The totally off-topic thread

[rogerkambah]

Hope my luck hasn't. I thought I only just got lucky a few days ago.

We got nothing in Barton - just three or so drips of rain and a bit of thunder rumble. You must have been pretty unlucky.

 

[Denali]

Will say, for the first few months, for night driving, he would wear these gamer glasses with a yellow lens for light glare but only for a few months. He also says although VERY happy with results within few days, over time it continued to improve as well.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Just had a ripper mini storm come through. Only lasted about 5 mins but hail mostly 10-12 mm, some around 15mm, followed by dirty brown rain. Hydrangeas and tomatoes part shredded. Grrrrrrr. BOM shows it to have moved off south of Q'beyan.

lots of thunder on the north side, but not much else......

 

[rogerkambah]

First there was a wind squall as it came in from the west. Didn't look to be very wide as it travelled across us though.

lots of thunder on the north side, but not much else......

 

[Cossie]

Aunty Jack was one of my favourite shows growing up.

Vale: Rory O’Donoghue

We have just come home from a dinner with friends and one of the topics of conversation was 'Aunty Jack' and how we were enjoying watching reruns.

Some had even been to Aunty Jack shows at the Canberra Theatre.

Sad news, 68 is way too young.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Just maybe real compassion isn't letting these 600 men into Australia.By letting them here 600 less refugees from Refugee camps suich as those that I have described from Bhutan will not get here.
The refugees from Bhutan started arriving in 2014-after the boats were stopped.Many had been in camps for up to 25 years.The 2 I met in Townsville were twins that had been born in a camp in Nepal.There are over a 1000 in Launceston,another 1000+ in Hobart.None would be here if we let the boats start again.

i had a friend from Vietnam who fled and ended up as a young girl in a camp in Thailand. It took many years for her to be accepted into Australia and she was always quite bitter about what she felt were people using money to jump queues and make it so much harder for people like her who waited their turn.

None of which makes Manus good - it’s not a simple situation.

The story about the young girl was quite heartbreaking. The only way to cope is to try and put money where it can build futures for as many people as possible. Something I have become quite keen on is “Batting for Change”, which started raising money for education in Nepal and has since moved to girls’ education in India and Kenya.

There are many projects which try to build communities - give them farming implements or clean water. Just so hard as something gets built and then war or famine destroys it all again....

I often feel guilty about staying in extravagant places in Africa, but tourism creates so many jobs and supports so many people.

 

[JohnK]

How does a 15 month old learn to turn on a phone and start playing with buttons randomly?

 

[Flying mermaid]

How does a 15 month old learn to turn on a phone and start playing with buttons randomly?

because they are curious about everything around them. It is a good things, but can be trying, you have to keep them (and your possessions) safe, but not destroy their curiosity.

 

[get me outta here]

An old fashioned friend got irate last night apparently as the restaurant Abaker will not take cash and he told them that it was illegal. Is it illegal?

I’ve tried and tried to remind them of the points value as they travel o/s a couple of times a year, but to no avail.

 

[Cynicor]

An old fashioned friend got irate last night apparently as the restaurant Abaker will not take cash and he told them that it was illegal. Is it illegal?

We had this discussion on a thread recently, and it's not illegal. Cash is legal tender but you can refuse it, just like you can refuse certain quantities of denominations of it. (Sorry, can't remember which thread)

 

[get me outta here]

Just looked this up and can see that’s right, cash is not necessarily king and not illegal. There is a “however” in here though. : Cash payments

“Before finalising a sale, there is no legal obligation to accept Australian coins and notes as a payment method. Unless you specified a different form of payment before finalising the sales contract, however, you might not be able to enforce a different form of payment using the legal system.”

We had this discussion on a thread recently, and it's not illegal. Cash is legal tender but you can refuse it, just like you can refuse certain quantities of denominations of it. (Sorry, can't remember which thread)

 

[Cynicor]

Yep, just realised it was a restaurant. Similar to surcharging, they need to tell you prior to the contract being entered, which really is the ordering of food.

 

[love_the_life]

How does a 15 month old learn to turn on a phone and start playing with buttons randomly?

They’re clever little critters!

 

[love_the_life]

Yep, just realised it was a restaurant. Similar to surcharging, they need to tell you prior to the contract being entered, which really is the ordering of food.

Which this restaurant does as long as you see the statement printed on the bottom of the menu. I suppose many people wouldn’t though.

 

[Pushka]

I don’t understand why providers are going the ‘no cash’ route. Given bank charges on every transaction it doesn’t make sense. The only ones winning are the banks.

And I wish policiticians would put brain into action before opening their mouth. Idiots. All of ‘em.

 

[gaz0303]

I don’t understand why providers are going the ‘no cash’ route. Given bank charges on every transaction it doesn’t make sense. The only ones winning are the bank.

Going back years to when I worked in retail, taking cash involves coping with staff errors/theft, reconciliation (after closing), a secure safe, physical cash transfer to bank, increased insurance premium depending on amount etc. I could imagine going cashless could be cheaper and more convenient for some businesses.

 

[cove]

We are lucky at our work where we are wholesalers. We don’t get cash and wouldn’t want it anyway. Years ago the payroll in cash was our only problem. That is gone now.

 

[Denali]

I remember the days of cash payroll and I would go to the bank every Thursday to pick up $50K with an apprentice to keep me "safe" .

 

[love_the_life]

I don’t understand why providers are going the ‘no cash’ route. Given bank charges on every transaction it doesn’t make sense. The only ones winning are the banks.

And I wish policiticians would put brain into action before opening their mouth. Idiots. All of ‘em.

There have been a couple of articles in the local paper about this. There are several restaurants/cafes here that are card only. They cite figures that about 80% of customers don't use cash now. They worked out that the time used to balance the till/count the cash/bank the cash plus the risk of robbery and pilfering when offset against the bank charges made it a better proposition and they don't lose money at all. I don't mind as I rarely have much cash in my wallet. I usually use a card for anything over about $10.

 

[Pushka]

Yes - did think of the theft issue. We were talking about this at our hairdresser and for small businesses I use eftpos so minimal fees. She was saying that she loses quite some money through bank fees when people use credit. I don’t want to add to that. She is the only one in charge of the till so theft not an issue. So I use eftpos in small businesses like hairdresser and local merchants to save them fees but always credit card at the big ones.

But the main winners are still the banks and they can trade on all the above stated reasons and add to their bottom line.

Another beef of mine is the ATO requirement for all super payments to go through a clearing house now. I always paid my employee super monies on time. This system is supposed to ensure that everyone does this but it doesn’t. Now the money goes from our account immediately I click submit on BPay. It takes five days to get to the employee super account. I use ATO clearing house and they get it the next day. So ‘someone’ is making a motza on the millions of super monies until it hits the employees accounts.