Disqus - Latest Comments for teepee

Re: Nice Night For a Walk

teepee — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:44:57 -0000

Nice.

Re: Please Board, Mr Sexy Pants

teepee — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:44:04 -0000

So, what you're saying is that Chch is no more at risk of a force majeure than any other city in the world. You say this despite the occurrance of a crippling earthquake in Sept 2010 which fortuitously saw no loss of life and then the Feb 2011 earthquake that sadly, saw >180 lives lost. What was the probability of that event?

If you have a magical prediction tool that will alert residents to the impending perils of loss never before experienced, please, bring it on.

Re: Please Board, Mr Sexy Pants

teepee — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:40:39 -0000

100K is no use to a dead person nor will it be claimable by a person who is unable to verify that their beneficiary is on the plane in question.

Moreover, it's likely that the ticket in question will be tossed around in the chaos. To whom does that ticket belong?

Perhaps you have a fancy algorithm that suggests otherwise, but right now, as a frequent flyer, I prefer to avoid flights involving Chrischurch. I also prefer to avoid airlines that are lax on security.

24K people who have left the city since the first quake appear to share my fear/paranoia.

Re: Please Board, Mr Sexy Pants

teepee — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:28:08 -0000

I see the superficial fun in this but I also see the big picture down side.

Imagine Ms Pimpin' Bitch and Mr Sexy Pants have boarded their plane in Christchurch which is bound for Wellington. Just as their aircraft is taxiiing down the runway an earthquake of magnitude 6.2 strikes Christchurch, epicentre is 5km from the airport and at a depth of 5km.

The airport is destroyed and the plane is swallowed up by the gaping gorges in the runway. Nobody on board survives. Who is USAR searching for? How will Ms Pimpin' Bitch's friends and family know she is on the ill-fated aircraft unless she has revealed her pseudonym to them earlier?

What is the expense of iteratively comparing DNA for a match? What is the cost to loved ones who are missing a member of their team but neither they nor the airline are able to affirm that the team member was onboard the ill-fated flight?

Imagine if everyone onboard the aircraft that collided with the Twin Towers had used pseudonyms. Three words, extreme, chaos, and despair.

I am left wondering whether Jetstar undertook any ID checks as they are required to do.

In short, do your friends and family a favour and travel under your own name (unless you have good reason not to and have informed all potentially affected parties of your pseudonym). Also, fly with an airline that takes security seriously.

Re: Why it seems the crap is never ending

teepee — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:49:19 -0000

As a systems thinker, I tend to scratch and sniff as I go. I need to do this so that I can anticipate the impact of my decsions not only on my own microcosm but also on the larger bubble in which I exist. In my world, this needs to happen quickly.

Engaging in retrospective analysis is, for me, time stolen from a multitude of opportunities. Opportunities which are often ephemeral.

Hey, I'm just wired differently.

Re: Random Thursday Night Adventure

teepee — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:06:17 -0000

I'm neither a linguist nor an historian but if my schoolgirl latin is correct, candida is not only the feminine plural form of candide (the latin noun for fungus), it is also the latin feminine adjective (describing a noun that in latin is ascribed a feminine gender) for bright white. When reading latin primers, you often see the phrase toga candida. As I recall, the whiter the toga, the higher the socioeconomic status because the lower classes couldn't afford to clean their togas so often, as they probably didn't have a spare to change into while the other was drying.

So, presumably as technology advanced and the world moved from using papyrus
and goat skin on which to record their written musings, white paper
emerged as a superior product because its whiteness meant its user was of a higher class.

Ergo, it is likely the brand Candida was meant to denote quality.

Re: Who Teaches Us To Live?

teepee — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:34:31 -0000

As a parent of grown-ups, I comment from my own experience.

I always had a disconnect with my parents' response of "because I'm the parent, that's why". Implicit in that statement is the premise that because parents are older they are somehow wiser. To me, that statement was flawed because it was rooted in someone else's experience from a past generation.

Missing from that statement was acknowledgement of the fact that, in the interim, society has evolved and along with it, societal norms. An illustration of this is the way in which the computer game Doom was at first viewed as pejorative and evil-causing vs the elephant that is presently in the room, Grand Theft Auto.

Hell, my parents had adding machines and latterly Telex and fax machines and they thought they were at the forefront of technological advances. To be fair, they probably were - in that tiny window of time.

When I became a parent Moore's Law had already been proponed and accordingly, the knowledge and experiences of kids increased exponentially. As a parent, I had two choices; hold on to the standards and values that had been handed down through centuries, or allow my thinking to evolve. Being a systems thinker, I chose the later.

Initially, what that meant for me as a parent was opening up the lines of communication with my kids. Secondly, it necessitated me challenging my own values and assessing whether they were still valid in the context of my kids' generation. It goes without saying that I needed their trust and full engagement for this to happen. In that engagement I learnt that more recent generations are taught to be lateral thinkers and problem-solvers rather than rule followers. As an aside, to some extent I blame fear-based religions for the rule following ethos.

So here I was, by now, a single parent (as a result of atypical circumstances), wanting to help my kids become valued members of society. What did I espouse? Basically, a christian principal – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Although, this attitude requires a rudimentary understanding of how others might treat you as well as an acknowledgement of some social norm. Somewhat of a conundrum, I accept.

At an operational level, I talked with my kids about how they would react, if they were the parent/s in certain hypothetical situations. As a result of these discussions, my kids formulated a set of rules of acceptable behaviour from which they NEVER deviated. These rules were drawn up by the kids as a contract and were always stuck to the fridge door.

They are now 24 and 22 and we speak openly and honestly at least once a week. My love for them is unconditional and they tell me that they draw strength from this.