Funding and Self-Sustaining organizations - the 2011 Edition

I've already written on this:

http://pdubyah.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/funding-and-self-sustaining-organizations/

 

From the NZ Herald today : Fashion Week's opening night was swimming along in champagne until managing director Pieter Stewart burst the bubble with a stark warning that the event could not continue without more support.

Minutes after Auckland Mayor Len Brown and Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully lauded its contribution to branding Auckland and New Zealand as a creative country, Stewart stepped up to the podium to say that a 12th year showcasing the industry could not be guaranteed.

Sponsorship had been tough this year, she said.

"Rugby World Cup has taken a huge amount out of the economy."

More sponsors were needed and local and central government also needed to look at backing the event.

ITs a commercial event, you are charging a door price to enter. So I say again, as I have about Early Child Education centers, Sports events, Music Concerts, Plays, Opera, Ballet it's a user pays thing. If you have something worth seeing then the people will come. The Rugby Sevens, The Big Day Out, U2, none of them made a loss.

If you have a business idea that is sound then it should also be profitable or break-even if you're feeling altruistic.

Are we to pour a bottomless cup of money into "nice to have" events to assuage the ego of some minor person in a minor industry to make them feel good. New Zealand Fashion Week - what for? who for? why? You're not even going to begin to tell me that it's important because world buyers are totally won over and will hand over cash at such events. If the fashion industry felt it was that important, or they were that good, they would fund it themselves.

In an instant...

Way back when, before the internet and mobile phones we'd agree to meet somewhere and we did. The newspapers arrived with the news from far-flung places, with the best bits held for the Sunday papers. Junk mail didn't exist. There were weekly local newspapers. We all watched either the news at 5:45, 9pm or 10pm or all three. There was no 24 hour TV.

Fast forward a bit. Now we have everything in an instant."Social Media". For instance  we have Twitter, which is about as real-time as it gets without being there, sometimes it's accurate, sometimes not. If you've ever witnessed the rise and decline of a twitter meme you'll understand how fickle it is.

And we have deal-a-day websites, by the hundreds, imploring us to buy now, immediately, things we don't need at prices we can't ignore. We have deal a day advertising on twitter of course, and Facebook.

We can't just agree to meet somewhere, we have to text and call numerous times 'just in case' It's scary how frail we've become, how unsure it all is, how needy.

Facebook has given everyone access to our lives, out thoughts and deeds. And we accept it. FourSquare has given you the ability to let people know what cafe, shop, street, bar you are in all the time. It's "me" central!

But it can't carry on. This explosion of socializing on the internet is doomed at some point, where it becomes intrusive. And I mean intrusive to me - I don't really care that you're the mayor of the donut shop, I don't really want to see your party pictures on Facebook. There are bits of your life that I am interested in, just not some bits.

Twitter, Text, Facebook, et al, is where the wild west is. "Everyone" is trying to get a piece of the action, to make a buck, and to get you to spend a buck. At some point you just have to switch off and tune out.

Now I can't actually think of a service that I've used that has fallen into obscurity, other than the web hosting Geocities, other than that Bebo, and MySpace perhaps. So I can't see a tailspin for any of the services we use right now, or are familiar with, which are, to repeat them, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and Youtube. Even an aggregation of all these things into one super app isn't what is going to happen, because why? It'll be too cumbersome, too awkward, too heavy.

The thing that we overlook  with Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Youtube. Google+, Flikr, Wordpress, LinkedIn et al is that they are all "free" That's right we don't need to part with any cash of any kind to use them. Sure we have to have a device that can access them interactively, but they are free to use. And we accept that without question that we're giving up something for something. We just don't seem to care about what it is we're giving up, which in two words is privacy and ownership. Of our identity and our intellectual property.

Anything that rises will have to have some basics, speed, reach, ease and appeal. Anything that falls will have become bloated, tedious or have some cataclysm around it like bankruptcy, where users fall away like hair falling out never to return.

Forgive me for laughing but this isn't a prediction.

Ken Ring, Moon Man, is still making wild and nonsense predictions guesses about earthquakes in the Christchurch area still and again.

His latest nonsense covers these dates via Earthquake News - Predict Weather - the home of long range weather.

Upcoming dates for possible increases in seismic action are
28th Aug – 2nd Sept, (6 days)
14th-17th and (particularly) 23rd-28th Sept. (4 days) and (6 days)
So that's a total of 16 out of 32 possible days that this prediction covers.
Not so much a prediction then as a scattergun guess.

The article contains many "thinks" and accretions and calls to attention by inference. such as "Imagine if another event is to strike in September", which is a call the fear, and highlights that Ken Ring wants to have his cake and eat it. He didn't get the last "prediction" anywhere close, unless you call "give or take 2-3 days either side" accurate.

And I don't even know where to begin with this nonsense "This also adds weight to the chance of a potent September for Christchurch, being the next equinox period (remember what happened last September?). Due to what I think is the southward drift of lunar perigees, earthquake events have moved from Christchurch since 30 April and 5-10% of all recorded seismic events in NZ have gone elsewhere. "

Due to "what I think" - which is odd because later in the article he claims "it's scientific", and what the heck is "southward drift of the lunar perigees" - To understand this you have to know that Perigee is the point in Moon's elliptical orbit where it is closest to Earth. I have no idea what science is involved in a "drift southwards" and even how that would or could happen. I don't think that it's science. Oh and as a caveat he says "Therefore at least 5-10% more earthquakes have moved further north since April" Pesky earthquakes always being counter-intuitive.

You should read it for yourself, It makes me angry that he calls it "science" that the "gravitational pull" of the moon causes earthquakes when coupled with the tides", which explains many inland earthquakes.

He finishes with this, which is a good belly-laugh "It is not astrology, which some have an aversion to, it is pure science. After all, the planets, Sun and Moon, and the earth and earthquakes, were here a long time before humans arrived to compare birth signs." Which makes no sense in an article predicting earthquakes unless he's going to claim "the not true Scotsman" defense.

But what I'd like to finish with, is another quotation from the same article "The likelihood is great for seismic events around the globe. " to which I would ask "define 'great' and define your qualification standard for 'event'.

To say that I'm skeptical of this is an understatement, there is no science involved in picking 50% off all possible days and associating it with naturally occurring and non-threatening events. If you believe that this is science then you should ask yourself why "that in the last 100 years of earthquakes in Christchurch how come that none of these scientifically dangerous coincidences have occurred?".

Driving Entertainment

Sometimes my journey to work or home from work can take an hour or more. And filling that time can be a chore.

It took me a while to cotton onto podcasts. I know! and there is an awful lot of chaff in the wheat.

I started with the "ricky gervais show" radio series, and whilst initially not a podcast it did turn into a podcast show, and they are very funny.

And this is a bit convoluted but then came twitter, and on twitter I came across a twitterer from the NZ Sceptics society, and then to another twitterer who mentioned some podcasts.

These then were "The Merseyside Skeptics -Skeptics with a K" and the awfully good "Righteous indignation" podcasts. However having listened to each of  them all from Episode 1, which was rewarding, I got to the point where I'd caught up, and was back to the radio for entertainment, so now I get my fix on a weekly or bi-weekly basis from these guys.

I tried other podcasts from the sceptical range but you know when you're enjoying something or someone, and if you're not engaged with the personalities or voices, pace or content you soon stop. So I never did get on with others, yet. Of the two that I mentioned above one has a slant towards "alternate medicine" but also covers a range of topics and subjects, there is always something. The latter has a paranormal focus, and I was hooked from episode 1, which I still think was one of the best. So crop circles, monsters, and interviews with a psychic, it all gets an examination.

I latched on the Play of the week podcast from the beeb, they can be challenging, but now I'm catching up on the "Irriligiosophy - the one true podcast" which is an atheist podcast that examines religion from the perspective of two people who were part of the mormon church and are now atheist. It's sometimes stodgy, sometimes a bit off track, sometimes not relevant but frequently funny.

Thinking about the content of the podcasts mentioned, with the exception of the play of the week, they're all belief based podcasts.  And they have sharpened up my critical thinking and questioning of things, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in an angry way. I don't believe everything I hear, and I don't agree with it all, Vaccinations are good (for instance), fluoridation of water bad.

I get a lot of pleasure out of affirmation of my beliefs, that there are others that share similar thoughts about religion, alt-med, ghosts, psychics and monsters. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Murder Most Foul #2 in a series

I could add Scott Watson, and  David Tamihere, as cases that raise eyebrows.

Scott Watson currently serving time for the murder of Ben Hope and Olivia Smart. There appears to be so much wrong with the case, with no bodies and identification of the offending boat difficult to ascertain.  In deed there are mystery men, secret witnesses and all the associated conspiracy.

David Tamihere, convicted in 1990 of the double murder of Heidi Paakonaan and Urban Hoglan. The body of Urban was found nearly a year later, but not that of Heidi. Tamihere is currently on release as he's terminally ill.

These are cases that test the patience of many people. I've no first hand knowledge of either of Watson or Tamihere, but I have enough faith to say that if they weren't inside for this these crimes they would be for another.  However being a bad sort shouldn't be enough of a reason to be in prison. And you'd think that with the high profile re-trial of Bain that Watson and Tamihere would at least be mounting a charge. As far as I am aware they aren't.

Tamihere will take his secret to the grave with him, Watson will get out of prison, take up on his boat again and live out his life. Or at least we can hope. Having done time they've paid their price. It might not be closure to the parents and friends but it is what we call justice served.

Who knew!

that if you have #murder as a tag that somewhere someone has a bot set to check for that and the reader count goes a bit bonkers

We are guests at the beach house.

I'm lucky enough to have in-laws who invested in a beach property many years ago. It's a lovely place, built in the traditional way, it's weatherboard and tin roof, built and added onto over the years, tiny improvements and changes made,

We've raised children there, and have many beach friends as a result.  As a lifestyle for summer it is something remarkable and we are lucky beyond measure.

The problem however is that in over 20 years that we have been going to the beach house we've only ever been guests, You see the house is lived in by the now retired in-laws during the summer months. And before they retired, as school teachers, they would spend extended time there. And we were expected to be at the beach for 4 weeks or so over the summer break.

It got to a point that we'd have to take the children on holiday to alternate destinations since they felt that it was not a holiday, it was just "the beach house"

But we've never actually  had a family holiday, or time there without the in-laws. Ever. Never alone the wife and I, with or without our children, without the in-laws. Ever.

Which you'd think is a bit odd. Well it is odd, we're always treated as guests.  Worse is that the older generation are very set in their ways, it took almost a decade for us to drop the roast dinner on christmas day for a bbq. Really. And that's the least of the stories.

Don't get me started on the washing machine!

So despite having a beach house in the family it really is only a second house for the in-laws. It is a home for them, it isn't a holiday. It's not a fun time for them, and now it's not a fun time for us. It hasn't been for a few years. Sure we've dropped some pretty direct hints and since the children have become more independent we've shortened our stays. We no longer go on long weekends such as Easter. It's a pity but it really is the most uncomfortable of places where you are treated as both guest and family.

The sad thing is the in-laws don't get it. I know mother would love to do something different for christmas or have a break that isn't the beach house. It won't happen, the best they do is a day or two away to attend a funeral. It's like the elephant in the room. I think we all know it but no ones wants to talk about it. After all it is a family home, and they're family.

Meanwhile we continue to go, and moan about it, not enjoying it and thinking of excuses not to go. Sadly we will soon be too old to enjoy it in the way we could have when we were in our 30's or 40's. And because of the way the in-laws are we're not visited as much as some holiday makers, after all it's a home not a holiday.

I am pretty sad about it, and it is the cause of many uncomfortable arguments, particularly about what is or isn't allowed to be eaten, or when we eat, after all it is a routine and dinner has to be a 6:30!

Don't get me wrong I'm not ungrateful some of the best times have been had and some of the best friends have been made, it's just that sometimes less is more.

If you could get away with committing one crime, what would you do?

in the darkness of the evening who  wouldn't have thought alongs these lines.

Perhaps it's the bazillion dollar robbery, or perhaps it's a murder.

Most murders, not all, are committed by acquaintances or are people known to each other in some way. Not all. Of course murder is fascinating. As is death. But committing the perfect crime? I used to read a lot of non-fiction books about serial killers and about cases of murder. Most of them of course are about known killers.

There are books about unsolved murders. There are indeed unsolved murders a quick google finds these;

• The Kirsty Bentley Murder Case. Kirsty Bentley's murder and the ongoing police investigation.


• Jennifer Mary Beard. On the last day of 1969, Jennifer Beard was brutally murdered and left under a bridge in a remote part of the South Island. Despite an intensive investigation the identity of her murderer has never been ascertained.


• Ray Mills.  Ray Mills, entrepreneur, was brutally attacked and left for dead, in a case that was never solved.


• Kirsa Jensen. Kirsa Jensen's disappearance is still one of New Zealand's biggest unsolved cases.


• Albert Anderson. Albert was found murdered in his own home in 1983

And there are plenty of missing people. People that drop out for one reason or another, sometimes on their own, sometimes assisted. But a perfect murder? If you're dark enough to be thinking about it then you'd have contemplated it. What you may not have thought about is would it be enough. Would one be enough. It would be like stealing the mona lisa and having it locked away so only you could see it. It might bring you pleasure but not to be able to share?

In a country like New Zealand, sparsely populated and lots of wilderness it lends itself to a notion that you could hide a lot of things in the bush. Perhaps you could. The one off murder most foul.

I'm sure that the police have a strong idea, or suspect in mind for each of the above cases, and a fair few of the missing people reports where they suspect foul play. After all it's pretty unusual for someone to out an murder someone just like that, and carry on their lives. I'd bet that there have been the totally random out of the blue murders that haven't been or can't be solved because they are random, with a couple of billion people on the planet and a few thousand years of history I think I'm onto a winner with that thought.

So would it be that idea of a perfect crime of murder, or would it be the thought that in New Zealand that there are so few murders, that getting away with murder would be the thing that rocked your boat?

I might be pretty naive but I'm leaning towards that the police got the right person for the Bain's, Smart and Hope, paakkonen and hoogland, and the Lundy cases. And if you're contemplating, in your dark hours, the perfect murder, you'd better keep thinking.

Corporately hijacked

The whole fiasco surrounding the "Abstain" campaign that blew up and blew over the last week, which followed on the from the bizarre pricing of the replica All Black Jersey fiasco, which followed on from the "running of the sheep" idea.

These brought disbelief and stunned mutterings from the masses. This wasn't like the red socks campaign of the America's cup. This was a corporate who came up with an idea and then told us, or begged us, exhorted us to join in and be part of their idea.

It's not that we don't buy into things, but these were rubbish of the first order.

Adidas. They claim on one hand to contribute millions in the coffers of NZ rugby. How do they do this? Well they sell merchandise and from the sale of the merchandise they then can sponsor sport. Chicken and Egg stuff. The thing is to be told that we have to pay more for the replica shirt so that they can sponsor NZ sport kind of sticks in the craw.

What did Adidas do? Well they blustered a bit and then did nothing. They told us how much largesse they have with their sponsorship and that we were free to chose to buy overseas or be loyal and buy local.  We couldn't have cake and eat it. Well Adidas did eat ir in terms of brand damage. They didn't change the shirt pricing, or wholesale price (they might have under anon-disclosure agreement of course, but it's doubtful). So all the clowns that wouldn't pay the $220 that Rebel Sports et al were charging would happily pay the $170 that the shirt price dropped to in protest. Overlooked was the fact that this was $50 of profit that Rebel was dropping, not Adidas. Win for Adidas.

The Abstinence effort. As a parody it might have worked. Telecom are not known for their parody advertising. They are a laughing stock, but they are not a comedic advertiser. The problem was that this wasn't a red-socks campaign, the nation didn't buy into it, Telecom thought it would be great to get the nation to buy into an idea. Bad Idea.

For Telecom in particular this was summed up by Richard Boock in the Sunday Star times this week in his article "Bog off corporate carpetbaggers" wherein he says "Maybe it's just that kiwi rugby fans are fed up at being ambushed by faceless corporations? That they're happy to support the All Blacks but draw a line in being claimed by a brand"... yes indeed we're all individuals.

It keeps me awake at night #2 - the speed of light.

Yeah it does, when the darkness comes without sleep the idea that I can understand or get my head around the statement that light has a finite speed. That's it. Nothing faster.

I get that I observe light, I see it at the speed of light. And then I imagine that I'm a spaceship of some kind. And then it gets interesting. To me that is.

If I'm banging along at a fair lick of speed, say 1/2 the speed of light and I look at a star, I observe the light at, guess what? the constant that is the speed of light. I don't see it at say one and a 1/2 the speed of light. If I'm advancing to the light source at 1/2 the speed of light the speed of light is still the same. Which is weird. Unless I got it all wrong.

And if I'm observing two objects, one on my right and one on my left, and each of the objects  is approaching the other in straight line (imagine a triangle ABC, I'm at A, and they are at B and C and heading towards each other). If they are both going 1/2 the speed of light I think I should see them converging at the speed of light. If they are both going the speed of light (ok so it's a big triangle) then I imagine that I should see them converge at twice the speed of light, which isn't possible, is it?

Now if there are observers on B and C looking at each other how fast do they think they are converging. It's worse if I imagine that one of them is going the speed of light and one is going 1/2 the speed of light.

Like I said it keeps me awake, for all of about 7 minutes.

I'd do most things

But there are a couple that I wouldn't do.

As a youth, many ages ago, I used to wear two ear-rings in one ear, which for the time was pretty radical! I imagine. I used to have 'streaks' dyed into my hair, variously gold, red, green. I used to wear 'punk' type clothes.

But you know I've never wanted a tattoo. Ever. Not that they aren't worthwhile but they are when all is said and done pretty pointless. Very.

As works of art yes. As statements, no.

There are grades of pointless. Small tattoos in Kanji or Cyrillic in the small of your back, very very pointless. Tattoo the name of someone in same or worse in ye olde Englishe script on your forearm - über pointless.

Tattoo's where you can't see them, pointless. Tattoo on your face or neck where people can see them - stunningly pointless. Unless it's a cultural thing like a Moko then it's very cool.

Fair play if you like tattoo's, to me they scream of needy kid, very needy kid, with a hole in their life that needs filling. If you're so bereft of self then tattoos are for you.

And in response to the dozens of hits I get looking for a "mary tattoo" it could be these you seek, although for the life of me I have no idea why you would.

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It's not heroic, it's just not.

As a watcher of much sport I've come to appreciate that there is a difference between commentating and pontificating. TV sports are the worst of course, since I watch more TV than listen to the radio. And the radio jocks are pretty awful, they appear to be commentating from a TV screen.

If you're listening to a football game, be it Soccer, Union or League, you'll invariably be left wondering what on earth is happening and where it is happening on the field. It's a pretty poor show.

And TV commentators are often adding colour and drama, some commentators are genuinely excited by what they are commentating on, take Murray Walker for instance. But some comments are nothing more than pontificating.

And, for instance, when that golf player plays a shot, it's not "heroic", come to think of it no sport is "heroic", no victory "heroic", players aren't sacrificing much, they may put their bodies "on the line" in pursuit of a victory, which separates them from the also-ran, and whilst a play that is spectacular can be said to be fully committed it's not heroism.

Sure players can be brave, who'd deny that thundering head first on a skeleton racer in the ice tube isn't close to stupid, but it's not heroism apart from a personal heroism.

And we all have personal heroisms, we've all done things that make our hearts beat louder in our head, take for an example (amongst many) of bungy jumping, the most inane of "danger" sports is a personal challenge, a personal heroism, but it's not heroic to the masses.

Googling your childhood

Google streetmap is a clever tool, I went for a virtual tour of some of the old places I used to hang. Pretty depressing.

So this is the house where I was born. There used to be a Sycamore tree, right were the new owners have parked cars! parked cars, what's with that! Anyway the window at the front side was my bedroom window, just though you're like to know that.

The bit of green next door, with the wall, well that was the tallest wall in the world, and jumping off that was always as brave as brave was. It seemed so high, clearly its about 2 meters tops

So next then my First school.



And when I'd grown up the local pub :-)



So nice to know that some things haven't changed so much

Inconceivable! Why I should avoid the newspapers.

I shouldn't read the newspaper, it annoys me.

Prisons. "Auckland's Mt Eden prison operator Serco has been accused of bribing inmates with bigger helpings of food and televisions in their cells to encourage them to behave" ..... And? Well the comments page is enlightening. People have issues that being in prison equals additional punishment. That being in prison isn't punishment enough, being segregated from the general population isn't a punishment, they should of course be fed gruel and water, and only if they complete their 20 hours of manual labour. It's a wonder. Sure there are bad people in prisons, they are in he maximum security ones, the ones that allow you a couple of hours outside your cell a day, every day for the next however many years. Sure there are career crims in prison, wherein it becomes some kind of badge of honour, I'm sure they're not happy. No I don't have an alternate, a method to rehab people or think they should be loose and running around. By popular thinking they're in the right place, away from the population to plot and scheme and get no further ahead in life.

Captain Obvious comes to visit with this headline comment "Macsyna King is laying blame for her twin babies' deaths with their father" No shit Sherlock, this is her book, her story, it's hardly going to be a confession is it. What were you expecting? I'm sure the book is a wonderful collection of colourful anecdotes, half truths, omission and fabrication, ably conducted by the Mr. Ian Wishart, who is doing it for altruistic reasons only, hardly covering his costs of course.

 It annoys me that today, for instance, the NZHerald didn't print the #gotakeashit hashtag that NIcola Grigg, the bint who is shagging Ritchie McCaw used in her tweet. So half a story. The other annoying thing is that they gave her column inches. What's with that? Seems though that she disappeared herself from twitter quick smart, too much adulation I should think.

that is all.

OCD much

I like things in a certain way. Not everything just some things.

I don't like to eat with mis-matched cutlery.
I don't like to leave bones on my dinner plate if I've eaten the meat from them. This is problematical if diner is chicken wings for instance.
I like to line up the beer labels forward in the fridge.

These aren't habits or some kind of faux affectation they really are things that I fret about.

I don't like being late for anything, and I hate waiting if I'm early.

I will walk under ladders (I will look up), step on cracks in the pavement, and won't worry about black cats walking in front of me. I don't have a lucky number or colour.

I do have affectations. I write with a fountain pen, currently it has red ink in it, tomorrow it will be green.

I'm not sure I'm unusual or different, except that I know that what I know about me defies any sensible thinking.

I'm sure it'll be ok.

I lent my dSLR to someone from twitter this week. They were late for the meeting, and haven't said boo! since. It's a camera not an heirloom. I'm sure it'll be ok.

I brought something on-line, an act of madness. But the price in NZ$ was cheaper than an (B)Adidas jersey for the All Blacks. All I have to do is wait for it to turn up in the courier. I'm sure it'll be ok.

The new copyright infringement law came into effect, the ability of a rights holder to complain starts on the 1st September, but it's from anything in the previous 14 days, so they can complain, using the new process, from 1st September about things from today. Which is a weird way to enact a policy, but makes some sense. I do watch UK based drama programs that are either not on the local TV channels, or are on them but in like 3 months time, or not on them at all! As far as I can tell it's users of the torrent method that'll be the ones dobbed-in first.  Torrent method sounds like rhythm method and we all know how successful that is. I'm don't torrent, so I'm not expecting a letter, I'm sure it'll be ok.

I got a letter from the po po, someone complained about my driving with "enough concern to report me", this would be the arsehat in the white car that was going 60kms crossing three lanes so they could get to the outside line like some kind of parade leader. The letter signed by "squiggle" warns that "should a formal complaint be made they will investigate and take appropriate action". I'm sure it'll be ok.

 

 

It keeps me awake at night

Super-powers. Of course it does.

I did a post about what super-power you'd pick if you could. Anyway I've been thinking and I'm not proud of it. But here goes.

Flying. Nonsense. Firstly to start flying you'd need to jump in the air or jump off something. At this point then you are flying as high as you can fly.Pretty much knee level. You see if you could control gravity then you'd have to be wearing the most heaviest of shoes so that every time you made a little skippy jump that you didn't launch in the air. Bit of a giveaway that. Superman wears loafers. And you could't accelerate or slow down either. So you'd be flying at knee level at walking pace unless you took a bit of a run up.

Invisibility. Nonsense. I'm going to be a party pooper here and say that if you could become invisible that it wouldn't include your clothes. It couldn't. So you'd be wandering  around naked which is a bit of downer since you'd have to hide clothes everywhere just in case.

Mind Reading. Nonsense. Can you imagine a twitter feed going on in your head? 'nuff said. Controlling objects with your mind, what if you got distracted.

Walking through walls. Right so this is a bit difficult since at the point where you can walk though a solid object you'd effectively fall thorough the earth.

Time Travel. This is the one that needs a whole post to itself. But everything everywhere is in motion, the planet is rotating, its orbiting the sun, which is orbiting the galaxy, etc etc. In the unlikely event that you could travel in time you'd have to unwrap everything everywhere. Or what would happen is say that you wanted to go back a day, that the planet earth is no longer there, it's 24 hours further along the orbit, you'd been into space, which would be a bit lonely.

#justsaying.

Conspiracy Theory #1 in a series

I make no secret of the fact that I'm really not sure that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon as advertised.

JFK was shot by a lone gunman, there is no bigfoot, we are not ruled by Aliens, 9/11 wasn't an inside job. Rosewell wasn't aliens, Area 51 does not house spacecraft or aliens, vaccinations are good. Princess Diana had a car crash.

I don't believe it's man-mad climate change, and I'm against fluoridation of water. And as for the nonsense that was folic acid in bread!

For a conspiracy to be attractive you have to be at the point where you believe in a counter position, or to be sufficiently disbelieving of the stated facts, that your own belief  carries more weigh and your conviction.

Like going to the moon. I'm not convinced that the Saturn V rocket worked first time, and every time afterwards. I'm just not. There are a billion websites and a billion counter websites that go over the arguments for and against, from the dodgy photographs to the physics, I'm just not going to repeat them here. Of course it could be that you just believe that we did, and that the records are correct without question. in no time in history has there ever been falsehood in any account.

The thing is that you don't have to have that many people "in" on the conspiracy, it wouldn't be difficult to stage. It appeals because it's an elegant alternative to someone who has incredulity about the 'actual' event.

Sure many conspiracies unravel over time, but many endure. Is it the grand scale of the moon landings that means I'm wrong, I didn't say I had proofs either way. Besides which I don't know if asked "What would lead you to believe that it was true" that I could give any answer except fly me up there to show me the footprints.

Enduring conspiracies include, of course, religion, and the whole myth and dogma surrounding jesus. But that's not a conspiracy in the sense that a government is trying to fool all of the people all of the time.

‪Thou Shalt Always Kill‬‏ - A YouTube

‪Thou Shalt Always Kill [subtitled]‬‏ - YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrMGXwhFLk

 

Thou shalt not steal if there is direct victim.
Thou shalt not worship pop idols or follow lost prophets.
Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Johnny Hartman, Desmond Decker, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or Syd Barret in vain.
Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a peadophile... Some people are just nice.
Thou shalt not read NME.
Thou shalt not stop liking a band just because they've become popular.
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.
Thou shalt not judge a book by it's cover.
Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
Thou shalt not buy Coca-Cola products.
Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.
Thou shalt not go into the woods with your boyfriend's best friend, take drugs and cheat on him.
Thou shalt not fall in love so easily.
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls' pants.
Use it to get into their heads.
Thou shalt not watch Hollyokes.
Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave before it's done just because you've finished your shitty little poem or song you self-righteous prick.
Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in, week out just 'cause you once saw a girl there that you fancied but you're never gonna fucking talk to.
Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were.
The Beatles... Were just a band.
Led Zepplin... Just a band.
The Beach Boys... Just a band.
The Sex Pistols... Just a band.
The Clash... Just a band.
Crass... Just a band.
Minor Threat... Just a band.
The Cure... Just a band.
The Smiths... Just a band.
Nirvana... Just a band.
The Pixies... Just a band.
Oasis... Just a band.
Radiohead... Just a band.
Bloc Party... Just a band.
The Arctic Monkeys... Just a band.
The Next Big Thing.. JUST A BAND.

Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries.
Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music,
thou shalt not make repetitive generic music,
thou shalt not make repetitive generic music,
thou shalt not make repetitive generic music.

Thou shalt not pimp my ride.
Thou shalt not scream if you wanna go faster.
Thou shalt not move to the sound of the wickedness.
Thou shalt not make some noise for Detroit.
When I say "Hey" thou shalt not say "Ho".
When I say "Hip" thou shalt not say "Hop".
When I say, he say, she say, we say, make some noise... kill me.
Thou shalt not quote me happy.
Thou shalt not shake it like a polaroid picture.
Thou shalt not wish you girlfriend was a freak like me.
Thou shalt spell the word "Pheonix" P-H-E-O-N-I-X not P-H-O-E-N-I-X, regardless of what the Oxford English Dictionary tells you.
Thou shalt not express your shock at the fact that Sharon got off with Bradley at the club last night by saying "Is it".

Thou shalt think for yourselves.

And thou shalt always... Thou shalt always kill!

Foursquare, now there's a thing, I became the Mayor!

I was Foursquare Mayor of my house, the street I live in, the street I drive down to get into my street, the bit of the motorway I get stuck on in the morning, a few local businesses and one or two places I shopped at, and quite a few that I didn't. I was mayor of a couple of shopping malls.

I was at one point Mayor of the place I worked and of three of our competitor companies. I became mayor of a car park, and a playground. I was mayor of the 3 different versions of the hockey stadium.

I think I had 17 mayoralties all going for me at one point. Clearly I'd missed the point.

And you know what the useless thing about foursquare was? That someone could take my mayoralty from me, and being ever so slightly OCD that's not going to work out for me. Or them, because then it became a staking game where all I would do it redouble my efforts to become mayor again, and rob them of "Mayor of playground" title that I so covet!

Never mind that it has a business application, I'm sure that some companies have fantastic offers and incentives to check-in to their establishment, a loyalty card scheme, I was mayor of 17 places, all for my own ego.

And you can only be mayor or wannabe mayor. You can't be a councillor or assistant to the mayor, it's all or nothing. You can earn "badges" for various things, these are but trivia compared to be being Mayor.

They had a mayor only party at skycity one time. You could only get in if you were mayor of somewhere, how whacked is that? Do they still have that every month? Don't know never went, never was going to, and couldn't understand why I would.

So I stopped using it, since it appears to be a solution that has no problem, a pissing competition for the OCD, and a terribly gauche way of showing off your coffee habit.

Murder Most Foul #1 in a series

There are many murders that get your attention and pique your interest. Fortunately there aren't that many that go unsolved. And even the solved ones can twist like a snake when you take what is mostly a superficial look at them. But we have to have an opinion and we have to have questions, it's the human condition, and you can believe one way or the other that justice was served, or that by your own view it hasn't.  I can think immediately of two that I have a view on.

Away: Peter Falconio.  (20 September 1972 – c. 14 July 2001)  disappeared in the Australian outback in July 2001, while travelling with girlfriend Joanne Lees and is now presumed dead. It's rather contentious and tonight (1st August) it was again alleged on TV that Peter Falconio did a runner and is still alive, and has been seen by 4 people no less, since he was allegedly killed. There was a bit of twitterage about this and seems that there is more than a little doubt that he was killed and that he chose to be disappeared. The whole story seems a little improbable, and they did convict someone of a murder.

It's not possible to put your own reasonings on this, you probably wouldn't stage your own murder/disappearance. Can you imagine living 'on the lam' as it were for what is now a decade? I'm not an expert on this, but how would you survive with a foreign accent in a foreign country, It is possible, people have done it, and will do it again, but I don't recall any background that would indicate Peter F had a bag of cash and the means to get away with it. Improbable but not impossible.

Home: David Bain. Convicted in May 1995 of the murders of his parents and siblings in Dunedin on 20 June 1994. He was acquitted when retried on the same charges 14 years later.

Never has an event really split people so widely. It is my opinion only that the truth hasn't been told in this. The police really stuffed it up from the get go. But after a re-trial where the only possible witness, David Bain, didn't testify what can you conclude?

My two favorite things that are wrong so wrong are; Problems with "index time" that is a central time piece against which everything is timed. What should happen is the lead detective declares the time, and everything you do should be based on the time of that watch/clock/device despite what your watch says. Your watch, my watch, the computer time, the oven, the microwave, the dvd player they all have different times on them, you therefore need a central time clock where you reference too. The police didn't. Big mistake.

And some really weird way in which you can tell when a computer was turned on. Even if you could, and I still don't know how you can, particularly if you turn the computer off and then back on again, what use is forensically diagnosing the time, if the time you arbitrarily decide does not match any reference time, it's just the time you decide on your watch, and not the reference watch. So the forensic test of time will return a time, which is completely arbitrary since there is no way of knowing what time that really is, it could be 10 minutes fast or slow, who knows? Big mistake.

 

I support the All Blacks....

Well no, I appreciate them, but being English I'll support England first. Sure I know the names of the All blacks, and can even pick some of them out from their pictures. But it's not really support is it.



It's like the Ford/Holden thing, you pick one that you support, but when it comes down to it you're picking based on it being a V8 supercar not the Ford Fiesta, or Holden Vectra, and most likely you show your support by driving Nissan or Mazda. (I prefer Ford, I drive a Holden).

Support for a team though, if you get the support thing you'll  know that it's a lifelong thing, you don't chop and change as it suits. I'll always follow Crystal Palace, always. I'm a Ford man. I'll never stop following North Harbour, and the Warriors will be my pick to win every time.

If you support something you do always, loyally. But you know what you can't just pick the national team, that's just being patriotic, You can support national team if  it's Wellington Phoenix, Breakers or Warriors, but they play in Australian competitions so that's a bit different.

My support of Crystal Palace, it's like a tribal thing, You pick your colours, team name, mascot, ground, sometime based on locality (almost always based on locality) and that's it you're in. Some of you might think you support Manchester United, or Arsenal, you don't you follow them, it's different (ok if you're English and they're you're local team then you can, I concede). In NZ you're a follower. And in NZ you don't get many opportunities to tribal up (unless it's city based rivalries.)

But I'll tell you what you can't do, create some competition, in this case Netball, and come up with some schmanzy names like the Mystics, Sting etc and expect it to catch on. There is no connection to anything, you can't just invent names to suit a franchise you must have a base line and existent place to build from. I can't get the Netball name thing, that's whacked, and for that reason I can't see myself supporting something I don't or can't connect with.

What would separate the follower from a supporter? Well it's not wearing the replica jersey. It's a life long thing, you can't waiver. Patriotism isn't support, support is following your team, thick and thin. The All Blacks will always have support and carry a nation that's not in dispute, but if the number of shirt sales depends on their success, and not how much you want you want to look like them then that's not support that's like a disapproving parent and a child.

So I support England, and anyone playing Australia (in any sport). And I always will.