Posts by Pompous Git 3087 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Sep 2014
What if women want to vote for a man?
A couple of years ago at UTas a bloke was elected to the position of Women's Officer. Fairly and democratically. There was an outcry from the feminists and the bloke resigned. The position became unfilled, there being no women who wanted the position. It should be noted that men are in the minority on the UTas campus. Equality? Feminists have zero interest in equality.
there was a series of studies done in the states over job satisfaction that found there was a higher churn of female staff in women dominated work.
A little over a decade ago, I enrolled as a mature age student at UTas. The intro philosophy course included a module on women's issues that I expected to be... anti-men.* To my surprise it dealt with how badly women treat other women. One wheelchair-bound feminist wrote of being pointedly ignored by her colleagues at a wimmins'-only gabfest. Cripples are deaf, right? Another of deliberate humiliation of female Mexican servants by their female employers. It was far more interesting and enlightening than I expected.
* Back in the 70s a male friend and I used to take the kids from the local women's shelter to the beach to run and play. The women appreciated this very much. Then the feminazi-in-charge returned from the USA and we were no longer allowed to exercise our evil influence over the kids. Instead of running around releasing pent-up energy the kids sat in front of the TV all day and got yelled at for misbehaving.
Electronics and things like cards are great until they don't work then you NEED cash.
About once a year the Gits suffer from identity fraud. Luckily, the bank is onto it straight away and it doesn't cost us any money. Nevertheless, it's quite frustrating being without a card for a week.
Why only one credit account for the two of us? Because it's a condition of the special low rate of interest on our overdraft. Fuck knows why.
Then to completely bollux things, when I arrived at the first location, we discovered that although I'd been making deposits for well over a year and the teller knew me, there were NO names authorized to make a withdrawal.
I was in the bank at UTas a few years ago and a member of staff was attempting to send money overseas to his daughter overseas and being refused by the teller. She refused to recognise him. Pretty much everyone else in the bank did; he was on a very popular weekly TV show called The Collectors, never mind that he was a senior lecturer.
Yes he could use his Australian credit card but that incurred a "transaction charge" for each and every use abroad.
You can obtain a special card for travel that apparently reduces those charges. When I applied for one at my bank prior to travelling to NZ, the staffer I spoke to me gave me a very useful hint. "Just use the ATM's owned by [redacted] and you won't incur any extra charges; that bank is owned by this bank. But don't tell anyone I told you!"
In Canada, it's nearly universal that the debit card system prints out two copies of the debit receipt. One copy goes in the till. If there's any discrepancy, then they can check the paper copies. Otherwise, just file them for 90 days, then shred.
So that raises the question of how do you cope with patrons who possess neither debit, nor credit cards? HCC had a booth where you could purchase a card that carried a certain amount of credit, but that was outside the regular banking systems. It's probably here that the skimming took place, but only time will tell. Maybe... I'm not holding my breath.
The cashless provider does NOT get to tell you how much you have sold. You keep your records, they keep theirs, and they are reconciled on a regular basis.
All well and good if the two records reconcile. As I pointed out in my earlier post re the Taste of Tasmania, those records do not necessarily reconcile. How do you prove that the "cashless" provider hasn't trousered several thousand dollars that should rightfully be yours?
wouldn't emu roll be more authentic?
Ostrich farming is the latest get-rich-quick farming scheme [sigh]:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/ostrich-farming/4754110
Of course ostrich tastes just like emu, which tastes just like snake which tastes just like alligator which tastes just like chicken. Or something. Think I'll stick with the chicken. And a nice Nelson chardonnay ;-)
http://www.neudorf.co.nz/our-wines/chardonnay/neudorf-chardonnay/
For a quarter of a century, the Git caught the bus to the city. His computer training business made substantially more income than it would have if he had maintained an extra vehicle. The bus company changed hands and on the first day the Git needed a new 10-trip ticket, he presented a cheque made out for the appropriate amount. The bus driver refused it on the grounds that I needed to make a "prior arrangement".
"Surely 25 years of paying by cheque is a prior arrangement" the Git responded, but the driver was adamant. The Git purchased a one way ticket with the little cash he had on him.
During the day, the Git managed to get to a cash point and presented the bus driver with a $100 bill which was all that ATMs issued in those days. The bus driver said "I can't make change for that!". So the Git said: "well, you don't take credit cards, you don't take cash and I don't do sex with fugly bus drivers!" The other passengers cheered.
A neighbour kindly lent me the cost of a one way ticket, the last I ever purchased from that company. As many hitherto bus company customers discovered the joys of car-sharing, the bus company's fortunes declined and they had to cancel some routes to "save costs". Private enterprise are just as capable of destroying a successful business as government it seems.
That may be less practical for quick-turnaround stuff like beer, but for something like dinner or takeout that removes the waiting in line, saving time (and by the equation money).
Every summer Hobart cordons off the waterfront for a festival called Taste of Tasmania where patrons get to sample the food and wine for which Tasmania is justifiably famous. This year, in order to finance it, the Hobart City Council decided it would be cashless. All transactions were electronic and the Council raked in 10% of every transaction, as well as charging the stallholders for being there.
Stallholders said the new system resulted in lost sales as customers had to wait while the cashless transaction was processed. There were also claims of discrepancies with transaction records, with some saying they were out by more than $4,000 a day.
A substantial number of stallholders are demanding council refund the 10 per cent levy, saying the problems not only lost them sales but cost them money. Acting Deputy Mayor Ron Christie brushed off the criticism and said teething problems were expected. He said the system was a success and would be used again next year.
One stallholder told me that they had lost money at the event for the first time and they and others would not be returning. Several patrons have told me that they were already considering not going to the Taste next year as the already long waiting in queues had become completely unbearable. The Git had already stopped going when the wait for the ostrich roll, or glass of overpriced* wine became too much. Amazing what government can do to destroy financial success!
* Tasmanian wine is cool climate so yields are low, but that is offset by incredible flavour. All the grapes are hand, rather than machine-picked, also adding to production costs. At the Taste, you are also purchasing the souvenir glass (plastic) and when you add in the extra the stallholder charges above pub price, and the Council's 10% then the price has gone through the roof.
Also as Spain used to be Europe's gateway for drugs into Europe it was cars going to France , Germany and the UK that were searched, not so much for cars coming into Spain ( with much needed currency)
That brought a smile as I recalled a tale told by two musicians I used to knock about with. They were leaving Spain and shortly before reaching the French border, the passenger threw their remaining dope out of the window before reaching customs.
Customs tore all the linings of their car out, searched the boot etc finding nothing. Driving on toward Paris the passenger looked inside the glovebox for something and noticed the dope wrapped in foil was still there. He'd thrown out some salt, also wrapped in foil, by mistake. Both agreed the joint they then smoked was one of the most enjoyable they ever had.
I forgot to add there was a clue that the writing you referenced wasn't the Git's. I (almost) always place quoted text between blockquote tags so it's obvious I'm quoting. Admittedly the Reg stylesheet only indents the blockquote, rather than also changing the typeface and/or background colour so it's not as obvious as it could be.
your use of the three dollar word 'conterminous' in place of the correct and accepted word 'contiguous'.
Doncha love it when someone says: "I do respect many of your other opinions"? Why do you take me to task for what someone else wrote? Or do you really believe that NOAA employees consist of retirees living in southern Tasmania? Here's the final line of my post so you can follow this up with them what wrote it!
http://www.ua.nws.noaa.gov/factsheet.htm
PS While I could have corrected the grammar in that "factsheet", I'm only a grammar nazi with publications I work on.
Worldwide, there are over 800 upper-air observation stations and through international agreements data are exchanged between countries. Most upper air stations are located in the Northern Hemisphere and all observations are usually taken at the same time each day (up to an hour before 00:00 and/or 12:00 UTC), 365 days a year. When severe weather is expected additional soundings may be taken at a select number of stations. NWS [US National Weather Service] takes observations at 92 stations; 69 in the conterminous United States, 13 in Alaska, 9 in the Pacific, and 1 in Puerto Rico. NWS also supports the operation of 10 other stations in the Caribbean.
That's about 70,000 a year in the USA. And nobody noticed the danger until Google decided to deploy a few. FFS!
http://www.ua.nws.noaa.gov/factsheet.htm
Since then the FCC has been receiving complaints about the plan, largely it seems from people worried about radio frequency (RF) exposure.
Oh noes! The sky's falling in; the sky's falling in! And it really, really is this time!
Presumably they don't actually use a mobile phone, possess a TV or a PC. A CD player? God forbid! A wind-up gramophone with gorse needle in the pickup's bad enough. Gorse is going to become a threatened species real soon now because of climate change and sin! Sin I tell you!
Some years ago, the Git's niece was married in the old Senate gardens bringing back some fond memories of a visit to the lunatic asylum Canberra in the 1970s*. On this occasion, when wandering outside the dining room for a cigarette on the balcony, the Git detected a distinct whiff of human excrement in the air. Upon remarking this, he was told by the locals it wasn't a remnant from the old days of the Senate sitting there, it was all the new stuff rolling down the hill from the new place.
* In particular a pretty young Irish lass who told me one Sunday night "Yer not to fuck me until after midnight!" Ever the gentleman, the Git complied with her wishes. The frustration of the last hour of waiting was well worth it!
Totally agree especially if it is something like FTTP as per the original plan.
A nice bit of wishful thinking there. The Git is on fixed wireless "as per the original plan". Many of his neighbours not in line of sight are on satellite (if they can afford it) "as per the original plan". The poles with copper on them remain in place "as per the original plan". Homes within spitting distance of the fibre running south of the nearest township are on fixed wireless "as per the original plan". Homes on privately installed fibre at Dover are to be removed from that fibre so they can be on fixed wireless "as per the original plan".
Or is it an attempt to solve the homeless problem by getting them to swim to Tasmania, where the survivors will be eaten by Tasmanian Devils?
Wrong direction. It's an inhabitant of Devonport being advised to swim to the mainland. As to being eaten by Tasmanian devils, he'd need to either walk a very long way into the SW wilderness, or swim to Maria Island. While in the past he would have been able to survive there by eating mutton birds (short-tailed shearwater chicks), the devils transported there to "ensure their survival" have this year eaten every single chick.
The real question is, was the data accurate? Were there actually local services that were not displayed?
No. Yes.
There's no public toilets in Devonport? Say it ain't soThat error's a shocker because one of Australia's earliest online services is the National Toilet Map which shows many facilities within walking distance of the middle of Devonport, and this data is available as an open government data set.
No doubt the suicide prevention app sends people to the Sydney Harbour bridge.
No need for them to go that far. The bridge across the Derwent in Hobart is a popular place to suicide from. One is not supposed to notice and the newspapers don't publish the figures, but it's several per week apparently.
One of the more intriguing recommendations from support services was the bloke at Smithton whose wife left him and the kids. The ever so friendly support person suggested that he go to the pub and just get pissed because that's how men cope with distress.
This was not HP and I actually received two sets in two separate and identically packed shipments.
Similar thing here in Oz. Two USB sticks ordered at the same time from the same place. Each arrived in a separate cubic foot of cardboard box surrounded by bits of foamed plastic and delivered on separate days. They would both have fitted into a small padded envelope with room to spare.
Might even have some other allies questioning their relationships.
I suspect that questioning may have been taking place for quite some time. I seem to remember the NZ government being upset by Mossad operatives stealing NZ passports.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/16/israel
I tried several different TV applications and XBMC might have been the one that wouldn't change channels. If it was stuck on the correct channel (we only watch one 99% of the time) that wouldn't have been a problem. Another was a dedicated distro that displayed controls as very dark grey on black and so almost impossible to see clearly what was happening and didn't respond to the mouse, only the keyboard. The stool the mouse sits on is nowhere near large enough for a keyboard. We tried some time ago to use a Logitech ultra-miniature keyboard with touchpad, but we both hated it.
Most likely a bug; the "easy" fix has no effect on the distortion. Not using the onboard audio; I use an external USB sound card to avoid noise injection from the rest of the computer circuitry. I use this machine for transcribing vinyl to flac file among other things. Changing the ASUS USB sound card for the Soundblaster USB makes no difference.
All of this came time as the ~10 yr old TV I use as a monitor decided to die with an intermittent fault. Fault-finding that saw opening up the TV and finding a fault with the HDMI socket that wasn't the problem, changes of video adapter, etc. Now the TV's replaced by my beautiful 27" Dell semi-professional monitor while I source a suitable replacement. I want to get a Philips 40" UHD and Mrs Git doesn't want us to spend a $1,000. [sigh]. I don't want 2nd hand because that's usually a waste of money... So it goes...
Being competent with computers is a curse.
Always has been since Win95. So, when some relative stranger comes up to me and asks for help with their computer problem because they heard from a friend... I just say that they must be mistaken; I'm a paedophile, not a computer egg spurt. Relative stranger then says that's alright then and goes away ;-)
Key point is that not one user who has seriously tried Linux for productive work has ever expressed any wish to go back to M$.
But we don't just use PCs for productive work only. We also use them for play; in the Git's case the HTPC. There my enthusiasm for Linux (Cinnamon Mint) has faded considerably. Kaffeine, the best of a bad lot is too unstable for TV watching. Audio quality of flac files is terrible compared to Windows (odd harmonic distortion). Reverting to Win 7 I tried Hauppage WinTV that came with the DVB tuner purchased for compatibility with Linux and that's unstable! So, it was back to Windows media Centre that "just works".
In order to avoid the forced "upgrade" to Win10 and goodbye to Media Centre, the machine is now airgapped, so not only no wasting of bandwidth or my time by MS, no youtube either.
For some reason I feel utterly fucked over by all of this nonsense.
Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) deduced that the Earth was round
He also believed that whales and dolphins weren't fish, and that the northern cryosphere was replicated at the south pole. And he correctly described the sexual habits of sea urchins, a fact not appreciated until the 19th C.
The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients.
Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth ca. 240 BC. If you assume he used the Attic stadium (185 m) as his unit of measure, then he was off by ~16%. However, Eratosthenes was living in Egypt and used the distance between two Egyptian cities at solstice for his calculation. The Egyptian stadium (157.5 m) produces a value of 39,375 kilometres, less than 2% off the modern value of 40,041 km.
Christopher Columbus believed that the Earth was ~20,000 km in diameter. He got lucky and the Americas saved his bacon just as he was running out of provisions.
However, it did irritate me that a baby~toddler actually satisfies the disabled criteria for having a blue badge, but were excluded (ageism!).
Babies/toddlers can be strapped into a lightweight device called a stroller. Ageing parents OTOH have a sort of motorised equivalent that they can control themselves called an electric scooter. My mother was not merely unable to walk very far, she couldn't see very far either. It was amusing to see the look of terror on people's faces at her local shopping mall when she arrived.
Ageism? If you felt so strongly maybe you should have purchased electric scooters for your toddlers ;-)
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