Roger Green posted about useless skills in answer to the question, “What skills do you have that, because of change in technology, have become obsolete?” It’s an interesting question, and I thought I’d explore it a little because, really, are any skills ever truly obsolete? Or do many of them simply lead into new skills?
My dad used to talk about chasing the man driving a horse drawn wagon through the streets delivering ice, and I remember a man delivering milk to our house (in a truck, I should add). But people still make deliveries, so those “skills” simply changed. There must be some skills that really are obsolete, such as lighting gas streetlights (unless that became something in the modern world I don’t know about), but I have trouble thinking of many skills that haven’t evolved into other ones.
I’ve often said that most technological change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. What I mean is that the sudden quantum leap from nothing to something is pretty rare. For example, we went from earthbound to flight, and that was revolutionary, but all the changes since then—including spaceflight—have been evolutionary.
When I began my working life, I used a word processing program called Wordstar on computers running an operating system called CP/M. This required memorising a large number of commands to format the page since, in those days, there was no WYSIWYG so no way to see the result until the document was printed. One thing I remember in particular is using commands to bold type to make headlines for a newsletter I did. But I realised that if I also gave it the command to double-strike, the type actually looked bold.
All that Wordstar training came in handy when I moved into printing/publishing and had to learn phototypesetting using AM Varityper machines that, it turned out, also ran on CP/M. That meant learning the commands, as in Wordstar, to avoid wasting photographic paper that worked out to about a dollar a foot.
Like the rest of the graphics industry, the business eventually abandoned specialist typesetting equipment and switched to Apple Macintosh computers. Similarly, photostat cameras were replaced with flatbed scanners. I no longer needed the Wordstar or typesetting commands, but the base they provided made it easy for me to change technology.
Years later, when I started using the web, those old skills were useful again: HTML coding isn’t all that different, really, from using commands in Wordstar, so adapting wasn’t as difficult as it could’ve been.
It’s true that I probably wouldn’t be able to use Wordstar anymore (at least, not without a refresher), but those skills proved useful in allowing me to adapt to new technologies. The old skills didn’t die, they morphed and evolved and eventually became skills I still use today.
Seems to me that what we're really talking about are not skills that are lost in isolation, but the whole process of learning and growing. And that never becomes obsolete.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
I won’t marry Westfield
Today I got an email from Westfield, the Australian company that is by far the largest operator of shopping malls in New Zealand. The subject line of the email was, “Arthur, will you marry me?” I immediately unsubscribed from their email mailing list.
The email was promoting a competition in which people might win a billboard with their Valentine’s Day message of up to 20 words. The email advised recipients to “shout sweet nothings” and linked to a site that told visitors to “Write your poem, proposal or message here”.
I don’t have a problem with the competition, though personally I find it more silly than romantic. Nor do I have a problem with them emailing invitations to enter competitions. In fact, I ended up on their list in the first place because I entered a competition (knowing full well that would put me on their email list), and I just couldn’t be bothered to unsubscribe—until today.
It was that word “marry” that motivated me: Westfield used as a tagline something I cannot do in either in New Zealand or in my home state of Illinois (or most of the US, for that matter), that is, marry my partner. Both New Zealand and Illinois enacted separate and more-or-less-equal civil unions, but marriage itself is reserved for heterosexuals only.
Westfield wasn’t making a political statement of any kind, and they weren’t trying to be offensive. Instead, they were just using the normal heterosexual assumptions that virtually all marketers do, something gay people are used to filtering out. In fact, I wrote about exactly that a couple years ago.
I don’t need to be reminded of what I cannot do, and I don’t need to support such marketing, no matter how small that support might be, like receiving emails. So, Westfield’s email really just gave me the kick I needed to unsubscribe, finally, from their email list, something I should’ve done weeks ago simply because they really had no value to me.
This extremely minor incident highlights how assumptions made with no malice intended can still strike a sour note. It’s a minefield for marketers, and I don’t envy them. But I do wish they’d try just a little bit harder to not always make heterosexist assumptions. Oh, and they should stop marketing things to women by almost always using pink. That annoys me, too. Come to think of it, they really should just stop stupid marketing campaigns and get more clever, and that would fix most of this.
The email was promoting a competition in which people might win a billboard with their Valentine’s Day message of up to 20 words. The email advised recipients to “shout sweet nothings” and linked to a site that told visitors to “Write your poem, proposal or message here”.
I don’t have a problem with the competition, though personally I find it more silly than romantic. Nor do I have a problem with them emailing invitations to enter competitions. In fact, I ended up on their list in the first place because I entered a competition (knowing full well that would put me on their email list), and I just couldn’t be bothered to unsubscribe—until today.
It was that word “marry” that motivated me: Westfield used as a tagline something I cannot do in either in New Zealand or in my home state of Illinois (or most of the US, for that matter), that is, marry my partner. Both New Zealand and Illinois enacted separate and more-or-less-equal civil unions, but marriage itself is reserved for heterosexuals only.
Westfield wasn’t making a political statement of any kind, and they weren’t trying to be offensive. Instead, they were just using the normal heterosexual assumptions that virtually all marketers do, something gay people are used to filtering out. In fact, I wrote about exactly that a couple years ago.
I don’t need to be reminded of what I cannot do, and I don’t need to support such marketing, no matter how small that support might be, like receiving emails. So, Westfield’s email really just gave me the kick I needed to unsubscribe, finally, from their email list, something I should’ve done weeks ago simply because they really had no value to me.
This extremely minor incident highlights how assumptions made with no malice intended can still strike a sour note. It’s a minefield for marketers, and I don’t envy them. But I do wish they’d try just a little bit harder to not always make heterosexist assumptions. Oh, and they should stop marketing things to women by almost always using pink. That annoys me, too. Come to think of it, they really should just stop stupid marketing campaigns and get more clever, and that would fix most of this.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wilma is angry
Cyclone Wilma is beating up the upper North Island of New Zealand. The main system is due to hit New Zealand around midnight, which mostly means a lot of rain. It happens. This is a category 1 cyclone (“hurricane” in US terms), and the last prediction I heard is that it won’t lose strength until it hits Northland. Put another way, that means a lot of rain. Yay.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
First campaign speeches
Here are the two “State of the Nation” (just a title of convenience) speeches delivered this week. The first is by Phil Goff, Leader of the Opposition, and Leader of the NZ Labour Party in Parliament, who delivered his speech January 25. The second speech is by John Key, the Prime Minister and leader of the New Zealand National Party in Parliament, who delivered his speech the day after Phil Goff.
Neither speech has had many views as I post this, which is why I’m posting them here: More New Zealanders should be able to see them, and getting them posted in more places can only help. These are effectively the first campaign speeches by the two main parties as we head into the 2011 New Zealand General Election later this year. As such, they begin to sketch out what the two main parties will do should they have the opportunity to lead government, and that’s why they’re important.
Neither speech has had many views as I post this, which is why I’m posting them here: More New Zealanders should be able to see them, and getting them posted in more places can only help. These are effectively the first campaign speeches by the two main parties as we head into the 2011 New Zealand General Election later this year. As such, they begin to sketch out what the two main parties will do should they have the opportunity to lead government, and that’s why they’re important.
National’s Party con job
The New Zealand National Party is preparing to try and con New Zealand voters. John Key, party leader and currently prime minister, has announced the beginning of “partial” asset sales. The right and "business communuty" have, predictably, cheered—and launched into full spin mode to promote the National Party’s agenda.
I said that National would definitely keep one of its 2008 promises and not try and sell-off all state-owned assets. With some 8 out of 10 Kiwis opposed to asset sales, they’d avoid promoting a policy that would cost them the election.
But don’t be fooled: National absolutely plans to sell off all state-owned assets completely; it’s been core party principle for some 20 years.
Key proposes to sell up to 49% of state-owned electricity companies Mighty River Power, Meridian and Genesis, along with coal company, Solid Energy. They will likely sell-down the government’s 75% stake in Air New Zealand, too. That’s only what they admit to.
Key recognises that New Zealanders want these assets in public hands, and last night on TVNZ’s Close Up programme he made bland, vague acknowledgement that “mistakes” had been made my the neo-conservatives’ fire-sale of assets in the 1980s and 1990s. He tried to suggest his government would be more sensible.
The New Zealand Herald's joyful editorial trumpeted the plan, pointing out that when electricity was sold off under the last National government, it was also floated in New Zealand so Kiwis could buy the shares, rather than sell them overseas. Let me put this plainly and bluntly: Big fucking deal.
Once the shares are publicly traded, anyone can buy them. Key, the Herald and the rest of the right says “mum and dad investors” are giddy with excitement at the prospect of having these shares to buy. They’re all liars. First, there’s no credible or independent evidence that this supposed demand actually exists, and believing it to be true doesn’t make it so.
But the biggest scam the right is foisting on us the “mum and dad investors” crap: They already own the state owned assets as citizens and taxpayers! The government isn’t some giant alien mollusc; it is all of us, combined. So we the people already own these assets.
But the right says that this will “free up capital” for the government and create “new opportunities for investors”. They’re lying about both of those, too.
Under a best-case scenario, the “partial” privatisation will yield the government at most a third of the money they plan on spending, meaning they’ll have to get the rest somewhere else. According to several estimates I’ve seen (here's one), the current yield from these assets is higher than the cost of borrowing a similar amount of money. What that means is that the government could borrow the same amount of money and still come out ahead!
Instead, Key wants to sell off the assets to make the government lose money. Why? Because of the big, bad scary monster of national debt. But that isn’t nearly what Key and the right claims.
New Zealand’s public debt (which is all government borrowings less repayments) is 25.5% of GDP (2010 estimate), which sounds scary until you realise that this ranks New Zealand 97th in the world (out of 131 countries); Canada is ranked 16th, the United Kingdom is ranked 21st, the US is ranked 36th, and Australia is better at 107th place.
Key suggested our debt situation is about as bad as four countries in the news, but it simply isn’t: Greece’s debt is 144% of GDP (ranked 5th), Ireland is 98.5% of GDP and ranked 11th, Portugal is 83.2% and ranked 15th and Spain is 63.4% and ranked 27th. Compared to them, New Zealand is doing really, really well.
But if Key succeeds, and the ownership is transferred to foreign owners, as is inevitable, it will make things worse for New Zealand because it will increase external debt, that is, the foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sector that are financed out of foreign exchange earnings. This happens because the profits earned in New Zealand have to be shipped overseas, rather than staying here, as they do now.
So, National’s moves have nothing to do with economics, global or local, and have nothing to do with debt or even budget deficits. Instead, they’re all about plans to sell off everything that’s not nailed down, and to hoodwink Kiwi voters into thinking that it’s all necessary to “save” New Zealand.
If they were serious about improving the deficit, they’d tell us what government programmes they’ll cut, but Key is pretending that they haven’t talked about that at all. If they were honest, they’d admit that they plan to sell off state assets to make more money for the rich—they same people their tax cuts were geared toward. But they’re neither serious nor honest.
Finally, rightwingers have been touting the fact that Key’s not doing this to Kiwi Rail and Kiwibank as some sort of “proof” that National isn’t planning to completely sell off assets. The Nats aren’t partially privatising those because they plan to sell them off entirely, something that they couldn’t do if those pesky “mum and dad investors” had shares. The question is whether they’ll sell Kiwi Rail and Kiwibank, the question is, how soon? It’s either naive or wilfully deceptive to suggest otherwise.
There is nothing new in this: As a matter of principle, National, like Act, doesn’t believe the government should own anything. They will sell everything off, sooner or later. What they’re telling us is just one big con job. Again.
I said that National would definitely keep one of its 2008 promises and not try and sell-off all state-owned assets. With some 8 out of 10 Kiwis opposed to asset sales, they’d avoid promoting a policy that would cost them the election.
But don’t be fooled: National absolutely plans to sell off all state-owned assets completely; it’s been core party principle for some 20 years.
Key proposes to sell up to 49% of state-owned electricity companies Mighty River Power, Meridian and Genesis, along with coal company, Solid Energy. They will likely sell-down the government’s 75% stake in Air New Zealand, too. That’s only what they admit to.
Key recognises that New Zealanders want these assets in public hands, and last night on TVNZ’s Close Up programme he made bland, vague acknowledgement that “mistakes” had been made my the neo-conservatives’ fire-sale of assets in the 1980s and 1990s. He tried to suggest his government would be more sensible.
The New Zealand Herald's joyful editorial trumpeted the plan, pointing out that when electricity was sold off under the last National government, it was also floated in New Zealand so Kiwis could buy the shares, rather than sell them overseas. Let me put this plainly and bluntly: Big fucking deal.
Once the shares are publicly traded, anyone can buy them. Key, the Herald and the rest of the right says “mum and dad investors” are giddy with excitement at the prospect of having these shares to buy. They’re all liars. First, there’s no credible or independent evidence that this supposed demand actually exists, and believing it to be true doesn’t make it so.
But the biggest scam the right is foisting on us the “mum and dad investors” crap: They already own the state owned assets as citizens and taxpayers! The government isn’t some giant alien mollusc; it is all of us, combined. So we the people already own these assets.
But the right says that this will “free up capital” for the government and create “new opportunities for investors”. They’re lying about both of those, too.
Under a best-case scenario, the “partial” privatisation will yield the government at most a third of the money they plan on spending, meaning they’ll have to get the rest somewhere else. According to several estimates I’ve seen (here's one), the current yield from these assets is higher than the cost of borrowing a similar amount of money. What that means is that the government could borrow the same amount of money and still come out ahead!
Instead, Key wants to sell off the assets to make the government lose money. Why? Because of the big, bad scary monster of national debt. But that isn’t nearly what Key and the right claims.
New Zealand’s public debt (which is all government borrowings less repayments) is 25.5% of GDP (2010 estimate), which sounds scary until you realise that this ranks New Zealand 97th in the world (out of 131 countries); Canada is ranked 16th, the United Kingdom is ranked 21st, the US is ranked 36th, and Australia is better at 107th place.
Key suggested our debt situation is about as bad as four countries in the news, but it simply isn’t: Greece’s debt is 144% of GDP (ranked 5th), Ireland is 98.5% of GDP and ranked 11th, Portugal is 83.2% and ranked 15th and Spain is 63.4% and ranked 27th. Compared to them, New Zealand is doing really, really well.
But if Key succeeds, and the ownership is transferred to foreign owners, as is inevitable, it will make things worse for New Zealand because it will increase external debt, that is, the foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sector that are financed out of foreign exchange earnings. This happens because the profits earned in New Zealand have to be shipped overseas, rather than staying here, as they do now.
So, National’s moves have nothing to do with economics, global or local, and have nothing to do with debt or even budget deficits. Instead, they’re all about plans to sell off everything that’s not nailed down, and to hoodwink Kiwi voters into thinking that it’s all necessary to “save” New Zealand.
If they were serious about improving the deficit, they’d tell us what government programmes they’ll cut, but Key is pretending that they haven’t talked about that at all. If they were honest, they’d admit that they plan to sell off state assets to make more money for the rich—they same people their tax cuts were geared toward. But they’re neither serious nor honest.
Finally, rightwingers have been touting the fact that Key’s not doing this to Kiwi Rail and Kiwibank as some sort of “proof” that National isn’t planning to completely sell off assets. The Nats aren’t partially privatising those because they plan to sell them off entirely, something that they couldn’t do if those pesky “mum and dad investors” had shares. The question is whether they’ll sell Kiwi Rail and Kiwibank, the question is, how soon? It’s either naive or wilfully deceptive to suggest otherwise.
There is nothing new in this: As a matter of principle, National, like Act, doesn’t believe the government should own anything. They will sell everything off, sooner or later. What they’re telling us is just one big con job. Again.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Happy Australia Day
But because a blog post like this should have SOME substance, here’s a blog post I prepared earlier.
Tangible evidence
This video shows how one business was able to launch, to hire contractors, to buy American-made equipment and to employ staff, all because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It’s tangible evidence of the success of the Act.
Republicans are fond of saying—as often as they possibly can—that “not one job” was created by the Act, even though statistics alone show that’s an outright lie. So it’s especially good to see a tangible reminder of how stimulus spending like this has a ripple effect through the economy, leading to direct and indirect employment and economic activity.
Put another way, despite Republicans’ deliberately false propaganda, the stimulus had a positive effect on the economy. This video shows how.
The proprietors will be guests at President Obama's State of the Union Address, which puts this video back in the news. I think that success of ordinary people is always worth celebrating.
Monday, January 24, 2011
The wheels on the bus: Auckland moving
This is an animated map of Auckland’s public transport system, created by Chris McDowall who has a Sciblog called “>seeing(data)”. It depicts a typical Monday beginning at 3:00am right up to midnight. The movement is all based on Google Transit Feed data published by Auckland Transport.
McDowall has more to say about the video what it represents on his site, so check the post for this map.
If we could visualise all data in an easy-to-grasp way like this, we’d all be a lot better off, I think.
A Tip o' the Hat to fellow American Expat in NZ, Dawn (who's also a friend, as in, IRL), for sending me the link.
Second Anniversary, squared
I like to say that today is the second anniversary of our second anniversary. I like the way that sounds, though it’s more accurate to say it’s the second of our other anniversary. See? That sounds much too mercantile.
Two years ago today, on a blisteringly hot Saturday afternoon, Nigel and I had our civil union ceremony and became, legally, a couple under New Zealand law—married in nearly every way but name. So, today is the second anniversary of our civil union.
However, we always used to celebrate November 2, the day I arrived in New Zealand to stay, as our anniversary, and we’d had 13 of them by the time we had our civil union. So, January 24, our civil union ceremony day, was sort of our “other anniversary”, or, a “second anniversary” which makes today our second anniversary of our second anniversary.
This sounds like a lot of words and a round about way to describe a very simple thing, doesn’t it? I agree: The New Zealand government should just allow same sex couples to be married like the opposite-sex couples among our friends and family members.
But today, we really are celebrating our Second Anniversary, squared. I mean, why not?
Two years ago today, on a blisteringly hot Saturday afternoon, Nigel and I had our civil union ceremony and became, legally, a couple under New Zealand law—married in nearly every way but name. So, today is the second anniversary of our civil union.
However, we always used to celebrate November 2, the day I arrived in New Zealand to stay, as our anniversary, and we’d had 13 of them by the time we had our civil union. So, January 24, our civil union ceremony day, was sort of our “other anniversary”, or, a “second anniversary” which makes today our second anniversary of our second anniversary.
This sounds like a lot of words and a round about way to describe a very simple thing, doesn’t it? I agree: The New Zealand government should just allow same sex couples to be married like the opposite-sex couples among our friends and family members.
But today, we really are celebrating our Second Anniversary, squared. I mean, why not?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Hate crime irony
It’d easy to point to any number of ways in which people who commit crimes based in hatred will be visited, inevitably, by irony. One such time is in the news right now.
As was first reported last Thursday on GayNZ.com, a lesbian couple in their 60s, who live about an hour north of Auckland, have had their property attacked in an apparent hate crime.
The end of the first week of January, the couple found that “Filthy Dikes [sic]” had been scrawled on the packing shed where they run their part-time business. “Dirty Dikes” had been scrawled on their house and “Dikes Trash” had been scrawled on their car. Police generally don’t pursue such property crimes and, the couple reported, didn’t seem very interested in this one.
The following week, however, the couple’s packing shed was so badly damaged in an arson fire that it must be torn down, making it impossible for them to run their seasonal business this year. Northland fire safety officer, Craig Bain, told the Sunday Star-Times, "There are definite signs that someone has broken into the place. It was deliberately lit. It's a real nasty, nasty crime." Police now say that the graffiti and arson are linked. Well, duh!
In my opinion, New Zealand Police don’t take relatively minor hate-related property crimes seriously enough: Very minor crimes like graffiti often lead to far more serious crimes. If the criminals aren’t caught now, one can imagine what his/her/their next crime could be.
One thing that's important to know is that this sort of thing is rare in New Zealand—so rare, in fact, that it makes the national news when it happens. As I've said repeatedly, Kiwis are generally a laid-back, accepting people and would never tolerate such crimes; an attack like this is really an attack on the entire community. Still, there are haters here, too, and mentally disturbed people, so even we aren't immune from hate-based crimes.
But there is a sweet irony in this disgusting attack. Most literate people, unlike the criminal(s), know that that the slang term for lesbian is “dyke”, with a “Y”. Dike? That’s the Greek goddess of moral justice. Hopefully, the criminal(s) will face that soon enough.
As was first reported last Thursday on GayNZ.com, a lesbian couple in their 60s, who live about an hour north of Auckland, have had their property attacked in an apparent hate crime.
The end of the first week of January, the couple found that “Filthy Dikes [sic]” had been scrawled on the packing shed where they run their part-time business. “Dirty Dikes” had been scrawled on their house and “Dikes Trash” had been scrawled on their car. Police generally don’t pursue such property crimes and, the couple reported, didn’t seem very interested in this one.
The following week, however, the couple’s packing shed was so badly damaged in an arson fire that it must be torn down, making it impossible for them to run their seasonal business this year. Northland fire safety officer, Craig Bain, told the Sunday Star-Times, "There are definite signs that someone has broken into the place. It was deliberately lit. It's a real nasty, nasty crime." Police now say that the graffiti and arson are linked. Well, duh!
In my opinion, New Zealand Police don’t take relatively minor hate-related property crimes seriously enough: Very minor crimes like graffiti often lead to far more serious crimes. If the criminals aren’t caught now, one can imagine what his/her/their next crime could be.
One thing that's important to know is that this sort of thing is rare in New Zealand—so rare, in fact, that it makes the national news when it happens. As I've said repeatedly, Kiwis are generally a laid-back, accepting people and would never tolerate such crimes; an attack like this is really an attack on the entire community. Still, there are haters here, too, and mentally disturbed people, so even we aren't immune from hate-based crimes.
But there is a sweet irony in this disgusting attack. Most literate people, unlike the criminal(s), know that that the slang term for lesbian is “dyke”, with a “Y”. Dike? That’s the Greek goddess of moral justice. Hopefully, the criminal(s) will face that soon enough.
Friday, January 21, 2011
The annual increasing number
This year it rolled over to 52. I have no idea how it did that. Today my sister rang me for my birthday and asked, absent mindedly (she is older than me…), “So, how old are you now, 31?” I answered truthfully, then added: “But 31 works better for me.” And, it does.
This is nothing new: I’ve always had a disconnect between the age I am and the age I feel inside, moving from one direction to the other. When I was in high school, I felt much older and it frustrated me that adults treated me like just another teenager. Sometime not long after university, my real age caught up with my perceived age—but it kept on going and my perceived age didn’t.
I don’t know what age I now “feel”, apart from younger than I actually am. That could be a simple, “Wait, what? I can’t possibly be that old! Last thing I remember, I was celebrating my 30th!” And there’s truth in that.
But there’s also truth in my knees that are somewhat less reliable than at chronological 30, or my stamina, never great, that seems a shadow of what it was at 25. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who IS that old guy staring back at me? Some hair dye usually fixes that.
I became a “bottle baby” (old gay slang for a gay man who dyes his hair), originally, so I could better compete with the younger people in my industry and now I do it simply so my outside is a better match with my inside. I see no reason why I should look older than I feel when something so simple can help fix that. There will come a point, I know, when it’ll be more than faintly ridiculous to continue to present how old I feel rather than how old I am, but that day is not today.
I’m actually, in a weird way, looking forward to being to being the kindly and wise old guy who offers support and encouragement and continues to revel in the new. I’d love to be the nonagenarian so enraptured with new technology that the news puts him on as an item of curiosity. But that, too—fortunately—is not today.
Right now, I’m just 52, an age of no particular importance. Inside, well, I feel much younger. One day, the two will probably merge again. That’ll be when you can watch for me on the evening news as the old guy using and loving the latest cool technology. But you’ll have to wait some four decades for that. I’m fine with that.
For the record, I had a nice birthday: I relaxed during the day and then Nigel took me out for dinner. It was a very good day.
P!nk – F**kin' Perfect
I ran across this video at Joe.My.God., and as this is the uncensored version the language is probably NSFW for some. Also, there are violent images and some of self-harm. All of which adds up to a good video of a good song.
I noticed awhile back that every few years, or maybe once a decade, a song comes along that reminds youths that they’re okay—despite what their peers say, despite what society says, they’re really okay and they just need to hang on and things will get better. Some examples: “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” – Billy Joel (1985); “You Get What You Give” (aka, incorrectly, as “You’ve Got The Music In You”) – New Radicals (1998); “Beautiful” - Christina Aguilera (2002), and others.
To me, this song, from P!nk’s “Greatest Hits… So Far!!!” album, belongs in that company, even though it takes a somewhat different tack, is more rock than pop and uses language you’ll never hear on radio. I think it belongs because the core message is the same.
I’ve been a fan of P!nk for many, many years, but few of her songs bring tears to my eyes as this video did (admittedly, it was the music video medium in this case). But for me she’s a perfect blend of rock, pop and even dance. Add meaningful lyrics, as she so often does, and I’m there.
I’ve frequently promoted songs that try and get a positive message through to youth, especially when I actually like the song. In my opinion, this song is "Fucking Perfect". So much so, I bought the album.
Footnote: The title of this post is the title used on the YouTube video; I didn't and wouldn't censor it. I obviously have no problem with, or reluctance to use, the "F word" as some people like to call it.
Remembrance of presidents past
Today was still January 20 in the US, which means the anniversary of inauguration days. The US newmedia was talking about the mid-point of President Obama’s first term (and for a good take on that, check out Roger Green’s post) as well as the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.
I can’t quite get my ahead around my thoughts on President Obama’s midpoint (another reason I’m glad Roger got his views out). Instead, I thought about past inaugurations and I realised that I have no idea which president was the first I actually watched being inaugurated. It was probably Nixon (more likely 1973 than 1969), but after that I think I watched at least part of most of them.
I remember a profound disappointment watching Reagan and Bush 2 sworn in (twice each), less so with Bush 1 and I’m sure I was thrilled about Nixon (I was a child Republican back then). I was happiest at Clinton’s first inauguration because he was the first president I voted for who actually won. I was, of course, also thrilled with President Obama’s inauguration.
Obviously we can’t know who will be inaugurated on January 20, 2013, but I’ll probably be watching. Whether I’m happy, profoundly disappointed or somewhere in between will depend a lot on what happens this year, because the next year, 2012, will be taken up entirely with the election. It’ll be an, um, interesting ride.
I can’t quite get my ahead around my thoughts on President Obama’s midpoint (another reason I’m glad Roger got his views out). Instead, I thought about past inaugurations and I realised that I have no idea which president was the first I actually watched being inaugurated. It was probably Nixon (more likely 1973 than 1969), but after that I think I watched at least part of most of them.
I remember a profound disappointment watching Reagan and Bush 2 sworn in (twice each), less so with Bush 1 and I’m sure I was thrilled about Nixon (I was a child Republican back then). I was happiest at Clinton’s first inauguration because he was the first president I voted for who actually won. I was, of course, also thrilled with President Obama’s inauguration.
Obviously we can’t know who will be inaugurated on January 20, 2013, but I’ll probably be watching. Whether I’m happy, profoundly disappointed or somewhere in between will depend a lot on what happens this year, because the next year, 2012, will be taken up entirely with the election. It’ll be an, um, interesting ride.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Sleeping dogs (and cat)
The photo below is of Jake and Bella sleeping next to each other, taken about a week ago. It’s been quite awhile since I posted a photo of Bella so it was nice to have a chance to take one.
All of which are just excuses for me to post more photos.
Two spaces or not two spaces
In my previous post, “5 things to stop typing”, I listed five mistakes people make when typing documents. In that post, I said I was talking about documents intended for professional publishing, and I noted reasons for those recommendations.
In a comment to that post, Roger Green linked to a post by Mark Evanier who concluded: “I've decided not to try and break the habit and to go on inserting two spaces after a period when I type. If Farhad Manjoo doesn't like it, I don't care. He doesn't read this site.”
Evanier was referring to an article on Slate.com, “Space Invaders”, in which Manjoo makes some of the same points about two spaces after a fullstop that I did. Evanier, I think, completely misunderstood Manjoo, assigning to him some of the, uh, assertiveness of some typographers. That aside, Evanier’s follow up led me to the downright pissy post “everyone has a right to their beliefs” by someone Evanier calls Tom Lee (I can’t find authorship listed on the site, so I’ll just assume that Evanier is correct).
I have no interest in getting into an argument with either Evanier or Lee (or anyone else for that matter, like the commenters on Slate or Lee’s sites), but quite frankly some of the reaction has been appalling, falling squarely into the “someone is wrong on the internet!” category of gross over-reaction to a non-issue.
Here’s my position: If you love two spaces after a fullstop more than life itself, then use them. No one’s proposing the death penalty for you. However, be aware that you’re making extra work for someone else, and that will cost you money.
Professional page layout programs expand or contract space on a line to make it fill without ugly gaps between words or letters. When an extra space is added, it throws off that spacing—sometimes dramatically.
For this reason, all those extra spaces must be stripped-out before the document is placed into a professional page layout program. Over the course of a year, I spend about one full work-week’s worth of time (and others spend considerably more time) doing nothing but fixing the typing errors I mentioned, and the majority of that time is spent removing extra spaces. That’s empty, lost time I can’t use for anything else—but customers still pay for that time.
But hey, if you’re like Evanier and Lee and want to cling to your double spaces after a fullstop, go for it! And folks in my profession will happily charge you for removing them from your document.
NB: I originally wrote this post yesterday, but held back because I’m truly not interested in a fight about something so stupid. But I think it’s important to know that there’s a cost-benefit factor in using two spaces.
In a comment to that post, Roger Green linked to a post by Mark Evanier who concluded: “I've decided not to try and break the habit and to go on inserting two spaces after a period when I type. If Farhad Manjoo doesn't like it, I don't care. He doesn't read this site.”
Evanier was referring to an article on Slate.com, “Space Invaders”, in which Manjoo makes some of the same points about two spaces after a fullstop that I did. Evanier, I think, completely misunderstood Manjoo, assigning to him some of the, uh, assertiveness of some typographers. That aside, Evanier’s follow up led me to the downright pissy post “everyone has a right to their beliefs” by someone Evanier calls Tom Lee (I can’t find authorship listed on the site, so I’ll just assume that Evanier is correct).
I have no interest in getting into an argument with either Evanier or Lee (or anyone else for that matter, like the commenters on Slate or Lee’s sites), but quite frankly some of the reaction has been appalling, falling squarely into the “someone is wrong on the internet!” category of gross over-reaction to a non-issue.
Here’s my position: If you love two spaces after a fullstop more than life itself, then use them. No one’s proposing the death penalty for you. However, be aware that you’re making extra work for someone else, and that will cost you money.
Professional page layout programs expand or contract space on a line to make it fill without ugly gaps between words or letters. When an extra space is added, it throws off that spacing—sometimes dramatically.
For this reason, all those extra spaces must be stripped-out before the document is placed into a professional page layout program. Over the course of a year, I spend about one full work-week’s worth of time (and others spend considerably more time) doing nothing but fixing the typing errors I mentioned, and the majority of that time is spent removing extra spaces. That’s empty, lost time I can’t use for anything else—but customers still pay for that time.
But hey, if you’re like Evanier and Lee and want to cling to your double spaces after a fullstop, go for it! And folks in my profession will happily charge you for removing them from your document.
NB: I originally wrote this post yesterday, but held back because I’m truly not interested in a fight about something so stupid. But I think it’s important to know that there’s a cost-benefit factor in using two spaces.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
5 things to stop typing
If a document is for use within a company or organisation, those mistakes don’t matter much, but if the document will be used in something that’ll be professionally laid-out and printed—like newsletters, annual reports or brochures—then it does matter. Anything that takes extra time will probably cost more money, so it’s a good idea to avoid mistakes in typing.
Here are five common mistakes people make when typing a document:
- HEADLINES SHOULD NEVER BE IN ALL CAPS! Did you find that easy to read? That’s why newspapers and magazines don’t print headlines in all caps. That’s a holdover from typewriter days when there was one type size and weight. Instead, just make your headline bold and/or make it bigger.
- A tab is not something you pull. When indenting a line, use a tab, never spaces. Spaces get all messed up when the document is reformatted for publishing. There’s special formatting you can use, like hanging indents for lists, or maybe first line indents for paragraphs, but they’re not really necessary for a document that will be published professionally. But if you insist on indenting text, use a tab and never spaces.
- Deceptive appearances. Many people like to type with justified text, that is, where the left and right margins are all straight lines, like in a column of text in newspaper. If you use that, you won’t see any extra spaces you’ve accidentally put in. Also, these documents sometimes turn out really weird when placed in professional publishing software. Instead, let the right margin do as it pleases! Word calls this “Align Text Left,” other programs call it “Left Justified” (and typographers often call it “ragged right”). Whatever you call it, that’s what this blog post is. Also, keep in mind that if the recipient of your document doesn’t have the same fonts, it could look—and the layout could be—very different from what you see, so stick to basic, boring typefaces.
- Return to sender. Using the return (or enter) key is like slamming your hand down on your desk: It’s abrupt, it’s noisy and very jarring. That’s why it’s used ONLY at the end of a paragraph and NEVER at the end of a line, like folks used to do on typewriters. Computers automatically wrap the text onto the next line, so if you hit return at the end of each line, professional publishing software will see every line as a separate paragraph. That has to be fixed line-by-line, meaning hours of endless non-fun.
- One space only. The biggest, most common mistake people make when typing: NEVER put two spaces after a full stop (called a “period” the US and other places). This is another throwback to typewriters. In those days, every character got the same amount of space (this is called “monospacing” or “fixed width”). Adding an extra space after sentences made paragraphs easier to read. But when word processors came along, they introduced proportional spacing, that is, they give space to characters based on how big they are; for example, an uppercase “W” takes up more room than a lowercase “i”, or a fullstop, and the spacing is adjusted. They also automatically add extra space at the end of each sentence. So, when you put in two spaces, it’s actually the equivalent of adding many spaces. Professional publishing software often sees these as BIG spaces. So, publishers have to strip out extra spaces between sentences.
This post was inspired, in part, by a Tweet from my fellow American expat in New Zealand, @juliryan.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Cold breakfast
Today marked the end to the holidays for many people as they headed back to work. Among them were the new hosts of TVNZ’s Breakfast. I watched most of it and while I certainly didn’t hate it, the programme left me somewhat cold.
New hosts Corin Dann and Petra Bagust replaced Paul Henry, who was forced to resign last year after making racist remarks, and Pippa Wetzell. Dann was formerly the reader of business news and Bagust is a veteran TV presenter, mostly of lifestyle programmes on TVNZ’s competitor, TV3.
The new hosts couldn’t be any more different from the former hosts if they tried: There was no real spark, no real energy; the whole thing was very low-key and, for lack of a better word, mellow. I don’t know (yet) if that’s good or bad, but it was certainly different.
What was troubling was that TVNZ used its own people as guests when those roles were formerly taken by outsiders. Gordon Harcourt of TVNZ’s Fair Go talked about a telecommunications company whose marketing efforts may have run afoul of the law. Or something (I was busy at the time). In the past, the interview subject for such a segment would be an outsider, like someone from Consumer NZ.
A new segment, “My Media”, will bring in “a well-known Kiwi to give us their take on news story that has caught their eye.” My first thought was, “okay… uh, why?” But that was partly because of their first guest: Kiel McNaughton, an actor who plays Scotty on TVNZ’s soap opera, Shortland Street; I didn’t know who he was because I don’t watch the show. Purely coincidentally, of course, Shortland Street resumes broadcasting tonight after its hiatus for the holidays. PURE coincidence.
My sarcasm is because last year TVNZ increasingly used news programmes—chiefly Close Up and the evening news, One News, to promote other TVNZ programmes. Close Up is sometimes little more than an extended commercial for TVNZ itself—infotainment. That’s bad enough for a programme that purports to be a current affairs show, but when the news programme does it, too, it cheapens the entire broadcast, making the whole thing inconsequential.
So it looks like Breakfast—which is mainly infotainment for 2½ hours each weekday—is just part of what TVNZ programmes now do regularly: Use TVNZ staff for cross promotion of other TVNZ programmes.
I don’t really care about who they have present Breakfast or any other show, but I’d prefer that whatever information or news they deliver wasn’t served with a large helping of cold self-promotion.
New hosts Corin Dann and Petra Bagust replaced Paul Henry, who was forced to resign last year after making racist remarks, and Pippa Wetzell. Dann was formerly the reader of business news and Bagust is a veteran TV presenter, mostly of lifestyle programmes on TVNZ’s competitor, TV3.
The new hosts couldn’t be any more different from the former hosts if they tried: There was no real spark, no real energy; the whole thing was very low-key and, for lack of a better word, mellow. I don’t know (yet) if that’s good or bad, but it was certainly different.
What was troubling was that TVNZ used its own people as guests when those roles were formerly taken by outsiders. Gordon Harcourt of TVNZ’s Fair Go talked about a telecommunications company whose marketing efforts may have run afoul of the law. Or something (I was busy at the time). In the past, the interview subject for such a segment would be an outsider, like someone from Consumer NZ.
A new segment, “My Media”, will bring in “a well-known Kiwi to give us their take on news story that has caught their eye.” My first thought was, “okay… uh, why?” But that was partly because of their first guest: Kiel McNaughton, an actor who plays Scotty on TVNZ’s soap opera, Shortland Street; I didn’t know who he was because I don’t watch the show. Purely coincidentally, of course, Shortland Street resumes broadcasting tonight after its hiatus for the holidays. PURE coincidence.
My sarcasm is because last year TVNZ increasingly used news programmes—chiefly Close Up and the evening news, One News, to promote other TVNZ programmes. Close Up is sometimes little more than an extended commercial for TVNZ itself—infotainment. That’s bad enough for a programme that purports to be a current affairs show, but when the news programme does it, too, it cheapens the entire broadcast, making the whole thing inconsequential.
So it looks like Breakfast—which is mainly infotainment for 2½ hours each weekday—is just part of what TVNZ programmes now do regularly: Use TVNZ staff for cross promotion of other TVNZ programmes.
I don’t really care about who they have present Breakfast or any other show, but I’d prefer that whatever information or news they deliver wasn’t served with a large helping of cold self-promotion.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Centrist consensus
The US political powers-that-be seem to have agreed that America can’t have a debate about gun control. In effect, gun radicals are deciding for everyone else and rejecting the commonsense centrist consensus on guns held by folks in both parties, like George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, as spelled out in this video from the Rachel Maddow Show. That consensus holds that some restrictions on gun ownership are both sensible and necessary.
The basic proposals—including the banning of large capacity ammunition clips like that used in the Arizona shootings—are so non-controversial that reinstating a ban should be a no-brainer. The gun radicals have decreed otherwise, cutting off debate and arguing instead that, paradoxically and counter intuitively, the answer to gun violence is more guns with few or even no restrictions.
Some of these radicals also promote the truly bizarre idea that the purpose of the Second Amendment isn’t merely so that Americans can have guns for hunting and self-defence as mainstream conservatives have always said. Instead, they say that the purpose is so that citizens can overthrow the US Government. Put baldly, they seriously believe that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to enshrine treason as a right.
There is nothing in the text of the Second Amendment or the US Constitution generally that could possibly be interpreted as promoting that idea. Instead, the gun radicals turn to revisionist history and outright fantasy to try and reframe the debate as being about some sort of mythological right to overthrow the government.
As Rachel points out in the video, the logical conclusion of this belief is that they must also be able to have access to the same level of weaponry—including nuclear weapons. Otherwise, what’s the point? After all, Glocks, even with high-capacity ammunition clips, couldn’t make traitors’ success possible, nor would hunting rifles.
It’s time that the commonsense centrist consensus was restored and gun radicals stopped dictating to everyone else. That consensus is simple, straightforward and a middle ground supported by people in both parties. It’s also actually based on the Constitution and principles of Americans democracy. The gun radicals can’t make any of those claims. So: Who are elected representatives going to listen to?
Friday, January 14, 2011
Sign of the times
It’s beginning to look like maybe US politicians simply aren’t interested in restoring civility to American politics. The fight over who’s really promoting violence continues, even as we see evidence that they reject opportunities to promote civility.
Mark DeMoss is an evangelical Christian and Republican who was once an aide to Jerry Falwell, and who served as an unpaid advisor to Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. He and Lanny Davis, a Jewish Democrat, started the CivilityProject.org in January 2009, before President Obama was inaugurated, because of what DeMoss saw as an already vicious tone in American politics.
Yesterday, DeMoss announced he was shutting down the project. American politicians, it seems, weren’t interested in committing to civility.
The pledge he sent to all US Governors and Members of Congress—585 elected politicians—was simple:
It was a very low bar, deliberately, and the project was co-founded with Lanny Davis so that, DeMoss thought, neither Democrats nor Republicans would feel they were being lectured to by the other side. He hoped they’d be more successful with a bipartisan approach. That’s not how things turned out:
All of that’s irrelevant. When kids argue, one of them often says, “He started it!” And then the adult will say, “I don’t care WHO started it, I’M stopping it!” What we need are some adults among the politicians (and also the opinion media, but that’s another thing altogether).
I just can’t see the adults taking charge of US politics and I think that things will get even worse in the lead up to the 2012 elections. Still, the choice, ultimately, is ours. Choose wisely—and with civility.
Mark DeMoss is an evangelical Christian and Republican who was once an aide to Jerry Falwell, and who served as an unpaid advisor to Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. He and Lanny Davis, a Jewish Democrat, started the CivilityProject.org in January 2009, before President Obama was inaugurated, because of what DeMoss saw as an already vicious tone in American politics.
Yesterday, DeMoss announced he was shutting down the project. American politicians, it seems, weren’t interested in committing to civility.
The pledge he sent to all US Governors and Members of Congress—585 elected politicians—was simple:
- I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior.
- I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them.
- I will stand against incivility when I see it.
It was a very low bar, deliberately, and the project was co-founded with Lanny Davis so that, DeMoss thought, neither Democrats nor Republicans would feel they were being lectured to by the other side. He hoped they’d be more successful with a bipartisan approach. That’s not how things turned out:
“Perhaps one of the most surprising results of this project has been the tone and language used by many of those posting comments on our website and following articles on various media websites about the project. Many of them could not be printed or spoken in public media due to vulgar language and vicious personal attacks. Sadly, a majority of these came from fellow conservatives.”Talking with the New York Times, DeMoss elaborated:
“The worst e-mails I received about the civility project were from conservatives with just unbelievable language about communists, and some words I wouldn’t use in this phone call. This political divide has become so sharp that everything is black and white, and too many conservatives can see no redeeming value in any liberal or Democrat. That would probably be true about some liberals going the other direction, but I didn’t hear from them.”There are indeed some liberals who say similar things about all Republicans or all conservatives, though I haven’t personally seen the same level of aggressiveness or incivility among Democrats, nor had it thrust before me in the same way the other side’s has been.
All of that’s irrelevant. When kids argue, one of them often says, “He started it!” And then the adult will say, “I don’t care WHO started it, I’M stopping it!” What we need are some adults among the politicians (and also the opinion media, but that’s another thing altogether).
I just can’t see the adults taking charge of US politics and I think that things will get even worse in the lead up to the 2012 elections. Still, the choice, ultimately, is ours. Choose wisely—and with civility.
Politics in the brain
I’m rather interested in politics. I know that’s a shock to folks who maybe hadn’t noticed that more of my posts are tagged “US Politics” than anything else, or that at any given time, the top five most popular posts will include many about US Politics (at the time I’m writing this, three of the five are about US politics).
Apparently, I may come by this naturally—literally.
Despite the holidays, many folks on the Internet took note of a small study in Britain that found a significant correlation between brain structure and political leanings (liberal or conservative). In this case, “significant” means it’s more than chance would suggest, but something that would require further scientific research to prove or disprove.
The study came about when the actor Colin Firth was made Guest Editor for an episode of a BBC Radio programme (as they do the last week of the year). As Firth jokingly explained, “I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don’t agree with me, and see what scientists had to say about it, and they actually came up with something.” (In case an American conservative reads this post, Firth was joking; it’s British humour).
Still, much to everyone’s surprise, researchers found structural differences in the brains of self-described liberals and conservatives: Conservatives had a more pronounced amygdala—a primitive part of the brain associated with processing emotions. Liberals, on the other (left?) hand, had thicker anterior cingulated cortex, which is associated with, among other things, decision-making and empathy.
The study was too small to be conclusive, but it complemented behavioural research done a few years ago that found the brains of liberals and conservatives work differently.
Researchers determined liberals’ brains tended to tolerate conflict and ambiguity better than conservatives’ brains. Earlier studies found that liberals were more open to new experiences, while conservatives tended to be more structured and persistent in their judgments.
So, research suggests liberals are more willing to take on new information and to change their positions as they learn more. Conservatives tend to be more single-minded, ignoring outside influences. Some of my liberal friends may see that as a bad thing, but there are times when it could be a useful trait—like trying to accomplish a specific task, for example.
It’s important to note that this is all descriptive, not predictive: Political ideology is a spectrum, so it’s inappropriate to make blanket assumptions about those generally on the left or right. Similarly, research can’t predict the position someone will take on an issue. We also don’t know why these brain differences exist.
However, all this research suggests that there are real, structural differences in the way that liberals and conservatives see the world and react to it. That could explain why they find it so hard to find a middle ground and why they tend not to get along. And if political orientation has some physical components, and it clearly does, then other things—like sexual orientation—must do, too.
So, I write so much about politics from a liberal perspective because that’s the way I’m built. Or maybe vice versa.
Apparently, I may come by this naturally—literally.
Despite the holidays, many folks on the Internet took note of a small study in Britain that found a significant correlation between brain structure and political leanings (liberal or conservative). In this case, “significant” means it’s more than chance would suggest, but something that would require further scientific research to prove or disprove.
The study came about when the actor Colin Firth was made Guest Editor for an episode of a BBC Radio programme (as they do the last week of the year). As Firth jokingly explained, “I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don’t agree with me, and see what scientists had to say about it, and they actually came up with something.” (In case an American conservative reads this post, Firth was joking; it’s British humour).
Still, much to everyone’s surprise, researchers found structural differences in the brains of self-described liberals and conservatives: Conservatives had a more pronounced amygdala—a primitive part of the brain associated with processing emotions. Liberals, on the other (left?) hand, had thicker anterior cingulated cortex, which is associated with, among other things, decision-making and empathy.
The study was too small to be conclusive, but it complemented behavioural research done a few years ago that found the brains of liberals and conservatives work differently.
Researchers determined liberals’ brains tended to tolerate conflict and ambiguity better than conservatives’ brains. Earlier studies found that liberals were more open to new experiences, while conservatives tended to be more structured and persistent in their judgments.
So, research suggests liberals are more willing to take on new information and to change their positions as they learn more. Conservatives tend to be more single-minded, ignoring outside influences. Some of my liberal friends may see that as a bad thing, but there are times when it could be a useful trait—like trying to accomplish a specific task, for example.
It’s important to note that this is all descriptive, not predictive: Political ideology is a spectrum, so it’s inappropriate to make blanket assumptions about those generally on the left or right. Similarly, research can’t predict the position someone will take on an issue. We also don’t know why these brain differences exist.
However, all this research suggests that there are real, structural differences in the way that liberals and conservatives see the world and react to it. That could explain why they find it so hard to find a middle ground and why they tend not to get along. And if political orientation has some physical components, and it clearly does, then other things—like sexual orientation—must do, too.
So, I write so much about politics from a liberal perspective because that’s the way I’m built. Or maybe vice versa.
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