Climate Action Day

A lone face in the crowd.

This is what a small blimp carrying a remote camera over the Alexandra gardens recorded at 1pm on Saturday, October 24.

Several hundred cyclists, having pedalled through Melbourne that morning, form a sign you're going to get to know in the next month or two.

More later, but I can't resist a photo of our lead pantechniton, which appeared to support up to 6 riders.



So, what is 350?

Copenhagen: The Archangel and the Vampire

There is a lot riding on the upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen. So much so that many commentators are proclaiming it to be our last chance to stop the dominoes of climate change from tipping each over into catastrophe. Even ones such as Worldchanging's Alex Steffen were sounding ominous warnings recently

Entire orders of life may be eliminated in this sixth great extinction event. At the very least, civilisation could be snuffed like a candle left on some drowning pacific atoll.

Apocalyptic stuff!

For certain, the sooner we implement systematic counters to global warming the more damage we can avert. A great opportunity will have been missed if the Copenhagen talks can't agree to substantial action. Of course, a lot of the doom-mongering is just that: a ploy bringing pressure to bear on policy-makers to extract their collective digits by stating that failure is not acceptable.

However, the importance of Copenhagen can be overplayed.

We are about to embark on a journey like no other in the history of humanity. It will be a journey of many, many steps, of which Copenhagen will be only one of the first. We can't afford to stumble on one of them and yet it is nearly certain that we will. To persevere, we will need to learn endurance and be resilient to the calamities that will delay us.

A lot of people are ill-prepared for this journey. They are still in varying stages of denial, disbelief, and possibly despair. Is it helpful to say 'game over' each time we do stumble? This is not the outlook that resilience nurtures.

It prompted me to remember the lyrics to Peter Gabriel's song 'Don't Give Up' (which strike me as apt, even if they deal with more mundane issues like chronic unemployment in the eighties)

"no fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted"

A sombre tone, and the speaker is, indeed, close to suicide. However, there is a second voice providing support and encouragement. The conclusion, while gloomy, at least acknowedges the possibility of hope.

don't give up...
don't give up...
don't give up.

To emphasise the message, consider the alternative.

The vampire of my title features in the movie Nosferatu. Seeking his beloved, he has come to the city, trailing plague in his wake. As the disease spreads remorselessly, all hope and social order breaks down. The survivors carouse in drunken debauchery in the town square while they wait for death to claim them.

Well, they might die happy but it is a truly chilling spectacle, and hardly an alternative to anything!

Don't give up!

Blog Action Day: What Will You Do The Morning After?

The environment trembles. Copenhagen looms as our last best hope, and it all seems so much effort.

What to do? What to do?
Blog about it!

Well, it's a start, I suppose.

So what should I blog about? Anything! It's all about getting a critical mass, isn't it? A message in the media which says:

Hey! There are people who actually care about what comes after Copenhagen!

Yes, that will achieve something... for 24 hours or so.

Then what? The carbon rust will still be inexorably seeping into the atmosphere and oceans long after Oct. 15.

As an individual, there is very little you can do in the way of lifestyle changes that will 'save the planet' (ie to offset enough carbon production to slow the effects of global warming) Any effective change will have to systemic and (sigh) possibly quite disruptive.

The best things you can do as an individual are:

1. Vote. Vote for parties who you think have the best grasp of the issue, and appear willing to bring about systemic changes.

2. Change your lifestyle anyway. No it won't change anything directly. It will set an example to yourself and to others that 'insuperable' barriers aren't always what they seem.

I am not going to try and change the world on Blog Action Day. Others do it far better and systematically. (You can see a few of them list in the blog roll)

What I am going to do is blog about it tomorrow

... and tomorrow

... and tomorrow

On The Value Added by Middle Folk

It is said that half of advertising is a waste. The problem is deciding which half.

With that in mind, I have compiled a little list of statistics of my job applications to date.

Over the last six months, I have applied for 57 jobs. 30 were advertised through agencies, while 27 were from the company directly.

Of the agency applications, 16 (53%) were acknowledged (ie didn't just vanish into the void) whereas 15 (56%) were acknowledged by companies.

Of the agency applications that were acknowledged, 2 (12.5%) led to further contact. None led to a proper interview.

Of the company applications that were acknowledged, 8 (53%) led to further contact. 5 (30%) led to a proper interview.

Now, I should add that none have actually led to a job offer. Nevertheless, I have to wonder: which half is a waste of time?

Locked Out

The popular employment-oriented social website LinkedIn seems to have a policy of not working with Linux based users. (Ubuntu mainly, although other users have reported difficultes)

I find that any search or edit request causes a freeze. What's been your experience?

More details are provided by a few industrious burrowers here

Update: a solution has been posted. Type in the following command:
sudo ifconfig eth0 mtu 1360
Arcane mumbo-jumbo it may be, but it does work!

Get a Mission Statement!

As part of the preliminaries for a recent job interview, I was given a form with some questions to answer.

Q: What is your personal (ie non-work) mission statement?

A: Life is not a mission statement!

I haven't yet heard whether or not they want to see me again.

[Update: turns out they didn't! I'm a little disappointed but, really, I have difficulty taking people who ask such questions as seriously as they'd like to be. Oh well, to other prospects...]

The Silence of the Recruiters

I have a fair streak of the cynic in me. I am aware of it, and try to avoid it. Sometimes, though, it seems justified.

Particularly when it comes to the job market. Having been on the unemployment scrap heap several times in the past, I am aware of a number of annoying attitudes and mindsets of employees and agencies.

No denying times is hard!
Almost as hard as the worst pies in London

- Mrs Lovett, from 'Sweeney Todd' (Sondheim)

Now, I know there's a global recession on and not enough to go around and all that. But consider what is on offer.

We have the buzzwords and vapid phrases that accompany adverts, and which are supposed to ignite our interest:

• 'passionate about...' (under 25 and will work for Red Bull)
• 'hit the ground running' (like the strawberry jam from a dropped piece of toast, perhaps?)
• 'work/life balance' (according to Dilbert: 84 hours/week for us, 84 for you)
• 'friendly workplace' (never go home)
• 'work hard play hard' (see work/life balance)
• 'team player' (will shaddup and do as told. Can be harangued for not being able to work independently when they ask where the documentation is hidden)
• 'can work independently' (can ask where the documentation is hidden. Can be harangued for not being a team player if the questions become too uncomfortable)
  

(Well, OK! Maybe I *am* being a cynic. Maybe I've come across too many NPD types. Luvett's pies got their content from somewhere!)

We have the entrenched mindsets that require a new applicant to be precisely like the previous one. I have previously referred to this as the Athena wishlist that creates stifling GlassWalls and results in a DryWaterhole of talent.

You are supposed to stretch yourself by operating outside your zone of comfort, but not your employer's

Then there is the claim that many jobs advertised are fake: trumpets to blow hot air into an agency's prospects. This is possible: but it is usually apparent in the spam-like number of hastily scrawled adverts from one company or another. I did apply for a couple of positions with one such company, and rang them up to find out what was going on: I became rather fed up when they kept 'losing' my resume and asking me to resubmit, and resubmit.

I am putting together a personal blacklist of such.

(message to recruiters: if I am expected to write an intelligent, well structured, grammatically correct, and properly spelt letter of application, *YOU* are expected to do the same with your advertisements!)

---

So much for nihilistic grumbles. Let's try and provide a little constructive criticism.

At this point, I would like to thank all recruitment folk who *have* told me I was 'unsuccessful on this occasion'. The message may be a little disappointing, but at least it's a message. The reason for my gratitude is that there is another regrettably common practice to add to the above litany of long term foolishness. I refer to the 'Wall of Silence' that appears to surround many of the job applications I make.

What happens is this:

• I see a promising sounding job
• I submit my resume, together with a cover letter to emphasise how my skillset matches the job description.
• - And that's it! No simple response rejecting my application. Not even an acknowledgment that the application was ever made.

Now, I am trying *not* to be a cynic here. I have been through the outplacement process, and am aware that recruiters are often swamped with applications and can't be expected to give personal attention to each and every applicant.

Nevertheless, I think that some recognition needs to be made for the effort in putting together those applications in the first place. It needn't be much: just a brief note letting people who don't make the short list know they haven't made the grade on this occasion. It should be as easy as launching a script that scans the mail list and does this:

if subject contains jobref x and source is not in shortlist x then:
send sorry note
discard application

Good manners cost nothing. Bad manners cost you customers.