The totally off-topic thread

[JohnK]

Curiously enough I did do that in 1994 as well as WBC in late 1992.

Well done.

I'm getting very good at repeating my mistakes. Some would say an expert. Throw in a little bad luck and you have a recipe for disaster.

 

[rainbowgirl]

UN is a toothless tiger with jobs for the boys (and women) benefits.

Anyone remember the original batman TV episode where the UN members were reduced to sand and then remixed when put back together? Good times...

I think that was from the original Batman movie. Original Batman episodes are now streaming on SBS Demand.

Yes, the one with the multicoloured sand at the end was a movie. I loved that the UN members were all speaking different languages at the end. I think there's a funny line at the end that this result was an improvement on what they were before hand. The episodes are also showing on one of the SBS channels. My 8 and 11 year old girls love watching them and my husband and I are reliving the fun we had years ago while watching with them. The girls love the Lego Superhero stories and this Batman series is similar in style to the DC Lego tie in films.

 

[Flashback]

Just a quick post to say ... for some reason I've not been getting updates on this thread, so I'm 50 pages behind (with max posts per view)! Anyway, as I read through it ... some good news from my end, the UK can no longer get rid of me as they have now agreed to let me remain, forever

 

[rainbowgirl]

Our beautiful dog Sally crossed over the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon. 17 years she has been on the farm with us. I am proud that we gave her a good life.

Sorry for your loss. 17 years is a wonderful life for a dog.

 

[Quickstatus]

Of course it’s dreadful for the families involved. But it’s way too simplistic to lay the blame on one person. Who changed FBT rulings that effectively killed off new car sales?

And who reduced the tariffs?

 

[Pushka]

And who reduced the tariffs?

That’s why it’s too simplistic to blame just one entity. They’ve all had a hand in it - add in a dash of cars not attractive to consumers, a taste of soaring Aussie dollar, an Australian market demand not large to continue to sustain such an industry, and impressive Union agreements and it’s getting there. Even the husband of Kate Ellis and who is a journalist has written that it’s two faced of Labor to blame the coalition for the motor industry fall.

 

[whatmeworry]

Of course it’s dreadful for the families involved. But it’s way too simplistic to lay the blame on one person. Who changed FBT rulings that effectively killed off new car sales?

Well their are multiple people at fault for that and don't forget the right wing think tank Institute of Public Affairs for lobbying for many of the polices of Abbott/Turnbull. They expanded their list from 75 to 100.

I wont post all their suggestions, but here that got implemented and some that got blocked.

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

22 Introduce voluntary voting

30 Cease subsidising the car industry

33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

51 Privatise SBS

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

72 Privatise the CSIRO

75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

Be Like Gough: 75 Radical Ideas To Transform Australia

Institute of Public Affairs: the think tank with arms everywhere

The Australia Institute are the real senate puppet masters

Institute of Liberal Party policy? What the IPA will get from Abbott

IPA adds to its wishlist, and almost half are on Abbott's cards

 

[drron]

Except for the fact that you are wrong.
Here is the letter Warren Truss wrote to Holden the day before it announced it's decision to close down.
Letter from Deputy PM Warren Truss to Holden general manager Mike Devereux
It committed $1billion for the car industry for 2015-2020.Plus it scrapped Rudd's FBT changes that had impacted the car industry plus got rid of the carbon tax that would have impacted all manufacturing industries.
Beside Ford closed it's Sydney plant in 1994,Brisbane in 1999 and announced it's decision to abandon Australia in May 2013 when JG was still PM.

In fact neither side can be blamed for the loss of the car industry.It comes down to simple economics-high cost of manufacture with a small customer base.

 

[RooFlyer]

Well their are multiple people at fault for that and don't forget the right wing think tank Institute of Public Affairs for lobbying for many of the polices of Abbott/Turnbull. They expanded their list from 75 to 100.

In possibly not unrelated news, the American Government looks like its going to release the final tranche of JFK assassination files.

Should the IPA and Tony Abbott be worried?

 

[drron]

And in an unrelated US action the Suprem Court has ruled that censoring offensive speech is unconstitutional and against the First amendment
'The Slants' win US Supreme Court battle to trademark racial slur in band name

 

[Pushka]

Well their are multiple people at fault for that and don't forget the right wing think tank Institute of Public Affairs for lobbying for many of the polices of Abbott/Turnbull. They expanded their list from 75 to 100.

I wont post all their suggestions, but here that got implemented and some that got blocked.

Be Like Gough: 75 Radical Ideas To Transform Australia

Institute of Public Affairs: the think tank with arms everywhere

The Australia Institute are the real senate puppet masters

Institute of Liberal Party policy? What the IPA will get from Abbott

IPA adds to its wishlist, and almost half are on Abbott's cards

As I posted earlier it’s multi faceted with both colors of politics involved plus a whole lot of extraneous global issues. We can go tit for tat and just spin.

 

[Denali]

What does one need, to get a driver's license in Russia?

Having watched about an hour of dash cams on YouTube, if they started with slowing down and learn how to safely left turn, they would reduce accidents by about 60%.

 

[RooFlyer]

My God. Telstra rant coming up.

When I go o/s I generally don't like getting a foreign SIM in my phone, as I like people (esp clients) to be able to reach me easily. I usually make do with hotel and cafe wifi. Occasionally I purchase a Telstra data pack, especially when its a business trip.

Went into their web site just now and after a bit of dicking around, I see that 'Data packs' - which used to last a month or more, if you chose, are now 'day passes' for $10/day (for small business account).

I want the service for a few days while I'm in Greece, then stop; I don't get back for a couple of weeks after that. Couldn't see how to get it off the web, so I poured a stiff G&T and called.

I gather (from the usual heavily accented, over-eager to please call centre):
* They cannot set a Day Pass to activate into the future, and turn off at some other future date. It activates as soon as the phone detects that I'm overseas, and lasts until I get home. If I don't want to pay $10/day until the start point. then I can't use my phone at all off flight mode.

* Also - here's a nice little earner - it aromatically re-activates the next time you (or the phone) is overseas, without you asking.

She directed me to the web site so I could start it when I'm overseas. Apparently the way to find something is to log into your account, and then search on: international roaming Nil results! (not kidding .. I was logged in at 'Your Telstra Tools' and it couldn't find international roaming.)

So she says to search on day pass Same result. She could not direct me via the menu.

She suggests I call again when I'm overseas to activate it then. Right. So I make a call from overseas, waiting Telstra's long wait time, to activate a service where I pay $10/day to save on calls. Riiiight ...

Hopeless.

 

[RooFlyer]

What does one need, to get a driver's license in Russia?

Free evening entertainment in St Petersburg on Nevsky Prospect (the straight, wide but very busy main drag, with usual street lights, pedestrian crossings etc).

Will this car, travelling at speed stop at this red light, or not?

No, not that time. What about this next canary yellow thing?

Well, it slowed a bit ...

And so on.

 

[TomVexille]

And you can't activate a roaming pass using wifi either, so you have to use roaming data to set it up

 

[Milboo]

My God. Telstra rant coming up.

When I go o/s I generally don't like getting a foreign SIM in my phone, as I like people (esp clients) to be able to reach me easily. I usually make do with hotel and cafe wifi. Occasionally I purchase a Telstra data pack, especially when its a business trip.

Went into their web site just now and after a bit of dicking around, I see that 'Data packs' - which used to last a month or more, if you chose, are now 'day passes' for $10/day (for small business account).

I want the service for a few days while I'm in Greece, then stop; I don't get back for a couple of weeks after that. Couldn't see how to get it off the web, so I poured a stiff G&T and called.

I gather (from the usual heavily accented, over-eager to please call centre):
* They cannot set a Day Pass to activate into the future, and turn off at some other future date. It activates as soon as the phone detects that I'm overseas, and lasts until I get home. If I don't want to pay $10/day until the start point. then I can't use my phone at all off flight mode.

* Also - here's a nice little earner - it aromatically re-activates the next time you (or the phone) is overseas, without you asking.

She directed me to the web site so I could start it when I'm overseas. Apparently the way to find something is to log into your account, and then search on: international roaming Nil results! (not kidding .. I was logged in at 'Your Telstra Tools' and it couldn't find international roaming.)

So she says to search on day pass Same result. She could not direct me via the menu.

She suggests I call again when I'm overseas to activate it then. Right. So I make a call from overseas, waiting Telstra's long wait time, to activate a service where I pay $10/day to save on calls. Riiiight ...

Hopeless.

A well timed rant - I need to look at the exact same thing so maybe you've saved me some teeth gnashing!

I did come across a French SIM card today when I was moving stuff around, might just fish it out again.

 

[JessicaTam]

My God. Telstra rant coming up.

When I go o/s I generally don't like getting a foreign SIM in my phone, as I like people (esp clients) to be able to reach me easily. I usually make do with hotel and cafe wifi. Occasionally I purchase a Telstra data pack, especially when its a business trip.

Went into their web site just now and after a bit of dicking around, I see that 'Data packs' - which used to last a month or more, if you chose, are now 'day passes' for $10/day (for small business account).

I want the service for a few days while I'm in Greece, then stop; I don't get back for a couple of weeks after that. Couldn't see how to get it off the web, so I poured a stiff G&T and called.

I gather (from the usual heavily accented, over-eager to please call centre):
* They cannot set a Day Pass to activate into the future, and turn off at some other future date. It activates as soon as the phone detects that I'm overseas, and lasts until I get home. If I don't want to pay $10/day until the start point. then I can't use my phone at all off flight mode.

* Also - here's a nice little earner - it aromatically re-activates the next time you (or the phone) is overseas, without you asking.

She directed me to the web site so I could start it when I'm overseas. Apparently the way to find something is to log into your account, and then search on: international roaming Nil results! (not kidding .. I was logged in at 'Your Telstra Tools' and it couldn't find international roaming.)

So she says to search on day pass Same result. She could not direct me via the menu.

She suggests I call again when I'm overseas to activate it then. Right. So I make a call from overseas, waiting Telstra's long wait time, to activate a service where I pay $10/day to save on calls. Riiiight ...

Hopeless.

I have rung Telstra from overseas in the past to organise travel passes. I call +61 439 125 109 to set it up. No charge to call from overseas.

 

[JohnK]

120 refugees from QF37 were moved to EK405 this evening. But what gets me is that the EK flight was only a third full at best. Take away 120 and staff would have outnumbered pax!

The 2 EK flights recently were a huge contrast.

BNE-SIN EK flight ~4 weeks ago was around 30%-40% full. SIN-BNE EK flight ~2.5 weeks ago had maybe 1-2 spare seats.

Most EK flights I've been on in September/October are generally lightly loaded.

 

[VPS]

Excitement level, when I see the Great British Bakeoff is back was level 11....

And then I saw Mary Berry and two other ladies were not back ... crashed down to earth. The Noel Fielding guy looks like hes in search of a 80s rock video. Not. Happy. Paul!

Noel Fielding sure wouldn't have been my choice for that show - google him in never mind the buzzcocks

I quite like listening to some of his stuff that I've heard on podcasts though but certainly not a cooking show

 

[whatmeworry]

My God. Telstra rant coming up.

When I go o/s I generally don't like getting a foreign SIM in my phone, as I like people (esp clients) to be able to reach me easily. I usually make do with hotel and cafe wifi. Occasionally I purchase a Telstra data pack, especially when its a business trip.

Went into their web site just now and after a bit of dicking around, I see that 'Data packs' - which used to last a month or more, if you chose, are now 'day passes' for $10/day (for small business account).

I want the service for a few days while I'm in Greece, then stop; I don't get back for a couple of weeks after that. Couldn't see how to get it off the web, so I poured a stiff G&T and called.

I gather (from the usual heavily accented, over-eager to please call centre):
* They cannot set a Day Pass to activate into the future, and turn off at some other future date. It activates as soon as the phone detects that I'm overseas, and lasts until I get home. If I don't want to pay $10/day until the start point. then I can't use my phone at all off flight mode.

* Also - here's a nice little earner - it aromatically re-activates the next time you (or the phone) is overseas, without you asking.

She directed me to the web site so I could start it when I'm overseas. Apparently the way to find something is to log into your account, and then search on: international roaming Nil results! (not kidding .. I was logged in at 'Your Telstra Tools' and it couldn't find international roaming.)

So she says to search on day pass Same result. She could not direct me via the menu.

She suggests I call again when I'm overseas to activate it then. Right. So I make a call from overseas, waiting Telstra's long wait time, to activate a service where I pay $10/day to save on calls. Riiiight ...

Hopeless.

Why don't you divert your Aussie mobile to a Skype number which redirects to a foreign mobile number?

There's a golden trick that tech-savvy travellers have been using for years to avoid global roaming fees.

Put simply, you divert your Australian mobile number to a Skype number, which in turn diverts to your overseas mobile number.

As a result, you avoid global roaming fees altogether.

You'll need to buy a SIM card at your destination for this trick to work.

The costs involved with this are:

• the cost of buying a SIM card overseas (see "Where to buy prepaid SIM cards" below)
• your Australian mobile telco's per-minute charge for diverting your mobile to an Australian landline number (usually just a standard call rate, included in "cap" plans - but check with your telco)
• Skype's per-minute charge to call an overseas mobile number: for example, USA 3c, Hong Kong 3c, China 3c, Singapore 3c, Indonesia 20c, Thailand 15c, etc.

How to divert your mobile through Skype to avoid global roaming fees

How do I use Skype call forwarding?