Author Archives

by

‘Pom invasion’ hitting Down Under

Changes to the points system, which come into effect on 1 September, will award five valuable extra points for people who can pass a standard English language test, a Brit-friendly policy partly designed to lure more “poms” here.
…
To others, the award of extra points to fluent English speakers is more sinister, with shades of the monocultural “white Australia policy”, the umbrella term for a swathe of policies and laws engineered to limit non-white immigration which finally petered out in the early 1970s.

The comments about the new citizenship test are ironic because I’m being forced to learn the most popular sports and when various saints days are to prepare for the ‘Life in the UK’ test. I’ve managed 34 years of my life without having to know a thing about sport, and now I have to learn sports stuff? It’d make more sense if the English were any good at sport!

by

I’ve upgraded MovableType

So there might be a few glitches along the way… it’s quite a good upgrade process, but it would be helpful if it tested that the config file had the right paths for some of the necessary files (though it was my bad for initially getting the mt-static directory name wrong).
I had some stuff to display post categories and link to a category archive that I’ll have to fix cos it doesn’t recognise anymore, but that’s ok. I haven’t figured out all the new functionality yet but it looks like they’ve made a good effort at catching up with Word Press.
While on the geek thing, my favourite RSS reader is testing new functionality. They have feedback forums, so I posted something from my wishlist:
“I would love a ‘drip feed’ feature that would load a small set of posts from a feed, so that you could skim read them, mark them as ‘keep new’ to read properly later, etc; then click to call up the next set of posts from that feed.
Basically it would let you page through a feed so that you don’t have to skim through every post because the entire feed will be marked as read when you’ve let a particular feed build up (cos you’ve been on holiday or busy or whatever).”

by

China is taking action on the English translations of its restaurant menus in its campaign to brush up the country’s image for next year’s Olympics. (BBC)
I hope they keep the traditional names as well, because if you just translate the main ingredients you lose the ability to distinguish between dishes. I’ve had so many different dishes that were simply translated as “stir-fried tofu” or “tofu in tomato sauce” and it’s impossible to order them again if you don’t have any idea what the real name or description is.
It’s interesting reading about the deliberate things China is doing to change Beijing and the habits of its people before the Olympics – all countries do it, but it’s usually more subtle.

by

Gay marriage might be 600 years old

“Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.
Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.
If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing new, nor were they taboo in the past.”
MSNBC

by

At a first glance the could apply to anyone but if they’re based around what women have been bad at doing, they’re worth posting. Seven Rules for Women in IT

1. Expand your frame of reference. Get technology experience in a variety of areas, such as sales, consulting, customer service and operations.
2. Work for standouts. Work with name-brand companies or on important, high-impact projects.
3. Choose projects with weight. Don’t work solely in support roles or the “people” aspects of projects. Work on at least one project that is operationally oriented.
4. Speak clearly and with integrity. On risky or troubled projects, break through political correctness and be forthright.
5. Soften the edges. Be hard-charging and results-oriented, but also develop people skills and a relationship orientation.
6. Raise your own flag. Publicize your team’s successes.
7. Reflect. Assess your leadership qualities, style, values and what you want your career to look like.

by

What you learn when you read the Daily Mail for a month

Most striking of all, a few days before the end of the experiment I realised that I had stopped worrying about global warming. For the Mail, it barely exists an issue – and certainly not as something to frighten us with – and this, surely, is the secret of the paper’s success. Phantom menaces are given prominence over real ones. The anger it stirs requires no action, no moral or intellectual effort, but simply confirms existing prejudices. By painting the world as a dystopia, we cling to our own cosy certainties.

Guardian

by

Australians to lose the right to call for a boycott?

So if you’re asking Australians not to buy lipstick tested on caged rabbits, rugs woven by Pakistani slaves or suits made with mulesed wool, then pray your boycott calls don’t succeed, for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is about to be given the power to sue you out of the water if they do.
…
But Costello’s bill is designed to protect businesses of any size – all the way up to BHP Billiton – not by outlawing intimidation, but by punishing persuasion.
Hurt a business simply by arguing that it’s ethically repugnant to buy its products and the commission will be able to step in and sue to recover the company’s lost profits.
…
No free-speech defence is immediately available. You won’t be able to go to court to plead the pros and cons of open-range chooks or gentler methods than mulesing to save sheep from fly strike.
The new law will catch lone campaigners, community groups, NGOs, lobby groups and even the media – anyone whose campaign for what the law calls a “secondary boycott” actually hits the mark and causes financial pain.

The emphasis in the quote above is mine, and thanks to DD for the link.