LaeMing-of-impact

Delusion

2010-11-17T18:51:00.004+11:00

I am doing a Mental Health First Aid course at work ATM - yeah I know: blind giving map directions to the blind :-P Actually, as a mental health disorder sufferer myself, I seem to have a far better grasp on how to help others than one or two other people in the course who seem incapable of comprehending how any way of seeing the world other than their own way is even possible - and get uncomfortably aggressive about it! Most of my colleagues there are great though.

Anyway, this week we covered (amongst several other things) disorders that manifest symptoms including delusion. The teacher was very careful (and the class too mindful of political correctness requirements) to skirt around the fact that all the attributes of delusion apply rather neatly to most religeous figures in human culture.

Anyway, this got me thinking...

Where do we draw the line between delusion and not? Is someone who believes aliens are sending them messages really any more delusional than someone who thinks breeding samples of the entire animal biota of the Earth circa 4000 years ago could fit on a boat? We snigger behind our hands at people who are adamant that Elvis is still alive but not at people who believe a roman political agitator with decidedly communist views on social roles and the distribution of wealth came back from the dead are "normal"?

What, really, is the difference between someone who writes letters to Science magazine "proving" that the laws of thermodynamics are false, and someone using the same level of faulty maths+logic to argue that population growth is necessary for economic growth (an idea that has been soundly and repeatedly debunked by internationally reputable economists for decades). Other than that we vote for the latter because we haven't the wits or basic education to know better?

I think it comes down to a numbers games - delusion is when the belief is a minority, particularly a tiny minority. If a lot of people believe in the Great Sky Fairy, or in psudo-economics, they are not "delusional". Or if they are rich and powerful. To paraphrase the antagonist from the movie Speed, "The poor/powerless are crazy, the rich/powerful/influencial are eccentric!"

Transending Graffiti

2010-08-05T20:00:00.004+10:00

Snapped on my way to work (new job, so different route to the bee tree):

I think this is clever (and meta) enough to transcend graffiti and be art.

Far more interesting than some meaningless scrawl of an unknown tagger, anyway.

My new MoFo - Nokia 6760 slide

2010-05-31T17:46:00.005+10:00

After months of agonising, I ended up getting one of these. Unlocked they were going for $480 on the street, so I got one online for $260 (plus $15 postage) and with a 2G memory card bundled in.

I thought about getting a touch-screen but I just don't have that much use for one. An Android or iPhone? Apps are of limited interest to me, bar one.

I rarely use the keypad as I almost never call outside my contacts list, so a slider made sense to get rid of the keypad when not needed (ie: almost always). On the other hand, while I don't text much, on the rare occasions that I do, I absolutely HATE thumbing in text, so the full keyboard was a nice, if not really essential, bonus.

On the downside, the built-in music player doesn't support my preferred music format. From reading around and between the lines, it appears that the sole reason is that the big media companies don't like a format that doesn't inherently support crippling with Digital Restrictions Management crap. While a vorbis codec is available for the S60 OS, Nokia have gone to some trouble to make sure you can't plug 'non approved' codecs into their latest version. So screw them: I installed folderplay. It doesn't muck around with playlists or other such junk, you just point it at a folder on the memory card and it will walk the files/folders inside and play what it finds, in sequence or randomly. My folder structure is my playlist, so it is just what I needed.

It is annoying that the paying customer has to jump through so many hoops just to get proper functionality though. Of course the whole industry relies on the fact that most of their customers wouldn't know a decent-quality, open-standard audio codec from the crappy case-study-in-how-not-to-do-it pay-a-royalty-to-use MP3 format that they have been told is 'the modern thing' (can anyone say 'so last century'?). It is the price for having to live amongst the mind-killed drones, I guess.

So other than the above case of big faceless corporations screwing over their customers' choices and shipping an unnecessarily sub-standard product all in the name of pandering to their big business buddies, I am happy enough and hope to get a good several years out of this device.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

2010-05-31T17:27:00.005+10:00

Finally got around to watching this movie. The reviews were a little harsh. Unjustifiably so, I thought: 'Klaatu is played as a very unhuman character.' Well duh!
I thought it was a very well done update of a classic, one of very few remakes that can claim that! Other than the disappointing, but understandable considering the audience, ending (spoiler - humanity survives). Though to be fair even on that, the movie managed to present the only coherent justification for humanity being allowed to survive I have ever encountered. In Klaatu's place I may well have changed my mind too.

All up, I'd say this one is a keeper - worth pulling out and re-watching multiple times in the future.

Colourful USB hub

2009-08-28T12:36:00.005+10:00

I treated myself to this lovely thing to compensate of the lack of any decent mobile phones to replace my ailing Nokia 6230.

All I want is Vorbis codec support!

Things that make you go "Ewwwwww".

2009-08-03T18:26:00.006+10:00

Browsing the paper catalogues from the mailbox this week and last.

Baggy, poorly-cut, shapeless or miss-shaped. Even the models who are carefully selected to fit the horrendous stuff look awful.

Fashion it might be, but it's going to be one UGLY summer down here in Aus. :-(

I'll stick to mix-n-match generics this summer, thanx!

Dear bank account phishers

2009-05-17T08:07:00.004+10:00

Dear bank account phishers,

Please desist sending me your spam:

1) I am not stupid enough to fall for such an obvious phishing scam.

2) I am not stupid enough to keep my money in a bank.

LaeMi

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be!

2009-02-19T18:41:00.006+11:00

Stuck at home with a bad back, I'm feeling lonely and bored.

Went digging through my old files for emails and stuff about my first husband. I had completely forgotten just how horribly he had treated me over the 2 years of that marriage :-(

Nothing like good historical records to kill of nostalgia.

Waking up is hard to do

2009-01-16T08:51:00.003+11:00

Had a dream last night that (part of which) was a really good idea for a screen-play. But I needed to wake up and write it down before it was lost.

That is bloody hard!

First 'wake-up' was into my bedroom at the home I grew up in. Obviously not awake yet!

Second attempt I woke up into what may have been my apartment except a trip out the bedroom door turned into an expedition into a huge wonky mansion. Pinching oneself to see if one is awake really does work, apparently - I didn't feel a thing no matter how hard I tried!

Third attempt I was back in reality, the screen-play idea more-or-less intact.

Getting back to sleep was the next challenge!

Putting off BluRay

2008-12-26T17:41:00.005+11:00

I almost had to buy a BluRay RW drive for my PC. My DVD RW broke. It is a Samsung and, like most of the Samsung products I have had, has lasted me well, so I won't complain. I was going driveless for a few weeks until after X-mass as the prices are more likely to be lower then.

The main appeal of BluRay for me is the 25G storage space useful for archiving. Movies would be nice however until the Digital Restrictions Management is cracked to the point where I can watch the disks I legally purchase on my choice of equipment without a lot of hassle , it is not going to happen (I have suspended all DVD purchasing in expectation of this too, so even less of my money is going to the we don't get it crowd - NB: content encryption doesn't stop commercial piracy - they just duplicate the disks raw, encryption and all).

Anyways, while bored today I opened up my dead DVD-RW unit and stuck some test equipment on it (I already knew it was a problem with the drive eject system, not the laser reader system which would be pointless to try and fix even if I had the skills/parts/equipment). Found the dead part (tray position sensor) and replaced it with a same part from a junk CD-ROM I had. I am watching DVDs and backing up my data again. For how long? Who knows, eventually I will get a BluRay, but the longer I am able to put it off, the better for me.

A funny thing happened on the way to work...

2008-11-25T18:29:00.007+11:00

Well actually it happened before I went to work but I saw the results which were funny ;-)

Some vandals had been out last night along a street that is part of my path to work, tossing wheelie bins around, putting them on cars and up trees. The mess continued until a certain tree where a wheelie bin was inverted over the top of a branch about 2.5m up a large trunk branch. I have been watching that trunck branch for months thinking I should bring a video camera and film the knott hole about 1m up it so I can show my nieces a real bee-tree with lots of bees flying in and out.

The vandalism had suddenly stopped at that point.

:-D

Update: Added a photo of the bee tree taken with my phone camera. I had to circle the bees as they are not really visible in a static image (and I was not going to get any closer to take the shot!!). I still need to get a proper digital camera down there some time!

The only surprising thing is that I am not at all surprised

2008-07-06T07:46:00.005+10:00

The idiot-in-my-life just came to me with an extended tape measure asking "Is this about 3m?"

Seriously!

I have REALLY got to get this guy replaced with a non-faulty one!

Off to the doctor

2008-04-03T19:31:00.003+11:00

Went to see the renologist today. I had some kidney stones surgically removed a few months back and this is supposed to be the final follow-up visit after a day of weeing in a bag for the pathology lab to run every test they had on 3 weeks back.

Not much to report - doc looked at me, looked at his computer, said "All the stones are gone and there is no obvious cause for them. All your tests results are within normal margins, though your urine quantity is low - you need to drink more water." Then a $70 bill (of which I got about $40 back off Medicare). And a referral to a kidney specialist.

I think I will cancel the kidney specialist. I know pretty well what will happen, and I really don't need to take a morning off sick from my new job and pay $30+ just to be told to drink more water. My mum will tell me that for free. So will my downstairs neighbor. And my hairdresser as part of the service. And any random person at the supermarket checkout....

Dolphin rescues stranded NZ whales

2008-03-25T18:00:00.004+11:00

Dolphin rescues stranded NZ whales (from ABC News Australia)

"A dolphin has guided two stranded whales to safety after human attempts to keep the animals off a New Zealand beach failed, a conservation official said."

Lovely piece of news. I wonder if the dolphin had observed human efforts to rescue whales previously and decided it was 'the thing to do'? She is obviously a bit better equipped, and while I would shy away from saying she and the whales were directly 'talking' it looks like dolphins might at least know or share some whale navigation signals (possibly like I learned some basic 'growl speak' from a dog obedience trainer and dogs can in turn learn to understand a small human vocabulary or whistle commands while not actually 'speaking' with us).

oh, and shameless plug: ;-)

Minister questions Good Friday holiday

2008-03-25T17:37:00.005+11:00

Minister questions Good Friday holiday (From ABC News Australia)

I agree! I would prefer to have an extra 4 days paid annual leave and choose which days to take it myself.

OR

How about 5 days per year paid 'Observance' leave. (I am leaving National Day, New Year, etc out of this but adding the Queen's birthday in - nothing against the Queen, but she is a private citizen mostly these days).

Specify the 5 days required at the start of the work contract (revisable every 12 months or on contract renewal, otherwise rolls over automatically).

Traditionalists can choose the existing holidays.
Christians can choose Good Friday, Easter, X-mas, Boxing day, one other.
Muslims can choose whatever their major festivals are.
Buddhists same.
[insert religion here] same.
Asians might like Spring and Autumn Festivals amongst others.
Atheists can have Darwin's Birthday, Isac Newton's Birthday, etc.
Narcissists can have their own birthday, and other special personal days. ;-)
Pragmatists could have their 5 days before or after their regular annual leave. ;-)

THAT'S multiculturalism! It also means the businesses can staff around such leave (assuming they have a sufficiently diverse workforce) and save on overtime wages for public holidays. Emergency services can schedule rosters same, which I think is more significant - why shouldn't out ES people have their special days off? Again, a culturally diverse workforce would be advantageous to work this.

As per present overtime rates would apply if someone is asked to work on an observance day, and they should have a right to refuse.

Impact - my VR home

2008-03-24T18:56:00.007+11:00

One of my primary hobbies ATM is creating a virtual world environment on the OpenSim system (SecondLife-like environment, but I can host my own server).

While I don't have the facilities to host just yet, there are screenshots here:

http://home.exetel.com.au/impact/