What cheeses me off

[Pushka]

WCM the <expletive> O is that the ECQ can't run an election properly.

No I wasn't affected directly, but the fact this ends up on the news is an absolute embarrassment. Never in the known Australian history has there been such a gaffe in running an election.

Everyone at the top of the ECQ deserves to be dragged into the street and shot without any empathy or sympathy. What an absolute disgrace and contempt for the principles of a democratic governement. The fact that there is no apology, no acknowledgement and attempting to cover up or flick this away is just mind bogglingly, morally corrupt.

What happened?

 

[anat0l]

What happened?

Lines backed up at handfuls of polling stations (for both local council and state by-elections) - like, wait time turned into hours.

Some polling stations ran out of voting papers.

The ECQ says that only a very limited number of places were affected.

Some voters apparently gave up trying to vote and said they'd rather cop the fine.

 

[Pushka]

Lines backed up at handfuls of polling stations (for both local council and state by-elections) - like, wait time turned into hours.

Some polling stations ran out of voting papers.

The ECQ says that only a very limited number of places were affected.

Some voters apparently gave up trying to vote and said they'd rather cop the fine.

Agree. There's simply no excuse there.

 

[Lynda2475]

Some voters apparently gave up trying to vote and said they'd rather cop the fine.

Which is why voting should be online

 

[JohnK]

Are we gonna really start this war again of which is normal?

Not a war. I've been here since 2008 and still don't understand why the sun needs to be up before 5:00am and why can't kids play later until 8:00pm-9:00pm each evening.

NSW and Victoria seem to handle daylight saving easily and the question in Queensland is always why not even from locals. If it's an issue in outback or country Queensland then SE Qld should be fine.

 

[MARTINE]

I have a bugbear about Australia being Americanised. We have a perfectly reasonable culture, language, phrases and unique words coined by the original convicts and a mix of aboriginal words too. We have a way of doing things too, and an internationally regarded work ethic. It's the little things that annoy me like when people who should know better read the news and tell us the date is month / day. Ben Fordham (2gb) is a goodun for doing this as are all the news readers on 2gb. For those unsure, the Aussie (and Imperial and Euro) way of dates is day number then month.
Which brings me back to the cough-eyed way of the Yanks. If their wont is to say month then number date, eg. July 3rd, why do they describe Independence Day as Fourth of July?

Agree
Its very easy to type in 4th March instead of 3rd April in a US Booking site
How about getting metric whilst were at it too?

 

[anat0l]

Its very easy to type in 4th March instead of 3rd April in a US Booking site
How about getting metric whilst were at it too?

And yet in Australia:

• Most baby boomers will still use "inches", "feet", "yards" and "pounds"... be damned if you even try to correct them. (Remember: a cricket pitch is 1 chain or 22 yards in length)
• Nearly everyone in Australia still quotes their height measurements in colloquial talk in feet and inches.
• Baby birth weight announcements are still very common in pounds and ounces.
• Qantas and Virgin base the points you earn and burn on flight miles, not kilometres.

Of course, they are limited examples, so let's not get carried away.

US has tried to aim for metrication before, though sometimes the only thing more difficult than metrication is gun control and the 2nd Amendment. In other words, met stiff resistance.

Some industrial / professional arenas may never move past Imperial (or at least have key parts of them in Imperial), for example, aviation.

Just to pile on the "while we are at it - US edition", why not 24 hour time in commercial aviation? Are most Americans that dumb that they can't learn 24 hour (or military) time?

 

[TheRealTMA]

I have a bugbear about Australia being Americanised. We have a perfectly reasonable culture, language, phrases and unique words coined by the original convicts and a mix of aboriginal words too. We have a way of doing things too, and an internationally regarded work ethic. It's the little things that annoy me like when people who should know better read the news and tell us the date is month / day. Ben Fordham (2gb) is a goodun for doing this as are all the news readers on 2gb. For those unsure, the Aussie (and Imperial and Euro) way of dates is day number then month.
Which brings me back to the cough-eyed way of the Yanks. If their wont is to say month then number date, eg. July 3rd, why do they describe Independence Day as Fourth of July?

What annoys me is the US get the date of the moon landing wrong!

And don't mention Ninth of November!

 

[prozac]

And yet in Australia:

• Most baby boomers will still use "inches", "feet", "yards" and "pounds"... be damned if you even try to correct them. (Remember: a cricket pitch is 1 chain or 22 yards in length)

I float between the two, even combining sometimes. When I moved to UK to study in the early 70s I had to make the transition to SI units. It wasn't difficult and now I am, fluid.

• Nearly everyone in Australia still quotes their height measurements in colloquial talk in feet and inches.
• Baby birth weight announcements are still very common in pounds and ounces.
• Qantas and Virgin base the points you earn and burn on flight miles, not kilometres.

I leftover from traditional navigation .

Of course, they are limited examples, so let's not get carried away.

US has tried to aim for metrication before, though sometimes the only thing more difficult than metrication is gun control and the 2nd Amendment. In other words, met stiff resistance.

And you'd think 10 fingers, 10 toes, easy right? Then you realise many still have 6 toes and the system falls apart.

Some industrial / professional arenas may never move past Imperial (or at least have key parts of them in Imperial), for example, aviation.

Just to pile on the "while we are at it - US edition", why not 24 hour time in commercial aviation? Are most Americans that dumb that they can't learn 24 hour (or military) time?

MrsProzac has transitioned to 24hr clock. I use NATO alphabet to the point police ask me if I am ex-job.

 

[MARTINE]

And yet in Australia:

• Most baby boomers will still use "inches", "feet", "yards" and "pounds"... be damned if you even try to correct them. (Remember: a cricket pitch is 1 chain or 22 yards in length)
• Nearly everyone in Australia still quotes their height measurements in colloquial talk in feet and inches.
• Baby birth weight announcements are still very common in pounds and ounces.
• Qantas and Virgin base the points you earn and burn on flight miles, not kilometres.

Of course, they are limited examples, so let's not get carried away.

US has tried to aim for metrication before, though sometimes the only thing more difficult than metrication is gun control and the 2nd Amendment. In other words, met stiff resistance.

Some industrial / professional arenas may never move past Imperial (or at least have key parts of them in Imperial), for example, aviation.

Just to pile on the "while we are at it - US edition", why not 24 hour time in commercial aviation? Are most Americans that dumb that they can't learn 24 hour (or military) time?

I am a boomer and NEVER use imperial nor does anyone I know socially or in my past professional life

 

[anat0l]

• Qantas and Virgin base the points you earn and burn on flight miles, not kilometres.

Getting off-topic, but...

Oddly enough, I still remember when I joined (or rather, Mum and Dad applied for me to) QFF in 1994, the brochure that came with it that explained the ins and outs of earning and burning, the programme was still based on kilometres.

I still remember that it was 1 point per km for Full Economy, and 0.7 points per km for Discount Economy.

Of course, the prices for redemptions were numerically much higher in those days, e.g. the longest distance band redemptions in F were 300k points. I'm sure someone can do the analysis to see if that's actually more than in today's prices (probably is).

I remember when Qantas then sent in the brochures and letters in the mail many years later advising the switch from kilometres to miles.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re the US using imperial units. Canada is metric but when we designed a mineral processing plant in Alberta, the vast majority of the components came from the USA, so the engineering plans had to be specified in imperial units. In Canada.

Gah. Cubic inches. Gallons per minute.

And the Canadian builders then had to convert the imperial drawings into metric.

-------

An afore-mentioned Boomer, I’m still in imperial for personal height and tyre pressure, but SI units for just about everything else.

 

[prozac]

Re the US using imperial units. Canada is metric but when we designed a mineral processing plant in Alberta, the vast majority of the components came from the USA, so the engineering plans had to be specified in imperial units. In Canada.

Gah. Cubic inches. Gallons per minute.

Gallons!!! I'd supply 100,000L diesel, or mud, etc to an American offshore oil rig. Paperwork sent. Time passes, then some roughneck calls on the radio. How many gallons is that? But WAIT! We are not discussing 4.54L, no, these are US gallons (3.785L) they want. We are talking last century so no internet to look it up, or books, and we are in the middle of nowhere.

An afore-mentioned Boomer, I’m still in imperial for personal height and tyre pressure, but SI units for just about everything else.

Tyre pressure, definitely! About the only thing I have not chosen to do in either. It is either psi or I don;t know what.

 

[TheRealTMA]

I am a boomer and NEVER use imperial nor does anyone I know socially or in my past professional life

Not even a pinch of salt?

 

[Pushka]

I am a boomer and NEVER use imperial nor does anyone I know socially or in my past professional life

I use imperial for length.

 

[serfty]

I am a boomer and NEVER use imperial nor does anyone I know socially or in my past professional life

I use imperial / metric interchangably depending on circumstances.

 

[Flashback]

I use imperial / metric interchangably depending on circumstances.

Yeah, me too. I live in the UK, so ..... just gonna walk a mile down to the shop and back

 

[Lynda2475]

Given imperial measurements havent been taught in Aussie schools for over 55 years, the majority of the population only know metric.

 

[Pushka]

Given imperial measurements havent been taught in Aussie schools for over 55 years, the majority of the population only know metric.

Not sure about that. I was about 10 then. Decimal currency was only just introduced and metric while discussed wasn't always taught. More like 1973 and I'd left school that year.

 

[MARTINE]

Not even a pinch of salt?

Maybe then
Given I went to med school almost 50 years ago and metric was taught then it stuck