Gaming, Politics, News Oddities

[tcpip]

Have written two reviews for Powers & Perils for RPG.net, both of which should be published this week. The reviews suggst that the rules system and the presentation was well below average, but the setting was of a good standard. I'll be starting a new PBeM within two weeks using the latter and the Swordbearer ruleset, of which I have started some house-ruling. recumbenteer has started playing around with ideas for a Space 1889 game, but with a particular emphasis on radical working-class history.

My recently revived involvement in party political affairs has seen me attending local ALP branch meetings (in Kew the ALP is lucky to get over 25%), as well as meetings of the Socialist Left faction (usual stories; the Right have been stacking again etc). Have been slightly surprised that three old university colleagues are now members of parliament in Western Australia.

Craig Vetner's and team create artificial life (Ted Talk presentation on Youtube). German student attacked by muggers, saved by ninjas. Peter Meakin, who recently 'outed' MP David Campbell, is considered a reckless danger - and not just in reporting. Productivity Commission (who I normally have some time for) engage in a dead stupid metric.

Comments

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Productivity Commission (who I normally have some time for) engage in a dead stupid metric.

Whut?? :/ Did they take into account the different sorts of cases seen by each type of hospital? I would imagine (for e.g.) that public hospitals would receive more emergency patients than private. I really hope they corrected for that sort of thing before they produced the results.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are right. Private hospitals tend to be for elective surgery, public for emergencies. Even more to the point, if you're in serious trouble in a private hospital, guess what they do...?

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, oh dear. I can see this going frightfully wrong. However it's good to see that many of the commenters on that article are sceptical - hopefully this will extend to the general population too.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Figures on mortality in hospitals have been looked at, at least at a state level, for years. Hospitals in most states (whether private or public) have to report fairly comprehensive data to their state government every month. When I worked for a provider of patient management software, Victoria collected more data than other states, so nationally comparable figures might have been lacking.

They've looked at the data, seen that public hospitals treat sicker patients, and ignored this metric as useless, long ago. (10-15 years ago!) Small public hospitals tend to be rural and be a dumping ground for patients who have nowhere else to go, due to lack of alternative services. (But the "no private hospitals in rural areas" claim is exaggerated too.)

[leadgend.livejournal.com]

There was an awesome "War of the Worlds on Mars" game at Little Wars last weekend that had a Space 1889 liftwood flyer. Pics about half way down here: http://leagueofancients.org.au/viewtopic.php?t=463

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Wow, they're not mucking around are they?

I'm always impressed by the effort that table-top mini wargamers go into. Whilst as a player or observer of such games, I'm usually happy with pushing around chits of cardboard, I'm fascinated by where people get the time (and often money) for the more elaborate presentations.