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(0)Five pirates, all ranked in order of seniority, have 100 coins to divide among themselves. The allocation process involves the most senior pirate proposing an allocation between all 5 pirates. All the pirates vote. If at least half the pirates agree, the allocation is locked in and the process ends. If the vote isn’t carried, the senior-most pirate is executed and the process is repeated with one less pirate. Assume that all the pirates act completely logically. Each pirate has the following priorities: (1) to stay alive; (2) to get as many coins as possible; and (3) to execute as many pirates as possible. How should the senior-most pirate divvy up the coins so that he/she gets as many coins as possible?
Simon Wright, who runs the long-established Whirlpool forums, is getting sued in the Qld Supreme Court by 2Clix Australia in relation to comments criticising 2Clix’s software and postings encouraging other Whirlpool members to avoid purchasing its products. The cause of action is founded in the tort of injurious falsehood. I’m guessing that 2Clix can’t sue for defamation because it is too big a company (which means it’s not eligible to sue for defamation). Will be a very interesting case for many reasons. Statement of claim is here (the particulars show the allegedly injurious comments).
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(0)My workplace is more or less near the centre of the CBD’s “declared area“. Buses terminate at Martin Place where crowds of suits are herded into the pedestrian channels, lined by 3 metre high metal fences anchored by massive concrete blocks. Police linger on each street corner. Newly-installed loudspeakers attached to traffic lights as part of Sydney’s new emergency warning system add that extra bit of East Berlin-charm to the CBD. Helicopters hover in the skies above… even once inside my building, you can hear them, periodically buzzing by the window. My window overlooks the Intercontinental (Dubya’s hotel during the summit) and I can see snipers on its roof. Sirens occasionally wail through the streets from vehicles engaged in what are (hopefully) training exercises. The streets around Circular Quay are virtually devoid of people and vehicles. It’s all quite surreal and a little disconcerting. And the newspapers say that the police are currently in “minimum security mode”. Dubya is going to arrive in the next couple hours and they are going to lock things down even more tomorrow. Employees have been advised to carry proof of ID and employment at all times.
APEC would be a more exciting prospect if they didn’t keep Sydneysiders away from everything with a 500 metre stick. It’s an honour to be hosting it, but to the person on the street, it sure doesn’t feel like it.
[There was a post here which has been censored by request (at least until the election is over). Update: Post now unredacted.]
People are reckoning that the election date will be called after APEC. This is from a friend hitting the campaign trails in Bennelong:
Today we went to test the waters in Carlingford, which is North-West of Eastwood. This was our first time to Carlingford, so we weren’t sure what to expect. I’m glad to say that it was quite succesful.
Carlingford Village (‘CV’) is a small shopping centre. Inside is a mini Chinatown. As soon as you enter you are hit with the smells of Asian food. Some of the shops had food so exotic they are not on the menus in Chinatown itself. We set up our signs and balloons outside an Asian supermarket, whose owner is backing Labor. The owner also owns 3 other supermarkets, including the supermarket directly opposite Howard’s office in Eastwood.
I went to set up at the back entrance and then ran into trouble. A bored Indian security guard saw me and straight away demanded to know whether I had permission. I told him we had permission from the owner of the supermarket. He said it wasn’t good enough, we needed permission from the owner of CV. Seeing that his name badge said “Ravi”, I tried to sweet talk him by talking about Ravi Shastri and cricket, but he said all politicians are crooks and soon was on his phone to the owner.
Luckily the owner of CV allowed us to stay. And this is the beautiful thing – he came to CV and said “I don’t like Howard, I support Labor.” This was someone we had never met before. By the end of our visit we had been able to convince him to put Maxine posters around CV and also organise Moon Cake festival events in the centre complete with a Maxine meet and greet.
The beauty of CV is that it’s in effect a captive audience. Macquarie Bank would call it monopoly infrastructure. The owner won’t allow the Libs to put up posters, or campaign inside.
In other things, last week I was at the check-out at Woolworths in Eastgardens. All the check-out chicks are either Asian or brown – Eastgardens is a pretty multicultural suburb.
The white girl in front of me sees my 2 boxes of Weet-bix and asks me, “Do you eat that for breakfast in your country?”
Me: “Yes, everyday.”
“Really? What country are you from?”
“Australia”.
“No, which country are you really from? Do they eat Weet-bix there?”
“Australia.”Then she proceeded to ask me if I ate vegemite and peanut butter. Maybe this should be added to the new citizenship test.
Still, the best incident was when I was on a bus in Kensington talking to a friend, who was also of Asian ethnicity. A woman came up to us and said, “Thank you for speaking English.”
As Lachie’s best mate, Alan Ramsey, would say: John Howard’s fucking Australia.
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3:46pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow