I had an idea the other day.

Our local council has been reorganizing waste disposal. Much bigger recycling bin, to minimise landfill. Part one of my idea is that landfill is bad. Part two involves the fact that in places like Brazil and India there are people who live in appalling conditions. They live off landfill.

We could spend a minimal amount of money whacking up heaps of prefab shacks near our landfill, give them sewerage and running water, and import the kind of unfortunates you'd see on World Vision adverts.

Living in the prefabs would likely already be a big imporvement to their quality of life. And they could rummage through our high-class rubbish instead of crappy thirld world rubbish. People can live on rubbish in India, and we throw away much more here. Then you could get a bit advanced and pay them for metal and recyclable plastics. Our landfill would really be reduced.  read more »

Today was Respite Guy day. For those not in the know, the Respite Guy is a guy paid by the Federal(?) Government (via a grant to a Non-Profit organisation) to keep me company every second week. The theory behind this is that it's one day in fourteen that my Drug Buddy (or 'Carer') does not have to worry about me inflicting a grisly end on myself.

I find the fact that the Government has to pay someone to be my friend once a fortnight vaguely offensive. But my Case Manager kept on nagging me and nagging me about it until I gave her the paperwork back... so here we are and today was Respite Guy day.  read more »

I've just finished reading a book which discusses the history of western philosophy. The only thing which really struck me as insightful was where the author describes modern (and 'post-modern') philosophy as being like an obsessive-compulsive sitting on the side of their bed, tying and re-tying their shoes, while people like Socrates are off enjoying their hike already. Socrates - he understood things. Things like the fact that no person ever makes a bad decision. That's something you can think about and learn from.

Then you get to the modern and 'post-modern' types, and (if you're me, at least,) all you can do is shake your head. I have put the book away now, but it's tempting to go get it and quote passages... just the language of someone discussing it is freakish. These are people with no bloody idea. The history of philosophy is a process whereby philosophers have evolved along a different line to real people. They have their own little world now, and they seem unable to see how hopelessly irrelevant they are, or how nobody really cares how hard time they have dealing with reality. (They make me think of Douglas Adams and God "promptly vanishing in a puff of logic", but I imagine the modern philosopher disappearing into his own navel.) They're kind of saying they have no idea, and I imagine they don't feel to good about being clueless, I go on to imagine that they use the language they do in some kind of attempt to compensate for feeling stupid.  read more »

Work tomorrow, don't want to go. I guess I should console myself with the fact that I'll get to see everyone, 'cause I miss them a bit.

Everyone and their dog is crapping on about Iraq. The world was boring enough anyway, and now the only entertainment is the war.

So I've been doing an awful lot of reading. I finished The Willow Tree (Hubert Selby Jr.), and it's to the same high standard as his other novels. I had a bit of cry at various stages, and towards the end I stayed up to see what happened.

I'm a contrary soul, so I'm going to take the opposite view of the war to that of my peers. I think the USA has honourable intentions, and that ultimately the outcome for Iraq will be a positive one. Everyone is so fixated on the US (while berating the US for being self-obsessed), and no-one is talking about Iraq. Also, people seem to forget that the USA is filled with people, same as us, and rants away without a whole lot of concern for the effect on any ordinary USians who might be left thinking it's getting a bit personal.  read more »

Hell No!

That's my current answer for Greenpeace. And whilst I secretly do care about the environment, I can't resist saying Hell No! to the Greenpeace people who jump in my way and ask "Are you interested in the environment?!" Get a new question, get out out of my way, or I'll tell you my Greenpeace PVC fridge magnet story until you squirm.

Went in to work late today. Only went at all because there was stuff that really did have to be done. Then I left early, and Greenpeace tried to get between me and bed. Had a nap, got up and realised that Dark Angel is back on (one of the few shows I will actually go out of my way not to miss), and heard a tapping at my door.  read more »

This (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vision.html) is super-cool.

I got there from an oldish /. story... trying to catch up on some actual reading. Kind of.

I ventured out to get some milk, and on the way I was thinking about things apocalyptical. I'm sure people would remember the anthrax scares everywhere, after September in the US. Back then, we worked in a different building - on the thirty-fifth floor. We had some small outbreaks of hysteria, and then we had one really full on, building wide panic.

Frankly, I didn't feel the need to freak out... what are the odds, really? But the way it was handled was very... strange. Very hysteria inducing in a tense way. Lifts get switched off, air con gets switched off. (From experience that gives the floor 10 minutes before it becomes noticeably stuffy, and quickly downhill from there.) There's an announcement over the fire alarm system that no-one is to leave.  read more »

Today I heard somebody use the terms 'beautiful,' and 'work of art' to refer to spreadsheets. And that person is obviously a freak.

I was reminded of why I've given up on watching news on the TV tonight. Impulse Airlines - a new discount airfare mob - have just bowed out of the game. So they are referred to as 'victims'. I'm sorry, but they're not. It's not like they were an innocent group of people, unrelated to the business at hand, who fell prey to a surprise attack. They were business people who went in with some kind of plan, eyes open... and they failed. Thus, they are losers.  read more »