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The wife & I had a very quiet 63rd wedding anniversary. spacesailor

He's been here before. He's in the process of bankrupting the biggest casino he's been able to get his hands on. Unfortunately the unwitting players and spectators are the American public.

A big positive for me. I lost my wallet in a park yesterday in the English Midlands and today I got it back with licence, credit cards and about $400 equivalent in cash. The girl who handed it in at the police station did not leave her name.

My wife used to compare me to Chris Hemsworth. She used to say, "You're no Chris Hemsworth."

Went for a snorkel off Coningham this morning (bloody freezing - 8 degrees on land and felt like not much more in the water) - and my wife got to try out our new waterproof camera. Despite the cold - hanging out with all the little fish was amazing. Schools and schools of them. Plus the occasional big wrasse.

If you judge a person by the company they keep, then check out who Dutton's best bud and paymaster is hanging out with. Just to join the dots: - Dutton wants to be PM - Dutton's party gets a huge amount of funding from Gina - Dutton and Gina are friends - Gina has previously made statements like working people should be paid $2 a day - Gina hangs out with Trump mega supporters - Trump has laid off thousands of public servants - Dutton wants to lay off thousands of public servants Blind Freddy can see that if you vote for Dutton, you're voting for the same craziness that's killing democracy in the US right now. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/31/a-female-donald-trump-how-gina-rinehart-is-pushing-trumps-message-australia-ntwnfb

When I broke my ankle on the motorcycle over here, I was amazed at the conditions under which dedicated staff worked. The doc asked if I minded having the thingy to attach the drip to inserted into my right hand. My response was I preferred not to know about it, as I am queasy (it took over a week for me to read the first chapter of Human Performances and Limitations for the PPL here - it wasn't a requirement in Aus when I got my license). His response was if he didnt tell people he was doing it, 99% of the time he could expect a right hook to his jaw. A week alter, I was readmitted to casualty (ER is another American import) with suspected compression syndrome.. they didn't fart around, but for the short period of time I had to wait on a stretcher (it was later on a Friday or Saturday evening) in the tick of the action, all I can say is it was a real eye opener of the continual stress and security threat they work under. At sone stage, they had this huge bloke - over 6'6" and full of muscle, coked off his head, threatening abusing the staff because they were trying to treat his badly cut up knees from glass of broken bottles. He wasn't letting them get near him and he was a real challenge to the numerous security staff on shift. Eventually, they got his mother in to calm him down, and I had to laugh - she was 4' nothinh and petite and diminutive as they come, but jeez she packed a ferocious bark... He eventually settled down... The doc came to see me and I remarked to him he is a better man that I and that if it we me, after his second intensive remonstration, I would have just let him get gangrene or have the issues of glass lodged in his body. These people generally deserve our respect and a bloody lot more money than most of the get.

My wife & I posted off our votes today. 33 spots on the Senate paper, both of us marked 1-33. I see that the LNP have done a preference swap deal with Pauline Hanson now - so just consider where your preferences are going! It's why I always mark every spot. I don't want the political parties to decide where my preference is going - I'll choose that myself, thanks very much.

I thought I would give a quick review of some practical EV experience. As an EV enthusiast who doesn't own an EV, I can only go on what others tell me, but in this case, this is first-hand experience. We have just arrived back from a 3-week trip in NZ, visiting our "favourite" offspring (he is an only child). We spent a week driving around the South Island in petrol-driven rental cars. I have often been told by the anti EV crowd that it takes forever and it is impractical to go outside of the city coz it take a fortnight to charge - Bollocks! From my son's home we departed with around 90 something per cent charge. This was from his overnight charging, which due to a deal from the electricity company (they have to much power overnight, I think they sell it for about 10 cents a KWh). This electricity is generated from hydro. We had to make a stop in town because son and business partner had to pick up some merch to flog at the races. Mrs Octave and I opted to stay in the car rather than to go with them. Although it was not super hot, the sun was quite strong, so my son put the car into "dog mode", which kept the aircon running. Actually I am pretty sure you can do this some other way, but I think he thought "dog mod was humorous" We then drove for another hour and stopped at a supermarket which had a Tesla supercharger in the car park. He plugged it in and because it was a Tesla charger, there is no need to muck around with apps or credit cards, just plug it in and it charges the car and your credit card. From memory, the car was around 85ish %. We went into the supermarket to buy some nibbles for the journey and then located a cafe for the caffeine requirements. We probably would have been about 30 minutes. When we returned to the car, it was at 100%. We drove for a couple of hours and then needed to stop for a toilet break. We stopped at a Tesla supercharging site, plugged in and by the time we had all relieved ourselves, the Tesla was back to 100% ( charges about 280km per 15 minutes in ideal conditions). When we reached our destination, the power was down around the 20% level. The car directed us to a Tesla charger, and we plugged in and went to find somewhere for dinner. We found a pub with a rooftop dining area overlooking the lake. My son had one drink and then went to retrieve the car as it was approaching full. You can just leave it, but it is bad etiquette to leave a fully charged car taking up a charging spot. The next day the car was not needed by my son, so Mrs Octave and I went on a bit of a jaunt in it. We got back with 85% left. The car was plugged into the power point supplied by our accommodation with a 10 amp "granny lead" Next morning car at 100%. We drove from Taupo to Napier and stopped for a late breakfast. I was assuming the car would have been charged whilst we went to breakfast but this was not necessary. We later had a toilet stop at a golf club where the car was charged for a few minutes. A couple of hours later, we stopped at a town whose name I can't recall. We drove into a shopping mall car park and plugged the car into the Tesla charger whilst we went in search of more caffeine. I don't recall how much charge this gave us, but it took us the rest of the way home. It seems to me that at least with this car and in NZ, which is possibly ahead with charging infrastructure, road trips are incredibly easy. Now I imagine someone is going to say that in Australia we have much longer distances, and this is true. This is somewhat balanced out by the stupidly steep terrain in NZ and my son's shall we say, "enthusiastic" driving style.

I like the Dave Allan burial benediction - "In the Name of the Father, the Son, and in the Hole He Goes".

This is probably the best opinion I've seen yet on why people vote for idiots like Trump. (Or Clive for that matter). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-human-nature-economic-growth Basically it boils down to the ever-growing gap between the rich and poor, referenced in posts above. If you're disenfranchised and struggling to survive, and you see people around you doing a lot better, then you may just want to destroy the whole unfair system - and this is the feeling that right-wing populists latch onto. They're not ACTUALLY going to make your life any better, in fact they will likely make it a lot worse, but they'll also make other people's lives worse too. A type of self destructive desperation. So maybe we should be taxing the rich a LOT more. How can we do that? Start by getting the money out of politics so there's no incentive for parties to do special favours for them.

I wouldn’t trust Clive with Australia’s bank accounts.

someone will always find a way to corrupt it. Right to bear arms was written in a far more simpler time, I'm fairly certain it wasn't intended to give mentally unstable people access to modern automatic weapons. I'm also certain the founding fathers of America didn't think a convicted criminal would ever get voted into office, so didn't include it in their documents. Its a sham when a convicted felon can't vote, but can be voted in.

Just think who would Gina or Donald vote for? Now vote the opposite

Here's a partial list of Trump's achievements so far (apart from tariffs, getting rid of USAID and going after law firms he doesn't like): — Gutting the IRS so badly that the country will lose an estimated $500 billion to morbidly rich tax cheats — Killing off the EPA so polluters can run free and profit from giving us cancer — Disbanded the Public Integrity Section that once prosecuted corrupt politicians — Shut down the DOJ unit that was prosecuting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — Moved the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) under Kash Patel’s overview with the goal of neutering it — Crippling the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) that stops big banks and insurance companies from ripping off average people — Taking a hatchet to NASA presumably to hand more power and money to SpaceX — Dismantling the Department of Education to create more demand for private for-profit schools — Paralysing the Department of Health and Human Services that protects us from disease and pandemics — Mutilating the National Labor Relations Board that protects workers’ rights — Proclaiming their intention to end FEMA, so Americans are on their own when climate-change-driven disasters strike — Tearing apart the Social Security Administration so seniors will have to rely on big banks for retirement options — Demolishing the National Institutes of Health that develops new drugs and cures for disease — Seizing control of the FCC so they can end net neutrality and dictate content of radio and TV programming — Stripping NOAA of its workers so we’ll have to rely on for-profit companies for our weather reports and storm warnings — Kneecapping the Department of Transportation to block new public transportation projects and deregulate big trucking companies and self-driving cars — Ripping up the Department of Energy so it can’t fund any more “green” energy projects — Wiping out the Department of Housing and Urban Development to prevent any new low-income housing projects — Attacking the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to leave Americans defenceless — Largely ending the ability of the Office of Civil Rights within the DOE to enforce anti-discrimination laws in education — Defunded the National Institute of Justice that works against terrorism and far-right extremism — Eviscerating the Department of Veterans Affairs and other programs that help our veterans (including shutting down the suicide prevention hotlines) — Defunding the Department of Agriculture to gut food stamps/SNAP, school lunch programs, and supports for small family farms — Paralysing the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) that oversees the executive branch to make sure anti-terrorism efforts don’t violate civil rights — Weakening the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) so it can’t do its job of protecting minority or disabled workers and job applicants — Firing scientists at the FDA, gutting oversight of drug manufacturers. — Snatching students off the streets and transporting them to a private for-profit prison in Louisiana with no due process and in clear defiance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — Proposing changes to voting laws that will prevent tens of millions of married women from casting a ballot — Threatening to seize foreign, sovereign lands by force.

Give it up, I haven't met a nice lady at a polling booth yet.

When we choose where to live we have to weigh up the pros and cons. We lived in the bush for 21 years and enjoyed the good things and accepted the things that were inconvenient and above all we did not whinge. You can't have everything. If you enjoy your seclusion you just have to accept that it comes with disadvantages.

SWMBO has a friend who is - actually, was - a senior ER nurse, dealing with some pretty dramatic presentations. They deal mostly with angry, drugged or drunk people who have injured themselves - often badly. These injured patients abuse the nurses and doctors when they're trying to help them. They attack them, they punch them, they kick them, they even draw knives and other weapons on them, and threaten to kill them. They belittle the nurses and doctors, and threaten them when they don't get what THEY want - which is usually more drugs or more alcohol, other unreasonable demands. The nurses and doctors have to have security staff and orderlies who are expected to deal with violent and abusive patients on a constant basis. In between all this mayhem - genuine, ordinary people present with urgent medical problems, and expect immediate attention from overworked, abused, and tired nurses, doctors, receptionists, and other hospital staff. I'd like to see GON take up a job in the front line of the emergency entrance of a major hospital - preferably working in security. I'll wager he wouldn't last 5 mins. SWMBO's friend threw in her ER job, and now does gardening work. She says she had to do it, to preserve her sanity.

The CSIRO has been getting some undeserved bad rap in recent times and the Age is keeping it up. If the CSIRO research was valueless, why has the CSIRO set up licence agreements with more than 20 international companies, and has received around A$430 million in licensing revenue, from their Wi-Fi research? And how did they get the 2012 European Inventors Award for their Wi-Fi contribution? The truth is often very nuanced. https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/it/WLAN#:~:text=Slow wireless networking&text=CSIRO has licence agreements with,to send and receive information. https://www.naa.gov.au/visit-us/events-and-exhibitions/disrupt-persist-invent/wi-fi Don't forget the CSIRO has produced over 600 useful inventions from their research, and hold over 3000 patents. They invented the Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (which the mining and chemical industries rely on enormously today), polymer banknotes, Aeroguard, "Softly" Woollens detergent, developed myxomatosis and calicivirus for controlling rabbits, invented DME for aircraft, and produced the Relenza flu drug - along with a host of other useful products. They deserve better than a critical, incorrect put-down, in a cheap-shot media source.

They sure did, my second partners dad had the "luck" of been hit three different times by German subs. First time he escaped the engine room just in time. The second was on deck, the third in the wheel house. He was very lucky, each time he was rescued and only minor burns at worst. Most never had a chance or drowned. He was one extremely lucky engineer. They called him " hard to kill Bill" The British merchant navy was a far more deadly job then a war ship posting.

He's mourned because he is not around to further bless us with his good works and will be missed. PS I'm an atheist. He exerted a good influence, empathy and caring for the earth and the needy and scorned "Show and wealth". His coffin is a simple wood box and he won't be buried in the Vatican but a nearby Italian churchyard.. He questioned Trumps "claimed" Christianity based on what HE did. Reasonable? Nev

This is a series of screenprints of the map on the EV Charging Stations website, zooming in from Australia wide, to Victoria, to Melbourne and right down to one station. Australia wide stations Victorian stations Melbourne stations Eastern suburbs stations The station at Canterbury Rd , Vermont and Gippsland. Map Legend. Selecting a station, click on the marker and an info panel with hours of operation adapter type, phone number and sometimes price will open

I'll have to show our miniature Foxie, just in case he ever wondered what the vet did with his

Attitude matters, race doesn't - that's my philosophy anyway

It's a very strange state of mind for most of us to try and grasp. I'm sure no one here would qualify as a deal originator either. What is the point of having more money than you can spend in a lifetime? The sad thing is that many, and probably most, of the seriously wealthy amass their fortunes by manipulating rather than contributing. Unfortunately for them they end up dying like the rest of us, so ultimately what's the point?

I met Richard Clapton in the lift at St Margarets Hospital in Sydney the day my twins were born ,he was there to see his newborn child, had a chat seems like a nice bloke , went to viewing area and had a chat about being a Dad to him (scond time around for me )he was a bit stunned at this this (his child) being ,so tiny ,,his music is always good to listen to.

It doesn't matter what he does, they will not charge him. We have the incredible situation that a greedy sociopath convicted felon is given a position that he can abuse in a thousand different ways to profit himself and his cronies, without fear of consequence.

What are the chances the Justice Department or SEC will investigate this? Not good.

teknalb tew a hcus er'uoy. Nah sorry Peter, that one doesn't work.

Trump often complains that America is not respected any more. Respect is normally understood to be a feeling of admiration or regard for somebody or something. Trump has said he wants other countries to respect the US again, but what he means by respect is special attention or consideration. It's the kind of 'respect' a Mafia boss wants that is based on relative power and fear of consequences. There's nothing very noble it.

Oh, how appropriate! "Snouts in the trough"?

I think the bronze is fine, it is the patina that has rubbed off. And maybe the novelty.

What a total crock of sh*t. These imbeciles wouldn't know sh*t from clay. Trying to say items were shipped mislabelled, and shippers were using Heard and Macquarie Islands as the origin point - when they don't even have commercial port facilities!! A shipping label like that would be stopped at the border, it wouldn't even be in any computerised recording system - and all shipping and port handling is fully computerised today. You have enough trouble trying to ship items when you're not a regular shipper - even using a shipping agent on a one-off basis brings about a host of questions.

I don't have a huge amount of positives to report right now. I went up to my block in the Wheatbelt on Friday to do some constructive work, and it rained nearly all day! I was pretty disappointed as I got only about 20% done out of what I'd planned. I'm trying to construct more shelter for all my items, and I'm in the process of re-assembling a large garden shed for additional storage. A positive is I only paid $50 for the garden shed, and it has been built with a proper frame made from 25mm SHS tubing and 75x38 roof beams. It took me 5 hrs to dismantle it, but I think it's taken me around 5 weeks to reassemble it! Part of the problems has been multiple heatwaves, then I had to reconstruct the frame as the original builder stuffed it up with missing supports in some places and doubled up supports in other places. I also made it worse by electing to extend the frame from front to back by 20cm. It has ended up 3M x 3.4M and it's 2.14M high at the back and 2.24M high at the front (skillion roof). Working in the open is also a problem, and I'll be glad when I get some decent shelter built. The garden shed will be completed this week, and I'll be able to transfer lots of parts and other items that are currently under tarps, into it. Then I've also got a 6M x 6M roof, that I'm slinging between two 20 foot sea containers, in the early construction stages. That will then give me some covered "workshop" area to operate. But the good news is, my "main" shed is under way - a 12M x 8M x 4M gable-roof, concrete floor shed, which I have probably 50% constructed - and my building engineer has just finished the plans for it, which the council requires, and he has given me all the paperwork to submit to them as well. The only downside is he's charged me $3000 (plus GST) for drawing up the plans, which came in on the high side of his original cost estimate.

No. Shrinkflation is when your psychologist stops bulk billing and name their own price.

What a pack of imbecilic morons, putting tariffs on Heard Island and Macquarie Island! I bet someone wrote up an April 1st article about Macquarie Island exports, and they believed every word of it, as Gods Truth. A friend of SWMBO's who does marine/environmental research work says they've been ordered to remove any reference to "bio-diversity" in any marine or environmental research that is to be sent to America. What a pack of f****** idiots.

OAM to Mrs spacey. nev

My positive for this week is; SWMBO and I spent an enjoyable 3 days renting a coastal AirBnB house about 200kms North of Perth (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) to celebrate our 35th anniversary and to unwind a little, and get in some beach time. It's been a very hot and humid March, really unusual for this time of year. It's been around 34° - 36° for a couple of weeks now, and the nights are staying above 20°, which is very warm for this time of year. So, we took off on Saturday morning, up the Mitchell Fwy and onto Indian Ocean Drive for an enjoyable 200km drive on a very good road. We got there around 2:00PM, checked in and kicked back for a while, then went out looking for some dinner. We weren't all that hungry, so we grabbed a couple of chicken kebabs from a local cafe, and they turned out to be pretty ordinary. Ah well, can't have top quality food, all the time! Saturday was hot (34°), but there was a threat of a thunderstorm brewing. There was a trough just offshore down the West Coast (typical Summer weather pattern) and sure enough, we had a ripper of a storm during the night. The wind (Easterly/Nth. Easterly) picked up, and we had lightning and some very loud thunder, that even woke me up! But no rain where we were. Further down, Perth and N.E. of Perth got some rain (3.4mm in Perth). However, when we woke up Sunday morning, the wind was howling! - 35-40kmh, gusting to probably 50kmh. It was quite unpleasant, so we jumped in the car and took off for a drive to Jurien Bay, about 26kms further North. JB is quite a decent-size country town now, around 3000 people, and they have big-city subdivisions and suburbs! - a lot more than the last time we visited (a few years ago now). We toured around JB and checked out all the recent development, and then stopped at the Sandpiper Tavern for lunch. We shared a Greek Lamb pizza and a large Garden Salad, and it was very good. We went back to Cervantes in the afternoon and checked out Thetis Lake and the 3,500 yr old Stromatolites there. We drove on further down, and discovered a delightful beach called Hansen Bay beach, and decided we'd come back in the morning. We went back to the house, had afternoon tea, and I had a snooze for a while! All this touring is tiring! Come dinnertime, I fired up the house BBQ, and we cooked up some delicious Aldi Scotch Fillet steak, ate it with a nice garden salad (we made it before we left), fried onions, and thick potato slices fried on the BBQ. Delicious! After dinner, we kicked back by watching a fascinating doco on SBS about the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral! I highly recommend this doco, it's really eye-opening, from the carving of new Cathedral statues, the repair of many old damaged statues, the massive amount of woodwork and timber installation in the roof - right through to sand casting new lead sheeting (in the U.K.) for the Cathedral roof! Monday morning, the wind had totally abated, so we went down to Hansens Bay beach, and had an enjoyable nude swim, because there was no-one around! - we had kms of beach to ourselves! Late morning we headed back to the house. During Saturday night, a number of serious bushfires started up between Cervantes and Perth (mostly around Lancelin) and these fires resulted in both major highways back to Perth being closed for all Sunday, and into Monday afternoon, while the fires were fought by ground crews and water bombers. We were concerned that both highways were still closed at lunchtime Monday. Our AirBnB host was very good, and advised us we could have an extended checkout, and could stay for the rest of Monday if we wished, as it was obvious the highway closures were making it difficult for everyone, and making for a very long detour inland, to get back to Perth! There are virtually no other roads North and South in the region of the fires, because there's huge areas of Nature Reserves and original native vegetation in the fire areas. However, by 1:00PM, we found the Brand Hwy had been reopened, but this still meant a detour of probably 30 kms inland, as Indian Ocean Drive was still closed. Accordingly, we left Cervantes at 2:00PM, did the detour to the Brand Hwy, and we were back home by 4:30PM with no dramas. All in all, it was a very enjoyable break, but it would've been a lot better if the weather on Sunday had stayed the same as Saturday and Monday (warm and light winds). However, you can't alter the weather, you just have to take it as it comes. This is the place we stayed in. It's bigger than we really needed, but because we left it a bit late to book, everything else around town was booked out. It was a very nice place to camp, though. https://www.property.com.au/wa/cervantes-6511/drummond-crcs/30a-pid-14918743/

GON, No - I have no family, I went through a very difficult time after my return from Vietnam, and broke up with my then girlfriend, and effectively "went bush" for a long period of time, during which time I found it very hard to establish a relationship with any woman. However, I met a good woman when I was 41, and she was 39, and we clicked and "shacked up", and we just celebrated being together for 35 years yesterday. She was a divorcee who raised a girl and boy to adulthood, on her own, with outstanding results, as both her son and daughter are upstanding citizens. Perhaps being a Police Superintendents daughter and knowing right from wrong was a big help, but she has exceptional strength of character, and set strict boundaries for her kids. A major problem was, she got her reproductive system stitched up in her late 20's, deciding that she never wanted any more children. I tried to get her to reverse it, but that only produced a high level of stress in her, so I didn't push it. Her experience was that men just give you babies, and then abandon you, and it was an experience that affected her outlook for good. She had been married to a pretty useless drug-using musician initially, and her marriage barely lasted 5 years before she booted him for infidelity, and general uselessness. She never got a cent in child support from him over his entire life, and he died a couple of years ago with little by way of assets, and after suffering from multiple cancers for quite a number of years, from his mid-60's. He actually died in total squalor in a rented property, and despite treating his kids with disdain, and using them as a source of funding regularly, they still went and spent the effort to clean up his property and sort out his affairs - great credit due to them. The property was in such a state, they actually had to use breathing apparatus and pressure cleaners to clean the place up. It was full of rotten food, dog turds, uncollected waste and mounds of general rubbish. It took them 3 weeks to clean the property up! Abandoned cars from other people, knackered furniture items, the rubbish they had to clean up was mind-boggling. I've got a reasonably good relationship with my stepson and stepdaughter, despite a few rocky patches early on. Stepdaughter and SWMBO are like twins, they have a very strong bond, and my arrival caused a few problems there for a while, as SD tried everything she could, to get rid of me. But we established a relationship, that while not close, is a satisfactory one, and she accepts I'm part of the furniture now. Unfortunately, she has suffered from endometriosis since puberty, and has been unable to procreate, so that has been a bitter blow to her. Her brother insisted he was never going to have children for many years, as he spent 18 years with one partner - then that partner up and left him suddenly, for seemingly minor reasons - so he went on to find himself a divorcee who has two adult sons, and despite a late marriage, they had a son together in 2014 - and as he's an only grandchild, I think he's probably spoilt. There are many things I'd love to change if I had my life over again, but one has to accept what life dishes out, I know a lot of people have had some pretty shi**y lives, and ended up in dire straits when circumstances they had little control over, seriously affected their lives.

I didn't mention the numerous long waits in casualty. I didn't mention that because those events were not due to incompetance of the staff. The delays I experienced were due to short staffing. None of those 3hr waits were for genuine serious conditions, and a triage nurse regularly did make frequent checks on patient condition.

I have often been in hospital waiting rooms. In maybe a dozen different hospitals. I have never seen "First in - first served". It aint a coffee shop. I always saw "most in need - first served". That is what triage is all about.

Sad to see...... "election, with lines drawn on cost of living and energy" No mention of..... * Climate * Transparency of Anti Corruption * Security independence (AUKUS OR DEFENSE) * Australian control of manufacturing * Reducing multinational tax avoidance * Control of foreign ownership * OUTLAWING LIES IN ELECTION ADVERTISING.. ......... yes I was shouting.

Was typing in a hurry, other others' subsequent posts expounded the idea. Apart from the bit that they never learned COBOL, I find it hard to believe they couldn't work with the data. If the programming language was COBOL, chances are the data would be stored in a relational database, which, if on IBM, would likely be DB2; if on Unix/Linux, most likely be Oracle, and if on MS Windows Server, could be either Oracle or MS SQL Server. Although if on IBM, it could be Oracle, or ADABAS as well. There may be others.. has been a while since I have written COBOL. Each of these relational databases use a standard language, SQL (Structured Query Language), to access the data. It could be that they are on some Big Data repository, but again, there would be some standard interface, including butchered versions of SQL. I very much doubt they would store such data using as simple or binary files accessed directly from the language and that goes for any language - C, C++, Java, Python, C#, just to name a few of the more modern languages. The overhead of writing ones own routines to efficiently store and access the data, as well as maintained data integrity, scalability, security, guaranteed recovery, and, well general ACIDity of the data (https://www.databricks.com/glossary/acid-transactions) as well as transaction management is huge, and when you consider the data will have to be distributed and concurrently accessed by hundreds, if not thousands of users. But even if they decided to use native files and implement all of the above, learning COBOL quickly enough to run programs, get and understand the data is not hard for a seasoned programmer. In fact, once you're a tech whizz, reading any language is pretty well easy because regardless of what language you are using, they all have pretty well much the same computer science constructs (well COBOL is limited in some areas compared with the languages I mentioned above, but if you have learned any of those other languages, COBOL would be a doddle to read). Its a bit like some people who can understand some spoken languages enough, but not speak the language. And in any case, any file written by one language can be read by any other language on that platform. So, I tend to agree with this: