An open thread where, at your New Year’s long weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
(Prefer to join a more focussed discussion? Try our recent roundtables for recent lively discussions or browse our archives for topics of interest)
NB the blog is, if not exactly on hiatus, definitely on a year-end slowdown. Regular roundtable etc threads have been scheduled as usual, but moderators may well be delayed by social obligations, so please have some patience if your comment’s publication is delayed somewhat.
1th. It’s going to be 41 here today at Mypolonga and I should have been out picking apricots a half hour ago but the xmas drambuie was my undoing last night. Oh well, it looks like a sober new year’s eve. Happy new year all.
I was interested and excited to read Paddy Manning’s piece in The Age today on The Global Mail, a new public interest journalism start-up set to launch under the editorship of Monica Attard in February 2012.
This is a great development funded by Graeme Wood, who clearly likes to put his money ($15-20m) where his values are:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/what-if-publicinterest-journalism-had-a-white-knight-a-media-startup-is-born-packed-with-pedigree-20111230-1pffl.html
Going to realise a long-held dream to experience NYE in Japan. Specifically, Fukuoka.
Just hoping I can last the distance, as I have a day of market-hopping and sushi-tasting ahead of me first — I`m well out of practice with late-night partying, so I have to dig deep — if you go to bed early on NYE in Japan, you wake up with grey hair!
OK, now focus…
Darren Lewin-Hill said:
Kudos to Graeme, but let’s hope that he runs papers better than he was at running between the wickets for Australia
Seriously, good news …
Probably not interesting to anyone else, but I’m typing this comment on my very own brand new laptop, the first I’ve ever owned. My computer has always been the last handmedown from the SO, which was an elegant but oh so useless Mac (the kind which looks like a desk lamp). The OS hadn’t been updated since 2003 and the CD drive was broken, enquiries about downloadable or USB updates resulted in prices which didn’t seem worth it. As a result no current browser could be run on it and because of THAT my web experience was becoming sticky and unpleasant to say the least. Finally there’s been enough hiatus in dentistry, car and appliance related disasters (tempting fate here) to get my own notebook.
Bliss!
Excellent, Helen!
Since I will be overseas for the month of February, my kids and I considered how best I can stay in touch with Her Indoors. Result: One new iPad4. Plus extreme frustration due to the total lack of documentation, incorrect setup in the store, etc, etc. What a chore!
My wife, who is not normally given to use of strong words, has been growling like a trapped bear for several days now, as she pecks and ponders.
For a firm which has a reputation for being user friendly and its products even more so, I am surprised and depressed. ‘Twas not meant to be so.
I have never been so disappointed by a purchase.
Any ideas as to where a user friendly newbies’ guide can be found? The two loaded by the sales folk are, between them, 700+ pages long. Half way through them, I am yet to find clear instructions as to how to start up the device, create and send an email, then shut it down.
That, dear readers, is my goal for the New Year.
(This message was typed on a 3-year old Toshiba laptop which just fine, thanks.)
I’m not sure where this should go, but given that Merc and SG and seemingly some others here are interested in one way or another with Japan, an acquaintance of mine drew my attention to the question of toilets/toiletting over there. Some of the “advanced features” are amazing.
Civilisation — you can’t beat it. To the best of my knowledge, Fourier never mentioned toilets, but perhaps he should have. Apparently “some play music to relax the user’s sphincter (some Inax toilets, for example, play the first few phrases of Op. 62 Nr. 6 Frühlingslied by Felix Mendelssohn”). Not a bad choice, though why not Wagner’s Ride of the Valkeries or perhaps Vivaldi’s “Spring” from the famous Four Seasons?
You can apparently have your toilet seat glow in the dark. Wouldn’t that have been a nice Christmas gift? Then again, post-Fukushima, perhaps that would be in bad taste.
There are also “odour removers” — OK I can kind of understand that. Yet apparently “many Japanese women are embarrassed at the thought of being heard by others during urination“. Accordingly “to cover the sound of bodily functions, many women used to flush public toilets continuously while using them, wasting a large amount of water in the process“. Enter the “Sound Princess” which “produces the sound of flushing water without the need for actual flushing“.
It’s fascinating and deeply troubling. Yet it doesn’t stop there, which doesn’t surprise me at all. Between 2004 and 2008 an animated series called Pantsu Pankuro aired on Japanese TV. The series is geared to toddlers and young children, and most episodes focus on the issues involved with toilet training. According to Wiki it featured a number of anthropomorphic characters, including talking toilets and washing machines, who instruct children about how to use the restroom and what to do in case of an accident.
The characters include Toire-sama is Pankuro’s friendly household toilet. Pankuro usually treats Toire-sama with great respect, as though he were an older relative and Toire-sensei is Koin’s toilet. She speaks in Japanese and English.
Someone who really understands Japanese culture can probably explain why this wouldn’t mess with the heads of children or produce women so worried that other women would hear them urinating that they have to flush away the sound and why more Japanese housholds have “washlet” toilets than PCs but really, this all sounds like brilliant material for Daria‘s favourite TV show.
The postscript to this fixation on toilet hygeine/denial?
Blasting your bits with high pressure jets of warm water? Who’d have guessed that wasn’t a good idea?
John @ 7 – do you mean ipad 2 or iphone 4(s) – there is no ipad 4 released yet. Whenever I’ve had trouble the apple site has generally been pretty useful – though really just googling for specific help is probably best.
With either device I’m struggling to understand why you would have trouble turning it on/off. Sending/checking an email should be just a matter of starting the mail app (the envelope icon). Configuring it for your ISP or net mail provider can get a bit tricky. Best to google directly for that.
@7 John, your iPad4 has fallen through a worm-hole in time from the future, which perhaps explains its inoperability. I suspect a Mac zealot would be willing to part with quite a lot of coin for it, however, if you can convince them it really is an iPad4.
@8, Fran your wide-eyed wonderment at Japanese toiletting makes me wonder how you would cope with bath-houses in Korea. Suffice to say, you’ve never really had a bath until you’ve been to Korea. The sheer elaborateness even leaves the Japanese experiences in the shade. Trust me on this.
And with that, it’s time to bid you a hearty 明けましておめでっとございます！
The wonders of wi-fi! Happy NY from Hsipaw, Burma. Finally cranked up the iPod touch 1.0, and lo and behold the second worst guest house in Burma has wi-fi.
Amazing train trip from Pyin Oo Lwin, just north of Mandalay.
Quiet NYE, but good food no doubt.
The freaks from ‘Street Church Adelaide’ are now spreading their hate messages to “captive audiences” on trains:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/street-preachers-target-city-trains/story-e6frea83-1226233997664
These clowns remind me of those CEC/LaRouchite types who scream in people’s faces and try to do everything they can to get someone to smack them and then sue them in court.
Happy new year’s, everybody.
Likewise.
No wormhole from the future: it’s an iPad2.
We have the mail thing pretty much sorted, but many simple things which normal users presumably do often, such as filing correspondence, deleting unwanted stuff, efficiently editing text, turning more than one page at a time and much more – why the dickens is there no starter’s guide?
I now know how to turn it on and off, as distinct from putting it to sleep and waking it up – thanks to Google and a non-Apple laptop.
What amazes me is that Apple do not steer new users through the early phase. Does Apple really expect that my wife will memorise 700+ pages of info from two downloaded texts placed in the “library” by the shop staff before she uses their product?
I was hoping to find something about 20 pages long that she can print out and refer to.
Today’s assignment: Finding a way to turn off predictive text.
Fran: Starting the new year on a low note?
John … you’re speaking of my post from last year?
Not so much a low note as a bum note …
Pardon me … I just discovered that our household’s first day of 2012 was without Madura leaf tea, so I’m a bit … err … troubled. Not a great start.
Well wishes to all here at LP nonetheless.
John … surely in “settings>text” there is an option (just guessing from the Android). Holding your finger down on the text input box brings up the control on the Android … will consult hubby who has an iPad2 …
Best wishes to all for 2012. I started the year by taking two robust hounds for an early rabbit busting expedition on the Woolibuddha common. Spotted an eastern grey and have been unsuccessfully attempting to the identify honey eaters in the bottle brush outside. Noted that the female bower birds have been giving the beans a hammering but only the leaf. Have ‘found’ a delightful twitcher website for rare sightings.
@akn, re Eastern Greys.
My recent efforts at fencing have been successful – that is, if the intention was to fence wildlife in. This afternoon, I have been sitting watching an eastern grey attempt unsuccessfully to get back out of the vegie gardens for a couple of hours. I presume that he jumped the fence but now wants me to open the gate.
Since the arrival of currawongs and kookaburras to complement the magpies, ravens and both pied and grey butcherbirds, flesh eating birds seem to have the upper hand around my house. The only honey eaters which remain common are the Noisy Minors, which can hold their own against anything, it seems.
These changes probably result, at least in part, from clearing of adjacent properties and subdivision of them into 1-hectare rural residential ride-on mower refuges.
It is a daily pleasure to see that the flock of grey-crowned babblers has increased in number since they were hammered by a hail storm a couple of years back. These vocal, gregarious and active birds are reasonably common around here, despite being listed as Vulnerable. We must be doing something right.
Ditto, best wishes to all LPrs for the new year, may it bring us many insightful and cathartic stoushes.
The current LP wide information technology upgrading activities are almost contagious. Just waiting for my by now dodgy Nokia Navigator to cark it completely.
Hey Adrian, I spent some time in Burma in the early 80′s, including some prohibited areas to the east and yes agree – amazing place, exotic scenery and wonderful people. Apart from some old folks, the odd official and student no one spoke english, so off the beaten track we got into some unforgettable situations. From memory, payed for most of our stay there with cartons of 777 and bottles of White Horse. Read ‘Burmese Days’ on one of those endless and sweaty bus trips there. Just can’t imagine it now with wi-fi. Wish you a good time and may your trip there be equally unforgettable.
BTW, what happened to the preview panel?
John Bennetts, do open the gate for him then!
@20 Ootz the preview panel is a temporary victim of upgrading/patching software, another casualty of holiday-season upgraditis.
So goes the way of all flesh on that hamster-wheel we call the IT industry…
IIRC, awhile ago we had a particular narky stoush wherein the professional integrity of economists got dragged through the proverbial mud. It appears that since then some previous notable commentators on economic matters are rarely sighted here and economic issues have ceased to be discussed and explained per se. I kind of miss that, despite the fact that I am ‘economically challanged’.
In Nobody Understands Debt, Paul Krugman makes a cogent case for Government budget deficits by comparing it with household debt.
“First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.
Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves. “
He then goes on to elaborate on why the financial position of the US of A is not as in a bad position as commonly, including me, assumed.
” ….. every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.”
Leaving politics aside for a moment, is he on the money?
Ootz, like you I’m economically challenged, but I reckon Krugman’s interfering with himself.
On a lighter note, I went up to the future Doomstead to put some stuff in the shed today. I went up the back to check on my trees and spotted a couple of wallabies, who’ve obviously decided it’s a better place to prop that the surrounding about a million acres of wheat’n'sheep. I also saw a fox, and have submitted a permit to acquire a shotgun. If I don’t kill the fucker he’ll eat all my quail.
@23 Ootz:
I am also not an economist’s bootlace. I like your question and the proposition behind it which seems, to me at least, to be founded on good common sense.
I wonder whether the economists of the world have reached consensus on this question, perhaps in similar manner to the consensus which is oft referred to amongst climate scientists regarding anthropogenic global warming.
Further, and in view of the phony debate which continues re climate, is there a phony debate re sovereign debt?
@24, D.I.:
Re fox. Why not a .22? Cheaper, lighter and just as deadly, especially if fitted with a scope. Works a treat for me. Also, far quieter – less of a concern for the neighbours.
Haven’t seen quail here for several years. Wonder if they have succumbed.
@23, Ootz I may be as economically illiterate as your good self, but Krugman has a Nobel Prize in the field, and what he says makes sense to me.
From where did we get this notion that governments have to run the country like it’s a small business? Note to politicians: Nations, and small business, are not the same thing. Notice the difference? And if you run your nation like a shopkeeper’s daugher you end up with…the UK.
Agreed Mercurius, governing a country is not about profit & loss statements otherwise why have welfare? I mean like that nice Mr Gerry Harvey said why give money to a homeless person when that money could be given to him instead as he does so much more for the economy?
It’s been said before but this Labor govt’s mind numbing pledge to have the economy back in surplus by 2013 is also grating.
John Bennetts, the .22 would be a good idea (I have one), but the fox in question dashed across my path, maybe 20m away, in what is, effectively, medium scrub. Hence the need for a shotgun.