(Disclaimer: This is going to be a controversial topic, and may upset readers)
Something that has been bugging me lately is the level of hypocrisy that the general public exhibits quite selectively. People get so wound up by a specific topic that any discussion around it become taboo, and handled so completely irrationally compared to other significant issues. What got me thinking about this is the vilification of Rolf Harris over an alleged set of incidents in the 1980's and his more recent accusation of creating "indecent images of minors". Now the charges from the 80's, if legitimate, are certainly serious and need to be resolved. However, I have a hard time believing this has been anything but a witch hunt. If these events happened some 30 years ago, why have the "victims" just come forward now? It's not like any obvious form of intimidation or relation that might explain the silence. In any case, light needs to be shone on Rolf's actions and the sincerity of the victims; Hopefully the courts resolve the issue fairly, but even if Rolf is acquitted, society has already judged and branded him. Looking at the more recent case brought against him over indecent images of minors, this is the topic I am writing about. Rolf is a painter. He is not the first artist to paint children in situations that can be interpreted as "indecent". However, this is a topic that has completely blinded modern society of late.
Pedophilia is a serious issue. It is wrong. It is illegal. In the strictest spirit of the law it is the exploitation of people that are considered vulnerable, are incapable of understanding the situations they are placed in, and powerless to defend themselves.
Murder is a serious issue. It is wrong. It is illegal. Rape is wrong. It is also illegal. There are lots of serious crimes that people commit that we certainly don't want to promote: And here lies the problem.
A studio can produce a film or TV series depicting mass murder, rape, drug use, domestic abuse or any other form of illegal/unlawful activity in virtually any level of realism. Game companies can build a game that immerses players in environments where they can quite graphically commit these crimes virtually. Grand Theft Auto is a commonly cited example, but one that sickened me was a game called Payday 2 which puts the players in a gang casing locations then committing extremely violent robberies. These movies and games are made, and continually press at the social limits of good taste, yet no matter how far they press there are no consequences for the people that create them.
Rolf, or any artist can paint a picture of a child in a provocative situation and he risks going to jail. A tourist returning from Japan with somewhat provocative models depicting young women in school uniforms narrowly avoided being arrested on child pornography charges. Can you see the disconnect here?
When some kid goes and shoots up a school after playing GTA 5 there are of course people advocating that violent games and movies are fueling violence. However the voices to the contrary always outweigh these. Laws don't change and the manufacture and distribution of this content continues. Parents generally don't promote violence in their children, encouraging them to go to school armed and ready for a knife fight, yet these things still happen.
When some pervert goes and abducts and rapes children gets caught with stacks of child images on their computer then the social war-cry goes out against any form of "sexualized" imagery of minors. Where are the voices that would so surely defend that exposure to violence doesn't make people violent, tout that exposure to sexualized children doesn't lead to sexual assault on children? Parents are guilty of sexualizing their own kids every day with what they let their kids wear and do. Forget child pageants, some have even gone so far as to teaching their young daughters pole dancing. Get real!
Compare these two situations:
Playing a video game where you walk up to a car, drag the driver out of a car and hit them repeatedly with a baseball bat and take their money does or does not influence someone to walk up and assault/rob someone?
Perving out at a picture of an attractive 15y.o. girl in a short skirt does or does not influence someone to go and rape a 15 year old girl?
Think about it for a minute. I'd imagine that most responses to the first scenario would range from "Probably not" to "possibly". I'd suspect that most people would respond to the second scenario as "probably" to "absolutely" An automatic reaction to those scenarios will be to justify how the two can surely not be compared, but really, why can't they? The second scenario is perverted, abnormal... So it's that much more "normal" if it's an 18y.o. girl? Someone that gets a thrill out of committing a virtual crime, do they go and commit a crime? Versus someone that gets a thrill out of an underage kid, do they go out and realise that fantasy? I cannot answer that question, but what I can see is the disconnect between the perception of the two scenarios. How can you rationalise that one is any more or less a risk than the other, and by how much?
Look at the legal/social reaction for the actual actions within the two scenarios. For the violent video game someone can play as much as they desire and there is absolutely no legal consequence. For the second scenario, that someone is possibly going to jail, and surely will be socially branded. In neither case did the individual actually DO anything.
Do I advocate that society is overreacting to underage depictions? Certainly not. I merely wish to try and expose the imbalance between very serious issues and how hypocritical we allow ourselves to be when looking at issues like this. Personally I'd like to live in a world where as a proud father I am allowed to photograph my child's public triumphs in life, and could do so without worrying other parents that have allowed themselves to be blinded and bound by irrational fears and preconceptions. Maybe things will finally change when this generation of parents realize the cost of paranoia was capturing memories and it just wasn't worth it.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
On fingers.
A recent news article which headlines: "Severed fingers won't work on iPhone 5S" which should probably be followed up with " so knock the bastard out and use his finger then disable the security."
Are people really so concerned that criminals would bother to chop a finger or two off to download some porn or T.V. series before hocking your colourful plastic wonder? Really now, the fingerprint works no different to PINs or gestures etc. It's just less likely to hack. But pickpockets & thugs don't bother with that as they'll either just toss a locked phone or factory reset it if they can. If they have access to your fingers they can just threaten you to unlock it, or use your finger while you're unconscious. On that merit the 5S is "easier" to steal for the buggers that ambush people with bricks.
Or on a funnier note, do people really believe Apple actually verified this claim that it wouldn't work with a severed finger? I'd bet money that marketing's claim that the scanner "doesn't" work on severed fingers actually meant the technical people said it "shouldn't" work. It may be fun reading the news when someone de-bunks that puff of smoke.
The real criminal threat with the iPhone 5S is that idiots will actually use the biometric features on the phone and other businesses and institutions start trusting Apple's algorithms. Allowing the scanner, more importantly the phone & technology the scanner is running on, to serve as security for real-world assets makes that phone a single point of failure (or success, depending on what side you're on) for fraud; Especially on a device where people have no real knowledge or control of how "Apps" behave on it. Unlike passwords and such, fingerprint biometric data cannot be changed when you get hacked. Criminals don't need to chop off your finger to drain your bank account or steal your identity, they just need to con you into downloading another "free" app. It's very easy to slip a malicious app through the app store. This has been demonstrated by building self-modifying apps. The initial version is harmless, but as it updates with more seemingly harmless versions, it actually modifies itself into something malicious. Once it fools you into running your finger scanner with an official looking alert, or mines your biometric hash, game over.
Criminals out there are certainly not afraid of consumers adopting the biometric features of the 5S, and they're not about to start lopping off fingers because of it. If anything they welcome the feature and they're just waiting for something worth stealing to become available. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the colourful, over-hyped piece of plastic & glass in your pocket they're after, so your digits are safe. I can't say the same for your bank account however if you choose to start using that feature.
Are people really so concerned that criminals would bother to chop a finger or two off to download some porn or T.V. series before hocking your colourful plastic wonder? Really now, the fingerprint works no different to PINs or gestures etc. It's just less likely to hack. But pickpockets & thugs don't bother with that as they'll either just toss a locked phone or factory reset it if they can. If they have access to your fingers they can just threaten you to unlock it, or use your finger while you're unconscious. On that merit the 5S is "easier" to steal for the buggers that ambush people with bricks.
Or on a funnier note, do people really believe Apple actually verified this claim that it wouldn't work with a severed finger? I'd bet money that marketing's claim that the scanner "doesn't" work on severed fingers actually meant the technical people said it "shouldn't" work. It may be fun reading the news when someone de-bunks that puff of smoke.
The real criminal threat with the iPhone 5S is that idiots will actually use the biometric features on the phone and other businesses and institutions start trusting Apple's algorithms. Allowing the scanner, more importantly the phone & technology the scanner is running on, to serve as security for real-world assets makes that phone a single point of failure (or success, depending on what side you're on) for fraud; Especially on a device where people have no real knowledge or control of how "Apps" behave on it. Unlike passwords and such, fingerprint biometric data cannot be changed when you get hacked. Criminals don't need to chop off your finger to drain your bank account or steal your identity, they just need to con you into downloading another "free" app. It's very easy to slip a malicious app through the app store. This has been demonstrated by building self-modifying apps. The initial version is harmless, but as it updates with more seemingly harmless versions, it actually modifies itself into something malicious. Once it fools you into running your finger scanner with an official looking alert, or mines your biometric hash, game over.
Criminals out there are certainly not afraid of consumers adopting the biometric features of the 5S, and they're not about to start lopping off fingers because of it. If anything they welcome the feature and they're just waiting for something worth stealing to become available. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the colourful, over-hyped piece of plastic & glass in your pocket they're after, so your digits are safe. I can't say the same for your bank account however if you choose to start using that feature.
Monday, September 16, 2013
On winning.
It is an interesting time now for my 4y.o. daughter. She's starting to show signs of being quite competitive. Competition is a healthy thing, but it can easily become destructive and disruptive. When I went through grade school the education system had a pretty strong focus on competition. There were plenty of sporting events where students would win ribbons and such for out-performing their classmates. Grades were given out as percentages so students could boast they were 2% smarter than someone else. Now it seems that schools have swung widely the other direction due to political correctness or something like that where competition is something to be scorned. I cannot imagine playing a game of soccer where they went out of their way not to keep score. This was a deal-breaker when I was considering Montessori education for my daughter. While I like the overall approach of self-discovery learning, they have a strict anti-competitive theme. (No sports teams etc.) Competition is an integral part of life, and something I strongly feel that it is something children need to experience to prepare them for independent life.
Growing up in an overtly competitive environment didn't do me any benefit. I was overly competitive and became quite irritated, even somewhat violent if I didn't win. It doesn't do well for making, and keeping friends. I'm not sure when precisely it happened but one day it all started making sense. It was such a simple thing, but so profoundly powerful when dealing with competition. I like to win, a lot. Who doesn't? Winning is fun. Or was it?
That was the profound bit. Winning = fun. But that is completely the wrong way to look at it. Fun isn't the result of winning. Winning is the result of having fun. It works in such a simple manner. When you play to win you get tunnel vision. You're focusing on the wrong thing and you completely miss opportunities that might have given you an advantage. This leads to mistakes or becoming predictable, and the further you fall behind the more it works against you. Your movements and muscles become tense, and you are completely distracted. However, when you play to have fun, your mind is open to new possibilities. You see more, and are more relaxed. There are opportunities to try things a bit different and often that is enough of an edge on your opponent to pull off something that they aren't expecting or capable of responding to.
It may not be enough to win, but it ensures you are open to learning something new from the experience instead of making excuses. Still, if you focus on trying to have fun then winning is merely icing on the cake. A loss is still a pretty good tasting cake when all things are considered. Being a sore loser means you become a target for ridicule, or people that can help you improve won't want to. Dealing with the bragging winners can be a challenge, but the thing to remember is that while they may act like they know it all, learn everything you can from them, then savour the day that you teach them how to lose. :)
This is something I constantly need to remind myself. Sometimes my vision starts tunneling in and I start to struggle and lose. That is the time that I have to stop for a moment, relax, and realise that I'm not having fun. More often than not that is enough for me to come back in freshly from a new angle. No excuses for the equipment or environment, just a renewed focus on doing what is fun, not what I think I need to win. Now I hope to impart this on the little one to hopefully help her cope with competitive situations.
Growing up in an overtly competitive environment didn't do me any benefit. I was overly competitive and became quite irritated, even somewhat violent if I didn't win. It doesn't do well for making, and keeping friends. I'm not sure when precisely it happened but one day it all started making sense. It was such a simple thing, but so profoundly powerful when dealing with competition. I like to win, a lot. Who doesn't? Winning is fun. Or was it?
That was the profound bit. Winning = fun. But that is completely the wrong way to look at it. Fun isn't the result of winning. Winning is the result of having fun. It works in such a simple manner. When you play to win you get tunnel vision. You're focusing on the wrong thing and you completely miss opportunities that might have given you an advantage. This leads to mistakes or becoming predictable, and the further you fall behind the more it works against you. Your movements and muscles become tense, and you are completely distracted. However, when you play to have fun, your mind is open to new possibilities. You see more, and are more relaxed. There are opportunities to try things a bit different and often that is enough of an edge on your opponent to pull off something that they aren't expecting or capable of responding to.
It may not be enough to win, but it ensures you are open to learning something new from the experience instead of making excuses. Still, if you focus on trying to have fun then winning is merely icing on the cake. A loss is still a pretty good tasting cake when all things are considered. Being a sore loser means you become a target for ridicule, or people that can help you improve won't want to. Dealing with the bragging winners can be a challenge, but the thing to remember is that while they may act like they know it all, learn everything you can from them, then savour the day that you teach them how to lose. :)
This is something I constantly need to remind myself. Sometimes my vision starts tunneling in and I start to struggle and lose. That is the time that I have to stop for a moment, relax, and realise that I'm not having fun. More often than not that is enough for me to come back in freshly from a new angle. No excuses for the equipment or environment, just a renewed focus on doing what is fun, not what I think I need to win. Now I hope to impart this on the little one to hopefully help her cope with competitive situations.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
On throwing money away.
With all of the talk in popular media about investing in property, etc. I was suprised to see this "gem" pop up. While it's a nice though to try and explain compound interest to people that don't understand it, it helps to cover all of the facts, that this article was missing two critical points: Inflation and Tax. Plus frankly it had some terrible advice tossed in for good measure.
Compound interest is great, and compounding should the first thing you look for in any "savings" account offering. Let's start off by what "compounding" actually is. Compound interest is where interest earned in a savings account is deposited automatically and regularly into that account to generate future interest. The important factors to consider about interest generation is how often it is calcuated (daily, weekly, monthly) and how often it is compounded. Typically the best you can expect is interest calculated daily and compounded monthly.
Now unfortunately the article was completely out of touch with inflation. Their example quotes an interest rate of 7% which in this market is very exceptional while the cash rate is so low. Looking at my current lenders the best compounding interest rate I can get is 4.1% Other lenders will offer higher but it's important to factor in whether or not that rate is compounded. As interest rates increase, these interest rates increase as well. Before getting excited about the 20 year figure you need to factor in that in 20 years, $1 won't be worth as much as it is today. Today you can buy 3L of milk for $3 at Coles. At an average inflation of 2.5% the cheapest you will find it will be around $5.05 in 20 years. That doesn't sound too bad, but when you start looking at $400,000 houses today, that's $671,833 20 years from now.
Depending on how much money you already earn, 4.1% may not be enough after tax to actually keep you ahead of inflation. Currently the inflation rate in Australia is 2.4%, if you're earning over $180k then 4.1% is only earning you 2.25% after tax. (45%) Sad days. :[ If you're under $180k it's 2.58% so it's keeping you ahead of inflation... barely. Looking at more realistic figures:
$10,000 earning 2.58% compounding monthly for 20 years: $16,702
$10,000 in 2033 dollars at 2.4%: $16,069
Congrats, you earned $633. Obviously, regular saving will dramatically increase the end figure but that is a byproduct of saving, not strictly compound interest.
Savings accounts are a useful tool, but really should only serve as a holding place for better yield investments or future necessary expenses. They are by no means any way to "get rich" and it is idiotic to see compound interest pitched as a wealth creation tool.
The terrible advice they mentioned was this:
" It means instead of diverting every spare dollar to debt, bills or lifestyle expenses like most people tend to do, you should squirrel away a few extra dollars today so they grow into a nice, big pile of money years from now."
Now it should be pretty obviously that you don't default on a bill payment to put extra money in savings. However, it is also terrible advice to think that money diverted into a savings account is going to be better for you than paying down debt. Every form of debt you will be facing will itself be a compounding form. Credit cards, home loans, etc. This means that *every* day you have an outstanding balance beyond any interest-free period they are calculating additional interest for you to pay that far, far out-paces any interest you could possibly earn from a savings account. Credit cards are typically charging 11-16%, home loans right now will be around 5%
So if you diverted $50 a week into a savings account while you were still paying down a mortgage then you might have $60k in your savings account after 20 years, but you would have paid $80k or more against your loan. If you want to save money and you have a mortgage, utilize an offset account. This gives you 100% savings against your loan interest tax free. What I mean by that is let's say you had a loan account for 5% and someone actually offered you a savings account for 5.5%. Seems like it would be better to use the savings account? Wrong. Assuming you were earning around $80,000 a year that 5.5% is only worth 3.47% after tax. The offset account is equivalent to 5% after tax. (You are taxed on interest earned, not interest saved.)
If you have outstanding credit card statements charging you interest then your priority has to be zeroing off these balances as quickly as possible. Credit card interest rates are head & shoulders higher than mortgage rates and savings accounts. If you can, get the balance transferred to your mortgage and cut up the credit card.
In summary, creating wealth while managing debt is only possible provided that the investment avenue out-paces the interest charges of your debt *after tax*.
Compound interest is great, and compounding should the first thing you look for in any "savings" account offering. Let's start off by what "compounding" actually is. Compound interest is where interest earned in a savings account is deposited automatically and regularly into that account to generate future interest. The important factors to consider about interest generation is how often it is calcuated (daily, weekly, monthly) and how often it is compounded. Typically the best you can expect is interest calculated daily and compounded monthly.
Now unfortunately the article was completely out of touch with inflation. Their example quotes an interest rate of 7% which in this market is very exceptional while the cash rate is so low. Looking at my current lenders the best compounding interest rate I can get is 4.1% Other lenders will offer higher but it's important to factor in whether or not that rate is compounded. As interest rates increase, these interest rates increase as well. Before getting excited about the 20 year figure you need to factor in that in 20 years, $1 won't be worth as much as it is today. Today you can buy 3L of milk for $3 at Coles. At an average inflation of 2.5% the cheapest you will find it will be around $5.05 in 20 years. That doesn't sound too bad, but when you start looking at $400,000 houses today, that's $671,833 20 years from now.
Depending on how much money you already earn, 4.1% may not be enough after tax to actually keep you ahead of inflation. Currently the inflation rate in Australia is 2.4%, if you're earning over $180k then 4.1% is only earning you 2.25% after tax. (45%) Sad days. :[ If you're under $180k it's 2.58% so it's keeping you ahead of inflation... barely. Looking at more realistic figures:
$10,000 earning 2.58% compounding monthly for 20 years: $16,702
$10,000 in 2033 dollars at 2.4%: $16,069
Congrats, you earned $633. Obviously, regular saving will dramatically increase the end figure but that is a byproduct of saving, not strictly compound interest.
Savings accounts are a useful tool, but really should only serve as a holding place for better yield investments or future necessary expenses. They are by no means any way to "get rich" and it is idiotic to see compound interest pitched as a wealth creation tool.
The terrible advice they mentioned was this:
" It means instead of diverting every spare dollar to debt, bills or lifestyle expenses like most people tend to do, you should squirrel away a few extra dollars today so they grow into a nice, big pile of money years from now."
Now it should be pretty obviously that you don't default on a bill payment to put extra money in savings. However, it is also terrible advice to think that money diverted into a savings account is going to be better for you than paying down debt. Every form of debt you will be facing will itself be a compounding form. Credit cards, home loans, etc. This means that *every* day you have an outstanding balance beyond any interest-free period they are calculating additional interest for you to pay that far, far out-paces any interest you could possibly earn from a savings account. Credit cards are typically charging 11-16%, home loans right now will be around 5%
So if you diverted $50 a week into a savings account while you were still paying down a mortgage then you might have $60k in your savings account after 20 years, but you would have paid $80k or more against your loan. If you want to save money and you have a mortgage, utilize an offset account. This gives you 100% savings against your loan interest tax free. What I mean by that is let's say you had a loan account for 5% and someone actually offered you a savings account for 5.5%. Seems like it would be better to use the savings account? Wrong. Assuming you were earning around $80,000 a year that 5.5% is only worth 3.47% after tax. The offset account is equivalent to 5% after tax. (You are taxed on interest earned, not interest saved.)
If you have outstanding credit card statements charging you interest then your priority has to be zeroing off these balances as quickly as possible. Credit card interest rates are head & shoulders higher than mortgage rates and savings accounts. If you can, get the balance transferred to your mortgage and cut up the credit card.
In summary, creating wealth while managing debt is only possible provided that the investment avenue out-paces the interest charges of your debt *after tax*.
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