Post-it notes - saviour?

Now before I start this post, I have to thank someone. He knows who he is, and it is at his suggestion that my blog is the perfect forum for such a rant that this post shall see the light of day.

Well, isn't it lovely. I must say that I would love to come home and be greeted by such an exciting display. It gives me such a kick to realise that I could come home to ... this.
Really, there are limits to how many post-it notes one person can use in certain spaces. But I think what this highlights more than anything (apart from the millions a mining company is making) is that in an age of technology where:

* we have more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick;
* page formats which can be overhauled at the touch of a button; and,
* code can be refactored faster than you can recite the alphabet

we are incredibly inefficient at using time, or using it wisely. It is not a strange event to go to a house where all the shelves are labelled as to their exact contents - or permissible contents as the case may be. But one must ask, what is all the point of this; to be honest, it all seems a bit pointless.
This reminds me of children who construct elaborate systems to "organise" things, be it books, soft toys, puzzles, or whatever else. Anyway, children create systems which are so intricate and complicated that anyone else would need a large manual to understand how the system worked, and if said system was applied to someone like NASA, their launch sequence books would grow exponentially every time a screw was replaced - I forgot, that happens already (ergo, NASA is run by children).
Now, if we get back to the point, the travesty above is indicative of the world in which live. The paperless society now produces more paper than ever before. We write down more things, copy more things, buy more books (and read less of them). Yet the sole source of our efficiency has been improvements for technology. At the end of the day, we cannot look ourselves in the mirror and say, "Well, haven't we done a fine job." Let's be realistic!
Yet, maybe we should turn to companies, such as that particular mining company, and solve problems the corporate way. When divisions or products cause problems, they are axed. Maybe we could do the same for certain types of people ...

Walsingham Nut

PC - Politically Correct or Persistently Constipated (Part 1)

There is only so much insanity one man can take. The strangle hold of political correctness is tightened with ever increasing regularity. But what is it about this obsession of everyone from the academic to the Human Resources manager of some company or other.
Political correctness seems to be focused on not causing offence to people who may be different from one's self. It almost seems, to a certain extent, to be born out of a generation of mildly affluent people, who for some reason or another, have a chip on their shoulders about being, yes, mildly affluent. They seem to take it upon themselves to address all the issues of the world, and make the world nice and lovely, and inoffensive. Unfortunately this develops into the do-gooder mentality which often misses the mark, and results in people campaigning for things which aren't wanted by those on whose behalf they are performing their little or tricks, or even worse, the minority which they are trying to champion are actually offended.
Fear not, I shall return to that theme in a later plot, but for now, "bak to ze plot". Let us take exhibit one in the PC world of madness. Disabilities can be a sensitive issue for some people. Whether it is embarrassment, fear or some other complex emotion, there can be serious mental, as well as physical, hurdles for people with a disability to overcome. Now, let us consider one particular subset that the PC group has sought to rescue from the cruel attacks of an unthinking "normal" people.
In my opinion, deaf people have it pretty tough. I have no idea what it is like, and to be honest, I don't want to. The reason is that I am sure that despite all manner of artificial ways of preventing me from hearing, I would still have the experience of sound, which would probably make the attempt pretty useless. Anyway, deaf people experience the world in a manner quite different from people with hearing. Despite the restriction, there is a somewhat unique perspective seen from being hearing impaired. Now, the PC brigade think in their own special self-righteousness that deaf must be a pejorative term, despite the fact that the brigade is filled with well hearing individuals. So an action plan must be formulated. These people must no longer feel marginalised and inferior; that just will not do. Hence we shall fabricate some "sensitive" way of referring to deaf people so they do not fell marginalised, etc..
Enter the PC tour de force. From hence forth, deaf people shall be referred to as hearing-impaired. And, because it is not a concrete term, can include people who do not have perfect hearing. So after more angst than you can squeeze out of an emo, we have constructed a safe term. Now, you would think that deaf people everywhere would celebrate, in their own silent kind of way. They should be eternally grateful that this group of "normal" concerned citizens actually cares about them.
But what is the end result? Deaf people become incensed. They sign from the top of roof buildings, "We are deaf, not hearing-impaired, you aurally-enabled bastards." Now, what the PC fanatics had failed to grasp is that deaf people had actually become something unique. Deaf is a way of identifying oneself with others who are deaf. By being "hearing-impaired" this is marginalised, and it appears that an attempt is being made to make people normal; well listen well PC-ers of the world (or at least be receptive to our signing): we don't like normal, we want to be different. And of course this is where the sorry mess falls in a heap. By trying to be "sensitive" in some bizarre, thought-police way, the PC-ers of the world actually appear as if they are trying to normalise everything. We are equal, NOT the same.

Sanity 1           PC-ers 0

Of course, there is more to come, and we shall consider it in following posts. Remember, keep sane and politically incorrect.

Walsingham Nut

Journalists - Know thy material!

Well, it would seem that a journalist has done it again. In Friday's edition of the Australian Lara Sinclair discusses the advertising issues with time-shift related to set-top recorders in light of Seven's decision to release a TiVo for recording its shows.
Lara discusses, among other things, the possibilities of interactive advertising and the Foxtel iQ. However, she manages to make a dog's breakfast, and dinner, out of Foxtel's use of advertising. She says that 'only Foxtel's iQ set-top box ... offers interactive advertising through its red button service.' This is not only wrong, as interactive advertising is available to all Foxtel Digital customers, not just those who subscribe to the iQ as well, but incredibly scary and a clear demonstration of the intellectual floundering of journalists today. 'Why?' you scream from the roof tops (or maybe just a shrug in the street). Because The Australian is owned by News Ltd (Murdoch Minion 1 - MM1) and Foxtel is 25% owned by, you guessed it, News Ltd (Murdoch Minor Minion 1 - MMM1).
So it seems that two people (MM1 and MMM1) can be in a room and one one not know some simple point about the other, which the rest of the world knows, despite the fact they are brother and sister (thanks to Rupert). Until next time, keep your eyes out for more journalistic jokes. (NOTE --- There will be no Bananas in Pyjamas, let alone B?/B?)

Walsingham Nut

Seven Strikes Back - but it makes us look a little impotent

Australia is a land of green and gold ... and dust. Never forget the dust. Well, dirt really. When we drove through Australia in 2001, well, a bit of it, anyway, there was dirt as far as the eye could see.
Anyway, moving on from the dirt to more ... dirt. This country has three major commercial television stations for free-to-air broadcasting. They all seem much of a muchness. Two, Seven and Nine, have "current affairs" programs called Today Tonight and A Current Affair, respectively. I think the use of current affairs is an abuse. They are good at serving up drivel that is more biased than Bill Gates on Microsoft. Then there is Ten, which apart from having some acceptable U.S. shows also runs the Australian version of Big Brother.
Now, back to the plot. Seven has announced that it shall be rolling out the TiVo by 2008. And there is applause. But really, I see no reason for the excitement. The TiVo has been available to the public in the U.S. since 1999; Foxtel released it's iQ at the beginning of the year, but Murdoch Empire minion Sky in the U.K. released a similar product in 2001. What really gets my goat, while leaving the other animals alone, is that Australia, as supposedly one of the leading developed countries, is quite backwards. What do I mean by that?
Australia is a country which is defined by distance. We do not have lots of people suffering from malnutrition or with serious birth defects (except in Tasmania, but that is what you get from incest). THE quality about Australia which sets us apart from everyone else, and which no one else seems to be able to get their head around, is the immense distance between places. And yet, we do not have the infrastructure to deal with the problem of distance. We do not have hi-speed fibre optic networks running hither and thither. And yet, these have been rolled out in the U.K. (and most of real Europe) since the mid-1990s.
Air travel is extortionately expensive; at certain times of the year it can be cheaper to get a round trip ticket to London than Darwin (capital of the Northern Territory) However, there is no high-speed rail network. Obviously the local fauna would cause issues (I am not sure hitting a kangaroo at 300 km/h is a good thing) and the heat would reek havoc with the lines, but putting that to the side, there has been no research or development of a high speed network in Australia. And to be honest, if Japan, with earthquakes, warts and all can install one of the best high speed networks in the world, what's our excuse?
So, at the end of the day, while it is nice that we are finally getting digital video recorders, let's drop the fanfare and do something which really deserves applause.

Walsingham Nut

Microsoft - Could it be they now have a good idea?

This may be the computer "thing" which" will revolutionise the world (of I.T. anyway). While it is undeniably bulky, there is something about it which is quite amazing. This is not the first time an computer has escaped from the accepted bounds; we have had various bits and pieces in fridges for quite some time, and you can even get an oven with a built in recipe book.
However, everything that has come before has been a bit limited. Who really wants to stand at the fridge and type an e-mail; and as for looking up recipes, these designers have never cooked. I can think of nothing better than dragging my chicken coated fingers across a screen, as I go through the instructions for making terrine. But then again, when it comes to kitchens, I suppose the computer guys are probably better with design than kitchen designers; the latter are not rated highly!
The concept, if put into viable production, has the potential to change not only the way that we interact with computers, but the way we interact with our world. It is not likely that this will be the machine which will lead us into a brave new world; but it may well lay the ground work. Being able to put your PDA on a surface, and copy the directions from your house to a restaurant you are taking your new girlfriend to is something we have wanted to do. In fact, it makes so much sense that that it is bizarre that it is still so difficult to achieve this.
There will obviously remain a demand for the conventional computer system, for a while at least. But the role played by the current desktop is changed everyday, and with this system, could be reduced even more. There is no doubt that the desktop PC revolutionised the way we live, work and play, but it may be the next Colossus. The desktop PC got applications off hideous main-frames which were used by the odd computer scientist here and there, or shared by a couple of hundred employees at a department store (with warts, punch cards and all). But it may soon be time to push the applications back onto the main-frames; for the most part, anyway. Of course, this is reliant on increases in performance of the telecommunications networks, which are need ever so desperately in Australia.
Of course, the greatest problem, which seems to shadow Microsoft like the curse of the three witches, is its inability to pull something off, coupled with its reputation of squeezing other people out of the market, or buying companies out to get its hands on some great, innovative idea. However, if Microsoft can do this properly, and actually create a product on time, and deliver it effectively to market, it may have a chance. There are a lot of ifs and buts, but it would appear that if Microsoft gets it right, it may well be seen as a great innovator, and could give Apple and run for its money.
So, the next year looks to be quite interesting, if Microsoft gets it right ... or wrong.

Walsingham Nut