From Jerusalem:
To Nowhere:
To Middle Earth:
A great day on the Whanganui River yesterday.
Hopefully it’s not another three years before we get out again! :-)
I think most technical people can be categorised as either Heads Up or Heads Down.
Heads Up people start at the technology and ask “How do people use this?”. They think most about the bits of the system you see and touch and interact with and beyond that to how this fits into the broader tasks that people using it are trying to achieve. They can empathise with people. They worry about how the system looks and feels. They think about the experience. They generally prefer to work collaboratively, and need lots of feedback to reassure themselves. They can sometimes be naive to the complexities of implementing something that looks simple on the surface, and ignorant to the trade-offs that their design decisions impose.
Heads Down people start at the technology too, but ask instead “How does this work on the inside?”. They think most about the bits of the system you don’t see and beyond that to the underlying implementation. They wonder how it could be improved, without any impact on the outward appearance. They have a deep technical knowledge and an ability to think in algorithims. They worry about performance and efficiency and optimisation. They think about the engineering. They generally prefer to work by themselves, and usually can tell when they have nailed it. They can sometimes struggle to understand that not everybody is an expert like them, and dismissive of things that seem more like aesthetics than an important part of the system.
Those are horrible broad-brush stereotypes, but if you’re a technical person it’s good to understand where you fit in, as that will help you work out how you can best contribute.
If you’re hiring a technical person, it’s really important to work out beforehand which type is right for the role you have. Any good team is going to need a well selected mix of both types of people.
Related:
Why is good UI design so hard for some developers? - Stack Overflow
Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I) – Myers-Briggs Basics
A brief addendum to my last post.
A few people have sent me this article on Gizmodo, which explains why those of you who tried to watch the third video I included directly on my site would have been out of luck (hopefully most of you were smart enough to click through to YouTube to watch it there, or not care).
This is the quote that jumped out at me:
“With or without this embedding problem, we’ll never get 50 zillion views on a YouTube video again. That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn’t as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in “viral marketing” and the success of our videos is now taught in business school. But here’s a secret: zillions of hits was never the point. We’re a rock band, and it’s a great gig.”
Yes, aren’t record labels, and EMI specifically in this case stupid!
Or, maybe they are really smart and understand that you’re generally not remarkable for long (the point I was trying to make in my previous post) and now is the time to milk this particular cow?
And, while we’re on the topic of stupid, I’m surprised that YouTube haven’t come up with a solution to this problem. I assume that Vimeo have (see below), and yet I thought all the really smart engineers worked at Google?
I recommend you go read the whole thing and be entertained and informed.
Unfortunately I can’t embed the new version of the video, as Vimeo is not one of the sites supported by WordPress.com (where I host my blog). But, for completeness, you can watch the third video there now too.
OK Go have worked out how to be remarkable.
Their first big success was “A Million Ways” which, thanks to a video made and released without permission from their label, was the most downloaded music video at that time:
And, “Here It Goes Again”, featuring an awesome treadmill performance, is one of the all-time most popular internet videos:
So, how do you follow up hits like that?
With even better videos, it would seem.
First:
Then:
However, I think these are very unlikely to be bigger hits.
Look at the progression – the first video was amature in an appealing way (you could imagine the fun they had making it), the second video had just enough polish without looking over produced (you could aspire to have made it yourself), but the last videos looks like they belong on MTV rather than YouTube.
Also, a funky video from these guys is not news, so it’s much less likely to be viral. ”Dog bites man” is not news. ”Man bites dog” is news. But, “Man bites dog a second time” is a much smaller story.
What do you think?
2009 Annual Report
This time last year I wrote a post called Quantifying Nothing, where I tried to answer the question “what do you do?” with a slightly more detailed response than “nothing!”
At the time I was feeling a bit down about how much I was achieving with my time, but I found documenting what I’d actually done quite cathartic.
So, if you’ll indulge me, here’s an attempt to do the same again for 2009.
For the first time since I left university in 1996 I spent a full 12 months without a job, as such. Despite that, it still felt like I spent a fair amount of time “working” on one thing or another.
According to RescueTime I spent 1,228 hours using my computer, with 310 hours (25%) being email. That’s 20% less than in 2008, or over 8 working weeks’ worth. I’m pretty pleased to have it back!
Excluding spam etc, I received about 4,900 emails and sent just over 3,000. Those numbers are also both a lot lower than last year, and much more manageable. I stopped automatically checking for new messages, which helps. This is all good, although I do need to remind myself occasionally that Inbox Zero = Satisfying but Calendar Zero = Depressing.
After email, the next biggest time sink was blogging. This time last year I said I would try to write fewer, more considered posts. In the end I managed 73 posts (down from 171 in 2008), but finished up one short of my target of 30 posts worth keeping. I’m not really sure why I choose to spend so much time on this, other than that I’m constantly and pleasantly surprised by the variety and calibre of people who take the time to read what I write.
Twitter was my new vice this year. It is exactly one year and one day since I made my first tentative tweet, and I followed it with 755 more. I follow 58 people, who mostly add more value than the attention they consume. And I have 497 followers, who hopefully find some of what I write interesting, entertaining or otherwise useful. Or not, whatever.
I did a lot of reading as well as writing (I bookmarked 393 web pages on delicious, two more than last year). At least that’s true online, because offline I once again didn’t read nearly enough, as evidenced by the pile of books that taunts me from my bedside table.
I also spent some time working with various start-up companies during the year. I was paid for some of this time, but not most of it. I really enjoyed most of it, but not all of it.
I invested in three new ventures during the year, but all of those were smaller amounts, so it’s fair to say my focus was on the existing rather than the new.
It’s been a year of mixed fortunes:
- Xero seems to have wind in their sails. Although I no longer have any day-to-day involvement there I’m still happy to be a shareholder and look forward to following their progress in 2010.
- Fishpond have had another big year and I’ve enjoyed being part of their advisory board. They are smart guys working hard on a good business. It’s exciting to think there are still so many more improvements to make.
- Others, like Areograph and Valuecruncher, have also been paddling hard all year. We’ll find out in 2010 whether they will fly or not.
Unfortunately there are some that have not gone so well:
- Wingman was an itch we scratched, but it never got any traction, so we shut it down in April. Despite that, I enjoyed working with Koz, and look forward to being involved in future ventures with him given the opportunity.
- PlanHQ also went nowhere fast, and towards the end of the year we all agreed to cut our losses and sell the company back to Tim (one of the founders). He struggled to get his head around the obligations that come with having external shareholders, so perhaps he’ll make a better run of it now he owns it all?
Clearly I’m still learning. Often what not to do, it seems. But, I continue to subscribe to the just try stuff approach.
So, while I wasn’t working so much, what did I fill that time with?
Lots of different things…
The year started and ended with crazy endurance events. I did the bike leg (180km) of Challenge Wanaka in January, and then a few weeks ago I completed my third Half Ironman (2km swim, 90km bike, 21km run) in Taupo. I was a little worse for wear for a few days after both, but the satisfaction of completing something difficult lasts longer than the sore legs.
I also rode from Wellington to Otaki over the Akatarawas with Vaughan, as part of his ride from Bluff to Cape Reinga.
With all of that I couldn’t help but be fitter, I suppose. But, I’m also quite a bit smaller now than I was this time last year too, thanks in part to a post I wrote in May, called Keeping Score. In the comments Carolyn (an old friend and colleague) linked to The Hackers Diet. With that, and some help from an iPhone app, I’ve lost another 12kg since then. For the first time in my adult life I’m under 80kg and “normal” according to the BMI scale. You do get what you measure, it would seem!
In total I’ve now lost 30kg since 2001. Despite still being full of advice, I am increasingly embarrassed to have needed to do this, rather than proud that I have. I don’t want to be like those people who quit something (smoking, coffee, eating too much, whatever) and then can’t shut up about it to everybody else who never started in the first place!
As well as all of this healthy stuff, I also kept busy spectating during the year. I saw Wellington defend the Ranfurly Shield again, 26 years after watching them lose to Canterbury from the top deck of the old Millard Stand. I watched the All Whites qualify for the World Cup, from just about the best seat in the house – sharing a box with some other Rongotai old boys (Sam, Terry, Winton). Plus some things that were a bit new and different for me: sumo wrestling in Tokyo, surfing at Sunset Beach in Hawaii, and …
I took my dad and my brother on a pilgrimage to The Masters at Augusta. If you’ve ever watched this on TV you’ll know it’s a magical venue, and even better in person. Spending a week watching golf might sound torturous to many of you, but it was actually lots of fun. We saw Tiger and Phil Mickelson making their charge on the final day and caught up with the leaders from our green side seats at the 16th, reserved earlier in the day simply by leaving our chairs there. It was a special trip, and I’m pleased we took the opportunity.
I played 39 rounds of golf myself, including at a couple of the best courses in the world: Pebble Beach (where I shot 99!) and Spyglass Hill, en route to the Masters, Ria Bintan in Indonesia, and Cape Kidnappers more recently. My handicap dropped just slightly from 16.6 to 15.7. But I also got soundly beaten by our two year old (on the Wii), so I keep my feet on the ground.
I went to TED in Palm Springs in February. It was both exhausting and inspiring. If you like the 15min videos they post on the web, try to imagine one after another after another for four days – I don’t recall ever feeling like my brain was so full! Thankfully, I wasn’t as out of my depth as I thought I might be. I met a few heroes (like Morgan Spurlock and Matt Harding), who turned out to be thoroughly nice. And I won an awesome spot prize. But, despite loving it, I’m not sure I’ll go back until I’ve got a more interesting story to tell (actually, the organisers think so too – I applied to go to the main conference in Long Beach in 2010 and was turned down).
I attended two great weddings: one in Bora Bora and one in Martinborough.
And, no funerals!
I saw Coldplay live in Sydney and Neil Finn live in Auckland at a special fund-raising dinner for Medicine Mondiale.
I flew on an Airbus A380 and went to the top of Taipei 101.
I enjoyed a long weekend of skiing and helicopter adventures in Wanaka.
I did the 134m Nevis bungy in Queenstown and a knee hang catch on the flying trapeze at Bintan. My fear of heights is tamed, if not conquered.
According to TripIt I was away 139 days, visiting 38 cities in 8 countries and covering over 100,000km! This included some great family trips, taking advantage of the opportunity to travel with the boys before they start school.
I realise that spending this much time with the boys while they are this age is a huge privilege. And, even still, I don’t take advantage of that as much as I might. I did watch quite a lot of Wot Wots with our two year old (wotty wotty!), and read Moo Baa La La La more times than I can count. I can also thoroughly recommend living within walking distance of a school. Our oldest started in October, and walking with him there in the mornings is often the best part of the day.
Reading all of that back, I appreciate how very unreasonable it would be to complain about anything.
So, what does 2010 hold?
I have no idea, but will soon find out I guess.
I don’t have a grand plan, beyond trying to keep calm and carry on.
I think the best I can hope for is that there will be another good collection of stories to share this time next year.
Today this blog is three years old.
This year I’ve written a lot less frequently than in the previous two years, but hopefully a bit more thoughtfully.
I mostly write for selfish reasons but, if I’m honest, I also like to know that others take the time to visit, read and sometimes comment about the things I’m thinking about. So, thank you for that!
Some days there are more of you than others. Over 4,000 people visited on December 14th (the busiest single day yet) to read about a small experiment I ran to try and reunite a lost camera with its owner (it worked by the way – you found him in under 30 minutes!)
That small viral moment aside, here are the top posts from the last year, as selected by your clicks:
Would you lick it? 18th August
“To be an inventor you have to be the sort of person who is tempted to lick!”
Why you love your job 30th November
“Which would you prefer: a great salary, or a great place to work?”
Keeping Score 8th May
“If you count something interesting, you will learn something interesting.”
Size vs Growth vs Acceleration 24th June
“You can tell a lot about a company by how they report their results.”
Because 29th January
“Looking at a high profile success and thinking that you just need to do the same to be successful can be quite misleading.”
I hope you enjoy your New Year, where ever you find yourself!
And, I look forward to welcoming you back here in 2010, provided I can think of something interesting to write about which tempts you to click.
Cheers,
Rowan.
If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere: turn off your computer and go outside.
If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere: go back to bed, Santa can’t drop off your presents while you’re still up!
Wherever you are, enjoy the day.
“In the short term the market is a popularity contest, in the long term, a weighing machine.”
– Warren Buffett
I’m pleased to announce the first annual Award of the Year Awards, the awards that celebrate awards themselves.
Open to all comers, the self-proclaimed prestigious AOTY Awards will recognise excellence and success in recognising excellence and success (note: naming sponsorship opportunities still available!).
Without doubt 2009 has been a stellar year for awards. We insecure overachievers have been spoilt for choice. Hardly a week has gone by without an awards announcement helping us all to once again separate the true winners from those merely nominated, or otherwise busy.
The AOTY Awards will employ a respected and impartial judging system that has been tried and tested over many years – all nominations and votes will be collected and tallied by an auditor from a reputable local firm, at which point semi-finalists will be announced. From there we will proceed to evening gown and swimsuit rounds before choosing five finalists. There will be a final interview round before the runner-up and winner will be selected by a panel of international judges. If, for any reason, the winner is unable to fulfil their duties as AOTY Award holder during 2010 the runner-up will be given the opportunity to fill their place.
So, without further ado, I pronounce the nominations and voting open.
UPDATE #1:
Note our system for keeping track of nominations allows only names of a certain length, so any votes for the “New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants 2009 Leadership Awards” should be made under the abbreviated title of “NZCIA 2009 Leadership Awards”. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
UPDATE #2:
We have received a query regarding the eligibility of “The Biggest Loser” as an award, given its who-sucks-the-least format. Judges can confirm that all votes for this entry will be accepted. If we’re going to allow “The Qantas Media Awards” then it’s only fair, eh!
5 hours 47 minutes, baby
Published December 21, 2009 Sport 14 CommentsTags: Half Ironman, Taupo, Triathlon
“If you find yourself in a situation where a white person is talking about a marathon, you must be impressed or you will lose favor with them immediately. Running for a certain length of time on a specific day is a very important thing to a white person and should not be demeaned. Also worth nothing, more competitive white people prefer triathlons because Kenyans can’t afford $10,000 specialty bicycles.”
“In Europe, pretty girls on retro bikes with wicker baskets ride, carefree, to work everyday. Keeping active, while also keeping up the appearance of effortless chic. In New Zealand, by contrast, cycling is seen more as something for large groups of overweight, middle-aged men on expensive racing bikes – men who really shouldn’t be pouring themselves into fluorescent Lycra – to do on Saturday mornings, sweating and panting up the hills like sheep in the sun.”
Last weekend I completed my third Half Ironman in Taupo…
Swim Start
Bike
Finish (pipped at the post by a 5 year old!)
Some of you may remember a post from earlier this year, Start != Finish, where I wrote about my experience of the Tauranga Half Ironman in 2008. Trying to avoid making those mistakes again, my goals for this race were mostly related to the shape I wanted to be in at the start line rather than the time recorded at the finish. That seemed to work out for me both ways – I’ve lost some more weight and I’m as fit as I’ve ever been and feeling quite positive about that, and (as a result?) I smashed my personal best time for that distance by nearly 30 mins, finishing in an official time of 5:47.50.
In case that sounds fast, I should point out that this put in me in 205th place on the day, over 90 mins behind the winner. One of the good things about triathlon as a sport, and these sort of events specifically, is that you can race yourself and win.
I know that entering long races seems like madness to most people, but really they are just an excellent excuse to be active, eat well, push myself, etc. I’ve found committing to an imminent race date to be just enough motivation to tip the balance in my favour on all of those fronts.
However, I’d like to specifically recognise the anonymous person who unkindly commented on the size of my belly when I posted my finish line photo from Tauranga. You didn’t, and probably wouldn’t, say it to my face. Thing is, there really is nowhere to hide in those lycra race tops, as you could easily discover for yourself. But, anyway, thank you. To quote Michael Jordan’s acceptance speech when he was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame earlier this year: “You put another log on the fire”.
So, with this race done I’m on the lookout for another challenge. Ideally this time it will be something that doesn’t involve swimming, cycling and running a long way, only to end up where I started. Any suggestions?
(source: SpellingMistakesCostLives.com/Santa)
The advertising battle in the imaginary friend space heated up this week.
Firstly the NZ Athiest Campaign kicked up a bit of a fuss and got some nice editorial coverage when they announced they would replicate a campaign from the UK, running ads on the side of buses with the message: “There’s probably no God. Now, stop worrying and enjoy your life”.
Not to be outdone rival organisation St. Matthews in the City hit back with their own funny/controversial billboard showing Mary and Joseph in bed, apparently in an effort to “inspire people to talk about the Christmas story”.
Santa, the most widely believed-in imaginary friend amongst the younger demographic, has been conspicuous in his absence from this debate. Although, this hasn’t stopped a grinch-y academic from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia claiming today that his obesity, speeding and drinking makes him a bad role model (presumably parents would be better, eh?)
The billboard above, via @gnat, is very funny, but is possibly too subtle to get much cut through with kids. I wonder if a message directly targeting them would be more successful? A variation on the atheists’ message, suggested by @rowsell, does the trick nicely I think:
“Santa probably isn’t real, so why not relax and be naughty”
Excellent. :-)
However, if you’re one of those parents who prefers hypocrisy to cynicism, remember, Santa knows if you tell lies!
In New Zealand we like to talk up the interconnectedness of the little village that we all live in.
Because of our small population, it’s often claimed that everybody is connected to everybody else by fewer than six degrees of separation.
There is even a new mobile phone network claiming just two degrees.
So, let’s try an experiment and see if we can return some lost property in the process.
Yesterday we were driving home from Taupo and saw a camera fall off the roof of one of the cars we were following. Unfortunately we didn’t see which one, and anyway, by the time we stopped and picked it up they were long gone.
Here is one of the pics from the camera:
If you or somebody you know are in the photo please get in touch so I can arrange to return the camera to you.
If not, please re-blog, re-tweet, or otherwise forward this onto anybody who may have been driving South along the Desert Road yesterday.
If you include a link to this post then I’ll be able to work out how long the chain is, if the owner is found.
Thanks in advance for your help!
UPDATE (14th Dec, 1pm):
I’ve got an email from one of the people in the photo, so I’m pleased to say that the camera and (more importantly) photos will be back with them soon.
I’m astounded at how many people have linked to this post this morning, from Twitter and various other sites. Thanks to you it took less than 3 hours to find them.
It looks like there were a number of different ways that I am connected to the owner – but the first to produce a result was via Tarik, who subscribes to my blog and is a friend of the owner, so just two degrees of separation.
Thanks again to everybody who made the effort to help!
UPDATE (14th Dec, 2pm):
A couple of people have pointed out an NZPA story about this, currently on the Stuff home page:
Blog helps reunite owner with camera
Too funny!
And, so nice of them to provide a link back to this post … oh wait, they didn’t.
UPDATE (15th Dec, 3pm):
The camera has been returned in exchange for a bottle of 42 Below. A good result!
Just getting my bike set up so I can live tweet my race tomorrow:
If you want to follow my progress, my user name is @rowansimpson.
I don’t have a solution for my wetsuit yet, so if you have any ideas please let me know.
;-)
UPDATE ,13th Dec:
Thanks for all of your replies and suggestions.
I especially liked this, from @jontsnz:
“Maybe add a sticker: “In case of accident, please press Send” so we can at least get the tweet that you wiped out writing!”
Classic!
Once I get feeling back in my legs I’ll write up a longer post about the day, but in the mean time here are the tweets:
“Lake not too choppy. Swimming advice from 5yo: bubble arm, bubble arm, breathing arm and repeat.” 6:05am
“Lake water tastes better than sea water. Did a good time. Only 111km of bike and run to go.” 7:16am
“Run: 16km of hope completed 5km of truth to go” 11:40am
“Approx finish time 5h 48m feel great and crap at same time” 12:24pm (see Start != Finish for context)
“Thanks for all your messages of support. And thanks to Emily for being on Twitter duty while I was otherwise engaged. Now, where is the spa?” 2:11pm
Last week Google made another interesting small tweak to their home page.
When you first load the page all that is displayed is the logo, the text box and the two buttons:
In other words, nothing but the absolute necessary for the visitor who just wants to search. The text box has the focus, so you can simply type away. (I’ll leave the reader to consider where the “I’m feeling luckly” button fits in all of this minimalism).
If you move your mouse then all of the other links are revealed, with a subtle fade-in:
I can’t decide if this is clever or too clever.
What do you think?
I got up too early on Saturday morning, with our five year old, to watch the draw for the Football World Cup. (Let me re-phrase that: he was up anyway, so I was the only reluctant one in the equation).
Thanks to the magic of MySky we skipped through the 30+ minutes of pre-match faffing around, and caught up with the live action just in time for the draw itself.
We both booed when Mexico and USA got our preferred places in South Africa’s and England’s pools respectively. And cheered too loudly (there were others still enjoying a sleep in) when New Zealand was finally drawn – despite the mathematical certainty of that happening eventually.
Perhaps it was just relief at avoiding Brazil and Spain, the two remaining seeded teams still to come in the draw, the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the world, and obvious picks for eventual finalists (provided Portugal don’t stuff it up by winning their pool which would force them to play each other in the second round).
Some observations:
1. I think we “won” the draw.
Sure, beforehand there were an almost infinite number of permutations, some of which were much more attractive than what we got, but also very unlikely to actually eventuate.
If we just look at the other teams that were in our pot (aka the “bunny bucket”), it’s hard to argue that we’d be better off in any other pool:
We wouldn’t want to be in…
- North Korea’s pool with Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast (ranked #2, #5 and #16 in the world).
- Japan’s pool, with Netherlands, Cameroon and Denmark (#3, #11 and #26).
- Honduras’ pool with Spain and Chile (#1 and #17).
- Australia’s pool with Germany and Serbia (#6 and #20).
- Mexico’s pool, with France and Uruguay (#7 and #19).
- South Korea’s pool with Argentina and Nigeria (#8 and #22).
The best alternative we could hope for would be USA’s pool with England and Algeria (#9 and #28).
The reason for this is simple. There was nobody in the draw that we would play and be confident of beating. The only other team to have qualified for the tournament with a lower world ranking is North Korea (and since they were in our pot they were never going to be in our pool).
2. Expect to be soundly beaten by both Paraguay and Slovakia.
Italy are ranked #4 in the world and are defending champions. Expectations will correctly be low when we play them.
But, I fear, by the time the matches actually start there will be a number of people who will expect to see the All Whites compete against the other two teams in our pool.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see it happen.
But to expect it would be misguided.
Paraguay are ranked #30 in the world. Slovakia are ranked #34. We are ranked #77, just ahead of Uganda and a place behind Uzbekistan.
To draw a comparison with rugby, the #77 ranked team is Solomon Islands. However, that’s misleading since there are only 95 teams in the IRB rankings, compared to 207 in the FIFA rankings (there are five teams tied in 203rd= place, including American Samoa and Papua New Guinea – giving a good guide to the quality of opposition that we needed to beat out to be Oceania champs!)
So, the equivalent match ups in rugby would be Hong Kong (#34) vs Japan (#13) and Tonga (#15).
Spare a thought for the 46 countries ranked higher than us who didn’t even qualify for the finals. Imagine if Hong Kong qualified for the rugby world cup but France didn’t – Croatia, ranked 10th in the football world will not be in South Africa, but we will.
We should consider ourselves lucky to score nil.
3. France 1, FIFA 0.
I know that Frace played poorly in the qualifying tournament, and were lucky (pronounced “cheat-y” in Irish) to be there at all.
However, having qualified they should have been a seeded team. They are ranked #7 in the world, ahead of Argentina (who hardly strolled through qualifying themselves), England and South Africa who were all seeded.
I can understand that the organisers wanted to ensure that South Africa played at pre-determined venues and in pre-determined matches, but there are lots of other ways they could have orchestrated that – for example, simply by mandating that whichever pool South Africa was drawn in would be considered Pool A, swapping place with whatever pool they were naturally drawn in.
France got screwed by the FIFA seedings, so the fact that they ended up as the strong favourite to win their pool anyway can only be put down to karma.
4. England, optimistic as ever.
Here is my favourite quote from coverage of the draw, from The Guardian:
“In the last two decades England have limped home from Italy (1990), traipsed back from France (1998), stumbled west from Japan (2002) and sounded the retreat from Germany (2006), where Wayne Rooney as sent off in a quarter-final defeat to Portugal. Next summer’s competition therefore presents a fresh opportunity: to be knocked-out on a whole new continent, in winter time, rather than the clammy temperatures that help redden faces, along with the tears.”
I know we like to think that the All Blacks are the rugby equivalent of Brazil, but you have to admit, when it comes to the supporters’ expectations especially there are a lot of similarities with England too.
5. Predictions.
According to the TAB, England are now third favourites, behind only Spain and Brazil. Yes, they have a relatively easy pool, which they should top. And, provided that Germany finish top in Australia’s pool they will have a second round match they will expect to win too – most likely against Serbia. But, from there it gets a lot tougher. Their quarter final opponent would probably be one of France, Nigeria or Argentina (the ol’ nemesis). Two other teams on their side of the draw, and likely semi final opponents, if they get that far, are Netherlands and Brazil.
I think that either Netherlands, currently paying $13, is a better bet than England at $7, but wouldn’t it be good to see them prove me wrong!
If results go according to rankings, the later knock out stages will be:
Quarter Finals:
France v England
Netherlands v Brazil
Argentina v Germany
Italy v Spain
Semi Finals:
France v Brazil
Germany v Spain
Final:
Brazil v Spain
I guess I shouldn’t plan on too much sleep during July next year then?
Here’s a question for you: next year, if you could attend one of a) Winter Olympics, b) Commonwealth Games, or c) World Cup, what would it be?
“Education doesn’t actually work by teaching you things. It works by giving you the impression that you’ve had a very good education, which gives you an insane sense of unwarranted self-confidence, which then makes you very successful in later life.”
Our oldest has recently turned five, so I’ve been thinking a bit about the influence that different schools and teachers can have.
This post is to recognise some of the teachers whose paths I have been fortunate to cross:
Mr Nicholson (Island Bay School) – who taught me that the key to entertaining people is not necessarily to be the greatest piano player, but to play songs that people recognise and can sing along with. He was also a deceptive spin bowler with an ability to adjust the difficulty of the ball to the skill of the batsman.
Russell Watt (South Wellington Intermediate) – who taught me that everything can be a competition (even maths!), which was a pretty rare thing in an environment where most other people thought all that mattered was taking part.
Mr Walters (South Wellington Intermediate) – who taught me to peen, and to count in hexidecimal, and that there were things you could do with a computer that were potentially a bit more interesting/useful than playing lemonade stand. This was back in the day when computers in schools were kept in their own special “lab” (are they still?)
Suze Randal (Rongotai College) – who convinced me to study French and German, two subjects which were much harder than the others I was considering and which no doubt came in quite useful a bit later on – when I was in Paris and Berlin, and also when it came time to learn Pascal and C.
Gareth Rapson (Rongotai College) – who introduced me to non-fiction which makes you think, and taught me how to argue convincingly from both sides of the same debate.
Peter Andreae (Victoria University) – who demonstrated that to be impressive and influential you don’t have to talk loudly or wear flash clothes (or shoes, at all).
Robert Biddle (Victoria University) – who was able to fit an amazing amount knowledge onto a single OHP slide, and make the most difficult concepts plain and obvious, and in doing so showed me that if you know something but can’t explain it clearly to others then it’s really as if you don’t know it at all.
Of course there are many others, but these are just some that come to mind.
PS Three observations:
- Yes, when I studied Computer Science they used OHP slides … I’m getting older every day!
- Even now, it still doesn’t feel right to use first names for some of these people (even where I know them).
- It’s interesting how many of these are men. Coincidence?
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