Brexit Countdown

BREXIT CountdownCountdown

Brexit Arrived

A timely Brexit song, I can't believe this has happened in my lifetime and at the same time Prince Harry decided to throw his life away and to try and become a Kardashian, the twit.

Kobe Bryant

Just heard that Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna have died in a helicopter crash in southern California. Dreadful news.

Update @ 20th Feb 2020: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/27/us/calabasas-helicopter-crash-kobe-bryant-monday/index.html

Nine on board, the victims look to have been travelling to a basketball game on board Kobe's helicopter.

Australian Open

Nick Kyrgios is looking good, I hope he goes deep this time, or even wins the whole show. I like how he plays fast, dictating the pace of the game. I laughed when he mocked Nadal over his pre-serve routines, which are tantamount to poor sportsmanship. How could the chair umpire give Kyrgios a time warning? He plays so fast, it isn't possible for him to be holding the game up. C'mon.

Good to see the back of that monumentally bad sport Serena Williams. This time beaten by the 27th seed Qiang Wang. I'll say it again, it's time for Williams to retire, she's old and slow. The seedings she's receiving are a nonsense, by being seeded so high she's always able to collect enough ranking points by drawing much easier opponents in the early rounds. As soon as she comes up against players of real class, she buckles. That's because players these days have her power, as well as the finesse she lacks. Give it up Serena Williams, for the good of the game.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Debacle

The full picture is now emerging and I have to say, I'm not impressed. The deal is the Sussexes will not be using their HRH titles, but they're not being stripped of them either; they won't be taking public funding but they will take funding from Prince Charles' Duchy of Cornwall. They're going to pay back the money spent on Frogmore Cottage, but it's unclear how and when that money will be paid.

I don't think this will work. The reason, too many areas of potential conflicts of interest, real or perceived. The only way for this to work is for Harry to become Harry Mountbatten-Windsor, a normal old Mister. Nothing more than that. 

Why do I say that? Using the Dukedom is a demotion. Harry and his wife become 'Your Grace.' That's got to sting and puts people they deal with in a difficult position, how do they address the pair exactly? Of course stripping away the titles makes the pair far less marketable, but wait, they're not meant to trade off their royal status. So explain, how does this work again?

Looking at the two, I have serious concerns about Harry. Meghan hasn't been part of the royal family for all that long and she's done well on her own, she's a survivor. But Harry has lived in a gilded cage his whole life, he probably thinks he knows what real life is like, but in reality he knows little of it. What is Harry meant to do now he can't be a royal? What can he do? There is nothing in his CV to suggest he can manage outside of the royal family. 

You want evidence of this I hear you say; he inherited a fortune from his mother, Diana, and the Queen Mother. These funds he now has full control of, so why isn't he already financially independent? What's this talk of seeking financial independence, he's only got himself, his wife who is not helpless and one small child. Harry is a fully grown man, what has he been doing with his money all this time?

Then it is reported Harry is considering buying a massively overpriced house in Vancouver, Canada. If he buys such a thing, I'd call that all the evidence anyone needs to prove he's financially illiterate. 

What does Harry know about? Land and horses. That's about it. Sensible is using a large proportion of his money on a farm in England, breeding horses, polo ponies and the like. Buying houses, even thinking about buying houses in Vancouver is simply throwing your money away. Where I see this heading, is in less than 2 years Harry will be back amongst the royals, cutting ribbons but much poorer for the experience of stepping back.

And what of Archie? How is he to be raised and educated? Remember, technically the couple are still HRH, he's seventh in line to the throne right now. When he grows older he may want to work as a royal, in that case he'd start to outrank his father who eschews his HRH status, odd indeed.

The Sussex Royal brand becomes problematic, isn't such a brand effectively trading on royal status? And funding from the Duchy of Cornwall, it's not really private money, this will become a sore point over time and an area where I feel Harry has shown he isn't thinking clearly. He can't be talking about financial independence but still relying on his father for handouts. 

What has been proposed looks rushed. It hasn't been fully thought through.

NBA TV Ratings Down

I'm not surprising to hear that NBA TV ratings are down, and according to the following link those lower ratings are confirmed by general activity on Reddit.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/should-the-nba-be-worried-about-tv-ratings-reddit-activity-says-so/?addata=espn:nba:teams

I think the reason for that lack of interest, despite the league being incredibly close, is fans have worked out the games are essentially fixed. By that I mean there appears to be a tacit arrangement in the regular season for stars to get open looks. Only when the post season commences are games hotly contested. Compare the NBA with soccer in the English Premier League, there each game is do or die stuff.

Back in 2016 I commented: https://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2016/04/basketball-nba-games.html

Following this, in 2017 I monitored two games and found them rigged: https://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2017/02/golden-state-warriors-v-m and https://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2017/02/denver-nuggets-v-cleveland-cavaliers.html

In 2015 I devised a basketball game to make the game more entertaining: https://kenhorlor.blogspot.com/2015/07/new-basketball.html

How to get the ratings back? The NBA has to stop being obsessed with scoring. Proper contests where defense is actually played would be a start.

Gmail Still Rubbish

The most annoying thing with Gmail is how you can't easily get rid of items under the promotions and social tabs. Recently I went in, marked unread items as read, deleted them, then went to the bin and emptied it. All gone then, or so I thought. Two days later I log back in, there they are again, everything back, marked as unread. I've mentioned this to others and they say the same thing happens to them. Gmail is the only free web based email that pulls this trick; they're keeping users on the site longer and forcing them to read emails you just want gone, for whatever reason.

Prince Harry and Meghan Stepping Back

Thing is, you can't be a little bit royal. You're either part of the family firm or you aren't. It's about time Harry and Meghan made their minds up, in or out.

Note the reaction from Buckingham Palace to the recent announcement by the pair: https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/118673807/prince-harry-and-meghan-stepping-back-as-senior-members-of-the-royal-family I like the phrase "these are complicated issues." That's an understatement if ever there was one. Here are a few issues;

Who is going to pick up the cost of security when in the US?

Is Harry actually resigning, he's still in the top 6, an important position within the line of succession. It's once out of the top 6 that things change. If he is resigning, does he keep his titles?

Financial independence: Harry inherited a small fortune from his mother Diana, why is he not already financially independent, he's had long enough to manage that much.

Does Harry know anything about living in the USA, can he even open a cheque account? Reports say he's going to be based in Canada, given their head of state is the Queen, doesn't this look a bit like remaining shackled to the Crown? Hmm?

Branding: will Meghan use her royal status to make money for herself. What are the boundaries, and if she does so, will she have to pay royalties to the Crown?

For their own explanation of what this 'new funding model' means, Harry and Meghan have launched a new website, read the relevant part here: https://sussexroyal.com/funding/

What do I think? It looks rather dodgy to me. Implied is that when they visit or cut a ribbon, they'll be attaching their invoice. That's quite improper and quite frankly, they shouldn't be able to maintain their status. They're simply becoming ordinary celebrities and that's all, just Harry and Meghan under this proposed 'structure.'

I also note they claim they're not currently funded by public money. Technically correct but that's not how the people see it, the Duchy of Cornwall, the Sovereign Grant etc from which the couple are funded, all of it is public money. My reaction to reading their website was 'get off the grass.'

Women in Concrete

I'm talking women in the business of concrete, not women actually in concrete, that would be injurious to their health (for those who don't know; concrete mix burns and can kill you if you get too much of it on your skin). There are many good women in concrete, one I recently read about owns Tec-Crete Transit-Mix Corp of Queens, New York, NY.

http://teccretenyc.com/pages/about-us/

Founded in 1998, owner Ms Linda Gisonda won a Women Business Enterprise (WBE) award in 2013. Yay. 

Tec-Crete have a total of 4 dry batch plants across two locations. As their name suggests, this will be an operation where the ingredients for the concrete are discharged into the truck, water is then added to the agitator on the back of the truck and the mix is completed while the truck drives to the site (alternatively, a dry batch may make its way to the job site with water and the mix completed at the destination). What dry batching allows for is longer delivery distances, however that generally comes at the expense of payload, as a heavier truck is required to do the mixing.

Another way of doing things, very popular this, is to completely mix at the plant, the mix is then discharged into the agitator on the back of the truck. This type of plant is called central mix. The advantage of this is fast batching, and the mix can be discharged into anything, even a dump truck. Another advantage is smaller trucks fitted with lighter agitators can be used to deliver the same or greater payload, however they can only do so over a much shorter distance compared to transit mix. 

So there we have the age-old quandary, tyranny of distance vs capital cost vs operating costs. Which is better? My father always preferred central mix and spoke of its advantages often. Transit mix certainly comes into its own if distance is a factor (or waiting times before discharging loads), which is often the case in Australia for instance.

Like this:

Distance or waiting times, lower cost of batching plant, heavier trucks required (less payload), higher cost of running trucks = Transit Mix.

Short distance or waiting times, higher cost of batching plant, lighter trucks (more payload), lower cost of running trucks - Central Mix.

Australia Bush Fires

The smoke from the bush fires ravaging Australia has reached where I am right now. Last night I couldn't go outside as the air was bad, and get this, I'm in Christchurch on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. That's 3-4 days by sea, 3-4 hours by air, across the expanse of the Tasman Sea. I'm not young and have seen a bit of this and that, but this is one thing I've never experienced before. Perhaps a little bit of haze in the sky, OK, but not the actual smoke in the air and feeling it is hard to breath. These fires are truly catastrophic.