Posts by Heather Gaye
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Up Front: It's Complicated, in reply to "chris",
Hey! Why aren't you on skype?
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Lyndon Hood,
I'm guessing WINZ would happily send someone on a course to develop the skills it takes.
Actually, one of my friends has been on a WINZ-associated "business & computer skills" course, and among the skills they've covered is making scones (so they can please their husbands and impress visitors - this is actually what the tutor said). She's pretty annoyed.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Bevan Shortridge,
So the drives/folders weren't just sitting there already mapped under File Open (which anyone could find)?
I thought the same when I read that, but check his first screencap - long list of computers already visible to the network.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I understand where you and Deborah are coming from, but I think you're getting confused by jargon, as opposed to what's actually required. This is something that someone could do accidentally. ( edit : ah, had another look, & I'm wrong about this - it'd be quite a stretch to do it accidentally.)
Also, I believe there's an ongoing generational shift (no disrespect intended). I can guarantee that vast swathes of the school-leavers and university graduates that have gone through WINZ since the kiosks were installed will have been capable and inclined to do what Keith did. The most pertinent virtue is a little curiosity, sufficient to override any fear of doing anything wrong (whether that's technically or legally).
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Hamish,
Yeah, but this breach signifies bad (*coff* nonexistent) security practices that go back YEARS. It's only the introduction of a public portal that's made it apparent. CIO's head yes, minister in charge... wishful thinking.
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to Psycho Milt,
Even taking that into account, it strains credibility that 43% of beneficiaries have been on one for 10 years continuously - that's got to be an error, surely.
I've been doing a bit of my own research on this recently. The grant and cancellation figures on the MSD website suggest the mean (continuous) duration for DPB recipients is about 5 years - I thought that was surprisingly low. I'm still waiting for an OIA request to confirm that. It might be longer - the issue is that cancellations for reasons other than getting into paid work are all lumped together, and include "administrative cancellations" which are used mainly for reassessment or adjustment.
However, just having a quickie look on the MSD site now - in 2011 only about 25,000 of DPB recipients were looking after children older than 10 - presuming the worst-case scenario is that all of them have been on the benefit continuously for 10 years (extremely unlikely), that's still not a particularly heavy dent in PFB's figure.
DISCLAIMER: currently not much more than napkin calculations.
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Hard News: Before Lust, in reply to BenWilson,
Body confidence seems more related to other kinds of confidence.
I guess so, but a feedback loop is highly credible - other kinds of confidence might well be eroded by a loss of body confidence too.
I wonder if there's perhaps a difference in attitudes between the two sexes?
In my girls-only fighting gym, body confidence has pretty much zero correlation to buffness, and a heavy correlation to the length of time one has been actively participating. We're encouraged to wear sports bras and short shorts in the ring for purely practical reasons, and a lot of our newer members are aggressively against the idea. Eventually they'll be convinced, and most women just kind of get over it. Even the women that worry about their weight a lot are pretty comfortable with stripping down.
I think there are a couple of elements at play in this particular case: there's a massive confidence boost associated with the sport, which seems to make women less self-conscious; in particular, when your whole body is this awesome weapon, it's really easy to forget your embarrassment of it. It's also a sport in which heavyweights have a significant advantage - for someone unhappy with their weight it won't entirely eliminate her concerns, but there's suddenly a significant part of her week that people are telling her how great it is that she's the weight she is. And, when you wear what amounts to half-sized granny undies in front of a bunch of people a fair bit of the time, doing something that you really enjoy, it just becomes normal.
Upshot, I've learned that self-consciousness doesn't have much to do with your appearance. It seems to me like the people (at least those that don't actively pursue the perfect body as a life goal or for their career) have been trained/conditioned to be super-aware of their body as a flawed, flatulent and unpretty thing, and if they already have issues with confidence or esteem, that attitude can be even more ingrained. The women in the gym seem to be able to switch off that critical self-scrutiny, at least for 3 3-minute rounds.
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Up Front: Choice, Bro, in reply to Tom Beard,
Much as I'm happy for his support, I can't think of anything that'd convince me he's made this (or any) decision based on human rights and basic decency.
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As someone that got married youngish, to the first man I had sex with, and later got divorced, I need to ask a clarifying question. Is there something inherently undesirable about getting married, as opposed to, say, ...well, not getting married to a medium/long-term partner? Would you (that is, everyone expressing apprehension about the idea of marrying one's first sexual partner) have identical concerns if they (hypothetical inexperienced, possibly-too-young progeny) just moved in together?
Breakups are rough regardless of one's marital status, and breakups of early/first relationships especially so, because they're informed so heavily by newness, raging hormones, and (still) perceived cultural expectations of heteromonogamy. I know there are domestic & financial issues involved when cohabiting partners break up, but what is it about getting married specifically that makes it such a bad thing? Surely the problems that someone faces after marrying young & breaking up would be very similar to anyone that was in a long-term relationship (intentionally or not) from an early age?
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FWIW my experience is that there are plenty of bars that are clearly very diligent. Granted, I tend to frequent pubs hosting live original music, so possibly a specific client base, but (for example) I've had Sale St staff bringing me glasses of water (I wasn't drunk - just very, very tired), and the Wine Cellar bartender double-checking the people I'm about to buy a round of drinks for. I assumed this would be the rule and not the exception, but as stated, I don't generally frequent bars where drinking is the sole end. What's the viaduct like?