A new International Cricket Calendar

I've been doing a bit of thinking over the past 12 months about the International Cricket calendar and how it needs to be overhauled.  With a lengthy commute on the train each day I've spent a lot more time than I originally intended to research, analyse, and come up with a system that I am confident if adopted will significantly improve the standing of the game and allow it to grow further.

There have been a few media reports that the actual calendar is going to be changed soon, so its time I published my ideas and allow the ICC to make it happen.

Its in a large document here, but the key points are outlined below.

The main issue is that I want Test Cricket to be meaningful which in turn makes it far more compelling viewing. Every match in the World Test Championship series will mean something, because there will be a definitive table of who is the best, rather than the current table which while important doesn't really mean anything.

ICC Test Rankings (ICC website). Does it mean anything?

OK, so India is apparently the best team this week. What about next week?

What is in the New Calendar?

TESTS
There will be a World Test Championship (WTC) which involves 2 home and 2 away matches between each team in a group over 2 years. Two divisions will exist so the best play the best and the rest play the rest. Every 2 years a champion is declared (every 2 years in February) from the table (without a final), with relegation from top division and promotion from the second. Whether each group is 5 or 6 teams is to be determined.

WTC matches will be set WTC blocks of 3 weeks 6 times a year, 2 test matches being held in each of these periods. Overall there will be 16 matches for each team played (8 per year) so not every team will play in every WTC block. Matches between teams in different divisions may be arranged separately that don't carry WTC points.

T20
Where possible Internationals won't be scheduled when domestic cricket matches are occurring. There will be no internationals while the IPL is being run, with the number of international players allowed in that competition being increased. This makes the IPL the unambiguous number 1 domestic competition with no clashes, and player rosters remaining for a whole season.

The Ashes
If Australia and England are good enough to be in the top 6 teams, they'll get to play twice at home and twice away every 2 years. The winner could be determined over each WTC 2 year season, rather than once every 4 in each respective country. The reality is that Australia and England need to compromise for the benefit of all nations, and ensure that the tests they play against everyone else are worth a lot more.

Why its A great Calendar?

INTEGRITY
The incentive to rest players, or perform poorly for benefit (e.g. spot fixing) is significantly lessened when every game means something, not to mention increasing fan engagement.

TEST CRICKET BACK ON TOP
Test cricket will have a lot more interest in it when every game means something. Every two years at the end of the season there will be great interest in the overall winner, and who is relegated and promoted. If 6 team divisions were adopted, 6 exciting test matches could be held at the same time in the final week with an exciting build-up.

NO CLASHES
There will be no clashes between the biggest competitions, because they'll be played at once, meaning the best players can play in them from start to finish without a need to choose. Test match Cricket, ODIs, T20 Internationals, IPL would all be immune from losing players, meaning the whole world is focused on the same thing at the same time.

REST PERIOD
Everybody get a rest for 2 months every 2 years at the end of the season. That's something the players should be pretty happy about.

The Calendar

An example is below for the next 4 years for T20 and Test Cricket. There are few gaps which means that there is the capability of individual nations to make deals about tours around the core fixtures, and add the ODIs to it. Rumour has it the ICC is looking at a separate system of 12 nations playing ODIs against each other every 2 years, so the remaining blocks can be divided up for this purpose, logically with a week at the end of each WTC block.

Week of Season	Week Start (2017-18)	2017-18	2018-19	2018-19	2019-20
1	28 Apr 17	IPL	IPL	IPL	IPL
2	05 May 17
3	12 May 17
4	19 May 17
5	26 May 17
6	02 Jun 17
7	09 Jun 17
8	16 Jun 17
9	23 Jun 17
10	30 Jun 17	WTC Block 1: BYES	BYES	Eng v NZ	Eng v Ind
11	07 Jul 17
12	14 Jul 17
13	21 Jul 17
14	28 Jul 17
15	04 Aug 17	WTC Block 2: India v Aus Pak v SAf	India v NZ Aus v SAf	Eng v Aus India v SAf	Eng v SAf India v Aus
16	11 Aug 17
17	18 Aug 17
18	25 Aug 17
19	01 Sep 17
20	08 Sep 17
21	15 Sep 17
22	22 Sep 17
23	29 Sep 17
24	06 Oct 17
25	13 Oct 17
26	20 Oct 17	WTC Block 3: Pak v NZ SAf v Aus	NZ v Aus Pak v Ind	Aus v SAf Ind v Eng	NZ v Aus
27	27 Oct 17
28	03 Nov 17
29	10 Nov 17
30	17 Nov 17	WTC Block 4: NZ v India Aus v Pak	India v SAf NZ v Pak	SAf v Aus	SAf v NZ
31	24 Nov 17
32	01 Dec 17
33	08 Dec 17	T20 (NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)	T20(NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)	T20(NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)	T20(NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)
34	15 Dec 17	T20 (NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)	T20 (NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)	T20 (NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)	T20 (NZ, Pak, SL, Ban)
35	22 Dec 17	WTC Block 5: Aus v NZ SAf v India	Aus v India SAf v Pak	Aus v NZ SAf v Eng	Aus v Eng SAf v Ind
36	29 Dec 17
37	05 Jan 18
38	12 Jan 18	T20 (Aus)	T20 (Aus)	T20 (Aus)	T20 (Aus)
39	19 Jan 18	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)
40	26 Jan 18	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)
41	02 Feb 18	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)	T20(Aus)
42	09 Feb 18	WTC Block 6: NZ v SAf Ind v Pak	Pak v Aus SAf v NZ	NZ v SAf	Aus v Ind NZ v Eng
43	16 Feb 18
44	23 Feb 18
45	02 Mar 18	WORLD CUP (T20)	Rest Period	WORLD CUP (ODI)	Rest Period
46	09 Mar 18
47	16 Mar 18
48	23 Mar 18
49	30 Mar 18
50	06 Apr 18
51	13 Apr 18
52	20 Apr 18

I think they should care about online consumers?

What's the problem?

There has been an emergence in recent years of what are called Dark Patterns when we are purchasing goods and services online, defined by advocacy group darkpatterns.org as follows:

A Dark Pattern is a type of user interface that appears to have been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills.

I think its about time consumers were protected from this behaviour so I wrote to the ACCC about it. The problem and their response are outlined in this article.

Most people who've used the Internet to purchase goods and services have been victims of such trickery, and it takes a while to gain experience in getting through the process of making sure you don't sign up to newsletters, making sure you don't have extra items added to your bill, and making sure that your on-line payment is not a recurring one when making purchasing decisions.

In addition, many of these processes are "easy-in, hard-out" which makes it difficult to cancel a service that you have accidentally paid extra money for by being required to send cancellation requests trough standard mail or to call a number that is not answered and/or difficult to find, rather than use the same easy mechanism to "opt-in" (e.g. a hidden box in a form that is pre-ticked).

If every time you put a can of tomatoes in a supermarket trolley the retailer added a can of coke, with you having to go to the other side of the store to remove the can and place back in the soft drink section (otherwise being required to pay for the can), then consumers would force supermarkets to stop putting the coke in the trolley and potentially fine them for being misleading and deceptive conduct under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (formerly the Trade Practices Act). In the online world, this should be no different.

An Example

Tiger Airways are one of the biggest offenders. I went to their site on my mobile site (https://m.tigerair.com/) to book a return flight from Melbourne to Sydney. As with most airlines, I selected the outbound and inbound journeys by selecting the flights which had clearly displayed prices of 54.95 and 64.95 respectively, then clicked Next. On the next page I am then required to enter my details (first name, last name and DOB).

I assume this screen is inserted here likely to make me forget how much I've decided to pay on the previous screen. The next part is where it gets tricky. The screen below clearly shows no options checked, but in fact I have agreed to pay an extra $40 for Luggage without knowing it.



The way Tiger have done this is to separate some extras (baggage upsize) from other extras (tigerconnect, sports equipment etc) to give the impression that nothing extra has been selected. Its blatant trickery and is misleading. This should be assumed to be deliberate.

The next screen is more of this. The question of which seat I want, with different seats having different prices, intimates that if I want a seat (which I must have) I need to pay for it.



This is not in fact true. I scroll to the bottom of the page without selecting a seat and click next, and this is perfectly fine.

Once I enter my name and address, I then go to the final screen, which summarises my ticket but doesn't itemise the costs. It just provides a booking total of 171.90, a full $52 more than the expected $119.90 that was advertised as the cost of the flights.

Does the ACCC care?

I wrote to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) citing the above as an issue and asking the following questions:

• Does the ACCC have power to act on websites that trick customers by "opt-in" being the default option for additional services when a primary purchase is made?

• If the ACCC does have this power, has there been any evidence of penalties being imposed on companies for deceptive and misleading conduct? What other actions (if any) has been taken?

• Has there been previous complaints against Tiger Airways for this particular concern (trickery on their website)?

Their response was as follows:

Thank you for the information you provided to us. The issue you have contacted us about may raise concerns under the Australian Consumer Law. Complaints like yours help us understand what issues cause the most harm to Australian consumers and where best to direct our resources.

We will only contact you again if we need more information. Please see our website for information about the ACCC and the types of matters we prioritise.
So it would appear that the ACCC don't prioritise questions that ask them what they do. I can only therefore assume they don't prioritise company's ripping off consumers online, which begs the question: Isn't that their job?

What are the costs?

1. Direct Consumer Cost

There is a cost to consumers that are being "ripped off" by the organisations that exhibit the immoral behaviour of workflows using dark patterns.

2. Anti-competitive

There is a difficulty in price matching between various airlines. If prices can't be easily placed side by side, then competition is reduced and normally that means prices end up being higher.

3. Reduction in Online Confidence and Efficiency

The reason this is such a critical problem is that the costs of "doing things" online for a consumer should enhance our lives by making purchases more efficient than other means. These engagements are also significantly cheaper to facilitate for retailers and other providers of services, as there is no requirement for a shop front, the office can technically be "anywhere" and the transaction can occur any time of the day without the need for a person to be there to facilitate it. Dark patterns reduce confidence, particularly by non-expert Internet users (e.g. older people), and therefore take-up of the more efficient retail behaviour is slower and the high costs of traditional forms of retailing remain. For this reason there needs to be intervention by the Government to improve this confidence.

4. Small Theft Undetected

Taking a small amount from a number of people is far less likely to be reported than taking a large amount from a small number of people. Anybody who does complain is likely to get their money back (consumers are generally encouraged to seek resolution of complaints with the company first). Those who don't bother then allow online retailers to get away with their dark patterns.

Why is the law not being upheld?

Many sites have been and continue to be found to be poorly "put together" by User Experience (UX) experts in terms of the way people interact with them. In the past this was largely the result of not having the expertise to know how people use the internet due to its relative recency. In recent years, however, this has changed, and large retailers employ UX experts to built and maintain their sites and applications to optimise the user experience as well as maximising profit.

Having a poor usability experience which involves a dark pattern should therefore be assumed to be deliberate and the responsibility of online retailers under the law should be to remove such elements from their site. As with other areas of the law, ignorance should be no excuse and fines should be issued to offenders as a multiple of the likely profits made from this behaviour.

Final Thoughts

The main thing we can do to ensure that consumers are protected online is the same thing that we should do in the physical world. Consumers, particularly those in Australia, may not be able to be protected from sites that are based overseas, but any site of an Australian company should be covered by the same rules that govern offline transactions, namely that Dark Patterns are a form of deceptive and misleading conduct.

This should be made clear to the ACCC as a priority with big fines to back them up, and to the Australian public who should feel confident to report this behaviour.

Collect GST on low value Imports

I think they should ensure GST is payable on ALL imported goods and services where there would be a tax on those goods and services if they were locally produced. This includes the current exemption for goods under $1000.

Proposal

• The exemption from GST of imported goods and services under $1000 should be abolished.
• All financial institutions that facilitate payments from Australian bank accounts for goods and services from international sources will be required to charge GST on that payment if the payment is to an international merchant NOT registered for GST in Australia and forward this GST to the Australian Taxation Office.

Background

In Australia, all goods and services except for a few exempt items (e.g. some food) that are sold are subject to a Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 10%. This includes all goods and services paid for by business or consumers. The tax collected is then required to be forwarded to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) on a regular basis.

There is currently an exemption from the GST for imported goods under the value of $1000 prescribed under item 26 of schedule 4 of the Customs Tariff Act 1995.  As a result of this law, local producers of goods and services are disadvantaged as they are paying tax when international competitors are not. This reduces competitiveness of local businesses by at least 10% and results in the following problems:

• A significant reduction in the GST collected by the Government. No numbers have been sourced, but it would be expected that this would be tens of millions of dollars and growing.
• Closure of local businesses. This issue is one of several factors that has resulted in retailers closing down in recent years, in particular for consumer goods such as clothing and electrical. 
• Lack of investment in local businesses.

These problems reduce economic activity, negatively impacting national income via reductions in employment and profitability of operators.

How has this happened?

The significant increase in the ability to purchase goods via the internet and the number of people connected has significantly increased the quantity of low value imports in just a small period of time. The use of financial instruments to easily pay for consumer goods underpins this trend.

The associated low cost of transporting goods and virtually zero cost of transporting services has also made the international importers of low value goods competitive when previously they may not have been.

It has also been argued in 2011 when the issue was hotly contested by large retailers that the high cost of administration of a scheme to tax low value imports would be greater than the revenue collected, however this discussion outlines how it could in fact be a low cost option.

How would it work?

It is assumed that the vast majority international payments for goods and services are either made through Visa, Mastercard, or increasingly through wallets such as Paypal.

The payment request would have to include either an ABN or identifying information that made it easy to match to an ABN, which could then be searched in the Australian Government's ABN lookup system.

Either the acquiring bank (bank of the card holder) OR the card network (e.g. Visa or MasterCard) would be required to add a check against the merchant for whether they are registered for GST. The easiest way of doing this is for Visa and MasterCard to perform the checks and provide the information as to whether the merchant is GST registered in the message sent to the bank for processing.

Wallets such as Paypal would also be required to be facilitate this rule. Movement of funds from banks to wallets where the GST checking mechanism was not in place would incur the 10% fee on any transfer to that wallet. This would ensure that wallets would be incentivised to participate.

The GST would then be forwarded by the institution to the Government.

How does this affect the Customer?

If the merchant was not GST registered then the institution would be required to charge an additional fee against the transaction of 10% of its value. This could appear as a separate item in the bank statement of the consumer, in a similar way to how banks charge a currency conversion fee for international transactions, or the amount of the transaction would be increased. Initially this may in fact be the easiest method of implementation.

How is the payment system affected?

The current way that a credit card is processed via the MasterCard or Visa network is outlined below. Each entity replies with a request of either success or failed. If success, a request is made to the next entity in the flow.

There are two key changes to this process:

• The Payment network will be required (for Australian Card Issuers and international Merchants Only) to check the merchant is GST registered. They could potentially do this using something similar to the Government's ABN lookup capabilities, or other means to be determined (see section below).
• Requests from international non-GST registered merchants will have an additional charge added by the MasterCard or Visa network when sent to the Card Issuer for processing. Ideally the card issuer would be able to identify (using information sent by the Payment Network) whether a payment had the 10% charge added and could inform customers of this.

International GST Registered Register

An online Australian Government Register of GST registered international companies that is highly scalable and available is required. This is expected to be low in cost to administer, which will be done by the ATO.

The Payment Network would request from this register to determine whether an international merchant is GST registered. If there is no response within a reasonable period (e.g. 2 seconds) then the merchant should be assumed to be registered and no additional charge should be requested. In this way the incentive should be on the Australian Government to ensure the register works effectively.

What will it cost?

The introduction of an open register of merchants registered for GST should be very straightforward for the ATO to create and administer. Without knowing all of the details, given limited security is required because the information is public, this is unlikely to cost much at all in terms of the time taken to develop the software and process the requests.

With respect to the cost to Payment Networks such as Visa and MasterCard, it is not known the complexity of the system, however these networks do have a series of rule based mechanisms used as part of card validation. In this way they should be able to already identify where an Australian card is being used for an international merchant, so the associated checking mechanisms via request to the new register and appropriate action should be relatively straightforward. It is expected the cost would be a tiny fraction of the total value of these types of transactions and therefore easily absorbed by the organisation and/or its partners (Australian financial institutions).

Ongoing Review

A continual review of new payment systems that facilitate international payments should be performed annually by the ATO.  Rather than providing a complex blanket rule for all operators, it is considered more appropriate to make a low-cost relatively straightforward change to the system that impacts 99% of transactions and deal with the exceptions as appropriate.

Improve Child Care and Get Mothers back to work

Getting mothers back to work

As a new father with a partner that is looking at re-entering the workforce after giving birth, I am only now fully starting to understand the barriers that are placed in front of her to do this effectively.  When the people who can influence both workplace culture and community standards say the issue is a “complex” or “difficult” one, that tends to be an excuse for not doing anything.

Here I outline a “solution” which I am convinced will greatly improve the family friendly nature of the workforce.  My focus is on the State of Victoria, specifically Melbourne and women who work in the CBD, but that is not to say the same principles aren’t relevant globally.

Attitudes and Assumptions

As a former economist, I know it’s always important to state one’s assumptions up front, and on this basis I assume the following:

• The rightful place of all working-age adults is in the workplace. Following giving birth and taking maternity leave, the choice for a woman to remain outside of the workplace should be respected, but it’s impractical for most people do to so and therefore should not be regarded as expected or the norm.
• The increase in the participation rates of women in the workforce will provide significant benefits (see Benefits section below).
• The Government should expect women to return to work within 18 weeks of giving birth, since it only provides maternity leave for that period of time. If they want this to increase, they need to increase the maternity leave. It is noted the new federal Government’s paid maternity leave will be 26 weeks from a point in 2015.
• Any program of change should minimise costs to the Government or consumers where possible.
• The current systems are a major impediment to women being effective in the workplace, which directly impacts the opportunities they are given, and ultimately their level of remuneration.

Benefits

There are many benefits associated with the desire to enhance the participation of women post having children.

The business community will benefit due to:

• Increased competition for roles,  leading to a higher quality level of employees
• Improved cultural awareness due to the diversity working mothers bring to the workplace

Women will be more available to employers without having to stick to rigid schedules due to more convenient arrangements for collection of children from child care.


Commuters will benefit due to the increased services made possible by both the economies of scale caused by increased demand and the additional services provided as part of the child levy receipts from businesses.

Land holders in the CBD will benefit due to increased demand for businesses operating there due to their “family-friendly” nature.  This includes multinational businesses looking for the best location to set up in Australia.

The gap in pay rates between male and female workers is likely to be reduced due to:

• Smaller gaps in a woman’s career breaks.
• Increased productivity enabled by more flexible working hours. 
• Increased participation in competing for senior roles.

Proposal Summary

Now that I’ve outlined what we need to do, and why we need to do it, my proposal is as follows:

• An additional levy called the “child levy” will be imposed on land tax for all Victorian land and holdings which would increase the cost of land tax by up to 2% at the highest marginal rate.
• An exemption from the child levy payable on evidence of a functional child care facility being available on the land and holdings against which the tax is being levied.
• The conversion of the first, last, or other dedicated carriage of all commuter trains to be “children’s carriages”. These would be clearly marked, fitted out optimally for commuters with infants and young children, and easily accessible through additional “child friendly” gates used as part of ticketing systems. This would be partly funded by the child levy.
•  The use of the child levy to partly fund additional commuter train services and, over time, expand to tram and bus services.

Maternity Leave

Australian Governments have recently made policy changes to improve the capacity of working women to be able to take time off work to have a child with a lessening economic impact of that decision.

In 2011 the federal Labor Government introduced a paid parental leave scheme and the current Coalition Government has agreed to introduce a more generous paid maternity leave scheme by 2015.

While these moves assist families who wish to take time off work to have children, there are large impediments both anecdotal and documented of women having difficulty returning to work following their maternity leave. These solely revolve around child care.

There is a the lack of convenient child care near workplaces, a high expense in provision of such child care facilities and long waiting periods required to be placed in the child care facilities that are available.

Current Child Care Providers

Currently most child care in Victoria is provided by either local government directly, or through privately managed child care centres. This is similar nationally.  Enrolment rules will normally favour local residents over residents from other areas, meaning it is extremely difficult to get affordably child care outside your local area of residence.

As a result the availability of child care in areas where a large number of workers are employed who reside outside that council area are limited.

In addition, the high rental rate for premises in the Melbourne CBD renders child care provision expensive and not viable for private operators.

For these reasons most available child care is therefore provided close to the parents’ place of residence rather than close to their place of work.

Direct Corporate Investment

Following the failure of ABC Child Centres in 2008 and being taken over by a consortium of non-profit organisations including the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, the corporate running of Australian child care centres has largely diminished.

In addition, direct investment by corporations in child care for their staff is currently very limited.

Most child care centres are therefore either run by non-profit groups, councils, or private operators who run one or only a small number of centres.

Late Fines

Most current child care centres require the child to be collected by 6pm, after which hefty “per minute” fines are imposed, which in the modern workplace is not ideal for many workers. Many roles in the service sector have moved for many years towards project driven work and other requirements that are not necessarily governed by a clock, making the requirement of parents to leave at specific times highly inconvenient for workers and their employers.

Parents therefore need to either have private transport (e.g. car) close by or to rely on a reliable public transport infrastructure to travel to a train, tram or bus stop, then either walk or commute to the child care centre to collect their child.

The further the commute for the parent, the more at risk parents are of not getting to their child care centre on time, which ultimately leads to one of three outcomes:

• Parents reduce their hours to below the level they would consider optimal, if it is possible to arrange this with their employer.
•  Parents become rigid about the times they attend and leave their workplace, resulting in less flexible working arrangements with their employer and therefore lower productivity
• Parents leave the workplace entirely

All of these points lead to a reduction in opportunities for women for career advancement and therefore they are less likely to fulfil their career goals and the supply of high quality candidates is reduced. This impacts directly on productivity in the workplace.

Office Foyers

Most large buildings within the Melbourne CBD have extremely large, mostly unused foyer areas on their ground floor, apart from token coffee shops.

These large foyer areas would provide the perfect location for constructing infant child care centres, directly underneath the location of their parents’ employment.

Breastfeeding mothers

Breastfeeding mothers currently find it difficult to return to work as their children would be in child care centres too far away to regularly feed. This provides a further barrier to women returning to work. The provision of child care close to their workplace would enable breaks to be scheduled that are utilised for this purpose, as part of an arrangement with their employers allowing them to return to work more quickly.

Land Tax Rates

In 2013, the general marginal land tax rate for taxable value of land holdings valued at over $3,000,000 was 2.25%. This has been the same since 2009. This rate came down between 2004 and 2009 from 5% in 2004.

Given the significant drop in land tax over this period, a return to rates in between the 2004 value and the current value for some taxpayers is not considered likely to impact land owners to the point where building investment is impacted, especially since many office buildings are owned by Superannuation funds which are looking for long term value rather than short term gains. The value of a building may well be enhanced by the provision of child care facilities and not reduced over the longer term, despite the increased taxation impost.

Train Commuting

Currently commuter trains are crowded at peak times and not easy for mothers to travel to their workplace easily with an infant or multiple children.

Notwithstanding the low Government investment in train services over the past 50 years, the provision of child care close to workplaces in the Melbourne CBD or other centres is not likely to be effective unless parents can transport their infants safely.

The expert “decking out” of one carriage of each commuter train in Melbourne and other parts of the State would correct this problem. This could include the following changes:

• A new bright colour being used for the carriages (e.g. Pink, Orange).
• Easy moving of prams from platform to train, and spots for standing and sitting next to a pram.
• Easy access through ticket gates, particularly at City stations, and access to escalators and lifts that are pram friendly.

 

Final Comments

If I can create a proposal that has wide ranging benefits for limited, or zero cost, then how can we get short term thinkers in Government to implement?

First perhaps we should be asking what kind of society we want to create and debating that rather than the focussing on the issue of the day.

What's this all about: I think they should?

I think they should consider my ideas.

I have a lot of ideas. A lot of them are excellent. A lot of them I discuss with people and that's where they end. What I have decided to do is to share my ideas more widely by writing them down and provoking some thought so they can be viewed more widely and maybe one day implemented.

All of my blogs will start with "I think they should ..." because I think they should do a lot of things differently to how "they" currently do them. Most of my topics relate to Australian politics as that's where I live, but hopefully will be broadly applicable.

I don't believe in copyright or patents, so no need to ask permission to distribute more widely. It is for these reasons that none of my blogs will be referenced. Its such an onerous task to credit somebody with an idea that probably wasn't truly original, so I'm not bothering.

Enjoy!