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April 30, 2005
Hitchhikers: the film
What an unmitigated, limp and haphazard disaster of a film. Fans of Douglas Adams will be left cold if not insulted, and the sheer glory of the books is completely unrecognisable in this sad excuse for cinema. With the possible exception of Sam Rockwell Martin Freeman (see EDIT below) as Arthur Dent (who did his best, but still needed better direction), the rest of the cast were disastrous, unfeeling, predictable, ridiculous and wan. If I could erase the woman who played Trillian from my memory of the film, I would be relieved. Mos Def was entirely inappropriate as Ford, his comedic lines were lost and his attitude confusing. The creation of the new character played by John Malkovich was not just unnecessary, but frankly, embarrassing, and while I am usually a fan of Bill Nighy, as Slartibartfast he's just wrong. Even Helen Mirren as the voice of Deep Thought was laughable - and not in a good way.
The best part of the film was seeing the original Marvin (from the television series) making a cameo appearance in a queue, and the image of Simon Jones (the original Arthur Dent from the radio series as well as the TV series) as the recording system from the legendary planet of Magrathea. Stephen Fry as the voice of the book was passable, and the opening sequence musical, 'So Long and Thanks for All the Fish', was visually interesting and curiously, rather Monty Python-esque. Plus it was nice to hear the original theme song played - though confusingly it was the music which heralded a kind of second set of opening titles when the book started up. Other than that I just wanted to walk out, but sat there, distressed and empty of the vital spirit that permeated the work of Douglas Adams.
Please. If you love Adams, spare yourself this wretched blight on the Hitchhikers landscape. Not because it doesn't reproduce the original work, but because it vandalises it.
EDIT: Thanks to Lou for pointing out my error in identifying Sam Rockwell as Arthur Dent instead of Martin Freeman. I have no idea why I did that. Of course I meant Freeman, whose performances I've enjoyed in The Office, rather than Rockwell, who was extremely ordinary as Zaphod. Didn't mind Rockwell in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but that was a while back now.
Posted by jj at 12:11 AM | Comments (5)
April 28, 2005
Computer update and thanks
A very special thankyou to all those who added suggestions and comments for my PC troubles yesterday - your advice was all fantastic and very much appreciated. After 24 hours of continuous running I think my problems may have been sourced from poorly connected devices after all. My CDRW cable was very slightly disengaged when I had another good look at it, and the memory dimm - though it didn't appear to move when I jiggled it - hasn't caused any problems since.
I'm still going to look in to better cooling for this machine. At the moment the single fan on the CPU and the fan in the power supply I don't see as sufficient for the conditions in Brisbane. Probably won't go the liquid cooling track, regardless of how fabulous I think that is, but even an extra little 12cm fan may improve temperature a bit.
Posted by jj at 1:58 PM | Comments (1)
Observation on friendships
*laughs out loud at another email from a dear friend*
I am so blessed.
Posted by jj at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2005
Tech advice needed
Hi folks. Been having technical problems everywhere today, from rats in the roof cavity to boot problems with my PC. The rats I can handle (they're not getting in to the house yet), but the PC I'm worried about. I've included in the extended entry, the symptoms and the diagnosis I have made. Any advice or assistance anyone else has on the matter would be much appreciated.
EDIT: I should add this is a motherboard that was purchased and installed last September and the chip was purchased then, too. And the bios beeps I'm getting would indicate a memory error.
I think my PC problems might be layered. I've been having troubles occasionally with the CDRW (not recognising disks, not opening door, etc) and it seems to be the CD spin start that has stalled startup on the occasions that the BIOS beeps have occurred. I'm also concerned about CPU and HD0 temperatures and the seating of the RAM.
But I guess I should just give you a low-down of what happened, complete with details. Any advice any of you may have on possible/likely causes would be much appreciated.
1. WHAT HAPPENED
It began a week or two ago when the CDRW basically wouldn't read anything or even open its door until I rebooted. I just thought of it as a glitch.
Then a few days later I had long beeps on cold boot. Beeps lasted about 3-4 seconds and then there was a 1-2 second break before it happened again. Nothing came up on the monitor. I allowed myself the obligatory curse, and turned the machine off, waited 10 seconds and tried again. Same thing happened. I turned it off, waited 10 minutes and tried again and it started up fine, but I got a "CMOS checksum error: Defaults loaded" message. I pressed F1 and all seemed okay. Must admit I didn't diagnose the problem though, beyond looking at my sheet of beep explanations, which seemed to indicate a memory error (at least that's what most BIOS beep error code reports are saying).
No problems for the next few days, so again I just hoped for the best and then this morning I got the long beeps on cold boot again. I cursed again, and then turned the machine off for a few minutes. Once again the system started up fine with the exception of the checksum error message again. I started trying to look up similar problems online and after 10 minutes of working the system simply turned itself off and tried to boot again with no warning. Only it couldn't boot and was emitting the long beeps. I left the machine off for a few minutes and it booted fine again with the checksum error. This time in the few minutes I had, I checked the system properties and found RAID controllers without drivers. But by the time I tried to look at a few sites to conitnue diagnosis, the system had switched off and was emitting the beeps again.
2. WHAT I DID NEXT
So I did the next logical thing and unplugged everything and took the side off the case. All seemed to *look* okay and I had a go at just jiggling and pushing the RAM dimm to ensure it was properly seated, reconnected keyboard and mouse and restarted - fine. All fans were working (on power supply as well as CPU, but the power supply fan was running extremely quietly). So I reconnected monitor and network cable and started again - no problem.
Next I reinstalled RAID controllers from the mobo CD (in the DVDRW drive just to be safe), and checked SystemFan temperatures. Here are the readings as I type this:
Temp1 (internal): 33 degrees. Temp2: 27 degrees. Temp3 (CPU): 49 degrees. HD0: 41 degrees.
I've seen the HD0 temp up at 43 degrees and since reconnection of all devices, the CPU has got up to 50 degrees, but only for a few seconds before reverting to 49.
So temperatures aren't *great* as I have the side off the pc at the moment and so air is getting to the CPU more easily.
3. DIAGNOSIS
Basic specs are as follows...
Mobo: Gigabyte K7 Triton
CPU: Athlon XP 3200+
VGA: on board (long story attached to that, but I have a very nice VGA card I'm not actually using at the moment because in spite of the fact that it is also a Gigabyte brand device, the mobo won't boot if it's connected... and yes, I've tried changing the BIOS; no diff).
After all the above symptoms/activities occurred, I left the PC running an hour to see if it would shut down again and it hasn't done so. Yet. But have checked BIOS upgrades, etc, and found I have the latest driver. Details are as follows (from eSupport BIOS agent):
Program: eSupport.com BIOS Agent Version 3.44
BIOS Date: 04/21/04
BIOS Type: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS ID: 04/21/2004-KM400A-8237-6A6LYG0WC
OEM Sign-On: GA-7VM400AM(F) F3
Chipset: VIA 82C3205 rev 0
Superio: ITE 8705/SiS 950 rev 2 found at port 2Eh
OS: WinXP SP2
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2171 Mhz MAX: 2800 Mhz
BIOS ROM In Socket: Yes
BIOS ROM Size: 256K
Memory Installed: 256 MB
Memory Maximum: 512 MB
Memory Slot 01: 256 MB
Memory Slot 02: 0 MB
I've also checked the CDRW and it seems to be working. Or at least it's reading stuff.
(And yes, I know it's insane I only have 256M RAM.)
So for the time being I don't see what else I can do, other than keep an eye on things and maybe investigate new cooling for the system. And I'm pricing RAM too. I had forgotten I'm only running on 256M RAM and that appears to be Kingston PC3200 DDR RAM at that.
4. YOUR ADVICE?
So. Have I missed anything? Should I turn this thing off and not reboot until I have better cooling? Should I remove the CDRW? Any advice and any diagnosis suggestions would be much appreciated. Also, FWIW, I'm speaking of a box which is running XP SP2, fully patched, firewalled and virus-protected. Not that that means jack when it comes to hardware problems (which this clearly is) but it might help in terms of driver compatibility.
Anyway - I'd be grateful for any suggestions.
Posted by jj at 12:56 PM | Comments (6)
April 25, 2005
Welcome little Amy!
My very best and heartfelt congratulations to my dear friend Kevin and his wife, Stephanie, on the birth of their first child, a daughter, Amy Monica Chamberlain. Wishing you all much joy, and wishing little Amy a happy and healthy life.
*hugs and kisses all round*
Posted by jj at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
ANZAC Day 2005: Lest we forget
Here's to you, Grandpa, for all you and your fellow soldiers did 90 years ago today. And to all those diggers who fought in other wars, right up till the present day, thanks for all you have done for us. We remember you.
And also, a special thanks to my maternal grandmother, who passed away this day, nine years ago. Thanks Ma, for all you did for us.
Posted by jj at 12:27 PM | Comments (1)
April 24, 2005
Oh dear.
I'm sure I'm not the first to notice the similarity but....
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Posted by jj at 8:30 PM | Comments (5)
Email: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
High on the blog circuit at the moment are two articles on email - which, BTW, I now regard to be 'old media'. And I am rather uncomfortable to have to admit that I identify with both articles. The first article from the BBC discusses how email has become the quintessential personal database, with people reticent to throw out old communications in case they need to call up an old address, epistle or statement for future use. And unlike snail mail, it's possible to store hundreds of thousands of communications in a manner which doesn't look as bad as filling up your garage with old paper mail. Of course, it is still hoarding, and the actual value of keeping old emails is limited at best. And there are those of us who subscribe to certain mailing lists but then filter our email so we never actually see messages sent to the mailing list because they are automatically listed as "read mail" and placed in a directory for later access. The truth is that we rarely access these messages, save for those moments when we have to do research on an issue or when we are so bored that we have nothing to do and can sit down and kill some time, catching up on what peope having been saying out there in the ether. The only other times we may begin a frenzy of reading is if we have a specific question we want answered. Then it frustrates us that no-one is answering our queries.
The second article from The Register, reports on a study conducted at Kings College, London, demonstrating that those who are addicted to email messaging are likely to suffer a loss in mental acuity over time. IQ rates actually reduce in accordance with a person's capacity to communicate through other mediums (such as through inter-personal communication).
Fortunately for me, I have always been too gregarious a personality (and obsessed with exercise, shopping and enjoying being with people) to become too addicted to electronic communication systems, but I do know what it is like to just lose a day to answering email messages, talking via instant messaging and engaging in debate via these and other systems. I don't like the idea of losing a day and my verbal, numerical or spatial reasoning skills.
Still, time to start doing Mensa workouts just for the fun of it again, I suppose.
Posted by jj at 12:18 PM | Comments (1)
April 23, 2005
Unpleasant morning discovery
Damn. Foxtel have no sci-fi sector programming until next weekend.
*throws back head a howls "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"*
Yes, I know I'm a sad geek.
Still I guess I'm having a better weekend than the guy who got his head stuck in a bin.
Posted by jj at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
More insane legislation
According to Boing Boing and this article, there's apparently a bill up in the US Congress to prevent the National Weather Service (US equivalent of the Bureau of Meterology) from publishing weather forecasts online as it's seen to be unfair competition to the fee-for-service weather forecasts available online.
You have GOT to be kidding me? The weather is now the property of private service providers???? OMG that country is so full of it.
Posted by jj at 10:51 AM | Comments (2)
April 21, 2005
Consulting appointment
I'm starting up a new contract next week with Suncorp, working on strategic development of their e-commerce initiatives. The financial services sector is an interesting target for e-commerce solutions because the cost of sustaining financial transactions online can be extremely high for business users, and is perceived generally as a high-risk proposition for general consumers.
So how do we overcome this resistance to adopt?
There are a series of strategies that can be considered and these form the basis of internet marketing research and development, and there's issues of connectivity and e-readiness that can be resolved, but there's also emergence of e-business information services that are often ignored in prioritising e-commerce processes. The most valuable assets to businesses today are time and information. Time is saved when people have better access to information, and understanding of the issues at hand.
And contrary to the views of some of my academic colleagues, I believe standard theory and facts don't make the best resources for achieving understanding. I believe conversations form the basis of true business exchanges that promote understanding. This concept has been explored widely in literature over the past 5 years (see The Cluetrain Manifesto), and blogs and other social software tools have clearly made in-roads into proving the theory, but it's still regarded generally as a concept quite divorced from e-commerce. This, in spite of the fact that information management and processing still remains the most profitable and logical aspect of e-commerce. And as a business, when you have your data managed properly, the natural progression to having your financial matters handled in a manner that is compliant with existing information systems is a logical next step.
In any case, I look forward to the challenge!
And for those of you out there who haven't heard from me lately, it's mainly because I have been tied up with negotiating this contract. Will do my best to get back to you all this weekend.
Posted by jj at 1:46 PM | Comments (2)
April 20, 2005
Benedict the Benevolent. Not.
So within hours of my last post, the cynicism with which I approached the whole idea of the conclave has been rather heavily repaid. Discussions over at John Quiggin's blog, Mark Bahnisch's blog and Ken Parish's blog are all in a similar vein; all horrified at the election of a Pope who was formerly a Hitler Youth member and head of the former Catholic Inquisition. And that's just the Queensland/NT bloggers.
Trevor Cook found the best front page gag on the topic (I suppose The Sun can't be any more damned than it has already been). And no doubt the controversy over Pope John Paul II's reign (which seemed to have been conveniently forgotten as the old man failed) will arise again in criticism of Pope Benedict XVI, in the coming weeks, months and years of his rule.
One thing's for sure, the blogs, the media and the community will continue to express opinions on something which for the most part, affects very few of us. Catholics make up about a quarter of the Australian population, and the 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide make up less than a sixth of the world's population. While Christians make up 33% of the world's population, less than half of those Christians are actually Catholic, and there are actually more Muslims than Catholics on the planet. Perhaps more to the point, even among Catholics, dogma pertaining to birth control, homosexuality and pre-marital sex is largely ignored.
So regardless of how conservative Benedict XVI may end up being, he's probably going to be regarded as proof of the irrelevance of papal-driven doctrine in influencing the future morals and principles of humanity.
Posted by jj at 8:12 PM | Comments (6)
April 19, 2005
Obligatory papal post
Pretty much everyone has been discussing the papal conclave and at virtually every opportunity someone mentions whether Dan Brown is finding this all very exciting. Perhaps I am an aberration, but I couldn't give a damn what Dan Brown thinks, and I'm far more interested in the oddities of the conclave than I am in the result.
For the second time, black smoke has poured from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel (I wonder what damage that could be doing to Michelangelo's artworks?) and the cardinals have failed again to elect a new Pope. Until they achieve majority support for a single candidate, they will remain locked in consultation and voting. And at the conclusion of each vote, a smoke signal is sent up to indicate a clear choice, or another stalemate.
Such a mishmash of cultural traditions I have never before seen in modern times. The conclave is a mad melange of pomp and ceremony, secretive traditions that seem decidedly anti-Christian, an anachronistic but Socratic form of democracy, and rather pagan symbolism. It's well worth reading some of the guides to the conclave, including the rules governing election and the constitutional issues arising from the process. But it's probably also worth reading some of the inherent heresy associated with the very role of a Pope, the financial statements of the Vatican, and even the basic entry of Vatican City in the World Fact Book. The combination of these readings provide a rather curious understanding of what we're not discussing in all these reports about the conclave. Instead of being fascinated by the Dan Brown-esque traditions and the gambling on the outcome, perhaps it might be a better idea to see how it may be possible to influence the policies being developed by the Holy See, and to better understand the relevance of dogma coming from a cartel that chooses to sequester itself away from the very people it is supposed to spiritually govern.
Posted by jj at 11:43 PM | Comments (1)
April 18, 2005
Article +
For those that may be interested, an article of mine was published among today's offerings at On Line Opinion.
Right now I'm reviewing materials on Packet Level Authentication and considering how I might contribute to the research. This is interesting research because it brings a much more robust level of security to data exchanges - probably crucial in the next few years.
And finally, I soon may well be signing myself up on a single contract for a few months looking at e-business strategy development. I'm up and ready for that sort of challenge.
Posted by jj at 8:24 PM | Comments (2)
April 17, 2005
New Who
And as proof of my geekiness, I note that David Tennant has been cast as the new Doctor Who, replacing the one-season wonder, Christopher Eccleston. Tennant will soon be playing Barty Crouch Jr., in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film, and for those who might be interested in what he has done and how he sounds, a selection of his voice acting is available at Veritaserum.
Posted by jj at 8:43 AM | Comments (1)
April 16, 2005
The Star Wars Queue Very Old Story
Okay I'm a geek and we know it. There are 33 days till the release of the final chapter of the prequel trilogy of the Star Wars saga. And yes, I do have tickets to see the midnight screening on the night it opens.
But I also have a sense of humour, and I've been delighted by the story of a group of unemployed people who are lining up at the wrong theatre to see Revenge of the Sith when it opens. The bizarre protest is one which has spawned its own variety of political factionalism and mud-slinging, including the involvement of a sci-fi celebrity, mainstream media and the blogging community.
Perhaps unfortunately for the dedicated charity-driven protesters in the Grauman's Theater queue, I do see the humour in this event. It's a wonderful example of the passion and eccentricity of the nerd/geek community, and the lengths to which some will go to be true to their fandom. It's up there with the hysterical Trekkies films, created by former Trek star, Denise Crosby, for profiling all the rather special things people do for niche popular culture. And frankly, it's reminiscent of the sort of bizarre and extreme bickering and brawling that make daily 'entertainment' on talk shows like Jerry Springer - and let's face it, that august specimen of popular culture spawned an opera.
I find the whole drama absolutely, deliciously, hysterically funny, and as Dame Edna would say, I mean that in the nicest way possible. In any case, it's entertaining weekend reading. Follow the links and let me know if you agree.
Posted by jj at 8:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2005
Reminder and technological oddities
This is just your reminder to do your mind exercises for the day. Go read. Go write. Go create new neural pathways.
In other news, I have had the most extraordinary problems with email, messaging and aggregating of late. What's odd is that these are probably the simplest applications of the internet and should be extremely straight-forward to fix. However, my mail server is intermittently adamant that my email address doesn't actually exist, and if it does exist, then all my outgoing mail is listed on others' computers as probable spam. My messaging program occasionally tells me that I can't speak to people listed as online because I'm not online - only I am online at the time. Aggregators are producing syntax errors and feeds are skipping the odd post. It's all very strange. Either there's an internet poltergeist who just likes messing with my mind, or there are still some issues with moisture in the cabling to our apartment block.
I'm going with the moisture option. Internet poltergeists are scary.
Posted by jj at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2005
Podcasting blog posts
So I'm considering setting up my own podcasting operation partly to deal with the requests I'm getting from students who attend my lectures and training programs, and partly for the sheer new-technology-ness of the whim. Oh and partly so I can test the system for the Ideas Festival for next year.
After just completing a study guide for a new subject in the BGSB program, I began to wonder whether a study guide is somewhat anachronistic for a subject dealing with management of technological innovation, but I guess students will always want something they can refer to in exams and podcasting probably wouldn't be efficient for that purpose. But as a mechanism for delivering lecture-style content, they rock. I know I'd much rather prepare something in advance for lectures so that in-class time could be spent considering the issues.
In discussion with my brother, I've worked out that for around a $500 hardware investment, I can produce a studio arrangement in the home that will produce near broadcast quality sound and programming, and best of all, with an external USB soundcard, I can pretty much take my studio with me, wherever I go, to continue podcasting.
Of course, to make podcasting really accessible and worth subscribing to, programs need to be short (sub 10 minutes) and the discussion has to be pithy and entertaining - after all, it's ostensibly an intelligent marketing forum. Longer podcasts are fine for training programs but these aren't marketing exercises; they're commercial applications and could be used in corporate environments for staff reskilling, instead of bringing your expert operators out to every branch of a firm and trawling out the same material over and over.
But we're now at a point with Skype and other tools for conferencing that podcasting is really a viable option for the itinerant blogger. Podcasting software is now quite accessible and easy to use, and for the more serious podcaster, the hardware investment I mentioned earlier can produce such high quality output that organisations and individuals can develop their own radio production studio in the office.
Talk about exercising the mind. With podcasting blogging operations on the rise, we're developing such high quality conversations online that the content revolution so discussed in literature pertaining to the information society might actually happen.
Posted by jj at 7:54 PM | Comments (0)
Exercise for the mind
Many of you know that I get up every weekday morning early to do 30 minutes of exercise before breakfast and getting on to work. Some people think I'm insane to do that every day, but I actually find that getting up and doing exercise gets the blood pumping around my system and focuses my mind for the day's work. If I fail to get up and do that exercise I become sluggish, and I can never capture the same level of concentration I manage after exercise.
The exercise that I do is consistent with international recommendations for public health, and preventing the spread of disease. It's also believed that daily exercise can reduce risk of early onset Alzheimer's disease. But in order to really defend against dementia, it's now also considered necessary for everyone to spend about 15 minutes a day giving your brain a workout. The crew over at the Brain Institute here in Queensland, claim that doing a crossword everyday stimulates the production of brain cells, and that this will reduce the risk of mental stagnation, which can leave the system vulnerable to dementia-style degeneration. In light of this research, Time Warner developed the new book, The Mind Gym, in order to provide some basic advice about how exercise the mind, and basically to cash in on the 'news' that exercising your mind and body is actually good for you.
While I don't want to to take anything away from the advice offered by the book - it's probably quite sound - I'm going to offer an alternative mind exercise:
Every day for the next 2 weeks I want all my readers to go out and read the news of the world, have a browse through some of the most linked titles in the blogdex and research a topic of interest for 15 minutes a day. Then you should write a short blog entry about any particular article, subject or rant of your choice. Two or three paragraphs will be fine, but that's your minimum. The whole process including research and writing up should take around 30 minutes per day.
That's it. Try it. And when you've finished the fortnight, let me know how you feel about the project. I want to see if people feel more energized and more "mentally fit" at the end of the fortnight.
And in other news, the article, Jeremy and I wrote a year ago is being published in a text book in India. Seems that the value of blogging is being recognised all over!
Posted by jj at 10:10 AM | Comments (1)
April 11, 2005
YAY for bubble and squeak!
Bizarre as that title is, I actually mean it. After a 20+ year hiatis, I have actually started enjoying bubble and squeak again. Served with a succulent piece of fresh barramundi, baked and then topped in a nice white wine sauce, a nice cake of bubble and squeak ends up being rather tasty.
Oh yes, and my cooking is actually improving.
Posted by jj at 9:01 PM | Comments (1)
Planning for social reference systems
I have spent the day finding new research on enterprise resource planning architecture and supply chain management (you have to keep up with these things) and I'm increasingly of the opinion that to be effective in inventory and information control within a supply chain, you don't just need a good records system. You also need a good reference system. And I don't mean a good database either; a good reference system that points to other resources and other information sources in the field is actually what produces time savings (reduces cycle time) and effectively cuts costs for an organisation.
This seems to be one way that social software could be transposed in to a corporate environment. [SIDE NOTE: Don't worry, social software advocates - I'm not suggesting the corporate sector take over social software; I'm merely advocating an application of social software in supply chain management. Settle down. Have a drink and relax.] Because an automatically generated reference system can't tell you how good/bad/indifferent a source is, and it can't actually pose questions.
Case in point: a friend of mine announced tonight that he had a presentation to complete on spam, due on Friday. He was beginning the research and got side-tracked. Once I knew what he was looking for sources on spam, I was able to point him in the direction of several really good sources through some research I supervised from one of my best students (yes Sami, that's you!). But it wasn't just that the research was good, it was the fact that I knew it existed, and that there had been a number of news items on spam that have emerged just recently (including the fact that a convicted spammer has been sentenced to nine years in prison). It's the social sharing of information resources on an on-demand basis that actually cuts down the time of research and therefore improves productivity.
Critics will say that social software reduces productivity because it encourages conversations which have nothing to do with the project-at-hand, but the reality is that such conversations tend to be interest driven. If the worker is interested in their project, they will share information and reference resources and their knowledge about the value of certain resources over others will grow as those conversations continue.
A good records management system and inventory control might produce a better managed supply chain system, but it's not going to provide a sustainable competitive advantage for a firm. Indeed, an information technology mediated supply chain management system is only going to make a firm a viable business entity. If you want to add value to an ICT-mediated supply chain strategy, then you need to add the value that can be derived from evaluating components and information products inherent to the supply chain.
And that's effectively a social software application for supply chain management.
Posted by jj at 7:27 PM | Comments (1)
April 10, 2005
Hopeful
The Monarchy is Dead! Long live the Republic of Australia!!!
Posted by jj at 12:22 AM | Comments (2)
April 7, 2005
A note of thanks to my readers
I don't say this often enough so I just want to note that I really appreciate all you readers who take the time to make a comment on this blog, or contact me personally by email or any other system to discuss issues they have read on this blog. I may not respond to you all, but please know that your comments are often incisive and interesting, and I promise you, I read them all. And even those of you who simply read the blog on a regular basis and say nothing till I meet you personally at an event and you start chatting about something you saw me write about - you are all appreciated.
Thanks for coming with me in this social software journey. It's all of you who have led me down the research path I'm following. And on that note, we signed the contract for the book with the publishers on Tuesday, so all is up and running to get the first scholarly text on uses of blogs on the market. One trackback on Axel's blog said that if the book were available for pre-ordering on Amazon, they'd already have reserved a copy. :-) We're hoping more will feel the same way when the book is ready to be published later this year!
Posted by jj at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
April 6, 2005
Tell us something we don't know
As an academic of many years' experience, I could have told you a long time ago that students from public schools do much better at university than private school graduates. But now, there's research that's been released to prove the fact. There's not much to answer why this is so - other than the usual intepretation that state school kids learn survival skills - but as an academic, trained as a secondary school teacher, I'd say the reason is much richer than that.
Firstly, the quality of teaching at private schools differs not a jot from that which is delivered at state schools. There are an awfully large number of bad teachers in both systems, and the whole premise of discipline at private schools influencing quality of teaching is a load of dingoes kidneys.
This all comes down to a misinterpretation of the word "discipline". For private school advocates, "discipline" actually means teacher-oriented control. But that's not discipline. It's authoritarianism. Children do need discipline at school, but that is a skill they learn individually, and it refers to their ability to concentrate and to commit themselves to a course of study, or a project at hand. It's behaviour modification, but it comes from within.
Good teaching doesn't need authoritarianism. Good teaching simply means communicating difficult concepts in an accessible fashion, showing passion for your subject matter and genuine interest in the development of your students. Many teachers may think they are interested in their students' development, but they are more often interested in how they appear to the students than in the students themselves. A good rule of thumb is to find the teacher that goes to the effort of learning their students' names quickly and responds to their queries with sympathy: there you will find a good teacher. Any teacher that thinks that threatening students with detention is a good way of getting them to learn, or shows complete disregard for whether students attend or listen to classes is, without exception, a bad teacher.
Secondly, private school teachers are encouraged to artificially inflate grades at HSC level. This isn't myth. It's a plain fact. Private school students do well in HSC scoring because they are trained to respond in a predictable and consistent way in examinations, and their internal work is simply graded with a higher mark than it would normally deserve in the public system.
I'm not kidding. I've seen this as an academic. What's worse is that when I was teaching first year university students, I found I had to undo all the bad teaching on essay writing done at secondary level and retrain them to write critical analysis essays from scratch. And as usual, it was the public school students who were more open to changes in style and to thinking differently about the way in which they approached writing and analysis than the private school students, who were more likely to be committed to the writing style they had ingrained into them through poor curriculum and worse teaching at secondary level.
Frankly, if your child learns martial arts, classical ballet, studies the arts, and/or if your child rises to an elite level in any sport, they are getting the discipline they will later need in life to dedicate themselves to whatever profession it is they pursue. The only advantages private school can offer is better facilities and a broader range of curriculum offerings. And when it comes down to it, unless they are also taught to adapt their thinking and styles in a less regimented fashion than private schools tend to do, they are likely to suffer in their tertiary years.
Posted by jj at 4:20 PM | Comments (4)
April 4, 2005
Disconnected observations
* There is a lovely sense of non sequitur about the Irish bookmaker taking bets on who will be the next Pope. It smacks of turning the temple into a market place. :-)
* If you ever find yourself on a night flight between Sydney and Brisbane, try and get a window seat on the left hand side of the plane. It's truly a magical feast for the eyes.
* So apparently Camilla Parker Bowles will technically be the next Princess of Wales, and the ceremony to adorn her with that title will take place probably on the same date as the Pope's funeral. Can anyone say "cluster f***-up"? The fates have been against this marriage of Charles and Camilla from the first. Mind you, most of us can't bear either of them, and won't acknowledge them in their future roles. I'm sure this will do wonders for the republican movement, so all's well that ends well!
Posted by jj at 11:32 AM | Comments (1)
April 3, 2005
The Wedding Pics!
For those who are interested, the first set of pictures of Kris & Phil's wedding are up. These were taken by my mother, Alison, so my apologies if it seems a bit biased as there seem to be far too many photos of yours truly. Nevertheless, there are some pics of the bride and my lovely friends from high school. We've now been friends for more than 20 years, and we're as close as ever, so it was lovely to see everyone and share in Kris & Phil's special night.
Posted by jj at 10:44 AM | Comments (4)
April 2, 2005
Wedding Report
The song has ended but the memory lingers on....
It was a fabulous night for the wedding of my dear friend, Kristen and her new husband, Phillip, in Melbourne on Friday. The weather was spectacular with bright skies and a warm breeze throughout the day and well in to the night. Kris & Phil looked a picture of happiness (after the bundle of nerves they were during the day!). Photos will be added as soon as I have scanned them in.
My apologies to those in Melbourne I did not get a chance to contact. Virtually all of my time was dedicated to bridesmaid duties in the days leading up to the wedding so I was unable to contact people. I'm now on my way home to Brisbane and will hopefully take this magnificent 32° weather back with me tonight.
Thanks to all those who have contacted me and to my Mum for having me for the week. Was a great week :-)
Posted by jj at 2:55 PM | Comments (1)