Lock up your waters!!

“Water-sensitive urban design: Design of subdivisions, buildings and landscape which enhances the opportunities for at-source conservation of water, rainfall detention and use, infiltration, and interception of pollutants in surface runoff from the block.”

The NSW Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources has provided us with a really comprehensive water glossary as a support to our conversations with regard to our ongoing water management crisis because of the drought. Everything is a crisis at the moment.Seems to be the way of the world. We no longer do dull and boring and regular rain. I keep reading about water detention where I would say water retention, so I came to this site to consult. Even they take the locking up of waters for granted. The concept of water illegally entering our country is rather ironic considering we have so little of it. So, the notion we’d have to put it in a detention centre to see if it has the right to stay here or not is rather amusing. Detained waters. It’s hilarious. It is, however, a concept we need to have as such. Detention tanks are there to hold water which has not been treated for consumption and hasn’t been treated to be perfectly safe, so it has to be detained until it passes muster. That is what water detention appear to be is as far as I can ascertain. Funny use of vocabulary, though, isn’t it?

A-Z of Water – Water Facts –

DVD pirating costing industry $1.7b

 

“Instead many of the DVDs that are being bought by members of the Australian public today are effectively being bought from crime syndicates who are also engaged in drug trading, child pornography and other heinous crimes,” he said.”

That is a LOT of money for Australia. We only have 22 million people. Divide it by 28 to 32 dollars and you can see the numbers being pirated. Arithmetic is not my thing. Numbers, though, are playing a big role in our society. There is a Facebook experiment looking at the snowball effect and it builds up incredibly quickly to epic numbers. We can rally millions of people very quickly with our current technology and it is having an impact on boundaries. People know piracy is illegal but they don’t stop copying because you can. You can copy so it must be all right. That is the thinking. We have the technology to block piracy, surely? Then there is the belief that it only costs around 2 dollars to make a copy of a CD/DVD and so the cost of 34 dollars top price seems to be exorbitant. There are just some things which cannot get into people’s heads these days. Some of it is the wonderful sense of entitlement people have and then there is the complete ease with which computers can do things. So we need to know more about these spurious connections. Some of it is people thinking they have bought a bona fide copy of something on the Net only to find out it is pirated. That happens too frequently with software and downloads. The scamming there is putting people in a retaliatory mode and so I guess some of what occurs is what people see as revenge on a system which keeps ripping them off. Then, of course, people just want to have things and there is the lazy approach of it being easier to copy than actually getting up, going out the door and buying it. I think the solution is in technology. Block it.

DVD pirating costing industry $1.7b: Debus – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Sarah Palin – full stop , end of story.

 

“Palin is coming off a whirlwind nine weeks of almost non-stop travel and campaigning since becoming John McCain’s running mate in late August.”

Yes, she was there for 9 weeks, she was in the limelight and spotlight and now needs to be back home. I’d hate to see her cop all the blame for a failed election on the part of the Republicans. She helped initially and then she became a liability. I heard someone say on the radio that had John McCain spoke as he did in the speech to concede the victory to Barack Obama , maybe things might have been different. Maybe. I think America does need this complete change. I think it’ll make them clean out their closets and get everything out in the open. They need to understand it is important they at least have a President now that the world can relate to. I heard that 87% of Americans had not been out of their country, so they maybe don’t get the world perspective on this. They need to. We don’t want to watch them implode and they will have to have a few open and heated discussions because there is a lot of air to clear and a lot of discussion to be had. They’ll love it in the end…they are like us. They are not good at keeping quiet and sober sided. Sarah Palin has had her time in the sun and entertaining prospects of her being a President have been put to rest I should have thought. I don’t actually doubt she gave it her best shot. She needs to get on with her job now and be left alone to do it…but she has left quite a few things behind her which will now be hard to forget.

Palin lays low as requests pile up : thewest.com.au

Now we have it, now we don’t

 

“We’ve got to go back and have a look at everything. We are going to have to cut our cloth to suit the circumstances.”

Oh yes,we shall have to, but we may not even have any cloth to cut. At first we needed reassurance about this global financial fiasco, then we needed hope. I do not blame governments for trying to put a good look on it. The capacity for people to panic and further destabilise our already fragile global economy is very real. The truth isn’t what people could handle and still can’t because this whole situation came about in an unorthodox manner and no one cared because they were rich, they had money and who cared? The heady heights of dollars mounting up in piles in their personal portfolios was far more important. We still have to go through the process of understanding how this has all occurred and why it will bring some heartbreaking change and that we shall ALL have to work together to remedy it. No government is in an easy position because the markets were pumped up and pumped up…and yes…bang…and the bits are everywhere and we shall need some really good teams of experts to put it right. This whole this is massive financial mismanagement for short term gain…like the short selling of shares. So to put it right we have to build it back up on a solid framework and there will be things people won’t like because they loved all that money.We cannot just think in terms of the entitled and the unentitled because that hasn’t worked. We need a clear picture of how this happened. A clear picture of the impact it is having and a clear picture of the things we can do to improve the situation. Panic won’t help. Moaning won’t help. We need a decent global economy which is constructed by people who actually know how to construct a solid economy.

Budget: Swan reveals $40 billion hole

OMG, America, Yes, you did!!

It became self evident across the day just how much people were wanting Barack Obama to win and just how much people cared about what was happening to and in America. We knew today was important. Americans have to understand that the whole world has been concerned about America. So on the way to work I heard about the EU sending its 6 page letter to the new president of America…but all day at work we were on the Net and we were listening to broadcasts because we were interested and wanted to know. In the car I heard John McCain give his speech and what a wonderful speech that was. He is  a very sensible Republican who holds good values and he was prepared to concede defeat in such a gracious and dignified way because he knew his country needed to change and needed a big change. His speech said a lot about him and it’s unfortunate he was held up and back by Sarah Palin. But I also heard Barack Obama’s inaugural speech as the president elect. He was so true to what his country needs right now and what we need. We need politicians we can talk to and relate to and we need politicians who know what our lives are like. Someone whose Grandmother died just before she got to see her grandson achieve the impossible. We have all had moments like that and we talked a lot about how sad it was for him to lose his grandmother now and just before he had won. We can’t wait to see the poodle in the White House and we are just going off we are so pleased that Americans had the guts to get out there and put it right for their country. It is fantastic. You won’t believe how glued to the information we have been today and how much we have cared. People gathered together to watch the speeches. This is unheard of. My friend was telling me one of they guys he was with, as they sat over a drink watching on the big plasma, was crying when Barack Obama gave his speech. Many of us are so relieved and have been so involved in this long campaign trail. There is a reason for this. Some people did not dare listen to the news because they just didn’t want to know Barack Obama had not won. Do you think there is a reason we have been so engrossed today and we have genuinely cared about how much the American people have achieved in the last 24 hours? We know some of them have had to stand in long queues to cast a vote and we know some of them have heart ached about making the right decision today. So we sat and listened to both speeches and John McCain is a wonderful statesmen who cares deeply for his country but Barack Obama is the man who is needed at this point in time because we can all relate to him.

Obama’s online advantage

 

“An analysis found Obama has soared ahead of McCain by a wide margin in his successful penetration of Facebook, with a staggering 2.3 million supporters compared to McCain’s 620,000 fans.”

Online profiles and web 2.0 clients are becoming increasingly important in any event and there is good reason for it. People like to participate in things and the way of being interested and showing support is to get involved in the web 2.0 stuff. it means political candidates can get unprecedented coverage and support. They  can reinforce themselves personally because a lot of the web 2.0 stuff is very positive in how it operates but its power is not to be underestimated. A lot of people here are more likely to be online than watching TV or reading a newspaper. We listen to the radio and we go online because we want information and as we gather and share information we are all keeping in contact. There is plenty  of ideas exchange online and much of it is positive. Politically we are on the ball for this reason. We can get information around quickly and we can share views quickly…but it also means people can contact us quickly and get information out to us. We like to be a part of it and be included. It makes politics so much more interesting and no doubt helps politicians plan campaigns. I guess it would be interesting to know just how much it does impact on voting and I don’t know how you could verify that. Online opinions are not he same as being in the polling booth making that vital decision.

 

Obama’s online advantage – Technology – BrisbaneTimes – brisbanetimes.com.au

End Game

(photo by Melinda Kolk)

So here we all are, ready for the Melbourne Cup tomorrow and then Wednesday will be the US elections and the whole world will be watching. There is a lot riding on this and we have been following this right from the start. We are so much more clued up than we used to be and we are taking a lively and considerable interest in overseas politics. About time. But we’ve had fun. It was great following the French election and then pretty sad France couldn’t put a woman in their top position. So then we thought, maybe America would and they went along with Hillary for some of the way and she was suddenly just out. Sarah Palin came in for a bit but has been losing ground faster than she gained it. So it’s pretty disappointing to see than women just cannot get to the finish line and then stay in power and be regarded as worthy of top positions. Women will fix that in time. Meanwhile our eyes are on John McCain and Barack Obama. Who is going to get into the White House? It is going to make quite an impact internationally whoever gets in there. That’s why we are watching.  The Australian has a Live Poll ready to go and I am really pleased about that because Australia has often made it hard to get overseas information. This is a great step forward to have us looking out onto the world. I just wish that America would respect its voters more and allow them to vote more comfortably. They really have to do the hard yards to put in their votes in those great long queues. It’s too long for people to be standing around. So, I wish them well and I look forward to seeing how it goes.

Melting Icecaps

 

“This made their climate models more accurate, and showed that observed changes in temperatures over the 20th century could only have occurred if the impact of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and upper atmosphere ozone depletion, are taken into account.”

These British scientists form the University of East Anglia appear to be getting us useful data because the picture is becoming muddied and the scientists are the ones who will be able to gather data and interpret it so that we can make better decision. We have to make them and we have to make them now. We have to change. There is a bit of a debate going on as to whether we are having global warming or cooling but the bottom line is the ice caps are melting in a very unusual way and that will increase the sea levels. That puts countries and islands in particular under threat. It also means that the salinity of the ocean will be affected. I should have thought global warming would have increased evaporation and then the cooler temperatures we have experienced would have made that evaporation condense and give us rain or snow. There have been unprecedented rainfalls and snowfalls in various areas but we have just become dryer and dryer and we live near the Antarctic. Your average person has to go by what they consider as normal and of course weather patterns change but here it is a case of us not being able to do the things we have normally been able to do for centuries and plants and animals which have survived for centuries are now dead or threatened. We follow good advice but there needs to be a commitment from the whole planet and that cannot occur until people see a picture they cannot dispute. This kind of research will be  helpful in adding clarity to our picture.

Humans to blame for melting Antarctica | The Australian

Splitting hairs

 

“One major challenge was developing a computer program that could spot the difference between a hair and other lineal body features, such as wrinkles.”

 

Pascal Vallotton Has discovered how to count the number of human hairs on the body and has been the subject of much mirth amongst his co workers. It does sound like the sort of thing you’d do if you were bored witless or if you were trying to go to sleep…or put someone else to sleep. His research though will be ground breaking and will find some serious application. It will help with patients who are being treated with chemotherapy. It can be used to count hairline cracks in roads and presumably buildings. It can help with baldness. Once you stop laughing and being utterly amused, you can actually see this will be a very helpful discovery. The fact we can now get a computer to tell the difference between hairs and wrinkles is amazing in itself. I am certain we’ll appreciate this research and that Pascal Vallotton will take an honoured place in scientific discovery. Never ceases to amaze me what we humans get ourselves interested and involved in and it never ceases to amaze me the way these strange things benefit us so much.

Body count with a difference – National – smh.com.au