The Refined Geek

I make no secret of the fact that I have a low tolerance for places of work where I feel under-appreciated. I remember being told that my clockwork like routine of finding a new job at roughly the same time every year would hurt me in the long run as how could employers trust me to stick around for any appreciable length of time? I can tell you now that that’s simply not the case and I can say that every new job that I got an interview for I eventually landed without a hint of them mentioning my apparent employer disloyalty. Interestingly for my latest job my resume didn’t really enter into it and I was introduced to the idea of the “Dickhead Test” method of recruitment.

We’re all familiar with the old adage of its not what you know, it’s who you know. As it turns out this old saying is incredibly accurate as only 20% of jobs are filled through the traditional process of someone sending in a resume, having an interview and then starting to work at said place. This means a whopping 80% of jobs are filled based on recommendations from friends, colleagues and other informal associations. For someone like me who’s gotten every job of his but one through the formal market (the first exception being my current job) I always wondered how this process would go down and strangely enough it’s not that unfamiliar.

Instead of the usual routine of sending you resume off into an unknown abyss of someone’s email inbox you’re instead invited out simply for a coffee and a chat. This initial interview is called the dickhead test and is done just to gauge what kind of person you actually are. Make no mistake, this is the time to put your foot in the door, however instead of getting blasted with questions directly related to the job you’ll likely end up talking shop for an hour or so before it concludes. You see someone who is vastly under-qualified for a position will not do particularly great in this informal situation as they’ll lack the particular skills that would require them to have the casual banter around those particular topics. It’s a pretty effective way to weed out paper cert and brain dump candidates without having to dive deeply into a mess of technical questions that they can simply prep for.

I hadn’t really drawn the parallels between that and the formal process until I read this question over on StackExchange. The question asks why they need to bother with a resume in this day and age where a lot of their accomplishments are available for everyone to see on the Internet. The top answer nails it, saying that the resume should serve as a kind of distilled version of all your accomplishments packaged in such a way that anyone could get a good feel for you with minimal time invested. Indeed the resume is just another form of the dickhead test from the informal market, something that hints towards your capability without bludgeoning your potential employer to death with it. Once you’re past those initial barriers then those kinds of things will help elevate you above other candidates so it’s not like they’re completely useless to the formal recruitment process.

For me I believe services like that are more helpful for discovery of potential candidates from within your professional circle. I can’t tell you how many calls I received from potential recruiters who’s only tenuous link to me was through my profile on LinkedIn. In that regard then these services function as a dickhead test that you don’t have to actively participate in. Whilst I myself haven’t landed any jobs on the basis of such services (although you could argue that the LifeHacker gig kinda was since they asked for my LinkedIn profile) I do know of others who have been approached informally via such services.

I guess the idea I’m describing isn’t too different from the traditional one of “getting your foot in the door” however I feel my nomenclature is far more appropriate for what the process actually entails. Most of the time your long list of potential skills is only part of the equation and the rest is based around general things like your critical thinking abilities, how you integrate with the team and your ability to show up on time when needed (why that last one is so rare still baffles me). Understanding the mechanics of these various forms of the dickhead test will hopefully enable you to be far more effective in finding better employment as I know it’s certainly helped me over the past 8 years.

Just going to make a quick post housekeeping post today as there’s a couple things I want to update you guys on. If you’re a dedicated LifeHacker reader you may have noticed that my ugly mug graced the front page for a while yesterday   and yes it’s true I’ll be covering TechEd 2012 Australia for them. It’s an incredible opportunity and I’m very excited to be doing it so for most of next week I’ll probably be recapping my day on here with all the real writing appearing on LifeHacker’s site. The posts on here probably won’t be at their usual time however so if you’re looking for your regular lunch time-ish article I’m going to have to disappoint you for a while.

I’m in the middle of migrating this blog over from my old Windows VPS that’s served me well over the past couple years to a Linux VPS with a ton more capacity. I tried to make the move last night but after getting everything up and running everything seemed to go pear shaped and nothing but index.php was being served by Apache so I trashed it all and started again this morning. I’m hopeful that this migration will go along smoothly but if things disappear it’s mostly because the two databases weren’t completely in sync at the time. This post was written on the old server and will likely disappear when the real migration occurs. Once that happens though I’ll know everything has worked and I’ll be working to get everything back up again.

Also, if you’ll allow me to get a little sappy for a second, I want to give you my heartfelt thanks for reading my tripe for the past 4 years as that was what motivated me to enter the LifeHacker competition in the first place. I didn’t start off as a great writer (as I’ve been told several times in no uncertain terms) but the feedback, comments and pageviews you guys gave me were enough incentive to keep on writing and improving my craft to a point where I felt confident enough to attempt something like this. That being said the true test is going to be how well the wider public receives my writing which is making me both excited and extremely nervous at the same time. Still I have no doubt it’s going to be great and I really do feel that all of you helped me get there in some way.

Now back to configuring Apache…

I’ve mentioned a couple times before that  I used to work in child care many years ago, mostly with school aged children ranging from 5 to 12 years old. What’s not commonly known about that industry is that I was in the minority as the overwhelming majority of employees in that industry are female with only a small percentage being male. That’s pretty much why I got the job in the first place as many childcare organisations try to keep a balance of numbers but the cold hard fact was that despite the near guarantee of a job for any male applicant few choose to take it up. Indeed many of my male friends ended up working in childcare for a stint since it was relatively easy work for good money but we were always outnumbered by the females working there by at least 2 to 1.

Now I don’t have any hard and fast numbers to throw at you as to why this is but I can tell you what all of us felt what the problem was. There’s a rather unfortunate perception from parents, not all of them granted but a majority, that males are somehow more inclined to molest children than a female would be. Whilst the numbers support this view it doesn’t take into account that most incidents of abuse come from family members and known individuals with the smallest population being unknowns. Childcare workers do fall into the known category but that’s still behind family members, but you don’t see everyone hiding their kids from their uncles now do you?

You can imagine then that the recent story of a man who was told to move seats on a Virgin flight due to him sitting next to 2 unaccompanied minors hit home for me. The policy itself is outrageous as it treats all men as if they’re sex offenders regardless of whether they are or not. Virgin might try to write this off as them just having the safety of the children in mind but I fail to see how that justification holds true without painting all male passengers with the same brush. If I was sitting next to a child with my wife on the other side would it be an issue? Or is it just men travelling by themselves that are a risk? However you slice it we men are seen as being a danger to children but everything would be fine if we were some how related to them (even if that meant we were more likely to molest them, go figure).

I was willing to let that go, I mean its one airline’s policy and they’re no longer my choice after they screwed me no less than 3 times in 3 flights, but it seems that this policy is commonplace as another man was subjected to the same treatment on a recent Qantas flight. The article also mentions that several other airlines have the same policy and one, British Airways, was forced to change it after a customer sued them under the sexual discrimination act. That doesn’t seem to have signalled to other airlines that it might be a good idea to change the policy so we probably need some more drastic action in order men to not be looked at as child molesters in waiting.

I figure something like a Registered Non-Offender database would do the trick. All you need to do is undergo a psych test to see if you’ve got some kiddy fiddler traits in you and should you pass the test you’ve got yourself a free pass to be near children without people judging you. Airlines then only require you to enter in your Non-Offender Number when you book your ticket and then you won’t need to worry about being embarrassed should the airline seat you next to an unaccompanied minor. Hell you could even use it when you apply for a job that involves kids and I could even see it being a requirement down the line

I hope my brutal sarcasm was obvious in that last paragraph.

Airline policies like this are really just a symptom of a larger problem: that single, unknown men are perceived as being a risk to children at large. This is just simply not the case and the real threat, which falls behind many other tragedies that can befall your child, most likely comes from someone who is known to the child. What is required is for us as a society to move on from the idea that all strangers, especially men, are in some way out to get at our children. This kind of paranoid state that we’re in isn’t doing us any favours and its about time we moved on.

I wasn’t always obsessed with the Olympics as I am today. You see I wasn’t much of an athlete as a kid (hard to tell, I know) with the pinnacle of my sporting achievement being allowed to go to the regional sporting carnival for long jump where I was firmly beaten by nearly every other competitor. Predictably this made me somewhat sour on the whole idea and I found my pursuit of computers and games much more rewarding. Whilst my attendance at the Sydney Olympic Games might not have changed my opinion something strange happened when the next games rolled around: I started to love them.

This was way back in 2004 where I was just starting into my second year of university and working several different odd jobs in order to make some extra cash. I was still working at Dick Smith Electronics back then and of course we set up one of the television sets right in front of the entrance with the Olympics coverage playing non-stop. People would come in and just stop, mesmerized by the athletes competing. Us well trained salespeople would then stand along side them, first and foremost to see if they needed any help, but inevitably we’d just stand there with them and the conversation would always drift towards Australia’s latest achievements. I think it was that sense of universal comradery that made me so fond of the Athen’s games of 2004 and that feeling stayed with me for 4 years.

Then in 2008 the Beijing Olympics came around and I started to feel that same fervour again, a kind of buzz from the entire world focusing on this one event that only occurs once every 4 years. I was hooked and I stayed up until late with my housemate beside me, eagerly soaking up every second of the opening ceremony. I followed Australia’s exploits closely, sharing in the revelry and feeling extremely proud to be part of a country that could excel so much in crafting elite athletes. I stared toying with the lofty idea that I too could one day find myself there (whether via physical eliteness or some other means was not yet clear) and knew that that feeling I had 4 years prior would not be one that would fade in the coming 4.

Indeed whilst I might not have made the 5am starting time for the opening ceremony this year (something I know will haunt me for a while) I did get as much Olympics in as I could whilst it has been going on during the past 2 weeks. Whilst our performance might not have been as expected I still can’t deny just how great our team has been and what a great joy it has been to watch them all this time. As I was stepping out the door this morning I managed to catch a few brief moments of the closing ceremony and it took all my willpower to not shove off work for the day in order just to watch the rest of it and then curl up on the couch, contended.

There’s another thing that every Olympics invokes within me: a deep sense of reflection. Back when the Beijing Olympics was on I wasn’t a blogger, starting this little online repository of my in December of the same year. I was only just engaged to my now wife, I was earning about a third of what I am today and I was still yet to take the longest trip overseas of my life of which I’d document everything right here on this very blog. Going back even further just makes the  transitions seem even more incredible and is a testament to why I never plan more than 6 months ahead any more as there is no way I could’ve guessed I’d end up where I am today.

So you might be wondering then what my plans for the next 4 years might be in the lead up to the 2016 games at Rio de Janeiro. To be honest with you I’m not 100% sure as whilst that idea that I could compete at the games hasn’t died (although that might be a symptom of the realisation that anything is achievable with enough hard work, but that’s a post for another day) my recent rediscovery of one of my passions has led me to think there might be another, more viable way to get myself involved in some way. In all honesty it probably won’t be any less work, indeed my level of knowledge about physical fitness and photography are arguably at similar levels, but suffice to say that I’ll be working on both of them seriously and I wouldn’t be surprised if my path turns towards the Olympiads.

Sure it’s still a dream (and a lofty one at that) but what are dreams if we don’t at least try to realise them? I’ve always said to people that once one of your dreams comes true you start to look at your others more seriously and I’ll be damned if this isn’t one I feel is worth pursuing.

I’ve been on a bit of a rediscovery of photography of late, driven by my desire to fulfil the promises that my red-wine laden self proclaimed loudly over the Internet just a couple months ago. I’ve always had something of an interest in it dating back to the time when I wanted to capture my wife and I’s first trip overseas together all those years ago. However that interest was put aside for other things that seemed more important at the time: attempting to build my own start up, trying to build 100% passive income streams and all manner of things that, more often than not, left me burnt out and wondering why I had bothered in the first place.

I’ll have to admit that my knowledge of photography was average when I first started out on this journey, although I didn’t know that at the time. Ever since then I’ve been feeding myself on a steady diet of Wikipedia articles, photography blogs and lurking continuously on the photography subreddit. In that time I’ve come to realise that many of the assumptions I made about certain things, like the reasons why people spend so much on Leicas or why the TSE lenses are actually useful, were totally wrong and that’s had me doing a hell of a lot of self reflection.

The biggest thing to come of this seems to be an incredible distaste for nearly every picture I’ve taken since I first laid my hands on my new bits of camera equipment. I should have expected this, I even blogged about this very phenomena twice in the past, but it seems that every time I set out with the best of intentions I end up looking back at all the pictures I took and feeling like I’ve wasted my time. It’s a really painful feeling, especially when you’ve hyped up everything in your head before hand.

The reality of the situation is actually something that everyone who sets out to improve themselves goes through: the stage where you realise what it takes to be the thing you want to become and the desperation in knowing that you’re no where near there yet. This isn’t a bad thing at all, it’s in fact a critical step to progressing forward as up until this point you were operating on the rush of starting out in new territory, picking up a few quick wins but still being blissfully unaware of all the challenges that lay ahead of you. This self realization is usually what kills most people’s motivation to continue on in a particular pursuit but realistically this should be the point where you push through the pain barrier in order to make it to the other side.

Unfortunately there’s no quick fix solution other than pressing on in spite of your feelings to the contrary. You’d think having been through this process twice in recent memory that I would’ve predicted this feeling of ennui and planned accordingly but for some reason I just…didn’t. Thankfully other parts of my personality, namely the fiscal one, scream loudly enough to force me to continue on. I absolutely detest the feeling that I’m simply doing photography for the sake of getting my money’s worth out of the equipment I bought but it’s enough to keep me going and hopefully enough to drive me through to the other side.

This post will also form part of the strategy for me to keep on developing as a photographer. I’ve already put myself in many situations that I wouldn’t have otherwise for the sake of photography and, whilst I might not feel like I’m doing anything of worth at the time, I have produced some pictures that, on reflection, do meet my criteria for being “good”. I keep making a promise to myself that I’ll do 1 post here a week based on my latest photographic excursions and maybe its time that I made good on that instead of getting caught up in a circle of self loathing.

Yeah, I think its time.

Anyone who’s been on the Internet for a while will be familiar with the idea that anonymity can to the worst coming out in the general populace. It’s not hard point to prove either, just wander over to any mildly popular video on YouTube and browse the comments section for a little while and you’ll see ready confirmation of the idea that regular people turn into total shitcocks the second they get the magical combination of anonymity and an audience. The idea was most aptly summed up by Penny Arcade in their Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory strip, something that has become kind of a reference piece sent to those poor souls who search for meaning as to why people are being mean to them on the Internet.

However it seems that the equation might need some reworking in light of new evidence coming from, of all places, South Korea.

I’ve long been of the thought that forcing people to use their real names would work in curtailing trolling to some degree as that removes one of the key parts of the fuckwad theory: anonymity. Indeed a site much more popular than mine said that the switch to Facebook comments, whilst dropping the total number of comments considerably, was highly effective in silencing the trolls on their site. Just over a year later however the same site posted an article saying that there’s considerable evidence that forcing users to use their real name had little effect on the total number of troll like comments citing research from South Korea and Carnegie Mellon. I’ve taken the liberty of reading the study for you and whilst the methods they employed are a little bit… soft for determining what a troll post was they do serve as a good basis for hypothesizing about how effective real name policies are.

If there was a causative link between forcing people to use their real names online and a reduction in undesirable behaviour we would’ve seen some strong correlations in the Carnegie Mellon study. Whilst there was some effectiveness shown (a reduction of 30% in the use of swear words) taken in the context that troll posts only account for a minority of posts on the sites studied (about 13%) the overall impact is quite low. Indeed whilst TechCrunch did say that Facebook comments silenced the trolls they may have called it too early as the study showed that whilst there was a damper initially, overall the level remained largely static after a certain period of time.

What this means for the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory is that the key part of the equation, anonymity, can be removed and much the same result will be had. This is a somewhat harrowing discovery as it means that the simple act of putting a regular person in front of an audience can lead to them being a reprehensible individual. On the flip side though it could also be more indicative of the people themselves as the study showed that only a minority of users engage in such behaviour. It would be very interesting to see how that compares to real life interactions as I’m sure we all know people who act like online trolls in real life.

In light of this new evidence my stance on using real names as a troll reduction method is obviously flawed. I was never really in any favour of implementing such a system (I considered using Facebook comments here for a little while) but I thought its efficacy was unquestioned. My favourite method for combating trolls is a form of timed hellbanning where by the user will not appear to everyone else but to them they will appear like they are contributing. It’s a rather ugly solution if you permanently ban someone but time limited versions appear to work to great effect in turning trolls into contributing users.

It may just be that trolling is an inevitable part of any community and the best we can do is remediate it, rather than eliminate it.

I had a rather fun and interesting weekend in terms of photography. As part of my whole pursuing my passions business I’ve set about trying to better myself as a photographer and part of that is challenging myself each week (or as close to that as I can) to take on a photographic challenge. The first one was something I was already comfortable with, landscapes, and flush with victory for that I decided to take on something that I haven’t really seriously tackled before: architecture. I had a few locations here in Canberra scouted out and so after swinging by the computer fair to pick up a new router I jumped straight in, looking to find that unique view of some Canberran architecture that’d catch my eye.

To put it simply the day didn’t go quite as I had expected. I figured buildings would be much like landscapes, big things that don’t move or complain so they’d make for easy photographic pickings. It’s completely the opposite of course as for landscapes you’re usually taking things from a great distance away and for buildings and architecture you usually don’t have the luxury of distance, especially if you’re in the middle of a city like I was. I haven’t had the chance to fully review all the pictures I took but suffice to say none of them really impressed me after I took them, so I definitely know there’s room for improvement there.

However during my journey I made a quick sojourn up to the iconic Parliament House as no photographic trip focused on architecture would be complete without a picture or two of it in there. As I approached it however I noticed a group of people out the front with many holding signs and a loud speaker amplifying the words of a lone spokesman. Intrigued I approached them and from what I could tell (many of the signs and speeches were in Arabic, I believe) were protesting the current asylum seeker legislation. Figuring this would be a good time to hone my photojournalisitc skills, which didn’t exist prior to this, I started snapping pictures. No one complained about having their pictures taken but it did bring back some horrible memories of stories of fellow photographers who had had some bad experiences doing the same thing.

Generally speaking if you’re on public property you have every right to take a picture of what you see, especially if what you’re taking a picture of is on public property as well. There have been numerous cases of people being harassed by police when taking photos of them (there were police at this protest too, but I didn’t want to invite trouble by photographing them) but you’re well within your rights to do that as well. There are of course exceptions to these rules as the link describes but for the most part as long as you’re sensible about what kinds of pictures you’re taking you won’t be any legal trouble.

Still it’s always something that niggles at the back of my head and I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve shied away from any kind of photography in a public place.I know I’m in the right legally I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll get accosted by people when taking photos near them, even if I’m not pointing the camera directly at them. I did get a couple looks (the Canon 60D with a 24-105mm F/4L lens and a 480 EX II SpeedLite can be a rather imposing beast to look at) but no one really seemed to care that much that I was taking pictures so that feeling is probably just more of my introverted side coming out more than anything else. Maybe my next challenge should be street photography to work that part out.

I don’t have anything to show you just yet as I don’t like to shoot in JPG + RAW because it seems redundant and the codec pack I’ve got for viewing RAWs doesn’t work on the x64 version of Windows 7. I’ve bought myself a copy of Lightroom though so once I get that installed and get comfortable with the interface you’ll then be relentlessly spammed with all the photographs from the weekend and I might update this post with a few choice shots from my little jaunt. Whilst it might not have been the most pleasurable experience (it was rather cold) it was definitely a learning one and it’s something that I’ll be looking to repeat in the not too distant future.

I’m something of an armchair neuroscience minor as I often find myself researching behavioral traits, influences and motivations simply for the heck of it. I think its partly because I have this need to understand why people act the ways they do at a fundamental rather than practical level thanks to my many years spent as an extreme introvert during my high school years. It also hooks into the skeptical side of me quite well as I’ll often find bits of pop psychology that get bandied around by my not-as-interested friends that I’ll attempt to correct, lest they spread that nonsense to other people.

It seems that some ideas are just too sexy to go away, however.

I was watching TV recently, a veritable treasure trove of techniques based on modelling the human psyche, when an ad for a car popped up. Now I can’t remember exactly which car it was and a quick Google brought up two current campaigns that play on the same idea. The first one is a series of print ads from Mercedes-Benz and the second (and the one that seems the most familiar) is one from Kia:

They both play on that whole left brain/right brain idea where by the left side is some kind of cold calculating logic driven engine whilst the right side is the creative one, filled with random ideas and that spark that all creative people seek. This then lead onto the ideas that men are typically left side dominant and women are right side dominant. However there also seemed to be a bevy of online tests available to check if you were left or right side dominant, seeing if you’re more of a creative than logical kind of person. For years it seemed everyone was drinking this kool aid, seemingly without any consideration to how the brain actually works.

It is true that there are functions of the brain that appear to be dedicated to particular hemispheres, which is referred to as the lateralization of brain function, it can also be shown that both sides of the brain are quite capable of performing those functions and indeed do so in many cases. There’s also no guarantees as to which functions are lateralized where as different people will have different hemispheres dominant for a particular function. Short of removing one half of the brain no person can be truly left or right brain dominant in the sense of being creative or logical. Indeed the research shows that both logical and creative functions are present in both hemispheres completely debunking this whole idea.

What was even more preposterous were the online tests devised to determine whether you were right or left brain dominant. The most famous of which, one which spurred a rather heated discussion between me and my friends at the time, was the spinning dancer. Looking at the image you’ll see the dancer spinning either clockwise or counter clockwise and that was somehow meant to tell which part of your brain was dominant. Funnily enough I could see it spin both ways and could make it change on demand by looking at the feet and the shadow so I wasn’t entirely convinced that it was a proper test for a phenomenon I already didn’t believe in. Indeed it is simply just an optical illusion with your brain “filling in” details that it perceives as missing and such activities are carried out by the visual cortex which spans both hemispheres.

The fact that we’re still seeing things referencing this whole fake phenomena means that it’s still widely believed to be true, which is really unfortunate. Whether a person is more creative or logical has nothing to do with which part of their brain is dominant and is in fact more likely due to the nurturing of the innate creative/logical talent that we all have. I guess any simple metric that divides people into two groups will always be popular (“Oh you shouldn’t listen to him, he’s such a left brain!”). It’s a shame really but hopefully like any fad it’ll eventually fade away, never to be mentioned again.

I’m not a terribly picky consumer. I mean there are particular shops and sellers I’ll favor for particular products (I get nearly all of my PC equipment from PC Case Gear, for instance) but if I’m looking for an one off item I’ll usually go wherever I can find the best price from a reputable seller. If I don’t get a recommendation from a friend this usually has me shopping through sellers on eBay or through price aggregation sites and for the most part I’ve never been lead wrong with this. My most recent experience, one that involves the Australian retailer Kogan, wasn’t a particularly bad experience but I feel that there’s some things people need to know about them before they buy something through this online only retailer.

So the item I was looking for was a Canon 60D to upgrade my ageing 400D that’s served me well for the past 5 years. I did the usual snoop through Ebay and some other sites and found it could be had for around $900, shipping included. After doing a bit more searching I found it available from Kogan for a paltry $849 (and it has since dropped another $20) and even when combined with the shipping it came out on top. The rest of the items I was looking at (namely a Canon EF 24-105 F/4L lens, Canon Speedlite 403EX II and a 32GB SD card) were also all available from there for a pretty good price. All up I think I got all the kit for about $150 less than I would have gotten it through eBay which is pretty amazing considering that I’ve struggled to find cheaper prices before.

I hit a hurdle with them when they requested a land line phone number they could call so they could verify the credit card information used in the transaction. I have a land line number but it’s not hooked up to anything (the only phone I’ve got seems to be broken as it doesn’t ring when I call it) as its just used for the Internet connection. I offered to forward this to my mobile if they needed it but they instead just called me on my mobile directly. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of people getting asked for land lines to verify things (I gave a reference for a friend and they insisted on being given one) so I don’t know if they can do some kind of verification on the back end that that number belongs to me or something, but even if they did then the same tech should work for mobiles as well. Anyway it was a small snag and it was just unfortunate that it meant my order didn’t get processed until the following Monday, no big deal.

Now since I ordered everything together I expected it all to come as one package but that’s not the case with Kogan. I received my 4 items in 4 separate deliveries through 2 different shipping companies. Now I’m lucky and my wife was at home because she is studying for exams but at any other time I wouldn’t have been there to pick up all these different items. This wouldn’t have been too bad if they all arrived on the same day but the delivery time from first received to last spans just over a week and a half with the last item arriving yesterday (I placed the order on the 01/06/2012). Considering that I’ve ordered similar items from Hong Kong, the 400D being one of them, and have managed to receive them all at the same time I found this piecemeal mailing approach rather annoying as I bought all the items to be used together and it wasn’t until yesterday that I had the completed package.

Looking at Kogan’s website you’d be forgiven for thinking that all their products were Australian versions until you get to the fine print at the bottom of the page. I’m not going to blame Kogan for this, they’re quite clear about the fact that anything that doesn’t carry the Kogan name will come from their HK branch, but it certainly does give the impression to the contrary. I’d like to think of myself as an observant person and I didn’t pick up on the fact that it would be coming from HK until I saw where it was being delivered from. This isn’t a bad thing per se, just something you should be aware of when you’re comparing them to similar sellers on eBay and the like.

Realistically had they shipped everything in one lot, even if it was a little late, I don’t think I’d be feeling as sour about my Kogan experience as I do now. I bought the items figuring that shipping wouldn’t take more than a week as I had an upcoming trip that the camera was intended for. Thankfully the trip was cancelled so I wasn’t left with half of the items that I wanted to take with me, but it could have just as easily gone the other way. I can probably see myself going back there for single items, possibly an extra battery for said camera, but for anything else I think I’ll be going elsewhere. This isn’t to say that you should though, but do take these points into consideration before making your purchase.

UPDATE: You should read my latest post on Kogan here as they’ve really improved the whole experience since I wrote this almost a year ago.

It was a long time ago now, getting near to 3 years, when I made the decision to start publishing something on a week-daily basis to this blog. I can’t really say what drove me to do that, it certainly wasn’t because I was rolling in page views and I had an audience hungry for more content¹. For the first couple months the writing came easy since I was just mostly posting my opinion on one thing or another but you can only keep posting opinions about things for so long before you feel you’ve said all you need to say on those soft issues, at least when you’re trying to write to a deadline.

I’m not the only one suffering from this either, it seems:

Whilst I didn’t make the connection between my off days when I post inane crap because I can’t find anything better to write about (although I have been told that those off days are some of my best writing, go figure) and the mainstream media I can definitely understand it now. I had just always assumed that people getting paid to do this had a much better process of finding something to write about rather than my haphazard daily troll of other blogs, YouTube clips and news aggregation sites hoping that an article triggers that writing spark in the back of my head.

The restriction of daily posting, or it seems any deadline, is definitely what leads me to post what I feel is lesser quality work. In the beginning the wanting to write was what drove me but after a couple months of near daily posts it morphed from a routine into a habit, one that I’ve had a terrible time at breaking. It also doesn’t help that Google seems to punish me if I stray from my posting schedule, further reinforcing the behavior. I could probably circumvent the Google punishment if I tried hard enough (by writing with SEO in mind more) but I feel that’d erode the intentions of my blog further than me posting some crud every so often.

Funnily enough it seems that the solution to my problem may be found in adding more restrictions rather than lifting my current one. My goal of doing 1 game review per week for the entire year (I’ve only missed 1 week so far and have every intention to catch that up) has been an amazing experience, seeing me play all sorts of games that I wouldn’t have given a second thought to otherwise. It also means that I spend one less day a week wondering what the hell I’m going to write about in the morning, even if the time investment to getting that post there is orders of magnitude above anything else I’ve written.

It’s always nice to know that you’re not alone in your suffering, even if it doesn’t help you overcome that immediate problem. I all too often think that the problems I experience are because I was never really good at this writing thing in the first place only to find out later that no, all writers struggle with the same problems. At least then I can share in their misery and maybe even help out a little if I get the chance to, although it seems we’re much more likely to suffer in silence than to say anything about it.

Well, unless it makes for good blog fodder that is

¹Indeed for the first couple months of its life I was happy that this blog would have a day that didn’t have 0 views. I’ve also been told in no uncertain terms that my initial attempt at being a blogger was crap, but usually in the same breath as saying that I’ve vastly improved since then (which I always appreciate hearing).