Very strange…

Why Poneke has decided to take down his very successful, highly entertaining, and extremely informative blog is a mystery to me.

I’ve read the Google Reader RSS but the site itself seems to have disappeared.

This is a real tragedy for the New Zealand blogsphere. While wideboys like Cameron Slater continue to throw their weight around and push rabid bullshit out into the interweb, people like Poneke bring their blogs down.

Now, is anyone else suspicious about the timing of Poneke’s criticism of Whale Oil Beef Hooked, and Poneke being taken down? Just seems strange to me.

Mostly because of a series of thinly veiled threats I was receiving here on Dart a year or so back. Things like threats to my employment. The emails and attempted comments were all lodged through anonymouse, a service you have to be a canny internet user to know about.

Very strange indeed.

 

Making the net what it is

As part of my mission to bring social media into the public service (although I can’t claim this one for myself, the State Service Commission seems be all over it), I’ve been making myself establish and work with clear concepts.

So, why clear conceptualisation? When you’re trying to sell a social media product or idea within your agency, you’re likely to run into a lot of people who don’t necessarily ‘get’ what “the Web2.0 stuff” is all about. The internet tolls are just the internet, you know, lovely and all that, but not really all that useful unless you’re wanting naked people or banking.

So to combat the problem of confusion about the medium and it’s potential I’ve found it useful to break people down into three separate types. It’s a pretty simple distinction, and goes like this:

1. Content Users - These are people who really only use the internet to breeze over sites. To read newspapers, maybe do their banking. Their engagement with the internet, or their respective intranet, is entirely superficial. They will likely more about what’s under the bonnet of their car or where the biscuits are in the kitchen that what makes the internet hum.
2. Content Interactors - These are people who are ‘kind-of’ Web2.0. They might have a blog from when they went on their OE, or might use Flickr. They’re aware of the potential of internet, but for any given reason just don’t exploit it. They will most probably leave a comment on a blog of news-outlet story, but that’s about it.
3. Content Generators - These are the people who really get a kick out of user-oriented, Web2.0 applications. They will blog or have their own websites. They’ll be addicted to Wikipedia. And they know how to push information or content out via the web, and probably consume much of their input from electronic sources.

Simple. There are hundreds of other models out there, but this one works nicely for me in my role as a public servant.

Why it’s useful is firstly because the three types can easily be found in any workplace. Second, they decrease in population as you proceed from Users to Generators. All Generators started out as Users, but not all Users develop into Generators. This means that in any workplace you’ll only ever get a few people who are able or willing to fully engage with whatever social media application you’re trying to establish or sell, but lots who will want to read or look at something useful.

Knowing that your full audience is limited to only a few people is actually powerful, because you can design your service or tool, a wiki for instance, to meet the needs of the colleagues who will generate content for it. You don’t need to try to sell it to everyone, because you know for a fact that not everyone can exploit the tools you build.

However, everyone does need to be able to use it. The trick it seems is to run a happy middle ground between traditional ‘push’ media, i.e. the old-fashioned intraweb, and also needing to ‘pull’ people onto the application where they can interact and/or generate content. If you can design a business model for your social media that exploits the difference in types, and optimises these differences, your nifty social media project might just end up coming along swimmingly.

PS. Here’s a diagram, draw by Hadyn Green!

 

No greater grater

Well, missing cheese?

This bloke is missing it a lot. Enough to start selling his assets.

 

My profile needs updating

Two things coalesced to ensure I seriously questioned my life a few days back. The first was a conversation with an old friend about an Oldboy of ours. The second was a moment of exasperation from a work colleague who’d apparently “just about bloody had enough”.

The Oldboy is a straight-forward enough story. Back at school a guy in my year had decided to become an accountant. The reasoning? He looked in the paper and saw that there were lots of ads for that profession. Now, as future planning went I wasn’t too sure about his reasoning. But, it turns out that he was right on the money. It was years later till I realised that the making money professions are the ones where you handle money.

At the time I was the guy that old geezer in that “advice for young people” speech pontificates about, you know, people who have no idea what they want to do when they’re 18. While other people were destined for high-flying jobs I was looking at factory work. But, later on I realised I was just a late starter, and got on with the getting on.

Of course, there’s no money in changing occupations, slumming it, and generally faffing around for 10 years.

Meanwhile, the guy in question was gradually working his way up through the ranks of a very large accountancy firm. In fact, an international accountancy firm, and is currently working as a trader of some sort in the Cayman Islands.

I’m a public servant…

You’ve heard the fable of the tortoise and the hare right? I was the hare, but I was running in circles and being distracted every five minutes, just like it says on my primary school report card (”Che is easily distracted”).

So, the second incident is a work colleague who was in a similar situation. Apparently she received an email from an old schoolmate the other week. This dude was allegedly the class freak, all facial piercing and bad hair. The guy was the one the nerds felt comfortable looking down on. An outsider who just didn’t seem to get it.

Well, he was happy to explain, these days he used that completely alternative perspective to set himself up in a company, and he’s making a million a year. Should be able to buy himself an island in no time.

Meanwhile, my colleague? Also a public servant.

What’s interesting is her comment. You know how when you go to a college reunion you get all these kinds of stories all at once? The fat kid who slimmed down, started an international modelling career. The flakey kid who turned out to be a great actor/painter/writer. A dozen success stories that make you think your life is just boring. Of course, there’s also the 1st XV player who came out and starting sleeping with the woodwork teacher, but that’s a happy ending we all get a kick out of.

But, in this day and age we have Facebook.

Which is like “A FREAKING COLLEGE REUNION EVERY DAY OF THE FREAKING WEEK!!”

I laughed. Then thought about making my profile a little sexier…

 

“How to cure the flu” pasta

This pasta has gone under a lot of different names, “anti-SARS”, “anti-bird-flu”, and my personal favourite, the Mafiosa. What they all have in common is a boat-load of garlic in them. It was first put together by an Italian chef I worked with in Melbourne. And it’s a cracker. Kept me out of colds for an entire season.

The ingredients are simple, and well under $15 for two people. I haven’t got exact prices because it’s all stuff I had in the pantry already. And that’s all of it. No matter what your income, this is probably one of the cheapest meals you can make.

What I have is some pasta, any kind at all. Just whatever you have lying around the house.

Some parmesan cheese, not a heck of a lot. Some parsley (high in vitamin C).

All the garlic we had.

About 150g of our own marinated olives (I’ll post on marinating your own olives next time I have to. We’ve been rolling through 3kg from the Mediterranean Warehouse since before Christmas. Total price? $28).

Some sun-dried tomatoes (about 50g).

And, some chilli powder (but fresh chillis are better).

So why’s this meal so cheap?! No meat.

 

Cornucopia

Second Chef seems to think I’m on some kind of crusade, and she could be right. But… take a look at all this food!!

What we have here is, some lemons left over from last week, and:

• Bananas - 1.27kg
• Kiwifruit - 720g
• Feijoas - 700g
• Mandarins - 1.66kg
• Oranges - 990g (and not Californian Navels, they’re New Zealand Valencia)
• Apples - 2.820kg

For a grand total of 8.16kg of fruit.

We also got a head of broccoli and some of those wee onions (they’re stronger flavoured, cost less, and have less waste).

And how much did you think this cost, and all from the Waitangi Park markets?
All is revealed after the jump.

 

The MacAllister-Sim’s - Not Whingers

Stephen, one of the biggest fans of the whinger series of posts, sent me this interesting link the other day. Tell you what, it’s hard putting up provocative posts. Every day it’s “Che, when’s the next whinger post?”. “I don’t see the next whinger post?”. “And now, the whinger post”.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the linked article as an example of whinging. Which is a pity, because I was looking for an opportunity to vent my spleens this weekend as well.

Oh, did I mention that?

I have polysplenia! After my own ongoing whinging about the exceptionally poor medical treatment at Wellington hospital (the time I spent 10 hours on gurney in emergency was a low point…), I insisted that I was given an MRI to get the heart physiology properly sorted out. The idea being that if I’m informed I can make lifestyle adjustments to mitigate risks. Like not taking on any high-stress jobs, or dealing with high-stress people.

I’m still waiting for the full results, but apparently I have situs ambiguus and polysplenia. This means some organs are out of their ‘traditional’ positions, and I have multiple spleens.

Multiple spleens… Jason said, ‘that explains your blogging style’.

Anyhow, the MacAllister-Sims. What the NZ Herald story reports is a family who live in Massey, Auckland, and who commute to central Auckland Hospital for work. Now, this is a big 50 minute drive. As petrol prices have climbed the family has found it increasingly difficult to afford the fuel costs. This, combined with rising food prices, means that they’ve had to adjust their way of doing things to accommodate costs.

And the MacAllister-Sims are my kind of people.

Instead of stating in the paper how unhappy they are at having to change their lifestyles, they’ve just gotten on with it, and adjusted by making good choices about things. The stuff listed in the story is interesting:

1. They dropped from two to one car, the smaller one, and Geoff cycles home some nights (which is admirable, it’s a loong way out to Massey)
2. They’ve cut out some spending, with Davina for example mentioning that she doesn’t purchase magazines, instead purchasing a bottle of milk
3. They’ve put plans to purchase closer to the city on hold, until they can afford it
4. They just stopped buying cheese…
5. They buy some foods from other outlets instead of just relying on the supermarket, and “consciously thinking we’ll get this here and that there”
6. They’ve cut back on coffee at work, and have started making their own lunches
7. They joined the Zoo and the Museum, and take the kids there instead of long trips out of the city

These are all bloody good and sensible things to do to save money. Most of them are a trade-off in time for savings, which they doubtless find difficult (three kids under 6), but it’s the one thing they have. And even better, they’ve rationalised their spending and not just been interviewed waving their arms in the air and whinging about how “someone needs to do something”.

Pretty damn admirable in my view, and I say more power to them. I actually see this as a “good news” story, and one I’d like to see more of.

 

How to make harissa lamb cutlets

Seeing as the nation is hurting and nearing the grip of a recession, I thought I’d do my bit by putting up some handy ways to save money at the checkout counter.

#1. Avoid the checkout counter.

#2. If you can help it, there is no #2.

The thing about supermarkets is that they can afford to put a premium on foods. This might change as the recession starts to bite and people spend less (meaning that supermarket margins will be squeezed and they’ll have to reduce some prices), but you can’t bank on it.

Too many years of studenting taught me that hauling your backside round a number of different places and finding where you can source the best deals on the main components of your meal really helps. It’s a cost in time, but worth it if you’re having trouble making ends meet.

So, in this case we’re talking about lamb. That great New Zealand dish. This blog will tell you, dear reader, exactly how to make the extremely delicious dish harissa lamb for less than $7.50 per head. And, you won’t have to skim on ingredients. And that, for the mathematically challenged of you, means feeding two adults for $15 or less.

So here’s what you need.

What you’re looking at on the right here is a whopping 640g of lamb cutlets. Or maybe chops… doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it cost me the exorbitant price of $9.50.

I get this lamb from a bloke who drives down from Fielding and attends the Waitangi Park markets. It is probably the best lamb you could imagine. The fat is very very white and “fluffy”, and the meat itself extremely moist. And, mostly importantly, it is not at crazy price. No middleman premiums you see.

In fact, all the vegetables you can see in this shot are from the markets. The olive oil (in the wine bottle, we buy it in bulk) is from from the Mediterranean Warehouse in Newtown. I’ll only use a little oil, maybe 150ml, which costs about $1.

The small jar is harissa paste. It’s a north African spice and you can buy a jar from Moore Wilsons for $5.50. It should last for at least ten meals, so $0.55c

So, potatoes I buy in 2kg bags for $2.50, and this is approximately 600g of spuds, giving a cost of $0.80c

The beans are $2 for a 200g bag. We use about half, meaning $1 worth of beans.

Broccoli? You can buy them for as little as $1 a head. So using about a third in this meal means $0.30c.

Grand total? Approximately $13 to feed two adults!!

So lets get started!

 

Falling, Folding Leaves of Paper

Well who would have thought it?

I know your parents tell you I was 19 when your Great-Grandfather and I had married, but I was in fact only 16. Your Great-Grandfather and I became betrothed and married in town called Cranbrook in Kent. It’s a lovely place and the parish church, St Dunstan, was built way back in the Fifteenth Century, would you believe it! The 19 comes in because that’s how old I was when we set sail in 1840 on the Martha Ridgeway for Port Nicholson (that’s in the north you know, and they call it Wellington these days my dear).

That was a hard journey that was. My first child, bless her soul, was just three years old, and I was not long pregnant as well, so you can imagine my discomfort. But we don’t complain, do we now?

Yes, a very hard journey. Although I was pregnant on the voyage I gave birth to twins with the help of the ship’s doctor, twins boys, both stillborn. That was a sad time… But how were we to know then that we would go on to have another 12 children! And a blessing that was too, for not long after we arrived at Petone my eldest daughter also died.

How I hated this place when we first arrived… My next child was stolen by the Maoris after her birth, for they’d never seen a white child before! The first white child in the district she was thought to be, and they took her with them up to the pa to show her off. My goodness how James was angry and frightened! There was talk of them eating her (for the Maoris ate a lot of people in those days don’t you know), but as it happens they were just curious.

There was a great show when James turned up to collect her, for he was never a small man, as you know! There was a time there at Akaroa where they laid James and your nine Great-Uncles out head to toe, head to toe, for a lark mind, and they were the full length of a chain!

What?

Oh, that’s 66 feet my dear! A chain is 66 feet long.

They certainly were a big set of lads my boys. And they certainly took some feeding, let me tell you! They’d come in from the whaling and they’d empty the pantry the lot of them. My word we’d be cooking for days to prepare for them coming back.

Hmmm? Yes. Yes it wasn’t an easy life out there. We left Petone only two years after we arrived, James had been working for the Governor trying to intervene in the musket and liquor trade, which was terrible, and we travelled again, this time to Akaroa. There James got work for Paddy Wood, but this didn’t last long, thank goodness, for Paddy was a brawler, and a drunk. And there I was, the only woman in the whole world it seemed…

It was a relief when we moved and finally settled in Whakamoa Bay, let me tell you!

F, FLP

 

Commuters: Whingers

The next target in my campaign to prove that the newspapers are doing their utmost to make ordinary New Zealanders look and sound like whingers is this story in the Herald on Sunday.

In this marvellous work of journalism a commuter is complaining that because she lives in Muriwai Beach she has no choice but to pay the outrageous sum of $29 per day to park in Auckland city. And I agree, $29 a day is an astounding sum of money to park your car if you’re having to pay it every day. That adds up to what, $145 a week, or $580 a month? Or… SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR, to park.

Now, let’s ignore for a minute that parking prices are driven by demand. The story also indicates that prices in Waitakere and Manukau city are only $3 per day, or less for an entire week than Ms. Auckland Commuter pays daily. Sure, the parking buildings could be price gouging, but no-one is holding a gun to Ms. Commuters head and forcing her to use their service. In other words, the buildings are asking that kind of money because they can.

Let’s also ignore that she actually only pays $16 a day, because she normally aims for earlybird parking. $29 is the rate if she’s held up and misses the discount.

This situation would be compounded if Ms. Commuter was actually forced to pay this money. But she isn’t. Not even an iota. Even though the Herald article says she has no choice but to pay, this completely ignores “park and ride”, a venerable public transport tradition.

Let’s look at that price to park in Waitakere again. $3 a day. So, Ms. Commuter could drive to Waitakere, park, and catch a bus to her work. Checking prices at this handy Auckland website, it would cost her $5.40 in one direction. That’s a grand total of $13.80 per day. Which is still expensive. But, a ten-trip ticket for the bus would bring that down a by a staggering $1.10 per day, or approximately $260 a year (which is a little less that two weeks of her current parking costs…). It’s also $2.20 ($520 a year) cheaper than her earlybird parking.

But to be honest, this is a crappy scenario. Ms. Commuter is actually better off driving to the closest cheap parking, and then getting the bus in. She’ll likely pay more to park, but will save on time and bus fares. What she needs to do is not think “I’m forced to drive to the closest place to work possible”, and think out her options, of which she has many.

I can see that some people would think my having a go at Ms. Commuter and calling her a whinger a little mean. Some people have to live commute because they can’t afford to live close to work.

But… Ms. Commuter just moved to Muriwai on the West Coast. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Muriwai is a highly desirable beach location. So either she’s a low-income earner who’s found an absolute cracker of a property, a renter who’s made the crazy decision to live miles away from work, or the more likely scenario, she’s on decent money.

What this also says to me is that, if Ms. Commuter has purchased at Muriwai, then she could have taken that parking and petrol money and bought a nice place nearer work. After all, $7000 on parking, and likely an equal amount on petrol, would fund an additional $150,000 on a mortgage.

What we have then is a “human interest story” that makes the person involved look like a whinger. She’s making stupid choices that are costing her an arm and a leg, and the newspaper has told the whole world about it.

Good one.