We were all away for five days in Adelaide recently and while we were there we drove a rental car. I've driven a rental car before while on holidays but it was a small budget model - this was different, it was a nice big Ford Falcon. A family car.
On the day of the flight I was rather stupidly looking forward to getting the car. When I finally did get it, it was nice. It took all our luggage much easier than our own car, it was new (less that 4,000k's and still with that new car smell), and it was comfortable with glacial air conditioning on a hot day. It felt like a very grown up thing to do, to be renting a "proper" car. What can I say? - I'm in my 30's with a wife and two kids but this still felt like doing an adult thing.
And the best part about a rental car? When you child throws up all over the new velour, it's not your car and after a basic clean you can hand it back.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Bottle
I was sitting enjoying the view from a window on the first floor this morning while waiting for a computer to boot when something caught my eye.
A courier was sitting in his van opposite and I saw him pick up his jacket. No big deal, it is a bit of a grey day, perhaps its cold out. But no he draped it over the steering wheel. He then fetched a plastic bottle from the passenger seat. A plastic 2 litre milk bottle I believe. He took the lid off the bottle and concealed it under the jacket.
30 seconds or so past. He stared idly out his windows. A pedestrian or two walked by. He then removed the bottle, sealed it and folded up his jacket. A few moments later he opened his door a little, looked quickly around and poured from his bottle a couple of hundred mills of yellow liquid onto the road. He then closed the door, resealed the bottle again, put on his seatbelt, spoke a brief sentence or two on his radio and drove off.
Delightful. I don't have a window at my desk and so miss out on this sort of thing. What a pity.
A courier was sitting in his van opposite and I saw him pick up his jacket. No big deal, it is a bit of a grey day, perhaps its cold out. But no he draped it over the steering wheel. He then fetched a plastic bottle from the passenger seat. A plastic 2 litre milk bottle I believe. He took the lid off the bottle and concealed it under the jacket.
30 seconds or so past. He stared idly out his windows. A pedestrian or two walked by. He then removed the bottle, sealed it and folded up his jacket. A few moments later he opened his door a little, looked quickly around and poured from his bottle a couple of hundred mills of yellow liquid onto the road. He then closed the door, resealed the bottle again, put on his seatbelt, spoke a brief sentence or two on his radio and drove off.
Delightful. I don't have a window at my desk and so miss out on this sort of thing. What a pity.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Lego
I was waiting with the kids to catch a flight yesterday. Kids are not equipped to be especially good at waiting, particularly in airports, so we had a walk around the terminal. Now this was Adelaide domestic airport and it isn't particularly big or elaborate. You still get to walk on the tarmac at Adelaide which is kinda fun (and the plane empties quickly because half the people go out the backdoor).
Our stroll around the terminal took all of two or three minutes but we did find a new vending machine we hadn't seen before tucked in behind the men's toilets. It sold lego. About a dozen different small boxes of lego sat on a little shelf at the back of the machine marked A1 or B3 etc. to show you what was available and a grid of boxes sat horizontally in front of this. It looked like a robot arm was designed to pick these up and drop them in the pickup slot.
The kids were mildly interested but I thought the vending machine looked cool and wanted to get something. A quick trip back to where my wife was waiting and we managed to whinge enough to extract $8 (I was broke) to buy the cheapest little lego car. Back to the machine and in goes the money. We punch in A1 and the arm extends out beautifully, picks up a box by suction I think and drops it in the collection slot. It was great!
Trouble for the vending company is for our $8 the robotic arm picked B3, a $16 lego car, and dumped it in the collection slot. Lovely!
(The downside was I spent the next 15 minutes trying to get the thing together! Two small bits were hidden inside a rubber wheel and I didn't see them! It's not my fault I took so long!)
Our stroll around the terminal took all of two or three minutes but we did find a new vending machine we hadn't seen before tucked in behind the men's toilets. It sold lego. About a dozen different small boxes of lego sat on a little shelf at the back of the machine marked A1 or B3 etc. to show you what was available and a grid of boxes sat horizontally in front of this. It looked like a robot arm was designed to pick these up and drop them in the pickup slot.
The kids were mildly interested but I thought the vending machine looked cool and wanted to get something. A quick trip back to where my wife was waiting and we managed to whinge enough to extract $8 (I was broke) to buy the cheapest little lego car. Back to the machine and in goes the money. We punch in A1 and the arm extends out beautifully, picks up a box by suction I think and drops it in the collection slot. It was great!
Trouble for the vending company is for our $8 the robotic arm picked B3, a $16 lego car, and dumped it in the collection slot. Lovely!
(The downside was I spent the next 15 minutes trying to get the thing together! Two small bits were hidden inside a rubber wheel and I didn't see them! It's not my fault I took so long!)
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Organised
Oh the delights of a really big portable hard drive! I have spent the last few days gathering files from various hard disk and cd-rom and finally compiling them all together on my new 120gb portable hard drive.
There are three folders on the drive - one for study, one for work and one for projects (which is anything that isn't work or study). In those folders are sub folders for each year and I finally have everything more or less in it's correct place.
No more loose files with obscure file names lying around - if I want to keep it, it gets it own folder complete with I name I can understand at a glance. All those weird .exe files have all been deleted or packed neatly into their own folders. All my Uni files have been moved off zip disks or cd's and are now sitting in one folder for easy reference. All those 'projects' like a friends son's birthday card etc - all in their own folder!
This is great - I wish I'd done it earlier. In fact I wish it was possible to organise my house this easily!
Now, how am I going to back this thing up...?
There are three folders on the drive - one for study, one for work and one for projects (which is anything that isn't work or study). In those folders are sub folders for each year and I finally have everything more or less in it's correct place.
No more loose files with obscure file names lying around - if I want to keep it, it gets it own folder complete with I name I can understand at a glance. All those weird .exe files have all been deleted or packed neatly into their own folders. All my Uni files have been moved off zip disks or cd's and are now sitting in one folder for easy reference. All those 'projects' like a friends son's birthday card etc - all in their own folder!
This is great - I wish I'd done it earlier. In fact I wish it was possible to organise my house this easily!
Now, how am I going to back this thing up...?
Monday, March 22, 2004
French Fair
We went for a walk down to a nearby primary school on Sunday to enjoy their school fair or fete. The school is a bilingual one - it has lessons held in English and French. The fair was full of jumping castles, mechanical rides, fair floss, face painting and petting zoo. The kids loved it and would have stayed all day. They both loved a simple little merry go round - horses and ducks bobbing slowly up and down in a circle.
The most remarkable thing about the whole fair, apart from the size (it was much bigger than we had anticipated) was the food. There was an obvious French element. Crepes, baguettes and would you believe escargot? Yep - across the path from the crepes with lemon and sugar and the ham and cheese baguettes there was a stall selling snails. Yum.
The most remarkable thing about the whole fair, apart from the size (it was much bigger than we had anticipated) was the food. There was an obvious French element. Crepes, baguettes and would you believe escargot? Yep - across the path from the crepes with lemon and sugar and the ham and cheese baguettes there was a stall selling snails. Yum.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Mac RAM
I have just ordered 512k RAM for my mac. Now macs are widely applauded for their general ease of use and for the most part this is well deserved. All the "i" apps that I've used are great and finder, now that I'm used to it, is a pleasure to navigate in the multipane view. That said getting ram for your mac sucks.
PC's have heaps of problems with hardware compatibility I know, but trying to work out just what ram I should be putting in the mac was a torturous process. Do Apple change the ram specs every time they release a new model? From what I can see every mac ever built uses a different kind of ram!
Fingers crossed I ordered the right one.
(PS From the way I go on about macs in this blog you'd think I was a mac addict. Truth is I spend 90% of my computer time on pc's - and I'm generally quite happy with my works P4/XP machine. Macs are just new to me and that makes them interesting I suppose.)
PC's have heaps of problems with hardware compatibility I know, but trying to work out just what ram I should be putting in the mac was a torturous process. Do Apple change the ram specs every time they release a new model? From what I can see every mac ever built uses a different kind of ram!
Fingers crossed I ordered the right one.
(PS From the way I go on about macs in this blog you'd think I was a mac addict. Truth is I spend 90% of my computer time on pc's - and I'm generally quite happy with my works P4/XP machine. Macs are just new to me and that makes them interesting I suppose.)
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Shoes
I wore odd shoes to work today. On my left foot was my spiffy, polished, reasonably new work type shoe. On my right foot was my old, very worn around the house type shoe. No one noticed.
It proves two things. I shouldn't get dressed in the dark and no one looks at my feet. So much for the proverb you judge a man by his shoes.
It proves two things. I shouldn't get dressed in the dark and no one looks at my feet. So much for the proverb you judge a man by his shoes.
iTunes
iTunes tells me I have 1247 songs which is 3.5 days worth of music and takes up 4.66gb worth of music. Having almost all my cd's on my pc at work and mac at home has led me to rediscover my music. I'm listening to cd's I have ignored for years and I've even started to purchase some new music again. The record companies will be glad to hear that I'm sure.
When I was entering the cd's to the iTunes collection I was impressed by the ease of it all. I'd previously used a great little media player, zinf. But with iTunes it's just easier as ripping, burning and sorting are all easy and built in. The other thing that struck me as I ripped all my music into iTunes was that the bulk of my music was from the early to mid nineties. After 1997 I just bought fewer and fewer cd's. This was also the time I met my wife so I clearly had other things to occupy me.
Also I ripped all the music in the Apple AAC format - I hope that decision doesn't come back to bite me. When I'd been using zinf I used the ogg vorbis codec as it is better quality than mp3. Good as it is iTunes doesn't know a ogg vorbis file from a plate of ham and eggs, so I had to rerip quite a few cd's.
So now I'm listening to more music (albeit quietly at work) and enjoying it more. Now all I have to do is convince my wife we really really need and iPod...
When I was entering the cd's to the iTunes collection I was impressed by the ease of it all. I'd previously used a great little media player, zinf. But with iTunes it's just easier as ripping, burning and sorting are all easy and built in. The other thing that struck me as I ripped all my music into iTunes was that the bulk of my music was from the early to mid nineties. After 1997 I just bought fewer and fewer cd's. This was also the time I met my wife so I clearly had other things to occupy me.
Also I ripped all the music in the Apple AAC format - I hope that decision doesn't come back to bite me. When I'd been using zinf I used the ogg vorbis codec as it is better quality than mp3. Good as it is iTunes doesn't know a ogg vorbis file from a plate of ham and eggs, so I had to rerip quite a few cd's.
So now I'm listening to more music (albeit quietly at work) and enjoying it more. Now all I have to do is convince my wife we really really need and iPod...
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Driving on the left
Friends for Germany are visiting at the moment and I was driving them back to where they were staying after dinner last night. We were talking about how strange it was for them to be driving on the left - everything seemed out of whack.
I told them I had a dim memory of it being something to so with knights of medieval times passing each other with their sword arms (right arms) in the middle of the road. They were more of the opinion that it was just a hangover from the British Empire and a case of the British being bloody minded and not conforming to the norm.
A bit of investigation turns out we are both sort of right. About a third of the world drives on the left and they are mainly ex British colonies (Japan, which also drives on the left, being a notable exception). Back before 1800 or so pretty much everyone was thought to have driven on the left - although it isn't really known. There is evidence the Romans drove on the left. Then Napoleon came along and France and its conquests started driving on the right - allegedly because Napoleon was a left hander and wanted his sword arm in the middle - while this may not be true it is a good story.
So ex British Colony Australia drives on the left and ex Napoleonic conquest Germany drives on the right.
I told them I had a dim memory of it being something to so with knights of medieval times passing each other with their sword arms (right arms) in the middle of the road. They were more of the opinion that it was just a hangover from the British Empire and a case of the British being bloody minded and not conforming to the norm.
A bit of investigation turns out we are both sort of right. About a third of the world drives on the left and they are mainly ex British colonies (Japan, which also drives on the left, being a notable exception). Back before 1800 or so pretty much everyone was thought to have driven on the left - although it isn't really known. There is evidence the Romans drove on the left. Then Napoleon came along and France and its conquests started driving on the right - allegedly because Napoleon was a left hander and wanted his sword arm in the middle - while this may not be true it is a good story.
So ex British Colony Australia drives on the left and ex Napoleonic conquest Germany drives on the right.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Harmonic Balancer
My father (the one who tried to teach me about cars as a teenager) has told me the harmonic balancer does indeed exist and it's purpose is as a sort of balancer (harmonic presumably) for the engines revs. It stops the engine revving until it explodes. Well sort of. He explained it better than that. I never was very good with cars...
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Mac, XP and Fat32
Well my external USB2/Firewire drive arrived as promised. I plugged it into my windows XP box and it failed to show up. Some investigation revealed it was trying to show up as a drive I already had mapped. No worries I remapped it to r: drive. Easy.
A small note in the manual caught my attention here. It informed me if I wanted to use it on a Mac and a PC it would need to be reformatted as a FAT32 file system. Easy I thought. Selected it, right clicked, chose Format - away we go. But windows XP didn't offer me a FAT32 selection, just NTFS (which Mac can't read, or perhaps can read but can't write, I'm not quite sure).
Some hours, and several goggle searches later, this is what I had discovered. I could format FAT32 in XP via the DOS window but it would limit the drive to 32gb. Same for Windows 2000. They can read FAT32 drives over 32gb, just can't format them. Windows 98 can format happily my full 120gb drive. No windows 98 machine? No problem, just download a Win98SE (and it has to be second edition) boot disk and go from DOS. DOS not picking up your USB drive? Dismantle it, open up your computer, unplug your internal Hard drive and plug the one out of the portable in - away you go! Easy.
I did all this and I now have a nice 120gb that can be easily read and written to by Mac and Windows machines. The problem with this is FAT32 has a maximum individual file size of 4gb. As I intend to use the drive for some video editing this may be a problem. There is however a possible solution. While normally the Mac file system, HFS+, doesn't like sharing with FAT32 you can convince it to. The article linked above goes through it in more detail than I can understand but put simply you divide the drive into two partitions using a windows machine and use a Mac to put HFS+ file system onto one of those partitions. It works but no one seems confident that it is an entirely safe and stable solution.
Mac's and PC's don't really like each other.
A small note in the manual caught my attention here. It informed me if I wanted to use it on a Mac and a PC it would need to be reformatted as a FAT32 file system. Easy I thought. Selected it, right clicked, chose Format - away we go. But windows XP didn't offer me a FAT32 selection, just NTFS (which Mac can't read, or perhaps can read but can't write, I'm not quite sure).
Some hours, and several goggle searches later, this is what I had discovered. I could format FAT32 in XP via the DOS window but it would limit the drive to 32gb. Same for Windows 2000. They can read FAT32 drives over 32gb, just can't format them. Windows 98 can format happily my full 120gb drive. No windows 98 machine? No problem, just download a Win98SE (and it has to be second edition) boot disk and go from DOS. DOS not picking up your USB drive? Dismantle it, open up your computer, unplug your internal Hard drive and plug the one out of the portable in - away you go! Easy.
I did all this and I now have a nice 120gb that can be easily read and written to by Mac and Windows machines. The problem with this is FAT32 has a maximum individual file size of 4gb. As I intend to use the drive for some video editing this may be a problem. There is however a possible solution. While normally the Mac file system, HFS+, doesn't like sharing with FAT32 you can convince it to. The article linked above goes through it in more detail than I can understand but put simply you divide the drive into two partitions using a windows machine and use a Mac to put HFS+ file system onto one of those partitions. It works but no one seems confident that it is an entirely safe and stable solution.
Mac's and PC's don't really like each other.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Car Repairs
I drive a fifteen year old european car - an old SAAB 900. I like it and I'm vain enough to prefer it to a ten year old japanese or korean car, which I could have probably got for the same price when I bought it a few years ago.
For the last week or so something had been wrong with the engine - not really sure what but it seem to be something with the fuel not getting to the engine at times - to the point where it would stop once or twice on the way to work. I know very little about cars (despite my fathers best efforts) so a trip to the mechanic is always interesting.
It was due a service so I booked it in and got a call a few hours after i had dropped it off.
"We'll need to do the brake seals - about $150."
"Ok" I say, thinking brake seals, know roughly what they are. Sounds important. "Yep go ahead."
"Timing case seal doesn't look good either".
"Um OK I say." Timing case, I'm sure I've heard of that, I'm sure that must be kinda important.
"But if we take of the timing case and find the Harmonic Balancer is worn we'll need to replace that to. It'll be about $200 for the timing case and about $230 for the balancer including the labour."
"Um OK sure - so do you think it needs done?" This is what I say but I'm actually thinking "What the f*** is a harmonic balancer?"
"Yep - may as well do it now that the car is in. It'll need doing soon enough."
"OK go ahead."
So $947.10 later my car is back and working very nicely. When I picked it up the service manager even showed me the old harmonic balancer. It was a steel disc the size of a small plate but much thicker. It had a steel insert with rubber joining the insert to the outside of the disc. The rubber had indeed deteriorated and I was told that it would be bad if it broke away. Fair enough.
I still don't really know what function it serves but you've just got to trust that your mechanic isn't playing a cruel practical joke on you, don't you?
For the last week or so something had been wrong with the engine - not really sure what but it seem to be something with the fuel not getting to the engine at times - to the point where it would stop once or twice on the way to work. I know very little about cars (despite my fathers best efforts) so a trip to the mechanic is always interesting.
It was due a service so I booked it in and got a call a few hours after i had dropped it off.
"We'll need to do the brake seals - about $150."
"Ok" I say, thinking brake seals, know roughly what they are. Sounds important. "Yep go ahead."
"Timing case seal doesn't look good either".
"Um OK I say." Timing case, I'm sure I've heard of that, I'm sure that must be kinda important.
"But if we take of the timing case and find the Harmonic Balancer is worn we'll need to replace that to. It'll be about $200 for the timing case and about $230 for the balancer including the labour."
"Um OK sure - so do you think it needs done?" This is what I say but I'm actually thinking "What the f*** is a harmonic balancer?"
"Yep - may as well do it now that the car is in. It'll need doing soon enough."
"OK go ahead."
So $947.10 later my car is back and working very nicely. When I picked it up the service manager even showed me the old harmonic balancer. It was a steel disc the size of a small plate but much thicker. It had a steel insert with rubber joining the insert to the outside of the disc. The rubber had indeed deteriorated and I was told that it would be bad if it broke away. Fair enough.
I still don't really know what function it serves but you've just got to trust that your mechanic isn't playing a cruel practical joke on you, don't you?
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
And another one
Yep - another member of staff has gone off to see if the grass is greener at a rival.
Donating
I always seem to find a few dollars for a charity that comes knocking at my door. And we've bought Christmas presents through World Vision for a few years but on the whole I, indeed we as a family, don't donate a great deal of money.
I occasionally read a blog caoine, and I gather she gets a bit of money through the Amazon referrals program (7.5% of the purchase price). She has decided to give this money direct to a charity.
This got me thinking about charity and donating. I had a look at the websites of several Australian branches of international charities - Oxfam (Community Aid Abroad), Unicef , Medecins Sans Frontiere, and World Vision. I earn a decent wage why cant I donate 1 or 2% of my wage, even my after tax wage to charity? $500 or $1,000 per annum? $2 a day. It's not a lot really...
I occasionally read a blog caoine, and I gather she gets a bit of money through the Amazon referrals program (7.5% of the purchase price). She has decided to give this money direct to a charity.
This got me thinking about charity and donating. I had a look at the websites of several Australian branches of international charities - Oxfam (Community Aid Abroad), Unicef , Medecins Sans Frontiere, and World Vision. I earn a decent wage why cant I donate 1 or 2% of my wage, even my after tax wage to charity? $500 or $1,000 per annum? $2 a day. It's not a lot really...
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Email woe
I just bought a portable hard drive on line from epowermac.com.au. Their server automatically sent me a confirmation email which despite being text only was blocked by my corporate mail sweeping server.
After epowermac.com.au rang me regarding delivery, I pointed this out to them and they asked me to forward them the email. When I forwarded them the email their server blocked the forward as possible spam.
Technology - gotta love it!
After epowermac.com.au rang me regarding delivery, I pointed this out to them and they asked me to forward them the email. When I forwarded them the email their server blocked the forward as possible spam.
Technology - gotta love it!
Monday, March 08, 2004
iMovie easy
While I use a pc at work and at home I recently got gifted a second hand G4 mac. I've had it a few months and only played with it a bit but yesterday I fired up iMovie and started to put together a movie of my kids birthday.
iMovie is easy. Easy and very good. I had started it before and had a quick play but I hadn't really done much and I didn't appreciate just how easy it is to use. It was so simple to put together a short movie of birthday highlights with some titles and cross fades and a music track I almost couldn't believe it. As I have not quiet finished it I still feel there must be a catch - will it be difficult to output it to DVD in a format I can use?
My experience with mac's and mac software is very limited. I do have iTunes on my pc and that too is simple to use. I find that both iTunes and iMovie seem to make the basics very easy to do and don't get bogged down with advanced features. It may not be a good comparison but I feel that if I used iMovie regularly for a few months I'd have a good idea of every feature it offers. I use Microsoft Word daily and have done for years and still don't know all the features it offers.
I don't know if all mac software is this straightforward - I've had a quick look at Final Cut Pro and it seems to be very feature rich and much less straight forward to use. As I'll be using it for a Uni course I'm doing I should be able to make a good comparison with the simplicity of iMovie.
iMovie is easy. Easy and very good. I had started it before and had a quick play but I hadn't really done much and I didn't appreciate just how easy it is to use. It was so simple to put together a short movie of birthday highlights with some titles and cross fades and a music track I almost couldn't believe it. As I have not quiet finished it I still feel there must be a catch - will it be difficult to output it to DVD in a format I can use?
My experience with mac's and mac software is very limited. I do have iTunes on my pc and that too is simple to use. I find that both iTunes and iMovie seem to make the basics very easy to do and don't get bogged down with advanced features. It may not be a good comparison but I feel that if I used iMovie regularly for a few months I'd have a good idea of every feature it offers. I use Microsoft Word daily and have done for years and still don't know all the features it offers.
I don't know if all mac software is this straightforward - I've had a quick look at Final Cut Pro and it seems to be very feature rich and much less straight forward to use. As I'll be using it for a Uni course I'm doing I should be able to make a good comparison with the simplicity of iMovie.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Another one...
Back in the mid nineties I worked in the Sydney office of a reasonably sized company. As the head office was in Melbourne, the Sydney office was only about 30 staff. A new Managing Director was appointed and he set up his office in the Sydney office. Within nine months of his appointment 75% of the staff had found new jobs, including me. That sort of turn over can cripple an office. When I left the senior person on the company's premier product had had two weeks experience and two even newer people under her.
I know these things happen and some industries get more of it than others. That said it is not good for morale. I'm now in the Melbourne office of a company that has its head office in Sydney. Nine months ago a national manager, based in Sydney, left the company and took a senior position with a rival and is now based in Melbourne. Since then we have lost seven staff to the rival company and perhaps another ten or so to various other places. There are about 55 people in this office so the impact is not as large but even still people get edgy.
There is a bit of a buzz about who will be next...
I know these things happen and some industries get more of it than others. That said it is not good for morale. I'm now in the Melbourne office of a company that has its head office in Sydney. Nine months ago a national manager, based in Sydney, left the company and took a senior position with a rival and is now based in Melbourne. Since then we have lost seven staff to the rival company and perhaps another ten or so to various other places. There are about 55 people in this office so the impact is not as large but even still people get edgy.
There is a bit of a buzz about who will be next...
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Comments mark 2
Exams...
Today 30 odd Paediatric Doctors in Melbourne are sitting an exam. It is a multichoice exam with a two hour paper in the morning and a three hour paper in the afternoon. Most will have been studying for this exam in the majority of their spare time for about 12 months. All these people have had to do well in secondary school in order to get into a medical degree at University. They then have had to do a six year medical degree and then have had to get accepted into the Paediatric training scheme. They then do certain specified medical jobs with often long hours in order to qualify to sit this exam. They then pay (over $1,000) to sit the exam. Others like them will be sitting the exam around Australia.
In a few weeks they will get there results and a third will fail. I emphasise will because, regardless of their scores, the examiners (the Paediatric College) will take the bottom third of scores and fail them.
If they are in the lucky two thirds they will be lucky enough to sit an other exam in about six months. This will be a 'clinical' exam. They will fly interstate to a neutral hospital and have to examine patients in front of a panel of examiners. These patients are hand picked 'difficult' cases. Again they will pay to sit this exam, as well as paying for their airfares, accommodation etc.
If they pass this examination they are then 'advanced trainees'. After completing some further criteria (publishing papers or doing a PhD etc) they will then be able to join the college as Paediatricians, some 10+ years after starting training, and we will be safe in the knowledge they are well qualified for the job.
Who would be a doctor?
In a few weeks they will get there results and a third will fail. I emphasise will because, regardless of their scores, the examiners (the Paediatric College) will take the bottom third of scores and fail them.
If they are in the lucky two thirds they will be lucky enough to sit an other exam in about six months. This will be a 'clinical' exam. They will fly interstate to a neutral hospital and have to examine patients in front of a panel of examiners. These patients are hand picked 'difficult' cases. Again they will pay to sit this exam, as well as paying for their airfares, accommodation etc.
If they pass this examination they are then 'advanced trainees'. After completing some further criteria (publishing papers or doing a PhD etc) they will then be able to join the college as Paediatricians, some 10+ years after starting training, and we will be safe in the knowledge they are well qualified for the job.
Who would be a doctor?
Monday, March 01, 2004
What do you say?
What is the whole point of a blog? Is it a diary? Is it to make witty observations on everyday life? Are you mean to put across your views on your work, hobby, obsession? How personal does it get? Do you even use your name? What if you don't have a whole heap you want to say? Or perhaps not much that you want to share?
Obviously blogs exist that run the whole gamut from highly personal to corporate bland. Witty observations are good, personal views are a must. Blogs are personal publishing I suppose. I understand keeping a diary was popular around the time of Samuel Pepys. Diaries are still not unknown but they are perhaps more associated with teenage girls these days. Are blogs a modern manifestation of a previous diary fad? Blogs however are (or at least can be) open to the public - indeed open to the world.
Each blogger decides on how personal. Does you blog contain things you'd share with some stranger you met on a train? Or stuff you might chat to mates at the pub? Or just stuff you could only feel ok about saying in an anonymous forum? I suppose if you have not a lot you want to say (or share) you just don’t have a blog.
Why do people do this?
Obviously blogs exist that run the whole gamut from highly personal to corporate bland. Witty observations are good, personal views are a must. Blogs are personal publishing I suppose. I understand keeping a diary was popular around the time of Samuel Pepys. Diaries are still not unknown but they are perhaps more associated with teenage girls these days. Are blogs a modern manifestation of a previous diary fad? Blogs however are (or at least can be) open to the public - indeed open to the world.
Each blogger decides on how personal. Does you blog contain things you'd share with some stranger you met on a train? Or stuff you might chat to mates at the pub? Or just stuff you could only feel ok about saying in an anonymous forum? I suppose if you have not a lot you want to say (or share) you just don’t have a blog.
Why do people do this?
Yellow
I took the kids to the museum yesterday. Among other things we saw a display regarding the human digestional tract. The start of the display was a plate of food. You then saw it progress through the system. It had beakers showing how food would look after four hours in the intestines (yellow slime with bits of diced carrots etc in it) and then after six hours (clearer slime - a bit like snot). It came to its logical conclusion with a lump of fake (I assume) poo at the end of the display.
"Where does the food go?" is one of my four year olds favourite questions, so this gave me a good way to talk through it. I had explained it previously, as best I could, over various meals but here we had things they could see and touch. I'm not sure how much attention either of them paid, as part of the display had some notes on cylinders you could spin and a spinning cylinder is great fun.
Later, when we were home, my daughter gave me her latest theory - wees are just snot. I asked why and she explained it was because they are both yellow. There is a certain kind of logic working there. I recently read Bill Bryson’s "A history of everything" and I recalled a seventeenth century German Alchemist, Hennig Brand, accidentally discovered phosphorus while trying to extract gold from urine. It appears he was working on the hypothesis that they were both yellow…
"Where does the food go?" is one of my four year olds favourite questions, so this gave me a good way to talk through it. I had explained it previously, as best I could, over various meals but here we had things they could see and touch. I'm not sure how much attention either of them paid, as part of the display had some notes on cylinders you could spin and a spinning cylinder is great fun.
Later, when we were home, my daughter gave me her latest theory - wees are just snot. I asked why and she explained it was because they are both yellow. There is a certain kind of logic working there. I recently read Bill Bryson’s "A history of everything" and I recalled a seventeenth century German Alchemist, Hennig Brand, accidentally discovered phosphorus while trying to extract gold from urine. It appears he was working on the hypothesis that they were both yellow…
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