| TLDR; Shit stuff is shit, but other stuff, totes good. |
[Dec. 1st, 2009|08:41 pm] |
So, last week I took two days off work to go to the State of the Industry conference, my first academic conference evers. The industry in question was the Cultural Research "Industry", with a particular focus on early career academics, and post-graduates. I think it was a good conference, covered a lot of good ground and kind of made me hopeful about my place in academia (or lack thereof), and my place in the world. A lot of the sessions had time allocated for participation, which is always an invitation for people to make long winded and thoroughly dull speeches about things very particular to them that I couldn't really give a shit about. I don't know what it is about boring, long winded annoy-o-bots that makes them so self-important that they think that everyone is interested in their stupid lives. They always manage to infect any and every public forum. I remember years ago a public forum on the Environment (presented by New Scientist magazine) (I went to this and so did Frances, but we did not know each other then!) and some crazy lunatic decided it was the perfect opportunity to offer his crackpot tinfoil hat biodome solution to Climate Change. He was thankfully shouted down, after some time. Anyway. There was nothing so bad as that at the conference. A surprising amount of pedagogical passive-aggressiveness though. I don't know if it's just this discipline or whether it's universal. I find people generally to be repulsive stinkflesh things, so to be consistent I'm going to go with it being universal.
The other surprising thing was how dull public speakers can be. It's not that what they're talking about is necessarily dull, but the delivery is so horribly monotone. How can I expect to be excited by your research if you're not? And only say something once! Crap, so much repetition from so many people who should know better! I don't even remember what these people were talking about. Someone asked me yesterday, "What was x's presentation like?". I didn't really know.
On the other hand, problematic as it may be (seriously, you call yourself a Marxist and yet you work for Intel?), the keynote from anthropologist Genevieve Bell was just what I needed. It was good to hear someone who thought that cultural studies has important, 'real world' applications (which, despite my protestations to the contrary, I actually agree with (well, except for the fact that a lot of cultural studies is useless shite)), and that one could find a career outside the academy. She also notably flagged some local issues which have been horribly neglected, for different reasons (e.g The Intervention, the National Broadband Network (Crazy thing here, while the USA is debating having a public option in health care, Australia i having a debate about universal Internets!). Because I'm a privileged racist fucktard, the Intervention is only very recently come into my horizon - and Bell is spot on for labelling the lack of critical public engagement with this as a moral failing. Anyway, I think this was the best speaker of the conference, in most part due to her enthusiasm for the field being the libidinal bribe that got me to accept (at the time) the aspects of the content I found... disturbing. Mostly disturbing was the implicit(?) notion that we can sell our skills as cultural theorists to corporations on the basis that we can help them sell more of... whatever it is they sell. I find the idea very troubling that by giving the theoritical tools that cultural studies / critical theory has developed, we might simply be enabling, even strengthening, the very processes of power/privilege/oppression that the tools were meant to engage with (and destroy!). I don't think there's anything necessarily hypocritical about this (a while ago I asked this question... somewhere... "Is it possible to be right-wing and do cultural studies?" and was told by one fellow, that cultural studies necessarily interrupts the logic of conservatism, so, no. But I respectfully disagree!) - for the same reason one can be a Marxist (i.e accept Marx's deconstruction of capitalism) and a capitalist, it's just that you have to be okay with exploitation. Which I am! Everything is oh. kay. *sigh*
I have the feeling that as cultural theorists we don't take our theory seriously enough. If we did, I think the idea of applying these ideas in certain circumstances would be subjected to far greater scrutiny than it is. Or perhaps I have no idea, but my impression from other "elders" at the conference was that we (as early career people/PGs) should embrace the world beyond the academy. If we don't think our ideas can have that kind of impact, then what the fuck are we doing pussyfooting around with them?
The least enjoyable part of the conference, besides overeating on the delicious vegetarian/vegan lunches (whoever came up with the idea of just having no meat is a fucking hero), was the snarky dismissive and ignorant remarks from PG students. Mostly this was the least enjoyable part because as a PG I feel that if someone is going to speak up to "represent" PGs, they should STFU and GTFO if what they're about to say is a) dismissive of the work of existing academics and b) whinewhinewhine. You know what? The only reason you need to be concerned about not getting a good academic job is if you're shit. Eat it. Chew on it. Digest it. Shit it out and Eat it again. If you're shit and you write about shit and no one gives a fuck about the shit you're writing about, don't fucking expect the community to fork out for you so you can spend your time on whatever makes you hard and/or wet. If you're doing relevant, important and accessible work, you'll get a job. You might not get that job at the institution you want, but tought. Honestly. Get over the fucking self-entitlement. Especially in a field like cultural studies, check your privilege. The fact you're here, at a conference. That's privilege. You see, if you're an apprentice mechanic, you ain't gonna get funding to go to an apprentice mechanics industry conference. Well, probably not. Anyway. I don't know. You might have to use your skills in a job you don't like. Just sayin'.
That was the annoying part of the conference.
The best part of the conference was coming out of it feeling more connected to the field. Feeling like there are good and interesting people in the field doing good and interesting work. And that there is a career path to me that isn't academic, and that's good and valuable. Even though I tend to shit all over cultural studies, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was important and producing good results, and the conference helped shine a beacon of hope and
future over all the shit I had shat. Mad props to the orgs, And I totes happy.
The one thing I felt was missing (and I'm not sure of the particular reason for this) was input from general staff (people like me!). From working in the School office for nine months now I see a lot of room for improvement in the relations between academic and general staff, and not just in terms that prejudice might expect ('academic staff treat general staff like stupid peons!' - In my experience for the most part this isn't even remotely the case). Rather, the part of the relationship I think could do with improving is the attitude of general staff towards academic staff, students and especially tutors/postgrads. And it isn't so much a case of them being perceived as an annoyance. Just the sense that the commitment to the specific intellectual project(s) that the school is involved in is lacking, as if the job would be done pretty much the same regardless of the sector it was in, banking, teleco customer service, whatevs. This is kind of vaguely addressed by the new University Branding exercise, trying to articulate a common vision of the University and so on, but like anything that Marketing and Brand Management people, in any industry, get their hands on, it's SHIT fucking SHIT. But that's besides the point. I think my point is that general staff a) could have gained a greater appreciation of the issues that academic staff and students have and b) the services offered / services required, in the context of the conference, could have been valuable (for example, there was a few mentions of Research Officers not being aware of how they could better facilitate ECR/PG needs/expectations, PGs/Tutors seem to be unaware of the services we can offer them, or unable to articulate their needs, or when they do articulate their needs the resulting action doesn't seem to make any sense (e.g We need more space for tutoring! = Kristian has to tidy the existing space?!)). And all that kind of stuff that will get me fired if I go into more detail. Anyway, given I've never given a shit about a job before (well, except in the negative sense of caring about my previous job(s) in that it's an opportunity to distrupt), I should probably /rant now.
In the cool tradition of the K-Man, this post receives no attention or review for mistakes and or accidental accusations that Tony Abbott may or may not be a chicken fornicator.
Clouds are blowing in front of the full moon. There is too much plate glass in this house and abandoned railways out the back and reflections of me in the plate glass. |
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[Oct. 26th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
Here is a memory. The curve of the road just past Poisoned Waterholes Creek, and a cluster of gums around a picnic area and a tiny bridge over a dry creek. I'm somewhere, on the way onto the Hay plains. Out on the Hay plains it is so flat that when night comes you don't look up to the stars, you look across at them. And it is so dark that you cannot see the ground, so you are in darkness among stars. They call it Poisoned Waterholes creek because, legend has it - no one is so sure anymore of the details - a farmer, tired of the presence of a local Aboriginal group, poured barrels of some unidentified poison into their water holes, killing most and forcing the rest elsewhere... where they were promptly rounded up and shot. They call that place Massacre island now. Everyone was killed except for a lone man, who used a water reed and lay in the bloody waters of the river until the murders were gone. He floated down the Murumbidgee River and was taken in by a farmers daughter, who cared for him and they eventually married.
Things are grim when children are pulling the bones straight out of beggars.
I only learnt this years ago but nonetheless, there is a size of space so minute that it is unbridgeable, nothing can move in small enough amounts to move across it. You're either on one side, or the other side. It's called a quantum leap, because it is a leap the size of one quanta, the smallest possible distance. This is the informed irony of the common saying "The Internet presents a quantum leap in media technologies", an accidental trut that nothing changes. It also means that technically speaking, we never quite touch. As things go, we're fundamentally separated. Fortunuately, the good Lord Above has equipped us with a phenomenologicall understanding of the state of the world. So long as it feels connected, it is. Esse est percipi.
You would think that a place called Poisoned Waterholes Creek would be a terrible place for a picnic, it probably is, especially when it's forty degrees outside and you're in a 1983 Corona, with a malfunctioning radio, no air-conditioning. The radio is somehow tuned into the engine, so the static rises and falls in pitch in time with the revolutions of the mechanical things that are best left misunderstood. I don't think anyone takes a picnic at Poisoned Waterholes Creek. But I could be wrong, it's the most feature packed location between Narrandera and the two and something hours until Hay. I've stayed in Hay at least four times in my life, driving my car to Adelaide, windows down and big sky. Hay is almost precisely halfway between Sydney and Adelaide along the Sturt Highway. I stay at the Cobb Inlander Motel. The greatest thing about Western New South Wales is the complete lack of anything interesting. And by interesting I mean, mountains, exciting forests and piles of large rocks. Take a look at the Mid Western Highway on GoogleEarth. It's a patchwork of boredom.
Goolgowi is the kind of inexplicable town that seems to exist in the middle of nowhere, servicing a round-about that indicates the intersection of two roads. It is 2001 and it is here that I see the children. In country towns, when two important roads intersect, everyone takes the time to cut corners, so that there always dusty dirty edges to the roads, with pot holes and puddles after it's rained, which it never does. I don't know why they do this in the country, haven't they got more time, more time to take the corners? A big truck and trailer is parked in the dirt. The children are pulling at an old man's legs. He is in an oversized coat, his skin is dark from dirt and human filth. He has a beard, a hat and a leather bag. His pants are black, the soles of his feet are black. The children are pulling hard on his legs, there are four of them, and he is holding firm onto a signpost. Then I see them push their tiny child fingers beneath the skin of his feet, through the cracked skin. Their little hands wiggle into the fresh of the old fellow, eight little hands in two big old filthy feet. They grab the bones of his legs and pull them out. They run in circles with the bones in their hands. And then they club the jelly-legged beggar to death with those bones of his.
Nobody ever stops in Goolgowi, everyone sees that beggar and keeps driving on, like I did, always wondering how he got stuck there after the lights went out. |
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| Ethics of Listening? You has none! |
[Oct. 25th, 2009|06:05 pm] |
[Apparently there are lots of errors in this entry. I'm too tired and can't be bothered proof reading. You'll figure it out]
I had my presentation a couple of days ago. It seemed to go okay, and by that, I mean neither terrible nor great. I find presentations to be pretty awful fucking experiences and the two beta-blockers seemed to help aleviate at least some parts of the experience. I really doubt the use of all kinds of class presentations, particularly to certain types of people, like myself, who find the whole experience thoroughly traumatising, and there are people who's experience is far worse than mine. Doing these presentations seem to be all part of the expectations of why you would do Postgraduate study in the first place - as a training place for future academics. It's probably true for a lot of the students, but not really for me, a career in academia would be very difficult for me. I find that my passion for anything is very limited, having to be interested in something for the rest of my life seems like a pretty dire future. This might be some of the reason I find presentations troublesome is that they require you to speak about the same subject for a length of time. Generally speaking if someone talks at me non-stop for more than five minutes on a subject with some level of passion I pretty much assume they're mentally unstable. So, if you're not looking for a career in academia, seminar presentations just seem to be a form of sadism.
So, my presentation went okay. I was spot on for time, slipped on a few words, managed to not read straight off my paper, confused a few people. Afterwards there was a "discussion" period. The discussion period essentially is the time in which a set of other Postgraduate students attempts to prove how awesome they are while highlighting presumed areas of ignorance of the presenters. I didn't get this too badly, though one fool gave me sass and called my not talking about race unethical. I saw the same person do the same thing to someone at the beginning of the year. A discussion of race isn't necessarily going to bring any new knowledge to the field, though it may well do, but I think the assumption that every catergory, particularly the big three of race, class, gender, needs to be fully addressed in each situation is potentially counter-productive and disingenuous. And if you want to go down that path, why limit yourself to the privileged big three? This kind of repeated call for a researcher to address Race! Capitalism! just strikes me as an attempt to catch people out.
So, to the foosl who ask the same freakin' questions of everyone at these seminars, I am sorry for not explicitly stating the billion different permutations of Feminism in my discussion of ethics. And thank you, because prior to day, I'd never heard of them! That's right, in the three years I did gender and cultural studies, I NEVER FUCKING EVER HEARD OF THIS SHIT. I MEAN WE MAY HAVE DONE THE SAME DEGREE AT THE SAME UNIVERSITY AND GOT THE SAME GRADES BUT SOMEHOW I NEVER GOT THAT MEMO, THANK FUCK THERE ARE ULTRA DUDES LIKE YOU AROUND TO HELP ME OUT WITH THESE BASIC CONCEPTS!
Okay, just had to vent.
Actually, I'm more annoyed as to what happened to the second speaker (which I've seen happen at other seminars). Not that anyone savaged her or anything, but I was really pissed off at how oblivious everyone seemed to be at her discomfort. Everyone wanted to publicly quiz her about "Oh have you heard of this theory... or this theory..." and, no, she hadn't. It appeared obvious to me that she was anxious during her presentation and then more anxious at these types questions, but no-one seemed to care. Everyone just wanted to publicly make sure that she knew that they knew more than her. The only person who said anything of worth was my fuckingawesome supervisor, who rather than demand that the presenter SAYS MORE THEORISTS NAMES FAP! FAP! FAP!, made an actually useful and positive insight into the work, which at the same time, was kind of a slap in the face of all the dumb questions.
ANYWAY. Despite all that, it went well, it seemed a few people failed to get the meaning of Ethical that I was trying to get across. This was mostly my fault I guess, I'd removed all the examples I was going to give to save time, and had assumed that everyone in the room would be at least vaguely familiar with Kant (in fact my greatest fear was they would know more Kant than I and get all up in my face about my simplistic presentation!). I only failed to speak actual words a couple of times and only confused myself once or twice. Glad like fuck it's over though! I am oddly looking forward to my next one, which I might not even have to do if I get it all done in time. It'll be called "Did somebody say Patriarchy?". |
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[Oct. 14th, 2009|10:59 pm] |
Just finished watching Juno. It was sappy but lovely. I bawled.
Here are some other movies that have had a similar affect:
Dan in Real Life
Freaky Friday
The Hulk (Ed Norton Version) |
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| I'm sick of these Motherfuckin' Mysteries in my Motherfuckin' Letter Box |
[Oct. 8th, 2009|08:28 pm] |
I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks, but circumstances were such that I never really got around to it, besides, it's no big deal right? Just a regular moment wherein you and yours are momentarily thrust into a surreal event. There isn't actually much to say, this introduction is mostly just padding.
It all began one sunny Sunday morning when Frances (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) eclipsedeyes) Marlaina (rushofsun) and myself were on our way to the Marrickville/Addison road markets, which is our regular sunday morning stop for coffee, gozleme, cakes and vegetables! Marlaina, who is a steely eyed magpie girl, spotted something in our letter box. It was a little toy with a note wrapped around it that said "OPEN" and two arrows pointing down.
This is the toy. It's a McDonalds toy. We wondered what it was! Why was it here!
Then we opened it, and were amazed by what we found inside. Wet balls of strange purple. Images below were taken sometime after the event. Frances has on the spot photos on her phone, but she's in America right now.
We were delighted. What a lovely random prize we thought. We touched the balls. They were wet and cold and soft, squidgy. We wondered what to do. Taking heed from our monkey ancestors, our first reaction was to attempt to eat them. Marlaina was volunteered to lick one of them. It crumbled in her fingers, but she still managed a taste. It had no taste. We touched them a few more times and the decided to keep them in the fridge, for safety, incase they were the balls that they used in that movie about Alcatraz, with Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery.
We walked to the markets excited and curious. Who had left this for us? Was it a mistake? Was it random? Who was it meant for? What were the balls made of, so wet and cold and reflective, like glass!
So they remained in our fridge for sometime.
Until today. Until today when we had cause to return to our first gift. Because.
Because of the arrival of what appears to be a second gift.
Because of the arrival of what might be called.
A reign of Terror.
I had just arrived home and taken the mail into our flat and started slicing some bread for dinner. Then I hear the jumbling of keys. Oh, you've probably already skipped to the pictures! Marlaina comes in with a strange object in her hand. What the hell is it, I wondered. And then I see what it is. I think the conversation when like this:
Me: What.
M: !!!!!
Me: What the fuck is that.
M: The fuck!
Me: & M: Hoooooooly SHEEEEEEEET.
Me: What the shit fuck
M: FUCK!
Me: It's a fucking...
( The Second Gift. Ladies and dandy fellows look away! ) |
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[Oct. 4th, 2009|03:26 pm] |
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If I were to live the rest of my life feeling just one emotion it would be the subtle hope of cheap motel room after a long drive through the desert, with the sunset just gone and the clouds running purple through grey. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 7th, 2009|07:33 pm] |
Booked flights.
Sydney -> LA 19th March 2010
LA -> Sydney 21 April 2010
$1229 return.
Yes! |
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[Aug. 21st, 2009|11:59 am] |
This is pretty enormous and will make the previous two trips will seem like a mere sunday drive. 9800km in 30 days. The Southwest is pretty easy as I've done that twice now. The east is a mystery of potential boredom. The middle is where we'll hopefully make up a lot of time by just driving straight and hard for many hours a day.
USA Roadtrip 2010 Draft #1 |
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[Aug. 13th, 2009|10:48 pm] |
Tasmania!
The mere sight word itself conjures up a horrific and violent past; genocide, convict mutiny slaughters, environmental destruction, mass extinctions, roads lined with the bodies of victims. In Tasmania, the rivers would run red with blood if they weren't already running orange with some kind of ore run-off from the copper mines. "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Despair indeed, Ozymanias, despair indeed. So it was no surprise then when we arrived in Hobart, the capital city, home to, among others, the legendary Thomas Greenway and inspiration for Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, that we would find this:
And indicator of things to come. The voice of Tasmania had spoken, and it spoken well.
We ran out of the cavernous Hobart International Airport and collected our hire car, warying all the way of the street bashings that seemed at once omniscient and altogether hidden. We drove for what seemed like hours towards the tiny coast town of Strahan, some sixteen thousand kilometres away across desert and forest. We counted logging trucks, shipping wood to the giant coffin factories that turned the village of New Norfolk from a desolate inbred disco into the home of the annual international Undertakers Convention. New Norfolk was the town you drove into drunk and left sober and married to your cloned child. We stopped in for a coffee in the cafe, the kind of country cafe where the cappucino is served with a whole unsatisfactory fuzzy and aerated foam. I don't know how they do it, but rural Australia seems to have been taught the coffee trade by travelling Frenchmen, which is the only plausible explanation for rural Australia and the Paris, France having the same shitty coffee. But besides! On the other hand, the vegetarian meal - a toasted cheese, tomato and onion sandwich was a revelation. I had never expected that the classic cheese and tomato could be made more excellent by the simple addition of onion, but there it was, glorious and satisfying to this urbane bourgeois tummy. I did delight, I did. Though, to make matters worse, today, I ate from the University Campus, what can only be described as a negative cheese and tomato toasted sandwich. It was the reverse of everything that is good about the toasted tomato and cheese sandwich.
We left New Norfolk, which was incidentally served briefly as the Island State's capital city, and drove into the wilderness. Beautiful sun and shadows of running sheep families across green hills and trees that they somehow forgot to log. Then the landscape changed, suddenly up and into the mountains, trees thickened and arched across the road, oh, faithful lands! What a lovely place, with your canopy and ferns. And roadkill. Did I mention the roadkill? They sold roadkill recipe books in the National Parks stores. They really did. We debated monetarily the ethics of vegetarians like us eating roadkill. We settled on the decision that regardless, roadkill is gross and nobody but fools wants to eat road food. Somehow this seal got hit by a motor vehicle, most probably a logging truck. God knows what it was doing four hundred kilometres from the sea.
Anyway, we cooked it up and served it with a sweet compote of twigs and insect guts.
In a few hours we'd crossed beautiful landscape. The hills had turned to mountains and rugged alpine swamps and distances. In Tasmania, they play tricks on you. It is a well known fact, for example, that the entire Brand Management Schemes of '37 were thought up by the logging companies. The first step is to change your name. Forestry Tasmania is a great name for a logging company, because it makes you not think it's prime directive is to cut down forests. The second step is to ensure that a narrow strip of trees separates the bourgeoisie from the brutal reality of the proletariat. So sometimes when you drive past a logging truck you'll look out the window of your motor car as it glides down the smooth mountain highways and you'll catch a glimpse of the apocalypse. This curtain of forest protects us from what we require for our own lives to persist. Indeed, the curtain is not only the biological manifestation of Marketing (making hidden the reality of the product), but it is the division between the rural and the urban. The contradiction between Urban and the Rural (or Town and Country) is the foundation for the absolute contradiction in Capitalism (Marx & Engels, The German Ideology, A long time ago). We can see in the continuing antagonism between what the French might refer to as the Urbanè et le Ruralè. But more over, the antagonism between the proletariate (those who log) and the bourgeiose (those who drive to National Parks on their holidays and live off the proceeds of the logging). The curtain of trees is also the divide between our lovely products and those who are hidden, those who produce the products. The proles make terrible coffee, but dammit if they don't make great comrades.
Which is kind of all besides the point because I'm talking about my holiday here.
After five hours we arrive in Strahan. The only west coast settlement in the state. I'm not sure this claim is entirely accurate as a quick look on google maps seems to show Strahan not actually being on the coast, but I might be splitting hares there.
Strahan is a lovely little seaside village, actually. It had a kind of spooky Lovecraftian feel to it. Fishing boats in the still flat waters. A single street nestled in a valley. A settlement of iron shacks down the road. A haunted Georgian-style customs house. During the night, the storms came. Our little cabin shook under the wait of heavy water. Our gas fire flickered and we sipped at the complimentary port and watched Thelma and Louise.
The next day, we went to take a walk to the renowned Hogarths Falls, only to find the path flooded.
It was very much impossible for us to continue. We went and had some lunch. A vegeburger for me, and fish and chips for her. Unsure of what to do next we covered a couple of small attractions and then headed to the Tourist information booth. The friendly assistant suggested some things for us to do in lieu of the waterfall walk.
 Hi! I was just wondering if you could suggest something for us to day, we just went to the Peoples Park, but it was flooded!
 How about a trip to the old port machinery?
We've already done that. I liked the machines.
Oh. What about a trip to the top of the hill?
We did that too. We climbed onto the table.
Then there's still time to go to the beach! But swimming is not recommended!
We did that too. It was too cold to swim.
Hrrm. Well, you could go look at the duck.
Yeah we just came from looking at the duck. I said Hello Duck.
Looks like you've covered everything then!
We'll try the waterfall again.
What a splendid idea!
So we did, we got back in our Getz and drove down to the Peoples Park, where we would find the entrance to the walk to the waterfall. It had dried up somewhat, and we headed into the temperate rainforest / wet sclerophyll forest. It was pretty beautiful. The heavy rains had swamped most of the forest floor, and the creek had swollen up to the top of it's banks and was now a rushing and fat river. The track was on occasion, well, quite regularly, flooded, but this was fun to negotiate.
 
 
And so that was Strahan. I had a good time in Strahan. We had some wine, some food from the supermarket. Our cabin was beautiful.
We set off after two days, heading North for the infamous Cradle of filth Mountain - the glorious centre of Tasmania and the highlight of everyones trip. The trip there was mostly uneventful. We stopped in the Historic town of Zeehan, which is mostly well. I'm not even sure what that town is about. It seems to be a tourist destination without a tourist attraction. We headed also to Montezuma Falls, reportedly "one of the highest waterfalls in Tasmania" and "the highest waterfall in Tasmania" I don't know which, if either, is correct. Needless to say we drove our little car a little too far, or well, we weren't sure whether we'd hit the "4WD ONLY" part of the road or not. We got out and it started raining. With no food and no wet weather gear we decided against the 3hr hike. Besides, there was the constant threat of giant car-jacking Kangaroo's to watch out for.
Dangerous, indeed.
We drove past some mountains.
This is actually from the drive the day before, but the narrative fits better with the picture here.
These mountains we did drive past, on the outskirts of the once strong mining town of Rosebury, now a dwindling nowhere town. It was kafkapicturesque, to say the least.
SNOW!
Approaching Cradle Mountain we encountered a blizzard! Heavy Snow floated around the car! It was a glorious welcome to a wonderful place on the planet.
The place reminded me a little of Scotland! The Highlands part, not the glasgow part. No one was glassing me. And I wasn't glassing nobody!
Funny Foto! If Hey, Hey It's Saturday was still on, I'd send in this photo for the funny foto segment.
Oh look, Snow Capped Cradle Mountain! And snow outside our wooden hut!
 
END OF PART ONE! |
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[Aug. 11th, 2009|08:02 pm] |
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Could a friendly American friend explain to me what exactly is the health-care reform package that is being proposed? |
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[Aug. 4th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
All my other internet places have been slowly infected with people that don't especially belong in my Internetsphere. That is to say, people to whom there is some element of the need to make a Performance of some Sort. People who might find something like "Oh, I want to give up on my Masters" and things of a serious and maudlin nature disturbing or otherwise threshold-crossing or pointed or not fleetingly persistent or persistently fleeting sensations of disengagement and altogether too much. If that makes anysense.
I hope Tasmania, to which I am going tomorrow, will give me some time to become familiar with myself again. I have been quiet and cranky and not even really in myself lately. A lot. |
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[Jul. 16th, 2009|02:18 pm] |
From Ten things you should cover in your social networking policy
3: Identifying oneself as an employee of the company
Your social networking policy should also make clear whether employees are allowed to identify themselves as representatives of the company. Most social networking sites have fields in the user profile for work experience, job title, etc. By identifying oneself as an employee of XYZ Inc., a social networker becomes, to some extent, a representative of that company, and everything he/she posts has the potential to reflect on the company and its image. Unless the employee is engaging in social networking for the specific purpose of promoting the company, some organizations prohibit their employees from listing the company name on such sites. If employees are allowed to advertise their association with the company, your policy should impress upon them that they take on the responsibility for representing the company in a professional manner.
If social networking users identify themselves as employees of the company, your policies should require that any personal blogs and other personal posts contain disclaimers that make it clear that the opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the company.
Um. No. Fuck off. |
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| Thanks and other things |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|01:09 pm] |
Thanks to everyone who replied to the previous entry Abortion and Vegetarianism. I'm planning a proper reply to all the points that were raised rather than individual comments back.
Interesting article at the Shakesville blog about some conservative commentary (also here )over in the USA regarding gendered unemployment or as they like to call it "The Mancession".
The obvious point here is the irony that while on one hand conservatives try to maintain the patriarchy, defining jobs which are for men and which are for women, they cry foul when Capitalism gives them the finger. This is actually an idea I'll be developing in my thesis; that Capitalism and Patriarchy are in an antagonistic dialetic. Not the bed-fellows they are frequently implied to be, but power structures in hegemonic conflict.
Anyway, the Mancession thing reminded me about something I was thinking about the other day. Affirmative Action. I was prompted by the new US Supreme Court nominee debate. One chap was complaining that as she was the beneficiary of an affirmative action programme (in getting into college) her whole subsequent authority is cast into doubt. It wasn't so much that she was incompetent, but that affirmative action runs the risk of having the perception of a lower grade of competence.
What this made me think of was not the merits/problems with Affirmative Action but rather that hasn't Affirmative Action ALWAYS been with us. It's not the product of some 1980's liberal/progressive political effort. Affirmative Action was essentially the standard mode of action since... forever. Except it's always been affirmative action for men, by men. Isn't the legal barring of women from certain employment essentially affirmative action for men? And this of course still continues in some professions. The primary curiosity here is thatno one is thinking or saying "Well, maybe this reflects badly on the competence of men in [the military, mining, management, politics, etc]!" And maybe they SHOULD be asking this. Perhaps this is why the world is SHIT. Because affirmative action has made it so you're not employed on merit, but on gender. And the people who have decided that? Well. We know who! |
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| Vegetarianism and Abortion |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|01:57 pm] |
Last night I wondered if there is an ethical inconsistency between being a vegetarian (for ethical reasons, i.e, out of a prohibition on killing sentient entities) and supporting the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy.
On what grounds can I afford the right-to-live for animals, but not to a fetus? On what grounds can I deny these rights to either?
Pragmatically there isn't a problem: I wouldn't enforce my vegetarianism on anyone, nor would I enforce a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy. That's the easy part. However, in terms of internal ethical consistency I can't see how I can reconcile the two? |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|10:00 pm] |
Advice Sought!
There is a database at my work, the kind that I'd normally rewrite myself for maximum awesome, but apparently it's going to be utterly abolished next semester. Anyway. Today I noticed that one of the images that usually gets printed on the form letter that is produced was MISSING! And instead all our letters had a big MISSING FILE tag in the middle of them.
So I send this email to our SAO (Software Assets Office), since no one seemed to know who was in charge of the damned thing, seeing if maybe he could help. Being the SOFTWARE GUY:
Hi [The guy]
[My supervisor] suggested I bother you with this before the faculty people.
The one of the images in the letter form for the Special consideration Filmaker database seems to have spontaneously gone missing leaving a nice <MISSING FILE> message under the letterhead. Let me know if this is something you can help with or whether I should go downstairs.Cheers, Kristian
To which he replied:
"The one of the images” I don’t know what you are talking about, go downstairs.
That was it. Not even a sign off!
So the advice I need was
1. Was there anything wrong with my email.
2. Was the response unnecessarily rude.
2a. If so, should I say something to this chap tomorrow.
2b. If so, should just I get over it.
3. Nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
*This would be an easy decision if it was any of my old jobs, but I kind of like this job apart from the jerks, and it's tough economic times, so I don't feel I can safely burn my bridges. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|04:40 pm] |
Best email received at my work (at University of Sydney).
"I've attached some pictures of some "Bird" bones and I dug up in my back
yard here in Reseda California. I don't know if they mean anything or
just stupid bird bones.
If you can tell me anything I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks,
xxxx
818-xxx-xxxx" |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 26th, 2009|07:27 pm] |
Asher fucking Moses says something stupid again. This time for the stupidest use of the word ancient.
Optus has been slashing broadband speeds to half the level advertised for customers who exceed their monthly download allowance.</p> Customers of Optus's "Naked" ADSL broadband plans have their internet speeds throttled down to 64kbps for the rest of the month once they exceed their 7GB, 15GB or 30GB monthly allowance.This is half the speed of 128kbps that is listed in the terms and conditions published on the Optus website and about the same speed offered by ancient dial-up modems.
Ancient dial-up modems? Like, the one's the Ancient Greeks, or, Ancient Egyptians were using? Were these found in Ancient Chinese Ruins or buried beneath an Ancient Mayan Temple? |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 23rd, 2009|01:36 pm] |
Dear Apple,
I just want to copy some mp3s onto my ipod thing. That's all. Just drag 'n drop those sons-a-bitches.
Also, I want to kill you.
Kristian. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 17th, 2009|12:47 am] |
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The hope is to take away the focus from sex and put it back into sport, writes Matthew Benns. CHEERLEADERS should be banned from rugby league as part of a campaign to give the sport an improved, sex-free public image, a marketing expert says. But the stance has forged an unlikely alliance between cheerleaders and feminists who say the real problem lies in the "blokey" attitude that dominates the NRL. Public relations and marketing expert Ro Markson said: "Rugby league needs to ban cheerleaders and take the focus away from sex and put it back on sport."
I'd like to ask Matthew Benns why cheerleaders and feminists would have to forge an unlikely alliance? Were they otherwise at war?
ETA: Unsurprisingly it seems Matthew Benns is from the Asher fucking Moses school of Fucktardary. I think I wrote about this article recently... |
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