Policy Choice: its what you want it to be.

Sorry to all those who have seen this at noodlum or the old blithe blithering (its too memrable John) but since my full name came up with the same as nick: master of story telling, and my first name was: smelling of turnips at all times, I thought i'd proxy name choice for possible accounting policy choice to provide you all with an analogous idea of what earnings figures can look like:

Nomad Odyssey -- [adjective]: Visually addictive 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?'

Ode to the Fallen

There is music in the midst of desolation,
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to teh battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

We will remember them. Lest we forget.

Anzac Day

"To the Fallen" C.J. Smith.

Their glory shall never die, the whole wide world is their sepulchre, their epitaphs are written in the hearts of mankind and whenever there is talk of noble deeds, their names will be held in grateful remembrance.

They are not dead, the men who fell
Though sounds for them, the vesper bell
And loved ones gather at the shrine
They live in hearts, yours and mine
They live in mountain or in glade,
In shearing shed or place of trade
At school or on the field of play
They live, those men, who marched away.

They are not dead, the men who fought
The sons of valour who feared nought of man's devising
But who trod their deathly path that leads to God.
Their call down the bushg tracks still is heard
They're whistled in a song of bird
Their laughter like a wood note wild
Is heard in some Australian child.

They are not dead, but gone before
Low crosses marked on Anzac shore
At Shrapnel Gully and Lone Pine
Where rests those mates of yours and mine
The fields of flanders, hills of Crete
Sound no more to their marching feet
But they are still here at our side
Th emen who fell but never died.

They are not dead, they cannot be
They're part of you and part of me
The smile, the nod, the steadfast look,
Could never perish in Tobruk
Nor could there fade on Bardia sand,
The cheery voice, the friendly hand,
though seas and lands and years divide,
Our comrades live, they have not died.

Rejected Nobel Prizes

I was searching for a particular Nobel Prize winning article when I came across this site... very interesting. The site reports on the inefficiency of the academic publishing process and exemplifies the networking process involved in getting published, by exposing some 36 Nobel prize winning research topics which were orignally rejected from publication...

So if my honours topic is not published originaly - it doesn't mean its a load of crap! It may be Nobel prize worthy, it has just probably insulted too many people in all the right places and they have barred me from ever being published ever again!

Tickle IQ Test.

I just took the Tickle Classic IQ Test: It was more interesting then my study! Interesting to note that I got the exact same IQ about 6 months ago, I believe. I wonder what it'll be at the end of honours?

Congratulations, Damian!Your IQ score is 133

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others. Your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician. This means you are gifted at spotting patterns — both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction — especially in the workplace.

Honours room quotes

Just a few tidbits from the Honours Room on making your life efficient:

"If you can't say it in 160 characters or less, its not worth saying." R. Wight BBV, BBus (2006).

"If you can't get out of bed in the morning, your life is obviously less exciting than sleeping." Annon. BBS (2006).

Water crystal emotions

Aparently this guy has discovered that water crystals change shape and formation depending on sounds played to the water. The most interesting thing, is that the crystals are more likely to develop/change if teh music played is positive or if complimentary things are said. The water is less likely to change if negative music is played or derogatory comments are made. The pic below is of a water crystal which is listening to the Mexican national anthem. He is doing seminars all around the world! Check out the website and maybe somebody with a chemistry background can explain?

Cirularity

A few of you may recall that I often claim that Dictionairies rule the world. I bought one the other day. It was on special. It cost $8. Its worth... $8.

Dictionairies are essentially a massive cirular reference. If you look up the definition of a particularly tricky word, you oft have to look up a word used to define the original word you where researching. Dictionaries use words to define other words. If you didn't have a vocabulary already (you know no words) a dictionary would be useless to you. How do we then learn our first word?

Lets make a romantic assumption that the first word we all learn is 'mum'. There are essentially a couple of ways we could learn it, the most likely in my mind, is by sound association. We learn of the object 'mum' through experience and then we associate the sound 'mum' with the object that feeds, cleans and takes care of us. From the sound association we eventually learn to spell the word 'mum' and vola, we have our first word.

A more likely example is 'aaaaaarrrrrrgggwhaaawhhaaaa' which we associate with the possibility of getting fed, or cleaned, or not-being-held-in-that-particular-way-that-makes-my-nappy-go- right-up-my-bum. of course we wouldn't know any of this right? It would more likely be an association with x, y, z. Where x, y, z represent those things. Do you see the problem here?

Unless we have some innate ideas when we are born, we are not going to know anything. We will not know what hungry is, we are not going to know what x, y, and z stand for. How do we even know to go 'aaaaarggggghhhhwhhhaa?'

Identity obscured?

Hi Alvin and the Canada Crew!

To carry on the identity/success debate:

I think mum is right in a lot of respects. The focus of the previous post and the ensuing comments was a little too materialistic orientated. What I was trying to get at was the existence of those people who identify their personal success in life with some degree of success at work, measured in part by their personal work ethic, achievement of firm goals and objectives, personal recognition within the firm, and other factors which could describe 'a job well done'.

However, as before, this all needs to be tempered in light of materialistic influences as well, which is why management accounting is so problematic! Their are just too many variables and too many paradigms to describe the relations between those variables.

As for the working to pay the bills idea, I'm sorry, but thats only for suckers stuck in the rat race (Which if you are one, don't worry, their are plenty of other people with you). Plenty of evidence exists to indicate that motivation of highly skilled and highly paid employees is not determined predominantly by money (Surprising hey!) and that once an employees personal 'comfort thresh-hold' has been reached they will no longer be motivated by pecuniary compensation. Makes you wonder why these CEO's get so many stock options, don't it!

What is a persons comfort-thershold? I'm not sure, but is basicaly a point in life or level in income at which they are no longer concerned with money for survival. Money essentially becomes an object of luxury. So, for all those people in the rat race, its probably half way through retirement when your living on the income of your offfspring. It changes between individuals and varies a great deal and is predominantly lower for disadvantaged famalies/countries. It is hypothesised to have something to do with the reason why poorer society is so often easily satisfied in comparison to western countries (ie no history of consumption or luxury).

As for the body image, I think Magda is correct. Our society is rife with people who achieve a high authoratative status because of their body image. By Authoratative status I mean that they exert an above average influence on society. Eg. Hollywood.

As for body image in the workplace, I wonder if it is a more agreeable theory if we consider it in terms of poor body image. Its unlikely a person with (very)poor body image will achieve a position of authority at work. Yes maybe your boss is overweight, but are they obese? Keep in mind the ideal Body image changes across cultures, Eg. Budha.