It’s been a bit of a heavy week what with BIG government, gnomes and freaking out over water privatisation. So today, it’s a lighter post. In fact, it’s a post with some seductive stuff thrown in.

Way, way, waaaaaay back when I was growing up, I loved Bill Collins’ Golden Years of Hollywood and all the old time classic Hollywood films. Bill must be ancient now but he’s still on Foxtel. Damn, I gave Foxtel the flick recently in my attempt to be Frugalicious (note to self: must trademark this term). I would eagerly wait for Saturday night 8.30pm, hoping that Bill would show a film with Humphrey Bogart snarling his way through it; or Rita Hayworth with her gorgeous cascading, copper red hair smouldering her way through a 1940s film noir; or Tyrone Power (anyone think Zac Efron looks a bit like him?) playing an Indian doctor engaged in a sultry affair with an Englishwoman during the British Raj (The Rains Came, 1939).

Just because most of these films are from the 1930s and 1940s, don’t make the mistake of wondering whether I’m in my 70s. Tune in to Bill on Foxtel and he’s still showing The Maltese Falcon or Laura – because these are classic films that didn’t require nudity, swearing, over-the-top special effects or violence to entertain. Nope. They all relied on telling a good yarn, some pretty intense acting and a whiff of sexual innuendo.

And speaking of sexual innuendo…to today’s post. One of the films I remember most is Picnic (1955) starring William Holden and Kim Novak. Family myth has it that my father named me after Kim Novak although the counter-myth is that my grandmother named me after Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Kim. Don’t relish being named after some male-dominated novel stuffed full of the ignorance and bigotry of the British Raj. So I’m sticking with the Kim Novak story.

Have you seen the film? I used to droooooool over William Holden. But now that I look at the clip I’m about to get you to watch, I realise he was getting on a bit (probably around 37 years old in 1955, whilst Kim Novak was about 22 years old). So watch this well-known scene from the film. I reckon it’s hotter than a lot of full on sex-scenes you see these days. Okay, the first bit of dancing that William Holden does is a bit quaint (or ‘fey’ as my grandmother used to say) but once they get stuck into the dancing and the intense staring, coupled with the music…well….sultry, sexy, goose bumps. No words needed to be exchanged between these two. Actually, when I was a teen, my father used to play the theme from Picnic (which is called Moonglow) over and over: it remains a piece of music I very much like. Enjoy!

I’ve blogged many times about a future world facing water and food scarcity, along with skirmishes over access to water and food. Go here and here for a refresher.

I recently said that water will be the oil of the 21st Century and that private companies are increasingly buying rights to water. I even suggested you search the names of two French companies – Suez Lyonnaise des eaux and Vivendi Environnement – did you do that? No? Search now. I’ll wait.

You might have found that these two companies alone supply water to 230 million people around the world (and this includes the US). They have quietly assumed control over the water supplied to millions of people. Scary. Think about a future when every time you flush the toilet or turn on the tap/faucet, you are pouring profit into private water companies.

American readers: you may have heard of T.Boone Pickens – corporate raider and oilman – he owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is aiming to control more. And he is planning on selling 65 billion gallons a year to thirsty Americans. Have you heard of Dr William Turner and the WaterBank?  Turner is from New Mexico and is a new breed of professional – an Internet water-rights broker – who lists water rights for sale or lease and trades in the water marketplace.

In most countries, the State owns the water resources. But the infrastructure to run the water supply (eg dams, filtration and supply systems, the charging process) is one more Government activity that is being increasingly run by private water utility companies who argue that they are cheaper and more efficient than public works.

Because I think this is such a serious issue, I am going to provide you with some stuff to read and follow up, so you can educate yourself. And think about how to secure your access to a basic human right – water.

• CBC News Canada report on water privatisation in South Africa
• in fact check out the whole series by CBC Canada on water privatisation
• US companies raid Aussie water
• The Center for Public Integrity’s in-depth investigation into the water barons
• The Jakarta Post - taking on the water barons
• World Economic Forum report that warns we will face water bankruptcy in less than 20 years
• World Vision report (audio) Water Wars
• World Water Wars- website for exchange of ideas and information about water privatisation and exploitation
• series of videos featuring Datta Desai and the protest over water privatisation in Maharashtra, India.

There are two interweaving factors at play here: the world is running out of fresh water, FAST and multinational companies and private individuals are spotting the opportunities to make a profit. You and I will not reap the benefits of these profits. No. We will be slugged with substantially increased water rates; contaminated water supplies; poor service delivery. Don’t believe me? Then read this and this.  If you ask me, very soon “www” will not stand for World Wide Web. It will signify World Water Wars.

It was ex-Prez Ronald Reagan who once uttered the nine most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”. Whenever I think of Reagan’s words I think of the current state of Governments, particularly in Australia and the UK (and increasingly the US) – over-regulated; massive Government spending; massive Government debt; massive Government intrusion into our lives. BIG Government. Massive. Here to help. Scary.

Government regulation should be a balance or a partnership between the state and its citizens. If the balance is right, then Government provides the rules and regulations and its citizens are free to challenge or debate them. But in our over-regulated society, the scales have been tipped towards Big Government and the increasing tendency to monitor, surveil and control the behaviour of its citizens. The duty of a citizen (in a democratic society) is being taken away from us. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen”. As citizens, we have rights and responsibilities. Aside from paying taxes and respecting the law, the most treasured responsibility IMHO is to maintain constant vigilance over the Government the citizens have elected and which SERVES its citizens. Was it not Thomas Jefferson who said: “Lethargy [is] the forerunner of death to the public liberty”.

Hang on: I’m getting carried away. Because this is actually a post about gnomes and BIG Government. Yes, really. So let me get into it.

Have you ever seen a gnome spontaneously combust? Have you ever seen one of these:

catch alight and burn down a house? Have you ever witnessed some evil little gnome purposely trip someone down a flight of stairs? Or lurking in a garden late at night, waiting to pounce on some poor unsuspecting person as they make their way up the garden path towards their front door?

Nope?? Me either. But apparently, local Council chiefs in the UK have been doing some serious gnome investigation and decided to ban garden gnomes…because….they are an elf and safety issue. Sorry, I mean health and safety issue. Seems some woman in Tipton, West Midlands is guilty of excruciatingly bad taste rather than possessing two 6-inch gnomes that are a fire hazard. But the local bureaucrats, nosing around in people’s lives and extending the reach of BIG Government, considered that gnomes in the communal area of the block of council flats could catch alight (what the? aren’t gnomes usually made of pottery?) or block an exit.

Now, if there was a congregation of gnomes busy blocking some fire exit or if the little dudes were plotting and scheming evil things to inflict on residents, then I might understand the banning. But since when did a couple of gnomes, desperately trying to tart up the appearance of low-income homes, constitute a fire hazard? Council were also busy investigating welcome mats, a welcome plaque hanging outside the same woman’s home and a pottery tortoise. These items were also identified as serious health and safety risks and their removal was demanded by council officials. Seems all this offending stuff was just outside the door of the woman’s flat.

Now, here we have a perfect example of government intrusion and waste of tax payer money. To be fair, the local council has admitted it was somewhat over-zealous in interpreting fire safety rules but this isn’t the point. Contemporary society is in the grip of health and safety neurosis. The Conservative leader, David Cameron, has woken up to this fact. Things are out of control when good samaritans can be sued; when railway staff refuse to help carry a baby buggy up a flight of stairs because they weren’t insured to do so; or (and this is unbelievable) a local council orders the removal of tinsel from a school crossing patrol officer’s Stop sign for health and safety reasons.

Yes, well…I’m sure you can see how the Christmas tinsel would be a health and safety issue. Perhaps the patrol officer might inadvertently hang himself with the tinsel as he catches sight of that evil congregation of gnomes heading towards him.

There are many good reasons for health and safety regulations but not ridiculous actions that are more reminiscent of an over-protective parent. Over-regulating leads to a burden on business and citizens; it leads to a feeling of powerlessness; it shows that we are out of balance with the state, which does not trust our judgement or good sense to do the right thing. It was Durkheim I believe who made the link between suicide and an over-regulated society. An individual who feels oppressed, persecuted or powerless in the face of a society weighed down by complex rules and regulations is more prone to fatalistic suicide.

Let us recall the words of Jefferson about lethargy. And let us recall the duty of the citizenry to be vigilant over the actions of those we have elected. If we don’t give a toss about the intrusion of Government into our daily lives and if we continue to allow government at its many levels to dictate to us…then we get the government we deserve.

Louis Brandeis said: “The most important political office is that of the private citizen”. There is a decline in political participation by citizens (read this book if you don’t believe what I just said) and a growing disenchantment with political parties. Post 9/11, we have been in the grip of what Frank Furedi rightly calls the culture of fear – fear of terrorism, fear of swine flu, fear of environmental devastation, fear of stranger danger, fear of the future, fear of immigrants – and this has allowed BIG government to swoop down, particularly when it comes to intrusions and surveillance of private activities.

Now it seems BIG government is telling us we need to worry about gnomes.

UPDATE: catching up on my RSS feeds – I didn’t think anything could top the absurdity of the gnomes and tinsel business – but yep, the Brits (again) can come up with more inanity. A grandfather was on some rickety old UK train and went to the cafe bar on the train to find something to eat. Having spotted an egg sandwich, he was told he couldn’t have it. Why? he asked. This is the answer from the steward – get ready for it:

“Don’t you see? If the train has to be evacuated you could choke to death on the sandwich”.

YEEGADS…can the Brits get any more ridiculous with this health and safety neurosis? If you think dudes are going to choke on some smelly old egg sandwich, THEN DON’T OFFER IT FOR SALE IN YOUR TRAIN’S CAFE. Duh.

ChiefTech alerted me to this.  I should preface what I’m going to rant about by saying this – a couple of years ago, I decided not to speak at conferences or run as many workshops for conference companies. A couple of reasons dictated this decision. Firstly, I was getting cranky with how conference companies think they’re doing YOU a favour, getting you to speak for free. And an overseas conference I spoke at earlier this year – well, they expected me to cough up taxis fares to and from the airport (a considerable expense) without being compensated. And I was also tiring of the usual suspects on the conference circuit, including myself.

But it seems there’s something far more serious to worry about with conferences these days. Forget the parasite conference companies or whether you’re recycling your presentation for the hundredth time. Now….you have to factor in an angry, critical or plain nasty audience.

This seems to be what happened to Danah Boyd.  Danah is a US academic and social media researcher. She’s written some great stuff on social media, so make sure you check out her articles. She recently spoke at Web2.0 Expo in the US.

Danah presented a 20-minute session entitled “Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media”. What should have been a fairly pleasant 20 minutes engaging with an audience turned into a nightmare. You can read Danah’s description of what happened here but briefly it seems:

• she couldn’t have her laptop on stage with her;
• the lectern she had to use was not angled, which meant her papers had to lie flat and would be harder to refer to;
• dazzingly bright lights were used so she couldn’t really see the audience and was pretty well blinded by the lights; 
• there was a live unfiltered Twitter stream on screen behind her, which she couldn’t see; and
• all of this drama forced her to read the paper, rather than relax.

A speaker puts a lot into a conference session. There’s preparation, rehearsing, timing, voice modulation blah blah. I am pretty particular about the set-up. I like to use a lapel mike and I don’t like the lectern business, which makes you look stiff and uncomfortable. I like low lighting but I want to see my audience so I can gauge the nodding or shaking of heads. I’m a naturally fast speaker, so I like to pick up cues from my audience that help me to pace myself.

Can you imagine poor Danah’s predicament? She ended up blaming herself. In her words:

“Unfortunately, my presentation at Web2.0 Expo sucked. The physical setup was hard and there was a live stream behind me. I knew something was wrong because folks started laughing in the audience. Unable to see anything (the audience, the stream), I found myself closing down. And so I collapsed and read the whole thing, feeling mega low on energy and barely delivering my points. Le sigh. I feel like I failed the audience so, if you were in the audience, I’m sorry. But hopefully you’ll get more out of reading the presentation than I got out of giving it.”

I have no idea why Danah is saying sorry. The conference organisers IMHO should be doing the apologising. But it brings to light the dark side of social media doesn’t it.  There’s a fragility about conference presenting. You are up there on stage, for all to see, for all to cast judgement on your presentation, how you deliver it and how you look. Even the most naturally confident person can suffer from stomach butterflies.

But if there’s also a Twitter stream cascading on some giant screen behind the speaker, then what do you think the audience is going to focus on? Danah couldn’t see the stream and even if she could, how on earth do you read fast-paced 140 character Tweets and at the same time concentrate on what you have to say?

You can’t. And it seems that just because Danah was a tad nervous (due to the horrid set-up) some Twecklers in the audience turned nasty and spewed a flow of criticism and there was even some laughter going on. This is just disrespect. Conference speakers usually are not paid and present because they have something they wish to convey and like to engage with an audience (at least this is my motivation). We don’t expect to be humiliated by a Twitter back-channel or mob mentality with idiots vying for the wittiest or most razor-sharp tweet.

I’m not sure what was going on in that audience. Danah is a scholar so perhaps she was presenting to a bunch of troglodtyes who considered her an outsider. She is probably the most outstanding researcher and thinker in the social media field, so maybe the audience was not at her intelligence level. I note from her talk (read the paper here) that she covered power issues – maybe a few turkeys in the audience decided to demonstrate power by engaging in a nasty Twitter stream. I don’t know.

What I do know is that conference organisers should not allow this sort of thing to happen. Why wasn’t the Twitterstream filtered by the organisers? Why wasn’t Danah fully briefed about the stage set-up, lighting and the presence of the Twitterstream behind her? Why didn’t the conference organisers put in the conference pack some guidance on Twitter etiquette?  Why didn’t those who weren’t behaving badly try to moderate the Twitterstream by tweeting “shut up and listen to Danah”.

Personally, I think conference organisers need to do a whole lot of thinking about conferences. I hardly go to any these days because the format is tired and dated: usually 40 minutes or 1 hour of presentation after presentation, with the occasional panel discussion, debate or interactive exercise thrown in. For conference organisers to think that by throwing in an unfiltered Twitterstream is somehow hip and groovy is nonsense. Not when it leads to humiliation and tweet-slapping.

End of rant.

I’m being asked more and more to review products and books. I guess due to the emphasis of this blog on topics like frugal living, sustainability, anti-The Brands, organic products and so on.  I should point out that any product review I do involves two things: not being paid for it and putting the product through its paces. The review I do will be an honest assessment.

So….I was contacted by a Sydney-based PR company who asked if I’d heard of Weleda products and if I’d like to receive some samples to try and perhaps do a review. I received a generous selection of products and put them through what I consider a pretty gruelling test. More about the test later.

But first – you can check out the Weleda website here in Australia and here internationally. I have seen Weleda products in various health food stores over the years but never tried them. So I checked them out and can tell you that they produce organic skin & body care and what’s really interesting is that the finest ingredients are sourced from specially selected biodynamic and organic farms and gardens. There’s no nasty chemicals, colourings, synthetics – the natural ingredients are often wild-harvested (meaning that the plants have grown in the wild) and have been picked in a sustainable way.

The company’s heritage was a surprise – going back to 1921, Dr Rudolph Steiner and the movement known as anthroposophy.  I know a bit about anthroposophy because my mother was a bit of a health nut who followed the teaching of Gaylord Hauser. Anthroposophy is about seeing the body, mind and spirit as linked to the world and part of a holistic system. So Steiner, along with Dr. Ita Wegman, developed Weleda products using natural ingredients that holistically work with and support the body’s healing tendencies. “Weleda” is the Celtic goddess of wisdom and healing, so they chose a pretty apt name.

Anyway, I was sent some products from the Almond range for sensitive skin, toothpaste and some smaller sample products. Here’s what I received:

• Almond Cleansing Lotion
• Almond Moisture Cream
• Skin food
• Sea Buckthorn Oil
• Sea Buckthorn Creamy Body Wash
• Plant Gel Toothpaste
• Ratanhia Mouthwash Concentrate
• Pomegranate Hand Cream
• and finally, a pretty little bag full of small samples.

Now to the test. I have the world’s weirdest skin. Being of mixed Welsh and Russian origin, I have VERY fair skin that is prone to going berserk over the slightest thing. Heat and wind in the face can send it bright red. I simply cannot (and will not) tan, so any slight skin imperfection is front and centre. I also travel a fair bit and constantly find products leaking all over the place.

So I need a skin care product that is super gentle and for sensitive skin. And preferably products in tubes that don’t leak and take up too much space in my toiletry travel bag. Since giving up The Brands, I have been using organic skin care, my favourite being Avalon Organics’ Vitamin C range. I’ve been sticking to this for well over a year now. And I prefer natural ingredients.

The Weleda products arrived just in time to take on the road to Taiwan. What a test!! The products would be stuffed into a toiletry bag, thrown around in a suitcase and tested on my skin for over a week, in a country with different climatic conditions (always a hassle for my skin). So I took all the products and here’s my review:

• the Almond cleansing lotion and moisture cream. The Almond range is for sensitive and reactive skin – hello!! The cleanser is creamy, fragrance free and is packed with sweet almond oil that helps nourish and soothe sensitive skin.  Frankly, I expected the cleanser would not be not very effective at taking off my make-up or might leave my skin feeling tight but…nope. It was a pleasure to use and very little was needed to swipe off the make-up. As I also have skin that tends to be oily, the moisture cream was surprisingly light and didn’t leave me looking like an oil pit. Both these products I found to be extremely soothing on my skin, which often feels hot. So far so good!
• the toothpaste I looked at with trepidation. I am used to the Colgates or whatever you get from the supermarket. The gel toothpaste is made from plants. Frankly, I thought it wouldn’t be very effective. After a week of using this toothpaste, I wouldn’t buy anything else. LOVE it. I have sensitive gums too and often find a toothpaste stings or is too full of mint or some other strong taste. This toothpaste is made from organic chamomile flower extract, along with myrrh and organic ratanhia (with mild disinfectant and astringent properties). The mouthwash was similar. Both are excellent products. It took me probably 3 or 4 days to get used to the toothpaste as it’s quite a different texture in the mouth.
• After hours and hours of flying to Taiwan and back (and recent trips to New Zealand), I found Skin Food a wonderful problem solver for the rough and dry nasty bits. Skin Food is an intensively nourishing, hydrating cream made from organic pansy. I smacked it on the elbows, heels of the feet and any other bits that were a tad dry. I believe this is known as the “hero product” of the Weleda range and has been around since 1926.
• The Sea Buckthorn Creamy Body Wash is super creamy, with a subtle, delightful smell of orange sea buckthorn berries. The Sea Buckthorn Body Oil I used alternately with the Skin Food for the rough bits. I was very happy that these two products didn’t have some awful fake smell (like so many of the vanilla-scented products around these days).
• Pomegranate Hand Cream: I often forget about the hands, so after a week of using this hand cream, I reckon my hands are looking smoother. Organic pomegranate seed oil is naturally rich in antioxidants so this hand cream is going to help protect the hands from free radical damage.

I’ve been using the Weleda products for nearly two weeks now and can truly tell you that my skin has not done its usual thing – feeling hot, going red, breaking out as often, looking dull and so on. It’s calmer and more soothed. None of the products leaked in my suitcase. Most of them come in handy tubes that can get squished and thrown around without any leakage dramas. Obviously, Weleda puts thought into a product’s ingredients rather than giving you some fancy looking jar. The size of the products is good too for travel bags.

I guess the best thing I can say is that I will now be switching from Avalon Organics and going with Weleda products from now on. That’s how good I think the products are. I know that my fav health store doesn’t stock Weleda, so thank goodness I can purchase online. Thx to Katja at the PR company for asking me to test Weleda!

So you know I was recently in Taipei, Taiwan. I was invited to attend a KM Study Meeting. There were 24 participants from countries such as Iran, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Indonesia, South Korea, Philippines, Fiji and India. I was invited as a KM “technical expert”. We spent four days together talking about KM measurement and I promised I’d bring you a blog post summarising the discussion. I haven’t quite finished my report that I have to prepare but I can tell you that it was a wonderful opportunity to spend time reflecting on all facets of measurement and even explore the question – should we measure KM initiatives at all?

Some of the participants were university Professors, so they brought a lot of pointy-headed theoretical stuff to the meeting (including me I guess since I’m an Adj Prof). There were quite a few people who were just starting out on what we all seem to call the “KM journey”, so they had little idea of what KM itself was all about let alone measurement techniques. Some participants had implemented KM projects before. There was a mixture of Government, education and not-for-profit organisations taking part.

So guess the best thing to do is just summarise for you the key discussion and/or learning points. We also undertook a group exercise – trying to prepare a metrics template. I don’t have all the group presentations yet but can post an example of the sorts of metrics one group came up with. I was relieved (frankly) to see that other countries are struggling with KM measurement. Of course, in my KM work I produce qualitative and quantitative measurements but am usually so busy just implementing KM, that I don’t have the time to design a full-on KM measurement framework with bells and whistles.

Here’s what we talked about:

• KM measurement (KMM) should not detract from the important task of KM implementation – there is a danger that too much time and energy can be spent on KMM at the expense of KM itself. This is a question of cost of KMM versus value of KMM. Is KMM part of the old organisational paradigm?

• There is no clarity around what to measure exactly;

• How does an organisation assess the readiness to measure KM? At what point in a KM implementation would the organisation and individuals be acceptable to using metrics? Should metrics be part of the Deployment phase of KM? Or should metrics (such as benchmarking) be used at the start of a KM project?

• Any KMM framework must take into account People, Process, Technology, Content and Leadership domains – so that all facets of KM are being measured;

• How can critical or new knowledge be identified? Measured?

• Learning should be a key aspect of KMM;

• KMM should take into account individual/team/organisational/societal capabilities;

• What exactly is the OUTCOME of KM and what to measure? Innovation? Learning? Capabilities? Growth? Profit? All of these?

• How can KM contribute to the sustainability of an organisation and how can this be measured?

• Can consistent metrics be used across different industries and sectors? eg education, manufacturing, service industries.

• What is the impact of trust issues?

Actually, trust (a topic I’ve blogged on before here and here) took up a fair bit of discussion time and a working group (which I will be part of) will develop a trust instrument to measure levels of organisational trust. Here are a few slides from one of the group presentations showing ideas around KM metrics. We also delved into Intellectual Property Rights such as patents but I don’t have slides for this yet.

We will now move to a site like Ning and continue our work on developing more specific metrics. It was a great meeting to make new connections. One of the Professors from Indonesia has asked me to help with one of his Masters students, who is doing a thesis on Social Network Analysis and trust networks. Looking forward to that.

No doubt you’ve heard of the fracas going on over the global warming emails that were allegedly hacked from computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Centre in the UK and leaked to the world on the Internet. Now known as Climate Gate, the leaked emails have been feasted on by global warming skeptics. Just in case you’ve been hitting the snooze button and missed the whole thing, you can search the emails on this handy website. If you want a potted version of the emails, Andrew Bolt  of the Herald Sun provides excerpts of the juicy bits.

Around 1079 emails and 72 documents supposedly show that scientists have been behaving badly by manipulating climate change data; colluding to suppress data that suggests there is no heating up of the planet happening; and darkly wishing to beat the crap out of scientists who are skeptical about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). So the allegation is that a bunch of nerdy scientists are guilty of fraud and conspiring to cover up the warming theory. 

On the other side of the fence, there are those who are loudly suggesting that the emails have been taken out of context and that skeptics are “cherry picking” the emails, searching for words and phrases that spectactularly reveal some grand plan on the part of climate change scientists. I think this is an important point to ponder. We all know that email communication can often be blunt, direct, suggestive and misinterpreted by a recipient.  And I’d say that scientists are a pretty direct lot and heavily critique or criticize their peers’ work. Without contextual information, we can all jump to incorrect conclusions. And I’d suggest that’s what might be happening with Climate Gate. Here is a thoughtful analysis that provides some of the missing contextual information surrounding the emails.

Now, before you jump all over me, I’m not a climate scientist (nor are most of the climate change skeptics I’d say). But I am someone who likes to explore issues before jumping up and down, pointing the finger of blame. So I’ve now read many of the key emails skeptics have seized on and I’ve even taken the time to read a few of the original articles of the named scientists and I do think that things have been taken out of context.

For example, Phil Jones (Director of the Climate Research Centre) in a 1999 email said (about temperature reconstructions):

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Yep, on the face of it, not looking too good for old Phil. It does read as though he’s been up to some tricky stuff, manipulating data. But…I took the time to track the original article (referenced as “Mike’s Nature trick). It appears to be from a 1998 article in Nature, entitled “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (the dudes of Hockey Stick fame) Nature 392, 779-787 (23 April 1998). I actually waded my way through it. I’m no pointy-headed scientist (although I do have a Masters in Complexity) and I confess to not understanding some of it because it deals with Paleoclimatology – but seems to me that Jones is using language commonly employed by scientists (let’s remember that every profession has its own language) and he means bag of tricks or a technique to resolve a problem.

In this case, as I understand the article, Jones is referring to a divergence problem. Briefly, proxy data (such as tree rings and ice cores) - going back thousands of years but ending in 1980 – were examined and appeared to diverge from modern instrumental temperature records post-1960. The authors were trying to construct long-term (centuries to millennia) temperature records. Instrumental records from the late 20th Century were pointing to global warming but reconstructed temperatures from trees were showing cooling or no change. Hence, a divergence problem. I read somewhere (I’m hoping to find the reference) that climate change itself could very well be affecting trees, so they don’t grow as they once did and therefore don’t provide useful proxy data. The “trick” that Jones mentioned in his email is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data  – not to “hide” a decline - but because the scientists understood that the tree-ring data was suspect due to global warming (which is shown by the instrumental records). In his words:

“.. they’re talking about two different things here. They’re talking about the instrumental data which is unaltered – but they’re talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand years, and it’s just about how you add on the last few years, because when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice cores, and they don’t always have the last few years. So one way is to add on the instrumental data for the last few years.”

The future of our planet depends on whether or not anthropogenic global warming is a reality. For non-scientists and conspiracy theorists to pounce like wolves on a series of emails and cry “fraud” is itself suspect. IMHO we all need to go back to the original sources, the articles, the science itself and have a whole lot of PhDs after our names before we can even remotely begin to comment.

If you want a conspiracy theory, how about this – no hacking of computers or emails took place (by Russians it’s suggested). It was an inside job. Someone or a group of shadowy dudes, who want to discredit climate change scientists and knew what they were looking for, leaked the material. Because let’s be honest, there are a range of vested interests that would like to smack AGW in the chops and see the whole issue fade away.

For a good laugh: read this….brilliant.

I don’t think I’ve blogged before about make-up. Guys: this could be a girl’s only zone unless of course you are into glitz and glam – read on then. Or if you want to buy your gal something very special for Xmas.

If ever I was going to have another career (apart from being an archaeologist, writer, photographer or mega-rich entrepreneur of course), I’d want to be a make-up artist. All my life, I’ve LOVED make-up, particularly shiny, sparkly lip gloss. Can’t get enough of lip gloss.

I don’t really take much note of the design or packaging of products because I’m so keen to get to use the product. But breezing through Hong Kong duty free, I stopped (literally) in my tracks when I came across the Shu Uemura display. Shu Uemura is a Japanese cosmetics house founded by the legendary Japanese make-up artist of the same name. The brand is available in Australia but I’ve not taken much notice of it..until now.

The Japanese fashion designer, Tsumori Chisato, has collaborated with Shu Uemura to produce the limited edition Planet Cat range. I bought the Planet Cat Couture Palette and the Duo Colour Highlighter, Stardust.

Just look at the quirky designs and the beauty of the silvery, glittery compact with a black cat that has one eye made from a rhinestone. Really, they are works of art. And collectible I’d say. This is a limited edition range, so guess you’d best be quick to snap up the kitties.

I must admit I bought the items because of the design. The colours in the Planet Cat palette strike me as a little odd. You get three pressed eye shadows in Black Glitz; Shiny Silver and Copper; one cream eyeliner in Black Purple; one cream highlighter in Gold Iridescent and a (gorgeous) soft Apricot pink blush. There’s a bit too much glitter happening here for me and the colours are an odd combination of warm and cool tones. But seems the collection is all about stars and moons, hence the colour palette I guess.

The Stardust highlighter though is gorgeous, sort of like leaving a trail of shimmering stardust on your face where you use it.  And the winking cat is a bonus.

I can hardly bring myself to dip into the products because it will mess up the cat designs. I’m hoping that fashion designers and artists will be used a whole heap more in collaboration with consumer products.

Imagine my fear Dear Reader. Here I am in Taiwan, invited to attend a study meeting on KM measurement (I’ll blog on the meeting later this week). Nineteen Asian countries participating with me as “technical expert”.

Every day, the participants and I were taken by bus about one hour out of Taipei to the venue. Then on Thursday, we all went on a “field trip” to a leading Taiwan company – to hear about their KM implementation. On the way to this company…on the bus….the representative from the Taiwan host company announced that we would have “bus karaoke”. Each participant was to sing a national folk song from their country.

I was paralysed with fear! My mind scrambled, thinking: does Australia even have a national folk song?  I came up with a crafty solution – being a New Zealander, I would say that I will do the Haka (now, THAT would have been something to watch. Me doing a traditional war dance). But I was listed as the “distinguished expert from Australia” so I had to come up with something Australian.

Then the host, Eugene, announced: “we will sing in alphabetical order”. OMG. Australia starts with A, that means I’m first. Beads of sweat were starting to trickle down my forehead (and it was only 16℃/60.8 ºF). Okay, so should I sing one of these iconic Aussie songs?

• Down Under by Men at Work – I thought I could probably belt that out reasonably well but lacked the rhythmic accompaniment;
• okay so what about Peter Allen’s I Still Call Australia Home? A good song, even used by Qantas but heck I don’t know the words to it;
• so what about Eagle Rock by Daddy Cool. Looking around the bus at the young participants from Vietnam and Thailand, I doubted they had heard of this Aussie band from the dim, dark 1970s;
• mmm….John Williamson’s True Blue? neh, hate that song;
• how about Gangajang’s This is Australia (which I think is really titled Sounds of Then)? no hope of singing this one, no idea of the words;
• anything John Farnham??
• Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport by Rolf Harris?
• could I possibly do a Jimmy Barnes and rock out Khe Sanh? nope, don’t have that gravelly voice.

Eugene starts to saunter down the aisle of the bus, microphone in hand, waving it towards me. Those beads of sweat were turning into huge rivers. My eyes must have looked wider than a deer with the headlights beaming on them. But Dear Reader, imagine my relief when Eugene by-passed me and went straight up to J for Japan (they did a fine rendition of Sukiyaki BTW). Then on to Philippines, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand (okay he wasn’t good with the alpha order).

I started to relax, thinking to myself that the “distinguished expert” was to be saved the humiliation of having to sing…what???? Then I heard mutterings: “Eugene, you forgot Australia”. I turned around to give that person the “death stare” but it was the very nice Indonesian man, smiling happily at me.

I was doomed Dear Reader. My number was up. Like a lamb to the slaughter, the dreaded microphone headed towards me, with the lovely host, Eugene, happily chirping: “oh, how could we forget Australia!” (wish you had Eugene). So in a flash, I decided I had only one hope: Waltzing Matilda. But what the heck are the words?

I don’t recall having to sing Waltzing Matilda since I was a primary teacher, haranguing the kids with music lessons. Is it: “once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong” and what the hell was he doing under the Coolibah tree??

Eugene handed over the microphone. Stalling for time, I stood up and went on about Australia being such a multi-cultural country that we don’t actually have a national folk song, so really….I can’t sing anything, sorry. That didn’t work because several of them shouted “sing Waltzing Matilda, we know that”. You do?  Excellent. I thought if they know it, they can sing and I’ll do a Britney and just mime the words.

That didn’t work either. They all looked at me eagerly, silently, awaiting the humiliation of the “distinguished expert” I guess. And then…..reaching back into the mists of time….I remembered the lyrics of Australia’s unofficial anthem. Deep breath. Swallow. And I belted it out. They stared at me. I remember thinking to myself: “If this ends up plastered all over YouTube, someone is going to die”. I finished. They clapped loudly and several asked if I was a professional singer. The Welsh genes finally came in handy

I continue to love the Swiss. Awhile back, I told you how the Swiss privacy watch dog was raising concerns about Google Street View cruising the streets of Switzerland and accused Google of potentially not protecting private citizens’ privacy. Well, now the skirmish is shaping up to be a huge cat fight to watch because the Swiss are hauling Google’s ass into court. Happy face

The Swiss are making demands and asking for a temporary injunction to stop the Google juggernaut. Apparently, Google did not comply with the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner’s recommendations around making Street View more palatable for the privacy-obsessed Swiss. Naughty Google. Here are the Swiss demands:

• up to one week before Google cruises into a town or city snapping images, they are to inform authorities. (Guess this would give people like me, who have an aversion to Street View, time to erect barricades around the home to stop the Google eye from peering into my backyard. But doesn’t really give one a chance to mount a legal challenge, so not sure that this demand goes anywhere really);
• remove any pictures of enclosed areas such as walled gardens and private streets;
• blur faces and car plate images. Since arriving in Switzerland earlier this year, it’s alleged photos of people and cars are identifiable and insufficiently blurred, especially around sensitive areas such as schools or hospitals.

Naturally, I’ll be watching this space. I think this is the first time Google has faced a law suit from a Government agency.

But here’s an interesting question. I conducted a webinar last weekend on Intellectual Property Rights for my students in Hong Kong. We were talking about copyright, industrial design, patents and so on. So..I wonder…let’s just say your home is designed by an architect. Even better, let’s imagine that the architect is you. So you would have drawings, plans, computer-assisted designs etc. Architects can protect their designs through copyright.  For example, in the US, Congress passed the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (AWCPA), which amended the Copyright Act to specifically include “architectural works” among the list of protected works in 17 U.S.C. § 102. Let’s also say that your partner is a sculptor and has some original works – statues – in the garden.

So along comes Google’s Street View car. Snap, snap. The image of your house and the sculpture are plastered on the internet via Street View. Is this infringement of copyright?

Image credit: Wikipedia