Ok. panic buttons on cars are the most moronic thing ever conceived, especially when the idiots who implemented them didn't bother to make sure the damned things only go off when you push the stupid button. I've been woken three times tonight by my damn car honking and flashing it's headlights, and probably everyone else in my complex has. I have never used the panic button deliberately, nor have I heard of anyone else who has, ever.

So, about 6 weeks ago, I put in my usual order on Woolworths Homeshop. As I do, I notice that they've got porerhouse steak (a very nice cut of meat) on real cheap. So I order one as a bit of a treat. When my order's delivered, I find they've given me sirloin instead - which is a good cut, but cheaper than porterhouse. So I ring em up and tell them that they gave me the wrong steak. They apologise, and credit the cost to my account.

Now, I figure that since they had it on special they ran out of stock. Next fortnight, since I've still got the refunded amount from last week, I give it another shot. On receiving my order - rump steak. Repeat the call, the refund, etc. Last week, I tried again, same thing.

So for the last month and a half I've had a nice, free steak every week. Cheers, Woolworths. May your incompetence never end!

Ok, so long time no post. Things have been keeping me busy - weddings, houses, work, that sort of thing. Anyway. This post comes to you thanks to dinner with my parents (both teachers), and probably a recent viewing of Dead Poet Society.

So after dinner, Dad was talking about the new laptops the government was going to give schoolkids. They were going to be locked down so that nothing except government-sanctioned software could be installed on them, everything was monitored, and all net access was filtered. The first thing that jumped into my head was "how can that be useful for learning anything?"

Education, real education, is learning how to think. Thinking is a destructive activity. It's looking at the current state of things, finding them inadequate, and taking a new path. There's a reason why great thinkers - in every field - have been persecuted, from Pythagoras, to Pasteur, to Galileo. Thinking means discarding old ideas, and embracing new ones. It means a change in the status quo.

Established authorities are always interested in maintaining status quo. Every individual in charge of formulating policies which govern others has been raised their by virtue of the current status. Any change in status threatens that power; for those of the greatest power, there is more risk. The more powerful a person is within a government or any other body which exerts control on others, the more determined they are that things not change.

The people in charge don't want people to be educated. They want the benefits of it - an educated population is more productive, because they can find new, more efficient ways of doing things. But they don't want people to actually learn to think for themselves - then they might stop just believing what they're told.

The laptop example above seems to me to be bitterly symbolic of that. Computers are seen as tools of education. In the early days of computers, they were only really persued by hobbyists. People had to assemble them themselves, and to do much work with them, you had to write the programs yourself. Later (as when I started using computers), there was still somewhat of an exploratory nature to computing. If you wanted to do something, you had to figure it out for yourself. You had to learn how things worked, and then, how to make them work. "Mucking around with computers" was an education.

The laptops the government intends to provide are designed so that nothing can be done which has not explicitly been authorised. In such in an environment, it is not possible to be educated. Every time you attempt to think, you are slapped down, shoved back into line, and told to do it the same way as everyone else. They are not tools of education, they're tools to indoctrinate in conformity - which, it seems to me, is often the point of modern education.

Ok, so I need careful consideration before writing a post bagging out doctors when I'm going out with a girl who is daughter to two of 'em. So let me start by saying that I think what I experience is a direct result of the "production-lining" of doctors in our local medical centre. I don't doubt that there are good, conscientious doctors in there. I also don't doubt that there are good, conscientious doctors elsewhere. But as far as my experiences go...

I came down with a stomach bug about midway through last week. Tuesday night, I had a nasty fever, spent the night tossing and turning, and had Wednesday of work. Mum and Dad dragged me off to their place Wednesday night, and I wasn't much better on Thursday, so I took it off too. Dad took me down to the medical centre, and I joined the queue to see one of the doctors. The visit was short and to the point. The doctor pretty much asked me "what are the symptoms, and how much time do you want off work?". As he was typing up my doctor's certificate (on which he got the date wrong, by the way, but it'll be useful if I need a day off work on the 22nd of January, 91 A.D.), he happened to mention that I should drink lots of fluids.

Ok, now I know that stomach bugs are pretty much a dime-a-dozen, and that your run-of-the-mill one will generally take care of itself without much medical intervention. Still, there should be on my medical record the fact that last year I had a bunch of fevers that they didn't really come to any conclusion about, and here I was showing up with another one. And even without that, shouldn't there be at least some physical examination before a certificate is issued? Or, in fact, before I'm sent home? You read stories about GPs who have a reputation for producing doctors certificates on demand for people chucking sickies, or in diagnosing problems for people looking for special consideration in their school exams. And it really doesn't surprise me.

I may be showing my age (or my naievete), but before the doctors here all conglomerated onto the medical centre, you used to have your own GP - at least, one you went to see regularly. Being that you saw them regularly, they were familiar with your case history as more than just a record of examinations on a computer screen - they probably performed most of the examinations themselves. As they ran their own business, they weren't really answerable to a central beaurocracy about how many cases they managed to process in a single day (although they would, I imagine, be answerable to their pocketbooks). It seems to me that as the process has become more systemetized - patient in, process, patent out - the whiole thing has become less rigorous, and less effective. My Mum seems lately to have turned to alternative medicine for a lot of things - she swears by her chiropracter, and recommended I go see a naturapath (although to be fair, the naturapath she recommended is also a qualified GP). And you know, I can't really blame her for it. I might be dubious about their claims, but at least they appear to care, and actually pay attention to you when you show up. Which is more, it seems, than can be said for the traditional doctor - at least around here.

Rach asked me to read this book when we first started going out (which seems like ages ago, but is actually now only approaching one month). I've read through, and am just going to use this post to sort through my thoughts and reactions to it. Like most books of this sort, I see it as a useful place to start thinking about the issues it raises, rather than a bunch of things to just absorb. So this is not really a book review as such, it's my thoughts on dating after having read the book - some of this stuff is from me, some of the stuff is from the book, and I'm probably not going to bother making a distinction as to which is which. If you really care, you can read the book too.

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It's been a long time since I made a real post (that is, not a quick quote or a D&D houserule). For the most part, that can be attributed to my laziness. But for the last week, it could possibly be that I have been spending all my possible journal-writing time with an exceptionally wonderful person (no, it's still been my laziness, but I thought it made a neat segue).

If you know me on Facebook, you'll probably already know that person is Rachel. In fact, there are new photos on Facebook, so you can go see how lovely she is for yourself. But a number of people have asked me how we met, and went out, and all that jazz and, well, this journal is supposed to be a chronicle of important events in my life. And this is. So, without further ado...

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The errata'd stealth rules don't particularly appeal to me. The fact that in order to a character to gain combat advantage from stealth, they need to begin behind total cover (or in total concealment), and must move into position entirely under cover or concealment, really limits the use of it, and requires battlefields to be built with stealth in mind, rather than it emerging naturally from normal battlefields. Duie to this, I'm posting houserules that I'll use for stealth (should anyone actually decide to stealth in combat, which they haven't yet). Any rule not covered here (moving, running or talking while hidden, for example) remains the same.

1. Any time you have complete cover or complete concealment, you become hidden.


2. Whenever you move out of complete cover or complete concealment, you can take a stealth check.


3. To any enemy who can see you, and whose passive perception is lower than your stealth roll, you remain hidden until the end of your turn. You are visisble to all enemies whose perception is higher than your stealth roll.


4. If you attack, you become visible to all enemies who can see you.


5. If you are hidden, and were concealed/covered for your entire turn, you remain hidden to any enemy who you were hidden from at the start of your turn.

Due to these changes, powers that affect stealth also need updating:

Chameleon: 2 becomes "Whenever you move out of complete cover or complete concealment, or an enemy moves such that you are no longer completely covered or concealed, you can take a stealth check."
Shadow Stride: 5 becomes "If you are hidden and end your turn in cover or concealed, you remain hidden to any enemies who you were hidden from at the start of your turn."

This improves stealth somewhat beyond the currently-errataed level, but not to the level it was pre-errata.

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation"

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Conscientious, Fulfilled, and Spiritual

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

Two stories on slashdot today:

Story One

Story Two



Really, they speak for themselves.