Your wave bob

The art and act of giving.

A gift is best when it has value to the giver or it took something away from the giver, perhaps it took time.

Gifting something you don't want is ok, but it is more like directed disposal.

Greave, Prey, Hope or Shop

What to do when something bad happens?

"Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate."

- Victor Lebow, 1955

ANSWER: SHOP

Louise Bourgeois

At the Tate modern.

She Certain knows how to torment. She seems to examined and obsessed about her life and the people in it. THe particular hate is directed at her father. All in all an interesting experience. I need a drink.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bourgeois

Australia Impressions 6: Fake Competitions

This is totally insulting and robbery. I don't know who does this but this is really bad.

• For $5 you can will $10,000 by telling them by SMS which ocean is next to WA, A or B.
• A personal fortune cookie for only $9
• Sign up for X for $5 sign up plus $4 per day.....

This is totally immoral and should somehow be illegal.

Miram Margolyes: Dickens Women

Remembering:
Summary

• he took is characters from real life, from people he met.
  
• he did not get over much and used his writing to express how he felt
• He did not like women.
• Some books published in installments in the weekly newspaper. A story of how a character changed was the person the character was based on complained and got a lawyer
  

Details

• 17, lots of 17 year olds, due to the death in his family of a 17 yr old girl
• He first love from the houses of parliament and there later meeting when she was poor and he was famous - he took his revenge
• his first job was as a label sticker in a shoe blacking company

All in all an entertaining evening

Cost of flight (per km)

We all the talk about discount airlines I was looking for information on actual costs. I found the following airline costs breakdown which is interesting, i think:

Cost per available seat Kilometer is around A$0.08/km ($80 per 1,000km). This suggests that a flight from Perth to Sydney costs around $290 for the airline. (assuming 3,500 km).

Obviously all airlines are a little different with different cost structures, and many of these costs do not vary with the volume of flight, short flights will be more expensive per km that long ones etc.

The breakdown by component is something like:

• Fuel 28%,
• Operations costs 40%,
• Finance related 12%,
• sales, marketing and overhead 20%

When I look up flights on Tiger airways I often get a revenue of around $80/1,000 km less for the deals and more for the popular flights. If this is true it will be all about how full the planes are. Reasonably full, Tiger will do well and make money. An important dynamic is that most of these costs are fixed so discounting below $80/1,000 km makes sense to fill seats in the short time but not in the long term (this is the bane and joy of the airline industry)

Need to think about Co2 emissions.......

Wonderful Swan Valley Wines (WSV)

For a good wine that first sip is just magical, the intension favours and smells bring a grin.

John Kosovich Wines

Park under the 80 year old vines and enter the musty Underground Cellar. The cool and wonderful smelling prepares you for the tasting. The Son (Anthony) now runs the winery and you probably get to talk directly to him as you taste.

The Vergelho is excellent as is the Chardonnay an the Shiraz. They also make a Liqueur which is very well regarded, although I have not tried it.

Lamont's

Cool and relaxed feeling under the trees. Meal – small bits, squid excellent, nice olives, noisy wine tasting area on weekend.

The SSB and Family reserve are excellent.

Houghton Wines

Huge old pine trees mark the picnic play area that is a favourite spot on a sunday afternoon. It is going to be busy so don't come for a quiet time.

the wines are great as you would expect. We have the Premium white (apparently 30% of what they sell and $10 per bottle its a great everyday white), the crofters SSB and Cab Merlot. The Jack Mann is just getting so expensive ($200+) so we don't bother with it.

Carbon Offset

The Basics - What we use.

Based on the various Web sites we use about 11 tonnes per year (Lots of variation in this number)

Ways to reduce:

• Plant a tree on the sunny side of the house
• Light bulbs - we have the small spot lights so we need to wait for LED lights to become available
• Use the bike - must do this more often
  

Ways to remove catbon:

• A new tree has to be the easiest.
• The amount of Co2 absorbed per tree appears to vary widely from web site to site. Some sites say 170 kg per tree, others suggest around 20-22 kg/yr of Co2.
  
• So you need between 6 and 50 trees per tonne. These must be net new trees and of course there are lots of other benefits.

Death at a Funeral

Took awhile to warm to this movie, the dialogue misses the mark and just isn't funny at the start. Perhaps I needed an attitude adjustment. As the story matures the plot turns and deepens reality gives way to incredulity. A classical fase there is nothing really new here but a good entertainment. A lot of familiar faces but no hook actor, no A list star to take all the attention or get it from the audience. I wish it didn't really need one, but it does, someone to bring the other performances together and make this a story.

B for effort. I am surprised at the Rotten tomato rating, seems high

Terrorism, the modern warfare

Terrorist are people at deliberately target civilian populations. Its not related to specific political or religious ideas, it is related to trying to kill people who have no direct intention to do you any harm.

Is this a reasonable? Does it matter that those civilians are sending other people to kill you. Are there really any rules in war, other than to win. What is winning anyway?

Life X3 By Yasmina Reza

Excellent play. Entertaining, thought provoking.

3 acts that are the same but unfold differently depending on how the characters react to the situation. The reactions are complex without easy stereo typical sets and reactions, but the connection between action and reaction is clear.

Traffic Deaths in WA

Summary of stats-

• WA Deaths per 100,000 people in 2007 will probably reach 11. (up for the second year in a row)
• WA death rates where up over 20% in 2006 vs 2005 with passenger, pedestrian and cycle deaths up over 45%
  
• Australia rates in 2006 are 8.7 per 100,000 people
• In England 2006 the rate was 5. Five years ago England and WA where similar now more people will die in WA than in London.
  
• In WA deaths where the posted speed limit is less than 60km per hour are up 50% in 2006 vs 2005
  
• Rural Roads are a factor, but accident rates are above Canada with a similar rural profile and winters that should make accident rates considerably worse, Canada road deaths are 9 per 100,000 people.
• While death rates are down in WA total actual road deaths in WA has hardly changed for 25 years, unlike Australia as a whole where total deaths are down substantially
  

Option

• Accident rates in WA are above the average in Australia and way above other countries, a large part of this increase is coming from Urban areas.
  
• Something needs to be done, targeting urban areas.
  
• Cars have improve, but driving and attitudes worsened, these areas need to be focused on.
• Recent surveys suggest speeding is a major concern for WA residents
• Root courses for the recent increase are unclear, may be connected to recent economic success
  

Suggestions

• WA should consider risk based insurance premiums that would weed out persistent speeders by making it to expensive for them to drive.
• Implement speed cameras, on mass, like the UK.
  
• Driver education
• Increased penalties for Killing people with a car. This appears to be regarded as accidental judging from recent court cases.
  
• Increase penalties for speeding and drink driving, particularly when speeds of 40km per hr over the speed limit.
  

Well Well whale

Went Whale watching, what a wonderful and welcome way to end the week

Totally surprised by the effect. I knew it was going to be good but wow these are calm, interested, peaceful, playful creatures that happen to be 40 tonnes. It is that combination of size, speed of movement and inquisitive nature that is truly awesome. The calm and the excitement is deeper than the ocean they swim in.

Common Dolphins are also all around them chatting and playing.

This is an amazingly spiritual experience, the benign power gives me hope that the world is good and that Gaia will take care of us. The connection to something bigger than us. I will think of these whales often and wonder what they are up to as I go about my little life.

What it is to know something?

The Egyptians understood the relationship between angles and sides length in a right angled triangle but did not know that A^2+B^2=C^2. They had tables for every triangle they knew. The formula is very powerful, the can predict as yet unknown triangles.

Newton was able to describe gravity but he did not know how gravity works. It took Einstein to figure out how gravity works hundreds of years later. Newton thought Gravity acts instantaneously across any distance. But Gravity cannot travel faster than light. Newton got this fundamentally wrong but what it did has huge value. We could predict the impact of gravity but only as long was we stayed within certain parameters, but we did not understand these parameters.

What does this mean for what we know and how we know other things?

Global Warming for instance.

We know a lot, but we really don't know how the world works, how all the components of the world interact, this means that we cannot accurately predict over the long term and we don't understand the parameters under which the predictions we do make are true. But still we need to act and can act with some confidence. When is the information enough information to act?


Reference: Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi

Thought for the day

Ability is what you're capable of doing.

Motivation determines what you do.

And attitude determines how well you do it.'

(remember Focus, Will and Capability HR Model)

Observations on Australia 5

• Product and retail names are often descriptive and obvious, e.g. sausages are thick and juicy, you get beds from the bed shed and furniture from the furniture spot.
  
• Advertisements are clearly and obviously embedded in the TV shows:
• e.g. the Gardening Guru show will include a section of Sheds and it will read totally like an advertisement for a specific shed installer.
  
• Another example is some of the restaurant reviews on eatingwa.com.au web site. This "independent" review is so obviously an advert. They are obviously written by an interested party. What impact will this have on people?
  
• The Morning TV show is the same, presenters pushing cheap exercise equipment.
• The TV cook that gets his salt out of the packet every time and uses paper towels for no particular reason
  
• This must work, I wonder why. This would not be a surprise in the US, but in Australia it surprises me. Need to look up the advertising standards.
• Also it is difficult to sell these programs overseas if the ads are embedded
  
• What is going on with the politeness or dislike of negativity?
  

• The movies in the news paper have a star rating system from 1 to 5 but even the totally worst movies get 3 stars. There has been no 1 or 2 star movies since I have been reading it.
• Similarly the restaurant reviews on eatingwa.com.au rarely get worse than 3 stars out of 5 and often you read the words on a review and they are negative and appear not to have had a good time which seems out of line with the rating
  

• The Australia idol reviews are all really quite polite, sue the say negative things but then it is always sprinkled with several positives.

• Sporting analogies are everywhere. Lift up your game, seems a universal suggestion.

• Cars are King here (don't step out into the road you will be run over, kind of like Italy, not like Canada) Even at intersections, the car is king, kind of rude really, once the metal box is on there is no need recognize the people sharing the space with you. Speeding on side roads also seems very common and different to the main roads where this is generally compliance with limits.
  

Ability to Change is more important than Intelligence or strength

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

- Charles Darwin

People to Learn from: Hunter S Thompson

This person I do not understand at all.

Initially he makes me think I don't understand anything.

On further reflection it is great to see a person live there own life without reference to others or what others might think.

Many of us dream of this, flew achieve it or really even try to.

Reference -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson

When you are walking through Hell

When you are walking through hell walk faster

(Eisenhower?)

Sound advice?

Sicko, by Michael Moore

This movie really resonated. Points to remember:

• People are easier to Govern when that low confidence are uneducated and unhealthy, they don't think let alone challenge.
  
• What kind of democracy is this?
  
• Some things are good in the private sector and some things are not. We should never forget or change this.
• I don't agree with Moore's solution , but something needs to be done. the Singapore model seems good or even the France system with compulsory insurance with premiums based on percentage of income
• The comparisons to Cube are very interesting, obviously only part of the story, and obviously a bit of properganda on Cuba's part, but still interesting.
• The choices over which finger to save one for $12,000 and one for $60,000, without medical advancement neither finger would have been savable, so now we can save both, who should pay and how should they pay?
  
• The way the insurance works seems close to criminal. The risk based insurance model just does not work well.
  

Additional Thoughts

UK vs US
UK government actually spends less per person than the US government on health care (from page 123 of the book - Undercover Economist by Tim Harford). Yep the UK gets free health care for everyone for less US Government spends on health care administration and Medicare programs for the few.

Democracies and the Vote to change things
To Tony Ben's point about the Vote, In Australia it is compulsory to vote. You can spoil the ballot if you feel particularly angry that your right not to vote has been infringed, but you must attend the poling station and vote (or face a fine). This means that the vast majority of people vote and generally take a greater interest in what the government is doing that the US. What would happen to political leaders in the US if everyone had to vote? Would it help if leaders could not ignore the poor that they know won't vote anyway under the current system?

Links:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/