Category: Random observations

If it doesn’t fit elsewhere, it goes here.

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World Cup Draw

I was up early this morning to watch the World Cup draw. The atmosphere of that event always seems way too similar to the Eurovision song contest for my liking, but I digress…

  1. Brazil
  2. Croatia
  3. Australia
  4. Japan

Australia’s been drawn in a tough group. It’s probably the strongest group after the one containing Argentina and the Netherlands.

For the record my fiancée will be barracking for the Netherlands (because she’s half Dutch, although I secretly think she’s just being difficult) and Harry Kewell (because she thinks he’s cute).

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Everything days

It’s been another one of those days when everything happens at once. Already today we’ve had a fridge, dishwasher and BBQ delivered. A guy is currently putting Cool or Cosy insulation in our ceiling (I don’t envy that man: he must be frying). At work this morning I also received delivery of our new ADSL router/modem/switch/wireless access point from iiNet. Karen and I have been using the free dialup account that comes with any iiNet ADSL account. It’ll be good to have a fast connection again! In addition, I collected the permanent copies of my Ph.D. thesis (I was awarded my Ph.D. on the 29th of November), collected graduation ceremony tickets and had my sunglasses fixed.

On the way back from the University I ran into Bill Segall (from Mantara) and had a bit of a chat with him. I’ll be catching up with a lot of former DSTCers this Thursday at the DSTC Xmas reunion party.

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On violence, dishonesty and cowardice in football

It’s been just over a week since the momentous day Australia qualified for the World Cup. Reading the various news articles and blog posts relating to the Australian victory has been interesting. The overwhelming majority of the writings have been very positive. There’s one somewhat less favourable blog post that I find I just have to respond to.

The idea that no sport other than football faces the problem of crowd violence is completely and utterly laughable. Every sport faces the same challenges, from basketball to rugby league. That football is by far and away the most popular team sport in the world is a blessing and a curse to the game. Even cricket is not immune from the phenomenon. If cricket, basketball, rugby or any other sport was more pervasive than football in the world, it would be these sports under the crowd violence spotlight instead of football. Football is a game in which two teams try to kick a round ball into the other team’s goal. There is nothing in it that should make it inherently more susceptible to crowd violence than trying to kick an oval ball into goals of a different shape or bowling a hard red leather ball at somebody’s head. I will not refute, however, that there is something about football that seems to arouse emotions in spectators and create suspense on a level that some other sports fail to emulate. Football is exciting precisely because there’s not a point scored every thirty seconds. Some of the most fantastic matches I’ve had the privilege to watch have been nil-nil draws. However, to say that football, the game, is the cause of violent behaviour amongst some of its fans is a non-sequitur.

As for football’s apparent lack of aesthetic appeal, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well there are billions of people worldwide for whom football is and always will be the beautiful game. It is the sport that brings more joy to more people in the world than any other game. With all this talk of violence in football, it’s easy to forget that there’s probably no other force in the world doing as much as football to overcome discrimination, racism and so forth at street level where it really matters. Football takes the brunt of the criticism in this respect simply because it is out there throwing ordinary people from different cultures and religions together on a scale that other sports can only dream of, so of course there will be the odd crowd brawl. With the number of football matches being played in the world every day, and the number of people watching those matches, it’s quite amazing there’s not more crowd violence.

To address the slur that there is a lack of courage in the game of football, I surely need only to ask my readers to imagine the pressure John Aloisi was under when he stepped up to take that final penalty in the World Cup Qualifier. What about the fact that our Australian football team just beat a twice World Cup winner? Is that not courage? On the other hand, the number one Moment of Madness according to 20 to 1 on TV last night was when two of the Chappell brothers conspired to bowl an underarm delivery to prevent New Zealand from having a chance to tie a one day match in 1981. Greg Chappell’s decision to ask his brother to bowl underarm certainly doesn’t strike me as a courageous one. Admittedly, there’s a bit of dishonesty in football (trying to con the referee and so forth), but to think this doesn’t go on in other sports is completely naive. I never saw Steve Waugh walk. And don’t even get me started on the match fixing scandals of years past. Still, I love my cricket as much as the next Australian. It just totally irks me when people dump crap on football as if it is the only sport whose players exhibit ungentlemanly behaviour. In Australia, where football is considered a game played by Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, it’s all too easy to hurl abuse at the game, and overlook the very same undesirable traits in those other sports we consider to be Australian. Thankfully, that won’t be the case for much longer.

To end off, I don’t think cricket is threatened by football (which is why I never mentioned it in my post of last week). They’re generally played in different seasons for one thing (although the A-League is being played over the summer). Cricket and football happily co-exist in England, and cricket and AFL already live side-by-side in Australia. Personally I can’t wait for the day when football and cricket dominate the sports shows on Australian television, but that’s just me. :-)

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Finally, we’re through

Yesterday, I was edgy. I could barely eat dinner. I was a bundle of nerves. For last night the Socceroos faced off against Uruguay in the second leg of the World Cup Qualifier by the end of which we’d either have qualified for the World Cup in Germany next year or be condemned to another four years of footballing obscurity.

I’d arranged to have dinner at my parents house so that we could all watch the match together on the widescreen TV. I didn’t eat much. My legs were bouncing up and down with nervous energy from the kick-off. This was made worse because Australia had an inauspicious beginning to the match. They took a long time to settle into the match. Uruguay were definitely on top in the opening stages, and my heart began to sink a little. But then Australia found their feet. Hiddink replaced a defender, the excellent Tony Popovic, with an attacker, the talisman Harry Kewell. By then, things had truly started to turn around. Before long, Australia were a goal to the good. Marco Bresciano scored from close range after good work from Kewell and Viduka. Spirits were raised, but in the back of my mind was the knowledge that all it would take is one goal from Uruguay and we’d be back to where we started. Worse, in fact. We’d have had to score another two goals to go through to the World Cup. Uruguay had their chances too. There were several heart stopping moments. The second half was all Australia. The Uruguayan danger man, Recoba, was substituted. Montero pulled a hamstring and was also subbed. Extra-time. Dreaded penalties. Switched between rapid breathing and not breathing at all. Schwarzer saved a penalty. Viduka missed his penalty but Schwarzer unbelievably saved another one! Aloisi’s penalty sent us through to the World Cup.

I can’t believe we’ve finally qualified to play in the greatest sporting tournament on Earth. I still remember Australia being beaten by Scotland in 1985 in the qualifiers for Mexico ’86. Every four years since then has been heartbreak. Now, finally, Australian football will have its day in the sun. More than that, it will compete with AFL and the Rugby codes as the top sport in this country.

Guus Hiddink is a miracle worker. He’s had the job of Socceroos manager for little more than four months, and he’s been able to achieve what no other coach has since 1974. Give the man a medal. Make him an honorary Aussie. Something. Credit should also go to the new Australian football administration. Frank Lowy and John O’Neill, you’re legends. If it weren’t for them, Australia would not have a manager of the calibre of Guus Hiddink. Also thanks to the likes of Johnny Warren, Les Murray, Craig Foster and the entire Australian football fraternity who have pushed so hard for the necessary changes to be made to football in our country, and who never once let go of the dream.

There must be something about World Cups in Germany, because the only other time Australia has played in a World Cup was in 1974 in Germany. But I think it will be a more regular occurrence from now on. No longer does Australia need to face the fifth best South American team to make the World Cup. We’re now in the Asian confederation, which means we get to play group matches just like everybody else. It means we can afford to lose a game or two and still finish top of a group and qualify for the World Cup directly. It also means we’ll be playing the likes of Japan, Korea and China, who, while formidable in their own right these days, are not quite of the same quality as the South Americans.

My thoughts on the match:

  • Bloody brilliant, for starters;
  • Hiddink made an inspired team selection and then even more inspired substitutions;
  • Our defence is still looking too fragile at times. We could so easily have been punished;
  • For all our possession and pressure over the two legs, we didn’t make it count. Even in the first leg we had more of the ball than Uruguay, and it would have been nice to kill off the tie in the first leg by scoring an away goal. Not to mention my heart and those of all other football mad Australians would have been spared a substantial amount of torture;
  • Our midfield is looking really strong. Grella, Bresciano and the others were awesome;
  • Schwarzer was solid during the match and incredible during the penalty shoot-out;
  • Winning that match is the single best thing that could have happened for football in this country. It was one of Australia’s greatest sporting moments. The only thing that could top it is actually winning the World Cup itself.

Karen’s thoughts on the match:

  • Uruguay’s uniform was spiffier than Australia’s, especially their socks;
  • Harry Kewell needs a new hair dresser; he’d be quite cute if he had a different haircut.

It shouldn’t be overlooked that Dwight Yorke’s Trinidad & Tobago also qualified for their first ever World Cup overnight, by beating Bahrain 1-0 in the second leg of their playoff. Next year’s World Cup will feature several teams who have never played in a World Cup previously: Trinidad & Tobago, Ukraine, Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and Ghana. This just goes to show what a truly world game football is. Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and Ghana have qualified at the expense of the established African giants Nigeria, Cameroon and South Africa. Nigeria and Cameroon were widely considered to be likely winners of the World Cup within the next few tournaments. Ghana are very strong at youth level, and they are one of the strongest African teams, so it’s quite astonishing that Germany 2006 will be their first World Cup.

Right now, it just feels brilliant that Australia has finally qualified. Johnny Warren would be so proud. Can’t wait until June next year! Hey, I’ll be married by then. Cool.

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Terror threat in Brisbane

This is quite alarming. If the threat is real, may the culprits be arrested and thrown in gaol for the rest of their pathetic, insignificant lives. Do the new laws allow for that?

If the threat isn’t real, then could the authorities please have the public transport system up and running again by 5pm this afternoon.

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Moved In

Well, Karen and I have moved into our new house. The move went very smoothly, but there’s still boxes everywhere, of course. Random seems to like his new home.

We had dinner at my Mum’s and Dad’s house on Saturday night after we’d done as much unpacking and arranging of furniture as we could. Even though I’ve only moved a few suburbs away from my parents and brother, saying goodbye was pretty hard. So Saturday was a happy day and a sad day at the same time. I know it’s going to take some time for Mum, in particular, to readjust to the way things are now.

There’s a few things that need doing to the house in the short-term. Karen and I are looking forward to putting our own touches to the house. Should be fun!

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The Cat Empire

Last night Karen took me to see The Cat Empire at the Tivoli Theatre. It was a graduation present (gosh I’m lucky, although I’m still waiting for somebody in ITEE to give me the go-ahead to print the bound copies of my thesis). Anyway, the concert was totally awesome. I was blown away by the performance. You often hear a recording of a live concert that doesn’t sound much like the studio recordings. The Cat Empire live sounded just like the Cat Empire on CD, only they extended each number with fantastic improvisations. I am definitely even more of a Cat Empire fan now than I was before.

The warm up act was performed by King Curly, who were not too bad. They played a style of music which might be described as "lounge rock": rock mixed with laid back jazz.

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Seamless and Seamful Computing

A few weeks back Ben and I met at Three Monkeys for a chat about work and life in general. Inevitably, our discussion turned to pervasive computing. Ben spoke about the idea of seamfulness as opposed to seamlessness, which I found interesting. He’s written a short blog entry about it. I think the quote in his blog entry is from Elizabeth Goodman’s blog. Here’s what she said:

Ubicomp-the-conference and ubicomp-the-field are frustrating because they promise the impossible. The promise of computing technology dissolving into behavior, invisibly permeating the natural world around us cannot be reached. Technology is, of course, that which by definition is separate from the natural; it is explicitly designed that way. Technology only becomes truly invisible when, like the myriad of pens sold in Japan’s department stores, it’s no longer seen as technology at all. Deliberately creating something ‘invisible’ is self-defeating. I can think of few recent technologies as visible to the public as RFID, no matter how physically ‘invisible’ it might be.

Yet again, confusion reigns supreme in the UbiComp debate. Much of this confusion stems from the notion of invisibility and the relative importance conferred to that concept. UbiComp doesn’t seek to make all technology invisible, no matter what it’s critics believe. What it does try to do is hide those aspects of technology that needn’t be visible to humans. Take the RFID example. For many applications, RFID is a better solution than older technologies like bar code scanners because it does away with user interaction in a situation where user interaction is not required. When Elizabeth Goodman talks of RFID being highly visible despite its small size, I can only assume she means it has gained wide exposure in the media and in research publications. But this is talking about a different kind of visibility! Any technology, when first deployed, is bound to attract attention. It’s what happens after the hype dies down and the novelty wears off that counts. The fact of the matter is that RFID is closer to being invisible than bar codes and the other technologies it will replace. That can hardly be argued with under the assumption that RFID works as it is supposed to (and given the uptake of the technology by logistics companies, e-ticketing systems and the like, it appears that it does work well for many applications). Furthermore, this talk of having computers blending with the natural environment is a complete red herring, designed to draw your attention away from one of the real goals of ubiquitous computing, which is simply to release users from explicit interaction with technology as far as it is possible and sensible to do within certain applications of technology. The extent to which this is possible and the degree to which it remains sensible is determined by the users themselves.

It strikes me that it is often those criticising UbiComp whom attribute the most marvellous traits to it. Of course the more outlandish the "promises" of UbiComp become, the easier it is for its critics to knock it down. Ubiquitous computing is just that: computing that has moved beyond the desktop and which becomes integrated with many aspects our everyday lives. The technologies that will enable this in a way that is satisfying to users are subject to ongoing research and debate within the UbiComp community.

Slowly but surely, some technologies are receding to the background. This will not happen for all computer technologies: users gain value from many technologies precisely because they are visible and their boundaries are well-defined. But by the same token, there is a large category of technologies which the user need not be conscious of. RFID is an example already given, but there’s also simple things like sensors that switch the airconditioner on when you arrive home from work, or the software that seamlessly re-routes a telephone call to an appropriate device nearby, doing away with the need for a human operator to redirect the call. These are all examples where their users do benefit from their invisibility and seamlessness. It will be users (the market) who decide the extent and rate at which technology recedes to the background and becomes part of our work, home, shopping and social environments, but it will certainly happen for some technologies.

For sure, seamfulness has its place too. Ben gave me this really cool example. There’s a game played with GPS- and Wi-Fi-enabled PDAs. There are two teams, and each team has a safe. The playing field is randomly seeded with virtual coins that are visible on the PDA screen. The object of the game is to move as many coins as possible from the playing field to the safe. You collect a coin by moving to its GPS coordinates. Coins can be stolen in transit (kind of like a mugging). But Wi-Fi suffers from gaps in coverage, especially when there are buildings and other objects around. The game works because players can take advantage of these black spots to sneak a coin back to the safe without getting mugged. Upon collecting a coin, a player can jump into a black spot and then emerge from it at a point closest to the safe. Thus the seams of the Wi-Fi technology can actually be of some value in certain applications. However nobody woud dispute that it is also highly useful to a much larger range of applications when it maintains invisibility and seamlessness, showing that there’s a place for seamlessness and seamfulness in the future of computing.

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Australian Citizenship test

You call that a knife, this is a knife. True of false?

The Australian Citizenship test is pure gold.

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Our House

At just before 4pm yesterday afternoon, Karen and I became the proud new owners of a lovely little house in Ellen Grove. Karen’s currently in Cyprus on work matters, so we won’t be moving in immediately. I suggested that I could have everything moved in by the time she gets back, but Karen needs to make sure that everything gets put in its right and proper place. ;-) Regardless, it won’t be long now before our new address is Ellen Grove.