Posts by GrumpyOldBloke

Only through agreed legal frameworks.

Re: Maybe Larry senses that the time is right?

Larry's just playing to the cheap seats, rollup for the great Turnbull innovation sideshow. See the misogynists heckling the bearded lady. Buy some Cisco kit, be one of the agile kids. There is no chance of Australia becoming the Switzerland of anything (except perhaps cars) our institutions lack the capacity for mature public debate and while we remain compromised by 5-eyes and the 'look over there a terrorist' catchall we are doomed. The only vision our politicians have is for massive immigration to feed the banking/housing ponzi and the other parasites in the FIRE sector and of course expanded police / state security powers to try and protect the haves from the increasing number of nots (especially the young) who will be expected to sacrifice and pay for it all.

Re: Last line in the article...

As well as any other case of this nature.

Too many false flags to advance an agenda to believe the official story this time. Didn't fit the eye witness accounts, a previous police rehearsal at the site and the contamination of *evidence* at the suspects apartment by media rampage. Good Bonnie and Clyde story for the TV though with that shot out SUV.

Re: Ahem

> _THAT_ should be treated the same way as terrorism

Access to senior officials, large black ops budgets, intelligence support, weapons drops, a resource rich country of your choosing and full media support? That'll teach em!

Re: Political qualifications

> it's not like the rest of the world will listen to you.

If only that were true.

> An expense to NBNCo becomes a profit centre.

Which is of course an additional cost to the consumer and an additional cost reflected in our already appalling balance of trade figures (the imported components like modems). Pay once for the misdirection of resources and a second time for the required service. The opex costs of the now unused (for that consumer) node will probably be factored into the upgrade price to avoid a death spiral of costs for those that remain on copper. The upgrade performed as a unique task will not benefit from economies of scale. What happens to the VDSL modem from the initial installation? eWaste? An inefficiency is still an inefficiency even when it is cost shifted to someone else.

Re: Nice article Richard

From the Z-Cell faq

The enclosure measures around 1000mm long, 500 mm wide and 1150 mm high and weighs about 240Kg.

Re: It's a fair cop

It is invasion-ey. If we had accepted that and argued that the indigenous Australian's were a defeated people and moved on from there then the UNSW would not be causing such a rumpus now. The problem is that the European's have always tried to have a bet both ways. The Mabo decision demonstrated that Terra Nullius was a convenient fiction that should not be examined too closely by polite society. While no other outcome but European colonisation was possible it would help if we were a little more honest about it and worked out where we go from here. Perhaps dropping the beneficent paternalism and beginning to work in good faith. The problems that the indigenous people have had are not a million miles from what many European descendants are now facing with broken families, substance abuse, homelessness and an unrepresentative government whose primary purpose is social control to protect the *elite*. Writing some past wrongs may lead the way for the depressed soulless society that Australia has become to find its own purpose.

They were never just lobbyists. Pravda reported in 2010: Google's Deep CIA Connections.

"In 2004, the Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, Rob Painter, moved from his old job directly serving the CIA to become 'Senior Federal Manager' at Google."

It has also been a long standing rumour that CIA seed money helped found Google.

2017 / 2018 might be when the chickens come home to roost. nbn co are predicting that they will have massive deployments of the MTM nbn by then and they get to see if income covers costs or if the high CVC charges and operations costs, the collapse in mining investment, the closure of car manufacturing plants and parts suppliers, the drop in Oz R&D, reduced workforce participation as the boomers start to retire, the increasingly litigious environment around copyright in Australia and h265 mean that people find the lowest tier plans are good enough or simply migrate to wireless / tpg / transact. 2017 / 2018 might be when we get to see if the nbn has survived the LNP's two+ years of mismanagement or if the delay was terminal and the only path forward is to sell it in pieces at a loss thus ending a decade of stagnation in Oz (non wireless) telecommunications investment.

Re: I just checked my account

@Kyza and JLV. Hitler was no saint however there were a few things he got right. Debt free money was one of them. The Jewish angle cannot be ignored but even that is not as black and white as the propaganda would have us believe with a number of Jews serving in Hitler's military up to senior ranks. Jews perhaps can see that the interests of the banking families are not the same as the interests of the factory worker. The history of anti-Semitism in Europe suggests that the Jew in the street has paid a high price for the excesses of their peers in the mansions - as we all have.

JLV - in regards nationalizing a currency. In most countries money is not created by the state. The government offers securities (typically interest bearing bonds now that they have no more gold) to private banks who in turn leverage these securities to loan money back to governments / industry / people at additional interest. This is an insanely profitable business to be in - a cut of a few % of global commerce. The trap is that when the money is created as a loan the interest is not created at the same time - that must be created by further borrowing, etc, etc. In times of prosperity - monetary expansion - what is actually happening is economies are sinking further into debt. This is well understood but considerable pressure is applied to anyone who wants to break free from the system. Eg, Libya, Iran, US (audit the fed), Russia (pre Czar) and of course Germany pre WW2. Hitler stabilised Hyper Inflation by abandoning the debt based money and moving to debt free money issued by the state. Per Churchill’s quote in my post above "to build up an independent exchange system from which the world-finance couldn’t profit anymore". With debt free money there is little need for the financial middle men with the power to create money out of thin air while taking a cut of every transaction. Consider the city of London, what an absolutely worthless place it would be without the ability of the financial middlemen to take a cut of every transaction. As we saw with the libor rate manipulation, even excess is not enough.

There is a lot information available comparing privately issued debt based currencies to debt free money. it is the driving force behind the destruction of the environment in pursuit of endless growth, it is the root cause of inequality and of course in the west’s wars of aggression to try and maintain their currencies against the burden of debt by stealing others assets.

Re: Yup, that'll be France.

No, the surrender monkeys are in Australia. I see your creepy surveillance law and raise you bans on branches of mathematics and a whole bunch of civilian technologies that now need government licence in order to do R&D on. The onus of proof is also reversed away from the government.

Defence Trade Controls Act: Under the Act, publication, discussion or communication of research without a Defence permit is punishable by 10 years jail, a $425,000 fine and forfeiture of your research to the government. This includes scientists, academics, librarians, engineers, high tech workers and companies who have never had a prior relationship with the Department of Defence.

The Act doesn’t just apply to military technology, but also so called “dual use” civilian technology, including physics, computers, electronics, communications, manufacturing, medicine and biotechnology.

Re: I wonder what 3 letter US Government agency paid off Amazon?

In 2013 the CIA awarded a contract (then at $600M over 10 years) to Amazon for cloud services. After a bit of legal argy bargy with IBM Amazon got to keep the contract and started the build of the shiny new IC cloud. The US government is an important customer to Amazon. Its show piece role as a secure private cloud provider in an era of super-size government is a key marketing strategy.

Re: Be careful what you wish for

@imanidiot: sorry one more:

Water pollution and gender / gender identity issues are already being raised as potential issues.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1281309/

Re: Head in sand

Don't worry, there is still a need for even more stadiums. Estimates of gas leakage from the Texas Barnett Shale region are about 60,000 kg/h over 25,000 wells. A little more than the California leak at its peak. Then there is the Eagle Ford Shale which probably leaks about the same per well. At about two and a half years to build each stadium I predict a bright future for this industry.

Re: Predictable

Or perhaps we could have systems in place whereby he needed to convince a third party - like a judge - of his need to access those records at that time. Protect the public from the bad guys and the fraternal order of emotional marshmallows from themselves.

Re: I support

you tube: Family Guy Right to bear arms

Re: Mental note

Not just the name and address, keep an eye on the assignments. Here in Oz we had an assignment at my kids primary school where the children were asked to submit their finger prints. Check essay's - topics like guilt, sorrow, fear and responsibility and ensure they are answered in the abstract. Even kids pictures can be problematic. One family here on Oz was investigated by the states child kidnapping services for drawing a stick figure princess with elongated fingers - elsewhere in the state kids were being beaten, abused and murdered but its much easier to go for a soft target. Teach them about social media and the permanence of data. Do some research on vaccination and make informed decisions on which ones to accept and which ones may only cure corporate profits. Similarly bogus ADHD diagnosis from poor teachers. There are also sites here advising aboriginal children on how to behave around police like (croakey.org/is-this-justice/) they are a good read for all parents and apply to all state authority figures. School is a battleground and being a parent in this environment is a full time job, as it always has been

Re: Tough call

Fell or pushed?

Re: Predictable outcomes of this agreement...

That is what the 5-eyes +1 alliance is all about.

Re: Halfway there

The airport mm wave full body scanners are at about 430GHz. There was an MIT report that found they caused bubbles / unwinding in human DNA due to non-linear resonance effects. Seems 430GHz is about the vibrational frequency of some of our bits and pieces. I wonder what cool stuff 100GHz will do to us in dense arrays of short range transceivers.

No escape from bank-ruptcies. Solve the pesky problem of bank runs.

Re: Why send you're own drone when you can piggy back the feed from some else?

I am sure the Israeli's would be aware of it. It only becomes a problem if the US and the UK adopt foreign policy positions independent of Israel’s. IE Unlikely.

Re: New OPM

@asdf - maybe add a dollar or two on top of public health for military spending (on and off books) and another one for bailing out Wall Street. Add a dollar for the ongoing expansion of the federal government under both parties. Perhaps a dime for constant meddling in other countries affairs and it all starts to add up.

Medicare is expensive but that may have something to do with having the worlds most expensive medical solutions, the developed worlds worst food and being the worlds largest consumers of pharmaceutical products. There are numerous examples around the world of better outcomes at lower costs but lobbying and some irrational belief in exceptionalism may explain the determination of the US to stick with what its got. As everything must be a market based, something you buy rather than something you do, don't expect change anytime soon. Pray you live long enough to enjoy your $3.

Re: Clueless

Not yet. Squeeze a little harder with the austerity packages. Wait until people are watching their children freeze or starve to death so that bank bond holders can be bailed out again and that 99% figure starts decreasing. The actions the government are taking now are for events a decade away.

Yup, extraordinary rendition all over again. Your data will be grabbed and transported to a lawless country where there is no expectations of justice or privacy, like the UK or Oz. If after water boarding the signed confession is left just a little too close to the window and the US get a peek then there is always the bad apples excuse.

Re: Great news!

The Oz->US E3 visa has generally been under subscribed so competition getting a visa shouldn't be much different. Finding a job in competition with the Indian H-1B's probably won't have changed much. $4K is still chump change compared to the salaries a skilled US local would require.

Success would be interesting. With the human advisors gone where would the box training scripts for future Q&A's be realised and how much would they cost to implement by a monopoly supplier. Without a life the universe and everything question our glorious AI future will be little more than press 1for career's, coach wheels. Press 2 for career's, Fortran.

Re: I'm wondering

Known to authorities who in turn failed to act is a common theme with these attacks. Some even consider this to be evidence of prior knowledge or false flags to advance an agenda.

Murdoch and his infatuated fan. Same show different actors.

Agreed with your first post Charles but WW2 was simply a resource war much like our current ME misadventures. It has since been shrouded in all sorts of self righteous propaganda but if you look at any of our current wars you see the patterns repeat. One power goads the other with mercenaries and then claims the moral high ground when the goaded moves to protect its people. Churchill wanted war, a strong independent Germany posed a serious economic threat the the realm.

But assuming the war scenario, those called upon to do the dying need to have a voice. The self serving nature of the those in power needs to be tempered with public representation and a healthy does of cynicism. Colin Powell’s speech to the UN re: Saddam’s weapons of mass distraction, the *need* for a draft to support the war against Vietnam, the F35, etc. War is the most important reason not to trust government. However, if the will of the public voiced through its representatives is to throw themselves at machine gun fire then that is the will of the people and so shall it be. There is of course the issue of informed consent but then we hit the point you raised in your first post on this subject.

Your final sentence, the point of government. It is a convenient place to centralise services for the good of all. Those items where there is not enough access to resource in private hands to create a competitive free market - like water. Unfortunately it has departed from its role as an impartial service provider under civilian oversight and now seeks to favour selected groups using its own standards or morality and probity. Disaster ensues.

Re: So what's wrong with a mule?

I suspect the possibility of TLC was what precluded a mule from active service with the US military.

"STEM replaced by STEAM" where A = Arts

Australia has no shortage of STEM qualified people. Our problems are in costs, regulation, finance, commercialisation and scale. Australia suffers from an A quality deficit, contextually an excess of A holes. It is easier to deal with A's in the US than the conga line of fruit loops in business, banking, unions and government here. Addressing this A quality deficit is just as important as sifting the STEM wheat from the chaff for our US overlords.

Iran, North Korea and Pakistan already have the capacity to develop delivery systems or could use cargo space on existing transport routes. If we limit the discussion to ISIS then all that the rogue group requires is a delivery system: and a generous North Atlantic donor nation who could supply the plane, parts, technical know how, some prepackaged fissionable material in a rounded box, flight training, flight plan clearances and a target list. A friendly Middle Eastern nation or two to help with landing / loading and take off might also be required. It would be easier just to drive or let someone else deliver the package.

However, given that even under the extreme pressure the Russian's and Syrian's are applying to ISIS R US no one has yet gone nuclear. It may be that obtaining a nuke is the biggest barrier in your scenario rather than the delivery system.