According to Phil, and confirmed by wiki, an acronym is where the abbreviated letters are spoken as a word, as in NATO.
Alternatively, where the letters are pronounced individually, we have an initialism, as in IBM.
WTF! (?)
Quite wisely most people ignore all this and just call them all acronyms. If they call them anything at all.
I can’t quite explain why Sydney’s roads annoy me so much. Let me workshop this…
Cars are supposed to be the most comfortable and effortless way to get from here to there. They have allowed the suburbs to exist. Here in Australia their use is controlled to ridiculous extremes to prevent accidents. Cars are cheap and getting cheaper in real terms as our economy grows and productivity improves. The density of cars is also increasing due to urban infill, ironically driven by traffic congestion issues. There is now a car for everything and everyone; about half the kids even get lifts to school. There had been no serious investment in public transport to alleviate the issue; everyone wants public transport but so that others can travel on it and thus the roads will be less congested for them.
It’s a perfect storm of self-centeredness. And everyone is slowly going mad in it.
They reveal a lot about a society, do newspapers. Our local rags are very local for one. In the best of the locals, the SMH, the quality journalism is reserved for the sports section. The rest is a collage of commentary on recent happenings in the circus politics, business, daily life and reality tv arts. There is a world section buried inside which is pulled off the news service without thought or conviction.
Thankfully we have the internet. And I hear the Guardian has spotted a gap and will soon produce a local version. Hopefully they will attract opinion writers and commentators who know what they are doing. It’s all just enough to keep the candle alight.
I prey for a very big mute button. Dear Lord I know you have one, you big omniscient and omnipotent lump. But not omnideranged, eh? Lend me the fucker and I promise not to hold it against you later on.
There is nothing more satisfying than a lazy shortcut that works out.
I must remember to have my knuckles pointed to the ceiling on my backhand and to test all my opinions with evidence.
Me thinks this one(s) protests too much.And in chalk. Really?
It’s hard to know them if they hardly know themselves.
For some of us the thought is more acute than the gurgitation. To the rescue, Google really is the thesaurus & dictionary, combined, for the mind. I will happily let them profit from the effort.
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Weeds are now a food source and not a scourge. They are being pampered and and watered. Different varieties are being brought in from Sydney’s backlanes. The hunt for the complete set of football cards has started. Salads are getting more acrid and bitter. The worm turns and the world dips. Orthodoxy, once again, cannot be relied upon. I must, I must, I must reconsider all that is true.
Hysteresis, for those of you not versed in the arts scientific, can be understood to be a system where something starts here and ends there, and then returns to here via another route.
A lovely metaphor for a life well-lived.
I can be fed lentils and not complain. A rarity apparently.
Knowing who Ilonka is would destroy the pleasure of chewing the fat; wondering who she is and how she is connected.
The current pet hypothesis is that it’s an older cousin of granny who was happy to give up her Sunday school hymn book to an eight year old.
One of my rules is never to mix the animal and vegetable kingdoms in a single metaphor.
‘Rent-seeking’ is the manipulation of a social or political environment in order to create personal wealth, as opposed to creating new wealth. Basically its people wanting more of the pie rather than just growing the pie so their piece is bigger.
In old economic theory the opposite to rent-seeking was ‘profit-seeking’, which is a focus on growing the pie.
I think we need to split ‘profit-seeking’ into sustainable and unsustainable categories. Profit-seeking via an unsustainable use of our diminishing and finite resources must now also considered to be a form of rent-seeking.
The trouble that Facebook has is that we judge any social network or web service by its lowest common denominator.
In the case of Facebook this would be the “what I had for breakfast” post, or the current scourge of posting the famous quotes of others so as to bask in the reflected glory.
The fact that people read and reply to this inane rubbish seals the deal.
The question is not why she doesn’t like them but why I can’t remember that.
We can make all the excuses we want for racism, mild or otherwise, but at its’ core is a complete lack of common sense.
An entry a day keeps the psychologist away…
You would think that driving a taxi all day and every day would sharpen the skills. Sadly this is rarely the case.
The top five issues:
1. Random and unnecessary braking and acceleration
2. Twitching
3. Engaging ‘park’ at every stop (peculiar to mainland Chinese)
4. Falling asleep
5. “Can you direct me to the airport?”
(Honorable mention, but not a driving skill, goes to the credit card machine that doesn’t work)
There is a thought for every picture and a picture for every thought. Sometimes they have a child, called a conversation.
Thrice recently I have been surprised by Racism. The first was from Mark Twain and I suppose we have to give him the benefit of 150 years of separation. The other cases were from older folk who are otherwise lovely people. Now the question is whether they are carrying over old values from 50 years ago (plus), or, being old, are less capable of questioning their own prejudices and more capable or being influenced by shock-jocks.
At the core of the issue though is some dissatisfaction with their lives, or how society has changed since they were younger. They have not been brought along with the world’s changes and they feel somewhat alienated and very confused. Quietly blaming groups of strangers is a first-order ‘no-brainer’ response. Similarly they have fixed views on various political parties and the like.
I wonder what damage their racism proffers? I suppose only the general support which helps builds momentum amongst others that care more and actually may act. The old folk simply sit on their prejudices. It is very hard to reason them out of their stance I find; it’s almost not worth trying.Â
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I know its been trashed to death before but really has anyone noticed how Facebook has been devalued over the last couple of years? Its gone from a general ‘keep in touch’ model to a few avid posters protesting way too much about how good their life is, or how smart they are. Â All this whilst the owners of the business figure out more complex and sneaky ways to extract personal information from the users and sell that information.Â
In the tech world, this year’s star can very quickly become next years’ footnote in history. Some fail outright, like Wang Computer, Compaq, Napster and DEC etc. Others just fade into single digit obscurity like MySpace, AOL, Geocities & Netscape. My bet is on Facebook to join them – they just don’t have the mojo to get this right.
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I am always relieved when I get out of a Sydney taxi. There is only so many many routless jerky rides in dirty old falcons with no shocks that one can take. The price of corruption.
Listening to Mark Twain rage against the Mormons, it struck me as silly. If people want to believe, they will, no matter how preposterous the story. And so it came to pass…
For some reason the milk crate hasn’t made it to China. It’s a great opportunity for some enterprising entrepreneur. They would build whole cities out of them.
My emotions are organic. And the bullets are homeopathic.
The first victim of a flu is personal hygiene.
Listening to a book is at least ten times slower than reading. However comprehension is higher. Filtering is lower. But thought ‘moments’ require me to reach for the pause button. I am amazed at how quickly time has gone by.
This is my third day in bed with the flu. My eyes are too sore to read. Fortunately I have discovered some great podcasts of books written by Mark Twain describing his travels. Great stuff, the enjoyment of which makes me realize I may be a tad old fashion.
Dissembling is slightly more honorable than deceiving. Only because it sounds better. This blog is an heroic effort at self-dissemblement. And yet imagine it as a sketch in 3-D (flat in time), revealing the truths, hidden as dark and murky shapes therein.
Reading over my old blogs, I am starting to pick up inconsistencies. I think this is OK. To be human is to be variable. A robot has one truth; we have many and they are very circumstantial.
The ‘truth’ is just like a blurred photo blancmange…you find it!
I should worry more about what I have done. That would be more consistent with the orbit of the dangle.
I don’t really worry too much about what I haven’t done. Which implies, knowing myself, that I have done what I needed to. Instinct rules.
Laid down sick. Bloody viruses. Still it’s the price we pay for evolution.
Woolhara village, Saturday morning coffee. You can see the fear in their faces and the yearning to belong. Gluttony has its price.
Or, as the Irish say, happiness is when the pain stops.
My favorite moments are when I am free of everything and everyone. However this only works in contrast to the everyday. If I had it everyday I would be bored to death within a week.
One good thing about aging; these days I do not worry about missing out. It used to drive me crazy. Now I know that most experiences are not worth having since they are driven by the fear of missing out!
It’s very bloody tempting to go and live on the other side of the planet.
I don’t know what I was thinking by coming back.
Yes I do. It was unfinished business. Now it’s almost finished.
Time to review. But I have this constraint of the females.
I heard her get up and have a discussion with dad at 3 am. Her mind just can’t be stopped. And she worries. Fortunately, my mind can be stopped but only with drugs. However I can sleep whenever just like dad. But I can’t be woken up for a midnight discussion. No way.
Loopy night, with fever. I had hundreds of great thoughts for you blog. But they have all flittered off with the breeze.
I had a fever yesterday. I was totally loopy with a flu. I sort of knew it at the time but not really. Altered reality. It makes you think that reality is pretty much our imagination.
They final word on gold….Rodney.
90% of gold goes into jewellery, which is a discretionary purchase. As the economy flattens so may discretionary purchases.
A good fraction of that gold in jewellery can come back into the market as the secondary supply, as can all the government and private hoards.
There is virtually unlimited supply in the ground, and it becomes available when the gold price exceeds each mine’s cost of extraction, plus a margin.
Netting it all out, gold is pretty worthless. It’s price is dictated purely by the sentiment of the investing and purchasing hoards. As an investment it looks pretty hard to forecast.
They ain’t no sanity clause. And there ain’t no closet sanctity. Doodah.
Apparently whinging is hereditary.
The best thing about the Kindle is that you can read porn on public transport.
Self delusion is universal. It’s just so much harder to objectively view yourself than it is to review others.
Part of your flight to freedom is the building of an effective mirror so you can look into your own soul. You may as well check out your arse while you are at it.
You have a choice; stay organized or embrace madness. In between there be monsters.
The fruits of your labour are the seeds of your resurrection.
Where do you go when your home country becomes unlikable? Personal freedom here is a mirage; it has been constrained by the collective good to such a degree that people live with contempt. Of themselves.
Those boys are too young to know the Groucho Clause. Any club that would have them is not worth joining.
I should start keeping a list of mis-deeds for ammunition, but it’s not me.
Beware of midnight and her hormones. The list of possible crimes is endless.
Any religion that has a specific bloke at the instigation has a problem.
We can be so much more productive with IT. I still remember how little we did before smartphones and computers. Less was expected and less achieved, but everyone was just as happy, if not more so.
You also have to wonder how much of the extra productivity is just extra bureaucracy.
Getting text into phones is still an unsolved problem. Voice recognition isn’t there yet, really. Keyboards are slow even with Swype. Mind reading might be the go.
Whatever the future brings I like to see my thoughts in writing before sending them. It’s the best way to edit them.
And reading is so much faster than listening, even if talking is quicker than data entry.
Today I focused on work. As a result I had nothing to say to my blog. It just goes to show that we have limited mental horse power and we need to choose what to use it on. Work can be fun or just an evil necessity. Today it was better than ok.
Today I hit emotional detox. Nice experience. Not
In the Herald today there was a report of a structural deficit for the next decade. The only course of action is significant tax increases. All the easy expenditure cuts have been made. A good time to be in opposition.
Cyclists dread the onset of winter. But it does filter out the fair weather pretenders.
It’s not dead and it’s still appreciated.
One of the keys to contentment is learning to enjoy the present.
It is related to enjoying what you have and not always fretting about what you haven’t.
Related also is the balance between living in they past, the present and the future.
Old Roger suggested that I have to keep going on one of my deals for my “reputation’s sake”. I was confused for a while and then realized he was being literal. He really cares about the opinions of people he barely knows.
I hate being micro-managed, even when I need to be.
Both sides of my brain have always been pretty functional. I have strived throughout my life, first subconsciously, and then more consciously, to connect the two sides. I get the point, but just about no one else I know does; they all have contempt to the ‘other side’, the side away from their own hemispherical strength. Or they simply don’t give a rat’s.
The cafe downstairs has a jazzy elevator musak version of YMCA going in a continuous loop. It’s so bad it’s good.
The bloke next door that married the tiger mum; he has the mother in law living there too. They shout at each other, the wife and the mother in law, in Cantonese, from one end of the house to the other, in their normal conversation. What was he thinking? Or more likely, which parts of his brain never worked? Hell is here in on earth.
The tiger mum next door has her child paying piano for hours a day. She has technical proficiency, finally, but has absolutely no touch. Never will have.
A flute has recently been added to the poor girl’s misery.
She believes that you are what you eat. There is soul food and body food.
Two suburbs over, in Rozelle, we have an organic food supermarket called About Life. It’s full of corporate types, working or on maternity leave. They wear their skulls on the outsides of their heads.
I am teaching my daughter that “sorry” does not include an excuse.
What does that woman fear the most? Not being loved, not being able to love, or not finding someone to love?
I hit the wall today. I suppose no one could keep up this pace forever. I am using all parts of my brain, soul and body.
Four years of Latin at school. I must have learnt something apart from a greater than average appreciation of Latin quotations. Youth really is wasted on the young.
Which means that good looking women should either be celibate, gay or go out with nasty blokes. Ipso facto.
This one is appearing at bus stops all over town. Does it mean cars should stay away from bikes by a meter, or that bikes should stay away from cars by a meter? In either case I would point out that the required distance is very much dependent upon speed. At 10 kmh one metre is heaps. At 70 kmh it’s suicidal.
It’s also very sad to see a nice bloke trapped with a good looking woman.
Why am I not surprised?
I hate being wrong. There is simply not enough time to waste.
How can the same country produce Joni Mitchell and Dick Cheney?
I hate being right. It’s easier if people just agree with me so I don’t have to be.
After a decade away from the game I am back into squash.
Ollie, my first ever coach, has just shown me that I have had it all wrong, forever. Grip, swing, footwork, movement, you name it.
Bugger me; my limitations were all self imposed. For almost 25 years…
I must run the ruler over other things I know to be true.
Why do I hate jade plants so much?
Well, they start as these little plants in pots and then grow way to be way oversize.
Then they get in the way of me and my bike.
Then they cause an argument when I want to kill them.
Then I have to surreptitiously try to trim them, branch by branch, over the course of weeks.
Without getting sprung.
When I go quiet on someone it is usually because I don’t know what to think. And experience has to taught me to question my first and second reactions. I am quiet until I understand or don’t care.
Reversing now.
If we were only allowed to consume sustainable resources, then the world’s population would automatically control itself.
We might have spare time and we might even consume non-essentials. But nowhere near as much as today.
I still believe they term ‘wealth’ is best used to measure unsustainable consumption.
And, just oddly, I think there  is a link between the emotional state and unsustainable consumption.
Excess and unsustainable consumption is like an addiction; we gorge on the unsustainable resources and yet this makes us unhappy.
Therefore restricting ourselves to sustainable consumption might lead to contentment (just a note on terminology – someone who is ‘happy’ all the time should be locked up).
In the old days countries used to measure their wealth by ‘productivity’, which was how many labours-hours were required to convert raw materials into a finished good.
This is a relative measure of wealth, since if productivity goes up an economy is wealthier than before.
But its very hard to measure absolute wealth, and it certainly isn’t any GDP or GNP, cumulated over many years, because these are measured in currency units.
And currency units only show the relative wealth between nations (based on the total number of notes in circulation and their exchange rate).
I think a better measure of wealth is some complex function dependent upon the % of an average person’s time required to just sustain themselves.
Before the industrial revolution this was almost 100%, with only a handful of people having spare time. Say 99.9%.
Today in the West it must be much less than 1%. The other 99%+ of the time can be spent sleeping, but usually it is also spent consuming unnecessarily.
So tracking this thought through, wealth might also be measured by (consumption (in say energy units) not related to subsistence) x (number of people).
(Note here. The odd thing is the discrepancy between the place of consumption and production. China makes stuff and then lends the proceeds to the U.S so the U.S. can consume it. Odd and it can’t last).
The energy units should only be based on the non-renewable resources consumed (say oil, superphosphate, species, etc).
So what I am really saying is that ‘wealth’ is a measure of the consumption of the planet’s finite and non-renewable resources.
Enjoy it while it lasts!
Luke face-planted off his bicycle last night after a skin-full. I should have taken his keys off him….
It’s very sad to see a nice person trapped in the body of good looking woman.
This appeared on all the poles near work.
When they start to argue a lot, the first port of call should be the two chestnuts; commitment and babies.
Rarely do they come at these issues directly. They prefer to annoy the fuck out of you and subconsciously hope that you can join the dots.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t look like a grade A gameplan to me.
Who makes this stuff up?
There is nothing like the snap of a jade branch in the morning.
Some French fashion editor wrote a book. She experienced bad sex for a decade and therefore gave it away for the next decade. Bzzzz wrong answer.
Freedom is knowing yourself truly. Or was that losing yourself?
Good food is worth more than all your philosophies.
offshore westerly 