Jerry_Atrick

You're a spring chicken in these parts 😉 I remember being 47.. At the time I thought I was old.. nah... Not yet.

It is some sort of pine... Not sure what type to be honest. It is probably 50 years old, if not older.

Well, it has been slow going, but finally builder has been able to return to start staining the floor. Could have done it myself, but he is a dab hand at it.. Fumes are smelly though. It has just been applied to a portion of the floor so looks very sheen-ey. Hopefully sparky is back on Friday, so the lights will go in properly and switches will be there, too. Noe, you can see the radiators both sides of the door.. Place is (so far) toastie and warm, though is extremely mid at the moment. Had my last exam last night, so need a day's break. In London on Friday, but the weekends and now the eves are mine to get cracking. More photos to come.

New thought.. I am not one to shy away from political discourse, nor one to shy away form indigenous rights. However, I think Lydia Thorpe scored an own-goal for her heckling of the king.. OK.. she scoes a lot of own goals, but that one, I think, irked many who would see her side of the story.. maybe. And, I am none-too-happy with Michael Wests portrayal of the monarchs as the landlords of Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth (it is even arguable they are landlords of the UK anymore), and stoking ship into the fire to support republicanism turns more people away, I would suggest. Just a random couple of thoughts about how to turn people away from your cause (maybe I should read this twice!)

Protest upheld. There are only 10 digits, despite there being 12 numbers - 0 through 9 respectively. As two are duplicated "[o]n a standard analogue clockface..." (1 & 2), that leaves 8 digits that appear exactly once on a standard analogue clock face.. No grammatical construction of the English language, even the Aussie derivation of the English language could be taken to mean in isolation of other numbers that appear on the said analogue clock face. Leave to appeal to the Grammar Police bench of the Privy Council is granted.

I am not a big tomoato fan by any stretch of the imagination. Roma are up there, but my favourite is what is normally a canned tomato - San Marzano (https://www.marthastewart.com/7616623/san-marzano-tomatoes-explained), Tescos sell them fresh here, and they are quite nice. There are other smaller varieties that are sold by other supermarkets, which are acceptable. But blimey - cherry tomatoes - they are put on earth be the devil himself.

Sadly, ll that divisive, hatred talking is having an impact: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-cases-political-violence-roil-us-ahead-contentious-election-2024-10-21/

The reach of Americanism.. My niece from Aus was staying at our house.. She asked me what the difference between murder 1 and 2 was. I was a little shocked. I asked if she meant murder in the first and second degree. She said yes.. She is now back off to Australia! (well, she was going anyway, but I had to set her straight - Aus (or at least NSW) has no such distinctions.

Apparently part of the deal is to provide both NK and China with technical know how.. not sure how much that will help China

At Steavonson Falls, near Marysville, there is a plaque in memory of a couple of lads who were killed by a falling limb.. I have seen a eucalypt limb fall and it is without warnidng and fast. It has a name, suddeb brach drop.. https://www.trekandtravel.com.au/blogs/trek-travel-events-and-blog/sudden-limb-drop-the-facts?srsltid=AfmBOooQ5V94xiS0wutTm1X-V7kdF9lx-HK1kkUze1s-plF1GfL0LwdF

I get your point (I thiink). The only thing that I can see that Australia can do to defend against attack is to bolster its defences. And, of course that takes money. But, selling all the coal and gas in Australia isn't going to cure that situation. Here are the reasons: Australia is, relatively speaking, a free and democratic society. We don't use authoritarian tactics like artificially keeping wages low and people in economic servitude to bolster the soverign economy. Our foes you speak of do, which means they can basically force teh development of an industry and the military or equivalent of the Stasi will step in if you don't comply. On the economic front, we are fighting with one arm tied behind our back. As Australia lacks the economies of scale of a large population, we are further hindered in that role. We receive very little recompense for the extraction and sale oversears of our natural resources. Shareholders, and a decent chunk of them are foreign, so the money provided from these activities direct into the government coffers to support the massive real increase in defence spending is really not that great. Yes, the indistries employe a lot of people on very good salaries, and this contributes to taxation through wages and the local economy, but these people still need roads, schools, hospitals, art galleries, police, and the like.. Our successive governments have been reliant on foreign powers to protect us, and foreign countries (mostly) to equip us. And in a global conflict, when the chips are down, especially with AUKUS, which basically has us paying over the odds for subs that are operationally less appropriate for the defence of Australia, if we are to get them, we play second or third fiddle when it comes to the supply of parts. We've now got Tomahawk cruise missiles (or maybe they are coming). Problem is, the operators are US, and sit in the pentagon, and guess where those ones with the Aussie flag painted are going in the time of need.. Not to the targets that Australia needs, if at the same time stocks are low and there is a pressing US threat. But, on the bright side, operationally, Australia is a very difficult country to sttack and take over because it has the natirual barrier that surrounds it, and keeping supply lines open is key. Also, as the Ukraine war has shown, you don't need all the expensive kit if you ar innovative - but there still is, albeit a slower, brain drain of Aussie talent as it headed overseas where their skills were more able to be utilised at a more mass scale. Sadly, meglamaniacs are always around.. there's not much we can do to stop them, but we can make sure we are ready for it when it happens. However, climate change can be addressed in terms of continual change... it takes the will of people. We can still use coal and other fossils.. but they are, at the end of the day, just energy sources. The won't go away, but for civilian use, we can move right off it, and remove the impacts.. and we stand a better chance of building a decent economy if we do move off it because our costs will be lower.

Working? In Canberra? Didn't know there was such a thing (military, emergency services, and cleaning staff, excepted).

Do you have grand kids, and if si, are you happy leaving them an increasingly ruined world? If so different values, I guess. The "economic advantage" just means two things.. first - remove the artificial subsidies and it is no longer economically advantageous anyway; and secondly, the deferred costs will have to be picked up by future generations- except it won't just be starvation, but war, too. And they will be our sproglets that will be caught up.. The only real saving grace from the above is that the western world population is in implosion territory, so global energy demand will naturally reduce.. But, from the iea website, advanced economies are removing their reliance on coal.. the great thing about new generation technologies is that the investment unlocks massive power sources very cheaply and efficiently.. which means cheaper input costs to production. Coal does not become cheaper to produce and is exhaustive, eventually. The coattails of coal is shrinking. Even according to the iea snspshot, the coal demand is forecast to plateau in 2025. China uses it because it is cheap, but they want out if it. Sadly, India is not as progressive with its investment policy. We don't use horses anymore, nor do we ubiquitously use V8s to get a lot of power from a clump of metal. we have been getting over 100hp oer litre from smalker engines in retail cars for 20 years now. If fact, it looks like we will be decreasing using crude oil based gasoline in transport. My means if transport to work today was entirely electric from the double decker bus to the train, to the tube.. Like it or not, coal is slowly dying despite its uptick in demand. It fires less than a third of all power generation and is likely to continue to fall relative to others. It is still necessary for steel milling, but hydrogen is gathering pace in Europe and, based on cheaper power from non-coal sources (except nuclear). There is no doubt coal and other fossil fuels are still profitable and will be for some time. The world is too reliant inthe mass scaled infrastructure.. But the transition is happening, and those that own the manufacturing and infrastructure in newer technologies will gain heaps. Unless, of course armageddon beckons

Have you got a reference for that as the only thing I could find is an AFR headline thst says the taxpayer has to cover the latest budget blowout.. which is stating the flaming obvious as the tax payer funds everything public

There is more info here: https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-mid-year-update-july-2024/overview But what's your point?

Clearly this company is a tax write off for its owners. SFM's track record of failure is well known and he is hardly going to get a sympathetic ear in Canberra. Who better to ensure the demise of a company?

His post does have the ring of spammer about it, but Ihave yet to see him markting anything, like this which I am forever being spammed on: https://oxford-onlineprogrammes.getsmarter.com/presentations/lp/oxford-artificial-intelligence-programme/?cid=15279691602&utm_contentid=687878416552&ef_id=c:687878416552_d:c_n:g_ti:kwd-624886762712_p:_k:oxford ai course_m:e_a:132808167594&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwpbi4BhByEiwAMC8JnWWx1ZRQDjSKOexWNUpavat_jud9t9fRUSNN2kI_U6gE54qUA62CxhoCB-4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

That's OK.. I was more coming from an occupational/career perspective.

Agree, OME, but at that point, them offering me a cuppa would probably inflame things for me.. I want the bloody thing fixed or my money back, not a cuppa! woudl be my reaction.

Actually, how many of you use Google, or Ecosia, or any of the popular search engines? They all have deployed AI for years.. how do you thhink they understand "what is a xxxxxx?" These are all forms of AI and AI has been around for around 50 years. The modern advances in chip processing power, and some sifty use of massive parralel but very small instruction set processeors (or GPUs, Graphic Processing Units) has allowed AI to be far more interactive. In analgous terms, it has moved from the DOS command line to early versions of Windows, to now mid-versions.. Do we need AI? No. Do we really need any technological advancement? No. But technoclogical advancement brings significant benefits - or advantages; as it brings significant disadvantages. The trick is to harness the advantages and minimise the disadvantages. AI, like many businesses, will be used predominantly in the commercial sense. Can a company massively increase their productivity? We are trialling it with a popular online meeting software package to remove the need for a minute taker. The reality is the scribe or however known the person who was in meetings for minute taking as long gone the ay of the dodo, so there is no employee savings to be made; the benefit is the in crease in productivity in minute taking, summarisation of key points, etc. Even if it gets it only 80% right, it is a massive inprovement in productivity. I think AU is near the point where it will be a net remover of jobs from the economy. While automation has removed a lot of jobs from the production line (think car manufacturing), it has given other jobs, which admittedly require more training and a desire to move into those areas. But history is full of change.. Want a career in agriculture? Better be preapred for training at a tertiary level because there aren't too many labouring jobs around anymore - least not compared to those in days gone by. AI online systems doesn't mean how to program AI, oether; there are AI courses in how to use it effectively - I have seen jobs a "AI Prompt Engineers" that pay handsomely. Using AI properly to generate code; write prose, or create images (save for the copright challenges) does require some getting used to. There are courses to understand its application, its limitatins, ethical uses, etc.. It may not be a career choice, but for a lot of people, neither is maths. But if it becomes so uniquitous it is important to learn about it, then should we not learn about it? Is life not a long learning experience?

Quite an interesting, but valid observation...

Dat was da turd Irish joke today.

I don't go to Sky, Australian, AFR and the like. I steer clear from Murdoch as much as possible. My sources are ABC, Guardian, indepdedents (think fugitive journalst, Shane Dowling; Micahel west Media, adn the like). And I do go to the Age as wll, and AFL.com.au, but that doesn't count in this context. I often will check against offical sites (organisation, government, etc). as well, because I have found all sources of media will present the facts in a biased way. Of course, when an opinion is formed, it also take into account my personal experience/values and anecdotal observations. In this case, my observation is Albol isn't a great leader. That does not mean he is a bad politician. When I contrast him to an unpopular PM, but respected leader, who I think Albo draws mentoring/inspiration from, Keating, or other leaders such as Hawke, Albo strikes me as a good deputy. He is not able to connect with the electorate; he is not able to take courageious decisions, or in the case of stage 3 tax cuts, which I think most knew his government were going to change, was not up front with the electorate. The small target strategy doesn't work, except in the unusual case where the opposition were completely stuffed as ScoMo was. Albo's history as PM and even leader of the Oppo seems to be littered with schoolbiy errors. I am not saying I am any better - but I don't pretend I am a leader.