Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul 28 2012

The one about how twitter changed me.


I’ll admit to being a bit of a twitterer, and have been for a couple of years, well 3 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours, 40 minutes, 35 seconds, apparently.

And it’s changed me. In a good way. I think. I

For me Twitter has opened me up to statements, questions, positions, and opinions that I’ve really had to question, and it’s been deliberate. I’ve enjoyed a lot of twitter, as a participant and as an observer.

Sure it’s allowed me to group with people who feel the same way, and to form weak warm fuzzy bonds with some people, particularly on subjects like Cricket, or Rugby League, or Football, or Beer for instance. Sure it’s allowed me to participate in the current meme.

The thing with twitter for me, is to follow people that I have some association or empathy with, either they’re funny, authentic, urbane or mildly famous, but in Pdubyahworld I associate with them on some level. Although I “follow” less than 500 people in a timeline that I visit most often, I do have lists that contain perhaps 500 other people that I’m going to read.

And on some days it’s a challenge. Somehow it transpires that I follow (and have listed) a lot of left-wing socialist types. They have opinions and statements that make me grind my teeth, on some days. But they are authentic and they are genuine, and I’m sure some of them are mildly famous. Which makes me sound a bit right-wing and conservative. I’d rather be thought of as liberal and self-centric :-)

From this melange then, Twitter has made me question and form actual opinions about things. About things like same sex marriage. About things like welfare. About things like the justice system. About things like religion, About things like gender equality. About things like ethics. Proper opinions, not toss-off remarks to mates over a beer in a pub opinions, but real ones. And I’ve changed my opinions, particularly over the last 3 years. Not all of them. Some of them.

And I think that these changes have made me more tolerant, less of a bigot, and a calmer person. I’m sure not everyone uses twitter for the same reason I do, which is a whole other post about needy, and not everyone gets the same result. There are as many drop-outs as there are adherents.

The rest of the time is affirmation that I’m among a group of like-minded people who would probably be the sort to stop and help in a crisis. Which is reassuring.

Jul 28 2012

Faith, Same sex marriage, and Children.


New Zealand is on track to remove barriers to same sex marriages. We have Civil Union legislation, but this is a sort of half-way house thing. Removing an arbitrary sex based barrier to marriage is of it’s time.

However those of the faith and the religiosity have got their collective underpants all bunched and they’re going to come out swinging on a number of ‘points’.

And they are all nonsense. And they are all nonsense because there is not one logical argument that could be put forward that would or could justify their position. Not a one.

“Marriage is between a man and women” Since when? Since a when the ‘church’ decided to Ponce up some ceremony and add some bells and whistles is a when. The church is big on dogma and protocol. But I can’t find any evidence that before the church decided to dress up a ceremony that marriage wasn’t a thing. I can’t find any evidence that before the church decided to restrict it’s ‘blessing’ that all marriages were between men and women.

In different ancient cultures, marriage was more of a business arrangement, joining families together for mutual benefit. Under Roman law in the first centuries of the Common Era, there were proper opportunities for divorce and the dissolution of a marital union for both parties. However, as the Christian church grew, marriage became more ecclesiastically governed; the church dictated the rules of marriage.

Historically then a marriage was a means to ensure a continuance. That is all. If you had not confirmed or announced partner then you had no estate to pass. Marriage brought with it some assurances.The churches brought with it dogma, and protocol and restriction.

Same-sex marriage is rejected as un-Christian and immoral on the basis of a myopic reading of a very few Biblical texts. And the texts in question are scant indeed.

The most referenced texts are Genesis 19; the holiness codes of Leviticus 17-26, and in the New Testament, Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 6:9 and his Letter to the Romans 1:26-27.

Not only does one have to “hunt” for references to same-sex practices, but there are no gospel texts that treat the matter.

There is nothing attributed to Jesus of Nazareth that has anything to do with same-sex orientation. According to the gospels, Jesus never commented on same-sex practices; that fact certainly bears repeating to anyone criticizing the gay community on Christian grounds.

Largely, same-sex practice is a topic of little interest to the Biblical authors.

It beggars belief that you would refer to an ancient book of myth and stories to cherry pick what your faith is. Sure the Bible might say “husband” and “wife” but it doesn’t as far as I know define the gender of either in terms of what constitutes a “marriage”.

The restriction or constriction is therefore one made up by the church and religion as a method of control.

Children

In New Zealand we have out share of conservative doom-sayers

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig said he was planning a “research-based” campaign on the advantages of heterosexual relationships and traditional family structures.

 ”I’m keen to be part of a campaign to get out there on this issue. It would look intelligently at the differences between homosexual parenting and a Mum and a Dad. Does gender matter, does role-modelling matter?

I don’t mind having it on record that the idea of two men having responsibility for a child is a little beyond me. I couldn’t do it. I assisted with a more maternal and capable mother in raising our children from birth. But I am talking about baby children, not toddlers, or schoolers, or teens.  I don’t have the same doubt about females raising children. Call me a bigot if you like, but I have first hand experience of a woman raising our child and she did a great job. I’d hire her again :-)

I have no idea what feeling or compulsions you have a person in relation to children and your level of altruism in wanting to look after, nurture and care for a child. I just don’t.

I have my understanding. I have an idea of what is acceptable and required from my experience, and I have the insight from a number of people who I’ve associated with who’ve raised children. I have experience.

Just because I don’t think I could does not mean I don’t think you should. It might make you shudder, cringe and gasp. It doesn’t mean that you can’t raise a child as a parent.  To have any other position on this indicates you live your life in a cave. There are lots of children raised by single parents. There are heaps raised by same sex parents, mostly female I’d wager.

The world did not stop when Elton John and David Furness adopted a child. Money makes it better or acceptable? Get a grip.

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Jul 27 2012

Beer – #40 – Townshend Sutton Hoo


Tonight I enter the naughty forties with a “Townshend Sutton Hoo“

This is Brewed by the Townshend Brewery in the style of an English Pale Ale, and it’s from Upper Moutere, New Zealand

Upper Moutere, I don’t even know where that is!

Its very hoppy on the aroma, sharp. This surprised me as it’s very dark brown as a  beer, I’m not sure why I was surprised, I think I was thrown (as I often am) by the pale bit of pale ale).

To the taste, I found this Tart / Bitter on the first – which is much as you’d expect and I didn’t get a lot else other then a malty taste. It’s not unpleasant.

It’s a 4.7% ABV beer in a pint bottle. So it’s not one that’ll rock your socks off.

A good solid beer this, and congratulations to the brewery for getting it spot on. Feeling pretty pleased with myself that I have made a good choice.

As an aside I might have to have lessons in beer as I can’t seem to get one to get a head on, and this doesn’t have a lacing either. I must be doing something wrong, other than enjoying it.

Arbitrarily then 7 from 10 arbitrary numbers on the arbitrary pdubyah-o-meter. It’s ok it’s not something that’ll make me buy a lot more, but I wouldn’t be adverse to ordering this out in a pub.

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Jul 26 2012

The one about Kim Dotcom


Kim Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz is a colourful larger than life character. He even lives local to me. But he is a rogue, and has done knowing and wilful things.

Putting aside the rights and wrongs of his arrest and the actions or inactions of the NZ Police / FBI et al which is a whole other story, there is the nagging thing about Megaupload that to me sticks out as knowing and wilful.

He’s even constructed a website www.kim.com, and is has a handy FAQ page http://kim.com/scandal

On on that page you can find an indication of one of the cornerstones of the case against him. Contained in Questions/Answers/Facts #2 and #6

 2. How did Megaupload use technology to maximise Storage Efficiency?

Megaupload, similar to other large cloud storage providers that rely on efficient data storage like Dropbox, was designed to store a single useable copy of each unique file uploaded to its servers. If multiple users uploaded identical files, Megaupload would retain one instance of the file, and generate a unique link for each individual user, called a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”). One user might choose to keep his unique link private; another user might wish to share his link with others via email or by embedding it in a webpage such as a blog post.

So, if two people uploaded the same file Megaupload would keep only one version of the file but generate two unique url links to that file, one for each user. If 10, 100 or 1000 people uploaded the same file there would be one instance of the file stored and 10, 100 or 1000 unique URL links to it.

6. Did Megaupload honor takedown notices?

Megaupload processed takedown notices swiftly and efficiently. Megaupload went beyond the ordinary and used technology to speed up the take down process. For example trusted parties including major Hollywood entities received access to an innovative real-time direct takedown web tool.

Megaupload negotiated with major copyright holders or their agents—including the Recording Industry Association of America, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, and Microsoft—to allow them access to take down directly, in an automated manner, an active link to material they believed infringed their copyrights. Megaupload was commended by Hollywood organizations for its take down processes.

So if the unique URL was being shared as a link to a copyright holder item then Megaupload allowed that URL link to be deleted, or taken down.

Not the file deleted, just the link to the file. So perhaps 10,100 or 1000 unique URL still remained pointing to that file.

There then seems to be a conflict between knowing what files are duplicates of other files, since clearly they boast that technology, but then to somehow with a straight face say well we’ve deleted the link therefore no infringement.

Reading the indictment documentation it seems apparent that various people at Megaupload were aware of the nature of the files being stored and were sharing them internally for use, and not removing the offending files, rather just the public links to them.  Sure not having a URL does not allow me to download a file that has copyright claim against it, but that there might have been 10, 100 or 1,000 unique URL’s available to that file kind of negates the holier-than-thou thing going on.

Good on Kim for engaging a public relations exercise, he’s setting himself up to be a people’s person, a mans man, a wronged individual.

Sadly I don’t buy it.  I have sympathy for his plight, and I’m not exactly engaged with the ethics of the arrest/seizure, but I am sure that there was knowing and there was wilful.

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Jul 21 2012

Beer – #39 – Gavroche


Gavroche is a French beer, produced by Brasserie de Saint-Sylvestre, and they make the magnificent trois Monts that I like a bit.

Gavroche – Biere Sur Lie – which is beer on lees. Who knows? It’s a cunning French thing. It’s named after a character from Victor Hugo‘s novel, Les Misérables.

It’s (according to the label) Fermentation Haute – which is like a beer version of Cuisine, or Fashion 0r just that it’s an indication that it’s a craft beer.

330ml bottle of 8.5% ABV beer. I was for no reason at all expecting a pale wheat beer, except that previous beer from the Brasserie de Saint-Sylvestre has been that way. But I was wrong, it’s a dark rich red – a very inviting color,  but it does has a very familiar  yeasty aroma.

For all that lead up I found that none of the things is bigger than the whole, and the whole is a bit less than the parts. It’s a bit thin on taste, overly carbonated on the tongue, and somewhat sweeter than I was expecting. No head and no lacing on the glass. And did I mention gassy?

So a French Red Ale, top fermented and re-fermented in the bottle. It’s certainly full of it’s own importance and upfront about what you’re getting. Alas it’s mostly bluster.

On the pdubyah-o-meter for some  arbitrary measure out of an equally arbitrary thing, and this is a poor show at about 4 from 10. It’s not that it’s a bad beer, it’s just not all that., and I’m certainly not into it. For a strong beer you’d hope that you’d get a sense of being slightly taken on a ride to the smile place, an indicator on your palette that you might be about to take a walk on the wild-side. That of course could be it’s ruse, it’s ace up the sleeve, the more you have the more you love it, and you’ll never figure out why.

Those nice guys at the Wine Circle in Huapai I tip my beret to you for this one.

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Jul 20 2012

Beer – #38 – Epic – Hop Zombie


Epic Brewing Company, Brewed at Steam Brewing Company Auckland, New Zealand, in the Style of an Imperial/Double IPA

It’s pale, very very pale golden, and the hops are there in spades. The immediate aroma is full and present.

This is a sweet, bitter and slightly coarse palette balance. Citrusy, grassy and fresh even sweet, but you for sure know it’s hop-full

No head to speak of. and weirdly no lacing in the glass.

500mls (Pint) of 8.5% ABV beer and it’s having no problem making itself right at home in my belly.

Deserves something to accompany this, but it stands alone perfectly well, which is what you wouldn’t be if you decided to make a night of it, this could easily get you in trouble, or you could have the one and be grinning happily all evening knowing that you’ve had something a little special.

on the pdubyah-o-meter this is 9 arbitrary things out of 10 arbitrary things. It’s great, it doesn’t hold back and it’s as is on the label. It’ll surprise you if you arrive at it with an idea of what you’re getting, it’s hoppy but it says it is, but it is in a way that I found surprising.

Jolly nice.

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Jul 19 2012

The one with the Personal Values Inventory


I’m participating in a Leadership Development Program at work, this is for all managers not at the Executive Level” and is in a number of sessions.

This current week we did “Engagement, Motivation and Goal Setting“. Part of this was a “Know You” question and we were asked to write down our own “Values Inventory”

This might or might not be something you spend time thinking about, or you may act according to a set of self imposed set of things that you feel you “just have” or “just are.”

I like these things because they test your capacity to understand you and challenges you to think about where you are in the big scheme of things.

Anyway as affirmation I went online to find some self assessments for my own Personal Values Inventory. and I found a simple one that offered up some possibilities. A simple paired statement comparison – A or B, A or B pick one. They cycle through some choices and then you get a result.

And boy am I miffed!

When you then get to the end of the assessment, where you pick on of the paired statements over the other you transfer them to a tick sheet.

Answer 9 relates to :  RELIGION (Guided by God or other higher power)

Not INTEGRITY, or AUTHENTICITY or HONESTY but RELIGION.

Well excuse me if you think that “my beliefs” that I would rather do the right thing other than have people think well of me means that I have some hat tip to a deity. What utter nonsense. The fact that I’m atheist shouldn’t stand in the way of a good result right.

Choose God or being tidy.. what?

According to this particular self assessment then I’m very big on

  • SERVICE (helping other people)
  • FAMILY RELATIONS
  • RELIGION (guided by God or other higher power)
  • INDEPENDENCE (doing thing by myself)
  • ADVENTURE (taking risks)

and I’m really not so big on

  • INFLUENCE/STATUS (leading through experience)
  • ORDERLINESS
  • FRIENDS

So either I was having a strange day, or the results of this particular version of the pop quiz are a bit iffy.

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Jul 19 2012

..and then I dreamt of a perpetual motion machine…


Robert Boyle's self-flowing flask fills itself...

Robert Boyle’s self-flowing flask fills itself in this diagram, but perpetual motion machines cannot exist. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Perpetual motion machine, which is different from a free energy device.If you google you’ll find all manner of weird and wonderous devices either real or imagined that are examples of attempts to construct a perpetual motion machine.

I’m not sure if there are rules to such things, other than once started should not stop. Most all of the devices on the net are extremely complex and involve many parts, centrifugal devices with swinging arms, strange chain driven things, things that reply on some weird notion of gravity and water.

The dream I had was of a very simple gadget, involving a couple of magnets a cog and a counter.

  • So. The basic of my dream was that magnets when positioned pole to pole so North facing North should repel each other.
  • You have one fixed and one attached to a pendulum or fixed point so that swings freely.
  • When repelled the free swinging magnet swings away in an arc. Left to itself this would then eventually come to state of rest and in a neutral position, balanced between attraction by gravity and repulsion by magnetic force.
  • In my dream however when the free swinging magnet is repulsed it comes to rest on a cog device, stopping it’s motion, momentarily. Therefore each swing towards the fixed magnet is a discrete event.
  • The cog turns by weight of gravity, and the magnet is released to perform another swing towards the fixed magnet at the bottom of the arc.
  • It swings. It stops. It swings. It stops.
  • In my dream there was no loss of momentum as each momentum was it’s own event.

The counter was attached to the cog for entertainment and to show how many times the device has swung back and forth. In my dream there is no free energy created, and although there is friction between the pivot point and at the cog, there is an expectation of object at rest. There is no more energy being created than being used. In my dream this device seemed so obvious that it must have been tried before.

It was just a toy. An it’d get pretty boring after a while. I also undestand that wear and tear would make the construction doomed to failure eventually, but it’s not a free energy device, it offers nothing in return.

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Jul 15 2012

Those Three Little Words…


Empty Nest Syndrome.

MrsPdubyah was moping about the house yesterday ‘unfulfilled’ and generally mooching and moody, #1Son has allegedly left home and MrsPdubyah yesterday used some of my beer tokens to buy him a fridge/freezer for his new house.

I say allegedly left home, I just checked his room, There is a fair amount of detritus and general things left that I wonder if he’s hoping that we’ll decide for him to throw it away.

Oh and the clothes. I’m hoping that he has more clothes than what he wore to work, since there is a pile of things. MrsPdubyah will either drive over to the new house, expect me to take them to #1Son, or wait for him to come home, the latter is unlikely.

So Empty Nest Syndrome. The feeling of helplessness, the angst of your children living away from the nest.

MrsPdubyah is a bit strange on some aspects of this, we’ve paid for a tenancy bond, and now we’ve assisted substantially with home appliances. We’ve also brought #1Son a car recently, so he’s had a fair chunk of our financial resources.

She assures me that he’s been given the hard word, that the ties are cut, and that he’s on his own. And then she talks about taking over a food parcel.

The fine line between letting them go to get on with it, and the tie that says you don’t want them to fail. The arms length thing.

I know that some parents care less about their children leaving and live for the day, I can justify our difference by saying that as immigrants we don’t really have any other extended family, no wider family that’ll be called on in an emergency. Not that there will be one.

Not exactly the three little words I wanted to hear then. I did suggest that we could leave our 4 bedroom house since we clearly don’t need at least two of the bedrooms and right-size our life. I leave it to you imagination as to how that worked out for me. Seems we’ve relocated the newly vacant bedroom as a sewing/dressing room. Who knew that that was what was missing in our life?

The upside is #1Daughter gets her own bathroom, free of boy things, so she’s happy. Although she pretends to miss her brother I think not.

For me? Well I could leverage this feeling of empty to get me some outward display of love, I wonder if it stretches to a PS/3 and GT4 ?

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Jul 14 2012

Beer – #37 – Baird Beer – Baird Wabi Sabi IPA


Baird Brewing Company is a family-run craft brewery and pub business headquartered in Numazu, Japan.  The Baird Beer I have then is In the Style of an India Pale Ale (IPA), and it is from Numazu, Shizuoka, Japan.

Baird Wabi Sabi IPA. What’s with that –  Baird Beer  is unfiltered and the addition of whole leaf green tea to Wabi-Sabi IPA has contributed a very strong particle sediment. Apparently.

It’s a 6% ABV in a big 633ml bottle beer.

It’s very pale, golden, hazy/cloudy and fizzy. it carries a small head, more of soda than beer. It’s very hoppy/yeasty in aroma.

And it tastes like a traditional IPA, more in the american style or pale ale I’d suggest. And there is a bit of melange of flavor on the tongue. The taste carries long.

You can taste the tea!, unless I believe everything I read.

It’s odd and yet not unwelcome. There is more of a smile than a frown in this. I’m sure the burp was natural and not because of the beer, honest. I’m quite chuffed with this selection, although I wish I’d taken heed of the sediment warning that I myself cut and paste in to this review. Still it won’t harm me. And no, the burps seem to come as an undocumented feature. The head, you’ll be pleased to know carries too. It looks like a beer, tastes like a beer, and by jolly it’s a top effort!

Arbitrarily then this is about an 8.5 from 10 arbitrary things on the arbitrary pdubyah-o-meter. It wouldn’t be out of place amongst some of the craft brews that are appearing in New Zealand and gives more than their fair share a decent run for the money, I like this beer.

「すごい！きれい！  as they say. And the Liquorland people in Forest Hill you rock too.

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