• Re: 3.5 weeks to being la

    From boraxman@21:1/101 to TALIADON on Fri Jul 15 10:44:58 2022
    TALIADON wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    It's all about money, for them and you. You're there for as long you contribute to the company making a profit. Your commitment to them
    expires every payday.

    I've never quite seen this so succinctly put; there's absolutely no fat
    on this statement at all - just the lean truth.

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    There can be situations where a manager or other superior will back you and support you, despite what the "company" wants. You shouldn't be loyal to a company, that is stupid, but to people, yes, that can pay off. I've been lucky to have some managers pull through for me and reciprocate the support that I gave them.


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  • From Warpslide@21:3/110.2 to boraxman on Thu Jul 14 20:55:14 2022
    *** Quoting boraxman from a message to TALIADON ***

    There can be situations where a manager or other superior will back
    you and support you, despite what the "company" wants. You shouldn't
    be loyal to a company,that is stupid, but to people, yes, that can
    pay off. I've been lucky to have some managers pull through for me
    and reciprocate the support that I gave them.

    Exactly this.

    My current gig I got because a former manager reached out to me "to see where I was at" a year after we were both laid off when the company worked for was sold.

    He's a good guy and I enjoyed working for/with him despite what happened with the company being sold.

    You never know when someone may reach out "to see where you're at". If opportunity knocks, it doesn't hurt to hear what it has to say.

    As you said, be loyal to people, that can pay off. It certainly did in my case.


    Jay

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Warpslide on Fri Jul 15 22:29:21 2022
    Exactly this.

    My current gig I got because a former manager reached out to me "to see where I was at" a year after we were both laid off when the company worked for was sold.

    He's a good guy and I enjoyed working for/with him despite what happened with the company being sold.

    You never know when someone may reach out "to see where you're at". If opportunity knocks, it doesn't hurt to hear what it has to say.

    As you said, be loyal to people, that can pay off. It certainly did in
    my case.


    Jay

    I quit a job to take another job which was a contract position. I was hoping that the contract would turn permanent, but it didn't, and after it ended I was out of work for several weeks.

    My previous manager from the job I quit called me, to fill in for a few weeks for someone who was sick. That was at least the pretext. That short term contract got longer and longer and became permanent, which I knew was what she wanted to do

    The upper management wasn't too keen on it, but her superior said she should do what she thought was best, and I was back on board. I stayed for a few years until I was headhunted to go elsewhere. By that time the people responsible for bringing me back had moved on.

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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 15 05:01:00 2022
    On Wed Jul 13 07:41:00 2022, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Margaerynne <=-

    Margaerynne wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    It's insane that you have to do that dance in the first place.

    Karma is a bitch. Everyone I've run into that ran people under the bus "for the company" ended up getting run over by the bus in the end.

    Remember the worst karma I ever saw happen to a former boss who loved to screw over anyone he could. He was going to lose his job...got his girlfriend pregnant & couldn't find anything than fast food & such. On the other hand...working in commercial radio...I found an on-air job in a bigger market.

    Never heard what happened to the idiot...but many of these types do themselves in and can't understand why this happened to them.

    You may ask about what my feelings were about this & others. Cracks me up to see how karma blows them away and gives them what they deserve.

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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to Margaerynne on Fri Jul 15 04:48:00 2022
    On Wed Jul 13 12:53:00 2022, Margaerynne wrote to Nightfox <=-

    By the time I hit the job market, it was already understood that you were expected to beg for a job, and your position
    was always unstable. Those who did stay would be rewarded with below-inflation
    raises, while those who left would see a sizeable pay bump. It sounds cynical,
    but it hasn't exactly been disproven in my experience.

    I could go on and on (we all could!), but it boils down to companies expecting
    loyalty while not internally promoting.
    None of the companies I've worked for have hired internally at rates worth sticking around for, while also shelling
    out for outside help. Or, god forbid, contractors.

    The one thing I've learned I wish I never would have had to learn is: Good jobs never last...but bad jobs never end. Have said before...which one is different...feel like being in a prison & being abused or not having a job lined up when you're let go?

    On the other hand...my current job means having one of the best/or best manager I've ever had...a schedule I love & upper management doesn't bother me...short of asking how I'm doing. Working on my 5th year there. The last half beats the crap of the first half.



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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to Nightfox on Fri Jul 15 04:40:00 2022
    On Wed Jul 13 09:26:00 2022, Nightfox wrote to Margaerynne <=-

    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being laid off again....
    By: Margaerynne to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Jul 13 2022 08:13 am
    So, in that case, why it held against us for going to a place that allows
    us to better provide for our family? Why is leaving a job for a raise and
    a better environment considered 'disloyal'?
    I guess technically speaking, it could be seen as disloyal to tha company for
    an employee to leave. But it seems to me there is no loyalty either way anymore.

    At 60 years old & held a good number of jobs over the years since I graduated from college in December 1986...I remember when this was the norm. Also worked with former AT&T employees in the late 80's who had been told they were going to be called back at any time to the jobs they enjoyed. Never happened.

    Companies can lay off employees on a whim, and employees can leave at
    any time. The law also allows this in many places (at-will employement).

    Been many times that in good times...this is great...but when the economy goes south...not so much. For instance...had a manager who slammed me into a wall & threatened me. Too bad I couldn't find a new job at the time. Add to that...if I had called the police to report the assault...they would've screwed me over when possible employers called to check on my job performance there. Life isn't fair & if a scumbag idiot you worked for wanted to screw you...they will and will be happy to do so.

    Could go further on this...but it's almost my bedtime. Have seen way too many things over the past 40 years. Just wish I could move to another country with better work rights. If I would've did this when I was young enough to do so...my life would've been VERY different.

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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to ACMEBBS on Fri Jul 15 08:12:00 2022
    ACMEBBS wrote to Margaerynne <=-

    By the time I hit the job market, it was already understood that you were expected to beg for a job, and your position
    was always unstable. Those who did stay would be rewarded with
    below-inflati
    raises, while those who left would see a sizeable pay bump. It sounds
    cynica
    but it hasn't exactly been disproven in my experience.

    I could go on and on (we all could!), but it boils down to companies
    expecti
    loyalty while not internally promoting.
    None of the companies I've worked for have hired internally at rates worth sticking around for, while also shelling
    out for outside help. Or, god forbid, contractors.

    The one thing I've learned I wish I never would have had to learn
    is: Good jobs never last...but bad jobs never end. Have said before...which one is different...feel like being in a prison &
    being abused or not having a job lined up when you're let go?

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting
    teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it. The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here
    until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed
    off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company
    vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)



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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to ACMEBBS on Fri Jul 15 08:55:34 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: ACMEBBS to Nightfox on Fri Jul 15 2022 04:40 am

    any time. The law also allows this in many places (at-will
    employement).

    Been many times that in good times...this is great...but when the economy goes south...not so much. For instance...had a manager who slammed me into a wall & threatened me. Too bad I couldn't find a new job at the time. Add to that...if I had called the police to report the assault...they would've screwed me over when possible employers called to check on my job performance there. Life isn't fair & if a scumbag idiot you worked for wanted to screw you...they will and will be happy to do so.

    Wow.. That's pretty bad.

    Could go further on this...but it's almost my bedtime. Have seen way too many things over the past 40 years. Just wish I could move to another country with better work rights. If I would've did this when I was young enough to do so...my life would've been VERY different.

    Yeah, I've heard some countries in Europe have pretty good worker's rights, and it sounds like they generally have better work-life balance than people in the US do. More vacation time, more parental leave, and recently I've heard some European countries have enacted laws where companies cannot call or email their employees after working hours.

    Nightfox
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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Gamgee on Sat Jul 16 07:22:00 2022
    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting

    I think you just got lucky.. while not being in the same ballpark as
    Poindexter I couldn't count the number of jobs I've held down... First one
    was a dead ender but I was young straight out of school.. then started an apprenticeship.. that lasted 3 of the 4 years and we had the banana republic here some 15% interest rates and the whole building industry disappeared
    pretty much... for the next 4 or so it was scrabble for anything you could
    get unemployment was over 20%

    Spec


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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Gamgee on Fri Jul 15 15:28:12 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Gamgee to ACMEBBS on Fri Jul 15 2022 08:12 am

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it.

    It sounds like you've been fairly lucky. Though from what I've heard, military and government jobs sound like they're fairly safe and you can potentially stay for a long time without worrying about being let go.

    The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)

    It seems a little unusual to hear about an engineering job lasting 16+ years, but it probably depends on the company. In the tech field, I hear about companies doing re-orgs and having layoffs all the time. Since I started working as a software developer (in 2003), I've been laid off 4 times due to either the company going out of business, re-orgs & layoffs, etc..

    Nightfox
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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to ACMEBBS on Sat Jul 16 12:06:14 2022
    Could go further on this...but it's almost my bedtime. Have seen way too many things over the past 40 years. Just wish I could move to another country with better work rights. If I would've did this when I was young enough to do so...my life would've been VERY different.


    I've considered moving to the US, but it is this type of thing that I hear that makes me realise that it is actually a pretty inhumane country. The workplace rights you have there are utterly dismal.

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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Nightfox on Fri Jul 15 22:02:00 2022
    Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-

    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Gamgee to ACMEBBS on Fri Jul 15 2022 08:12 am

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting
    teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it.

    It sounds like you've been fairly lucky. Though from what I've
    heard, military and government jobs sound like they're fairly
    safe and you can potentially stay for a long time without
    worrying about being let go.

    That's certainly true.

    The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)

    It seems a little unusual to hear about an engineering job
    lasting 16+ years, but it probably depends on the company. In

    Probably right. This particular job requires very frequent
    re-evaluation of many very precise measurements and tolerances, and
    upgrades, and parts replacement. Highly specialized and requires lots
    of training and experience to be fully qualified. Also dealings with customers/clients, overtime and after-hours work, and some on-call time.
    I have no illusions about being "irreplaceable", but it is common in
    this field for people like me to remain for 20+ years. There is zero
    chance of layoffs, or the company folding. Well, at least until
    somebody finds a cure for cancer. That will change things. :-)

    the tech field, I hear about companies doing re-orgs and having
    layoffs all the time. Since I started working as a software
    developer (in 2003), I've been laid off 4 times due to either the
    company going out of business, re-orgs & layoffs, etc..

    Yes, I understand that software/IT related tech is a completely
    different ballgame. Too volatile for me.



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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Spectre on Fri Jul 15 22:05:00 2022
    Spectre wrote to Gamgee <=-

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting

    I think you just got lucky.. while not being in the same ballpark
    as Poindexter I couldn't count the number of jobs I've held
    down... First one was a dead ender but I was young straight out
    of school.. then started an apprenticeship.. that lasted 3 of the
    4 years and we had the banana republic here some 15% interest
    rates and the whole building industry disappeared pretty much...
    for the next 4 or so it was scrabble for anything you could get unemployment was over 20%

    Yeah, that sounds tough all right. Perhaps luck had something to do
    with my case, but I also like to think that preparation and being very
    careful with occupation/field choices makes a difference too. ;-)



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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Gamgee on Sat Jul 16 17:57:00 2022
    Yeah, that sounds tough all right. Perhaps luck had something to do
    with my case, but I also like to think that preparation and being very careful with occupation/field choices makes a difference too. ;-)

    For sure, but whats right for you, isn't right for everyone.. some of us do
    it the hard way. Way back then, I wasn't always good at seeing the long
    game.

    Spec


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Fri Jul 15 12:52:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to TALIADON <=-

    There can be situations where a manager or other superior will back you and support you, despite what the "company" wants. You shouldn't be
    loyal to a company, that is stupid, but to people, yes, that can pay
    off. I've been lucky to have some managers pull through for me and reciprocate the support that I gave them.

    People go to work for managers and leave companies.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Fri Jul 15 12:53:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Warpslide <=-

    My previous manager from the job I quit called me, to fill in for a few weeks for someone who was sick. That was at least the pretext. That short term contract got longer and longer and became permanent, which I knew was what she wanted to do

    I hired a man who was a wonderful fit for my department and the company. He was a seasonal hire, that no one minded that his 'season' lasted close to 3 years!


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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to boraxman on Sat Jul 16 09:30:37 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: boraxman to ACMEBBS on Sat Jul 16 2022 12:06 pm

    I've considered moving to the US, but it is this type of thing that I hear that makes me realise that it is actually a pretty inhumane country. The workplace rights you have there are utterly dismal.

    I live (and grew up) in the US, and from what I've heard, people in the US often work long hours (depends on the job though) and also generally don't get as much vacation or parental leave time as other countries. That can depend on the company too (I worked for Intel for a while, and I thought they had pretty good benefits - particularly, they offered 3 weeks of vacation per year to start, along with a sabbatical, where you can take 8 weeks after 7 years or 4 weeks after 4 years, and also combine that with vacation time).

    Nightfox
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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Nightfox on Sat Jul 16 12:42:45 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Nightfox to ACMEBBS on Fri Jul 15 2022 08:55 am

    Yeah, I've heard some countries in Europe have pretty good worker's rights, and it
    have enacted laws where companies cannot call or email their employees after worki

    Well, I guess Spain would be one of those countries with great worker rights, and as a
    result, nobody has a job \o/ \o/

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Spectre on Sat Jul 16 09:31:00 2022
    Spectre wrote to Gamgee <=-

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting

    I think you just got lucky.. while not being in the same ballpark as Poindexter I couldn't count the number of jobs I've held down

    I don't think it's me you're thinking of. I've had 11 jobs in 31 years, mind boggling as I type that that I've been working that long - that doesn't
    count 2 years in college working almost full-time in a career-path job.

    I am lucky, I studied Computer Science in college, and while halfway through got that aforementioned job in the bookstore on campus. They were in the middle of converting a paper-based system to a computerized system running
    on a Pick midrange computer. I got to write batch files, apps in their
    version of BASIC, and database queries using a language very similar to SQL.

    I was inspired by introducing systems and processes that changed the way
    whole departments and companies do business, and it's something I do to this day. I was a bit of a "behind the scenes" guy, and running computer systems fit that to a T.

    At my next job, I learned how to manage Nortel PBXes, and that job skill
    kept me going for the next 15 years. it seemed like everyone had a phone system and no one to manage it - and were usually paying exorbitantly to
    have an outside company manage it.

    At my current job, I'm managing a handful of Asterisk PBXes in remote branches. Once you're in telecom, you never get out...




    ... First
    one was a dead ender but I was young straight out of school.. then
    started an apprenticeship.. that lasted 3 of the 4 years and we had the banana republic here some 15% interest rates and the whole building industry disappeared pretty much... for the next 4 or so it was
    scrabble for anything you could get unemployment was over 20%

    Spec


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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Arelor on Sat Jul 16 11:50:17 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Arelor to Nightfox on Sat Jul 16 2022 12:42 pm

    Well, I guess Spain would be one of those countries with great worker rights, and as a result, nobody has a job \o/ \o/

    It probably depends on the country.. Can you explain?

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Nightfox on Sat Jul 16 14:52:04 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Nightfox to Arelor on Sat Jul 16 2022 11:50 am

    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Arelor to Nightfox on Sat Jul 16 2022 12:42 pm

    Well, I guess Spain would be one of those countries with great worker rights, and as a result, nobody has a job \o/ \o/

    It probably depends on the country.. Can you explain?

    Nightfox

    Long story short: in Spain, the biggest source of employment are small to VERY small
    companies. Think of familiar business.

    The problem is that with the current regulations, and employee gets more rights than
    the employer actually has himself. If you have a small bar in a corner that you run
    with your wife, it kind of sucks to hire somebody who is gonna get more revenue than
    what your actual equivalent salary would be.

    Biggest issue right now is that throwing out a worker who is not doing a good job is
    getting so hard and expensive that it is often more economically efficient to keep him
    in. Basically, if a guy is greatly underperforming, you will either have to pay him a
    ton of money to leave of go to court and demonstrate he is a burden. This results in
    managers deciding not to fire dead weight - in fact I have seen small clinics reuse to
    sack employess involved in incidents with falsified documentation and dead people. How
    fucked up is that?

    ALso they made temporary contracting so messed up that you cannot really hire somebody
    for a seasonal activity (ie. serving beer in peak season) and then send him his merry
    way. As a result, the companies that can use subcontractors - you subcontract a firm
    to give you a waiter for three motnhs, but that waiter works for the subcontractor, so
    you are not placing anybody under a legal payroll.

    Most big companies don't give a damn and can absorb these issues. If they have to pay
    extra social security per employee, they will charge their end customers or outsource
    manpower from a foreign agency. If someboyd they hired does not work well they will
    hire more people and put the useless employees somewhere they can do no harm. It is
    the small business that can't afford to face these problems, and since they are the
    biggest generators of employment, in Spain, employment suffers.

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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Spectre on Sat Jul 16 15:33:00 2022
    Spectre wrote to Gamgee <=-

    Yeah, that sounds tough all right. Perhaps luck had something to do
    with my case, but I also like to think that preparation and being very careful with occupation/field choices makes a difference too. ;-)

    For sure, but whats right for you, isn't right for everyone..

    Oh, I completely agree! The path I took is not for everyone, no doubt.

    some of us do it the hard way. Way back then, I wasn't always
    good at seeing the long game.

    Very good point, and it gave me another perspective on all this. I
    don't think I was very good at seeing the long game either, which can be confirmed by several other decisions I made as a young adult. So, as
    you said, perhaps luck played a bigger part in my employment decisions
    than I have previously believed. :-)



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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Arelor on Sat Jul 16 16:21:54 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Arelor to Nightfox on Sat Jul 16 2022 02:52 pm

    Long story short: in Spain, the biggest source of employment are small to VERY small companies. Think of familiar business.

    The problem is that with the current regulations, and employee gets more rights than the employer actually has himself. If you have a small bar in a corner that you run with your wife, it kind of sucks to hire somebody who is gonna get more revenue than what your actual equivalent salary would be.

    Makes sense.. It is important to let businesses thrive, but I feel like employees need to have rights too. It's important to find the right balance.

    Biggest issue right now is that throwing out a worker who is not doing a good job is getting so hard and expensive that it is often more economically efficient to keep him in. Basically, if a guy is greatly underperforming, you will either have to pay him a ton of money to leave of go to court and demonstrate he is a burden. This results in managers deciding not to fire dead weight - in fact I have seen small clinics reuse to sack employess involved in incidents with falsified documentation and dead people. How fucked up is that?

    So basically it's more convenient for them to protect employees who have done something wrong than to let them go..?

    ALso they made temporary contracting so messed up that you cannot really hire somebody for a seasonal activity (ie. serving beer in peak season) and then send him his merry way. As a result, the companies that can use subcontractors - you subcontract a firm to give you a waiter for three motnhs, but that waiter works for the subcontractor, so you are not placing anybody under a legal payroll.

    I actually wish they'd do something like that in the US. At least in the tech industry in the US, it has become common for companies to bring in contract workers who actually work for a subcontracting firm, for a limited-time work contract. Many tech companies here, such as Intel, Microsoft, Google, etc. have many of these contract workers. It seems increasingly rare (and difficult) to actually become a direct hire of these companies because there are so many of these contract jobs. And these contract jobs may last anywhere from 3 months to 12 months or more, and you don't know if your contract will be renewed - so you may end up with short temporary employment and you might be looking for another job soon. I've heard the reason companies do this is that they don't want to provide all the benefits they would normally provide to direct employees.

    Nightfox
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  • From TALIADON@21:3/138 to boraxman on Sun Jul 17 12:23:45 2022
    There can be situations where a manager or other superior will back you and support you, despite what the "company" wants. You shouldn't be
    loyal to a company, that is stupid, but to people, yes, that can pay
    off. I've been lucky to have some managers pull through for me and reciprocate the support that I gave them.

    Absolutely. There are definite advantages to maintaining good relationships with your current/previous colleagues, whether they be managers or not. It's also important to remember that a person will primarily defend their own position before that of anyone else, and we should not take it personally when the inevitable conflict of interest occurs.

    Friendship and acquaintance are often indistinguishable, save shared and sometimes transient interests; friendship and mutuality rarely diverge at disparate points.

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Nightfox on Sun Jul 17 07:17:28 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Nightfox to Arelor on Sat Jul 16 2022 04:21 pm

    So basically it's more convenient for them to protect employees who have don


    Yes, getting rid of a dangerous employee is more expensive than covering up by placing somewhere else within the firm.

    The people I was mentioning earlier, the ones who got involved in incidents with fake documents and dead people, had to be moved somewhere else but the firm didn't want to fire anybody. The firm had to sack the biggest offender a year later, though, because the hospital group they were acting as contractors for filled a quite serious complain about the employee harassing other staff members.

    Details of the crisis are not public, but rumor has it that the firm prefered to reach a deal and pay a ton of money off instead of taking the case to court.

    --
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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Nightfox on Mon Jul 18 00:59:03 2022
    I've considered moving to the US, but it is this type of thing that I that makes me realise that it is actually a pretty inhumane country. workplace rights you have there are utterly dismal.

    I live (and grew up) in the US, and from what I've heard, people in the
    US often work long hours (depends on the job though) and also generally don't get as much vacation or parental leave time as other countries. That can depend on the company too (I worked for Intel for a while, and
    I thought they had pretty good benefits - particularly, they offered 3 weeks of vacation per year to start, along with a sabbatical, where you can take 8 weeks after 7 years or 4 weeks after 4 years, and also
    combine that with vacation time).

    Nightfox

    4 Weeks holiday per year is standard in Australia. Two weeks per year standard seems way to short. No wonder they are all mad there!

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  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Gamgee on Sun Jul 17 13:33:48 2022

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting
    teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it. The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here
    until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed
    off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company
    vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)

    Same here. While all jobs I have had over the years have their pros/cons, none were horrible. I have worked for a total of (5) professional organizations in my career, with my current one being the longest so far (22 years and counting).

    I have held many different roles in each of the organizations - but all have been technical/engineering related.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Arelor on Mon Jul 18 10:17:14 2022
    Long story short: in Spain, the biggest source of employment are small
    to VERY small
    companies. Think of familiar business.

    The problem is that with the current regulations, and employee gets more rights than
    the employer actually has himself. If you have a small bar in a corner that you run
    with your wife, it kind of sucks to hire somebody who is gonna get more revenue than
    what your actual equivalent salary would be.

    Biggest issue right now is that throwing out a worker who is not doing a good job is
    getting so hard and expensive that it is often more economically
    efficient to keep him
    in. Basically, if a guy is greatly underperforming, you will either have to pay him a
    ton of money to leave of go to court and demonstrate he is a burden. This results in
    managers deciding not to fire dead weight - in fact I have seen small clinics reuse to
    sack employess involved in incidents with falsified documentation and
    dead people. How
    fucked up is that?

    ALso they made temporary contracting so messed up that you cannot really hire somebody
    for a seasonal activity (ie. serving beer in peak season) and then send him his merry
    way. As a result, the companies that can use subcontractors - you subcontract a firm
    to give you a waiter for three motnhs, but that waiter works for the subcontractor, so
    you are not placing anybody under a legal payroll.

    Most big companies don't give a damn and can absorb these issues. If
    they have to pay
    extra social security per employee, they will charge their end customers or outsource
    manpower from a foreign agency. If someboyd they hired does not work
    well they will
    hire more people and put the useless employees somewhere they can do no harm. It is
    the small business that can't afford to face these problems, and since they are the
    biggest generators of employment, in Spain, employment suffers.

    --

    We have better rights in Australia than in the US, and we have low unemployment here, very low. Don't buy into the US Capitalist propaganda.

    Our minimum was is a little over $12 US per hour. It didn't end our economy. Most of the "unaffordability" comes from housing, from letting speculators and landlords run rampant and supply issues.

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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Weatherman on Sun Jul 17 17:27:00 2022
    Weatherman wrote to Gamgee <=-

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting
    teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it. The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed
    off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company
    vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)

    Same here. While all jobs I have had over the years have their
    pros/cons, none were horrible. I have worked for a total of (5) professional organizations in my career, with my current one
    being the longest so far (22 years and counting).

    I have held many different roles in each of the organizations -
    but all have been technical/engineering related.

    Very good! Glad to hear I'm not the *ONLY* one who's had *GOOD* work experiences... ;-)



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  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Gamgee on Sun Jul 17 18:44:34 2022

    Yeah, that sounds tough all right. Perhaps luck had something to do
    with my case, but I also like to think that preparation and being very careful with occupation/field choices makes a difference too. ;-)

    That is exactly correct. Many sectors are cyclical, like the housing market, energy companies, and even sometimes in tech (the dot.com mess). They will run really hot and times and then generally followed by really cold.

    Back in the late 90s, some of my work friends decided to take jobs in the .com (stock options with no pay) mess. They kept telling me I should do the same thing. I saw the writing on the wall it would never last and would much rather stay with a lower paying, but very safe job with extremely high job security.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Arelor on Sun Jul 17 18:53:48 2022

    The problem is that with the current regulations, and employee gets more rights than
    the employer actually has himself. If you have a small bar in a corner
    that you run
    with your wife, it kind of sucks to hire somebody who is gonna get more revenue than
    what your actual equivalent salary would be.

    There is a legal work-around for that issue. You eliminate the job. You can always restore the job/position not long afterwards. I have seen that in action several times over the years at different organizations where they couldn't get rid of someone that was taking advantage of the company and doing absolutely nothing.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Arelor on Sun Jul 17 18:58:09 2022

    Details of the crisis are not public, but rumor has it that the firm prefered to reach a deal and pay a ton of money off instead of taking the case to court.

    I have seen similar things happen in the past. The company rarely ever will take an employee to court because they don't want the bad press and to let others know about whatever "incompetence" was going on internally.

    Several cases I saw personally, the person should have been arrested and criminally procescuted. Instead, they had the option to resign for be fired.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Gamgee on Sun Jul 17 19:17:44 2022

    Very good! Glad to hear I'm not the *ONLY* one who's had *GOOD* work experiences... ;-)

    I have been working non-stop since I was 11 years old. By age 14, I started a lawn service/snow removal service that grew bigger than I could handle by myself and had to hire others to help me. I gave that business and my customers to my brother when I turned 18 because I started professionally in tech, which is what I decided was the best long term plan - not to mention I have been a giant tech nerd since a young age. Started professionally in technology when I turned 18. Never been unemployed and never had a lapse between jobs when I moved to other organizations.

    Like you mentioned, it is a combination of many things. Type of work, organization where you work, type of business, and more. Early in my career I did IT/tech work for a large national bank. I thought they were stable. That was wrong, as banks get bought up all the time and it never ends well for the ones being bought. Since I saw that was going to happen, I found another job and left before that happened. Another company I worked for was great, but after 4 years of me working there, started having financial issues. I saw that happening and moved on to another organization to reduce my risk there. They didn't go under for another 20 years, but they did end up going bankrupt eventually and I wasn't going to stick around for it.

    Many times I could have taken on more risk in jobs that paid more, but I decided it wasn't worth the long term risk. Dot.com being one of those things back in the late 90s.

    I have never done contract work and have zero interest in it due to the fact it isn't stable. The only contract work I have ever done was when I did side work for my own side business.

    It can be a roller coaster ride navigating through these things over the years, but you learn more with each experience.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Weatherman on Sun Jul 17 21:23:00 2022
    Weatherman wrote to Gamgee <=-


    Very good! Glad to hear I'm not the *ONLY* one who's had *GOOD* work experiences... ;-)

    I have been working non-stop since I was 11 years old. By age
    14, I started a lawn service/snow removal service that grew
    bigger than I could handle by myself and had to hire others to
    help me. I gave that business and my customers to my brother
    when I turned 18 because I started professionally in tech, which
    is what I decided was the best long term plan - not to mention I
    have been a giant tech nerd since a young age. Started
    professionally in technology when I turned 18. Never been
    unemployed and never had a lapse between jobs when I moved to
    other organizations.

    Like you mentioned, it is a combination of many things. Type of
    work, organization where you work, type of business, and more.
    Early in my career I did IT/tech work for a large national bank.
    I thought they were stable. That was wrong, as banks get bought
    up all the time and it never ends well for the ones being bought.
    Since I saw that was going to happen, I found another job and
    left before that happened. Another company I worked for was
    great, but after 4 years of me working there, started having
    financial issues. I saw that happening and moved on to another organization to reduce my risk there. They didn't go under for
    another 20 years, but they did end up going bankrupt eventually
    and I wasn't going to stick around for it.

    Many times I could have taken on more risk in jobs that paid
    more, but I decided it wasn't worth the long term risk. Dot.com
    being one of those things back in the late 90s.

    I have never done contract work and have zero interest in it due
    to the fact it isn't stable. The only contract work I have ever
    done was when I did side work for my own side business.

    It can be a roller coaster ride navigating through these things
    over the years, but you learn more with each experience.

    Sounds like you had a fairly adventurous trail, and were able to foresee things well. Much more interesting than my own path, certainly, but
    sometimes "interesting" is not what one wants... ;-) Glad you were
    able to navigate well and get good results. I feel fortunate to be
    where I am, and suspect you do too.



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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Mon Jul 18 18:31:00 2022
    Our minimum was is a little over $12 US per hour. It didn't end our economy. Most of the "unaffordability" comes from housing, from letting speculators and landlords run rampant and supply issues.

    Its not quite that cut and dried though. You have a large proportion of the population that rely on rental properties for housing with little prospect of buying their own. If you clamp down on landlords a large proportion of these would become homeless. The speculators are a different subject, but you'll find its them that pushes the pricing. Unless you're going to liberate all those properties and turn them into public housing, nothing much will change, and of course the cost of doing that would be so exorbitant it'll never
    happen.

    Spec


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Mon Jul 18 21:55:07 2022
    Its not quite that cut and dried though. You have a large proportion of the population that rely on rental properties for housing with little prospect of buying their own. If you clamp down on landlords a large proportion of these would become homeless. The speculators are a different subject, but you'll find its them that pushes the pricing. Unless you're going to liberate all those properties and turn them into public housing, nothing much will change, and of course the cost of
    doing that would be so exorbitant it'll never happen.

    Spec

    Not quite that cut and dried, but in todays market, I would think that landlords are a significant issue. It is an all to common occurrence for someone attending an auction, wanting to buy a house to live in, to be outbid by an investor who then rents it out (and gets negative gearing to boot).

    Landlords do provide a service, but when they out-compete someone wanting to buy, forcing that person to rent, then they become a problem. They create the very problem they claim they deserve tax concessions to fix.

    It is one thing to build a block of apartments, and rent them out, but many landlords are just buying up existing stock. They are creating a shortage so they can make lazy passive income and fund their retirement through the debt of others. If the housing market weren't so hot, many people, MANY people renting would have bought.

    In Australia, we elevate parasites to a protected class, and we act as if they are ENTITLED to be profit obtaining landlords. It really is quite disgusting that we, as a society will impoverish future generations to create what is a sheltered workshop for property investors.

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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to boraxman on Mon Jul 18 04:08:00 2022
    On Sat Jul 16 12:06:00 2022, boraxman wrote to ACMEBBS <=-

    Could go further on this...but it's almost my bedtime. Have seen way too
    many things over the past 40 years. Just wish I could move to another country with better work rights. If I would've did this when I was young
    enough to do so...my life would've been VERY different.

    I've considered moving to the US, but it is this type of thing that I hear that
    makes me realise that it is actually a pretty inhumane country. The workplace
    rights you have there are utterly dismal.

    This is what goes through my mind whenever I hear anyone moving here. Want to read some scary stuff about labor here in the US...do some reading about "Right to Work" laws.

    In my particular situation...at my age (60)...I am on Medicaid here in Oregon & have been for several years in order to get the health care I need. Means I keep my hours around 20 a week to be able to keep my medical insurance. Don't like it...but have been on company health insurance policies & almost lost everything I would ever have/had to just see the doctor. The reason is that I would need to pay several thousands before the insurance would cover anything at all. Previously...you would pay a co-pay and the insurance would cover 80% until you spend a large amoung of money.

    Had a co-worker from Australia who got married here to a woman with kids. Wants to move back there...but he doesn't have custody of her kids...so he's stuck here. Even asked him in a joking manner if he had a chest big enough to fit me. ;)








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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to Nightfox on Mon Jul 18 03:57:00 2022
    On Fri Jul 15 08:55:00 2022, Nightfox wrote to ACMEBBS <=-

    any time. The law also allows this in many places (at-will
    employement).

    Been many times that in good times...this is great...but when the economy
    goes south...not so much. For instance...had a manager who slammed me into
    a wall & threatened me. Too bad I couldn't find a new job at the time. Add
    to that...if I had called the police to report the assault...they would've
    screwed me over when possible employers called to check on my job performance there. Life isn't fair & if a scumbag idiot you worked for wanted to screw you...they will and will be happy to do so.
    Wow.. That's pretty bad.

    Looking back on it...he lost his job for being the A--hole he was. Was doing some of the young waitresses...so his ex-wife did to him much worse than he did to them. Oklahoma is in a time warp...but at least the women from the 90's could screw their ex's over with some of the old marriage laws which were still on the books.

    Could go further on this...but it's almost my bedtime. Have seen way too
    many things over the past 40 years. Just wish I could move to another country with better work rights. If I would've did this when I was young
    enough to do so...my life would've been VERY different.
    Yeah, I've heard some countries in Europe have pretty good worker's rights, and
    it sounds like they generally have better work-life balance than people in the
    US do. More vacation time, more parental leave, and recently I've heard some
    European countries have enacted laws where companies cannot call or email their
    employees after working hours.

    Used to work with a guy who moved here from Australia. He mentioned that much of the BS he experienced here on jobs would not happen there.

    Heard the same thing about labor in some of these countries as well. Fortunately...have come to realize here on the West Coast (Oregon is what I know)...not perfect...but compared to other places where I've lived (Oklahoma/Texas/Idaho/Utah)...I'm much better off in terms of Right to Die laws...retail workers are required to have a 10 hour break before being scheduled for another shift...as well as the minimum wage rising around $1.00 US every year with I believe being tied to inflation by 2025. Making more per hour here in Oregon than I have all my life. If I stayed in Oklahoma & not having moved in 1992 out of there...doubt I would be making half of what I am making now. Perfect...no...but don't feel like I am getting screwed over like I was/could be if I had stayed in either of the four states I mentioned.

    ... The 4 food groups: Fast, frozen, instant and microwaved.
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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to Gamgee on Mon Jul 18 03:37:00 2022
    On Fri Jul 15 08:12:00 2022, Gamgee wrote to ACMEBBS <=-

    ACMEBBS wrote to Margaerynne <=-
    Good jobs never last...but bad jobs never end.
    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting
    teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it. The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company
    vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)

    For others...would agree with you. Myself and others like myself who were grown up in the 80's/90's...your experience is something I've only experienced recently and rarely before this. Those of us followed the "rules" and still ended up with the short end of the stick for life. Wished I had your experience...but haven't. Makes me sad.

    ... She kept saying I didn't listen to her... or something.
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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to ACMEBBS on Mon Jul 18 08:25:00 2022
    ACMEBBS wrote to Gamgee <=-

    Good jobs never last...but bad jobs never end.

    I must say that my experiences have been different than the above. Have
    I just been lucky, or was it something else? I'm nearing retirement,
    and have only had two jobs my entire life (not counting
    teenage/highschool type jobs as a youngster). The first I stayed with
    for 28 years (US Navy) and loved every minute of it. The second one for
    16 years and love it also. It's a technical/engineering job (I maintain linear particle accelerators in medical facilities) and I will be here
    until I do retire. Great pay, great boss, zero chance of getting layed
    off, great colleagues, expense account, occasional travel, company
    vehicle, and more. What's not to like? So... as to the above "Good
    jobs never last..." - that is simply not true. :-)

    For others...would agree with you. Myself and others like myself
    who were grown up in the 80's/90's...your experience is something
    I've only experienced recently and rarely before this. Those of
    us followed the "rules" and still ended up with the short end of
    the stick for life. Wished I had your experience...but haven't.
    Makes me sad.

    Yes, there is some truth in what you said there. Nice guys don't always finish first. I understand that, and agree. Maybe your current
    employment will end up being the exception for you!

    I've seen you mention in previous posts somewhere that you are college-educated... Were you not able to put that degree to good use
    for some reason? Usually that alone will help your odds of success
    quite a bit; just asking out of curiosity.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Weatherman on Mon Jul 18 07:24:00 2022
    Weatherman wrote to Gamgee <=-


    Back in the late 90s, some of my work friends decided to take jobs in
    the .com (stock options with no pay) mess. They kept telling me I
    should do the same thing. I saw the writing on the wall it would never last and would much rather stay with a lower paying, but very safe job with extremely high job security.

    I never took a job with *no* salary, but you definitly saw places that paid under market rate with generous stock options.

    If you start your own tech company, my advice is to configure your stock
    pool with help from a professional. One company I worked for paid me in
    stock to set up a server farm -- a handful of Linux boxes running Apache/Tomcat, a Sun box running Oracle, a DNS server and a corporate box running SAMBA and Sendmail/IMAP. Paid me in pre-funding stock, and after the company received their first round of funding, needed to do a 10-to-1 stock split; my shared ended up to be just over 2% of the company stock for 20-30 hours of work.

    The company ended up doing that slow burn thing - just enough revenues to
    keep above water, but never breaking out. They ended up getting bought by
    the company that the founders came from - they'd gotten rich on their stock deals 15 years earlier.

    It's all about the timing, I suppose.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Weatherman on Mon Jul 18 07:33:00 2022
    Weatherman wrote to Arelor <=-

    There is a legal work-around for that issue. You eliminate the job.

    Or hire out from under them.

    I worked at a company that brought in a new CEO when the company changed direction. The new CEO came in, changed the corporate culture almost immediately, then brought in a new executive team of nepots.

    (I know that's not a word, but I like it.)

    When the head of HR sees what's coming and bails, you know it's going to get bad.

    The head of Sales didn't like the new CEO, so the CEO hired a head of Revenues. Shortly thereafter the head of sales left and his friend became
    the head of Sales and Revenues.

    His new head of technology soon became the CEO, shortly before the company
    was aquired. The rest is an interesting story - look up Steven Elop on Wikipedia for the full story.

    He seems to keep landing on his feet, his fall cushioned by a buttload of money.


    ... UNPRISON YOUR THINK RHINO
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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Tue Jul 19 07:40:00 2022
    Not quite that cut and dried, but in todays market, I would think that landlords are a significant issue. It is an all to common occurrence for someone attending an auction, wanting to buy a house to live in, to be outbid by an investor who then rents it out (and gets negative gearing to boot).

    Landlords do provide a service, but when they out-compete someone wanting to buy, forcing that person to rent, then they become a problem. They create the very problem they claim they deserve tax concessions to fix.

    I think you're looking at two seperate groups... the "investors" and the "landlords". Traditionally the landlords have been in it for the long haul
    and may slowly acquire a few properties over time as they pay for themselves, generally they're looking to retain and rent said properties for the long
    haul.

    As opposed to the more recent "investor" type which because property has already been booming have gone out there to buy everything in sight they can afford with the idea of flipping it as soon as the value to debt ratio is
    high enough. Its this latter group that are really doing the damage.

    If you wacked this lot into a venn diagram these days, they'd no doubt
    overlap some of the "landlord" group will have been sucked into the investor group by cheap profits.

    Spec


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  • From Utopian Galt@21:4/108 to Spectre on Mon Jul 18 20:57:05 2022
    On Mon Jul 18 00:00:00 2022, SPECTRE(21:3/101) wrote to boraxman <=-

    Its not quite that cut and dried though. You have a large proportion of the population that rely on rental properties for housing with little prospect of
    buying their own. If you clamp down on landlords a large proportion of these
    would become homeless. The speculators are a different subject, but you'll find its them that pushes the pricing. Unless you're going to liberate all those properties and turn them into public housing, nothing much will change,
    and of course the cost of doing that would be so exorbitant it'll never happen.
    The big company is BlackRock people think they are a big threat to our society.


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Utopian Galt on Tue Jul 19 19:44:00 2022
    The big company is BlackRock people think they are a big threat to our society.

    Uh?


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to ACMEBBS on Tue Jul 19 23:54:23 2022
    This is what goes through my mind whenever I hear anyone moving here.
    Want to read some scary stuff about labor here in the US...do some
    reading about "Right to Work" laws.

    In my particular situation...at my age (60)...I am on Medicaid here in Oregon & have been for several years in order to get the health care I need. Means I keep my hours around 20 a week to be able to keep my
    medical insurance. Don't like it...but have been on company health insurance policies & almost lost everything I would ever have/had to
    just see the doctor. The reason is that I would need to pay several thousands before the insurance would cover anything at all. Previously...you would pay a co-pay and the insurance would cover 80% until you spend a large amoung of money.

    Had a co-worker from Australia who got married here to a woman with
    kids. Wants to move back there...but he doesn't have custody of her kids...so he's stuck here. Even asked him in a joking manner if he had a chest big enough to fit me. ;)


    Americans seems to have been conditioned by means of fear, to be skeptical of any economic change which might benefit them. Mostly the Conservative Right. There exists a similar train of thought in the Australian Right here like that, that if we do something which makes life better for the average guy, something more than a small tax cut, the world will collapse. As if you're supposed to live a hard life and if we give people a better deal, the world will fall apart.

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    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Wed Jul 20 00:11:51 2022
    I think you're looking at two seperate groups... the "investors" and the "landlords". Traditionally the landlords have been in it for the long haul and may slowly acquire a few properties over time as they pay for themselves, generally they're looking to retain and rent said properties for the long haul.

    As opposed to the more recent "investor" type which because property has already been booming have gone out there to buy everything in sight they can afford with the idea of flipping it as soon as the value to debt
    ratio is high enough. Its this latter group that are really doing the damage.

    If you wacked this lot into a venn diagram these days, they'd no doubt overlap some of the "landlord" group will have been sucked into the investor group by cheap profits.

    Spec

    Buying property to become a landlord is an investment. You are differing between short term and long term investors. Some landlords are developers, but for those purchasing existing stock to rent out, they don't qualify as developers. Even those who do buy existing stock to tear down and build townhouses, that is primarily profiteering to take advantage of government sponsored demand by means of high immigration and favourable banking conditions. A long haul investment is still an investment.

    Landlords have value when they are adding necessary supply of rental properties where there is demand for people to rent, but I contend this is not typical.

    We as a society are conditioned to put the needs of capital over people. We allocate resources to serve capital, not people, which is why the West is screwed, and our society is declining while other powers rise.

    Houses exist to house people, for the nation to house itself, to bring up the next generation. If we are looking at a situation where competition for these resources is won by Capital seeking passive return over its intended use, then something is seriously wrong.

    We need to change things to stack the deck in favour of houses, well, housing people! I'm not saying that no one should not make a return in providing housing, but the economic activity regarding the buying and selling of property, in particular residential property should be far more strictly controlled to ensure only genuinely productive "investment" can occur. I would go so far as to say that someone simply buying up houses to build a portfolio should NOT have the freedom to do so, though I would prefer a heavy tax burden for such hoarders.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Utopian Galt on Wed Jul 20 00:18:33 2022
    The big company is BlackRock people think they are a big threat to our society.


    Considering that the USA is falling apart, I would agree with this critique of BlackRock. The American economic "ideals" stink to high heaven, and no other nation in their right mind would copy American developments, either socially or economically or politically.

    As much as there is not to like about China, they are smart enough to see how private companies in the USA are undermining the national character and the strength of the people and choosing not to repeat that mistake there and allow these shenanigans to fester. No sane leader would tolerate this rubbish.

    I considered moving there at some point, but changed my mind, and I'm glad I did change my mind as I'm now hoping that Australia culturally distance itself more and more from the US.

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    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Wed Jul 20 06:39:00 2022
    Buying property to become a landlord is an investment. You are differing between short term and long term investors. Some landlords are developers, but for those purchasing existing stock to rent out, they don't qualify as developers. Even those who do buy existing stock to tear down and build townhouses, that is primarily profiteering to take advantage of government sponsored demand by means of high immigration and

    Well duh, of course I am..about 2 generations ago now, we had a group of "new australians" that went out and bought themselves a house, then worked on a second one nominally for the kids, and yet another one or two after that to keep the home fires burning. These guys did three things, they didn't
    renovate and flip, they didn't just wait on the LVR to advantageous to sell, they hung onto the extras as a long term source of income. These are the guys that helped keep the status quo some 30, 40, 50 years ago no..

    Its the more recent I need to buy and sell for all the money I can scrounge that have really killed things.. heavily assisting pushing pricing ever
    higher. Not to mention your extra immigration... population is the other
    half of the equation. You also need to remember that building in general
    keeps a large proportion of our economy afloat by employing people.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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    * Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Wed Jul 20 06:42:00 2022
    Considering that the USA is falling apart, I would agree with this critique of BlackRock. The American economic "ideals" stink to high heaven, and no other nation in their right mind would copy American developments, either socially or economically or politically.

    As much as there is not to like about China, they are smart enough to see how private companies in the USA are undermining the national character and the strength of the people and choosing not to repeat that mistake there and allow these shenanigans to fester. No sane leader would tolerate this rubbish.

    I see it now.... you're the idealist socialist... China is just as dumb as rocks as the US institutions are.... They're all lining up to go under the
    bus now..

    Spec


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  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to boraxman on Wed Jul 20 15:00:18 2022
    4 Weeks holiday per year is standard in Australia. Two weeks per year standard seems way to short. No wonder they are all mad there!

    4 weeks annual leave, plus 2 weeks sick leave even :-)

    The 3 (?) weeks mentioned for the US, was that including sick leave, or is sick leave provided for in addition to the 3 weeks?


    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220504
    * Origin: TassieBob's BBS (21:3/169)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Wed Jul 20 23:26:58 2022
    Well duh, of course I am..about 2 generations ago now, we had a group of "new australians" that went out and bought themselves a house, then
    worked on a second one nominally for the kids, and yet another one or
    two after that to keep the home fires burning. These guys did three things, they didn't renovate and flip, they didn't just wait on the LVR
    to advantageous to sell, they hung onto the extras as a long term source of income. These are the guys that helped keep the status quo some 30,
    40, 50 years ago no..

    Its the more recent I need to buy and sell for all the money I can scrounge that have really killed things.. heavily assisting pushing pricing ever higher. Not to mention your extra immigration...
    population is the other half of the equation. You also need to remember that building in general keeps a large proportion of our economy afloat
    by employing people.



    Back then, housing was affordable. My parents didn't have the education or skills or career that I have, but were able to better secure property.

    For me what is odd is that we feel almost ashamed to limit this behaviour, as if stopping people doing things which damage our nation for their own profit is somehow wrong!

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Wed Jul 20 23:29:39 2022
    I see it now.... you're the idealist socialist... China is just as dumb
    as rocks as the US institutions are.... They're all lining up to go
    under the bus now..


    i don't think it is idealistic, it is pragmatic.

    This isn't the 1950's anymore, or the 1850's, we need to shift our approach to resource management.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to TassieBob on Wed Jul 20 23:35:51 2022

    4 weeks annual leave, plus 2 weeks sick leave even :-)

    The 3 (?) weeks mentioned for the US, was that including sick leave, or
    is sick leave provided for in addition to the 3 weeks?


    I'm not sure, I know it is two weeks leave a year, which will suck if some is mandated at a particular time of the year.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Wed Jul 20 23:30:00 2022
    Back then, housing was affordable. My parents didn't have the education or skills or career that I have, but were able to better secure property.

    MY first house, set me back, $97k chuckle, that would've been earlyish 90's wasn't to long after this prices really went haywire. This was in Oakleigh South.

    Spec


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Wed Jul 20 23:32:00 2022
    i don't think it is idealistic, it is pragmatic.

    I'll stick with the idealist... most of what you wish for is pie in the sky kind of stuff. Won't happen unless something seriously catastrophic happens
    to society...

    Spec


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Spectre on Wed Jul 20 07:17:00 2022
    Spectre wrote to boraxman <=-

    Its the more recent I need to buy and sell for all the money I can scrounge that have really killed things.. heavily assisting pushing pricing ever higher.

    Here on the California coast, we're starting to see people priced out of Silicon Valley, just over the coast range from the coast. The pricing in the valley, combined with more people being able to remote work has seen more people moving over here.

    A house that sold for $1.2 million in 2018 is now on the market with landscaping and minimal improvements for $2.3 million. I don't think it's going to sell for that much.


    ... If it isn't broken, I can fix it.
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  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to Gamgee on Wed Jul 20 12:32:00 2022
    On Mon Jul 18 08:25:00 2022, Gamgee wrote to ACMEBBS <=-

    Good jobs never last...but bad jobs never end.
    For others...would agree with you. Myself and others like myself
    who were grown up in the 80's/90's...your experience is something
    I've only experienced recently and rarely before this. Those of
    us followed the "rules" and still ended up with the short end of
    the stick for life. Wished I had your experience...but haven't.
    Makes me sad.

    Yes, there is some truth in what you said there. Nice guys don't always finish first. I understand that, and agree. Maybe your current
    employment will end up being the exception for you!

    At least one good thing...don't dread going in like I did before. Being in retail...have a VERY low threshhold for "Karens". This is why I ended up in receiving & enjoy being there. Now...I can actually deal with people & not feel dread.

    I've seen you mention in previous posts somewhere that you are college-educated... Were you not able to put that degree to good use
    for some reason? Usually that alone will help your odds of success
    quite a bit; just asking out of curiosity.

    Actually...I did in the past. Have two BA degrees...one if communications from 1986 & the first one from 1984 in drama. In the former...ended up having my employment being taken over by technology from satellites/computers. The first degree was never able to afford living in an area where it would be useful.

    Add to that...ended up going into education as a substitute teacher & a teacher's aide. With Covid...either of these are dead ends with possible shut downs when things go south. Loved being the teacher's aide at one time.

    ... A man went looking for America, and he couldn't find it anywhere.
    === TitanMail/winnt v1.1.6
    --- SBBSecho 3.06-Win32
    * Origin: fsxNet FTN<>QWK Gateway (21:4/10)
  • From ACMEBBS@21:4/10 to boraxman on Wed Jul 20 12:47:00 2022
    On Tue Jul 19 23:54:00 2022, boraxman wrote to ACMEBBS <=-

    Previously...you would pay a co-pay and the insurance would cover 80% until you spend a large amoung of money.
    Had a co-worker from Australia who got married here to a woman with kids. Wants to move back there...but he doesn't have custody of her kids...so he's stuck here. Even asked him in a joking manner if he had a
    chest big enough to fit me. ;)

    Americans seems to have been conditioned by means of fear, to be skeptical of
    any economic change which might benefit them.

    Welcome to the American way of life. ;) Some would consider me to be a Socialist...but having formerly been a talk show producer at a local radio station...had on Bernie Sanders and agree with him on many things.

    Mostly the Conservative Right.
    There exists a similar train of thought in the Australian Right here like that,
    that if we do something which makes life better for the average guy, something
    more than a small tax cut, the world will collapse. As if you're supposed to
    live a hard life and if we give people a better deal, the world will fall apart.

    Hope things are better for you there than here. With roughly 30-40% of the population here ready for a civil war...things are going to get worse here before they get better. From your version of "60 Minutes" (which I enjoy on You Tube)...Australia has many of the same issues as they have in the US with organized religion and political leadership being intertwined.

    Thank you for telling me more about Australia. Never been there...but it makes me excited to learn about other cultures and dream of what could be/been.

    ... Auntie Em, Hate Kansas, Hate You, Taking the dog...Dorothy
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  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Gamgee on Wed Jul 20 20:32:14 2022

    Sounds like you had a fairly adventurous trail, and were able to foresee things well. Much more interesting than my own path, certainly, but sometimes "interesting" is not what one wants... ;-) Glad you were
    able to navigate well and get good results. I feel fortunate to be
    where I am, and suspect you do too.

    Absolutely and the same could be said about my path with relationships. Roller coasters, sometimes nuts, but if you end up still standing on two feet in the end - all is good.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to ACMEBBS on Wed Jul 20 19:21:00 2022
    ACMEBBS wrote to Gamgee <=-

    For others...would agree with you. Myself and others like myself
    who were grown up in the 80's/90's...your experience is something
    I've only experienced recently and rarely before this. Those of
    us followed the "rules" and still ended up with the short end of
    the stick for life. Wished I had your experience...but haven't.
    Makes me sad.

    Yes, there is some truth in what you said there. Nice guys don't always finish first. I understand that, and agree. Maybe your current
    employment will end up being the exception for you!

    At least one good thing...don't dread going in like I did before.
    Being in retail...have a VERY low threshhold for "Karens". This
    is why I ended up in receiving & enjoy being there. Now...I can
    actually deal with people & not feel dread.

    Well that's good. Hopefully the upward trend will continue for you!

    I've seen you mention in previous posts somewhere that you are college-educated... Were you not able to put that degree to good use
    for some reason? Usually that alone will help your odds of success
    quite a bit; just asking out of curiosity.

    Actually...I did in the past. Have two BA degrees...one if
    communications from 1986 & the first one from 1984 in drama. In
    the former...ended up having my employment being taken over by
    technology from satellites/computers. The first degree was never
    able to afford living in an area where it would be useful.

    Hmmmm... Okay. I'm sure there's more to the story, but as technology
    advances you have to adapt as well in order not to get left behind. I
    can see a drama degree being difficult to "use" until you can get broken
    into the field and establish yourself.

    Add to that...ended up going into education as a substitute
    teacher & a teacher's aide. With Covid...either of these are dead
    ends with possible shut downs when things go south. Loved being
    the teacher's aide at one time.

    Perhaps when this Covid crap finally fades to the background you can
    explore that field again. I do believe that (the fade) is going to
    happen, eventually. Good luck with your endeavors.



    ... Pros are those who do their jobs well, even when they don't feel like it. === MultiMail/Linux v0.52
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
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  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Jul 20 20:43:24 2022

    The company ended up doing that slow burn thing - just enough revenues to keep above water, but never breaking out. They ended up getting bought by the company that the founders came from - they'd gotten rich on their
    stock deals 15 years earlier.

    It's all about the timing, I suppose.

    Yes, I have witnessed several tech engineers leaving big tech in order to create a startup. With the sole intention of having their startup being purchased by the same company where they previously worked.

    If you do it correct, the stock options alone will set you for life. No need to work again.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Spectre on Wed Jul 20 20:57:10 2022

    MY first house, set me back, $97k chuckle, that would've been earlyish
    90's wasn't to long after this prices really went haywire. This was in Oakleigh South.

    My 1st house (which was a townhouse) was $70k back in the early 90s. Naturally the cost of living was far less, people made far less, etc.

    My parents bought the house I grew up in for just $20k in the late 60s. People only made $5k per year, so that was still a good bit of money for the time.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Thu Jul 21 17:19:30 2022
    MY first house, set me back, $97k chuckle, that would've been earlyish 90's wasn't to long after this prices really went haywire. This was in Oakleigh South.

    Spec


    The problem is so bad, that I've had to pass by management opportunities because I couldn't really afford the relocation. That is to say, the job was on the otherside of town, and the additional salary would mostly or all be consumed by the increased mortgage.

    And it wasn't even a posh suburb like Kew or Camberwell either. We were still looking in the outer suburban ring and things only became affordable at
    the fringes. There was no point taking a management role only to live in the fringes.

    My parents purchased for less than that is a fairly good area in the 80s. 5 years ago or so a house, smallish one, across the street sold for a million. Sold to an investor, of course.

    I really don't get the lack of urgency on this matter.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Thu Jul 21 17:26:51 2022
    I'll stick with the idealist... most of what you wish for is pie in the sky kind of stuff. Won't happen unless something seriously catastrophic happens to society...

    Spec

    We used to a be a people who would be willing to change, challenge, secure a future. Now were just all "meh" and don't really care about anything anymore.

    The problem is that we're stuck with a specific hierarchy of values, and we can't change them anymore. We're OLD, tired, way too conservative and lack imagination.

    The West in the 19th century was dynamic, now it is a tired old man just wanting to wait out the rest of his days in the comfortable rest home.

    You are right, but not because you are RIGHT, but because we're an apathetic lot who really don't care about future generations.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to ACMEBBS on Thu Jul 21 17:40:58 2022

    Welcome to the American way of life. ;) Some would consider me to be a Socialist...but having formerly been a talk show producer at a local
    radio station...had on Bernie Sanders and agree with him on many things.


    I get accused of being a socialist often too, which I take about as seriously as accusations of "racism" from the woke.

    Hope things are better for you there than here. With roughly 30-40% of
    the population here ready for a civil war...things are going to get
    worse here before they get better. From your version of "60 Minutes" (which I enjoy on You Tube)...Australia has many of the same issues as they have in the US with organized religion and political leadership
    being intertwined.

    Thank you for telling me more about Australia. Never been there...but it makes me excited to learn about other cultures and dream of what could be/been.


    Australia follows the US culturally, so the troubles you have get imported here. We even had "BLM" rallies. Would you believe, there was a rally in my home city, Melbourne, about the Roe vs Wade decision? Australians copied the MAGA movement here too. Companies here copy Silicon Valley culture. Schools are copying CRT, etc.

    On the other hand, I have a friend who moved to Florida a decade ago, and he loves it there. Says people there are more friendly than here (which I can believe, Australians are more reserved than American's I've met). I considered following him, but decided against it. My wife and I are still wanting to leave, but to where?? I see no future here.

    Things are peaceful here, but it is also quite stultifying. There isn't much here at all, housing is brutally priced and people are pretty
    one-tracked. It was a nicer place in the 80's and early 90's, but greed
    become more prominent and people became more selfish. Much of what made Post WWII Australian fantastic is gone.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Weatherman on Thu Jul 21 17:50:13 2022
    My 1st house (which was a townhouse) was $70k back in the early 90s. Naturally the cost of living was far less, people made far less, etc.

    My parents bought the house I grew up in for just $20k in the late 60s. People only made $5k per year, so that was still a good bit of money for the time.


    That is 4x the annual salary. By todays standards, an absolute rock bottom bargain.

    My salary is above average (and the average salary is well above median), and there are simply NO houses which are 4x my salary, or even 5 times which are reasonably commutable from work. If I go 6x, I start to get into the dregs. The MEDIAN house price is close to 8 - 10 x, and remember, that is my salary, which is well above median.

    The market has utterly failed in Australia, creating an absolute hell. I quite literally have to pass up job opportunities because they are too far, and I can't afford to live where the work is.

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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Thu Jul 21 16:44:00 2022
    My parents purchased for less than that is a fairly good area in the 80s. 5 years ago or so a house, smallish one, across the street sold for
    a million. Sold to an investor, of course.

    My parents place was the same, they bought it sub $20k I think, early 70's since she's moved into aged care, the house was subsequently sold, demolished and had two "units" built on it. Have to say aged care is a rort too... if
    she didn't have the house to sell, she'd never have been able to afford to
    move in.

    Spec


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Thu Jul 21 16:55:00 2022
    Australia follows the US culturally, so the troubles you have get imported here. We even had "BLM" rallies. Would you believe, there was a rally in my home city, Melbourne, about the Roe vs Wade decision? Australians copied the MAGA movement here too. Companies here copy Silicon Valley culture. Schools are copying CRT, etc.

    Not sure what on earth BLM and Roe vs Wade hope to accomplish here... I
    prefer the AutoExpert version of MAGA, MALS... Make Australia Less Shit.. you'll find him on Youtube if you're mildly interested :) What has CRT
    become since it was Cathode Ray Tube?

    I don't think our politics are generally as tied to religion as the US
    appears to be. By and large religion is noisy by nature, and also organised, but actually practicing any religion seems to be a dieing thing.

    Spec


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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to boraxman on Thu Jul 21 07:18:20 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: boraxman to Spectre on Wed Jul 20 2022 12:11 am

    Buying property to become a landlord is an investment. You are differing between s
    buy existing stock to tear down and build townhouses, that is primarily profiteeri

    I have yet to see a used property for sale that didn't need repairs and rehabilitation
    to a degree. If it was suitable for renting right away the seller would have been
    renting the property more often than not.

    Last properties I have bought or seen bought required more money in repairs and conditioning than they costed. I am not buying the argument that professional landlords do nothing but sitting on their lazy asses all day getting free money.

    Maybe it is different with banks, since banks have a tendency to own large stacks of
    new or almost new property. Those could go for sale or rent with no meaningful repairs
    done.



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  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Boraxman on Thu Jul 21 08:40:22 2022

    My salary is above average (and the average salary is well above median), and there are simply NO houses which are 4x my salary, or even 5 times
    which are reasonably commutable from work. If I go 6x, I start to get into the dregs. The MEDIAN house price is close to 8 - 10 x, and remember, that is my salary, which is well above median.

    Naturally this depends on what is considered average income. Around here in the states, it isn't that difficult to find a single family home for 4-5x your income - even today. Now much of it depends on the particular state you live in, but it is not difficult to do here at all.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Thu Jul 21 07:48:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Spectre <=-

    My parents purchased for less than that is a fairly good area in the
    80s. 5 years ago or so a house, smallish one, across the street sold
    for a million. Sold to an investor, of course.

    My parents bought a house for $23K in 1970. Sold it for $1.3 million in
    2016. Zillow says it's now worth $2.35 million.

    Crazy.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Thu Jul 21 07:51:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Spectre <=-

    We used to a be a people who would be willing to change, challenge,
    secure a future. Now were just all "meh" and don't really care about anything anymore.

    We're too busy looking for approval on social networks and consuming content
    - there's no time for THOUGHT.

    The problem is that we're stuck with a specific hierarchy of values,
    and we can't change them anymore. We're OLD, tired, way too
    conservative and lack imagination.

    I don't know if that's truly the case, but the old tired conservatives have stacked the system of laws in their favor.

    You are right, but not because you are RIGHT, but because we're an apathetic lot who really don't care about future generations.

    I don't know if it's apathy, it feels like a lack of empathy. I'm going to
    get mine, I don't care what it takes or who it hurts.



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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 22 05:21:22 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to boraxman on Thu Jul 21 2022 07:51 am


    I don't know if it's apathy, it feels like a lack of empathy. I'm going to get mine, I don't care what it takes or who it hurts.


    It is most definetively apathy.

    People takes the path of least resistence most often than not. That is why consumer electronics come with so much preloaded crapware: people is more likely to use a preinstalled suite and buy into an already provided software ecosystem than use something else. Explained in practical terms: somebody who buys an Android device is more likely to use the Google ecosystem and the provided Google programs and infrastructure than install alternatives for those, and if you point the ways that Google is harmful, they will agree and keep using the Google ecosystem because switching takes non-zero effort and staying and being raped by Google is just easier.

    It applies to so many things in life. Lots of people is subscribed to streaming services who then use their money to spew propaganda against them, and they remain with those services because it is the easy thing to do.


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Fri Jul 22 23:01:31 2022
    Not sure what on earth BLM and Roe vs Wade hope to accomplish here... I prefer the AutoExpert version of MAGA, MALS... Make Australia Less Shit.. you'll find him on Youtube if you're mildly interested :) What has CRT become since it was Cathode Ray Tube?


    Vaguely interested. Have a link? I did a quick search on Youtube for "Make Australia Less Shit" and came up blank.

    I don't think our politics are generally as tied to religion as the US appears to be. By and large religion is noisy by nature, and also organised, but actually practicing any religion seems to be a dieing thing.

    Not really, but Poltical Correctness IS a religion, so I suppose we're not as secular as we think we are.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 00:52:24 2022
    I have yet to see a used property for sale that didn't need repairs and rehabilitation
    to a degree. If it was suitable for renting right away the seller would have been
    renting the property more often than not.


    In Australia the house could be on fire, and still be out of the price range of most people. I've seen DUMPS with astronomical price tags, and dumps for rent. If you're renting, and the market is very tight, you take what you can get.

    Maybe its different where you are, but here things are very stacked in favour of investors.
    Last properties I have bought or seen bought required more money in repairs and conditioning than they costed. I am not buying the argument that professional landlords do nothing but sitting on their lazy asses
    all day getting free money.


    I can believe that renovations are costly, but in Australia, not more than what the property costs. It is the land which is expensive here really, not the house. The house can be a total delapidated dump. You're not paying for the house so much, you're paying to secure a space.

    Houses here are half a million dollars for a cheap one. No way repairs cost that much. I fixed up the house I purchased for about 10% of the purchase cost, and that purchase cost was defiantely at the lower end.

    You may not buy the argument, but for many here, that is what they do. I've rented a couple of places that weren't changed since the 70's, and the landlord wouldn't even get a professional to do repairs. He'd come in and waste half my day fixing the toilet cause he was a cheap bastard who didn't want to pay for a plumber to do it right.

    I've known someone else who was an investor, who didn't even understand how it all worked. They just had some other company manage it. They did nothing at all, just watched money roll in.



    Maybe it is different with banks, since banks have a tendency to own
    large stacks of
    new or almost new property. Those could go for sale or rent with no meaningful repairs
    done.



    Might be a cultural difference. Australians are very focused on property. In the nightly news on a weekend, they will report auction results. Can you imagine watching new from the biggest news channel (free to air), and a news story is about a house that sold? Every week? Real Estate agents sponsor news segments, it is very much part of the culture. And with that comes the elevation of property investment as some great Australian way of life, which the government basically props up so that dumbass investors (and they often are dumb) can just throw a big loan at a property because it is what everyone else is doing. Some investors are sophisticated, but many are just average people who don't understand economics. Thats probably why the market is propped up, because otherwise so many unsophisticated people leveraged to the hilt will be undone by market forces they weren't even aware existed.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Weatherman on Sat Jul 23 00:55:57 2022
    Naturally this depends on what is considered average income. Around
    here in the states, it isn't that difficult to find a single family home for 4-5x your income - even today. Now much of it depends on the particular state you live in, but it is not difficult to do here at all.


    I guess that is one advantage to the states. Such houses are hard to find in Australia. Maybe in the boondocks, where there is little good work. But even some of the country towns are pricey.

    I just looked up, average house price in my city is 1 million.

    So at 4-5x income, I would expect companies to be paying wages for typical desk jobs of $200,000 - $250,000 per annum.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Jul 23 00:57:45 2022
    My parents bought a house for $23K in 1970. Sold it for $1.3 million in 2016. Zillow says it's now worth $2.35 million.

    Crazy.

    And people tell me Capitalism is still working... hmmm...

    That is a 100 x increase in price and people still act as if there isn't a crisis.

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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Fri Jul 22 22:45:00 2022
    It is most definetively apathy.

    People takes the path of least resistence most often than not. That is why

    Not sure the path of least resistance, one I'm personally quite fond of, is a symptom of apathy, the easy way isn't always the wrong way.. There must be something to installing all the junk on everything, otherwise they wouldn't bother... not sure also it equates well to the property market.

    Its been a thing here for many generations now, that you can/would ultimately buy a house to live in.. it was just the way we worked. Somewhere back there we also started getting "blocks of flats" probably late 60s early 70s for the most part, put a cheaper alternative out there...in the mid to late 90s
    though we had an asian invasion of sorts... and "investors" went plumb nuts building shoebox sized apartments that they could rent/sell to asian students who seemed accustomed to living in this kind of environment already. That really pushed our $/sq M up...


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Fri Jul 22 22:52:00 2022
    Vaguely interested. Have a link? I did a quick search on Youtube for "Make Australia Less Shit" and came up blank.

    Yeah he flies by "AutoExpert John Cadogan" MALS is just something that crops
    up now and then when something happens that might help improve life. He's a bit of a crusty straight shooter.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXyTKI5zip0

    I think contains a MALS reference, I haven't re-watched it in its entirety though.

    Spec


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sat Jul 23 01:03:34 2022
    We used to a be a people who would be willing to change, challenge, secure a future. Now were just all "meh" and don't really care about anything anymore.

    We're too busy looking for approval on social networks and consuming content - there's no time for THOUGHT.

    I think it is something deeper than that, something from well before Social Media. Probably decadence and nihilism. We don't care and don't think anything really matters anyway. Gen X was very much like this.

    The problem is that we're stuck with a specific hierarchy of values, and we can't change them anymore. We're OLD, tired, way too conservative and lack imagination.

    I don't know if that's truly the case, but the old tired conservatives have stacked the system of laws in their favor.


    True, but they aren't really being challenged either. I think a lot of people want to keep things as they are because of familiarity or sentimentality. Many want the past back, or a better version of the past.


    You are right, but not because you are RIGHT, but because we're an apathetic lot who really don't care about future generations.

    I don't know if it's apathy, it feels like a lack of empathy. I'm going
    to get mine, I don't care what it takes or who it hurts.




    There is definitely that. People also don't know why things matter, or don't take responsibility. One of the things that gets me about the discussion on housing prices, is just how disconnected people are from the flow on effects. There is a huge social shift, which will greatly impact our children and grandchildren, and people kind of just are happy to be victims of change. Actually, if you think about it, whenever we talk of the future, of AI, surveillance, the new Internet, the Great Reset, we kind of act, to paraphrase someone, as if the future is something that happens to us, rather than something we create.

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Spectre on Fri Jul 22 09:04:43 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to Arelor on Fri Jul 22 2022 10:45 pm


    Not sure the path of least resistance, one I'm personally quite fond of, is symptom of apathy, the easy way isn't always the wrong way.. There must be something to installing all the junk on everything, otherwise they wouldn't bother... not sure also it equates well to the property market.


    There is something to installing crapware: that way they get the user to provide their data to them so they can sell it.

    Most consumers make the uninformed choice there because it is easier to accept what you are given than to learn better. To the few that make an informed choice and still go with the preinstalled data mining, more power to them.

    I bring this up because you can see precisely the same behavior in every single industry. ie. if the structure construction codes in your country are steel-centric, you will build houses and buildings with steel because that is easier than justifying a construction project with any other material.Or, a more recent example: if the power infrastructure of your country is designed in such a way that the easiest way is to deploy solar without backup batteries, it will be harder to get solar with batteries to back them up. Power supply contracts, handouts and supplies just won't contemplate. As an end result people buys into inefficient solar generation schemes rather than expend extra in systems that actualy solve problems.

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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Sat Jul 23 07:07:00 2022
    I just looked up, average house price in my city is 1 million.

    Those prices will be inflated by the Toorak and Sth Yarra McMansions though
    an area you'd expect to be paying more for so you can la de da down the st
    reet sippin' on your chai mocha latte...

    If you took the, I was going to say most expensive 2 or 3, but probably 4 or
    5 these days, that average would fall pretty significantly... There are
    houses local here that are back under $500k... but as you say they're almost the dumpster fire end of town.

    Spec


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 07:14:00 2022
    project with any other material.Or, a more recent example: if the
    power infrastructure of your country is designed in such a way that
    the easiest way is to deploy solar without backup batteries,
    it will be harder to get solar with batteries to back them up. Power supply contracts, handouts and supplies just won't contemplate.

    One of the problems noted here with that setup is they don't want everyones solar setup feeding power back into the system if they need to turn it off or if there's some catastrophy that starts blowing fuses. You make it dangerous for the linesmen. If you wanted batteries you had to be removed from the grid.

    Spec


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 07:18:00 2022
    There is something to installing crapware: that way they get the user to provide their data to them so they can sell it.

    Maybe I'm the odd man out, but the only things I use a phone for are phone calls duh, and SMS messages. Other than that its next best use is a boat anchor or tyre chock. I couldn't even guess what half the schnitzengruben installed on the thing is, it doesn't fulfil any meaningful purpose.

    Spec


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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Spectre on Fri Jul 22 15:39:14 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 2022 07:18 am

    Maybe I'm the odd man out, but the only things I use a phone for are phone calls duh, and SMS messages. Other than that its next best use is a boat anchor or tyre chock. I couldn't even guess what half the schnitzengruben installed on the thing is, it doesn't fulfil any meaningful purpose.

    I rarely talk on the phone anymore, and most phone calls I get these days are spam and telemarketing. I rarely get actual phone calls from friends or family, or anyone else for a real conversation.

    Nightfox
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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 11:42:17 2022
    Those prices will be inflated by the Toorak and Sth Yarra McMansions though an area you'd expect to be paying more for so you can la de da
    down the st reet sippin' on your chai mocha latte...

    If you took the, I was going to say most expensive 2 or 3, but probably
    4 or 5 these days, that average would fall pretty significantly... There are houses local here that are back under $500k... but as you say
    they're almost the dumpster fire end of town.

    Spec

    Indeed they do skew the average, but they would have also skewed the average figures in the decades prior too.

    People do say that suburbs improve and gentrify (partly true), but the issue is that the 'cheapest' are further and further out, and that is an absolute disadvantage, not a relative one.

    In the 60s, Avondale Heights was the 'suburban fringe'. Now it is something like $600K for a house, often around $700-$800.

    It's a bit like the frog boiling slowly. You get used to a decline, and the degraded conditions become the 'new normal'.

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Spectre on Fri Jul 22 19:46:00 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 2022 07:14 am

    project with any other material.Or, a more recent example: if the
    power infrastructure of your country is designed in such a way that
    the easiest way is to deploy solar without backup batteries,
    it will be harder to get solar with batteries to back them up. Power supply contracts, handouts and supplies just won't contemplate.

    One of the problems noted here with that setup is they don't want everyones solar setup feeding power back into the system if they need to turn it off o if there's some catastrophy that starts blowing fuses. You make it dangerou for the linesmen. If you wanted batteries you had to be removed from the gri

    Spec



    In Spain they are deploying so-called smart counters, so they can drop you off the grid anyway.

    Still, even a solar system with no batteries would be dangerous for linesmen if the linesmen grabbed the live wire in sun hours.

    In any case, the kits I see deployed in Spain don't pour battery energy into the grid. The whole point of batteries is to keep the power for yourself, not to dump it into the grid. Dumping battery power into the grid is moronic.

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  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 12:11:02 2022

    I just looked up, average house price in my city is 1 million.

    Those prices will be inflated by the Toorak and Sth Yarra McMansions though
    an area you'd expect to be paying more for so you can la de da down the st reet sippin' on your chai mocha latte...

    Down here, the close-in posh suburb of Sandy Bay has a median of $1.4M. IN HOBART.


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  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 12:13:20 2022

    One of the problems noted here with that setup is they don't want everyones
    solar setup feeding power back into the system if they need to turn it off or if there's some catastrophy that starts blowing fuses. You make it dangerous for the linesmen. If you wanted batteries you had to be removed from the grid.

    I would have expected the solution to that problem to be the same as for systems without batteries - ie, the inverter detects the lack of mains supply and shuts off? That's assuming your system is setup to export battery stored energy to the grid in the first place, which my first thought says would be an undesirable configuration anyway.


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  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to Nightfox on Sat Jul 23 12:16:54 2022

    I rarely talk on the phone anymore, and most phone calls I get these
    days
    are spam and telemarketing. I rarely get actual phone calls from friends or family, or anyone else for a real conversation.

    Same - just as spam has almost ruined internet email, telemarketers have pretty much destroyed the utility of the telephone and SMS messaging systems.

    I only answer calls from people who are listed in my contacts, of on rare occasions if I happen to be expecting a call. I answer maybe 2-3 calls/month on my mobile. SMS has de-generated into a mass marketing system too - most recently abused to death by politicians.

    99% of those who want to contact me know how, and the other 1% are in my phone's contact list :-)


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to TassieBob on Sat Jul 23 19:45:00 2022
    I would have expected the solution to that problem to be the same as for systems without batteries - ie, the inverter detects the lack of mains supply and shuts off? That's assuming your system is setup to export battery stored energy to the grid in the first place, which my first thought says would be an undesirable configuration anyway.

    There's to much I don't really understand... how an inverter is going to
    detect mains is online or not, especially you're going to be feeding into it. There was a school of thought that home systems with batteries could help offset load demand at times solar for whatever reason couldn't. There was
    also something about battery systems likely to continue feeding if the power
    is required to be turned off for line works for arguments sake.

    Spec


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 19:50:00 2022
    Still, even a solar system with no batteries would be dangerous for linesmen if the linesmen grabbed the live wire in sun hours.

    Can't pretend to know or understand why batteries were put into a harder
    case basket.

    In any case, the kits I see deployed in Spain don't pour battery energy into the grid. The whole point of batteries is to keep the power
    for yourself, not to dump it into the grid. Dumping battery power
    into the grid is moronic.

    Maybe, maybe not... there was talk about increasing feed in tarrifs when the renewables are renewing... night time, still days... so you'd get more for supply during expected peak, and low power generation crossover points. So if you have spare capacity it would make sense. Renewables at this point really are a crock of shot...there is no way you could replace fossil power with
    100% renewable, you still need some kind of baseline power.

    Spec


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Sat Jul 23 19:56:00 2022
    Indeed they do skew the average, but they would have also skewed the average figures in the decades prior too.

    But in these days of larger figures they'd disproportionately skew it now.

    People do say that suburbs improve and gentrify (partly true), but the issue is that the 'cheapest' are further and further out, and that is an absolute disadvantage, not a relative one.

    But thats always been true.. Oakleigh was all market garden once... it was
    the far flung borders of town.. Keysborough was farm country, still in my living memory... in these days of more decentralised business, its probably less of an issue than it historically was. Cranbourne North was selling
    house and land I guess thats about 15 years ago now at ~2-300k.

    Spec


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 22:26:51 2022
    But thats always been true.. Oakleigh was all market garden once... it
    was the far flung borders of town.. Keysborough was farm country, still
    in my living memory... in these days of more decentralised business, its probably less of an issue than it historically was. Cranbourne North
    was selling house and land I guess thats about 15 years ago now at ~2-300k.


    Yes, but the point is it is very different when the urban fringe is 15km out and traffic is light as compared to when it is 40km out with heavy traffic.

    People say this is nothing new, but it is. The parameters are different and the situation today is not equivalent to the past. Living on the urban fringes, is in terms of distance, objectively worse now than it was in the past.

    Decentralisation still doesn't really solve the problem. It means that my next job may not be in the CBD, it may be closer, but it may also be further away, on the other side of town. I am being a little subjective here because my profession is specialised, so I can't just pick a job anywhere.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 20:25:26 2022

    There's to much I don't really understand... how an inverter is going
    to detect mains is online or not, especially you're going to be
    feeding into it.

    I'm not sure what the exact mechanism is, but it's a requirement for any grid connected inverter - for exactly the reason you mentioned (safety of those working on the power distribution network during outages).

    There was a school of thought that home systems with batteries could
    help offset load demand at times solar for whatever reason couldn't.

    I don't doubt there are use cases where embedded storage such as batteries can help support the grid, but if I were an embedded storage owner I'd be unlikely to participate in such a scheme - at least while feed-in tariffs are as low as they are.

    Why would I use my solar to fill my battery storage, then let the grid suck it dry at $0.06/KWh when I can use it myself and save $0.26/KWh?

    There was also something about battery systems likely to continue
    feeding if the power is required to be turned off for line works for arguments sake.

    If they're using compliant grid-tie inverters then that shouldn't be able to happen.

    I /think/ there are storage systems that can continue supplying power to your premises while the mains is out - like an oversized UPS - but I'd expect they would have an isolation contactor or similar to stop that power going back to the grid.

    Any sparkies in here with knowledge of solar and embedded storage? :-)


    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220504
    * Origin: TassieBob's BBS (21:3/169)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 08:36:54 2022
    Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to TassieBob on Sat Jul 23 2022 07:45 pm

    I would have expected the solution to that problem to be the same as fo systems without batteries - ie, the inverter detects the lack of mains supply and shuts off? That's assuming your system is setup to export battery stored energy to the grid in the first place, which my first thought says would be an undesirable configuration anyway.

    There's to much I don't really understand... how an inverter is going to detect mains is online or not, especially you're going to be feeding into it There was a school of thought that home systems with batteries could help offset load demand at times solar for whatever reason couldn't. There was also something about battery systems likely to continue feeding if the power is required to be turned off for line works for arguments sake.

    Spec



    It is trivial to detect if the main has power and cut off via relays/switches whatever. You can do that with off-the-shelf hardware purchased in the electrotechnics supply store.

    OFC real life deployments have controllers which are more sophisticate. SOme diesel generators come with pluggable modules that can be used to detect that the power from the main line is down and kick the generator into motion to serve as a backup supply. If you pair that with an automated transfer switch, you just got backup power that cuts-off from the grid and kicks in automatically. Then again, you can buy the supplies for this easily.

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 08:56:04 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to Arelor on Sat Jul 23 2022 07:50 pm

    In any case, the kits I see deployed in Spain don't pour battery energy into the grid. The whole point of batteries is to keep the power
    for yourself, not to dump it into the grid. Dumping battery power
    into the grid is moronic.

    Maybe, maybe not... there was talk about increasing feed in tarrifs when the renewables are renewing... night time, still days... so you'd get more for supply during expected peak, and low power generation crossover points. So i you have spare capacity it would make sense. Renewables at this point reall are a crock of shot...there is no way you could replace fossil power with 100% renewable, you still need some kind of baseline power.


    Renewables are not renewable :-)

    With the current stete of technology, there is no way they can take over traditional generation. Still,that is not the point. Neither is being more ecofriendly, because solar is polluting as heck and airgenerators consume resources that are no renewable.

    The point is anybody wealthy enough to set his how power generation will be able to make a dent in his power bill and recoup the investment in human time. Bonus points because if there is a disruption in the Energy supply chain (ie. WWIII) you will have a limited supply to cling to during the crisis.

    Certainly, most solñar I see deployed today are cheap investments intended to reduce the power bill rather than serious deployments intended to make a house slef-sufficent or close to self-sufficient. Of course, we are talking about domestic power generation, but here is this:

    * Estimated budget to make my house energy self-sufficient on solar only: 30k EUR
    * Estimated budget to make my house self-sufficient 92% of the year: 18k EUR.
    * Typical deployment for similar homes in my area: 6k EUR. (which makes you self-sufficient less than 25% of the year).

    The Government'splan for the transition of energy productivity is to have people install the latter: that way, solar systems will produce energy around 6 hours per day, with all excess power sold to the power grid. Then, owners of solar systems will purchase power from the grid during non-productive hours at a discount. The idea is that you compensate the energy you are forced to buy with the energy you poured in the grid when you were having excess - that way they tell you you don'tneed to invest in batteries, which are the single most expensive element).

    Sadly, that setup is quite lame because it ends up meaning that the owner invests 6k EUR, has power during 6 hours per day, and then gets to buy the defficitary energy by night at a 30% discount (and only a small fraction of the energy purchased comes with a discount, actually). IN other words: it is a scam.


    Power companies don't want you to have batteries because they want you to sell them cheap energy instead and then sell you expensive energy. I think a lot of the FUD against batteries comes from this.

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to TassieBob on Sat Jul 23 09:01:18 2022
    Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: TassieBob to Spectre on Sat Jul 23 2022 08:25 pm

    If they're using compliant grid-tie inverters then that shouldn't be able to

    I /think/ there are storage systems that can continue supplying power to you

    Any sparkies in here with knowledge of solar and embedded storage? :-)


    Backup power systems that are worth anything must have a transwer switch to cut you off the grid while the backup power is enabled.

    This is also to protect your premises. If your backup power is working at a given phase, it is not isolated from the grid, and the grid suddenly comes back, chances are the electric wave won't be in sync. If it gets bad you could burn something out of that, such as the backup power supply. Or the house.

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  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Jul 23 10:24:53 2022

    My parents bought a house for $23K in 1970. Sold it for $1.3 million in 2016. Zillow says it's now worth $2.35 million.

    If the average salary in that area is $575k per year, then cost of living wise that isn't too bad. However, I'm thinking the average salary isn't $575k per year in that area.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Boraxman on Sat Jul 23 10:33:10 2022

    I guess that is one advantage to the states. Such houses are hard to find
    in Australia. Maybe in the boondocks, where there is little good work. But even some of the country towns are pricey.

    I just looked up, average house price in my city is 1 million.

    So at 4-5x income, I would expect companies to be paying wages for typical desk jobs of $200,000 - $250,000 per annum.

    When I look for places to live, it boils down to the cost of living. The only way to figure out the true best places to live when it comes to value is by looking at the overall cost of living (average salary vs cost of goods/housing).

    Having a high salary alone means nothing if you are paying 10 times what someone else is paying, even if they make half the above salary.

    There are many states here that offer a really decent cost of living. There are also localized spots in states that offer good cost of living, as well. It just takes research and planning to figure it all out and what works best.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Fri Jul 22 07:32:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    There is definitely that. People also don't know why things matter, or don't take responsibility. One of the things that gets me about the discussion on housing prices, is just how disconnected people are from
    the flow on effects. There is a huge social shift


    I've seen that firsthand. I went to school in San Francisco in the '80s, and lived there through the '90s at the ramp-up of the first dot-com boom. San Francisco changed, subtly at first and now materially. SF used to be a
    melting pot of cultures, demographics and income levels. Lots of people
    who'd lived there multiple generations. Now:

    1. Working class people have a hard time affording to move there or raise
    kids there.

    2. Multi-generational families are ending as elderly parents choose to sell
    to fund a retirement instead of passing the house along to the next generation.

    3. Income inflation from the tech sector has caused house prices and discretionary spending (dining out, especially) to soar.

    You used to be able to run into people who'd lived there all their lives,
    who grew up there, went to high school there, and so on. They're getting
    fewer and farther between. Sit at a bar, coffee shop or a restaurant and strike up a conversation with a plumber, roofer, or a fireman. There was
    also a tolerance that seems to have gone away, too. It's a shame.

    The thing that struck me was talking a walk through the SOMA neighborhood, hotbed of tech companies. I shot lots of photos of an urban sprawl from 2000-2002 - lots of warehouses, grafitti, gritty live-work lofts, and so on.

    In 2018, the warehouses had given way to high-rise condos. Restaurants I'd loved looked empty on a weeknight. But, there was a line of waiters on
    wheels and doordash drivers leading into the parking lot of a condo.

    What's the point of living in one of the most eclectic cities in the world
    if you're going to eat overpriced takeout in your living room?






    , which will greatly
    impact our children and grandchildren, and people kind of just are
    happy to be victims of change. Actually, if you think about it,
    whenever we talk of the future, of AI, surveillance, the new Internet,
    the Great Reset, we kind of act, to paraphrase someone, as if the
    future is something that happens to us, rather than something we
    create.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

    ... The obstinate toy soldier becomes pliant.
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to TassieBob on Sun Jul 24 07:56:00 2022
    I don't doubt there are use cases where embedded storage such as batteries can help support the grid, but if I were an embedded storage owner I'd be unlikely to participate in such a scheme - at least while feed-in tariffs are as low as they are.

    One of the problems with the current setup and feed in tarrifs, is that
    there's an oversupply of daytime power already... and the system canna store
    it thats not what its designed to do. There was mumblings at one point of higher tarrifs for night time feeds, to encourage someone with batteries to charge by day use what they need and feed the rest into the grid.

    Spec

    PS: Like high day time tariffs it won't last forever though.


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Sun Jul 24 08:03:00 2022
    It is trivial to detect if the main has power and cut off via relays/switches whatever. You can do that with off-the-shelf
    hardware purchased in the electrotechnics supply store.

    I find it hard to wrap my head around that... how is it going to detect an outtage if you're feeding the same stuff back in there? You could figure it
    out on startup easily enough but once you're connected it'd be a positive feedback cycle... <boggle>


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Weatherman on Sun Jul 24 12:30:27 2022
    I guess that is one advantage to the states. Such houses are hard to fi in Australia. Maybe in the boondocks, where there is little good work. even some of the country towns are pricey.

    I just looked up, average house price in my city is 1 million.

    So at 4-5x income, I would expect companies to be paying wages for typi desk jobs of $200,000 - $250,000 per annum.

    When I look for places to live, it boils down to the cost of living.
    The only way to figure out the true best places to live when it comes to value is by looking at the overall cost of living (average salary vs
    cost of goods/housing).

    Having a high salary alone means nothing if you are paying 10 times what someone else is paying, even if they make half the above salary.

    There are many states here that offer a really decent cost of living. There are also localized spots in states that offer good cost of living, as well. It just takes research and planning to figure it all out and what works best.


    Australia is highly urbanised. If you want to live where there are decent jobs, schools and cultural opportunities, you have a few choices. Unlike the US which has large cities scattered, in Australia you have a few large capital cities, and then regional areas.

    The fact that it boils down to cost of living means the cost of living is too high. People are being segregated, force to live in specific areas because nowhere else is affordable. Your should be able to afford some choice, to choose where based on geography, culture, the area.

    Also, buying the cheapest area means bad schools, fewer opportunities for your children. I think this is a much bigger social problem than people realise.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Jul 24 12:43:25 2022
    I've seen that firsthand. I went to school in San Francisco in the '80s, and lived there through the '90s at the ramp-up of the first dot-com boom. San Francisco changed, subtly at first and now materially. SF
    used to be a melting pot of cultures, demographics and income levels. Lots of people who'd lived there multiple generations. Now:

    1. Working class people have a hard time affording to move there or
    raise kids there.

    2. Multi-generational families are ending as elderly parents choose to sell to fund a retirement instead of passing the house along to the
    next generation.

    3. Income inflation from the tech sector has caused house prices and discretionary spending (dining out, especially) to soar.

    You used to be able to run into people who'd lived there all their
    lives, who grew up there, went to high school there, and so on. They're getting fewer and farther between. Sit at a bar, coffee shop or a restaurant and strike up a conversation with a plumber, roofer, or a fireman. There was also a tolerance that seems to have gone away, too. It's a shame.

    The thing that struck me was talking a walk through the SOMA
    neighborhood, hotbed of tech companies. I shot lots of photos of an
    urban sprawl from 2000-2002 - lots of warehouses, grafitti, gritty live-work lofts, and so on.

    In 2018, the warehouses had given way to high-rise condos. Restaurants
    I'd loved looked empty on a weeknight. But, there was a line of waiters on wheels and doordash drivers leading into the parking lot of a condo.

    What's the point of living in one of the most eclectic cities in the
    world if you're going to eat overpriced takeout in your living room?

    That describes here too. I grew up in an area with a mixed demographic. I recall people of different ages, people living close to their families and a real sense of community. We knew our neighbours well and people were really part of the community, with a multigenerational feel.

    That has declined now. The patter is that young families move to the fringes, so there are neighbourhoods where they are all young families, with different ethnic enclaves (the older ethnic enclaves dispersed). People don't know each other and the new people have no relation to any older ones which were there. The inner city (expensive here) has another specific demographic, young professionals, and they don't really stay either. The city centre is international students, with towers of the buggers.

    Melbourne is just turning into a 'churn and burn' population machine, just a human dumping ground, a factory which sorts people based on markets. It isn't home anymore. Everything about Melbourne just screams "This was done just so property developers can bank money", and Sydney perhaps not to different.

    This is why I have such antipathy towards the entire enterprise of property speculation, investment, etc, it murdered my home city, turned the communities I live in to ugly arrays of concrete bunkers, took away opportunities and to some degree, took away our humanity.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to Arelor on Sun Jul 24 13:13:18 2022

    Backup power systems that are worth anything must have a transwer
    switch to cut you off the grid while the backup power is enabled.

    For small scale backup power systems like you'd have at home (generators, etc), yes. Lose power, start up a genset, and fire the auto-transfer switch to disconnect mails and connect the generator (or do it manually). In this instance there is a definite break before make when changing sources.

    Home scale storage systems though are intended to operate with the grid and feed in when the batteries are full, and pull excess from the grid when the batteries are insufficient. These systems run in sync with the mains, and will drop off the grid if the mains fails.

    In larger scale backup power systems, such as might be used in a datacentre environment, the generators are sometimes setup to parallel with the mains to facilitate a slow controlled drop or increase in consumption. Most utilities don't like it if you drop 20MW of load in a fraction of a second, or try dumping 20MW of load back on the grid in a similar timeframe (and their supply contracts at that level includes clauses to that effect). The last one I worked on was a 30 second ramp up/down if I recall correctly.

    This is also to protect your premises. If your backup power is working
    at a given phase, it is not isolated from the grid, and the grid
    suddenly comes back, chances are the electric wave won't be in sync.

    Yeah, if you try and connect two out of phase sources together then it can end badly.

    I've seen this happen with cheap in-rack automatic transfer switches where the normally on relay welds itself closed. If the other source isn't in sync then when the ATS tries to change over - b00m. In a good datacentre the A & B feeds to a rack should normally be in sync, even if they're off different power systems - but there are fault conditions that can cause them to get out of sync.

    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220504
    * Origin: TassieBob's BBS (21:3/169)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to TassieBob on Sun Jul 24 16:35:00 2022
    Hi TassieBob/Spec,

    There was also something about battery systems likely to continue feeding if the power is required to be turned off for line wor
    for arguments sake.

    If they're using compliant grid-tie inverters then that shouldn't be
    able to happen.

    I /think/ there are storage systems that can continue supplying power
    to your premises while the mains is out - like an oversized UPS - but
    I'd expect they would have an isolation contactor or similar to stop
    that power going back to the grid.

    Any sparkies in here with knowledge of solar and embedded storage? :-)


    At a previous house, I had sola installed (Back when the feed in tariff
    was a nice $0.32 per KW.), but can confirm that when there was no mains
    the inverter on our sola system did jack all... It would cycle around and around looking for the mains so it could feed in any exces power.

    I don't think anything in the house would work though, as we didn't have batterys.... #-*(





    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Spectre on Sun Jul 24 07:17:02 2022
    Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to Arelor on Sun Jul 24 2022 08:03 am

    It is trivial to detect if the main has power and cut off via relays/switches whatever. You can do that with off-the-shelf
    hardware purchased in the electrotechnics supply store.

    I find it hard to wrap my head around that... how is it going to detect an outtage if you're feeding the same stuff back in there? You could figure it out on startup easily enough but once you're connected it'd be a positive feedback cycle... <boggle>


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)

    Duckduckgo or Startpage your way to UPS diagrams for a basic understanding :-)

    There are lots of ways to do it. The most basic is using a switched relay (or whatever that is called in english) that stays in a given position when there is current in a given line, and moves to another when there isn't.

    Say you have a Hospital which takes its power from the grid, and which has a diesel generator for emergencies. The basic state is for the switch to stay in position A so power passes from the grid to the radiodiagnostics equipment. THe switch stays in position A as long as the main grid is providing tension.

    WHen the lights go out, the switch moves to position B, which means the HOspital is cut from the grid, and the generator turns into the new power source (I hope you have an automated means to start it up, instead of sending a maintenance guy to the celar to power it on). If the power from the grid comes back in, the sitch changes back to position A, cutting off the generator from the hospital as to avoid conflics (and hopefully something powers the generator off).

    Then again, actual critical installations are more complex than that. A diesel generator takes a good bunch of seconds to kick in so generally you want a set of inline batteries somewhere to provide power while the generator is warming up, for example.



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    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Arelor on Mon Jul 25 00:16:00 2022
    Duckduckgo or Startpage your way to UPS diagrams for a basic understanding

    Yeah you know what you can do with duckduckgone... a more useless pretend search beast I've never seen... only gives you what you're not looking for.

    Say you have a Hospital which takes its power from the grid, and which has

    That's not my boggle though... If you've got your home solar/battery feed in, if you're putting 240v back into the line how are you ever going to detect
    its missing from the far side....

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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    * Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Boraxman on Sun Jul 24 11:23:34 2022

    Australia is highly urbanised. If you want to live where there are decent jobs, schools and cultural opportunities, you have a few choices. Unlike
    the US which has large cities scattered, in Australia you have a few large capital cities, and then regional areas.

    Much of this is changing due to remote working being way more accepted these days. It is far more common now to work for a company in a different state and never having to go to a corporate office at all.

    While my role is permanant remote work, however we still have to go in from time to time if anything physical needs to be done or investigate. That doesn't happen often, so I average going on-site once every 2-3 months.

    Also, buying the cheapest area means bad schools, fewer opportunities for your children. I think this is a much bigger social problem than people realise.

    Around here that isn't the case. The best cost of living options are in the rural areas, still within an hour of most large businesses and the schools in these areas are FAR better than the near the city options. Most people that choose to live near the city in the high cost of living areas will pay to put their kids in private schools.

    It is very normal in the states to drive around an hour to work and an hour back. That has changed drastically over the past few years now that many jobs have gone permanent remote work. Companies have finally realized this is a reality that can work and also save them money at the same time.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Weatherman on Sun Jul 24 07:33:00 2022
    Weatherman wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

    If the average salary in that area is $575k per year, then cost of
    living wise that isn't too bad. However, I'm thinking the average
    salary isn't $575k per year in that area.

    It's manageable if you have two people working in tech. That's the problem with the bay area; the middle class is being priced out.

    When my parents bought their house, they were a 1-income household with 2 kids. Dad was white collar, worked in finance - nothing that lucrative.


    ... Overtly resist change
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Arelor on Sun Jul 24 11:34:40 2022

    Then again, actual critical installations are more complex than that. A diesel generator takes a good bunch of seconds to kick in so generally you want a set of inline batteries somewhere to provide power while the generator is warming up, for example.

    What you explained is exactly what I have seen with regards to electrical designs in all hospitals I have worked in over the years.

    The larger hospitals will have as many as (12) diesel truck style motor/generators that will power all "red outlets" and lights in the entire hopsital. All on automatic transfer switches.

    There are also battery rooms that have enough capacity to power things for the few seconds it takes to switch over to generator. All emergency medical gear has battery backups internal to itself, plus is in red outlets/generator power for emergencies.

    I have seen cases where things don't work the way these should have have seen areas completely go dark, but that is rare and fortunately was never in clinical areas.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Poindexter Fortran on Sun Jul 24 11:43:57 2022

    It's manageable if you have two people working in tech. That's the
    problem with the bay area; the middle class is being priced out.

    When my parents bought their house, they were a 1-income household with 2 kids. Dad was white collar, worked in finance - nothing that lucrative.

    Yes, that is another difference from the old days. It is far more common these days to have two income families. If you are a single income family in the same area, you are priced out.

    Over the years I always budgeted for things with just my income. I would say that 95% of my life, we were a single income family (just mine). That is both by preference and what has worked best in our situation.

    The other thing that is very important is for people to live below their means and also put some side money to work - to make more money. That is the only way to build wealth. Just working isn't good enough.

    I have seen so many people on very modest incomes invest and end up with millions from doing that over the long term. You don't have to make a ton of money to end up with a good deal of money, but it takes investing, time, and dedication to the process to make it work. The earlier you start, the better.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to Arelor on Mon Jul 25 18:35:38 2022

    Say you have a Hospital which takes its power from the grid, and which
    has a diesel generator for emergencies. The basic state is for the
    switch to stay in position A so power passes from the grid to the radiodiagnostics equipment. THe switch stays in position A as long as
    the main grid is providing tension.

    The medium scale installations I've been involved with typically did this with a couple of mechanically interlocked air circuit breakers. Mechcanically interlocked so that even if the controller fails, or one gets locked up in the "on position the other can't fire.

    The mains is monitored on all phases and when it fails a sequence is initiated to request diesel start, wait for diesel availability, open mains ACB, wait, close generator ACB. Then the reverse when mains returns, with the generator itself having a run-down/cool-down timer after it receives the "shut down" signal.

    Of course you can fire multiple mains/generator ACB's, and have multiple generators paralleled for larger requirements.

    At the larger end of town a planned islanding will see the generators start and slowly take the load over 30 seconds or so to avoid dropping huge loads off the grid. Similarly when going back on-grid the gens will ramp down generation and a graceful take-up by the grid.

    Then again, actual critical installations are more complex than that.
    A diesel generator takes a good bunch of seconds to kick in so

    You might be surprised how quickly they can start and take load... Some of the sites I worked at had, using diesel rotary UPSs had a window of about 15 seconds from mains fail to loss of power, and the diesels would be fired and on-load WAY faster than that - IIRC they could accommodate a failed start, followed by a successful start, and still be on-load in time. That said, they usually started first time :-)

    generally you want a set of inline batteries somewhere to provide
    power while the generator is warming up, for example.

    A "good" critical facility will have block heaters on the generators so they can safely go from not running to full noise pretty quickly.


    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20220504
    * Origin: TassieBob's BBS (21:3/169)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Weatherman on Mon Jul 25 21:51:06 2022
    Much of this is changing due to remote working being way more accepted these days. It is far more common now to work for a company in a different state and never having to go to a corporate office at all.

    While my role is permanant remote work, however we still have to go in from time to time if anything physical needs to be done or investigate. That doesn't happen often, so I average going on-site once every 2-3 months.

    Around here that isn't the case. The best cost of living options are in the rural areas, still within an hour of most large businesses and the schools in these areas are FAR better than the near the city options. Most people that choose to live near the city in the high cost of living areas will pay to put their kids in private schools.

    It is very normal in the states to drive around an hour to work and an hour back. That has changed drastically over the past few years now
    that many jobs have gone permanent remote work. Companies have finally realized this is a reality that can work and also save them money at the same time.


    An hour each way is a long time. This is the problem with the "car" culture of America. One hour each way comes to about 1 month per year in a car. That is an entire month of the year just to get to and from work. Not really accessible or functional.

    I used to do that 1 hour+ commute each way, and its awful, especially when you have traffic. It's costly too.

    In Australia, the city fringes don't really have the same quality schools. You really do need to get closer to the CBD, but then, we don't quite have the same reputation of inner city troubles as many US cities seem to have. They aren't crime ridden, not when you go close in.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Weatherman@21:1/132 to Boraxman on Mon Jul 25 07:41:55 2022

    An hour each way is a long time. This is the problem with the "car"
    culture of America. One hour each way comes to about 1 month per year in a car. That is an entire month of the year just to get to and from work. Not really accessible or functional.

    I used to do that 1 hour+ commute each way, and its awful, especially when you have traffic. It's costly too.

    It is all in what you get used to. That is the norm and a small price to pay to be away from the crime ridden big city locations. You couldn't pay me to live close to any of them. It is a good time to listen to some music, enjoy the drive or ride.

    In Australia, the city fringes don't really have the same quality schools. You really do need to get closer to the CBD, but then, we don't quite have the same reputation of inner city troubles as many US cities seem to have. They aren't crime ridden, not when you go close in.

    Typically the school systems around here are a reflection of the general neighborhoods. The areas where the family/parents are involved in the school/education and have decent family values, those are the areas with the best schools. If the community is broken, the school is typically the same.

    - Mark
    ÿÿÿ
    --- WWIVToss v.1.52
    * Origin: http://www.weather-station.org * Bel Air, MD -USA (21:1/132.0)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Weatherman on Tue Jul 26 22:44:05 2022

    It is all in what you get used to. That is the norm and a small price
    to pay to be away from the crime ridden big city locations. You
    couldn't pay me to live close to any of them. It is a good time to
    listen to some music, enjoy the drive or ride.


    I don't have the patience for such a commute. Anything more than 30 minutes wears thin. Life it too short to be stuck in car. I'd rather walk 30 minutes than drive 15.

    Typically the school systems around here are a reflection of the general neighborhoods. The areas where the family/parents are involved in the school/education and have decent family values, those are the areas with the best schools. If the community is broken, the school is typically
    the same.


    As would the case be throughout much of the world. Migration tends to happen within cities in Australia, whereas from what I know of the US, people will move interstate more. The cities here segregate, with the more desirable inner locations gentrified, or becoming gentrified.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Weatherman on Mon Jul 25 08:22:00 2022
    Weatherman wrote to Boraxman <=-


    An hour each way is a long time. This is the problem with the "car"
    culture of America. One hour each way comes to about 1 month per year in a car. That is an entire month of the year just to get to and from work. Not really accessible or functional.

    I used to do that 1 hour+ commute each way, and its awful, especially when you have traffic. It's costly too.

    I figured that to live where I worked would have cost twice as much as
    living with an hour commute. I also got living in a beach community with a low-key, low-stress lifestyle as part of the bargain.

    Everyone would live where they work, if real estate was affordable.

    It is all in what you get used to. That is the norm and a small price
    to pay to be away from the crime ridden big city locations. You
    couldn't pay me to live close to any of them. It is a good time to
    listen to some music, enjoy the drive or ride.

    Yep, I used to listen to podcasts on the way to work, and ran a team meeting out of my car for a while.


    ... How does this work, is there an orientation?
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    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Jul 27 21:54:51 2022
    I figured that to live where I worked would have cost twice as much as living with an hour commute. I also got living in a beach community with
    a low-key, low-stress lifestyle as part of the bargain.

    Everyone would live where they work, if real estate was affordable.


    Oh, you live near a beach? I did choose to remain an hours drive for work, because my home was near the bay. I could walk or bike down there after work and spend some time on the grass overlooking the water reading a book. That made the extra time driving worth it.

    Yep, I used to listen to podcasts on the way to work, and ran a team meeting out of my car for a while.



    I should probably start doing that, though I'd have to get some new hardware to be able to do that. Have a older car, not bluetooth or anything like that.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Wed Jul 27 07:32:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Oh, you live near a beach? I did choose to remain an hours drive for work, because my home was near the bay. I could walk or bike down
    there after work and spend some time on the grass overlooking the water reading a book. That made the extra time driving worth it.

    Yes, I'm about 10 minutes south of Santa Cruz, California. Appreciated the change of pace down here - we joked that it can take some time to drive cross-town because of all of the 4-way stops - everyone wants to wave the other person on through the intersection. "No, you go on ahead..."

    I should probably start doing that, though I'd have to get some new hardware to be able to do that. Have a older car, not bluetooth or anything like that.

    If you're anywhere near handy, there are some cheap Android head units that look interesting. If your older car doesn't have steering wheel controls,
    it's even easier - 2 wires per speaker, power and ground. Antennas usually have the same coax socket. Might even get Bluetooth handsfree out of it,
    too.

    Although, for a good part of my commute I used one of those cassette
    adapters that play through the headphone port and a bluetooth headset with noise cancelling - people couldn't tell I was in a car most of the time.


    ... Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Jul 28 21:50:00 2022
    Yes, I'm about 10 minutes south of Santa Cruz, California. Appreciated
    the change of pace down here - we joked that it can take some time to drive cross-town because of all of the 4-way stops - everyone wants to wave the other person on through the intersection. "No, you go on ahead..."


    If you're anywhere near handy, there are some cheap Android head units that look interesting. If your older car doesn't have steering wheel controls, it's even easier - 2 wires per speaker, power and ground. Antennas usually have the same coax socket. Might even get Bluetooth handsfree out of it, too.

    Although, for a good part of my commute I used one of those cassette adapters that play through the headphone port and a bluetooth headset
    with noise cancelling - people couldn't tell I was in a car most of the time.


    I have one of those MP3 players that plugs into the cigarette lights and transmits the audio over an FM frequency. It works pretty well, but it doesn't support resuming, so if I turn off the care before I finish, or even just stall, it will restart.

    I'll see if there is an updated unit that can convert bluetooth to radio.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From bex@21:4/141 to Weatherman on Wed Aug 3 19:10:00 2022
    At 7:41 AM on 25 Jul 22, Weatherman said to Boraxman:


    I used to do that 1 hour+ commute each way, and its awful, especially when you have traffic. It's costly too.

    It is all in what you get used to. That is the norm and a small price
    to pay to be away from the crime ridden big city locations. You
    couldn't pay me to live close to any of them. It is a good time to
    listen to some music, enjoy the drive or ride.

    I've gotta go with Boraxman on this one, nothing is worth taking all my time for a long drive into the office and then back home. Fortunately, here in Denver, the city is mellow - crime is mostly low during the work day - and
    the public transportation is fun! I take light rail from the suburb I live
    into LoDo, and walk to the office from there.

    Or at least I used to, I've been working remote for 10 years now.


    --
    Brightening the BBS world since 1990. - Bex <3
    --
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    Master: There is some evil in all of us, Doctor. Even you.
    - Doctor Who

    -*- ASTG 1.8

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
    * Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)
  • From Utopian Galt@21:4/108 to Bex on Thu Aug 4 12:35:58 2022
    BY: bex(21:4/141)


    Denver, the city is mellow - crime is mostly low during the work day -
    and
    the public transportation is fun! I take light rail from the suburb I
    live into LoDo, and walk to the office from there.
    I used to take the bus to school 2 hours each way. The funny thing was they implemented the express bus right after I graduated. hahhahaa


    --- WWIV 5.5.1.3261
    * Origin: inland utopia * california * iutopia.duckdns.org:2023 (21:4/108)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Utopian Galt on Fri Aug 5 10:07:24 2022
    Denver, the city is mellow - crime is mostly low during the work day - and
    the public transportation is fun! I take light rail from the suburb I live into LoDo, and walk to the office from there.
    I used to take the bus to school 2 hours each way. The funny thing was they implemented the express bus right after I graduated. hahhahaa


    --- WWIV 5.5.1.3261
    * Origin: inland utopia * california * iutopia.duckdns.org:2023 (21:4/108)

    You really need the town to be designed around public transport and rail for it to work really well. Sadly they are designed around cars.

    I preferred driving to uni than taking 3 buses, but a good rail system beats cars.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Fri Aug 5 07:38:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Utopian Galt <=-

    I preferred driving to uni than taking 3 buses, but a good rail system beats cars.

    When I commuted into San Francisco, I had a couple of options.

    There is an elevated electric train called BART that runs underneath the
    bay. Skips the traffic, but frequent brealdowns and packed cars.

    I did a casual commute from across the bay. Drivers would pick up 2 passengers, then get to use the free commute lane. Everyone wins. They'd
    drop off at the SF Transbay Terminal, a bus hub that was conveniently 1
    block from my office. I took a bus back home from that terminal that dropped me off a block from home. Cheap, effective, and they started offering wifi.

    Driving could be a nightmare - stop and go traffic in the morning going through the toll booth, and sometimes 45 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic to get onto the bridge.

    The holy grail was the ferry service. Service was limited but ran hourly. I drove to the ferry terminal, then took a bus transfer; they'd let you take
    one bus ride per ticket to get into San Francisco.

    Mornings they had coffee, bagels, and donuts. The evening commute had beer
    and wine. Sitting on the upper deck in the summertime with a drink watching the sun go down under the SF skyline was a highlight.

    You had enough room that you could hunker down and get 40 minutes worth of work done - I arranged with my boss to get out of work an hour early based
    on working on the ferry.


    ... The exception also declares the rule
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From bex@21:4/141 to Utopian Galt on Sat Aug 6 08:52:00 2022
    At 12:35 AM on 4 Aug 22, Utopian Galt said to Bex:

    the public transportation is fun! I take light rail from the suburb I
    live into LoDo, and walk to the office from there.

    I usBed to take the bus to school 2 hours each way. The funny thing was they implemented the express bus right after I graduated. hahhahaa

    That is bad timing on the transportation district's part! :)



    "Great. I just beat up Santa Claus."
    - Denis Leary, "The Ref"

    -*- ASTG 1.8

    * Q-Blue 2.4 *
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
    * Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Aug 7 12:56:37 2022
    I preferred driving to uni than taking 3 buses, but a good rail syste beats cars.

    When I commuted into San Francisco, I had a couple of options.

    There is an elevated electric train called BART that runs underneath the bay. Skips the traffic, but frequent brealdowns and packed cars.

    I did a casual commute from across the bay. Drivers would pick up 2 passengers, then get to use the free commute lane. Everyone wins. They'd drop off at the SF Transbay Terminal, a bus hub that was conveniently 1 block from my office. I took a bus back home from that terminal that dropped me off a block from home. Cheap, effective, and they started offering wifi.

    Driving could be a nightmare - stop and go traffic in the morning going through the toll booth, and sometimes 45 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic to get onto the bridge.

    The holy grail was the ferry service. Service was limited but ran
    hourly. I drove to the ferry terminal, then took a bus transfer; they'd let you take one bus ride per ticket to get into San Francisco.

    Mornings they had coffee, bagels, and donuts. The evening commute had
    beer and wine. Sitting on the upper deck in the summertime with a drink watching the sun go down under the SF skyline was a highlight.

    You had enough room that you could hunker down and get 40 minutes worth
    of work done - I arranged with my boss to get out of work an hour early based on working on the ferry.




    Sounds pretty sweet, and a pretty good idea here. Making the commute actually part of your working day. We "work from home", so why now have "Work while you commute". So even if you are commuting an hour each way, that hour could part of your working day if you are actually able to get work done. Then when you're there, you can have your physical face to face meetings.

    The set up you described sounds like it could be like that.

    Designing cities so that we are forced to sink literal months and years of our leaves moving back and forth was one of the colossally stupid mistakes of human advancements, and we really need to push and say that it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to design cities in such a way that we are forced to do this. And I say forced because we often don't have the means or option to live near where we work.

    Henry Ford is burning in hell for making the automobile a 'mass consumer' product. He did to transportation what Bill Gates did to computing, ruined it.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Sun Aug 7 07:51:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Sounds pretty sweet, and a pretty good idea here. Making the commute actually part of your working day. We "work from home", so why now
    have "Work while you commute". So even if you are commuting an hour
    each way, that hour could part of your working day if you are actually able to get work done. Then when you're there, you can have your
    physical face to face meetings.

    A friend of mine justifies his self-driving Tesla that way - he owns a
    company and drives 1 1/2 hours each way occasionally to the office.

    He was pulled over using a cell phone while the car was driving and
    cautioned that he needed to have the phone mounted on the dash, even if the car was driving. :)

    You could look at it as saving your hourly rate's worth of salary, or the opportunity cost of being able to make dinner with your kids, spend time outdoors with your partner, etc.

    My current gig is going all remote, I don't know how I'll feel when this gig runs its course and I have to drive in again.


    ... Eval Day 1005
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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Mon Aug 8 05:58:00 2022
    Designing cities so that we are forced to sink literal months and years of our leaves moving back and forth was one of the colossally stupid mistakes

    I don't think that was done with either design or intent. Its called urban sprawl. Until very recently we've (Australia) haven't been good at higher density living. Every man and dog wanted his own home on a quarter acre
    block, that and ongoing land releases at the fringes by the peanuts in charge have gotten us to where we are now.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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    * Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Aug 8 22:32:01 2022
    Sounds pretty sweet, and a pretty good idea here. Making the commute actually part of your working day. We "work from home", so why now have "Work while you commute". So even if you are commuting an hour each way, that hour could part of your working day if you are actuall able to get work done. Then when you're there, you can have your physical face to face meetings.

    A friend of mine justifies his self-driving Tesla that way - he owns a company and drives 1 1/2 hours each way occasionally to the office.

    He was pulled over using a cell phone while the car was driving and cautioned that he needed to have the phone mounted on the dash, even if the car was driving. :)

    You could look at it as saving your hourly rate's worth of salary, or
    the opportunity cost of being able to make dinner with your kids, spend time outdoors with your partner, etc.

    My current gig is going all remote, I don't know how I'll feel when this gig runs its course and I have to drive in again.



    You can always find a way to make more money, much more, but your time on this Earth is more or less fixed. There is only so long you will have.

    Time therefore is more valuable than money, much more valuable. Lost dollars can be recouped, lost time cannot.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Mon Aug 8 22:36:58 2022
    Designing cities so that we are forced to sink literal months and yea our leaves moving back and forth was one of the colossally stupid mis

    I don't think that was done with either design or intent. Its called urban sprawl. Until very recently we've (Australia) haven't been good
    at higher density living. Every man and dog wanted his own home on a quarter acre block, that and ongoing land releases at the fringes by the peanuts in charge have gotten us to where we are now.

    Spec

    It nevertheless did happen. Houses are built with roads, but lack public transport. Somewhere in the planning is the assumption that the car will be the first, the primary mode of transport and anything else a bonus. Every new suburb assumes use of a car. Some of these new surburbs don't even really cater to pedestrians.

    Urban sprawl itself was made possible only because the car became ubiquitous, the "suburban" mode of transport.

    The suburban ideal was a manufactured want, a Post War design, a promise of escape from what was then dysfunctional urban areas. Things are changing where some younger people are eschewing the surburban "dream" for a more urban lifestyle, close to cafes and bars and culture and entertainment.

    Then you have many European towns which were designed around a pedestrian life, more human friendly.

    I did was the suburban dream when I was younger, but it is in reality a nightmare.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Mon Aug 8 22:56:00 2022
    It nevertheless did happen. Houses are built with roads, but lack public transport. Somewhere in the planning is the assumption that the car will be the first, the primary mode of transport and anything else a bonus.

    Sure but its still sprawl and poor or no planning. Developers are only expected to provide roads. The Chief Peanut has to provide public transport its beyong the legal remit of any developer.

    There was complaints recently about a development somewhere west of the city, that the railway line on the plan and the primary school never arrived. But
    the developer can't influence when the government will ever get a round-tuit
    or if they ever will at all.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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  • From Blue White@21:4/134 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Aug 8 10:25:32 2022
    poindexter FORTRAN wrote to boraxman <=-

    He was pulled over using a cell phone while the car was driving and cautioned that he needed to have the phone mounted on the dash, even if the car was driving. :)

    Even with the self-driving cars, you do have to pay attention just in case
    you need to overide a decision it has made?

    I thought there had been some accidents recently because people mistook the self-driving cars as being completely autonomous so they didn't react when
    the car also didn't react.

    ... So easy, a child could do it. Child sold separately.
    --- MultiMail/DOS
    * Origin: Possum Lodge South * possumso.fsxnet.nz:24/SSH:2122 (21:4/134)
  • From esc@21:4/173 to Blue White on Mon Aug 8 12:07:30 2022
    Even with the self-driving cars, you do have to pay attention just in
    case you need to overide a decision it has made?

    In the industry these are called "disengagements". In an ideal world, each of these events are studied and understood, and findings are used to refine the autonomy stack. I can't speak to how well every company does this, however.

    The interesting thing about autonomy is that industry knows it's a foregone conclusion that we're headed that way, but consumers actually fear the tech so there is no consumer driven market push to get this tech developed. So in a sense it is in a very weird spot. Additionally, every company goes about autonomy in a different way...for example, Tesla /only/ uses cameras, which seems to be working pretty well for them, however I don't think I would feel comfortable with actual "autonomy" unless there were additional on-vehicle sensors like LIDAR.

    The truly odd thing about the industry and autonomy is that companies are competing to have the best autonomous platform, however I'm of the opinion that proper autonomy should be a universal endeavor since safe on-road experience means everyone wins. I don't think we would ever go the collective development route without government interference, though.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to Blue White on Tue Aug 9 11:34:07 2022
    Hi Blue White,

    Even with the self-driving cars, you do have to pay attention just in
    case you need to overide a decision it has made?

    That's the problem. People are not paying attention, and behaving as if
    we have fully safe self driving cars. We are a long way from that, and
    they really need to stop thinking we have gone full SCI-FI with it right
    now.



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Tue Aug 9 20:06:00 2022
    On 08-08-22 22:36, boraxman wrote to Spectre <=-

    Then you have many European towns which were designed around a
    pedestrian life, more human friendly.

    I think human friendly designs that work for pedestrians and cyclists would be more liveable, with good public transport (bicycle friendly!) for longer trips.

    I did was the suburban dream when I was younger, but it is in reality a nightmare.

    Being ina smaller regional city, we can (for now) get asway with it, and I'm hoping to be able to use an ebike for most of my trips around town. Out here, cars are very useful for longer trips out of town - with a lot of rural destinations around, can't avoid the car, but within most of the urban limits, I'd like to be able to use an ebike.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Spectre on Tue Aug 9 20:09:00 2022
    On 08-08-22 22:56, Spectre wrote to boraxman <=-

    It nevertheless did happen. Houses are built with roads, but lack public transport. Somewhere in the planning is the assumption that the car will be the first, the primary mode of transport and anything else a bonus.

    Sure but its still sprawl and poor or no planning. Developers are only expected to provide roads. The Chief Peanut has to provide public transport its beyong the legal remit of any developer.

    Yeah still poor planning, I agree. At least the new estate I'm in already has a bus stop at the end of the street (probably 200m walk at most) on an existing bus route that leads both to central Bendigo and Eaglehawk - a major suburb on the north side of town.

    There was complaints recently about a development somewhere west of the city, that the railway line on the plan and the primary school never arrived. But the developer can't influence when the government will
    ever get a round-tuit or if they ever will at all.

    That sucks. And of course, Melbourne Airport has been waiting 50 years for a train and counting...


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Blue White on Tue Aug 9 20:10:00 2022
    On 08-08-22 10:25, Blue White wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I thought there had been some accidents recently because people mistook the self-driving cars as being completely autonomous so they didn't
    react when the car also didn't react.

    Hmm, I think I'd rather remain in control - the autopilot of my subconscious is far more integrated than any car based system could be. :)


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to esc on Tue Aug 9 20:20:00 2022
    On 08-08-22 12:07, esc wrote to Blue White <=-

    Even with the self-driving cars, you do have to pay attention just in
    case you need to overide a decision it has made?

    In the industry these are called "disengagements". In an ideal world,
    each of these events are studied and understood, and findings are used
    to refine the autonomy stack. I can't speak to how well every company
    does this, however.

    That would be ideal, and also refine the way the system falls back to manual control, so the driver is properly kept in the loop and can take over when needed. I'm not against automation, but I have noticed on some newer cars that I've driven that the car wasn't good at informing me about what it's doing - are the headlights on? fog lights? etc.

    Because my own brain's tracking of the car's state is based on a model, I need all possible information about the state of the vehicle, so I can take that into account. I have the same issue with people too, like those who move things with telling me - I keep track of a surprising amount of state variables in my head. :)

    The interesting thing about autonomy is that industry knows it's a foregone conclusion that we're headed that way, but consumers actually fear the tech so there is no consumer driven market push to get this
    tech developed. So in a sense it is in a very weird spot. Additionally, every company goes about autonomy in a different way...for example,
    Tesla /only/ uses cameras, which seems to be working pretty well for
    them, however I don't think I would feel comfortable with actual "autonomy" unless there were additional on-vehicle sensors like LIDAR.

    I think a combination od approaches is best - cameras, LIDAR, RADAR (there's millimetre bands allocated to automotive purposes)

    The truly odd thing about the industry and autonomy is that companies
    are competing to have the best autonomous platform, however I'm of the opinion that proper autonomy should be a universal endeavor since safe on-road experience means everyone wins. I don't think we would ever go
    the collective development route without government interference,
    though.

    One would think having a standard platform across infrastructure to base automation on would make sense. Let's see where this ends up.


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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Tue Aug 9 23:41:39 2022
    Sure but its still sprawl and poor or no planning. Developers are only expected to provide roads. The Chief Peanut has to provide public transport its beyong the legal remit of any developer.

    There was complaints recently about a development somewhere west of the city, that the railway line on the plan and the primary school never arrived. But the developer can't influence when the government will ever get a round-tuit or if they ever will at all.

    Spec

    I think I know where you are talking about. Allowing individual developers to design things is a bit naff. I don't get why they allow developers to tear down single dwellings to build multiple units. Suburban design by lots of disparate investors? No wonder the results are awful.

    I looked at buying a house in the West, and was in the display showroom. I asked why there were some primary schools, but no secondary school anywhere. The nearest one was quite some distance away in an established suburb. She said one will come and be built, and I looked down at the model of the suburb and said "can you show me where they would fit this in?" and she just went "ummmmm" and that was that.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 9 23:47:41 2022
    Then you have many European towns which were designed around a pedestrian life, more human friendly.

    I think human friendly designs that work for pedestrians and cyclists would be more liveable, with good public transport (bicycle friendly!)
    for longer trips.


    We've gotten so used to cars and roads, we don't realise how much they have taken away from us. Right in front of our house, are rivers of black which are too dangerous for children to be near or on, and we are stuck to walking the edges, having to carefully navigate our way across them to access our neighbours. The cars drone day and night, and in some cases, the rivers are so large and wide that those across as are barely accessible.

    Walking some European cities, like the centre of Amsterdam is a delight. People can walk freely, mingle, socialise and meander at will. The car in these spaces, if it is there, is a second class citizen. These areas are for US, people, humans. Car based cities by comparison seem hostile, inhuman, we are guests there, barely belonging.

    I did was the suburban dream when I was younger, but it is in reality nightmare.

    Being ina smaller regional city, we can (for now) get asway with it, and I'm hoping to be able to use an ebike for most of my trips around town. Out here, cars are very useful for longer trips out of town - with a lot of rural destinations around, can't avoid the car, but within most of
    the urban limits, I'd like to be able to use an ebike.



    I've been tempted to make the move to a smaller town, but alas it is difficult in my profession. I cannot really work from home, and the places I can work are in the big smoke.

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  • From Ogg@21:4/106.21 to boraxman on Tue Aug 9 08:04:00 2022
    Hello boraxman!

    ** On Tuesday 09.08.22 - 23:47, boraxman wrote to Vk3jed:

    We've gotten so used to cars and roads, we don't realise
    how much they have taken away from us. Right in front of
    our house, are rivers of black which are too dangerous for
    children to be near or on [...]

    Walking some European cities, like the centre of Amsterdam is a delight [...]

    I've been tempted to make the move to a smaller town, but
    alas it is difficult in my profession. I cannot really
    work from home, and the places I can work are in the big
    smoke.

    Ironically, should you settle in a smaller town, you WILL need
    to rely on a decent mode of transportation for anything
    remotely important - like shopping, hospital, etc.

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to boraxman on Mon Aug 8 08:15:00 2022
    boraxman wrote to Spectre <=-

    The suburban ideal was a manufactured want, a Post War design, a
    promise of escape from what was then dysfunctional urban areas. Things are changing where some younger people are eschewing the surburban
    "dream" for a more urban lifestyle, close to cafes and bars and culture and entertainment.

    Or, in California, they're moving out to previously unavailable areas
    farther from urban areas - because they're working remotely now.

    Bakersfield, once a town that people scoffed at, is apparently now becoming
    a thing. You could get a house with a nice lot for the price of a San Francisco condo, and still commute in 1 day a week if you needed to.

    I think the trick is finding those little towns that have decent internet.


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  • From Blue White@21:4/134 to esc on Tue Aug 9 16:00:30 2022
    esc wrote to Blue White <=-

    The truly odd thing about the industry and autonomy is that companies
    are competing to have the best autonomous platform, however I'm of the opinion that proper autonomy should be a universal endeavor since safe on-road experience means everyone wins. I don't think we would ever go
    the collective development route without government interference,
    though.

    I agree. Having two machines that are not using compatable autonomy
    systems that are heading for each other does not sound too safe. It would
    be good if they could communicate with each other to mutually prevent the issue, rather than having each one making decisions that the other would
    not be aware of.


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  • From Blue White@21:4/134 to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 9 16:01:22 2022
    Vk3jed wrote to Blue White <=-

    On 08-08-22 10:25, Blue White wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I thought there had been some accidents recently because people mistook the self-driving cars as being completely autonomous so they didn't
    react when the car also didn't react.

    Hmm, I think I'd rather remain in control - the autopilot of my subconscious is far more integrated than any car based system could be.
    :)

    I don't see one in my future, either, until that is the only thing
    available. :)


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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 9 18:44:42 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Vk3jed to boraxman on Tue Aug 09 2022 08:06 pm

    I think human friendly designs that work for pedestrians and cyclists would more liveable, with good public transport (bicycle friendly!) for longer tri


    Villager guy here.

    Every time they use buzzwords (such as human friendlyness or pedestrian friendlyness) to justify changes in urban management, they end up doing something that manages to both make the city less industry friendly and less inhabitant friendly.

    At the same time. It is deserving of merit, it really is.

    There is a big problem that Urban Administrators don't understand, and that is that when you take something away from the population, you need to provide them with an alternative. If you remove cars from a neighbourhood because you want it to be for pedestrians only, you need to supply them with new means to move. Otherwise you get aberrant behaviors, such as car traffic being banned in certain areas, and people having to walk from a faraway parking to their jobs through crime ridden areas.

    The war on cars is irrelevant, anyway. Soon, affordable energy will be a thing of the past and we will be back at using bulls and charts for moving from a village to the next XD

    I am very happy of being a rural redneck.


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Blue White on Wed Aug 10 18:11:00 2022
    I agree. Having two machines that are not using compatable autonomy systems that are heading for each other does not sound too safe. It would be good if they could communicate with each other to mutually prevent the issue, rather than having each one making decisions that the other would not be aware of.

    Need something like IFF for cars, although you wouldn't be expecting to many foes on the road. :) Probably over time, they'll settle into an accepted set of manouvers to allow everything to get out of each others way.

    Spec


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Wed Aug 10 19:17:00 2022
    On 08-09-22 23:47, boraxman wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    We've gotten so used to cars and roads, we don't realise how much they have taken away from us. Right in front of our house, are rivers of
    black which are too dangerous for children to be near or on, and we are stuck to walking the edges, having to carefully navigate our way across them to access our neighbours. The cars drone day and night, and in
    some cases, the rivers are so large and wide that those across as are barely accessible.

    It's particularly obvious in major shopping centres. Ever notice how hostile many are to pedestrians, leaving them to run the gauntlet in car parks or at entrances?

    Walking some European cities, like the centre of Amsterdam is a
    delight. People can walk freely, mingle, socialise and meander at will.
    The car in these spaces, if it is there, is a second class citizen.
    These areas are for US, people, humans. Car based cities by comparison seem hostile, inhuman, we are guests there, barely belonging.

    Those European cities sound totally delightful places. :)

    I've been tempted to make the move to a smaller town, but alas it is difficult in my profession. I cannot really work from home, and the places I can work are in the big smoke.

    When we moved, I was working remotely anyway, so no big deal.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Blue White on Wed Aug 10 19:20:00 2022
    On 08-09-22 16:01, Blue White wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    I don't see one in my future, either, until that is the only thing available. :)

    Even that probably won't stop me flying without the autopilot. :D


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Arelor on Wed Aug 10 19:38:00 2022
    On 08-09-22 18:44, Arelor wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    There is a big problem that Urban Administrators don't understand, and that is that when you take something away from the population, you need
    to provide them with an alternative. If you remove cars from a neighbourhood because you want it to be for pedestrians only, you need
    to supply them with new means to move. Otherwise you get aberrant behaviors, such as car traffic being banned in certain areas, and
    people having to walk from a faraway parking to their jobs through
    crime ridden areas.

    I think the issue is that car dependence is embedded at all levels - not just local streets, but also in terms of long commutes and a host of other things. For many shorter trips, bicycles are useful, ebikes even more so (even with the silly restrictions we have here). In short, there's no easy solutions, it's got to the point that it will involve massive social change, along with massive infrastructure changes.

    The war on cars is irrelevant, anyway. Soon, affordable energy will be
    a thing of the past and we will be back at using bulls and charts for moving from a village to the next XD

    Or an ebike :D I'm already planning on reducing my car dependence. Out here it's impractical to elimate that, but I can dramatically reduce car use from the current 150km/week or so to a much lower figure, without having to cut out any activities.

    I am very happy of being a rural redneck.

    I'm happy being in a middle of the road sized city. :)



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  • From Capt Kirk@21:4/10 to boraxman on Wed Aug 10 18:42:25 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: boraxman to Utopian Galt on Fri Aug 05 2022 10:07:24

    Denver, the city is mellow - crime is mostly low during the work day and
    the public transportation is fun! I take light rail from the suburb live into LoDo, and walk to the office from there.
    I used to take the bus to school 2 hours each way. The funny thing was they implemented the express bus right after I graduated. hahhahaa


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    You really need the town to be designed around public transport and rail for to work really well. Sadly they are designed around cars.

    I preferred driving to uni than taking 3 buses, but a good rail system beats cars.

    the U.S. is designed around the automobile, where Europe is designed around public transport.. if the transit system was at least 200% better here, and easier to take i'd opt for that..

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Ogg on Thu Aug 11 23:10:44 2022
    We've gotten so used to cars and roads, we don't realise
    how much they have taken away from us. Right in front of
    our house, are rivers of black which are too dangerous for
    children to be near or on [...]

    Walking some European cities, like the centre of Amsterdam is a deligh [...]

    I've been tempted to make the move to a smaller town, but
    alas it is difficult in my profession. I cannot really
    work from home, and the places I can work are in the big
    smoke.

    Ironically, should you settle in a smaller town, you WILL need
    to rely on a decent mode of transportation for anything
    remotely important - like shopping, hospital, etc.


    That is the irony here, smaller towns have proportionally less transit. The small European cities are what I like, or the small villages.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Thu Aug 11 23:17:21 2022
    The suburban ideal was a manufactured want, a Post War design, a promise of escape from what was then dysfunctional urban areas. Thin are changing where some younger people are eschewing the surburban "dream" for a more urban lifestyle, close to cafes and bars and cultu and entertainment.

    Or, in California, they're moving out to previously unavailable areas farther from urban areas - because they're working remotely now.

    Bakersfield, once a town that people scoffed at, is apparently now becoming a thing. You could get a house with a nice lot for the price
    of a San Francisco condo, and still commute in 1 day a week if you
    needed to.

    I think the trick is finding those little towns that have decent
    internet.


    In Australia, or at least the part I live in, this kind of move seems less popular. Some people are moving to regional areas but we don't move as much as people in the USA do. Some nearby towns have become "trendy" but those near Melbourne don't seem all that appealing.

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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Vk3jed on Thu Aug 11 23:31:31 2022
    We've gotten so used to cars and roads, we don't realise how much the have taken away from us. Right in front of our house, are rivers of black which are too dangerous for children to be near or on, and we a stuck to walking the edges, having to carefully navigate our way acro them to access our neighbours. The cars drone day and night, and in some cases, the rivers are so large and wide that those across as are barely accessible.

    It's particularly obvious in major shopping centres. Ever notice how hostile many are to pedestrians, leaving them to run the gauntlet in car parks or at entrances?

    Indeed I have. A new centre near where I live has a large carpark out the front of the entrance, which you have to walk along the carpark to get it. There really isn't any good way to get into it from the road. It looks like a massive box in the middle of the carpark. There really isn't anywhere for people to congregate which isn't by cars.

    I compare this to the old Moonee Ponds Market, which fronted a street, and the carpark was on the other side of the main road. There were more accessways to it. The place wasn't an island in the middle of a car park and it was integrated with the surrounding urban area. The new one near my place is in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing across the road, nothing nearby, detached from everything else.


    Walking some European cities, like the centre of Amsterdam is a delight. People can walk freely, mingle, socialise and meander at wil
    The car in these spaces, if it is there, is a second class citizen. These areas are for US, people, humans. Car based cities by comparis seem hostile, inhuman, we are guests there, barely belonging.

    Those European cities sound totally delightful places. :)

    I've been tempted to make the move to a smaller town, but alas it is difficult in my profession. I cannot really work from home, and the places I can work are in the big smoke.

    When we moved, I was working remotely anyway, so no big deal.


    One design I liked, was having a town square which was pedestrian only. Shops and restaurants would front the square, and the roads may be behind the shops. This created an enclosed space free of cars.

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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 9 12:09:00 2022
    Vk3jed wrote to Spectre <=-

    That sucks. And of course, Melbourne Airport has been waiting 50 years for a train and counting...

    I was so impressed that the London underground wraps right in and out of Heathrow airport. It makes getting in and out of the town easy.

    Oakland missed out on the opportunity to run BART, a multi-county elevated electric train system, into their airport. When they finally built a shuttle system to get people from the nearest BART station to the airport, they freaked out when they realized that people would park at a BART station and leave their cars overnight for free.

    Not well thought out.




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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Vk3jed on Thu Aug 11 07:36:00 2022
    Vk3jed wrote to boraxman <=-

    It's particularly obvious in major shopping centres. Ever notice how hostile many are to pedestrians, leaving them to run the gauntlet in
    car parks or at entrances?


    They're too busy walking while looking down at their phones. I worked for a large internet company, and their parking lot didn't have dedicated
    pedestrian areas. You had to walk behind the cars in the lanes to get to
    work.

    More times than I could count, someone was walking in traffic, not paying attention, not hearing my car on electric and almost walked into my car.

    I'm glad I'd never had that happen, because I'm sure they'd claim I'd hit them, although I was at a dead stop. I would have appreciated a dash cam
    then.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Vk3jed on Thu Aug 11 07:50:00 2022
    Vk3jed wrote to Arelor <=-

    I think the issue is that car dependence is embedded at all levels -
    not just local streets, but also in terms of long commutes and a host
    of other things. For many shorter trips, bicycles are useful, ebikes
    even more so (even with the silly restrictions we have here). In
    short, there's no easy solutions, it's got to the point that it will involve massive social change, along with massive infrastructure
    changes.

    The number of transit systems and plans torn out in the 60s to make way for the auto boom is depressing. In the bay area, there was a rail system that
    ran from San Francisco across the bay to Oakland and the east bay that was torn out partly through the influence of big oil and the automakers.

    They ended up building a similar system years later.

    Or an ebike :D I'm already planning on reducing my car dependence.
    Out here it's impractical to elimate that, but I can dramatically
    reduce car use from the current 150km/week or so to a much lower
    figure, without having to cut out any activities.

    I want a moped to relive my high-school years, but I'd need to lose about a hundred pounds. :)

    There was a group in San Francisco called Moped Army that rodded up mopeds - imagine a 50cc cafe racer "rat bike". Loved seeing them riding in packs through the city (but the noise was deafening, like hundreds of giant mosquitos)


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Capt Kirk on Thu Aug 11 07:54:00 2022
    Capt Kirk wrote to boraxman <=-

    the U.S. is designed around the automobile, where Europe is designed around public transport.. if the transit system was at least 200%
    better here, and easier to take i'd opt for that..

    I went to school and spent the next 10 years in San Francisco, and I could have done it very nicely without a car. In SF you could get anywhere you needed to go 24/7, they have a nice prime-time metro/trolley system, a region-wide elevated train system, and a traditional train route that runs down the peninsula into Silicon Valley.

    The bus system had a monthly pass that let you get onto any of the rail/bus systems within city limits.

    Want to go across the bay? There's ferry service, which is a beautiful way
    to travel. You'd get a bus transfer for one ride each way.

    Drinking with friends usually involved picking one of the trolley lines and visiting a couple of bars along the route. I, fortuitously, lived at the end of one of the lines, right along the beach.

    I used my car mostly for grocery shopping and dating. And accumulating street-cleaning tickets.


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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Aug 12 06:45:00 2022
    They're too busy walking while looking down at their phones. I worked for

    With headphones, walking down the middle of the lane as though they own it,
    or are a car..

    Spec


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Fri Aug 12 19:26:00 2022
    On 08-11-22 23:31, boraxman wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Indeed I have. A new centre near where I live has a large carpark out
    the front of the entrance, which you have to walk along the carpark to
    get it. There really isn't any good way to get into it from the road.
    It looks like a massive box in the middle of the carpark. There really isn't anywhere for people to congregate which isn't by cars.

    Yep, that seems to be the norm for major shopping malls.

    I compare this to the old Moonee Ponds Market, which fronted a street,
    and the carpark was on the other side of the main road. There were
    more accessways to it. The place wasn't an island in the middle of a
    car park and it was integrated with the surrounding urban area. The
    new one near my place is in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing across the road, nothing nearby, detached from everything else.

    Strip centres in general are better, some parking in the street, and the major car parks tend to be behind the shops with either rear access or walk along the street. Pedestrians simply walk along the street (maybe after getting off public transport) and into the shop of their choice.

    When we moved, I was working remotely anyway, so no big deal.


    One design I liked, was having a town square which was pedestrian only.
    Shops and restaurants would front the square, and the roads may be
    behind the shops. This created an enclosed space free of cars.

    I have seen places like that, or if there is a road, it's only for emergency and essential service vehicles, not general traffic.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Aug 12 19:29:00 2022
    On 08-09-22 12:09, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Vk3jed wrote to Spectre <=-

    That sucks. And of course, Melbourne Airport has been waiting 50 years for a train and counting...

    I was so impressed that the London underground wraps right in and out
    of Heathrow airport. It makes getting in and out of the town easy.

    Sydney airport has a good underground train service, and Brisbane has an elevated railway into its airport. I believe Perth now has a train (there was talk of it when I was there in 2018).

    Oakland missed out on the opportunity to run BART, a multi-county
    elevated electric train system, into their airport. When they finally built a shuttle system to get people from the nearest BART station to
    the airport, they freaked out when they realized that people would park
    at a BART station and leave their cars overnight for free.

    I'm not sure I'd leave my car at a train station for several days - I'd normally take public transport to the airport anyway.

    Not well thought out.

    Haha :D



    ... Marriage is a great institution - no family should be without it.
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    --- SBBSecho 3.10-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Aug 12 19:32:00 2022
    On 08-11-22 07:36, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    They're too busy walking while looking down at their phones. I worked
    for a large internet company, and their parking lot didn't have
    dedicated pedestrian areas. You had to walk behind the cars in the
    lanes to get to work.

    That doesn't help an already poor design.

    More times than I could count, someone was walking in traffic, not
    paying attention, not hearing my car on electric and almost walked into
    my car.

    I'm glad I'd never had that happen, because I'm sure they'd claim I'd
    hit them, although I was at a dead stop. I would have appreciated a
    dash cam then.

    Yeah, you'd probably be at fault without dashcam evidence. And electric/hybrid cars do increase the rish, because they're silent.


    ... Overmedicated? We have a prescription for that!
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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Aug 12 19:36:00 2022
    On 08-11-22 07:50, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    The number of transit systems and plans torn out in the 60s to make way for the auto boom is depressing. In the bay area, there was a rail
    system that ran from San Francisco across the bay to Oakland and the
    east bay that was torn out partly through the influence of big oil and
    the automakers.

    Yeah, some cities put up some resistance. Melbourne kept its extensive tram network, due to public support for it. This has proven to be a big plus for the city (after being a tourist drawcard for decades). Today, other cities are rebuilding their tram networks. Meanwhile, Melbourne simply updated its tram fleet over the years.

    They ended up building a similar system years later.

    Similar stories over here.

    I want a moped to relive my high-school years, but I'd need to lose
    about a hundred pounds. :)

    Oh dear. I'm only about 20 pounds heavier than I was at the end of high school, and it's almost all muscle. :D



    ... You don't know what you are, do you?
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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Fri Aug 12 20:12:00 2022
    On 08-11-22 23:17, boraxman wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    In Australia, or at least the part I live in, this kind of move seems
    less popular. Some people are moving to regional areas but we don't
    move as much as people in the USA do. Some nearby towns have become "trendy" but those near Melbourne don't seem all that appealing.

    Come out here to Bendigo then. COVID accelerated a pre-existing trend of tree changers moving out here (guilty as charged, we arrived in 2010). But these days, try getting a rental or buying a house. The market is tight. At one stage, houses literally sold within hours of being listed, if not before, and when we bought our land, we just had to jump on the first block we could, because any hesitation and they sold.


    ... Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone.
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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Aug 12 20:21:00 2022
    On 08-11-22 07:54, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Capt Kirk <=-

    I went to school and spent the next 10 years in San Francisco, and I
    could have done it very nicely without a car. In SF you could get
    anywhere you needed to go 24/7, they have a nice prime-time
    metro/trolley system, a region-wide elevated train system, and a traditional train route that runs down the peninsula into Silicon
    Valley.

    SF would be an exception, also New Yourk City? I know both of those cities have a good train network, and SF has the trolley cars as well.

    I know people living in inner parts of Melbourne who lived without cars, because the tram network provided local transport needs for going out and shopping. Trains would get you to many of the major suburbs (and the tram network a whole bunch more), with regional trains to major towns and cities outside Melbourne.

    However, live in the middle or outer suburbs of Melbourne, and a car rapidly becomes a necessity.

    Here, it's a small city of just over 100k people. Most trips are within bicycle range, but the terrain makes electric assistance a better option, which will work for local trips. Melbourne can be reached by train in just under 2 hours, most other destinations require a car, but I don't need to leave town too frequently.

    Drinking with friends usually involved picking one of the trolley lines and visiting a couple of bars along the route. I, fortuitously, lived
    at the end of one of the lines, right along the beach.

    Trolley cars/trams that run along the street tend to lead to long shopping strips, which are fairly accessible.



    ... Death is nature's way of saying it's too late to play GEEK.
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  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Aug 12 23:57:31 2022
    The number of transit systems and plans torn out in the 60s to make way for the auto boom is depressing. In the bay area, there was a rail
    system that ran from San Francisco across the bay to Oakland and the
    east bay that was torn out partly through the influence of big oil and the automakers.


    The 1950's and 1960's was really a bad period in terms of urban design and planning. A lot of things in that era were done wrong, mistakes we are living with today.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Vk3jed on Sat Aug 13 00:05:39 2022
    Yep, that seems to be the norm for major shopping malls.

    I compare this to the old Moonee Ponds Market, which fronted a street and the carpark was on the other side of the main road. There were more accessways to it. The place wasn't an island in the middle of a car park and it was integrated with the surrounding urban area. The new one near my place is in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing across the road, nothing nearby, detached from everything else.

    Strip centres in general are better, some parking in the street, and the major car parks tend to be behind the shops with either rear access or walk along the street. Pedestrians simply walk along the street (maybe after getting off public transport) and into the shop of their choice.


    They do work better, as do "malls" between two roads or streets, though neither of these are really places for people to linger. Ballarat has a nice mall, I can't remember the name, but its near Bakery Hill. Wide, no cars, quiet, parking nearby.

    I have seen places like that, or if there is a road, it's only for emergency and essential service vehicles, not general traffic.


    I used to live on a block where the middle of the block (it was a large block) was a relatively large piece of grassland with a kids park in the middle. A few blocks in this suburb was like this. I always though that instead of having the houses face the streets, they should face the interior of the block, the grassland, with the street being at the "back" of the house. That way, everyones front yard opens on to this grassland. Every house then faces a courtyard of sorts, but the streets you use to access them aren't a pointless cul-de-sac. It was a nice idea, to have these open areas, but having at the back of the houses, and not having them well maintained meant it was a lost opportunity.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Vk3jed on Sat Aug 13 00:09:42 2022
    Come out here to Bendigo then. COVID accelerated a pre-existing trend
    of tree changers moving out here (guilty as charged, we arrived in
    2010). But these days, try getting a rental or buying a house. The market is tight. At one stage, houses literally sold within hours of being listed, if not before, and when we bought our land, we just had to jump on the first block we could, because any hesitation and they sold.



    I don't mind Bendigo, though with a tight housing market, the incentive isn't there. My wife and I have discussed moving, but for the price of housing here in Australia, we may as well look overseas.

    Is the All You Can Eat Pizza Hut still there?

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Utopian Galt@21:4/108 to Boraxman on Fri Aug 12 10:53:06 2022
    BORAXMAN(21:1/101) wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
    The 1950's and 1960's was really a bad period in terms of urban design
    and planning. A lot of things in that era were done wrong, mistakes we are living with today.
    And its going to cost SOOOO much money to correct the mistakes.


    ... "Spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans and spam."
    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52


    --- WWIV 5.5.1.3261
    * Origin: inland utopia * california * iutopia.duckdns.org:2023 (21:4/108)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 08:06:00 2022
    Is the All You Can Eat Pizza Hut still there?

    Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the dodo. :)

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 10:58:00 2022
    On 08-13-22 00:05, boraxman wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Strip centres in general are better, some parking in the street, and the major car parks tend to be behind the shops with either rear access or walk along the street. Pedestrians simply walk along the street (maybe after getting off public transport) and into the shop of their choice.


    They do work better, as do "malls" between two roads or streets, though neither of these are really places for people to linger. Ballarat has
    a nice mall, I can't remember the name, but its near Bakery Hill.
    Wide, no cars, quiet, parking nearby.

    I'm not familiar with that mall.

    I used to live on a block where the middle of the block (it was a large block) was a relatively large piece of grassland with a kids park in
    the middle. A few blocks in this suburb was like this. I always
    though that instead of having the houses face the streets, they should face the interior of the block, the grassland, with the street being at the "back" of the house. That way, everyones front yard opens on to
    this grassland. Every house then faces a courtyard of sorts, but the streets you use to access them aren't a pointless cul-de-sac. It was a nice idea, to have these open areas, but having at the back of the
    houses, and not having them well maintained meant it was a lost opportunity.

    It's a shame that it wasn't utilised as well as it could have been, because those enclosed courtyards encourage residents, especially those with kids, to mingle in a safe space.


    ... I was abducted by aliens and all I got was this lousy implant.
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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 11:01:00 2022
    On 08-13-22 00:09, boraxman wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    I don't mind Bendigo, though with a tight housing market, the incentive isn't there. My wife and I have discussed moving, but for the price of housing here in Australia, we may as well look overseas.

    Yeah, housing is a real issue here, and I can't see that changing for a while. :(Where we're building is a whole new estate that's sprung up this year.

    Is the All You Can Eat Pizza Hut still there?

    No idea, I rarely go to Pizza Hut (has been years, literally).


    ... Cut a vital connection
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  • From TassieBob@21:3/169 to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 18:01:50 2022

    Is the All You Can Eat Pizza Hut still there?

    It is down here in Hobart - we have one lonely remaining Pizza Hut store...


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    * Origin: TassieBob's BBS (21:3/169)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Spectre on Sat Aug 13 21:13:00 2022
    Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the dodo. :)

    Spec

    There are some still around. There were eat in Pizza Hut stores which had "All you can eat". There was one in Melbourne CBD, but the last two I know if were in Bendigo and Ballarat. It's been years since I've been to the Bendigo one, so I'm not sure if it is there or not, but the Ballarat one is still going, or at least it was a couple of months ago.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From boraxman@21:1/101 to Vk3jed on Sat Aug 13 21:16:45 2022
    They do work better, as do "malls" between two roads or streets, thou neither of these are really places for people to linger. Ballarat ha a nice mall, I can't remember the name, but its near Bakery Hill. Wide, no cars, quiet, parking nearby.

    I'm not familiar with that mall.


    I don't know the name of it, but I know its near a Woolworths on the Baker Hill side of the town centre.

    I used to live on a block where the middle of the block (it was a lar block) was a relatively large piece of grassland with a kids park in the middle. A few blocks in this suburb was like this. I always though that instead of having the houses face the streets, they shoul face the interior of the block, the grassland, with the street being the "back" of the house. That way, everyones front yard opens on to this grassland. Every house then faces a courtyard of sorts, but th streets you use to access them aren't a pointless cul-de-sac. It was nice idea, to have these open areas, but having at the back of the houses, and not having them well maintained meant it was a lost opportunity.

    It's a shame that it wasn't utilised as well as it could have been, because those enclosed courtyards encourage residents, especially those with kids, to mingle in a safe space.



    The person who came up with the idea probably had grand ideas of how it would be used, but when it came to be built, they just built larger blocks, and left the bit between the houses (which behind my old place was large, enough to fit another 10-20 houses in) just empty grassland. There were also larger nature strips, I'm not sure why.

    It could have been an opportunity for novel design, for something different, but in the end it just became the standard surburban design but with empty spaces.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 21:41:12 2022
    Hi Boxraxman,

    Ballarat has a nice mall, I can't remember the name, but its near
    Bakery Hill. Wide, no cars, quiet, parking nearby.

    It's called "The Bridge Mall", and is about to get turned back into a one
    way street. 1 out of 3 shop's in it are vacant....

    Of all the money spent on it, more is going to be waisted "re developing"
    it back into a street with shops on either side....



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.43-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Spectre on Sat Aug 13 09:15:03 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 2022 08:06 am

    Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the dodo. :)

    There are a lot of them in my area.. I didn't think they had gone anywhere.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Irish_Monk@21:4/184 to Nightfox on Sat Aug 13 14:49:29 2022
    There are a lot of them in my area.. I didn't think they had gone anywhere.

    Yeah, I think we still have Pizza Huts around too. Dont use them that much, but now that I think about it, the last time I was in Target they have a little Pizza Hut counter in there. I dont usually get the pizza but I always have time for a few of their Bread Sticks.. Cant beat em'!

    |10I|02rish_|10M|02onk

    ... Tech support is just a busy signal away

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Windows/64)
    * Origin: WarpeD SocieTy (21:4/184)
  • From fusion@21:1/616 to Irish_Monk on Sat Aug 13 15:44:29 2022
    On 13 Aug 2022, Irish_Monk said the following...

    Yeah, I think we still have Pizza Huts around too. Dont use them that much, but now that I think about it, the last time I was in Target they have a little Pizza Hut counter in there. I dont usually get the pizza
    but I always have time for a few of their Bread Sticks.. Cant beat em'!

    ironically both pizza hut and dominos are way above average nowadays (well, here at least). easily beat out papa johns for me, which would have been the winner a few years back before pizza hut and dominos got their s together.

    i don't think they make any money. pizza hut here has to sell wings or they'd go under. lucky for them those are fairly decent.

    ... I know a good tagline when I steal one!

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    * Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (21:1/616)
  • From Irish_Monk@21:4/184 to fusion on Sat Aug 13 17:12:42 2022
    ironically both pizza hut and dominos are way above average nowadays

    We like Dominoes. And as far as Papa Johns goes, Havnt had them in forever too. But when I was stationed in Maryland for MOS school, Pappa Johns introduced me to Pizza with Garlic dipping sauce, and that was delicious.!

    |10I|02rish_|10M|02onk

    ... Confucius say: "Man who runs behind car gets exhausted"

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Windows/64)
    * Origin: WarpeD SocieTy (21:4/184)
  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Nightfox on Sat Aug 13 17:26:20 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Nightfox to Spectre on Sat Aug 13 2022 09:15 am

    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to boraxman on Sat Aug 13 2022 08:06 am

    Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the dodo.

    There are a lot of them in my area.. I didn't think they had gone anywhere.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

    Pizza Hut used to be very popular in Spain, having Telepizza as its only competitor. Now I think only one remains in Spain.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken
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    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Nightfox on Sun Aug 14 13:09:00 2022
    Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the dodo.

    There are a lot of them in my area.. I didn't think they had gone anywhere.

    Woah, wonder where you are, I don't think I've seen one in 30 years....

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: There is no cloud, just someone elses computer! (21:3/101)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to boraxman on Mon Aug 15 21:34:00 2022
    On 08-13-22 21:16, boraxman wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    I don't know the name of it, but I know its near a Woolworths on the
    Baker Hill side of the town centre.

    OK, I'm not familiar enough with Ballarat to be able to locate it from that.

    The person who came up with the idea probably had grand ideas of how it would be used, but when it came to be built, they just built larger blocks, and left the bit between the houses (which behind my old place
    was large, enough to fit another 10-20 houses in) just empty grassland.
    There were also larger nature strips, I'm not sure why.

    Would be interesting to know the history and reasoning. :)

    It could have been an opportunity for novel design, for something different, but in the end it just became the standard surburban design
    but with empty spaces.

    Who knows?


    ... Don't try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes time and annoys the pig.
    === MultiMail/Win v0.52
    --- SBBSecho 3.10-Linux
    * Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Spectre on Mon Aug 15 08:36:00 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Spectre to Nightfox on Sun Aug 14 2022 01:09 pm

    Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the
    dodo.

    There are a lot of them in my area.. I didn't think they had gone
    anywhere.

    Woah, wonder where you are, I don't think I've seen one in 30 years....

    I'm in Northwest Oregon.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to fusion on Mon Aug 15 08:45:59 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: fusion to Irish_Monk on Sat Aug 13 2022 03:44 pm

    ironically both pizza hut and dominos are way above average nowadays

    I don't know about that.. Neither of them are among my favorite pizza places, but last time I had Pizza Hut, I thought it wasn't bad.

    Nightfox
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
  • From nugax@21:1/167 to Nightfox on Mon Aug 15 11:27:57 2022
    On 15 Aug 22 08:36:00, Nightfox wrote:
    |03-> Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    |03-> By: Spectre to Nightfox on Sun Aug 14 2022 01:09 pm
    |03->
    |03-> Sp>> Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the |03-> Sp>> dodo.
    |03->
    |03-> Ni>> There are a lot of them in my area.. I didnt think they had gone |03-> Ni>> anywhere.
    |03->
    |03-> Sp> Woah wonder where you are I dont think Ive seen one in 30 years.... |03->
    |03-> Im in Northwest Oregon.
    |03->
    |03-> Nightfox
    |03-> --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    |03-> * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
    |03->



    --- CyberBBS v1.0.8 2022/08/15 [LMDE 4/x86_64]
    * Origin: CyberBBS WHQ | http://www.cyberbbs.com (21:1/167)
  • From nugax@21:1/167 to nugax on Mon Aug 15 11:30:14 2022
    On 15 Aug 22 11:27:57, nugax wrote:
    |03-> On 15 Aug 22 08:36:00, Nightfox wrote:
    |03-> |03-> Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    |03-> |03-> By: Spectre to Nightfox on Sun Aug 14 2022 01:09 pm
    |03-> |03->
    |03-> |03-> Sp>> Are there any Pizza Huts anywhere? I thought they had joined the
    |03-> |03-> Sp>> dodo.
    |03-> |03->
    |03-> |03-> Ni>> There are a lot of them in my area.. I didnt think they had gone
    |03-> |03-> Ni>> anywhere.
    |03-> |03->
    |03-> |03-> Sp> Woah wonder where you are I dont think Ive seen one in 30 years....
    |03-> |03->
    |03-> |03-> Im in Northwest Oregon.
    |03-> |03->
    |03-> |03-> Nightfox
    |03-> |03-> --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    |03-> |03-> * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
    |03-> |03->
    |03->
    |03->
    |03->
    |03-> --- CyberBBS v1.0.8 2022/08/15 [LMDE 4/x86_64]
    |03-> * Origin: CyberBBS WHQ | http://www.cyberbbs.com (21:1/167)



    --- CyberBBS v1.0.8 2022/08/15 [LMDE 4/x86_64]
    * Origin: CyberBBS WHQ | http://www.cyberbbs.com (21:1/167)
  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Nightfox on Wed Aug 17 20:19:00 2022
    On 08-15-22 08:45, Nightfox wrote to fusion <=-

    I don't know about that.. Neither of them are among my favorite pizza places, but last time I had Pizza Hut, I thought it wasn't bad.

    We've got lots of Italians who can make a great pizza. Pizza Hut and Dominoes are OK, but I prefer the independent family owned shops.


    ... She got her looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.
    === MultiMail/Win v0.52
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  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Vk3jed on Wed Aug 17 21:54:00 2022
    We've got lots of Italians who can make a great pizza. Pizza Hut and Dominoes are OK, but I prefer the independent family owned shops.

    While I'm also inclined to back the family store, the local one to my
    mother's old place, was run by, I'm guessing some kind of eastern europeans.
    By the time Pizza was a big thing, I'm not so sure to many italians were
    still in that kind of market.

    Going back further, there used to be plenty of Italian fish and chipperies,
    but they gradually turned Greek and eventually asian. You can still find the odd Italian but they're much fewer and further between. Not sure now, its
    been a bit, but there used to be a good one still in Huntingdale. Most of
    the old local fish and chip/arcade setups are completely gone now.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Spectre on Thu Aug 18 12:01:00 2022
    On 08-17-22 21:54, Spectre wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    While I'm also inclined to back the family store, the local one to my mother's old place, was run by, I'm guessing some kind of eastern europeans. By the time Pizza was a big thing, I'm not so sure to many italians were still in that kind of market.

    I've seen a mix of Italian and Middle Eastern pizza shop owners.

    Going back further, there used to be plenty of Italian fish and chipperies, but they gradually turned Greek and eventually asian. You
    can still find the odd Italian but they're much fewer and further
    between. Not sure now, its been a bit, but there used to be a good one still in Huntingdale. Most of the old local fish and chip/arcade
    setups are completely gone now.

    Never had Italian fish and chip shops. They were majority Greek when I was a kid, but the Asians are probably more prolific now. And yes, the fish and chips with the pinballs and/or arcade games are pretty much an extinct species now.


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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Vk3jed on Thu Aug 18 09:03:16 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: Vk3jed to Spectre on Thu Aug 18 2022 12:01 pm

    I've seen a mix of Italian and Middle Eastern pizza shop owners.

    The idea of a middle eastern pizza shop is interesting. And in my area, I know of at least one Indian restaurant that also serves pizza.

    Never had Italian fish and chip shops. They were majority Greek when I was a kid, but the Asians are probably more prolific now. And yes, the fish

    Interesting. I haven't seen a Greek restaurant here serve fish & chips. Most of the time, when I've seen fish & chips here, the restaurant is usually an American restaurant (i.e. Red Robin) or a bar/pub, and some fast food restaurants here have fish & chips too.

    Nightfox
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  • From StormTrooper@21:2/108 to Nightfox on Fri Aug 19 02:14:13 2022
    The idea of a middle eastern pizza shop is interesting. And in my area,
    I know of at least one Indian restaurant that also serves pizza.

    You get some interesting pizzas out of these combos.. less familiar with with middle eastern versions, but some of the indians have had goodies like the tandoori pizza.

    ST

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  • From Irish_Monk@21:4/184 to StormTrooper on Fri Aug 19 06:57:09 2022
    like the tandoori pizza.

    Been stuck on Indian food lately. I didnt know they made a tandoori pizza. Will be something I am looking out for now!

    |10I|02rish_|10M|02onk

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  • From esc@21:4/173 to Irish_Monk on Fri Aug 19 08:02:02 2022
    Been stuck on Indian food lately. I didnt know they made a tandoori
    pizza. Will be something I am looking out for now!

    Same on all counts. Indian food has become an obsession.

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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to esc on Fri Aug 19 09:07:10 2022
    Re: Re: 3.5 weeks to being la
    By: esc to Irish_Monk on Fri Aug 19 2022 08:02 am

    Been stuck on Indian food lately. I didnt know they made a tandoori
    pizza. Will be something I am looking out for now!

    Same on all counts. Indian food has become an obsession.

    I really like Indian food, but I've found that it can be hit or miss, depending on who made it or where I got it from. There are some Indian restaurants in my area I really like, and some I don't like so much. Some places make it very spicy, and/or use spices and flavors that I think leave a weird aftertaste. And I generally prefer to taste the flavors of the food rather than have it be really spicy hot.

    Nightfox
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  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Nightfox on Fri Aug 19 20:51:00 2022
    Nightfox wrote to esc <=-

    Been stuck on Indian food lately. I didnt know they made a tandoori
    pizza. Will be something I am looking out for now!

    Same on all counts. Indian food has become an obsession.

    I really like Indian food, but I've found that it can be hit or
    miss, depending on who made it or where I got it from. There are
    some Indian restaurants in my area I really like, and some I
    don't like so much. Some places make it very spicy, and/or use
    spices and flavors that I think leave a weird aftertaste. And I
    generally prefer to taste the flavors of the food rather than
    have it be really spicy hot.

    I like it a lot too, and agree on the hit-or-miss quality of
    restaurants. I would also say that generally speaking, the restaurants
    I've visited seem a little.... less clean than I'd like. Seems a little primitive/backwards somehow, usually.



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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Nightfox on Sat Aug 20 18:01:00 2022
    On 08-18-22 09:03, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    The idea of a middle eastern pizza shop is interesting. And in my
    area, I know of at least one Indian restaurant that also serves pizza.

    These days, seems anything goes, especially with Asians diversifying into non Asian cusines. :)

    Interesting. I haven't seen a Greek restaurant here serve fish & chips. Most of the time, when I've seen fish & chips here, the restaurant is usually an American restaurant (i.e. Red Robin) or a bar/pub, and some fast food restaurants here have fish & chips too.

    We're like the British, we have fish and chip shops - not restaurants, they are takeaway places. They also tend to do the best burgers, far better than any of the well known chains. And the majority of fish and chip shops are small family run businesses.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Irish_Monk on Sat Aug 20 18:06:00 2022
    On 08-19-22 06:57, Irish_Monk wrote to StormTrooper <=-

    like the tandoori pizza.

    Been stuck on Indian food lately. I didnt know they made a tandoori
    pizza. Will be something I am looking out for now!

    I don't get to eat Indian often, but I do quite like it, and these days, there's a lot of good Indian places around.


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to esc on Mon Aug 22 09:17:00 2022
    esc wrote to Irish_Monk <=-

    Same on all counts. Indian food has become an obsession.

    I've been making vegetable stews for lunches during the week; I'll usually take a half an onion, carrots and corn, sautee it in the bottom of a pot
    with olive oil. When the onion starts to sweat, add garlic, frozen
    vegetables (kale or spinach), garbanzo or black beans, and vegetable broth
    to cover it all. Bring to a boil then simmer until it thickens.

    I found some seasoning called "balti seasoning" that's a mixture of curry, cumin, paprika and some other spices that I've been tossing into it, and
    love the combination of stewed veggies and curry.


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  • From esc@21:4/173 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Aug 22 19:38:54 2022
    I found some seasoning called "balti seasoning" that's a mixture of
    curry, cumin, paprika and some other spices that I've been tossing into it, and love the combination of stewed veggies and curry.

    This entire recipe is great. Thanks. I look forward to trying this.

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  • From tenser@21:1/101 to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Aug 24 22:52:00 2022
    On 22 Aug 2022 at 09:17a, poindexter FORTRAN pondered and said...

    I've been making vegetable stews for lunches during the week; I'll
    usually take a half an onion, carrots and corn, sautee it in the bottom of a pot with olive oil. When the onion starts to sweat, add garlic, frozen vegetables (kale or spinach), garbanzo or black beans, and vegetable broth to cover it all. Bring to a boil then simmer until it thickens.

    I found some seasoning called "balti seasoning" that's a mixture of
    curry, cumin, paprika and some other spices that I've been tossing into it, and love the combination of stewed veggies and curry.

    Interesting. "Balti" mans "bucket" in Hindi, but is close to
    a word for "vegetable" in Marathi ("bhaji").

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