Aboriginal Australians

I'm afraid son that we are becoming way too civilised these days. Hunting or living in the wild is unknown to you and for far too many people, it will only exist in tv programmes. 

The fun of hunting down animals, cooking them in the wild and then celebrating isn't something that can be replicated easily now. I've done and its fun. 

Still an interesting read about an abo tribe. The abo's like pretty much every other tribal society in the world like the red Indians or Indians in Mexico or in brazil or the Bantu in South Africa or in india or wherever have been treated in a disgusting manner. Very sad history. If you get a chance, read the book, bury my heart at wounded knee. Very interesting. 

But they are dying out. And their languages, their culture, history all are vanishing as well. Sad. 

Love

Baba

Aboriginal Australians
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/aboriginal-australians/finkel-text

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Published: June 2013

First Australians

Aboriginals had the continent to themselves for 50,000 years. Today they make up less than 3 percent of the population, and their traditional lifestyle is disappearing. Almost. In the homelands the ancient ways live on.

By Michael Finkel

Photograph by Amy Toensing

A finger across the throat and a glance seaward. That’s the signal. The two men grip their spears, hand-carved from stringybark trees, and walk barefoot over the red soil to the water’s edge. Then into the aluminum dinghy, engine revved, and across a warm shallow bay of the Arafura Sea, at the wild edge of Australia’s Northern Territory.

Frigate in the water

Peeked out of the window at the office and I could see a dinky little frigate at the docks. So I took a picture and facebooked as a joke that its sent over from the Government to kick the bankers, no more simple police for us lot then.

Then hared down to look at it closer. It seems to be an Aussie frigate called as HMAS Sydney. It did look a bit battered if you ask me. Here are some details from the local rag.

 

THE Aussies don’t go anywhere without their barbie. That goes for the Royal Australian Navy as well. The frigate HMAS Sydney arrived in the Thames for a goodwill Commonwealth visit to London equipped with its state-of-the-art air defence, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, surveillance and reconnaissance.
The 4,000-tonne frigate which has been deployed to the Middle East four times and seen action in both Gulf wars, had torpedos, missiles and two Seahawk helicopters on board. But she was also armed to the teeth with barbecue steak and sausages when it moored Canary Wharf. The crew didn’t waste time making themselves at home and throwing a few snags on the barbie and for a cocktail party serving up kangaroo skewers.
The crew were keen to enjoy a few days in London’s East End, while moored in the shadow of the O2 at West India Dock, before weighing anchor yesterday and setting sail for Labrador and Newfoundland on the next leg of their northern hemisphere tour—with their state-of-the art barbie equipment.

That name sounded vaguely familiar to me and I was staring at the damn ship racking my brains as to why on earth would I find it strangely unsettling? When I got back to the office, googled a bit and then it struck me. Here’s the strange story of the ship with the same name. The sheer amazing line of events, eh? Go figure.

I suppose somebody has to do this

I suppose this job has to be done, but bloody hell, what a job! Nose and stomach of steel!

Technorati Tags: Australia

Wittgenstein and market forces and universities

I spotted this article and was chuckling away to myself. So Melbourne Business School has appointed a Philosopher in Residence. And he will be "providing an additional set of intellectual survival skills" to business school students. And this is my basic problem with this argument that only Plato or Kant quoting people can be Philosophers. It is the same argument I had with some people who take off on "intellectuals".

To me, an intellectual is a person who uses his intellect. So if one is taking off and abusing somebody by saying that s/he is an intellectual, all it means to me is that the accuser does not use his own intellect and it is clear that he is a complete dope (he is a dope, but that's a different matter). But the same thing applies in the case of Philosophy. Philosophy is in every subject. Do you think there is no philosophy in statistics? Sure there is, there is an entire school of thought which gave rise to statistics, the school of thought which drives the theory and application of this, the school of thought which drives real world decisions, the school of thought which you will use do judge what is a good (based upon ethical, profitable, reputational...reasons) level of defects in your widget, just to take one small example.

There is a whole question of philosophy and thought in managing international teams, or putting in a bid process, or siting a factory, or putting together the company motto. I have studied epistemology (bloody tough, made my hair hurt!) and ruminating over the presence of black swans, empirical positivism and so on and so forth helped but not sure how much.

So, my gut feel is that this is a marketing gimmick rather than something that will really add value. If you do not believe me, go check out what most of the professors's have in terms of their highest qualification, its PhD, or a Doctor of Philosophy. There are already tons of philosophers in there, my friend, a special philosopher is like saying that that electron in that molecule is special...

Technorati Tags: Australia,Philosophy,Universities,Business Schools

Burials more carbon intensive than cremations

Now here's a counter-intuitive result but which makes perfect sense once I have thought about it. Burials are more carbon intensive once you factor in all the costs related to maintaining a grave! I quote:

The study found it was better for people to be cremated, compared with the long-term impact of burials, even though four times as much carbon dioxide was produced during the initial cremation process. "On the day that a cremation or burial takes place, the volume of carbon dioxide produced is higher for cremation than for burial," Centennial Park chief executive Bryan Elliott said.
"The report found that each cremation at Centennial Park generates approximately 160kg of carbon dioxide equivalent. "Each burial at Centennial Park generates approximately 39kg of Co2. "However, when the long-term environmental footprint is considered, burials at Centennial Park have a 10 per cent greater impact than cremations. "This is because we must look after the gravesite for a number of years by watering and mowing the surrounding lawn area and maintaining the concrete beam on which the headstone is placed. "Burial is a more labour and resource intensive process, consumes more fuels and produces larger quantities of waste than cremation."

Although you could quibble about what all you can include in the cost, but it does make sense. We can keep graves for 75 years here in the UK (I think), now think of the costs and that is not even including the indirect foregone opportunity costs (of using the land for something else such as a hospital or a business...)

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Entrepreneurship Rates and Countries

I read this very very interesting article in the Economist which made me go Hmm. The article was talking about Innovation and referred to this graph.

The Economist graph was simplified but the original graph shown below is much better as it provides more information.

Based upon the curve fitting line, you will see that as countries grow and become richer, their rate of entrepreneurship reduces, and that too pretty steeply. Now why would this happen? I can hazard some guesses but no certainty. The first would be that as and how you get richer or the welfare safety net becomes better and better, the hunger for creating value progressively diminishes. The second would be that it would be easier to get jobs rather than worry about raising capital and push for a difficult enterprise. The third factor which I could think of is that as a country becomes richer, it makes it progressively difficult for entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs, by making it more difficult to fire people, putting in more and more onerous conditions such as Health and Safety, etc. All these combine to make entrepreneurship a losing proposition.

Also, at a particular point in time, they seem to either get stuck or struggle with the next stage which seems to be more difficult. This seems to be the natural trough and despite quite a lot of efforts, the hunger is simply not there. Or it would take superhuman efforts to break through the thicket of regulations. I can well agree to this, while starting up a company is simple in European Countries, the other rules and regulations simply make it way too difficult for a person to embark on entrepreneurship.

But then there are some countries which do make a breakthrough, which is the curious aspect. To what do you ascribe the success of USA and Australia in pushing to develop entrepreneurs? Is it the national ethos? Or the innate hunger? Or their financial system? Or their education system? Why are they so much more risk taking? Or perhaps their time limited welfare system forces them to go about generating value themselves if they do not have a job?

Entrepreneurship is good, it is generating value, creating jobs and ensuring that assets are churned and made use of. Some percentage figures of population engaged in entrepreneurial activity: Indonesia has 19% of its population between 15 and 64 years as entrepreneurs, China 16% and Thailand 15%. India, Malaysia, Australia, USA, Argentina at 10-12% and then Czech, UK, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan at about 5% or below.

So Mr. Gordon Brown of the UK, what do you have to say about the fact that UK is only showing 5% of its population as entrepreneurs? What is stopping you from doing the same as Australia, USA, India (they are your ex-colonies, my friend - the child excelling over the father?)

As for Mr. Manmohan Singh of India, you need to think deeply, because you are below and behind the curve. You need to make it easier for people to start their own business. Others are leaving you to lag behind!

Technorati Tags: Entrepreneurship , employment , United Kingdom , India , Economy

Ignorant racist monkeys at a cricket game

See these ignorant racist moronic monkeys?

These are the monkeys who are screaming racist abuse at Andrew Symonds at the WANKhede Stadium in India during the Australia - India One Day International Cricket Series. Don't they realise that they are the monkeys?

Blithering morons!

Technorati Tags: racism , Australia , India , Cricket

The joys of BBQ's, London, South Africa and Oz

I love my BBQ, I love barbequeing and there is nothing better I like than to cook for friends and family, sitting outside in the garden, large hunks of meat and off we go! Too bad I am in England where the wet and miserable weather means that BBQ's are more hits and misses than reality. My daughter calls a BBQ as a Babaque, since Baba cooks!, lol. So if you are ever in town and are free and the weather is fine (big ? there!), here's an open invite! :)

But here comes two reports about BBQ's. The first from the Nobel Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu who talks about a BBQ as one of the national ethos items, a cause for unity and something that draws the country together. I quote,

"Archbishop Desmond Tutu has become patron of South Africa's national barbecue day, declaring that the shared love of sizzling sausages over an open flame was a strong unifying force between blacks and whites in a still divided country.

The title "Patron of National Braai Day" – using the Afrikaans word for barbecue by which all South Africans refer to barbecues – added to the numerous honours bestowed upon the man regarded as South Africa's moral conscience."

Sounds lovely, what a great country, to have a national BBQ day!, I love the food in South Africa, the kind of meat they make is absolutely brilliant. Many a pleasant hour I have spent in the environs of Santown in Jo'Burg chomping my way through great hunks of meat! :)

but move over to the other side of the world to Australia where the great backyard is disappearing due to the pressures of population in the country and it took a Pom to point this out. This means that the great tradition of BBQ'ing is slowly disappearing which is a bit of a shame!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!