Sorry for the Intermission
but it's likely to continue. In the meantimeIf you're an American Citizen please watch this
Best
Martin
Lazy Journalism II
This time stealing shamelessly from NUFC.comCongratulations to Mail on Sunday journalist, Bob Cass, who correctly told us that Wayne Rooney would join Manchester United well over a month ago.
Mind, the chances were Bob was going to be correct no matter which club Rooney joined. Here's a sample of some of Bob's Wayne "exclusives" ..:
July 18 Rooney to join Man United
HEADLINE: Birch exit sets up Rooney switch to United
July 11 Rooney to join Newcastle
HEADLINE: Newcastle to join £30m Rooney chase
July 6 Rooney to join Chelsea
HEADLINE: ROONEY ON THE RUSSIAN HIT LIST
January 5 Rooney to join Real Madrid
HEADLINE: Real Madrid in secret bid for Rooney
When I was at University I used to read about six or seven papers every day because it was free to do so. Since then I've had no time at all for Tabloid sports reporting - the one bit of journalism they claim to do well. For every genuine story they've got five or six works of fiction. On the other hand, once a transfer is reported in the Times, or the Guardian or the Telegraph it's probably on the cards, and at the very least financially feasible.
Lazy journalism
Checking Sky for the latest on the Bobby saga I found this"Manchester United struck both posts and peppered Nigel Martyn's goal with shots,"
Which is odd, because at the end of the Match report
Shots on target 2
Shots off target 10
Sky don't ever seem capable of admitting that a match they chose to show live may have been a dull 0-0 draw...
State of the Toon
Yesterday's capitulation at Aston Villa makes it one win in eleven for Newcastle United. We haven't won away from home since Halloween last year and morale is low. People are saying the manager should go, the players should take the blame or that it's the chairman's fault. I suspect they're all right. Here's my take...How bad is it?
--------------
We're not going down and we're not the new Leeds United. On the other hand we are going *backwards*. Last season Chelsea and Liverpool consolidated their position as 'definately better than us'. This season sides like Villa, Blackburn, Charlton, Boro, Spurs and Bolton are going to be hoping to get into the sixth spot in the table so we can't expect a free pass into Europe. If things don't improve soon mid-table obscurity beckons.
On the Pitch
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We still can't defend, but more seriously we keep failing to turn up. It's rare to read a match report which praises Newcastle for the effort and work rate lately. Last season Shearer and Speed worked their socks off, but players like Viana, Robert, Jenas and Dyer consistently failed to deliver. This is a bit harsh on Robert as well, since his 'lack of effort' included 12 goals, double what Jenas and Dyer managed between them.
Injuries have been frustrating, especially to Woodgate and Bellamy, but it's not like we've suffered the way Spurs seem to with half the team out.
Finances
--------
The finances are OK. In recent years we've made profits, player wages haven't been excessive (although I'd like to see them lower) and money from the champions league hasn't been spent before it's been earned. That said there are plenty of problems, like the lack of a proper independent remunerations committee for the board, the clubs' inability to explain what our 'international' subsidiary in Gibraltar actually does. While the Chairman's certainly done a solid job in finding revenue sources and bringing in players I still don't get the sense the club is all that well run. Perhaps most telling is a dividend policy that seems to be operating for the benefit of the Chairman and Chief Executive.
That we've appraently got the money to bid for Wayne Rooney shows we can't be completely skint.
Management Structure
--------------------
Who's in charge seems to be a complicated question at Newcastle. Robson is the manager, but reports over the summer suggested that the Chairman was pursuing his own shopping list of players (Kluivert, not Beattie, low priority for a new right back...) The sudden bid for Rooney reinforces this. We're not short of strikers and bringing Rooney in would probably mean saying goodbye to at least one of Bellamy and Ameobi, we don't need him, we need a replacement for Woodgate, I'm sure the manager knows this. It does though seem like the kind of thing the Chairman likes to do, proving we're a big club with a big reputation and so on...
Meanwhile as heir apparent as manager and most influential player Shearer presumably has something close to a veto on major decisions. One thing that is clear is that it's still Robson who picks the team.
Training
--------
I worry about our training policy. The list of players who've come to St James' Park and got better is worryingly short. Shola Ameobi has improved a lot over the past few seasons. Craig Bellamy improved almost instantly, winning young player of the year in his first season. (so quick was that improvement I'm not sure we can take the credit, his knee surgeon might deserve it instead).
On the other hand, Lua Lua, Dyer, Jenas, Bramble, Chopra, Viana and Ambrose, some of the hottest talent in the Premiership have failed to improve at all. Following Gary Speed's move to Bolton he commented that training there was much harder and that he was learning a lot. Arsenal and Man Utd have delivered consistent improvements in their new signings for years. Look at the way O'shea, Fletcher and Miller have come through at Man Utd or the improvement in Cygan and Toure at Arsenal. If we are going to go round buying players with potential and talent rather than experience and class we'd better be confident of our training system - and I'm not.
What needs doing?
-----------------
1. Professionalise the boardroom and the bootroom. More transparency about the finances, tight discipline for players - particularly when talking to the press.
2. New coaching staff. Pulling in world class coaches for the youth and reserve sides who are independent from the manager of the first team, and getting some top notch support for the manager are a must. I've never understood why a teams 'coaching setup' gets completely restructured everytime the man at the top is changed. Continuity needs to be built into squad development.
3. A strong manager. Could be Bobby, could be someone else, but the manager has got to have the final say on discipline, on tactics and on signings. Without that we'll have more episodes of players refusing to do what they're told or behave on their nights off.
>>
As with so many things it seems almost certain that the quick fix will be attempted, a new manager and a panic signing or two. We've tried this before and it hasn't worked. What we need is a well planned revolution, the kind Ferguson brought in at Man U, Wenger carried off at Arsenal and Mourinho / Abramovich are trying at Chelsea. In his own way Sam Allardyce's transformation of Bolton into the most scientificly managed side in the Premiership is another example.
Any new manager will have to bring vision, coaching excellence and a long term plan that has the backing of the board. I'm not sure that those are qualities we'll get if we sack Bobby, install Shearer and blow £20m on a new forward...
This communication will be Terminated
After I did my bit for the campaign below by writing to Ford asking why they think what they're doing is good for shareholders I got a reply. Since the campaign is CC'ing all the letters to the Governor of California the reply is from the Governator himself
At any rate, I assume that Skynet have already integrated all California's governmental computer systems with the electronic brain of it's governor...
The emails below (I added a bit)
"governor@governor.ca.gov to me
More options 9:20am (0 minutes ago)
Thank you for your email to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Governor appreciates hearing from concerned and involved Californians, as well as from individuals all over the world who have an interest in California.
Governor Schwarzenegger is committed to restoring your confidence in state government. As the Governor has said, with hard work and your help, California will once again be the "Golden Dream by the Sea".
Due to the unprecedented number of emails sent to the Governor, there may be a delay in immediately responding to your email. Please know that the Governor's office is making every effort to respond to your inquiry and will ensure that your voice is heard by the Governor.
To help us respond to you, please include your name and address when you communicate with the Governor's Office. Please note that we are unable to accept e-mail attachments because of the risk of Internet viruses. We ask that you please send your attachments via traditional mail to:
Office of the Governor
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
For more information about Governor Schwarzenegger and the State of California, please visit the California website at www.ca.gov.
Again, thank you for your email. Governor Schwarzenegger is proud to serve you and all Californians.
Hasta la Vista, Baby!"
Did anyone Th!nk about this?
My new employer have just launched a campaign about Ford Motors decision to scrap their eco-friendly 'Th!nk' model of car. I have to say, even if the car was only developed to meet legal requirements and has been dropped when they changed scrapping the things makes no sense.
It annoys anyone who's got one
It costs money
It ignores people willing to take them off your hands for cold hard cash
Even if Ford don't believe in the car why not spin off the technology into a new company, give it some start-up capital and the existing stock and tell it to go compete with Smart? Someone went to all the trouble of designing these cars, marketing and branding them, setting up an assembly line, training customer support... I mean, building a car is an expensive thing to do. You'd think they'd want something back on the deal...
Being Diplomatic
I spent this Saturday playing Diplomacy, one of the best boardgames ever created. As usual we didn't quite get to the end (we only played for eight or nine hours) but we did at least get to the stage where the results were becoming clear.Turkey won, capitalising on a Russian collapse and Austrian Indecisiveness. The Franco-Anglo-Germanic coalition I held together for almost the whole game looked like it would give me (France) a win at one stage, but couldn't quite stand up to the Turkish threat. Italy collapsed almost as fast as Russia.
What I like about Diplomacy is the paradox at it's heart. You can only win with the support of other players, but everyone wants to win. For most people the result is a game of backstabbing and betrayal, but I've always preferred to think of those as the things that happen when the really important parts go wrong. Diplomacy is a game of co-operation and trust - and it's a great way to put your social skills to the test.
Need a beer?
Near.co.uk is a new service that a friend of mine is involved in promoting. It's an attempt to provide local search services for the UK. First on the list is a service to help you find a pub.Here's the list of pubs in Newcastle for instance.
Who gives the order?
With US forces poised to storm Najaf's Imam Ali Shrine, something many experts consider to be a very bad idea indeed I just want to know who has decided to do this. I know there's a pre-occupation with politicians over-ruling generals, but this is an action with massive political consequences.
If it goes wrong the whole Iraq project could be in danger. If it goes right someone might get to look a hero. However it's five minutes to this particular midnight and no-ones put their head over the parapet. The local Iraqi governor has invited in the US Marines, but the Iraqi government appears somewhat split on the issue. Meanwhile since it's US troops there has to be a US agreement about this somewhere. Is it Abizaid's call? Negroponte's? Rumsfeld's? Bush's?
All I'm saying is I want to know who's idea this was and who's given the go-ahead.
Football starts on Saturday
With the kick off of the Premier League. Of course for plenty of sides football has already started, but Newcastle won't be kicking a ball in anger till Saturday, so that's my start date. This season I'd like to think we've got some reasons to be cheerful
Patrick Kluivert should be good
Nicky Butt should be good
Kieren Dyer and Jermaine Jenas can't be worse than they were last season (three league goals between them)
There are also a couple of question marks. Is Steven Carr actually any good and can we get over our habit of signing talent and failing to improve it by letting James Milner realise his potential? Hell it's be nice if Titus Bramble and Darren Ambrose could deliver.
Truth is though the squad is looking better and has a bit more depth to it this season. We've got four proven forwards who can deliver the goods, and plenty of strength in midfield provided it all performs to potential. It's still at the back where we've got worries, although right now this is less about the quality of playing staff than the fact that half of them are injured.
Champions League qualification is by no means assured, but once again I think we're in with a good shot at the fourth place spot - and if one of the big three slip up maybe even third. What we can't afford though is yet another bad start - just for once couldn't we be the team who record the freak 4-0 win on the first day and get to start the campaign at the top?
Iraq overview
The more I read about Iraq the more difficult it is to be even the slightest bit optimistic. This post is a kind of summary about where things have got too and where things are going. Lets start with the official positionThe official US Embasy site, the successor to the old CPA website is I guess where you'd expect to find whatever good news there is. There are a number of speeches, all talking about committment to restoring democracy. There is a claim of 200 000 members of the Iraq security forces and there is a link to the US Aid website which has a report (5mb Download) on the progress of the first year.
The report is pretty light on statistics and is in many ways almost entirely anecdotal. It does give some figures though. Power generation is said to have exceeded pre-war levels by October 2003 and was expected to reach 50% higher by summer 2004 (about now). 'Millions' of children have been vaccinated. I've put millions in quotes only because there's no actual figure so it could be 1 million, 2 millions or whatever. It's a lot though. Later on there's a figure for how many vaccine doses have been distributed, but not how many have actually been given.
The port at Umm Quasr has been dredged, although I'd imagine that was an essential military task as well as an important humanitarian one. (Umm Quasr is Iraqs only major port on the Gulf). Other achievements include 45 million dollars of small grants to get businesses restarted and 700 councils established. There's a claim that 80% of Iraqi's either directly or indirectly have been involved in local government. I wonder though just what constitutes 'indirect' involvement - is this as little as there being a councillor assigned to wherever it is I live?
$150m has been spent on health, apparently 60 times the pre-war level (which makes the pre-war spend $3m. Then there's education, where USAid has trained 32000 teachers and repaired 2700 schools. Plus there's the distribution of 8 million textbooks.
There have also been efforts to replenish the marshlands and to investigate the mass graves.
That is all things considered a pretty impressive list. I do wonder about what exactly some of the things mean. What constitutes 'training' a teacher. A one day intensive course? A one month course? A one hour talk reminding them not to praise Baathists in class anymore? It's not clear.
Likewise the vaccinations, have they been administered or distributed? One would represent a major achievement, the other over full hospital warehouses and waste. Iraq has a population of 24 million, of which 40% are below the age of 14 so there are certainly millions of children who need vaccinations. This also makes the current health spend about $6 per person.
Then there's the electricity thing. The pre-war level was 4400 MW. On October 6 production did indeed hit 4518 MWH according to CPA figures. However as of May 18 2004 the seven day moving average hadn't surpassed 4300 and was sitting at around 4000, well short of the July 1st target of 6000 MWH and still behind pre-war levels. The report does say that in the past Baghdad was guaranteed power at the expense of outlying provinces, something the coalition says has now changed with most areas having more hours and Baghdad less.
This story in the Guardian suggests what the problem is - insurgents keep blowing up parts of the power supplies and foreign contractors have pulled out in fear.
Turning to the other major claim I've listed - 200 000 members of the Iraqi security forces. A breakdown is given here . There are 70 000 police, 70 000 0r so guards and 3000 troops (I assume that numbers grown since March). This column by David Hackworth suggests some of the problems with the Iraqi army to date as does this one, the main point being this quote about the Iraqi armies first combat action
"By the end of the day, this 695-man battalion had eight wounded, 24 combat desertions, 104 mutineers, 78 AWOLs and 170 on leave."
It's that on leave figure you want to look at. There might be 200 000 of these guys, but they in no way compare man for man to US troops, or even US police.
On the political front the timetable is as follows
A meeting of 1000 notables will elect 80 officers to a national congress.
20 more officers will be appointed by the current government.
The congress will organise elections in January.
The date for the congress has been put back twice now and at the moment there's no resecheduled date been announced. That's probably by the by anyway, because the present levels of violence will make free and fair elections almost impossible in January. As these figures show the underlying level of violence (as measured in US fatalities) has remained about the same over the year and spikes during major offensives.
The level of violence against Iraqi civilians remains huge, over 1000 have been killed since Allawi took power. Indeed Allawi has reinstated the death penalty, closed down newspapers, thrown al Jazeera out of Iraq and taken a decidedly non-democratic approach to law and order.
In terms of ongoing violence Fallujah remains in guerilla hands, oddly sanctioned now as the Fallujah Brigade. Places like Nasaria and Najaf are battle fields, a recent curfew in Sadr city was ignored and in the South the British are not so much trying to fight the Mahdi army as reach some sort of arrangement whereby they'll behave themselves and stop taking over police stations. The north remains firmly under the control of the Kurds, which probably bodes badly for the large Arab minority when elections come round. Juan Cole provides excellent summaries of the ongoing violence which moves location so rapidly it's hard to know which parts of Iraq aren't problem areas.
(It's worth noting that Juan is not, like me, some random blogger, but an expert on the Middle East who gave testimony to congressional hearings on Iraq)
So to bring this ramble to some sort of conclusion Iraq is very much a mess. Efforts to restore democracy and carry out aid work are being undermined by a security situation that has forced out foreign contractors, resulted in the de-facto loss of many parts of Iraq and is starting to resemble the free for all civil war that many feared pre-invasion.
I'm going to stop now, and I haven't even got to looking up pre and post war employment rates, GDP and oil output...
Its not just the media
Sometimes Dubya can make himself look silly all by himself. Still, the good news is he seems to think Indian tribes are soverign entities. The best bit is the press laughing at his answer to this straightforward question.
Updates
So I should probably mention that I've been hired by Greenpeace to be their 'Internal Communications Officer' which is nice. My brief is all about addressing internal communication and issues around their intranet. Plenty to get my teeth into there.
To cover the other usual subjects round here...
Iraq is still going to hell in a handbag. If there's a plan at the moment it seems to be that the Iraqi people will get terror fatigue before communal hatred becomes the dominant force in their lives. That's not just my take, the UK parliament seems to agree.
The US election is showing just what a mess things are over there, in most years these wouldn't exactly be revolutionary comments from a candidate.
"I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.
And Newcastle have signed Patrick Kluivert, which is going to make for an interesting season. Gary Speed's moved on, probably at about the right stage, but only 'cause we've got Nicky Butt for a bargain £2m and we've added James Milner to our 'collect a set' of former Leed's players. I guess Robson's done the most important part of his pre-season shopping, since after the complete demoralisation at the end of last season I'm actually looking forward to this one.
The Sceptical Environmentalist, Reviewed
Since Greenpeace are interviewing me for a job I thought I’d best get to grips with the environmental agenda. To that end I've just read and reviewed the sceptical environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. You can download the review here, since blogger is objecting to some of the formatting when I cut and paste from MS Word.Blimey, it's Greece!
Just to confess I didn't expect Greece to win. In fact I've written them off before every game they played except the one against Russia, where I thought they'd get a draw. So lets be clear my predictions were roughly thatPortugal were going to thrash greece on the opening day
Spain would thump them in their second match
Greece might draw with Russia to sneak through
France would stuff Greece for even being in the quarter final
The Czech's (my new favourites) were finally going to blow them away
No-one could beat Portugal in the final
Funny old game...
Counting
One of the responsibilities of an occupying power under the Geneva convention is to keep a record of all civilian casualties. The US has not done this during it's occupation of Iraq, citing among other things, difficulties in keeping a tally.I don't think anyone expects such a record to be perfect, just an honest attempt to keep track. Claiming it's difficult is no excuse.
It may not even be that hard. Raed Jarrar has compiled a list of casualties during the war using the efforts of Iraqi volunteers.
Someone really wants to ask Bush or Cheney why this isn't being done.
Domestic difficulties ahoy
Yes, after last nights football and the glorious exit of Germany Euro 2004 is that little bit closer to causing a little domestic strife. If England beat Portugal and Holland beat Sweden it's an Anglo-Dutch semi-final.I've already made it clear that I'm not wearing the lucky orange cap should this come to pass...
Team of the tournament
What with Euro 2004 dominating my evenings at the moment I should probably write about it. By better two thirds was asking who I'd have as my team of the tournament the other night. Here's my guess....In goal : Peter Czech, Czech Republic
Central Defence : Sol Campbel, England
Central Defence : Carvalho, Portugal
Right Back :
Left Back :
Central Midfield : Patrick Viera, France
Central Midfield : Pavel Nedved, Czech Republic
Right wing : Steven Gerard, England
Left Wing : Robert Pires, France
Centre Forward : Van Nistelroy, Holland
Centre Forward : Thierry Henri, France
On the bench are the wonderkids Wayne Rooney, Christian Ronaldo, and Joaquin plus Iker Cassilas and Cassano. I haven't seen Italy play yet, but from the response the press gave Cassano he must have been a bit good. Zidane's on the bench, partly cause Nedved was awesome against the Dutch, and partly cause any English manager would enjoy putting him on the bench right now...
The full back slots are still open. If you could give Gary Neville Ashley Cole's attacking ability or Cole Nevilles defensive skills they'd both be in. But you can't.
Quote of the day
"Aye. You see the problem is it's geniuses. It's a fine line being a genius and sometimes you can go over the top and become mental" Paul Gascoigne explains where he went wrong...He might even be right.
Top song title
I'm not going to claim that the lyrics have any great merit or anything, butI was a human bomb for the FBI
by
Zombina and the Skelletones
Is a fantastic name for a song. They're a punk band from Liverpool. Probably worth a look if they're playing near you.
iTunes
Apple have just launched iTunes for the UK, I heard it on internet radio. So I downloaded the software, rebooted the computer, connected to the store and...I live in Holland.
Which is a shame, cause it looks good (if liable to ruin me forever). When iTunes first launched I checked it and a few other services out. My goal was to find 'For Your Love' by the Yardbirds. Back then they hadn't got round to adding late 60's rock n roll, now though it's there, if only you live in the right country :-(
Yahoo Mail gets desperate
Yahoo have just upgraded their email accounts to 100MB of storage (from 6) and are now letting people send emails upto 10 MB in size. There's also been some tweaking of the user interface.Anyone would think Google's 1000MB of storage had got them rattled. The thing is 100MB still isn't enough. When I've had unlimited storage in the past I've blown through 100MB in no time. A few powerpoint files, word documents or (worst of all) psd files and 100MB doesn't look so good.
I'm not actually convinced Googles 1000MB is enough, but with Moores law allowing them to double the size every 18 months for free I think they'll be fine. Plus, once you get to 1000MB even the most parsimonius web user is going to accept that maybe it's time to start paying for storage.
Oh yeah, and I've got 738 spam messages since yesterday. Admittedly 99%+ of them get put in the bulk mail spam box automatically but still, you'd think they could stop this ever reaching me at all.
Pro Europe Rant
What is wrong with the morons who vote for UKIP? Or perhaps more to the point why hasn't anyone pointed out that the reason Europe is a good thing is that if we all join up we all get rich?I wish to god Blair, Clarke and the rest would stop waffling about foreign policy benefits and suchlike and concentrate on the one big benefit of European integration and expansion. We get richer. Not just the Irish or the Portugese or the Poles or the other 'net debtor' nations, but places like England and Holland where I'm sitting now, the biggest 'net creditor' per capita end up ahead.
Its simple. We let the Poles sell us potatoes, cheaper than we can make them ourselves. With this money the Poles buy stuff we make that they couldn't afford otherwise. Into the bargain we get better potatoes and a nicer class of Vodka. What's not to like? This process repeats across thousands and thousands of products, the benefits of trade are huge.
It's thanks to Europe that Ireland is prosperous, something that must have helped the peace process there no end. It's thanks to Europe that all those Japanese car companies have put their factories in England. You think Nissan would be in Sunderland if they had to pay import taxes when they sold cars in France? Get real.
Sure there are plenty of other benefits to expanding Europe. Stability, law and order, foreign policy and so on all benefit, but the self obsessed little englanders who vote for out and out racists like Kilroy Silk and the rest of the middle class BNP are only going to respond to one message. Wave a fistful of poundnotes in their face - they're the loadsamoney throwbacks and someone should tell them that they're going to cost us all dear.
The Big Intervention
A really rather nice idea about civic participation in Democracy. Go join in.
Tony Blair is no longer the man to lead the Labour Party. Remember how happy you felt when he came to power? Remember the feeling that now, with the Tories out of the way things were going to be better - and that for a while they were.
Well, as cynicism about the Prime Minister mounts again, as a history of deals, fudged questions and wrong headed decisions stacks up against the good memories it's time to remember why other nations have term limits. There's no shortage of alternative candidates for the job - let one of them have a go.
Martin Lloyd
Been there, done that
MBA Blogs are becoming a lot more common these days. For the record I only know of one MBA blog that existed before mine and that was Adams. There was also a site of occasional essays about doing an MBA, this one from James, also at Oxford.I was however the first one to finish :-)
That said, its great to see these blogs proliferating so fast. Less good is the fact that while Insead has several bloggers Oxford has still only had me...
New personal best
For the 2.5 mile circuit. Got it down to 16:27.3. Must check the distance again, cause if this really is 2.5 miles - or anything close to it, I'm flying. (by my own rather sluggish standards)That's sub 6:40 miles. Can't be right.
OK, I've checked and it's about 2.3 miles (hard to be sure, we live right on the edge of the map and a small part of the route has to be guessed.)
Which makes 7:10 minute miles or thereabouts. I'm still rather pleased. It is quite frankly, quick enough. My tenuous goal at the moment is to do the dam to dam run in September which is 17k, so it's time to stop worrying about speed and focus on distance. If I can do the whole thing in 9 minute miles I'll finish in just over an hour and a half, which seems like a reasonable goal.
Word of mouth still the best
Cause that's how I found www.expatica.com, which would have been very useful months agoGrim but worthwhile
Juan Cole has been running a series of guest editorials at his 'informed comment' blog. Since Juan is a big voice in the real world he's able to get a high quality of guest. Todays is from William Polk who " was in charge of planning American policy for most of the Islamic world until 1965 when he became professor of history at the University of Chicago and founded its Middle Eastern Studies Center."Anyway, his piece is on torture. Yesterdays was on American Colonialism.
Keeping up the good work
Pressups 2*20
Crunches 2*20
Free weights session
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Lowerbody
Squats, 3*15
Lunges, 3*25 each leg
Arms
Pressups 3*20
Shoulderpress 15@7kg, 15@7kg, 8@7kg
Bicep curls, 3*20@7kg
Hammer curls 20@7kg, 20@7kg, 20@7kg (r) 11@7kg (l)
Tricep overheads 20@5.5kg, 15@5.5 (r) 14@5.5 (l), 12@4.5 (r) 13@4.5 (l)
Upper body
Chest press 20@8kg, 20@8kg, 20@7kg
Single arm press 18@8kg, 18@8kg, 18@7kg
Pec Flyes 15@7kg, 15@5.5kg, 15@4.5kg
Stretching, 10 mins
Activities of the housebound
My major achievement today? Getting my name read out on BBC 6 Music (they're very good them) as one of the people voting Lovely Head by Goldfrapp on the track of the day thingumy.If you're a far right extremist
Go watch these two movies. The pain in your head is cognitive dissonance.Apologies
For the lack of recent entries. Still, if you know the tune to REM's 'End of the world as we know it' this is rather good.If only
This had been around when I built my old websites. I'd have saved myself a mountain of spam. Enkoder, from hiveware.Time for a change
Tim from Bloggerheads has brought us an infomercial on the Labour Party. (big flash file ahead)Neatly summing up the problems for all those of us who quite like Labour, loath some of the current policies and are still scarred by the memories of Tory rule. Lib dem this time round for me? Or a Labour MP with balls. Hell, I'm not even sure if I can vote at the moment given my somewhat between nations status.
Pictures from Iraq
Apparently these pictures were taken by a soldier in Iraq. Well worth a look, if only to show the kind of pictures embedded journalists seem not to have been allowed to publish. Be warned though, there are plenty of gruesome images in there.Wedding Bells
Maria's brother and his fiance tied the knot a week ago today and it was a wonderful occassion. Since weddings are private I'll keep most of the blogging to the reception. It was held on a boat, this boat to be exact.
Despite the appearances this boat is only pretending to be a sailing ship. It started life as a commercial whaler with an engine, when the decision came to convert it to a pleasureboat the masts were added. They do work though, and once we were underway the engines went off and we made our way along under sail. Indeed at one point a group of guests were prevailed on to haul away at various ropes. I did so, and somewhere high above me something moved, I think.
Below decks was a large and well appointed dining area, a bar and a disco. In true modern style this was DJ'd from a laptop and in true wedding style 70's and 80's hits pounded out all night turning the old whaler in the the disco boat of luuurve. The bride rather sensibly had abandoned her wedding shoes by this time and switched to something more sensible.
and of course no wedding report would be complete without a picture of the happy couple, Jan and Suse de Kleijn
Much holiday stuff
I know I haven't blogged for ages. Here then is the run down of what I've been up to. Starting with this rather nice Dutch castle that Maria and I visited at the weekend. It turns out that the castle is something of a fake, most of it fell down a long time ago and the restoration was done at the start of the 20th century.
It's still pretty amazing though. The insides (which I wasn't able to photograph) boast some stupendous architecture and wonderful ornaments. The whole thing is owned by the grandson of a Dutch count who married a Rothschild (I think) it was designed not so much as a restoration, but as an imagination. It's what the architect (Cuipers, who also did Amsterdam central station and the Reichsmuseum (??) and the patron wanted to believe medieval life was like. Plus electricity and the most modern kitchen of its day.
All in all a grand day out.
Running how far?!
According to the Multimap map I've just printed off and measured my usual jogging route is 3.6 miles, which makes my time of 18:48 pretty damn impressive. So impressed was I at this unsuspected ability to run 5:12 miles back to back I checked on a different map.This suggests that I actually ran a rather more realistic 2.5 miles , knocking out 7:36 minute miles which
a) sounds like something I could do and
b) still makes me rather happy
Privacy Schmivacy
With my Yahoo email account drowning in Spam (I got 70 unsolicited mails over one weekend) despite the filtering system I've cheerfully signed up for the Gmail trial available through blogger. Do I care about the little adverts by the side of the mail, not yet I don't, and if they can keep it Spam free I doubt I ever will.I've got a Gmail email address and I'm sure as hell not writing it here!
What blogs are good at
Doc Searls has just summarised a quick tour of what the various Iraqi blogs are saying at the moment.He gets a good cross section of opinion and informed comment on a number of issues quickly by clicking, cutting and pasting. This kind of reportage journalism is very easy for a few subjects these days thanks to blogs (Iraq, Tech, US Politics) as a number of consistent and known voices are available around which can be built a network of others.
Surely it's just a matter of time before major news channels (increasingly just news aggregators) start tying this stuff together on a regular basis.
On a completely different not B3ta are trying to launch a TV station.
Rock n roll
My sister is visiting at the moment, and has done me the fantastic service of pointing out that BBC Radio 6 is available over the internet, and that it rocks. A lot.She also brought a Franz Ferdinand CV, which is pretty cool too.
Lovely stuff.
Latest musings
I've just finished writing a case study on my old blog, the MBA Experience. I think it's a good example of what weblog marketing can achieve for an institution like a business school - a useful part of a larger effort.Don't run, walk
I'm older today, and one of the benefits of being older is new possessions. This year my better two thirds got me a heart rate monitor for exercising. I've wanted one of these for ages, but had of course completely forgotten this right up to the moment I unwrapped it.Now, my 90 day fitness plan calls for me to exercise for 25 mins three times a week, for three weeks to improve my cardiovascular fitness. I should do this exercise at 70% of my maximum heart rate, or about 143 bpm.
Trying this out brought some interesting results. My dead stopped, doing absolutely nothing and having forgotten about the monitor heart rate is between 64 and 66. Not great, but not bad. My wandering round the house doing next to nothing heart rate is more like 80 - I've no idea if that's bad or not.
My heart rate at what I've usually considered a 'light jogging' kind of pace (9 minute miles) is over 160. Much experimentation revealed that jogging at 70% of my maximum heart rate is pretty much impossible. The moment I so much as lift my feet off the ground my heart rate hits about 153 and stays there.
Think it's time I kept this fitness thing up for more than a week in a row.
How to become famous (in the blogosphere)
This just about covers any answers to the 'how to build blog traffic' questions. Should I ever have another blog I want people to read I'll be starting here.This of course is a blog I occasionally want to write, which is rather different.
E-ink on high street shelves
When I first read the E-ink case study for business school I assumed it was fictional, so cool was the technology described. However it wasn't, it was real and now you can buy the world's first electronic book using E-ink technology. The resolutions still a little less than great, the price a little high, but that's not the point. Once Moore's law kicks in these things will become standard.School textbooks on subscription would be a great market for these. For a one time purchase of a display (insured) and a lifetime subscription you can access all the textbooks you need for fourteen years of your life - with an extend to university option.
Shame on me!
For not realising that the John Kerry featured in this Doonesbury strip from the 1970's was the same one running for the Presidency right now.A little late in the day...
Howard Dean is now blogging on his own blog. It's not much, but it'd be nice to hear more of his voice during the election. Which we might get to, depending on how clever the new grassroots idea is that he plans to announce on the 18th.Living the good life
My other half's family have an annual tradition. To celebrate the birthday of the family matriarch (my other half's grandma) the entire clan decamps to a bungalow camp in the south of Holland for a weekend of games, sports and relaxation. This has been going on for some twenty years and when it began the participants numbered about ten.This year there were nineteen, assorted children, boyfriends and fiances having since joined the ranks. The prospect of two whole days with your girlfriend's family is the kind of stuff that's supposed to make the blood run cold, and Maria did her best to up the tension by briefing me exhaustively in advance on the assorted rituals and rites that would be performed. However since every one of the nineteen attendees is a lovely person, and the park is home to things like tennis courts and bowling alleys it didn't exactly live up to the hype of 'death by social occasion'.
Each year there is a theme, and this year's theme was 'Old Dutch Games' the idea being to hold a small 'Olympics' based on old Dutch childrens games. It turns out that Old Dutch Games are pretty interchangable with Old English ones. There was skipping, there were hula-hoops, a sack race, marbles, bubble blowing and so on. There were also costumes, which I suspect have warped my notion of old fashioned Holland beyond all recognition.
So all in all a fine weekend. Good food, good company and good fun. Now I just have to wait a year for the next one...
Spanish bombs
There's been a lot of stuff written about what happened in Spain. Commentators from left and right have found a new hobby - interpreting the results in a way that makes the other side look bad. The results were pretty simple, people died. The commentators should bite their tongues. Some things go beyond who's going to win the next election or whether the new Spanish government are soft on terrorism.The best thing I've read that's been written about this (I couldn't really translate the two pages of the local Dutch paper which were sensibly given over two Spanish writers) is this column from Sid Lowe. He's a football journalist, in Spain. So this is Sid's weekly round-up of the Spanish league, only it isn't, only it is. Footballers aren't normal people, but on a day like this maybe they are and their reactions say a lot about how terrorism affects people.
The whole point about terrorism is that it crashes in through the windows and makes things different. You shouldn't think about bombs when you watch football - but then you do. That's what the article is about, normal life goes on, but it doesn't. The only response to terrorism is not to be terrified, but that's hard.
Spanish bombs
There's been a lot of stuff written about what happened in Spain. Commentators from left and right have found a new hobby - interpreting the results in a way that makes the other side look bad. The results were pretty simple, people died. The commentators should bite their tongues. Some things go beyond who's going to win the next election or whether the new Spanish government are soft on terrorism.The best thing I've read that's been written about this (I couldn't really translate the two pages of the local Dutch paper which were sensibly given over two Spanish writers) is this column from Sid Lowe. He's a football journalist, in Spain. So this is Sid's weekly round-up of the Spanish league, only it isn't, only it is.
The whole point about terrorism is that it crashes in through the windows and makes things different. You shouldn't think about bombs when you watch football - but then you do. That's what the article is about, normal life goes on, but it doesn't. The only response to terrorism is not to be terrified, but that's hard.
Why websites become successful
This I'm afraid is a shameless plug for the article I've just written for my other website. It's called 'What makes a website popular' On Friday I spent hours trying to find a good subject and ended up writing almost nothing. On Monday I wrote this in a couple of hours (I'm told it shows), still I'm pretty pleased with how easy it was in the end.Hopefully it will go some way to convincing the latest round of companies who've recieved my CV that I have something interesting to say. At volume.
Opening up to Open Source
I've just installed Open Office as an alternative to MS Office. So far it's hard to tell the difference. I mean the icons are different and stuff but the dislocation is no bigger than the switch from something like Office 97 to Office 2000. A few things are in different places, some stuff looks a little different, but that's it.Feedback is good
I was once told that one of the worst things about websites is that 'you do your development in public'. That's not a bad thing, that's a great thing. Sure your mistakes are out there, but so are your successes, and most importantly of all people who are actually interested in what you are doing will take the time to comment.My MBA class have been giving me great feedback about my new website. Everything from the copy, to the URL to the prices I'm planning to charge. They've even recommended books I should be reading.
So, in some ways it's back to the drawing board, or at least the construction site, but its going back with a new raft of ideas and a new bunch of things to work on. It's a good feeling, and as I slowly expose the site to more and more audiences the key will be tracking the feedback, watching the logs and making sure I end up with something good. I certainly think I'm getting there.
Something in the water
FIFA's list of the top 100 living footballers is out today. For me the things that stand out areThe fact that there aren't very many Englishmen on there
The fact that there are an awful lot of Dutchmen on the list
I mean allowing for the Netherlands tiny population they've been more successful at turning out footballing genius' than any other nation in the world. I mean Brazil, Germany and Italy all have more players on the list, but they're all at least three times the size of Holland.
So either its something in the water, or all these football parks in the middle of town are making a difference.
Something in the water
FIFA's list of the top 100 living footballers is out today. For me the things that stand out areThe fact that there aren't very many Englishmen on there
The fact that there are an awful lot of Dutch
I mean allowing for the Netherlands tiny population they've been more successful at turning out footballing genius' than any other nation in the world. I mean Brazil, Germany and Italy all have more players on the list, but they're all at least three times the size of Holland.
So either its something in the water, or all these football parks in the middle of town are making a difference.
Haiti Explained
The Financial Times has run this article today (subscription needed for the FT site so this is a mirror), so you have to assume its not complete fiction. It certainly explains why when Bush is so set on bringing democracy to places like Iraq he singly failed to defend it in Haiti.I remember seeing the news when Colin Powell said he though Aristide should consider his position thinking it was really odd. The Iron fist came out of the velvet glove and Aristide must have known the game was up.
Lets hope the UN can make something out of this. Maybe Aristide was a wrong un, there's certainly evidence that he had armed thugs of his own running about. The question though is, if you're running a place like Haiti and your foreign aid has been suspended just how do you say no to the men with guns?
I'm sure there's a reason
But this is just a bit odd when you read it"The contingent of 150 to 200 Marines, joined by over 100 French troops, unloaded machine guns, grenade launchers and bottles of Evian water"
And why is the US military paying for brand name mineral water? News from Yahoo.
Freelance Internet Marketer
That's what I am and this is my new website.Freelance-internet-marketer.com , it's as good a name as any other. Furthermore it may even help with the search engines and if only this was 1998 it would have a massive sell on value.
Getting it out of my system
Following a very long discussion last night I feel it necessary to point out to the world at large (not that it's reading) that.
The populations of Holland and NY State are similar.
The crime rates however are not. According to this Home Office Report (pdf download). Dutch police recorded just over 1m crimes in 1990, and just under 1.2m crimes in 2000. Included were around 230 murders a year.
While not exactly comparable this US Bureau of Justice Report notes that the murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate combined in New York dropped from over 2600 in 1990 to just under 1000 in 2000. A massive drop to be sure, but still about four times more dangerous than Holland in 2000.
The report also lists absolute totals for a number of offences. These too look broadly comparable when you sum the American ones and compare them with the Dutch. However... The US numbers exclude a vast range of non-violent crimes including drug related offences (possession, dealing etc). In absence of these figures its hard to say how much worse things are in NY state than the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but its certainly fair to say that NY is not somewhere with half the crime rate of Holland and given what I know about the place almost certainly spends much more money on crime prevention.
Moving on...
The US govt spends around 30% of national GDP and this has been increasing ever since the massive state spending required by WWII was abandoned. A good graph based on US national statistics is here. The rise seems to be about 0.25%. That said the level fell during the Clinton boom and rose during the Reagan one, I'm not sure there's much point trying to get anymore out of the numbers than a general upward trend.
This paper from the University of Florida looks at the correlations between the size of government and growth in GDP. Useful is a review of literature at the start which shows a debate evolving from a position of 'big government is unambigously bad' to a position of 'big government may be bad' to the rather interesting 'most governments are about the right size'. The authors of the paper in question think that state investment is good, but state consumption can be bad.
After much much much looking I found on the OECD website this spreadsheet looking at government spending as a percentage of GDP. At first glance the evidence is mixed to say the least. The long booms of Ireland and Portugal have been accompanied by a shrinking state (but you could argue they were sparked by a comparatively large one), while the equally spectacular boom in Korea has seen the state grow by more than 50% to just under 30% of GDP (which you could argue was facilitated by a small one).
Meanwhile the Dutch do have a big state (48%) but its not spectacularly large compared to places like Austria (51%), Denmark (56%) or Sweden (58%). Its also a lot smaller than it was in 1986 when the data starts (57%), and its about average for the EU. Perhaps Hollands current stagnation requires a good Keynesian shot in the arm.
Japan and America have similar sized states over the 20 year period covered, and enjoyed wildly different fortunes.
Cutting the size of the state might lead to economic growth, then again so might state investment, public works programs and the like. Is the state more efficient than companies? Well that's a long long long argument, but the growing discussions about missing markets and the like suggest that some things need state intervention if they're going to work properly, and it would be a fairly rabid right winger who'd suggest that universal unemployment benefit be replaced with unemployment insurance. (Take a look at the line at the dole queue, someone's going to insure the folks who've been there 20 years on the offchance they find a job and can pay premiums? - yeah right...)
Finally, this from the World Bank has statistics on India and China's state GDP as well as a general discussion of state size and it's fairly critical of centralised state spending. It was written before current reform attempts with 'third way' economics and the like. This on the other hand explains just how much it sucks to be poor in India where the state is small.
How much future prosperity should we forgoe to relieve present poverty? Is that really a ridiculous question?
Anyway, I feel much calmer now, and somewhat relieved that my worldview is more or less intact. Must be time to do some work.
Load of balls
Just a thought, but might St David of Beckham not be being entirely on the level in this article?Should probably check if the other players mentioned are signed up to Nike first.
The other body count
Writing in today's Guardian Naomi Klein points out that US rhetoric about the war is increasingly casting Americans and others as the 'victims' of the wars failures - we were lied to, is the cry. She points out that there is no official tally of civilian Iraqi dead but that the best available estimate is around 10 000.This is low. That estimate records people who died from bombs and bullets. In France, in the summer of 03 when US troops were starting their occupation of Baghdad the record heat killed an estimated 700 elderly people. Failures of air conditioning and emergency services were blamed. In Iraq the population was struggling along with intermittent power and a failing water supply in temperatures well in excess of those in France. Of course no-one had the means to even notice, much less count if something similar happened in Iraq, but I'll bet it did. And I bet in countless other small ways the traumatic dislocation of society that war causes has buried even more Iraqi's than the bombs and bullets did.
Its not about the soldiers, its about the people. A few weeks ago CNN tried to get this number, asking every official coalition figure they could, but they just got straight denials. "We don't have those numbers", or "We do keep track but I don't have those numbers and I wouldn't want to guess". Its not good enough.
More serious freelancing
With full time paid employment still some way away it may be time to take my freelance work more seriously. Step one then is to work out what it is I'd actually like people to pay me for, what I can do better than the competition and then build a website to promote it. I've had a quick trawl through the open directory for people doing similar things and while there are some out there I haven't found a decent looking site yet.No security
Riverbend has been having it especially tough in Baghdad lately. A member of her family was kidnapped and eventually ransomed. Read about it here.When you've read that read about the anniversary of the bombing of the Amiriyah Shelter in 1991, a Valentine from Bush senior to the Iraqi people
Surely these stories are newsworthy? When I look at the 24 hour press conference and soundbite coverage of Iraq and compare it to stuff like this its clear. Get your news from TV and expect to get a very narrow view.
Things to read
"In a simple small room with blue mattresses laid on the floor to sit on, Ayatollah Sistani, one of his sons and an assistant met a group of Sunni university professors, tribe leaders and dignitaries. During the 3 hour meeting not one single verse from the Quran was recited, he expressed his fear that federalism might lead to the fragmentation of Iraq and said that if the elections had to be delayed for legitimate reasons he will endorse the delay. My father came back from this meeting quite awed."Salaam Pax is writing consistently and well again, after months of disjointedness. It also seems his father is someone of note (not much, but enough to meet Sistani to talk about elections). Its hard to form an opinion about Sistani at the moment, so private is the man. His actions however seem to be reasonable so far and its just possible that this Imam might be the best hope Iraqi's have.
Rewind
I just reread this - Robin Cooks speech during the Iraq War debate. History has only proved him right. Funny how with all this talk of an eventual Blair Brown succession no-one mentions Cook as a contender anymore. I'll say it now, if Blair goes Brown won't walk it.Very Brief
A very brief history of the universe (although it gets a little local in scope at the end)Slowly coming back
Fencing last night was interesting. Partly because the club now have installed their lovely new electronic equipment. This gives six pistes with full electric fencing kit. I'm generally ambivelent about electric fencing but this is at least designed in a way that removes one major problem - the lights are positioned at either end of the piste rather than in the middle. This avoids everyone doing the 'I think I've hit/been hit turn round to look at the box' thing which always struck me as both looking odd and encouraging bad habits.Still, half way through my second fight my opponent paused to point out that 'you should try moving around a bit more'. He was right too. Years ago when I'd been doing this a lot I used to bound around the piste lack the energiser bunny on speed. For the last few weeks I've been remarkably flat footed. Suddenly all kinds of things came back to me, I scored some good hits and generally fenced rather well. Then in my next bout I got all carried away and gave up a lot of stupid points trying things I'm not sure I could ever do well.
Still, live and learn.
Online Strategy Games
Some friends of mine from Oxford have just launched Red Emperor, an online strategy game company.First game out is called Empires, and its a civilisation style game of diplomacy, conquest and development. The game works by sticking more or less to recorded history. The ancients period that is available at the moment is played over six ages each lasting seven turns. In a given age new empires rise up and are assigned to players. The players then guide their empire to the end of the age at which point it will either collapse, decline or continue. If your empire does anything other than continue you get one of the new ones appearing that age.
Hopefully the result will be that the map always looks vaguely plausible, and even if my current incarnation as ruler of Egypt were to see me enslave the mediteranean world by the end of age 3 the empire will be dust, swept away by those arriving in ages 2 and 3. I meanwhile will have abandoned Egypt for one of the upstart nations. Its a neat idea, but slightly weird. I played a playtest of a game which was a forerunner to this many many years ago, that was fun. This could be a lot of fun.
E-voting on hold
This was the verdict of the experts on the prototype SERVE electronic voting system the Pentagon built."Because the danger of successful, large-scale attacks is so great, we reluctantly recommend shutting down the development of SERVE immediately and not attempting anything like it in the future until both the Internet and the world's home computer infrastructure have been fundamentally redesigned, or some other unforeseen security breakthroughs appear,"
One suspects these experts were a touch annoyed not to have been asked in advance. You're also left wondering why Accenture (who built the thing) didn't realise this was the case sooner. Full story at the Register.
Shady doings
The Guardian have this piece about how the investigation into Sir Alex Fergusons private life has been conducted. If Magnier is as famously private as is usually claimed he's not going to enjoy a minute of the publicity he's getting over this. I mean Ferguson must know that half the country dislikes him, but he can rest assured that he's still got their respect, not to mention the adoration of 20% of the nation.Magnier on the other hand is probably finding himself lacking privacy or respect right now, the ironic result of his attempts to undermine Fergusons'. He's probably right to allege that football clubs could be run more transparently, but this isn't the right way to do things.
More Statistics
Some nice writing here on the use of statistics to argue about deaths from driving and the impact of speed cameras. Oddly those who think they should be allowed to drive *as fast as they like cause they're responsible* seem to be wrong when they say that speed cameras are dangerous.Grrr
I am sick and tired of reading about Janet Jackson not quite exposing herself for almost no time at all during the superbowl half time show. If people are upset by that they should be a damn sight more upset by the new Britney Spears video which MTV has just shown.But they're not. The whole things a mass of opportunism and media hype. Jackson and MTV are the main beneficiaries, closely followed by the faux moralists lining up to criticise.
Not too busy to surf
One has to assume Tony isn't too stressed at law school because he found World66, a handy thing that generates maps like thisYup. The ones in red are the ones I've been to (I think). And here's a rather less impressive map of the world...
The interesting one though is a test of the six degrees of separation theory. Here's a map showing all the countries for which I know at least one citizen reasonably well.
So notable gaps in Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia. That last one shouldn't be hard to deal with since I'm living in Holland where Indonesian immigrants abound. On the middle east front I used to live opposite the son of the Jordanian Ambassador, who was a nice guy, but it was many years ago and I don't think we'd recognise each other now. My 'friends in Africa' score just sucks though.
Libertarianism cont..
I've been picked up by www.crescatsententia.org part of who's argument I think I waded into yesterday. Or maybe the day before. At any rate its clear that when arguing with lawyers you should expect your paragraphs to be 'unpacked' . I think they're lawyers anyway, they describe themselves as"The brand of pseudo-intellectual pageantry practiced by the hitherto unnamed coterie of jackasses, otherwise known as Crescat Sententia, is a load of unconscionably boring and particularly malodorous [excrement]."
-Assprat Pretentia
which probably seemed a good idea at the time. Plus at least one of them went to the other place so I suppose we have to show some sympathy.
Still, Tony assures me they have readers so I should probably reply. I mean you lot didn't come here to read about Nolberto Solano did you? Crying shame. I suppose I should unpack their stuff till it's all over the floor....
"Firstly, a number of Libertarians (I'd wager it's the vast majority) certainly believe themselves capable of failure." Well yes, but that wasn't what I said, I said falling, to the safety net under discussion. The real question is not do you expect to get the job and the receptionists' phone number, but to spend a portion of your life long term unemployed, or disabled, or unwaged and caring for a sick parent. If you did you might consider 4-8k$ a little low. I mean the guys panhandling on the street probably clear $10 a day and that's nearly $4000 - (maybe they get a Christmas bonus).
Incidently living for $4k in America strikes me as pretty tough. I mean you're going to be homeless. I guess that's the point though, force the scrounging beggars to get a job. Lord knows they got themselves into this mess on purpose. Probably trying to pay for a drug habit they couldn't handle. Didn't they know drugs are only for responsible folk?
Still I'm probably playing the 'search for hidden assumptions game' there, which seems to be off limits. I apologise, that's the kind of argument I reserve for Screwtape.
And while I'm sure it is possible to hold down a drug habit and a job (crack whores manage it so I guess lawyers could too) I doubt its easy. I mean its bad enough looking at the productivity loss you get when your staff take fifteen minute smoking breaks, imagine your horror when your project manager explains that if he doesn't shoot up he won't make it through the day. You'd have to add it to risk analysis too, you know, chance that the lead programmer has a bad trip over the weekend and spends six months having his brain put back together (at who's expense?) or worse, comes into work anyway and starts pressing the buttons that 'just feel nice'.
Odd too that here in Holland, many of the social problems are down to excessive libertarianism. There's not a lot of poverty here, the safety net is as high as the taxes. Indeed despite being resolutely somewhere in the middle on most issues the Dutch have created a pretty impressive left wing state. I mean trains run on time, and so do the buses. There's little homelessness and almost no teenage pregnancy. Most of the crime stems from the almost legal drugs and their failure to properly integrate their immigrant populations. Not to mention the slave trade running through the libertarian paradise that is the red light district.
Which reminds me, the drug addict I talked to while waiting for the bus the other day (she spoke great English, everyone does) assured me that she wished to god the drug laws were stricter. She'd been on drugs for ten years.
Anyway, I'm rambling now. So lets leave it there. I'm sure someone will come along and unpack it.
Medievalism
OK, I can hardly claim that this is related to the Bush administration or anything else, but over in Georgia they're trying to ban the use of the word evolution in schools.If this passes just for one day I want to be fourteen years old and taking either biology or english in Georgia high school. Now its easy to see the fun you could have in biology but english...
"Miss, what does e v o l u t i o n spell?"
They should hand it over to Monty Python
Because nothing else could be as surreal as watching the BBC report on itself. The wierdness index peaked with the report on Greg Dyke speaking to senior journalists, delivered by BBC senior journalists who were reporting as if they hadn't been there.The guy on news 24 interviewing a crisis management consultant was pretty wierd. Right now the news is covering possible replacements for Dyke and Evans and doing a brilliant job of pretending they don't have a stake in the outcome.
If anyone ever doubted the BBC's commitment to honest and dispassionate reporting they should just watch this. Its amazing. As for Blair, this could end up being a huge pyrrhric victory.
See?
Good grief
Tony has gotten involved in a debate about libertarianism, liberalism, conservatism and god knows what else. It's too much not to get involved.Original article
Then this
Then this
Libertarians may be fun, but they shouldn't be allowed to run countries. People who don't believe in safety nets also tend to believe that they themselves will never fall. Likewise those who believe they should be allowed to ingest anything they damn well please also tend to believe that they won't be the ones mugging grannies to pay for it.
Conservatives shouldn't be allowed to run countries because they believe that while people do fall there's an invisible hand waiting to catch them.* Liberals and the moderate left are fine though, plus you can take them home to meet your parents.
Incidently has anyone else noticed the medievalism creeping into some Republican thought, someone will be talking about the deserving and undeserving poor soon.
* The reason you never see the invisible hand is because it ususally isn't there - Joseph Stiglitz
Still an imperfect market
The transfer market in the premiership still seems to be supremely dysfuntional. In the last week my club (I own them, no really) Newcastle United have sold two players.One was Carl Cort, who we sold to Wolves for £2m. Cort is young, and was once reckoned to be the next big thing. So much so that three years ago we gave Wimbledon £7m for him. He's been injured almost ever since and has only played a handful of games.
The other was Nolberto Solano, who's captain of Peru, one of the most accurate crossers of the ball in the Premiership and a dab hand at free kicks and corners. He's also never been in trouble, rarely gets booksed, scores the odd goal and is generally a midfielder that most of the league would like to have. It seems we're selling him to Aston Villa.
He will also cost £2m, which seems like a bargain.
My suspicion is that either there isn't actually a 'market for players' at all, just a lot of individual markets 'the supply and demand for Carl Cort' rather than 'The supply and demand for strikers' or that the individual circumstances of buyers and sellers are disrupting the market no end.
Meanwhile the ever on the money nufc.com have just put up a tribute to 'wor Nobby' as he was known
158 league starts, 14 as sub, 29 goals.
19 FA Cup starts, 2 goals.
10 League Cup starts, 2 as sub.
26 European starts, 4 as sub, 7 goals.
Thats a fantastic record for a midfielder. If all ours performed that well we'd have won something by now.
I'm dreaming of a January Christmas
Because if we had January Christmas' then so many more of them would be white. Yesterday it snowed in my home town of Newcastle (and for about an hour in Amsterdam) today I woke up to snow covered roofs and a clear winter sky. Exactly the weather Tony is wishing for in New York I think.Sheesh
"Hi, Martin:Since Blogger seems to have introduced Atom feeds, can you turn yours on? I'd like to syndicate your site."
Expect me to be syndicated soon at Three years of hell. (to become the devil)
Give me my sociology degree!
Shamelessly pillaged from Three Years of Hell is this wonderful link. (press refresh to see why) Now all that stands between me and late night arts punditry is a machine capable of generating answers that would fool the panel of the late review. Tony Parsons and Germaine Greer, your time has come!Investors in Spaaaaaaaace
Dubya might want to go to Mars, but one American is already ahead of him. Elon Musk has been planning on making the trip for a while, and even though the initial goal of his firm is simply to dominate the satelite launching business one of his long term dreams is to get to Mars. The company he's set up to do this is called SpaceXI met Elon at business school (he was talking, I was listening) and asked him why, did he just wake up one day and decide 'rockets, thats the thing for me!'. Turns out he did, he always liked rockets when he was a kid and now he's a billionaire - Elon owned Paypal until it was bought by E-bay - he wants to build rockets.
Now while Elon has a cool name and a rocket I'm pretty sure he's not a bond villain. Still, the fact that he has these things means someone might be.
Oh, the thing that got me thinking about this was Dana Blakenhorns excellent a-clue.com newsletter. Read it regularly.
Fun toys
A link shamelessly pirated from the worlds only Google Consultant is this one for Good Keywords, a handy tool from Softnik Technologies.Just as good programmers will usually handful of preferred aps and bits of freeware that they use to get through the day a savvy internet marketeer should have his or her own tools to make sense of environment or fine tune their executions. This is one such tool, if you're engaged in keyword optimisation I'd highly recommend having a play with it.
Web Traffic is not normally distributed
A little more work and the return from her daily slog of my better and more mathematically gifted other half has confirmed that web traffic is not normally distributed. Or at least the sample I've got in front of me relating to four months of data is not normally distributed.The site follows a pattern you see on most B2B websites (and a lot of B2C ones) in having a big slump in traffic every weekend.
**drat** Just noticed that the traffic almost halves in November and December from it's earlier levels. Have to see if this is genuine (unlikely) or down to a change in how the logs were taken or the site was designed... Still, I don't think web traffic is normally distributed...
Is web traffic normally distributed?
I've broken out MBA textbooks and software to apply some serious analysis to web traffic. My opening data set is about 4 months of traffic from my old employers website, and to add some punch to my analysis I can rely on the excellent Web Abacus tool to manipulate the data.So, is it normally distributed? This is the first question I need to answer if I'm going to be able to apply sensible analysis to web traffic. So far the answer is irritatingly negative. Despite drawing two graphs that look pretty normal to me (for visits and visitors) and one that doesn't (for page impressions) the p-value for all three (which tells me how normal they are) remains stubbornly 0.00.
Next up I'm going to try the following tests.
What happens if I ignore weekends?
Update : This makes very little difference. Both weekend and weekday traffic is not normally distributed.
What happens if I do each day separately?
Update : Friday traffic might have been, saturday and thursday traffic wasn't though.
What happens if I strip out traffic from spiders and other robots?
Update : Now we're getting somewhere! And once we threw away weekend traffic we could conclude that traffic was normally distributed during weekdays in November.
Right, time for lunch and when I come back I'm going to try and turn these results into something more useful and better supported...
Good things happening
At the Said Business School website a project I was involved in a while back has seen the light of day. The 'Experience an Open Day' page and its associated 'Experience a lecture' stuff are intended to take some of the great things that go on inside the business school and show them on the outside.This is one of the best ways to sell a company to anyone, show them what it's really like and teach them about it. Of course it's much more effective if your company is good, and a waste of time if your company is bad. Still, bad companies can't be fixed by marketing so there you go. The key though is that there are many good companies supplying most products, MBA students can choose between at least 50 top flight MBA's all offering similar levels of education and networking opportuities. Very few business schools choose to open themselves up though, in taking these first steps Oxford has become more open than most. The hope now is that they can do more and become the most open school in the world.
If they do that, applications, funding and so on will be no problem at all.
Jobs a good un
One of my old clients has just picked up an award for delivering great customer service. Its not unexpected though, BSH are a great example of an organisation that is completely focused on delivering what its supposed to. From a well run call centre to an SAP system that employees are happy to work with the company is relentlessly efficient and customer focused.When I was working with them they talked about their success rates in dealing with first time enquiries. They said they weren't going to discuss them in public as rival providers would simply fudge their figures to look competitive. Their strategy was to wait untill the industry / consumers noticed for themselves how much better they were.
I guess that's happened now.
Dean knifed in Iowa
Have you ever been to a political conference? I have, it was the NUS conference of 1995 or 6, I forget. Anyway as some folks are all too aware there are few places more viscious than the political arena. It's populated by cold and ruthless men who have learned that a smile is something you put on in the morning. That conference, in '96 was about the death of the student ultra left (communists and co) and the ascension of new labour. In some small way I was putting the boot in for the moderates. I was idealistic about it too, damn militants.So Dean has lost Iowa. He lost for a bunch of reasons, but he didn't lose by as much as people think, and he was the victim of his own negative campaigning. See Dean killed Gephardt, killed him stone dead, but in any system that has second preference voting the dead get a second chance and they can use it to drag you down with them. That it seems is what Gephardt did, the observers blogging at Daily Kos report that Gephardts' followers stonewalled Dean supporters as soon as they saw their man on the ropes and decided to use their second life to bury the man who killed them. Its viscious, but its predictable, but only Dick Gephardt and his friends won't have been surprised by it.
Meanwhile the Kerry and Edwards folks both thought they were drowning, fighting for survival, so when they knew they were in trouble in a given caucus they did the only thing that made sense to them and helped the other drowning man swim to safety. Result, well you can read about it in the papers.
Deans' ultra smart organisation seems to have not thought hard enough or long enough about the game, the rules within which this stuff gets settled. A while ago they started 'using the hill' pushing down on candidates behind them. They should have realised that when you push someone you give him a chance to grab hold and take you down with him.
So Dean has been knifed and his nascent campaign have been given a much needed baptism of fire. If they survive and win this will have done them a lot of good. If they don't well, politics has always been a bloodsport and I guess I'll have to find another fox to support.
Nelly vs the Cure,score draw
Rap star Nelly's new single is brought to you over the Cure's 'Lovecats'. Now in the past some rap tracks have done this kind of thing and delivered. The only good thing Puff Daddy ever did involved ripping off Led Zeppelin, Eminem made Dido famous by sampling her on Stan (Which was miles better than anything she ever came up with). This however does not deliver, and while it does get going occasionally - like when Nelly shuts up and a woman takes over the microphone - it basically sucks.Ah well. At least MTV makes a change from CNN.
With friends like this...
Even I don't believe this critique of the Bush administration from Salon. (click through the ads to read). Retarding the economy deliberately to keep wages low... thats a real conspiracy theory.End of a liberation?
Riverbend is not happy. The Iraqi governing council has just decreed that family law in Iraq will henceforth be Sharia law. Claims that Iraq is going to end up with a secular state are looking increasingly ridiculous.A few years ago I went to Tunisia, which thanks to a post WWII socialist president (who subsequently became a dictator) is a remarkably liberal islamic country. Teenage couples wander around openly in major cities (she will always be wearing long trousers / jeans though) the economy is doing well and those who want to wear a veil do. I don't know much about Tunisia but I get the feeling that their democratic failings aside they're probably the kind of model people should be aiming for with Iraq.
Also from the Iraqi blogs comes Salaams account of inflation. This was a major feature of my MBA Macroeconomics course, our Israeli professor apparently having been scarred for life by hyperinflation in Israel. That was a while ago though, so he got the guy who used to run Argentinas' economy to come talk to us about inflation instead.
The bizarre thing in Iraq is that at the moment they're technically deflating the dinar. It's rising against the dollar at pace. However no-one uses Dinar's they all keep money as dollars. Prices however are in Dinars so a strong Dinar means more dollars to pay for the same thing = inflation. I have no idea how this plays out, but if inflation takes hold in Iraq things are going to be very bad on a macroeconomic level for some time.
What they really mean
Ever wondered what political ads are really trying to say, what the real message behind all the policy wonkery is?Bush in 41.2 seconds (video download)
Features strong language and parody.
Update : Just to keep this non-partisan (who am I kidding) Mark Fiore's latest cartoon is a nice take on the Democratic Primary.
Iowa located
All this fuss about the Iowa primary has lead to me finally finding out where the place is. Its towards the top, in the middle, a bit to the right. That puts it above Kansas and to the west of Illinois.I suspect its one of the 15 or so states I haven't been to. Before anyone reading this gets all excited about me now knowing where things are get out a map and point to Groningen, go on!
Daft but fun
There are all kinds of reasons why this kind of market shouldn't work - and I'm not sure that they do. Still, oodles of pointless graphs and speculation.Web Statistics
Following up on yesterdays post about Deming I have begun combing the web for examples of people who have applied statistical techniques to web traffic. Most of what I've found is about estimating the loads on servers and capacity planning, typically at a scale far beyond what I'm interested in.However over at Useit.com I found a Jakob Nielsen column on the application of regressions and standard deviation to traffic analysis. Since this is the first thing I'm planning on doing in these experiments it makes encouraging reading.
Another thing I wish I'd read before last weeks job interview is this piece on six sigma standards for the web. While Jakob is comparing apples and oranges here when he moans that the web is 100 000 times less efficient than six sigma there are useful ideas in it.
If he was being a little more honest he'd note that six sigma relates to processes, specifically repetitive ones in industrial environments. Making it as easy to buy something on an e-commerce store as it is to put the round object in the round hole on the assembly line is a worthy goal, but not a useful one.
Kill Clare
Clare Short should of course have resigned over the Iraq war like she was supposed to, but she didn't. Since shes now heading the resistance to top up fees in universities and one imagines getting ready to lay into the Prime Minister over the Hutton report that may yet turn out to be a good thing.Which probably explains why the Sun have decided to mount a hate campaign against her. As gutter politics goes this is exceeded only by the sewer journalism that accompanies it. Tim has more... (archived here)
Kill Bill
Quentin Tarantino loves music. He likes songs. That's why his soundtracks are the best in the business. Kill Bill opens with black and white credits set to Nancy Sinatra's 'Bang Bang', all of it. Not the bit that fades in and then goes away, or the bit that gets drowned out at the end by the first dialogue, all of it. Tarantino lets the music he uses breathe, which is why it comes to be so closely associated with the film and becomes so very very popular. Little Green Bag defined Reservoir Dogs, and songs like 'Son of a Preacher Man' and 'Bustin Surfoboards' by The Surf Tornadoes (it's that instrumental surf guitar one) defined Pulp fiction. Kill Bill Chapter 1 is defined by the Nancy Sinatra song and whatever rock and roll songs the Japanese punk band were playing. They rocked.So right from the off with it's inconic soundtrack and pulpy credits this is a Tarantino film. It's even got Uma Thurman in it, this time with natural blonde hair. The plot is pretty simple, once upon a time Thurman's nameless character was part of 'The Deadly Viper Assasination Squad', an all female assasination squad comprising protoges of the titular Bill. At some point Thurman's character got pregnant and engaged. The wedding however was interrupted by the rest of the squad who killed the whole wedding party and (they thought) the bride, their motivations are unknown. However Thurman (henceforth 'The Bride') lived and is now set on exacting a bloody revenge.
The rest of the film is fights linked together by flashbacks. The flashbacks are good, explaining the history of each of the Deadly Vipers and what has happened since the Brides' wedding. In an acknowledgement of the films comic book origins one is even produced as anime. The fights are better though, especially since guns are out and Samurai swords are in.
The pick of the bunch is the 'Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves' (it's all a bit Sergio Leone) where the Bride cuts down one by one the lieutenants of Lo Ren. There is no music, no soundtrack and the fights are all over very very quickly without acrobatics or gymnastics. The tension and drama are incredible. Then there is an absolutely enormous, heavily soundtracked fight, which is fun, but less good. Oddly enough the final outcome reminds me of the ending of Robin and Marion but there you go.
According to the website the fight choreography was by Master Yuen, who is also responsible for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Matrix and a number of early Jacky Chan films. I suspect he wasn't involved in the last two Matrix films, which were ruined by laboured action sequences and a lack of imagination. This film shows just what is possible with the genre.
Kill Bill chapter one is a fantastic film if you like this kind of thing. Namely Samurai swords, stylish fights, excessive amounts of fake blood, great dialogue and a kick ass soundtrack. See it soon.
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