Category: Musings

Sometimes the words just flow and they can’t be stopped.

That’s what I call a chocolate bar

61% chocolate KitKatOn the way home tonight, I innocently stopped for some chocolate before I got on the train. Instead of going into the Coles, which had long queues, I went into the asian grocery next door. Little did I know that they had a range of chocolate imported from Japan.

Well, Melbourne Central has a lot to answer for because, I brought home one of these KitKat bars. Have you ever seen a 61% chocolate KitKat? Yum. They are very fine. And the Meiji chocolates that I bought there have mostly been eaten now too. They might not survive the evening.

That’s not a Housing Affordability Crisis

I won’t draw any conclusions here, but I will draw your attention to the following points:

  • There are 7.9 million households in Australia, and on average each household owns $298,000 in residential property, e.g. their own house and other rental properties (from ABS Household Wealth and Wealth Distribution, Australia, 2005-06).
  • This puts a total value on all residential property in Australia of something like $2,400 billion. However, the market cap for the entire Australian stock market is currently about $1,600 billion (from ASX Historical market statistics).
  • Australia is the “fourth-largest retirement savings market in the world” (from the Eureka Report) while superannuation funds are prevented from borrowing any money to buy assets, which is the main way that residential property is bought in Australia.
  • When it comes to shares though, the ATO has softened its stance on some types of gearing. Contracts for Difference (CFDs), when bought with cash, are apparently alright (in Interpretive Decision 2007/56), even though CFDs behave very much like borrowing to purchase a share.
  • Westpac has bought 441 houses from Defence Housing Australia (according to The Australian and a DHA media release) with the intent of launching Australia’s first residential real-estate investment trust.
  • House prices are driven by supply and demand. The superannuation industry has the potential to add a little bit of demand…

I came, I swore, I gave a speech

Tonight I presented my fourth Toastmasters speech. It was CC#4 “How to Say It”, which means that it was meant to be on the theme of language and words. So, I thought it would be a nice twist on the topic to do a speech about swearing.

Turns out that swearing is a pretty interesting topic. There’s a good article on swearing at Howstuffworks, although I didn’t use it for the speech. Anyway, I wrote the speech last night, and all I had to do was remember it and deliver it alright. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember it clearly, didn’t deliver it in a punchy way, and ended up going seriously over time. The lesson is that if I’d practiced it to the point where I’d memorised it, it would have been fine.

For those who are interested in what I meant to deliver, feel free to read my speech on swearing.

Support Pink Ribbon Day, but don’t forget the men

This coming Monday (22nd October) is Pink Ribbon Day. As everyone would know, it is supporting breast cancer research, which is a good thing. People (ok, women) at my train station sell ribbons for this charity, but I’ve never seen anything at all comparable for any cancer associated with men. Now, I know that there are a small fraction of men who do suffer from breast cancer, but in the main, research and support for “female cancers” like cancer of the breast, cervix, ovary or uterus are discussed and promoted significantly more than for “male cancers” like cancer of the prostate or testis.

In the past, I’d just assumed that this was because these afflictions in women outnumbered the cases in men, and the attention on them was warranted because it was another case of women simply being shafted for being female. Men seem to get things easy, and all these cancers were the universe picking on women again, just like while Viagra was approved quickly in Australia, RU-486 isn’t really available anywhere, or like GST on tampons. However, in this case, the roll of the dice has favoured the women, and it is men whom the universe has picked on. Cases of some male cancers outnumber the females ones. By quite a bit.

Cancer statistics are tracked in a lot of detail in Australia. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare publishes a mountain of stats on cancer, although some stats are available up to only 2003 so far. So, in 2003, while there were 11,889 instances of breast cancer detected, and 2,720 deaths from it, there were 13,526 instances of prostate cancer found, with 2,837 deaths. Not that this is a competition, but instances of prostate cancer were 14% higher than for breast cancer. Why aren’t there guys at my train station selling ribbons for that? The Prostate Cancer Foundation should get a move on.

However, when all of the cases of “female cancers” listed above are totalled-up, they do outnumber the “male cancers”. Specifically, in that year, there were 14,164 instances and 2,854 deaths from “male cancers” and 15,311 instance and 3,956 deaths from “female cancers”. That’s almost 40% more deaths on the women’s team. So, there is a strong case to be made for emphasising “women’s issues” (particular for ovarian cancer, which looks pretty lethal from the stats). However, other types of cancer than breast cancer do need a look-in occasionally!

The cost of borrowing

Today was a very special day. Today, about a year after we first wrote the applications, we’ve finally received notice from the bank advising us that we now have the home loan we wanted.

Yes, we first met with our mortgage broker from Aussie on the 20th October 2006, and gave him the go-ahead to take out a loan for us with HomeSide (a division of NAB) on the 29th October. Everything had gone brilliantly up until then, and went disastrously from then on. In hind-sight, I’d never recommend anyone use HomeSide, and especially not when you aren’t dealing with them directly, i.e. through a broker. It has been a story of frustration and pain for us.

We’ve seen about half a dozen different loan documents, all with different mistakes in them (most were basic primary school maths mistakes). When the day of settlement came in December 2007, the lender’s solicitors demanded an additional payment or they wouldn’t settle. Then when we moved heaven and earth to make the payment, they waited a couple of hours, and demanded another payment. It was grossly unprofessional and made a stressful situation very unpleasant for us.

On the positive side, our broker from Aussie was caught up in the whole mess of the last year, and valiantly tried to fix the problem for us. In the end, we’ve managed to get a loan with a fixed rate component, using the rate that applied back in December, honouring the original deal, only nine months late.

Don’t buy from Dirty Microbe

Sadly it looks like I’ve been scammed. Back in May, I ordered a couple of t-shirts from an online T-shirt company called Dirty Microbe, but they were never shipped. At the time, I had seen their ads for a few weeks, I did some web searches to research them, and found nothing negative. In short, they seemed reputable. And when I didn’t receive anything, I told myself there must be a temporary problem. A three month temporary problem. Hmmm.

So, now I’m seeing complaints pop up around the web from others having the same problem. Looks like I’ve been had. With any luck, others will find these posts before losing their money to a t-shirt company that seems to have gone bad.

Goodbye Bunnings, Hello Kennards!

This weekend we were stricken with a special type of illness – the one that makes you want to pull up concrete in your front yard. Now that we’ve had it, it’s quite unlikely that we’ll catch it again. I hope for your sake, gentle reader, that it is not at all contagious.

Initially it was quite enjoyable. Going to Kennards to hire the electric jackhammer was eye-opening. While Bunnings is full of things that allow you to explore your creative instincts, Kennards is full of things that allow the more destructive side of your nature to flourish. For example, there were some machines that looked like ride-on-lawnmowers with giant chainsaws attached to the front. Outside of a nightmare or a Simpsons episode, I have no idea what they could be for. Kate wouldn’t let me hire one.

But the jackhammer provided fun enough. At least for the first hour, where we ripped up huge chunks of the front yard’s wall-to-wall concrete. That was as long as it took to get to the reinforced concrete. And huge chunks were quickly replaced with tiny shards. What sort of person maliciously reinforces the concrete in their front yard? A malicious one, apparently.

Despite losing the good will of those of our neighbours with working eardrums, we succeeded in clearing our front yard of the two concrete slabs. That’s 6 square metres of decorative concrete gone from the world. And the world is all the better for it.

Filter or Faker?

I’ve been reading the P J O’Rourke book All the Trouble in the World in which he satirizes the various moral panics that were big in the 1990s, and is at times pretty amusing and pretty intelligent. I have some respect for O’Rourke, which is why I had my own moral panic in reading his opinions on scientists communicating theirs.

Dr. Schneider … is a self-admitted liar and knave: “[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

The trouble is that Dr Schneider could also be easily describing my own job. In communicating complex matters up the management chain so that timely decisions can be made, I have a responsibility to synthesize the data I receive and pass on enough to justify my recommendations but limit it such that people’s valuable time isn’t wasted in duplicating my analysis. However, I’d never considered myself a liar or a knave before.

Giving Dr Schneider’s words the most charitable interpretation, I can understand the trade-off between disclosure of every fact (“being honest”) and communicating in the most appropriate words and style for an audience (“being effective”). The latter may involve filtering the relevant information out of volumes of data (“simplification”), choosing memorable and impactful examples (“scary scenarios”), and recommendations that are easy to understand when you’re a busy exec being inundated with demands for your attention (“dramatic statements”). This isn’t being a faker or a fraud. In fact, someone who did not do these things could be considered ineffective.

So why would someone like O’Rourke assert the contrary? I’m not sure, but perhaps it’s something to do with his journalism background. The Code of Ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists clearly distinguishes “advocacy” from “news reporting”. It’s hardly unique in this matter, and I suspect journalists typically learn a distrust of those who communicate their personal (even if expert) views and opinions to the public and don’t clearly label it as advocacy.

But maybe I’m too sensitive, and O’Rourke was making a specific point not a general point. Or perhaps he was a little guilty of simplification and dramatic statements himself.

Harry Potter launch

I wasn’t there for the iPhone launch, but I was there for the Harry Potter 7 launch! Kate and I pre-ordered our books at Dymocks, and went to the event held at the Collins St city store to pick them up. We’re probably not the maddest of mad keen Potter fans, but we do like a good spectacle.

We arrived at Flinders St station a little after 9am, and saw people already reading the book. Some of them were walking and reading, so keen were they to begin it! Many were carrying balloons, since Borders was supplying black balloons as part of their Harry shtick. Unfortunately, Dymocks was a little too good at sales fulfillment, and the queue had mostly disappeared by the time we got there at about 9.10am. However, the choir (!) was still singing, and there was a happy, festive atmosphere.

Needless to say, we bought two copies, rather than one of us having to wait for the other. But, we both finished the book (which has almost exactly the same number of pages as Harry 6) by the end of the weekend. It was fun, a little heavy on the exposition, but brought about a satisfying conclusion.

Toastie Speeches

This year I joined up with the international public speaking organisation Toastmasters. Luckily, I’ve found a club that is both friendly and extremely talented. I haven’t got all the nerves under control yet, so it’s helpful that they aren’t too scary.

So far, I’ve gotten through the first two set speeches in the ten speech programme. I think they’ve generally gone alright, and I think I’m improving. Still, eight more to go. In case they can help anyone else, or provide some ideas, I’m putting the original text of the speeches here on the blog. Of course, they weren’t delivered word-perfect, and didn’t quite go as planned, but you can see the vision.