Dikkii re-enters the blogosphere?

I've been a bit quiet of late. A bit of work. And, for some reason, I've started studying again.

Plus I'm doing some more stuff on the music front - I recently joined another band, and apparently I'm going to get more work with another one that I haven't played with for a while.

The new band is relying on me to write arrangements which is quite a lot more time consuming than I remembered. Some might ask, "Well why don't you just do that the jazz way where you just write a 'head' and then let the music form around that?"

Sorry, my mind doesn't work like that.

Songs to me are little planets all of their own and need to be fleshed out with their own little microcosms before you let the natives trample all over them. I find it really unfulfilling when you leave a tune as a kinda 'Argo City' thing and expect it to add its own surrounds. Particularly when you have dreamed up a great intro or ending. Or even a good middle 8.

I don't even write my own stuff: Imagine how time consuming this would be if I did? All I do is arrange other tunes - although I think that I have a pretty good ear for what works and what doesn't.

Summer is hectic down here, and I'm finding that I simply don't have even the time to read the blogs I love reading. So sorry all you folks who write great stuff - you know who you are. Eventually, I will come back to the blogosphere with a passion.

We've had heatwave after heatwave here as well as particularly nasty bushfires, and I work with someone who lost their house to the fires. It's goddamned nasty that the fire authorities believe that most of them appear to have been deliberately lit.

I have a bit of travel for work lined up in the next few weeks, and I know that this will keep me from blogging as well.

But do stay tuned - I will be back out there, eventually. I just have to try to find some kinda space.

Party on, y'all.

I haven't blogged much recently

I have been meaning to blog more recently, but I just don't seem to find all that much time to do it.

Here are a couple of things that I've been meaning to blog about:

1. The forthcoming atheist bus advertisements in London. Due January 2009.

2. The Rudd Government's bank guarantees, and how non-bank lenders and investors are being done over by this. Naturally, I plan to take a balanced and fair view. Yeah right.

3. Hedge funds getting burnt by Porsche's takeover of Volkswagen. Who ever suggested that I'm immune to feelings of schadenfreude was out of their freaking minds.

4. Horse racing and the fact that I hate the Spring Racing Carnival and all the hype that goes along with it only slightly less than how much I hate Seven's Summer of Tennis.

5. My recent installation of Ubuntu-Eee on my Eee PC. It went very well, thank you.

6. My growing dislike of social networking sites. And my increasing reliance on a few of them.

7. The realisation that if something isn't done soon about Melbourne's train system, it'll end up like Sydney's.

8. The Federal Government's plan for an internet makeover, Chinese style. Fight this one with a passion kids.

9. Ubuntu 8.10. Where's the hype?

Anyway, I am getting round to it. Just haven't had time is all. And these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Clearly bored

I'm waiting for something to download, and I see that Tom and Akusai have had a crack at an old one that Bronze Dog did. So I might as well. Have fun, and join in if you're game.

Accent: Supposedly a type of Australian accent known as "ocker". FSM knows that I do try to be well spoken.

Booze: Rather enjoying this Pale Ale renaissance that Australia is going through at the moment. KitKat gave me one called Crackenback for my birthday - I give it 4 stars - very nice with a lovely fragrant hoppy aroma.

Chore I hate: Vacuuming the house. Going to get one of those robo vacuum thingies as soon as I can.

Dog or Cat: Cat. I like dogs, but cats clean up after themselves and don't need baths.

Essential Electronics: My computer(s), my Eee PC, and that's pretty much it since my Sony Walkman got lost down the back of the sofa. OK, maybe MP3 players can be too small.

Favorite Cologne: I liked Activist by The Body Shop. Then they stopped selling it in Australia. Now I've got XY by Hugo Boss. But technically these are Eau de Toilettes, not colognes.

Gold or Silver: Gold. You better believe it, although I'm rather liking oil at the moment.

Hometown: Currently, Melbourne VIC, but I grew up in Sydney NSW.

Insomnia: Negative. But I wish that I voluntarily went to sleep earlier.

Job title: Blogger, Freeloader and Minister. Oh and I have some day job in industry superannuation as well.

Kids: Too young, too poor and too immature.

Living arrangements: A three bedroom unit with my wife and (currently) our friend from the sticks who is in town working at Honda.

Most admirable traits: Standing up for one's personal ethics.

Not going to cop to: Surely this could be phrased better? I have no idea what this one is asking.

Overnight hospital stays: Broken arm, 1985. I was boogie boarding at the time and got dumped by a freak wave.

Phobias: Snakes and crocodiles. Actually, reptiles generally gross me out.

Quote: Primary school poetry: "We had fun, fun, fun, picking boogies in the sun. When the sun got hot, our boogies turned to snot."

Religion: Pretty much quality Australian Pale Ale at the moment. And the Sydney Swans Football Club.

Siblings: Two sisters, both younger, one in Sydney NSW and one in Carson City NV. She's married to my brother-in-law who is originally from somewhere in Indiana. Shit! I know this one. It might be Bloomington. My other brother-in-law is the brother of Ms Dikkii, and he lives in a place called Funkytown.

Time I wake up: Usually after I've hit the snooze button seven or eight times.

Unusual talent or skill: I do this pen-flicking thing that drives people insane.

Vegetable I love: Peas, nuked with butter and pepper. Carrots, steamed with honey.

Worst habit: I'm not putting this one in.

X-rays: Chest, teeth, foot, arm. I think that's it.

Yummy foods I make: I'm told that my chili con carne is pretty good. Personally, I don't think I've got it right, yet.

Zodiac sign: Crux Australis.

Dikkii for president, 2008?

This is interesting. I'm not even American.



(With thanks to Orac.)

This blog is culturally significant. Official.

Folks, being the pompous hypocrite that I am occasionally, I'm not afraid of bignoting myself as much as what I can possibly get away with. Which is why I'm a little surprised that it's taken me this long to get this one out there for you lot to read.

It appears that for some reason or another, my blog is now listed as being 'culturally significant', whatever that means.

Those who know me best would know that I don't have much time for the descriptor, 'cultural'. 'Culture', to me, is stuff that reflects people. It could be anything - pop songs, graffiti, news, architecture, mass transit etc. However, the highbrow would have you believe that it reflects a small subset of what is more broadly known as 'art'; the emphasis being on the part that the highbrow believe is cultural. Which is normally at odds with what the rest of us like to include, or rather, their definition excludes a great deal of it. Most of it, in fact.

It all started out with an email that I got in mid-January from someone asking me if would be OK to archive Dikkii's Diatribe under the PANDORA archive which is administered by the National Library of Australia. Note that names and numbers have been changed and email addresses deleted to protect the innocent:

dikkiisemailaddress@yahoo.com.au

Dear Sir

Request for permission to archive Dikkii’s Diatribe

The National Library of Australia aims to build a comprehensive collection of Australian publications to ensure that Australians have access to their documentary heritage now and in the future. The Library has traditionally collected items in print, but it is also committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural value.

PANDORA, Australia’s Web Archive, was set up by the Library in 1996 to enable the archiving and provision of long-term access to online Australian publications. Since then we have been identifying online publications and archiving those that we consider have national significance. Additional information about PANDORA can be found on the Library's server at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html

We would like to include Dikkii’s Diatribe in the PANDORA Archive and I would be grateful if you would let me know whether you are willing to permit us to do so, that is, grant us a licence under the Copyright Act 1968, to copy your publication into the Archive and to provide public online access to it via the Internet. This means that you would grant the Library permission to retain your publication in the Archive and to provide public access to it in perpetuity.

We would like to re-archive your publication periodically to record significant additions and changes.

If you are willing to grant us such a licence, please complete the short form at the end of this message and return it to me.

There are some benefits to you as a publisher in having your publication archived by the Library. If you grant us a copyright licence, the Library will take the necessary preservation action to keep your publication accessible as hardware and software changes over time. The Library will catalogue your publication and add the record to the National Bibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records shared by over 1,100 Australian libraries), as well as to our own online catalogue. This will increase awareness of your publication among researchers using libraries.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me, Gillian Nguyen, by telephone on 02 62** **71 or by email ********@nla.gov.au. Should you find me difficult to contact for any reason, Ross Fowler would also be happy to assist you. His phone number is 02 62** **18 and his email address is *****@nla.gov.au.

Yours sincerely

Gillian Nguyen
Librarian
National Library of Australia
Web Archiving
Mailbox 6, Canberra ACT 2600
Tel: (02) 62** **71
Fax: (02) 62** **92
www.nla.gov.au

*******************************************************************
I/We grant the National Library of Australia a licence under the Copyright Act 1968 to copy the online publication [title] into the PANDORA Archive. I understand that this licence permits the Library to retain and provide public online access to it in perpetuity and that the Library may make reproductions or communications of my publication as are reasonably necessary to preserve it and make it available to the public.

NAME:
ORGANISATION:
PHONE:
EMAIL:
*******************************************************************

So of course I had to find out more. I sent back a response to Gillian and cc'd Ross in as well. I thought to myself that, well, at worst, this could be a manifestation of a Nigerian scam, but it could be interesting.

One thing that I wasn't sure of is that quite a lot of my posts are covered by a Creative Commons licence, which precludes the use by the library for anything other than non-commercial applications. I asked about this in my response:

Hi Gillian,

I'm rather chuffed with your email. It sounds very nice, thank you. I would have never thought of my blog as being culturally significant.

I do have a couple of questions though, before I go ahead:

1. Quite a lot of my blog is subject to a Creative Commons licence, which reads as follows:

Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic

You are free:

• to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

• Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

• Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

• 
  
• For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
• Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
• Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

Will this present any issues with me approving a copyright licence?

2. On what basis was my blog selected?

3. May I have your permission to reproduce your initial email and this exchange on my blog?

Cheers, Dikkii.

I received a response to this quite quickly:

Dear Dikkii

Thank you for geting back to us. I have attempted to answer your questions below. Please let me know if I can be of further advice.

1. We foresee no conflict with your Creative Commons licence, the National Library does not take on any of your copyrights by archiving. The only right we would maintain would be to retain our copy once it is archived.

2. We archive many blogs in PANDORA, yours was selected because it contains original Australian content and has been going for more than a year.

3. We would not seek to dictate what you present on your website, but we generally do not like to appear ourselves in the Archive, as we wish to record rather than be recorded. We are happy for you to mention that you have been archived and have buttons you may use if interested (http://pandora.nla.gov.au/publishers.html#logo). If you do decide to publish this correspondence please could you remove the contact information.

Regards,

Ross Fowler

Senior Librarian
Web Archiving Section
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
PH. +61 2 62** **18
Fax +61 2 62** **22
Email *****@nla.gov.au

PANDORA Australia's Web Archive http://pandora.nla.gov.au/

Which deflated me a little, but hey! If it's been going for more than a year, and I can possibly get more readers, then I'm reasonably happy with that.

So I granted the permissions and here I am. About two weeks later, I got this:

Dear Dikkii

Thank you for granting the National Library of Australia a copyright licence to include your website in the PANDORA Archive. As agreed this licence permits the Library to copy your publication into the Archive and to retain that copy and provide online public access to it in perpetuity.

I am delighted to inform you that your publication is now publicly available in the PANDORA Archive at http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-80846

Access to your publication in the Archive is facilitated in two ways: via the Library’s online catalogue; and via subject and title lists maintained on the PANDORA home page http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html.

Should the location of the title change, or should you decide to cease publication, we would appreciate it if you would advise us so that we can ensure all relevant data is archived.

I would welcome any comments you may have regarding the presentation of your publication in the archive and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Roger Parker

Web Archiving Section
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
PH. +61 2 62** **05
Fax +61 2 62** **22
Email *******@nla.gov.au

So I guess that this means that I can consider myself part of the artistic milieu, and therefore one of the highbrow wankers that I occasionally rail against.

Here's a question - would it have been more 'art' to have said no?

thepirateblog.org?

Some of you might know The Pirate Bay. Or not. The name of this site has been allegedly linked with file-sharing activity.

I'm not sure if I can comment about the legality of the file-sharing activity, however, I'm sure that you, the reader, can look this sort of thing up and come to your own conclusions.

It is, however, interesting to note that the organisation that runs The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån, is quite anti-copyright. I would hazard a guess that this sort of antipathy also extends to those other areas of intellectual property law, patents and trademarks.

Indeed, the contempt that The Pirate Bay has for this sort of thing is made manifest by the 'About' section of their website where, amongst other things, they have this to say:

Only torrent files are saved at the server. That means no copyrighted and/or illegal material are stored by us. It is therefore not possible to hold the people behind The Pirate Bay responsible for the material that is being spread using the tracker. Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site.

The Pirate Bay was started by the swedish anti copyright organization Piratbyrån in the late 2003, but is since October 2004 separated and run by dedicated individuals. Using the site is free of charge, but since running it costs money, donations are very much appreciated.

I have mixed views myself on intellectual property laws. I think that the world would be a much simpler place if they were abolished, but I can respect the motivation of filthy lucre in the creative process, both artistically and industrially.

And having seen such disgraceful idiocy as what happened with Le Canard Noir's blog at Netcetera, I generally tend towards the "minimal" position, at least where censorship is concerned.

Lastly, where ‘freedom’ of speech or expression is concerned, I do support moves to ease or abolish as many restrictions on speech or expression as possible. A lot. Even if I think that you would be out of your mind to believe that 'freedom of speech or expression' in even its loosest interpretation is remotely possible in this or any other universe.

So it was with great interest that I noticed that The Pirate Bay has launched a blogging service, Baywords, powered by Wordpress. It doesn’t have the full set of features offered at Wordpress’ own site, however, and Baywords is very much up front about protecting bloggers’ rights to say whatever they like:

Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don’t break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it.

Now while this might sound noble and all, I admit that I have absolutely no idea of how strict Swedish laws actually are on what can or can’t be published. I suspect that they’re not all that strict.

On Wednesday nights, there’s this show on 3RRR called ‘Byte Into It’ which is an extremely well put together show for computer nerds everywhere. While I resist the tag ‘nerd’ myself, it just so happens that while this show is on every week, I happen to find myself in the car driving somewhere. And listening to it.

So while the news is a couple of weeks old, it was announced on Byte Into It that The Pirate Bay was venturing into censorship free blogging. Normally the guys on Byte Into It are very bullish on anything that assists with freer speech or expression, which was what I was expecting.

It therefore came as a complete shock to me when the news was greeted with outright cynicism and none of the usual jocularity that they normally exhibit. Comments were thrown about as to what content might be hosted, and there appeared to be consensus that you’d think twice about clicking on anything containing the ‘baywords.com’ domain name. Mainly because, in their opinion, there would be a fair to likely chance that the contents of such blogs would contain either:

• Child pornography/paedophilia;
• Neo-nazism/hate sites; or
• Other unsavoury stuff.

Is this cynicism unwarranted? Isn't this good for the internet that someone like Le Canard Noir can blog in peace without fear of reprisals?

On the other hand, is it feasible that Baywords may be a licence for all sorts of despicable trash to proliferate? Have they just provided a soap-box for nutbars everywhere to peddle their tripe?

Lastly, should we care?

And now, a word from...

I've been a bit quiet of late. One of the reasons for this is that I have a bit on at work.

Another is that I'm spending quite a bit of my time getting my new computer fully set up the way that I like it, which is proving to be a bit of a learning exercise.

I've chosen to run Windows Vista. Windows XP users are probably scratching their heads and asking why am I doing this? Isn't it a piece of crap?

Oh ye of short memories. Windows XP when it originally came out had some bugs, but Microsoft eventually put these right. Albeit with the assistance of a couple of hefty service packs. And now people appear to praise it for it's stability. And what about the resource usage? I think that with my new hardware, I don't have to worry about too much just yet.

I've also chosen to go for Open Office over Microsoft Office. So far, this appears to be a decent call. Although Calc has some issues with charts, so I've kept Excel on. Hopefully this will be dealt with eventually.

I finally had my suspicions confirmed about my McAfee's Security Suite: It really does vandalise the registry of the PC to the point where I had to do a clean install of Vista again just to sort the problem out. I'll come back to this shortly.

I found that there is definitely an order to follow when installing stuff - if you do it in the wrong order, you get grief. And my problems haven't been with Vista per se, just some of the idiotic stuff that my security suite was doing to the registry of this PC. Installing Spybot S&D early on has some definite advantages here - it's quite good at picking up attempted registry edits by over-zealous software.

And back to McAfee for a moment, I've decided for the time being not to install it. I'm comfortable with Windows Firewall just at the moment, and ClamWin seems to do a decent job as an anti-viral. Do I really need the other programs in a security suite? I use Yahoo Mail for my email which is quite good - sometimes too good - at filtering spam, and McAfee's anti-spyware thingy was leagues behind AdAware and Spybot S&D in fighting spyware and malware anyway.

But the big new thing this time around, is that I am dual booting this PC with a Linux variant, this one being Ubuntu. Yes, folks. I am a recently cherry-popped Linux ex-virgin, despite the fact that I shared a house with an almost fanatical KDE developer for a long time.

This should be, could be and is a bit of fun. I am having a good fun time coming to grips with the funny little intricacies of "root" (phwoar! If you're Australian, you'll find this endlessly amusing) and having to enter commands in a terminal to run some applications, as well as other funny things that Linux does that Windows does differently.

And when I run out of stuff to do here, I thought that I'd do up my old PC, because it needs a bit of work. Currently, it can take up to half an hour to boot up with the problem being at the POST stage. It does this thing where it beeps, flashes the lights on the CD/DVD drives and the floppy drive, makes a bit of noise with them and then beeps again before doing the same thing over and over. Once the BIOS kicks in and Windows loads, everything's AOK.

I think that this means that the motherboard is cactus, and I need a new one. That or a power supply. So I guess that I'm going to have to replace them. Which means that I'm not running out of things to do. Someone correct me if you think that I'm barking up the wrong tree.

Incidentally, I don't consider myself nerdly about anything other than finance.

Discussion thread: Netiquette

This is a true story. Names and countless other details have been changed to protect the innocent. Personally, I'm worried that this might not be enough. Read on. And do post comments, no matter what your opinion might be.

This all started one day on a forum that I happen to be a moderator on. It's a forum on finance generally.

What is relevant about this forum, is that you don't need a password or a user ID to access it. Anyone can comment on any thread. Anyone can read it. Various posts come up in search engine listings. It is as public as you get. I won't be linking there today, though for a number of reasons:

1. You won't need to see the forum in order to get the general gist of this post.
2. Various topics discussed and certain comments made will bore you silly.
3. Other sundry reasons too mundane to go into
   

This story begins just the other day when I had initiated a thread about something or other. The subject is neither relevant nor interesting (except maybe to us financial nerds).

A good buddy of mine in meatspace, who we'll call "James", is a regular poster to these forums and can be counted on to always dish up something interesting. And you know, James can also be counted on calling me on some of the rubbish that I come out with.

Regular readers of this blog probably know exactly the type of chit-chat that I'm referring to here. I talk a lot of shit.

And, just before I continue, readers of this blog who have been here a long time will note that I occasionally quote from discussions with a friend of mine who I chose to call "Bob". I wish to advise that I will no longer be calling him "Bob" as I have a regular reader, Bob who he might get confused with. His next appearance will be under a different name.

"James" is not the same person as "Bob".

But back to the story. Somewhere down the thread, I chose to illustrate a point in one of the subsequent comments with a throwaway comment about someone. We all know about this type of comment. It usually starts with, "This bloke I know reckons..." or "Some say this. I happen to know this one girl who..." or even "I know this person who said to me just the other day..."

Prior to me coming out with this, James had made the following point:

You know, a lot of people think that charting is an effective way for deciding between shares of a similar nature.

Don't get me started on charting. I'll leave my opinions about charting and technical analysis generally for another day and another post.

So I responded to James' comment with the throwaway "There's this mate of ours..." line:

James, I really don't like charting. You know, there's this friend of ours who bases his whole investment strategy on charting. He told me the other day that BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are such similar companies that the only way you can split the difference is to use charting on them. Even then, he said, they track roughly similarly, so it really doesn't matter which one you invest in. Of course, I had to ask the question, "Mate, do you ever read a company's financials?"

Now this might sound innocuous or it might not. I'll let you be the judge, but read on.

James quickly followed this up with this:

Hey Dikkii, you know perfectly well that that particular friend of ours is a former lecturer in fine art. It makes sense that he prefers to see stuff graphically rather than wade through reams of numbers.

We'll call this friend of ours "David".

While I was reading James' comment I must have put my moderator's hat on, because I actually considered deleting James comment. I had used David as an example, anonymously, to illustrate a point.

The reason that I considered deletion was that I felt that James had crossed a line in effectively outing David. Although most other regulars at the forum wouldn't have known who we were talking about, anyone who knows James and I would certainly know that we only know one person who used to be a lecturer in fine art.

David also knows that I talk a lot of shit. But unlike James, David never reads this particular forum. And why would he? None of it is of any interest to him.

My next comment voiced my displeasure and confusion as to why James chose to out David (amongst other things) but I left it at that. I don't know if James has read my response, as he, to date, hasn't left a response of his own.

Anyway, the next day, I'm having a chat with another friend of ours, who we'll call "Rob". Rob said to me, "Hey Dikkii, I was chatting with David last night and he mentioned something about comments that you and James made about him at your online forum."

The only way that David would know about these comments would be if James had told him.

I instantly got a very bad feeling, so I asked Rob what he (David) felt about them. Rob said, "He didn't say much, only that he was 'over it'. I couldn't tell if he was pissed off or not. He didn't seem upset with James."

I said to Rob, "Well if James has told him, I suspect that I'll end up looking the bad guy."

So to date, I don't know if David is annoyed at me or James or whoever.

But this did raise a few questions, which I'd like to pose.

First of all, should I have sought David's approval to offer his circumstances as an anonymous "I have a friend who..." to illustrate a point? This seems completely unfeasible to me. David is not the first friend who I have turned to for one of these references, and he certainly won't be the last.

Secondly, if David is annoyed with me and not James, how and why? I don't understand what I could have done wrong here.

Lastly, should I have gone ahead and deleted James comment? I would have left myself open to claims of censorship.

As it happens, I am not annoyed with either James or David for this. I know I will be with James if it turns out that when he told David, he neglected to inform him that it was James who outed David. That's a missed point of biblical proportions there.

Anyway, I have a short seven question survey over on the right. Please complete it for my benefit. And discuss in the comments - I really haven't got a clue as to whether I've done anything wrong or not.

And "David", if you're reading this and you're upset with me, I do apologise. Email me if you would like the offending comments removed and I'll consider their removal.

Edit (27/03/2008): Survey removed. It had to go sometime.

Edit (29/02/2008): Upon re-reading this, it's clear that I did James a bit of a disservice with one of my remarks to Rob. Whilst I don't recall the actual words, I've edited it to read more correctly like what I would have been more likely to say. I also needed to add the following text:

Disclosure: This blogger owns shares in BHP Billiton Ltd.

Standard but necessary disclaimer: This is not advice. Only a complete idiot would think that any of this constituted advice. It's not even vaguely reasonable to consider this to be advice. If you are in any doubt as to the content of this, see a good, independent financial adviser immediately. They do exist.

Roll on 2008

Happy new month or whatever to all of you, and if you're reading, Romulus, a Happy Hogmanay to you.

Last year, I celebrated by doing a greatest hits post of sorts, and I'm not going to show any original flair by changing that for this year.

And this year has been a big one for Dikkii's Diatribe - cracking the ten year mark is one mean feat. Even if I do say so myself.

So here goes - my greatest hits for 2007:

12. The Ghost glides by, hitting everything in his path

11. New word: "Biopiracy"

10. The Big Day Sell Out

9. Where Dikkii cracks the sads with "Generation Y"

8. The day the music industry died

7. Why woo merchants cannot be trusted

6. Great debacles of our time: The great mezzanine financing collapse (part 1)

5. The meaning of life

4. Great debacles of our time: The failed Qantas takeover

3. The sad tale of Jacques Benveniste

2. Why did you end up agnostic? (Part 3)

So a quick bit of suspense, open the envelope and here is number one. But wait: there's two! It's a good thing that the number zero exists:

1. Filthy, rotten lies

0. Pure, teeth-clenching evil

Please all have a great 2008.

Writer's block

I have a bit of writer's block at the moment.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. I would just have a think about some of my least favourite things such as woo, Big Music, the media, global warming denialists or post-modernist/post-structuralist/deconstructionists.

But it's just not happening for me at the moment.

I hang out at my favourite blogs and some others looking for inspiration.

Nothing.

Someone's posted something good. I can't be bothered posting a comment.

What would it be like to create an anti-Dikkii? I could blog about stuff that I can't normally say.

Free speech is an illusion.

Peer-group pressure, contract law, defamation, perjury, contempt of court, copyright, national secrecy, corporate confidentiality - is it fair to say that these wouldn't exist either in their current form, or even at all, if it were possible for free speech to exist?

Would truly free speech usher in a new golden age of transparency? Or would it result in a few more failed marriages.

But anti-Dikkii interests me.

How would I protect myself from legal action?

What if I said something that was very, very wrong and it came back to haunt me? You can't even joke about terrorism or paedophilia any more. What was funny once becomes trial by hysterical media.

Do people really accept media releases which are clearly cleverly spin-doctored reverse ferrets as the facts all along?

Why woo? Why can't people just accept that there is usually a normal rational explanation for things that go bump in the night?

Why homeopathy? Why reiki? Why veterinary acupuncture?

If God existed, wouldn't He sentence evangelicals to hell? After all, even God couldn't possibly tolerate the self-interested sucking up that evangelicals do?

Is Richard Dawkins being a fascist in expecting religious moderates to speak out against religious extremists? If not, am I a hypocrite for not speaking out against the violence in Somalia? Is everyone condoning bad stuff in this world if they simply don't get the chance to speak out? Even if they speak out about as much as they can?

Do woo merchants with good intentions have a duty to expose fellow woo merchants who are frauds? And should they go after them with extreme prejudice?

Is apathy the ultimate payback for technological achievement?

Do I need more money?

Why does it not worry me that all my friends from school and uni are earning more than me? Is this wrong? Is it doubly wrong if I still consider myself a capitalist pig?

McMansions are offensive. And people buy them. What ever happened to taste? And why is it necessary to have a master bedroom that can fit three four-post king-size beds?

Who really needs an ensuite bathroom with two washbasins? And why these and not a bath?

Will our kids kill us for allowing them to grow up with shoebox-sized backyards?

How did the urban planners for the Plenty Valley manage to forget about parkland?

Anti-Dikkii is an interesting concept.

Why does economics not have an Alan Sokal figure to tell the theoretical humanities to butt out?

Why does everything that I'm doing at work have to coincide with this week? And why do we hide behind euphemisms such as "due diligence", "fair and reasonable", "meets expectations", "performance management" and "key responsibility areas"?

Do post-modernist/post-structuralist/deconstructionists now run senior management? And the public service? And why do they love Freud and Jung?

Reality used to be a friend of mine.

Undergraduate. Just like my humour.

Yes, folks, it's official. My blog is categorised as "Undergraduate".

Further proof that I need to lift my game.

Thanks to Ryan of Answers In Genesis BUSTED! for that little snippet of your lives which you'll never get back. His is a very informative blog which is rated "Postgraduate".

BTW, if you're trying this out yourself for your blogs, remember to remove the ad at the bottom of the HTML. I don't support pay-day lenders, and I don't see why you should, either.

Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll and other stuff.

Mojoey of Deep Thoughts maintains what is probably the internet's longest blogroll for atheists and agnostics which is called, wait for it, "Atheist Blogroll".

Regular reader Plonka, of Plonka's Blog has just signed up and suggested that I join too. And so I did, just like the sheep that I am. It wasn't long before I was happily completing my details in that everlovin' email to Mojoey that gets a blog link at 483 other blogs around the freethinkerspace.

You can see mine down the bottom right hand corner of this blog.

Says Mojoey:

"The Atheist Blogroll is a service provide to the Atheist and Agnostic blogging community. The blogroll currently maintains over 350 blogs. Membership is limited to Atheist and Agnostic bloggers."

I don't really endorse the exclusionism in the last sentence. I may have to chat to Mojoey about this, because this is a little bit uncharitable. It's not like theists would be queueing up to join such a blogroll or anything.

It's a good thing that Mojoey embraces agnostics, because the other blogroll that Plonka has joined is The Richard Dawkins-endorsed OUT Campaign. And they most decidedly don't.

Says the Out Campaign:

"Atheists are far more numerous than most people realize. COME OUT of the closet! You'll feel liberated, and your example will encourage others to COME OUT too. (Don't "out" anybody else, wait for them to OUT themselves when they are ready to do so)."

Oh, yes please!

And by joining the blog roll, you get to wear a big, red letter "A" on your blog, which is your way of telling the world, "We're here, we're, um, atheist, we will not disappear!" There was no mention of agnostics here, so I sent a question off to the blog organisers asking them about this:

Hi,

Why specifically atheists? Why not agnostics as well?

Cheers, Dikkii.

And not long after that, I got this in return:

I'm just one of the many admin's doing link and web stuff so I don't know the official RDFRS answer to that but from my personal viewpoint believing it's possible to have a god but you can't disprove it goes along the same lines as being agnostic about teapots orbiting close to Mars. You can't disprove it but it's silly. You can't disprove something for which there is zero evidence and saying that lack of evidence is proof that it's possible just isn't a valid argument.

Regards,
/Mike

Dawkins schools them well. For someone who doesn't know the Foundation's official line, he knows the next best thing is to paraphrase The God Delusion.

I must admit, I wasn't expecting that ol' straw man agnostic from The God Delusion. You know, the pants-wetting fence-sitter who assigns equal probability to existence alongside non-existence? The generalisation that I blogged about in Why did you end up agnostic (part 4)? The stereotype which doesn't exist? The negative caricature which demonstrates that even scientists as brilliant as Richard Dawkins can put both feet in their mouths at once, occasionally?

Of course, I had to fire off a response to this:

Hi Mike,

Good answer, but agnostics aren't interested in proving the negative, particularly when they know the difference between the null hypothesis and an extraordinary claim. Agnostics also recognise that it's silly.

Some would say that invoking Russell's teapot to an agnostic is a little bit insulting, patronising and irrelevant, but I wouldn't go this far. I noticed in March this year that Dawkins fell into the same trap in The God Delusion, so you're in good company.

Cheers, Dikkii.

I don't expect a response to this.

It appears that this is a blogroll I won't be joining in a hurry.

The Ghost glides by, hitting everything in his path

We all have our heroes. And they will all inevitably let us down, some day.

Stephen Walker, otherwise known as The Ghost Who Talks was one of the reasons that I began listening to 3RRR, all those years ago.

His show, The Skull Cave which still broadcasts every Friday evening, is still one of the greatest trips through music that you can go on.

And if you know how to do it, I fully recommend that you somehow record his show when it's on next off the webcast and listen to it on your MP3 player. I must learn how to do this one of these days.

Anyway, Mr Walker now has a blog at The Age online. He writes well, normally. Just the other day, I was telling one of my mates about a great post where he was exposing roots music lovers for the reactionaries that they are.

But like I was saying, sooner or later, all heroes fall on their arses in one way or another, eventually.

The offending post was this one from last week, where Walker let fly at the ARIA awards night for the fact that it was crap.

Yeah. Award nights are rubbish. We knew that.

But rather than offering something new, Walker unleashed tired and derivative observations about the night that were uninspiring in their insipidness.

I'm going to take the lead from one of his commenters, Evil Roger, who picked up on the unoriginal theme and ran with it.

Firstly, Walker chose to make the observation that, "Music award shows are so formulaic aren't they?"

Wow. Talk about leaving yourself wide open. Roger let him have it with one barrel, but kept the other primed for the big stuff.

He next criticised the compere, Rove McManus, for being an "entertainer (not a musician)". Interesting. Last I looked, entertainers' jobs were to do this sort of stuff. His point about not having a musician in charge of proceedings was baffling, in light of a later observation that he makes.

However, we will continue. Walker then proceeds to criticise the "moshpit" down the front, right down to the "Moshpit Coordinator" who appeared in the closing credits. Walker has a point about this, but conversely, I'm going to give the organisers points for this. I so wish that the next Oscars night has one of these.

In other words, Walker was right. It's so very, very, hide-under-the-bed-and-cringe lame. But it's a thousand times better than all those music awards nights where people just sit in an auditorium waiting for their name to be read out and then feigning complete crystal meth breakdown while their one hit rings out across the gathered throng.

So what else does Walker poke fun at?

"...A succession of awards calculated somehow or other by someone or other..." Bloody hell, Ghost. What did you think you were watching? Terminator 2?

"...A bunch of relatively inarticulate winners who snigger and mumble their way through a list of "thankyous" that are generally meaningless or indecipherable to the average viewer." And you thought that a musician presenting the awards would be a good idea? What were you smoking, Ghost? And where can I get some?

"...Oh and a couple of actual musical performances scattered through the evening." Just in case you though that he fell asleep.

Honestly, this review just blows. Walker somehow manages to combine the intellectual snobbery of the 'über-cool' inner-city music goer with the charming naïveté of someone who believes that award nights actually award excellence, or maybe that Spïnal Tap weren't a colossal joke.

Check out all those umlauts! ROCK!!!!

You could just pick and choose the clichés that Walker uses here.

And, if it wasn't enough to come across as the most pretentious review of a music awards night ever, Walker saves his worst for last with some of the most disgraceful cheerleading for "an intimidating" Nick Cave that you ever saw.

Granted, Cave was a worthy inductee into the ARIA Hall of Fame. I can't believe that I just said that. But as far as Walker's concerned, his surly and arrogant demeanour added some much needed 'tude into what was, to Walker, a wasted evening.

John Butler being "co-opted into a KFC advertisement"? Gimme a break. Any wanker who gets this sanctimonious about veganism while smoking the insane amount of weed that he does deserves to be taken down a peg or two.

Incidentally, didn't Channel Ten get exactly what they were after with their subliminal advertising? The controversy in the media named the companies involved so many times, I just had to laugh.

I normally quite like Walker's blog. And there is no army on the planet that can stop me listening to Walker's radio show.

But this post was an embarrassment for the Ghost. His only shining lights came late in the piece where he finally wrote something of merit about Gotye's, Butler's and Keith Urban's musical slots. He really should have watched that excellent doco on SBS instead.

Half a star.

Firing up for Kevin 07 Election 07

Those of you who read this blog from Australia will already be aware that the next Federal Election has been called, and has been set down for Saturday 24th November. I will be leaving it a little bit longer before I do my traditional election round-up, but I did want to draw your attention to the poll facility that I have set up over in my sidebar.

It doesn't tell me how you voted or when, so feel free to go and register your vote, safe in the knowledge that I don't know what you selected. I have two polls to choose from:

1. Who do you think will win the election; and
2. Who would you like to see win the election.

You'll notice that for the first poll, I've only put the political parties with a realistic chance of winning in. OK, the National Party will rule in a coalition if the government wins, but for the purposes of the second poll, I'm talking about winning a majority outright.

And if the Greens or the Democrats win, I reckon that either would have a fair shake at winning the James Randi Educational Foundation's USD $1 million prize, because there would have to be something paranormal about this, based on the probabilities involved.

I may have stuffed up the first one by not specifying Liberal/National, but you knew what I meant (I hope).

A Mercy Killing

Even though the poll still has four days to go, I am aware that the answer "yes" to the question, "Should I disable the auto-play function on my Last.fm widget" is clearly going to romp it in.

Therefore, I'm deeming it unethical to continue the poll and I will be disabling auto-play forthwith.

And I might just go on the record to say that I'm not happy with any of you who voted "yes".

Edit 22/10/2007: I would be disabling it forthwith, except for the fact that this stupid browser (IE7) won't allow me to fix it. I'll do it when I get home and can use Firefox.

Edit 22/10/2007: Done.

Poll: Yes or no

I've been looking for an excuse to use Blogger's new poll thingy for some time.

Regular commenter morisetn thinks that I should disable the auto-play functionality in my Last.fm widget:

If you don't fix that last.fm box I'm going to have to boycot your otherwise excellent blog. It scares the poop out of me! Plus, at work, it means that I can't just innocently check to see if you've replied. Leave the player there, just turn the auto-play off!

So it looks like I have to put it to the vote, even though my blog is not normally a democracy.

What do you think?

Head over to the right of your screen and scroll down to underneath the Last.fm widget and make your vote count!

The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing

This is really part 2.

Part 1 is here.

We discussed how The Quackometer was stomped on from a great height by the Society of Homeopaths because he wrote an unfavourable post about homeopathy.

You all know what I think. And if you look at Orac's post where I initially found this, you'll see the Streisand Effect going gangbusters.

So I thought I'd join in the fun - now that I have Andy "Le Canard Noir" Lewis' permission to re-post.

So without further ado, here it is:

The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing

by Le Canard Noir

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) are a shambles and a bad joke. It is now over a year since Sense about Science, Simon Singh and the BBC Newsnight programme exposed how it is common practice for high street homeopaths to tell customers that their magic pills can prevent malaria. The Society of Homeopaths have done diddly-squat to stamp out this dangerous practice apart from issue a few ambiguously weasel-worded press statements.

The SoH has a code of practice, but my feeling is that this is just a smokescreen and is widely flouted and that the Society do not care about this. If this is true, then the code of practice is nothing more than a thin veneer used to give authority and credibility to its deluded members. It does nothing more than fool the public into thinking they are dealing with a regulated professional.

As a quick test, I picked a random homeopath with a web site from the SoH register to see if they flouted a couple of important rules:

48: • Advertising shall not contain claims of superiority. • No advertising may be used which expressly or implicitly claims to cure named diseases.

72: To avoid making claims (whether explicit or implied; orally or in writing) implying cure of any named disease.

The homeopath I picked on is called Julia Wilson and runs a practice from the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. What I found rather shocked and angered me.

Straight away, we find that Julia M Wilson LCHE, RSHom specialises in asthma and works at a clinic that says,

Many illnesses and disease can be successfully treated using homeopathy, including arthritis, asthma, digestive disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, headaches, infertility, skin and sleep problems.

Well, there are a number of named diseases there to start off. She also gives a leaflet that advertises her asthma clinic. The advertising leaflet says,

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. ... The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs...

Now, despite the usual homeopathic contradiction of claiming to treat causes not symptoms and then in the next breath saying it can alleviate symptoms, the advert is clearly in breach of the above rule 47 on advertising as it implicitly claims superiority over real medicine and names a disease.

Asthma is estimated to be responsible for 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year. It is not a trivial illness that sugar pills ought to be anywhere near. The Cochrane Review says the following about the evidence for asthma and homeopathy,

The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective.

This is not a surprise given that homeopathy is just a ritualised placebo. Hopefully, most parents attending this clinic will have the good sense to go to a real accident and emergency unit in the event of a severe attack and consult their GP about real management of the illness. I would hope that Julia does little harm here.

However, a little more research on her site reveals much more serious concerns. She says on her site that 'she worked in Kenya teaching homeopathy at a college in Nairobi and supporting graduates to set up their own clinics'. Now, we have seen what homeopaths do in Kenya before. It is not treating a little stress and the odd headache. Free from strong UK legislation, these missionary homeopaths make the boldest claims about the deadliest diseases.

A bit of web research shows where Julia was working (picture above). The Abha Light Foundation is a registered NGO in Kenya. It takes mobile homeopathy clinics through the slums of Nairobi and surrounding villages. Its stated aim is to,

introduce Homeopathy and natural medicines as a method of managing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Kenya.

I must admit, I had to pause for breath after reading that. The clinic sells its own homeopathic remedies for 'treating' various lethal diseases. Its MalariaX potion,

is a homeopathic preparation for prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Suitable for children. For prevention. Only 1 pill each week before entering, during and after leaving malaria risk areas. For treatment. Take 1 pill every 1-3 hours during a malaria attack.

This is nothing short of being totally outrageous. It is a murderous delusion. David Colquhoun has been writing about this wicked scam recently and it is well worth following his blog on the issue.

Let's remind ourselves what one of the most senior and respected homeopaths in the UK, Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital, has to say on this matter.

there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.

Malaria is a huge killer in Kenya. It is the biggest killer of children under five. The problem is so huge that the reintroduction of DDT is considered as a proven way of reducing deaths. Magic sugar pills and water drops will do nothing. Many of the poorest in Kenya cannot afford real anti-malaria medicine, but offering them insane nonsense as a substitute will not help anyone.

Ironically, the WHO has issued a press release today on cheap ways of reducing child and adult mortality due to malaria. Their trials, conducted in Kenya, of using cheap mosquito nets soaked in insecticide have reduced child deaths by 44% over two years. It says that issuing these nets be the 'immediate priority' to governments with a malaria problem. No mention of homeopathy. These results were arrived at by careful trials and observation. Science. We now know that nets work. A lifesaving net costs $5. A bottle of useless homeopathic crap costs $4.50. Both are large amounts for a poor Kenyan, but is their life really worth the 50c saving?

I am sure we are going to hear the usual homeopath bleat that this is just a campaign by Big Pharma to discredit unpatentable homeopathic remedies. Are we to add to the conspiracy Big Net manufacturers too?

It amazes me that to add to all the list of ills and injustices that our rich nations impose on the poor of the world, we have to add the widespread export of our bourgeois and lethal healing fantasies. To make a strong point: if we can introduce laws that allow the arrest of sex tourists on their return to the UK, can we not charge people who travel to Africa to indulge their dangerous healing delusions?

At the very least, we could expect the Society of Homeopaths to try to stamp out this wicked practice? Could we?

I've said it before - homeopathy is a horribly convoluted web of complete lies. I sometimes think that anyone who buys into this rubbish deserves anything they get. Can people be protected from themselves?

But I guess that we have to accept that saving lives and money is an admirable aim, no matter if credulity and gullibility are the cause.

Filthy, rotten lies

Homeopathy is the silliest altie school ever.

Oh sure, some of you will say, what about reiki, therapeutic touch and some of the other wacko stuff out there?

Those ones are built around what is really only a couple of dodgy concepts. Most of which, even hardened woos can’t bring themselves to accept.

But homeopathy? Well…

*deep sigh*

…I’m going to come out with it now. Homeopathy is simply a deeply convoluted web of lies, and Homeopaths have got to be some of the least-principled woo merchants running around. It’s completely unrealistic, and the excuses that homeopaths come out with to avoid contradicting themselves are just iffy concepts piled upon many others. I refuse to believe that by piling all these ad hoc hypotheses upon each other, nothing registers anywhere in the pea-sized brains of homeopathetiques as being bogus and silly, eventually.

Reiki and therapeutic touch come out looking positively angelic, by comparison. If still equally ludicrous.

The next host of Skeptics’ Circle is The Quackometer. The owner of this blog, Andy "Le Canard Noir" Lewis has been ordered to take down a post that homeopaths found offensive.

Orac has posted the text of that post here. I may even seek permission from Lewis to reproduce it on this blog myself. Yes, folks, the Streisand Effect appears to be in full swing, here.

Myself, I’m going to use this blog post to have a good laugh at homeopathy.

Homeopathy basically works on this principle espoused by it’s inventor, Samuel Hahnemann, that “like cures like.”

So what you do, if you’re suffering from anything is to take something that causes the same symptoms. In what could be the grossest over-simplification ever, homeopaths liken this to how vaccines work.

Let’s just ignore that last sentence completely, because vaccines are nothing like how homeopaths say their remedies work. I’ll illustrate with an example.

Imagine that you have cholera. You’re shitting fountains of poo. And you’re a homeopathy fan.

You drag your sorry arse off to the homeopath to get treatment, because the thought of visiting a doctor is somehow wrong to you. So what does he prescribe for you?

Because homeopathy works on the basis that like cures like, our homeopath in this instance might prescribe a laxative.

That’s right. You’re in danger of dehydrating to death, so the stupid quack decides to ensure that your death is a speedy one by prescribing something that will actually hasten your demise.

Most people would do a double take at this glaring stupidity. Obviously, so did homeopaths, because the very thought that curing withdrawal symptoms for recovering alcoholics with a hearty dose of strychnine must have been a bit on the incredulous side.

So Hahnemann then decided that dilute solutions were enough.

But for some completely unfathomable reason, he postulated that the more you dilute something, the stronger it becomes. Soon enough, incredibly "strong" solutions were created to the point where the presence of even a single molecule of the substance in question becomes extremely unlikely to the point of improbable.

The ad hoc hypothesising that went on here is simply breathtaking:

• Water became a medium that developed a "memory" of the substance dissolved in it.
• The shaking of the solution energised the (non-existent) ingredient.
• Serial dilutions increased the active potency of the ingredient, but decreased side-effects such as death.
  

And so on and so forth.

And here's the kicker - no viable evidence for the efficacy of homeopathic remedies has been found. We would need controlled double-blind tests to be done, and so far, nothing.

Yet, on the basis of this glaring lack of evidence, homeopathic remedies continue to be sold.

Yes, folks. "Sold". Homeopathy is a multi-billion dollar business. It can certainly afford the testing.

On top of that, you have these half-wits suppressing dissent by petitioning The Quackometer's hosting facilities to take down the offending post. A post, I might add that pointed out the sheer immorality and lunacy of peddling homeopathic remedies for malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB in Kenya.

This is a DISGRACE!!!™

The point that I want to make is that homeopathy is built on so many ad-hoc hypotheses, risible inconsistencies and surly non-cooperation on the subject of testing that it is time that it was recognised for what it is: A horribly-constructed web of lies.

It's time for homeopaths to be put out of business.