Posts by Bart Janssen
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Bono - glasses - pretentious moi?
I remember reading somewhere that the British Tabloids used a vocabulary of ~100 words.
So yes I agree the newsgroups back in the day and now the blogs and comments pages really have improved literacy.
What's more interesting is the way people construct ideas on the web now. When folks discuss (argue even) they frequently reference facts and construct logical thoughts around ideas. Not always but frequently. For me the rise of peoples ability to discuss an issue of interest is the coolest thing about the internet. It allows people discuss and learn how to discuss.
The print media fails in this - yes it's nice to get expert opinions from the print media - but I'll take vigorous discussion on the blog pages over that, 9 times out of 10.
My only complaint - the way words get abused, but then I'm a pedant:). Infantilising????? really!
cheers
Bart -
First
Happy Birthday MMI inherited real Mechano and used to save up money to buy expansion sets which I still have:). Never did get to Set 10
Balaclava is a town in Crimea.
Its a typo
And I'm not certain anyone knows if stars are infinite, probably depends on whether all universes have stars and if there really are an infinite number of universes ... universi?
As for what you can tell kids...
My father (who sadly died 18 months ago) discovered that he got considerably less of the chocolate in a bar after my older brothers got old enough to want some.
So
When I came along he decided to do something about it
From about 2 years old he told me with absolute conviction that chocolate was made of poos - hence the brown colour.
To this day I can't eat chocolate, the smell puts me off. milo is OK though (shrug)
All I can say is that it probably saved me a lot of pimples.He really was a very nice man honest.
cheers
Bart -
Ever stopped to consider that maybe we're just not that good?
We don't have the money or the player base that Australia does. They have a huge advantage over us and so too do several other cricketing nations.Without wishing to pick on this comment in particular but there have been several comments in this vein.
I agree we aren't good enough. But I disagree that we should expect to be this bad.
Consider this. Western Australia has a population of just over 2 million people. Yes they are cricket mad and yes they get money from the machine that is Australian cricket. But of the current 23 contracted players in the Aussie team they contribute 5. If New Zealand were a state of Australia I personally don't think a single player from NZ would make the Aussie side but I'll conceed we might get one in there (we can argue about who it is later:)).
So why with twice the population do we have one fifth the performance?
One answer is pitches. WA has sun and heat and that's what's needed for really good pitches. And good pitches forces bowlers to learn to bowl well and allow batsmen to learn how to play off both front and back foot.
But I think part of the reason for the lower standard is acceptance. In NZ we accept (and expect) to come 3rd or 4th or 5th. Cricket NZ accepts that they will be 2nd to Rugby and lets heavy blokes with sprigs run all over the pitches in summer! We accept a coach that fails to achieve excellence. We accept poor form.
In Australia none of those things are true. If some prop wearing sprigs came near the pitch block the guys with the bats would make short work of him. If a player loses form in Australia he gets sent down the grades until he gets it back. If a coach fails to get his players to perform he gets a new job (want fries with that sir).
Some of the changes needed are happening. We now play the early season where the sun shines and the pitches are better. But we still accept loss of form and allow our team to lose as a result.
My biggest gripe though is we accept that Rugby players are allowed on the pitches in February and March, tell them to bugger off until it starts raining:).
cheers
Bart -
Yup a 3rd place team.
It was frustrating to watch and I agree the maturity shown by Franklin and Patel was an example which the more experienced players might well note.
Sadly I think the players were capable of better, and I'm sure they think so too.
Surely it must be obvious now that Bracewell has failed to lift this team above their ability. You can argue all day about individual decisions made by Bracewell but ultimately Bracewell's changes have achieved nothing. When he started we were a sometime ODI semi-finalist and now we are the same (albiet with a much worse test average).
For me the worst thing about Bracewell's tenure is the way he undermined Fleming. I have always had doubts about Flemings "greatness" but there can be no question that Fleming under Bracewell was not the player or captain that he was under Rixon.
Nothing more exemplifies the difference between Fleming and Bracewell than the response to the "failure" of this world cup campaign. Fleming chose to retire as captain, which has the effect of allowing the selectors to leave him out of the playing eleven. He accepted responsibility. That I can respect and I suspect it is that kind of responsibility that earned him the respect and loyalty of his team while he was captain.
By contrast, Bracewell insists he still has a job and there must be a "process". No honest acceptance of responsibility that is so evident in Fleming. Would you respect that in a coach?
As for Murali - what can you expect from someone who has success only because he throws and not bowls - he really should be playing baseball.
Sad day
cheers
Bart -
It seems entirely reasonable to me that folks want to pathologize (sic) and analyse after an event like this.
The problem is that most folks can't even begin to imagine a situation or series of events that would cause them to kill so indesciminantly. If they can't imagine how they themselves could do it, they also can't understand what makes someone else do it.
And that's scary because if you can't figure out what causes a person to become homocidal you can't be certain those around you won't become homocidal, or that someone you care about could become homocidal. And if that's all true there is no way to prevent it happening again.
So we try and create reasons and explanations. He was asian in a european world, he was autistic, he was beaten, he was bullied, he was ...
all things we could use to identify the next killer and all things we could use to prevent it happening again.And of course all useless because none of those things are predictive.
The problem is we really don't understand and yet we need to in order to feel safe.
cheers
Bart -
Shouldn't that be..
I'm juuuuuuhhhhaaaaaa Saarinen....
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Hi Rob
In slightly less ranting mode - I realise the whole name thing is probably a "directive". The thing about it for me is it is so obviously a marketing ploy.
I guess what was being attempted was to create a journo/reporter (I think there is a distinction) who was as famous as say - Walter Cronkite.
But what they missed was that the really famous journalists became famous because of the quality of their research and reporting. In short it was the CONTENT that made the name famous.
What marketers believe is that they can make the public believe the content is good if they make the name famous. And of course it's much much cheaper to say someones name a thousand times than it is to hire people who can and will do research.
Or in other words marketing is cheaper than content.
Now that might be fine for some things, but for news and current affairs on our TV.......
cheers
Bart -
One key thing they did, which has come back to bite them on the arse, was deliberately create a celebrity culture.
<rant>
For me that's the whole of the news now (and TV3 deserves brickbats as well). The idea that promotion for reality TV should be on any "news" programme is just obscene (eg Dancing with the stars now gets a mention most days on one of the TV1 "news" broadcasts). It's all about celebrety.I don't give a rats arse who the damn reporter is, but they all insist on telling me thier name (Mr Evan-Charlton in the sports news is the most egregious). Reporters should discover and report news in context, not advertise their own CV. Stick their name in a little box on the corner of the screen and save the air time for the news!
And then you get the dumbing down. Lets tell people what the weather is because we know we won't get complaints about that. But heaven forfend that our reporters might research an actual story and is then <sharp intake of breath> a presenter simply present.
pah! The whole lot should be fired.
The encouraging thing is, as the internet develops, they will get fired because no-one will watch TV1 for news, instead they will get Kieth Ng's digicam feed direct on public address.
</rant>cheers
Bart -
arrg need spellchecker
concludes
react -
For those arguing against the economics of changing our behaviour
The Stern review cloncludes that economically we should change our behaviour.
3140 wrote
The most likely answer to your other questions is: "Because it might cost me money, or prevent me from making more money".
But that's the point almost all those things cost you less money and make it easier to make money both personally and as a country. shrug
BTW I'm not really that fussed about your use of the F word I just seem to notice it more nowadays, particularlary when written. I don't really understand why I just am less comfortable with it than I used to be. I certainly am not suggesting you can't use it just that I seem to recat more to it nowadays.