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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 23, 2012 14:20:38 GMT 10
How about this spring weather? Wow oh wow it's good. The whole house is opened up, the cats have sunny spots, it's not hot, the sky is blue, the birds are going mental outside and ... wow.
PP'ers may recall that I was seeing a sleep clinic for sleep apnea. Well - a progress report:
I did the first sleep-over. According to the machines I have "extreme" sleep apnea. According to the little machine on my belt I woke up 70 times or something silly like that (I'm not exaggerating - that's what the man actually said).
So I had a mask try-out on friday. There's a full-face mask, but for me that was a bit rubbish. They had a few sorts of nose-only mask, and the one I actually liked the best was one which literally sits just under my nose and coveres my nostrils. It sounds awkward, but it worked well. It was light and pretty easy to just ignore.
The little CPAP machine they had was astonishing. Almost completely silent - you just just hear a whisper when you breath. The air is controlled for temperature and humidity, and apparently filtered to boot.
I'm going in for another sleep over with the machine tomorrow night. I'm assuming it'll go better than the last one. That was the worst night's sleep I've had in years - although somebody suggested to me later that it's actually supposed to be.
Overall, I'm expecting that this is going to be an expensive exercise. So far (including tomorrow night's snooze-in) it's been about 1600$. There'll be a rental of a machine (they do data-logging for a month) followed by a purchase, and (based on a bit of googling for CPAP prices) I'm figuring that'll be another $800-$1000. I don't know yet how much medicare pays back (I've been to busy to take in the receipts - I'll keep you posted).
More frustrating than the cost (I'm a single professional with profligate ways, so cost wasn't really a primary consideration) has been how long it's taken. I decided that I really needed to do something desperately back in June, and it's September 24th before I get to try out the (fairly obvious) remedy. If I could have, I'd have just bought a machine for myself off the web back in June.
I think it's just a supply and demand thing. Canberra's short of medical everything. Things might have improved in the last couple of years (doubtful) but I needed to look for a new GP a few years back (old one retired) and it was a struggle to find one who was taking on new patients at all.
But I'm not blaming the sleep people. They've been very good. Mostly, it's just supply and demand. And I'm looking forward to the results - I can't wait to get one of these things home and try it out.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 23, 2012 15:57:24 GMT 10
This is funny: JULIA Gillard's chief of staff Ben Hubbard has taken the extraordinary step of wading into a row with business over ministerial advisers, branding claims that Labor staffers bully top public servants as "shallow, lazy and unsubstantiated". www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/row-over-labors-bullies-escalates/story-fn59niix-1226479188327Well, I guess it's a nice change from ministers bullying JUNIOR public servants. Anyone who recalls the late 90's and early noughties can only possibly conclude that executive/PS relations are less combative now. A middling APS' chances of being hung out to dry for a minister's cock-ups are lower now. There were some very shouty liberal MPs, or so I have been told (I'm not in the PS, and haven't been since about 1998 - I'm happy to say I never met a minister) My recollection is that the libs came into government treating the public service as the enemy, replacing everyone with even a whiff of political connections and threatening the rest (see the closure of DAS and contemporary events). The ALP more or less left things as they were and assumed that professionals would get on with the job. I dare the BCA to get a a written undertaking from the opposition to re-introduce tenured civil servants providing "frank and fearless" advice. Give it a try. Can anyone imagine a reith or a downer or (god forbid) a vanstone putting up with anything of the sort?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 24, 2012 11:15:36 GMT 10
They're still at it: Ramjan a serial accuser: KrogerI'm not sure this undermines ramjan in quite the way that kroger thinks it does. Some might think that it shows how easy it was for lads to round up a crowd of witnesses ... www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ramjan-a-serial-accuser-kroger/story-fn59niix-1226479846230Yep. Attacking the victim. I can't think of a better way to make sure that people who were there and feel outraged about the attack see no reason to come forward and put things straight. Keep it up, guys.
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Post by angra on Sept 25, 2012 8:26:17 GMT 10
Those damn violent Christians. Why did we let them into the country?
_____________
Five footballers from the West Midlands Christian League are heading for some serious time in the sin bin after a match last weekend degenerated into a "brutal brawl".
Common Ground United and Zion Athletic met on Saturday in West Bromwich to engage in what was supposed to be "friendly competition whilst upholding Christian beliefs and ideals".
All was peace, love and understanding until an hour into the match, when an unholy rumpus brought proceedings to an abrupt halt.
Mike Fellows, the Birmingham County Football Association Discipline Manager, explained: “A Common Ground player was sent off for serious foul play in the 47th minute, but the game carried on without any problems.
"But then, in the 60th minute, the score was 5-1 to Zion and a penalty was awarded to them. An incident happened between one player and another where one received a few punches. Then trouble kicked off.
"The referee reported that Common Ground players started throwing punches at Zion Athletic players."
According to the Birmingham Mail, a quintet of Common Ground players are facing charges of violent conduct, with one additionally accused of serious violent conduct. If found guilty, the five could be banned for a year.
League bosses are reportedly "shocked" by the unprecedented scrap, and claim that "an influx of non-Christians into teams may be to blame".
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 26, 2012 21:45:34 GMT 10
I disagree with bolt. I think this is a good interview. It's a tough one, but it's direct, the subject is up to the task, and the questioning addresses pretty much exactly the things that most people would be asking right about now: www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3598613.htmI think Tanner does well. I also had more or less taken the news coverage at face value and, having seen that interview, I'm now inclined to think that maybe the guy has been (once again) perhaps misrepresented. Sales is pretty gutsy.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 27, 2012 8:57:40 GMT 10
Ha! I love it. www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-26/ballot-for-anzac-day-100th-anniversary-in-gallipoli/4281694A classic problem of scarcity. Not everyone can get what they want, so how to be fair? A ballot is one way to go - a dutch auction is another (allocate batches of tickets starting at a very high price, then gradually reduce the cost over time - I've long thought this would be neat way to scalp the scalpers at football games by having a big batch of general admission tickets available at low prices on the day - you can guarantee your seat by handing over a wad of readies early, or take your chances on the day) Air travel is cheap. It's not hard to get to turkey (and we have a large ex-pat population), and these things are massively popular. There is, eventually, going to be a limit. So how to allocate places? Do we just let the really rich people go? Just the ones with "connections"? Because at the end of the day there will be winners and losers. I'd say the ballot idea is probably being seen as an experiment. If it doesn't work, they'll ditch it (this gallipoli thing is re-planned each year, pretty much from scratch - it's a big project, and it runs almost year-'round). Found an interesting-looking podcast last week. It's called "The Invisible Hand", and it's a series of discussions on topics economical: www.cbc.ca/theinvisiblehand/Have a listen to Episode one - "The Great Gouge". It's very good. You won't see price gouging the same way again. CBC does a few very good special-interest pods. "Under the Influence" is brilliant (as is its predecessor "The Age Of Persuasion")
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Post by angra on Sept 27, 2012 14:16:29 GMT 10
A question.
Where does "Blue eyed floozies" come from?
It's a famous lyric - now don't go cheating by Googling this.
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Post by angra on Sept 27, 2012 14:54:23 GMT 10
Much as I love film music over the years, you can't really beat Queen with their score for Flash Gordon . www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv7HNAtCH74The Emperor Ming: "Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror." Dale Arden: "Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth! " Flash Gordon: "This isn't happening, Dale. We're not here. It's just a bad dream." Brilliant!
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 27, 2012 16:54:20 GMT 10
Here's a thing that was only just invented this week: www.google.com.au/search?q=poll+trutherismPoll Trutherism. A concept that didn't need to exist until just now. And I bet ALL of these people doubt the mainstream consensus on AGW. If you want to see the eye of the madness, look here: unskewedpolls.com/I wonder how far down the hole they'll chase that rabbit if the polls turn out to agree with the election results ... Silly question. We already know the answer to that.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 28, 2012 8:41:26 GMT 10
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 29, 2012 11:53:37 GMT 10
This week's On The Media has a segment about the use of the term "illegal" in relation to immigration. www.onthemedia.org/2012/sep/28/illegal-vs-undocumented/I didn't know this, but apparently a republican strategist wrote a memo in 2005 advising the party to use the word "illegal" rather than "undocumented". Interesting timing.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 29, 2012 12:02:47 GMT 10
That OtM episode also has an interesting segment on the dodgy way that "GM corn and cancer in rats" paper was shopped to the media. Journalists had to sign confidentiality agreements that forbade them from getting a second opinion, which might have led them to look at the statistical significance of the results. The paper was embargoed until half-way through the press conference announcing the results.
Pretty dubious.
Dodgy research presentation. How topical.
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Post by angra on Sept 29, 2012 15:51:12 GMT 10
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 29, 2012 21:01:50 GMT 10
"I have no strong feelings about GM products"
Hmm. Subject to reasonable testing, my concerns would be no different about any other "introduced" species or strain. There are good reasons to squint at introducing a significant change to the properties of (say) a plant (and it is mostly plants we're talking about). But I'm less concerned about creating a race of zombie laser-triffid man-eaters and more about just making sure we don't go and create ourselves another patterson's curse. Agriculture has been a wonderful thing, but not every decision has been seen as a good idea in hindsight.
I don't think we should just assume that GM means bad. But we shouldn't assume that GM - like introducing any species - means good (even if it's just because the greenies say otherwise). Both reflexes are dumb.
As for worries about GM food - I'm almost completely dismissive, just as long as (again) we test. Let's not forget that some proposed GM is supposed to affect the food chain - the "golden rice" thing, for example. I don't have a problem, just as long as we test.
What does concern me ever so slightly is the IP issue, and that's what your links about about. I agree. I'd like to think that the australian guv would look out for the little guy a bit better than the US does, but ...
I used to work (long ago) at a certain scientific research organisation, and the only memo that I ever saw come down from Head Office was about GM technology. Wingnuts assume that AGW would be the thing to toe the line about (and I did actually work on an interesting AGW-related project, although that was well before it ever became controversial), but no.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 29, 2012 21:05:57 GMT 10
Allegedly, taylor swift is supposed to be playing joni mitchell in a biopic.
Why they're filming a biopic about somebody who's still alive, is beyond me.
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