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I always like (need) to have positive things to look forward to. Next week, Mrs Octave and I are headed off to NZ. This is nothing new, every year we do some kind of tour through and end up staying with our son, or we go on a road trip with our son. We are planning to do this later in the year or early next year; however, we have justified to ourselves an extra trip. My son and partner are having a new house built for them. They are painting the place themselves, and the builder has a quite detailed build schedule that they are adhering to strictly. My son and partner have 2 weeks to fully paint the interior, so we have (generously) offered to go over and help paint. We are really looking forward to inspecting the house because it is a little more high-tech than anything we have built or lived in. This house is a SIP build (structural insulated panel). The insulation rating is amazingly good. Another feature is that the house is amazingly airtight. The average Australian home is rated at 15.4; my son's house is 0.38. My initial question was, "Would not this mean that the air quickly became stale?" There is actually a ventilation system called an HRV (heat recovery ventilator), sometimes referred to as an ERV (energy recovery ventilator) Air is constantly pumped in. The air pumped out goes through a heat exchanger and scavenges the heat in the air going out. This place is so thermally efficient that they did calculations for the heat produced by their 2 desktop PCs (a plus in winter and a negative in summer). This house is being built on a jointly owned block that my son owns with is business partner and wife. They have lived in a huge house that is actually 2 houses in one for many years. The business partner couple already have a large house on this block. They are going to tie together their solar batteries and solar panels, which will equal an enormous 45Kw system. From this, they are planning to be at least partially energy independent. Charging 3 EVs has been factored in. Here is the site. The big house in the background has a bottom floor full of workshops for their joint projects. The engineering gear they have is mind- blowing. My son's partner Amazing double-glazed window facing the winter sun ( expensive, I imagine) Ventilation heat exchanger bits and pieces. This was the day they pressure-tested the house.

Can't work my wife out. First she says "Sure! Get yourself a tattoo." Now she's whining about the bagpipers in the garden.

We have a fat white goldfish with a red cap which we've named Trump. Bit insulting to the fish, but they share the same hairstyle, IQ, and belly to height ratio. Also, they both open their mouth constantly but nothing intelligible comes out.

Just pointing out something many may not have known.

I was on my way to work this morning and thought stuff it, I'm getting a coffee and going to have it at the beach before I start. My daughter told me on the phone it was -4c in tamworth, and here I get to wake up to 9c and this view. It was 14c by the time I got to the beach. I'm starting to catch on life is too short to let this stuff pass us by and work is not everything.

Have been visiting the extended family. Well at least those around SEQ. Really enjoying catching up with all. Especially the younger ones. Last night we booked in to a Gold Coast hotel for a rest. In spite of my general dislike for this part of the world, it is nice to wake up to the sound of surf on a beach.

Nah, he just edited out all his keyboard errors.

My Dad had one also, it was his first rangefinder camera after trying to use an old clapped out bakelite camera that someone must have given him. He took lots of family photos with the Neoca during the 1950s. In his latter years he gave me all the negatives which I still have, stored safely. He developed them himself and they look pretty good. Unfortunately Dad's Neoca was stolen, so, for nostalgia, I bought one as part of my collection, and also as a bit of family memorabilia.

In a post near the beginning of this thread I mentioned that I became interested in photography when a workmate of my father gave me a 35mm camera. Neoca 35mm - my first camera I later purchased a twin lens reflex camera which took a 2+1//4" film negative. I never got into film processing, taking my negatives and transparency films to a chemist or camera shop for processing. Twin lens reflex Then I went digital so I could do post processing on the computer. I bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ20 camera which had a 12x zoom lens, great for airport photos. Unfortunately I lost it at an Avalon Air Show. It was a particularly hot day, and at the end of the show I was heading to the exit, suffering from a bit of heat exhaustion. A staff person on a golf buggy offered me a lift to the first aid room. I placed all my goods, chair, esky, camera, etc. on the back seat. When we got to the first aid room the camera was missing. I was pretty devistated. I assumed it had fallen off when we bumped over a gutter. My wife found a secondhand Lumix FZ40 which had a 24x zoom lens in the Trading Post for much less than I paid for the FZ20. It had belonged to the late father of the advertiser. That is the camera I use today in addition to my phone cameras. Lumix FZ40 I have an old iPhone 6 whichhas been decommossioned as a phone, it has no sim card. However it takes good photos, is small and light and fits in a tee shirt pocket, and is very easy to transfer images to the computer. My actual phone, a Samsung Galaxy, takes probably slightly better photos than the iPhone, but is large, heavy, like a brick to carry, and is a nightmare to transfer photos.

Nuclear puts out a lot of heat and needs water, cost heaps to build reflected in the Price Private enterprise wants to do it. Nuclear test site will remain dangerous forever, effectively.Can't be used for quick response either, like Batteries or Hydro. Todays demand fluctuates wildly. Nev

As I was creeping into bed, she asked, "You are drunk again, aren't you!". "What makes you think that?", I asked defensively. "You live nest door."

Just catching up on this thread. Apart from some misstated knowledge of the First Nations' which I will deal with later, there are three main threads of negative impact immigration. The first is the impact on the housing market and how it pushes up prices. The recent developments of tax changes have already seemed to knock that one on the head, but it is too early to determine if that is the case, and I will explain why in a second. But, as a rough and ready set of numbers, I got Google to give me the following in a table: So, what does it compare (all sourced from ABS data): Each year from 2000 to 2025 EOFY. The net migration into Australia The natural increase in the population (non-immigrants) Net dwelling additions to Australia - that means number of new dwellings built minus the number of those demolished. The average number of people per immigrant household The average number of people per non-immigrant household The new immigrant homes needed based on the number of immigrants divided by the average household size The new homes needed for non immigrant families The surplus or deficit of new dwellings built minus the sum of immigrant and non-immigrant houses required. This is rough and ready by any measure. For example, we don't take into account the number of bedrooms per new dwelling. But on this measure, only 6 of the 26 years there was a deficity in the number of new dwellings constructed versus the estimated new homes required across both the immigrant and non immgrant dwellings required. The biggest deficit was 77k homes in 2022-23, immediately after Covid. Pre-Covid, the biggest deficit was 7.5K. The biggest surplus was 142,500 dwellings in a year! With the exception of 2024-25, which ad a small surplus of 2,700 most years of surplus were well into the 10s of thousands. This is especially important because of the compounding effect. Every year, immigrants come, and then the next year some/many will have a baby or 2. That baby further increases the population. That is reflected in the domestic and not immigrant size and skews the figures at is is deemed one domestic person in the household of domestic population.. and increases the number of dwellings required according to the stats. These are two examples of statistical error, but the numbers of surpluses involved for the amount of years would indicate that the issue of immigration on housing in de minimis; or marginal at best. There goes that claim that immigration has a big impact on the housing costs. The second, on crime, it is hard to get stats. The reason why is because an immigrant is considered someone who is born overseas, and with young kids committing crimes, many may well be born in Australia and considered part of the domestic population. In addition, the ABS does not publish statistics by ethnic origin. So the best I could come up with is this from AI: It's not much, but it points to a debunking of the myths. My anecdotal observations in the UK is that crime, with the exception of hate crime, is linked more to socio-economic issues than specific ethinic backgrounds. But like Australia, the UK statistics Office doesn't publish such information, at least according to Google. The third is the dilution of Aussie culture ("traditional Australian"). This is a little too subjective for me; the behaviour of Aussies differs on socio-economic and location. Just look at Melbourne Football club members, for example. And if you think Aussies are laid back, well, they weren't compared to their UK cousins, at least pre Covid, that is for sure. But, that was my impression. And, they certainly don't or didn't swear anywhere near that of the Brit, nor did they drink anywhere near as much, either (NT excepted, I guess).. Again, that was my observation, which may be different to yours. But I get the feeling Aussies have this view of themselves as somehow unique.. My travels have busted that myth to me. However, I do get that people who have a vastly different culture and physical appearance can come across as not integrating with the local culture. There is a difference between people coming here and doing well, and people coming here, doing well, and integrating. But that does not mean they have to not wear what they want (Australia is about freedom of choice, right). Nor does it mean they need to fit into everything a "traditional Aussie" would do.. Many years ago, if you didn't smoke, you weren't Australian.. Despite the tobacco wars, there has been a big shift in attitudes to smoking, drinking, and I think those with massive muscly cars are considered either bogans or correcting for other deficiencies. I doubt much of this is the result of immigration., yet our cultural values have changed. Even marital rape is now illegal all over Australia since 1996 (though it was progressively made illegal from 1976). Think about it.. Marital rape was acceptable in modern Australia. Sometimes, it is good to have a cultural change.

"English is what happens when Vikings learn Latin and use it to shout at Germans, and then the French shout back!"

I think this might be a little optimistic. Global stockpiles of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel exceed 320,000 tonnes currently in storage, with another 120,000+ tonnes having been reprocessed. The vast majority of this material sits in temporary wet pools or dry casks near power plants, awaiting permanent deep geological disposal. [1, 2] he International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) tracks the global spent nuclear fuel inventory across power reactors worldwide. When including all classifications (Low-Level and Intermediate-Level Waste), the global inventory totals tens of millions of cubic meters, although the highest-level, most radioactive materials make up a very small percentage of that total volume. [1, 2, 3] Here is a video about how waste disposal works. This is not hysterical scare mongering, but I believe an accurate description of the process. The thing that strikes me is it is quite complex and thus far not much has been actually permanently disposed of.

Siso...You don't mention quick response considerations or storage. That's the game changer. You can easily research the real cost of these things IF you want to . Australia has a relatively small Population over a large area. A grid for any system here will be costly and damage Prone. Long distance equals transmission losses and higher power costs. Tidal and battery could be stand alone for some areas like Broome.. Really, what's Planting trees got to do with nuclear?? Some Countries are almost standing room only, and there's plenty of places where a big tree is a big problem. Nuclear Needs cooling and LOTS of water. Australia is one of the driest continents in the world but we have Wind and sunlight in abundance. Horses for Courses they say. Look at the condition of some test sites like the Marshal Islands. Nev

Very true, and this applies to all forms of power generation. I am not philosophically opposed to nuclear; however, I have not seen convincing economic modelling. If we were to go down the nuclear road, we would be looking at significant costs. Recent projects in Europe, the UK and the US have experienced substantial cost overruns and delays A question I would have is: Who would build them? Australia has world-class engineering and construction capability, but it currently lacks experience in several areas unique to commercial nuclear power, including: nuclear-qualified pressure vessel manufacturing reactor vessel forging steam generator manufacturing nuclear fuel fabrication a nuclear regulatory workforce for commercial power reactors Those capabilities would need to be developed over time or sourced internationally. Whilst transmission upgrades required may be less than for renewables, they are still substantial. Nuclear does have an enormous upfront cost and is only viable over many decades. In the meantime, storage technology gets cheaper and better. Storage technology continues to improve and fall in cost, whether lithium-ion, sodium-ion or other emerging technologies. Given the long lead time between deciding to build a nuclear power station and generating the first power, storage technology will continue to advance. I think some time ago you mentioned that you have a historically fantasic feed in tariff from your retailer, so I imagine you are doing alright. My power bills have gone up; however, the solar keeps it cheap compared to other bills I have. For my household, investing further in rooftop solar and storage is likely to reduce my electricity costs far sooner than waiting for a fleet of nuclear stations to be built. Ultimately, I'm less interested in whether a technology is labelled "renewable" or "nuclear" than whether it can deliver reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible electricity for Australians. At this stage, I haven't seen convincing evidence that a nuclear pathway would provide a better overall outcome, particularly given the costs and construction timeframes involved.

Sam was a great actor and an all round fine human being. A genuine nice guy. I loved his book "Did I ever tell you this" a series of his memoirs he put together after finding out about his cancer diagnosis. Sir Sam Neill I will miss you

How much BLOOD does Trump Have on his Hands, NOW? Nev

Finally had my Cochlear Assessment testing done today. The residual hearing in my left ear is so degraded, I would benefit from an implant in that ear. My right ear has more residual hearing than the implant would replace,so they would only implant one. Many people pair an implant with a normal amplifying aid. The young lady conducting the test was amazing. She sat one side of the desk and I was on the other. She placed a page of typed notes on the desk so I could read them, and wrote comments/notes UPSIDE DOWN perfectly clearly, as if she wrote that way all the time, ie., writing right to left and inverted. The report will be forwarded to the Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist who will take things from there. It was a 70km round trip.

Bonnie Tyler has died aged 75. Had some hits in the 70s and 80s, most notably "Total eclipse of the heart".

Trump was sitting with Zelensky during the NATO meeting and talking with the press. Someone asked Trump about whether he thought Putin and Zelensky could resolve the war. After waffling a bit he turned to Zelensky and asked if he would travel to Moscow to talk with Putin. Zelensky didn’t take the bait but just said, “Well, that’s a bit difficult. There are lots of Ukrainian drones over there.” The press laughed but Trump wasn’t amused.

Welcome back Jerry!

There's just two things I hate.... 1. The way things are 2. Change

I wish someone would tip a barrowload of sand on each of those Trevago guys.

Randomly, this might explain our significance in world politics.... To the global cats we are but a ball of twine

Maybe He wanted an Apostrophe but got a catastrophe? Nev

A 4:1 win is great result for Belgium. They must have been fired up for the match. Maybe Trump did them a favour in hindsight.

Well, it's positive for them, but negative for you.

Well, Belgium won.. So, the USA is out. I feel sorry for the team, because normally I - and I bet many millions more - are very happy with the result, rather than either ambivalent or even sorry they went out. No one I have spoken to, including two yanks over here, wanted the USA to win.

That is your opinion.. can you present stats from reliable sources to back that up... Otherwise that is the big flaw in democracy - people with only an opinion who can't be arsed to find out the reality get to determine who runs the country. So, what evidence do you have the books are cooked.. Just because it doesn't fit your narrative - your belief system - doesn't mean it is wrong or the books are cooked. Back to the "oh the left.. whatever" argument.. no basis apart from an attempt to disparage. Well, if being left is finding the facts, I am proudly left... You're just tired of being presented facts that don't correlate to your beliefs. Sorry for you, but facts don't give a stuff what you think. Or maybe your typo is a Freudian slip - you are tied up by the fact? I am not sure what the first sentence means.. It was an illustration of how a culture can change over time. And sometimes, the "traditional Aussie" in what I am guessing is GON's stereotype isn't nice, but is becoming nicer. But, also you shouldn't believe everything you read in the press, either. The number of women homicides are slightly down ion 2024-25 over the prevuous year - both in the absolute and intimate partner (domestic violence) categories, but the longer term trend has been downwards: And I doubt this is altogether to do with migration as well, but a shift in culture - to be honest, although it would be great to see it at zero, it is an, in general positive shift over time. Another plus for a shifting cultural values, although recent spikes are cause for concern, they have settled down.

GON could it be that you have not mixed with people from other cultures very much? I have, for most of my working life, worked with people from many countries. These people were highly educated and great people. I certainly have been helped by strangers from another country. My in-laws, who are now in their 90s and pretty frail, have some wonderful neighbours from Pakistan. These people are and have always been the kindest and most generous people you could ever meet. When we visit my in-laws (they live interstate) and go for lunch, their neighbours will often cook some food and send it over. When the woman comes over she will give my father in law a bug hug and ask "how are you Baba"? Baba means father, grandfather or respected older man. My in-laws house is getting pretty run down and their neighbour often comes in and fixes things. Here is a post from my father- in- laws FB page The thing is in any culture are nationality there is a range of characteristics. My doctor is Malaysian but this is the least notable thing about him. My son's partner is: Kind Extremely humourous Scarily intelligent Succesfull The fact that she is Chinese is interesting but mostly irrelevant to us. Is it wrong to assess people from my dealings with them rather than resorting to dumb stereotypes?

Trump has done a wonderful thing for ethical behaviour. Corruption used to be something hidden behind closed doors. Trump has thrown those doors wide open and brought it out into the open.

Did you know.... If you spell Absolutely Nothing backwards, you get.... "Gnighton Yletulosba", which means....... Absolutely Nothing!

My wife once told me, "Sex is more fun on holidays". It wasn't the best postcard I've ever received

The thread is devoted to 'God Elp Amerika' but no evidence suggests god is helping at all. Unless god thinks the world might be better off without the US part of america

The other thing that is becoming a pain is having to do everything on your phone. So many aps drain the battery quickly, and if you are stuck with a flat battery, or the network fails as has haapened with Telstra and Optus, you are stuffed.

Yours looks a little warmer than where I was last night on the Bellarine Peninsula (come to think about it, not too far from where home is for you)

I've built one owner built house and at the time a lot of contractors offered a cash under the table deal, with the selling point being you save yourself 10% GST. One problem with that is that when you eventually go to sell it, you've outlayed a lot of money and don't have any receipts for future CGT expense write-offs.

In the Name of Religion, Many EVIL acts are committed. Nev

It gets worserer. The player who was given the red card was what is known as a birthright citizen. He was born to an English couple who were holidaying in the USA. His mother was seven months' pregnant when she wanted to return to England at teh end of the holiday, but the airline declined to carry her due to the risk of an in-flight birth. So they remained in the USA and the player was born on US soil, granting him birthright citizenship. I don't know how he later became a member of the USA team as I don't know anything about his career. Trump's birthright Executive Order has just been thrown out by SCOTUS and Trump is fuming about that. Yet he has the gall to ask (demand?) FIFA organisers to put the red card penalty on hold so that this birthright player can represent the USA in the next round of competition. You've got to have some sympathy for the player being innocently caught up in this blanant act of corruption.

My eldest son is 18 today. Couldn't be prouder of the fine young man he's become. 😊

That story reminds me a bit of my grandfather. He lived alone for a lot of years. My grandmother died in 1958 and my great uncle who lived with them died in a car accident in 1963, then the grandfather in 1972, so nine years on his own. A neighbour rang him one day and noticed he sounded a bit odd on the phone so went around to check on him. He found my grandad with a broken nose and a badly swollen face after pranging his '38 Oldsmobile into a tree stump hidden in the long grass in a paddock. He'd been that way for about a week. That set things in motion where he didn't really bounce back at 88 years of age and eventually pneumonia got him. My dad was the same. Rolled the quad bike and broke the bottom of his leg bone and just kept working on the farm for a week like that until my sister visited and saw him with a foot half the size of a football. I'm glad I didn't inherit that trait; I'm not shy about going to the doctor if I think it's needed.

Yeah, I know this stuff isn't the sole province of Russia. Propaganda and manipulation is rampant all around. Reddit just deleted a hundred thousand bot accounts on /r/conservative In somewhat surprising news, the number of accounts subscribed to the /r/conservative subreddit fell by over 100,000 on May 12th (from over 900,000 to 742,000) yesterday because the platform FINALLY took action against a Russian troll farm that had been hijacking the platform for years and was pointed out by this user last year. 7 accounts were responsible for almost 90% of the postings, with the additional 100,000 accounts used were automated to increase engagement. The final proof was when Ukraine hit the power station for the Moscow area and the sub-reddit suddenly went to almost 0 activity for the time the power was out in Moscow. The people at Reddit HAD to know about this. Fess up! Am I just posting into an echo chamber filled with auto programmed bots? Are any of you real people? Are you all troll farming me?

I've heard a lot of Sky News talking points and very few facts in this discussion. If you want to come back to me with some validated statistics of exactly how our current immigration numbers are making life worse here, then I'll listen. Until then it's all just hot air.

I think you must have been studying some kind of pyschological quackery, to produce this "feast and famine" talk, involving thought processes and political leanings. I've never heard of such a thing, and I've heard and read about a lot of exotic ideas, around the workings of the mind.

NASA just dropped the clearest view of Moon ever captured... by Artemis 2. You can even see craters in extreme detail. yeah, the moon has a colors, you can see them here. Moon 01.mp4

Here's Mars with camera movement. I used a 14MP compact digital camera at full 3x zoom. This was when Mars was orbiting closest to Earth in Aug 2018. I've expanded the image for better viewing. I was just fooling about on the night and tried to hold the camera as still as possible for the 1sec exposure. Click on it.

My son was telling me today that on whatever socials he uses, while there's a lot of people celebrating the Artemis mission, there's a few idiots saying it's all faked. Just like the original moon trips. Some people, you wonder how they remember to breathe.