Alfred Aftermath

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for me, mostly due to the fine gentleman at one time known as Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

 Alfred after a while of lurking off the coast of Queensland decided it was going to hit around Brisbane. This is a bit unusual as Brisbane is by no means tropical, and cyclones have generally been things that happen to other parts of Queensland. 

 With the way my schedule work, I was going to be working day shift the day before and after it was due to hit, and night shifts the next two days. However, due to Alfred deciding to hang off the coast overnight, the worst of it was on my first night shift.

Works prep for the cyclone was a bit mixed. It's unusual to get so much notice of a natural disaster like this (the last one was the floods a few years ago which we were about two days into before it became apparent just how bad it was going to be), so there was a fair bit of prep down. Preparations for remote work was done, sites were prepped and in some cases equipment removed to avoid it getting damaged by flooding, and so on. When the cyclone didn't hit on the expected day, it caused a little problem as some of the preparations were only practical for a limited time and stretching them out an extra day would cause some problems in and of itself. Some were easy to resolve such as allowing crews back on some sites to check up on equipment and do some more prep, others couldn't be changed and we just had to deal with more overflows.

 The night of the storm hitting was rather stressful. There were some things that came up that normally wouldn't be too much, but due to the weather we couldn't respond in a BAU fashion. The biggest was probably a water main burst due to a fallen tree. Normally, we'd work to fix it straight away, but in this case the winds were too strong and all we could do was isolate the burst and get out of dodge, which left a bunch of people without water until it was safe to go back almost a day and a half later. The stress was also piled on by the cyclone's impacts to the teams internet connectivity. My team was working from home, and half of us didn't have internet for a large part of the night, leaving the other half (of which I was part) to cover everything. Fortunately we were able to get someone from another team to join us on short notice to help out.

 On Sunday we were given the ok to return to the office (if it was safe to travel) which I did. The systems are much more reliable on the dedicated computers and there were fewer worries about losing internet or power. Two of my team couldn't get in and worked remotely, and one of them lost power partway through the night. 

In the days off post that block of shifts, I slept a lot of Monday and took Tuesday as a relaxation day. I went to a local City Cave and did a sauna, float session, and got a massage, and then went to a showing of Sister Act that night (I was impressed at how quick QPAC got back into action, actually I'm impressed overall at how quick Brisbane got back to normal even if there was a lot of small things still to be fixed up). On the way home I ran into a friend from uni who now lives in the apartment building next to mine and rather than chat in the street I invited her to my place where we spent about 2 hours talking. I'll admit I'm a pretty poor host as I didn't really have anything to offer by way of food or drink. I had planned to check in with the office on Wednesday and offer an 8 hour shift if needed, but I overslept and didn't wake up until almost noon, which was a sign of how tired I was. Thursday I had a PT session, then I went in to the office to catch up on where things were at so I didn't have to catch up on too much the next morning, and in the evening went to the book club I'm part of (Rump and Reading, we meet up at a bar on their discount steak night). I think only 2 of the 8 or so people who could make it actually finished this month's book East of Eden (I was one of the 2 who had). I'll try and put up a review soon.

Friday was back into work and while the situation wasn't great, it was better than I'd been expecting. There was still a fair bit of the business leaning in to support the recovery effort which was a help, but there were times over the weekend where a new team came on where it felt I was having to cover territory that had been sorted out the day before and getting them up to speed on areas that weren't my area of focus.

One thing I want to loop back to was the Friday night before the cyclone hit. After I finished work at 6, I spent a few hours finishing East of Eden, and then around 10pm I went out on my balcony to look out on the storm. There wasn't too much wind or rain at the time, and I stood out on my balcony looking up at the sky. At the time I was overcome by a feeling of powerlessness and a feeling that despite all the preparations I'd made both for work and for my home, ultimately there was little I could control in regards to the cyclone. This was a nearly overwhelming feeling, and lasted about half an hour before I was able to put myself together. In part this was because this was the first time in two days I'd not been overwhelmingly focused on something else, and possibly a bit due to hunger as after I'd collected myself I'd realised I'd not had a meal since breakfast, and after that realisation eating something did a lot help me pull myself together. I don't often experience strong emotions, and fear was not a pleasant one to have to wallow in.

I'm now on days off again, and tomorrow I'm flying down to Sydney to visit my sister and go to two recordings of Taskmaster Aus season 5 episodes which will be a good way to get out of the cyclone stress.

Two New Games

 I'm not sure what I want to write about today. There's some stuff going on at work that is causing me some stress, but it's not the sort of thing I can write about so I'm not going to. The downfall of the USA is a thing but is too big to deal with. 

I've been playing two new games lately. The big name one is Civ VII, which has some new ideas that are novel and distinguish it from previous iterations. The big one is the splitting the game into 3 ages with there being a soft reset at the end of each era and your civilization changing to a new one more relevant to the new era, e.g. Antiquity Age Rome can transition into Exploration Age Spain which can transition into Modern Age France. Your leader stays the same so there's continuity. I'm still also getting my head around some of the new building mechanics. One thing the game does well is end in a timely fashion, often with previous editions I'd get stuck taking so long to finish a science or culture victory and with nothing else to do would build a huge army and after 6000 years of peaceful development just let loose on the world for something to do while building up my interstellar spaceship.

 The other game is Against the Storm, which is a rouge-like town building game. I do have some reservations still about the term rogue-like having evolved into "game with a core gameplay mechanic and only one life that gets enhanced as you play more" from the original "dungeon crawler like Rogue or Nethack" but that battle has been lost for a while now. Anyway, it's a good mix of managing production chains with some varying twists thrown in for extra challenges. It's a good way to kill an hour or two.

 End Post
Writing time: a while (I got interrupted by the people doing pest control so had to leave my unit for an hour and a bit)
Time since last post: 8 days
Current media:Make Some Noise season 3 episode 18

Phoenix dactylifera

Two weeks ago I did something I haven't done in a while. I went on a date. It was with a woman I'd met through a dating app, and I think the most positive I can be is that it was a learning experience. 

 We'd chatted through the app for about two weeks before I felt comfortable suggesting a meet up, and we met up Saturday afternoon at a cafe. We spent 2 and a bit hours talking (mostly her). 

Things I learned include I'm still not good at holding up a conversation, I'm not as open as I think to getting involved with someone with kids, I had no idea what a proper amount of time to budget for such an event, if I have tickets for something that evening I should disclose that ahead of time rather than having to wrap things up abruptly, and I still don't really understand my own reactions to some things.

The outcome was a sort of fizzle out. No red flags, but no green flags either. The uncertainty caused me to delay following up for a few days to the point where I felt like I was on the verge of ghosting her. I ultimately came to the conclusion that if I was still uncertain if I wanted to see her again after that time, it wasn't meant to be. It then took a bit of time to work out a tactful way of saying so. 

I'm still looking, and as usual not getting a lot back. I'll stick with it for a while longer, but also thinking about some other options.

Parkrunning

Last weekend I did my 10th recorded Parkrun so thought I'd reflect a little on it. I started a few months ago as I'd been making good progress with bringing my weight down and the strength work I do with a personal trainer, I thought maybe I'd be up to do a park run. The distance was 5km but I figured I regularly do walks of that length and I thought I'd be able to handle it.

I was wrong. On my first attempt I managed to jog about 1.7km before I had to slow down and walk for a while. I did jog some more stretches but I think I walked at least half the 5km. Since then I've been aiming to improve how far I can go without walking, figuring once I can do that I can start to work on improving the overall time. I've done 3 all the way through now, and I feel at this stage barring something external I should be able to continue doing so. 

Some lessons learnt along the way are that I can't do a 5k run after a night shift. My thinking had been along the lines of "I've done exercise after work before, I usually stay up until a few hours after the run is done, and I'll have a nap around 3am just to be safe so I should be right." This was incorrect. I got my worst time ever, the amount of walking increased instead of decreasing, and while I was alert during the run, the commute home I was a zombie staggering through the Valley.

There was also one run where I turned up mainly for spite. During the week I'd been speaking to someone at work and explained due to a combination of traveling away while on holiday and some sickness I'd gone nearly a month between runs 2 and 3, and they made a comment along the lines of "I didn't think it would last," which did indeed get me to the park Saturday morning. I would have gone anyway, but it was an extra bit of motivation. Fortunately, most people have been more positive about it, and there was one week where I encountered my boss's boss at the run (well, during the run I heard someone yell "Hi Kevin" but had no idea who it was, and then later in the week at work they came in and asked if that was me at the Parkrun which solved that mystery as I'd had no idea who it was at the time since they were on the return leg and had passed me before I could even look to see who it had been).

As is usual for myself, I don't really interact with anyone there. I usually get there 10 minutes before the start and there's a run briefing and then the run itself. Afterwards I'm too exhausted to be social, although I usually cool down by taking a walk through the markets and getting some breakfast before heading home, but that's again a solo thing.

I haven't  gotten into the Parkrun tourist thing yet where you go to Parkruns at lots of different locations (someone I used to work with does this). All but one of the Parkruns I've done have been at New Farm Park, the exception was a Christmas day run at Southbank since New Farm Park didn't hold one on Christmas day. So people at work have said they're looking to get started, and if they do I might make a trip to do a run with them, but we'll see if/when that happens.

A History of Me in terms of the Computers I've Owned

It's a minute to midnight and I've marked this as complete on my habit tracking app so I need to write something up, so let's think about what's gone on this week.

I bought a new desktop computer. My old one had a problem with the cooling unit and would be ok when it started up but after a while would get really slow (presumably the CPU was getting too hot) which combined with the constant noise got frustrating. And since it was 7 years old and finding a replacement cooling unit that would fit would be a challenge, I just went ahead and bought a new one. Maybe not the most thrifty option but an easy one. It was nice for a change to just go ahead and buy one, rather than have to plan out the purchase ahead of time and put together money for it. One computer I bought was the only time I used consumer financing for a purchase (which after working for the company I went through in the past, I wasn't too keen on and was surprised with how much they approved me for), one was paid for with a stats scholarship, and the one I've just replaced was bought with some of my redundancy payout. 

In some ways you can mark out periods of my life based on my primary personal computer which go as follows

• Apple IIc (1987 to 1996) - a small compact machine with a whopping 128kB of ram (good for its day) and a 5.25" floppy drive built in, this is what I learned to program on. My family got it before I started school and it was for various purposes until year 10 when it was replaced by
• a Pentium 100 with windows 95 and a 33.6kb modem built in (1996 - 2000). It had 16MB of ram but in a weird set up only 13MB could be used as ram because 3 was dedicated to the onboard graphics. Initially a family computer but I used it the most  and when I moved to Brisbane for uni it came with me and was the first computer I had that could access the internet. During the 2nd year of uni I got a scholarship from the Bureau of Statistics and used that to purchase
• a Pentium III 800 with a 1.6GB hard drive and windows 98SE (2000-2005). This was a big step up and I got a decent amount of use out of this. It is the first machine I used while having broadband, and the first that could burn CDs and then DVDs. It lasted a few years until it was replaced while I was at the Boom with an
• AMD home brew machine (2005 - 2007). While I put it together myself, I cribbed the parts list from a housemate who'd built a similar machine a little while before. I used the case from the previous machine. My only foray into AMD chipsets (not that that makes much of a difference from a user experience). When I moved to Japan this stayed in Australia and in Japan I bought
• a Macbook (2007- 2010). A return to the Apple fold after many year in the realm of Windows, and my only laptop. I bought this while in Japan, and while my intention had been to get a windows laptop, this was just after Windows Vista came out and all the Windows laptops I tried at the shop were really slow and laggy, while the Macbook just worked and was nice and responsive, so I went with it. It was a good device and I did like having a Japanese keyboard even if it did end up being replaced with a regular keyboard several years later back in Australia. This traveled with me in Japan, Korea, while backpacking across Europe and then back home to Australia. Eventually though the fan started to die and it was time to replace it with
• A Mac Mini (2010 - 2017). After enjoying the macbook I wanted to stick with apple, but couldn't afford the more high end devices. Actually, at the time I couldn't really afford anything, and I got a 2 year interest free loan for it from GE Money. When I worked there there were requirements that to get approved for more than $x you needed to show some proof of income (a payslip or two), for $1.6x you needed proof of address (a bill sent to your home address) and for $3x you had to provide both, so I was a little surprised when I got approved for $4.5x without being asked for either, and after resisting the temptation to get something more expensive or buying some fancy extras, the first thing I did when I got home was call to reduce my limit. I used this for 3-4 years before starting to get frustrated with the lack of gaming options on the device and so when I was made redundant I spent part of my payout on
• an Mwave gaming machine (2017-2025). Mwave was the company at the time that provided the gaming PCs for PAXAus, and they offered machines with the config used at PAX for sale so I got one (I'm not sure if it was a PAXAus one they then sold or just built to the same config). I've upgraded it a few times with more ram and more hard drive space, and in the last year I'd started thinking it might be time to upgrade as I was starting to see some games coming up that it couldn't run (Kerbal Space Program 2 which is kind of a good thing given how that's gone, and the upcoming Civilization VII would have challenged it, so when the cooling unit started to die I started looking around and got 
• a gaming PC from Umart.Umart is where I got the parts for the computer I built back in 2004 and I've gotten various parts over the years. Dollar wise it's similar price to the Pention III I got back in 2000 but obviously way better performance.I expect this will last me a while. I've still got to fully set it up as I want to transfer some of the hard drives from the last machine into this one, and there's still a bit of data I need to transfer over as well.

So there's the history of me in terms of my computers. It's one of two main ways I divide phases of my life up, the other being where I've lived, and both show different aspects of my life (I suppose you could include jobs as a third measure, but that starts a lot later in life and I don't think I've ever felt myself as defined by a job as much).

The year that was: 2024

2024 was overall a good year for me. I've made progress on a number of fronts that for a long time had seem kind of stalled and I'm looking to keep that going in the coming year.

Work

Work has been good this year. In May my team leader decided to take an extended period of leave and I stepped up to fill in for him while he's away. This was a bit daunting as I've never really considered myself a leader per se, and my ambitions have always been more along the lines of trusted adviser than top dog. Some aspects of the job have been straight forward such as the admin that comes with the job, but others have been learning experiences. Early in my tenure as lead one of the team members put in their resignation, which meant I had to go through the recruitment process on the hiring side of things. Reading resumes, conducting interviews, assessing people, delivering the bad news to those who weren't successful were all things I hadn't planned on having to do when I stepped up. It was very educational and I I'll be better prepared for future interviews as the applicant in the future from the experience. 

On the primary side of the job, I think I'm mostly going OK. There's been a few learning experiences, and a few situations that would have challenged any of the more experienced leads as well, so while I know I can (and will) do better, I don't think I'm doing too bad, and am still working to do better. 

Currently my higher duties is set to expire in May even though my lead is away until September. That's because that's the longest it can go without being made a secondment which requires an EOI to be put out and interviews done, so when that happens I'll be applying to stay in the role. And who knows if he'll feel like coming back after 18 months away traveling.

Finances

Stepping up to team lead isn't as lucrative as you might think, only 6-7 dollars an hour more, for a fair bit more stress and responsibility. However, moving into the control room 5 years ago still remains the best thing that ever happened to my finances. having finally been made permanent last year I bought a unit and left the renter class for the foreseeable future.While my living expenses have trended up over the years since, I'm still saving a fair chunk of money. I'm well ahead on my mortgage having paid off more than 10% where minimum payments would be only a bit over 2%, and since I have unlimited withdraw if something happens I can still use the extra I've paid. A chunk of that was done by taking money in my savings account and moving it over so I don't expect to be able to pay off as much next year.

The unit is still going good, it's got lots of room, a good location for me, and I'm still working to make it a bit more me rather than a blank canvas. I've started on phase 2 of furnishing, which is replacing some old items that were OK but I want something a bit nicer. The biggest part of this is a fancy dining/gaming table that will replace the plastic trestle table I bought as a desk when I first moved out as a uni student which has been serving faithfully since then. This will cost about $5500 total. The rest is replacing some old book shelves that have too much curvature on the shelves and some chairs to go with the new table.

Health

I've made some good progress this year. In addition to regular PT sessions, I've been seeing a nutritionist about once a month. This combo has seen me lose 24 kilos this year, and my pants size has dropped from 44 to 38 (I've had to buy two new belts this year and spent more on clothes than in some time). I have kind of plateaued at 105kg for the last 2-3 months, but I do want to at least get under 100kg. I've started going to a nearby Parkrun, and intend to keep going as my work schedule allows. I've only once done the 5km without having to walk at least 1km, but I'm improving and with time will get more consistent and can then work on speeding up. I still don't know how people manage times in the 16-20 minute range, but I'll be happy if I can get down to the low 30 minutes (by best time so far is 37:04, but that's an outlier and the rest are 39-42 minutes).

Social

This is probably the one area that I haven't made any progress in. A few random catch ups with friends but not much consistent contact. PAX was a good experience but it does highlight how it's a limited time only event and outside that not much happens. Similarly, Bordercon feels different now that there's fewer people I know going as well and that I'm traveling by myself rather than as a group which was how it was when I started attending. There were a few moments with people that made me feel its still worthwhile going.

One thing that is new in this space is that I started using a dating app. I've not actually gone on any dates, and only had a few matches that resulted in some chats that sort of petered out (once on my part, the rest on theirs), but actually doing this is something new. The fact that I feel like I'm ready is a step forward, and I'll see what the new year brings. 

I've been to a lot more live shows this year of a wider variety of events. TISM was a really good concert, and probably something it would have been good to be more aware of back in the day instead of just enjoying them on JJJ. They Might Be Giants was the other concert I went to that I really enjoyed. Finishing with Istanbul and Dr Worm was a great end to the show. That said both of those I went by myself and was a lone individual in a crowd. I don't mind going to shows alone, but larger events make it clear that I'm an outlier in this regards.

Looking forward

So what do I want to get out of 2025. I hope to spend most if it still acting as the team lead. There's been a few times since starting that I've filled in as a controller and it felt like I was operating on easy mode and I missed the stress/challenge of the new role. I'm not sure how I'll go when the permanent lead comes back, as I wouldn't want to go long term feeling underutilised.

I'll try and be more engaged with other people, but I'm not sure how well I'll go with that. I should try and do more in person board gaming, but my work roster makes it tricky.

Another year has gone without getting around to getting a new passport. Not that I have any plans for international travel, but it would be nice to have one again. I'm going to try and visit Adelaide this year when I take time off in October. I had planned to go this year but cancelled due to not feeling well. Add in the usual trips to Albury, Melbourne, and Innisfail, and I'll still rack up a fair few kilometres.

Feeling shitty

So, it's been awhile.

Earlier this week I got a new habit tracking app to try. It seemed to be set up more how I want such a thing to work so I gave it a go, and one of the things I put on was to write a blog post three times a week. 

That however, is not what I'm feeling shitty about.

On Friday a friend reached out and said they wanted to talk with me. But then when they called, it was to ask for a contact at my work for his business.In and of itself, not necessarily a thing to get to me, but it was the way he handled the call, It seemed more like a telemarketer cold calling someone than talking to a friend, and it did get to me.

I know I'm not the best at socialising with people. I know I'm not someone who gets included in things because of this. So when one of the few friends I do have dealt with me like that it brought up my insecurities. 

Part of it was I didn't expect it to be a work related thing, so even though I'd been stuck at work an hour later than expected, and was consequently an hour late for something I was going to, I made some time for him as I thought it would be something else, and it felt like a rug pull when I got the sell. And the follow up email they sent includes their bosses as a cc, so now if I don't or can't reply it'll make them look bad which adds another layer of discomfort to the whole thing.

Actually, the request does kind of get to me. It's not something I'd do if our roles were reversed, and yes that's in part because has taught me that when I do things like that I don't get people helping me out because I don't build connections because I'm not good at interacting with people.

I thought typing some of this out might help me get it out of my head, but it hasn't and is just making me stew in the shittiness of it so I'm going to stop here and try and find another way to clear my head so I can get some sleep since I have a full day at work tomorrow and there's going to be a bunch to do with what's happened over the weekend.

Party Games 34-38/38 The Majors

I'll admit, I didn't budget my time well, so won't do as big a spiel on the majors as I should compared with the attention I've given the minor parties, but if you haven't seen at least something of the remaining parties I'm not sure this would make a difference. I'm also stretching the definition of major to include the Greens, but again, it's the night before the election.

As you could probably guess if you've read the other party write ups, you wouldn't be surprised that I'm not a fan of the Coalition (the Liberals, the Nationals, the LNP, and the Country Liberal Party). If this list isn't enough to make you unsatisfied with them I'm not sure what would. 

The ALP after the Rudd-Gillard years seems to have decided that the way to gain votes is to become more like the Coalition, but this just encourages the Coalition to become even more bold in moving the country to the right. In fairness to them, the Murdoch dominated press hold the ALP to a much higher standard than the do the Coalition, and some of the headlines this election have read more like ads than reporting. They're not great, but I trust them with running the country, especially with some minor parties acting as a Jiminy Cricket pulling them in the right direction.

Last on this list is the Greens. They've grown from just caring about environmental issues to having a broad range of policies that I can get behind. I don't agree with their opposition to nuclear power, but that's about it.

Party Games 33/38 Western Australia Party

Not surprisingly, the Western Australia Party advocates for better outcomes for WA. This mostly boils down to wanting a bigger cut of the GST pie. 

I feel a bit called out by one part of their environment policy, which is "Protection from invasive pests such as Queensland cane toads and Queensland fruit fly is also critical." but I acknowledge it's a fair cop.

I might give them a bit more consideration if there was a way for me to vote for them and it wasn't 8pm on the night before the election. I'll leave it for any WA readers to make up their own mind

Party Games 32/38 Victorian Socialists

Well, since the last socialist party wasn't the horror extreme left wing I keep hearing about, maybe the Victorian Socialists will show us what real horror is. Except no, they don't, the extreme left wing is just a beat up. 

The Victorian Socialists support a lot of good things, like a stronger social safety net, better treatment of refugees, taking serious action on climate change, decriminalising drugs. There are only really two areas I can't get fully behind. One is just disbanding a lot of our national security infrastructure (while it should have better oversight, I don't think we can just give up on doing it), and the other is their proposal for some massive once off wealth taxes. On the wealth taxes, I think a smaller wealth tax charged annually would be better than a large tax once off.

If they were running candidates outside of Victoria, they'd probably be ahead of both majors for me.

Party Games 31/38 United Australia Party

Clive Palmer's ongoing campaign to make me less likely to wear an enforcer tshirt in public because I don't want to be confused with one of his supporters continues to be one of the most annoying political parties. From mass spam text messages to buying out every second billboard to very long tv commercials, the United Australia Party keeps on giving (note, despite claiming 3 former prime ministers as members, this United Australia Party has no actual connection to this Australia United Party that merged with the Liberals in 1945).

Clive and the UAP have really tried to make hay of COVID, but have consistently been on the wrong side of things, be it opposing lockdowns to the point of suing WA, importing a tonne of hydroxychloroquine that doesn't actually work against COVID, and more. 

Policy wise they promise big but give little detail. They've put up a lot of signs about capping mortgages at 3% but haven't said how. This is important because this will have a major impact on how things play out. If they just cap the interest rate banks can charge, banks will reduce the amount of mortgages they issue as they will not want to take on the extra risk. If they have the government pay any excess interest, then that means taxpayers will be subsidising people mortgages at a massive cost, and even though I'm almost at the point of buying, don't think this is a good idea. They also want to make the first $30k paid on a mortgage each year to be tax deductible, which unless they propose to do the same for renters (spoiler alert, they're not) just blatantly gives more favourable treatment to people paying a mortgage.

They also propose paying off the national debt by putting a 15% export fee on iron ore, and that this can only be used to pay off the debt. This does in part neglect the fact that government debt is usually issued via long term bonds, and the Australian government currently has bonds issued that go out until 2051, and while the government can offer to repurchase such bonds, they can't currently force people to sell them back. I also note that they only want to apply the export fee to iron ore, I'd like to suggest that maybe they should expand it to nickle as well, as I'm sure Clive would like to do his bit to help Australia.

Another interesting one I found was part of their plan to improve wages is to give people a 50% discount on income from a second job. I think this would just result in companies giving everyone two jobs and pocketing the savings.

On the plus side, they do want to cancel all HECS debts, which I will continue to support even though I'll have finally paid mine off this year, increasing welfare payments, and they support introducing nuclear power.

Unfortunately the few good things do not outweigh the crazy, and the UAP is in serious contention for last place on my ballot.

Party Games 30/38 The Local Party

The Local Party seems more like The Tasmania Party, although they do have a senate candidate for South Australia. Most of the issues they have on their party site are Tasmanian specific such as salmon farming and an electricity connection to the mainland, although they do take a look at some more general issues if only very briefly - on climate change all they've got to say is that it hasn't been fixed yet.

In short they seem to have potential, but need a bit more work.

Party Games 29/38 The Great Australia Party

Reading through the website of the Great Australia Party one can only come to one conclusion; they've been suckered in with sovereign citizen nonsense and taken it seriously. They've put some of the letters they've sent to the AEC about the nomination of some of their candidates (one didn't fill out the form properly and was rejected, and another is ineligible due to being an undischarged bankrupt) and while I'm sure they put them up hoping to garner sympathy, all they've done is make me admire the patience of the AEC's chief legal officer. Some of their email signatures are out there as well, citing among other things the United States Code and The Holy Bible, King James Version, Anno Domini 1611 Edition (very specific) as protection against the email being disclosed against there wishes (and I'm sure they've got the ok from everyone on the email chain to post the emails on their site).

On the policy side, they want to get rid of both the GST & income tax, take a much stricter stance on crime, making the Nuremberg code law (anti-vaxxers like to use the Nuremberg code's requirement for voluntary consent to being a part of medical experimentation as a justification for opposing vaccine mandates), getting rid of gun regulations, and want zero net immigration. 

I'm not sure why they have a random page about some sort of special cleaning solution.

Even if they had some policies I could agree with, the sovereign citizen nonsense makes it impossible to support them. If you take the position that the Governor General no longer has authority because of a wording change in legislation, and do things like appeal to the UK Privy Council despite that being made no longer a thing in 1986, or nominate while being an undischarged bankrupt after having previously been kicked out of the senate for the same thing, I don't trust you to run the country.

28/38 TNL

While not as fun as BNL, TNL (originally The New Liberals, but no longer able to use that name under new party registration rules) is so reasonable sounding in their policies, I'm curious why they wanted to create the association with the Liberals by choosing that name. The only thing I can think of is they were wanting to follow in David Leyonhjelm who got a substantial boost in the election when the Liberal Democratic Party appeared ahead of the Liberal Party on the senate ballot paper.

Because they don't really seem to share any common ground with the Liberals. The closest they come is their job guarantee scheme, which seems reminiscent of work for the dole, even if it's optional and much better paying. TNL is for quick action on climate change, they want an ICAC, they want better funding of the ABC, and improving social safety nets including welfare payments. 

I think I'll ignore the name and put them closer to the top than the bottom of the list.

Party Games 27/38 Sustainable Australia Party

The Sustainable Australia Party is all for keeping the Australian population low, to a potentially mathematically implausible degree when you consider the level of immigration they're willing to accept and that they say they don't want to impose restrictions on family size.

Which makes it a bit of a pity that they predicate all their policies on this idea, because they do have some good ideas. They want a better funded ABC, have a reasonable environmental policy, want to introduce a universal basic income. But they also want to make superannuation optional, making the unemployed work in environmental restoration programs (although I do like one part of this which is bringing back the CES and getting rid of private companies handling job seeking activities).

Party Games 26/38 Socialist Alliance

I thought I'd finally got to the left wing crazies with the Socialist Alliance, but on the whole they're a lot less out there than I find some of the right wing fringe parties. I mean for all the talk on places like Sky News about the "Extreme Left" I haven't seen anything on the left as far out as some of the right wing stuff.

Socialist Alliance have a number of policies I like. They're good on the environment, workers' rights, want to expand health care, as well as sensible COVID policies.

There tax plan has some good things like cancelling the tax cuts for the wealthy the LNP has proposed, getting rid of negative gearing, and getting rid of subsidies on fossil fuels, but getting rid of the GST entirely will take a bit of work.

Party Games 25/38 Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party

My first beef with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party is that they don't use an Oxford comma. However, I won't let that get to me too much, especially when there are bigger concerns with their platform.

Their platform mainly consists of letting farmers, hunters, and fishers do what they want, and the government putting them first when it comes matters of environment, land use, and whatever else they come up with. This includes COVID matters, where they're on the government shouldn't make people do anything to to prevent the spread side of politics.

In all fairness, I'm not the parties demographic, but I'd appreciate it if rural focused parties like this at least pretended that people living in cities were worth taking in to consideration.

Party Games 24/38 Seniors United Party

The Seniors United Party appear to have made things easy for me as their website no longer seems to exist (I'm sure it was there a month ago when I was putting together the list of parties), so I can't say much about their current policies. I suspect they're similar to what they were last time (I made comment about their lacklustre web presence then as well), being primarily focused on making life better for seniors.

Party Games 23/38 Rex Patrick Team

Rex Patrick initially joined the senate as a member of the Centre Alliance, replacing Nick Xenephon when he retired, but has since left the party and formed his own. 

His positions are a bit of a mix. Supporting net zero carbon by 2050 makes him better than some on the environment, but there's room for improvement. He's also good on government integrity, supporting the creation of an ICAC, better transparency on donations, although I'm unsure on his proposal that ministers need to pass a security clearance to be able to access classified information. My concern is that this gives a veto on ministerial appointments to the security agencies, taking that out of the democratic process. 

There's also a strong anti-China bent to Rex's positions, as well as strong support for South Australia, the latter of which I can't fault as he's a senator for that state. 

I'm not sure how he'll fare running on his own rather than as part of the Centre Alliance.

Party Games 22/38 Reason Australia

Reason Australia is the result of the merger of the Australian Sex Party, the Australian Cyclist Party, and the Voluntary Euthanasia Party. They describe themselves as civil libertarian party, but in contrast to the LDP, they actually seem to care about people.

On climate they look alright, supporting net zero carbon by 2030. Their health proposals overall are ok. They also propose transitioning to a 4 day work week, which I think would be a good thing.

 I like their secularisation policy, which includes getting rid of the prayer at the start of parliament, removing tax exemptions for businesses owned by religious organisations, and removing "advancing religion" as a charitable purpose for tax classification.  

They're not running in all states, but the do have someone running for the senate in Queensland, so they'll be above both the majors for me.

Party Games 21/38 Pauline Hanson's One Nation

Pauline Hanson's One Nation has been around for a long time now, and they may not be as blatant in the xenophobia, it's still there lurking at the heart of conservative platform. They oppose foreign ownership of pretty much anything, but especially farms, they want immigration greatly reduced, and they are highly skeptical of pretty much every international organization from the UN down. 

This last feeds on and into (in a chicken or the egg kind of way) their stances on climate change and COVID. On climate change they deny there's even a problem to be addressed, and on COVID they've been opposed to most steps taken to mitigate. And while they're not the first party to suggest a royal commission in to how COVID has been handled, as the "hearings" Malcolm Scott ran earlier this year show, they'd likely turn it in to a gathering of anti-vaxxers and fringe thinkers rather than a serious examination of what lessons can be learnt.

Looking for a positive, I think there is some merit in there proposal to pay off medical practitioners' HELP debt in exchange for a several year period of service in a regional area (and maybe we could get a Northern Exposure type show out of it into the bargain). But otherwise, there's not much there I can get behind.

Party Games 20/38 Liberal Democratic Party

The Liberal Democratic Party is Australia's libertarian party, and they are very committed to their ideals. They have become a lot more outspoken during COVID, with their position on the matter is that no government should take any action on the issue other than maybe asking people to be careful. And while yes there can be debate on how effective government action was, and what should and shouldn't have been done, the position that nothing should have been done at all is one I don't find tenable.

The idea that government shouldn't really do anything forms the basis for most of their policies. They want to privatise schools, privatise the ABC & SBS, and get rid of a whole slew of government regulation. Their budget proposal is to cut all departments' (except the armed forces) budgets by 10% initially, and then cut an additional 1% each year until the budget is balanced, which could be an issue because their tax plan would cut tax revenue by about 25%. 

They oppose any action on climate change, which means they want to get rid of any carbon reduction targets, let alone a net zero target, they want to get rid of subsidies for renewables (which I could support at this stage if they also got rid of all the subsidies for fossil fuels and factored in externalities from pollution by say imposing a carbon tax, but they don't seem to get there). I do agree with them on allowing nuclear power.

Finally, I guess this last bit is more subjective than normal, but to me it feels like their freedom fundamentalism leads them to always siding with the dickhead in situations. Whether it's things like opposing racial vilification laws because of freedom of speech, opposing worker protections because employers should be free from regulation, supporting a company that put's sexist jokes on their hire vehicles, and more, the freedoms they support always end up being freedom for the powerful rather than the powerless. And so, since I don't want to have to ask "Am I the Asshole?" I'm placing them towards the bottom of the ballot.

Party Games 19/38 Legalise Cannabis Australia

Alright, a day and a half left until election day and I finally reach half way. As usual, the depth and thoroughness of these reviews drops as we get closer to election day.

Legalise Cannabis Australia wants marijuana legalised. While I'm not a user, I do support legalisation. Places like Portugal show that when you treat drug use as a medical matter rather than a criminal one you get better outcomes. It's partly because I'm already sold on the idea that I think some of their justifications such as using hemp to make biofuels seem like overkill. Just say that this is something fun to use, and criminalisation is an overreaction that causes more harm than good.

The party doesn't appear to have any policies unrelated to the legalisation of marijuana.

Party Games 18/38 Kim for Canberra

Kim for Canberra is another single candidate party vying for one of Canberra's two senate seats (a mathematically challenging proposition). Despite this challenge, Kim Rubenstein has a decent mix of policies, going strong on climate change, making sure an ICAC has teeth, and gender equality.

The one policy I've not yet seen elsewhere, and probably won't, is her proposal to increase the ACT's senate representation from 2 senators to 4. This is primarily on the basis of population, as the ACT with a population of 450k gets 2 senators, while Tasmania gets 12 senators for its 530k. This discrepancy definitely shows the advantage of being a state rather than a territory. A larger senate cohort would also make electing independent senators easier (the quota would drop from 33% to 20%), but would result in the odd case of the ACT having more senators than MPs (although that's long been the case for Tasmania).

If I lived in Canberra, I'd probably put Kim ahead of both the majors.

Party Games 17/38 Katter's Australian Party

Katter's Australian Party takes after its larrikin founder Bob Katter. To say Bob's a bit of a character is an understatement. 

I think the best way to summarise the position of the KAP is to say that if you live north of Gympie, you'll do well, and if you live in a big city there's not much for you. From special tax rates for people in rural areas, spending more money on regional infrastructure, providing subsidised loans for rural development, and so on and so on. Oddly they also want to turn farmers into jailers, with a proposal to send convicts to remote farms to work their sentence rather than putting them in jail. They also want to ensure that marriage is strictly one man and one woman, so they don't seem to consider that battle lost yet.

I didn't really see anything that stood out as for the city slickers, other than some grumbling about council funding favouring urban areas because there's more people here. And so as yet another country good city bad party, I can't really support them.

Party Games 16/38 Jacqui Lambie Network

Jacqui Lambie remains one of the few positives to come in to politics thanks to the political adventures of Clive Palmer. Like Ricky Muir, she's shown a sincerity and dedication to the job of senator well above what was expected based on their pre-election performance. This hasn't always translated into concrete results, and I haven't always agreed with her positions, but she takes the responsibility seriously.

The Jacqui Lambie Network website lacks much detail on policies. The FAQ includes "what is your policy on X, Y, or Z?" with the answer that they don't want to come up with lots of different policies that never get implemented, and instead their focus is getting the balance of power, which is honest. In fact the site looks more like a kickstarter campaign with fundraising targets for different campaign actions.

The lack of policy details probably mean I'd put them between the two majors on a ballot, but since they're only running candidates in Tasmania I don't need to do so.

Party Games 15/38 Informed Medical Options Party

The Informed Medical Options Party is three of those four things. They may be a party about medical options, but reading what they have to say I can't say that they count as informed. 

Their main goal is the removal of any and all vaccine requirements, and in support of that they cherry pick data and only listen to people who tell them what they want to hear. They complain that government bodies that assess medicines and vaccines are staffed by people who have done research in the field which according to them makes them biased rather than experts.

There's some additional medical tom-foolery such as promoting alternative medicine and including it on the PBS, GMO paranoia, stopping water fluoridation (a common enough issue that there was a panel on it at OzWater 22), and supporting organic foods, and allowing parents to refuse care for their children with cancer.

The only thing on their platform I can get behind is increasing parental leave. But even this isn't enough for IMOP to get out of the bottom section of the ballot.

Party Games 14/38 The Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia

The Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia is not a single policy but is a single focus party. They stand for better recognition and treatment of indigenous Australians. This includes constitutional recognition, stronger protection of sacred sites, more self management of indigenous communities in areas such as education and land use, and so forth. 

An area where I'm not sure I think there solution appropriately solves a legitimate issue is indigenous incarceration. They're proposal is for only the most serious adult offenders to be able to be incarcerated, with less serious offenders and juveniles to stay in the community. My preference would be for better oversight of police and the courts to eliminate the present bias causing such disproportionate numbers of indigenous Australians to end up incarcerated. But maybe I'm not in the best place to tell those affected that it's worth the time such a long term solution would take when they're facing the brunt of injustice now.

There's no obviously bad positions listed, so I think this is another party that will end up between the two major parties for me.

Party Games 13/38 Federal ICAC Now Party

There's not too much to write about the Federal ICAC Now Party. They want an ICAC and they want it now.

They're very specific about only having one policy. Everything else they'll judge bills to make sure they don't have the potential for corruption and that they comply with the UN Declaration on human rights, and if they do put the decision to party members on whether it should be supported or not.

As in the past, I'm a bit skeptical of one issue parties that don't at least take a little time to consider some of the major issues that they'll be faced with if elected, so this will be another party that sits between the two major parties for me.

Party Games 12/38 Fusion Party

The Fusion Party is the result of a merger between the Science Party, the Pirate Party, the Secular Party, Vote Planet, and the Climate Change Justice Party. The parties listed I've reviewed before have all been pretty decent, and the combination looks to have taken the strengths of each individual party's policies and brought them together Voltron style.

The mix brings together a pretty good climate policy, even if I 'm not exactly sure that an 800% renewable energy target is necessary (surely even 200% would be plenty), a strong stance in removing special privileges for religions, and a decent position on digital rights.

The mix of policies isn't quite as broad as I recall the Pirate Party having, but still pretty good overall.

Party Games 11/38 Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance

The Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance follows the positions of its founder Drew Pavlou, who has a bit of notoriety but I haven't paid enough attention to events at UQ to have an informed opinion on him as an individual. As a party they seem ok, They're good on wanting an ICAC, and mostly alright on the environment, although I'm not sure how they'll be able to convince car manufacturers to resume making cars here when the coalition already failed by throwing huge chunks of cash at the industry. 

The other thing that stands out is a very strong anti-China stance.While I'm not under any impression that China is a good guy on the international scene, I'm not sure basing our entire foreign policy around sticking it to them is a solid plan.

There's not much more to say about them, they'll probably end up in the middle third of my preferences.

Party Games 10/38 Derryn Hinch's Justice Party

The main focus of Derryn Hinch's Justice Party is that we should be a lot tougher on criminals, that the justice system is failing us by being too lenient on criminals, and that these propositions are just "common sense". Unfortunately, when you take a serious look at how the community views the suitability of sentencing rather than relying on responses to sensationalised news coverage, you find that when familiar with the actual facts of a case, community members find sentences to be appropriate in 86% of cases, and when asked to suggest a sentence were more lenient than the judge in 61% of cases. 

So I can't really support them on their major policy focus, and there's really not much else they've got going. They support legalising euthanasia, but that's about it that stands out for me.

Party Games 9/38 David Pocock

David Pocock is a one man party running for one of the ACT's two senate seats. Given the ACT only has two senate seats, the maths mean getting elected over the two major parties is really tough. 

David looks to have a reasonable mix of policies, plus an openness to community consultation that stands out. He says if elected he'll hold quarterly town halls, as well as providing a record of all his votes in parliament. His proposal to run a community volunteer program for community members to work in his office, which while a novel way to get the community more involved in the operations of government, I'd like to see this include the volunteers being paid, especially given parliamentarians get a budget for the running of their offices.

He looks to have a reasonable stance on climate change, wants to improve health care in a sensible way, and while I couldn't find anything I disagree with too much, being a one man party there's a fair few areas he doesn't have a policy yet.

As he's only running as a single candidate in the ACT, I won't get to vote for him, but I think he'd probably end up between the two major parties.

Party Games 8/38 Centre Alliance

As Nick Xenephon had a temporary retirement from federal politics, the Nick Xenephon Team has changed their name to Centre Alliance. They immediately score brownie points for using the "re" spelling of centre - I don't care if the spell check underlines centre with a red squiggly line, it's the correct way to spell it. 

Looking at their current policies and what I wrote last time I did this, there doesn't seem to be any major changes to their policies. They're still strongly opposed to gambling, want an ICAC, want to make sure penalty rates aren't cut, and increasing foreign aid. Their climate change policy feels a bit lacklustre but doesn't deny climate change so better than some. 

Given I now work at a water utility, I'm a bit more interested in their water policies. I'm not sure about their suggestion to harvest storm water instead of desalination, as if we've got enough storm water to harvest to top up dams, the dams which are filled by rain would already be filled, whereas desalination plants can operate independent of rain. However I can get behind proposals to make sure out water resources are used more efficiently.

Nick Xenephon is returning to federal politics, and I think he was generally a positive factor in the senate, so I guess we'll see how he goes without the party sharing his name. I'm also a little unsure of the status of the party as Nick & Stirling Griff appear on the SA Senate ballot under an unnammed group rather than the Centre Alliance name, and the last press release on the party website was from last year. However as my criteria for being included in my reviews is being registered as a party with the AEC, I'll keep the write up.

Party Games 7/38 Australian Values Party

I'll be honest I tend to be a bit skeptical when someone brings up "Australian Values" because all too often what is meant by "Australian Values" ends up being lets go back to how things were at least 40 years ago, if not more. It's an invocation of a golden age that never really existed, and in as much as it did, it was a pretty shitty time for a large part of the community. Ultimately this is another unfortunate import from the US brought to us by a reactionary right wing.

So I was a bit wary going in to have a look at the policies of the Australian Values Party, but did come away with a more positive view of the party than I did going in. One policy I particularly like is requiring professional development for members of parliament. Especially for first time parliamentarians, there's a lot to know about how parliament works, and while there are some information sessions for new members, setting up an ongoing program makes sense. I could also see it as a way to prepare members for becoming ministers down the road, as well as giving all members some grounding in important areas such as health, economics, statistics, etc. I'm less certain about their requirement that all their candidates have management/leadership training, as I feel that would cut down on the diversity of backgrounds candidates will have. 

This is particularly with their candidates, of whom 7 out of 10 are former members of the military. This in and of itself for a candidate isn't a bad thing, but when 70% of your candidates are from a group that make up only about 1 in 50 Australians, your focus may become narrowed. Which shows in their defense policies. They're for better support for veterans, which I can agree with, but they're also for restricting how the media can report on the military, which I'm definitely not a fan of. 

In terms of my preferences I think they will end up between the two major parties.

Party Games 6/38 Australian Progressives

The Australian Progressives are pretty much what the name suggests. Their policies are pretty much a checklist of progressive ideals. There's support for a stronger social safety net, setting up an ICAC, better funding of health care and the CSIRO, taking action on climate change, as well as enhancing the NBN. Their tax policies seem alright overall, although I find setting a maximum income tax rate of 50% to be a bit out place.

 They've also set themselves a pretty strict code of ethics, which I think would prevent a member from accepting large quantities of cash from a blind trust to cover one's legal expenses and not declaring it. Although to be fair, the current ministerial standards seem to be rather toothless, so anything is going to come out looking good.

If anything, the only real fault I can find is being a bit too generically nice, I almost starting think of them like the Federation from Star Trek, although not everyone has Clive Palmer money to use to put their party name on every building they can find. They'll be ahead of both of the majors, but might slip below some similar parties with a bit more character.

The Poster

When I started university, my plan was to get my degree, do honours, then a PhD, then become a researcher/lecturer, and then after about 40 years retire at around 65 (probably the most optimistic part of that whole plan). Of course, that kind of crashed and burned when I dropped out of my PhD, but that academic culture still sticks with me.

A part of that is the process of producing knowledge, and disseminating it. While I never had to publish or perish, the significance of getting a paper accepted and printed, and the related process of attending and presenting at conferences still carries the hallmarks of progress, success, and significance for me. 

At a conference, there are various levels of presentations. At the top you have the keynote speaker, then featured presenters, and then regular talks. The lowest of these is the poster presentation, where you have an A1 poster about your topic that people can look at, and depending on the conference, there might be some time where you're expected to stand by your poster for people to talk to you and ask questions. This is generally where you start out, and over time you work your way up.

And indeed this is where I started out. While I no longer have a copy of the poster, the paper that went with it is still online. 

But then life happened, and conferences weren't a part of what I did.

Until now.

Towards the end of last year the company that I now work at was encouraging staff to submit presentations for an industry conference as we are one of the main sponsors this year. After a little thought, I submitted a topic, and was accepted. And so I put together a poster for the conference.

 

The conference started on Tuesday, and after the opening address the first thing I did was walk through the expo hall to find where my poster was. Seeing it there did give a thrill and a sense of pride. 

 

While thinking about this I have internally been minimising this in comparison to what I did in university. I still put academia on a bit of a pedestal, which I think is something I need to dial back on. When you boil it down, in both cases, the content being shared was "We did a thing, here's how it went." And while at uni I had lofty ambitions of adding to the sum total of humanity's knowledge, being honest my current job helps make life a little better for a lot more people than any amount of studying oddly behaving crystals.

Anyway, I did a thing, and that's how it went.

Party Games 5/38 Australian Federation Party

The Australian Federation Party, previously the Australian Country Party, and before that the Country Alliance, has made the transformation from a protectivist Nationals wannabe party, to a "Freedom" wannabe party where they are mainly concerned with the freedoms to pretend gay people don't exist, that people who aren't Christians exist, that there are numerous cures for COVID made by big pharma that we denied to people because big pharma didn't pay the TGA, and so on.

There proposal to rework the three levels of government has some good ideas, such as making health care a just federal rather than federal & state responsibility, I don't get the point of keeping local government while taking away all responsibilities and duties from them.

They want to improve the NDIS, which is good, but that's about all I found to like.

I think the Australian Federation Party is a cross between the Nationals and the Australian Christian Party who are trying to look like they're neither.

Party Games 4/38 Australian Democrats

The Australian Democrats are back after having been deregistered in 2016 for not having enough members. They joined forces with another party, CountryMinded, which was deregistered for the same reason, and sensibly this new party has kept the name with much better brand recognition. I'm not sure what CountryMinded gained out of this deal as the policies of the new Australian Democrats very much fits with what they had before deregistration with little sign of CountryMinded's tight focus on farmers even in areas such as agriculture or land management.

The Democrats policies have a good mix of environmental and social ideas. They advocate for strong and rapid action on climate change, increases to welfare payments, and improving health care. On the tech side I appreciate their proposals requiring tech manufacturers allow users to do their own repairs and that there are minimum periods that security updates must be provided for. Their COVID position is pretty good, including improving quarantine facilities for the future and

 Their defense policy feels tall but narrow, in that it wants to do one thing very well, namely strike at a long range from the Australian mainland, but if someone finds a way around that one thing there's not much left (kind of like going mass siege tanks as a Terran in Starcraft, if someone gets in to melee range or strikes from the air you're going down quick).

While I admire what the Democrats have done in the past, and they'll be ahead of the major parties, I'm not confident they can match their past successes.