Old Koreelah

On 2/9/2023 at 4:21 PM, spacesailor said:

They are Good ! .

I stopped ' photography ' when I went " digital. 

MY development  equipment,  enlarger . Are still here  

But .

No way to process digital film . Just print them onto cheap photo papers. 

I did try .

Bought an expensive " video capture card " , then they changed the pc software to make everything  redundant. 

I gave it away , now even " windows " has gone .

spacesailor

 

My daughter gave her Canon digital and all the accessories to my wife. She finds her iPhone does everything she wants. 

“Native Title” is a welcome improvement to our legal system, allowing Indig people access to traditional lands. I knew an old Bandjalung songman who remembered being shot at when trying to exercise traditional rites on their ancestral lands.

Just now, old man emu said:

Yes, the Luddites we have governing our country make the Amish look like the ultimate technological innovators.

 

CSIRO holds more than 3,000 patents. Which means that receipts from licensing the application of those patents goes into the Government's coffers.

That money should be directed at recruiting and training more talented scientists; we sure need them.

Don’t tell the guvmint; they’d make even more cuts to CSIRO funding.

11 hours ago, nomadpete said:

The good book explains that god was rather annoyed about the lifestyle choices of the happy inhabitants  of the town.

Many claim that God destroyed these cities because of their homosexual lifestyle. Maybe not.

12 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

How can the abos claim the benefits of a work ethic when they have none and no desire to have one?

Bruce this sweeping statement is easily disproved and quite offensive to many. 
 

The more we learn about the past, the more we should fear our future. Seems our planet cops a catastrophic cosmic event more often than we knew.

13 hours ago, willedoo said:

Not very good resolution, but I saw this photo on the web of a strangler fig after the host tree has died.

 

Wow! Nature is pretty good at creating the most efficient structures. Bee hives, wasp nests, etc with hexagonal cells. Termites remove all but the most critical wood.

As I’ve posted before, there’s a similar, though less spectacular relic at the Stinson crash site on the Qld-NSW border: part of the tubular steel structure of the aircraft is sticking out of the southern side of a tree.

The Stinson came from the north, shedding part of it’s wings on arrival. The post crash fire killed nearby trees and a new tree grew up through and around the wreckage, until the old dead tree rotted and fell.

Most visitors never notice this rusty relic, about 6m above their heads.

4 hours ago, willedoo said:

…The DAA was a top heavy failure. ATSIC was prone to corruption and nepotism which marginalised a lot of the smaller, more needy groups. Accountability was a big problem in it's day. And then there's the land councils, some of  who can also have the same negative issues when it comes to delivering for the little people.

All true. Some Aboriginal organisations have been riven with mismanagement and rorts- just like many white-fella institutions. The difference might be how clever they are at escaping the attention of regulators and the media.

42 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

A SIMPLE CHOICE! .

To vote No gives another ' go ' at a later date,  with better transparency…

What in hell you on about? What isn’t clear? Just read the plurry proposal and you’ll find the wording is just as clear and transparent as the wording of the Australia’s Constitution- which allowed governments to develop our current system of government. 

19 hours ago, nomadpete said:

…there has been a long history of indigenous advice to the government, to no avail.

Exactly; because governments don’t tend to take much notice.
Who do governments listen to?
Well-funded lobbyists for foreign corporations sure get their ear.
Advisory groups and even Royal Commissions have often been given little more than lip service.

That’s why we need an advisory body that cannot be dismantled at the whim of government, as Howard did to ATSIC. 

3 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Maybe adopt a behaviour tax.. The worse the kids behaviour, the more tax the parents pay.. Soon would see an improvement in behaviour.

 

Or could do it the other way around - the better behaved the kids do and the better grades they get, the less tax the parents pay (or more welfare they get).. as the kids are less likely to be a burden on society...

 

..

 

Very, very right wing of me, I know ;-))

 

 Maybe Right Wing, but pretty much the policy the Communist Party has implemented across China.

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

On the way to where we are today  there have been many extinctions as conditions for  life for them altered and they couldn't adapt quickly enough . Anything that's alive today has ancestors (common DNA ) that go right back to the first unicellular creatures, unless something extra arrived here from outer space.   Nev

Just a few recent events that almost wiped out our species:

5 hours ago, octave said:

The News.com article then groups together "developing" with "needs additional support"   I would suggest that these 2 categories are lumped together in order to get an overly negative headline.  The headline could surely be "Ten percent of students need additional support."

Good grief, why would anyone treat Murdoch’s press as a reliable source. Expect headlines screaming that 50% of students are below average!

Back on topic:

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

Well, doesn't this claim support the argument that the Voice is unnecessary? If Health authorities listened to the Indigenous people during the Pandemic, what is the Voice going to achieve, more than this "excellent" pandemic result?

The point is that this fairly isolated success was due to the authorities listening to and working with locals- something that has been lacking in the past.
 

One of the major factors causing disadvantage among our indig people across this country is also a key criticism used by white fellas- lack of initiative.
This is also pretty common among non-indig people. (The opposite could be said for many immigrants, whose vision and work ethic are sadly lacking amoung many of our native-born- black and white.)

Too many genarations of being managed by white fellas and having thing done to them and for them, rather than being empowered to solve their own problems.

55 minutes ago, old man emu said:

…these kids' problem is that the parents have never learned to parent.  I don't want to appear anti-feminist, but is it possible that women directing  their lives towards their own careers has left them without time to learn how to "mother". Has the change in our culture that makes us want to consume so much led to the need for women to leave the home to earn money to be able to buy the latest and greatest.

Very good points OME; the law forces us to do lots of training before we’re allowed to drive a car, boat or aeroplane. Most things in life need lots of preparation, but to be a parent- the most important job we’ll ever do- no skills or qualifications are required. We need more schools to run courses in the basics of running a home and raising kids.

Times have changed: we set our womenfolk free of the kitchen sink. Fathers can and should also be parents. I knew one who did a great job of raising a team of kids alone after being widowed.

So many of our society’s problems stem from our obsession with stand-alone, single-family homes.

 Multigenerational housholds are the norm in many sensible countries and recent economic trends might make them more common in Australia.

9 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

BUT with a "one size fits all" budget, what can you do?....  It would be great if all kids could have help like Octave .

In the meantime, its sad but true that we just reduce the smart kids.

Quite a few smart kids get on with little help. They learn fast and can benefit from helping their peers. My own mum was one of them; kept on for a couple of years in a tiny K-6 school to help the teacher. That sure helped the little kids (but lack of further schooling severely limited her chances in life.)
A century later my Grandies enjoy helping their peers and I doubt they begrudge any extra time other kids may need.

A smart country invests in educating all its kids, but in Australia there are large and growing disparities between rich schools and rest. Our national values of egalitarianism are being thrown away.

28 minutes ago, octave said:

The problem with school is that it is very much a one-size-fits-all-all system…

So true, Octave. Much of our schooling is pitched at the middle and misses those at either end of the spectrum. That’s the inefficiency of our current system, which derives from a need to train masses of factory and military fodder.

Every kid is different, with widely different abilities and potentials. Given unlimited resources, most of us could probably be diagnosed with some syndrome or other. Apspergers/Autism have now become recognised, with variations of ADHD becoming perhaps over diagnosed. Across the rich world, huge numbers of our kids are now being medicated on a regular basis. Who knows the long-term effects?

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

If you don't GRADE kids you will have the slow ones holding the smart ones back. This is not a popular thing to admit but its effect is there whether you like it or not.  Nev

Nev that may be true of the traditional education system we still suffer. Alternative schools seem pretty good at helping kids maximise their potential, but they are sure hard to get in to.

7 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

…But perhaps I would be equally delighted to see the existing indigenous departments cleaned up (and forced to be productive), by any other means.

Most of us would agree on that; the “Aboriginal Industry” has been a gravy train for lots of people, including many white-owned businesses. I grew up in a small town where racism is rife and nobody dared to mention that their livelhood depended on black fellas spending their welfare cheques locally.

One recent revelation adds further weight for the need to give Aboriginal people a voice. In remote communities, welfare recipients are required to perform hours of useful work each week. Those in charge (presumably white fellas far away in a city office) dictate what work is done, which often means made-up tasks like mowing non-existant lawns repeatedly. Crazy, when local decisions might lead to cleaning up rubbish, building shelters and repairing infrastructure. There are plenty of very positive development stories in Indig communities, but the common theme seems to be they decide, rather than have the Guv’ment doing stuff to them.