How to punish financial crime

The punishment for financial crime should be the surrendering of your entire net worth, right down to the bone, with a 10% "finder's fee" allocated to the auditor (or whoever) that discovers the fraud (or whatever). The beautiful part is that this becomes a self-policing system. If you, as an investigator, are tempted to look the other way for a bribe, you become the very type of person the other regulators are chasing, and you risk your entire fortune as a result. If you manage to hide your assets under some other person's name, you make them an accomplice and they forfeit everything, too.

It doesn't even have to act as a deterrent, because you'd be systematically stripping the corrupt of their hard-stolen cash and at the very least forcing them to start over while the government finally gets all the taxes they've dodged over the years and then some. Everyone wins except the people who defrauded the system. And their dependents, actually, I suppose. Still, with the government suddenly coming into these huge piles of cash, there should be plenty to allocate to welfare systems.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might be hard to get at the cash if it's in offshore banks.
PPS - And this might be kind of extreme, but we're in extreme wealth disparity right now.

Big finish, jazz hands

Weight: 81.5kg
Distance: 11.32km
Time: 1h:17m:16s
Average speed: 8.79kph

Told you I'd make up for yesterday. Today I went out running on the streets, as I used to do, and I followed my old long route, which I haven't run in quite a while. 10km is no slouch. I'm not that happy with the speed, but the exercise watch had me on "hard" mode, which is its lowest setting. I've also discovered that running on the road is very different to running on a treadmill. I'm convinced that the treadmill does half the work for you. Treadmill momentum is nothing like the real thing. It was harder than I expected, is what I'm saying, but I made it.

Over the month, I ran a total of 170.7km. That's pretty darn long. It's the equivalent of just over 4 marathons, except for the fact that they make you run a marathon all at once. I'd like to try that some day. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow I rest my legs at last. As an experiment, running every day in January has taught me mostly that I need to rest regularly, that my knees need care, my achilles tendons are always tight and that I can do this. I look forward to challenging myself in other ways through the year.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And I still look forward to a finished bathroom at home.
PPS - It's getting really close, but not there yet.

For a change

Weight: 82.3kg
Distance: About 1.5km. Oh, plus 1km on the exercise bike.
Time: Maybe 10 minutes?
Average speed: A little bit meaningless today.

Let me explain.

Instead of a full 5km run today, I had a personal training session with Debbie and our regular trainer, Jodie. It went pretty well for me, but highlighted the exact narrow focus my January running schedule has had. Getting through cardio? Zero problems. I mean, she had us warm up with 60 seconds on an 11.5% incline and I jogged it easily, even after warming up for a few minutes at a fast pace. We did 1km on the exercise bikes. No problems. We finished on the elliptical, going 150 metres, though not as fast as usual. I kept going a little while afterwards.

But could I do a second set of 10 pushups? No sir, I could not. My noodly arms were definitely not up to the challenge of lifting me off the ground a couple of times in a row. And why should they be? They hardly ever have to do that. They'll be doing more of it in February, I'll tell you that. Plus some other, non-exercise stuff. So, basically, I felt good about the cardio, but kind of inadequate at the strength parts. And a little bit bad about not running a full 5km today, but I still consider myself exercised.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do plan to make up for it tomorrow, on the last day.
PPS - Looking forward to that very much.

It's all uphill from here

Weight: 81.8kg
Distance: 5.49km
Time: 37m:01s
Average speed: 8.90kph

There is no flat, only uphill on level 5, after the first 300 metres. I didn't make it all at the 10kph pace I set for myself, but I only slowed down to a fast walk for about half a kilometre. So I did struggle, but I made it. I wouldn't really have expected so much progress, fitness-wise, during the month. Today's accomplishment might have been aided by the evening timing, though.

I'm very much looking forward to finishing the month strong, but definitely finishing it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Two days to go now.
PPS - I'm also looking forward to adding up all my distances.

Evening running is better for me

Weight: 81.8kg
Distance: 5.52km
Time: 33m:46s
Average speed: 9.81kph

Today was a change in routine - I went for my run in the evening rather than the morning. That felt really good. Crazy good. As if, in the morning, there was no more pressure and my work was finally done. So I think I might be getting over the "run every day" challenge, but now, at this time of writing, I have only 3 days to go, and I am not breaking the chain now. I just wanted to note that it felt good to be able to get the dishes done in the morning the way I normally do.

As for the run itself, I don't know what it is about the evening, but it always feels easier. I turned the speed up to 10.3kph and the changes down in incline surprised me. My breathing came easily and, by the time I was finished, I'd turned the speed all the way up to 11kph. If evening runs are that easy, maybe tomorrow I'll try level 5 on the treadmill program.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I also had a pretty good day at work, so there's that, too.
PPS - I guess it's been a great day all around.

Every day is leg day

Weight: 82.3kg
Distance: 5.52km
Time: 34m:21s
Average speed: 9.64kph

Well, there goes the air conditioning theory of weight variation. I don't know what to think about that any more. It was tough this morning to get out of bed and to the gym, and then I felt very out of breath for a long portion of my 5km. I focused on my breathing, though - two steps in, two steps out - and got back under control by the time I was finished with the inclines. It's looking like we might not quite get our bathroom completed before the end of the month, now, which actually means I might have to keep up my morning gym visits just for the showers. Starting in February, though, I'll definitely mix it up. It won't be all cardio the way I'm doing now.

The biggest physical effect I've noticed over the month so far is in my calves and achilles tendons. They're pretty much sore and tight all the time, regardless of how much stretching I do.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'd prefer to be able to say I've lost weight and gained some leg muscle.
PPS - All I'm sure of so far is that I've gained some cardio fitness.

Running on Australia Day

Weight: 78.6kg
Distance: 5.52km
Time: 34m:24s
Average Speed: 9.63kph

I'm starting to wonder whether the bathroom scale measures me lighter on mornings when we've had the aircon running at night. It dehydrates me, you see, so I think I weigh a bit less on those mornings.

Today was Australia Day, and since we had plans all day, I got up at my usual 05:30 time to hit the gym. It's made for a big day. I put the treadmill up to 10.2kph for the 5km, then up a little bit higher for the last 0.5km. It's getting a bit easier, but not so much that I think level 5 is right yet. I'll stick with level 4 for a bit longer yet.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I can see the end of the tunnel now.
PPS - Just this week and Saturday to go.

Motivation

Weight: 81.8kg
Distance: 5.52km
Time: 34m:53s
Average speed: 9.49kph

This doesn't usually work well when I'm tired. I mention it because that's how I woke up this morning. I didn't want to go, but I made myself anyway. This is why I don't agree with people who say they "just need to get motivated". No, what you need is to get out and do it. Motivation is nice, but dedication gets the work done. If your excuse is motivation, then you are the only thing in your way, and you can decide to get it done.

I didn't feel that fast this morning, but I was consistent, and I did turn up the speed a bit for the last kilometre. By the end of the month, I might be up another level on the treadmill.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Building fitness does feel quite good.
PPS - I might be disappointed to slow down at the end of the month.

A walking adventure

Weight: 82.3kg
Distance: 6.4km
Time: 1h:04m:25s
Average speed: 5.96kph

So today was a walk. That should be obvious from the speed up there. What should also be obvious is that it is possible to run 5km per day for nearly a month and put on weight. I'll make some later challenges during the year focus on weight loss. For now, I'm actually not quite sure whether I've lost girth. My 82cm waist jeans are feeling pretty loose.

I was walking in unfamiliar territory today, which is why my distance is much further than it would have been at home. I wanted to explore, so I walked out 2.6km, then turned down a side street where it all started to go wrong. There was a park in the way, then a creek to go around, then the back way through school grounds, some real angry birds (not the fun kind from the game) and a quick excape under a fence before I was back on track. It was an adventure of sorts, but if I can avoid territorial avians from now on, I will.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Fun fact about plovers: they call off their dive-bombing runs if you face them and look big.
PPS - This is more difficult when there's more than one of them.

Standard update

Weight: Unknown
Distance: 5.50km
Time: 36m:26s
Average speed: 9.06kph

I'll be brief. I didn't run the whole distance at full speed this morning. I've been sleeping badly, so I didn't feel great when I got up. I did get through my 5km, though.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I haven't been home since then.
PPS - The internet is a bit patchy here, so this entry is late.

Feeling better

Weight: 80.6kg
Distance: 5.50km
Time: 34m:48s
Average speed: 9.48kph

I feel better about my run this morning. Last night I was ranting a bit, and maybe I just needed to vent, because I felt really good on the treadmill today. At least for the first while, it was as if I could do this indefinitely, and I think the ability to run 3km or so at 10kph without even thinking about it is something to be proud of.

I had to run for the train this morning, too. That's something I haven't been bothering to do, partly because there are lots of trains and missing one isn't a big deal, but also because of the sweat situation. But this morning I decided a last-minute sprint wouldn't be so bad. I can put on a fair burst of speed when I want to, though I'm no Olympic sprinter. This felt good, too. I did make the train easily ... and then broke into an epic sweat for the next 20 minutes. Some things never change, I guess.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm glad to be objectively fitter than when I started.
PPS - And that, really, has been the goal.

Fed up with treadmills

Weight: 80.6kg
Distance: 5.50km
Time: 34m:56s
Average speed: 9.45kph

I think 10kph is the most manageable speed to run my 5km at level 4 at the gym right now. That's what this experiment has become: finding the optimal treadmill speed and the optimal incline pattern level to run 5km at (plus 5-minute cool-down). It's depressing, in a way. I'm not very happy with it, to be honest. I need to get back outside, running on the footpaths again. I need the variety. I need the fresh air.

So can I get back outside yet? Can I just do my running outside and come back to shower at the gym instead of using the treadmill? Yeah, maybe. Maybe I can run after work and shower there. I have the options, but the treadmill and shower in one place is just easiest and, now, most familiar. And, possibly, a failed Kickstarter campaign: The Showermill! (Pulled after electrocution and slipperiness concerns.) I'm starting to wonder how I used to do this. I never went every day - maybe 3 times a week - but I'd still get out to run very regularly, and it never seemed like it interfered in my life quite as much as this one January project has. During my university days, I guess I'd get up at 05:00 some mornings. I was basically Batman at the time, though - trained to perfection in the prime of my life by an entire dojo of karate black belts. Those days aren't coming back. I find that a hard pill to swallow.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Other parts of my life are a lot better now than then, though.
PPS - I'm kind of curious how running on the streets will feel after this long on treadmills.

I walked

Weight: 80.6kg
Distance: 5.02km
Time: 41m:36s
Average speed: 7.24kph

Tonight, to give my legs a bit of a rest and avoid injury, I walked. Well, mostly. I set a fast walking pace of 6.5kph, and I kept to that for the first 1.5km, but I got too bored. Inactivity is not something I do. Ask my wife if I can ever sit still and she'll laugh at the very idea. So for portions of the 5km I stepped it up all the way to 9kph, which is a moderate run for me. The risk was that, tonight, I wasn't wearing the elastic braces that keep my knees from gradually exploding. I was careful, though, and they're still intact. My knees, that is. Well, the braces are intact, too. They were just getting very funky and needed washing, so tonight was a good chance to get that done.

In one sense, this sort of means I've failed. My goal was "run every day in January", and today I walked instead. Then again, I did run for a little bit, so that's something, right? Does that count?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Well, it's my goal, so I say it counts.
PPS - Justification is one thing we're really good at as humans.

To do: slow down or die

Weight: 80.6kg
Distance: 5.22km
Time: 34m:14s
Average Speed:

Today is the first time all month that I've had to take an anti-inflammatory tablet after a run. Now, I'd like to be all Morgan Spurlock about this and carry on regardless of risk of injury, but I think it's best that I take it easy now. I went a bit slower this morning for the 5km - just 9.5kph - and it was still a struggle.

What I may be able to do tomorrow is walk my 5km, since I have the whole evening to myself. It will still be at the gym, though. I don't think I've ever done such a thing on the treadmill before. At 6kph, it would take 50 minutes. I'm not sure I can take that many pop music videos in one hit.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Whether I like it or not, Taylor Swift in a tutu is my running companion.
PPS - I'm actually fine with that. It's a good running rhythm.

So hot all the time

Weight: 80.2kg
Distance: 5.49km
Time: 37m:06s
Average speed: 8.88kph

I chose to slow down a little bit this morning, because my calves have been bothering me and I wanted to give them a bit of a break. It wasn't much of a break, though. The stretching continues, as does the relentless heat and the continued absence of a home shower. The routine is getting to me again. I need to mix it up. Tomorrow perhaps I'll take the opportunity to run and shower in the city, as long as I can figure out how to handle my sweaty, smelly clothes afterwards. That plan might not survive contact with the enemy (Brisbane summer heat) though.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - At this point, I'm just keen to finish the challenge and move on.
PPS - If I can push past this, though, maybe I can build a new habit.

That's more like it

Weight: 78.4kg
Distance: 5.49km
Time: 35m:08s
Average speed: 9.38kph

It's so hot. I haven't stopped sweating all day. Level 4 on the treadmill is where I should be, I can tell. Today's stats look identical to yesterday's, except for weight, but I did bump it up to level 4, which includes about 500m at a 3.5% incline. I worked hard for it and I got through it. I'm pleased.

I think I might be injuring my legs, but in the slowest way possible. There's really not a lot more to tell. I came, I ran, I conquered.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Still looking forward to getting back to showering at home.
PPS - I'm getting a little too familiar with the music videos at the gym.

Forget level 3

Weight: 78.5kg
Distance: 5.49km
Time: 35m:08s
Average speed: 9.36kph

This morning was rough, like sandpaper over the eyeballs. I've never had that, but I don't think it would be pleasant. Is that a thing? If so, it seems like something we should stop. Organise a protest march.

I didn't sleep well. Normally I'm out like a light, but sometimes it's hot, or I've had too much caffeine during the day or too much sugar too close to bedtime. I think last night it was caffeine. I woke up tired, less than 12 hours since my last run. My knees hurt. My calves hurt. I'm hungry. Plenty of other complaining, too. I set the treadmill to level 3 which, apparently, only means "start the 1.6km uphill stretch earlier". So tomorrow it's on to level 4.

The other thing to mention is weight. Lately I've been weighing in at night, because I've consistently forgotten in the mornings. Today I remembered, and I was pleased to find I've gone down a whole kilogram. It also renders my other measurements unreliable.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wanted a punny name for all my challenges.
PPS - The only one I've got for this is "Runuary" and it looks even worse written down than it sounds.

Too easy

Weight: 80.5kg
Distance: 5.51km
Time: 34m:10s
Average speed: 9.68kph

It was too easy. I waited until this evening to do my run today, for reasons, and I was able to just breeze through it, no worries. It wasn't until 3.5km in that I thought anything but "this is easy", which might say something about my improving fitness and my zen state of mind. In any case, tomorrow I'll have to bump up the difficulty to level 3 and see how I go. Otherwise I'll just be cruising, not growing.

It might also have been because the aircon was on tonight, and I'm not completely sure it comes on early enough for my morning sessions to cool the whole place down. That could mean I've been running in a sweatbox in the mornings, but any evening runs are much easier. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Because of the changing inclines, the average speed measurements aren't that meaningful now.
PPS - If I were doing the same route on the streets every day, they'd matter much more.

I'd like to rest

Weight: 81.4kg
Distance: 5.10km
Time: 30m:30s
Average speed: 10.03kph

I hurried through my run this morning because I had to get the car home in time for Deb to drive to her prac shift. I only did a one minute cool-down, so my distance, time and speed are a bit different today. I was able to focus on my breathing throughout the run, though, and that went very well. When I have the time tomorrow and I'm not rushed, I'll do more of that.

I'm getting to the point where I recognise it would do me well to take a rest day, but that's not the deal here. My calves are starting to feel a bit sore in the mornings, so I've had to do some extra stretching. I still feel good, on the whole, but I'm glad I'm getting up to the halfway point.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm trying to resist the temptation to add up my distances early.
PPS - Trying and failing.

Breathing

Weight: 81.4kg
Distance: 5.50km
Time: 34m:49s
Average speed: 9.48kph

Breathing is more important than you think. You only really think about it when it's gone or other, rare occasions. This is a lesson in how much running on a treadmill can change things.

When I run on the streets and footpaths, I pace myself by my breath. I need to be breathing this hard right now, so I'll run this fast, two steps per breath in, two steps per breath out. If I need to slow down because I need to take deeper breaths, that's what I do, or if I can go faster and keep my breathing steady, I do that. So my pace changes with my breath and it works well. I could run almost indefinitely like that.

On the treadmill, I've gone almost two weeks before even noticing my breathing. This morning I noticed I wasn't breathing to pace. I'd been just letting my breath happen, and I think it contributed to how crappy I'd feel after a run. This morning, at about the 2km mark, I suddenly remembered that breathing was a thing and I paced my breathing to my steps, two in, two out. It helped a lot with the incline section and I felt much better afterwards. Still sweaty in the most horrible way, but better. I must remember this.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If not for the bathroom renovation, I would not have been running on the treadmill this much.
PPS - And I would not have made these realisations. I guess that's a good thing.

Fitter

Weight: 81.9kg
Distance: 5.49km
Time: 34m:55s
Average speed: 9.43kph

That weight up there is both strange and a worry. It's a worry because over a year ago we joined Weight Watchers and at that time I weighed 82kg. It was about the heaviest I've ever been as an adult. It's strange, though, because I feel really good today. Also my work trousers - a size 82 waist - fit quite well. If I'm bloating out, it's a real struggle fitting into an 82 waist and I need to bust out the size 87s. In short, I'm really not sure what's going on with my weight and I wish I'd been measuring girth instead.

My normal cardio workout at the gym right now consists of 5km at 10kph on level 2. It's taxing but possible, so that's where I'll be staying for a while. The uphill section is the real killer, of course. I'm making my peace with working out at the gym and showering there, in part because we definitely won't have a working shower at home now for at least another week. I just need to stay on top of the laundry, which I have not done today.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Tomorrow might be an evening workout as a result.
PPS - I really feel like I'm getting fitter, in general.

Hungry

Weight: 80.5kg
Distance: 5.25km
Time: 32m:11s
Average speed: 9.79kph

I wasn't sure whether I should go running this morning or wait until after church. I'm not sure which would have been more convenient, but I went before. I set the treadmill to a 5km run at level 2 which, it turns out, includes about 1.5km uphill at 2%. I didn't drop my speed at all, but I did struggle. I cut my cool-down short, too, which might have been a mistake.

Right now I'm just feeling hungry. It's close to lunch, so that should be expected, but I've been feeling this way since after my run. I did eat a bowl of cereal beforehand, but I think eggs would have been better. It probably would help with the weight, too, if I don't eat carbs for breakfast every day. Maybe I'll make that one of the challenges for later in the year - just change out my cereal for eggs and see how it goes.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've still got a lot of slots to fill in the year.
PPS - I do have February picked out, though.

Novelty

Weight: 80.5kg
Distance: 5.11km
Time: 35m:00s
Average speed: 8.76kph

To deal with the incessant boredom of the treadmill at the gym, I tried something new with it this morning. I set it to "fat burn" mode, level 4, 10kph. I thought I'd turn down my speed from 10.5 to just 10 to "take it easy". Let me tell you something right now. Running up a 5% slope at 10kph is not "taking it easy" by any measure. Three times during the workout I had to slow down to keep my heart from exploding, and this almost meant I didn't finish my 5km. I got there in the cool-down phase, though.

The fat burn program on this particuar brand of treadmill shows a chart of incline percentages over time, making it look like a series of flat runs over curiously square hills. It's hard to remember at the time that those square hills represent how steep the incline is, not the altitude. I would have liked to know the average incline over the 30 minutes, but the only statistic offered was peak incline. Still, I might try it again tomorrow, on a lower setting.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Or maybe for longer at a lower speed.
PPS - I'll let you know.

Hurry

Weight: 80.2kg
Distance: 5.53km
Time: 33m:23s
Average speed: 9.94kph

I learned an interesting lessong today: I don't need to rush so much. I've been getting out of bed at 05:30 in the morning, hurrying to the gym, running 5km on the treadmill, showering, dressing and rushing to the train to make it to work by 08:00. This morning, though I still got up at 05:30, I didn't hurry, because I'd built up a little overtime at work and could afford to come in a bit later (it's nice to be a contractor with a flexible employer). So I washed some dishes and took my time at the gym. I even strolled casually on as a train stopped at my home station and left without me, though I could have hurried and caught it. I waited for the next one. Guess what time I got to work?

08:05.

That's it. Five minutes is the only price I paid for staying on top of the dishes and not hurrying. So I think I'll keep doing that.

I'm getting bored of running on the treadmill at the gym. It's not just that it's the same place, same workout, same music on the TV every morning. Actually, I guess it is mostly that, but it's also the treadmill itself. Running on a treadmill is different to running on footpaths. On the footpath I feel like I set my own pace and, now and then, I might need to slow down to keep my heart rate within bounds. On the treadmill it's kind of like being tied to the back of a truck going at a steady pace. You'd better keep up or you'll fall. Your legs play catch-up with the surface and not the other way around. I look forward to having my own bathroom again so that I can run on the streets, the way it should be.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I hate feeling rushed in anything.
PPS - It's just no fun.

Pushing

Weight: 81.5kg
Distance: 5.52km
Time: 33m:05s
Average speed: 10.01kph

I lied to my watch today. It said yesterday was a rest day, to which I said "pish posh", put on my monocle and top hat and ran my 5km anyway, because I am a determined gentleman. Today it implored me to take a rest day again, which is to say for the first time, really, and so I let it believe that I had done so. What it doesn't know can't hurt it. It might hurt me, I suppose, but the watch's conscience is clear.

I compulsively push myself just a little bit harder each day. Surely, I say to myself, if I managed 10.5kph yesterday for 5km, I must be capable of 10.8 today. You may recognise this as a foolish trajectory up into the stratosphere, but I attempted it nevertheless. Rest assured, though, that I had slowed down again by the end of the treadmill's programmed interval. I may think I'm Superman, Batman and Spiderman rolled into one glorious SuperBatSpider hero, but my middle-aged knees are all over that hubris. They've got it covered. Ain't puttin' up with my nonsense for long, is what I'm saying.

I'm getting tired of the treadmill at the gym, but until we have a spout that can shoot water at my naked body from the wall in our house again, I must submit to the ones at the gym, and that means making the motions of exercise there. Otherwise, somehow, I feel like I'm "cheating", when I actually pay for all of this. I should be able to shower there any time if I want, but I feel I must work out first. For now, at least, I have the excuse of the challenge.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't think I've done this perfectly even once.
PPS - Every morning I forget at least one thing.

The after-work running schedule

Weight: 80.8kg
Distance run: 5.52km
Time: 33m:40s
Average speed: 9.84kph

I tried something new today. I slept in until 06:00 and went running after work instead. On the plus side was the extra 30 minutes of sleep and not sweating on the train to work. The disadvantages were that I didn't get home properly until about 19:20. Also I generally feel guilty spending time on something just for me if I could instead be spending that time with Debbie. It was a bit more comfortable, though, because it was in the cool of the evening instead of the morning.

I also started breaking in some new leather boots (Dr Martens, a Christmas present) today, so I've had my foot bones in a weird shape all day, some blisters on my heels, and the exercise watch told me today was a "rest day", but none of those things is the boss of me.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Going at 10.5kph for 5km wasn't so bad.
PPS - It felt easy at the beginning, but I'm glad I didn't bump the speed up in response.

Speed

6 January
Weight: 81.5
Distance run: 5.53km
Time: 32m:39s
Average speed: 10.16kph

It's getting tricky to write something new about running every day, but I consider that part of the challenge, too. I've started pushing my speed higher, which does come at a price. I remain very sweaty until I'm halfway to work. I struggle more with the run itself. I do risk injury. I know all this. The advantage, when I have to squeeze this workout in before a day at the office is that I can get it done up to ninety seconds faster! So, you know. Totally worth it.

Laundry is becoming a problem, actually. I only have a few sets of workout clothes and, obviously, I can't reuse them day to day. Mornings are also the time I get a lot of my chores done, so laundry is falling behind, along with the dishes and my various inboxes. Committing this much time to running is having more of an impact on my life than I expected, but I think I can cope. It's still only day 6 of 31, though, which means I'm not even 20% done with this challenge.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I know I said it wasn't about weight loss, but that number climbing up is a worry.
PPS - I've been hungry.

Forgetting

5 January
Weight: Quantum uncertainty
Distance run: 5.53km
Time: 32m:54s
Average speed: 10.08kph

I'm not completely confident of that average speed up there, mostly because I forgot to write it down when I got off the treadmill. And I forgot to weigh myself before going to the gym. Then I forgot to gel my hair before going to work. Turns out, if you mess up my morning routine enough, you could probably get me to forget to put on pants before I leave the house. The run was good, but I didn't finish, according to the exercise watch (all hail Watch and his tiny kingdom). It seems like something that should bother me, but I've rationalised that if I finished 5km today, I'm doing well. I'll need to do it the exact same way tomorrow, too.

Getting dressed for work at the gym, having just showered there, feels very strange, and not just because I'm the only one in long sleeves. It's not the right place for that, you know? It was also too hot, so there's that. I blasted the car A/C on the very short drive home, but I still had some sweat to dry on the train which, I'm desperately hoping, was not especially rank, as odours go. Someone did sit next to me, so it probably wasn't that bad.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Tomorrow, do it again.
PPS - So far this month, I've run just over 28km.

Last day of holidays

4 January
Weight: 81.5
Distance run: 5.49km
Time: 35m:00s
Average speed: 9.41kph

It's been a bit of a busy day, so I'm just checking in now. I did run this morning and showered at the gym, which still makes me feel a little bit icky. At least today I remembered my thongs, so I have slightly lowered my chance of catching a horrible foot fungus. I did, however, forget my watch entirely, so that's fun. Also, just for kicks, we went swimming today and I technically swam 2 x 50m laps, but just barely.

It's tomorrow I'm kind of worried about. Tomorrow I go back to work, and to fit in my run and a shower I'll have to give up everything about my morning routine, including breakfast, which I'll be eating at work. My morning routine is my sanity for the day, so this might be big, or it might be just another blip on the radar when my bathroom looks like a construction zone. We'll see.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I didn't anticipate how disruptive a bathroom renovation would be.
PPS - Then again, it's pushing me to the gym more, so there's that.

The worst possible time to renovate your bathroom

3 January
Weight: 79.5kg
Distance run: 5.6km
Time: 35m:00s
Average speed: 9.6kph

Told you the scales weren't accurate. Today, we have successfully destroyed our bathroom, right down to the wall studs and bare floor. Of course this is in order to build it back up again into something more awesome, but until the job is finished, the only place I have to shower is the gym. So that's also what we did today. I pushed my speed at times up to 11kph, but then had a 5-minute cool-down at 6kph, which is why the average speed is so relatively low.

Yesterday I pulled a hip flexor (I think - my anatomical knowledge is somewhere between my knowledge of biology in general and cooking) and I was worried that it might affect me for the rest of the month if I couldn't rest it, but it seems 24 hours is plenty of time for that. I try not to push myself extra-hard normally, and injuries are a great excuse to take a day off, or a week, or sometimes a month, if I forget that I'm being lazy. I'm glad it only affected me for a short time.

The other minor event of note is a flat battery in my heart monitor which normally suggests to me how fast and how long I should be running. Today I turned it on and it (mostly) happily reported my pulse, but wouldn't tell me whether I was going too fast or slow. I'm pretty sure it would have been satisfied with my progress, though. That's right, I'm running to please a machine. I don't need to, as such. Nobody else is monitoring it, just me. Still, sometimes I feel its judgemental stare from my bedside table. I'll do better tomorrow, watch. I will. I promise.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Showering at the gym is not very pleasant, but it will work.
PPS - It reminds me of campground showers.

Sweat

2 January
Weight: 78.8
Distance run: 5.86km
Time: 36m:43s
Average speed: 9.57kph

I should mention at this point that I don't think our bathroom scale is that accurate. It seems to change readings in part, I believe, due to atmospheric pressure changes. Anyway, today I don't want to talk about sweat, but I feel I have to. Even if I run early in the morning and, as happened today, I get rained on, come home and take a cool shower and even try to air-dry to shed even more excess heat, no matter what I do, I'll step out of the shower and immediately begin sweating bullets. It's a thing my body does. My body temperature is always a little above normal, so running doesn't help that. The only cure I know is sitting in front of a fan for half an hour or more, sweating away the heat, trying not to touch anything. This is the price I'll pay to go running every day.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm trying not to rest my arms on my desk as I type this.
PPS - It's disgusting, I know.

It's not about weight loss

1 January
Weight: 79.5kg
Distance run: 5.66km
Time: 37m:39s
Average speed: 9.01kph

I'm measuring my weight during January, as I run every day because I expect it to have an effect, but the goal is overall cardio fitness. Today I had to wait until the afternoon to run because I slept in after some New Year's Eve revelry and today, like most days, was around 31C in Brisbane. Plus some stuff came up.

I'm not really sure what the cause and effect relationship is, but when I run lots, I feel like eating better, and both of those things together contribute to loss of weight and girth. I might not consider it to be about weight loss, but I'm hardly going to turn it away at the door. So these measurements will continue. Posts may be morning or night, depending on when I run and whether I have anything to say about it that day.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I consider my ideal weight to be about 70kg.
PPS - During 2014, I was steadily putting on weight just about all year.

Running in January

I'm hoping to do something a bit different this year. Twelve months, twelve monthly challenges. Some will be fitness-related, others will be artistic or creative. Some I might not have thought of yet. I have 11 months to get around to deciding what December will be. For January, though, my challenge to myself is this: run every day. I enjoy running, but I slack off regularly, so I'm going to go every single day for all of January. I'll be running about 5km per day, since that's about the distance required by the heart monitor watch my Dad got me for Christmas a couple of years ago. It varies the intensity and time, but it always seems to work out to running about 5km. I have a standard route to follow and on most days I'll be doing this before breakfast. Some days it might be at the gym, if it rains, or in sprints on the treadmill, interspersed with weights. Whatever the form, it will be every day. Count on that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'll be writing progress here, assuming it's interesting enough.
PPS - Happy New Year, everyone!

Crane tagging

Lately it has become a hobby of mine to fold little paper cranes from sticky notes and leave them in public, in visible places that people don't tend to go. Sometimes it's surprising how long one will stay there, given how many people must walk past it regularly.

In a way, it's a bit like graffiti, I suppose. I "tag" my locations with my creations, and it is definitely a signature. It's just not permanent. I understand why people mark places like that, though. It's a weird little feeling of power to walk through a place and know that you've marked it as your own, even if nobody knows it but you.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Maybe it's a kind of nesting instinct.
PPS - Which is a weird way to think about graffiti.

DIY

Although I do it myself in software sometimes, I still find it an odd statement, creatively, to say "I couldn't find anything like what I wanted, so I made it myself". When you're talking about creative work, the appreciation and the construction are two semi-independent skillsets. Appreciating art does not confer the ability to create it, though creating it does strengthen the ability to appreciate it. If, for instance, you're looking for a podcast full of writing tips or insider info, and you can't find one that appeals to you, deciding to make it yourself means you need the same education the podcast would be providing, but from other sources. So you couldn't find the podcast, but to make it, you had to replace it with something else anyway.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Your limitations may come up before you succeed at this endeavour.
PPS - "Nobody had painted a better Mona Lisa yet, so I did," is not an artist statement likely to win friends.

Hollywood chains

I think it's a little bit interesting to link up names of famous people that match first to last. For instance, Nicholle Tom -> Tom Arnold -> Arnold Schwartzeneggar. What is the longest possible one? If you insist on including Arnie, I think your only possible path is backwards from there, and I hadn't heard of Nicholle Tom until I went looking. I'm sure there are others.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I can't find anyone working backwards from Kevin Bacon.
PPS - Or forwards, for that matter.

Why I started using Pushbullet

For some time I was using Firefox as my primary web browser everywhere - at home and at work, on my netbook and also on my phone via the mobile version. I would often pull open tabs from one device to another via the Sync functionality, and it worked pretty well ... as long as it had synchronised by the time I wanted to pull the tabs around and I hadn't closed the source browser before the sync had finished.

Then my phone started misbehaving, I started a new job where Chrome worked better with the web proxy and the whole system fell apart. I looked briefly at XMarks, which is supposed to have cross-browser tab sync, but I couldn't get that working at all.

So I installed Pushbullet, based mostly on the fact that it was a channel available in IFTTT. Now, even though I'm using Firefox at home, Chrome at work and the stock Android browser on my phone, I can push tabs instantly from one device to any other, as well as send small files to and fro and get weather alerts via IFTTT. It's very handy. It was an adjustment to go from a "pull" mentality to "push", but not bad.

The one feature that doesn't quite work is sending SMS from my desktop - I can send texts just fine, and I know they are received because people respond, but there is no record of them going out at all. Not on my phone, not on the Pushbullet browser plugin. Other people have this problem with the feature and for some of them it works to go out and back in to the messaging app or restart their phones. That hasn't worked for me, but I'm not too concerned. I'm very happy with the other features and I plan to keep using them for some time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm very happy with the way another machine doesn't have to be online for a push.
PPS - I prefer my multi-machine software to allow that.

Christmas excitement

As I've grown older, as happens with most people, Christmas has become more about stress than happy family times. In part, this is because family times can bring stress, and the presents that distract us from that stress go away or get less exciting when we get older. This year, however, I'm feeling excited for Christmas. It's a weird feeling. We have the same lights up as last year, the same number of presents and no substantial difference in our plans for the day itself. Something must be different, though. I've got some gifts to give that I'm keen to see opened, but others that disappoint me. One hasn't arrived yet, at the time of writing, because my online shopping was late.

Maybe that's it. Last year, I had all of December to stress and plan and shop and stress. This year we've started late, compressing all my Christmas energy into a shorter time. Is that plausible? I don't know. I'm tired right now, so my introspection gland isn't working properly. The whole point is that I plan to have a great Christmas, and I wish the same for you.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I get to spend a lot of time with my nephew, which will be pretty great.
PPS - Assuming he doesn't exhaust me immediately.

The story of the Wattle Fairy scam

I had a clever friend in primary school who figured out how to manipulate his parents based on their desire to maintain his child-like belief in things like the tooth fairy and Santa. He made up something he called the Wattle Fairy who, so he said, would give you a present if you left a wattle flower by your bed at night. He told me about this and I tried it, then was deeply disappointed the next morning to find that the wattle fairy had not left me a gift. I cried to my parents about it who got very awkward suddenly. When I told my friend it didn't work, he said of course it didn't, because you have to tell your parents beforehand. I didn't get it even then. Does that make me a dim kid or just gullible?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've always assumed the former.
PPS - Disappointment is shaped like a wilted wattle flower.

Standing out and fitting in

I do have hipsterish tendencies, in that I enjoy being the unusual exception to the rule. Although it was a pain, at school I enjoyed being the only one taking both Maths C and Drama when they scheduled the exams together and I had to raise an objection. When I was employed at a consulting engineering firm, although it held me back, I liked having a degree that was unrecognised by Engineers Australia, whose accreditation program was intimately linked with the company's promotion practices. I just somehow get a kick out of throwing off expectations. The usual result, of course, is just a momentary "Oh", and then being ignored.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - So I guess the lesson is that outliers tend to be ignored.
PPS - And if you aim to be that outlier, you're aiming to be ignored for not fitting the pattern.

You can't take it with you

When people stopped believing in any kind of afterlife, the saying "You can't take it with you when you go" stopped meaning anything. If you don't believe you've got anywhere to go after death, then who cares if you can't take it with you? You don't need it when you're dead, you need it now, when you're alive, and who cares if you die with a lot of stuff or a little? In that mindset, it matters that you have had a comfortable life, not that there's no eternal safe-deposit box for your stuff when you snuff it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Which is not what I personally believe, but I do follow the logic.
PPS - It's a difference of assumptions.

Peer-to-peer MMOs

Since City of Heroes shut down - or even since the announcement, really - I've wondered about how to make MMO games robust against that kind of existential threat. When such games become unprofitable, development ceases and the servers are shut down. That's just business. The obvious answer to that problem is to host the game itself on a peer-to-peer network of player machines. Then, no matter how much the game grows or shrinks, there's always enough server capacity.

However, running a game like that on a peer-to-peer network raises some other challenges. For one, there's the matter of trusting the server code and preventing cheating. If the players, technically, have access to all the server code running on their own machines for each other, there's no central, trusted arbitrator for tasks like random number generation and application of the rules. I've outlined before how some trust can be established between peers for generating random numbers, so it's possible it could be worked around, but it requires a lot more communication than an implicitly-trusted server does. It's also probably not the full story for everything that's needed for a trusted peer network of this type.

Still, I'd like to see it attempted, if only to know that, in the future, there's a definite way to save these games from destruction when they become unprofitable, or for smaller, niche games to get a leg up when they're starting out and can't afford dedicated server hardware.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - On the City of Heroes front, a new game called Valiance Online has started open public testing.
PPS - Which is a long way from a complete game, but more than I've seen in a while.

Snowdrift could fund free software

I really like the idea put forward by snowdrift.coop, encouraging people to set aside some money to fund beneficial open-source projects so that everyone can benefit. The more people pledge to support a given project, the more funding that project gets, growing exponentially. On the receiving end, it seems like a great way to get this kind of project funded, since the people - particularly big companies - each give a little money to build up the common goods in software.

On the other hand, it still relies on charitable giving. Yes, if you fund the development of, say, OpenSSL, which almost everyone uses, then you get active development and the benefits of a well-supported library with motivated developers and proper funding instead of a library casually (but passionately) developed by volunteers in their spare time. But if everyone else funds the project and you don't, you still get that benefit. I'm not clear how Snowdrift solves that problem, except that witholding your funding means a greater chance that the development will stall and you won't get the benefits at all.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Which is just a statement of the snowdrift problem, I realise.
PPS - I'm not quite sure if that counts as circular.

Smart furniture meets sloppy housekeeping

I've seen occasional videos and concept drawings of small living spaces made more functional with fold-away furniture or reconfigurable room dividers. The thing that always strikes me about such concepts is how tidy the whole place needs to be, and how that compares to my house. If my kitchen table had to be bare to fold it away to get out the TV, well, we would have it forever folded away and would eat on the couch all the time. Or if the ground had to be clear to pull out the bed, we'd probably end up with a half-usable bed and a growing pile of life's detritus in the corner of the room. We just have a tendency for things - the stuff of life - to pile up in the corners, out of the way, and get forgotten for two or three years.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's not as bad as that sounds.
PPS - Except in some areas.

The redundant beverage dispenser

Did it bother anyone else that the Heart of Gold ship in the most recent Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie contained a weirdly imperfect beverage dispenser (as per the joke in the books) but also a perfect food replicator hooked up to a mind-reading device designed to detect cravings? I mean, if Arthur craved a cup of tea, why go to the machine that produces something that merely resembles tea instead of the much better machine that would do a perfect job? Why have the beverage dispenser on the ship at all?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - That's assuming the craving-machine does work any better than the beverage dispenser.
PPS - The craving-detector would be a very useful thing in our house, even without the food replicator part.

Preventing monopolies

Monopolies are bad. We know that. Oligopolies, where a few big businesses control most of the market, are also bad. So what factors make an acceptable level of competition, or what features flag an unacceptable level of complacent non-competition? It's tricky. I think it's more complicated than realising how much of the market is controlled by how many companies. Presumably, though, there's some number of companies required to make conspiracy untenable. I'd guess it's about twelve, the number of people we put on a jury in the understanding that such a group is too hard to sway as a whole. Whatever the number is, we need at least that many companies competing in every market to prevent monopolistic practices.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Making sure that happens is going to be crazy-difficult.
PPS - Especially when someone creates a brand new product.

Personal space on planes

When I read opinion pieces about air travel and leg room, reclining chairs and all things related to personal space, I think of the current designs for car trailers on trucks. See, when I was a kid, if a truck was hauling cars, they would be lined up in two layers of three, nose to tail. Then someone designed this nifty new way of cramming more cars onto a trailer at a lot of weird angles including one hanging over the truck cabin and hauling cars by truck became a lot more efficient with a lot less wasted space.

My point is this: you might think that your current personal space and comfort woes are about as bad as they can get on a plane right now, but just wait until someone clever figures out how to stack human beings in weird and interesting patterns to fit twice as many into the space as currently fit and you'll wish you lived back in the good old days when our only concern was having barely enough room for our knees and people reclining their seats at us, all facing forwards and upright.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Almost nothing is as completely bad as it could be.
PPS - We humans are great at making things worse for each other.

Quitting anything will bring cravings

I can't say that I've ever had to quit smoking or drinking, having never done either of those things at all, let alone enough to be addicted. I am aware, however, that a lot of people approach the Big Quit by looking for an external force that's going to make it happen, whether that's hypnotherapy, acupuncture, the patch, nicotine gum or inhalers to "handle the cravings". And before I get going, I need to stress again that I literally have no first-hand experience with how intense those cravings can be. Still, here it goes.

There are going to be cravings. Lots of them, strong, hard and frequent. That's how you know you're getting over an addiction. The craving is a withdrawal symptom, and you're not going to be able to quit without getting them. What you need to do, however, is to recognise, anticipate and accept that these cravings will happen, and let them pass without satisfying them. Then do it again and again, as long as they come, for the rest of your life, because that's what quitting means.

By all means, get support, call people, talk to your doctor, read about it, substitute better behaviours, but for goodness' sake, don't keep taking in exactly as much nicotine as before. You don't expect someone who has "quit drinking" to take a little nip every now and then to get over their cravings, do you? If you quit sugar you don't have a little chocolate now and then just to keep the edge off. If you quit, then you quit. Don't half-ass this. It's your life and you're going to be the one making the change.

"But," you say, "it's really hard!" Yes. Yes it is. Of course it is. If it weren't, then they wouldn't bother putting the addictive stuff into cigarettes in the first place, and there wouldn't be a whole industry also built around helping you quit smoking, would there? If it were easy, you'd just decide to quit and then there'd be no step 2. So prepare yourself for a hard job and stick to it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And if losing weight were easy, we'd have an epidemic of skinniness on our hands.
PPS - Which would be very strange.

Personal disaster planning

Whatever role you are in, it's important for everyone around you to have an idea of what you do and how they could replace you in case you were hit by a bus tomorrow. It doesn't even have to be such a permanent situation as that. If you broke your leg and had to stay home from work for six weeks, how would the business cope? In some cases - menial work - there won't be much of a problem. Someone else will cover your shift, some other person with similar skills can fill in on a temp basis, no big deal. In some other roles, though - husband, parent, museum curator - your disappearance or disablement may cause serious disruption to the people around you. If you are proactive about this, you should prepare for this eventuality. I call this "the black envelope".

Inside the black envelope is everything anyone would need in case you are no longer available to fill your role, permanently or only temporarily. What you do day to day, how you do it and where everything important is kept. It's like putting together a job handover package before it's necessary, because you might not get to deliver all the information in person.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I actually don't have one of my own yet.
PPS - But, like backups, I've been meaning to start any day now.

Importance

Sometimes it happens that a particular subgroup of employees will go on strike for better pay or better conditions. I don't have a problem with fighting for your rights or for your basic living requirements, but I think sometimes people lose sight of the fact that they are part of a much bigger machine. "You can't run a hospital without nurses." That's true. It doesn't make you the only important part, though. You also can't run a hospital without doctors. You can't run it very well for very long without janitors or administrators, either. You can't run a (modern) city without sanitation workers, but you also can't run it without power workers or water supply or police or firefighters or ambulances.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Being critical to a complex system's success doesn't make you more important than anyone else.
PPS - You're just important. Be happy with that, and get what you need.

How 3D-printed toys will work

I have a feeling that domestic 3D printing is going to be a real breaking change to the toy industry. Rather than having mountains of plastic rubbish in the house that gets used for a few weeks, broken and discarded, a home 3D printing system (with plastic recycling) can print off any toy you like, then take it back to be turned into something new or just restored if it was particularly loved. The toys that pile up in the corners of the room and are never used any more can be shovelled into the recycler to be made into new toys when the need arises.

So how will the toy industry adapt? Well, one of the most obvious steps is to sell toy designs for 3D printers. Rather than printing Turtle Man 07b from some knock-off download, kids will value having genuine toy designs from the original source. Yes, it will matter to them. Think back to your own childhood and try to remember if it mattered that the label on your clothes was genuine, that you owned a real Nintendo console or even that you ate brand-name cereal for breakfast. It matters to kids.

Selling printers and branded feedstock might matter, though possibly not as much. Particularly sinister companies might sell printers that are designed to sit and monitor the TV, only unlocking or downloading exclusive printer models if it sees the right ads. Basically, you have to watch our cartoon and all the ads if you want the cool new spaceship model for the week.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's going to be a different world.
PPS - But it's probably not going to be here for a while.

The lottery prediction meta-lottery

For the low price of one dollar, I will predict for you whether you will win the lottery this week. I guarantee 99.9% accuracy or your money back. Think about the money you'll save by only paying me $1 on weeks when you would have lost anyway, when it costs much more than that to enter the lottery!

Now I'm going to spoil my business plan by telling you this: I'll just always answer "no", and it still works, because all I've done is set up a cheaper lottery with almost no payout (in part because, if you pay me for my prediction and you win anyway, I'm the least of your concerns).

The only problem is if someone pays me my dollar, I tell them "no win", then they pick the winning numbers without playing and sue me for the prize money they should have won.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course, the only way to prove you "would have" won is to actually register the entry.
PPS - And it's probably not going to happen anyway, because that's how lotteries work.

Real hoverboards

So it looks like we are finally getting real hoverboards. This has been a source of prank material for quite some time, beginning with a Back to the Future behind the scenes documentary and including a recent video with Tony Hawk pretending to ride one. Now there's a Kickstarter campaign and another video of Tony Hawk. This time, however, I'm inclined to believe it, mostly because it looks like it's impossible to steer. If you were going to produce a video of a fake hoverboard, you'd be inclined to make it look more ridable. As it is, this one seems to handle like a block of ice on a sheet of glass. Oh, and it has to be used on a non-magnetic metallic surface, too, so unless you have copper footpaths or, as in the video, a copper halfpipe, it won't be nearly as exciting as it sounds.

Still, the production of a self-contained, non-superconductor electromagnetic hovering effect is quite the accomplishment, and just in time for 2015 - the year featured in Back to the Future Part 2.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Also, since Tony Hawk apologised for the prank video, I doubt he'd do a second fake one.
PPS - The Kickstarter campaign is here: Hendo Hoverboards.

Security, privacy and spies

How do you define cybersecurity? To me, it is the resistance of computer systems to unauthorised access of any form. And how do you define digital privacy? Well, to me, it is the ability to keep secret anything I wish to remain secret. Okay, so how do you keep secrets on computers? Well, by preventing unauthorised access, of course.

This is why I say that security and privacy are the same thing, and if you try to give up some digital privacy to get better security, you're going about it completely backwards. What people are usually thinking of is spycraft and, in that case, yes, giving up some of your digital privacy does result in easier spy work. Just keep in mind that spies aren't (directly) keeping you safe. Spies are, in essence, a kind of covert *assault* force. The extent to which they keep you safe is just the extent to which they manage to smite your enemies. If everyone has different locks on their doors, then breaking into one house doesn't open up everyone to attack. The thing is, online, everyone lives behind the same door.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Well, to an extent, in a manner of speaking.
PPS - Like all analogies, that one has its flaws.

Just get started

There are a lot of articles I've read lately about making games, specifically how to "get started". Most of them begin by saying "Just get started. Make something and you'll get better to make new things." That's not very helpful if the actual question was "I am thinking of making a game, and I don't yet know how to make images move on the screen. Can you help me?" and your response is "Just do it". There are some specific technical questions behind the first "how do I get started", and I think these game-making mentors should start with "these are the tools I use, this is specifically how I built my first game". That's more helpful than a vague motivational speech about keeping at your art to get the skills you will need later.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Motivation is good, too.
PPS - It's just that specifics help more sometimes.

Blind computing

If you were designing a computer operating system from the ground up for blind people, what would that be like? You'd probably have to ask a blind person to help you, or blindfold yourself while you worked on it. Watching Tommy Edison using his Mac with the help of the screen narrator was like watching him fumble around in the dark. He was able to do it, but it was clearly blind-enabled as an afterthought to the primary design. Computers are about the one place where you'd think he would be able to find a level playing field, but all our normal desktop operating systems, software and websites are built assuming you have vision.

An operating system built for blind people would be - should be completely different to any existing desktop OS of today, just as a phone for blind people needs to be something better than stock Android on a featureless glass touch screen with an assistant to read out what you're doing.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I've seen a blind man using a touch-screen phone on the train.
PPS - It did not seem easy for him.

High school

When you're in high school, everything feels momentous and important. Then, the second you walk out of those gates for good, all of it - every single event, team, fight, hookup, embarrassment - completely ceases to matter for the rest of your life. This is beginning to be very common knowledge among adults, but it's hard to grasp when you're there for yourself because, as mentioned, it feels like you are in the middle of the most important time of your life. And you are, but not in the way you think at the time.

It feels like this relationship will go on forever and will matter to you with the burning intensity of a thousand suns for the rest of eternity. Then three months later you're at university and nothing could be further from your mind than your childish hookups. You get a "C" instead of a "B" in your class, which drags down your entire GPA and it is SO IMPORTANT, until it just isn't. Or she says he says she says you did and EVERYONE KNOWS and OH MY GOD IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD but then it isn't. Because the most important thing that happens in high school is that you develop a personality. You wait until the hormonal fire in your brain settles down to a gentle three-alarm blaze and if you actually overcame obstacles, you'll be a decent human being. If, on the other hand, high school felt so easy that it was like barrelling down an oiled waterslide giving high-fives on both sides and crashing into a pool of non-stop bikini chocolate-wrestling, real life is going to kick you in the guts straight away when you graduate.

You can climb the social ladder in high school all you like. When you get out, though, the world tips that ladder upside down, shakes you all off and says that, if you don't like it, you'd better fight back. The only people who succeed and never outgrow high school are politicians, and I'm not sure "politics" really counts as "success".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My own high school journey is kind of a blur in my memory.
PPS - Mostly I think it was frustrating.

Capitalism is zero-sum

Is there such a thing as a capitalist economy where everyone wins? I think not. Capitalism is zero-sum. There's no such thing as making money, only taking money, so for you to "win" at capitalism, someone else loses. Those extra dollars in your pocket come from the people who lost to you. Everything you have comes from someone else's failure and your billion-dollar empire is built not on your MBA and good instincts but on the blood and bones of the enemies you didn't even know you had.

Consider it on a smaller scale. You have twenty people locked in a room for a day. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. No matter what they find in the room, what they buy or sell between themselves, no matter what they do, it's a closed system. The same amount of money is coming out of that room at the end of the day as when it began, even if it's all in the pocket of one guy. He might think the system works, and it did, but only for him.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You can print more money, but it represents the same total value as before.
PPS - And all of this is why we need governments that stand up for the poor.

Too hard

I try not to say something is "too hard". I always mentally correct that to just "hard", because "too hard", to me, means "I quit". Some things really are "too hard", though. The whole class of computing problems called "NP-Hard" are kind of one-directional, and, with sufficient size, they are too hard to solve before the universe will collapse into heat death. There are physical tasks that can't be accomplished because sufficient force would destroy the components, which makes them too hard as well. In general, though, I try not to apply the label "too hard" to something just because it is a huge challenge or because it is beyond my current abilities. Those things are hard, but they are still possible. That's what I mean.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Stop me if I ever say "too hard" when I mean "very hard".
PPS - Also, I consider this a case of language pedantry rather than positive thinking.

Measuring favours

How would you measure a favour as a unit of currency? Time would have to come into it, but then there's also skill and difficulty. It would be different getting a master tradesperson to tile your bathroom than getting your two mates to do it for their first ever attempt. And one hour of a really tricky problem is far different to one hour of mindless repetitive labour. You probably can't quantify it adequately in the end. It has to be negotiated each time between the parties involved in a trade.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It might be one way to try and build a cashless economy, though.
PPS - Well, until we start printing generic favour coupons to pass around and keep track.

Excessive security is hard to detect

It is very difficult to tell if you have over-secured something. The results of adequate security and too much security look about the same: no security incidents, in whatever form you have defined them. Whether you've spent just enough on security or way too much, your efforts will be an obvious success, and it's very easy to pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

However, think of it in engineering terms, if that helps. I want to build a bridge across a chasm. I need it to carry foot traffic, and I have $100,000 to build it. An adequate solution is a simple steel span footbridge costing $10,000. It results in easy crossings for everyone, costs less than budget and lasts many years with appropriate maintenance. An over-engineered solution is a four-lane highway bridge with a smart lane control system, traffic cameras, solar lighting and emergency communications systems. If such a bridge costs the whole $100,000, but also results in easy crossings and lasts many years with appropriate maintenance, then it might be tricky to see, without knowing that the simple footbridge was a possibility, that the solution is over-engineered.

It's the same with security. When you spend way too much on security, it does the job just as well as spending a bit less would have done, but you can't tell how much less you could have spent. Think about that if you are ever in a position to boast about how effective your security precautions were.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It becomes more obvious if you start spending less and nothing bad happens.
PPS - Unless you just faced fewer threats that day.

Friday Flash Fiction: What does morning smell like?

What does morning smell like?

Linen a little less clean than the day before. The fading wisps of last night's cool breeze replaced by new dew on the grass. The bitter stale of morning breath.
Hot steam, cool tile. Vanilla soap and foaming shampoo. Egyptian cotton and lavender fabric softener.
Wholegrain toast, strawberry jam. Bitter plunger coffee. No, the home espresso machine. No, wait, barista cappucino, cream, caramel and chocolate! Warm, fresh-baked muffins.
Dusty concrete. Aged upholstery. The gagging sweat of unwashed strangers. Earbud plastic.
Thin carpet with a fine layer of dust. Pine-scented suface cleaner. Burnt ozone of electricity and flourescent lights.
Morning smells like the cycle of daily life.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This was the first and only writing prompt I picked up from there.
PPS - Maybe I should look for others when NaNoWriMo is over.

Software shortcuts can make you a worse programmer

I read recently of some people lamenting the lack of skill shown by modern software developers and the difference between using tools to take over from already-mastered, mechanical processes in your work vs bypassing the learning of that branch of practice entirely. The argument was that it's perfectly fine to use tools to get around the parts of your job that you've already mastered, so that you can focus on more interesting, higher-level challenges, but a lot of modern software development provides tools that let you jump over that mastery from the start, which means you have no idea how it actually works. To make up an example, you might use a framework to read and write data from a database once you know how that works, because that's stock-standard boilerplate code you don't need to rewrite every time. However, if you use that code from the beginning, you'll never know how to connect to a database without it.

The problem is that you can't keep tools from people who don't know how to use them. You can't force a carpenter to use a hand saw until he understands it enough to graduate to a power saw. This goes doubly true in software. The tools don't care who uses them or what their skill level would be without the tool. The only thing you can do is challenge yourself. Start from scratch in everything and build up your own set of tools and frameworks over a career instead of picking up the biggest, baddest set of power tools from the start and demolishing a house by accident. That has to be self-enforced, though. If you couldn't have built it on your own, don't use it yet.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You can't make people earn shortcuts, is my point.
PPS - Once they're open, they're open to everyone. That's kind of the point of software.

Parking ticket diversions

Can a fake parking ticket save you from a real one? That is, if a parking inspector sees a ticket - any ticket - on your car, would they just ignore you? I doubt anyone would tell you. To find out, you'd have to park illegally and put a fake ticket on your own windscreen, then watch a parking inspector walk by your car.

The difficulty with this type of decoy would be that the inspector needs to be fresh on his shift when he encounters your car (so he can assume the ticket was placed by someone else legitimately) or needs to forget that he didn't do it himself. It's probably not a foolproof plan, then, but might work just well enough for some habitual bad parkers to be worth it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My best guess is that you can still get more tickets if you've already got one.
PPS - So, in that sense, it's absolutely no help at all.

NaNoWriMo 2014

So I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year, as I have the past 3 years. Last year I finished, as I did the year before that, so I thought I had this thing down pat. Maybe not. I'm falling behind. As in previous years, my process has been to write like mad on the train to and from work and, as with previous years, there have been a few snags here and there. Some days are faster than others. When I have no pauses between words and it just flows easily, I write up to 1500 words each way on the train, which can make for a very productive day. That can happen maybe once per month. Most days I get a bit over half my quota done each way. I've got some time next week that I can use on my own to catch up, but catching up is not the way I want to go. Right now I'm at 24,007 words, and I should be up to 28,333 today. That's getting to be a big hill to climb.

The story itself isn't coming together the way I'd like. My characters lack agency. They're not making the story go, the story is making them go, and I have to keep making the story make them go, which gets boring for me. I have no idea how to get them where they need to go, so perhaps I need to switch gears, develop some character and figure out how they can work the quest instead of being worked over by it. Maybe that will work.

I'm using Scrivener this year, which I bought on discount from a previous year's voucher. It's pretty good, but I could be using it better. I have notes for myself for next year.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't really know if I'll make it this year.
PPS - Maybe I'll learn something from the journey, though.

How Netflix could affect Australian streaming entertainment for the better

It seems Netflix is gearing up for an Australian launch, perhaps at the beginning of 2015. This sounds like really good news for Australia, and it is, but it might not be quite what we were hoping for.

The Netflix name in the USA is associated with cheap streaming content for a very low, flat monthly fee. The closest thing we have so far in Australia is Quickflix, who favour a slightly different "Pay-N-Play-N-Pay" model where you pay a relatively cheap monthly fee for streaming access, then (typically) pay several dollars extra for each TV show episode or movie you want to watch. The other major player in this space is Foxtel, who now charge $25 per month for their basic package and offer similar content to your defunct local DVD rental place, but on their schedule, plus Game of Thrones.

Quickflix, so far, has a pretty disappointing range of titles. Movies are typically only available to "rent" for streaming as long as they are new-release DVDs and it's a pretty safe bet that the obscure old TV show you desperately want to watch isn't on there. Foxtel behaves about the same, when you think about it.

There are two ways Netflix could bring some much-needed disruption into this space. One, a vast library of content currently unavailable in any way, shape or form to Australians. Existing dinosaurian regional distribution deals mean this probably won't happen, because they were signed by crusty old rich white dudes to whom "internet" is that weird noise their grandkids keep making. The second possible disruption is price. If I were to guess, I'd say Netflix is likely to cost a flat fee of $15 per month in Australia because suck it, Australia, what are you gonna do, cry about it? If they aren't charging extra fees for the exact same content as Quickflix, that will pretty much force Quickflix to drop their streaming rental fees, too, or else lose all their customers. However, if Netflix are forced by distribution agreements to charge extra fees for new movie streaming, and they don't get extra content, there's very little reason to prefer them over Quickflix. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - This is not the first we've heard news of Netflix Australia.
PPS - There are perpetual rumours.

Monthly challenges for 2015

I would love to spend each month in 2015 on a different month-long challenge. The thing is, I only know of a few, they're all clustered towards the end of the year and they don't provide much of a challenge for me, as such. See, I could do something called "Dry July" or "Ocsober" except that I already don't drink, so that's pretty much life as usual for me. There's "Movember", too, which is just strategic non-shaving, so that's also not a huge challenge. I've done NaNoWriMo for the past four years and plan to keep doing that, so that's just one item on the list. What are some more I could do?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I think January will be running every day.
PPS - I have a list I will be picking from, as the month-by-month mood takes me.

Grooms should get involved in wedding planning

It surprises me to hear uninvolved many grooms-to-be are in the planning of their own weddings. Personally, I wouldn't want to enter into a lifelong partnership in such a passive mode. I would also be a bit concerned if my bride was fine with this, since it means she would have very little interest in my opinions or preferences.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I was involved in the planning of my own wedding.
PPS - It just makes sense that way.

Angry positivity

Hostility always breeds a hostile response. I see this sometimes in otherwise positive places. Instead of "solar power is great", we get "solar power is great, and anyone who says otherwise is a BIG F***ING LIAR WHO CAN ROT IN HELL." Things like that.

My point is, if you find your "positive attitude" contains a bit of "f*** you", then things might be going off the rails a bit. Maybe take a step back, remove the hostility and just present the positive without the attack.

It's a very angry type of attitude. I realise it's coming from a place of frustration, but it really strikes me as unnecessary. Unless you find other people who are angry-excited about the same things you are, you're not going to win anyone over to your cause that way.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If your "positivity" can't be expressed without hostility, then I don't think you know what positivity is.
PPS - Or you're a very angry person and should seek counselling.

Guerilla office maintenance

I tend to harbour plans for guerilla office maintenance. For example, the bathrooms at my current place of work feature too few paper towels for a typical day and one bin that is too small for the towels that are used. I figure I could buy a large-ish plastic bin and just leave it there myself, fixing the problem and creating a better work atmosphere for myself and others. I also note that there is far too little cutlery to go around at lunchtime, and I wonder how to get around that problem, too - probably by buying forks and teaspoons in bulk.

To date, I have not enacted any of my plans in any workplace. It's not the money. It's more the expectation that I'll get a "concerned" email saying "Some time last week, a mysterious extra bin appeared in the men's bathrooms on level 8. Security were called, the building evacuated and the plastic bin destroyed with extreme prejudice. It turned out to be just a bin, but this incident illustrates the need for vigilant employee security blah blah blah". Basically, I don't trust that upper management encourages this kind of pseudo-nesting behaviour.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I just see a problem with an easy solution and I want to help.
PPS - The best I've done is carry in extra paper towels from the kitchen.

Computer speech production vs recognition

I wondered here (or maybe I never posted it) about why the early computer scientists and science fiction authors believed that speech recognition would be easy for computers, but speech production would be difficult. A lot of sci-fi has robots and computers taking in verbal commands from humans and producing text in response, when it turns out that the exact opposite difficulty curve was encountered. If you give a computer some text, you can get a passable vocal representation of it easily enough, but recognising speech took a lot longer to get to that same point.

I think now I have some insight into why that misconception may have gained traction. I am currently (well, not this very second, but during this time in my life) watching my nephew develop the twin powers of speech and comprehension of the English language. It is clear that he understands a lot more words than he is capable of producing. He can point to his nose, eyes, head, knees, belly and so on in response to questions, but he can't say all of those words yet, or at least not clearly. He takes in whole sentences and produces one or two word responses which are a little slurred or clipped off. Speech is really hard, but recognition is coming along.

And that, I thought to myself, must be what they believed in those days. A computer is like a child, they thought. We teach it things and it responds as we have taught it. Children learn speech recognition first, before they can produce it well, so that's probably what will happen to computers, too.

The thing is, a computer is really nothing like a brain. We've lived with that metaphor for so long that we often get mad at our technology as if it were trying to thwart us. In many ways, though, a computer is the opposite of a brain. That's why we built them that way. It's why they became such useful tools: because they do things in ways our brains cannot. At their best, computers complement our abilities, and we both become better for it. So if you find yourself thinking about your computer or phone in brain terms, turn it around and think the opposite, as best you can.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Assuming "the opposite" is clear.
PPS - Which it might not be.

Office peer security

Recognising official uniforms as opposed to fake ones is a big problem for security. If you walk confidently into some official location in an official-looking uniform, it is very likely nobody will look twice at you. How do you guard against that? How do you guard against fake IDs in an office building where there are guests coming and going from all areas at all times and you will only ever recognise a handful of faces? Really, the only thing you can do is to encourage an office culture where absolutely everyone spends their time stopping each other and demanding to see ID, and then calling into a central place to verify, because the ID could be fake. That's going to take a lot of time, and if you're doing it properly, lunchtime in the break room is going to be a nightmare. I pass at least a dozen strangers at lunchtime every weekday, and it would take far longer than my lunch break to stop them and call in all their ID. That's what would be needed, however, to provide true peer-to-peer security checks. Oh, and you don't get to stop doing that once you know and recognise people, either, because you don't know if they have been fired but kept their ID since you saw them last time, even if that was the same day.

I counted the strangers I saw in the office over 4 hours before lunch. It was about 30. If I spend 2 minutes checking on each one, that's an hour out of every 4, or 20% of my time. An entire workday per week just checking IDs. At that point, considering that we're asking everyone to spend 20% of their time checking IDs, it is far more worthwhile to hire several security guards to check ID for everyone as they come and go from the lifts.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's funny what becomes feasible when you actually count the cost of asking employees to do it in their "spare time".
PPS - Because, really, there is no spare time.

Spoilers as plot points

What's the statute of limitations on spoilers? Obviously if you're personally talking to someone who hates spoilers and has yet to experience the surprise or twist that you could spoil, you don't do so (unless maybe you're evil), but what about public disclosure? In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon spoils a Harry Potter book for Leonard, who had not read it yet, and of course it's a big deal for Leonard, but what about for the viewers? If it's plausible that Leonard hadn't read the book yet, then it's possible it's true for some viewers, too, and the spoiler for Leonard would have been a spoiler for that part of the audience. Now, the book in question, The Half-Blood Prince, was first published in 2005, being 8 years before the TV episode, and the movie of the book was released in 2009, 4 years before. Is that enough time to say "if you haven't seen or read it yet, too bad"? Should there have been a spoiler warning at the start of the episode? There's probably a time beyond which you can't expect the whole world to keep the surprise for you, but how long is that, exactly?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The episode would have been difficult to pull off without the actual spoiler, though.
PPS - Unless they made up a fake fictional franchise, which they don't generally do on that show.

Thing of the week is just a beginning

It's funny how many TV shows start out on "thing of the week" episodes that are relatively self-contained, but then they discover the overarching story that becomes their true focus. Supernatural started with monster of the week, but moved on to an ongoing story about the brothers' relationship against a background of angels and demons. The X-Files moved on from mystery of the week to the Mulder and Scully relationship against a huge government/alien conspiracy. Psych, even though they kept the case of the week format most of the time, explored several relationships, both friendly, family and romantic, as the main focus after a few seasons. Fringe moved on from weird-of-the-week to a battle between alternate realities. You get the idea. Thing of the week is just where the writers start, but eventually they find their real story.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's hard to see where you'll end up when you start.
PPS - I imagine it's a good feeling for those writers when they find their way.

Non-disruptive protests aren't protests

I don't think you can really have a designated protest zone where protest disruption is minimised. If a protest is completely non-disruptive and draws no attention because it was pre-corralled away from the press and from anyone whose attention might matter, then it might as well not happen. It's a tree falling in the woods. It is a protest in name only, de-fanged and technically still extant, but utterly without point.

The G20 summit is happening in Brisbane soon. There will be protests, because some people see the G20 as a colossal waste of time and money where big government officials get together and talk about how great they are and how to screw over the dirty little poor nations some more. Ahem. Anyway, they know there will be protests. These protests will be placed inside fenced-off areas specially designated for protesting, far away from anyone who could matter and with an assigned police negotiator to keep them under control. That's not a protest. That's camping in the city, and it means nothing. If you've been pre-handled as a protester, if you have to give advance notice that you will be protesting, filling out forms in triplicate and returning them to the relevant authorities, you're not protesting any more. You're registering a formal complaint within a system that will file it away and ignore it completely as much as possible, even though you might be present in some capacity. It's a farce.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The best you can hope to do is raise awareness.
PPS - Not in the people that matter, though. Just everyone else who never gets near them.

Jeeves is my new Belvedere

I've gotten kind of excited about a very simple program I've written recently, called Jeeves. It's a replacement for a program I got from Lifehacker that was called Belvedere (so I kept up the butler naming scheme). Basically, Belvedere is able to monitor folders on your hard drive, watching for certain conditions (such as files last modified before a certain date) and take actions in response, such as moving them to the recycle bin. I find it very useful for keeping my Downloads folder clean by setting it to watch for files older than a fortnight.

What bothered me was that Belvedere couldn't look for empty folders and remove those. I've tried various approaches to the problem, including writing a simple C# program to find and delete empty folders. That path started leading me to write a replacement for Belvedere, with configurable Trigger items and Actions to take in response. This turned out to be a very tricky and complicated way to operate, involving passing values back and forth in a generalised and highly flexible way, figuring out how to save and load rules and generally getting very messy. I abandoned the project for a long while.

Recently, I hit on the idea that maybe Python would be a better fit for the functionality, but I still couldn't figure out how to save and load the rules to be run by the generalised rule engine.

Then it hit me. Why do I need a generalised rule engine at all? If my goal is to run arbitrary actions in response to arbitrary conditions, then I should just write scripts to do what I want directly. Suddenly Jeeves, instead of being a complex, extensible file and folder monitoring rules engine, became a lean set of a few helper methods. Now my scripts are machine-specific simple Python programs that consist of statements like:

delete_folders(empty_folders("C:/temp"))

That's a Jeeves rule that deletes any empty folders under the temp folder. It's such an easy kind of rule for me to write that I hardly need to think about it. It also neatly sidesteps all of the problems I was having with the C# version. I schedule this file with the Windows Task Scheduler, and it works brilliantly. Belvedere, unfortunately, you're fired. I have Jeeves now.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I recognise that this system isn't good for non-programmers.
PPS - Since it's just for me, that is not an issue.

Network disk space

How much does it actually cost, per gigabyte, to supply network storage on-site to a company? I wonder because, no matter what company I work for, no matter what size, there always seems to be a 300GB network drive that is almost full. Considering that you can buy multi-terabyte desktop drives for $100, it seems absurd that large companies would limit themselves to such a small amount of shared space unless there are massive costs involved in keeping that storage alive and backed up.

Because I assume IT departments are not staffed by muppets, I don't expect anyone's mind will be blown by the suggestion that more storage could be provided at very little cost. Therefore, there must be a simple explanation for the typical 300GB limit. Anyone care to chime in?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My best guess is that they use expensive server hard drives, so it's more expensive.
PPS - And that it's harder to convince people to archive files if they've got a lot of storage.

Creating value

Wealth is zero-sum. If I get more, then you have less. There's only so much physical property in the world that people can own and only so much money in circulation (even if we print more, inflation means it's always worth about the same in total). Moving things from place to place, as in buying and selling, doesn't increase net wealth, so the share market is just a way for rich people to get richer at the expense of poorer people.

Creating, however, has value. It adds value. Take something that was useless or raw and make it useful or beautiful. That is what it means to create value.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - In the very long term, I think value might need to be measured in terms of entropy.
PPS - But that's a totally different concept.

Mockumentaries

There should be separate words for fake documentary films made for humour and fake documentary films made as pranks or for similar purposes. I'll lump in those made to show off video editing skills with that second group. Right now, the best word we have for them both is "mockumentary", and I don't feel that covers the second case very well.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There's also "docufiction", but I struggle to see that one taking off.
PPS - Perhaps two words for such similar concepts would be confusing.

Why no surgical use of superglue on TV?

Why do no TV shows or movies have the out-of-hospital medical carer use superglue rather than stitches to seal a wound? Is it because the majority of the audience would think it's too weird, regardless of its practicality?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I guess it is pretty weird.
PPS - Still, it seems like the kind of thing a gritty action hero might have learned.

How to keep your office chair from being borrowed

I'm sitting near some "quiet rooms" at work these days, which should be familiar to anyone who has worked in an open-plan office. Basically, because open-plan sucks and allows the slightest noise to carry everywhere, there are meeting rooms provided that are big enough for a couple of people to use for short stretches of time for things like conference calls or stand-up meetings. Anything that might make distracting noise, really.

Okay, down to the point: chairs. These rooms often host meetings of four or more people, and only contain two chairs by default. My coworkers frequently fall victim to chair borrowing, since two of them are part-time. I, however, have managed not to have my chair kidnapped yet, and I think it's down to one simple difference: my chair has a jacket on it all the time.

If you're going to borrow a chair for a short meeting, you want one that isn't in use. That's the bare minimum of consideration in this situation. My chair with the jacket looks like it's always in use. To borrow it, you'd have to either take the jacket with you or remove it from the chair and place it on my desk. If you take the chair with the jacket, I will find you, like an overzealous interpretation of a Liam Neeson movie. Most people will be too courteous to move the jacket when there are other, undecorated chairs right there. So maybe that will work for you in a similar situation.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Also, because of the design of our chairs, it keeps them from shearing off the buttons from my back pockets.
PPS - It's a weird and specific bonus, but it matters.

Shrinking

Lately, the file I keep of draft entries for this blog has been shrinking. This hasn't happened for a long time, but it's been going on for some time now. I'm just not writing as much for this blog as I once did. Oddly, this fills me with both sadness and a weird kind of excitement. On the one hand, have I truly run out of interesting things to say? Well, yes, probably. In fact, that ship likely sailed some time ago. My 2-views-per-post average speaks volumes about that. From that point of view, seeing this blog go the way of the dinosaurs wouldn't be so bad. As long as it goes like a dinosaur skateboarding into a volcano. Rad.

On the other hand, I loves me some incremental progress. The laundry pile getting slightly smaller every day, the garden getting a little bit neater, my reading list shrinking just a little bit. I get a kick out of that, and a shrinking draft posts file feels just like that. I feel like I set myself a goal I didn't know about when I started - say all the interesting things - and I'm getting closer to that goal. I will put a big tick in the box of life accomplishments that says "natter inanely on the internet for 10 years", sit back and smile, satisfied at a job well done. Yup. All squared away.

It just depends if I hit a rich vein of inspiration some time in the next year or so before my draft entries run out. I guess we'll see. Perhaps this is a chance to refocus.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'll let you know.
PPS - Or I'll disappear one day and both of you will shrug and get on with your lives.

Identification by implant

I would like to see a supercut of all instances on Bones where a medical implant serial number has provided the identity of a victim. It's not all the time, and it's not even more than half, but it pops up a lot. I remember breast implants, artificial testicles, pacemakers and even a prosthetic stapes (eardrum bone). There have been more. Putting them all together into a supercut would point it out pretty well. It feels, sometimes, like this is a shortcut the writers take when establishing the identity of the victim is not a central plot point, or they don't have time for that as part of the main story.

It also makes me think that having such an implant, even cosmetically, might not be such a bad idea. Quick and easy identification of my remains, in the unlikely and hopefully-only-theoretical event of my grisly murder, could save a lot of time for the investigation. Or I could wear dog tags, but those are much easier to remove or lose.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wonder if any doctor would perform a surgical implant just for posthumous ID.
PPS - Probably not. In most cases, it wouldn't be worth it.