As is often the case in the week after a political upheaval, we’re starved for polling this week because everybody took to the field last week to get results out on the eve of the Liberal spill motion. That just leaves the regular weekly Essential Research result, which has made next to no difference to BludgerTrack. This week’s reading is the tiniest bit more favourable to the Coalition on two-party preferred than last week’s, but Labor makes a gain on the seat projection anyway, the vagaries of the state breakdowns having pushed it over the line for a ninth seat in Western Australia. Nothing new this week on leadership ratings.
LU
I have been called many things in my life but never a racist.
and I never resort calling people names on forums like this.
But I’ll make an exception for you. idiot.
[But I’ll make an exception for you. idiot.]
10.4.
[As Opticomm is a monopoly they can dictate which ISPs (these companies will provide the data through the fibre) you can select from (probably eliminating the likes of Telstra and Optus by slugging them for the use of the infrastructure too, whose cost is passed onto the end consumer).]
Couldn’t the strata company address this in some way? It has been a long time since I did Real Property stuff but how long can the developer bind the strata company to an exclusive arrangement?
Raaraa
And don’t it always seem to go,
that you don;t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Pave paradise, put up a parking lot
On a happier note – could this be some dark matter nearby?
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/dark-matter-galaxy-may-be-holding-four-stars-together-beyond-the-edge-of-the-milky-way/story-fnjwlcze-1227225128038
About the time they “found” the Higgs Boson in 2012 I went to a few special public physics lectures at Melbourne University and this whole “dark matter” and “dark energy” thing has got me intrigued. I hope to see it all resolved in my lifetime.
ross, I wasn’t calling you racist. I’ve never seen you write anything to suggest that at all.
I was, perhaps a little rashly, objecting to what I read as the label being put on me.
Rocket
Well, I told her Melbourne was relatively successful in converting 2 train lines into tram lines, and this allowed more pedestrian crossings.
Which was the main reason she hated the line, it cut the city in half and part of it of course was her meddling in real estate in Newcastle.
WWP
[Couldn’t the strata company address this in some way? ]
Fibre to the basement is just a suppliers myth.
Dark matter still confuses me. It sounds so unexplainable.
I can just imagine Tony Abbott saying “And what has Science ever done for us: other than electricity, cars, planes, ships, buildings, medications, medical imaging, pathology tests, computers, communications, multimedia, farming produce, weather forecasting – other than that, absolutely nothing!”
hey ross, I’ve just gone back and reread what I posted earlier: I see why you interpreted my comment as you did. My apologies.
Dark Matter
Waaaayyyyy back in the 90’s John Doyle (aka Rampaging Roy Slaven) had an afternoon radio slot on ABC 702 in Sydney. He had a physicist as a regular guest and John used to give him regular curry over Dark Matter. ‘Have you found it yet?’, ‘do you actually know what it is?’ etc. It was an enjoyable segment of an enjoyable show…..starting theme music was Pachelbel’s Canon.
Raaraa
[Dark matter still confuses me. It sounds so unexplainable.]
First I learnt classical physics which made sense. Then the theory of relativity which was a bit tricky but okay. Then quantum mechanics which was quite elegant and mind-bending but still doable.
Then they came up with dark matter and dark energy and string theory and I gave up.
RR, not sure, but that is what the NBN guy told me. He told me they had nothing to do with Opticomm so take up my issues with them. I asked him if it NBN Co would run fibre down the street and provide competition and he said no. You are stuck with Opticomm.
This is the same mistake Howard made when running out cable. He gave I think $4b to Optus and Telstra to run cable everywhere. So in the spirit of competition, they raced to see who would get down various streets first. In our street, Telstra pipped Optus who then abandoned their cable which is strung up in the electricity poles (remember they got a dispensation to do this while Telstra had to use their pits and tunnels).
As a consequence money was wasted, some streets got two working cables, some got one or the other and a lot of places got nothing.
I have been stuck with using Telstra ever since. Once again no choice, I couldn’t even go backwards to ADSL as the competitors would not install their equipment in the phone exchanges because their argument was – who would ever want it if cable is available (does underestimating the effect of overcharging and poor service can drive people to opt for slower speed).
I think this is why I am so upset. The ALP was suggesting a government owned fibre infrastructure with all ISPs competing to provide the service. Something I was looking forward to. The liberals have repeated their mistakes of the past, created a hodgepodge of crazy infrastructure that with lump it or leave it option for the consumer.
They are so smug thinking they know what they are doing, but they are technicalogical morons.
Diogenes@162
Don’t try to understand what it means. Shut up and calculate!
[I think this is why I am so upset. The ALP was suggesting a government owned fibre infrastructure with all ISPs competing to provide the service. Something I was looking forward to. The liberals have repeated their mistakes of the past, created a hodgepodge of crazy infrastructure that with lump it or leave it option for the consumer.]
I agree the libs are giving terrible outcomes but I don’t think they are mistakes.
156
Converting the Port Melbourne and St Kilda lines to light rail was a mistake. It is slower and lower capacity than the railway was and the casino is not in the way of putting it back. St Kilda and most of the Port Melbourne line are now areas of growing population with increasing residential density. The two main problems are that the St Kilda line was never extended and that the railway tram line that ran from St Kilda to Brighton Beach was closed in the 1950s.
Published yesterday.
[An upgraded, more powerful Large Hadron Collider, slated to begin returning to service next month, should open the door to new realms of physics, including possibly a glimpse of so-called “dark matter” particles, which, along with an equally mysterious dark energy force, dominate the universe.]
http://news.discovery.com/space/upgraded-lhc-to-hunt-down-elusive-dark-matter-particles-150218.htm
Who, it is hard to guess the Lib’s motivation for doing what they are doing.
Being lazy maybe – hand it over to the rent seakers to do and give them the option to make a motsa.
Perhaps they are currying favour with a media owner who describes the Internet as disruptive technology and therefore trying their best to hobble access to it.
Perhaps, they don’t want to be the ALP and do something stupid because what the ALP suggested was good policy.
Who knows with these cretins. Their smug stupidly is hard to work out.
It is just like their brains were filled with dark matter, held together with string theory – just unknowable.
Rail?
LNL P Adams did a good bit on rail and roads recently,
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/12th-february-2015/6089156
and an interesting one last year,
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/moving-freight—road-vs-rail/5939178
Despite all the efforts to take politics and grubby interference from private interest groups out of it, the history of infrastructure building (including the NBN) is a conga line of cluster fluffs.
Who = WWP – bloody autocorrect
Re. John Doyle’s ABC drive program… I also remember that he gave the manager of the Sydney Opera House weekly curry about:
(a) Lack of ladies’ toilets,
(b) Edo de Waart’s nocturnal activities (conductor of the SSO and pants man of renown)
LU
OK
I lived in Newcastle for nearly a decade and I’d like to see the heavy rail line removed from Hamilton Station all the way to the city terminal. I don’t trust the current local or state governments to act with integrity in the process, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting the line removed and the resulting space developed.
My Greens friends in Newcastle think I’m Satan.
Dark matter seems to be a sort of cosmic ballast
BB
hee hee – I dont remember either of those but I am not surprised. That man has a strong intellect and sharp wit and a nose for nonsense.
For some reason I ddnt like his two men in a tinny thing, but once saw him host a writers festival event and it was compelling.
I’ve always thought of Dark Matter as free flowing energy in a sort of e=mc^2/i> way.
Of course I am not a nuclear physicist.
Oh God… the Italics monster
[Then they came up with dark matter and dark energy and string theory and I gave up.]
Dark matter and dark energy are easy. Basically “we don’t know”.
Dark energy: The universe is expanding faster than our models predict. Some energy is causing this, but we can’t find it.
Dark matter: We look out at distant galaxies and they have gravitational effects much bigger than the mass we can detect. Where’s the extra mass? We can’t find it.
Italics Monster defeated! Now for Abbott!
Jake,
only good things to come out of Newcastle were a surfer, a soccer player and….. thats it. Oh, maybe a s*t load of steel.
30 minutes North, South or West of there and its gods country….although the CCoast aint what it used to be.
Maybe a compromise for the Newcastle rail line would be to drop it into a cut-and-cover tunnel on the same alignment, with development over the top?
simon katich: and a band.
Astrophysicists call something ‘dark’ when they know something’s got to be there but they don’t know what it is.
caf
NOOOO!!!!! re the band.
Cut and cover a problem in that area of Newcastle.
The other good thing about Newcastle is that there is a regular express train out of there.
OK. Enough bagging my old town.
[Tom the first and best
Posted Thursday, February 19, 2015 at 2:05 pm | PERMALINK
156
Converting the Port Melbourne and St Kilda lines to light rail was a mistake. It is slower and lower capacity than the railway was and the casino is not in the way of putting it back. St Kilda and most of the Port Melbourne line are now areas of growing population with increasing residential density. The two main problems are that the St Kilda line was never extended and that the railway tram line that ran from St Kilda to Brighton Beach was closed in the 1950s.]
Tom
I didn’t like it at the time but I have no doubt that if the Cain government had not converted those lines to light rail Kennett would have wiped them out altogether and replaced them with buses.
Newcastle is the focus of a region with a population of half a million and growing, connected by rail to many of its suburbs, to its region and to the rest of the country via rail. The riverside precincts near the city centre are very pleasant and very accessible. We should be building rail lines there, not tearing them up, certainly not for ‘development’.
Pokers? Screaming Jets?
Pokers = Porkers nee The Pork Hunts
Steve,
I’m from near Newcastle. I agree we should be building more rail. Light rail.
Bushfire Bill@177
We need an EDIT function!
BB,
John Doyle used to teach with my fathet so we used to visit when he lived in Newcastle. He was known in the staffroom as a top gun bullsitter who could invent outlandish statistics at a moments notice. Was a real nice guy.
Narns, Screaming Jets….
I found myself in Brunswick Heads one evening and made my way to the local pub…. Screaming Jets were playing outside till a huge storm shut it down…only for him to restart it acoustic style on top of the pool tables inside. Rockin’!
John Doyle had the (mis)fortune of growing up in the only town in NSW more stinkier than Newcastle before he moved to Newcastle.
😛
Simon,
I finf it funny that the tourist brochures feature Port Stephens and the wineries. The former was ruined by overdevelopment right next to a small beach. The other is a long drive especially if you’re going to more than one place.
Newcastle has some great beaches. Nobbys beach is one of the most consistent and relatively safe beaches on the NSW coast.
Peninsular Newcastle is starting to modernise and with a bit more demolition it will be a real gem.
I was thinking of silverchair, but sure.
Silverchair and may others..
http://www.newcastlenow.org.au/places-stories/newcastle-celebrities
*many
My favourite Newcastle band was a three-piece called The Slots. They were the best live act I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing.
And I have to disagree, Simon Katich, although I think you were being tongue in cheek. Newcastle is a wonderful old city with much to love.