Class Warfare, Marketing Consultant!, The Odyssey, Gaming, CDs!

[tcpip]

greylock has pointed me to insightful reports on the matter; an interview with Kerry O'Brien and John Howard. Given that these changes aren't about increasing productivity (indeed, there's a good argument they'll cause a loss of productivity) one is left with the obvious conclusion that they're about increasing profit at the expense of wages and conditions.

In international politics, Schroeder shows ineptitude in losing the Chancellorship of Germany that, if he were prepared to deal with his natural allies (the Left, the Greens). Of course that would mean he'd have to admit he was wrong about welfare and IR reform.

Pakistan earthquake toll looks like it'll be over 30,000. The Australian government donates $500,000 which compares rather poorly to the $10 million given to the American Red Cross after Cyclone Katrina.

Gave my second presentation to Prosper Australia on the principles of marketing last night. Started off my giving my opinion on people who engage in marketing without having a personal commitment to a product; I quoted Bill Hicks (expletives deleted of course). How about that? I'm a marketing consultant. I better take up cocaine or something.

lokicarbis, caseopaya and I went to see a modernised version of the Odyssey last week after a quick visit to 2600. Loki's comments that they were trying too hard was appropriate. The presentation of Circe as a naked dominatrix didn't work either, which is kind of surprising.

envoutante is visiting soon with a whole bunch of EMB, industrial and 90s goth CDs she's selling. Excellent!

Have been debating the relative benefit of randomness in game design. _fustian? I haven't forgotton. I'll send an email tomorrow with more on the Outbreak of Heresy game. Damn writing is time consuming.

Oh, and Rogue escaped under a nine foot wire fence and was almost eaten by a cat earlier in the week. He's safe now. Silly rat.

Comments

[horngirl.livejournal.com]

EMB?
;-)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Electronic Music of the Body ;-)

[monkeygirldiva.livejournal.com]

*blinks* did australia/australians give $10 million toward the cyclone katrina relief effort?

my current frustration is i desperately need about A$2000/month to keep three rural health clinics going. (they're currently treating well over 100 patients a day in isolated regions with endemic malaria as well as offering community outreach services, health mobilisation and education, and supporting the government vaccination programmes)... do you think i can get it? oh... and two months ago a prior donor spent 65,000 euro on a two week external evaluation of the clinics! priorities, eh?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm basing my comments on a letter to the Age a few days back:

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2005/10/10/1128796462265.html

When a hurricane hit the richest country in the world, the Australian
Government promptly donated $10 million to the American Red Cross. An
earthquake has devastated Pakistan, killing up to 30,000 people and
levelling whole villages, and the Government's first response was to
find only $500,000 for a developing country that will surely struggle
to care for and rehouse the victims. Says something about our
priorities.

[monkeygirldiva.livejournal.com]

it's not just priorities, it also says something about the australian government's (did this money come out of the ausaid budget???) capacity to conduct an accurate needs assessment during a humanitarian crisis... my guess is the US had ample money, what they didn't have was personnel with appropriate humanitarian and emergency response experience/expertise (i.e. a clear idea of what to do).

Bingo.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Found government confirmation of the $10 million donation.

http://assistant.treasurer.gov.au/mtb/content/pressreleases/2005/074.asp

Re: Bingo.

[spinner.livejournal.com]

Downer said yesterday or the day before that it's now $5.5 mil, with a view to increasing it, given a practical application for the money / aid.

Re: Bingo.

[spinner.livejournal.com]

..and if i keep scrolling down thats already been pointed out. guuuh.

Re: Bingo.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Perfectly acceptable. Conversation here is often a case of "someone mentioned that five minutes ago". I'm glad that people on my flist make sure I'm up to date.

[vasco-pyjama.livejournal.com]

Yep, I was like *doubletake*.

How totally fucked is that?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It'll make your blood boil...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The U.S. Navy awarded $33 million to Halliburton for clean up work at naval air stations damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Defense announced last night....

http://halliburtonwatch.org/news/katrina2.html

[vasco-pyjama.livejournal.com]

Ah.... of course... our good friends Halliburton!

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I think you underestimate the ease with which Schroeder could create a SPD/Green/Left coalition -- he would need the active support of both, leading to a very fragile and unwieldy three way arrangment, and basically sacrifice the majority of his agenda, handing a huge amount of long term capital to his opponents. At least this way he gets to keep talking reform, get someone else to do the unpopular bits, and hopefully claw back the few % he needs for next election. Not saying its the perfect solution, but I can see his reasoning.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I meant overestimate there, obviously.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The Left wouldn't have supported him in a coalition anyway, but they would have supported him on key votes like confidence.

The interesting thing is now the Left can say "Look! See, the SPD has more in common with the CDU than with us!" - and they'll be correct.

Interesting upshot of this is that the Left-Greens are now the opposition.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The Left wouldn't have supported him in a coalition anyway, but they would have supported him on key votes like confidence.

Exactly. He would have either been turning to the right constantly for support, or he would have been powerless, either one of which would have been a weaker position than he is in now (and both arguably worse for the SPD as regards chances of an electoral comeback).

Interesting upshot of this is that the Left-Greens are now the opposition.

Though with around 20% between them, an extremely weak one. But it is interesting. Though not as interesting as the Lib-Dems in England.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Though not as interesting as the Lib-Dems in England.

Ahh, now there was a time when I would have said that the Lib-Dems are a weak opposition no matter what percentage of the vote they received because they were almost by definition weak. I understand that they've toughened up over the past couple of years...

[lardarsegreg.livejournal.com]

Too right they've toughened up! It's now at the point where we have a true 3 party system over here...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well that's very good news. I wonder if the Libs will revive their old Liberal Party policy of the turn of the twentieth century concrning Land Value Taxation? That would be entertaining.

[mr-e-cat.livejournal.com]

I think the australian governments total relief $ for the asian earthquake is now areound the 5.5 mill mark

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well that's better news. Any links?

As part of my shit-stirring activities I'm thinking of writing a neoliberal article in the style of Johnathan Swift which blames the people for living in such silly earthquake, tsunamni and hurricane prone areas. After all, people have to take responsibility for their own decisions.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

God's punishing them for being Muslims/Non-Christians.
And sheltering terrorists.

Obviously.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that article has been done a few times already... And not as parody, either.

http://www.godhatesfags.com/featured/20050831_thank-god-for-katrina.html

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I blogged about that.

Let me make it all better:

Dumb: Alabama State Senator Hank Erwin thinks Katrina was God's way of punishing sin.

Dumber: Erwin admits this publicly.

Dumbest: One third of Alabamians polled agree with him

http://www.wkrg.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WKRG/MGArticle/KRG_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031785332905&path=!news!surveyusa!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ow, ow, ow... My brain hurts. One third. C'mon surely that's a typo.. Every third person you meet in Alabama is a moron?

Mmm... Didn't Bill Hicks have something to say about Alabama?

[antayla.livejournal.com]

Apparently you don't know the american south :P. They call it the "bible belt" for a reason.

It's about as bad as an about.com poll I saw a few years ago where 47% of about 3000 respondents said using torture was okay if it might prevent terrorist acts.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hell, we have academics over here that argued for that and worse still were published...

I'm probably unpopular enough to say that I understand where they're coming from (use of situational ethic over moral principle to prevent a greater moral crime).

The obvious problem is this will not will not prevent terrorism, but encourage it - and the use of torture.

[zey.livejournal.com]

Yep. Stuff like that breaks my brain too. It's bizarre how the US is somehow managing to be both a First World nation technologically, yet becoming a Third World nation on an educational level.

In a few years time, they'll be arranging witch trials using their mobile phones, I'm sure...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time the enlightenment and it's heirs believed that technological and political progress went hand in hand.

Now we know that all technology does is amplify moral reasoning.

Witch-trials by web-cam, here we come.

[jennifergearing.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think I may have posted it closer to Katrina, but this is a crude but very amusing look at that idea. :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That's the spirit!

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

debating the relative benefit of randomness in game design

Where randomness interferes with the narrative (or continued failure detracts from enjoyment) a kind of karma and/or fate system could restore balance (like fate points in Rolemaster but perhaps not as such an obvious kludge to patch an overtly capricious combat system :)
Important successes could be ensured (or at least rendered more likely) using fate, and a continuous run of bad or good luck could be counteracted later by karmic retribution.

Similar systems could be employed to "soften" systems that allow for assured success/failure by virtue of limitted randomness.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey those Fate Points were my idea! The first implementation *ever* (as far as I can tell) which distinguished between advances in character as simulation and narrative ability of the player through roleplaying.

The bad part were the optional variations I had to include, courtesy of editorial demands (which Monte Cook was very apologetic about).

BTW, I agree ;-)

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

Hey those Fate Points were my idea

I think they're a damned fine idea, no mistake. I sure as hell wouldn't play Rolemaster without them (or a tall stack of pregenerated backup characters).

The idea of fate is such a key element in 90% of fantasy literature I can't believe it isn't more integral in the RPG systems.
And karma, well karma is just a cool idea.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I found another very good use for a similar device:

In my D&D game, any time a player does something that Makes The GM Happy, they get a shiny pewter brain. (I bought a bag of the things from Chaosium before figuring out what to do with them.) They can't be obtained by bribes etc - it has to be something in-game. Mostly it's for doing something clever but in-character that I hadn't expected.

They can trade these in for a reroll, or to wheedle me on a doubtful rules point. If the rules aren't clear, and neither side looks like conceding the argument, I'll ask "Do you want to spend a brain?"

So far, it's been quite effective for resolving those arguments. It cuts down on the time we spend haranguing one another, and it's a bit more democratic than "The GM is always right" without turning it into a free-for-all.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Same deal. 'Cept these days I give out brains/Fate Points/Poetic License to "anything which makes the game more enjoyable". Which includes players doing some historical research on the place their playing.

Maybe I'll accept bribes one day ;-)

[lardarsegreg.livejournal.com]

Do you drink Guinness ?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I do actually. It's the only beverage of that sort (beers, ales etc) which I really like.

[lardarsegreg.livejournal.com]

Hehe. Of course you like Guinness, you work with computers...

Still, at least I know what to bribe you with now...

[dcrisp.livejournal.com]

I guess you had a rogue rat for a while.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

To the point that the noun (Rogue) has been turned into a verb (Roguing).

He runs around too quickly, he falls off things when he climbs too fast. He gets into places that he shouldn't (behind bookshelves, fridges, under ovens, fences etc). He chews *everything* he can sink his teeth into.

That little rat is a bundle of trouble.