Dave's Archives

AI-generated (stable diffusion) ge of "cyclon writing with a pen".

The sporadic blog of David J A Cooper. I write sci-fi, teach software engineering, and occasionally say related (or not related) things.

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  • Confounding the confusopolies

    A while back I wrote about [intlink id=”1000″ type=”post”]Optus’s pricing structure[/intlink], but the economists have already been over this ground. Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) apparently coined the term “confusopoly” to describe a situation where companies avoid competing on price by making their prices too confusing to compare. (I don’t have Adams’ book The Dilbert…

  • Think of the landlords

    Some people honestly just don’t care. This from the website of TICA – the Tenancy Information Centre Australasia. Tenants do not deserve the right to impose their habits on innocent landlords by claiming that housing is a human right. The framers of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights might have a point to make…

  • Uniculturalism

    I don’t pretend to know what goes on in the minds of people who despise multiculturalism. Do they hold to a fantasy in which multiculturalism is some sort of government construct that prevents people from adopting the same culture? Presumably they must start from the premise that the different cultural practices of other people are…

  • Parity pedantry

    So sayeth the ABC: “Australian dollar verges on US parity” The Australian dollar is trading at a post-float high of 99.93 US cents. Which is very exciting, but I think it’s worth remembering that breaking through 1-to-1 doesn’t actually mean anything in particular. It matters that the Australian dollar is rising in value, but any…

  • An assault on the sensibilities

    It’s probably about time I had something to say on matters unrelated to the Australian political situation. Which brings me to my other, recently neglected pet blogging topic – climate change. I came to hear of the 10:10 campaign and Richard Curtis’s “No Pressure” short film via Deltoid, The Guardian and Climate Progress. I’m not…

  • Abbott

    Tony Abbott is like Gaius Baltar – the anti-hero from Battlestar Galactica. Both are men motivated almost entirely by political expediency in pursuit of power, and seek to escape from the things they’ve said and done in the past. Abbott, I think, must operate with the presumption that – if he eventually wins the Prime…

  • You sound a bit defensive, Glenn

    I’ve never quite seen what all the fuss was about regarding Glenn Milne (well, except for his drunken buffoonery at the 2006 Walkley Awards). Pure Poison has a go at him every now and then, but he never seems to be on quite so distant an astronomical body as Andrew Bolt or Piers Ackerman, for…

  • We bought you fair and square

    Hot custard pie is still dribbling off the faces of Tony Abbott, Andrew Robb and Joe Hockey. They offered Andrew Wilkie $1 billion (a sum he himself apparently asked for) and they were rejected. Rejected! Oh the injustice. Clearly bribery isn’t having quite the anticipated effect. Regardless of what you think of Andrew Wilkie’s honey…

  • Oops, we forgot to be racist

    Give Ken Wyatt a break you idiots. What does it say about our country that the election of the first Aboriginal member of the House of Representatives is instantly condemned by both by his own voters and people of the same ethnic background? There is little one can say directly to anyone so blatantly racist…

  • And for my next wish…

    Just [intlink id=”1083″ type=”post”]as I hoped[/intlink], we have a hung parliament. A few days after the event, all I can say is this: Rob Oakeshott, you legend. Oakeshott, one of the three independent kingmakers, has proposed a unity cabient, wherein the two major parties would share power. Doubtless there is much scepticism to be had…