[new mac] first post

My first post on my new Mac with Airport.

Well, I'm using the new Mac to post this and it's both exasperating and wonderful.

Firstly, though I have internet, nothing has been adjusted so far and it all feels weird after using Intellimouse with its five clicking functions - but what can be done on a touchpad is simply weird as well.

Nice aspects include the 17" screen which allows my main page and blogroll page side by side and the reader which I've started adding to is superfast and allows ten or more sites to be displayed at one time.

When the light fades in the room, the lights come on under the keys and it autodetects screen brightness requirements as well. Menus come up as cascades and so on. 2.3GB RAM is not bad either.

The piece de resistance though is the Airport Extreme flying saucer internet connector which lets you sit on the toilet and post to the blog from there. I assure you I'm not there at this moment but I'm threatening to.

The downside is that the Saturday Blogfocus will be a Sunday Blogfocus for this weekend as the Higham is not sufficiently au fait yet to produce one.

Hope all is well with you out there as well.

[freedom] principles of motivation

The first principle to be internalized is that no one is free and it is an illusion to think we are. As Janis Joplin sang in the song by Kristofferson [who incidentally has had some grave charges laid against him by some suspect and yet hitherto undebunked sources vis a vis deprivation of people's freedom]:

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Only those with nothing are free, as Alexander Solzhenitzyn noted, in the First Circle, 1968:

…when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again …

Lenin cynically stated, :

Liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed.

We are all in thrall, every last one of us but the western myth of personal freedom has gripped us from the beginning and as it is intergenerationally preached as being the case, to state the contrary is met with resistance.

The Christian is in thrall to the redemptive possibility of Jesus, the businessman to his partner or potential partner, the shopkeeper to his customer, the employee to his firm or educational institution, the scientist to his research grant, the child to the parent, the parent to the child.

If you doubt this, then openly go outside parameters acceptable to the patron for some time and observe the result. I myself am in thrall to two powers, one non-temporal and one temporal and both require certain unpaid sacrifices to be made, certain community service, if you like, in order to enjoy continued patronage.

The second principle is patronage itself and that's the true reality of life. In Russia, they have a word for it - krisha - and the quality of your krisha determines the quality of your daily life.

This principle of patronage is the root cause of the trouble besetting us because your patron has power over us in proportion to our perception of the need for that patronage. If that patronage appears to be for nefarious ends, as in the case of Common Purpose, then the only way to get people to go along with it is either through the promise of spoils in the new order or through fear and subjugation.

The third principle is that patronage increases its hold more firmly, the higher we rise, the greater the carrot and the further we can fall if we lose it. It becomes more critical to please our masters and is tied in with ambition which becomes more intense and yet ever more sublimated into vague notions of helping the common good. John Buchan, Chapter 1:

… they struck a bigger thing than money, a thing that couldn't be bought, the old elemental fighting instincts of man. If you're going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing …

It has always been so and nowhere in here are heard the words "selfless love", except as abstract ideas.

The fourth principle is the intrinsic fear of loss of patronage or even of punishment. From the babe in arms fearing his mother's withdrawal of a loving smile after the first experience of it or a man fearing his lover's disdain, should he fail to meet her expectations, to the rising young employee fearing to put a foot wrong and taking courses of action on his own initiative to score brownie points - fear of loss of patronage is a powerful motivator.

The fear of punishment is an adjunct to the loss of patronage and works perfectly under the post-Skinner model of trauma based subjugation techniques - no one would contemplate for one second falling so far.

The fifth principle is to come to love or worship an abstract idea, an imagined principle [cause] or a temporary material acquisition, e.g. the EU blueprint for society or our next car and to order our life so that it achieves our desired result - it's of a higher order in people's minds than selfless love, outside our immediate family. Credit debt is a powerful reinforcer of this principle.

It's infinitely more powerful if we've never had a counter-principle in our life, either from our parents or school lessons - moral values were once not so much taught as generally accepted as the best basis for society but are now referred to by Google first page articles as:

... their attempt to impose a particular set of values on all students ...

whilst referring to the dearth of a moral or spiritual basis in schools as "rational". The now-suppressed counter principle of love or service to our fellow man exists only as an abstract concept, devoid of practical form beyond the collection tin or benefit concerts.

We read of selfless people like Burmese monks but it's always too far removed from our experience. We sign petitions, an easy thing to do. We blog.

Click pic to read the new abstract. "If we want to", "they have to" - a minor point but quite indicative language.

[shrubberies] set out at your own peril

Throughout history, shrubberies have been dangerous to everyone from passing knights to unattended virgins on winding paths and their design is a matter of the utmost importance.

Always check that your guests have been well fed before setting out and have returned before nightfall.

Do not think for one moment that a shrubbery is just a collection of low trees and flowers in a garden bed. Nor is it a forest.

It is, in fact, a curved path through fairly dense foliage kept back from borders which run alongside and designed to provide surprises at almost every turn.

The best shrubberies allow one to stroll through a blend of colour and size, bush and tree, flowering and non-flowering until one eventually ends up back at the starting place, if one has been lucky.

Leading your guests into labyrinthine mazes is not really cricket.

The hydrangea - a good stock plant to lighten the overall effect

An added touch is a small arbour halfway along to pause, sit and enjoy one's labours or "lostness" in a spirit of tranquility or despair.

It is possible for you to design and tend your own shrubbery but for Heavens sake be careful!

You have to take infinite care over the layout, even down to the time of day you trim the shrubs, as this Orange County Senior Cit shootout, two Sundays ago, illustrates:

Butterfly weed is a good "filler" which adds a splash of colour.

A landscaping dispute on a quiet Anaheim Hills street turned violent Sunday afternoon when a 65-year-old woman shot her neighbor in the shoulder and then barricaded herself in her house before surrendering, authorities said.

Police said the argument began about 3 p.m. when Anita Spriggs apparently started trimming a hedge she shares with her next-door neighbor, 64-year-old Gary Hall.

"Spriggs then grabbed a handgun and [understandably] shot the victim in the shoulder," said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim Police Department.

Sgt. Rick got right to the heart of the problem when he explained:

"We're not sure where she got the gun."

Ideally, the effect you want to achieve is to induce the guest to set upon the path through an archway, giving no inkling of the peril lurking within but gradually increasing the sense of foreboding through Erica Prunus bushes and the like.

[fabians] and drink soaked trots

The weathermen - did they know which way the wind blew?

This is more a comment on the second last post, run as a stand-alone here:

First of all - our Tiberius. As I can't believe he doesn't know it already, then I'd have to say he was being a little less than "genuous" in saying Fabians aren't Marxists.

As a former paid up Fabian [and who wouldn't have been at our university with those professors?], there wasn't one of us without a grounding in Marx and Engles and in the left wing community of the time, the big battle was between Trotskyites and Stalinists. I can't remember now which epithet the Trots hated more -ites or -ists but we used the wrong one.

Our heroes were Shaw and Tawney, of course and we cut no ice with anyone in the Rik Mayall class of urban guerilla who were busy beating up on each other. I can say though that our tactics were not greatly different from what I see of CP now and the British government and EU as a whole.

There's an agenda, the people behind the govenment fly kites, try things on, move people into positions of power, the whole show and the funny thing to me [not funny in its consequences] is that they really don't deviate one iota [um?] from the grand plan as laid down all those years ago.

We tried a bit of revolutionary stuff ourselves and began a group - Anarchist Revolutionary Students in Education which the quick on the anagram uptake will recognize for what it was - and we issued ultimata to the administration scribbled on toilet roll, demanding memorial stones be laid to Linda Lovelace and so on. The problem was that the admin got in on the joke and so we had to disband.

Then we set up a company called Truly Ruly, dedicated to selling mementos of our drink soaked board meetings and the thing was that we got to the establishment stage, due to a few of us actually having viable businesses already. I was the interface with the corporations interviewer. At one point I was simultaneously a member of Labour and the Young Conservatives and yes, it was possible. I did it. The latter was mainly for the better class of girl at the parties.

We had a car club and rallied after a fashion and we had a monthly rag which, while it was ostensibly about cars, was actually a series of left wing diatribes about this or that. It fell through, as our Veedubs did in ditches in the forest.

But on reaching man's estate, the things of childhood had to be put away - socialism, schoolboy pranks and so on and the business of making a living in the real world took over. So never one for rabble rousing or a follower of clarion calls for action, a product of the Fabian days, I preferred to build dossiers, piece together evidence and so on.

Another thing added to the mix in the days before I became a school head was how important reputation actually is. It took me a long time to realize it and that for every year establishing it, it took one minute to undo and my model in this was a former head who'd been criticized for weakness but he was misunderstood.

His method was to resist all calls for precipitate action and slowly pieced together stories from all parties, all sides, then arrived at a decision and stood by it. For his resistance to being steamrolled into a quick decision he was labelled indecisive.

Let's face it - did Drake drop his bowls and shriek: "Oh mgd, the Spaniards and fly down to his ships?"

On the other hand, he could move fast if he had to, say, in a safety situation with a child.

If he got it into his head that something didn't ring true, he was like a terrier or to mix analogies, a heat seeking missile and usually broke through in the end. Non-transparency was one of the biggest no-nos.

All of these above are fragments of Higham's approach too with one added negative - he's a stubborn bstd as well.

[friday] child full of woe - or not

The name Friday comes from the Old English frigedæg, meaning the day of Frige the Anglo-Saxon form of Frigg, a West Germanic translation of Latin dies Veneris, "day (of the planet) Venus."

However, in most Germanic languages the day is named after Freyja—such as Frīatag in Old High German, Freitag in Modern German, Freyjudagr in Old Norse, Vrijdag in Dutch, Fredag in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish—but Freyja and Frigg are frequently identified with each other.

The word for Friday in most Romance languages is derived from Latin dies Veneris, "day (of the planet) Venus." Russian uses an ordinal number for this day of the week-- piatnítsa, meaning "fifth." Similarly, the Portuguese is sexta-feira.

According to the original September 17th, 1887 poem, Friday's child is full of woe and I was talking to one of these, a girl, yesterday but not on the topic of Friday.

We were discussing birth order and age gaps between siblings. She herself is five years younger than her older brother and therefore she's the mollycoddled, slightly spoiled, easygoing and cheerful girl you'd expect, whose brother "looks out for her".

She made a very interesting comment, in Russian, that girls of this type are "infantil'ni" and it wasn't hard to see what she was saying. Interesting because someone made a comment the other day that feminism had made western women more "infantil'ni" and petulant about their gender.

I can't comment except to say that a girl today over in this part of the world is growing up as the western children of the 60s did - spoiled, parents determined to give them everything they themselves never had, especially during the war years, never hearing the word "no" from parents or easily able to circumvent that word and enjoying personal freedom earleir than ever before.

When that is coupled with the wide western world of expensive glitz and a cushy, easy life, as the young here see it, then the incentive to grow up is less. I have no axe to grind here and when I compare the university girls of 1996 with those of today, there really does seem a great difference, perhaps a less careworn and anxious attitude, perhaps a less emotionally mature mind.

[service transformation] initial ferreting on this and other matters

Service Transformation

HM Treasury states the rationale behind the Service Transformation in the UK. Excerpts:

2.10 The first progress measure will track how much contact between government and citizens is "avoidable".

3.3.4 The types of transformation covered by this Agreement will simply not be possible unless the public sector can establish the identity of the customer it is dealing with simply and with certainty, and be able to pass relevant information between different parts of government.

DSTP-A.39 The virtual court prototype is very exciting in terms of its potential to deliver speedy justice by shortening the process from arrest to charge to sentence.

Common Purpose's common purpose

Common Purpose programmes produce people who lead beyond their authority and can produce change beyond their direct circle of control.

Hansard Written answers re Common Purpose

Thursday, 26 July 2007: Work and Pensions: Departments: Common Purpose

Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative) | Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department paid to Common Purpose in each of the last five years; for what purpose; and what the outcome of the expenditure was.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions) | Hansard source

A number of DWP senior managers have attended leadership courses run by Common Purpose in the last five years. The total expenditure for each of the last five years is listed in the following table. The courses have helped improve leadership skills. Given the nature of these courses, they have also helped foster valuable partnerships in the local community which can be used to improve the service offered to our customers.

Total Spend
2002-03	43,452
2003-04	72,691
2004-05	48,980
2005-06	43,111
2006-07	31,161

Did Anne McGuire satisfactorily answer the question?

[thursday] child works hard for a living

Bad day.

It wasn't that anything particularly disastrous happened but it didn't "gel", didn't synchronize, as it should have. The good part was realizing early that this was going to happen but not early enough to stop a bit of early nastiness.

Over here you always interface with the shields up and that explains my combative tone in many posts, at odds with the other side of me. I often forget to drop the shields later when I come to blog and am still expecting attack 24/7.

The only relaxation, of course, is with someone close and you neither expect any trouble from those quarters nor usually get it. When the horror dawned on me today that that was precisely where it was coming from, the shields went back up but too late.

This had me a gibbering wreck inside for the bulk of the day, not helped by taxis which took wrong turns [got the naïve driver who wanted to talk about life in Britain], two blood noses and no driver to my next appointment.

A sweet group of girls mid-afternoon afforded some relaxation but then it continued with the tramvai.

It didn't come. Some accident had kept them banked up and suddenly there were trams everywhere and mine had a twenty degree tilt to the right which was quite endearing but added to the cacophany as we rocketed down the straight to my stop.

Back home to the relaxation of the blog and the first comments on the EU Constitution post had me reeling again. Now I'm going into Blogpower and who knows what will be in there.

Bad day. Now to the origin of the day:

In the original poem of 1887, Thursday's child works hard for a living. In countries that adopt the Sunday-first convention, it is considered the fifth day of the week. However, in ISO 8601 it is the fourth day of the week.

In Slavic languages and in Chinese, this day's name is "fourth" (Polish czwartek, Russian четверг, pronounced CHET-vierg). Portuguese, too, uses a number for this day: quinta-feira, "fifth day", (see Days of the week for more on the different conventions).

The contemporary name comes from the Old English Þunresdæg (with loss of -n-, first in northern dialects, from influence of Old Norse Þorsdagr), meaning "Day of Thunor", this being a rough Germanic equivalent to the Latin Iovis Dies, "Jupiter's Day".

Well, all done and not so bad after all.

[eu constitution] the eleven regions of what was the uk

Parker Joseph sets the cat among the pigeons with his article and I have mixed feelings. Though a lot of it is assuredly happening [and I've seen much on the regional assemblies], it's hard to get hard data and not just assertion.

Common Purpose [whom I began to pursue but was sidetracked] have definitely gone to ground after recent publicity and one wonders why.

This is part of Parker Joseph's thesis:

South West RDA divisions will be:

1. Bristol
2. South Gloucestershire
3. North Somerset
4. Bath and North East Somerset
5. Swindon
6. Bournemouth
7. Poole
8. Torbay
9. Plymouth

These will be the new area names within the region. Each Region will be run by RDA’s, supported by personnel headed by graduates in each district from Common Purpose.

The same will happen to each and every county of England.

Scotland and Wales are safe, and will remain as they are, with their own new parliaments, each being a region to remain intact, but they will lose national status, and be downgraded by our new master in Europe to regional status. England will no longer exist as a country, just 9 regions.

The UK as represented in Europe will be known as the 11 regions of the UK.

This is not unique to the UK, it is happening to every member state of Europe.

The headlong rush to get the Reform Treaty ratified by 1^st January 2009 is so that there can be ‘elections’ on a regional basis to the European Parliament later in the year, which under the EU Constitution will be a rubber stamp parliament ruled over by the European Commission and the Council of Europe, run by EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso until the new Presidential office is set up.

With Monday’s extension of RIPA powers, the government has created an apparatus of control only matched in sophistication by the system in China known as the Gold Shield Project.

Wake up and smell the milk burning, Doris. Gold Shield is coming here, too.

Right, so a detailed assertion has been made. Now it's a question of whether it holds water or not. The problem with this is that the structures recently brought in are, on the surface, innocent development agencies. While they could easily swing over to command and control administrations, are the personnel in place the type who could run such a show?

I'd like to look at the CVs of Juliet Williams and colleagues or perhaps they're not planned to remain in charge post 2010. All of it is a tricky question and one of two things is true - either pundits are interweaving snippets of truth with flights of fancy or else they actually do have hold of the coat-tails of something being slipped into place.

At this point I don't really know.

[inheritance tax] exemplifies the political divide

Iain Dale mentioned Michael Crick's question to Broon:

Do you agree that the Tory proposals on Inheritance Tax are popular and will you steal them?

JRD put the Labour point of view:

[The Tory Plan] does nothing for social cohesion, or helping the least well off. It is cynically designed to appeal to the Daily Express reading Middle Englanders who must make up an increasing proportion of their support.

Dizzy wrote of the three card trick being pulled:

Darling "doubles" the threshold for married couples to £600,000.

All of this is well and fine but Matt Sinclair gets down to the iniquitous nature of the tax itself:

Inheritance Tax is a particularly egregious attack on the interests of those who die because it strikes not only at the financial security they wish to provide for those left behind but also at the home that they all shared.

The family home is a crucial part of the stability that many people, when considering their own deaths, would want their family to be able to maintain for as long as they felt it necessary.

A tax bill of tens of thousands of pounds that forces them into a hasty sale of their home and the fresh trauma of relocation is an alarming prospect to anyone considering the fate of those they care about.

Amen to that.

At the risk of rehashing tired old fundamentals on an issue which only realizes the government less than 1% a year anyway, Inheritance Tax or Estate Tax is simply an abomination on the face of the earth and not only that but it perfectly exemplifies the left-right divide in theoretical politics:

There are the majority who work as best they can and take what opportunities arise, fall back, go forward again, marry, have a family and slowly build a nest egg. Some have huge nest eggs and most average.

Along comes someone else and swipes half of it to become a drop in the ocean of bloated governmental wastage and the people who actually put in the hard work lose.

This is iniquity. This is institutionalized greed. This is the easy and casual way one section of our society greedily eyes the fruits of other people's labours and wants it redistributed to themselves. If they went and took it at gunpoint, they'd be in prison so they let the government do it for them.

It's not redistibution to the needy at all - it's redistribution to the lazy, the complainers, the moaners, the sit on your butt and do nothings. The truly needy - pensioners and the mentally ill - they need and absolutely should receive government patronage and on a far grander scale than now. Once the free handouts to freeloaders ceases, that money can then go to the truly needy.

And what of the newly dispossessed? For a start, they're not dispossessed - it's just the unwarranted largesse which has stopped. For them there are Grameen style opportunities which do exist if one only looks.

I personally have been unemployed and received government largesse for about two months whilst job interview after job interview came to nothing and all of it was cutting huge swathes through my available cash.

In this situation there is a lot of free time. It should be used for strategic planning, for putting irons in the fire, for thinking laterally and keeping oneself presentable.

In the end, energy, drive and a certain amount of rationality will win out, provided you have presented yourself widely enough and though you feel like screaming and ending it all, you maintain your pleasant visage of employability and one day the odds fall your way.

They always do. [Also helps to put your faith in the Lord but most will ignore this aside.]

The employable will be employed and go from job to job with the occasional hiatus. The unemployable won't do anything about it until they have to. I've lived next door to these people and I know them for what they are.

Regular readers can make up their own minds whether I'm a cruel man or no but I assert that this is not cruelty - it is helping people help themselves.

As for Inheritance Tax - it falls squarely into the category of grand theft from the resourceful, followed by unwarranted largesse to the wrong people with the wrong attitude.

[blogfocus wednesday] might surprise you, might not

1. What's the connection between Jeremy Jacobs, Michael Palin and Yalta? Margate, that's what!

So pleasing to see my home town of Margate mentioned on Michael Palin's travel programme this evening. Years ago, Margate & Yalta were "twinned" with each other. Judging by tonight's programme, Yalta appears to be holding up as a seaside resort rather better! Having said that, the above photo from 2003, shows a reasonably busy Margate seafront.

2. Is it just me but is Bob G's deadpan delivery a hoot?

Welcome to Inkafterlife.com. We make custom photo memorials by creating a custom ink formulation using ashes from a loved one or pet and our ink. We then print a beautiful memorial photo using that blended ink.

Is it just me, or does that sound sort of creepy? I'm not sure I want someone's remains hanging on my wall.

3. The Reactionary Snob explains the reason we blog:

As the Greek notes, it is good to know that our media are an example of righteousness, scholarly integrity and unbiased virtue.

We bloggers blog for the love of it - the vast majority of us are biased old soaks who no one in the pub will listen to any longer so we come home and bash out something on the laptop.

4. Prodicus supplies an interesting analogy for politics:

Kevin McCullagh is right. It's by no means all over and Brown will survive all this with a smile on his face. I am bracing myself for the emetic effect of Miliband Major taking to the airwaves over the next week or so. It is an appalling prospect. Politics can be a disgusting business, like eating worms, and there is more to come before we see these bastards off.

5. I'm not the only one, by a long shot, doing blogroundups and here's one of the best - Steve Green:

Got some time to kill but don't know where to go? Why don't you climb aboard the Magical Mystery Blog Tour Bus. There are still a few places left. Click on STOP 1 and the Bus will take you to your first Mystery Blog location.

To get back on the Bus just click the Back Button and click STOP 2 to continue the Tour. I think you can work the rest out. Enjoy the ride:

STOP 1

STOP 2

STOP 3

STOP 4

STOP 5

6. Our latest Blogpowerer is of the Left and here is jrd's take on the problem of history:

Apparently pupils should be taught to "take pride" in Britain's history.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are parts of British history which people can easily take pride in. There are also parts which may bring feelings of great shame (slave trade anyone?). My argument is that it's not the role of the history teacher to be a government's political football - teaching kids a one-sided view of the past.

History cannot be just a list of dates and facts (who decides the facts anyway, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter!). Pupils must be taught to investigate, to analyse, to spark an interest. If history is not allowed to do this, then it fails as a subject, and we fail our young people.

7. William Gruff is waxing lyrical about our much loved … er … leader:

He had only one, if the ribald songs of my youth have any veracity, but he had two eyes and that means that he had one testicle and one eye more than the Greater Scotch McReich's Führer. The 'news' that Gordon The McGravy Train Engine hasn't the balls to face the English electorate came as no news to Gruff. The Thane of Kirkcaldy knows well enough that he is not welcome here and his days over us are numbered. Deny us what drugs he will, steal as much from us as he can, we will see that foreign prince sent forth from England's green and pleasant land without the mandate he so desperately craves.

8. Finally, Chip is in shock and with good reason:

You find the Chipster in the mood for litigation. As you can no doubt see, my complimentary copy of J.D. Williams’ new Autumn and Winter catalogue landed on the doorstep today. What else can I say except that promises were not kept by the industy leaders in the larger sized gusset. I never wanted you to see me like this. It’s somewhat humbling, especially since I thought that I’d had a zero-Y-front clause written into my contract. The picture was taken when I was much younger and in a bad place. It was actually a few months ago when I was stuck on the corner of Poverty and Flat Broke.

There it is for another evening, folks but I hope to see you on Saturday evening again.

[wednesday] child loving and giving

One of the Wodin chorus chanting Spam in the café

In the original 1887 poem, Wednesday's child is loving and giving.

Wednesday - the name comes from the Middle English Wednes dei, which is from Old English Wēdnes dæg, meaning the day of the Germanic god Woden (Wodan) who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons in England until about the 7th century.

Wēdnes dæg is like the Old Norse Oðinsdagr ("Odin's day"), which is an early translation of the Latin dies Mercurii ("Mercury's day"). Though Mercury (the messenger of the gods) and Woden (the king of the Germanic gods) are not equivalent in most regards.

Russian does not use pagan names but instead uses sredá, meaning "middle," similar to the German Mittwoch. Portuguese uses the word quarta-feira, meaning "fourth day."

Hope that clears that up. There's not much of the day left.

[fuddy duddy] when is it time to get out

Having just left an opinion at Blogpower which puts me squarely within the "fuddy-duddy" category, as opposed to the "bright young things" who Google execs refer to as hip, happening and displaying "a sense of urgency", this article was of interest:

In 1982, Brian Reid received the prestigious Grace Murray Hopper Award for his work in developing an early word processing system.

Later, while working at Digital Equipment Corporation, he pioneered an experiment in electronic publishing that was a precursor to the forums and discussion board that are now a pervasive part of the internet.

And it was there than he was also involved in the creation of the first firewall and, in 1991, the leading search engine of its day, Alta Vista.

Things change and people age:

Reid claims that despite receiving a thumbs up performance review in which he was praised as "very intelligent" and "creative", he was sacked at the age of 54 after being told he was a cultural mis-match.

He lost a mega-salary and millions in stock options.

Urs Hoelzle, a Google manager 12 years his junior, was … said to have dismissed Reid's opinions and ideas as "obsolete" and "too old to matter".

My opinion is of no consequence. However, for what it's worth, I think they're right and that will surprise some, coming from me. Just as I don't understand half of what is going down now, technologically, I realize I must and am still capable of learning.

The problem is that I'm doing now what people did yesterday - Google Reader, mastering html, aggregating and so on. I'm poised to go Mac and learn that, with plans to use Wi-Fi and most certainly remote internet access will come with the new laptop. I have every intention of exploring the possibilities.

So I'm not turning my back on the new tech - it's just taking longer to get into it and this represents, to the young turks, a reactionary influence. Hence the comments transferred to me: "obsolete" and "too old to matter".

In a company like Google, he really had eventually become a cultural mis-match and perhaps his talents should have been directed to other start up companies where he could have called the shots and secured the talent. With his acumen, he could have created a niche slot.

Or not.

If he couldn't do that, if he was so far into the 9 to 7 comfort zone lifestyle and the things which actually do matter in life, which suits a happily married, aging man, this is fine but it is not what's required in the cut-throat computer game.

My ex-girlfriend's grandfather developed a start up company supplying hi-tech helicopter parts and till the day he died he was being consulted, for juicy fees, so he was able to successfully move laterally in his later years.

Perhaps this is what Brian Reid should have been looking at when he first started hearing the young turks comments, rather than trying this costly and ultimately futile rearguard action.

In his game, once you can't cut it any more, you simply can't cut it and it's time to develop your own expertise in your own way.

And as I know very well in the blogging game, you're only as good as your last post.

[darfur] sudan preparing to attack

Click on pic to zoom to the child's picture.

From Amnesty, admittedly via VOA but still:

United Kingdom based human rights group Amnesty International warned Tuesday that the eastern part of Darfur would soon come under deadly attacks if care is not taken to prevent the imminent danger.

This comes after the group said it received reports suggesting that Sudanese armed forces are gathering in large numbers in some towns close to the northern part of Darfur.

Meanwhile, locals are reportedly scared further attacks by opposition or government forces could derail peace talks, scheduled to be hosted by Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi in the capital Tripoli before the end of the month.

The word "attack" translated

Children bound together and burned, rape, mutilation, eyes gouged out, villages razed, crops burned and evil across the land. Devastation, the delight of a certain type of mind in high places.

Steps

1. Pray, if you are capable, that such will not happen or that something or someone will step in first.

2. Think of pro-active ways we can bring pressure to bear.

[alcohol] live better, live longer

Abigail Zuger, of the New York Times gave some advice in 2003 [pre-blogging days and unattributable] which I plan to wholeheartedly accept, irrespective:

A study published in May in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirmed that alcohol raises the blood levels of HDL, the "good" cholesterol. Moderate drinking can raise the levels more than 10 per cent. Heavy drinking raises them even higher.

By comparison, running a few kilometres a week increases HDL a fraction of that, while the B vitamin niacin, probably the most effective medication for raising HDL levels, has to be taken at high doses with many side effects for similar results. The statin low-cholesterol drugs, which work by reducing LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, seldom raise HDL levels substantially.

Half the heart benefits of moderate drinking stem directly from the HDL gain. Alcohol also makes the blood flow a little more freely, by decreasing blood proteins that promote clotting, and increasing those that prevent clotting. Like low-dose aspirin, which also helps prevent heart attacks, alcohol keeps the tiny blood cells called platelets from adhering to one another and forming damaging clots.

Alcohol may also help the heart by preventing diabetes, a risk factor for heart disease. Moderate drinkers are, on average, a little thinner than non-drinkers, and less likely to develop the diabetes associated with obesity and insulin resistance.

Besides alcohol, red wine contains more than 200 natural chemicals, mostly derived from grape skins and seeds. Many are antioxidants. The antioxidant activity in a glass of red wine equals that in seven glasses of orange juice or 20 of apple juice, one researcher estimates.

Antioxidants are widely thought to have many good effects, such as increasing tissue blood flow and protecting cells from oxidative injury much as rust-proofing protects a car.

Last December, researchers in London announced in the journal Nature that alcohol-free extracts of red wines kept blood vessel cells from producing endothelin-1, a chemical that constricts blood vessels. That may mean that red wine enhances the blood flow to organs such as the heart and brain, above what might be expected from its alcohol content.

Sounds great to me. Here's ta lookin' at ya, kid!

Crossposted at Sicily Scene