Blogging

Cardwell Christmas Lights 2013!

by

Dear $FacebookUser – this has cropped up several times in my newsfeed now.

Cardwell does not have a Mosque. No muslim community asked for Christmas lights to be taken down. If you are sharing a statement that says otherwise, it is a hoax, a lie, a hate designed to spread ill.

It says something about Australians though that we are so quick to accept and share such easily-debunked vitriol without question. As a 5th generation Australian (as best as I can tell, anyway), I’d like to think it’s a simple naivety. That’s a best case scenario.

Look, there’s plenty to complain about with respect to a great many things, including Islam, cyclists, motorbikers, dog-breeders, uni students, Christianity, Rastafarianism, academics, accountants, tattoos, Fast and Furious movies and Holdens. There’s really no need to get offended by made-up stuff.

Phd progress – and life

by

I really should blog more, I think.  I made the last post back in February, and here it is, August!

And so many things are happening, not the least of which is my phd getting closer and closer to submission.  I’m going to try and get a bit better at blogging – I think the problem is that this blog doesn’t know whether it’s a personal blog or an informatory blog.

I may have to work out a way to sort that – or just ignore it.  My money’s on the latter.

As for the phd, it is moving along.  I am writing Chapter 6 (there are 7 chapters all up), and this chapter is a biggie with a fair bit of writing involved in terms of analysing what the results mean, and ‘what else’ might be in the data.  There’s a lot of work that’s gone into getting to this stage, and a few dry gullies of analysis, but the post-hoc analysis is finally done.  With any luck, the writing up will be a snap.

Ha ha ha.  I kill me.

Anyway, submission has to occur by November, as I have accepted a post-doctoral research fellowship at UQ, and you kind of need to be a ‘post’ by that stage.

Yesterday’s challenge:  Compiling and synthesising the post-hoc coding of my qualitative research data to identify broad themes for discussion.

Today’s challenge:  write that up as a story.  I want to have that sorted out this week so that I can go and fix my motorbike.  I sort-of kind-of fell off it two weekends ago, and it is resting in purgatory (aka my sister’s house) until I fix Chapter 6 and can then fix the motorbike.

Wish me luck.

I leave you with a photo of a drawing my daughter made this morning at the Sir Albert Sakzewski Virus Research Centre – she is participating in a vaccine trial for Meningococcal disease.

A healthy house

My friend the moggy

by

Consider this world of ours. It is very strange. Not just because it is big and blue, hanging in the inky depths of space like a bowling ball that forgot to fall to the ground. This world is also strange because of the people hanging precariously on that thin crust of a surface. Let us consider those things that I don’t understand about our world, and some of those that I do.

I do understand why my cat is a good hunter of its prey – it’s a sleek beast made for the purpose.

I don’t understand why people have to hate each other. Some people really are ‘haters’ – their hate defines them, destroys the very essence of their being. We should never ‘hate’ – it is the very strongest of emotions and destroys your soul when you do.

I do understand why my cat is gentle with victims. It shows no mercy in achieving its goal, but after the thrill of the hunt the victims are set free – to live another day.

I don’t understand the need to hate – maybe hating a cardboard cutout is easier than understanding. The real story is too complex – all Men have feet of clay – if they don’t, they haven’t had ‘A Current Affair’ ruin their lives yet! Beware the absolute. ‘All Nazis are evil’. ‘All Muslims blow people up’. ‘All heroin addicts are destroyed and lost souls’. Everyone has a story to tell if the ‘real them’ is allowed onto the open plains – ‘Australian Story’ on the ABC tells us that. The absolute is easier to hate, to revile, to cast out into the wilderness of blackness. The absolute is a cruel master of your mind.

I do understand why my cat is powerful. His passion is coupled with strong desire for life lived out of the shadows.

I don’t understand why hatred needs to be such a powerful force – we see the bloody evidence of it every time we power up that glowing screen that emasculates our minds. Is it just me that doesn’t understand this world? Why journalists need to cackle with demonic glee as Baghdad is bombed? Why Islamic fundamentalists rejoice in the destruction of people never met?

In the midst of all this drear, can the powerful force of hatred be fought? Not in the traditional way. The only way I know is to fight the eternal darkness of the soul by acting locally. Build bridges with your ‘absolutes’. I do understand my friend the Moggie. My cat is a Lion, and my cat is out of the bag. You are that cat – you have the power to choose whether to scratch the furniture or to make this world a better place.

My very disorganized desk

by

image

A book from the library. Stats textbook. Nurofen for phd induced headaches. Empty wallet. New external battery case for my HTC phone. Site plans for a proposed upcoming renovation. Glasses tool because the little screw keeps falling out of my glasses. A snapshot of my life right at the moment. Sigh. But at least I will get to ride my motorbike to uni today despite the bushfires.

AMCIS 2012: “Continued use of intelligent decision aids and auditor knowledge: qualitative evidence”

by

So, I submitted a paper to AMCIS 2012, an academic conference to be held in Seattle this year (http://amcis2012.aisnet.org/).  The paper was accepted (“I also think that this should generate some interesting discussion and hopefully receive further guidance to help the authors publish their work in a journal”) and so I am off to Seattle in August.

This paper was written solely by myself, without revision by supervisors, so I am quite happy about that.  It is also based on my phd, which is very helpful, and of course reviewer comments are very good to help with this process.

Anyway as I haven’t blogged in a while – here is the abstract of my paper “Continued use of intelligent decision aids and auditor knowledge:  qualitative evidence”:

The Theory of Technology Dominance proposes that continued use of intelligent decision aids (IDAs) relates to a decrease in auditors’ decision making skills, or deskilling. Prior research has considered deskilling in terms of auditor declarative knowledge. This research considers deskilling in relation to auditor declarative and procedural knowledge through an extended research model. A novel, rigorous and repeatable qualitative research method using automated text analysis (Leximancer) is developed for the analysis of significant bodies of text. Nineteen senior auditors in three audit offices were interviewed, and the transcripts analyzed. The findings indicate strong support for the hypothesized negative relationships between three constructs (the extent an IDA performs routine and time-intensive tasks, the dependence of an auditor on the IDA, and the auditor’s time with an IDA), and an auditor’s declarative and procedural knowledge. The results indicate avenues for future research, and provide guidance to practitioners in the use of IDAs. 

Once it is published I will put a link to the paper on this blog entry.