Rantology

Listening to: An eclectic assortment from the computers media library, a legacy of all the comps I have made on this machine

Back in August I wrote this post about a quiz heading south. It has apparently recovered, but I think we are still in the off season.

Now the weekly staff social quiz is rapidly heading the same way. And I think it is my fault.

At work every Thursday lunch, as many staff as can gather in the lunch room for a quiz, department versus department. Department scores are accumulated on a table over a period of months. Now I am told before I started working there in August, my team did okay, with a high turnout maintaining a good average. And I am also told that after I turned up, we then started blitzing everybody fairly regularly.

We won last year fairly comfortably, and I hear not without some resentment directed my way (you know, the conversations about you you wish you could hear, but cannot for obvious reasons. Anyway, I have my sources).

So this year the organisation has been changed. Instead of averaging individual scores, now each department submits one answer sheet, and hence one score. I think I know exactly why this change was made and I don't appreciate it, as it smacks of sour grapes. Personal opinion aside, it is actually sensible, as it encourages the less trivially inclined to participate.

Except for one flaw.

When the week results are posted, next weeks topic is also posted. This ordinarily wouldn't be a problem, except that some departmental pride was damaged so much that extraordinary measures are now being taken to restore face.

Instead of crosswords and conversation, a look around the lunch room now reveals people and teams frantically swotting for the week, and the computer room also regularly features folk googling instead of actually doing their jobs. I even caught one guy taking a picture of a map with his cellphone.

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?

We are talking about a social lunchtime quiz intended for the purposes of entertainment. You swot for tests.

Naturally the teams that are doing the swotting are now cleaning up. My team, which categorically refuse to swot (we are resolutely united on this) on principle, is not doing so well anymore. Meh. If I want to spend my breaks studying I'll go back to uni (which is ironic, given I never actually attended uni, but you get the idea).

Even if we were inclined to study, we don't have the time, being a small and busy crew. So the new arrangement, apart from favouring larger teams anyway, is favouring the less busy, allowing members to specialise (Actual quote from prior to todays geography quiz-"I'm specialising in Asia. The others have a continent each").

Sigh.

This is not a quiz anymore. It is a test. If it wasn't a team thing I wouldn't bother turning up. My involvement in social quizzes has never been about winning. I like winning sure, but finding out what I know and what I don't, and learning new stuff has always been the motivation. I didn't even study before my gameshow appearance.

Boning up on a topic beforehand for a social thing entirely defeats the purpose as far as I can see. It's about how much you know, not how much time you have to spare at work.

Other things pissing me off right now

Stupid pedestrians
Here in Lower Hutt we have a number of shared cycle/footways, particularly along the flood protection works either side of the river. They are great, mainly as there are no mechanised vehicles present of any kind to accidentally kill you. However, some of the foot folk are almost as bad. The ones who cross the path while not looking up or left and right at all. The ones who resent your very presence, and give you dirty looks as you ride by. The ones who have no understanding about the laws of momentum. The ones who think you somehow are placing them at risk by riding by on the verge (often on the edge of a precipitous slope) rather than brushing past them. The ones who refute common sense to assume pedestrian right of way at all times (like the ones who assume you are waiting at one end of the narrow Ava bridge to let them on, rather than because there is someone coming the other way and you won't fit. Happened yesterday, bunch of power walkers strode straight past me as I waited. What did they think I was enjoying the view? They soon figured out I wasn't).

I ride defensively, and now see pedestrians as potentially dangerous moving obstacles rather than people. I ride defensively anyway, I came off and hurt myself enough times when I rode as a teenager to figure out that 1) it is unpleasant, and 2) there are ways to avoid it.

Big ups to all the footfolk and other riders who say hello and offer friendly acknowledgement. I like you guys.

Willy wavers on my hill
To all the various hoons, boy racers and 'car enthusiasts' who race up and down my hill.
Your noisy exhaust and booming bass do not impress me. They just alienate someone who might have been sympathetic to your views. The police have been staking out our patch of street lately and I have welcomed them. Speeding up or down a hill at 70 or 80 KPH in a 50 zone is not rebellious, adventurous, alternative or impressive. It is dangerous, not really to you, but to anyone unfortunate enough to get in your way when your ego commands something your skill and experience cannot provide.
I know this sounds old codgerish, but I have my reasons.
I do not understand habitual speeding. Never have, and having narrowly survived a serious car accident caused by it, I don't think I ever will.

CSI
I hate 'reality based' detective show CSI for a bunch of reasons, but the biggest one right now is expectation.

CSI raises peoples expectation of lab capabilities vis a vis work speed and swiftness of obtaining results to a wholly unrealistic and professionally frustrating degree.
This is apparently becoming a real problem in the US. Real lab work is almost nothing like CSI.
Working in a testing lab, I think that some clients feel we just plug a sample into a machine, or put a few drops of magic substance onto something, and get instant results, or at least within the hour. How else to explain (actual work experience here) getting a 10g sample that will need to be split for or five ways, each split normally requiring 25g? Or clients calling wanting next day results for a test that lasts for five days?

And the science displayed on the show is pretty ordinary, the problem being that is is packaged to make it look like good science, which it is not. It is entertainment, which some people apparently lack the wit to understand.

Example of good scientific method on TV? Mythbusters.

Having to be switched on all the time
Feeling like I have to look for other motives and angles to every damn news story there is, in an endless quest for the 'truth', whatever that is.

Tragically hip people hyping tragically hip things
Like whoever thought that Little Bushman would be a great warm up act for Don Mcglashan at Civic Square the other week. Way to alienate a crowd. But then Little Bushman is apparently the act you must get into right now, as all the cool people who decide if you are cool or not are into them, in some circles anyway. I'm being honest, this is how the hype feels. I thought they were miscast, sod all stage presence, long slow meandering and at times self indulgent pieces. Right time and place and I'm into this sort of thing, but not then.

I hate being told what to like.

Having to constantly play down my interests and hobbies for risk of being mocked by people who apparently have none.
Getting a cheap thrill by calling me a nerd or geek gets old for the recipient of your 'humour'. It's not funny. It is insulting. I often say this for them, just to get it out of the way and make them feel better about themselves.

The 'Scientific research' argument for whaling
Does anyone believe this crap? Do the Japanese whalers believe it? Do they care? Really, if they came clean and admitted it was bullshit, I for one would respect them a little more, if not agreeing with them.

"The Skyhawks are going to be sold any day now, we are just waiting for state department approval" continuing debacle of farce and mirth. 6 years and counting.
Whatever. I have very good sources on this. Those jets are highly unlikely to fly again, for anybody. The government needs to man up and admit it, which would enable them to use the Macchi trainers, which have never stopped flying, to be re-instated and employed for something actually useful, like training pilots and units of the army and navy, rather than just wasting fuel and making holes in the sky around the Manawatu. The taxpayer is funding it either way. Would also save the groundies having to shove them all in a hangar on open days lest joe public see them and ask embarrassing questions.

Drivers who use the cycle lane as a slip road at the southbound Melling motorway exit
You are going to kill someone one day. I cannot use that cycle lane, as I don't want it to be me.

The continuing obsession with Britney Spears
Who cares? Let the poor girl live her life! I actually feel sorry for her.

Obsession with TV in general
There is more to life than a glowing box in the corner. It is possible to not arrange your life around it.

Never having enough time to do all the things I want to do.
Like Blog.

Exhale. I think I'm ready for hypnosis now.