Australian Icon trodden into the dust? Well . . . .

Did anyone else spot the latest news on the ABC?

"Pope Benedict has been given 15,001 pairs of shoes during a visit to Vigevano, the northern city known as Italy's shoe capital."

Apparently Imelda has nothing to worry about, because the article then goes on to say:

"A local consortium gave one pair for himself and 15,000 more pairs for the needy around the world."

The taste conscious among us will note that:

"The Pope was given burgundy-coloured loafers designed and manufactured by the Moreschi firm and made from kangaroo hide."

This colour is likely to be a 'feature' contrast with the white robes.

Will the devout will now make a giant rush for shoes made from Kangaroo hide?

We will know soon enough.

I wonder what the market gurus will do with this opportunity?

The mind boggles!

Collaborative Genealogy

I wonder whether people have had the opportunity to work on their family genealogy in a collaborative environment before?

If not, try it - it's a hoot! Then again - it's a lot of work and CAN be frustrating.

With the lovely new opportunity provided by Google's Documents and Spreadsheets facility, it is possible to create documentation that can then be shared among many different people and enable them to view, comment on and even edit the content.

Each person can contribute his/her own version of reality, hopefully with as much referential data as possible. Then, through off line discussions or indeed on line discussions through other processes including the use of Skype, or similar VOIP tools or perhaps through discussion groups provided by Yahoo, Google or other service providers, actually reach some consensus on who was related to whom and how and when and where and at the same time enable people to place their own personal stories and/or memories into a space that is then shared among many.

What I have been learning through the process of attempting the feat of helping to coordinate such work using these sorts of 'free' facilities is that there are days when everything is simply wonderful and days when it all seems to be too hard!

I guess I am reaching out to those who may well have trod this or a similar path and asking for comments or lessons learned so that I can benefit from the views of others and so not waste time and effort repeating mistakes and gain time by learning from lessons others have learned on how to do things better and/or more quickly and usefully. As well - since this is a public blog any who read the content may be able to learn how to do things or how to avoid doing things that can result in a disaster.

I would be particularly delighted if some of my readers would share with me and with others how they have made such cooperative ventures work well for them.

Cloak of Invisibility.

Well not yet - but we are hearing more from at least one scientist!

see http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1891596.htm

"Physicists figured out the complex mathematical equations for making objects invisible by bending light around them last year.

Now a group of engineers at Purdue University in Indiana have used those calculations to design a relatively simple device that ought to be able to - one day soon - make objects as big as an aeroplane simply disappear.

The design calls for tiny metal needles to be fitted into a hairbrush-shaped cone at angles and lengths that would force light to pass around the cloak. This would make everything inside the cone appear to vanish because the light would no longer reflect off it.

"It looks pretty much like fiction, I do realise, but it's completely in agreement with the laws of physics," said lead researcher Vladimir Shalaev, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue.

"Ideally, if we make it real it would work exactly like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak," he said. "It's not going to be heavy because there's going to be very little metal in it."

The still-theoretical design will be published this month in the journal Nature Photonics."

Just think of the possibilities if we all had access to this new technology folks:

American to Iranian: "Hey fella, you won't see us coming when we bomb the crap out of your country!"

Iranian to American: "You are right of course, but what will you bomb?"

Back in your Box!

As featured on the ABC

"Australian companies are pushing for a fresh wave of taxation reform.

The Business Council of Australia has released a new report which shows that the overall number of taxes has increased since the GST was introduced.

The report found governments impose 56 different taxes on Australia companies, compared to just 22 taxes imposed on businesses in the United Kingdom."

I love sophisticated thinking and I especially adore emotive propaganda - especially from our "poor underprivileged" business community.

If you don't like it in Australia - go to the UK see how long you survive there with their "lower" taxation!

I would have thought that their version of GST at 17% would give you pause for a start!

Whenever you compare apples with oranges you get a really dubious result - so Business Council of Australia when you learn to do some real analysis come back and talk to us - until then BACK IN YOUR BOX!

Is this irony or what?

Occasionally, just for old time's sake, I take a look at the Australian Association of Social Workers web site and see what my former professional colleagues are up to.

Today I found the following reference under the heading Information for Practice:

INFORMATION FOR PRACTICE

Do you know anything about censorship at the National Association of Social Workers?
http://www.wmich.edu/hhs/Newslettersjournals/jssw/33-4htm.htm

What is seriously wonderful about this reference is that when you click on the link you get a 404 error.

Is this the censorship to which the non available article is supposed to refer?

The things you see at markets

I went to a market yesterday and found myself wandering around the stalls looking at the merchandise on display and occasionally chatting with the stall owners about their products.

This particular market has everything from antiques (and I am not referring to the highly valued citizens like myself, wandering about the place, but to the real thing), through jewellery, innovative re-cycling, nick knacks etc, to unusual food choices like an Ethiopian diner.

Innovative re-cycling was, at least for me one of the most interesting features of this show.

Imagine if you will women and the fur coats and stoles that they wear or men and their fur caps.

Have you ever considered what happens to fur coats, shawls, caps and the like when they have served their function and are either getting a little ratty (so to speak) or when they are past their use by date?

One innovative entrepreneur has capitalised on doing something with the remnants and this is what I can honestly refer to as "creative re-cycling".

He has taken bits of fur coats and is making very soft very cuddly and really very beautiful teddy bears from them.

I saw part of a fox stole being reborn into the cutest and softest teddy bear I had ever seem and I wondered, out loud apparently, whether there was anything in mink?

Lo and behold the stall owner paused in the midst of sewing another paw pad onto his latest creation and pointed to a small cute and cuddly animal in the foreground of his exhibits and said

"Have a look at that one - it's mink!"

Sure enough, there it was the ultimate in cuddly toys, a mink teddy bear.

If you are one of the parents who have taken up the Australian Treasurer's exhortation to have one child for mum and one for dad and then one for the country, you may wish to give that new child in your midst an unusual start in life.

"Buy the kid a recycled fur teddy bear!" I thought.

Not only is it rewarding innovative re-cycling, it is a means for creating a font of stories for your child.

Just sit with your child as he/she cuddles up to the new teddy (and yourself of course) and imagine where the animals that have given birth to the toy have come from and what they have gone through in the multiple lives from live organisms through apparel to children's toy. With a little stretch of the imagination you can make up stories for your child about all parts of the world and all sorts of places and people just from having access to a product of creative re-cycling!

When I got home, just for the fun of it, I Googled "mink teddy bear" as a phrase (try it)

There are THOUSANDS of hits on the web about this notion. Indeed people refer to the idea as HEIRLOOM bears where grandma's coat becomes junior's toy!

That folks must be the ultimate hand me down!

It's certainly a first I have seen in Australia, but it appears to be big business elsewhere already!

What's happening with Santoro?

What is the situation with Senator Santoro?

One blog at least reported in On Line Opinion suggests that the good senator while offering to resign has yet to send a letter to the President of the Senate actually doing so or even suggesting a date from which he will resign.

The Courier Mail says much the same thing.

What's going on?

When someone is disgraced in public and finally falls on his sword, also in public, do the public not have a right to expect that taxes paid in good faith to government tax collectors, will no longer be used to pay such a person and to support them in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed?

Apparently not.

Women and Work

"Women tend to be more satisfied with their jobs than men, but they appear to spend far more time worrying about it."

"Working Life: Employee Attitudes and Engagement", a report by Kingston University's School of HR Management, quizzed some 2,000 people in the UK about their jobs and found that women are less calm and relaxed in the workplace than their male colleagues.

According to co-author Dr Emma Soane, this suggests women are more emotionally attached to their jobs.

This is the headline of 29th March 2007 in Management Issues

I guess one of the questions to ask is whether this finding is just something that is evident in the UK work force or is something that is more common across workers around the world.

It would be interesting to find out what people think about these issues here in Australia.

An even more interesting would be to see if the findings hold up in gender biased industries and/or professions.

Take for example the group labelled 'Social Workers' as one instance of a "female dominated "work force and "IT" as one instance of a 'male dominated' work force.

If people who look for work in each of these areas do in fact at least partially self select based on gender then what are the attitudes of the people who work within them and what are their experiences and to what extent would their experience coincide with those of workers in the UK?

I wonder if there is some comparative analysis being done in "male" and "female" dominated work forces?

Once again let's take for example the profession of 'Social Work' perceived to be a female dominated industry and 'IT' supposedly a male dominated industry.

Would the findings still hold up in these work environments?

It would certainly be an interesting question to pose.

If anyone pursues this line of questioning I would certainly be interested in the answers!