Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie | Rob Skelton: Various Musings

Travel Plans

17-01-2018

I have less (full-time) responsibilities than I’ve had for more than a decade, and plenty of annual leave up my sleeve. Some ideas of where to go, but I doubt I’ll venture off on my own.

3 Nights in Sweden / $1500

Cook your own food, fetch your own water, and go on wilderness treks to spot elk, beavers and wolves. Three creatures I expect I’d never encounter otherwise.

Michoacán – Mexico

In November I can see the gazillion monarch butterflies, pyramids and the Night of the Dead.

Pantanal – Brazil

Caiman, toucans, marsh deer, giant river otters & jaguars, on horseback, near the Iguacu falls.

Astana, Kazakhstan

Egypt

There’s many ways of doing this, and I pretty much want to see every ancient thing. This tour is only $100/day and would be a good first visit.

Walk the West Highland Way.

Underground tunnels in Malta

Kumano Kodo – Japan

A pilgrimage walk.

Bangkok – Chiang Mai, by slow train

Ancient temples, villages, wilderness. Cheap! Look up Sukhothai.

Tayrona National Park – Colombia

Jungle meets beautiful beaches. Remote enough to be cool, but I won’t be the only tourist.

Da Shuhua – China

…blacksmiths in the village of Nuanquan, located in the the Hebei province, tossed cupfuls of molten iron against the city gate, hard and cool in the winter air. The result was a spectacular shower of blooms resembling giant glowing flowers from which the festival (translating to mean “tree flower”) took its name.

Hiking in Jordan

What better way of understanding why people live in such a desolate place than walking it….

La Gomera – Canary Islands

Hikes.

Einstok Brewing Company – Iceland

Beer.

Yangling Mausoleum and Maoling Mausoleum, Xian, China

Pyramids that tourists can visit. Others are seemingly able to be climbed by anyone? Yes, China has a lot of very big pyramids!

Catatumbo, Venezuela

Best lightning in the world. Or the Northern Territory of Australia during rainy season.

DONE Spitsbergen Island, Norway

Northern lights, or 24 hrs of sunshine, or their Octoberfest. Plus there is a ghost town, the doomsday seed vault and polar bears. Flights from Oslo are cheap.

Cherrapunjee, India

Virtually the wettest place on Earth. The record holder by a bare margin is a few miles away but has no hotels. Visit in July when it averages 128 inches per day (although I don’t know how I will get in and out…)

Dallol, Ethiopia

The hottest inhabited place on Earth. Looks like Mars, plus a volcano and sulphur hot pools. You can only get there by camel with armed guards.

Nyiragongo Volcano, Goma, Congo

Goma has a million people who could die next time this volcano erupts, if the poisonous gases (carbon dioxide and methane) don’t kill them first, or violent humans. You can take a 2-day hike to the lava lake at top of the volcano.

The Catacombs of Paris

The Dead Sea

Costa Rica

Isla Holbox
An island in Mexico, Mayan-named “black hole”. Flamingos and whale sharks. Cheap, hippie, golf buggies. Expensive but has hostels

Taiwan

Trek to Ciudad Perdida, Colombia
Visitors to the Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona in Northern Colombia can enjoy lounging around in lots of dense rainforest and beautiful sandy beaches. But those eager for an active adventure should look into the wild 5-day trek out to the ‘Lost City’, Ciudad Perdida.

Climb an active volcano in Pucón, Chile
Pucón lies 780km south of Santiago in Chile’s stunningly beautiful lake district.

St Augustine / Jacksonville, Florida
Seemingly little-known and under-appreciated. Up and coming cool spot.

Hunan Province, China
For the scenery, and only $500 return from Melbourne

Mount Kailash
Sacred to four religions, and nobody has climbed it. 3 day trek around the base, where some people take months to complete it because they crawl, prostrate themselves.

Kanyakumri, India. The southern tip of India where, amongst other things, you can see sunset and moonrise together at full moon, especially in April.

Adam’s Peak, Sri Lanka. Climb the sacred mountain. Butterflies just before monsoon season.

Mount Canigou, France. Bonfire festival at mid-summer in June.

Taputapuatea Marae, Raiatea Island, French Polynesia. Mysterious ancient site.

Externsteine, Germany. Limestone columns / Christian hermits.

Almendres Cromlech, Portugal. Stone circle with 95 megaliths.

Hampi, India. Ancient ruins and a cool temple.

Ajanta and Ellora Caves, India. 30 carved temples, one 30 metres high.

Sri Meenakshi Temple and Mahabalipuram Temple, India. Both just really cool.

Jani, Latvia. They run naked at midsummer. They build bonfires in San Juan, Spain on the same day.

Noches de Brugas, Veracruz, Mexico. The night of the witches. First Friday of March.

Purim Parade, Tel Aviv, Israel. Basically a very drunken Jewish Halloween..

Pandharpur Temple Festival, India. June or July. A pilgrimage. A bit odd and different. 700K people turn up. 250K walk there.

Carnival week. New Orleans, Trinidad & Tobago, Martinique – all look super cool. I miss Treme the TV series muchly.

Nemrut Dagi, Turkey. Very odd king burial site with a 50 metre tumulus and giant fallen heads.

Royal Mounds, Uppsala, Sweden. Kings buried in big mounds.

The Merry Cemetery, Romania. A graveyard where lives are celebrated.

Hal Saflieni, Malta. Underground temple, where 7,000 people are buried.

Shenzhen, China & Hong Kong. Right next to each other, and will be linked by high speed train in 2019 (continues to Beijing), or just catch the regular train or ferry. Shenzhen grew from a small town to 12 million people in just 3 decades. Good for a quick peak into China, but nothing there I am particularly keen on

Aeolian Islands, Italy. Basically the other Hawaii, with active volcanoes to climb

Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, medieval capital with river and fortress

Dunajec River Gorge, between Poland and Slovakia, peaceful rafting

Reverse Work for the Dole

By: Robert Skelton

08-01-2018

Government

Many people hate the work for the dole scheme, and for many good reasons. But maybe the concept can be turned on its head, to benefit the unemployed?

What if there was a voluntary organisation, of unemployed people, who because they have some time on their hands, help out in the local community?

Self-organised, and therefore learning how to organise
Respected for their can-do attitude
Looks great on a resume – the opposite of a dole bludger
Develop skills

If successful, it could become a legitimate to satisfy mutual obligation requirements.

Best Fish and Chips in Ballarat

By: Robert Skelton

06-12-2017

Business

(in Ballarat)

I ate at 25 different takeaways, twice at the finalists, over a winter and a bit, to determine who was best fish and chips in Ballarat.

None was drop-dead brilliant, but one was consistently tasty, fast and reasonably priced, Northway Fish House:

Northway Fish House

Fear Substitution

By: Robert Skelton

06-12-2017

Oddities

Concept: we fear things we shouldn’t, as a substitute for the things we really fear, yet cannot easily avoid.

Fear substitution is real.

People fear spiders that have never done them harm, and yet have no fear of driving on a road despite in being a high chance for dying young.

Likewise terrorism has a very tiny chance of affecting your life, yet you may fret over it.

The media knows this, and they are your accomplice.

Knowing what you truly fear and dealing with it is the preferred way of being. Instead of substituting it with something less relevant.

I think…

Because it is often thought that ignorant people lead more content lives…

Vote v Poll

By: Robert Skelton

05-10-2017

Government

When people vote, they feel empowered.

When people are polled, they only feel good if the majority of people surveyed agreed with them.

Idea: National poll of people eligible to vote, asking them a single question with two answers to choose from.

Our society is programmed to need to know the result of the election/vote or poll…

The government chooses questions that it expects the majority to get wrong. And the majority gets it wrong.

Then, most of the population will feel little, and bow down to the government that is smarter than them.

Fail Often? Not Good For Souls

By: Robert Skelton

01-10-2017

Random Thoughts

The mantra of Internet entrepreneurs is “fail often”, which is another way of saying “I get knocked down and I get up again”. Or “whatever doesn’t break you, makes you stronger”.

And it is true, and it works. As long as it is a business, an idea, a relationship or a job. Adjuncts to yourself.

It doesn’t work for the essence of who you are, the persona that you have spent your life shaping.

To start again from scratch and create a brand new you, after your last you failed, would be a very rare ability.

If your essential self fails, then you are broken, for good.

I’d like to think that more evolved humans might be able to switch to new persona, like an actor, when the last one failed, but then that might mean we lose what makes us human. It might make us no different than robots that can be reprogrammed.

So what is the answer to broken souls?

I’m thinking it is the opposite of “fail often”. I think it is “win often”.

There’s another thing that Internet entrepreneurs do, to avoid failure. When something is looking like failure, they pivot before it does fail. They move to a new, better win.

That’s what I wish souls could do. Recognise that what can/will break you is on the horizon and pivot to a new, winning, you.

It’s not easy. People don’t recognise the signs. We should learn to recognise the signs. And we should learn to have the courage to pivot before failure kicks in.

The first step is self-awareness and awareness of your every day environment. Not just accepting it as how things are, but continually seeing it for what it really is, and asking if it is acceptable.

I’d say the majority of marriages are a compromise, where he/she thinks “they’ll do, because not having someone is worse”. I figure most jobs aren’t ideal, but people say they love their job because to admit what you spend a most of your waking hours doing isn’t your preference, would be horrible.

You can fail at a job or a relationship or a business, and start again, as long as it was your failure to own. If those things fail for reasons you cannot own, then your soul can take a hit. Redundancy, cheating partner, global recession.

But to avoid being broken soul, you need to be consciously aware of your reality, and be ready to pivot when it no longer serves as a win. And to do that you need to have your ear to the ground, and recognise the signs. In retrospect, we all saw the signs. We just didn’t recognise them when we need to.

It is far from easy.

AI Emergency Response Squad

By: Robert Skelton

26-09-2017

Conspiracy, Future, War

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to rapidly destroy modern society. It could be secret AI, known AI or even network AI (lots of AI networked together around the globe, learning from each other). Famously Elon Musk as warned of the risks, along with other top scientists.

Prevention is the best cure, and hopefully limitations and safeguards will be in place to protect us.

But if that doesn’t happen, we need a Plan B. I propose a global network of secret volunteers who will leap to action and coordinate a dismantling of AI if AI attacks modern society.

shutdown electricity
shutdown AI in situ
shutdown Internet
shutdown fibre optic cables

In each case insiders with direct access is the best option. Otherwise there might be a bit of breaching security required.

Possible triggers:

meltdown of financial markets
war
mass discrimination (women unable to withdraw cash from ATMs, for example)
media propaganda
weather manipulation
robot disobedience

Each should be clear and obvious to all should they occur.

The Ultimate Burger

By: Robert Skelton

06-09-2017

Business

(the image above is in the direction of what I imagine, but a whole lot different…)

The venue already has a name – Munch.

The concept is obviously a twist on existing burgers. Layer by layer:

A thin bun. Probably sour dough but half the regular thickness. Might need some science to stay intact…

Sauce. Capsicum and tomato. Touch of chilli.

Cheese. But in strips, so the layers have some randomness. Long strips so they can hang over the edge.

Bacon. Boiled, not fried? Not sure, I want it soft enough to bite through in the middle of a burger.

The meat patty. Infused with onion. Moist, from being boiled? Then deep fried with a thin layer of batter.

Salad. Instead of being loose pieces of lettuce, I propose a vegetable fritter containing the healthiest and most fashionable veggies.

Optional bottom layer: could be mayo, or roasted capsicums, or fries, or something else reasonably thin. I think giant collapsing burgers are stupid.

Bottom half of the bun (of course). The buns are fried on the grill, with butter, and a weight upon them – to give them a touch of a grilled cheese sandwich going on. Actually, I think more two-day-old slices of bread than burger buns. Perhaps something in-between?

No lettuce. No onion (its in the pattie). No tomato – too slippy, already exists in the sauce.

The burger has always been about a cacophony of tastes and textures. My idea is to improve on that by giving more dimensions to the cheese, making it healthier and less fall-apart with a veggie fritter, and lowering the carb content and sheer bulk with lower profile buns. Maybe a bun with a bit of crust????

Regarding the pattie, I’m unsure of the first step, but 2nd step is a burst of hot deep frying, and the 3rd step is BBQed (like Burger King) with the cheeses strips melting onto it. “Triple Cooked”?.

Teen Farm

By: Robert Skelton

06-09-2017

Government

(the pic is from a fenced community farm at my back door, that is open to the public during daytime…)

The problem is teenagers without purpose outside of school, purposelessness that can lead to drugs, crime and even terrorism.

The goal is for teens to be given an opportunity to work together, with no hierarchy, to achieve a goal, with no skills required, for reward.

It should appeal to those who most need it.

Using nature makes sense, so the idea of running a farm has merit, and is already being used, albeit supervised:

https://farmandwilderness.org/tamarack-farm/activities/
http://wolfesneckfarm.org/teen-ag/
https://www.sdmf.org.au/youth-progams/triple-care-farm
http://www.knightfarm.co.uk/farming-for-teens

These are typically places where you need to travel to, and stay at, and you need to apply or qualify.

I’m thinking of a more local community, anarchistic model.

Unfortunately it does require money from a benefactor, but it may be money well spent. The local council is a good fit.

Some empty urban land (or any land close to where the teenagers live) needs to be gifted or loaned. Ideally it needs work to make it fit, especially demolition work like breaking up concrete or removing weeds.

A plan that is gamified.

For example:

1. Getting a minimum of 5 teens involved unlocks some tools

2. Clearing the land unlocks timber

3. Building raised vegie beds unlocks seeds or seedlings

4. A successful harvest, sold or distributed to the needy, unlocks the equipment for building a chicken coop

5. Building the coop unlocks chickens

6. Distribution of eggs unlocks some recycled items to be turned into artistic pieces or statues

A key aspect is that the quality of the work will never be judged. However if the entire project is mistreated or not valued, it can be stopped.
Anyone of a certain age (and perhaps males only) in the local area can participate. The only requirement is parental approval. Those with parental approval will have their names written somewhere permanent on the land, like painted on a wall, or something more difficult like etched into stone.

Work can only occur during daylight.Instructions and information will be provided.

There will be no direct supervision. There will be no team leaders or hierarchy, and participants will be told to keep it that way. Each person contributes as much as they feel they can, and to the best of their abilities. Nobody should judge the work of others.

Obviously there can be regulatory hurdles, such as health and safety, and protecting property from theft or vandalism.

If a CCTV was actively monitored by adults during all daylight hours, and recording at night, that could help with the hurdles.

The property could be fenced in and locked during darkness by a responsible adult who otherwise has no contact with the property.

If successful, the completed farm will still need ongoing work, and new teens can take the place of others. Teens will get the most value if they are there from the beginning, and constructing. Restarting this process in future years without destroying what is built is a problem to deal with at the time.

The concept could be trialled for a TV doco.

Employment will always exist…but

By: Robert Skelton

31-08-2017

Uncategorized

I listen to everything, and belong to myself only. I subscribe to many magazines that could get me on a watchlist, as well as “sane” publications that wouldn’t. Like Reason. Recently an article said this to counter the argument that robots will take our jobs:

In 1910, one out of 20 of the American workforce was on the railways. In the late 1940s, 350,000 manual telephone operators worked for AT&T alone. In the 1950s, elevator operators by the hundreds of thousands lost their jobs to passengers pushing buttons. Typists have vanished from offices. But if blacksmiths unemployed by cars or TV repairmen unemployed by printed circuits never got another job, unemployment would not be 5 percent, or 10 percent in a bad year. It would be 50 percent and climbing.

It is an easy argument to make – people always find new jobs, and technology enriches our life as it destroys old jobs.

The author is correct. Bravo!

But here’s what all these expert commentators are missing. It’s not about whether we will have employment, we’ll always find ways of paying each other to do things we don’t want to, or cannot do. It is about the value of human employees.

As robots, AI and so on take our jobs, large businesses will increase their profits and have less use for human staff. For corporations, the average hourly dollar worth of a human is declining. Profits will rise and the rich will get richer.

If your job has been taken, you will probably find new employment. But you will be less likely to be hired by a corporation (with big profits) and more likely to be a part of a local ecosystem where everyone employs each other. I mow your lawn, cut my hair, he delivers parcels, I order pizza.

I know “trickle down” is a joke, but it has a degree of reality – corporations pay staff from their profits, and staff spend that money. As corporations trend towards less staff, less of their profits will trickle down. More will be retained by the owners and executives.

The long-term trend is for a a working class who are getting more things and lifestyle than ever before, but will be relatively poorer financially. Our jobs will be more service oriented and less about creating products or providing food.

We already have flat wage growth throughout the prosperous countries.

Next up – reduced incomes. It is coming. I’ll wager 2020 is the year we accept that the 90% will be valued less than before.

— Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie

Travel Plans

Reverse Work for the Dole

Best Fish and Chips in Ballarat

Fear Substitution

Vote v Poll

Fail Often? Not Good For Souls

AI Emergency Response Squad

The Ultimate Burger

Teen Farm

Employment will always exist…but

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