Virtual Stupidity

Virtual stupidity is sort of the opposite of artificial intelligence… a microwave oven that says “ENJOY YOUR MEAL” even if you happen to be nuclear testing cockroaches (as if reading it would make a difference to the appreciation of the contents), a car seat belt warning buzzer that lets you know that a passenger is not buckled up even if she is a bowl of fruit salad or a case of beer and my most loathed is voice activate call centres like Vodafone’s… “Hi. My name is Lara…”. Can I speak to a real person you stupid shit… “Sorry I missed that…”

Parents are Responsible for Children’s Education

When our children need shoes we take them to the shoe shop that we think is most suitable. We seek all the advice that we can from the shop attendant, presuming that they are experts in their field. But in the end the parent decides which shoes to buy.

The same applies to education. We look at all the possible schools that are suitable for our children and send them to the one that we think is best. We presume that the principal and teachers are experts in the field of education and to a large degree leave them with the day-to-day tasks of teaching our children. However it is still the parent’s responsibility to make sure that their children are educated properly. 

In Australia, as I am sure it is in many other countries it is illegal for parents not to educate their children. Failing to educate your child should be considered a form of abuse. If a teacher were to become aware that a parent is not educating their child they should report the parent to the relevant authorities. However this does not mean that children must be educated exactly as their teachers choose. 

I have decided that I do not wish my children to receive religious instruction (or any other time wasting alternatives) as part of their school education. I am forever being told that I am not permitted to remove them from school. It is complete nonsense. I am responsible for their education. I am accountable to the department of education if I fail to provide it to them. I am not answerable to the principal or teachers any more that I am answerable to the shoe shop attendant.

QWERTY Keyboards on Small Portable Devices

The original intention of the QWERTY keyboard design was to deliberately slow the operator down. You would think that by now we would have adopted one of the faster keyboards (see Dvorak Simplified Keyboard) for use with computers. I understand that it would not be easy for typists to migrate from type writers to computers unless the keyboard was the same. But why the hell are manufactures of small portable device continuing this silly tradition. Many hand-held devices such as mobile phones are not big enough to place your hands on. So why bother? Even young kids would be able to type with a keyboard laid out in alphabetical order.

The Piercing of Children’s Ears Should be Illegal

I just read an article in The Sydney Morning Herald about a woman charged with cruelty to animals for body piercing her cats. I agree that it is cruel and do not see the difference between what she is doing and parents who have their children’s ears pierced. Body piercing is only acceptable for consenting adults of the human species.

Edward Cullen is a Pervert

A few weeks ago I saw the Twilight movie and I think Edward Cullen is disgusting. Playing with his food like that is perverted. If I were him, I would have fed “The Snack” to James and then while he was distracted invited Victoria out for a proper meal.

Proportional is Fair

In one of the many “How to Vote” forms I received recently a local politician states that he wants to introduce a fairer tax system. He goes on to say that the GST is not fair because the poor are taxed the same as the rich. It is true that we all pay 10% GST but what a lot of people seem to miss is the %. The % bit makes all the difference. It is the bit that makes it all very fair. Without wanting to explain basic high school mathematics percentage is proportional. Thus in the case of GST the taxpayer pays tax as proportion of their spending. The more you spend the more you pay and the richer you are the more you have to spend. What is unfair about that? I don’t understand why income tax shouldn’t be the same. Why don’t we just apply a flat proportional rate on income tax, say 30%? Again it’s the % bit that makes it fair. The rich would still pay more tax than the poor. Sure there needs to be mechanisms to protect very low income earners, thresholds that allow people to earn a minimum amount without being taxed at all. After that everyone should pay the same percentage.

Don’t Mess Around with the Time

The most important thing about the way that we measure time is that it is a standard. You can go almost anywhere in the world find a clock and know what the local time is. If you arrange to meet someone at a given time they will understand when they are supposed to be there without checking with them what they think time it is. Everyone just knows. The one thing that is not standard is daylight saving time. The debate of whether we should have daylight saving time has raged on for years and is not one that I want to rave on about now (maybe another day). So what do I want to rant about now? Ah yes. If daylight saving time is of any value at all, the day and time that it kicks in or goes out must be a set standard. It would be nice to have this standard set world wide but to get the whole world to agree on this could be difficult. At least we should be able to set this standard within our own country and having done so no one should be permitted to change it. This year someone in their great wisdom decided that, because we hosts to the Commonwealth Games, daylight saving would start one week later. It is surely not because the athletes would get confused. A lot of spectators manage to work it out even in other countries. I think that it is probably something to do with TV ratings and money but for the sake of this argument I am willing to concede that there is a good reason of which I am unaware. No matter what it is, the choice should be to either shift the start of the games by a week or to suffer the consequences of the change during the games. The morons who decided to change the start of Eastern Australian daylight saving 2006 are declared this week’s winner of the Dump Things Award.