Once more, dear friends...
I am once again falling into infatuation with a girlie band.
My friends are not surprised.
Last weekend I came across them when I refined a you tube search gradually down into 'Japanese girl rock band', I came up with about half a dozen that I quite liked, as in their music was good, we are not talking about their looks at this point. But one kind of grew on me during the week, and yesterday I checked out their fan sites, official websites, downloaded a few albums, ordered a few albums on eBay, and stripped off mp3s from the videos that I downloaded both then and last weekend. And then spent the rest of the evening watching and re-watching their clips and interviews, and then retired to bed to listen to the mp3s.
Good music, cute girls, spunky image. What more could I ask for?
Sunday, May 1
Friday, April 22
Disappointment
Specifically, Portal 2.
An extremely clunky and buggy serve that was.
A few maps / puzzles / rooms that were a tad too obtuse so I had to google a walkthrough. Amazing that within a couple of days of release there were good walkthroughs, GamesRadar being the one that I used. But such a clunky game that alt tabbing out to check the guide and alt tabbing back in usually meant it killed my computer. Not just crashed the game, locked the whole cpu. Had to reboot my machine about three times. And all of that for a game that was not appreciably any better, or even equal, to the first instalment. Graphics were not noticeably better either, so more of a Portal 1.2 rather than a Portal 2 if you ask me. Still have to try the multi-player, but we shall see.
Contract is going slowly, not my work, just that this is the most 'yes ministery' government department that I have ever contracted to. Seriously, you could fire half the staff and still get twice as much work done. I am testing a new application, I am meant to be user testing, not testing the system or design, I make a new journal, there is no save button, task cannot be completed. Did none of the programmers even look at the screen to see if it was complete before dumping it on the finance team to test? Not just one example, there have been dozens of similar events. The shoddiest programming that I have ever seen.
This is the Easter break; the harvest was brought in during Spring, yes? I am not too sure about how these things work in the Northern Hemisphere, but Winter is when things grow here, Summer is dead, maybe in Europe the crops are planted in Spring? Either way, lots of work in the fields during Spring, the full moon lets peasants work late, the full moon after the Spring Equinox is called the Harvest Moon, again, yes? I am not too sure about all this old Northern Hemisphere stuff. The Harvest Moon lets the peasants get the harvesting finished, and the next weekend is party time! And xians call it Easter.
Typical, steal a good old pagan festival and re-badge it with some daft xian mythology.
But here ANZAC day comes soon after, very soon, in fact this year they run together and we get a five-day weekend. Not good for shopping, this being Adelaide, they shut the shops at the slightest excuse. Five days of shut shops. Lovely.
Okay, not strictly true, they are letting them open for the Saturday, and half the Tuesday.
I have been play Fallout 3 a lot lately, a HUGE game that is. So big, and the story just kind of goes on and on and on, that one does tend to get quite bored with it all.
Shogun 2 out recently. I have played it through a few times, have completed four clans now. It did take my two or three tries before I worked out how the mechanics work for this one, how to plan ahead to make sure that I get enough regions before the time limit runs out. But a good game, quite enjoy that one.
Did get all of the Dawn of War 2's, well the three out so far. Kind of so-so on that one. I don't really like the lack of base management. I do like that I can play the Guard, took a few extensions before that came along though, didn't it. Am looking forward to playing the co-op campaign with friends.
Other than that, life still really sucks.
Work, game, sleep.
That's my life.
And working just to clear my cards for now. Since lovely, little old Adelaide is so the arse-hole of the civilised world it is so slow to recover from the recession. The BIG recession, the Great Recession, aka the GFC, but remember; the markets fell further than they did in the Great Depression, more people lost their jobs than during the Great Depression, it is taking longer for Adelaide to crawl out of it than the Great Depression. All of which adds up to my rates being half what they were before the Great Recession. So it will be quite a while before I clear those damned cards.
I so regret returning to this place.
I so regret having left Singapore.
I was so much happier there, this has been a very salutary lesson for me.
When I get back it will be with a lot more dedication.
An extremely clunky and buggy serve that was.
A few maps / puzzles / rooms that were a tad too obtuse so I had to google a walkthrough. Amazing that within a couple of days of release there were good walkthroughs, GamesRadar being the one that I used. But such a clunky game that alt tabbing out to check the guide and alt tabbing back in usually meant it killed my computer. Not just crashed the game, locked the whole cpu. Had to reboot my machine about three times. And all of that for a game that was not appreciably any better, or even equal, to the first instalment. Graphics were not noticeably better either, so more of a Portal 1.2 rather than a Portal 2 if you ask me. Still have to try the multi-player, but we shall see.
Contract is going slowly, not my work, just that this is the most 'yes ministery' government department that I have ever contracted to. Seriously, you could fire half the staff and still get twice as much work done. I am testing a new application, I am meant to be user testing, not testing the system or design, I make a new journal, there is no save button, task cannot be completed. Did none of the programmers even look at the screen to see if it was complete before dumping it on the finance team to test? Not just one example, there have been dozens of similar events. The shoddiest programming that I have ever seen.
This is the Easter break; the harvest was brought in during Spring, yes? I am not too sure about how these things work in the Northern Hemisphere, but Winter is when things grow here, Summer is dead, maybe in Europe the crops are planted in Spring? Either way, lots of work in the fields during Spring, the full moon lets peasants work late, the full moon after the Spring Equinox is called the Harvest Moon, again, yes? I am not too sure about all this old Northern Hemisphere stuff. The Harvest Moon lets the peasants get the harvesting finished, and the next weekend is party time! And xians call it Easter.
Typical, steal a good old pagan festival and re-badge it with some daft xian mythology.
But here ANZAC day comes soon after, very soon, in fact this year they run together and we get a five-day weekend. Not good for shopping, this being Adelaide, they shut the shops at the slightest excuse. Five days of shut shops. Lovely.
Okay, not strictly true, they are letting them open for the Saturday, and half the Tuesday.
I have been play Fallout 3 a lot lately, a HUGE game that is. So big, and the story just kind of goes on and on and on, that one does tend to get quite bored with it all.
Shogun 2 out recently. I have played it through a few times, have completed four clans now. It did take my two or three tries before I worked out how the mechanics work for this one, how to plan ahead to make sure that I get enough regions before the time limit runs out. But a good game, quite enjoy that one.
Did get all of the Dawn of War 2's, well the three out so far. Kind of so-so on that one. I don't really like the lack of base management. I do like that I can play the Guard, took a few extensions before that came along though, didn't it. Am looking forward to playing the co-op campaign with friends.
Other than that, life still really sucks.
Work, game, sleep.
That's my life.
And working just to clear my cards for now. Since lovely, little old Adelaide is so the arse-hole of the civilised world it is so slow to recover from the recession. The BIG recession, the Great Recession, aka the GFC, but remember; the markets fell further than they did in the Great Depression, more people lost their jobs than during the Great Depression, it is taking longer for Adelaide to crawl out of it than the Great Depression. All of which adds up to my rates being half what they were before the Great Recession. So it will be quite a while before I clear those damned cards.
I so regret returning to this place.
I so regret having left Singapore.
I was so much happier there, this has been a very salutary lesson for me.
When I get back it will be with a lot more dedication.
Wednesday, March 9
A Long Dry Spell
Yes, it has been a long time, and there is a very good reason for this; I have been through what is probably the worst three months of my life.
The basic problem was my decision, undoubtedly the stupidest decision that I have ever made in my life, to leave Singapore and return to Australia almost two years ago. What I came back to was a total mess, a nation wracked by the Great Recession (a.k.a. the 'GFC'), and in particular a state (that is to say; a city) brought to its knees and still incapable of getting off them. Unfortunately the expense of returning and setting up was so great that it precluded me just turning around and heading back to SG as soon as it became obvious that this had been a very big mistake.
So, this mostly centres around the lack of work that there is in Adelaide. I have had interviews over the last couple of months and been asked to start the next Monday with the job then not materialising. But in the last three days I have had three calls from agencies asking if I was interested in a position, and one interview. Does this finally mean that the drought is over? Because as soon as it is I start my countdown to returning to SG, and this time with no intention of ever returning to AU. (Family visits aside.)
Okay, update that, I just took a call from one of the agencies and I start on Monday - a six month contract with a probable three month extension.
Anyhow, the main point is that I did not want to blog whilst I was feeling near suicidal from the voidness that is my meaningless existence.
The basic problem was my decision, undoubtedly the stupidest decision that I have ever made in my life, to leave Singapore and return to Australia almost two years ago. What I came back to was a total mess, a nation wracked by the Great Recession (a.k.a. the 'GFC'), and in particular a state (that is to say; a city) brought to its knees and still incapable of getting off them. Unfortunately the expense of returning and setting up was so great that it precluded me just turning around and heading back to SG as soon as it became obvious that this had been a very big mistake.
So, this mostly centres around the lack of work that there is in Adelaide. I have had interviews over the last couple of months and been asked to start the next Monday with the job then not materialising. But in the last three days I have had three calls from agencies asking if I was interested in a position, and one interview. Does this finally mean that the drought is over? Because as soon as it is I start my countdown to returning to SG, and this time with no intention of ever returning to AU. (Family visits aside.)
Okay, update that, I just took a call from one of the agencies and I start on Monday - a six month contract with a probable three month extension.
Anyhow, the main point is that I did not want to blog whilst I was feeling near suicidal from the voidness that is my meaningless existence.
Monday, January 3
I Hate Life
I have been going through a rough patch. Basically suicidally rough. Funny thing just now is another stuff up with Steam. Start with that, shall we?
My desktop has been dead for a month or two. Turns out that somehow the CMOS had reset its clock to zero, not sure I see how that stopped the box from running, but at least it is running again. My laptop has died as well; it was running like a dog, the fan and thermal bridge were not getting the heat away from the graphics chip. But then it started blue screening (still is) with an iastor.sys message. I have stuff on the damned thing, but I got off my finance assignment, which is the most important thing as it is due next week (managed to send to a flash drive on a rare two minute period before the blue screen). When I moved on to trying to install windows seven (which won't install from disc unless windows has already booted, which it won't, so w7 won't install) I decided to play something on the desktop whilst I waited. My steam password has been reset since the last time the box was running (and what a battle that was) and that password was on the laptop so I tried to reset the password when I started steam on the desktop. This requires you to answer a secret question and was where I seemed to have trouble last time, now I know; the steam secret question does not work. True; both times I got the answer right (after the reset I had to set a new question and answer), neither time did steam take it, end conclusion - steam doesn't work.
Oh, naturally Steam on the desktop has to reconnect via the net before it will run and naturally the Steam servers are drowning (due to Valves total lack of service provision for their customers).
Can I rehash something old? Coming back to Australia was probably the single stupidest thing that I have ever done in my life. I got all antsy because they wouldn't pay me anything near what I got here, but I come back here to find that Australia (most particularly Adelaide) has been totally killed by the GFC and not only is my rate usually about HALF what it was three years ago, but I can only get contracts for less than HALF my time; so I am on less than a quarter (annually) what I got before, and half what I would have gotten in Singapore. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
There is a very thin line of hope that I could grasp; it means returning to SG, but with some dedication this time, i.e. taking what I can get and casting off AU for good. If I can pull that off then I can clear the mountain of debt that returning to, and setting up in, Australia has cost me. This time I need to find a job in SG from here, before I go there.
I have talked about this with almost everyone that I know; their question usually boil down to where was I happier (isn't that sweet of them) but they all then acknowledge that I was much happier in SG than here. Even sweeping streets I would be happier there.
My desktop has been dead for a month or two. Turns out that somehow the CMOS had reset its clock to zero, not sure I see how that stopped the box from running, but at least it is running again. My laptop has died as well; it was running like a dog, the fan and thermal bridge were not getting the heat away from the graphics chip. But then it started blue screening (still is) with an iastor.sys message. I have stuff on the damned thing, but I got off my finance assignment, which is the most important thing as it is due next week (managed to send to a flash drive on a rare two minute period before the blue screen). When I moved on to trying to install windows seven (which won't install from disc unless windows has already booted, which it won't, so w7 won't install) I decided to play something on the desktop whilst I waited. My steam password has been reset since the last time the box was running (and what a battle that was) and that password was on the laptop so I tried to reset the password when I started steam on the desktop. This requires you to answer a secret question and was where I seemed to have trouble last time, now I know; the steam secret question does not work. True; both times I got the answer right (after the reset I had to set a new question and answer), neither time did steam take it, end conclusion - steam doesn't work.
Oh, naturally Steam on the desktop has to reconnect via the net before it will run and naturally the Steam servers are drowning (due to Valves total lack of service provision for their customers).
Can I rehash something old? Coming back to Australia was probably the single stupidest thing that I have ever done in my life. I got all antsy because they wouldn't pay me anything near what I got here, but I come back here to find that Australia (most particularly Adelaide) has been totally killed by the GFC and not only is my rate usually about HALF what it was three years ago, but I can only get contracts for less than HALF my time; so I am on less than a quarter (annually) what I got before, and half what I would have gotten in Singapore. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
There is a very thin line of hope that I could grasp; it means returning to SG, but with some dedication this time, i.e. taking what I can get and casting off AU for good. If I can pull that off then I can clear the mountain of debt that returning to, and setting up in, Australia has cost me. This time I need to find a job in SG from here, before I go there.
I have talked about this with almost everyone that I know; their question usually boil down to where was I happier (isn't that sweet of them) but they all then acknowledge that I was much happier in SG than here. Even sweeping streets I would be happier there.
Monday, December 6
When Support Does Not Mean Help
Why do the staff at Valve (i.e. Steam Support) have to be such useless shits?
Seriously, for two weeks or more I have been asking them to reset my password. Nothing more, just that. But will they? Noooooo, they insist on trying all of this useless shit that we all know is not going to achieve anything. Please send us a system info file (note that you have to 'save' not 'export', same output, but they are too useless to convert it). Please turn off all of these programs if they are running in the background. None of this achieves anything, and we all know that it won't. Only two things ever work with steam; reinstall or reset.
Just that, nothing else. Uninstall and reinstall the application, or reset your password.
But, as usual, it is my password that is the problem. And, as is often the case, I cannot reset it because their application (more probably at their end methinks) won't accept my answer to my secret question. So I have to ask them to reset the damned password. This is not the first time that I have had to do this, it is not the second, nor the third, nor the fourth, nor the fifth...
You see how useless the application is.
But will the stupid prick at the other end do what I ask?
Noooooo.
Fuckwit has to try all the shit that they always want to try to absolutely no avail.
Won't just reset my password as I asked for two weeks ago.
Dickwads.
Seriously, for two weeks or more I have been asking them to reset my password. Nothing more, just that. But will they? Noooooo, they insist on trying all of this useless shit that we all know is not going to achieve anything. Please send us a system info file (note that you have to 'save' not 'export', same output, but they are too useless to convert it). Please turn off all of these programs if they are running in the background. None of this achieves anything, and we all know that it won't. Only two things ever work with steam; reinstall or reset.
Just that, nothing else. Uninstall and reinstall the application, or reset your password.
But, as usual, it is my password that is the problem. And, as is often the case, I cannot reset it because their application (more probably at their end methinks) won't accept my answer to my secret question. So I have to ask them to reset the damned password. This is not the first time that I have had to do this, it is not the second, nor the third, nor the fourth, nor the fifth...
You see how useless the application is.
But will the stupid prick at the other end do what I ask?
Noooooo.
Fuckwit has to try all the shit that they always want to try to absolutely no avail.
Won't just reset my password as I asked for two weeks ago.
Dickwads.
Friday, December 3
Just Quickly
I have not been blogging, principally because I have been depressed, principally because I have been 'between contracts' for too long. I have exams this week and next, indeed two tomorrow, so don't expect this to be too long.
Let me start by saying that I like Lee Hsien Loong's view on social welfare; the burgeoning welfare state is the biggest single challenge to the Anglo world but few have the inclination to recognise it for what it is. In my view the leadership of Singapore has been wise in avoiding this trap.
My younger brother is a father; his girlfriend has given birth to a daughter - at present she only has two states; crying or sleeping. She kind of looks Asian, I am guessing this comes from my brother's mother who has Asiany looking eyes, I have no idea where she gets that from, but the little girl looks more Asian than my friend's children - who have a Chinese mother. I wonder if it will stay that way as they all grow?
I am having a 'cultural' issue; I am getting pissed, totally pissed, at the ethnics at uni, specifically at the fact that their stupidity and ignorance wastes an hour of most lectures. On one hand there are really dumb questions; we have to use a financial calculator, for financial functions you enter a number, press the button for that variable, you enter all variables except one, then you press 'compute' and press the last variable button, a slide shows all of these buttons, it has numbers above the buttons for all except one, it has the answer below that button. How hard can it be? Apparently it is still quite difficult if you are Indian. But then there are the totally irrelevant questions; if we are talking about interest rates some Indian will have to ask the lecturer if they think bank interest rates are fair and then make some comment about them being mercenary. Then there are questions, lots of them, from Indians that have supposed to have done degrees (we are doing a post grad) and done them in English, that show a total lack of understanding of basic English such as how to write a list of numbers.
My younger brother was complaining about how this was wasting so much time in his lectures. There are about four hundred in his class, of which six or so are White, the rest are Indian and Chinese. He says that he understands the Chinese having troubles and can sympathise; English is not their first language and their accounting system is different from the European model, but the Indians are meant to have studied in English and they are meant to use the same accounting principles, yet they are wasting the lecture with stupid-level questions. My observation is that they also have a tendency to throw out seemingly random answers, perhaps hoping for some recognition for participation, although to be fair, randomness would entail a fifty percent chance of being right whereas they are almost always wrong.
The bottom line is that I am being significantly held back by having to share my lectures with foreigners and our universities should offer Australian-only classes so that we can study at a faster rate. The other major point is that catering to these ethnics is lowering the overall quality of education provision.
I am having trouble with Steam again. I can log in offline, but it will not let me log in online. I tried to reset my password, but it would not let me, it would not accept the answer to my secret question. I have asked Steam Support to reset the password, but rather than simply do as I ask they insist on a lengthy series of email exchanges and a system info output. Why? All they ever do is tell you to reinstall and reset the password; they have no other answers to anything.
I have a contract starting on Monday, it is in the same division of the same department as one of the long term contract offers I had a while ago. I am hoping that I will impress them enough to get this other one happening again. It was advertised in the government notice of vacancies and they did not like any of the applicants, it was advertised in the public press but they got no responses, it was taken to recruitment agencies and I am the candidate that they got offered (indeed I was the only candidate put forward by the largest agency in town) but they then said that they had to get approval to actually progress the position. What does that mean? You advertised it three times without permission to fill the job?
I had a health scare recently; I had a choking problem. My father said that he had the same problem and it was only resolved when he lost weight, and further that the only way he lost weight was through starvation and totally no bread and no potato. ARRGGGGHHHH my two most favourite foods! Anyhow, I have been pretty good with this, I have stopped eating so much bread and am only having flat bread to make 'roll-ups' for lunch, I have reduced the number of times I eat a day, and I have reduced the amount that I eat at each meal. Almost immediately I could swallow better and have had only a few minor issues there. I have not noticed being any thinner though and was whinging about how no amount of exercise and diet got me any skinnier (remember walking the entire length of East Coast Park (two to three hours) every day for six months and not losing any weight?) HOWEVER; my underwear is all suddenly too loose. This must mean something...
Let me start by saying that I like Lee Hsien Loong's view on social welfare; the burgeoning welfare state is the biggest single challenge to the Anglo world but few have the inclination to recognise it for what it is. In my view the leadership of Singapore has been wise in avoiding this trap.
My younger brother is a father; his girlfriend has given birth to a daughter - at present she only has two states; crying or sleeping. She kind of looks Asian, I am guessing this comes from my brother's mother who has Asiany looking eyes, I have no idea where she gets that from, but the little girl looks more Asian than my friend's children - who have a Chinese mother. I wonder if it will stay that way as they all grow?
I am having a 'cultural' issue; I am getting pissed, totally pissed, at the ethnics at uni, specifically at the fact that their stupidity and ignorance wastes an hour of most lectures. On one hand there are really dumb questions; we have to use a financial calculator, for financial functions you enter a number, press the button for that variable, you enter all variables except one, then you press 'compute' and press the last variable button, a slide shows all of these buttons, it has numbers above the buttons for all except one, it has the answer below that button. How hard can it be? Apparently it is still quite difficult if you are Indian. But then there are the totally irrelevant questions; if we are talking about interest rates some Indian will have to ask the lecturer if they think bank interest rates are fair and then make some comment about them being mercenary. Then there are questions, lots of them, from Indians that have supposed to have done degrees (we are doing a post grad) and done them in English, that show a total lack of understanding of basic English such as how to write a list of numbers.
My younger brother was complaining about how this was wasting so much time in his lectures. There are about four hundred in his class, of which six or so are White, the rest are Indian and Chinese. He says that he understands the Chinese having troubles and can sympathise; English is not their first language and their accounting system is different from the European model, but the Indians are meant to have studied in English and they are meant to use the same accounting principles, yet they are wasting the lecture with stupid-level questions. My observation is that they also have a tendency to throw out seemingly random answers, perhaps hoping for some recognition for participation, although to be fair, randomness would entail a fifty percent chance of being right whereas they are almost always wrong.
The bottom line is that I am being significantly held back by having to share my lectures with foreigners and our universities should offer Australian-only classes so that we can study at a faster rate. The other major point is that catering to these ethnics is lowering the overall quality of education provision.
I am having trouble with Steam again. I can log in offline, but it will not let me log in online. I tried to reset my password, but it would not let me, it would not accept the answer to my secret question. I have asked Steam Support to reset the password, but rather than simply do as I ask they insist on a lengthy series of email exchanges and a system info output. Why? All they ever do is tell you to reinstall and reset the password; they have no other answers to anything.
I have a contract starting on Monday, it is in the same division of the same department as one of the long term contract offers I had a while ago. I am hoping that I will impress them enough to get this other one happening again. It was advertised in the government notice of vacancies and they did not like any of the applicants, it was advertised in the public press but they got no responses, it was taken to recruitment agencies and I am the candidate that they got offered (indeed I was the only candidate put forward by the largest agency in town) but they then said that they had to get approval to actually progress the position. What does that mean? You advertised it three times without permission to fill the job?
I had a health scare recently; I had a choking problem. My father said that he had the same problem and it was only resolved when he lost weight, and further that the only way he lost weight was through starvation and totally no bread and no potato. ARRGGGGHHHH my two most favourite foods! Anyhow, I have been pretty good with this, I have stopped eating so much bread and am only having flat bread to make 'roll-ups' for lunch, I have reduced the number of times I eat a day, and I have reduced the amount that I eat at each meal. Almost immediately I could swallow better and have had only a few minor issues there. I have not noticed being any thinner though and was whinging about how no amount of exercise and diet got me any skinnier (remember walking the entire length of East Coast Park (two to three hours) every day for six months and not losing any weight?) HOWEVER; my underwear is all suddenly too loose. This must mean something...
Tuesday, November 2
So Many Thoughts
I haven't blogged for a while, mostly because I just haven't bothered 'netting, whenever I have turned my pc on I have played. But I have had quite a few things that I wanted to write about and so I thought that I should get them off my chest.
The Kommunists
Spider Wasps
More Kommunists, specifically perverting justice
The SGX attempt to buy the ASX, second bite of the cherry
Elders selling their share in Rural Bank for 27M
Bob Brown's comments on SG being an oppressive dictatorship
Councillors
Rare Earth
Tax Returns, or rather the effect tax has upon returns
Window Dressing
Let's see if I can get through them all.
Australia, like most Western nations, employs far too many public servants. One in three people that work in AU work for government; our income tax is one third of our pay, so effectively one third is taken out of two people's pay and given to the third who is told that he was paid three thirds but one third was withheld for tax. Our non-income taxes pay for all of government's non-salary expenses. These bureaucrats don't do anything; for example, Health SA employs 35,000 people but there are only 9,000 hospital beds. Do you think that there are three and a half people to every bed? No way! There is only one nurse for every ten beds, one doctors for every thirty, one ancilliary for every ten, the rest are all administrating! Most tax dollars in Australia are spent on welfare, but for every dollar actually given to a recipient, four are spent on salaries for bureaucrats to make sure that one dollar isn't being ripped off!
So when the South Australian Treasurer says he is going to get rid of a couple of thousand leaches I think it is a small start, SA could get rid of 90,000 of them! But four thousand of these bureaucrats take to the streets and march. They have fire engines leading the parade; we pay our taxes to have them on station ready for emergencies, not being used as political props.
Spider Wasps
Ichy subject, I know.
The other day a woman in the next office (with the door open) made some statement about Aboriginals bludging at white man's expense. I thought of popping my head in and saying that she could get into trouble for making comments like that. Then I thought; only if someone that didn't agree with her heard it.
Then it reminded me of spider wasps...
If you have ever watched Discovery Channel (or Animal Planet or any of a dozen doco channels you can get on cable) then you have seen a wasp hunting a spider. Maybe you saw the spider behave in fear and try to escape.
Funny thing is that apparently if you put the spider in a glass cage in a white laboratory, i.e. out of his environment, and release the wasp into the cage, then the spider will hunt, and kill, the wasp.
Freed of her programming she knows that she has the upper hand. It is only because she has been 'programmed' into submission that the parasitic wasp can have her way.
This is the world that we live in.
This is Socialism, Feminism, and Humanism.
Perfectly, to a 'T'.
More Kommunists.
And this time perverting justice.
In civilised nations you are innocent until proven guilty.
Not so in Australia.
Specifically whit regards to unions accusing employers of OHSW breaches. The legal onus is on the employer to prove his/her/its innocence.
That is sick.
But it is specifically the situation that the Labor premier of NSW wants to keep.
The SGX is trying to buy the ASX.
That is to say the Singapore stock exchange is trying to buy the Australian stock exchange. They initially called it a 'merger' to make it sound more pallatable, but I don't think it is still going to be swallowed.
Funny thing is though; they tried something like this before, well more the real merger thing, with the two exchanges connecting live and traders being able to access the other. It didn't work, well to be more precise, it didn't get used.
This time around it is really just one company taking over another.
Bob Brown, our resident 'Green', that should, of course, be 'Red', doesn't llike it. His speech on the subject accused Singapore of being a totallitarian and oppressive state and therefore the deal was no go for him.
I think he lives in la la land, but he has proven that often enough.
Elders is selling its share in Rural Bank. For a mere $27M. Well, that may be all it's worth. Two things get me about this; firstly my total amazement that Elders is still alive, and secondly their fascination with selling everything that makes money so that they can keep running the things that lose money!
Rare Earth.
What can I say?
Well, something it appears.
Okay, the name means minerals that are scattered, as in 'rarefied', not actually rare as such. And that they all come from China, and the evil Chinese have decided to ration them so that they don't run out. How dare they think like that.
What it makes me think though, is what did we do before China opened up and traded with the world? Did we not have any 'rare earths'? Did we get them from somewhere else, but they were more expensive so we have forgotten how? Did we not build high tech equipment until China gave us these magical ingredients?
All seem pretty stupid to me.
Tax Returns
Ah yes, I made a model (that's what I do, remember?) for currency trading. Highly compounding, daily trading, each week at a set level before ramping up a level for the next week, taking out tax and safety margin each month, with tax rates, return rates, risk levels, etc built in.
I ran it to find out the starting funds I would need, at a conservative leveraging level (half what is common in the market), with a conservative rate of return (less than half what is common in the market), with a conservative risk level and a very safe safety margin withdrawal rate, blah blah blah, in order to find out what starting funds I would need to get a given return for a year.
The next bit is where it gets exciting.
I then changed the tax rate to SG to see the effect, since as you know, I am partial to moving there (again). The result was astounding; the return increased tenfold!
I then put in SG's currency trading tax rate (as opposed to ordinary company tax rate), the return increased another fourfold!
The funniest thing is; that although the tax rate was going down, the amount of tax being paid was going up! At 20% tax versus Australia's 30% tax SG would actually receive five times more tax, this is because it allowed a much faster rate of compounding, therefore far more profit was made. And by halving the tax rate for currency trading SG would double the tax it received.
I did some further modelling to find out what tax level would actually maximise the amount of tax a country would receive; 9.05% is what I got, so Singapore's 10% is not far off the mark.
Window Dressing
This is a funny one, the US SEC went public with an accusation that some accounting firms, they named Lehman Bros, were temporarily selling assets to 'cook' the books and improve companies' credit ratings. What I got from this was that they named Lehman, of all the companies that you could kick, they kick one that is down, in fact truly dead! Why not shame one that is still trading?
And I am not going to bother about councillors.
The Kommunists
Spider Wasps
More Kommunists, specifically perverting justice
The SGX attempt to buy the ASX, second bite of the cherry
Elders selling their share in Rural Bank for 27M
Bob Brown's comments on SG being an oppressive dictatorship
Councillors
Rare Earth
Tax Returns, or rather the effect tax has upon returns
Window Dressing
Let's see if I can get through them all.
Australia, like most Western nations, employs far too many public servants. One in three people that work in AU work for government; our income tax is one third of our pay, so effectively one third is taken out of two people's pay and given to the third who is told that he was paid three thirds but one third was withheld for tax. Our non-income taxes pay for all of government's non-salary expenses. These bureaucrats don't do anything; for example, Health SA employs 35,000 people but there are only 9,000 hospital beds. Do you think that there are three and a half people to every bed? No way! There is only one nurse for every ten beds, one doctors for every thirty, one ancilliary for every ten, the rest are all administrating! Most tax dollars in Australia are spent on welfare, but for every dollar actually given to a recipient, four are spent on salaries for bureaucrats to make sure that one dollar isn't being ripped off!
So when the South Australian Treasurer says he is going to get rid of a couple of thousand leaches I think it is a small start, SA could get rid of 90,000 of them! But four thousand of these bureaucrats take to the streets and march. They have fire engines leading the parade; we pay our taxes to have them on station ready for emergencies, not being used as political props.
Spider Wasps
Ichy subject, I know.
The other day a woman in the next office (with the door open) made some statement about Aboriginals bludging at white man's expense. I thought of popping my head in and saying that she could get into trouble for making comments like that. Then I thought; only if someone that didn't agree with her heard it.
Then it reminded me of spider wasps...
If you have ever watched Discovery Channel (or Animal Planet or any of a dozen doco channels you can get on cable) then you have seen a wasp hunting a spider. Maybe you saw the spider behave in fear and try to escape.
Funny thing is that apparently if you put the spider in a glass cage in a white laboratory, i.e. out of his environment, and release the wasp into the cage, then the spider will hunt, and kill, the wasp.
Freed of her programming she knows that she has the upper hand. It is only because she has been 'programmed' into submission that the parasitic wasp can have her way.
This is the world that we live in.
This is Socialism, Feminism, and Humanism.
Perfectly, to a 'T'.
More Kommunists.
And this time perverting justice.
In civilised nations you are innocent until proven guilty.
Not so in Australia.
Specifically whit regards to unions accusing employers of OHSW breaches. The legal onus is on the employer to prove his/her/its innocence.
That is sick.
But it is specifically the situation that the Labor premier of NSW wants to keep.
The SGX is trying to buy the ASX.
That is to say the Singapore stock exchange is trying to buy the Australian stock exchange. They initially called it a 'merger' to make it sound more pallatable, but I don't think it is still going to be swallowed.
Funny thing is though; they tried something like this before, well more the real merger thing, with the two exchanges connecting live and traders being able to access the other. It didn't work, well to be more precise, it didn't get used.
This time around it is really just one company taking over another.
Bob Brown, our resident 'Green', that should, of course, be 'Red', doesn't llike it. His speech on the subject accused Singapore of being a totallitarian and oppressive state and therefore the deal was no go for him.
I think he lives in la la land, but he has proven that often enough.
Elders is selling its share in Rural Bank. For a mere $27M. Well, that may be all it's worth. Two things get me about this; firstly my total amazement that Elders is still alive, and secondly their fascination with selling everything that makes money so that they can keep running the things that lose money!
Rare Earth.
What can I say?
Well, something it appears.
Okay, the name means minerals that are scattered, as in 'rarefied', not actually rare as such. And that they all come from China, and the evil Chinese have decided to ration them so that they don't run out. How dare they think like that.
What it makes me think though, is what did we do before China opened up and traded with the world? Did we not have any 'rare earths'? Did we get them from somewhere else, but they were more expensive so we have forgotten how? Did we not build high tech equipment until China gave us these magical ingredients?
All seem pretty stupid to me.
Tax Returns
Ah yes, I made a model (that's what I do, remember?) for currency trading. Highly compounding, daily trading, each week at a set level before ramping up a level for the next week, taking out tax and safety margin each month, with tax rates, return rates, risk levels, etc built in.
I ran it to find out the starting funds I would need, at a conservative leveraging level (half what is common in the market), with a conservative rate of return (less than half what is common in the market), with a conservative risk level and a very safe safety margin withdrawal rate, blah blah blah, in order to find out what starting funds I would need to get a given return for a year.
The next bit is where it gets exciting.
I then changed the tax rate to SG to see the effect, since as you know, I am partial to moving there (again). The result was astounding; the return increased tenfold!
I then put in SG's currency trading tax rate (as opposed to ordinary company tax rate), the return increased another fourfold!
The funniest thing is; that although the tax rate was going down, the amount of tax being paid was going up! At 20% tax versus Australia's 30% tax SG would actually receive five times more tax, this is because it allowed a much faster rate of compounding, therefore far more profit was made. And by halving the tax rate for currency trading SG would double the tax it received.
I did some further modelling to find out what tax level would actually maximise the amount of tax a country would receive; 9.05% is what I got, so Singapore's 10% is not far off the mark.
Window Dressing
This is a funny one, the US SEC went public with an accusation that some accounting firms, they named Lehman Bros, were temporarily selling assets to 'cook' the books and improve companies' credit ratings. What I got from this was that they named Lehman, of all the companies that you could kick, they kick one that is down, in fact truly dead! Why not shame one that is still trading?
And I am not going to bother about councillors.
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