Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

  • Obligatory Australian Election Post

    We just had a national election in Australia. As I have done for every other election, I held an election party, this time sans-partner (who was in Oz), and sans-Australians (since I was in Japan). It was attended by an Iranian, two Japanese, one Australian, an American and a Thai.

    So, it seems I should also have an obligatory election post here, since I commented on Australian politics recently, and also on the British coalition government.

    For my non-Australian reader(s), a brief overview of Australian politics. Australia has a Federal system with a bicameral national parliament, consisting of the lower house (House of Representatives, HoR) and the upper house (Senate). Voting is compulsory and we have a preferential single transferable vote system, so essentially: you have to vote and if your first choice doesn’t get up, your vote wings its way on to the next most popular person, and so on, until it exhausts or someone you preferenced really low gets past 50% of the (preference-allocated) vote. You can see the shenanigans in action at the AEC virtual tally room[1]. The senate is voted at a state level and is even more horribly complicated. There are two main parties, the left-wing party being a social democratic workers party, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the “right-wing” party being the Liberal Party, which never garnishes enough votes to rule in its own right and so is in a coalition with the classic party of agrarian socialism, the National Party. The Liberal Party is supposed to traditionally be the party of old-fashioned liberalism, but under Howard it took a turn to protectionist/state-interventionist conservatism, and this was reflected even more so in the current leader, Tony Abbot, a failed catholic monk. There is one other significant party, the Greens, who have a broad political platform but are often characterised as single issue because they were, once. They’re also characterized as “watermelons” (green on the outside and red in the middle) but there is actually some debate amongst rational people as to whether or not they are a social democrat party at all – their own policy manifesto suggests an economic, as well as social, “third way” that is neither classically capitalist nor social democrat[2][3]. The significant leftist party, the ALP, were the incumbents for this election, but kind of screwed the pooch a bit when the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was deposed by his deputy, Julia Gillard, just weeks before the election was called, in what is rightly characterized as a midnight doorknock-and-knifing. People were horrified by the brutality of his demise, and I was certainly upset for him (Kevin Rudd seemed like a decent guy), but I also note that this is how the ALP works – they’ll throw their own grandmother under a bus if a) it gets them power and b) it helps the workers[7]. At the time this seemed like it might be an election-winning idea, and I was supportive of it for that reason (I share with the ALP a certain respect for brutality towards the higher echelons of the workplace!) but it turns out that it just meant, in the eyes of the electorate, that the ALP threw away all the benefits of incumbency. Every time anyone said “we were a good govt” people could say “well then why did you take Kevin out the back and shoot him?” Bit of an oops that one.

    A few notes on Julia Gillard and the ALP government: The ALP steered Australia through a recession without any significant harm, through a combination of good luck and fast, early stimulus, well documented here. I have previously discounted statistically claims that the second part of that stimulus package created extra house fires, and recent reports have suggested that the final, biggest stage – the BER – really wasn’t very wasteful, given its context. They also introduced some partial reforms of healthcare funding, a much-needed area of reform in Oz, and they apologized to indigenous Australians for a dismal aspect of our past, the Stolen Generations. They repealed the previous government’s horrific labour rights legislation, the viciously-misnamed “workchoices,” and attempted to pass a carbon-abatement scheme. This carbon-abatement scheme – which, incidentally, was much criticized for doing nothing but give money to polluters – was the cause of all their subsequent trouble, because it led to massive chaos in the opposition, culminating in the replacement of a new breed moderate leader with the worst type of reactionary (Tony Abbot) and was subsequently knocked back in the senate. Then, instead of showing the spine required of an ALP leader, Kevin Rudd squibbed on it and refused to force it through. He had the choice of a) negotiating a real agreement with the greens or b) ramming it down the conservatives’ throat by means of a “Double Dissolution” election. The latter requires spine, and the former requires principles. So instead he announced that he would delay the ETS essentially indefinitely, and then his poll numbers started to dive.

    A few notes on Tony Abbot and the Liberal/National coalition: Tony Abbot replaced a moderate (who was very dodgy himself) in the furore over the carbon abatement scheme, and has run a campaign based exclusively on negativity and having no policies. He promises to “stop the waste, stop the boats and stop the debt” but has no policy on anything to offer. In addition to being very negative, he’s also a staunch catholic who believes women should “save their precious gift” for marriage and who, when health minister, acted to ban the early abortion pill RU486 over departmental advice. I don’t think his religious views would be that relevant in government but if he ever secured control of both houses of parliament things could get a bit… retrograde … in the sex and marriage department[10]. He also got an easy run in the media, who reward stunts over substance every time, and didn’t ever seem to inquire into his policy ideas at all, or pursue them. I have yet to see a single media report on the home insulation program, for example, make any attempt (even vague) to link increasing numbers of fires to increasing numbers of insulations[11]. This is trivial stuff, but as I’ve said before, journalists are so thick that they depend on being fed lies by smarter people than themselves in order to do their job. As an indication of how stupid journalists are – Tony Abbot believes that climate change is “crap” (his words), but journalists still believe things he tells them. It’s actually really hard to pin down a single policy Abbott held in this election except “we’ll give money to rural and marginal seats.” Also, there was a general policy of “our government won’t spend money on infrastructure,” exemplified by his opposition to the government’s $43 billion planned investment in broadband – the opposition preferred a $6 billion policy based on subsidizing the current monopoly to provide wireless to rural seats.

    So, Australians went to the polls facing a choice between a lunatic coalition and an ALP that had shown itself willing to back down on its principles at the first sign of trouble. Australians don’t vote in the ALP to back down on principles. So there was a huge swing against the government, most of which flowed to the greens, giving them a new primary vote of 11.5%, a seat in the lower house (Melbourne), and 4 more seats in the Senate. This means that they control the balance of power in the new senate. The two main parties are both going to fail to get enough seats to control the lower house and are currently frantically negotiating with 3 rural independents to form government. A few notes on this:

    • hung parliaments are rarely rare in a compulsory voting, single transferable preferential voting system – the last one was in 1940
    • The Greens vote is not unexpected after the ALP backed down on the carbon scheme, and a first term swing to the opposition is not unexpected as well, but 1.7% nationally is probably a bit much
    • The government lost its majority largely because of shenanigans in two states, New South Wales and Queensland, whose State governments are so on the nose that they may be poisoning the Federal vote – this may have been a problem even if the ALP had behaved impeccably at a national level, and the Liberals certainly played on it
    • If it weren’t for the rural gerrymander favouring the Nationals, the result wouldn’t be in question. The Nationals win 4% of the vote nationally and get 7 seats; the Greens win 11.5% and get 1 seat
    • There was a huge amount of postal / pre voting that polls suggest heavily favoured the ALP, and so it’s possible that close seats will be decided in favour of the ALP (or the Greens) after preference counting is complete. If this happens the “hung” parliament may be reversed to a bare ALP majority (highly unlikely) or the ALP may not have to negotiate with the independents
    • The Independents are ex-National Party rural politicians, but they also really hate the Nationals[12], so it’s unlikely they’ll side easily with them
    • The Independents also seem to be strong supporters of climate change action and broadband investment, so this is a plus for the ALP in negotiations, particularly since the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate and dealing with them will require some quid pro quo
    • The ALP has won a slightly higher proportion of the primary vote (50.7%) so they also can argue they are the “more popular” (hah!) party[13]

    So my guess is that we’ll get a coalition of the ALP with Greens and/or Independents; and even if the Greens are excluded from the coalition in the House of Representatives, they’ll ultimately de facto have to be included in the coalition because from July next year they have a stranglehold on the senate. The only alternative (and it’s not impossible) is that Labour and Liberal may work together to exclude the Greens – they may continue to think it’s in their best interests to oppose the growth of a third party.

    The main bonus of this election is that it highlights the coming of age of the Greens, from a protest party through a single issue party to a party of national relevance. They haven’t really been a single issue party for a long time (their manifesto, written by Bob Brown with the philosopher Peter Singer, was published in 1994), but they’ve always been treated that way by the media. It has taken this extreme situation of a collapse in confidence in the major parties and some good luck in a local electorate to get a member in the lower house, and it has been growing awareness of that single issue – the environment – which has propelled them to fame. In the past they have entered coalitions at a State level and it hasn’t worked so well, but at a Federal level they have an excellent thinker in the form of their senate leader, Bob Brown, and there’s every chance they can behave responsibly and with principle. If they do, Australians will be shown an alternative to the two main parties. This will end the ALP’s 100-year-long effective stranglehold on the left-wing vote, and may have significant ramifications for the Nationals if their rural electorate start to think of the Greens as alternative representatives of farmer’s wealth and rural issues[14]. In quite a few electorates the Greens gave the final winner from the main party a run for their money, either coming close to them in the primary vote or forcing them to depend on preferences. This indicates that the old order is starting to fray at the edges, and if either of the main parties forms an effective coalition with Independents and/or Greens, we may see the beginning of the end of two party dominance in Australia.

    The Liberals particularly need to be scared of this, because the combined primary vote of the Greens and the ALP is 50%, much higher than the Liberal/National 44%. If that gets turned into seats for the Greens – either through the ALP coordinating better with them, or the Greens winning in seats where a three-headed race previously favoured Liberal – then the Liberal/Nationals are facing big electoral trouble. The Liberals must be keenly aware of this given that the Nationals’ vote share has been declining over the last 30 years (they are “agrarian socialists” after all). If that vote share drops below a certain level, there’s every risk the Greens will replace the Nationals on the Federal stage, and that is the death-knell of conservative/classical liberal politics in Australia. This in turn would be very good for Australia because it would force the Liberals to reinvent themselves as a socially left-wing, environmentally conscious party of liberalism, rather than the socially-conservative right-wing broad church that they’re trying to be now. Such a move was on the cards after the last election but the conflict over the carbon abatement scheme halted that move. A move towards coalition politics in Australia might – depending on the performance of the coalition partners – hasten it, and <i>that</i> would be a very good outcome for Australia.

    But at present, the more realistic outcome (as far as I can see) is that after a remarkably successful election campaign for Tony Abbot and his conservatives, we’ll end up with the most left wing government in 30 years…

    UPDATE: The independents have presented a list of demands to the Gillard government, and they’re impressive. Part of this is a demand to fully cost both party’s policies, which should be a problem for the liberals – their policies have not yet been costed, and there is some dispute as to whether they will work out. This letter also seems to put the ball firmly in Gillard’s court, since there are a variety of undertakings there that are harder for an opposition to meet than a government. They also in my view address concerns that the independents were just going to be pork-barrelling. I think there is some strong behind-the-scenes distate with the National Party working behind all of this, and I wonder if the past behaviour of the Nationals is hindering Abbot in negotiating with them. I heard that the Nationals’ leader, Warren Truss, is not allowed in the negotiations with these independents and I recall before the 2004 election there was an attempt to smear Windsor with a bribery allegation, possibly by Truss. I imagine there is not much love lost between them!

    —

    fn1: The AEC is an Aussie organisation to be proud of, btw. 14 million Australians voted out of 22 million, and the polling booths all closed without fuss at 6pm, and the decision was (approximately) known by midnight. Compare with the UK, where 27 million people out of 64 million voted, but there was chaos.

    fn2: For this reason I am only partly a greens supporter. I like their environmental and social policies but I’m also strongly social democrat-aligned, and I’m really suspicious of economic policies that aren’t based on social democracy. I can see that for post-industrial (like the UK) or resource-exporting societies (like Oz) a non-social-democratic model could be a good idea, but I can also see that it could just be economic hoodoo, and not worth trying.

    fn3: Incidentally, while I broadly approve of the rough characterization of social democrat as “left,” I think the dichotomization of this kind of debate into social democracy VS. capitalism is puerile, particularly in a country like Australia where essentially all the parties are social democratic, and the debate between them concerns workers rights and what proportion of the economy should be socialized (and that debate itself narrows over time)[4].

    fn4: Lenin agrees with me about this. He was full of scorn for social democratic parties and saw them as a weak attempt to soften capitalism’s hard edges. The way this played out in pre-war Europe is beautifully described in Darkness at Noon by Koestler[5]

    fn5: A book I think is in many ways better than 1984, and should definitely be read by those interested in a genuine, non-ideological critique of the ideology of marxist-leninism[6]

    fn6: as opposed to a non-ideological critique of the outcomes of marxist-leninism, which is trivial, like shooting fish in a barrel

    fn7: though I think it’s safe to say this part of the ALP’s “let’s throw granny under a bus” impulse is getting weaker over successive generations of hacks[8]

    fn8: and it’s also worth noting that in a services- and export-oriented economy like Australia, the concept of “helping the workers” is getting harder to found in a single party political program, which is why I’m increasingly tempted to look into the details of the Greens’ economic policies[9]

    fn9: which is possibly the mistake that Saruman made

    fn10: Typically the federal government doesn’t get control of both houses, and has to negotiate for everything. This is even true of the current ALP, who won in a “landslide” so significant that the former PM lost his own seat; but they still couldn’t control the senate.

    fn11: The media still report deaths in Iraq as “over 100,000” when we know that they’re over a million – they won’t report anything which disputes their preferred narrative, and their preferred narrative for the insulation program was that it was a failure. This narrative is straight from the liberals.

    fn12: One described them as a “cancer” he had given up, two of them referred to the Nationals’ Finance Spokesperson as a “fool” who “embarrasses rural Australia” and the leader of the Nationals, Warren Truss, has been excluded from negotiations with them because their relationship is so bad

    fn13: In the Oz system, “2 party preferred vote” means the percent of votes assigned to the party after preferences have been distributed, and due to the Strong Law of Large Numbers is unlikely to ever be bigger than 52% or less than 48% – very small differences represent large “popularity” (under a very strained definition of popular in which only 39% of people actually voted for the ALP)

    fn14: Australian farmers are typically represented as anti-environmentalist rednecks but there is a lot of evidence that this is just the opinion of their elite representative bodies, the Farmer’s Federations and the Nationals, not actually particularly representative of rural opinions. Country people have a lot of significant environmental concerns quite apart from global warming, and the Nationals have failed to deliver on them for years – which is part of the reason all the independents in the House of Reps are ex-Nationals.

  • Alternative NHS Reforms

    So previously I mentioned that I don’t think the Tory’s reforms of the NHS will work, and there was a bit of discussion (well, me waffling, really) about alternative models. Today via the Guardian I discovered this gem of a website, in which the Treasury has put up a list of suggestions that British people submitted for ways to save money. They then get rated and the Treasury will (apparently) seriously consider some of them. So of course, since it’s about spending and costs, the NHS has a whole section of its own. This includes terribly exciting suggestions for cost-cutting like “rationalise journal purchasing across NHS Trusts[1]” (someone must have thought this process was serious!)

    Of course, one of the most endearing traits about the British is that they can take the piss out of anything, with a depth of cynicism and wit that I think is unmatched in the world[2], and indeed they’ve managed to do so with this. Here are some alternative suggestions:

    • The NHS should prescribe monocles: and patients can pay the extra for two lenses out of their own pocket. Sadly this won’t work because “top-ups” are banned in the NHS.
    • Stop selling alcohol for one week: I think this has been tried before and wasn’t quite a cost-cutting success, but the person submitting it (“bigoted_oaf”) has an amusing dig at “moderate drinkers” and an excellent implementation strategy: “Go into Tesco with a golf club and set about their cut-price displays. Let everyone else know politely that it’s not allowed.”
    • Tax cigarettes: and restrict where they can be sold. Anyone think this might have been tried somewhere before? Maybe we could raise money by taxing people’s incomes, too?
    • More alternative therapies: because they’re cheaper. Whatever would Prince Charles say?
    • Get stoned: apparently natural hemp oil kills cancer. You heard it here first!

    In amongst these reform suggestions were the serious ones, which seem to mainly consist of:

    • charging a nominal fee for doctor’s appointments, A&E appointments, or prescription drugs
    • charging people for non-attendance at appointments
    • some arcane stuff about end-of year budget rollovers
    • blaming foreigners

    There were also a few sad comments by people using the site to lodge complains about the poor treatment they received in the NHS.

    Oh, and someone wanted to bring back Matron!!!

    —

    fn1: For some reason in the UK a Hospital or small collection of Hospitals is referred to as a “Trust,” even though when you visit, all they do is give you a paracetamol and send you home

    fn2: Though I get the impression that the Polish and maybe Iranians give them a run for their money

  • Current reading: Kraken, China Mieville

    Kraken, by China Mieville, is another “city-within-a-city” novel, like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Mieville’s previous (rather lacklustre) effort, UnLunDun. In this case the city-wthin-the-city is a supernatural world of grafters, shonksters and magicians, all oriented around a plethora of cults who worship “cast-off” deities and apocalyptic visions, all residing within London. There are some parts of London that are hidden or secret but the majority of it happens in plain view, in the same London that you or I know.

    Unlike Mieville’s previous effort, the elsewhere London in this novel is really apt to the real London. It’s a world of cockney arseholes, criminals, rip-off merchants and sleazebags, where people construct their magical lives from cast-off objects and ideas, working their magic in the interstices of objects and cultures. Even the magic itself is beautifully London, a type of make-do enchanting called “knacking” that depends on the resemblances between real objects and the spells constructed from them. The magic is often low-key, cobbled together, not-quite-right, and a bit dirty. Just like London. The elsewhere world perfectly reflects the realities of London’s fragmented, higgledy-piggledy reality, its dirt, the way everyone in the city has to make the best they can of what they’ve got. It also cleverly reflects that sense in London of ideas and cultures all packed together, confused, borrowing from each other and overcrowded in the same supposedly English space. London is a broken, nowhere town, full of transient people, transient plans and transient cultures. Mieville seems to have finally put all this together into a science-fantasy of quite stunning brilliance.

    He’s also managed to merge the modern and the arcane in quite clever ways, just like Jim Butcher has in the Dresden Files. A few small examples:

    • a character uses the internet to search out her lover, and discovers a whole hidden world of “knackers” and cultists working online
    • a character is paid for his work in Star Trek memorabilia that has been “knacked” so that it works
    • cultists and believers steal ideas for their “knacks,” their style and manner from science fiction and fantasy, so that their work is self-referential, and sometimes their magic is intended to mimic the magic or tech of their favourite shows
    • a chameleon character uses his magic to infiltrate organizations by appearing to be one of their members; but the way he does it is perfectly and completely dependent upon mimicking and exploiting modern corporate culture

    My absolute favourite so far has been the chapter devoted to describing the background of the guy who runs the Familiar’s Union. He used to be  a statue that served Egyptian souls in their afterlife, but he ran a strike there, then left the afterlife and swam back up through the netherworld to the world of the living, to become an organizer. This story is uniquely brilliant to me because it merges cultures rather than technologies from two different times. Instead of him being simply an Egyptian magician who wears an ankh necklace and hangs out in a club, he’s an Egyptian magical slave from a slave-owning time, who has transcended the netherworld to become that quintessential element of the modern Industrial age – a union organizer. But the things he’s organizing don’t always have souls, and work in an industrial landscape that is pre-modern (the cottage industries of wizards). This is Mieville at his best, blending politics, culture, and history through sci fi fantasy for the pure purpose of having fun.

    The plot is also beautifully self-referential without being wanky. Essentially, it involves the theft of an embalmed giant squid from the London Natural History Museum. The squid is probably a dead god, and is worshiped by a cult of messianic krakenists, who believe that at the end of the world they will be drawn to a heaven in the Ocean’s deeps. The whole thing is full of cthulhu references (sometimes directly) even though there’s no admission that either the squid or the cult are directly cthulhu-worshipers. The theft coincides with some kind of magical change in London, and the chase is on to find the squid before something really bad happens. Of course the people doing the chasing are in conflict with a sinister, evil organization or organizations, who are really really evil and constructed from a really interesting pastiche of modern images, sub-cultures and cults. The book includes two bad guys, Goss and Subby, who are almost up to the standard of the bad guys in Neverwhere.

    I thought that Mieville went off the rails a bit with Iron Council (pardon the pun) and UnLunDun, but he’s back on track with this gem. I haven’t finished yet but so far it’s brilliant, and I recommend it to anyone who needs a bit of science-fantasy entertainment. This book also cements my view of China Mieville as a great writer of, and possibly the main exponent/inventor of, some kind of new sub-genre of science-fantasy, Urban Chaos Science Fantasy, maybe, or CityPunk, or something. His three best novels that I’ve read – Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and now Kraken – are all based in a kind of city, and the vibrancy of the city itself is essential to the plot of the books. The city is almost a character on its own in his work, and his strength is in his representation of the extraordinary and ordinary lives of its denizens.

    I also think that Mieville’s leftist politics is a complete furphy in analysis of his work, because although it clearly informs the creation of some of the characters, and his depiction of the different strata of the societies he creates, I think ultimately his works are surprisingly devoid of political messages (though rich in political conflict). For a man who is generally caricatured as a cardboard cutout lefty from the Politburo, his work is actually both suprisingly anarchist (not leninist at all!) and generally devoid of strong left-wing political messages. I don’t think I’ve met a single character outside of Iron Council who ever could be said to represent Mieville’s politics, nor have I read a plot that shows them clearly. Even The Scar, which is a bit of a Utopian quest, if it has any political interpretation at all, would be a guarded critique of the folly of trusting vanguardists – which would be a bit wierd coming from someone of Mieville’s supposedly Marxist-Leninist views. The key to understanding Mieville’s work is his representation of cities.

    So, again: read this if you have the time and money, ’cause so far it’s great!

  • Fucking Linux

    I’m going out for a drink now. I spent much of this afternoon and evening trying to install Linux on a PowerPC iBook G4. The only reason I’m doing this is that I thought it might be nimbler than mac os 10.4. We use this iBook purely for watching movies (it’s plugged into the tv) and playing music, but recently its been struggling with streamed stuff, and I thought a non-mac OS might work. Linux is supposed to be speedier. So I tried installing it.

    I have previously managed to install windows 7 on two iMacs, one of which is depicted here. I got this done with the help of Apple’s bootcamp, which sorts out the boot sector of the mac so you don’t have any really painful problems. I found a couple of sites online – here and here – which claim to have installed ubuntu on an ibook, so I thought I’d try it.

    Of course it was impossible. Just like the last two times I’ve tried to install linux on anything. What a useless piece of shit linux is. Here is why:

    1. For a start, the installation disc randomly crashes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Brilliant.
    2. Secondly, the installation disc runs into some kind of problem with the file system and, instead of throwing up an error saying “encountered a file system problem, you really should try using a decent computer” or some such, it produces an incomprehensible and meaningless “ubi-partman crashed with exit code 141.” Now, correct me if I’m wrong but “exit code” sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for “error code.” Could it be the linux community are so up themselves now that they don’t want to refer to errors as errors?[1]. Anyway, I looked up “exit code 141” on the internet and it has multiple possible causes. This is singularly unhelpful. This is a microsoft or SPSS level of debugging power[3a]. I want to know what causes my error, so I can work around it[4], not just get pointed to a series of websites full of people with diverse OSs and hardware talking about a meaningless error code. So I had to go back online looking for oblique solutions to the problem. This is nothing compared to the last time I had to solve a Linux problem, but we’ll get to that
    3. Thirdly, the available information about how to proceed to a successful implementation has no relation to the way that the Ubuntu installer works. For example, one of those sites says “Choose all default options but when it comes to partitioning, dlete the Ubuntu partition you created earlier. go back and choose to use maximum free space”. None of these processes or options existed in my installer. So there’s no way for legacy information to be used to inform current installations. I’ve never seen a “use maximum free space” option in any partition software. But I get three completely different options I can choose from. I think it’s probably a mark of an amateur software project to have completely different installation processes at every release. The basic processes of installation are the same in every iteration, surely?
    4. WTF is it with the verbose way that Linux starts up and shuts down? I know that there are a couple of hundred people in the world who think it’s cool how the computer tells you that “random process A” is “doing incomprehensible shit B”, and there might be another 10 people in the world who actually know what it’s doing, but it really looks juvenile. It’s like the BSOD – nobody understands that crap, so why bother? The shutdown process in Ubuntu is particularly pratty. Why on God’s green earth should I have to hit return halfway through the process after the CD spits out? There’s no going back from here, why bother?

    Anyway, so the basic problem seems to be this: Apple mangles the boot sector, and you need to somehow come up with a set of partitions that the linux installer can read in order to use it. The installer is supposed to be able to preserve the Apple bootsector, so it just becomes a straight dual boot, but in fact no matter how I contort the installation process I end up fucking the apple boot sector 8 ways to Sunday (take that, Steve!) and then it can’t reboot. Following the information in the few websites by people who’ve done it is just impossible, largely because I don’t understand the process of setting up Linux drives[5] but possibly also because Apple mangled the boot sector, and maybe also because I’m profoundly stupid when it comes to linux[8].

    So I tried setting up an ext4 partition on top of the Mac OS one. My Hard Drive is 30g, so I had:

    • 32 kb boot sector[9]
    • 132 Mb of nothing
    • 6 Gb of MacOS
    • 132Mb of nothing
    • 21Gb of ext4, the standard linux file format (apparently)

    Then I start the Ubuntu installer (after several tries, of course) and it offers me three partitioning choices: install side by side, use the whole disc, or custom format. The first choice doesn’t “install side by side at all” but instead splits my 21gb partition into two chunks of ext4. The second choice does what is expected, but that will probably shaft the bootsector so it was out; the third choice demanded to know “where is the root mount” and since this is my partner’s computer I’m not going to root mount it; I left this well alone. Choosing option a), I proceeded with an installation that just stopped 75% of the way through, and somehow managed to shaft the bootsector, because when I gave up on the process and restarted I had lost the mac os boot as well.

    What kind of installation software is that? I just downloaded a “disc” that is designed to fuck my machine. And on top of that, when I repeated the process – same partition in mac os, same install disc – the following happened:

    • The first time I insert the install disc, it just fails, out of hand
    • second time, the install disc works but I get the stupid “ubipartman” error, i.e. the partition software can’t handle the ext4 file system (???!!!???)

    So, I don’t really even know if this ubipartman error has anything to do with apple’s shenanigans with the boot sector, or if it’s just a bodgy piece of software. Someone else I spoke to said all knowingly “ah, yes, getting the partition software to work is always the trick.”

    You know your software is shit when people are saying things like that about it. Let’s try similar phrases with some other software shall we?

    • Stats software: “ah yes, getting the mathematics engine to work is always the trick”
    • Graphics software: “ah yes, getting the colour palette to work can be a tad fiendish”
    • Nuclear powerplant software: “oh yes, we always take the radioactivity meters with a grain of salt, it’s the software don’t you know old chap?”

    So, this is my third time attempting to install linux and my first time on a laptop. Let’s review our results:

    • First time: nothing, the installer just died in the arse
    • Second time: I installed it fine but X Window didn’t work. Who wants linux without x window? It’s a glorified telex machine. So I hunted around on the internet and it turned out that there’s no standard drivers for the i810 chipset, but someone had written one. I downloaded it and installed it but it didn’t work, and another day of hunting on the internet enabled me to discover that a couple of lines of code in the driver had typos in them. Fucking typos. So I hunted out other drivers with similar code and worked out how to correct the typos, and X Window worked. Oh my god! This is the computing equivalent of making fire. A fucking GUI, man! What next – object oriented programming?!! Anyway, so then when I invoke my beautiful X Window[10], there is no networking. I try invoking the control panel thingy to work out what the next driver problem is and… nothing. No functioning control panel. Two days of struggle to get X Window to work, and I still have to work out the control panel?!! Fuck that. I wiped it
    • Third time: Who knows what mysteries can be produced with the arcane combination of Steve Jobs ratfucking your boot sector and linux trying to clean it up?

    So I think I just need to give up. But I just want to point out that EVERY TIME I have spoken to someone about installing Linux they have said to me “oh, it used to be really hard, but now it’s trivial, point and click, out of the box baby.”

    Well, I beg to differ.

    None of this would be an issue of course, except that there’s an army of linux nerds out there carefully watching the progress of linux, calculating every 10th of a percentage point increase in its market share, claiming it’s the best thing ever and wondering why it isn’t more popular. If any of you are reading this, perhaps there is a hint of why contained in my struggles[11].

    And don’t even get me started on my attempts to get hold of a decent, working 64 bit windows package!!!!

    —

    fn1: Many years ago I had cause to call a Microsoft helpdesk[2] and the guy on the other end of the phone referred to a clear bug as an “oversight.” I challenged him about this and he told me that it was official policy that bugs were “oversights.” Windows NT was great at the time[3], but jesus christ…

    fn2: Hey, don’t criticise me! I was at work, it was Windows NT, I was desperate!

    fn3: This is where Apple screwed the pooch. Windows were floating around with the shittest software on the planet (windows 3.1), but it was tied to the best productivity software (MS Office). Apple had a chance here to come up with a killer OS that would take market share, provided that a) it worked and b) they used MS Office. Unfortunately, they gave us Mac OS 8, and they were too arrogant to respond to complaints of “my computer freezes” with “we’ll fix that” before Windows NT came out. I don’t know what happened to b), but jesus Mac OS 8 was shit.

    fn3a: not as bad as SPSS. Until their most recent incarnation, when SPSS syntax ran into an error it told you the column number rather than the line number[3b]

    fn3b: Possibly not as bad as R, either, another piece of open source joy. When I was working with R in Japan, I actually had a piece of code that worked on one computer but not another, until we removed the comments[3c].

    fn3c: which is almost as bad as my friend’s experience of an electronics lab in our undergrad physics days, when his experiment worked using wires with blue insulation plastic but not red.

    fn4: Witness here the soft bigotry of low expectations. I’m so used to Microsoft and Apple (and SPSS) that instead of saying “I want to know what the problem is so I can get someone to fix it” I say “If I know what it is I can find a way around it!”

    fn5: why does it have to be so fucking difficult? Why can’t they just have one drive with a sensible name (i.e. not “root”, which is a well-known Australian euphemism for fucking and just sounds stupid, I don’t ever want to be a “root user” in any situation which involves a hairy nerdy guy who keeps his dog in his office[6]) and why do they have to have a separate swap space etc? This software has been around for 20 fucking years, can’t they find a solution to the omfg-so-hard problem of swap space?

    fn6: I once worked in a place whose network support guy, the classic bearded neckbreather, actually kept his dog in the office – in a tiny cage – and fancied himself an ubernerd. Like most neck-breathers, he was incompetent. When you went into his office, if he wasn’t there the dog would bark and snarl at you from in its cage. Need I add that it was a chihuahua? Need I also add that he stuck to Novel Netware 5.1[7] long after Windows 2000 Server was out?

    fn7: If anyone thinks that Windows 95 is a product of Cthulhu, they should try trouble-shooting a Novell Netware Server, as I once had to do. Truly there are heirarchies of evil.

    fn8: and, you may have noticed, just a tiny bit antsy.

    fn9: Actually I reckon this is just a 32kb file with “Steve Jobs is GOD” written in it over and over.

    fn10: Did I mention that Linux/Unix is beautiful when it works? This is the real shit about all of this.

    fn11: I know, I know, you’re going to say “It’s Apple’s fault.” But in my experience, the person who glibly states “it’s because it’s an apple” is always wrong. How come I can install windows on my unix-based apples, but I can’t install linux, even though linux is supposedly infinitely more amenable to hacking, and flexible, than windows or apple? Because it’s too fucking hard is why.

  • Should Han Solo have died?

    According to the Guardian today, at a recent convention Gary Kurtz, the writer of Return of the Jedi, revealed the original plot to the movie, which was that Han Solo would die halfway through in a raid, Princess Leia would have difficulty adapting to her new role as leader, and Luke Skywalker would walk off into the distance an embittered loner. That last part certainly fits with his presentation in the movie. I don’t know about Han Solo though – people like him are meant to survive anything, it’s part of their mystique. Someone who can say “I know” just before being frozen, possibly forever, is the kind of guy who doesn’t die in mid-level base raids.

    So, would the movie have been better done this way? Note the alternative storyline doesn’t preclude ewoks.

    I think Skywalker’s end, particularly, would suit him better, but I also think that Vader’s redemption was a really important part of the 3rd movie and there’s nothing in the alternative described in the Guardian to suggest what happened to him. I actually liked the existing end of the movie, with the rebel alliance successful, Vader redeemed, and Skywalker a bit of a grump. The only thing that spoils the movie in my view is the ewoks, and they don’t spoil it much.

    But in the decision about how to end the film, there is a hint of the real tragedy to come: Lucas decided to give it a happy ending because toy sales were very high. It’s really hard to work out what happened to the mind of a man who allegedly wrote the first 3 movies as a film representation of the journey of the hero, as described by that academic (Campbell?) and how he slid so far in the making of the new movies. Proof of the existence of the Elder Gods, I suppose.

  • ウォーハンマー3のやりかた

    ウォーハンマー３ていうのは、英語はんだけですけど、プレイヤーさんたちは、英語が分からない（って言いましたーたぶん英語が分かるけど。。。）だからどうやって英語ばかりのゲームができるようになるかと考えておいて、いちばん簡単な方法は、ルールの基礎をやりながら説明して、プレイヤーが使うカードを翻訳すると決めました。

    私にとっては、カードの翻訳はいい準備です。いろな言葉を習ったり、いろな表現を覚えたり、説明について考えたりできましたから。

    でも、カードたくさんあるから、全部を翻訳したらとっても大変です！だから、ゲームを始めた前に、キャラクターを決めて、作成した。その感じで、あの４人のキャラクターに使われたカードだけの翻訳が必要です。

    この翻訳の複雑生を分かるように、ゲームの時に使ったキャラクターシートをみてください：

    シューゼットのキャラクターシート

    見えるカードより、もう５枚くらいが存在します。カードの翻訳はこの形です：

    シューゼットはこの翻訳のおかげで生存するか？

    プレイヤーさんは、このレジュメーを持ちながら、ゲームをやる。インクの節約するように、カラーで本当のカードとして印刷しませんでした。才能というカードも翻訳した：

    １４歳のに、強い！

    この才能カードで、翻訳の難しさが分かりやすいとおもいます。私の日本語はそんなに上手じゃないから、「clear-minded」の正しい翻訳が分かりません。それにも、「新入り」は「Initiate」の翻訳ではない。正しいのは、「入信者」です。でも、自分で言葉を探したら、正しく見つけたかどうかわかりません。

    でも、基本的にわかると思います。ゲームが進めるから十分です。だんだん上手になって欲しいですが、まだまだです。

    この上は、ゲームの準備のやりかたです。

  • ウォーハンマー3のプレイーレポート２：始めの冒険の終わり

    この投稿はプレイヤーの一二三んさんに書いてくれました。

    このキャンペーンは、私に作られたシナリオ、そしてルールブックの「目には目を」というシナリオで続ける予定です。この投稿は私が作ったシナリオの終わりです。

    ーーー

    前回の続き

    シュゼットは村長さんの家へ呼ばれ、何も疑うことなくトコトコとついていく。
    あまり豪華とは言えない玄関を通ると、応接室に通された。
    応接間には、3人の先客が居た。

    ******************
    ＰＬ：スローラーナーさん
    名前：シュルツ
    種族：人間
    性別：男
    年齢：25歳
    職業：見習い魔術師
    ******************

    彼は首都アルトドロフで魔術を学ぶ学生だ。
    魔術師の位は見習い魔術師。
    年齢が25にして見習い魔術師なら、少々遅咲きだろうか？

    ただ魔術の才能を見るのに、年齢はあまり関係ない。
    魔術の才能があっても、周りの環境によってはその才能が埋もれてしまう事など良くある。
    10代前半から魔術学院に通える子もいれば、シュルツの様に20を過ぎて魔術の基礎を学ぶ人も居る。

    彼は中肉中背の目立たない男で、粗末なローブを着ている。
    今は学園の冬休みを利用して、国内を探索してるらしい。

    ******************
    ＰＬ：楓君
    名前：ハインツ
    種族：人間
    性別：男
    年齢：21歳
    職業：兵士
    ******************

    手に槍をもった、厳つい兵士である。
    身に着けてる盾や鎧は、歴戦の証である傷跡が無数に刻まれてる。
    年齢はまだ若く、熟練と呼ぶほど年をとってないが、若輩と呼ぶほどではないようだ。
    当然、それなりに腕が立つだろう。

    彼がどこの地域の兵士かはしらないが、どことなくドワーフの臭いがした。

    ******************
    ＰＬ：てんちょーさん
    名前：アルソン
    種族：エルフ
    性別：男
    年齢：80歳
    職業：盗賊
    ******************

    茶色いフードが、その男の全身を隠すように覆ってる。
    背中を壁に預けてあまり目立たない。
    口数も少ないので、最初シュゼットがこの部屋に入ったとき、彼の事に気づかなかった程だ。

    シュゼットは遠慮なく、彼のフードを覗き込む。
    彼女の行動に悪気はない、ただこういった世間知らずで無神経な行動は、あとあと痛い目をみるだろう。

    フードの中を覗き込んで、シュゼットはびっくりした。
    エルフだ！この人、エルフだ！

    このアルトドロフでは、エルフはあまり見かけない。
    大概のエルフはローレローンの森から、一歩も外に出ようとしないのだ。
    どこにでも居るドワーフやハーフリングとは、偉い違いである。

    ＊＊＊　＊＊＊　＊＊＊

    という訳で一同は村長さんの家にあつまった。
    そこでこんな依頼をされた。

    「この村の周りに居たビーストマンとグリーンスキンが、急に居なくなった。居なくなってうれしいが、原因を調べてほしい」

    村長は報酬として、一人頭銀貨20枚を提示した。
    この金額は1ヶ月分の衣食を満たすのに、十分な金額だ。
    4人は少し悩んだりもしたが、結局は依頼を受けることにした。

    村長に詳しい話を聞くと、以下の事が分かった。

    ・グリーンスキンのキャンプは、簡単に見つかるらしい。
    ・数も少ない。
    ・キャンプはこの村から徒歩で1日程の距離。

    ＰＣは他にも情報を集めるべく、村を散策する。
    調べるとグリーンスキンに一番詳しい村人が【汚い象】という酒場で飲んだくれてるらしい。
    さっそくその酒場へ向かう。

    ＊＊＊　＊＊＊　＊＊＊

    この酒場は【汚い】象と言う名前を表してるとおり、えらく汚い酒場だ。
    店の床にはあまり見たくない汚物が飛び散っており、嫌な臭いが鼻を突く。

    酒場には3人の客がいた。
    飲んだくれてるオッサンと、飲んだくれてるドワーフと、そのドワーフにまとわり付いてる商売女だ。

    グリーンスキンに詳しい人というのは、飲んだくれてるオッサンだ。
    一行は話を聞くために、店の中へ足を踏み入れた。

    すると一向に目をつけたドワーフが、エルフを睨んでこう言った。

    「エルフくさいです！フ○ッキン！」

    ドワーフは鼻を摘みながら、店を出て行く。
    出て行く際に、中指を立てるのを忘れない。

    ドワーフとエルフの仲が悪いのは、この世界の常識だ。
    両者の因縁は長く、こう言ったやり取りも、さして珍しくは無い。

    だが問題はこれで終わらなかった。
    ドワーフにまとわり付いてた商売女が、エルフに突っかかってきたのだ。

    「よくもあたしの商売を邪魔しやがって！このままじゃすまないよ！」

    商売女は仕事の邪魔をした賠償として、エルフに銀貨2枚を要求してきたのだ。
    エルフの森と違って、人間の住む場所ではこういう事が多々ある。

    続く

    ウォーハンマー３版のシステムの感想

    ※リングテイルのプログで今回のレポを上げてます。
    http://www.ring-tail.com/blog.php
    あわせて以下の文章を読むと、より分かります。・・・たぶん。

    僕が上げた一枚目の画像を見ても分かるとおり、もう２版とはまったく違うシステムです。
    最初キャラクターシートやカードを渡された時は「ボードゲームみたいだな」と思いました。

    キャラクターシートを見ると、２版では47あった技能が３版では18に減ってます。
    これが良くなったのか悪くなったのかは、まだプレイが浅いので分かりません。
    ただＰＣがかなり万能になったんじゃないかな？と思います。

    攻撃や異能は、全てカードになったみたいです。
    見た目はとても分かりやすいですね。
    英語が分からない僕でも、イラストを見てすんなり分かりました。

    またこのカードを使った戦闘は、とてもユニークです。
    ただ場所を多くとってしまうのが、難点ですね。

    スチュさんの翻訳

    スチュさんがカードを翻訳したので、その画像を乗せます。（２枚目と３枚目ですね）
    彼は全員のカードを、こうして丁寧に翻訳してくれたのです。（それも無料で！）

    翻訳も意味が分からないという事はないです。
    むしろいい味が出てます。
    洋ゲー好きなくせに英語が弱い僕は、あばばばばばーです。

  • ウォーハンマー3のプレイレポート１：始め

    ブログのノート：これはー二三んさんというプレイヤーに書いてくれた投稿です。かれのMixiページからコピーされています。

    プレイーの日日は７月２１日でした。最近忙しかったから少し遅く投稿しました。。。

    A note from the Blog: this is a guest post by Mr. 123, one of my players in the Japanese Warhammer 3 I am running. I didn’t write any of this, but copied it (with permission) from his social networking site, Mixi.

    —

    昨日夜7時、俺は別府のリングテイルに到着した。
    何をする為かと言うと、ここ

    ウォーハンマー３（以下ＷＨ３）をプレイするためだ。

    まだ日本語に翻訳されてないこのゲーム、とても遊べるものではない。わたし、えいごわっかりませーん。
    ただし今回は力強い味方が居る。それは日本語が達者なオーストラリア人のスチュさんだ。彼がこのＷＨ３を日本語に翻訳してくれた。

    昨日リングテイルのお店に集まったのは、以下の５人。

    ①　オイラ、一二三んです。
    ②　ＷＨ３を翻訳し、ＧＭを勤めるスチュさん。
    ③　店長さん。
    ④　楓君。
    ⑤　スローラーナーさん。

    全員ともリングテイルを通して知り合い、全員がＷＨ好きな人ばかりだ。だから普通の人なら引いてしまう洋ゲーでも、バッチこい。

    さっそくゲームを開始。
    ＧＭが必要なシートの類を準備してる。
    んでね、その時、ＧＭが僕にこう言ったんですよ。

    「一二三んさん、僕が準備してる間、他の人達にＷＨの世界観を説明してください」

    僕は言いました。

    「なーに、ここに居る人達にＷＨの世界観の説明など不要です」

    楓さんとスローラーナーさんはＷＨ２をプレイ済み。
    プレイしてない店長さんにも、世界観の説明は不要でしょう。
    みなこの混沌でダークな世界観が好きで、この店に来たのだから。

    さてＧＭのセッティングが終わった。
    ＰＬ4人は恭しくキャラクターシートを受け取る。
    さて、ＷＨ３とはどのようなゲームなのか・・・！

    用意されたキャラクターは以下の4名。
    ①　兵士
    ②　エルフの盗賊
    ③　入信者
    ④　見習い魔術師
    ※各キャラクターの詳しい情報は、ＷＨのＨＰをご覧ください。　　　　http://www.hobbyjapan.co.jp/wh/career/

    皆さんならどの職業を選びます？
    僕は速効で　③入信者　を選びました。
    今回は猛ったシグマー教徒でプレイしようという気分だったのです。混沌ぬっころすお。
    ただ入信者の宗派はモールでした。ちょっと残念。

    キャラクターシートには既に能力値等が書き込まれてました。
    サンプルキャラなんでしょうか？英語の分からない僕にとってはとてもありがたかったです。

    さてまだ名前も決めてないが、さっそくプレイ。
    今ＰＣが要る場所は首都アルトドロフの南にある小さな村。
    季節はまだ寒い2月で、各ＰＣは別々の宿屋で寝転がっている。

    まだＰＣ同士が知り合いで無い、という設定でした。

    そしてＧＭから
    「じゃあ君が泊まってる宿の名前を言ってね」
    と振られる。
    僕はとっさにこう言った。

    「ええと・・・【ウルリックの牙】という酒場です」

    おいおい・・・モール信者にありましき名前。
    【モールの墓場】
    【モールの棺桶】
    【モールの葬式まんじゅう】
    なんて名前の方がよかった。

    僕が酒場の名前を言うと、各ＰＣも泊まってる酒場の名前を言います。

    ・見習い魔術師のスローラーナーさん　【白い蜥蜴】
    ・兵士の楓さん　【青い小鳥】
    ・盗賊の店長さん　【リングテイル】

    酒場の名前を伝えたところで、冒険が始まりました。

    ＊＊＊　＊＊＊　＊＊＊　＊＊＊

    店の外がガヤガヤと騒がしい。
    飲んだくれてた一同は、何事かと店の外に出る。

    外には仕事が終わったばかりの街道巡視員が居て、この村における道路状況を説明してる。

    この村の周りには悪い奴等（ビーストマンやグリーンスキン）が多くて、物不足が起こっていた。
    悪いやつらを退治しようにも、お上はなかなか動かない。
    涙目な村民、こんな感じです。

    しかし今来た街道巡視員の話に聞くと、急に悪い奴等が消えてしまったとの事。
    何か分からないが、これで商人の往来も増えて村が豊かになる。旨いビールが飲めるぜ、って感じで、村民は嬉しさで踊ってます。

    いい気分なのはＰＣも同じ。またビールを一杯頂こうとすると、フードを被った怪しい人がＰＣに近づきます。

    「この村の総理大臣があなたに会いたがってる。来れば報酬で銀1枚です」

    この村の総理大臣・・・？
    たぶん村長さんの事でしょう。
    なに、ゲームに国境など関係ない、ＧＭの言いたい事はよく分かる。
    村の総理大臣って言ったら、村で一番偉い人の事でしょ。
    おーけーおーけー、一二三ん日本語わっかるよー。

    ＰＣは快くこの村の総理大臣（以下村長さん）に会う事にした。

    この話を持ってきたのは一人だけでなかった。
    他のＰＣも同じ事を言われてたのだ。

    そうして一行は村長さん宅で、顔を合わせることになった。

    ＧＭ「それじゃ、各ＰＣの名前とかお願いします」

    ここで初めてキャラクター紹介だ。
    能力値や装備はあらかじめシートに書き込まれてたが

    キャラの名前
    年齢
    性別
    生い立ち

    等はＰＬが自由に決めていい。
    さてどうするか、と悩む僕。

    うん、決めた。僕はこのキャラで行こう。

    ******************
    名前：シュゼット・クレイプ
    種族：人間
    性別：女
    年齢：14歳
    職業：入信者
    ******************

    説明：
    裕福な商人の一人娘で、何不自由なく暮らしていた。
    とても愛らしい容姿をしており、性格の方も容姿同様に綺麗で可愛らしく、純白そのものである。

    好きな飲み物はミルクティー。
    好きなお菓子はスコーン。
    好きな言葉は博愛。

    シュゼットは、とってつけたようなお嬢様なのだ。

    だからだろうか。その容姿や振る舞い故に、皆からは【ミルクティー・プリンセス】と呼ばれていた。
    彼女は商人の娘でも、プリンセスと呼んでも差し支えない気品を備えてた。誰もが彼女をプリンセスと呼ぶ事に、疑問は持たなかった。
    愛しきミルクティー・プリンセスは、みんなの誇りであった。

    12歳の時、シュゼットは勉学のため生まれた街を離れ、モールの教会へ行く事になる。
    そこで悲劇は起こった。

    彼女は生まれて始めて飲んだでビールを気に入り、暇さえあれば一杯かますようになった。
    以後彼女辛党になり、ミルクティーを捨てる。好きなお菓子だったスコーンも捨てて、変わりに燻製のウィンナー・ソーセージを食らう。

    今は全国のビールと乾き物巡りのため、メイスを片手に旅に出てる。
    まさに親泣かせ。父親のガレットの悲しみを思うと、涙を禁じえない。
    ちなみにご両親は共に健在だ。故郷に帰れば大きな屋敷と大勢の使用人が待ってる。どこぞの世界のシュゼットはゆすり屋に痛めつけられる等の不幸な目にあってるみたいだが、この世界のシュゼットは幸せそのものだ。

    【ミルクティー・プリンセス】　改め　【ビールぷはー！プリンセス】

    彼女の冒険は始まったばかりだ。

    続く

    追記
    今日は付き添いでジムに行く予定なので、もう日記書いてる時間が無い。また後日に続きを書きます。

    追記　その２
    スローラーナーさんと前回ソロで遊んだＷＨ２の話をしたんです。
    そしたら衝撃な一言を貰いました。
    「一二三んさん、僕のＰＣの名前はエルストンでなくて、エルンストなんですよ」

    まじで！？あばばばばー。失礼しました。

  • GMing warhammer 3 in Japanese: An Eye for an Eye

    Last night my players gathered at my house for the second session of our Warhammer 3 campaign (for that is what it appears to have become). We’re running through the module in the WFRP Adventure Book, An Eye for an Eye. We started a little late due to address confusion and eating, and there aren’t really any additional details I need to add about the Japanese element of the experience, except:

    • It really helps to prepare language – I consistently go into situations like this thinking I’ll just “work it out” but there is no way to work out words in a language completely different to English. You need to find them and memorize them ahead
    • Japanese players really do get down to business quicker than English-language players, in my experience
    • One of my players forgot his translated cards, but between us we muddled through without too much difficulty. He could either read them himself, or I helped him, or people shared theirs with him. The main problem he had was in skimming them to make a decision – the titles are meaningless, and it’s from the titles and names (of powers, spells, cards, whatever) that you primarily decide what to do
    • I put an explicit ban on purchasing new action cards with advances, because I want my players to become more familiar with the cards they have and I need time for translation. This worked out- we soon identified that the thief character needs a “firing into combat” card, and by next session I aim to translate some suggested cards for the soldier
    • I had an amusing language stuff-up that I’m going to have to retroactively reversed. In negotiating their fee for their adventure, I told the characters they would be paid “1 gin” (1 silver) for uncovering the mystery, when I was meant to say “1 kin” (1 gold). They were all like “we’re out of here” (1 silver is not much money!) and I couldn’t fathom why. One of them said “let’s negotiate” and pushed it up to “4 gin” (4 silver), and they were all still saying “fuck this for a game of soldiers.” Finally someone realised I might be confusing two common words and checked with me, and now they’re all earning way more than they should be. I’m going to correct that by email. Oops.

    Translating cards makes things slower, but the combination of “false beginners” (everyone actually knows a lot of English words) and the Warhammer 2 translation means that people are getting along okay. Despite starting late (9pm) and language difficulties, and the distraction of a visitor coming to meet the cat, we managed to get through the following stages of the adventure in 3.5 hours:

    • purchasing some stuff in town
    • spending experience points
    • learning about the mission and making a deal
    • travelling to Grunewald Lodge, and the fight with the beastmen
    • Meeting the head of the Lodge and discussing their job

    I think that is  a pretty good run of events for 3.5 hours in the second session of a new system.

    I only have 2 points to make about warhammer 3 as a whole, which I’m still really enjoying. First of all, I really like the progress tracker, it’s a really useful tool in any situation where you need to handle time-dependent conflict, and secondly, it’s really really deadly.

    On the deadliness of Warhammer 3.

    Mr. Kaede is playing a soldier who has a mail shirt, a kite shield, and has spent his first experience points on combat-related bonusses. In a pinch, he can and does add 7 misfortune dice to an opponent’s attack on him. He has 13 wounds, the most of the party, and his reckless cleave action is nasty as potted doom. The thief character has an awesome ranged attack, rapid fire, which mows down opponents. I pitted the party of 4 against a group of beastmen, consisting of 2 Gors and 10 ungor henchmen. They attacked in 2 waves, the first consisting of 1 Gor and 5 ungors, the second arriving 2 rounds later and suffering fatigues in order to reach the battle quickly (fatigues count as wounds for bad guys, so they arrived weakened). The first leader, fighting the soldier, suffered damage fast. The thief and wizard mowed down 4 of the Ungors in one round, so at the end of the round all that remained was a wounded leader and a wounded ungor. But this Ungor reduced the thief to two wounds. The way initiative works in Warhammer 3, when the second round commenced the round was set to start with one PC and one monster acting. The players’ initial decision was to have the soldier finish off the Gor, but I pointed out to them that regardless of their decision, I was going to have the Ungor kill the thief, so they needed to adjust their initiative order to save the thief.

    I really like this flexibility! In the first round the first people to act were the soldier and the Gor, on an initiative of 3, then everyone else on 2. In the second round, both enemy and party can change who acts when. So the characters had to decide who would save the Thief. The thief himself is a crap fighter and the wizard had no power, so the cleric – 14 year old Suzette – had to charge in to kill the ungor (the soldier was engaged in a separate area). She failed, despite using all her luck points on the task, so then the thief’s fate hung in the balance. He threw his luck points, parried, did all he could – and the ungor just missed. The soldier then followed up with a support action which emabled the thief to disengage from combat so he could use his missile attack, which he did, to kill off some ungors.

    In the following round, the other Gor charged in to attack the soldier, using its special charge power. Even though he added 7 misfortune dice, it seriously wounded and critically wounded him, getting him down to 5 wounds, before he could kill it. There is no healing in the place they have arrived at, so when the final boss battle arrives their soldier is going to be critically wounded and 1 good hit away from death – and their only archer is on 2 wounds.

    Also, they chewed through 12 beastmen in 2 rounds. This game is deadly, even if your character has combat skills.

  • Why Tory reforms of the NHS won’t work

    Over in the UK, the long period of flirting with market-based solutions to the NHS’s problems has finally come to a head, with the new coalition government deciding to abolish the cap on fee-paying patients at public hospitals. This means that the big hospitals can compete for a supposedly lucrative health tourism and private health market to top up their income, which will in theory enable them to increase their revenues at a time when the government (for no reason I can understand) thinks that it needs to cut government spending viciously.

    Market reforms of the British NHS have been proceeding under Labour for about 10 years, using a softly-softly approach to liberalization which I think was probably necessary. There are probably a lot of people in the UK and America who think that a universal health care system is not compatible with private markets (for different reasons in each case) but this is very far from the truth – most “government-funded” health systems involve significant amounts of private health care, either on the provider side (in Germany and Japan) or on the provider and the insurer side (in Australia and Ireland)[1]. So, broadly speaking, market reforms in the UK will finally bring the NHS more into line with the better-quality systems of the rest of the developed world (outside of the US) where healthcare is (relatively) cheap and generally very high quality.

    However, I think the Tory reforms won’t achieve any of their stated goals, and will have the added side effect of setting back health equality in the UK. I think they will have an effect similar to the reforms in Russia immediately after the collapse of communism, in that they will produce a few winners and a lot of losers; and the winners will largely be those who are politically connected or have a lot of luck. This doesn’t have to be the case with a well-managed market reform, and there are particular reasons why I think that the reforms will have this effect. I want to describe what I think will happen in the UK, but first I need to explain the two key problems that the NHS currently faces, which will be the cause of the reforms’ failure.

    The NHS’s two main problems

    Underfunding: By some kind of ephemeral standard, all health systems are underfunded, since we always want to spend more on making people better. However, by the more concrete standard of EU spending on health, the NHS has been underfunded for about 20-25 years. The NHS only recent returned to funding levels equal to the EU average, after a long period of underfunding under Thatcher, followed by a slow year-on-year increase in funding under Labour. This increase may have been “slow” but it’s an indication of how under-funded the NHS was that before the election Labour was talking about figures for funding increases above 10% relative to 1997[2]. A system that is 10% below EU standards for 20-25 years is pretty seriously underfunded, and this has ramifications in many areas. The most obvious is capital investment, which will be significantly poorer in an underfunded system, and this is a really big problem in health where new treatments and systems require significant capital investment. There are also significant quality-of-life issues in the NHS, such as the mixed-sex dorms that the tabloids love getting heated up about, which can only be redressed through capital investment and which, while not life-threatening, are certainly noticeable to the average patient. Also, of course, overcrowding has always been a problem in the UK and it is through capital investment that overcrowding is reduced.

    But further to this, defunding your health system has significant effects on its workforce, and not just of the “overworked and underpaid” kind. If you consistently underfund your workforce for 20 years, whole disciplines will stagnate and become underperforming relative to their European peers. Particularly, the kind of “back office” “managers” that the Daily Mail loves to hate are the first to go in a cash-strapped system, and over the years are slowly replaced by inferior versions of themselves, who are underpaid and undertrained. These “paper pushers” do the unimportant stuff – you know, scrutinizing contracts for services, investigating quality of care, overseeing equipment purchases, managing demand – the sorts of things that actually require considerable skills and industry-specific experience. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that after years of underfunding and calls to “quarantine frontline services” from cuts, the NHS embarked on a massive IT contract that ended up running over time and over budget. It’s as if they had lost expertise in managing projects and negotiating contracts…This can have ramifications outside of health too. Because the health system in most countries is a significant part of the economy, and its activities drive the development and maintenance of small but highly-specialised disciplines (like statistics, radiology, etc.), when you underfund your health system you also cause a drain in the numbers of skilled experts from those fields. In this regard the underfunding of the NHS has done the world a disservice – the UK, traditionally a world leader in statistics and epidemiology, has slowly given ground to the US and Australia in this field.

    This phenomenon will also create new cultures. The NHS has a cash-strapped “make do” culture, and an expectation that patients will grin and bear the threadbare atmosphere[3]. This ain’t good for a health system, and it doesn’t surprise me that one of the main causes of safety problems in the modern NHS is hospital infection – an issue which is easily avoided by good staff training, modern equipment, good funding for cleaning services, and a culture of patient comfort rather than patient endurance.

    Waiting times: The other big problem in the UK, partially but not entirely related to the first, is waiting times. The waiting time target for non-emergency surgery in the NHS is 13 weeks, and it varies significantly depending on the area you live in. Waiting times aren’t quite the horror story that people make them out to be, but they are a significant cause of discomfort, alarm, and sometimes death, and it’s not very nice that they’re so long, although in reality most British people when surveyed indicate satisfaction with their own waiting time – while it’s a good idea to campaign for instant access, everyone understands that reality interferes with a good political story and it’s okay to wait a few weeks for non-essential surgery. But waiting times in the UK are too long and seem to be related to inequality, with poor people in general waiting longer even though the system serves everyone equally. A large portion of this waiting time effect may be caused by inefficiencies and confusion within the system, however, not by underfunding, and it’s possible that they could be reduced by better service provision.

    Why the Tory reforms won’t work

    So having looked at that, let’s see what I think will happen when the Tory reforms are introduced. In the broad, I think they won’t make as much money as the Tories claim for the hospitals; they will create a set of winning hospitals through luck and connections; and they will exacerbate Britain’s (already woeful) inequality in health outcomes. In order, then…

    They won’t make the money the Tories claim: The Tories are going to open hospitals to allow more private fee-payers, and it seems like the general idea that the hospitals have is that they will attract health tourists, rich people from Europe and the Emirates who want to come to the UK for treatment based on the NHS’s excellent reputation. Unfortunately, most UK hospitals, having been underfunded for years, are not in a position to compete with most hospitals anywhere else in Europe or America, either on their presentation or the quality of their service. They don’t have enough beds or up to date equipment, and they look nasty. Also, the UK has a very unfavourable exchange rate for exporting what is essentially a highly-skilled service, in competition against, for example, German or Australian hospitals. They may be able to argue that their English language base is an advantage (how many Arabs speak German?) but I don’t think this will work so well in their favour – a large proportion of doctors in the English system aren’t native speakers, and in any case Germans speak English better than the British do, and far more politely. They may be able to trade on the NHS’s reputation, but a reputation in the press is very different to the kind of reputation your hospital needs when a rich Arab starts investigating the actual rates of success in your hospital and discovers that they’re below EU standards, and in some cases criminally poor. In order to compete on this market your hospital needs to:

    • be more than just presentable
    • have very good hotel facilities
    • have very low infection and death rates, and high success rates

    which is not generally true for British hospitals. So I don’t think that it’s going to draw in as many health tourists as the hospitals expect, except for a small number of lucky or politically-connected hospitals (see below).

    Finally, the market they’re aiming at is small, while in the UK there is a large potential market of middle class baby boomers who are worried about their health, are willing to use the NHS and respect it greatly, but would really like to pay extra to jump the queue and/or get better facilities, especially private rooms and better food. Unfortunately, these people don’t have the money to pay upfront and don’t have a culture of private health insurance, and the government won’t fund them if they pay privately. So, it seems to me that there is a large untapped market in the UK that the hospitals could tap if there were significant reform of the UK’s funding structure. We’ll come back to this…

    They’ll create winners and losers: Winners and losers being, of course, inevitable in any society based around markets, but in this case – just as in the Soviet Union – the winners won’t be the people who work best in the market, but will be a cadre of lucky and/or politically connected hospitals. The lucky hospitals can be divided into two camps:

    • Those in a region of high wealth and good health: The UK has extremely unequal health outcomes, and they’re very regionally based. Wealthy areas have more hospitals and GPs, and far better health outcomes than poor areas – up to 10 years of extra life expectancy. Famously, every stop you head west along the Jubilee line in London grants a year of life expectancy, and in general the further west you go the better is the infrastructure, the wealthier the population, and the better their average health. If you’re a hospital in one of these regions, this means that during that 20 year funding squeeze you had less demands on your services, less pressure to focus on basic emergency funding, and more opportunity to develop staff and skills, and you were much more likely to attract good staff, since the working environment was better. On top of this, the regional funding allocation formula in the UK – in which money is parcelled out to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs – kind of like regional health boards) to purchase services – assigns the money quite unevenly, with a large part of the “socioeconomic” determinant of funding being based on age, such that older areas get more money. But older areas are wealthier, and often have better health outcomes. So many of the wealthiest, healthiest areas in the UK have also been receiving the most funding. These hospitals are in better condition than those in areas of poor health and low incomes, and so are best placed to compete for private money; but they’re also the areas that least need the extra money that their competitive advantage will give them.
    • Those who experienced capital investment recently: NHS funding has been increasing for 10 years but over that period it hasn’t been distributed evenly. If your hospital invested in new equipment and facilities 10 years ago, it’s now old, while a hospital that refitted last year is in a much better position to present itself to wealthy foreigners. A hospital that is about to refit is now in a position to rejig its renovations to suit a market model, while a hospital that just finished renovations can’t reasonably be expected to do further work for years. This is purely a lottery, though it’s likely that, given the nature of Labour’s reforms in the last 10 years, the hospitals that were refitted first were in the poorest areas. This issue has some bearing on the issue of political connectedness…

    Some hospitals have extremely well-connected CEOs and boards, who have connections to political parties and health advisory bodies, while some are more parochial, either through distance or political choice. Some are connected to both parties, some to one. If you were connected to the Labour party you probably stood to benefit from their reforms, or at least to know what reforms were coming and to adapt to them. But the most well-connected of the hospitals are the big urban hospitals, whose directors and CEOs are easily able to move through the policy development/think tank/political circles in which one can get an insight into policy development, are in the same clubs as the Big Boys, and have often got university, academic and old school connections to public servants and political advisors. Just as the Party was the main way in which heads of industry learnt about and planned for the changes in the USSR, so these society connections are going to serve hospital leaders in the UK as they prepare for these market reforms. The market plans of the Lib Dems and the Tories were floating around 2 years ago, and no doubt the heads of the big urban hospitals had inside knowledge of what was coming. Is it any surprise that the big Foundation Trust hospitals, which are the ones most able to prepare flexibly for a new policy environment, have been investing heavily in market-oriented developments? Meanwhile, managers of small, poor hospitals outside the London Teaching Hospital hub won’t have the same connections, and the poorer large hospitals in the East of London or the other poor cities, like Manchester, are so crisis-struck and cash-strapped that their management will be too busy managing day-to-day business to engage in the kind of politics that is required to prepare for a big new political change.

    This is a natural and unavoidable way of creating winners by dumb luck. It’s the sort of situation which requires a transition period to enable the unlucky but gifted to scrabble their way over the lucky but stupid. Unfortunately, the government has created such an atmosphere of panic over their public debt, that they are able to get away with introducing radical changes without transition periods, adjustment funding, or any of the other arrangements a large, complex and slow-moving system needs to adapt to a radical new policy.

    They will exacerbate inequality: It should be pretty clear from the above that through a combination of design, happenstance and history the NHS is set up to ensure that a sudden market reform will benefit the rich and healthy over the poor and sick. The hospitals with the most cash and the best reputations in the wealthiest areas will draw in the most foreign funds, and will then be free to use the proceeds to improve services to their already well-served populations. Meanwhile the government will use the new revenue as an excuse to squeeze funding on all hospitals, which will fall disproportionately on those in poor and sick areas because a) they can’t make up the shortfall and b) UK government funding always benefits rich areas more than poor areas. The most obvious way in which this is going to happen is waiting times. Hospitals in wealthy areas are working at below capacity in beds and theatres, and can absorb a small number of wealthy private payers without much effect on their waiting times, while those in poor areas are working at near full capacity and can only accept new payers by dumping a non-payer from a bed, and blowing out waiting times[5]. It’s worth noting that even the wealthy hospitals, if they react too quickly to fill up spare beds with paying patients, risk lowering quality – it’s apparently something of a mantra amongst hospital managers that optimal outcomes occur when you run at 80% capacity, and I’d wager there are very few hospitals in the UK that can manage to take on patients and stay near this mark. But this problem will fall disproportionately on the poorer hospitals, which will then naturally give up competition for private patients (if they ever had any chance of pulling any in the first place – areas like Lewisham and West Ham are not exactly the places wealthy health tourists are going to be visiting for a quiet week of R&R). Once the hospitals give up this competition (or fail at it), they will become poorer still and inequality will increase. The UK does not need more inequality in health outcomes.

    What should the NHS do?

    In my opinion, the market that the NHS should be developing is not the supposedly lucrative health tourism market, but the much larger, lower profit local market for improved services to middle class British people. It’s a sad fact that money buys better health, and especially in the UK, but it’s an even sadder fact that after 50 years of eschewing markets the UK has failed to address very high levels of inequality. Given this, and the poor health outcomes experienced by British people generally, it’s probably time to recognise that the NHS model is flawed and move it to the mixed private/public model that works best in every other industrialized economy (except the US and Switzerland). This is best done by opening up a market for private services, as follows:

    • set benchmark fees for services provided by hospitals (this is already underway in the NHS, and was due to be completed soon) that are sufficient to cover the costs of the service under ideal conditions plus an amount of money sufficient for a cash-strapped hospital with good management to use the money for expansion/investment over time
    • allow private hospitals to compete for this benchmark fee when providing services to eligible citizens, and to then top up the fee from private insurers. This model offers a significant benefit over a model in which private hospitals provide the whole service to privately-insured patients outside the public system, because it makes the private insurance affordable and enables the private hospitals to compete essentially for a middle class market through offering NHS-standard medical care with additional hotel services and faster access as the main selling points. A private insurance model where the private insurer covers all the costs of the service is both highly expensive (as we have seen in the US) and completely incapable of establishing a decent foothold in a country with an established universal system; but a model offering queue jumping and better hotel services is cheap and easily able to compete, provided it can get that block grant for the medical care
    • allow public hospitals to compete with private hospitals for these private patients, but establish certain conditions for their entry into this market – minimum waiting times or infection control achievements are two obvious examples – so that even if they’re tempted to skimp on care for the public patients, they’re already skimping on a high standard
    • allow public hospitals to close services which aren’t profitable, to merge with other hospitals, to establish new hospitals and to engage in partnerships with hospitals and GPs, to set up innovative systems for providing the same services at lower cost[6].

    All of this needs to be developed slowly, and first and foremost the poorer hospitals need to be given significant capital grants to develop their service capacity. A lot of innovative thinking needs to go into ways of improving both the infrastructure of the British system and the workforce, which has been slowly decaying under 20 or 30 years of no planning and no development. The Labour party made big inroads into redressing the infrastructure problems of the NHS, but they neglected workforce development and they didn’t fund it up nearly fast enough. Without improving those two aspects of the NHS, it will never be able to compete internationally, so won’t make the money the Tories expect; and it won’t be able to provide better service to UK patients regardless of its private activities.

    The model I’ve proposed above is essentially an extension of the Australian model for GP services to hospitals in England. It’s also roughly how the German and Japanese systems work, I think. It’s high time the NHS modernized and allowed the increased investment, competition and efficiency that comes with increased private investment, without risking further failings in health inequality. Suddenly opening up the hospital network to rich private buyers is not the way to do this, and won’t have the benefits the Tories envisage, but will have significant disadvantages.

    Update: Paul in comments has suggested that this policy could reduce inequality if it came with a redistributive mechanism (e.g. 50% of all profits go to poor hospitals). The NHS already has a supposedly redistributive funding model, in which resources are allocated to PCTs under the weighted capitation formula, and private income could easily be factored into this formula to reduce the amount of government money that PCTs with high-performing hospitals receive. This wouldn’t be a very effective redistributive mechanism because the funding allocation includes a large pool of non-hospital funds, so it wouldn’t make much difference to the overall allocation to the PCT, but it would create some level of redistribution and thus could, in theory, reduce inequality. There are three problems with this (rather hopeful) analysis:

    • This seems to be a health-specific version of the new labour model for funding welfare – get lots of money from rich foreigners in finance, and use it to swell govt coffers to give to the poor. We can see where this has left Britain
    • The Tories are all about localism, and have been threatening to do away with the capitation formula (I think). They’re much more inclined towards letting hospitals keep the money, and towards funneling money directly to hospital boards. This kind of localism in the UK is what has given rise to the charming “postcode lottery” and is historically part of the reason for the area-based inequalities in the UK. Any model that reproduces this in health is not looking rosy in historical terms
    • The weighted capitation formula is what I was thinking of above when I mentioned that historically, government allocation of funds has tended to benefit wealthy areas even when it claims to be adjusting for inequality. Redistributing through this formula won’t work until the formula is rejigged. My personal theory (and I was going to write a paper on this but didn’t get a chance, but may return to it this year or next) is that allocating money to areas on the basis of their difference in health from a mean standard (the formula uses male life expectancy of 70) does not work to reduce inequality where the stated goal is to draw the area’s mean health towards the standard. (What follows is theory I aim to test through simulation): This is because the most efficient way to spend the money to get your area closer to the standard is to spend it on the already wealthy and healthy. You can lift a mean life expectancy in your area by spending money on everyone, by preferentially targetting the poor, or by preferentially targetting the rich. The most efficient use of your money is to do the latter. The best way to reduce inequality per se is to assign money to areas on the basis of health need (e.g. difference from the standard) and then penalise them for inequality measured on the Gini Index (or some other measure of disparity within the area). The areas will get more money next year by raising the standard of health in their area and reducing inequality[7].

    The last point in this set of concerns also serves to show (maybe) that “targets” can be implicitly inequality-increasing. If you set a strict target to a hospital of, say, 6 week waits, and penalise them for failing to make that target, they will naturally find the most efficient way to avoid the penalty. And in almost every aspect of health care, the most efficient method of doing something is to focus on the rich and kick the poor out of bed. So if your concern is inequality, and you also really need to force your non-responsive healthcare system to respond to some sensible targets, then you need to very carefully balance the healthcare standards (e.g. waiting times) with inequality standards. New Labour didn’t do this, but I think the main reason is that the discussion of how to fix inequality at a system level has been very poor[8]. Had I stayed in the UK for another year I would have done something to add to this debate.

    —

    fn1:The main reason for this is that the health system is complex, and there is no longer a strong ideological driver in most countries for maintaining government control of all forms of healthcare. As a practical measure, government control of large swathes of the insurance system and the major hospitals is essential; but equally practically, without significant private investment and activity, the system becomes inefficient and unresponsive. The most obvious example of private partners of a public system are General Practitioners, who in Australia are properly private entities, receiving money for services from a government insurer. In Japan and Germany hospitals are also often private providers receiving money from a government insurer.

    fn2: I understand that the British have a lot of reasons for hating New Labour, though nowhere near as many as the Iraqis have; however, one thing that makes me sad about their demise is that they will never receive credit for the sterling work they did rescuing the NHS.

    fn3: Actually, I think this is a problem in the UK in private as well as public spheres. You can see it in Heathrow, the railway stations, and any cafe anywhere – even US imports like Starbucks – and of course in the filthy, squalid pubs. There is a general attitude that people will tolerate under-investment and a continual squeezing of the little details that make life presentable, like cleaning the couch covers or sweeping the floor. And of course, everywhere, you have to wait. Why invest in a second espresso machine and another Polish worker when everyone tolerates queuing? That Polish worker costs 3.50 an hour[4] that the boss can pocket…

    fn4: I know, the minimum wage is 5.73, but no-one earns that in cafes and pubs. Note the difference between Australia and the UK here. The basic unit of daily living – a unit of beer – costs 3.30 in the UK, and staff get paid maybe 20% more than it. In Australia it costs about $5, and staff get paid about 250% more than it.

    fn5: There is a sense in which this isn’t strictly true because we know waiting times aren’t entirely caused by capacity constraints, but are also caused by poor management, inefficient use of resources, etc. But you don’t get to a 13 week waiting time simply by mismanaging a list – there are structural issues involved here too.

    fn6: For example, some hospitals in semi-rural ares are considering joining together to establish offsite consulting rooms for specialists, and rotate the same specialists through all their facilities. This is a huge benefit because, in order to lure a specialist to your hospital you need to be able to offer them a certain minimum number of days working on their specialty. If you need the specialist for 1 day a week but they want 3 days of specialty clinics, you have to open 2 days worth of clinics that are used inefficiently. But if you have 2 other hospitals in the area who also need that specialist for a day a week… this is the sort of thing private organisations handle well but public ones tend to have been pretty poor at adapting too. It doesn’t have to be this way, if the hospitals are freed up to be able to make changes to their services

    fn7: Note that the funding model in which areas further from the standard get more money assumes implicitly that receiving the money is not an incentive, because if so they would depress health to get more money. You can get around this by including a component of incremental improvement, so an area gets more money for big improvements in health relative to last year. But essentially the funding model assumes that everyone’s main goal is to improve health, not get funds. This is possibly one of the problems with block-grant-based health funding models. I really should do more work on this!

    fn8: Incidentally, none of what I just said should count as an argument for or against targets by me. I don’t generally approve of them, but I don’t have strong opinions either way. If that’s what your healthcare culture responds to, then by all means, jackboot-to-the-head. I don’t think that doctors, nurses and healthcare administrators do respond best to targets; but I didn’t work at the coalface of an English hospital so I could be wrong.