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I don't travel much anymore unless I have to.
In the past I did travel a lot about Australia, Ireland, some England and France, Cape Town, Tenerife and 3 weeks in Bali in the 80's. šŸ˜

From the comfort of my sofa I like to watch some of those travel docos. That does me but I must go to Queensland and Tasmania one day.
Sad to say Craig, Sydney is just too big and busy for me, Melbourne likewise. Perth is even a bit 'big and fast' for me nowadays, and our house prices are closing in on Eastern states' prices. šŸ¤‘ Good for me sort of as I have no plans to leave my nice home, but good for my two daughters who'll share it ... when I fall off the perch.

My English cousin and his German partner migrated to Oz and spent a year driving around our island continent looking for the best place to live. Eventually they settled for SW of WA coastal town Busselton. It has a lovely mild Mediterranean climate and is close to facilities ... with a small city close by.

One of my local freeways.
tonkin-gap-768x512.jpg
 
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looker-on said:
The video is interesting in as much as it highlights the success story that AUS can be proud of. Yet it's a lot of stats leaving out the crucial question of where the money generated over decades has gone if people didn't feel it in their wallet and you didn't notice the boom? How will a whole generation that doesn't seem to have felt the effects of a recession react to times getting harder?
Our economic system seems to produce the same mindset and the same attitude in the economic field all over the world, not really surprising but fascinating nonetheless. All those parallels, temptations, and identical mistakes that are made wherever you go. Short-term gains are more important than those generated in the long run. This seems to be inherent in the human race. While Germany pinned its hopes on cheap Russian gas even if that led to a high dependence from the Russian economy and political system, your governments couldn't resist riding on China's coat tails. The same applies to large companies which did so since they had to satisfy their shareholders and to meet the expectations of the stakeholders. As regards infrastructure, both in your country and mine it is common practice to fund big projects out of taxpayers' pockets and later sell them off dear while privatising the profits. The results are always the same: higher cost for the consumers and poorer service.

Can you tell me why the Conservatives who claim to have superior economic competence virtually stopped digitalisation by relying on old copper lines of the Telecom in your country rather than pushing on their replacement by fibre optic cables?

The video mentioned the smart immigration policy, which is much to my liking, but failed to depict what it entails: higher housing prices and demands on building more houses which means that a city the size of Munich needs to be built every five years. I know you posted a number of examples of generating green energy but there's still the potential trap of relying on coal instead of really aggressively accelerating the growth of renewables. A bit of a shame that the trade agreement with the EU has been put on the back burner. The two regions would be a perfect match.
A bit of a shame that the trade agreement with the EU has been put on the back burner. The two regions would be a perfect match.
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Agree. Only on the back burner. This is the sticking point. EU refused to increase import quotas for Australian beef, sheep meat, dairy and sugar sufficiently to offer greater market access to Australian farmers.
looker-on said:
Can you tell me why the Conservatives who claim to have superior economic competence virtually stopped digitalisation by relying on old copper lines of the Telecom in your country rather than pushing on their replacement by fibre optic cables?
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Not totally. You are referring to the then PM Tony Abbot who is a well known conservative and his policy on fibre optic (NBN) was also conservative.

In three years of planning and construction, during which workers connected some 210 000 premises (out of an anticipated 13.2 million), Australiaā€™s visionary and trailblazing initiative is at a crossroads. The new government plans to deploy fiber only to the premises of new housing developments. For the remaining homes and businessesā€”about 71 percentā€”it will bring fiber only as far as curbside cabinets, called nodes. Existing copper-wire pairs will cover the so-called last mile to individual buildings.
NBN finally finished its national roll out in 2020 during the Scott Morrison tenure.
 
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Really? It was weirdly warm and dry for a couple of weeks but I guess it has cooled down now a bit, I donā€™t know if itā€™s the coldest ever though.
 
The weather in our Perth has changed like in the rest of Australia.
Climate is changing and the heat sink of the oceans is warming and ice is melting.
Regardless Perth is still a great place to live with its cold winter and now Spring nights, and our scorching summers.
Personally, I hate the cold despite coming here 54 years ago from cold Ulster. An Aussie Ā£10 Pom who's happy the Lions beat the Swans. What a game!
 
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The 10 cities most at risk:

Bangkok​

Amsterdam​

Ho Chi Minh City​

Cardiff​

New Orleans

Manila​

London​

Shenzhen (CH)​

Hamburg​

Dubai​

 
Something I find cool is that a collapsing glacier will actually effectively lower the sea level in the immediate area of the glacier.

ā€œIsostatic reboundā€ is when a large amount of weight is removed from a land mass, which allows that land to rise higher.

Yes all land has been slowly rising since the last ice age, collapsed glaciers just speed it up in certain places.

Also Iā€™ve briefly looked at New Orleans and they are SCREWED if the sea level rise too high. Basically their city is at a lower altitude than the coastline, not good.
 
An emerging technology which generates night-time solar energy could be powering our home appliances while we sleep in as soon as five years, according to a team of researchers from Australian university UNSW that have developed a new device that has demonstrated the ability to produce electricity from infrared heat sources. Moonlight isn't bright enough to generate power, but harvesting renewable energy through infrared light might be the key to powering your home through the night. It allows scientists to capture the heat difference in the atmosphere before it would have otherwise been lost into outer space.
The scientists say their next step is using the technology to power satellites in space, which will help fund further development for use in everyday appliances.
 
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Oh wow thatā€™s really cool. Basically removes the main downside of solar power, ie not doing anything at night.

I guess it would also make solar power more efficient if it can take in infra red during the day too.

If we start harvesting all the energy coming from the sun we might start to reverse global warming šŸ˜‚
 
Billionaire Andrew Forrest has called on other philanthropists and big business to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, today pledging a further $18 million through his Minderoo Foundation.

Your bloods worth bottling 'Twiggy'.
 
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