lightning strikes twice

Read a great Q&A with a designer who said that Brian Eno saw art not as tangible objects, but as “triggers for experiences“.

Recent Sydney Morning Herald articles about ebay fraud, here and here.

The articles suggest that ebay fraud is a lot more prevalent than what ebay lets on. And from my recent experiences, where a laptop I was trying to sell was repeatedly subject to fraudulent wins, their reported fraud instances are far too low. I won’t go into details, but suffice to say, ebay’s system has been poorly designed to help an honest user fight these problems, though a recent update has helped. Furthermore, their system actually seems to be designed to help ebay profit from their users misadventures with fraud, which certainly seems strange.

Excellent movie, a fascinating insight into life in Australia before white colonists. The story has two intertwining threads — the routine of the hunting ritual, and the passion of a unique love story.
We’re pretty much used to hearing about the “dreamtime” stories in primary school, and then later in high schools we here about Aboriginal life after 1788, but are never really exposed to what daily life was like.  This film shows the humour, the routine, the love, the jealousy and gives a real sense of everyday living.  More than anything it shows the patience and harmony that the Aboriginals of the story had with themselves and with their natural environment.

8/10

I spent a lot of June watching World Cup action. The most exciting parts for me are the first couple of weeks, when teams that no one gives a chance take on giants and play above themselves, when upsets are just around the corner. Obviously my interest was heightened this year due to Australia’s inclusion, and the atmosphere around town and in the office was electric — somewhat like during the Olympics, but a bit more focused.

The later rounds are sort of interesting, but they’re played a little too cynically for me. This sorts out professionalism from passion, and it just seems a little too professional, where teams will do anything to win.

Will have to make an effort to get out this year and watch a few Sydney A-League games. Dwight Yorke is returning, so that should be good for some entertainment.

Last night, July 11th, UNSW hosted a Meet The CEO for alumni. The featured guest was David Morgan, the current CEO of Westpac. Attendance was good, with roughly 600 people, aged from their mid twenties to retirees.

Westpac employs 27,000 people and is not only Australia’s oldest bank, but also Australia’s oldest company. Dr Morgan came across as competitive, principled, infected with wanting/using power to cause change, and a little (justifiably) immodest. He was engaginly interviewed by Helen Trinca (who was entertaining and insightful as an interviewer). Morgan is a big supporter of the Australian tertiary education system, and spoke forthrightly on the benefits of education. His perspective on this was unusual, since he left school at the age of fifteen and only finished his high school education by correspondence, before being a foundation student at LaTrobe university.  According to him this gave a good perspective of what life is like without education, and inspired him to work hard when he returned to the classroom.  Of his high school education he said he was fortunate that he was removed from a third rate private school and sent to a first rate selective public school.

The big lessons that David Morgan stressed were:

• Over invest in your education
• Do not only what you are passionate about, but what you are good at. Passion is not enough, you also need competence.

Steve reminded me of some truths about bong sau (or “crane arm”) while we were training this morning. I have to remember that bong sau is not a static position but a fluid structure of control from the shoulder. Or as Steve said, just because I am tall I cannot put my bong sau statically hard in front of me like an iron bar and assume no one will get over the top of it. It also reduces the flexibility of my movement if I hold it statically too, there is no where for it to move but to be forced back into my body. I need to keep reminding myself to control my bong sau from my shoulder.