Carl Joseph

It really hurts

This exercise thing is much harder than I thought. My calves and pecs are quite sore at the moment. I guess it’ll subside eventually. I hope it’ll subside soon!

Fitness test
Boot Camp started for us on Saturday morning with quite a rigorous fitness test. We started with some stretches which I liked very much. They weren’t too onerous. Then we jumped into a “Beep Test.” From memory I think I got to level 5.6 or somewhere around there. That totally killed me and really managed to aggravate my asthma for two days.

A few push-ups and squats followed and we ready for our 2km run. Now, you need to realise, I have never run 2kms in my life. In-fact, I have never even run 1km before. This was quite a struggle for me and I had to walk part of it. My aim is that I can run the entire track by the end of the course.

The first session
So we got up just after 5am. The only time I get up whilst it’s still dark is if I have an early plane flight. Getting on a plane is exciting so I’m usually motivated. This morning was completely opposite. We turned up whilst it was still dark, did some stretches and had a roll call.

Then we were forced to do 20 push-ups because two people didn’t turn up. Then we had to do another 10 because we didn’t line up quickly enough. This is going to be an interesting course and I feel there will be many people with black eyes if they continue to wag training sessions.

I think I did better at today’s session than I would’ve expected. It was a dirt running track right near the beach. We had to run for a bit, do a series of push-ups, run some more, run up an incline, struggle through some sit-ups and more push-ups, then run back to the start again. The course would’ve been between 1 and 2kms and we had to do it continuously until the hour was up.

I pretty much ran the entire first circuit and had to walk sections of the second and third. E did really well getting in 6 laps. Much to her disgust, The Sarge ran along with her for the last three!

One day of resting now before our next session on Wednesday which will be on the beach. Argghhh, running on sand - fun!

I need to act responsibly now

You see, I’m engaged!

After five and a bit years I finally asked E. to marry me. Actually it was more like, “So, you wanna get married?” Thankfully she said “yes.” Wedding plans will now take up most of my attention this year.

We had a wonderful holiday in Tasmania. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good relaxing and interesting holiday. More on the trip some other time. Just wanted to let the three readers of this blog know that I’m still alive and very well.

Where does the time go?

Alright - for me, most of my time is taken up by travel because I live so damned far away from civilisation!

The rest of it, well, it just gets really filled up. Some things that have happened lately:

• Finished the deck building experience (landscaping still to come)
• Travelled on a train from Frankston to the city
• Enrolled in Boot Camp for February
• Booked our holiday through Tasmania in January
• Completed all the Christmas shopping
• Paid a multitude of bills
• Fed the dog

Will write more about these incredibly interesting experiences soon.

Incredible music animation

I wouldn’t usually bother blogging about this type of this, but I couldn’t just let this one go by. You have to watch this animation - It’s freakin’ amazing!

A whole lot of hot air

A pretty great idea. EnviroMission is planning to use natural convection (i.e. hot air rising) to create energy. The thing I love about this energy idea, is we have trials running in Australia!

Take a look at the EnviroMission site and also this video which explains the idea perfectly.

Moral dilemma - Part II

In my previous post, we explored a pretty straight-forward scenario. The decision whether to sacrifice the one to save the many is a relatively simple one. When we come to more loaded issues such as abortion and euthanasia, the decision people make is highly polarised. It is usually heavily influenced on their religious beliefs.

A new scenario
So, to get away from the effects religion has on making moral decisions, a woman named Judy Thompson created the following scenario:

A woman wakes up one day and there’s a man lying in bed next to her. Another man walks up to her and says, “look I’m terribly sorry, we’re from The Society of Music Lovers, the man lying next to you in bed is a world famous violinist, he’s in kidney failure and I hope you don’t mind, we’ve plugged him into your kidney. If you stay plugged in for the next nine months he will survive and you will save the world’s greatest violinist.”

What would you do? Is it morally permissible for the woman to unplug herself from the violinist? Most people would agree that it is. The woman had no choice in the matter.

The similarity of this situation is similar to that of a pregnant woman where the violinist/fetus required the woman for it’s survival. The difference is that there is no commitment requirement from the “host”.

Let’s change the scenario slightly...

She says, “sure, let’s stay plugged in”. So for two months she makes the commitment. To make IT really like the abortion case, the violinist is unconscious, so her commitment is to the guy from The Society of Music Lovers. She stays plugged in for two months and after two months she goes, “this is a drag, I’m unplugging”. So she pulls the plug out and he dies.

Is it morally permissible for the woman to unplug herself from the violinist? Most people would disagree here specifically due to the commitment she made to stay connected.

Does it depend on your religious upbringing?
The interesting thing discussed on the show was that people who differ in their pro-choice/pro-life or religious beliefs did not differ in their judgment on the above situations.

So, why does religion play such a huge part in politics and debates where these scenarios are tested out? What is it about the terms “abortion” and “euthanasia” that cause people to change their moral judgments?

Moral dilemma

I was listening to an ABC podcast recently called “All In The Mind.” This week, they had an interesting topic on the evolution of human morality. I’ll be writing a little about this over the next few weeks.

Moral dilemma:

Denise is a passenger on an-out-of-control train or trolley. The conductor has fainted and the trolley is headed toward five people walking on the track. The banks are so steep that they won’t be able to get off the track in time. The track has a side track leading off to the left and Denise can turn the trolley onto it. There is, however, one person on the left hand track, Denise can turn the trolley killing the one, or she can refrain from flipping the switch letting the five die.

What should she do? Is it morally permissible for Denise to flip the switch, turning the trolley onto the side track?

Now consider this change:

There’s a man standing next to you who’s heavy, and if you push this man onto the track he’s heavy enough that he will stop the trolley, killing him but saving the five.

What do you do?
In the initial scenario, I chose what 90% of the population would also do - kill the one person to save the five.

If you opted to sacrifice the one to save the many, then the second scenario should pose no logical difference. Right? Well you’d be wrong. Interestingly, only 10% of people would push the guy out in this scenario. A complete turn-around.
What happened? Why would people act so differently given two scenarios which have exactly the same outcome?

BBQs, phones and bad service

On the weekend I went out shopping for two things, our first BBQ and a new mobile phone. E. got me a voucher for Barbeques Galore so that was where I was going to purchase our new cancer-maker from. The nearest store was near Southland so I figured I might as well get my new phone from the Crazy Johns near there too. The adventures begin …

Barbeques Galore

The story begins when a salewoman approached me and began her sales pitch. She rabbited on about a bbq I just happened to be walking past at the time. I finally got to talk and began to describe what I was actually after. We looked at a few models and I made my selection.

“So, what price can you do for me on that?”
“Ahhh, no discount I’m sorry.”
“Why don’t you check with your manager?”
“Nup, still no discount.”
“How about this, I’ll pay you the full price now and even purchase the wok burner attachment?”
“Nup, still nothing I can do for you.”
“That’s a shame. Can’t you even throw in something small like a cover to seal the deal?”
“Nup, sorry, can’t do.”

This actually went on for a few minutes. Disappointed at my lack of success, I handed over my gift voucher.

“Ahhh, this is over a year old. I’m not sure that we can accept it.”
“It doesn’t have an expiry date. You have to accept it.”
“I’ll need to check with my manager.”
“You do that.”
“OK. Should be alright to use.”
“Thought so.”

I was getting quite agitated now. Channeling Veruca Salt I wanted this BBQ now. The saleswoman went to check the stock. It seemed that only half of the BBQ was there. They were out of stock for the pedestal section. How they could stock half a BBQ is beyond me. So, what were my options?

1. Wait two weeks for one to maybe arrive, then drive in to pick it up
2. Drive to Richmond to pick one up myself

Neither option appealed to me. They couldn’t even transport it from their Richmond store. Apparently it costs too much! I expressed how disappointed I was with the experience. Finally I felt like I had some traction. “What can we do to help?” she asked. “How about you throw in a cover?” “Nup, can’t do that, sorry.” Bastards!

So, I picked up my half a BBQ, drove to Richmond and picked up the rest.

Crazy Johns

I usually avoid shopping at the “crazy” places but I thought I’d try my luck this time. Nothing could be worse than buying a BBQ from Barbeques Galore.

The sales guy here was pretty good. He actually asked me questions about what I wanted and how I wanted to use the phone. We selected the i-mate JasJam and sat down to go through the paperwork.

They had to give me a new SIM card for the new phone and it seems that their computers weren’t working properly today. The guy said he’d put through the paperwork in the evening and I could drop by during the week to sign it and pick up my paperwork. Defeated once again, I began to drive home to Mornington.

Having nearly reached home, I realised my mobile wasn’t working. I couldn’t get any network service. I did the only thing I could do, drive back to Crazy Johns and blast them for cancelling my SIM.

As soon as I walked in the door, the guy apologised. He had tried to put it through again and didn’t realise it went “all the way through” transferring my account to the new SIM card. I was pretty pissed off with having to drive over 50km for this mistake.

I signed the contract, got my new phone and asked for a deal.

“I’m pretty upset that I had to drive so far because of this mistake.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.”
“So how about this, you give me a good deal on a micro-SD card for my phone.”
“No problems. We don’t have them in stock at the moment though.”
“That’s cool, just post one to me when you do.”

Feeling good about this, I drove off back home again. After 5 minutes, I got a phone call from Crazy Johns. He accidentally gave me both copies of the contract and wanted me to drop one back to him. Damn it!

I turned around, pulled up out front of the store and he rushed out to grab their copy of the paperwork.

“Look, I’m really sorry about this.”
“That’s ok. It just means an even cheaper memory card for me!”

They’re now organising their Mornington store to get a memory card ready for me, which they are actually provided free of charge. Awesome!

What a difference

What a difference compromise makes. I will never ever recommend or purchase anything from Barbeques Galore again. I will always recommend Crazy Johns as my preferred phone supplier.

Students speak up on Global Warming …

Google have published a top 50 ideas list on strategies for combating global warming. The interesting thing is that these ideas were collated by young students. The full list can be found here on the Google site. Following are the top 10…

1. Include global warming/climate change in school curricula (as part of National Science Standards), so when the students are in charge they can make educated decisions.
2. Increase availability of low-interest Energy Efficient Mortgages to support homeowners who increase the energy efficiency of their homes.
3. Put light sensors in all office and school buildings so all lights go off when the rooms are empty.
4. Require that all products contributing to global warming be marked with a specific color (e.g., chemical pesticides could be marked with a red sticker for being extremely dangerous to the environment).
5. Use less paper; use the back of the paper to print on or write on; use recyled paper.
6. Plant more trees to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
7. Teach recycling techniques in classes and school-wide programs.
8. Make recycling mandatory in all public facilities, such as schools, parks and beaches.
9. Do public service announcements on TV featuring celebrities promoting carpooling, walking, riding bikes, using public transportation, conserving electricity and recycling.
10. Give grants and tax credits to companies that invest in alternative, sustainable, emission-free fuel technologies while ending such subsidies for fosssil fuel production.

Good to know that our future population are thinking about these things. The problem is, it’s still up to us oldies to act on it now.

iPods could be illegal in Australia

Owning an iPod, DVD recorder or camera phone could soon become illegal in Australia. Proposed changes to the Copyright Bill make it illegal to load tracks onto your iPod, even if you legally own the original CD.

The new bill is a result of the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the U.S. An obvious mechanism to try and protect the music and movie associations of the U.S. Once the issues with more legitimate use were raised, ammendments to the bill were proposed. These ammendments actually do nothing to protect the more accepted usage of iPods and MP3 devices.

Ironically, exceptions in the bill were supposed to legalise copying music from a CD to a device such as an iPod but Kim Weatherall, law lecturer and associate director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, said the exceptions were too narrowly drafted.

The exceptions allow users to make one “main copy” of a CD as well as “temporary copies”, but the temporary copies must be destroyed at the “first practicable time”.

Loading music onto an iPod involves having one copy on the device and another on the computer in iTunes, meaning the user has two main copies in addition to the original CD. This is illegal even if the new bill is passed.

The Age, The $65,000 question: do you own an iPod?

So, sell up your iPods and MP3 devices, and stash up on those old portable CD players. The current Australian Liberal government is clearly living in the past with no concern or forethought for future innovations.