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Parenting, babies and sleep deprivation: what parenting is really like

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A very good friend is going to be the proud father of a bouncing baby…  Very soon now.

However, none of us are too sure if he’s up for baby sleep deprivation.  He posted recently that “baby has nothing on this post-operation insomnia – I keep waking up at freaking 3am.”

As a helpful and supportive mate, I felt I should tell him what it’s going to be like.

“Mate, baby will have everything on this. It will be 2am, the baby has been crying for two hours, mum will be vomiting in the hallway having caught gastro from a kid in mother’s group. You will learn the precise number of seconds it takes to microwave a bottle to the right temperature. You will learn to distinguish vomit stains from strained pumpkin, which is quite a feat as strained pumpkin basically is vomit. You will become a master in the art of nappy-changing avoidance.

You will wake at 11pm, 1am, 3am and then 5am. You will want to stab friends who tell you that their child slept through the night. You will marvel at doctors who say that waking up at 5am is in fact “sleeping through”. Actually you will tell them to go f@#$ themselves.

And then you will realise that this is your life until about, say, 2014. You will scream and yell, but you will do this, you will love it. Well, except for the strained pumpkin part.

But frankly, I have to say, the baby has game when it comes to sleep deprivation. Baby has everything on this.”

Poverty in Australia

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A friend of mine on Facebook posted up a quote:

“You need only do three things in this country to avoid poverty – finish high school,marry before having a child, and marry after the age of 20. Only 8 percent of the families who do this are poor; 79 percent of those who fail to do this are poor.”

William Galston, Clinton White House

He wondered whether the states would be the same in Australia; that question intrigued me to investigate the differences atwixt here and there.:

Current poverty rate in the United States is 15.1 percent. The measure is based on income received – $22,350 per annum for a family of four, or about $428 per week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

Source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/09/newt-gingrich/gingrich-says-more-americans-are-poverty-today-any/

Poverty rate in Australia is also based on income received. However, here the poverty level is defined by the Henderson Poverty Index from the Melbourne Institute (based upon the Henderson inquiry of 1973). Using this basis, the Poverty Line in Australia is $776.71 per week for a non-working family of four, or about $40,528 (as of September 2011).

Source:
http://melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/publications/Poverty%20Lines/Poverty_lines_Australia_Sep2011.pdf

The current estimate is ‘1 in 10’ Australians, or 10%, live in poverty according to this definition.

Source: http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=australia+poverty+line+2011&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CFUQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homelessnessaustralia.org.au%2FUserFiles%2FFile%2FFact%2520sheets%2FFact%2520Sheets%25202011-12%2FHomelessness%2520%26%2520Poverty%25202011-12%282%29.pdf&ei=JmI8T9iEOYrymAX75PXECw&usg=AFQjCNE6-BidGo40RScH_spCXdPaZVX4Gg&cad=rja

To put that lot in perspective, in the US you are considered to live in poverty if you live on $US428 per week for a family of four – poverty rate 15.1%. In $US, the equivalent Australian measure is $US823 – and our poverty rate according to that definition is 10%.

In Australia, the same non-working family of four is entitled to a welfare payments (again according to the Melbourne Institute as above) of $686.41 per week. I believe I am correct therefore in saying that Australia has a welfare system that prevents people from being in the situation that does not even begin to define poverty in the United States as welfare payments exceed US’s threshold. So in my brief sojourn into the world of social welfare research (rather than my actual research), there are three measures of poverty:

  • Objective – you earn less than this, you don’t have enough to survive on the staples with. For this kind of poverty, dumpster-diving is a way of life.
  • Relative – you earn less than a majority of people in your country, so you live in relative poverty (x-boxes aside). For this kind of poverty, surround yourself with friends who are less well off than you.
  • Subjective – you feel like you don’t earn enough to live off. This is everyone, because everyone defines someone else as rich if they earn about 10% more than you do.

When I look at the toys my kids get compared to what I got growing up, and then they announce ‘I’m bored’ – well, I could just throttle them :). I can tell you, I didn’t break my Christmas presents on Christmas day – heck, I still have my Christmas present radio from 1986 (it’s looking a bit battered and I’ve finally retired it).

In the States, too, the point was made that the wage arrangements allow wait staff at cafes etc to be paid $3 and make up the difference to the minimum wage via tips.  Apparently if the waitstaff don’t get sufficient tips to make the minimum wage the employer is supposed to cover it.  Apparently, a lot of people don’t know that rule (thanks Sam!).  And Sam also pointed out that there are a lot of ‘private/public benefits’ of the welfare state – she has had to buy a more expensive house in a ‘good’ area, and security firms are a way of life in some parts of the US, due at least in part, probably mostly, to the grinding level of poverty and the complete lack of a welfare safety net.

To be clear: I think it’s a good thing to have safety net. I also think its a good thing to have a high-ish minimum wage. You hear of unskilled people in US working huge hours and getting paid next to nix. I’d rather they had training options available to build a future for them and their family. Sam also pointed out the difference between purchasing power in Australia and the US; that’s very true, especially given housing costs here versus there.  Nonetheless I think the overall conclusion remains – Australia is much more insulated from ‘real’ poverty and thus the Occupy movement here in Australia is not quite full of the 99%ers.

So, just wow. Two countries alike in many ways and yet so very very different.

Javascript and passing parameters through forms

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I am lecturing the subject INFS7210 Fundamentals of Electronic Commerce at the University of Queensland this semester (Semester 2 2011).  As part of this, everyone is learning to program using javascript and web pages.  The course is only an introduction to web page programming.  I thought I would document up one of the issues students have had to come to grips with.

The group assignment is an online business plan for a proposed e-commerce website.  In support of that business plan, the students have to create a prototype website.

For the group assignment, students need to have multiple web pages of data.  For most students that will require the pages to pass data from one page (e.g. where the user makes a selection) to another (e.g. displays the web catalogue).

For the prototype website, students do not have to create a database into which data is stored.  However, that means that students have an issue:  how do I pass data from one page to another?

The way to achieve this, usually, when using javascript and not using a database “back-end”, is to pass data as a parameter set in the URL.  This is called “Passing Parameters via Query Strings” or “Javascript Variable Passing”. 

It is best if I simply set out some resources for students to read and use in developing the web application:

http://javascript.about.com/library/blqs.htm

http://www.xul.fr/javascript/parameters.html

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/javascript/article.php/3471111

Students may also be interested in a relevant Google search:

http://www.google.com.au/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=tutorial+on+passing+data+by+html+parameters+javascript&pbx=1&oq=tutorial+on+passing+data+by+html+parameters+javascript&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=4783l4783l0l4834l1l1l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=111a300bc2dcdbc5&biw=1920&bih=923

The astute will note that the Google link uses a very similar technique above in the passed parameter.

Jaguar maintenance log

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Well, we decided to buy an older classic car – a 1985 Jaguar Series III XJ6.  No, there is no rhyme or reason to such a thing.

As one would expect, this is fraught with danger.  And today the Jag has returned from its visit to Keith the auto-electrician.

My wallet is lighter, but Lucas, Prince of Darkness, is closer to being fully exorcised.

Work done (and this is actually a good list – not really long at all):

  • Fixed horn (didn’t work)
  • Fixed central locking doorlocks (worked intermittently)
  • Fixed air conditioning (didn’t work)
  • Fixed heater (didn’t work)
  • Fixed radiator coolant sensor (this is the bit that stopped me taking it out for the doctoral consortium) – (worked too soon!)
  • Checked cigarette lighter (circuit’s live, lighter’s busted)
  • Checked cruise control (contact’s good, module busted)

Just in case you were ever thinking of getting a slightly classic car…

Ah, but it looks good, so we will forgive it some sins (including appalling mileage):

Jaguar XJ6 at Mooloolaba

Job lots: the double-edged sword of ‘e’

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Recently I purchased the Portenzo for my iPad – as documented in my last blog post. The Portenzo is a hand-made iPad case that makes your iPad look just a little bit old-school.  It’s made of leather and wood and…

Well, you get the idea.  It’s not for everyone, but those that like it, really like it. 

Now, what fascinated me with this product was the interaction of electronic word-of-mouth and ‘now-traditional’ eCommerce.  I heard about the product from the 46 user reviews on YouTube, the 5,800 blog reviews, and the Twitter feed.

Portenzo is just a small company in the US.  Before the internet, their market plan would have been to target vaguely nerdy-looking people hanging out at the University refectories.  Usually the ones with goatees.  Now, however, they get access to a much larger audience for their product.  It’s like paying for a 24/7, global advertising campaign, only without the paying-for-it part. 

The point is that the product is a good one, but of limited appeal.  The internet broadens the potential customers they can access though, and the more users that are attracted to their products, the more those users (possibly because, like myself, they are obsessively-compulsively nerd-like) announce their proud purchase on places like YouTube and on Facebook.  And so Portenzo was doing fairly swimmingly – they were taking a regular number of orders each week for their retro-uber-Gen-Y/X attractor, and they were getting good write-ups.

Then along came Steve Jobs with his new magic-powered device – the iPad2 (just like an iPad1, only not).  Suddenly many more people rushed to buy the iPad2, and to make sure they kept the magic inside that shiny aluminium frame they went out in the modern equivalent of hunter-gathering for an iPad case (it’s exactly the same, only less spears and mammoths).  Suddenly Portenzo were swamped with many online orders shipping around the globe, and their happy coffee-drinking workforce got a little stressy putting out the product (whilst striving to keep the quality up to scratch).  Shipping times crept up.  And then leapt up.  At last count, it was taking about 10.5 weeks to get your hands on on of these custom-made beauties.

Now, while Portenzo were busy building and shipping, they went ‘dark’ on their social media websites (twitter, Facebook, and so on) – people being people started thinking, ‘hey, did I just send my cash to an internet mobster?’.  And so the speculation and conjecture on those now-unmonitored websites started to reach levels not seen since the last X-Files Convention.  Suddenly, things went from being peachy-keen in the online world to being more like the latest Harry Potter film (quite a bit darker than previously, in case you hadn’t noticed).  Eventually, Portenzo got online, started to deal with the complaints and communicate with their customers (and not just the ones that were complaining; by responding to the complainers they sent a message to the waverers as to where their product might be and when they might get it).  And many people that were previously complainers came back upon receiving the cases, and apologised and talked about how great their products were.  Exhibit A, their Facebook page. 

So the online world has transformed and traumatised business.  This ‘e’ thing is no longer an ‘e’, it’s now just how we do business.  There’s opportunity there for people that grab it, but it’s a dark master that can really turn on you (kind of like the dark side of the force, but with financial statements). 

Which all turns me to developing a point out of this blog post.  In a former life, I wrestled with getting the e-commerce stuff working for an accounting firm.  But the partners were loathe to move away from tried-and-true billable hours to something risky, untested, and frankly crazy-sounding.  But it’s an untested proposition to date.  My question of relevance (and yes, I think it’s really relevant) is, if the internet can completely change the way our clients do business, how are public accounting practices changing the way we work as a result?  Any good examples out there?  Any bad ones?  Or are public accounting practices somehow immune from the effects of the internet (and if so, why is this the case?)

Looking forward to your thoughts on the matter.