Marty_d

My wife and I bought wetsuits on Saturday and went snorkeling Sunday. Tinderbox marine reserve. Only metres from the rocks we saw heaps of big blue Wrasse, puffer fish, schools of small fish. It was beautiful.

Have they? I'm not an expert on the public service in the USA, but from what I read and hear about, they are much the same as here - a bunch of people generally working hard and caring about the public. Whether or not that is the impression the public gets is perhaps a different matter. Let's be honest - look at Robodebt which copped a fair amount of flak, rightfully so - that was an imbecilic policy forced upon Centrelink staff by the government of the day and the senior leadership of the department. A hell of a lot of brave people working in Centrelink spoke up about this and pushed back on it, because they had the expertise and experience to know that it was not only illegal but just plain wrong - but that distinction probably isn't clear to your average punter. There's an awful lot of work done by many departments to keep people safe and healthy, which probably goes unnoticed by Joe Public. Safety standards for food, medication, machinery, etc - environmental standards to protect waterways and the air we breathe (probably to be wiped out under Trump) - oversee agriculture which protect against devastating disease outbreaks - monitor and analyse traffic patterns, road accidents, black spots and come up with solutions - regulate companies to prevent anti competitive behaviour and monopolies (although given the concentration of power in that front row, maybe that one needs more teeth) - the list of what government does goes on and on. If you gut the public service then standards go down and life gets a little worse for everyone. If you outsource the work to the private sector then everyone pays more for the same result and only the rich profit from it. Voting for Trump because you believe he'll make things better by gutting the government, is like firing all surgeons and replacing them with a witch doctor.

There's 8 billion people on earth Spacey, don't worry, you won't be the last. There will always be someone around to bury your carcass, and if there's not, you won't be bothered by it anyway.

They are now mirroring Russia, with Putin and the oligarchs holding the same power positions as Trump and his billionaires.

"Niche" and "integrated activities" huh? Would your target clientele be high court judges and senior conservatives?? 😜

You have first option on that bridge, if Grumpy Old Nasho doesn't take it. Don't miss out! Deal of the century! It's a very, very good bridge. Best bridge ever. Everyone says I sell the best bridges.

If you believe that, I have a lovely bridge to sell you. Barely used!

I live near a little town called Margate. (Not the original where you are Jerry!) There was one pub in town, a concrete monstrosity with the entire street frontage taken up by the bottle shop. All the ambience of an undertakers. Now a brewing family have bought an old wooden hop-drying barn named, appropriately, Hopfields. They've set it up nicely with an excellent beer garden, live music on Saturday evenings, excellent menu and bags of character. Unsurprisingly the locals love it and flock to it. Car park is chockers every weekend and the staff (friendly and efficient) are flat out. https://www.hopfieldsbrewery.com.au/

Jerry - location, quality, atmosphere. All required for a successful pub.

So she's got an imagination too. If she's a good politician she'll know when to suck up to blowhards like the orange clown for the benefit of our country. Personally she may think he's a retarded dick head like most of the world does, but she knows how to handle him.

What you describe OME is AI at the moment. People who are far smarter than me and work in the field of AI are extremely worried about the future. On the other hand - you describe sci fi as making AI a bogeyman - try the Neal Asher "Polity" books. Absolutely cracking reads. They describe a future where AI develops well past human intelligence and then quietly takes over for humanity's own good. Each planet is ruled by an AI which optimises every field of human/robot endeavour. In fact medical tech progresses to the extent that unless you have to be scraped up in a bucket, an AI robot doc can probably save you - and if you have a memplant that records your memories, even that death is only a temporary inconvenience until you're either uploaded into a clone grown from your cells, or put into a crystalline brain in an android chassis. Fascinating stuff.

Yeah - any sort of non-bank player offering small loans are sharks. "Payday" lenders get people who really can't afford them into a world of debt. Two words for you Peter... "reverse mortgage"

Did you see the warranty though? 3 years/ 100,000k's. These days it's usually 7 years/ unlimited k's.

I don't think she'll care

Hold up. "The left campaigned to stop conscription, but did nothing about the wrecked lives." Did the right do anything about either conscription or the wrecked lives? If not - why are you down on the left? At least they did something.

I'd prefer someone pushed Putin out of a window. Preferably above the 10th floor. That would have the benefit of being both a traditional Russian firing, and poetic justice.

Well, I guess it's easy to keep clean.

Put it this way, if I did meet someone who was pro Trump, I'd be very suspicious about their judgement. Probably the kind of person who would vote for Clive Palmer here.

The president has always had the ability to pardon someone. And in this case, although it's not a good look, he did it because his son was being hammered far more than any other person doing the same crime, for purely political purposes.

For once he's probably (partially) right. If it wasn't for the knowledge that things are going to be a lot more unpredictable in 5 days, there probably wouldn't have been that impetus. Plus on this one issue there's bipartisanship. Biden wants the ceasefire before he leaves office for his legacy, Trump doesn't want the mess when he starts.

I may have to apologize here, although fiercely argued in other places too (https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1847834/is-a-negative-number-squared-negative for example), it does appear that the exponent is resolved on the absolute number first and then the negative applied to the result. So yes - you're right Rob!

A negative multplied by another negative is a positive. I respectfully disagree with RGMWA, if the negative was outside the bracket then -4 would be correct, but a negative squared is a positive.

First is 39, second is -2

No idea. But maths is international, not USA vs Australia.

What? Everyone is taught that way, not just Americans. There's no such thing as just solving it left to right. Parentheses first, then exponents, division/multiplication, addition/substraction.