Telstra Sale + Surplus

Its confirmed - 8 odd billion dollars worth of Telstra shares will be released at the end of October. The government is spending $20mil in advertising to promote the sale. Its a bitter irony. Since most of the targets of the advertising will be the so-called "Mum and Dad investors", the Government is using their money (tax dollars) to get them to buy a dud investment, that they already own.

Oh, and Smiking Costello has just announced that the 05/06 budget was in surplus $16mil dollars. I'm sorry, but with household debt now at $1tril, and cutbacks in education funding, we selling this countries future productive capacity. It takes no national leadership to cut services and save money. It takes a real leadership to put in place and see through to completion projects to improve education, training and infrastructure. The productivity seen today is the result of investments made 30 years ago. But with the pork-barrelling attitude of the government (and the hip-pocket reactions of the general electorate), there is no long term planning - everything runs on a 3 year "how to get re-elected" cycle. And the our generation will pick up the tab.

Why I want to be a manager

... the mathematical proof:


Postulate 1: Knowledge is power.

Postulate 2: Time is money.

Now, as every Engineer knows,

Work
-------- = Power
Time

Since Knowledge = Power, and Time = Money, we have

Work
-------- = Knowledge
Money


Solving for Money, we get:

Work
------------ = Money
Knowledge



Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of work done.

Conclusion: The less you know, the more you make.

They've done it again

From the makers of the "Big Ad", comes the next installment. A must see for any child of the 80's. www.flashbeer.com.au.

With Carlton churning out such great ads, it really makes a mockery of Tooheys' Moose ads. Having said that, the Carlton MID (Male Intelligence Division) ads with the footy blokes and the robots, is really dumb.

Spare a penny, guv?

Full Throttle

This has got to be one of LucasArt's best games. And thats a big call, since it came out circa 1996. Full Throttle is a fantastic little RPG, based on the then-revolutionary, Rebel Assault engine.

Full Throttle is the story of a Biker dude (Ben) - the leader of the Polecat's bikey gang - and his quest to save his gang after they were framed for murder. It has awesome dialogue, great playability and awesome graphics (ok - pretend its 1996).

I managed to find a working copy of it, and have been playing it through again. Unfortunately, it is quite short, but fun while it lasts. The characters are funny, and there are plenty of "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" gags. Also, nice little cross references to Star Wars (it is, afterall, a LucasArts game). These include Rebel and Imperial signs being used as tatoos on incidental characters, a guy who looks suspiciously like George Lucas, and the immortal words spoken to the hero: "Help me Ben, you're my only hope".

Bat out Of Hell III: The Trailer

Trailer:


Also, see videos for the title track
The Monster is Loose
... and the for the first single: a song that was originally written for Meat Loaf:
Its all coming back to me now

International Talk like a Pirate Day

Avast me hearties! Today be international talk like a Pirate day - so shiver yer timebers, cast overboard yer scurvy landlubbers and have and swill ye down an bottle 'o' grog or two.

Geek humour

Thanks to Glen for this excellent site

Those elusive Australia values

I've been very disappointed with Beazley's dog-whistling call for a signup to Australian values. Things like mateship, respect for women, agreement with democracy, etc. This is all very well, but these are general fluffy concepts, that I wouldn't like to legally put my signature. Its like signing a form promising to be good. What does it mean? How is it enforced? And whats the point? Another item that was mentioned was "hard work". THis is interesting, because I think you would find that on average, "ethnics" or "migrants" work harder than Aussies of several anglo generations.

A spin doctor who was interviewed on the radio this morning, though, made a good point - it seems that the only way to progress in Australian politics is to play the race card. This seems to be an unfortunate reality of modern Australian politics.

Amanda Vanstone wrote an article yesterday in the Australia, attacking Beazley for playing the race card in terms of Industrial relations - the ability to import workers to fill positions. The ALP's complaint is that they are paid much less than local workers, thus driving down market wages. She said that leaders (ie, Beazley) should not stir up the lynch mob for immigrants.

!!!!!!!!!??

This is coming from the same government that said we don't want to let the boat people in, because they were the sort of undesirables who threw their children overboard. This, clearly, never happend. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

I guess she is a bit miffed that Beazley is encroaching on her terroritory - and obviously, that town is not big enough for the both of them. Metaphorically AND physically.

Public Holiday

Next year in September, the APEC meeting is coming to Sydney. THere will be a huge number of world leaders, including the Presidents of the US, China and Russia. The CBD will be in nearly total lockdown due to the security against terrorism. The state government (I believe, sensibly) have declared a public holiday on the 8th of September, to address some of the logistical problems in the CBD.

The Australian Industry Group and the Chamber of Commerce are all up in arms. Why should NSW businesses have to cop another public holiday?! This is an outrage?!?

Again, we see money-grubbing coming in the way of plain common sense. Workers and small business-people would appreciate the day off. The CBD will be practically inaccessible. In fact, the big-wigs who are supported by the Chamber of Commerce and AIG - if its too hard to get to work, they just won't show up. But wage workers? Oh no, they should have to come to work regardless of the circumstances.

I've never quite understood these groups. They are lobby groups for companies. Companies consist of people. But the AIG and CC push the interests of large inanimate and intangible entities (the corporations), often at the expense of the humans who are the constituents of the Corporation. If an objective external observer was watching our commercial society, it would indeed look strange. Its almost a Communist ideal, where the interest of the Commune are always more important that the interest of the individuals. And people are sacrificed to the glory (or in this case, profit) of the greater entity. Ironic, isn't it?

Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore (the guy who won the US presidency in 2000), is in town to promote his new film about Global Warming. In it, he urges western governments to take the threat seriously and begin concrete steps to addressing it. While here, he urged the Australian Government to lobby the 'States to do more.

Our government's reaction was appalling. Howard said that "he doesn't make policy based on entertainment". Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, said the Gore was here just to sell seats to his movie.

Australia has a history of leading conservation and environmental protection initiatives. However, under this government, we are degraded in the international community by playing lapdog to the extreme right US administration. We must be a backwater laughing stock in Europe, where countries such as Sweden are movie to an oil-free industrial economy by 2020. And to have this kind of dismisal of such an important issue is such an embarrasment coming from our supposed leaders.

In the 90's, the world moved quickly to address the problems associated with CFC's (ie, the depletion of the ozone layer). Now obviously, this is a much less complex problem, but world moved to address it - and recent reports show the hole actually shrinking now. And there was no grand collapse of economies.

Humans are an innovative lot - we have an amazing ability to solve problems. However, chained to big business interests, all thinking from leaders is in terms of short term profits. I hope we have a renaissance in the public conciousness that breaks the me-mine-now mentality and sees us refocusing on humanity as a whole.

Beattie Wins again

Weathering a maelstrome of water and health crises, Peter Beattie has been resoundingly returned as the Premier of QLD, with nearly 70% of the vote. Many people though there would be a protest vote - which never arose. Surveys prior the the election were indicating that people didn't think Beattie deserved to win, but the Coalition just deserved it less - although this may be the normal "we don't trust Pollie's" sentiments being expressed.

Actually, I saw the defeat speech of Bruce Flegg - the Liberal opposition leader. No wonder they lost. He was not confident speaking on his feet, he was unengaging to listen to, and didn't really seem to be speaking from the heart. Admittedly, I haven't seen Lawrence Springborg's speech (Springborg was the Nationals leader), although he left the campaign trail part way through, when his father-in-law passed away. But Flegg must have really damaged the coalitions chances. He bumbled his way through the campaign, stuffing up answers to questions like who would be premier if they won (him or Springborg)... etc. EVen last night, he thanked this three kids. He had to be reminded that he actually had 4.

So, it should be interesting to see how other state elections pan out. Is it a case of encumbancy being an insurmountable advantage? Is it just that there is no talent in the state Liberal parties? And what (if any) implications does this have for the Federal election?

Lamb, anyone?

10/10 for effort. 1/10 for feasibility study.
SMH Article here

The King is Dead

The King of the Mountain, Peter Brock, died today. Unfortunately, he was a Holden driver, but nonetheless, a champion Aussie. At least he went out with a true race-drivers death (if thats any consolation). At age 61, thats a pretty good way to go - still racing at a relatively elite level. It seems that the accident was a case of not seeing the sudden curve 'till its way to late! And then he was dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun. Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning... car?

...And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell....

Work Choices penalties

A group of workers at an Electrical company have been docked 1 weeks pay for refusing to work overtime for a certain period. As part of a Union-backed campaign to excert pressure on the company, all members stopped working overtime shifts. The company used what they claim were the provisions (actually, the requirements) in the WorkChoices act, to penalise the involved workers.

The government has referred the case to the Office of Workplace Services (their "watchdog"). But the Lawyers are gearing up for a big test-case in the courts, to see exactly what the extent of the legislation is.

This is another potential PR problem for the Government, and i'm hoping there will be good traction. If only the Tabloids weren't so biased, they would be all over this like a rash. Anyways, it should make for interesting politicking.

Bat III article in the Australian

The Australian today had this article on Meat Loaf's upcoming Bat Out of Hell III.

Time for a Payrise

...But only for politicians. Last night, the federal houses quietly voted themselves a 7% payrise. Naturally, there were no dissenting voices.

Ah well, someone has to do the tough jobs.

Snakes on a Plane

The naming of the movie suits its perfectly. I don't mean the literal sense - obviously, its a movie about snakes on a plane. But as with the title, the movie doesn't mess around, and gets straight into a no-nonsense action flick.

It was nothing special. Fun brain candy. Its fun, but you have to block out any sense of logic. Clearly, the best way to take down a person on a plane is to pack a bunch of snakes into a box, with a small timed explosive that blows open the container, releasing snakes into the cargo hold. Oh, and don't forget to spray the flower garland things with pheremones that make the snakes randy as... well... rattlesnakes - and equally agro. It would have been a very short movie if the killers had smuggled on a couple of kilo's of C4 instead of snakes, and let the timed explosive do its work.

But apart from the glaring plot holes, it was a reasonably well executed, if formulaic action movie, with Samuel L. Jackson going doing his stuff (although at times, he seemed to be just going through the motions). CGI was pretty good, and I think they were intermixed with shots of real snakes.

Maybe i'm getting old, but i'm not sure that movie would have got an M rating 5 years ago (probably MA15+ - a fair bit of swearing, gore and nudity). Anyways, worth seeing to vege out on.

2.5/5