2tonne

I agree with onetrack, the pollution in Beijing is shocking. Don't know which Beijing you are talking about Bex, the mythical one with clean air maybe.

TP, I have several gay friends and work colleagues and they are not "wired wrongly". Well, I guess you did start with "I don't have anything against gays...", yeah right!

I had a conversation with an MP a few years back at a social function. His view was that politicians, especially backbenchers, earn very little compared to what they might earn in business or elsewhere. Maybe this kind of belief is what leads to the idea of using "entitlements" to make up for their perceived lack of salary.

It is pronounced differently than you might think...I used to work with a woman with that surname and she made a point of letting everyone know the correct pronounciation. Funnily enough, another colleague (male) at the same time had the surname 'Fluck'.

No corruption in Australia... They have got to be joking! Try looking at local councils just for a start.

Space oddity is one of my all time favourites. Sorry to hear he's died.

I am a huge fan of Stephen Fry and sorry to hear that he is leaving the show. Will see how Sandi goes.

Woohoo! Abbott is gone!

I wonder how many who complain about the "nanny state" in Australia would think this ABF action sounded reasonable? It seems along the same lines as the ASIC, something to make the ignorant masses feel safer but in reality achieve nothing (other than cost money and waste time).

I already thought Abbot was an idiot, but this latest idea crosses into bizzaro world. What a nutbag.

Had to google that one... You think Bex and I would make a good match?...maybe get together over a glass of Great Wall and "gan bei!" as only the Chinese can do

好的。马可，你可以写有的汉字。 Hao de. Ma ke, ni ke yi xie you de han zi. 我的名字是戴天磊。 Wo de ming zi shi dai tian lei unfortunately the character lei is associated with a pile of rocks…don’t know why lao shi gave me that name… oh, and wo de han yu hen bu hao! Zhen de! (I cheat by using Pleco)

对对对！我也很笨蛋！ 你的老板好不好？ 。。。不好意思，我会说一点普通话.

I know a little bit about VC funds because this gets used by startup and early stage biotech/medical companies (I have clients in the biotech area). There are different types of funding for early stage companies. First, there are angel investors who tend to be high net worth individuals willing to kick in a reasonable amount of capital in select areas of technology. E.g, there was one Australian biotech company that started off with investment from two owners plus an angel (who kicked in around 1 million). Angels invest where they see a quick exit and prospect of high return (ie chuck in some cash in the expectation of IPO within 6 months, hope to at least double their money given the high risk). In the example I mentioned, the angel did double his money in six months when the company listed. I believe VC funds target a specific sector (e.g., ICT or biotech - biotech/biomedical is the only sector I have any understanding of how this works in) and will raise a fund, for example 200 million, and then make a number of investments in companies over several years. They spread the money over several investments to reduce risk. They also have an exit strategy that is a bit longer term (years instead of months) in order to get their return. There was one VC fund that had a big success recently where they had invested around 10 million in an AU company and sold the company several years later for closer to $100 million. They tend to do some pretty serious due diligence before investing. I see that FT has just posted a link to a youtube channel that will probably provide useful information, compared to what I have posted here!

I have heard good reports about Xiaomi phones. I recently bought a Xiaomi power bank and it is very nice product. Looks and feels high quality and more importantly works exactly as it should. I was even considering a Xiaomi phone recently, but lack of 4G turned me off it.

Oh, ok so that's where I went wrong

Where's the fronkey, the transitional species between the frog and the monkey? The irrefutable fact that no one has ever discovered a fronkey surely disproves the theory of natural selection...

As a pedestrian I have been hit by vehicles twice - both times bicycles. First time was a cyclist entering Exhibition gardens (Melbourne) straight off the road into a "no bicycle" zone. Second time was when crossing in cbd with the "green man" and idiot cyclist was turning left across the crossing. Several other near misses including one where I injured myself taking evasive action. IMHO the ratio of idiot cyclists:good cyclists is a lot higher than idiot drivers:good drivers.

ummm, what I was actually getting at is that you can use numbers/statistics to say whatever you want (insert usual quote about statistics here). So, the original assertion about 32,000 scientists signing a petition is pretty meaningless when we don't know how the petition was framed, which "scientists" were asked, how the signed petitions were distributed and verified etc. Do we know how many of them worked within a field of science to climate change? That's why I used an equally meaningless statistical analysis based on an assumption that there are 10 million scientists that qualify to sign the petition to make that point. But I am sure you saw that straight away. And thank you for the suggestion that I am beyond stupidity - it's kinder than many things my wife says about me

Bex, my point exactly! All stupid when you start mentioning numbers without any context or qualification. And I have a PhD but know nothing that qualifies me as an expert on climate change - so what meaning is there in those numbers that were provided in the earlier post - none

Sorry, just had to go back to this one. Skepticalscience.com makes the point that "10.6 million science graduates have gained qualifications consistent with the OISM polling criteria since the 1970-71 school year. 32,000 out of 10 million is not a very compelling figure, but a tiny minority - approximately 0.3 per cent"

You do know that the current government, after all that whining about "big bad debt" under the previous government, have scrapped Australia's debt ceiling because they intend to get us even further into debt. And while we are talking about wasting billions, let's think about the billions wasted by the Howard/Costello/Abbott government when they brought in all the middle class welfare just to buy votes. During that time our infrastructure was in dire need of investment and seeing us falling behind many other countries.