Category Archives: Uncategorized

First Answer Badge!

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I worked in Ethiopia many years ago, and carried sweets in my jacket pocket.  When an official gave me information that I needed I gave him or her a sweet.  This was light-hearted on my part, but after a while my counterpart told me, very seriously, that people might feel they were being treated like children and take offence.

I have just converted to Windows 10 and had occasion to ask Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri, how to restore the ‘search box’ that had disappeared from my screen.  Instead of simply putting it back – as a human assistant might have done – she whizzed me to a Microsoft website where fellow-sufferers exchange information.

To Cortana’s credit, it turned out to be the right place.  Lots of people had had the same problem and someone had worked out a solution.  I tried it and, with a bit of a tweak of my own, got my search box back.  I wrote a Thank-you note and described how I had tweaked the solution to suit my own set-up.

Leaving a reply entailed registering as a member of the Microsoft Community.  Almost immediately I received an emailing announcing that I had won my first Answer Badge!  For some reason my thoughts turned to Ethiopia and sweets.  Here’s a picture of my Microsoft Community badge, alongside a lot of other badges that I haven’t got yet:

JObadge1 merit-badges-v2

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must write a glowing review of the Ankyun Restaurant.  I’m working towards becoming a Level 3 Trip Advisor Reviewer!

King Tut’s Trumpets

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People who read my blog probably have a wide range of interests. These may including historical musicology, archaeology, Egyptology, metallurgy and the early days of the BBC. If any one of these excites you, I recommend this article about two trumpets that were found in the tomb of King Tut-Ankh-Amun (also known by other variants, and Tut to his friends). In particular, if you have 15 minutes to spare, do watch the video clip at the end of the article and hear the first sounding of the trumpets for 3,000 years.

TutsTrumpets

The article appears at another blogsite: that of the musicologist Luís Henriques.

Windows 10

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A few days ago a friend forwarded this little spoof to me:

50Nerds

Then yesterday, as I was shaving and listing to ABC Radio National on my laptop, I received a pop-up announcement from Microsoft to the effect that I would be updated to Windows 10 in 2 hours! There was a tiny thing to click saying “I need more time.” I gave myself until 1900 yesterday, when Mrs SG and I would be at the theatre.

Walking home from the theatre I was in a state of nervous agitation, as you can imagine. I saw “Welcome to Windows 10” on my screen with a mixture of relief (no demands for money from a hacker) and trepidation (would I still be able to access my files and run my accustomed software?).

So far, 15 hours later, I can report that Microsoft seems to have done a good job this time. Everything looks and behaves pretty much as it used to. The same icons appear on my desktop and along the bottom of the screen. I’ve kept my default apps for editing photos and the like. Office 2003 still works and so does Outlook Express.

I am as surprised to be saying this as you may be to be reading it. We Windows users have been trained to expect everything to get worse with each new version, and Windows 10 may yet disappoint; but at least the transition has been painless.

Smile !

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For years I was reluctant to smile in a full-scale, open mouthed, toothy sort of way. Now I do it all the time – so much so that people are reluctant to sit next to me on buses.

Why? Last year I had some dental work done, of a frankly cosmetic nature.  The pictures below show what can be done by an expert over a dozen-or-so sessions.  I haven’t labelled them ‘Before’ and ‘After’ but I think you can work it out.  I’m amazed at how bad my teeth got before I succumbed to pressure to do something about them.  I’m equally amazed at the extent of the transformation.

Teeth_before

Teeth_after

You will want to know the name of the miracle-worker, and if your teeth are half-as bad as mine were you’ll want to know his address too. He is Dr Vatche Kishmishian, Oral and Dental Surgeon at the Avanta Dental Clinic at 5 Zakyan Street, Yerevan, Armenia.  The ’phone number is +374 10 521195.

What Vatche did in my mouth cost about US$2,000. If you live in Australia or the USA it could be worth an airfare and a month’s rent for a Yerevan apartment to let him work his magic on you too.

Air Travel

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I grovel before my readers and beg their forgiveness. I have not posted for two weeks.  What kind of a spiritual leader am I?!  How can people know what to think of the world if I am silent?!

My only excuse – a lame one – is that I was:

  • finishing my 4th novel (‘Bobby Shafter’) subject only to a final read-through-cum-editing and then proof-reading by my sister Peeje;
  • preparing to travel to Yerevan, capital of Armenia, for a 5-week consulting assignment; and
  • undertaking that travel, together with Mrs SG.

So we are now in Armenia.  Getting here did wonders for my stroppiness quotient.  First of all, having taken the time to select two aisle-seats at the Qantas website for our long overnight flight to Dubai, we were allocated two different ones.  Then, when we asked for interlining of our luggage to our final destination, the check-in clerk had never heard of Yerevan.

We’ve been through Dubai Airport several times and it’s always been difficult to find our way to the terminal for our departing flight. Signage is minimal and directions given by the helpful, friendly staff don’t always work.  The shuttle bus delivered us to a building bearing a big sign that included our gate number, so we got out and looked for it.  That’s how we discovered that Dubai has two sets of ‘F’ gates.

From Dubai to Yerevan we flew FlyDubai, which is a no-frills regional airline. The toilet was free but we had to pay to get a luggage allowance that came close to the one we had on the Qantas/Emirates code-share flight into Dubai; pay to get food and drink on-board; and pay if we wanted entertainment beyond month-old screen-shots of the front page of the local newspaper.

Security is always a hassle and we expect that. But why are the requirements at different airports so different?  Some don’t require removal of laptops for screening and some do require removal of belts.  Some others want shoes, hats and wristwatches to be removed.  Why isn’t this standardised?!  If there’s a sane explanation I’d be glad to hear it.  Anyone…?

Official Supermarket

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It has often been observed that life imitates art. Increasingly, I find that life imitates the Monty Python Show.  Last week I thought I had misheard when the newsreader announced that Woolworths had been appointed the Official Supermarket of the Australian Olympic Team.  Then I read it in the newspaper and found it on an Olympic Games website.

WOW_Olympics

I have nothing to add.  The headline is its own parody.  But I can’t help wondering what disciplinary action will be taken against any member of the team who is spotted pushing a trolley in Coles.

Nanny Gym

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Three times a week I go to a nearby gym called Goodlife to pump iron and such. When I go away for more than a couple of weeks I tell them and show them my itinerary: they charge me a reduced membership fee while I’m away.  It works well, and having that facility was an important criterion when I was choosing a gym.

I returned from such a trip a few days ago and resumed my usual work-out schedule. This morning I received this by email:

NannyGym

What?! They think I’ve been skiving!  They think I’m weak-willed and under-motivated!  They think I need a computer to nanny me and give me a nudge!  But they know I’ve been away!!

I hit the reply button to give them a dose of stroppiness. Then I noticed the address from which the offending email came: noreply@email.goodlifehealthclubs.com.au.

Foiled again.  That ‘noreply’ is a pretty good hint that this is a one-way conversation.

Academic Standards

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Australian universities apply high entry standards, especially for the most popular courses. Students sit their Higher School Certificate (HSC) exams and from their results are computed their Australian Tertiary Admission Scores (ATARs) on a scale 0-100.  To study medicine you need to score very close to 100.  If you want to study for a teaching degree, 60-70 is good enough.

At least, that’s how I thought it was. But there’s been a series of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) revealing that most universities are admitting people with ATAR scores well below the published thresholds, of ‘cut-off scores’.  Among the most egregious is Western Sydney University.  Here is a partial graph showing the proportion of students who were admitted with sub-cut-off scores:

ATAR_1

The next graph shows the average shortfall for the most affected courses at WSU:

ATAR_2

The New South Wale Minister of Education, Adrian Piccoli, has criticised this laxity and called for tighter public funding to reduce the supply of university places. He has now been criticised by none other than Greg Craven, the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, for “shameful etitism.”

Now, in the bad old days people got to university because their parents could afford it. The sieve of academic scores, combined with student loans and subsidies, is a way of levelling the playing field.  It is also supposed to ensure that people who go into tertiary education are well-equipped to benefit from it, and then to use their skill and knowledge to the benefit of society at large.  Now it’s “elitist” to demand that tertiary students have the basic mental and educational wherewithal.

No wonder I’m stroppy!

Glaucoma

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I went for a routine glaucoma test yesterday.  In case you don’t know, glaucoma is abnormally high pressure inside the eyeball, which can eventually cause blindness.

GlaucomaEye

When she’d finished all the tests, on three different machines, the optometrist said, “No change since last time, a bit on the high side. You’re an ocular hypertensive.”

“Thank you,” I said, “you’re not bad looking yourself.”

Tall, Bearded American

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I found this newspaper cutting tucked into the 1974 diary of my late uncle. I don’t know which newspaper’s personals page it came from (he lived in London) or which of the two advertisements he was interested in: probably the first.

Scan_PersonalAds_1974

But I’m more interested in the second one. I’ve tried to conjure up a convincing back-story in my mind. Perhaps it’s in code.  ‘Vegetarianism’ may be a euphemism for a sexual practice that would have been frowned on in 1974, in which case ‘encouragement’, ‘normal’ and ‘shy’ could have had subtly nuanced meanings that only fellow-practitioners would have understood.

Or maybe ‘Bearded American’ was a spy’s under-cover name, and ‘tall’ meant that he had documents to hand over. ‘Shy’ meant “Be careful, you may be followed” and ‘fuller-figured’ meant “You’d better pay me more than last time.”

Can anyone throw light on this? Or come up with a better theory?  Best of all, were you or did you know this 40-year-old tall, bearded American?  You/he would be 80 or 81 now.