Killing Goats

One of the funnier Aussies I've met out here walks in. We're not talking so he starts a new conversation:

"I killed a lot of goats once."

He then looks at us all with a worried look wondering what we'll think of him now.

"I was working for this company in Oman, filing papers to make a little money, and they kept saying hey you seem to know what you're doing and having me do things I didn't know how to do. That was how it was back then - no resume, just you seem to know what you're doing - why don't you do this task. So one day they tell me I'm going to manage the water purification system for this town nearby. I don't know any chemistry or crazy things, but they think I can do that, and there's this giant water pump, and these 2 giant tanks of chlorine they use on the water. They fill the tanks with these giant trucks all the time.

One day the tank starts leaking, and as it turns out chlorine will kill you. So I write a letter asking what to do about it. A week later someone writes back saying build a swimming pool, fill that pool with water, and then submerge the tank in it. The chlorine will safely leak into the pool for about a month and that will be that.

So I do that, and it really chlorinated the pool."

So we ask him what that has to do with goats.

"Oh, the goats were downwind from the pool."

Australian TV Ads

So the ads here are a bit funny, because they use a lot of colloquialisms like, "Sure we all buy mince..." - yes, we ALL buy mince, what kind of 2-bit bogan wouldn't buy mince? C'mon. But by far the strangest ad is one for an underwear maker here named Bonds. They'll run 12 short commercials over the span of just one half hour show, so it starts to get really strange if the TV's on in the background. A guy kinda singing like Robert Goulet half asleep just sings a part of "Twelve Days of Christmas" with a couple guitar plucks and fades out.

Imagine this coming on repeatedly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5sgx0Yjnlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79visS2GafE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqXG28ffG48
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQt1zrDPDKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rumgnCjAhrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUdNfmebeMg

So weird.

High-Level Media That Can't Be Bothered To Fact Check

Duty calls. http://xkcd.com/386/

Having worked at Google, people frequently ask me about some of Google's shadier dealings. There's a recurring one that comes up frequently, and here are 2 articles of many that have come up over the past 4 years:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/11/googles-3-top-executives-have-8-private-jets/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/a-new-fighter-jet-for-googles-founders/

It's important to notice that the first was written very recently (2011) and the second in 2008.

First of all, I'm not Google's biggest fan. They do stupid and evil things sometimes. But this is not one of them - in fact it's the opposite.

NASA and Google have a close relationship. First, they literally are close:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=google+headquarters+to+moffett+field

I recall driving over Moffett Field - where NASA launches many experiments from, and even houses a dorm for budding scientists - on my commute to Google each day.

Second, they are intellectually close - they both run buildings worldwide filled with nerds dreaming of crazy things they can do with technology, that may or may not be useful or a good idea, but from time to time may turn out to be very important to humanity.

They differ in two important ways: NASA is allowed to do crazy things almost no one else can, like launch satellites, fly fighter jets, and drop astronauts out of the sky. Google has a gigantic pile of cash - $42.6 billion. NASA is short on funding as people find it and the space race less and less relevant. And this is where the insane articles people keep asking me about begin.

With NASA's lacking funds, Google loaned a private 747 - with a giant Google logo on the side - to NASA. Knee-jerk reporters took a photo and reported Google was using federal airbases to fly in style. Since then Google lent several more planes to NASA, and even helped them pay for a fighter jet that NASA used to help monitor their European equivalent's mission.

So, Google is making up for the US's lack of funding to NASA by handing some of their giant pile of cash to NASA, with no business win on Google's end unless you believe mankind's gradual progress into space is somehow in Google's business interest. To really hammer this home, these reporters for the New York Times and TechCrunch are slamming Google for doing something philanthropic.

And here's the part that makes me go XKCD on these guys: These aren't some 2-bit bloggers trying to make their name. These are established arms of the media, supposedly the 4th branch of government, meant to monitor government and industry and warn the population when they get out of line. The New York Times article was written in 2008, and updated after the fact with the same knee-jerk headline and a brief, uninvestigated note about NASA maybe owning the fighter jet.

The TechCrunch article had 3 years to figure out the facts, and regurgitated them all over again. They then go on to say that 8 jets are divided amongst 3 Google Execs: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders, and Eric Schmidt, the CEO. Except Eric Schmidt stepped down as CEO, replaced by Larry Page, so he could go work for the Obama Administration. So even in their attempt to exaggerate with a "2.6 jets per executive," they failed to do basic research to maximize their claims to 4 jets per "executive" (Google has hundreds of executives that may at any time have need for a flight to a national or international office or business partner, so it's a weak number anyway).

The point being that if a company, individual, or politician can't even do something nice and get away with it - let alone be applauded for it - how is the US supposed to ever pull itself out of the hole it's in? The fourth branch is broken, and the idiots writing the linked articles are part of the problem. Shame on you, douchebags.

How To Convert All Text To Lowercase In Google Spreadsheets

1. Select the column, right-click, and click Insert Column Right.
2. In the first cell of the new column enter formula =LOWER(A1) (or whatever the first cell is of the original column).
3. Copy the cell with the formula in it.
4. Select the column and paste - Google Spreadsheets is smart enough to adjust the row number for each pasted entry. You now have a column with lowercase in it - but it requires that column to the left to still be there.
5. Select the new column again and copy.
6. Right-click and click Paste Special > Values only.

This wipes out the formulas. You can now delete the original column. Yay hacks. Obviously this applies to anything you could do with a formula in spreadsheets.

Utopia Down Under

A point of perspective: Back home, in the US, we're considering rolling back the healthcare reform bill. It doesn't even get us universal healthcare - it just gets us slightly better chances (not 100%) that we might receive healthcare if we've paid the insurance for it.

The Australian Deal

Australia and US dollars trade at about 1:1 with minor variation. When I transferred $200 Australian here I paid? $197 US.

In Australia, here's what every citizen gets - not just their government - everyone:

• Healthcare. It's largely free. You get sick the government pays for the care.
• $14.73/hr minimum wage - nearly double the highest state minimum wage in the US, almost triple the lowest (if you're paid hourly rather than full-time, you make more - $15.51/hr).
• Minimum 4 weeks vacation/year.
• A retirement pension, even if you never saved any money. Retirement/"Age Pension"
• If you're unemployed you make $15761.20/year or about $7.58/hr, forever. If you never find another job, you still receive a living wage - enough to cover rent in a suburb (but almost certainly not in a city, where a studio runs $1800/mo). Unemployment/"Newstart" Rent Assistance 

There are details to these where you might get paid more or less based on whether you need more (kids, single parent, renting) or less (live with your parents, ~$5/hr), but the numbers don't vary that much.

So just to be clear, if you lose your job in Australia, you'll be fine. If you come down with cancer at 21 before you ever wondered "What healthcare provider should I have?" you're covered. And if you never really make it big - enough to really save up - in retirement... you'll be fine.

Well Then It's a Disaster

So the assumption by the kind of person that votes for the kind of person that prevents the US from having any of this is, "Then the entire economy must be in tatters." Well let's check.

Unemployment. Economists say the ideal unemployment rate is 5%, meaning 95% of those wanting to work have jobs and the other 5% are available to employers needing workers. In Australia it's 5.3%. In the US it's 9%; in some parts of the US it's 15% and in some counties it's over 30%.

Non-Employment. Economists abuse the word "unemployment" to only mean people looking for work, when intuitively it means "does not have a job." They use other names for that, so what's that number? In Australia 49% of the population does not work. Those lazy bastards, much lazier than the 54% who don't work in the US.

Taxes. Well then taxes would have to be insane, right? Australia tax brackets - as a point of summary, an Australian making $80,000/year pays 22% of their total income, or $17550, in taxes. A Californian making the same pays Payroll tax (Social Security and Medicare), Income Tax, Unemployment Insurance, and State Income Tax, totaling 49% - a calculation so complicated it merits its own spreadsheet. Note that the Californian still has to pay for their healthcare after all that.

I'll update this with a bit more info and some conclusions later on. But seriously America... get your sh** together.

Updates

To compare with the US spreadsheet for $80k, I've created another that shows several income levels under the Australia tax regime. Both spreadsheets assume you rent an apartment, live alone, and have no kids, because I'm self-centered. The resources to build out a version for married with a mortgage and 3 kids are linked from this post and the spreadsheets, so if you build one, please share.

Australians point out to me that healthcare in Australia has 2 major caveats:

• There is essentially a $500 annual deductible. That is, the first $1000 worth of care in a year you pay 50%; the remainder is on the government. However, there is a debate in which they are considering eliminating this deductible.
• Many Australians fret at the long waits for doctor's appointments and go to pricier doctors instead. When they do, they exceed the limits the government will reimburse. When that occurs, the government kicks in the maximum and you pay the rest. Often these private doctors charge about double. So there is an inconvenience to free care, and occasionally an undue lack of urgency. On the other hand, these private visits are often so expensive in part because they're lavish - they involve spa treatments etc.

I need to include a comparison to MY healthcare's caveats. I called my healthcare plan and this is literally what they told me - I'm not exaggerating what they said or misreading my plan. This is the plan I pay for with Anthem Blue Cross:

• If I have a heart attack, it's my job (yes, struggling in the hospital) to gather up the relevant paperwork and submit it to them as a claim.
• If it occurs overseas, not only is it my job to do that, but also to cover the full costs of coverage myself in the meantime, and they will optionally reimburse me for what they deem as covered.

Australians have to worry about a $500 deductible that may be legislated away. I have to worry about owing $500,000, how to gather what paperwork to send to who, what lawyer to sue my healthcare company with to recoup my costs, and whether I'll live long enough to see the court case through.