Do you see a duck or a lady?

You know those visual illusion puzzles, where when you first look at it, one image appears, but then as you concentrate and look for a secondary image, you then see something else begin to become visible? There are a few classics getting around that you most likely would have seen, such as this:

and this:

The same thing happens in media when different people report on the same event. Based upon the bias of a person, the things that they have seen or heard, and how they interpret it, they'll then put their own spin on what has happened in that event. A charismatic writer can be quite influential in swaying people towards their own view.

You're probably aware of this and have your own experiences where you've seen this happen. I was reminded of it again just this morning when reading about a particular event that occurred in the USA within the ranks of NFL. The summery of the event is that a player for the NFL team; Miami Dolphins, took leave from playing and revealed that it was due to bullying from another player in hos own team. I won't go into the details, if you want you can read about it then you can Google the two players involved Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin.

However I'm not writing about this to give an opinion on who is at fault, but simply to say I was surprised about how my view got confused when I read about the article from two different writers who I both have a good amount of respect for.

The first writer was Brian Philips from Grantland (ESPN) who wrote an interesting and extensive piece that talked about the entrenched attitudes of bullying and machismo that led to a shocking degree of depression and suicide within the ranks of that sport. The article is here though I must warn that the language is a little course.

On the flipside is another writer who is even more coarse in his language, but approaches the situation from the reverse angle. I've found his perspective and experience interesting for a large number of reasons, but his site is even less suitable for those wanting to avoid crude language. To respect his opinion, you would have needed to have read alot of his past blog to get a feel for how reasonable or intelligent he may be. He did conclude his own entry with saying that we'd need to see all the facts come out, but he did make clear what his opinion was, and it was quite the opposite of Brian Philips. If you're not offended easily, you can read his post here.

I was reminded once again that when it comes to hearing about an interesting event secondhand, particularly when it will affect and shape my interaction with that person, I need to do my own research as the teller of the story will have applied their own bias.

Writing role models

I've been trying to think a little bit about some of the things that led me to consider blogging. Sometimes these things can be hard to really identify if you weren't concentrating or taking notes when it was all happening, especially if you have a memory like mine, but I was thinking back on it today, and I think I was inspired by the writing of other people.

I've only got one favourite fiction author, and that is Terry Pratchett. The guy knows how to tell a story and weave some wit through the entire thing. I don't agree with all of his world views, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying his books as I have to say they're worth considering if you've never read any of his stuff.

Then I recently came across an American writer called Chuck Klosterman. I came across one of his books 'A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas' by chance at the local library and found his style quite enthralling. The way he took regular events and meetings, and then related them in a funny and engaging way, was enthralling to me.

You're bound to meet at least one person like that in your life, whether they be the class clown, the life of the party, or whatever, they are the kind of person who can have you laughing about their story of getting the saturday paper from the shop.

Well looking for more of his stuff, I found that he was an occassional writer for an ESPN website: Grantland.com. They've got quite a large number of good writers who feature on that site regularly. Their articles feature not just North American sport, but also pop-culture observations. Over the past couple of years, those articles have linked to other writings and even blogs.

Some of those blogs have turned out to be quite good, and then linked to other blogs which have also been quite engaging. Danny Choo's blog is remarkably engaging, but his entries are primarily composed of photos he has taken during an occassion, so in a way, his blog entries are quite visual. (He is an excellent photographer and I've been reading alot about his camera choices as he's clearly achieved good results from a combination of the right equipment and great ability.)

I like how these individuals are all able to communicate and connect with people. They're frequently intelligent in their thoughts and opinions, and able to recognise what is interesting to the people they're relating it to. I hope that I can develop in a similar way, because if anything, I don't want to be boring to listen to.

Lindsey Stirling

Depending on whether you watch those tv talent game shows or not, you probably won't recognise that name. She's an American violinist, only 27 years old but remarkably talented and has stood out from many others by adding hip-hop and electronic styles to her perfomances. I've not really been much of a fan of instrumentals primarily featuring violins, but her music has been quite remarkable and very worthwhile listening to. You can check some of her stuff out on SoundCloud if you're ever curious. She's featured on America's Got Talent back in 2005, and it is interesting in seeing how she's managed to make a name for herself despite the number of people who said her fusion of violin with contemporary electronic and dubstep styles would never work.

It has me thinking that I've let alot of things slide, mainly due to finding it easier to sink hours into video games. For example I've got about $2,000 worth of wind and brass instruments idling away in a closet. I've got to pull that stuff out and get back into playing music.

My to-do list is starting to look kinda long...

Fearing for the future

I'm going to bring up the sniffing and snorting thing again because for some reason it seems that there are a cloud of people, who are doing this constantly, hovering around me for the past month. It is driving me nuts!

I related this to my wife, and perhaps she felt that I was including her in this, but I'm not. She suffers from quite bad hayfever, and the current Spring is being rather severe now that the sun is out. However, where my wife stands out from most, is that she's aware of what hayfever involves and she keeps tissues at hand all the time. So when there's stuff in her nose, she blows.

Why most of the Australian population has forgotten this principle is beyond me. I still remember quite clearly the times that my mother reprimanded me for snorting and not using tissues or a handkerchief. Such that I was quite aware that not only was sniffling a gross act, but that it clearly irritated her, and by extension it would definitely annoy everyone else. Now I'll make a note here, despite all my upbringing, I almost never carry tissues, even when I'm chronically sick. However, what I will do, is go out of my way to clear the sinuses before going out, and also look to avail myself of a tissue when those sinuses start to run again. Often this is accommodated by visiting a restroom facility to grab a couple of squares of toilet paper. I live in a developed nation, and public washrooms are everywhere. If I find myself in a place where there are no restrooms of any sort, then I'm also in a place where there aren't any people and snorting to my heart's content, or wiping my nose on a koala, isn't an issue.

Anyway, getting back to the point in hand; my mum. In fact, for my generation I believe it would be accurate to say that the vast majority of mothers would have instilled an understanding of the appropriate and best way of getting rid of mucus. Afterall, your body is using it to try to get rid of something, why would you then want to ingest it?

So the past week, I've been looking at some of the people in the cloud of sniffers, and I've been a little surprised. On two occassions, the sniffer was part of a romantically linked pair of individuals, and it has been the male on both occassions. What surprised me was that for the duration that I was in their presence (in one case 10minutes during a train journey) the woman did not seem perturbed by her partner's behaviour.

These have both been young couples, and either still informally attached or very early in a more long-term arrangement, yet the female half of the pairing did not provide any etiquette guidance for her disadvantaged other. The guy would have been doing this for the time they had been together before I crossed their path that day, and most likely continued afterwards as well. I'm not saying her best solution would have been to look for a better partner, but I'm surprised that she wasn't correcting that behaviour.

Where I'm going with this is; if the women who are the future mothers of tomorrow are not disturbed by constant loud snorting right next to them, then will that mean that they won't be correcting their children? And what will that mean for the hygiene and etiquette for the next generation?

The possibilities make me cringe.

Torture bars

Thought I should get a picture up of my handiwork. It's held up well for the past week, though of course I am not managing many reps just yet. I've only managed 3.

Goal for the moment is to be able to do 20. The other thing as well is that I'm getting into these cold, so it isn't like it is part of an exercise routine. If I was, I'd probably still only be managing 1.

Anyway, baby steps. One of the guys at my work recommended looking up BarStarzz on Youtube, which kind of originated out of guys using the bars at local parks and around the streets for their exercise routines. Something I'm hoping to get some inspiration from.

Main thing I'm happy about right now is that it hasn't pulled out of the wall.

H-uh... I can almost juggle.

I've always wanted to learn how to juggle and so I've occassionally messed around with some hacky sack things around the house, but the problem is that I only have two. So I would kinda improvise a third and try for a while, then completely forget about it. End result, I have no ability. Recently though I decided to get a few sets of three juggling training balls (they're for prizes for something else, a post for another time), but I kept one for myself to practice with. So now I can do a really basic routine, though not very reliably. But I'm making progress and it's only taken me a few days.

This is kinda cool, to me anyways. And also I can honestly say that committing oneself to practicing something regularly actually works. There might be a life lesson here... not sure.

I'm gonna keep at this until I can juggle on demand.

Write off.

Wow, last week was a killer. I have a few favourite blogs were the writers are remarkably entertaining and I love hearing about all their adventures and experiences, but they'd have big gaps in their posts occassionally, and I would wonder to myself how can things get so on top of a person that they drop off the radar for a couple of weeks, or even a couple of months?

Well, I had that happen to me last week. Between some insane days at the office, combined with some other preparation work for extra curricular activities, it meant that both my days and nights were hosed, and I had no desire to sit in front of a computer to compose any postings. Sorry about that.

Anyway the weekend was fun. My legs were killing me after having a few nights where I had to skate alot further and a bit more frantically to make trains. The services here really die out after 6:30pm, and the station near my workplace is not one I want to sit around after dark, so I end up pushing uphill for the short distance into the central station. It all means I'm just out of shape.

So with the fatigue in my legs making me reticent to do any work, I had to really push to get some stuff done around the house that has been needing attention. Saturday morning was spent lying on the roof for an hour in the sun rewiring LED transformers for the dining room. One of the older units had cracked the solder joints for the wiring block, and that meant the slightly intermittent power supply was blowing the globes, and LED units are still expensive here. I've also upped the LED lights to a slightly higher power for more light. The end result is that we can now see what we're eating, and that's nice.

I also finally fixed the damn dynabolts holding up my chin up bar. You can see the picture below of the cheap ones that originally came with it. These bolts are so cheap that I couldn't even find a decent photo of them.

These bolts fail because the flared end is actually visibly wider than the sheath, and that's bad because you then need to make a wider hole than necessary to make the bolt go in, and you run the risk that it then won't flare enough. I bought some nicer ones with a more accurately machined tip, but had to be longer so they would go through to a deeper drilled section of the wall, reusing the same holes. It isn't perfect, but it holds my weight.

I can now do two reps. Sweet.

I had a guy give me some advice on different training techniques to build strength in this area, so hopefully I'll be occassionally posting about my progress in this regard.

Oh, I also spent 4 hours this weekend trying to fix our toilet. The toilet had issues leaking from the outlet valve, as well as also the inlet valve not shutting off properly. It was bad enough that we could now see it measurably impacting our daily water usage. Four hours. Four hours trying to fix what should take 15min to do. The outlet valve is fixed , however the inlet valve still leaks. It is better now, but it is still leaking.

I hate you Caroma. I want my money and my four hours back.