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Is money losing its control over us

February 28th 2008 02:42
For many years now I have harboured a desire not to allow money to control my life. Its grubby little paws are everywhere I go, in everything I do and dictates a fair amount of what lies ahead. Of course you can do things that don’t cost money, the beach is amazing for its naked beauty and emotional impact, but the reality is getting there costs money, living there costs money and eating there costs money.

An older brother told me once to remember money is just a facility to make things happen, it should be used accordingly. Decoding this as pre-teen took a few years but he was spot on and that describes life right now.


But that’s not the question, today people spend big on anything and everything, cars, houses, TVs you name it, its on the list. If we look beyond the social need to be a leader and the emotional support shopping provides, do we see a general lack of respect for money these days?

Do we see the idea that people have no intention of paying back the money, living large whilst they can because they know the worst that can happen is they’ll be made bankrupt. How bad is that, you see all the entrepreneurs do it, superstars and very important people all seem to come out smelling of roses and lets face it if that happens you don’t have to pay it back anyway.

Business seems to be happy to keep collecting the money from people, after all increases in company profits help justify the risks of loss. Its deeper than that of course, if these companies do fail who gets trampled, who is business anyway, the big companies are owned by the public whether through their super funds or personally and so its these people that lose out. If you not spending and living the high life whilst you can, you must be helplessly waiting to be trampled.


that’s just one of my problems with Karma but that’s another story !

Throw in the blunt instrument of interest rate rises the government likes to use to keep us in check and you start to wonder whether money is something that you need in you life. Have we taught our kids too well, the scales of risk seem to favor the live for now whatever the cost lifestyle and those of us who don’t want that will be the ones that end up paying.
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Oiling the shotguns

February 28th 2008 02:05
The problem with engineers is that they can’t accept anything but a complete answer.

Engineers know perfection is just an impossible dream because the methodology and technical aspects behind an end product designed in compromise. Compromise is not a problem where it is necessary for the end product to work, there is no point having a perfect product that no one likes the look of as many many many carmakers will attest.

Sometimes this burden becomes hard to deal with when it seeps its wicked tentacles away from the job and into the real world.

One of the principles of management that evolved through the 80s and 90s was the concept of ‘just in time’, simply put this was the theory of maximizing production efficiency to a point where a minimum stock inventory was required. This is now a standardized feature of manufacturing plants around the world.

If you delve into the theory a little one of the basic ideas that come out of it translates into real life with a well known saying used by just about everyone over the age of 60 – ‘they don’t make things the way the used to, nothing lasts forever’

The easiest example is a Television, it wouldn’t be uncommon for a colour set made in the 70s to last well into the 80s if not the nineties. The components were robust, handled moving house and the rough and tumble of modern living. A modern set however is almost guaranteed to fail a couple of days after the 5 year warranty expires.

The theory behind this is the set life expectancy is 5 years, real life technology and style factors that dictate the majority of purchasers spending patterns set this not the manufacturers, and therefore the set is designed accordingly. There simply is no need to spend more (and add to the purchase price) on robust components that will be discarded before they fail.

Okay so hopefully we got the idea, a shotgun approach may well achieve the end result but it is uneconomical, wasteful and costs the consumers more.

So to Public Transport, this particular boat is floated as a way of reducing the impact on the environment of our transport hungry working population. When looking at the figures there is many good reasons to spruke its benefits especially to those that only require a point to point trip that is serviced by a transport solution.

However that’s the current view based on the vehicles of today, the engineer inside recognises a shotgun from twenty paces and this clearly will be one in the future. In order for a system to be a viable solution to a user, there must be reasonable access to services. Buses, trains and ferries must run to a timetable regardless of passenger numbers to meet this access. The same vehicles i.e. seats must be used regardless of numbers and the service must complete a full route even if passengers are present for small sections.

These factors are the nature of the beast, the compromise that has to be designed in. In terms of the environment even with this huge wastage, public transport can claim to be greener in today’s world, just.

(I don’t know for sure if the overall cost per kilometre is calculated using the full system cost or just the value of one passenger using one and that services impact, statistics can be used in this fashion to show any result you like.)

However if the car became totally eco-friendly, the ability to only use it for a very specific journey would make it very difficult to beat as the most efficient method of transport. Combine that with a technological revolution of what constitutes a road system (keep in mind a Sealed Road was first devised 100 years ago)
And public transport starts to look very expensive and very wasteful.

This idea came to me on a train trip, I dropped my car at the service station for the day it took me 20 minutes to drive there and 60 minutes to get a train back. The train contained 8 carriages each with an estimated 150 seats each, of which 50 % were unused. A fair number of people stood because they didn’t want to sit next to a stranger and a large number of people only stayed on the train for a small number of stops. Next time your children ask for your opinion of a career as an engineer be warned, these are the sorts of things life does to us!
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OMG scary thought #2

January 15th 2008 22:55
I must escape the green debate before I am labelled a skeptic of any sort. I'm not in case anyone has already reached that junction and needs guidance, I am a realist and a logical one at that, yes the worst kind, but its a bit late to request spots instead of the stripes.

In reading about TV energy consumption(See : Plasma-Greenhouse-Effect ) I saw a startling fact, we in Australia (and we aren't that odd that the figure is likely to be similar in the western world) have an average of 2.4 cars per household. I will leave it to another post to discuss the benefits of this figure being greater than the average number of kids, in terms of the greenhouse soap I am not sure which would be better - do kids or cars issue more polution over their life span and are which are fully biodegradable.

Now it may be a new thing or I may only just be noticing it for the first time, but my mind seems to have become a singles bar; lots of single ideas hanging around waiting for a matching partner to do wickedly delicious things with. This latest one instantly found a match with the recent news from India that a new small car will finially make it to market. Its not a new concept, many people in the past have identified the opportunity that a really cheap car with the ability to go on roads and goat tracks might offer. However this one is due to be released on a grand scale by a huge manufacturer.

Brilliant, wonderful news every Indian family, then every chinese family, then every arabic family and finally (not strictly in any order inparticular ) every african family can trade in their donkey for their 2.4 cars and we can all be on the same page. Now the whole family can have the freedom to move to the next village and beyond whenever they choose, they can learn to appreciate the difficulties in life that we have all grown so used to, traffic lights, road rage and exhaust fumes..... arrrrrggggghhhhh

The greenhouse crocodile comes back and bites me, grabs my legs and in a death role slowly slips under the surface to drown me. I feel the weight of the rock as it is put on my body wedging me under, whilst my body starts to decompose.

If cars are one of the top three emmiters of greenhouse gases, (simple numbers does it not inefficency) then what the hell is going to happen when the 2/3rds of the world that don't have them now get them ? Isn't this going to be a bit more of an issue than baning plastic bags, changing light bulbs and even stopping whaling ?

Just don't ask them if they would like a plasma Tv with the car !

The realist in me tells me the solution is not possible by simply changing the behavioural hbits of the western world, sure we should all become aware and more responsible but lets not kid ourselves that this will solve the problem or even slow it down. The world has to develop, the poorer countries can not be held back from getting the simple benefits the western world already have like hospitals, schools and access to modern transport.

If the world is in trouble now, it is doomed when this happens !

The problem will be solved by huge corporations that invest in a technology or science that will reverse the effects we are creating. Simplistic as it may seem and I am not even saying it is possible, but a satelite in orbit in the ozone layer could be converting the harmful stuff into good stuff whilst its telling us our GPS co-ordinates ? Instead of spending billions on traveling to Mars (for what purpose if the world is about to self destruct I might add), couldn't we just resolve this issue first, or perhaps we already have a solution in the wings and no-one wants to play their hand to early.

Just a note after reading this one might also think i am a pessimist, not true I am very much the optimist, I have no doubt the world will find the solution, it will be remarkable and we will collectively pat the genius of the human race on the back for it. We will of course then pay for it through some wild and fancy new corporate scheme before Governments find a tax to stick on it, whilst seeking to find competition to justify increasing the cost to us further.




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Plasma greenhouse effect

January 15th 2008 06:16
Don't you just hate it when something niggles in the back of your head, a little voice tells you the planets are not alligned, but the cogs aren't jammed so much as struggling to keep turning.

The worse of it is when you don't remember what it was that upset your train of thought, the thing that overheated the grease just won't show itself. Days or weeks can pass by and eventually your mind learns to deal with it, accept the thought is gone and try to reinvent the lubrication system to get round whatever it was


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23/12/07
Just a little confused about a couple of media reports of late....

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Are their really two ways ?

December 18th 2007 11:07
Seriously dad are their really two ways to run a school system ?

Interesting question from a child but its true, during the recent election it dawned on our family, (thanks kids) that we must be particularly silly people. There are a few really important structural things in society and a large number of smaller frilly bits


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Everyone encounters times when a loved one, friend or relative desperately wants to solve your dilema, they would bend over backwards, make the world turn the opposite way just to be able to help you in an hour of need.

You can't thank these people enough for their generosity, their unilateral display of unconditional love is heart warming. Its so wonderfully reassuring to know that society still has these soft moments to surprise us, a happy moment indeed


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Chasing the war on sense

November 22nd 2007 07:40
Question One : If the chaser team had distributed a bogus flyer in Lindsay would that have been okay ?
During this Australian Federal Election campaign these wickedly cutting edge comedians have tempted the boundary fences, so with this latest liberal banana it crossed my mind would they have got away with it.

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Crisis who says it’s a crisis ?

November 15th 2007 10:12
Just as the word ‘wedding’ has an immediate upward influence on the price of all things white, passing a particular age barrier for men and women also has a significant unnatural side effect.

For women, the slightest medical problem initiates a ‘menopause alert’ regardless of the symptoms. For guys, trying a new slightly risky activity, making a rash spontaneous decision or sharing an admiring look with a young attractive female is seen as a confirmation of a mid-life crisis


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The Sands - Part 3

November 14th 2007 06:19
As summer venues go The Sandcastle is pretty special, supposedly only open when the heat is rising the bar serves everything a beach bum might expect, cold beer for the regulars, foreign wine by any measure and of course a full selection of cocktails to weaken the sturdiest of knees.

By far the best seller though was the free bottled water, a huge draw card for locals where the tapped variety was best viewed being poured into a bottomless glass - literally. Had this not been modern Cuba, where life had exceeded the limitations of money years before, management might need to review its policy of free entry before sunrise


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