Kids camping.
In the last few weeks I’ve had some great successes with the kids for camping. We’ve always been an outdoors bunch, but camping has had to remain a car-based pursuit due to shear volume of material required to go anywhere. One of hte best buys we made, several years ago was our ‘Taj Mahal’ tent. It has hosted travel cots, multiple kid sleepovers, toys and games and books. It has been our basecamp for a number of low risk ventures. And its done its job well.
Before Christmas, I decided that the girls (8,6) and Jock (3) have enough get up and go to… well… get up and go. The inertial steps have always been:
-The kids being able to walk far enough.
-Carrying enough gear to keep three kids 1) happy and 2) sustained for a few days. And the big one…
-Carrying enough water for kids, who won’t or can’t ration and don’t understand why they should.
Long walks are not a problem. You just don’t need to do them. There are plenty of great places to go that are within striking distance of the kids. We took our time and stopped and discussed the minute details of what we were passing. Our planned pace was 2km/hr.
we've all decided to come back and camp here one night.
Gear has been interesting. A few weeks ago I got the kids to walk in camp with me for the night. They carried a sleeping mat, a sleeping bag, and a change of clothes. I carried everything else – a very doable situation. Jock didn’t carry anything, in fact sometimes I carried him. The kids all did a great job, and we had a lot of fun. It was a first tantalising step into a world where they only take what they can carry. For play, we went somewhere they could swim, a packet of cards and 2 toy cars to test out the local dirt.
they carried just mats and bags (light but bulky). I carried the heavy stuff. Aged 3, Jock was let off.
Water, once the great inertial step our the kids hiking plans , has been cracked with the purchase of a filter pump. It will filter 3 litres /minute and filters out nearly all the nasty stuff. By choosing walks along water courses (which doesn’t narrow it down too much) we now only have to carry enough liquid for the next drink – a little personal water for each of us.
With another adult, that little bit more gear could come along – particularly more food – they ate everything! Four bodies – even little ones – fill up a hiking-sized tent pretty well, and it was a bit of a sleeping free-for-all rather than anything too organised.
The most interesting lesson for me was the difference in expectations. The 6 yo was scared of the idea of carrying her pack – because it looked big and she assumed it was heavy. The 3 yo was happily living in his own little bubble and set the pace with a combination of long questions and slow walking. The 8yo is growing up. She led the way and took the map. She was aware when we weren’t quite sure where we were and was aware that we had a timeline. She had to get used to the idea that the slowest person got to set the pace, but she stepped up to help out and took some responsibility. A glimpse of the future, maybe?
carrying enough water for kids is impossible. With a decent filter, however, its easy
Cricket. Closer matched teams = closer matches.
I am a tragic test cricket fan. I have to be. Only tragics could possibly endure the last decade of test cricket.
Strangely, it has got better courtesy of Australia getting worse – gone are the days where all comers were summarily executed in three days. Dull and duller. My adaptation is that I no longer watch tests, but merely listen. It’s not wotrth the commitment of watching.
This year, there has been a bit more intrigue. Brain explosions, batting slumps, fightbacks and underdogs done good have featured. However, given the last test match Australia v Pakistan in Sydney, it is plainly obvious that there is horrific imbalance in the cricketing prowess of nations. There should have been no contest when Pakistan managed to dismiss Australia for ~130 runs in the 1st innings. I appreciate Pontings reflections that a tough 1st innings is countered by a tricky 4th innings, but the bottom line is that Australia, even in moments of severe failure, is more than a match for Pakistan at the moment, and many other teams (although the Pakistanis will be a more formidable opponent when they develop a culture of finishing what they start). And its not just Australia. Around the world, teams are getting routed by far more capable nations. There is, of course, the occassional upset, but its an exception that is far to rare. The trick is to make close tests the rule, but how?
What is the solution?
Anyone can see that if the closest matched teams play each other, the result will be closer matches. I believe that the answer lies in a relegation system. The test playing nations of the world should be divided into groups of three, based on rankings. Those teams should play each other each year for three tests each year. After 2 years, the bottom team of each group is relegated down, and the top team from each group relegated up. Every four years, when the world cup swings around, there should be only three pools populated by the respective 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ranked teams, who play amongst each other to progress to the next round. To add some extra risk to the whole venture and some relevance to ODI cricket, the ladder at the end of the world cup determines the test groupings for the next two years. This might add some much needed encouragement to performing in limited overs cricket, and allow teams with a bit of flair to play teams with established test talent.
How it might have looked from 2005
In 2005 we would have seen the following groupings play – source (I’m largely ignoring the also-rans).
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4
Australia India New Zealand Bangladesh
England Sri Lanka West Indies Ireland?
Pakistan South Africa Zimbabwe Kenya?
The 2007 World Cup would have been the next redistribution of groups and given us… something… looking up the results reminds me of what a dreadful competition it was. And not just the organisation – the format was third rate, a painful lingering death of often irrelevant games with a finish in the final that is surely unrivaled in sport as an anticlimax. I can’t find a logical list of rankings from the entire tournament (another damning sign) so I’m here using the ICC ODI rankings from Aprin 2007).
2007 (source) – world cup determines rankings
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4
Australia Sri Lanka England Zimbabwe
South Africa Pakistan West Indies Kenya
New Zealand India Bangladesh Ireland?
Personally, I’d watch nearly any game where teams from these groups played each other (New Zealand is probably the exception – but they usually lose by about 10% every time…. Moving on to April 2009, the next relegation, the rankings are a bit of fantasy. The teams didn’t actually play each other so I’ll use the test rankings for April 2009 to relegate…
2009 (source)
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4
Australia New Zealand Pakistan Zimbabwe
South Africa Sri Lanka West Indies Kenya
India England Bangladesh Barbarians (see below)
As it happens, Australia effectively played this round last year, and it was brilliant! The exception here is bangladesh – a team that might be replaced by ‘barbarians’ – an amalgamation of the best talent from non-test nations.
And just in case you’re curious, the current guide for the following 2 years (despite a world cup in 2011) based on current form might look like:
2011-predictive (source)
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4
India Australia New Zealand Bangladesh
South Africa England West Indies Kenya
Sri Lanka Pakistan Barbarians(?) Zimbabwe
And I think that looks alike good contests on current form right down the board. Despite Australia dropping a tier, I reckon a much higher proportion of these games would be competitive.
Who knows – I’d probably even watch a few of these!
Appeal. The stance is pure Mike Gatting, but the hair is all Nathan Bracken. source
Of course, there are other ways to ensure that the crowds keep showing up – but they’re just not cricket!
The guy behind me can’t see
This is one of the best piece of sporting humour I’ve seen – only trumped by the Barmy Army (english cricket fans) chanting “Get your shit stars off our flag” to the Australian crowd.
Enjoy.
Well, that was Christmas…now where’s Easter.
Christmas has been and gone. And don’t the kids love it. We had a pretty quiet one at home and the kids got their fix of presents. On Christmas eve, the local shopping store was madly tearing down its decorations in preparation of the next retail event on the calendar – the sales. But after the sales comes the stalwart chocolate eating event of the year – Easter.
Easter, 2010 falls on April 4, a mere 98 days away. Despite recent challenges by Halloween and Valentines day, Easter ( when kids demolish effigies of the giant egg-laying rabbit that killed Jesus 2000-odd years ago (that’s what I told the kids, anyway)) is long-running champion of shifting chocolate.
The competition, which anyone is invited to join in, is the first sighting of easter advertising in shops. My tip is for the end of next week.
Solstice Storm
We were treated to an excellent storm no 21st December. At work, 40 km to the west of home, the thunderhead brewed all day and the humidity closed in. In the evening at home, at a friends house for dinner, we were treated first to cumulonimbus mammatus as the storm rolled over from the west (below) and then enjoyed a lightning storm from its periphery. And too much wine. And food.
The next day, the sky was crystal clear and streaked with cirrus clouds – the vestige of the storms from the previous evening. What a treat.
I really enjoy clouds and trying to read them. Maybe one day I’ll be OK at it!
When life imitates cartoons
There are two images here. With a discerning eye, you may be able to tell them apart. One is a cartoon and one is a picture of two people – taken several years ago – in northern Canada. One of these people is my future wife, the other, clearly, is a male colleague. Radiant, isn’t she? How could I possibly resist such striking beauty? For info, she’s the one on the left. And hence the cartoon, which says it all, really.
Dressed for the occasion. Working in northern Canada.
The cartoon has unfortunately lost its title – but does say info@stoneytoons.com as a sort of reference.
haida acrylic archaeopteryx
This is one of those weird hybrid projects, which combines two disparate interests to create something which is certainly different, possibly alright. Or quite like Frankenstein. The base of this painting is a stylised archaeopteryx fossil in plaster of paris – paying homage to my interests in both fossils (I’m a geoscientist by day) and Paris ( an imbecile at other times). It is superimposed with haida-style geometries, ‘fleshing out’ the original dinosaur. I am a big fan of the simpe, bold forms of Haida art which I was introduced to while working in Canada. Of course, those of you with a knowledge of fossils, will have been titillated by the delectable parody of hybrid art and the subject – a long extinct transitional (or hybrid) dinosaur/bird.
Actually, I just thought it would look pretty good.
As an aside, I’m once again humbled by the human mind – there are over 9500 google hits for ‘Haida Archaeopteryx’. We are an odd lot.
Blog Cynic?
To write my intro blog (yes, it was a harrowing experience, etc, etc) I read at least three articles (here, here and here) on who reads and who writes blogs. One school of thought – lets call it a faction because it sounds slightly more edgy – insists that no-one really reads blogs. So I decided to go and look for myself. The conspiracy theorist within was shocked to find that I can’t just hit a button that says ‘what’s new’ and tap into the most recent ramblings of the blogging world. Why not? That should be easy, and might actually be pretty interesting as a straw poll of what people find important. Of course, there is always the possibility that my 1 minute look was insufficient. I found, however, the WordPress homepage, screen grabbed to the left. It informs me that 247191 bloggers wrote 235583 posts and received 329665 comments totalling 55708177 words.
This means that the average WordPress blogger write 0.95 posts every day (19 posts every 20 days), and gets 1.33 comments on the post. Lets conveniently assume that 0.33 of those posts are on old or aging topics, meaning that each post, on average, receives 1 comment. the entire exchange – post and comment – averages 97 words. If we assume that the average word is 4 letters long, it would mean that the average web-based statement and reply is about 200 characters each way. Maybe, twitter isn’t so brief after all – just well researched.
Unfortunately, this post has already consumed my quota of words. I’d better stop!
wwwho’s there?
So… a little space on the web to call my own.
When confronted with a blank page, I quickly realised that I have no idea who reads blogs. Google assures me that the chances are you are a 30-40 yo male earning ~$90000, and at the same time that you are a figment of my imagination – aka no-one will ever read this. I don’t think either of these would surprise me. How the hell would you ever find this and who the hell would ever read it?
Maybe this is just the beginning of a life crisis?
What I’d like this blog to be.
I can’t say I’m entirely sure what I need to say here, other than it’s somewhere to share thoughts and interests and, not setting too high a bar, maybe find a few people out there with similar interests or even emphatic opposing ones. I guess I’ll settle for somewhere to aggregate my interests and ideas and opinions and see where it all sits in the social fabric.
Things I’m interested in. In no particular order. Travel, natural science, art, cricket, climbing, running, camping, my humour , the history of technology (see http://www.frog85.wordpress.com) and what makes people tick.
As an impartial observer, I watch the climate debate, tolerate religion, am indifferent about music and can see through fashion and its trappings.
Topics I love to hate include extreme views on any topic, politics for its frantic stupidity and manipulative ignorance.
I know that there is not enough time in the day to do everything and that gets me frustrated. There seems to be plenty of time in the middle of the night – maybe thats why I started a blog.
But none of these things may matter. According to Caslon Analytical Blogging, this diatribe has a 60-80% chance of being a witherd, abandoned shell within the month.
Lets see.
Want a serious approach to climate change? Call it insurance change.
The climate. It will likely be the defining topic of this decade (which is a gutsy call 22 days into it). The debate is already raging, the battle lines are drawn, and most people are already growing weary – the Copenhagan conference was testament to the fizzling anticlimax that we’ve come to expect. But what a game of dice we’re playing with nature. If the climate scientists and advocates are right, time is running out to save the world as we know it. If sceptics are right, it’ll all be OK. My personal position, to put the cards on the table, is why take the risk with humanity, get our shop in order now.
But what fantastic mistakes have been made. There is little doubt that the climate change advocates cried wolf far too early and have fought a rear guard action to shore up their argument. It’s a classic problem with really complex systems like Earth – it’s nearly impossible to isolate just one variable. And this is where the skeptics make hay. Every definitive statement has an equal “but can you be sure” counterstatement. Maybe they’re being irresponsible, maybe they’re putting the statistics into much needed proportion.
What is certain, however, is that people are introducing a lot of high heat capacity gas into the atmosphere – carbon dioxide, methane, etc. I don’t think anyone would argue that. Also, every system operates on the available energy budget. With the climate, extra energy translates to more enthusiastic weather. Weather, like any other system, requires energy, and it uses it to shift things around. Heat (or lack of heat), moisture (or lack of moisture), wind (or lack of wind) all require more energy to meet their extreme conditions. This is (partly) why heat waves seem hotter (the heat is concentrated where it is) and cold snaps seem colder (the cold is a result of energy being moved somewhere else). There is more energy in the atmosphere to make it so. This is not a climate statement – it’s pure physics. To reach an extreme state – more energy is required.
Extreme weather costs money. Floods, storms, drought, etc. To plan for weather -related loss, people insure themselves and their assets – shipping, houses, crops. The insurance companies, to accommodate probable or actual increased losses raise premiums to cover their business risk – spreading the risk to everyone exposed in a given industry. These costs are recouped by the industries, principally by companies passing the increased costs down the line to you and more importantly, me.
Therefore, a user pays tariff system to recoup the cost of climate change is already in place and likely already taking its cut of our hard earned incomes. There is no real incentive for it to change, because the margins are still there for the insurance industry. The silver lining is that generally people don’t enjoy paying for more anything, and stress in a system (in this case increased costs of food, housing, etc, by increased climate-related risk) is the premiere driver for change – not some feel good, altruistic sentiment that we need to save the planet to save ourselves – humans aren’t that smart.
Part of the equation required to make people take climate change more seriously, is to fan the flames on the fact that we are already paying for it – literally – through insurance costs.
I’ve heard gambling referred to as “tax for people who are bad at statistics”. Maybe the climate debate could be rallied around a similar theme, “Insurance – tax for people who do nothing about climate change”.
January 22, 2010 at 20:24 1 comment