I know there’s a fair bit of love for tractors in weekend threads, but have you ever wanted to build your own? Want to build some life size Meccano gear? Then take a look at the Global Village Construction Set, a modular, DIY, plan to help communities build and maintain their own industrial machinery.
Something to read?
From using euphemisms such as “collateral damage” to faking orgasms, we practise deception all the time. But in order to lie better to others, we must first fool ourselves.
Five years ago, a relatively unknown (and unhinged) director began one of the wildest experiments in film history. Armed with total creative control, he invaded a Ukrainian city, marshaled a cast of thousands and thousands, and constructed a totalitarian society in which the cameras are always rolling and the actors never go home
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savemejeebus @ 45
is hiding my IP address is illegal?
I don’t think it is, at least as long as you’re not doing something illegal while doing it.
MoC @50
Agreed….but I think there is another facet to the Murdoch media in Australia that should get scrutinised by any inquiry, but likely won’t : News Ltd and its relationships with State and Federal arms of law enforcement.
It’s clear from events in Victoria that there is a lot going on between News and Victoria Police that we don’t know about. Their campaigns against two Police Commissioners and the recent resignation of a Lib.government press secretary and what should have been the resignation of the responible Minister in that government, point to clear evidence of an entrenched system of police patronage. This system seems to have rewarded News with the recent leakage of serious operational information that could have compromised an anti-terrorist operation.
One can only assume that the unspoken modus operandi of Murdoch is to get into a cosy financial relationship with the police at the highest possible level, thus compromising their ability to enact investigations into News Ltd should the need arise. The shocking inaction of Surrey Police in the UK, who sat on clear evidence of phone hacking by News for over 4 years, is evidence of this. The ensuing fallout of that, and the corrupt relationship between News International and the Met. police, has claimed the heads of some of their top brass.
Anyone who still cherishes the foolish idea that somehow “things like that don’t happen in good old Australia” is living in a News-fed fantasy land. A substantive inquiry with powers of search and confiscation of evidence is clearly needed. Even if such an inquiry fails to reveal corruption at the British level, it is still warranted to reassure the public, and to show News that they are not untouchable.
Rebekah Brooks gets £1.7m, an office and a chauffeur-driven car. And on the subject of the News/Cop relationship:
But that could never happen here.
Could it.
Re: earlier comments on my cat. She’s starting to get on MY nerves now.
I bought a xoom yesterday. Costco’s having a run-out – they’re selling them (wifi-only) for 360$. There are some caveats, though: (a) there’s a xoom2 on the way, and (b) they only run android 3.1. However, word on teh blogz is that android 4 is going to be released for the xoom1, and however awesome the xoom2 might be when it arrives, the xoom1 is still a very good buy at that price (twin core 1ghz, front and rear cameras, 5mpx and 2mpx respectively, 32GB on-board and a micro-sd for another 32gb, all the sensors you could want, including GPS). I had a play last night. The touch screen response is a little bit more sluggish than my ipad, but when you get used to it it’s not a biggie. Overall the performance is good, but I had some issues with the embedded vidz on the cheeseburger sites – but I haven’t downloaded flash for it yet, so that could easily change. The screen is slightly higher-res, and it’s very nice.
Here’s the best bit, though – the developer tools for android are free, and you don’t need a mac
zOMG. I just a brain- … something. Listening to a politics news show from the UK and somebody mentioned the rise of the “euroskeptic. And it hit me. Boom! Like a big sock filled with mushy peas.
The word “skeptic” is broken now. Actual skeptics are trying to prop it up (otherwise they have to rename all their podcasts), but the poor word is collapsing under the weight of the crap it’s being asked to support.
I think we should just have some fun and push it over. So … henceforth:
- Racists are to be known as “xenoskeptics”
- Gay-bashing bigots are actually “homoskeptics”
- Anti-semites are merely “judeoskeptics”
- Alternative medicine nonsense should be regarded as “medicoskepticism”
- New age woo and conspiracy theories are really “factoskepticism”
Richard Clune and Peter Rolfe at the Sunday Herald Sun have scooped the story of the week from the media’s litter tray.
Headlining with
Interesting – whose fury are we talking about here?
The reader’s or Channel 7′s?
What I think is disturbing about this story, is that a news organisation feels it necessary to run with a story that could jeopardise the negotiations over this kid’s future, including reporting on that risk within the story.
Maybe I’m just too cynical, but to me this appears on the surface to be a case of one media organisation deciding that if they can’t have the exclusive, they’ll then leak to the subterraneans at Newshack ltd, who have no problem in running a story that could jeopardise this kid’s future. Surely that couldn’t be the case.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/fury-over-bali-boy-200000-tell-all-tv-deal/story-e6frfq80-1226186719850
Having a bit of fun over at cory’s place.
I just posted this as a response to Robert Tulip:
Let’s see if it sees the light of day …
One of the many things I like about my email service is that I can easily whip up a new email address and use it in situations like this. All my email addresses go to the same place(s), so it’s quite legitimate. And I’m not making any attempt to mislead – the email address I used for that post is still obviously me, and if mr bernardi wants to respond in person, the message will indeed get through.
Australian Breakfast TV will soon be getting a new apple in the barrel.
Channel 10 will be dumping the cartoons in the new year and running 3 hours of news to compete with 9 and 7.
Personally, I was hoping to see AB doing the Gina monologues redux.
But, alas that pussy never made it out of the bag.
However, we can now all look forward to watching (or not watching) Paul Henry host the 10 breakfast extravaganza.
The question is, has Lachie Murdoch found in Henry, just the right man to take on Karl & Kochie?
Well he is a performer, as can be seen when you watch this clip of the infamous Dikshit incident that forced him off TVNZ’s breakfast show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QVzKihKiYI
TB re Paul Henry …
Wow. He’s a class act. What’s keeping him out of morning FM radio?
MoC – he started on NZ FM radio and after being sacked from tv, I think he went back there.
I think it was PKD who foresaw the evolution of the “newsclown” – damn his precognition was good!
“I think it was PKD who foresaw the evolution of the “newsclown””
Not to mention humanoid cybernetic killers
Oh, god.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-06/government-plan-sex-offenders-register/3637984
I understand the motivation, I really do. But has anyone actually come across any evidence that these things keep anybody safer? Or just the opposite?
MoC @ 61
Samsung SGR-A1 sentry robots
Really, he tells the truth and you want to call him that? It’s an upside down world conservatives live in
Interesting article. Looking forward to James appearing before the committee. It is the gift that keeps on giving.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/06/james-murdoch-questioning-henry-porter
Just for fun Denial Tango by the Men With Day Jobs.
Enjoy!
TB @63
Combine those with the apparent japanese obsession with robotic girls and I think we’re onto a winner …
Today, andy says:
“Malcolm Turnbull demonstrates that he has not the slightest idea of what mainstream sceptics are sceptical about”
Cut mal some slack, AB. It’s actually pretty hard to keep up with what “mainstream sceptics” are saying unless you’re paying close attention these days. It keeps changing, sometimes rapidly. It wasn’t that long ago that warming wasn’t happening, then it was happening but not due to us, then it was happening due to us but not a problem, then it was something we needed to consider but not unless everyone else does, or something we could leave to the market (with or without “direct action” from the liberal party). Most recently, the maintream sceptical view is a bit more postmodern – it changes depending on who’s asking. Apparently we’re all now accepting that warming is happening, and that we’re to blame, but it’s still important to keep highlighting that warming isn’t happening NOW (depending on your preferred dataset), even if that is at odds with one’s repeated claims to not be doubting that it’s happening. And that’s leaving aside all the little sidetracks about things like the lauded “urban heat island effect”, which is still very important even after it’s been shown twice, by sceptical endeavors, to have no impact on the temperature record.
My impression is that the mainstream sceptical view isn’t so much defined by its own theses, rather it’s just a political standpoint more concerned with preventing any sort of action from being taken as long as it’s the political “opposition” who’s doing it. It could be that malcolm agrees and chooses to skip the sophistry and just cut to the chase.
Maybe we there’s a strategy in that. Everyone on “the left” could declare that they no longer care. That it’s too hard, they failed, they can’t do anything about climate change and that’s that. Then the conservative parties can come riding in on a white horse, declare themselves to be the saviors of humanity, taking up where the miserable left failed. Then we could watch the mainstream sceptical movement strip its gears getting in line behind the effort to set targets, implement emission cuts and so on. Then they can join together to bash china for not doing its bit, blame it on the left and the natural political equilibrium will be restored.
Ok, enough rambling …
We’ve had the anti carbon tax rallies, the convoy of incontinence and occupy Gympie.
However, they will all pale into insignificance with the next 2 tea baggingest protest concepts to be put forward by the Anti-Carbon Tax brigade.
http://www.nocarbontax.com.au/anti-carbon-tax-rallies/
Firstly we have
I’d suggest we all get in early and book a spot, because I just checked their bookface page and they’ve got 1 confirmed and 2 maybes attending.
The real thrill for me, will be this rocking event, though I’m not too sure exactly what it’s going to be? But, if it’s the sort of thing Bono, Sir Bob and Al Gore are into, it must be really cool…
The Qantas furore and the news that Holden may be relocating its design facilities overseas makes me wonder how much people in this country actually swallow the feelgood advertising that these comapnies employ to sell their products. The “Aussiness” of Holden has been a long-running joke in my opinion, one which first made me laugh in the 80′s when I went back to the UK for a working holiday, and saw a VH Holden parked in the carpark of my then employer. I wondered who had lashed out the shipping to bring one over to the UK, and wandered over for a closer look. It was badged as an Opel.
Further inquiries (this is pre-internet, guys) brought me the info that GM owned both Holden and Opel, and the design was the same in every country they sold the things in: they just rebadged them and sold them with an appealing ad. campaign to convince the punter that they were something unique to their locality.
As for Qantas….a plane’s a frickin plane. I just want one that has decent leg-room and won’t fall out of the sky. Qantas worry me that the latter criterion is becoming a threat.
@monkeywrench
Yes, both Holden and Opel (and Vauxhall, the UK arm) are owned by GM. The first three generations of commodores were derived from the German/UK versions. However, the VB to VL versions had very different engines, suspension and body strengthening. The Opel had independent rear suspension and was more sophisticated generally. Apparently however, it was brought out for testing in the late 70s and broke apart on the fishermans bend durability track. GMH engineers convinced their German counterparts that significant local input was needed to fit the car to Australian conditions, hence the carry over Torana engines and suspensions.
The same thing had happened for ford with the first generation falcon. It was imported direct from the USA and the front suspension mounts collapsed on rural roads. It took them a long time to restore the faith of Australian buyers in their product in the early 60s.
The VN-VS and VT-VZ commodores were also derived from the Opel Omega, but they were widened to match the Falcon.
You can justifiably question the value that Australians get from our government investment in these companies, but the commodore and falcon are unique designs and are the only opportunity for australians to get a start in auto engineering or design.
Sorry, I spent too much time as a teen with a wheels magazine subscription!
I’m sure Phillip Adams’ tongue was firmly poking into his cheek, or perhaps between someone else’s, when he wrote the following in regards to refugees:
It lies, quite appropriately, beyond the failwall at The Australian:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-servitude-solution/story-e6frg8h6-1226183433268
Wrench, indeed! Australia has never really had a home-grown automotive industry, but a set of taxpayer subsidised outposts of the automotive industries of other countries.
As for the maintenance of Qantas aircraft, I would not worry, for I’m sure the maintenance staff in places such as Hong-Kong and Singapore are just as capable as our dinky-di relic of an inflexible and uncompetitve workforce.
Qantas or Qantass?
Subliminal messages from the DT or just a slip of the finger in the web address for their PR piece on Alan Joyce?
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/the-numbers-man-how-alan-joyce-soared-to-become-qantass-boss/story-e6freuy9-1226186471812
It isn’t so much the products I’m dubious about, it’s the blatant advertising hokum used to sell them as being somehow unique to Australia. Having spent many, many hours in aeroplanes of most modern mass-transit types, I can assure you that nothing pisses me off more than poor seat comfort and crummy cabin service. Anyone using some of the more recent versions of the Airbus (pre-A380, which I haven’t yet used) will find decreased legroom. And Qantas don’t come within a fake cooee of Emirates for their cabin service. Otherwise, most long-distance flying experiences are little more than epic tales of boredom, discomfort and anxiety in varying measure. There is nothing that makes Qantas stand out from the pack.
Marty, the story of the Opel falling to bits at Fisherman’s Bend is simply indicative of the fact that Australian roads are inferior to European ones. I don’t think it’s a particularly radical and nationally-significant issue to make a car a bit more resilient than its visually-identical overseas counterpart. Mind you, I’m one of those boring folk who regard a car as a device to move one from A to B; they have precious little individual aesthetic appeal. My most important criterion for a car is whether one can listen to music nicely over the din of its undercarriage being destroyed by the shitty roads.
This is interesting.
Firstly … who ARE these people who look a gift horse in the mouth? It’s a free blog, people. You’re not paying for it. NEWS has no obligation to you guys. IF you want snappy service, start your OWN blog.
Secondly … curious. I don’t know what the “lawfare” bit is about. I personally think it’s more fun to just highlight the sort of nasty that gets posted over there and draw attention to it here.. That’s really all it takes. I like to think that PP’s cut and paste trophy has had more to do with the crackdown on slime than any “lawfare”. To his credit, it’s now a great deal harder these days to find a comment on andy’s blog that crosses the line into racism, bigotry or insanity than it was even 6 or 9 months ago. Doesn’t mean the odd one doesn’t get through, but they’re clearly trying a lot harder than before.
But what I find most interesting about that is the arms-length moderating “for legal self-protection”. That is interesting. That does suggest that a lawyer somewhere decided that the “it’s not what I think – the people have spoken” defence doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Maybe the fact that the moderators decide which people get to speak and what they can say has an impact?
Oh – and I have no desire to squelch andy’s right to publish insane comments. It’s not my place to be telling him what he can write on his blog. But I’m darn well going to enjoy pointing it out when something batsh1t crazy goes up. I guess telling people (and occasionally making fun of) what gets written on somebody’s web site makes me a totalitarian or something. It used to be called debate, but things change so fast these days.
I am curious to see how this new (IMHO self-imposed) policy of allowing less batsh1t crazy comments through takes a toll on those page-reloads.
“Marty, the story of the Opel falling to bits at Fisherman’s Bend is simply indicative of the fact that Australian roads are inferior to European ones.”
One of the things that used to annoy me about my mac SE was that its floppy drive was so flaky. When other drives would power on and read any disk you could insert, my beige toaster would throw up its dainty little hands and declare that it was just too hard.
I pointed this out to a guy at the local apple reseller one day, and his response was basically “yes, macintosh drives are very good at detecting poor-quality disks”. Well, I guess that opel was very good at finding bad roads
Also never discount the possibility that the whole story is just plain made up!
Cars are built to a price. If they’re built for tootling around western europe and never tested elsewhere then they probably are going to run into difficulty when presented with hundreds of kilometers of 100km/hr corrugations. It’s why new car prototypes are driven into the ground these days – the new focus was hammered everywhere from the arctic circle to africa to central australia. I doubt that it means that the same model of car is identical everywhere – I expect that there’ll still be small variations in things like the air-con and headlights and carpets and restraints and wotnot to suit local design regs and conditions. I’m not an expert, but I’ve heard stories like the local subaru headlights are glass rather than plastic, because we have insects with corrosive guts that craze the plastic ones. I guess the only way they find that out is through testing. A friend’s dad took his expensive volvo up north once and stripped the rust-proof undercoat right off the chassis. Made sense in sweden, less so in central australia in the wet.
The car industry in the 80s was nowhere near as international as it is now. I can actually believe that a standard european car would have a hard time in the outback. If they didn’t rattle apart, they’d sure as heck overheat. Heck, even humvees had trouble at first (being wider than most australian single-car tracks they apparently staked a lot of tires on the brush).
Now … the rust problems with early VNs … that’s something else entirely
Hey – did ANYONE own an early magna that didn’t have gearbox trouble? Or a XB falcon that didn’t vapor-lock?
I spent mid60-mid70s in Europe and wondered, upon return, who had the bright idea of importing Opel Kadetts until i was told they wuz reel Ozzy Toranas.
Howard b
“dinky-di relic of an inflexible and uncompetitve workforce.”
When was the last time you competed?
Our car industry is in much worse shape than you think:
“Holden, now owned by an American parent company” – Today Tonight, 9th June, 2011.
Who knew?
“Ford, also now in cahoots with America” – Today Tonight, 9th June, 2011.
What, Ford too? Curse those sneaky Americans!
To be fair to Holden the VE (which is one of the most sophisticated version yet) was designed here, in fact GM were so impressed with what was being done here that they headhunted a lot of the design team and were, before the GFC planning to use Holden as the large vehicledesign center.
A curious little fact is that Fishermans bend built (and probably still does build) V6 engines used by other parts of GM including Alfa Romeo (who did a lot of the design work on that particular engine. So there are lots of Alfa drivers who are really driving a Holden.
“What, Ford too? Curse those sneaky Americans!”
You’re not going to BELIEVE which other country makes camrys … it’s going to be chaos when today tonight finds out about where toyota is from.
“were, before the GFC planning to use Holden as the large vehicledesign center”
Yeah, that’s a pity. Meanwhile, the camaro is now a commodore underneath, and the airforce uses monaros as chase cars (at least, according to a james may TV show)
MoC It amazes me the way Australians have such a big thing about where there cars are made? Toyota make it’s Yaris model in France, I don’t see the Japanese whinging about that. Holden worked out a while ago that to survive they have to export which they do quite well, they export VEs and import lots of other stuff, makes sense.
SS@84
The most recent episode of “gareth jones on speed” is senor gareth touring that very factory. Have a listen. It’s interesting.
SS@82 “So there are lots of Alfa drivers who are really driving a Holden.”
While technically almost true, there’s a little bit more to it than that. When Alfa had to phase out their legendary Arese V6 (26 years in production, regarded as one of the best engines in the world while current; and yes I own a few of them..), they didn’t have the resources to build a brand new V6, for what is a pretty small market in Europe. The use of the GM engine gave them an opportunity to fill that hole.
When they first recieved the prototype of the engine they were quite appalled at it’s lack of character and inspiring sound, so what they use now is basically just the block and bottom-end from Holden, but with their own heads, intake and exhaust. I’ve driven a few of them, and while they’re not quite as dynamic and exciting as the old V6, they are a fitting engine for an Alfa, and a long, long way from the product that Holden dishes up. Just my opinion of course, and I’m happy to admit that I’m quite biased towards Alfa Romeo.
MoC@78 I can actually believe that a standard european car would have a hard time in the outback.
You’re probably right there. However *warning – shameless plug ahead* , I did drive a $400 1981 Alfa Giulietta 3800km through the outback earlier this year, raising $5000 for cancer research in the process. Next April I’ll be doing the same in an Alfetta which I got for $0. We’re not preparing it to any great extent, just getting it to a ‘reliable’ state, ie no modifications other than maybe raising the suspension a little, and hopefully rally tyres. The following link has a bit of a story of the rally earlier this year, plus an introduction to the new car for next years rally. We’ve already raised $5000, so will be looking to raise around $8000 by next April. http://hoonanism.com/category/mariospeedwagon/
calyptorhynchus
Not since when I got in on the ground floor of the Shanghai Stock Exchange by proxy in the early ’90s and retired to my gold-plated yacht to indulge my love affair with progressive blogs.
The whole thing with General Motors Holden and the changes at Fishermens Bend is the loss of Australian design capability – not manufacturing. The writing has been on the wall out there for a few months. It is nothing to do directly with manufacturing as that is and will continue to be done all over the place.
Once the design section is shut down most of the cars will be designed and engineered elsewhere.
Mitsubishi did something similar a few years ago. Got rid of the design capability and 3 years later got rid of the manufacturing. Not saying GMH will do the same but it is possible.
Ah yes the sprawling luxury of the asylum
In other words, not since your last drug-induced hallucination?
“We’re not preparing it to any great extent, just getting it to a ‘reliable’ state”
You know, the top gear team would point to that statement and make comments implying there’s an inherent contradiction between those two clauses
That said, I stopped watching top gear some time ago.
“Once the design section is shut down most of the cars will be designed and engineered elsewhere.”
Russelsheim Germany: Opel Design (Global platform, Vectra, Astra, Possible new Corsa Barina)
Detroit Michigan: GM Design (New home of Mike Simcoe, designer of Commodore, Rear wheel drive)
Korea Incheon: GM Daewoo Design (Current Barina)
V6′s were put into SAAB 93 AWD’s when I worked in Sweden. They called them “JetBlacks” because the car was obviously……black. The Swedes Turbocharged the Holden V6, fitted an AWD drive train with 18′ low profile wheels and made them as a limited edition. I don’t know if any made it to Australia.
MoC@91 You’re right, they would. Even though they know it not to be true, they would, since that is what Top Gear has become. To be fair though, they usually acknowledge that Alfas, while objectively bad cars overall, are always the car that they would pick over their ‘better’ competitor. And that is the beauty of Alfa, and thankfully it’s something that most people never get to realise….until they own one.
Oh, and they’re not as unreliable as you would think (well the old ones aren’t anyway), as long as you do the required maintenance. Just don’t tell anyone….
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