Author: Nick

I mentioned this during a telephone conversation with Heidi:

It’s liberating to be free of the burden of ownership.

We were talking about how many of the benefits of ownership are conceptual and psychological, whereas the costs of ownership are often overlooked and underappreciated (despite them being very real and very common).

A primary benefit of ownership is that you can use your possessions whenever you want. However, many people accrue possessions that they never (or rarely) use, so this potential benefit is often unrealised (or severely diminished) in practise.

The costs of ownership obviously include acquisiation costs, but they tend to be dominated by ongoing costs associated with item management (storage, relocation, maintenance). Given the amount of stuff that people tend to own, accumulated costs (time and money) are often rather substantial.

Perhaps the most detrimental costs have to do with lifestyle: you worry about what is going to happen to your stuff; it becomes onerous to organise relocation and travel; there is no incentive to enjoy things “now” (because you can always enjoy them later); you accumulate rather than appreciate, and your life becomes cluttered.

Update: I like the sound of “Appreciate. Don’t accumulate.”

At his talk last night, Chris said something like:

Nobody will ever care as much about your project as you do.

when talking about his labour of love: Infinite 8-bit Platformer.

My takeaway from his comment was that, when working on personal projects, your primary motivation needs to come from your own emotional investment.

Although other people may like your work, you can’t expect to be driven by the enthusiasm of others. Particularly not when the development cycle may span years.

Minh and I went over to Simon’s for dinner last night. We were trying to find time to catch up before he heads off to the US; Turns out shopping, cooking, eating, and watching TV together was perfect. It felt very homely, plus I got to check out some of his recent artwork.

We ended up spending around $13 each on food and wine. Here’s what we bought:

• Gravy beef
• Gnocchi
• Bananas
• Block of dark chocolate
• Penfold’s Shiraz Cabernet

And here’s what we made (and how we made it):

Beef Burgandy with Gnocchi

1. Melt butter in pressure cooker
2. Cut beef into large chunks and brown in butter
3. Remove beef and caramelise around two tablespoons of sugar
4. Return beef and coat in caramel
5. Cover with red wine and stock and bring to boil
6. Put lid on pressure cooker and heat for 20 minutes
7. Brown chopped onions and garlic in a pan
8. Boil chopped carrots in a pot
9. Add onions, garlic, and carrots to pressure cooker (with some salt and pepper)
10. Cook under pressure for a further 15-25 minutes
11. Boil gnocchi in water until they float, then drain and place on plates
12. Mix a couple of tablespoons of corn flour in with some stock (cold)
13. Add corn flour mix to beef burgandy to simmer to thicken
14. Place beef burgandy on top of gnocchi and enjoy!

Banana Fondue

1. Peel and slice bananas and place in freezer until cold (but still soft)
2. Break up dark chocolate and heat in microwave for 45 secs
3. Stir chocolate and heat further (10-15 secs at a time) until melted
4. Enjoy dipping cold banana pieces into melted dark chocolate!

I forgot to put tomato paste in the beef burgandy and I prefer it with mushrooms (although Simon is anti-mushroom). It was still awesome, but I’ll have to remember these differences for next time! I’m also not sure that the onions and carrots have to be cooked first when using a pressure cooker.

Update: I also forgot about bacon lardons and finely chopped parsley. Basically, instead of cooking the beef in butter, you can cook them in the fat from thinly sliced bacon pieces (cooked to a crisp) which can later be added to the gnocchi (or other pasta or mashed potato) along with parsley.

I miss my cat so much.

I spent Wednesday drawing pictures of her and on Thursday Heidi and I made a list of all the little things that she used to do. For the last few days, I’ve found myself softly singing “Gone too soon” when I’m alone.

Now I’m listening to it:

I ruminate overly on concepts at the best of times, and now I’m spending a lot of time thinking about death, life, what constitutes an individual, and how transient it all is. I switch between feeling grateful for those around me, and then just hoping that our time together will last and committing myself to making the most of that time.

Update: Added image and link.

I’m flying back to Perth tonight and staying for a week or so.

I want to catch up with Simon before he heads off to the US; There’s the Let’s Make Games event on Friday; I plan to make a donation to the Cat Haven; and I need to sit down with Buddhi to work out a forward plan for Beyond Motion.

Aside from that, I’m just keen to hang out. I’m pretty good at cooking now (and many friends are watching their monies), so maybe I’ll try to organise various dinner functions at people’s houses.

I guess that I should start emailing people now.

Mao was hit by a car this morning and died soon-after. It doesn’t feel real; My heart is waiting for her to come home. She was a difficult cat, but it seemed like she was finally happy. We will miss her deeply.

Description:

This map is to record the locations, information and images of major street/urban/graffiti art around metro Perth.

The map acts as a guide for anyone who wants to get out and explore this fantastic public art around the city.

Much of this art has been created voluntarily by youth local to each area, who donate their time, effort and talent to improve their community.

If you would like to add something to the map please email info@thebutchershop.com.au with a photo, address, year painted and description.

Map & sample:

View Perth Street Art Registry in a larger map

Map created by The Butcher Shop. Featured work (above) by Kid Zoom.

I had a weird waking dream this morning.

Heidi was getting up to go to the markets. She asked if I wanted to go. I said that I was really tired; I just wanted to sleep. She said “That’s fine. You sleep. I just need to take half of 25% of you”.

I didn’t understand what that meant…

Heidi pulled my left arm out from under the covers and started massaging my forearm, slowly moving from the elbow down to my hand. One of the wrinkles in my palm opened up and Heidi pushed a small version of me out from it, causing me to shrink by 25%.

Heidi then looked at the smaller version of me; it looked up at her. Then she quickly and purposefully “karate-chopped” it into two even smaller versions of me. She picked them up and put then into the pockets of her dressing gown. They stood looking up at her with their arms hanging out.

“All right” she said, “I’m off.”

I woke up thinking: “You said you wanted half of 25%. Shouldn’t I keep one here?”

I singed my hair while cooking Beef Bourguignon. A fireball of burning alcohol gas took off a fair amount of hair from my hands and from my fringe. Despite the obvious downsides, it was pretty cool. (Hopefully I don’t have to cut my hair.)

Pro-tip: When cooking meat in red wine, be sure to burn-off the alcohol before putting a sealed lid on the pot.

When I was working at The University of Sydney, we used the term “Funny Money” to refer to the funds and entitlements negotiated between various departments and research groups. The rest of this post is speculation about what that term means. (It doesn’t reflect actual operations at the university.)

I gathered that although the university was one entity (with an overall budget and financial administration), the various departments had their own fixed allocations and had to “pay” each other for services. On top of that, various research groups were semi-commercialised, and sought to charge university departments (for services) much like they would invoice commercial entities. It almost sounds logical in theory (all are equal under a standard capitalist model), but it sometimes felt fairly incongruous with what appeared to occur in practise.

I have the impression that a big problem at most universities has to do with the utilisation and availability of resources. Expensive scientific, medical, and computer equipment needs to be maximally used in order to offset (and justify) the initial outlay and operating costs. Moreover, all that equipment is there for a reason, and underutilisation may often mean that something simply isn’t getting done. Maybe research is being stifled due to lack of access, or computations are taking longer than they ought (because desktop computers are being used rather than supercomputers).

Anyhow, bringing us back to Funny Money. Services departments may find that they can charge a certain (high) rate to commercial entities or departments with bigger budgets, but those rates may put their services out of reach of other departments or smaller research groups. A university may introduce service obligations in order to ensure that resources are available (and maybe pay a basic stipend to service departments to cover these costs). That can take time and foreword planning and may not align well with requirements. So interim (or alternative) measures may be for departments to just get on with it and engage in informal (or formal) agreements and trade.

Items traded may include a wide range of non-financial things: use of rooms and facilities; IT services; teaching support; research students; curriculum adjustment; staff transfers; etc. A whole wealth of things. A whole alternative economy of goods and services. All feeding back into and distorting the capitalist model that a university might strive to impose upon its departments and research groups. So what does “real” money mean to a university staff member or student? Funding is mostly controlled by central administration, but real value may be predominantly determined by demand, resources, and (unregulated) agreements between various groups (with vested interests).

I’m sure that the same sort of thing goes on in the public service and large corporations, but it wasn’t until recently that I began to really appreciate its prevalence in wider society. Who can really explain the ins and outs of the current global economic mess in terms of sound theoretical models? I feel that the only conclusion is this: All money is Funny Money.