Hi Vas,
We work closely with company and placed man and woman with you recently. I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
- name

I’m like

So you run job ads?
That don’t impress-a-me much —
So you sold us grunts,
But can you find us stars?
Now don’t get me wrong,
Yeah, I think you’re alright
But that won’t make me cash in the economic blight.
That don’t impress-a-me much…

Starting with the interior, they give you leather seats, but ruin the impression by covering the adjustment mechanism with the cheapest, nastiest-feeling piece of plastic you could imagine. If you’re trying to give the impression of quality, you can’t afford to miss details like this. The seats were pretty uncomfortable, too: no lower back support (had to take a cushion with me), and the headrest is at a stupid angle that makes your neck sore (nothing I could do about that). Speaking of seats, if you’re planning to use a baby seat they only provide an anchor hook for the rear centre seat — if you want to use a side seat, you’ll have to bolt your own anchor hooks in. There’s this stupid glossy strip across the dashboard under the instrument cluster an above the glovebox that seems to serve no purpose other than to annoy the driver and passenger by reflecting the sun into their eyes. The feature list mentions a “sports leather wrapped steering wheel” but it looked and felt like cheap plastic with stitches in it to make it look more like leather. The gear knob was cheap plastic, too. Given a choice, I’d honestly rather a nice leather steering wheel and gear knob than leather seats, since you have your hands there the whole time.

Moving on to the instruments and controls, they seem eager to remind you of what you’re driving — the tacho and speedo are both labelled “G6E” (in case you need to be reminded of what not to buy, I guess). The in-dash display is controlled using buttons on both sides of the instrument cluster. Did no-one stop to think how silly this is? To select what you want displayed you need to alternate which hand you have off the wheel to push the buttons on each side. Surely anyone can see it would have been more sensible to keep all the buttons together, so you can operate it with one hand. The controls for cruise control are poorly thought out, too. A single button is used for cancelling cruise and enabling it with the previous set point. That means the same button, depending on state, could cause the car to coast or accelerate. That’s shocking UI design right there. You need to look down at the dashboard to work out what’s going to happen. Whoever decided the reversing sensors should only give an audible indication should be banned from contributing to vehicle design. When I had a car (not a Ford), I turned the audible indication off altogether, because it’s annoying and less useful than a nice distance display. Also, the reversing camera doesn’t superimpose clearance lines on the display. With the distortion caused by the very wide angle lens, it’s hard to know where everything actually is, and the clearance lines you see when driving a Lexus make it a lot simpler.

It doesn’t feel very pleasant to drive, either. With the shifter in D it feels sluggish and reluctant to go anywhere, but selecting “performance mode” just makes it want to rev out all the time. You really have to use the sequential shift mode if you want the car to be drivable. To make things entertaining, you pull the stick back to shift up, and push forward to shift down — this is the opposite to Lexus, Porsche, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai, and probably everyone else. That’s just asking for trouble with people who switch cars, or have to drive their friends’ cars. A smaller issue is that unlike anything else I’ve driven anything approaching recently, you have to push the shift button to shift to neutral (most cars allow you to just push the stick). Strangely, there’s no red line on the tacho, and no shift point indicator (at least not that I noticed). This was quite disconcerting — I like to have a visual guide to a sensible rev range. The gear ratios seem rather odd too, with a very tall top gear that makes the car struggle going up a slight incline at 110 km/h, and gives no useful engine breaking when coasting. The car’s clearly aimed at Australia, so you’d think they’d give you a top gear that’s useful for something besides cruising on a perfectly flat road.

From Thanh’s point of view (she doesn’t drive), it’s a very unpleasant car that she’d rather not have to ride in again. The engine sounds unpleasant, the seats are uncomfortable, the audio and climate controls are confusing, and the ride is horrible. Actually, the ride deserves a proper mention. Whenever you go over a bump, it bounces all over the place. Sometimes you have to wonder if you’re not on a boat. Thanh felt sick on the road from Ballan to Daylesford. She wants to know if Ford has a customer feedback form for complaining about the quality of their cars. Ford’s trying to position the G series as competition for low-end luxury/prestige cars, but they’re completely missing the mark. They’ve focussed on marketable bullet point features, without creating a car that’s pleasant to drive, or even travel in as a passenger. What they have produced is a symbol of bogan pride. It’s big, heavy, highly visible, and completely lacking in refinement.

He’s saying I’m on a roll
With all the trolls I know
The copy-pasta
Flies to and fro
He’s saying I’m on a roll
With all the trolls I know
I know you wanna click that
I know you wanna click that, click that!
All the memes are getting old I say
But posts of substance feel like work, not play
That’s the way it
That’s the way /b/ rolls!

The date in marker
Proves she’s for real
She posts the photo
Not much revealed
But this is 4chan
It leads them on
She feels the power
As the luscious femanon!

She’s saying I’m on the run
I’m chasing lulz for fun
The lonely /b/tards
Come begging one by one
She’s saying I’m on the run
I’m chasing lulz for fun
I know you wanna click that
I know you wanna click that, click that!
All the memes are getting old I say
But posts of substance feel like work, not play
That’s the way it
That’s the way /b/ rolls!

Soon it’s no more —
Four-oh-four
Really nothing gained
But why not
Join a raid
And hear the fags complain!
And you won’t stop —
Can’t give up
4chan owns your brain
You close the window
But you’ll be back, /b/ro

You’ll say I’m on a roll
With all the trolls I know
You liek teh mudkipz —
Think we don’t know?
You’re saying I’m on a roll
With all the trolls I know
I know you wanna click that
I know you wanna click that, click that!
All the memes are getting old I say
But posts of substance feel like work, not play
That’s the way it
That’s the way /b/ rolls!

It seems the trend these days is to restrict access to anything potentially harmful in the interest of protecting people from themselves. It’s irritating at best — I mean, can’t we just let the most foolish individuals conveniently remove themselves from the gene pool? At worst it’s infuriating, when you want a particular chemical for something, but there’s just no way you’ll legally obtain it. Fortunately, you can still get some fun chemicals at your local supermarket. One such chemical is chlorine-based mould remover. This stuff is great — it can be quite harmful, but it gives you a lot of warning signs before it does any damage. Contact with skin can cause burns, but you’ll get uncomfortably itchy before you reach that point. The fumes can attack the lining of your throat, but you’ll have trouble breathing long before that happens. The fumes can also damage your eyes, but they’ll feel dry and itchy first. In general, if you start to feel uncomfortable, move away and ventilate the area before coming back. It’s really just common sense.

I used quite a lot of this stuff to clean my bathroom in Sydney and stop the mould growing back (warm humid weather encourages mould to appear everywhere). It has some fun side effects. If you don’t use gloves, it can make your hands smell like you’ve been at the swimming pool for days! Getting drops of it on dark-coloured clothing produces weird, kind of pinky splotches (don’t wear clothes that you like the way they are). One time while I was using it, there was a fly on the ceiling; three days later, the fly was still crawling around up there — the fumes had caused it to forget it had the ability to fly. (Does that make it a “walk” or something instead of a fly?).

Of course the bottle has a whole bunch of warnings on the back about what you shouldn’t do with with it. Most of them are bad ideas for obvious reasons — you shouldn’t really need to be told that you want to use gloves, and you should never ever drink the stuff. But some warnings are less obvious. There’s one against mixing it with acids. That’s fair enough — it would result in an exothermic reaction producing hot, toxic, flammable gas that’s likely to spontaneously combust. There’s another warning that I can’t really work out though: you’re told not to mix it with other cleaning products, especially not toilet cleaners.

Can someone please tell me what it is in toilet cleaners that they’re worried about mixing with, and what the potential results are? A guy I know suggested that it’s ammonia they’re worried about, and mixing them may produce nitrogen mustard gas. I can’t see this being correct — the chemistry looks wrong to me. Another person suggested that it may produce an explosive like ammonium perchlorate or something. Can someone please give me a definitive answer?

We stayed at the Wangaratta Gateway Hotel, as it seemed to be the nicest place in town. It has undercover parking, free Internet, a swimming pool, a cocktail bar and a restaurant. The Internet service was down for the weekend, but they delivered on all the other promises. The cocktail bar was pretty good. I mean, it’s not exactly the Pacifica at Bondi, but they do a good cosmopolitan, and it’s a nice atmosphere. They were happy for Yoshi to be there as long as he was only drinking fruit juice, which was a plus. In the end we didn’t get to try the restaurant — we weren’t up in time for breakfast, and we were otherwise occupied at dinner times. We didn’t swim in the pool, either — just saw the frolicking bikini whales as we walked past.

When we arrived in town on the Friday afternoon, we took a walk up the main street looking for something to eat. When in an strange place, a familiar name can be comforting, so we decided to have our late lunch at La Porchetta in the main street. Now people go to McDonalds for consistently — it isn’t consistently good, but it’s very much consistent. This isn’t the case with La Porchetta, as each pizza chef delivers their own interpretation of the menu. The fettuccine alla matriciana was OK, with the kick of about four kinds of chilli in a tasty tomato-based sauce, but the pizzas were disappointing: very oily, not much topping and dry, bready bases. The water smelled and tasted like it was straight out of the tap, and the air felt dead and heavy. Between the water and the air, I got a sore throat that I didn’t get over for the rest of the weekend.

We had dinner with friends at the Sydney Hotel on Templeton Street. Now this place was definitely a step up. Parmigiana seems to be their speciality, with several choices of meat and size available. No-one who had a parmigiana was unsatisfied. They did a good steak, although it could have done with a little more sauce, and the steamed vegetables on the side were a bit overcooked. The Sydney Burger may be in the light meals section, but it’s still a big plate of food. Desserts were nice enough, too. I’d definitely recommend trying this place if you’re staying in Wangaratta for whatever reason.

Holloywod’s Sidewalk Café is the first eatery you see on the left as you hit the main drag (coming from the Melbourne end). We came here for a late breakfast the next day. This is where we should’ve stopped instead of walking up to La Porchetta. They were taking down the boards with the breakfast menu and putting up the lunch menu just as we arrived, but the chef was nice enough to give us some grace time for ordering breakfast. We had bacon and eggs, buttermilk pancakes, and eggs benedict. It was all done very well — light, fluffy pancakes, nice crusty toast, bacon crispy but not too hard, and nice coffee. The water here tasted better, too. It would’ve been perfect if there’d been some vegetables involved (maybe some mushrooms with the bacon and eggs, or spinach with the eggs benedict), and if they’d given us real maple syrup with the pancakes. But we really couldn’t complain about this place — it was a tasty, satisfying breakfast.

We had lunch at Wangaratta Kebabs (further up the main street on the right). Wangaratta must be in the crossover region between Sydney and Melbourne kebab culture, as they offer chicken, beef and lamb (in Melbourne you often don’t get beef, and in Sydney you often don’t get lamb). We got a plate piled high with meat and salad, but it wasn’t anything special. The salad tasted like it had been sitting out a bit too long, and the meat was a bit dry. It was still a lot more pleasant than La Porchetta had been.

The real reason we were there was for the wedding and reception, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. It was a fun time with good friends. The rest of our experiences in the town were hit and miss, but I guess it’s not a bad town on the whole.

I ain’t never op’d a ’tard who didn’t deserve it
Plus O on a luser — you know that’s unheard of
You better not flood, or exceed the max ping time
Or you and ya’ node’ll be hit with a G-line

I really hate to flame, but I gotta’ troll
The lamers bite, that’s where I get my l0lz, fool
I’m the kinda geek all the k1dd1ez wanna’ be like
Writin’ ’sploits through the night
By the pale L.E.D. light

Been spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Been spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise

Don’t like the club scene, won’t fit my routine
I can’t live a normal life, I need my connection
So I gotta download this ISO
Even though I know the content’s just some lame show

I’m self-educated, fool, with nothing on my mind
Got time on my side to work my designs
I got a tricked out box, it’s overclocked
With convoluted routing you’ll never outfox, fool

Worms ain’t more than a heartbeat away
Don’t open my ports, what more can I say?
I got my firewall, and my rootkit detector
But I know they’ll just find the next attack vector

Tell me why are we
Just doomed to be
Shut away from all
Society

Been spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Been spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise

Power, storage, bandwidth; bandwidth, storage, power
Page loads taking seconds, browsing taking hours
Everybody’s online, but lack of skillz is tragic
What’s goin’ on in the tubes may as well just be magic

I say they gotta’ learn, but I ain’t gonna’ teach ’em
If they can’t teach ’emselves, they ain’t nothing but leechin’
I guess they can’t, I guess they won’t
I guess they’re lame, they’re outta’ luck, fool

They’ve been spendin’ most their lives
Livin’ in the h4xx0rz paradise
They’ve been spendin’ most their lives
Livin’ in the h4xx0rz paradise
We keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in the h4xx0rz paradise
We keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in the h4xx0rz paradise

Tell me why are we
Just doomed to be
Shut away from all
Society

Tell me why are we
Just doomed to be
Shut away from all
Society

Tell me why are we
Just doomed to be
Shut away from all
Society

Tell me why are we
Just doomed to be
Shut away from all
Society

Ah ah a-ah ah ah
Ah ah a-ah ah ah

Restaurant: kūjin, 41B Elizabeth Bay Rd, Elizabeth Bay, 02-9331-6077
Cuisine: Japanese specialising in udon and teppanyaki grill
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday lunch 12:00–3:00 and dinner 6:00–9:30
Verdict: some great food, but beset with logistical issues

Opening night

We arrived at seven in the evening on the opening Tuesday. The restaurant was already more than half full, so it looked like a good turnout for an opening night. The lighting was subdued, and there was some background music playing. The kitchen is separated from the dining area by a low barrier, so you can see the meals being prepared. The waitress who seated us was polite and friendly.

Up to the point where we were brought our menus and water, everything had been going very smoothly, but it didn’t take long after this for the opening night issues to appear. We ordered a Sapporo beer for me, an Asahi beer for Thanh, and an apple juice for Yoshi. The drinks seemed to be taking a while to arrive. Eventually a waitress came to tell tell us most apologetically that there was no juice tonight. It wasn’t so bad — Yoshi just had to be content with water. I also noticed that the couple next to us had been given lunch menus, and the mistake was not noticed until after they had ordered, so they had to order again from the correct menu.

Tarako Cocktail ($7.00)

For me, this entrée was the highlight of the night — it was the kind of thing you’d imagine seeing on Iron Chef. The combination of colours was very appealing, and the flavours of cod roe, tofu, avocado and beans balanced perfectly. This was a great appetiser, and set high expectations.

Kake Curry Udon ($16.00)

This dish was a bit of a let-down. The description on the menu said “kujin wagyu beef curry” but there was no beef to be seen — just two scraps of chicken meat, and four vegetable balls. The presentation was nice, the thick curry sauce had a good rich flavour, and the noodles were cooked perfectly. It was OK, but nothing special, and not worth the asking price in my opinion.

Daikon Steak ($10.00), Kujin Pickles ($5.00) and Rice ($3.50)

The rice wasn’t done properly at all: it was too soft at the bottom — almost like congee; they must have put too much water in the rice cooker or something. But the daikon steak was beautiful. There were three thick pieces of marinated and grilled daikon, served with a garlic sauce. They had a deliciously soft texture that was even all the way through. Yoshi and Thanh loved this one. The pickled seasonal vegetables were nice, too — sour with just a hint of spiciness.

Kake Wagyu Beef Udon ($16.00)

This dish was beset with logistical issues: initially they forgot to bring it at all; when we asked, the waitress apologised profusely and rushed off the kitchen, where we could see much discussion and looking at the orders being served; this was followed by the the wrong dish — grilled wagyu beef steak — being brought out; this resulted in even more apologies as it was taken away. We did eventually get the right dish, which was fortunate — Yoshi would have been very upset if he didn’t get his noodles.

When we finally got the dish, it didn’t disappoint. The thinly sliced beef was soft and and almost melted in your mouth; the dashi broth had a rich flavour, and you could smell the fish and seaweed in it; the flavour of the broth permeated the meat and noodles. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this.

Plum Wine Sorbet ($7.00)

A delicious plum wine sorbet over Earl Grey mousse served in a martini glass. Not too much to say about this, but it was a pleasant, sweet conclusion to the meal. The serving size is quite small, so you need to take your time and enjoy it.

Green Tea Icecream Crêpe ($7.00)

A small crêpe served with green tea icecream and some azuki red beans. The ice-cream was smooth and not too sweet, with that distinctive slightly bitter green tea flavour. As with the sorbet, the serving size is quite small, but you’re not trying to fill up on this so it’s sufficient.

Conclusion

We had one more problem before we left: the bill included the wagyu beef steak that we didn’t eat, but this was quickly rectified and more apologies were offered. The issues could all be forgiven as opening night teething problems, and in spite of it all, we had eaten some excellent food. The staff had been very polite and apologetic throughout the evening. As we left, they apologised again and asked us to come back again, when the opening night issues have been resolved.

Second Chance

We thought it would be rather unfair to form an opinion of the service based on the opening night alone, so we came back the next Sunday (the 2nd). We didn’t bother to make a booking this time. We were seated near the front of the restaurant, brought menus and water, and we placed our order. The drinks came out quickly this time, and Yoshi got his apple juice. I guess the initial juice delivery must have missed the opening.

Tukune ($6.00)

Two skewers of chicken meatballs grilled teppanyaki-style and served with a sweet teriyaki sauce. The meatballs were made with a very lean chicken mince, not like the fatty stuff often sold by butchers, and seasoned with spring onions and ginger. They were evenly cooked through and not dry, with a very clean flavour.

Tako Okonomiyaki ($16.00)

This is thick savoury pancake of sorts It was packed with shredded vegetables and some big chunks of octopus, and topped with Japanese mayonnaise and bonito flakes. This hearty dish was almost like a complete meal in itself. All the flavours were fresh and alive. Did I mention the big tasty chunks of octopus? Definitely one of the best tako okonomiyaki I’ve had.

Grilled Eggplant ($10.00), Daikon Steak ($10.00) and Rice ($3.50)

The rice was cooked perfectly this time with no sogginess at the bottom, so it would appear that was just another opening night hiccup. The grilled eggplant topped with tofu cheese was quite tasty, but it was really to oily for someone trying to watch their cholesterol like me. Don’t let that put you off if you aren’t watching your diet — the flavour was great and it was cooked to perfection.

This time, it was the daikon steak that was plagued with logistical issues. Initially, it was brought out to the table next to ours, so they had to take it away and cook us a new one. We were offered apologies and a complimentary bowl of edamame (boiled young soybeans) to eat while we waited. Sadly, the daikon steak wasn’t as good this time as on the opening night: the texture wasn’t even all the way through and the flavour of the marinade hadn’t permeated it as well. It’s possible they rushed to get it cooked quickly after the error, but it was still a disappointment after how good this dish was the first time.

Kake Wagyu Beef Udon ($16.00)

This dish didn’t disappoint the second time around. The same comments apply as for the first time: lovely soft beef and perfectly cooked noodles in a flavoursome broth. Yoshi loved the noodles, and if a restaurant dish keeps a two-year-old happy, they must be doing something right.

Final Summary

You can definitely get some excellent food at kūjin, but neither night was completely trouble-free. This was all within a week of opening, so some issues can be expected, and there were far fewer problems the second time. The staff were very polite and apologetic throughout. Will I return? Definitely — most of the dishes really shone, and there’s a lot more on the menu that I’d like to try.

I call them up, and get put on hold. I’m not too worried about being on hold for a little while, but the hold music consists of repeated radio ads for themselves that appear to be intended to drill their phone number into the listener’s head. What kind of stupidity is this? I know what the number is — I’ve just dialled it for crying out loud! Give me something distracting — elevator music, radio, ads for some other company — reminding me who’s keeping me on hold is not a smart move! I was on hold for about a minute when I got the ring of an operator’s phone. They picked it up, and then hung up without even saying anything. Nice going — I guess you just scored one more call handled. How many more until you meet your quota for the shift?

As I don’t know the numbers of any other taxi companies, I called again, and spent another minute on hold. This time I actually got an operator. She asked me where I was, and I answered, “The taxi rank at Werribee station.” She asked, “What street?” I answered, “I don’t really know. There’s a bus terminal on one side of the station and a taxi rank on the other; I’m at the taxi rank.” She said, “Well call back when you know the street,” and hung up. What’s the use of taxi company that doesn’t even know where taxi ranks are? Surely you have a Melway or UBD, or perhaps Goole Maps accessible? Don’t people call taxis when they know where the want to be but not how to get there? Also, the call centre drones seem far more keen on increasing the number of calls they handle than actually taking bookings, or being helpful.

So I asked a random girl who happened to be there if she knew the number of a taxi company other than 132227. She told me 03-9689-1144 was the local mob (West Suburban Taxis). When I called this number, I got an operator immediately, and they got me a cab in a couple of minutes, without asking me what the name of the street was. All in all, a far better experience. I don’t think I’ll remember the number, and I don’t know if they service all of Melbourne, but I’m definitely not calling 132227 again.

You never get good help, either. Everyone’s too busy to help, or claiming it’s not their job to help you. The Virgin Blue posters that say, “Our service measures up…” are just plain insulting. One thing that really grates on me is that there’s just about no way to get a refund if you’re not happy to catch another flight – they’ll only offer you a credit to spend on another flight. Well excuse me, I’d rather spend the money on something other than your poor service, thank you very much. In fact, I think the only way to actually get a refund is to ask your credit card provider to charge back the transaction (CBA will do this with no questions asked). I believe you’re within your rights to do this – they haven’t delivered the service you paid for.

You might think it’s just the budget carriers, but that’s not the case. I’ve had the same level of service from Qantas and United on international flights when things go wrong – no-one who wants to help, no reimbursement for inconvenience, and compensation only available in the form of credits or gift vouchers, as if you’d want to come back for more. Man, if we treated clients like that where I work, we’d be out of business in no time. Why do the airlines get away with it?

(And don’t get me started on Melbourne trains that don’t work when it’s too hot or too rainy…)

Then another time, I’m at Central Station looking for the rail replacement bus on the Eastern Suburbs line, carrying a box containing a microwave oven, and once again keeping as far to the side as possible. These girls are walking four abreast in the opposite direction, and the one on the end walks into my box. At this point, she stops moving, because the box and I act as a barrier, but she keeps trying to walk for several seconds before she decides it’s a good idea to go around me. Speaking of people who keep trying when they’re going nowhere, an obese idiot in Woolworths at Town Hall tried walking through my shopping basket. The way it pushed into his flab was morbidly fascinating. When he realised I have corporeal presence, he got all offended.

Aa couple of days ago I was on my way home from work, crossing the south bridge in Rushcutters Bay Park, keeping as far to the left as I can, and a soccer player going the other way kind of half tries to avoid me. Well there’s a wall on the side of the bridge to stop you falling off. It’s not like I can walk through it, doofus. Would it really be that hard to walk behind your bum chum while you pass me? He definitely came off worse from the collision.

And just last night, I was getting off a train at Kings Cross (yeah, my local station is in a red light district), and the people waiting to board were standing in a shoulder-to-shoulder wall. Don’t you realise you’re going to have to board the train in file, anyway? It’s not like a Tautliner – you have to go through the doors. So I knocked my way through them.

These are just the more memorable collisions from the last few months. There have been plenty more in the Bondi Junction bus terminal and Westfield that I’m not going to relate. I’m really getting sick of it. So what should I do? Should I wear really tacky brightly coloured clothing? Do I need a shirt that says, “Do I look like a ghost, doofus?” I’m honestly at a loss at this point.

(This one time, though, I was at work late, and a bit stressed, and one of my colleagues said I was pale and sweating, and I looked like ghost – not the Casper kind of ghost, but more like a Japanese horror movie ghost that had just stepped out of the screen. But I don’t think that’s the kind of ghost people would try walking through.)

Well, you either clicked a “read more” link, or you’re reading a full-text RSS feed. Either way, I can talk about statistics now. First of all, let’s establish what an average actually is. The average, or mean, is defined as the sum of all values divided by the number of values. It’s important to remember that outliers can have a big effect on the mean. The median is the value with an equal number of values on either side of it, but that’s a different concept. Here are some nice probability density functions:

You’ve almost definitely seen the black curve before: it’s the so-called normal distribution, often called the bell curve. It’s nice and symmetrical. If a data set follows this distribution, a randomly selected value will be equally likely to be negative or positive (median of zero), and if you sum all the values and divide by the number of values, you’ll get zero (mean of zero).

The other two curves are skew-normal distributions. The red curve has left skew (κ = ½), and the blue curve has right skew (κ = −½). Both of these distributions still have a median of zero — with either of these distributions, a randomly selected value from a large data set is equally likely to be positive or negative.

But look at the way they trail away to one side. Take the red curve — it stops rather abruptly on the right, but trails away off to the left. These values bring the mean down. The mean is less than zero for the left-skewed distribution, and greater than zero for the right-skewed distribution. A randomly selected value is more likely to be higher than the mean for the left-skewed distribution, and more likely to be lower than the mean for the right-skewed distribution. Less than half the values are below average for the red distribution, and more than half are below average for the blue distribution. (The actual values of the means of these distributions are about −0.266 and 0.266 respectively.)

If that seems a bit abstract, we can make examples with small sets of real numbers, too. For our first data set, let’s use {1, 3, 5, 7, 9}. The statistics are pretty easy on this: sum of 25, mean of 5 and median of 5. The average is 5, and a randomly selected value is equally likely to be on either side of 5. The data has no skew.

Now let’s try a left-skewed data set: {1, 2, 5, 6, 6}. The sum is 20, the mean is 4 and the median is 5. A randomly selected value is clearly more likely to be greater than the average: there are three values greater than 4, compared to two values that are less. The values are still evenly distributed around the median.

(A right-skewed data set with equivalent characteristics is {4, 4, 5, 8, 9} — you can work through it yourself if you want to see how it goes.)

On top of the visual and practical issues, the guy had another big problem. A Porsche is more of a status symbol than a car. By driving a Porsche you’re trying to tell the world, “Look at me, I’m a success — I’ve bought the car that you can only dream about.” But by putting roof racks on your Porsche, you’re saying, “I only just had enough money for this car.” That, of course, is an admission that you couldn’t really afford the Porsche. If you’d really arrived, you’d have another, more practical car to put the roof racks on.

First, a costumer enters a postcode, then selects the most convenient nearby shops and then enters the quantities, weights and brands of the products they want.

That isn’t a simple transposition typo — there are two letters between the transposed letters. It’s either a chronic misunderstanding of the language or an inability to type combined with an over-reliance on a spell-checker. What happened to proof-reading and copy editing? What happened to knowing how to spell? This is what you would expect from self-obsessed bloggers or tweeters, not professional journalists!

(There is a remote possibility that he chose a random occupation in order to flesh out the hypothetical shopper’s character, and just made a choice that unfortunately looks like a common error. However, this is no excuse — if this was the case, he should have chosen a more interesting profession, like pool cleaner for instance.)

Who exactly thought this sign was a good idea? After careful consideration, I think it means a book will set you back $35, but you must pay with exactly one $5 note, one $10 note and one $20 note — other combinations will be rejected. Literacy really is on the decline.

Also, what’s with the horizontal text alignment?

But as if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a severe Slurpee shortage in the CBD. By four o’clock, most of the 7‑Elevens only had empty machines or liquid on offer. I hope this crisis is resolved in a timely manner. If it isn’t, it could lead to discontent, civil disorder or even deadly riots.

It makes me laugh every morning I walk past!

But it was also the worst day so far, because it was the last day I’d be working with Bruce. I really do wish you all the best in what you’ve chosen to do, but selfishly I wish we didn’t have to let you go. We’ll all miss you, both professionally, because you have so much knowledge of the industry and company, and personally, because you’re a great guy to have around.

In so many ways, you’re my polar opposite: you’re softly spoken, non-confrontational, vegetarian, tee-totalling and you like to develop in interpreted languages. From the interview onwards, you gave me a great introduction to the company, and you’ve taught me a lot in the short time we’ve worked together.

I’ll miss the conversations; I’ll miss pairing with you; I’ll miss having you there at lunch time; I’ll even miss biting my tongue to stop myself singing along when I can just hear the percussion of Smooth Criminal leaking from your headphones.

I hope things work out for you with the new job in Sydney, and that your family handles the transition well. All the best from psycho Vas!

It’s a pretty big change of direction from what I’ve done in the past: I went to uni to study something I knew I could do (electrical) and worked in an area that I knew I was good at (software). Now I’m studying something that I think I would enjoy doing. I’m doing an advanced diploma in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). I’m also studying by correspondence with a private education provider. Wix and Rusty, back in high school when you told me I should be a teacher, I never thought it might actually be possible.

Oh, and I have two pieces of advice for anyone considering studying. First of all, paying full fees is a good incentive to do well, because you want to get something for your money. Secondly, this something I came up with, but it’s too cool not to quote: “three things are needed for study: time, space and a brain. If you don’t have the time, make the time; if you don’t have the space, make the space; if you don’t have a brain, go for a surf!”

After twenty-five minutes of waiting, we asked a waitress how our meals were coming along. She went off to the kitchen, and came back to tell us, apologetically, that whoever took our order didn’t put it in properly, so our meals weren’t being cooked at all. Now that’s pretty poor service, so we decided we’d go somewhere else.

But before we left, I thought I’d let the manager know that I wasn’t happy. And his response? No apology; no offer to make it up to us; just a justification. If he’d been nice about it, I might have forgotten the incident and come back next time I feel like pizza. But that just goes to show how little regard he has for his customers. Well, I won’t be coming back. Next time I want La Porchetta, I’ll go to Braybrook or North Melbourne. I’ll also go out of my way to let other people know, and encourage them to take their business elsewhere.

(Oh, and we ended up eating at the Pancake Parlour – the main/dessert/wine dinner package was quite good value, not to mention delicious, and the service was a lot better.)