Sunday, March 30, 2008

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Most famous people on one picture"

This is an interesting picture I found through Stumble.

The title is "Most famous men in one photo". There are two things wrong with this title, firstly that there are women in the pictures and secondly it is not a photograph.

Those pedantic points aside it is a fascinating picture. Even if the first thing you do is count how many famous people you recognise rather than just appreciate it as a piece of art.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

II Waging War

13 & 14 With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots, worn out horses, breast plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.

Notes by Zephyrist:

We were talking about the proximity of an army which causes prices to go up and this in turn causes the people's substance to be drained away.

Sun Tzu is talking about basic economics, demand increases whilst supply stays the same so prices rise. Peasant incomes don't increase so 30% of their income just vanishes as it is used to pay for the price rise in food.

The second part is that a standing army will cause defence spending to rise to 40% of the government's revenue.

How applicable these figures are in today's economic climate is debatable and perhaps the figures Sun Tzu quotes are too vague to analyse

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Does 'misspeak' mean lying? (BBC)

An interesting article from the BBC magazine about whether "misspeak" means lying or just just being misinterpreted or unclear speech.

This follows on from Hilary Clinton making a speech referring to a visit to Bosnia in 1996 and afterwards being caught out by video footage which seemed to give a different version of events than Hilary herself gave.

Hilary's version

"Her initial version of events was that her plane landed under fire and she had to duck and run to her vehicle."
-BBC Article, Does 'misspeak' mean lying?

News footage version
"But television footage shows her disembarking with a smile, waving to the crowd and strolling across the tarmac to greet a little girl who read her a poem."
-BBC Article, Does 'misspeak' mean lying?
I can see how easily you would mix up the two visits.

Anyway the debate is that misspeak can mean lying or misinterpreted, so her use of the word is very ambiguous. IS she just avoiding political suicide by not owning up and saying she was lying.

The article suggests that if pressed about whether she actually lied, then she can admit to lying and say she never tried to deny it, even though she hasn't really said outright that she lied.

There are some other examples of 'misspeak' especially by other politicians including George W Bush and his famous enemies speech.

"They [our enemies] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we."
- George W. Bush 2005 (BBC Article, Does 'misspeak' mean lying?)

Pilchard! (sorry PG-13 insults)

The Apprentice is back...

Yes 9pm GMT on BBC1 the apprentice with Alan "Your fired" Sugar is back. Less than an hour to go till the cuddly rottweiler is back.

I have seen a trailer for the series which includes some suited and booted woman proclaiming that "I am the best salesperson in Europe".

Actually, I can prove your probably not.

For one how do you measure 'best salesperson'? On sales, most product sold, highest margin, largest commission. How are you comparing across industries, do you take into account factors such as customer satisfaction number of product returns or customer call backs.

If you were the best sales person you would probably be richer than Alan Sugar and the best sales person probably lives to do one thing and that is "Sell, Sell, Sell!". They would not have time to appear on the apprentice, think of the customers escaping un-serviced.

I know this because I once worked for a retail company with a heavy commission structure. I spoke to some managers who had worked their way up and were committed salespeople. My question was if you have made £2000 in the first hour of an eight hour day and had beaten your target do you put your feet up? They gave the answer of a true salesperson "I try to make £4000 in the second hour". True salespeople are always chasing the golden sale, and when they have the golden sale they need to beat it. They are truly competitive.

So are you likely to be the best salesperson in Europe. NO!

Do you have an ego that far exceeds your ability? Yes - Congratulations your on 'The Apprentice!'

Of course the biggest satisfaction in 'The Apprentice' is seeing people that have made it such as Alan Sugar take a big chain saw and cut the ego driven wannabes down to size.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Facebook just got scary

There is an application on facebook called "Owned - Buy and sell your friends."

I am now owned for the princely sum of $151 by a complete stranger.

There is something slightly unsettling about this online slavery. On one level it is a simple popularity contest to see who has the better pictures or who is wanted more.

There is no real money involved, it is just credits which you can earn by playing the game. Ownership I assume confers no rights on the new owner.

Still just a little bit scary isn't it.

Update:

Bought a female friend for a $1 as a joke, only for someone else to buy her. Then two people entered into a bidding war and she quickly shot up to over $8000.

Far too scary now, deleted and blocked the application.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Devorah Sperbler - pixelated abstract sculptures

These are absolutely fascinating. I first saw an example of these sculptures in New Scientist magazine.

Basically just as a pixelated picture is made up of single pixels of a certain colour, Devorah makes up sculptures out of spools of thread of a single colour.

As Devorah says in the New Scientist article (17 March 2007, pp 52):

"As a visual artist I cannot think of a topic more stimulating and yet so basic than the art of seeing"
- Devorah Sperber
The Science bit is appreciating how our minds process visual information and put it all together to from an image. The idea is that the sculpture makes us think about how the brain interprets the world around which may not be quite the same. The brain could be said to be playing tricks on us, in the same way that movies are still pictures but our brain processes them into moving pictures.

The world is not always quite as our eyes see it.

Snow Watch 2008

Well fleeting snow showers have been reported all over England yesterday and today. I have seen two sleety / snow showers but nothing substantial.

There was even a report from our foreign correspondent yesterday of snow in South Wales.

The weather warnings from the met office have been 'be prepared' for Saturday and Sunday. The one for Saturday has now been downgraded to normal. In Oxfordshire there is a 60% chance of a severe disruption event resulting in up to 2-5 cm local accumulations at low ground or 5-10cm on high ground.

There is snow on the pitch, they think its all over, it is now!

Watch this space for the final exciting climax to the snow watch 2008 season.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Finding Nemo and a Practical Joke

I accept no responsibility for the humour in the following article. A lot of people will already know that I can find amusement in the smallest things, others would suggest my mind is not wired the same way as other people.

Finding Nemo ...


Found him!

It reads, "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit"

Which means "None provoke me unpunished."

I feel the game could be extended to any photo where the word nemo is clearly visible. I may play this later with my camera phone.


Can I Speak to Mr C Lyon

This is a very clever practical joke from the book "Penguins Stopped Play - eleven cricketers take on the world" by Harry Thompson which I can highly recommend.

Basically you track down the telephone number of a zoo and leave a message on a work colleagues desk that a Mr C Lyon rang while they were away could they please ring them back on this number.

Unless you are particularly bright you would ring the number and only when somebody said something like "London Zoo" you would twig. Of course some people might still ask to speak to Mr C Lyon (Sea Lion if you haven't twigged yet) in which case their colleagues are probably now even rolling around on the floor. In my office we have some one who would probably continue to argue that a Mr C Lyon did ring from that number.

As a HR professional I feel obliged to point out that practical jokes could be interpreted as bullying and harassment in the workplace. Make sure the person you are playing the joke on has a sense of humour otherwise you could find yourself facing disciplinary action.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I do not pledge allegiance ...

One of the things I have always thought rather sad and strange is the way the Americans pledge allegiance to their flag. I find it rather curious that they should feel the need to have such a public pledge to unity of the country.

Its almost as if they do it as a test to see who is un-american, anyone not pledging to the flag is clearly un-american and not one of the ubiquitous us. Quick fetch your pitch forks and flaming torches and lets chase them out of town.

Anyway today saw the punt of an idea for British school leavers to have a citizenship ceremony which may or may not include a pledge of allegiance to the country and/or the Queen.

Lets give this one a miss shall we, we don't need to make an empty public gesture. After all we don't need to establish that everyone pretends to be British. Teenagers will either rebel or just pretend to get it over with. It wont give them pride in their country or give them a greater understanding of what it is to be British.

If I was being particularly cynical I might even suggest that this has nothing to do with being British it is just appealing to the illusive middle class voter who in deepest Surrey will hear the news and say what a good idea it is and about time to.

Monday, March 10, 2008

My Autobiography - Possible Titles

In a quiet moment on a wet Monday while the "Great" storm was raging against the window. In Oxfordshire it really wasn't that great, more of the "Lesser" Storm.

Anyway I was busy watching the rain and thought about writing all the stories that from a working life spent in HR. If it is still called HR when I retire in 30 ish years time. Who knows whether I shall ever write the scary story that is my life in HR but it amused me for five minutes to think about titles for my magnus opus.

" The story of a mid-level HR functionary in a non-descript government department"

" Re-inventing the wheel - the public sector way"

"I came I saw, I banged my head against the wall."

"Have you filled in the correct form?"

"101 reasons why you shouldn't have a meeting"

"Even a 6 year old can see the problem"

"To change the world, you have to start at the bottom."

"My life in procedures and policies."

"Every day heroes and how I recruited them."

"HR - Hope Revitalised"

"HR - Harpies Re-visted"

"HR - Hopeful Revolution"

"When the call came, I stood up and was counted."

"Cradle to grave HR in the public sector."

I could go on and on. Perhaps I could make them into chapter titles instead.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Snow Watch 2008

Well looking at my notes for last year, there is little hope left for any snow fall this season.

Last year there was a final blast on the 22nd March which gives us just 14 days to go.

Will the proverbial white rabbit fall out of that or is that the end of a one snowflake season.

Bah Humbug.

Meeting sign language

Have you ever been in a meeting where there are perhaps ten or twelve of you round a table, maybe you and a few team colleagues together with management / clients / customers? Perhaps you are having a pivotal discussion about the future. You need to be in sync with your team to carry the day.

How cool would it be to have an in-house sign language to give your team pointers or more info about what you are thinking. The bonus would be you could have a subtext conversation below the main conversation but one where only your team understand it.

You might want to sign things like:

"I don't agree with them"

"I agree"

"We need to support this idea"

"We need to close this idea down"

"I need your support"

"Lets wrap this up"

"I think we need a break"

"We need to negotiate on price"

"This is going nowhere"

" We need to get back on track"

You wouldn't need a whole new language just about 20 or so key phrases to help out during the meeting. After all organisations already invent their own verbal and written languages, how about inventing an organisational specific non verbal language?

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Snow Watch 2008

Well I saw my first real snow flakes this morning. Following on from a report by a field reporter in South Oxfordshire of white rain I saw the odd flake in Oxford this morning. No pictures as if you had blinked you would have missed them.

Ah well. Hopes for a fine Snow Watch 2008 season are fading fast and it all started so well all the way back in December 2007.