The Ten Commandments

I read a recent comment that many commentators that talk of Australia being a Judo/Christian country haven’t really thought this through. More specifically that the foundation of the Christian tradition the 10 commandments had little relevance to most Australians. It was interesting as the commenter was pointing out how many who invoke theJudo/Christian were specifically commenting on other ethnic or religious groups that in their eyes were not Judo/Christian and hence not Australian.

So that got me thinking, which of the ten commandments would I uphold. Being an atheist some were going to be of no relevance.

1 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Well sure but then I have no belief in God so I follow this one, but only in the sense "I have no gods"

2 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

Yeah we get it no graven images, like whatever, well see commandment one. So the entity that I have no belief in, is all smity and shit. So That just reinforces my comment on point 1 no don’t believe in god, and hey if I did it would be the god of eternal forgiveness and compassion not some smiting shit of a god that wants to punish the father the son the grandson and the great grandson for a little bit of artshop. Yes I used boys deliberately. But on the other hand since I am an atheist and I hold no belief in god I would hold not belief in a graven image of one either, so kind of I believe in this, except for the smiting and the poisoned fruit of the loins stuff.

3 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

So I think this might be the idea of blasphemy, but I can’t blaspheme what I don’t believe in so I don’t hold this commandment. Well actually I do for I frequently say Jesus as a epithet, but really I am Australian so I prefer fuck.

4 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Well I am not so sure about the servant tosh, they all buggered off a hundred years ago, and cattle well they do what they want. And the Sabbath, its the day before school, the day i have friends around and cook for them.

5 Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

This I do, not because it is a commandment but because I love them. Nothing to do with a smiting non-entity in the sky

6 You shall not murder.

Well, like the best I can guarantee is sometimes. I live in a society that sanctions murder as part of state policy. But at the personal level, absolutely.

7 You shall not commit adultery.

What, dude if I can get my end away I will.

8 You shall not steal.

Well its all a matter of degree isn’t it. No land from the people who previously had it, no pens from work, not from future generations as I pump pollution into the air. I do all those things and more. So its really only bars of gold that aren’t explicitly mine and shit like that I won’t steal. The rest well apparently I do and I am in good company.

9 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

So lying is out, shame 3 year old me and 4 year old me didn’t know that and 50 year old me is not too hot on it either. Maybe really big lies are out For example Tony Abott would get my vote, that would be a big lie so I shouldn’t say it, unless of course there was a door knocker who i wanted to get rid of, see excuses excuses, so I am not really committed to this one, then again, I may be lying.

10 You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s."

Bullshit, who was this written by feckless Communists. Of course I covert its the sanctified rule of the consumer society.

So there you have it out of 10 I can cop to 1 No Murdering, but that is just me, not the city i live in the state I am part of or the country I am a citizen of, they all murder freely and frequently, though they have fancy names for it.

Actually I make that two I honour my parents.

And the commentators who I originally talked about, the ones who want to be all old testament and hairy chested view of a Christian Australia, maybe they would be better off under Sharia law, that would give them what they think they want.

Vol

Hi all

looking for a project. Must be hard, must be volunteer, has to utilize my skills (no laughing)

I have been involved with the Lorne Surf life Saving club and I love that involvement and want to continue it

...what can I do for your organization

About 1000 hours a year if your proposal likes me, or I like your proposal

Webb stuff I built www.lornesurfclub.com.au and the event site race site race.lornesurfclub.com.au does your org need some hard software built ...

Email stuff I have done 100s of email campaigns

web fue I can build websites and make that stuff happen
...
management stuff I run an event fro 4000 plus swimmers and I am good at that. I work with volies. I would love to help you manage a big event

What you need to be. Non religious, weird occasional, ethical, oh did i mention weird

I want to give back and I am looking for a splendorous gig. forward this on. to .... friends enemys lovers but not the military I wont work for them

I don’t want to be paid. But I do want the proposal to be splendid, and maybe a little Aussie
...
Please friend forward this far and wide, I will let you know what I decide

email me mark@ohmslaw.org

Title

The thrid circle of hell

The third circle of hell is reserved for pederasts and the lawyers of retirement homes. There they have to eat their contracts again and again, while the pederasts.... but I should stop now

Off to New Zealand

Off to New Zealnd to begin the adoration of my parents, and see if anything is left.

The mystery of customer service

Virgin Mobile was nice enough to put me on the priority list for an iPhone4 After the release I was contacted and signed up and a phone was sent. This is where things started to go a little wrong. Instead of an iPhone4 a 3GS was delivered (2 August).

I rang the help desk and got a return number. They indicated that they would send me a return pack (2 August). Time passed.

I rang the help desk (11 Aug) to see why I hadn’t received a return pack, I was told that they had just received approval, not sure why it should take 8 business days to approve the correction of a mistake. A return pack would be sent to me.

Received a return pack (13 Aug)

Arranged with Toll to pick up pack from work (16 Aug)

(23 Aug) Contacted the help desk again to see why I still have not received a phone, they stated that they had not received the return phone from me. They also advised me that I should call back to see when my phone would be delivered. Confusing! but I was able to track the Toll tracking number to show that they had received the phone, and then they said that yes they did have the phone and a replacement would be with me shortly

(26 Sep) call help desk and ask for plan to be reverted to old plan as I have not received product. Help desk changes plan

(3 Sep) Call help desk who advise that phone is 2-3 weeks away. They promise a call back. This call back never happens

10 Sept Call my contact at Virgin, they promise me a phone in a week. Somewhat relieved, Later the same day someone rings to go through the contract, seems my original order has been canceled. Various reasons are put forward, that it was canceled when I returned the first incorrect phone, that it was canceled when the plan was changed, that it was canceled at my request. None of these seem likely. What seems the most likely probability is that Virgin’s systems are so difficult to work with that no one is sure what is going on.

We have more discussion on which phone I should get and which plan on should be on. I say I need to consider and I am told that its today or take my chances. I decide not to persue a phone. I hang up, phone less but suddenly relieved that I can just go shop on my own account.

I am astonished that after a mistake in delivery it should take so incredibly long, 6 weeks, to fix the mistake and that it should take so many calls to jog the process along. I can’t fault Virigin’s phone operators they were helpful and polite at all times. But I never got the feeling that the systems they were using enabled them to tell me what was happening and when it would happen. Each time I talk with the operator I have the impression that what was happening was my expectations were being set for some number of weeks in the future, but that the operators did not actually have real data to back up the assertions they were making. It’s a buff and turf system. Buff up the customer and turf to the future in the hope that this solves the problem

Whilst I am quite aware that it is difficult if not impossible to know stock availability of Apple products, it is more than possible to state what an organization will do. I have never had the impression that what the Virgin operators say will happen will actually happen. So far my impression has been borne out by what has occurred. No promise that the operators have made has been met.

Timeline
2 Aug Received 3GS
2 Aug Contacted help desk who arranged to send me a return pack
11 Aug Contacted help desk to track what had become of return pack
13 Aug Received pack
16 Aug Arranged with Toll for pick-up
23 Aug Contact help desk to see what is happening
26 Aug Write to you. (Failed as I have a mistyped email address)
3 Sept Call help desk to see where phone is. Told I will get a call back
10 Sept Called get promised a phone in one week but end up canceling during the order process when I find that my order has been dropped

So after all this waiting and to and fro I still don’t have what I want, but I do have the potential of going to Telstra or Optus and getting a phone, who knows the grass there may be greener and they may have a help desk that knows what it says, promises and delivers. They may but this is the telco industry.

Postscript: I rang three Telstra shops looking for an iPhone, at each I left a message. All rang me back, one had a 32 gig iPhone in stock. 2 hours later I was making calls on it. Way to loose a customer Virgin, way to loose. Telstra in 2 hours did more than you could do in 6 weeks

Dear Labor Party

If you want me to vote for you stop using my taxes to put ads on the tele and in the paper saying how great you are.

Lets be honest, hard I know you are politicians and not given to honesty as a first policy, hell not event a second or a third policy. The reason you say you are advertising is to tell us important things about Victoria.

Most people think that the reason you are advertising is to get re-elected. Sure you might be fixing public transport, but only after you spent billions on the roads and for 10 years nothing on public transport before the Minster fell on her sword and you started to hope some dopy ads might do the trick.

Sure you have spent more on schools but do we need ads from kids telling us how good school was and how it changed their lives. Isn’t that the expected outcome.

And there is more, something about how becoming a police state makes us all safer. Well if we are really safer then why are kids carrying the knives you are so worried about. And if knives are a problem is random stop and search powers at any time anywhere for any reason the right answer. In a police state yes it is. In a civil society no its not. For a government that wants to play on fear and law an order vote yes it is, for a good government, no it is not.

But using tax money to place your political ads is just theft. Its dishonest its corrupt. Its an ad that says, we are not the kind of people who are fit to run this state.

So if you want my vote stop advertising using my money.

Back

Thanks to Dave we are back!

To boldly go

The state of eBooks in Australia is most interesting. Basically there is a very limited set of titles available. I have seen many reasons advanced for this. Publishers unwillingness to support eBooks. Authors may never have signed up to contracts that allow eBook publishing and so publishers are unable to publish their works. Publishers and Authors fears that eBooks will lead to widespread piracy al la music circa 2000

At the same time as these fears real and imagined, and a confusing IP regime eBook readers are arriving in force. The iPad has sold 2 million worldwide. Amazon continues to sell its Kindle with steep price discounts as the iPad takes market share, this in turn has lead to other eBook readers also dropping their prices.

I have an iPad and on it I can read books from Apple via iBooks, Amazon via the Kindle reader, Borders via the Kobo reader and Stanza which gives access to project Gutenberg. The iPad is truly a revolutionary device, what the rest of this piece discusses is how although the revolution is here. Beating at the city walls. The guards are asleep. The publishers are nowhere to be found. Australia is shown to be a backward place, which a sad reflection.

For clarity I will refer to these guys as distribution houses though both Apple and Amazon act as publishers, but not in the traditional sense they allow authors to use their distribution system and thus become the publisher but they don’t do any o the things that traditional publisher does such as editorial, marketing artwork and so on

Each of these distribution houses offers a differing selection all aimed at the American market with a subset of what is on offer available in the Australian market.

Apple offers nothing. Well nothing that it can’t get for free which basically amounts to rebadged public domain project Gutenberg books. In Australia at the moment there is no contemporary iBooks to read.

Amazon offers by far the best selection of books. There is like Apple project Gutenberg books as well as quite a wide but strange selection. Most contemporary fiction is not available to Australian readers. What is available is a few marquee titles and a wide selection of self published titles and bizarre republished public domain works. The selection whilst large is fairly profoundly disappointing. In terms of Australian content there is a single Australian author and a single work is all that I have found.

Borders has a truly Kafkaesque selection, books that you can preview but not buy, books that you can neither preview or buy and a buying process that demands a delivery address for an electronic book. Like Amazon there are no deals with Australian publishers and they have no local content and a similar sort of patchwork of odd deals.

Someday soon I might write a review of each of the readers and purchasing. Its different for each and both wonderful and disappointing in equal measures

If I were an Australian publisher I would be looking to service the burgeoning eBook market. If I decided to enter the market what I would would be looking at doing is to establish a direct relationship with readers. This is something up to now publishers have not been able to do. Publishers have always had their relationship with book stores who tell them what sells and what does not. Publishers have always had a relationship where it was boom or doom. A book would be distributed possibly with a publicity tour, if the book sold or sold well it was boom and more runs would be commissioned. If a book failed to sell it would be returned to publishers to languish in the remainder houses. The doom scenario. This has lead to many publisher having to have quite a few Booms to cover the Dooms and to a short term focus when publishing books.

On the other hand if publishers can gain more direct insight into their real customers , book readers then they can start to fine tune their offering much closer to the market. Turning contact with customers into market intelligence is not a simple process, however it is not new. The web has great potential to disintermediate the relationship between the purchasers of books and the publisher. And the publisher has the opportunity to get to know its customers and what they want.

In this discussion I don’t really think that Amazon Apple etc are publishers they are more like boo stores.

Note that authors are not in the same position to benefit from this type of disintermedation as the cost of infrastructure etc is quite high. Authors though do have a way in, and this is the self publishing options that Amazon and Apple are offering. In this model an author can place their book on Amazon’s site and reap a share of the profit, thus cutting the publisher out of the loop. What this model doesn’t allow the author to do is to know their customer, the book purchaser. In effect they have replaced their publisher with Amazon or Apple.

As an interesting example of this I found a great selection of self published science fiction that is most compelling. Well assuming of course that like mechanistic space opera which I do.

The big booksellers like Amazon, Borders and latterly Apple realise this. They realise that they have a limited time in which to build their brand and in which to lock in market mind share. If Amazon for example becomes the go to place for books then in short order it may be too late for any individual publisher to make and gain market share. Amazon or Borders will have the minds, and the wallets of consumers all locked up.

But even though the big boys are in town, and their with all sorts of things publishers don’t yet have, virtual stores, payments mechanisms recommendation engines email systems, help desks and so on. Even with all that there is still opportunity for local publishers, they have that golden goose Australian content. Our stories.

So if I were a publisher this would be my plan

1. Partner with the big players
2. Start signing my authors to ePub deals and make those deals world wide
3. Start building my own distribution systems, store front and all the rest
4. Look long and hard how to engage with readers, how to discover what readers want
5. Actively start getting my catalog into ePub format, even if I don''t yet have the rights to do so
6. Start doing deals with my peers in the industry to represent them

The time frame to do this is short. Books will be with us for a long long time, but the consumption of much material is going to move from trees to screens. Better for Australian publishers to be caught up in the rush than left marooned with no product to sell.

I suppose that I am an atypical buyer of books, I generally buy or borrow 70-100 books a year. Already I am noticing that with an eReader, in my case an iPad I have speed this up. I have been buying 15 books a month, and reading them too. It will be interesting to see what this number moves to once a steady pattern of usage has emerged, but I feel that it will be a higher number of volumes than the 70-100 of the past.

And the thing is while there are no Australian publishers in the game, I am not buying their offerings. My dollars are going elsewhere.

But really where I think that the potential to win is huge is getting to know your client. As an author or a publisher getting to know what clients want is critical to future success. For some styles of authorship this will make no never mind. But for many authors who write in genres and develop characters feedback from the consumer is a vital part of success. The ePub revolution has the capacity if tackled right to allow the canny publisher to find out not just what sells now, but what will sell in the future.

Its a brave new world, all that is needed is some brave local publishers to boldly go.

Washing Myer

Breaking up is hard to do

Dear Kevin

Sorry to have to do this in a letter but I am breaking up with you.

I became an Australian citizen so I could vote for you. Didn’t happen I missed by a couple of days but I became an Australian so I could vote for you and see that arrogant stretch of doing nothing slowly that was John Howard out of the halls of power. Apparently Australia felt like I did and you were elected with a landslide.
In power you started off well. You apologised to the aborigines. You had a giant think tank but then filed the results in a file drawer marked not to be open till the kracken awakes.

Then you got on to the big stuff. THE GREATEST MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME. Climate change and it is the greatest challenge but when it got a bit hard you filled it in the drawer next to the kracken which I think is labelled moral challenges not to be talked about ever. Well that’s a bit sad. Then you started marching out of a church at every opportunity. Maybe you do have an imaginary friend that no one can see. Maybe he gives you moral guidance I don’t know I am an atheist front and centre and I think your God theater is just some right wing pandering. But if you have a God, and I doubt you do, clearly he doesn’t care much for morality if you can quietly shelve THE GREATEST MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME.

You did well on the GFC apart from the ball breaking aching bloody obvious. If you backed the money truck up to the treasury the shonks were coming out of the wood work. Blind Freddy could see this coming. Why oh why didn’t you go, “National crisis dude.” “The money trucks backed up. But if you are a shonk and you screw us we will take you, your business and your family and we ruin you.” Send you to one of our hell holes in the desert like Curtain detention centre, and trust me would be shonk. In Curtain no one can hear you scream. That’s why we built them.

Maybe if you had told the shonks, later out auditors come looking and whatever you took we take form you for ever. Just like it was THE GREATEST MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME there would be no dodgy builders.

And then you fucked the refugees. Cause as we know the only people that arrive in leaky boats are the sort you want locked away and beaten by bureaucrats. Luckily Howard built a department that set the worlds second highest standard of being bureaucratic bastards. It leave it to the reader to decide who has number one spot. So you have the compassion locked away in the same filing cabinet as the greatest moral challenge, and the think tank results. Better that we lock up strangers far far away in Christmas Island, than you suffer a dip in the polls. No to stand up to xenophobes and populists would require courage, moral conviction and the need to get out there and make your case. None of which you or your government is prepared to do.

So lets bow down to the opinion polls as the poor and the desperate and the gullible that arrive by boats have to be the cannon fodder for your next election.
Oh an by the way you seem to have ruined the renewable energy sector and the electric cars and as for the poor well they can just shut up and die quietly.

It is actually hard to see what and where your government has made things better for the average smoe. Not housing affordably which like Howard you have bent over a table and rigged each and every year of office. Result I am paying more in rent than ever and the sniff of owning a house will involve me in both patricide and fratricide and probably theft as well. Good one there.

Under Howard Australia muddled along with no policy on anything. Under you we lurched to the right have a policy on EVERYTHING except of course the greatest moral challenges of our time but there you implement as much as a single painter of the Sydney harbour bridge might do in a day, spun out over a decade.

You fucked refugees, you have or will fuck the net, you have delivered two major schemes with such tragic ineptitude that the voters are calling they say they want their ball back.

Oh and on THE GREATEST MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME you gave up because it was mildly politically difficult.
Sorry dude you have lost your way, burned the imprimatur for a few poll points of popularity and are now wandering the in the desert. Maybe forty day and forty nights will see you emerge victorious or maybe just more bureaucratic stuff and nonsense.

Ah well the party thought like me, your gone Julia is in your place. Lets see how she does?

I wrote this a while ago and never put it on my blog. The Greatest Moral Challenge was and is of course climate change. Abbott and his brand of brothers made this almost impossible to get up. Possibly because they don’t understand any science except that of the pollster. Gillard managed to get something through, though we have to wait to see how it goes. Meanwhile Rudd has sailed off to the sidelines waiting for the call up and Julia goes from stumble to stumble