Blogger's changed a bit, but I'm looking at reviving this, for a special purpose. Let's see how posts look though?
What's it look like with images though?
Many years ago, I had a friend who was unhappy in his job and his life. He announced to our circle of friends his decision to quit his job, and return to his uncompleted university studies. Several within the circle cautioned him, and advised him against his course of action. But it didn't matter how we put it to him, he was set on his path.
As things turned out, what we warned against came to pass, and a year later, he was more depressed as all the reasons for his depression remained, but now he was poor and unemployed as well.
What I learned from that chapter is people will, more often than not, decide on a position and only then come up with arguments for and against. In essence, they decide with their heart, and only after that do they rationalise that decision with their head.
It occurred again a few years later when another friend had committed to share a house with someone they barely knew, and then a friend asked them to share. He agonized over whether to follow through on the barely-inked deal, or go with something he felt he'd be happier with down the track. I told him that if he wanted the second place, with his friend, then he should go with it, and stop trying to reason it out. Which he did. And it turned out well.
Most of us like to think we do the opposite. Most of us like to think we calmly weigh up the choices available and reach a logical conclusion. But we don't. For the most part, we go with what our heart tells us and the 'reasons' are tacked on afterwards as window-dressing on the decision to satisfy our need to convince ourselves and others.
I am thinking of reviving this old blog. Not sure if I can still post to it though. So this is a test.
Probably the most frustrating aspect of being caught up in a legal battle is the waiting.
- male and female students approach self-promotion differently
- male students are more prepared to take risks and "fake it till you make it" in scenarios like job interviews etc
- our society rewards this behaviour
- female students who were prepared to put themselves forward and say "My work is good" find they get ahead more
- it's a pity the world works like this, but maybe there's lessons to be gained from it.
- different people approach self-promotion differently
- taller people are more confident, and speak up for themselves
- society rewards confident people
- short people should be more confident
You've seen them. Those bumper stickers saying "If you don't love it, leave". I recently heard another: "We grew here, you flew here". The expressions of Australian xenophobia. The true harvest of the Howard-Hanson years.
Are there any aspects of Australian culture that are more than a small step removed from redneck boganism?Footy, barbecues, beaches, pub rock, utes, car-races, beer. They're all damn close. What else do we have though? Anything?
The detective delivered his brief of evidence last week.
I honestly expected he would have an ace up his sleeve - some twist that I knew nothing about - which would justify his persistence. I was surprised he didn't. Instead, what the brief of evidence revealed was a home goal of incredible magnitude.
But I spoke to mum the other night, and she said Dad would want incompetence driven out. And haven't I given them enough chances? Several offers to the detective to give him what he wanted if he left me alone; a police complaint that was treated with contempt? Surely I've done enough against someone who's been relentlessly pursuing me without just cause? Maybe the time has come I should let the bloodthirsty side of my personality out for a while?
She's giving a talk at a conference in New Zealand next week.
So Wednesday, she flew to Brisbane for some time at her office. Then last night flew from Brisbane to Wellington.
As a result, it's been very quiet here, being the only one in the house.
I expected I'd be a lot more bored, have a lot more time on my hands. But instead, I've been busy with looking after Lucius a few times at his place, working late a bit, and going to a shindig down in Sutherland Friday night.
I also haven't even logged into EvE, simply due to lack of time.
I have been doing a fair amount of legal research as well. More about that later on.
Advantages to Bachelor Life for a week or two?
Noone complains that the dishes haven't been done
Can play my own music all day long
Don't have to shave
Disadvantages?
She's not here
Email, SMS and phone calls just don't substitute
My excuse for not posting an entry today is that it's too hot. Too hot to sit at my computer and think.
Hence, I'm sitting at my computer playing games instead. At least they don't involve mental exertion.
I don't know about anyone else, but The Big Lebowski was one of my favourite films when I first saw it. It made bowling a cult thing amongst my circle of friends, and it's always had that ring of cool associated with it.
Furthering the coolness, someone's re-written the movie as a Shakespearean play. Have a read - it looks pretty cool.
I just realised the comments aren't working. Someone told me before New Year, but I haven't logged back in since then. I think I know why they're not working, so I'll have a look in the next few days.
I recently found myself in a debate with some supporters of the bid for Australia to host the World Cup in 2018 or maybe 2022.
After looking for somewhere to do volunteer work on Christmas Day, and finding noone would call her back, my girlfriend and I decided to go to Newcastle for Christmas Day, and spend it with my mum, most my siblings and nephews.
I want to get some content up here, and I'll fiddle with the appearance and theme as I go.
Earlier this month was The Weekend of Two Tims.
Last night, this article was shared with me. It explains how television has sucked up all the "free time" created by modern technology, and so instead of doing something useful, people sit around watching TV.
So how big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in--that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.
And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, "Where do they find the time?" when they're looking at things like Wikipedia don't understand how tiny that entire project is
Go have a read of the article. It's quite fascinating.
You'll probably have to turn the TV off first though.
If you're lucky, you'll never turn it back on :)
I live here because it's a compromise.
My son is in this city.
My work is in this city.
My girlfriend is in this city.
I'd gladly move home, to my hometown. The city where I grew up. But that is quite a distance in the future, if ever.
Except, of course, my hometown is in NSW. And NSW is, for now at least, an absolute fucken joke.
Okay, that was a heavy post to start off with. And for that reason, it took me a while to let it settle. But now it has, I can move onto more normal transmissions. In future days.
As best I understand it, she expected to die so she wrote a blog post which would be a farewell. Because she used WordPress, one of its features allows a blogger to write a post, and date it sometime in the future, and it would remain hidden until that date. I knew she was unwell - we exchanged SMS messages in the days leading up to the crucial time. I knew her life was falling apart. But unlike most who read her blog, I was more than just a reader of her website - I was a confidante, a sounding board, a support, a special project. I was her friend.