Labour and Socialism - lurch left.

I don't vote Labour or left wing. Never have. Doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on what might make me vote for them though, or ideas that might appeal to a broader range of people that may bring them back to power.

Alone. Not in some cockamamie coalition of "we're all left wing therefore a vote for anyone one of us works" way, that ends in tears of disappointment and compromise.

Good socialism, don't get distracted by dolphins, or oil drilling, they fall in to place when you have the minds of the people .

Don't get me wrong they are important but they'll fall into place when people have security, and a future to look forward to.

Idea one:

• Promise to build state houses, say in blocks of 20 - 50. Make the local councils free up the land that they are banking or planning to sell off for profit.


• Approach local or national business and ask them to be on board a community project, this will swing the right-wing business for profit business in behind an altruistic effort - good for them, good for the economy, good for the people.


• Build sensible housing, of course terrace or row housing,  because modern and spacious can be achieved with modern methods.


• Appoint a community guardian or caretaker.


• Make them small communities, perhaps include growing plots for vegetables etc.


• Make sure that the busses stop at the end of the street, and do so regularly. .


• Make sure that community services people visit regularly.


• Make sure you deal with people who want to to buck the system and not join in.


• Make the tenancy reviewable and renewable by review, up or down, you might have to move house. In a mixed occupancy community this shouldn't be a problem.


• Part of the rental payable could be placed in non-fee bearing but interest bearing accounts in trust as statutory saving to get people out of state and into own home ownerships


• Run this policy in conjunction with and parallel to kiwi-build.

Idea two: KiwiSaver from birth. And now I'm winging it on the financials, of course, but it's an idea.

• From birth the government contributes $1 per week into a fee-free kiwi-saver account.


• The $1 increases to $2 in year 2, $3 in year three and so on.


• For year 16 this is a contribution of 832, and in a non-interest bearing account would therefore be $7,072.  Not being a financial wiz I have no ice how this would work under a compound or interest bearing account. I would image than it would be more then $7,072.


• The contribution amount could be adjusted as required to make sense in a changing economic environment. If the kiwisaver contribution amount changes then the contribution amount to kid-kiwisaver should change. Pointless ending up in 16 years with enough money to buy a cup of coffee.


• Funds would be available for either education fees, or home-ownership.


• Start this for all children regardless of age and at the level of contribution appropriate.  People might complain they're disadvantaged, but that's the wrong view, they're being advantaged by the policy, and sure significant numbers might not achieve any benefit in the first decade. It's long term thinking


• Roll KidKiwiSaver into KiwiSaver if you start work and don't take the money for education, it's shouldn't be considers a grant or money available at 17 or 18 to get your party on, the money is only invisible in education, housing, or continued investment in Kiwisaver

I own my own house, I don't have children that would benefit under the KidKiwiSaver idea. My thoughts then are that if you can get people thinking about people, and all people thinking about the growth of the economy then this must be good for the proposing government in the short and long-term. The injection of money into the economy has to be good too. I'll agree that this will not solve any house pricing issues as that of course is a sliding bar, supply and demand, but Kiwi-Build addresses affordable housing, right? They're just ideas, not very good ideas possibly, but ideas that I'd be happy to support and vote for.

The Less of Me, December 2012 edition

13 runs for exactly 69 kilometres, I have no idea how it got the be an exact number but the OCD in me thinks this is a great success.

Weight did dip below 89kg, but sadly in celebration I had chips. Then of course we had christmas, then of course I have no will power.

I did run on the 24th, 25th took a day off for the 26th then ran 4 days straight, with another day off for NYE.

[caption id="attachment_5913" align="aligncenter" width="474"] The less of me - December 2013[/caption]

The less of me, the one with the heart

I'm not actually sure what I was thinking, but I have a Nike Sportswatch, and this allows me to track my exercise.

One of it's capabilities is to link to a suitable heart rate sensor. And being as how I had nothing better to spend more money on I invested in one.

Bit of a mistake really. Maybe.

It works ok, and gave me some readings, but having done no research the numbers it came up with were meaningless.  So I had to go investigate using the trusty Google and Wikipedias

What I found was a couple of interesting things, but I'm not sure if I'm nearer understanding or now just frightened.

Resting Heart Rate for MEN
Age	18-25	26-35	36-45	46-55	56-65	65+
Athlete	49-55	49-54	50-56	50-57	51-56	50-55
Excellent	56-61	55-61	57-62	58-63	57-61	56-61
Good	62-65	62-65	63-66	64-67	62-67	62-65
Above Average	66-69	66-70	67-70	68-71	68-71	66-69
Average	70-73	71-74	71-75	72-76	72-75	70-73
Below               Average	74-81	75-81	76-82	77-83	76-81	74-79
Poor	82+	82+	83+	84+	82+	80+

As can be seen on this chart, your resting heart rate can vary with your fitness level and with age. I'm wavering around Good to Excellent, according to this.

But then the point of a heart rate monitor is to show your heart under the stress of exercise. So I had to find that out. And I came up with this

• The most commonly used formula is to take       your age (in years) away from 220. For example, if you are 34, your predicted max heart rate is 186 bpm (220 - 34). The formula was derived from a range of maximum heart rate studies in 1970 by William Haskell and Samuel Fox.


• A study in 2001 with healthy adults found a more accurate formula of 208 - 0.7 x age (from Tanaka, H., Monahan, K.D., & Seals, D.R. (2001). Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited. J Am Coll Cardiol. Jan;37(1):153-6.)

So I can derive then that my maximum heart rate should be around 171 (I'm old).

And then I found a handy chart that shows me what that looks like in terms of exercise effort heart rate to Maximum heart rate

Table of heart rate at training intensities from 50-90%

age	50%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	90%
50	120	130	135	140	145	150	160
51	120	129	134	139	144	149	159
52	119	129	134	139	144	148	158
53	119	128	133	138	143	148	157
54	118	128	132	137	142	147	156

Going back to the data then,  I've had the heart rate monitor on for 3 exercise things and have rates between 146 and 152, somewhere between 75% and 90% (on average), and a range between 70 and 90% overall. Average being a good thing as looking at the data, it says 163 at one point on one of the three days (last night it topped at 158).

So why am I worried. Well 75%, or 80% or 90%  - how do you know that ?  They 'feel' the same to me. I'm pushing as hard as I feel I can on most days, some days I hear the music, others I don't.  I don't want to 'back-off' yet now, I'm conscious that there is a limit to how much I should push, and this is going to change the way I do things, even if I pretend to myself it isn't and that I'll just ignore it. I won't.

Wheck out here http://www.topendsports.com/testing/heart-rate.htm for where I took my data and advice from.

The one with the Fear and the Doubt

Fear and Doubt are two things that are personal to the ‘you’.

Today I find myself in a place where I have both, and there are rare periods of time when I have the fear or I have the doubt.

They’re not common periods, and seem to come and go as quickly as a moment.

I’m not sure I have  them about a specific things, or  whether I’m  just generally in doubt, or in fear.

Not doubtful but in doubt. I doubt my security at my workplace, isn’t the same as being doubtful about my job security. For the former is a feeling I have, an uncertainty as a reaction to things, an it’s not based on any outward events, actions or news that would lead me otherwise to doubt things.

Doubt as a reaction to a change, and not being able to settle to a position on it. Doubt because you’re not actually sure about the journey you’re being asked to go on.

I sometimes have the doubt in my own ability, and if I have the fortitude to get me through the journey.

The Fear. Sometimes I have this with the doubt. Sometimes just on its own.

Fear of getting old, of not having done enough, of being poor. A fear that somehow you’ve left something undone. A fear your life is about to be tipped over off balance.

So where has my suddenly melancholy fear and doubt some from?  And when will it go away, and when will I know it has? Why has a sudden introspection thrown me off my good game?

I know that I’m feeling this way, and have fallen into a funk which makes it somewhat worse, I think acknowledging it is a start to making it better. Im not about to go sit on a cliff top or by the waters edge and spend hours in contemplation, it's not a depression I have, just a fear and doubt.

And I'm sure that this too will pass

Related articles

• When fear and doubt invade my mind... (cricketheart2013.wordpress.com)

As I get older I get different – #3

The one thing that I learned from Twitter is that you have to talk about Religion, Politics, Finance and the weather.



And so Religion.  I don't think it's a secret that I'm Atheist. Dead set I am. But I don't think that it's something that I have to share in public, or in conversation, nor do I have to justify my position.

And I have  full respect for anyone that is "of the faith", any faith and has the need to have a "God" that they worship. I do.

My parents raised me Church of England, which in an of itself is a breakaway church, which makes me smile. When I say "raised" I mean sent me to Sunday School. I don't actually recall attending church on a regular basis at any time. I doubt that we did, despite my sketchy memory of my early childhood. I did R.I. at school, and had parts in the annual nativity at primary school. Fully grounded then in all aspects :0)

What I'm not comfortable with is bagging people of the faith. On a personal level. I'm happy to talk about the irrelevance, the inconsistency and stupidity of religious dogma, but I shy away from confrontation. It's not that important. But also what I'm uncomfortable with is having a label, even if it's "atheist", as if having a label makes it more legitimate for scorn or derision.  I feel the same way about my stand on climate change, and my own belief that despite what you think I'm sure in my own way that it's not man made,  and that because I have that belief I don't enjoy being called a "Denier", I don't deny climate change, just that man did it.

I enjoy learning about the aforementioned inconsistencies in religious teaching to reaffirm that I'm not just a bit weird.  The more you read, and absorb logical and reasoned argument, the further you get away from a belief in a "supreme being".

I wish I could pinpoint the day when I realised that I didn't have to believe in a sky god and that it wasn't going to end in tears. I know it was a long time ago, and that as I get older, and experience more things, and witness more pain, heartache, illness and death I realise that there in fact can't be a caring God, and that confirmation bias just does's cut it.

Related articles

• I had a better impression of Canadians before I read that tripe (freethoughtblogs.com)


• Atheism is not a Religion (kingmidgetramblings.wordpress.com)


• Why I am an atheist - Anonymous (freethoughtblogs.com)


• My Deconversion Story: Living After Faith (mindi.authormeanders.com)


• What Faith Is... (acommonsea.wordpress.com)

Bromance - How to handle the overfamiliar friend?

We change. We age. We spread out. Our tastes change.
The type of people we like changes, we gravitate towards those we like and similar to us, we avoid those that disturb on on some level or other.

What do you do then when a long time friend crosses over from the like side of the ledger to be in the margins. Now they're just brash, rude, foul and annoying. You'd still do anything for them but just don't want to spend time with them.

You could make excuses for their behavior, mostly it's drink. Some of it is lack of respect. Some of it might be jealousy. It's probably more the latter than the former.

What do you do though, in baulking you just move further away from the middle ground you have and base your friendship on.

This isn't like the Odd Couple, were not joined at the hip, we don't share events, locations or other friends. We have a habitual relationship based on my visiting them. And there's the point where it goes wrong. They are a stay at home friend. They know my house, they visit to pick me up to go to their house. I don't think they like my well ordered neat and tidy wife and life.

Or I've decided that 3 hours of beer on a sunday afternoon isn't as much fun as it could be. Or that wii golf is pathetic and is just an excuse for boorish oneupmanship. Yet I'm avoiding telling them, the friendship is worth more than the not having them as a friend. Il avoid them by doing things I want to do, and the bored I'll go back to letting them win at wii, it keeps them happy.

Tollerance and the patience to have it

It's a pity that there is manifest a certain amount of intolerance in the media, within your peers and round and about you.

We have intolerance of the muslim custom of clothing choice, where it frightens some people. We have the intolerance of race equality when it comes to Maori. We have the intolerance of many things. Today I'm down to two;

Maori. What can you put this intolerance down to, well I'd say that the settlement of grievances is to blame. blame in the sense that they are advertised and that the settlement usually comes with cash and goods as reparation. This is seen by some as pandering to a minority, when they may or may not be disenfranchised themselves in some way, either by wealth or position, race or privilege. For example "why should I work so hard so the Maori can get it for nothing" That's making your world view focus on a result not a reason.

I'm amazed at some of the "claims" that we're told about, by Maori, and these are always highlighted and imply that they are a grab for something, there are very few that result in everyone nodding in sage agreement that a settlement would be just and correct.

What is it you want? Maori equality means they are starting from a lap down. What do you exepct when suddenly bright educated people identifying themselves as Maori understand some of the ways to get them on a level footing. It's isn't about getting ahead of the whitey, it's about being the same, and accepted as being the same as.

Muslims. The burqa, the face mask or niqab. Where to go with this. The full body covering that muslim women choose to wear or the face veil. My ignorance and fear should not be a want to ban them from wearing it. I don't support it, I don't understand it, I'm appalled if it's a forced choice. What I'm not is intolerant of their choice based on their beliefs to choose to do what they do.

I can choose to believe they are ignorant, and don't want to be part of my society, they aren't being ignorant or insular. They are sharing a country with me, we're not in an arm wrestle for control that I know of, we want to get on with our lives.

Sure there are radicals in every religion, there will be white  religious supremacists that want to blow something up, there will be muslim radicals that want to do the same. There are probably angry Buddhists somewhere. Can you imagine them wanting everyone to wear orange as their cause, we're not offended by them singing and dancing in the streets.

So my muslim full veil fear? I'm going with my own thoughts that we are hunter gatherers. We don't like not seeing a face, or facial expressions or body language, it scares us. It scares us because of the rarity of the full veil muslim in our presence, I bet if you were in a city where it was prevalent that you wouldn't worry so much. It scares you as it's not your normal. Your fear is no reason to make them change. It just isn't.

Fabulous at 50 - why I'm the same but different

I’ve always worked with technology, well from way back when.  Data entry learnt me to type, and I learnt to type on a T15 telex machine and could at one point read mylar tape with alarming accuracy, well it was a numbers thing and you had to be accurate when you’re dealing in millions of dollars.

Then I worked with a progressive group that had a bunch of IBM PC’s, and the bright kids built a network in the office for kicks. This was the very very early 80’s. The excitement of getting the IBM 5160 PC/XT and then eventually the PC/AT!

Then with Commodore Computers, the PC10, PC20 and PC30 and the Amiga computers, I remember seeing one of those in a Farmers shop showing a rotating window with a leopard walking within it, smoke and mirrors.

I’ve always had personal computers around me. Very early on efforts at Email, and file transfer by modem for business, and BBS systems in the evening.

Things moved quickly after that of course, and we’ve seen all manner of magic that we now call Plasma or LCD, apple iEverything, BluRay, etc etc, lots of tech.

Being around technology leads you down buying technology, and using technology, and I have for a long time. It should not be a surprise that my cupboard at home contains amongst other things a MiniDisc player, a 1Megapixel digital camera, a Sony Walkman stick thing, a video camea, and we have in the house a media player that will play .avi and other format video, various ieverythings, couple of plasmatrons, and that.

The family has also always had access to the best internet we could afford, so they have always had Hotmail accounts for instance, and been through bebo, myspace and Facepage. They’ve played online games and had software games, not to mention the Playstations – which reminds me I won one of those the first week they were out! Score

Which reminds me that I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much on technology, aside from the splash purchase of the 42” Plasma, which was a house moving reward upgrade.

 At 50 then I would suggest that I’m fairly tech savvy, and able to offer up some advice about technology.  I’ll admit to being clueless about CPU technology in PC’s and Notebooks but I know where to go to find out about what’s what, the internet is a tool for that.

What of my peers, which is where I wanted to go with this, and I alluded to in another post.

Just because I have “all the toys” does not make me rich, it makes me curious. But what is does mean is that to my peers that I’m somewhat of an oddity. Just because I have, and use an iPad makes me a bit different and geeky. I just use it because it is. My peers don’t work in I.T., they may use a computer at work, but they moan about it and “it’s a big one” if you press them as to which type they have.

Twitter, Facepage, Google+, LinkedIN, might as well be talking babble. And we talk sometimes as it seems they try to address their getting up to speed with their children’s acceptance of this stuff.

I don’t think I’m weird, odd or otherwise different from my peers, and I envy them their jobs, as I’m sure they envy mine.

Can I imagine not having a computer, sure yes I can, no internet? Sure I grew up without one, or a cellphone? when I was a boy we said we’d meet at 5pm and we met, we didn’t text, fret or otherwise track each other through the day to ensure we would do what we said we’d do.

Would I give up any of it? No.

Overhaulin'

When you spend as much time as I do looking at performance based statistics it throws up some interesting things.

Most importantly it shows up that you need to be nimble and ready to accept and process on a new idea, no matter how left-field it seems or appears to be.

Changing your focus, or changing the status quo can have a knock on effect, and changing to a non-measurable metric is always a difficult choice.

As is giving people an optional choice. My thinking (belief) is that if you make something optional then likely as not it does not get done. So the challenge is to come up with a non-optional option. Cunning that.

Implementing change without reason is difficult so it's a matter of spinning this into something that those that have to do the work think its a great idea. Cunning that.

Will it change the world? I have no idea, if I can't measure it by empirical data I'm back to "I feel" kind of things, which is something I shy away from.

We'll see where this goes, and it might be that we get back to the "I feel" metric based on pop-surveys and sat-survey techniques, which is something to look forward to and a good way to measure your trust and love quotient amongst those that you are there to be nice to.

Overhaulin'

When you spend as much time as I do looking at performance based statistics it throws up some interesting things.

Most importantly it shows up that you need to be nimble and ready to accept and process on a new idea, no matter how left-field it seems or appears to be.

Changing your focus, or changing the status quo can have a knock on effect, and changing to a non-measurable metric is always a difficult choice.

As is giving people an optional choice. My thinking (belief) is that if you make something optional then likely as not it does not get done. So the challenge is to come up with a non-optional option. Cunning that.

Implementing change without reason is difficult so it's a matter of spinning this into something that those that have to do the work think its a great idea. Cunning that.

Will it change the world? I have no idea, if I can't measure it by empirical data I'm back to "I feel" kind of things, which is something I shy away from.

We'll see where this goes, and it might be that we get back to the "I feel" metric based on pop-surveys and sat-survey techniques, which is something to look forward to and a good way to measure your trust and love quotient amongst those that you are there to be nice to.