transport, I'm always excited to hear about new trains! Trains are awesome! I rarely use intercity services but with the exception of the Oscar trains serving the routes, the others are old and quite horrible. I find the seats to be uncomfortable and movement inside the carriages is restricted, making getting on and off at peak times difficult.
I love the fact that the government is going to pay for the trains itself, probably getting its own loans for it. Public/private financing is simply a way of keeping government debt off the books and funneling huge amounts of taxpayer money into the hands of lawyers, consultants, financiers and the like. The private institutions have to get a loan anyway and the rates they are charged are higher than what the government would be charged, ensuring that the overall costs will be higher. Also, if the project happens to make money, the private companies will keep it, in the far more common outcome that it doesn't the taxpayer ends up on the hook for it as the infrastructure needs to be finished.
The proposed design for the trains seems OK, double deckers fit the network and 4 seats across the width of the train allows for more width in the seats, which is also fine. I'm not a big fan of the idea of premium seating, the journeys aren't that long.
I would prefer if the trains were built here and feel that surely the Waratahs could be adjusted to suit the purpose better. Why send so much money overseas? Surely it will do more good paying our workers and their families? I do have some sympathy with the government's desire to buy a train off the shelf, we've been ordering new trains for decades in NSW and they constantly come in well after proposed delivery dates and well over budget. New trains take a lot of testing to get right.
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