Canberra War Memorial

To me a visit to Canberra (rare for me) is not complete without a visit to the War Memorial. The place is often filled with school students who are (hopefully) learning about what it all actually means to have died in service of your country and perhaps given some sense of what that sacrifice means for those left behind.

Inside the place is divided into the various major wars with many exhibits of what people went through in the form of dioramas depicting some of the battles

some actual artifacts

as well as some equipment and machines

One of my personal interests is (of course) the Japanese mini-submarine which was destroyed while in Sydney Harbour (link of interest here)

This has now been brought in from being outside (way back when they had far less room) and restored to original paint. This set of shots depicts clearly the destruction wrought by the depth charge which took it out. Clearly the poor bastard inside would have been killed by the compression blast of that explosion from below.

Its tragic that the Japanese so favored veritable suicide missions which highlights

• how little they valued their people
• why there were quickly so few experienced soldiers, airmen and navy personnel
• their desperation (which proved unfounded)

There is a lot of very interesting stuff there and I fully recommend a reflective couple of days (in short sessions of under 3 hours) to appreciate it. 

To me nothing summarized the bravery and oft futility of war more than this statue from WW1 in the "Hall of Valour" depicting one more soldier leaving the trenches to face the machine guns.

Lest We Forget

Day trip to Girraween

Well I woke up on Sunday and sitting around having coffee I thought : well its a beautiful day, why not pack a lunch and go do a short hike at Girraween

The T-Max makes a lovely highway bike too .. comfortable and friendly, so I put on my hiking boots, packed the Trangia, some water and some noodles and off I went

I took the track to "Castle Rock" which is steep in parts but not too far (about 3km).

From up there you get good views to the Mt Norman (and out of picture to the right) Bald Rock.

Sitting down out of the (stiff) wind I enjoyed a break with a local skink

The view to the North (into the sun, so heaps more contrasty) is "The Pyramids" ... great climb too, but really a good half day up and back ... so as I've done that plenty of times I left it.

On the way home I dropped into Wild Soul winery (cos I know the guy pretty well) and bought a bottle of 2016 Merlot Cabernet for dinner. He can on occasion make stunning wines, but last few have suffered from lack of good weather and some losses from a hail event. None the less they're always interesting. If you're in the area, drop in :-)



Hope you enjoyed a little of my walk too

ANZAC day in a small town

I live in a small town, not far from where I was born (well, a couple of hundred Km). Like most places in Australia we take ANZAC day seriously. Its not just a time for old guys (and some young too) to be able to be proud of their service, its all so a time to be seen by the community you live in and recognized for who you have been (not everyone likes to go around crowing about it).

There has often times in history been some community anger about Australias role in international politics (and yes, the armed forces is a wing of that).

So here's a quick look at today's "ceremony"

As it happens I know a few of the ex-servicemen ... for instance this pair of great blokes (who have both been guidance and support to me in my past)



Knowing these two guys for a few decades myself now its good to see them able to walk proudly and get some recognition for their past service in the local community. (sadly it hasn't always been so)

In particular I'm glad they're getting to find some rest from their own traumas (which only service men and women really get).

Hats Off

the Chicken from a Feather Problem

Have you ever had one of those moments on the internet (say, on Facebook) where someone says something that's just incredibly fucking daft (not to mention illogical) that you know to be impossible, yet states it as something like a genuine problem or possibilty:

• Conspiracy theory  bent: why aren't they doing ____ (stuff like say "improving batteries" to what equates to 23kWh/kg)
• Crtical analysis failures: "Mum working at home solves problem that has eluded science"
• Failed Physics at school: "Making things faster" (like LANs sending data faster than light):
• Defeating thermodynamics : "how can I power my car from a 1²M solar pannel (and why aren't we all using EV's {when I'm not})"

you know, stuff like that.

Stuff that is way easier to propose than it is to explain why its "not happening any time soon".

My Mum used to say:

"Well you know what "Thought did?", he stuck a feather in the ground and thought he'd grow a chicken"

whenever (as a child) I said "but I thought...".

So I call ignorant and silly people asking stupid questions and making unfounded assertions the Chicken from a Feather Problem.

Its where the proposal of the problem is rooted in a total lack of grasp of the way things work (you know, that useless stuff like Physics and Chemistry these people failed at school {because they were busy flirting or just had the brain of a Budgerigar ...}). 

This of course makes explaining it virtually impossible because the person just does not have the intellectual foundations upon which to lay out the answer (and ya know, like ... TLDR). Its akin to laying bricks on a lake. The second you place one on (what seems to be a flat surface) its gone the moment you release it. This model holds true even on a frozen lake because in a while (like by spring) the lake will thaw and the house will also sink from view.

Well I've come up with a proposal to attempt to explain the problem (at least to myself) which is based on the works of Dunning & Kruger published in 1999 called:

"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"

In this Dunning & Kruger postulate that (paraphrasing) people who are sufficiently stupid are unable to grasp that they are actually more stupid than even they can plumb the depths of, and mistakenly expect that you and them are "of equal capacity" ... youtube is filled with examples if you look for "stupid workers" or "idiots at work" (for instance). Their study of the "invisible ink" robber is just worth reading.

I think its fair to say that "The Dunning Kruger Effect" has entered "modern parlance" ...

explanation:

Getting back to the Chicken Feather Problem I feel that the answer lies in the inverse of the Dunning Kruger effect.

This is where the thought processes of someone who is sufficiently stupid are literally incomprehensible to someone of sufficient intelligence.

I think it explains the problem well, for example if someone stupid (from oh ... say the USA) was travelling in China, when speaking to someone (who doesn't speak English), will try to repeat the question slower and louder  (all the while growing impatient with the person for not understanding).

To you and I would it would seem an absurd and tragic comedy, but to the person with DK syndrome is perplexing. (well OK, that's probably a bad example, because the full on thickwits in the USA don't usually have passports (and probably voted Trump)).

We see the failure of ourselves to grasp the stupidity (perhaps in disbelief) when we begin explaining to them why a feather can not grow a chicken ... perhaps going back to basic biology, and then as they serially fail to grasp anything, we attempt to go to first principles (which they also fail to grasp). It leads to our exasperation and probably only deepens the resolve of the moron involved that they are right and its all a "Deep State" cover-up.

Thus we were unable to comprehend the thought processes of the stupid : or Dunning Kruger ^-1

It is my hope that by reading this you'll be able to have more satisfying experiences on Facebook by recognizing early "the Chicken from Feather Problem" and when it arises know that engaging with someone like that is just never going to work out well for either of you because you're both unable to understand each other... despite having a common language.

So let them plant that feather ... and offer the olive branch it grew.