A plan to save civilization

This coming week, I’m in Taiwan but through the magic of auto-posts, ThinkingShift lives on. I hope to take heaps of shots with my new plastic fantastic Superheadz Pink Dress camera.

But today I’m bringing you a slide presentation you need to look at. Awhile back I told you about Lester Brown, the American environmentalist. His website, Earth Policy Institute, has just published a slideshow called Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. Plan B refers to the response to the environmental challenges our planet now faces. The major challenges, as I’ve blogged about many times, are food insecurity and climate change. Here’s a summary of the slide show:

• Earth’s average temperature will rise 1.1-6.4˚C (33.98 ºF-43.52 ºF) during the 21st century;
• we are already outpacing these predictions;
• crop yields drop by 10% for every 1˚C rise in temperature;
• in an effort to ensure their own food security, some affluent food importing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea have begun buying or leasing land abroad to grow their own food. If you don’t believe that rich dude countries are leasing foreign land, then check out this – Pakistan is having a hissy fit that Saudi Arabia is planning to lease 202,342.8 hectares of farmland in Pakistan. I would have thought Pakistan had enough hungry people without leasing out precious land. And Libya is planning to grow wheat on 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) in Ukraine ;
• historians have argued long and hard that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to food shortages and skirmishes over access to food (along with the Sumerian and Mayan civilisations). The fall of our own civilisation will be due to food shortages and battles over water. I’m now seeing articles about future water wars. My own view is that we’ll see the rise of water privateers. Here’s just one example I can give you of how the poor in developing countries (not to mention you and me) will get shafted by the privatisation of water. Water is going to be the oil of the 21st Century. Private companies will buy rights to water. Two French companies – Suez Lyonnaise des eaux and Vivendi Environnement – are the ones I think we need to watch. Just search for these two companies on the internet – go ahead, it will freak you out to find that these two companies alone supply water to 230 million people around the world (and this includes the US).

The slide show offers up some responses (Plan B):

• a worldwide switch to highly-efficient lighting would cut electricity use 12%, equivalent to closing 705 coal-fired power plants;
• the wind potential in North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone could satisfy U.S. energy needs.

There are heaps of ideas in the slide show to save the planet and our civilisation. There are also a ton of facts that will freak you out such as:

• soaring food prices – from mid-2006 to mid-2008, world grain and soybean prices tripled;
• since 1981, oil extraction has exceeded new discoveries by a widening margin. Most of the easily recovered oil is already pumped;
• between 1950 and 2000, world water use tripled. Some 70% of water use is for irrigation. Over-extraction is leading to disappearing lakes and rivers failing to reach the sea. Aquifer depletion is causing water tables to fall and wells to go dry;
• massive Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting at accelerating rates. Together hold enough water to raise sea level 12 meters (39 feet). A 10-meter rise in sea level today would inundate coastal areas home to more than 600 million people.

Free 3 month subscription to CHOICE!!

So..you know I recently blogged and twittered about the CHOICE Lab tour and live-twittered the CHOICE Shonky awards – a glittering ceremony where awards were given out for shonky products and services. I had great fun twittering the event. Just in case you missed it, here are the winners and my photos taken at the awards are at the end of this post (I was concentrating on twittering, ergo the photos aren’t that great):

• Plugging Stuff and Nonsense goes to Reegen Micro-Plug
• Cheese-Fearing Surrender Monkey goes to Tiffany FP807 Food processor
• Water at What Price?  goes to Chef’s Cupboard and Massel liquid stocks
• Honey (Oat crisp), I shrunk the groceries goes to Uncle Toby Oat Crisp Honey cereal
• Blinding us with dodgy science goes to L’Oréal Elvive
• Profit Protection Insurance goes to the Credit protection insurance industry
• Sky high surcharges goes to Qantas and Tiger Airways
• Teleconfusication goes to Tel.pacific phone cards

Now to the really exciting stuff. CHOICE is GIVING AWAY A 3 MONTH FREE SUBSCRIPTION to CHOICE magazine to a lucky ThinkingShift reader!!! The competition is only open to AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTS. Sad face. I know a lot of my readers are from the US. But to win it, you gotta be an Aussie living in Oz. So what do you have to do I hear you ask?

Check out the link above for the Shonky awards and the winners. The ThinkingShift competition is a slightly different twist – it’s the People’s CHOICE award for the all-time shonkiest product you’ve come across.  Leave a comment and tell me what that product was and why it was shonky, just like the Shonky winners above. I’ll select the winning entry and then contact you for details, so make sure you leave me an email address. CHOICE will then grab your details and send out your FREE 3-month membership. I’ll base my selection on what sounds like the most dodgiest, shonkiest, amazingly “What the?” product or service I’ve heard about in a long time.

So you gotta be in it to win it as they say. Competition open until Tuesday November 24th 6.00pm. Happy face!

Don’t do it NZ!

Well, I never thought I’d have to sling off at my beloved New Zealand but what the??? Has NZ taken a leaf out of the Bush Administration’s book of unwarrantless surveillance?  Are NZ citizens about to become the most surveilled on Earth, taking over from the Brits?

There’s a little piece of legislation NZ’ers need to worry about – the Search and Surveillance Bill 45-1 (2009). If you want to hyperventilate, have a read of the whole Bill. If you want to be spared the discomfort of lack of breath, I’ll summarise for you. As I understand this Bill, it will:

• give increased search and surveillance powers for government agencies, other than police, who have law enforcement responsibilities. This would include agencies such as the Fisheries Ministry, the Inland Revenue Deparment, Commerce Commission, the Reserve Bank and even…wait for it…the Pork Industry Board;
• what are these increased powers I hear you ask? These agencies will have the ability to eavesdrop on phone conversations, hack into computers and use hidden cameras to watch every move you make. This will include the power to use tracking devices without a person knowing they are being tracked.

I’ll pause here. A good friend of  mine joked the other day that I have the sort of suspicious mind that might lead me to suspect that pot plants are listening into my conversation. She was of course joking (I think). But reading this Bill, it would seem that an NZ agency could indeed place an eavesdropping device into a pot plant. Now, I do wonder what on earth the Fisheries and Pork Industry dudes would be doing – do they plan to use the goldfish in people’s homes to eavesdrop or farm pigs?

Joking aside this Bill has been slammed by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and the NZ Privacy Commissioner. The word “chilling” has been used to describe this Bill.

Let’s look further:

• on my reading of the Bill, non-state agencies (such as fisheries, conservation or labour) will be able to conduct warrantless surveillance or compel a person to answer questions or handover computer access codes (clause 125(4)(a).  To require NZ citizens to answer questions is the removal of the right to silence and a total invasion of civil liberties;
• unfair searches and seizures could be conducted;
• these agencies will have the power to detain anyone at the scene of a search.

I don’t see much in the way of safeguards or accountability built into this Bill. For example, once remote accessing of your computer has taken place or you’ve been tracked by video camera for days on end, is there a requirement that the agency in question inform you that surveillance has taken place and has finished?  Doesn’t seem so.

When I come back from Taiwan, I plan to look into this further. I’m concerned that, particularly with computer searches, there are muddy waters – and this could lead to mixing up private data with evidentiary data.

Clause 57 has me fretting also. It deals with obtaining residual warrants for surveillance. Section 3 of the Bill defines a surveillance device as:  

(a) an interception device;

(b) a tracking device;

(c) a visual surveillance device

So residual warrants cover surveillance that is not of a visual, electronic or tracking nature. Clause 57 goes on to say that a law enforcement agency, if they wish to use a surveillance technique, procedure, or activity other than that defined in Section 3 must obtain a residual warrant. As I read it, the technique, procedure or activity could include covert entry into a private citizen’s home.

I don’t have many NZ readers. Most of my readers are from the US and Americans well know the sort of warrantless surveillance crap and threats to democracy and civil liberties that have been slung at them by Bush and his croneys. I hope that NZ citizens kick up a stink about this Bill. I believe that it was met with such criticism that it won’t potentially become law until May 2010. I just hope it doesn’t sail through Parliament.

If you know more, leave a comment.

Image credit: Tumeke!

Games for change

So you know the next two weeks will be thin on the ground for me – I’ll be flat out like the proverbial lizard preparing for my KM study meeting in Taiwan, flying to Taiwan blah blah.

I don’t want you to hit the Unsubscribe button though because I’ll be back with those long, raving and ranting posts I know you love so much. But to clear up my backlog of interesting stuff to share with you – here’s a great site I found that uses games to bring attention to the most pressing issues of our day, such as poverty, human rights, global conflict and climate change.

So a lot of arty geeky types, along with academics, journalists and individuals from the nonprofit and government sectors have collaborated on the site Games for Change. I’ve been dabbling with some of them because I need to design curriculum in the next few months.

There are various game channels – I really wish I had access to this sort of interactive, educative stuff when I was a teacher back in the mists of time. I particularly like the games on global conflict and human rights. They deal with real-world issues.

Check out this game – 3rd World Farmer - designed for ages 11+ years, the game lets players manage a small virtual farm in a developing country and experience the hardships and dilemmas faced by the poor.

Ars Regendi is a political game where a player can found their own State and lead it according to his or her political ideals. And Escape from Woomera is probably a very timely game for Aussies to play given the current situation with Sri Lankan refugees. The game gets players to try and escape from an immigration detention centre.

And my favourite? It’s a game called Civilization IV: Quality of Life and involves players in using their moral values to reward a society.

Given Gen Y and Millenials penchant for virtual worlds, these digital games are a fabulous way of raising social, legal and moral issues and facilitating social change. The site also has a toolkit of the game-making process and prompts you to think about the sorts of questions you need to ask if you’re thinking of designing a digital game. Cool!

Future of learning

For the next couple of weeks,  I will be “on the road”. I’m off to Taiwan to participate in an Asia Pacific Knowledge Management study meeting.  I’ll be speaking on Intellectual Capital – more when I come back.  See – I actually still do stuff in KM

This is good news for you dear reader as it means I won’t have any time for long, ranting posts.

But next week, I’ll be offering a lucky reader a 3 month free subscription to Choice magazine! Stay tuned for competition details.

Meanwhile, I have a backlog of interesting stuff to share with you. Look what I’ve found!  I’m excited by this even if you’re not. I spend a fair bit of time teaching uni students. This semester, I’ve taken a break from face-to-face teaching but in 2010 I’ll be getting back into it. For over 6 years, I’ve been teaching in a virtual environment via an online facilitation system. This of course means that I spend a fair bit of thinking time on education – how to engage students; how to design interactive stuff; how to encourage students to engage in intellectual discourse and so on.

So I was doing some research about educational trends and I found this cool site on the future of learning. I often wonder if F2F teaching will become a quaint relic of the past and whether students and lecturers will be engaging in a virtual environment like Second Life. I wonder how gamers will influence learning; or how Gen Y will bring a whole new perspective to education.

The 2020 forecast has some great insights and examines the forces that will impact on education over the next few years.  Here’s a quick summary:

• we are shifting towards a “culture of creation” and this means individuals can grasp the opportunity to create new selves, organisations, systems, societies, economies and knowledge;
• “educitizens” define their rights as learners. Participatory media will lead to a re-articulation of identity and community in a global society;
• resilience (which is a concept I spend a lot of time thinking about in relation to KM) – schools and educators will need to equip students with skills that facilitate resilience eg networking power; using social media to engage with the wider community; applying collective intelligence;
• new tools for visualising data will require new skills in discerning meaningful patterns – I actually think this will be a huge area for educators as software applications that help people to visually think and problem solve become smarter;
• local values will reawaken. Economies of group connectivity—combined with fears of globalism and concern over dominance of big business—will create a revival of localism. New civic processes will emerge and educators and learners will need to engage with this;
• youth media and Gen Y will dominate – smart networkers will push the organisational edge for employers and community leaders. Gen Y’s experience with interactive games and virtual worlds will result in community learning that stresses cooperative strategies, experimentation and parallel development.

There’s sooooooooo much on this site and explored in the trend map but I’m short on time as I have to prepare stuff on intellectual capital. So I’m going to leave it to you to check out the interactive map - pretty cool the way you can navigate the map and drill deeper. At the very least, it will trigger thoughts about the way educators and learners will need to change course over the next few years and how a “learning ecosystem” will be the future of learning.

Make sure you check out the section on Altered Bodies and A New Civic Discourse. For KM people, there’s also some great resources on scenario planning.

The library as conversation

Are you going to get a Kindle? Have one already? I don’t get it because I prefer to hold the book in my hands. So what’s the future of libraries, stuffed full of wonderfully musty smelling tomes? Does the library have a future at all? Will it be full of Kindles that can be loaned out? If they eventually come in hot pink, I might be tempted

I came across this fantastic presentation and audio from R. David Lankes, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, which provides insights into the future of libraries and librarianship. He starts off with a fairly confronting statement:

“(Librarians) have become so busy and adept at keeping the library efficient and well-managed that we have lacked the space to step back and observe it from a high level”.

And then goes on to say that: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities“.  So it’s not about books and collections. I remember when I first started my career in knowledge management there was a lot of angst over whether librarians were information managers whilst knowledge managers were some sort of more evolved species dealing with knowledge (and some dudes even call themselves “wisdom architects”, which if you believe the twaffle of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom pyramid, is the most evolved of all species).

But now I think we’ve reached the point in the debate where we can say that we are all doing the same thing, albeit concentrating on different aspects. So records managers, information managers, knowledge managers – we’re all attempting to facilitate knowledge creation, transfer and continuity. The fact that records managers concentrate on retention and compliance whilst knowledge managers may focus on collaboration and decision-making are simply different lenses looking at the same thing. In fact, my KM colleague, Baoman, has a well-crafted reflection piece on his blog in which he ponders this very subject, inspired by gentleman and scholar, Patrick Lambe.

So I very much liked Lankes’ vision for the mission of librarians (not libraries note) and that knowledge and learning is created through conversation and conversation theory. Conversation theory consisting of:

• language
• memory
• conversants – exchanging language
• agreements – between conversants (even if it’s agreeing not to agree)

So he’s suggesting that librarians are in the conversation business and need to be facilitators of conversations. Lankes uses the term “participatory librarianship” and says that participatory librarians “seek to enrich, capture, store and disseminate the conversations of their communities”. Further, he queries the rigidity of catalogues when users are now familiar with tagging and folksonomies and asks – how do we build systems that all users can use and he looks at social networking sites (where users build the system around themselves and their own language). Users now construct an open discovery space.

Lankes also emphasises that skills change eg cataloguing skills and that library education should equip a librarian for change. And this means librarians as activists, lobbying for change, innovating and proactively serving the community. He believes the best days of librarianship are ahead of us not behind us. To get maximum benefit out of the presentation, listen to the audio. Almost makes me want to go back into librarianship.

Also, check out Lankes’ website, which basically provides you with a Participatory Librarianship Starter Kit (articles, presentations and webcasts). Great stuff!

Open wallets

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. The highlight was being invited to blog and Twitter about the Choice Shonky awards. I’ve become a real fan of Twitter actually – despite earlier doubts. I much prefer it to Facebook, which I don’t use really (am I the only person on the planet who doesn’t use FB??). I prefer the live conversation going on in the Twittersphere and the connections you can make. If you missed my blog post about the Choice lab tour and the Twitter stream, go here and here.

And speaking of the connections one can make on Twitter, I’ve connected with some really interesting people. I’ve even connected with a KM colleague in Melbourne, who I’ve never met and just put him in touch with a company in Melbourne who contacted me about some consulting work in KM. And one of my Twitter connections is Dr Stephen Saunders who is @shoppologist

Regular readers know I don’t pimp products on this blog but I will mention stuff I think is useful or would like you to know about (and no, I don’t get paid). So to today’s post. Stephen is an expert in consumer behaviour and has over 25 years’ experience with retail and marketing organisations.  Pause: I had to chuckle a bit – thinking of how Stephen would scratch his head in puzzlement if he ever followed me on one of my shopping “kamikaze raids”. Would his years of experience equip him to cope with me, in full flight, at the lip gloss counter??!!

I digress. Stephen has put his expertise to great use and produced a book that is a gem for both retailers and consumers. It’s amazing to what extent psychology is used to attract shoppers and try to keep them in the store. I love looking at retail shop windows – particularly quirky or brightly coloured displays. One of my favs is L’Occitane, who have the kind of shop display that just tempts you to wander in. You expect to smell the lavender of Provence as you enter the shop.

Another shop window you might find me in front of (I try not to go in though) is Darrel Lea, which is an Australian family-owned confectionery company in business since 1927. They have consistently colourful and intriguing window and in-store displays like this:

But there are things that will propel me out of a shop fast:

• cheap, tacky, nasty looking displays with confusing signs screaming 50% off here, 30% off there. Like this:

• shops that look cluttered or the entrance is festooned with bins of 50% items, like this:

• harsh lighting that makes you wish you’d brought your sunglasses along, like this:

• dead boring shop front windows that scream beige-ness, like this:

So what does Stephen have to say in his fab e-book? Well, can’t give too much away – you can buy it here. But some tidbits for you:

• “Shoppers like to belong to groups called shopping ‘tribes’ – any good tribe has a badge or insignia. This is also why a good shopping bag is important”. (Mmmmm…never thought of it this way. Must admit I like my Body Shop and L’Occitane bags, which identifies me as belonging to the environmentally sensitive shopping tribe I guess);
• don’t put stock outside the store – destroys sight lines, adds clutter, conveys ‘discount’ image”. (Totally agree: I hate those discount shopping bins outside a shop. I always feel like I’m rummaging through reject stuff, stuff other people have not wished to purchase. It’s like you’re getting palmed off with second best-crap);
• “Shoppers want to identify with their stores, they want to know what a store stands for. Especially important for browsers.” (Yep: personally I think this is something a lot of retailers just don’t get. This is why I like, for example, L’Occitane. The “story” is obvious and told via the window and shop displays – authentic and natural products);
• “There should be some ‘mystery’ about the layout – areas that look interesting from the front of the store”;
• “Don’t let your merchandising disrupt navigation sight lines”.

There’s a heap of practical advice and tons of photos to illustrate Stephen’s points.  I learnt some valuable lessons about the psychology used to tempt shoppers. Check out the e-book and also Stephen’s blog, which I particularly like because he always seems to be cruising around shops taking photos (great job!). I have shamelessly ganked photos from his blog for this post.

Meanwhile, Stephen here’s a story for you. The other day, I was at Priceline in Toronto NSW. I know Priceline well in Sydney and quite like that shop as there is plenty of room to browse and you don’t get swooped on by the dolly birds asking “can I help you or are you just happy browsing?” (really hate this: if I need help I’ll ask thanks). So I walk into this Priceline and at the very door to the shop the dolly bird asks the question. I flee to an aisle and settle in for some lipgloss browsing, only to be aware of the dolly bird lurking pretty close behind me.  She asked (again) THE question to which I replied “look, I’m just browsing thx”. She keeps lurking in the aisle, not far away. My patience melted and I asked her why she was standing there. Her response was “I have to stay in this aisle”. Okay, maybe this is because (a) the retailer is worried about shoplifting; or (b) this is standard practice. Whichever, it’s ANNOYING to have someone so blatantly lurking nearby.

So if it’s not in your e-book Stephen, please add “Note to retailers: do not ruffle the feathers of your customers by irritating them with obvious security measures. This signals lack of trust to your customer”.

Needless to say, I gave up browsing and left Priceline in a hissy fit sans lipgloss.

What does “success” mean to you?

I’ve been pondering Australian Idol. I tried not to watch it this year but I’ve been sucked in. Not by the “talent” but by the cringe-worthy train wreck that is this year’s Idol contest. It’s a cliche now to say that people want their 15 minutes of fame. But the notion of “success” seems to be measured by how many followers you have on Twitter or how many Facebook friends you have. Before the GFC sidelined us, success was how big your McMansion was or whether you had a BMW or teetered around on sky-high Jimmy Choos with the latest designer “It” bag hanging off your arm. So I’ve been pondering “success”: what does it mean to be successful in life? Obviously, it’s subjective.

A great friend of mine lives in Thailand. She’s a single Thai lady living with her parents, looking after her nephew and working extremely hard. Compared to the average Australian, she would most likely be described as not very well off, living in a polluted, crowded city in a developing Asian country. But in my view, she’s probably happier than most people. She asks for nothing; she has few possessions; she’s a devout Buddhist.

Now, consider these two scenarios:

Scenario #1. After high school, a young man goes to college and studies economics.  He is president of his fraternity, obtains a Doctor of Philosophy degree in economics and lands a job at a well-known oil company. He also served in the Department of the Interior before returning to the business world, eventually working his way up to a CEO position of a major corporation, earning millions of dollars a year.  He received a long list of awards, ranging from Father of the Year to alumni and business awards.

Scenario #2. A young woman trains under her father to become a watch maker.  At the age of 50, she is still unmarried and living with her father and her other unmarried sister, helping to run her father’s watch shop. Eventually, she and her family became involved in something illegal and they lose everything.  Her sister and father were even put to death.

Which scenario describes the successful person? You would most likely respond “No brainer! Scenario #1″ because that person made gazillions of dollars and was a successful businessman whereas the woman in Scenario #2 never found independence from her family, was involved in illegal activities and lost her father and sister as a result.

But some important facts are missing from these two scenarios.  The businessman in Scenario #1 is Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron who, as we know, dumped his own Enron stocks knowing full well Enron was going belly up. He was charged with fraud but before the book could be thrown at him, he died at the age of 64 years.

The person in scenario #2 is Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian Holocaust survivor who, along with her father and sister, helped to hide Jews from the Nazis in Holland. Corrie and her family were arrested in 1944 when a Dutch informant blabbed and turned them in to the Nazis. They were carted off to concentration camps. Her father and sister died but Corrie was released on Christmas Day 1944 and went on to international acclaim as an author and public speaker.

Now that you have the full facts: which one would you say is successful? I’d say Corrie ten Boom, what about you? What’s your definition of success?

(Thx to the great site, Being Frugal, for the two scenarios and sparking my thinking on this subject).

Rusty Soviet-era threat?

In my efforts to bring you news of the myriad ways humanity may snuff it (apart from snuffing it from our own stupidity of course) – you can probably scratch December 21, 2012 out of your diary. This is not the day the world will come to a cataclysmic end. Mayan elder, Apolinario Chile Pixtun, says he’s sick and tired of hearing how the world will be engulfed in a giant hissy fit of volcanoes erupting and comets smacking into us when the Mayan Long Count calendar (which is marked by 394-year periods known as Baktuns) reaches the end of the 13th Baktun on December 21, 2012.  Shame really as I was looking forward to this being my final day at work

But seems there might be another danger lurking in store for us – the Russian Doomsday Machine. Yep, those Russkies forgot to turn off this machine when the Soviet Union crumbled around their ears. What is this machine I hear you ask? Well, when the former Soviet Union and the USA were in the icy grip of the Cold War, the Russians developed a computerised system that would automatically launch their entire nuclear arsenal in a counter-attack. The Russian armed forces might have been wiped out in some crippling Cold War cat-fight, the Kremlin could be kaput and there might be no military commanders around to bark orders but the “dead hand” (as the system is called or Mertvaya Ruka in Russian) would still operate. Its official name is Perimeter and it came online in 1985.

In an understatement, Robert M. Gates, Director of Central Intelligence during Dubya’s administration, said if this Russian doomsday device actually exists it would be “terribly uncivilized.” Ah yeah! Skeptics are doubting its existence, saying it’s the brainchild of sci-fi enthusiasts and those who still pine for the dark spy dramas of the Cold War period. But Wired had an interview with Valery Yarynich, a 72-year old former Soviet colonel, who claims he helped build the “dead hand”. Gulp.

So where is this machine? Are there any humans watching it to make sure it doesn’t spiral out of control? Is the computer system some ancient relic of the Cold War period likely to suffer a “prone to error” message (just after it launches a nuclear strike I might add)? How many nukes would it take to knock off humanity? Apparently, the Russkies won’t admit it exists and the Americans say nah, it’s all science fiction (well, they would say that wouldn’t they – because if it does exist and the Americans never knew of it, then this was one huge intelligence failure on the part of good old USA).  One former Soviet official, who spoke to American intelligence about Perimeter, died in mysterious circumstances (he fell down some stairs: was he pushed?). Of course, Prez Ronald Reagan and his carry-on about the Star Wars programme probably forced the Russians into developing a defensive system. And the Able-Archer exercise of 1983 wouldn’t have made the Soviets feel warm and fuzzy either.

Fortunately, there seem to be some inbuilt safety mechanisms. Perimeter must be switched on first by a high-ranking military commander during a crisis situation. Until then, it’s designed to lie dormant. Before launching a nuclear strike, the system has to check off four if/then propositions but after this, it’s war conducted by machines and welcome to nuclear holocaust. Yeah, well I’d be worried that some “if/then” proposition is now a missing feature of an ailing computer system or its early warning detection is kaput or gives off a false alert.

It is said that Perimeter lies dormant south of Moscow in deep underground bunkers. Given that Russia is prone to the odd civil war or two, let’s hope the system is constantly being upgraded or better yet, decommissioned. But Dr Bruce Blair, an expert on Russian nuclear weapons, says: “The US and Russia keep thousands of weapons on launch-ready alert…..I think there’s no reason to believe that this system would have been shut down”. Great. That makes me neeeervous. And what made me shiver back in 2007 was the fact that the Yanks “lost” some nuclear missiles. What’s to stop the Russians, after 25 years or so, losing track of Perimeter’s functionality or where its back-up system is located (if there is one)?

One of my fav Star Trek episodes (from the original series) is called “The Doomsday Machine“. Do you remember it? The starship Enterprise receives a distress call and finds several planets in a nearby galaxy destroyed. Intrepid Spock discovers that a giant planet-killing machine breaks planets into rubble and Captain Kirk believes it’s a doomsday machine, built by some long-kaput civilization. Kirk theorises that the machine was built as a deterrent and never meant to be activated but somehow it came online and chk-chk-boom.  The machine lives on, thousands of years later, fueling itself by consuming planets. Sound familiar?

Oh well: maybe thousands of years from now, once Perimeter has knocked us off, some bunch of alien dudes on a joy-ride around our galaxy will find Earth completely devoid of life. Only one thing will be standing – Perimeter – oh and maybe some cockroaches, which are said to be able to withstand a nuclear blast. Perhaps these creatures will inherit the Earth.

Choice lab tour

From time to time, I get invited to trial new products or blog about something specific. I only do so if my curiosity is piqued or it’s a product or service I think is worthwhile. So I’ve been invited to blog, tweet and take photos at the upcoming Choice Shonky awards, which exposes the year’s dodgiest products. For my international readers, Choice is a leading Australian consumer advocacy group. They test consumer products and provide reviews as well as lobbying to change laws and industry practices.  The awards will be held this coming week in a no doubt glittering ceremony hosted by actor/comedian, Jean Kitson. Since I’m a long-time reader of Choice magazine, I decided to take up the invite.

In the run-up to next week’s ceremony, I was invited to tour the new Choice lab facilities where they test products. This was their first blogger lab tour and I found myself on the tour with a couple of food bloggers who were busy twittering and an online media content creator, who was filming. So next week we’ll be blogging and twittering at the ceremony, which you can follow on Twitter under hashtag shonkys

So…what did I discover at the secret squirrel labs? I was hoping to find some mad looking scientists in white lab coats and test tubes full of bubbling liquids about to explode. But no…I found some normal looking people going about their business of testing products. We started off by meeting John Ashes, the Choice lab manager, who took us on the tour of the new premises, which used to be the Pie TV factory back in the 1950s. Very cool.

They have about 15-16 staff who test products and they all come from varied backgrounds with different university degrees. First up, we went into the food lab where Fiona was testing hand-held food mixers, which she even tests on pizza dough to assess the strength of the product. Choice do extensive comparative testing and test a product for about 2 weeks. I didn’t take my Nikon with me; just a small camera, so the photos are a bit dodgy. But here’s a few shots of John and Fiona and the mixers in the funky food lab with lots of shiny equipment:

Fiona was about to test the mixers with meringues and cake mix but alas we missed out on any food tasting because next up was the computer test lab to meet Ryan. He tests things like computer monitors, budget laptops, TVs and so on. His tests appear on the Choice website and in Computer Choice, which is a separate magazine (6 issues a year). The good news I picked up in this lab was that TVs in stand-by mode now have to conform to less than 1 watt energy usage. Choice staff often sit on Standards Australia committees and they were involved in the Standards around TVs and use of energy. Here’s a shot of Ryan in his lab and John pointing to the calibration monitor. All test instruments are calibrated externally and they compare their test instruments using this unit. Even rulers are calibrated (serious scientific testing stuff!).

On our way to other lab areas, we passed through the breakout area where staff have coffee and (of great interest to me) share knowledge about various products and tests going on.

Next up was the refrigerator testing area and then the small appliances and toy testing labs. I learnt that there are only 4 or 5 fridges in Australia that can really do the job of keeping food in an even temperature and the best temperature for the fresh food compartment is around 3.3 degrees Celsius or 35-58 degrees Fahrenheit. Peter in the small appliances lab looked to have the best job if you ask me. He was busy testing coffee machines using Vittoria coffee (as this is a brand of coffee most consumers can find and purchase). He was testing machines that range in price from AU$200-1200 and it seems that hefty price doesn’t necessarily give you the best cup of coffee.

I really liked the testing area for dishwashers and washing machines. This is Choice’s busiest lab because they run two types of tests at once. For dishwashers, testers use standard plates and cutlery, soil these with food from the four food groups and let things dry overnight in 20 degree temperature with 60%  humidity. A computer logs information whilst testing is going on and measures things like water and energy use, temperature etc.

With washing machines, Choice uses soiled patches from Holland, coated with standard dirt and they also attach 100 sq cm of embroidery material of a coarse weave. This flops around and frays so they then trim and measure the area, which gives a score of gentleness. Who would have thought! They even determine how much detergent is left over in a washing machine.  They test white loads (white towels, white sheets, white shirts) because it’s representative of what the average person will use or wear and they wash in cold water.

The last stop was the area for testing products like light bulbs and baby strollers. What was really cool was seeing 150 energy-saving light bulbs being tested. The bulbs are tested for 60 hours in a temperature controlled room and suspended from the ceiling on a rack.

It was great to see the thorough testing that goes on at Choice – it certainly gives me consumer confidence.  I’ll do a further blog post soon about the awards. Thanks to Choice for the lab tour.