Word of the Week: Stupidity

There's been something that has been on my mind to blog for a while now, and so here we go:

First of all, readers who are Aussies may be familiar with public education trying to compete with an enormous shift towards private schools. Large numbers of parents have decided they'd rather pay for their childrens' education, and after a bunch of research the public education people found out that one of the primary ideas contributing to this is that public education is generally amoral, whereas private schools will teach their children morals and values. Now, as a generalisation, I actually believe this to be true. Having attended public primary schools (good schools they were too) and then private primary and high schools, I believe the difference is actually quite blatant, but that's by-the-by to my gripe of the moment.
One of the things the government implemented to try and persuade parents that they are serious about values based education, is the "Word of the Week". Basically, schools have a word each week that they (apparently - I don't know the in's and out's of it) focus on, and instill into the students. This word is displayed on the school's sign so that all driving past can see what value the school are addressing this week.
Now, the interesting thing for me is that I drive past a couple of schools that have this, and there are a couple of words that seem to occur quite frequently that trouble me a little, and really for me cement the idea that the public system just doesn't get it. These words are "fairness" and "tolerance." What's wrong with these? Nothing in themselves I guess. It just seems that "values" are being taught from the perspective of "this is what you should expect from others." Its like they're saying:

When someone doesn't give you what you deserve, that's them not displaying fairness. You should stand up against that. When someone has ideas that challenge your own, that's them not tolerating you and your opinions. They should be tolerant. You should tell them that, and if they don't change, you should stop tolerating them.

(Note that the idea of "tolerate everything except the intolerant" is very much the politically correct/post-modern ideal)
The corresponding values I was taught in a Christian education environment would be "selflessness" and "agape love." Agape is the idea of a spiritual love that is unconditional and self-sacrificing. The difference is the focus. The values of fairness and tolerance imply that you should expect that from others. If you value fairness, you will expect not only that you should be fair to others, but also that others should be fair to you. But what if they're not? The reaction we see in the world today is that people do one of three things: shun, challenge or victimise. The Christian values are completely different - the focus is on you yourself doing what you know to be right, and knowing that ultimately you can't make someone else change. I mean, tolerance isn't ultimately a realistic value to have because no one would suggest we tolerate people who think it's OK to molest children, and yet if you're serious about tolerance as a value, then that's what you have to do. A child sex offender holds certain view-points about what's alright and what's not, and ultimately if you believe that tolerance is something we should adhere to, then you should tolerate his beliefs. The Christian perspective allows you to separate action from person. Agape love loves a man who does evil things, but doesn't tolerate the evil. But then the question becomes "who defines what is evil?" and this is why public education that teaches values will never succeed in a post-modernist world. Us GenX'ers have built into us that ultimately, we are our own authority. No one can tell us what to do or what to believe, because truth is relative, so what I believe is true for me. So while one person believes that homosexuality is a "life style choice" another believes that it's an abhorrent act, and yet person 2 is supposed to tolerate person 1. Yet by doing that, person 2 does not abhor something they believe to be aboherrent - thus going against something they believe, thus eliminating that as a belief and relegating it to an opinion. So really, tolerance insists that I believe nothing for sure, but only have opinions. Opinions are flexible, and allow you to change your mind when things get difficult. So ultimately, values are meaningless. It's like political correctness and post modernism had extra-marital relations and produced some bastard child called... Well, I don't know what it would be called, but it sure as heck would be ugly.
Anyway, this post is getting old, and the word of the week this week is "Democracy." Value a plenty in that one. Oh that's right - it's school holidays anyway.

A Stateful Thunderbox

It's funny how in life there are things that everyone is aware of, but people generally don't talk about. Often the reason no one talks about it because they feel like they're a little unusual for thinking a particular way, when really everyone else is thinking the exact same thing. One of these things is the staff toilet at my new workplace, and by complete chance I found out that all of my workmates share the same dilemma that I do. Let me explain:

The picture above is a map of the Staff (unisex) toilet at my work. Mark A is a normal entry door with a door handle that has a push-button lock on the inside, and a keyhole on the outside. Mark B is a normal toilet stall door with a Vacant/Engaged lock on it, and a rather significant gap between it and the doorjam. Mark C is the toilet, which is substantially visible through the aforementioned gap, and D is a basin, with a paper towel dispenser and a bin next to it.

Now, the first thing to note is that all of my workmates have agreed that the room with the basin in it is straight away far too close for someone on the loo to feel comfortable if someone was in there. Not only that, but the gap in door B means that if you were on the loo, having someone standing in that room would just be horrific. So really, if the loo is occupied, it's not really appropriate for you to come through door A at all. However, if door A is closed, there's no way to know if someone is in there or not. And this is where things get tricky.

The problem can be defined as a number of states and results. The states for each item can be defined as follows (D was only really relevant for the diagram):
Door A: can be open or closed, and locked or unlocked.
Door B: can be locked or unlocked
Toilet C: can be occupied or unoccupied.

Now, the optimal state for you to find the loo in is with door A unlocked and open, and door B unlocked with C vacant. If you were to find A and B as above, with C in the occupied state, then you'd have to question the sanity of the user. So, the real problem is which A&B states imply which C states. Most preferable is being able to predict C from A, as if you can assess the state of B, and C is occupied, you're already in the occupant's personal space at a time I know I wouldn't want you in mine. The other day, I'd locked door A (which is always the best option) and someone UNLOCKED it to put something in the bin at point D. This is downright rude, quite disconcerting, and it made me feel violated for the remainder of the day.

So looking at this logically, there's a finite number of states, and it may well be worth listing them. For the exercise, we'll call A being locked/unlocked A1, and A being open/closed A2. When A1 or B is locked, we'll call that true and unlocked false. With A2, closed is true, open is false. C is true if occupied, or false if unoccupied. So it follows that:

A1 and A2 and B --> !C :someone has done the right thing, and locked A.
A1 and A2 and !B --> C :loo hasn't been unlocked this morning.

Straight away though, there's an issue. You can see that the state of B directly affects the state of C if A1 and A2 are both true. However, when A1 and A2 are both true, you can't ascertain the state of B without already going too far. If !C and you change the state of A1 and/or A2, then you've done precisely what we want to avoid. Anyway, let's continue.

A1 and !A2 and B --> !C :occupant hasn't closed A properly after locking.
A1 and !A2 and !B --> C :someone has pushed button accidentally on their way out the door.
!A1 and A2 and B --> !C :see below

This previous case presents another factor. By observing the state of B when C is occupied, you're effectively looking straight at the occupant on the loo through the gap. This is the most horrible of cases for the observer as you assume that someone would lock door A if they were using the loo, but some people just aren't that cluey. So you glance in at B, realise suddenly that you've just glanced at someone sitting on the loo, and get out of there as quickly as you can. Anyway - let me continue:

!A1 and A2 and !B --> C :Not optimal, as you can't assume B before opening A.
!A1 and !A2 and B --> !C :Occupant must have no inhibitions. Steer clear.
!A1 and !A2 and !B --> C :Best case scenario.

So we can see that there's a direct correlation between B and C: !B --> C and B --> !C. However, being able to assume B based on A1 and A2 is really key to avoid awkwardness in general.

Thankyou for allowing me to waste your life. Consider me however, as I'd been contemplating all of this for HOURS before finally spending the 30 mins it's taken me to post it. I must be crazy, I swear. Anyway - at least you've practiced some logic skills.

And me with a mortgage...

See above link.

PS3 - worldwide, in November. Time to start saving. I reckon around $1000 at this point.

Gee, who'd pay $1k for a gaming console? Ah, that'd be: me.

Hard

The title of this post pretty much sums up everything that's going on in my life at the moment. Work, home, health... all hard.
I work in an office with (for the most part) one other guy who isn't what I'd describe as "chatty". Really nice guy, but just not big on talking. Me - I love social environments. It usually takes me quite a while to feel like I fit into it, but I love lively, social environments. I *thought* that this office was like that. But as soon as I got here, everyone started working elsewhere. Pure unfortunate coincidence, but just the way it happened. Even the boss has had strings of days out of the office with various clients, and currently is away on leave. This means that me, who has been in this job all of 6 weeks, is sitting in the office trying to deal with the bulk of the helpdeskyness and just basically do a job that I've only been in for 6 weeks with no one on hand to offer direction. Hard.

Then there's home. Home is hard. My wife seems to be about as interested in me as I am in amputating my own foot with a rusted bread knife. My son is tops - he loves me to bits, but I get to see him for about 2 hours each day, and that's it. Half an hour in the morning, and an hour and a half in the evening. The rest of the time that I'm at home, he's in bed. And that's just the thing - I spend at most 5 hours of my day at home and conscious - and an hour of that is getting ready for work. The rest of it, I'm either at work or asleep. I spend 8 and a half hours at work, and supposedly 7.5 of them working. I think I'm in the wrong line of living - I need to work for myself, from home. Either that, or for a bank. They close at 4:00pm most days. What a life - 9:30am until 4pm. That's almost criminal.
My work consumes 11.5 hours out of each day - 1 getting ready, 2 in travel, and 8.5 actually at work. So home is hard because I haven't got the energy to devote to it, and that's the fault of work. But I need work to support the house, so it's a catch-22. I guess I'll just have to suck it up...

Health is bad. To make a decidedly Justin statement, I might have cancer. I'm having a biopsy done in a couple of weeks. Looks kinda iffy at this point - might be, might not be. But with all of the stress of everything else, my brain just goes "you know what? It is. It must be. Everything else is hard, so this needs to be also". So that adds to the stress, and it's a never ending cycle. I also generally feel unwell, which I think is a product of the stress as well. I so so so badly need a holiday, but having just changed jobs, it's just not an option really. I should have had at least a week off between jobs, but hey - retrospect is a nice luxury I guess.

Well, that's it. I've been at work 5.5 hours and logged only 3 hours and 10 minutes of billable work, so I guess I should get back to it. If anyone has a big bottle of orange-flavored chewable "happy", I'd like a dose.

Some brief follow up on last post

After posting my last post, and knowing how big of a deal this all is to the Mac camp, I thought I'd post some more of my musings on this topic. Why, after all, would I believe that Mac might move to Windows? Well, I'm not convinced of that, but here's what I am convinced of: One of two things will happen within the next few years - Mac hardware will ship with Windows, or OSX will be sold for non-Mac PCs.

Why am I convinced of this? Well, it starts with the article that prompted my last post. One of it's points that I sort of glossed over was that Mac had recently run a big ad campain that had failed miserably. Now, the Mac people all made comments along the lines of "So what? That's no big deal. It's just an ad campaign." But as I thought this through, I realised that it was far more relevant then I'd initially thought. The ad campaign was designed to convince people to "make the switch" from Windows to Mac. Apple invested a lot of money into it, and it failed miserably. They were unable to increase their market. And this is where I think it becomes critical. Apple are a business. If they sell Macs to the same people who always buy Macs, they're not going to increase their market, and their shareholders are going to become unhappy. I know I would be. So how do you increase in a market where people aren't willing to throw away what they're used to? They have to undo the lock between Mac hardware and Mac software. Push the line of either "you can now run OSX on your non-Mac PC!" or "Macs now run Windows!"

Now, the second one of these they've half-heartedly doing already. Contrary to Nathan's comments on my previous post, several sources have confirmed that Microsoft will be supporting EFI booting on Intel Macs with Longhorn/Vista. Check the title link for one such assertion. Apple have said all along "we're not going to stop you." How much trouble would it be for them to go "and now we'll support you doing it." Not much. Suddenly, their profits increase as all the people who like shiney pretty things in their living rooms but aren't willing to change OS go out and buy Mac hardware to run Windows on. Bundle the iStuff suite and a custom theme along with with Windows when you buy using standard OEM methods, and they still maintain the Mac "look and feel" while not having to shell out money for OS development of an OS that in it's current hardware-locked state is preventing increase in their market share.

The other option is of course to release OSX for non-Mac hardware. Personally, I can't decide whether this is a more or less likely scenario. "More likely" arguments include the fact that it would be fairly easy for them - however, with no 3rd party driver support they'd be pretty damn screwed. So scratch that. They won't do it. It would fall on it's preverbial ass. Microsoft already have all the peripheral vendors on board with long revision histories, so it makes much more sense for Apple to go with the previous option. Greater perspective for profit. Can you imagine Apple having to go to all of the chipset manufacterers for driver support? And then how buggy the first releases would be? They'd kill their "it just works" image (which was the first of their "10 reasons to switch, btw) in about 0.32 seconds flat. Besides, I think there are other pointers that it will be Windows on Mac, rather then Mac on PC.

I know all the Mac advocates would like to think that Apple will remain "loyal" to their existing Mac-otaku fanbase (which being a part of is aparently a good reason to switch platform - reason number 7, in fact) rather then doing something that would make them unhappy - but let's be honest here. Business is about money. New money, in particular. That's why sales representitives are so well paid. No new customers equals level cash flow. Shareholders are investors, and level cashflow is a bad investment. To bring the numbers down to a smallish example, if you were a company who bring out 1 new product every 5 years, and you have 1,000,000 loyal customers who you know will buy your new product, you will never make more then $200,000 p.a. I know it's more complex then that, but if you just look at Macs+OSX as a sales entity, that's pretty much it. People who have Macs, buy Macs. And that's about it.

Now for your reading pleasure, an article entitled "Why Windows Vista Won't Suck."