The Covid Diaries 7 – The Wipers

The Wipers are here. On every main street, you'll seet them during daylight hours. Young people, many of whom appear to be Indian students, wearing high vis vests. Orange in Burke Road. Yellow in Victoria Street. Is it plumage? They travel in packs of five or more. They chat as they slowly move down the…

The COVID Diaries 6 – Learning things

I've learned a lot about myself these past few weeks. I'm not a very good teacher, for one thing. I mean, I spend a lot of time teaching for my job, and think I'm all right at it. But that's with adults, who are already quite well trained, are highly motivated, and for whom I…

The COVID Diaries 5 – Homeschooling and hedonism

Schools closed here in Victoria a week and a half ago, but only a few days before school holidays were scheduled to begin. Other states are still struggling along, but doubtless they will go to holidays and not come back for some time. Because we're a two-healthcare worker family, our school was able to arrange…

The Covid Diaries 4 – Phony War

It feels a little bit like Paris in 1939. Everyone is waiting for something to happen, whether it be German invasion or viral apocalypse, but very few people have seen the real deal yet. We're sitting at something like 3000-4000 confirmed infections across Australia, which doesn't seem too bad until you realise that testing is…

The COVID Diaries 3 – The New Normal

It's occurred to me that this may be the new normal. It's certainly the old normal. It's been 102 years since the 1918 flu pandemic, which has certainly got to be a record for how long we've gone without a major outbreak of disease. It's especially surprising given how interconnected the world has been for…

The COVID Diaries #2 – Strange Days

It's a strange feeling out there at the moment. Everyone is waiting for something to happen and endlessly discussing the various possibilities and ramifications, but... nothing yet. The numbers climb (300ish confirmed infected in Australia) but no-one really knows anyone directly affected. The worst part so far has probably been the old man who Wife…

The COVID Diaries #1

It's suddenly getting very real. My family of five and I are battening down the hatches. After watching the virus spread around the world over the last few weeks, it's now spreading rapidly in Australia. At the time of writing there are about 200 cases confirmed, but we know that testing is running 2-3 days…

Reading log for 2019

The end of a year usually brings with it a rash of people reflecting on the past year and planning for the next. Rather than comment on the various aspects of my life which are woven too completely to entirely separate, I thought I'd post the list of books I read in the year, and…

Algorithms

Software algorithms get a lot of bad press at the moment. They're accused of forcing us into siloes and echo chambers, of shaping our views and attitudes, and of generally being the earthly manifestation of Lucifer. But that's not the real problem. The problem with software recommendation algorithms is that they don't work very well.…

Short cuts and the long way

It's tempting to take the short cut, to imagine that you've found a quicker and easier (painless!) way of achieving something. Everyone else is a stickler for unnecessary rules, or unimaginative, or caught in habit. What this view doesn't take into account is that everything has a price. Whether in energy, time, money or emotional…