Game Reviews – PAX Aus 2022

I went to this year’s PAX Australia gaming convention and briefly reviewed of a lot of independently developed video games, as well as several board games, for friends who weren’t there. Now you, too, may read my reviews.

Video games reviewed: Before We Leave ; Darkweb Streamer ; Dredge ; Every Hue of You ; The Godfeather: a Mafia Pigeon Saga ; Gubbins ; Mars First Logistics ; Repella Fella ; Sigil of the Magi ; Spies and Soldiers
Board games reviewed: The Crew: Mission Deep Sea ; Magic Maze ; Nataterra
Bonus content: Aethermon: Tower of Darkness ; Chess Plus

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Research vs consent: the Australian Census

I’m quite conflicted about the Australian Census this year. Basically I’m torn between loving the Census and thinking the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are handling the process – especially the privacy concerns – like out-of-touch chumps.

On the one hand, the Census is great. It provides data that are incredible valuable and important for many, many aspects of policy in Australia. My work and research would be so much harder without the ABS in general, and the Census in particular. I want both to continue and to be excellent.

On the other hand – what the fuck are the ABS doing? Linking our Census data with data from other sources may be incredibly valuable from a research perspective, but it’s also a massive reduction in privacy. The trade may well be worth it – but for fuck’s sake, that’s not a decision an agency just gets to announce.

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Spätzle recipe

On request: how I make Spätzle and Kässpätzle.

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How I'm voting (election resources)

(Note: This post suggests a decion-making-process, not a particular decision.)

For my lower house vote I’m going to Below the Line to check out my candidates and draw up a list. There are few enough candidates that I can just remember what order to put them in.

For my upper house vote I’m putting a bit more effort in. I’m using Senate IO instead of Below the Line here. Senate IO  also lets your start from a party’s registered preferences list, but it also lets you start with a blank ballot and add parties one at a time. I prefer that, since it’s easier to see which parties you still need to make decisions about, and easier to compare them to existing choices

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Myki wants to fine me for hypothetical trips

Updated on Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 17:39 by MCJ

“You would be fined because you may have on a previous journey been travelling on an invalid ticket.”

Excuse me? I want you to be very sure of what you’re saying to me, I told the operator: you’re suggesting that, if I get ‘caught’ on a tram with six-monthly Zone 1+2 ticket, but don’t touch on, you might fine me because on a previous day I might have travelled in Zone 3?

“Yes.”

You’d would fine me for the possibility of previous invalid journeys?

“Yes.”

Astonishing. Ludricrous. And so wholly without justifiable rationale it’s both laughable and insulting. The primary purpose of a ticketing (enforcement) system is to make sure passengers pay for the trips. Everything else is secondary. Fining people for taking a trip they have paid for is outrageous – it’s not fare evasion, it’s “tracking-system-evasion” at worst. Public Transport Victoria – don’t be dickheads. The problem I’m seeing isn’t one of technology, or infrastructure – it’s a “them’s the rules” culture lacking flexibility and compassion toward your consumers.. No wonder people don’t like Myki.

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Arranged Marriage vs. Free Choice: the Wrong Statistic

In an short piece entitle “Pitfalls of Passion” in the August 29 issue of “Sunday Life”, Bella Ellwood-Clayton writes that “[t]he type of love Westerners chase doesn’t, by and large, last. Arranged marriages, on the other hand, have a global divorce rate of about four per cent compared to Australian, American and Canadian figures, which place us at about the 40% figure. So what do do countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India – where most marriages are arranged – know that we don’t?”

This statistic is not only rubbish, it is insults (through ignorance) the plight of those women who are forced into arranged marriages.

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