I really like slothphil's later comment on my original post, so I'm highlighting it here.

My ISP doesn't pay the sites I visit on the Internet in much the same way as the bus company doesn't pay the places I visit when I go into town.

I think that's a really useful model, but not a comparison/connection many people are going to naturally make.

John Roughan in the Herald, after getting some insulation put in.

Two days after the Budget the installer returned to put in some final brackets and I said I guessed his business must be booming on the subsidy just announced.

Like hell, he replied. It had completely ruined his cash flow. Of the 28 orders on his books before that Thursday, all but two had cancelled.

The rest were going to wait for the Government's grant next month and most of them, he reckoned, were waiting in vain; the job they wanted would not be nearly enough to qualify.
...
"Eeca", as the authority is already known to my insulation man, prefers firms large enough to meet its Maori employment quota among other criteria he mentioned.

He described an industry thrown into disarray and said he would find someone to say so publicly, but hasn't. Half a dozen insulation firms contacted by the Weekend Herald last week all said they were busy. Two were planning to take on staff.

They were among the 33 approved providers of the government scheme. The authority is taking applications from others but a spokeswoman said it would be September before more may be approved.

Forget about who introduced the scheme, what we're talking about could be the law of unforseen consequences but in all likelihood is the result of someone not thinking or just not caring about all the likely consequences of introducing a new scheme. Like the person who decided a mixer had to be added to the out-pipe of hot water-cylinders to reduce the temperature without considering what this could do to the pressure at the tap/showerhead, this policy was obviously implemented without thinking about what people who were about to get insulation put in would do when they might suddenly get it a $grand cheaper by cancelling their order and waiting a month.

The scheme is a good idea, the implementation is a bit fail. Sure I wouldn't have thought of it but it's not my job to catch these things. I do kind of expect better from the experts who supposedly staff government departments.

~~~
Also from the Herald, the possibilities inherent in adding technology to the national trucking fleet.

If there's a government fee regime that's ripe for an electronic makeover, it's the collection of road user charges from the national diesel truck fleet, totalling about $800 million a year.

The article mentions that persuading the industry establishment to implement the new technology is a major stumbling block. On that note ReadWriteWeb recently had an article about why the 'smart-grid', which could lead to an internet-like burst of innovation around electrical and other utility services, isn't going to be with us any time soon. The earth2tech article which inspired that post also has a bit of a follow up here.

She draws a comparison with real time GIS location data, which telecom companies initially objected was too expensive to deliver and not really needed by consumers. When the killer app of turn-by-turn driving directions was invented, that debate was put to rest and the real time geolocation data infrastructure was born.
...
What's the killer app for smart utility grids? Fehrenbacher says she doesn't know and that's the point - we can't even imagine what kinds of cool and useful applications will be developed on that platform once it's available. The lack of a killer app leads to less support for the building of the platform, though, a catch-22 we can relate to from discussions of our calls to open up aggregate activity data from social networks for analysis.

Fibre to or from the farm - there's another possible example from my special interests :D
~~~

Finally, great little newspaper motto via Busytown - "If you don't want it printed, don't let it happen."

Thought for... erm .. several days ago - By my own standards, I am not a perfectionist.

~~~
Neverwinter didn't happen last night. One player is in Ireland (fair excuse :D ), one let me know he had another engagement barely hours before the game, and another just didn't show.

Short-to-no-notice drop-outs make me grouchy.

Instead we dragged out the old SAGA copy of Talisman and played that for a few hours. I -almost- won, but uaekiwi's Troll beat the last life token out of my Gladiator atop the Crown of Command.

~~~
Guido's Treasure wrapped up a short arc and now begins a Dragon hunt.

~~~
shenya's game is starting what will hopefully be a relatively simple dungeon crawl. Starting with a dragon.

~~~
Work week was OK.

~~~
My little niece (2? 3? yrs) was airlifted to hospital yesterday afternoon with a diabetes complication "ketosis" or some such. Was thisclose to being rushed up to Starship yesterday evening,but has apparently improved.

~~~
I am sitting alone in front of the computer picking at little computer/internet related tasks like the edges of a scab and slowly going stir-crazy. The edges of sanity-threating dvds curl out from the direction of the lounge to assault my senses when I pass by. Lacking any true blobbing-out options I may have to return to Civ II.

When the shotgun approach repeatedly fails to hit anything, you might need to consider that just maybe you're firing f'ing blanks.

Well, not a Grue, a tendriculous, but still annoying. Back down to 6th level again and having to argue for a raise/rez instead of a reincarnate.

~~~
Quoteable quote from ankhst's birthday do:

plato_hell (earnestly) : But everyone here is old except for me and [R.] and [me].
Everyone else in the room (who have some idea of my age): [a moment of stunned silence] ummm, I think....
Me (carefully): Lucy, at the First Party I was twice your age.

I'm considering it a compliment :D I also received another comment I found much more flattering earlier in the evening.

Instructions: Go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 . Pick the first five quotes that resonate with you and post them in your journal. You can reload the page as many times as you like, but don't get too choosy -- if you have a good reaction to one, run with it.

A witty saying proves nothing.
Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972)

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?
Woody Allen (1935 - )

Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.
Diogenes the Cynic (412 BC - 323 BC)

Guido's Treasure

and only one character out of four died. The NPC, Father Theo. The actual PCs managed to get what they came for and retreated.

We've (finally) wrapped up this arc, and the hobgoblins may have come out better off loot wise than the PCs. Anyway, mystic travel has occurred, and next week two new characters join the party before they go delving into the ruins of an old elven citadel to retieve an item of great power for thier ... current benefactors.

Broken Kingdoms
The Thursday group also completed an arc, and made it back to town although they got slightly toasted by their Patron's nemesis who showed up to do a bit of gloating. So I'm prepping for two new scenarios this week.

I leave this quote for my players to ponder... "Pregnant trolls are the most vicious monsters an adventurer will ever want to meet."

Particularly going out to ookey

Some people are like slinkies,
They don't really have a purpose,
But they bring a smile to your face
when you push them down the stairs.

"D&D is kinda warped. It's the only game I've played where a castle full of iron clad soldiers is protected by the king and his bard."

-Saturn, RPGnet

The world doesn't revolve around me. It runs away!

~~~
Disclaimer: This post may or may not have been bought to you by a lack of sleeping patterns, surplus of minor frustrations, or the big bannana in the sky. Thank you, and good night.

Quote of the day:

"Unfortunately, much of the Web is like an anthill built by ants on LSD"

and context here.

The articles on this site are archived back to 1996, and provide an interesting insight into the growth and some of the history of the Web.

Buried in a "random advice" script on an asp tutorial site:

"A swallow keeps away the stork"

Woke me up from my information-absorbing half-stupor at least :)

"The poor have sometimes complained about improper governance, the rich have always complained about being governed at all."

In todays (democratic) civilisations the "people's representatives" are no longer about taking your views to the governing body, but persuading you to support the views they take to the governing body.

Auckland TV veteran Andrew Shaw for a fragment of philosophy which appeared in the profile of his career in canvas at the weekend.

"I would describe my kind of rebellion," Mr Shaw said, "as an articulate indifference to rules which are not backed up by logic, common sense or experience."

Thought for the day, courtesy of Parzival over at WebRPG:
~~~
The term "outlaw" is thrown about with great abandon. But hardly anybody ever thinks about it. It means "outside the law". There are some very intersting connotations to this.
The person who has decided that the law no longer binds him, is no longer protected by the law. This person can be defrauded, slain, stapled, spindled, folded, or mutilated, without the law ever taking offense.

Unfortunately, we, as a society, have departed from this ethic. It was very effective. That which has replaced it, is not. I'd love to bring it back.
~~~

So, what did I accomplish yesterday? Solved the computer issue - a CMOS setting. Reattached the 17", played some Warcraft :)
Read about 1/2 of one of the many supplements I have sitting around waiting to be perused.
Typed in some of the combat rules from MechWarrior for my intended Privateer-based campaign. I need to pick up the pace on getting that game ready to go.
Dishes. Grocery shopping.
Watched "Tommorow never dies", or whatever that Bond film was called on the TV. Very cinematic. I need to work on running cinematic combats. Caught the end of "Flashbacks", the retro (ie 70s, 80s, early 90s) music show on C4. Unfortunately kept missing the beginnings of videos. Recorded one rare clip of value (KISS live circa 1980).

I didn't drink enough liquids, as evidenced by the thirst I have this morning.

Today I am not accomplishing very much - but I expect that to change this afternoon.

"Today I fulfill what I planned yesterday, and prepare for tomorrow."

For those people who insist that by constantly planning ahead I miss out on the "now".

"In extremis, there is no present. Only 'what might be' becoming 'what has been'".

(or if you are a little more fatalistic, 'what will be' becoming 'what has been')

Patriotism is a belief system.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Of course, today's desperate measures are tomorow's desperate times."