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Starting a new topic, similar to the "tell us about your last flight" on the sister site, but for motorbikes. (Or whatever else you've been riding. Just remember it's a family site 😜) Had a lovely ride this morning, met @nomadpete and his better half for a coffee then down to Dover. From there I took the Esperance Coast road (which I've never done before - but it was a beautiful riding road), which comes out at Surges Bay. Beautiful day, no pesky cars in the way for most of it. Pure fun!

There seems a lot of blindly just accepting that AI will be a net good for productivity and side benefits like medicine. However, the dangers are not been discussed properly. The environment is not going to be be a winner except in clever energy market management. The vast energy and water use will be its biggest environmental failing. AI centers use huge amounts of energy, make masses of heat and require extreme amounts of water for cooling. They are already saying AI now uses more energy than entire countries and its only just starting. Tasmania is expected to need 40% more power just for a few data centers, which will be built using all foreign equipment and only employ a handful of people on each site. Its water useage will be extreme. Lets not forget that Tasmania now suffers water shortages and droughts. So for a tiny amount of income tax they will use more power and resources than the Aluminium smelter which is a physical resources we can sell. You can bet that transfer pricing is used to hide any actual profits that are taxable, so the people and environment will pick up the tab for the costs and the AI owners will take all the money tax free. In other states such a Queensland and NT, they refuse to use only green power and want to use GAS and coal power. I cant see any great benefits in AI beyond a business using it as a money maker and killer of jobs. The military side is very scary, as is the loss of nation states power to control it. We need to heavily regulate and control its use and ensure it pays its way socially, environmentally and in taxation aka the triple bottom line. Currently AI will end up concentrating wealth to even more obscene levels, which can not be sustained without huge political unrest. Dont drink the AI coolaid. For those that doubt AI's ability to imperil humanity and other life, you need to use your imagination. I am a clever bugger and can easy come up with ways it could easily be done- but I won't mention it online- AI is listening and does not need any help. I am not doomsaying just been sensible and a student of history.

The Poor will pay the Price of the bribe. It just adds to the existing debt, and is inflationary. Another Con by the Don. Nev

All the talk in the news lately about artificial superintelligence and the urgent need to regulate it reminds me of a virus that's already escaped the laboratory. I get the feeling that the genie will be well and truly out of the bottle before the world's lawmakers can do anything about it.

Even if he did pay out (and he won't), most people would have lost over $5k already in price rises, loss of benefits, loss of services etc caused by the idiot's actions to date, and would lose more if they kept the Republicans in power.

Anything to do with Trump is foul.

I always wondered how many folks actually read my posts. Now I know. Thanks!

Got my bike back yesterday... I was bracing myself for a big bill haveing burned out one regulator and potentially damaged the shop's bench regulator... The total price, including VAT (20%) was £477.. This included 4 hours of labour at £70/hr (which is a little on the high side, but dealers charge £90). They only charged me one regulator and there was a few assorted other parts. It was mainly corroded connectors throughout. The regulator company credited me the burned out regulator that my bike caused. And to boot, the regulator was cheaper through the bike shop than direct - by £50. Who said customer service is dead. The bike is due its MOT (RWC) on 18th December... They are already booked out to the end of November... Shows how a good shop makes money.

Never was a problem in the good ole days - bikes had a kick starter and a magneto to make the motor go and a carbide lamp up front to light the path. Batteries? Bah!

From the workshop --> home... Electrical gremlin fixed; sunny day, light breeze, cooling weather (about 18)... traffic reasonable. Smile back on face.

This sounds like a brilliant move.... Trump's Dallas mid-term convention site has been possibly sabotaged. The address redirects to the DOJ Epstein Library. http://gopdallas2026.com/ Try it. It really does!

I think AI has great potential in things like medical and scientific research as well as tasks like coding. Our firm is actively exploring ways to use it in engineering design as well as routine administrative tasks like taking meeting minutes and summarising long documents. I find it very handy to answer random questions that Google doesn’t do as easily. My concern is the uses it could be put to by people whose motivations are criminal or hostile, or if and when it develops to the point where we don’t know what it’s doing or lose control of it altogether.

I'm sorry Jerry, I don't see any upside at all to AI. I'm a programmer too, not on your level I'm sure. My employer is all gung ho about AI. Obviously if you own or run a company then you want AI. Let's face it, buying or renting an employee who works 24/7, doesn't require breaks, doesn't get pregnant, isn't an alcoholic or lazy or just distracted by all the shit that happens to humans - probably seems like a great idea. But while it benefits the shareholders at the top, what does it do for society and the other 99% of humanity? We can't all be baristas, and even now it wouldn't be hard to totally automate that. Work is part of our identity. Without purpose, what do we do? Sit around all day watching AI slop?

Let's be realistic. It's not going to happen. Anyone read an Epstein file lately?

I can see you have tried to answer my question. Thanks for that. But you seem to be struggling to name any definite benefit to the people. What is the prospectus? Will my Council rates/car rego/groceries/rent, etc, go down? Will the hospitals definitely deliver faster/more accurate/cheaper health care? Seems the promises are all couched in terms like 'might' or 'should' do lots of the above. In the past, multibillion dollar projects were only approved when there were specific itemised measurable deliverable values that warrant the investment. So far I only see wishy-washy vague half promises. And little sign of addressing any of the risks. Is it just 'build it and the world will beat a path to your door, bearing gifts of gold' ?

Bloody yanks complaining that the MCG, designed for cricket and AFL, had too much space around their postage stamp pitch so front row spectators required binoculars to see the game. I watched part of the game, a stoppage every 20 seconds, making a 15 minute quarter take more than half an hour.

Nowadays reality can be created while you wait. And history has become an evolving story, when it was once a record of the past.

Here is an analysis of Trump's $5K cheque announcement by, would you believe it?, an Australian professor of Economics living in the USA. He asks five questions whose answers shoq that this announcement is hot air. Totally impractical, and even illegal under world moentary rules. The answer to his first question is obvious - would Trump deliver? No need for me to supply the answer to you.

According to Trump, if it walks like a duck; if it quacks like a duck, it's a water fowl.

Nope.. It is c. 245m adults x $5k = c. $1.33tn. On the assumption he would follow through (apparently, previously promised money including DOGE cheques for those who effectively took voluntary redundancy haven't been paid - but I have not researched it so it could just be a rumour), and assume it would take around 3 months to permeate through the economy, it would represent a c. 3.7% of GDP stimulus to the economy, with a lot of people who will spend it. What happens when you add to the M3 money supply? Inflation. And putting that much more in - in a short period - would bring back visions of people in Germany in the 30s.. Well, maybe not as bad, but inflation will hit hard, interest rates will rise to try and stem it and that $5K is not quite worth what they think it is. The US debt is at historical highs and yields are rising now (still YoY slightly down). The world economy is starting to feel the onset of a nasty flu. If Chumpo is true to his word and the Republicans win, you do not want to have or hold anyone else's debt.

Developing and implementing all risk systems for our whole European business.

I see where a bloke from Anthropic rates it a 10% chance AI will cause human extinction by 2030. That's it, I'm definitely not buying a new car, the old one should see me out.

Almost Page 103. Nev

Come the revolution.... the enablers will rule the world. We might have more to worry about than the price of diesel.

Bob Hawke’s widow Blanche D’Alpuget has died, aged 82.

When I was young and stupid (I'm no longer young) I rode from Hobart to Surfers Paradise on my Honda VFR750 for a holiday. The viffer is a fantastic bike for throwing around corners, but it got a bit uncomfortable after 2500 km. I did it in 3 days from memory. About 800km a day is enough on a bike, especially when you're cruising at 150 and still getting overtaken by semis.

Diesel is $2.70 /ltr now. Ouch. Thanks Donold! But the USAnians are almost ready to riot over fuel goung up to $5 /gallon. Sooks! At least they are hastening the EV revolution, so that's something.

The two longest trips I ever went on were both two up with a mate on his Guzzi, sharing the riding. One was from Melbourne to Adelaide and back, around 1,500 klm, and the other was from the Sunshine Coast to Cairns and back, around 3,200 klm. There's a ton of bikes I could name that would make those trips a horror story two up, but the Guzzi was a great tourer with a nice long comfortable seat and quite low from top of seat height to the ground. I could imagine it as the sort of trip where a BMW would be good as well.

Give me an old car any day. A friend had a Mercedes. The tyres were $1000 each and had to be filled with nitrogen, not air. My sons Mazda CX-6 diesel Hybrid SUV tyres cost $550 each. Tyres for my 2004 Holden Astra start at $129 each, a number of brands at $189 each. And the techno gizmos to go wrong. My son's SUV has electric tyre pressure sensors and an electric oil gauge. For people too lazy to lift the bonnet. The only dipstick is the one behind the wheel. Even has a wiper maintenance mode for changing wiper blades.

The manufacturers would be screaming poor if that happened. Making things to last and fixable is not good business under modern standards. Look at printers, it is cheaper to buy a new one with ink in it than a cartidge for most. Fridges dont last because of the alloy tubing now used corodes from condisation and blown insulation turn to a mild acid and eat the pipes. In my old workshop i had a fridge that was new in 1991 still running with steel tubing, others i know are still runing 70s fridges in their sheds. Not the most power efficent, but better than buying a new one every 5 years. I like fixing stuff because i hate wasting what was already bought.

Hmm. That's not what "nork" meant when I was growing up. It was only used in the plural and usually preceded by the words "phwoah, look at those "

I came across another photo repair website which offered a free trial. I uploaded one of the most damaged photos I had, of my wife's aunt and cousin. here are the results.

Guess what! A splayd is an eating utensil which combines the functions of a spoon, knife and fork. It was invented by William McArthur in the 1940s in Sydney. I've still got the boxed set of Splayds that Mum got back in the day.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666990024000132 Is one example. Of course, this may be biased because AI answered it but:

I remain unconvinced. I mentioned services that I figured were unlikely to be improved by A.I. because I was searching for a meaningful benefit. We plebs want to see tangible improvements to our lives before we see value in the new tech. I mentioned return on investment because nobody invests billions without an expectation of billions income from it. So far the promises are intangible. They have not been clearly defined in a way that we can look forward to any specific improvement to our life. Rather, the opposite; There will be less jobs, and no promise of a reduction in cost of living. But certainly someone somewhere will be reaping megadollars income - dollars which must be coming from the people.

There are many industries where job losses will be huge. No longer need camera operators, editors, directors, etc. A creative writer can generate something all by themselves. That motorbike club patch took me all of 2 - 3 mins to get to how I wanted it. An that was a general LLM/Generative AI tool. Imagine specialist ones. I can see the day you need a scan - walk into the radiogrpahers (or whatever they are called today), lay down; the machine automaticaly through AI determines the correct scanning angles, takes the shot, analyses the results are of sufficient quality to pass to the consutlant AI, that examines them and provides a diagnosis and treatment plan.. all before you get home.. Yeah, there will be the odd case where they have to have a nurse., radiographer, and consultant, but the vast majority will not be required. Copwriters, solicitors, accountants and may of these types of roles and supporting roles will all but evaporate (you still will need a few). If we are getting 15 - 20 times productivity increase, that means around 5 - 7% of the workforce needed. AI is not generating enough alternate jobs to pick up the slack. That is maths. Obviously, some roles will not be replaceable for some time yet - until robotics and AI are more advanced that what they already are. Trades, ambos, etc. Basically anything that needs physical capacity coupled with dexterity roles (watch maker/repair - although with electronics, I would say that has already died). But that time will come, too. And AI is helping.

Eligible adult might be the catch, like the word from in prices. if you want to take a cruise in steerage class with no air or light it is from $1999.00 if you add a window it is $4999, a balcony is $7999. suddenly is cheap any more. i could just imagine his terms, no bad comments, no crimes, no ethnics, no gays etc. might just be him, Baron and Melania eligible at the end.

What staggers me is the way you can take a creased old black and white photo taken 70 odd years ago and carried around in someone's wallet, and in a few seconds change it into a full colour image that looks like it was just taken, and even animate it. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19Zj3pXhXH/

Huh????

45. Nev

I'm heartily sick and tired of Trump; probably more so of the American Democracy. Every day we are bombarded withthis man's insanity, and yet there is no one with the guts to do something about replacing him.

RACV members have received a 5% discount when we presented our membership cards at a GG Ampol servo. I received an email today from RACV saying this will cease as from 21 September. No details wht.

These manufacturers really aren't doing the planet any good, yet I bet most of them have a page on their webpage saying how green they are.

I doubt that would require much of it. Alloying with steel is common for strength and corrosion resistance. Nev

Plenty of other used for Nickel. Nev

Motivation I would say, How would you know they had the ready money? Maybe they borrowed it? Nev

You could say the same for any hot rod.

Here's another old and not very good photo. It's the FJ ute I learned to drive in. My dad bought it second-hand in 1961. It was that old light green Holden colour. It had some lead bog in it from a previous rollover repair. I was a late starter learning to drive and would have been nine heading toward ten. Reason was, I was a bit shorter than average as a kid and had to wait until the legs were long enough to reach the pedals. Once the legs grew enough, it was just a matter of packing enough pillows behind the back to be able to sit close enough to the wheel to reach the pedals. I had mates that were driving trucks by that age as they were that much bigger. I didn't get a burst on until grade 8 when I grew about a foot in one year. I remember that old ute toward the end of it's life had the tie rod ends held together with wire. It would occasionally come undone and the ute would head off the track into the paddock. We had a Dachshund that loved that old ute. She could perch her rear legs on the seat back, and with her long body, get the front legs right out on the window sill for a bit of wind surfing.

There is no emoticon for.... admiration of their spirit