kgwilson

Yes there is nothing like the radiated heat from a real wood fire. Watching the wood burn is better than anything on TV. Convection heating from a reverse cycle air conditioner is an efficient means of transferring the heat but is not an aesthetically pleasing method.

According to the report on Baseload Power Coal is declared a dinosaur. It has had no effect on the government or right wingers wanting new coal fired power stations built. "Technology has moved on from base load, and now you want flexible power. And that's what demand management, batteries and pumped hydro is," says Professor Andrew Blakers, director of the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. "If you have an increase in demand, a coal power station will take hours [to meet it], a gas turbine 20 to 30 minutes, batteries about a second, demand management about a second, and pumped hydro will take anywhere between 20 seconds and two minutes." In the past because coal fired stations had to keep running even if there was no demand the power price went negative so they paid customers to take the power. Researchers say a combination of these rapid response, dynamic power sources is the future of power generation. What about when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow? "All this talk about 'you've got to have baseload power stations' is complete nonsense," says Dr Mark Diesendorf. "It's a dinosaur." His team at the University of New South Wales ran "thousands of computer simulations" correlating hourly power-consumption data from the National Electricity Market (NEM) in 2010, with the potential power generation of renewables, based on recorded weather data for the same year. He claims that a combination of existing technologies, including hydro and biofuelled gas turbines, were able to supply the simulated NEM even during "peak demand" — on winter evenings following overcast days. "No single one does all the job... You probably need a mix of hydro, which may include off-river pumped hydro, and possibly open-cycle-gas turbines," he says. "Pumped hydro is 100-year-old technology, completely off the shelf, and importantly you can get these pumped-hydro sites built before 2022," he says. "A recent study that we published shows that there's about 22,000 [potential] pumped-hydro sites on the east coast. We only need 20 or 30 of them." The latest report just released on Monday highlights the governments folly. Its title is How government inaction fuelled Australia's renewable energy boom. Check out the report at the link below How government inaction fuelled the renewables boom

Even up here in the sub tropics 30 deg south we have had some very cold nights (1-2 deg) and light frost. The sea water temperature is still 20 deg but this time of the year the wind is from the west so it is pretty cold on my morning walks on the beach with the dog. The good thing is that with clear sunny days the temp peaks at about 20 to 22 deg & so long as you are out of the wind it is beautiful. Inland though they are getting -5 to -10 temps & that is real brass monkey stuff. People think that because I came from NZ I'd be used to that sort of cold but in reality the minimums there rarely fall below 0 due to proximity to the ocean & mostlly are around 4 to 6deg but the maximums rarely get over 15 deg. The real difference is that Winter in NZ is the wet season so it always feels way colder than it is.

You could also go to Aldi and spend 30% less than at Woolies or Coles. No bags, no rewards & not as much choice but your wallet notices.

The Bangkok shots show how that without traffic lights & heaps of motorbikes everything keeps moving despite vehicles cutting across the flow & sometimes on the wrong side. That would never happen here. We'd have crashes & road rage punch ups galore.

I currently get 11.1c feed in tariff & pay 31.7c peak & 18.2c off peak & $1.31 daily supply charge. In my area that is the best deal I could get. Now Ipart has recommended reducing the feed in tariff to a range of 6.9 to 8.4 c. In NSW the subsidised gross feed in tariff of around 60c expired about 18 months ago. I am amazed that some in Victoria are still getting massive subsidised feed in tariffs.

Bitumen & Asphalt are apparently one and the same thing but I always considered bitumen to be hot tar spread by spraying & gravel then laid on top & rolled in. It is generally fairly noisy to drive on. Also called Tar Macadam or Tarmac. Asphalt I thought was normally premixed and laid hot by a machine & the surface can be very smooth. I think this is sometimes referred to as Asphalt concrete & does not seem to suffer from extreme heat. This is what they put on motorways near built up areas as it is quieter to drive on than concrete. Am I right here?

The only thing I didn't see was how he cut the neat rectangular holes in the bamboo.

The name Leyonhjelm comes to mind here. He appears sub human to me with an IQ approaching 20, can't remember what was actually ever said and still managed to get elected. What a fantastic system we have. It is lucky that there are enough entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who see through all the political BS and fund solar, wind and pumped hydro while not having a bar of anything remotely linked to fossil fuels. But when it is all operational and we can start getting rid of our old fossil fuelled sources of energy, guess who will take the credit.

I have a good shed cleanout at irregular intervals. Normally when there is no more room or when I get nagged for long enough to want to do it to stop the nagging continuing. The problem is, and this always happens normally within a couple of weeks, sometimes longer, although I have not documented it nor kept any evidence, I find I need one or more of the items I threw out in the last cleanout. This I use as my defence of keeping stuff that I am told I will never need or use.

Vacancy at the FBI The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were 3 finalists; Two men and a woman. For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. 'We must know that you will follow your Instructions no matter what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair .... Kill her!!' The man said, 'You can't be serious I could never shoot my wife.' The agent said, 'Then you're not the right man or this job. Take your wife and go home.' The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet forabout 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, 'I tried, But I can't kill my wife.' The agent said, 'You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home.' Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls.. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping the sweat from her brow. 'This gun is loaded with blanks' she said. 'I had to kill him with the chair!'

The bloke who defected to Palmers mob is equally defective. Clive has plenty of money but no morals.

Cool. Mr Google can tell you everything. The yanks call hash # the pound symbol but it refers to weight from that old imperial/american system.

No you still get National Superannuation whether you are a pauper or a billionaire. The billionaire pays 33% tax on it & the pauper pays no tax.

In NZ the pension is called "National Superannuation" & everyone over 65 gets it. It is taxed so if you have a good income of around 100k your National Superannuation will be taxed at the top rate of 33%. If you have no other income the tax is either zero or minimal. Seems fair to me. I get NZ National Superannuation & so does my Australian wife as she lived there for 20 years. As I am non resident it is taxed at the top rate. In Australia our assets are too high so we don't qualify for any pension. I prefer the NZ system as I worked hard all my life & paid plenty of tax so reckon getting some back is fair. Here if you have done nothing & bludged of the system all your life you are rewarded with a full pension at 65. Where is the fairness in that.

I didn't get anything because I didn't put anything in. If I had I'd have made a claim & not wait for the government to do nothing. Two years ago there was $11.7 billion in lost Super according to the ATO, an average of 10k per person they have no address details for. Obviously some people don't know about the super that is theirs or don't care. Then there are plenty of employers who don't pay their employees super as well as their portion after deducting it from their wages, shut up shop or move somewhere else so the money never gets paid. Just another part of the superannuation disaster.

Mark Knopfler is my personal favourite.

I have had super funds all my life. They were all employer super funds and when I left the company I was paid the amount of my balance including employer contribution and profit when I left. This was in NZ & there was no compulsory super except when introduced by the labour govt & then removed by the Nationals 3 years later & those who were forced in to it got a refund. I still have one of these funds & it was sold to AMP but luckily the original trust deed exists and they can't charge exhorbitant fees like they do in most of their retail funds. When I bought my business in QLD I went with a bank based scheme not knowing any better. The fees were a ripoff & after talking to my Accountant set up a SMSF so I don't charge myself any fees. The catch is though that the ridiculous bureaucracy the government has set up to make sure you don't take the money and run after paying 15% tax max to put it in, costs several hundred in government fees and $1,320.00 for my accountant to file all the tax returns and forms etc every year even though at 68 I can use my money as I like. The whole process is a rort.

Australian businesses seem to think they can use their Australian business model in the UK without any research in to how things work there. It doesn't seem to work. Slater & Gordon Lawyers even tried. It was a complete failure. They lost millions and their share price is worth nothing & now they have closed most of their branches in regional Australia just to stay afloat.

I think that compulsory voting is undemocratic. If I don't want to vote why should I be forced to? If I am free to make a choice, then that choice may be not to vote for anyone. Why force me to go to the ballot box and spoil the paper. Completely ridiculous. If I don't vote I have no right to complain about anything.

Vietnam was a political con job based on the original McCarthyism theories of the domino effect of communist takeover. It was of course total BS and the war rapidly became deeply unpopular everywhere. As soon as Vietnam was reunited they just got on with the job of rebuilding their country and lives. Look at it now. The big difference with the Gulf wars can be summed up in one word, OIL. The justification of the second one was the big lie of WMD. Afghanistan was even a bigger cockup, the justification being getting rid of Al Queda. No one has ever won there, The Poms, Russians, & the great western coalition have all failed & rightly so. I travelled through Afghanistan in 1975 & they were a proud nomadic people doing their own thing & selling lots of opium to developed nations. I always felt safe there. The trouble was the west & Russians could not control the opium supply, and so it started all over again with the Russian invasion. And so it goes on.

I find most God botherers hypocritical in some way and it is quite easily seen. They seem to justfy whatever they do based on some part of their beliefs even when it is clearly incompatible with the laws of the land or the state or an organisation. I am constantly having to remind one of these that just because he believes something is the right thing to do he cannot do these things when he has no authority to do so. The authority in this case is defined by the constitution of an incorporated association with clearly defined responsibilities. He seems reasonably intelligent but has this inbuilt indoctrination (or is that brainwashing) that justifies his actions even though he has been made fully aware that these have violated the provisions of the constitution.

It is still IMHO the most beautiful sports car ever made. When I was in the UK in 73 the first Arab Oil shock hit and the gas guzzling sector of the motor vehicle industry was stopped in its tracks. I still couldn't afford an E Type but I bought a 1966 Jag 340. I didn't realise it at the time but only a few hundred were ever produced. Its predecessor was the 3.4 with the big W bumpers. This was the 3.4 with S type bumpers & some nice new innovations like adjustable steering column & electrically heated windows. It went like a rocket. I remember driving down the M1 at 125 MPH with only 1 finger on the steering wheel. The IRA were bombing London at the time & I kept getting pulled over by the constabulatory looking for weapons as of course Jags were renowned getaway cars. Reliability was the main problem but you just had to open the bonnet and look at those fabulous polished alloy rocker covers & you forgave that minor inconvenience

That's the way it is now. I can use my heat pump (reverse cycle aircon) powered from the solar panels & get 8kw of heat output from less than 2 kw of electrical input. OK it isn't good enough on an overcast day or at night but storage technology will sort that out in the not too distant future.

Getting back to the original topic I was immensely proud when as a NZer we told the Yanks to piss off with their Nuclear ships, and again when we sent a frigate into the French Nuclear testing drop zone. It made Kiwis feel truly independent. The ANZUS alliance didn't change. It just made the US realise that it could no longer bully the Kiwis and demand they toe the line just because they supplied most of the military equipment. The frosty NZ/US relationship lasted a few years but it had no effect on the economy. Alliance or not the US will do what it likes if it feels its control is being eroded. NZ used to have a modern military largely financed by the US. Now it is focused more on civil and fisheries defence. Anything else is not going to be effective against any aggressor. NZs physical isolation is it's best defence. If NZ got attacked by Russia does anyone really think that the US (even if there was no alliance) would just say Oh that is just too bad. No the US would feel that their security in the Pacific is under attack & would use all of its might to restore the original order with the US at the top. The US is pretty peeved about the way China is providing lots of money to small Pacific nations including PNG to build this and that and in theory not demanding anything in return. Australia should IMHO begin to pull away from the US ring fence and develop closer relationships with Asian nations and especially Indonesia the 4th most populous nation on earth. Our huge trade deficit with the US is largely because we spend so much on US military hardware. 1 F35 costs $200 million for goodness sake, they can't do everything they say and the rivets are corroding before they are even put into service. Trump keeps prattling on about how the US is spending more than it's share on almost everything & now he wants everyone else to pay. Well that's how the US maintained its influence and control. They bought it. If Trump gets his way the isolationist policy will eventually backfire. Splendid Isolation worked for Britain when the Empire was at its zenith in the 19th century but resulted in declining British influence and was abandoned in 1905. The US is on a downward path. Like all its predecessors (Roman, Ottoman, British, Soviet etc) it will fade into an also ran. China is growing and its expansion and influence increasing almost daily now. They have all the money & got it all from the west by ripping off technology, improving it, producing everything & selling it back. All the whinging about annexing disputed atolls in the South China Sea & building military bases there won't change anything. Lets just say it has nothing to do with us & let the US stew over it. It's not much but it would be a good start to a policy of not sucking up to the US on every single issue.