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Ok as an Australian SysAdmin and after discussing this with a few of my Sydney based counter-parts today we've come to the following couple of points:

1. A phone conversation may not be monitored or recorded without prior consent from both parties.

This is a very good point I did forget, though I think it might be because the law works differently where I am from. Although I have also driven in Canada and the US, I have done most of my driving in New Zealand and in New South Wales, Australia. In neither jurisdiction are you likely to personally pay for injuring someone, even if you are at fault.

In New South Wales, you cannot register (and thus legally drive) a vehicle, unless Compulsory Third Party personal injury insurance has been obtained from an approved insurer. So if you do hurt someone who requires medical care, that is exactly what this insurance is for, and you won't have to personally pay.

In New Zealand, the right to sue for personal injury has been removed in most circumstances - instead, through levies on fuel, vehicle registration and a few other sources, money is paid into a nationalised compensation scheme: the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). If you are injured in an accident (motor vehicle or otherwise), the commission will compensate you, and largely foot the bill for medical expenses. Some one else does not have to be found at fault, though if their driving was dangerous or negligent the police may well charge them.

In both places, the largely socialised medicine systems also take up a lot of the slack, in terms of who has to pay. As the national medical systems are funded by the taxpayers, and thus managed by the government, the government has a very strong interest in making sure their costs are minimised, quite apart from the general desire to protect people from injury. Thus, compulsory seatbelts.

This initiative is a demand side solution that tries to take away the peak that occurs over the a couple of hot days in mid summer. To address a demand side problem (peaky demand) from the supply side is not a good idea.

You have to remember that money spent on infrastructure that isn't used much takes money away from projects that would provide greater
benefit per dollar spent.

It's a lot easier and fairer to address the demand side directly by lopping off those few peaks. Having your thermostat set to 25degC (do the conversion yourself) is not going to kill your computer(s). I had three of them running yesterday in a non-airconditioned house that reached 30degC indoors and had no problems.

Having said that, I think a better approach is to let the market do the work. Here in NSW, we have a new system foir new meter installations where you get charged different rates depending on when you use the power. Power that you use during peak times costs 3 times as much, and you get a discount for off peak.

The UK has a similar system, and it requires a special meter that can store the time each kWhr was used. These are being installed in NSW for new dwellings and when meters are replaced for other reasons, but they will eventually become the standard.

The new tariffs give people an incentive to do things like running dishwashers, dryers, washing machines, etc overnight when its cheap. It also gives an incentive to turn up your thermostat during peak times, or run the Aircon earlier when it's cheaper and rely on that insulation you were forced by BASIX to install to keep your house cool through the peak.

Not everyone will do so. Some will need to run air conditioning through the peak to protect their overclocked "data centre" or whatever. Some will do it on one day and not another day. Some will be too ignorant or lazy to bother about when they turn things on.

Those people will pay for their peak usage. Others will be smart and find ways to minimise their peak usage by by what they run at night. By having lots of people doing so. those peaks will be lopped off, money is spent on more beneficial infrastructure, less energy is wasted, less carbon is emitted and everyone is happy, except those who can't or won't reduce their peak usage. No one is forced to sit in a hot room and there are opportunities to save on your bill.

"Warragamba Dam near Sydney stores enough water for five years and hasn't been full since 1987."

Er, evidence? This web page for the Sydney Catchment Authority, who run the dams, suggests that the entire Sydney water storage system (including Warragamba) was at 100% capacity as recently as 1999 (see the great graph at the bottom of the page). That was during the last major "La Nina" episode in Sydney (1999-2000), although the minor La Nina episode in 2000-2001 kept the dams reasonably high (see "La Nina" in wikipedia). During the subsequent prolonged El Nino episode, dam levels plunged for 5 straight years - but we survived. The current La Nina episode since mid-2007 has brought some recovery, but we are still a long way from the 1999 high. The graph shows it all.

http://www.sca.nsw.gov.au/dams-and-water/weekly-storage-and-supply-reports/2007/bulk-water-storage-_and_-supply-report---3-january-2008

There's a very successful series of TV and print advertisements running in the Australian state of New South Wales. The premise is that everyone else realises that a speeding and reckless young male driver (aka: hoon or yobbo) just does not understand how silly and "inadequate" they make themselves look. These others share among themselves the wiggling of the 'pinkie' ('little') finger when they see such behaviour. The real pay-off is when one of the male passengers in a recklessly driven car wiggles the pinkie to a fellow passenger, and his mate -- the driver -- sees it happen in the mirror, and is shamed.

See an article about the ads in the Sydney Morning Herald of 25 June 2007. Here's a link to the ads at the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority web site.

There is also an accompanying 15-second "viral" internet ad that offers "speedsters" an "xtra xtra small" condom.

What exactly is the problem with having some reliable method of identifying a particular person?

Too convenient, less intrusive and far less paperwork for the bureaucrats to shuffle when compared to the existing 100 points of ID check ;-). Seriously though, a card with RFID deserved to be killed dead: highly dodgy for anyone to be able to scan your ID from a distance (and potentially steal it).

ID cards and government database sharing are useful to governments for clubbing individuals who've messed up their paperwork. An ID card which works in our favour by reducing the red tape and paperwork we must deal with by auto-filling in the data they already have... now that would be a winner.

Yes, the police system creates fear. But does fear deter crime? The answer is no. This has been proven by countless studies over the years, many of which have focused on capital punishment and its deterrent effect (it has none - see, for example, this).

So your most of your argument is specious.

The part of your argument that is incontestable is the part where you say "[prison] takes [criminals] off the streets." That, in fact, does lower the crime rate, although there are much more sensible approaches to lowering the crime rate (for example, de-criminalizing drug use (see this)).

The fact that Indiana didn't catch the woman for 35 years implies to me that they probably didn't try very hard -- hell, she didn't even move out of state. I'll bet there's a subtext to the story, or circumstances that we don't know about, that convinced the cops that she posed zero threat to society and wasn't worth expending the resources to track down. That judgment, if it was made, turned out to be true.

A quick google turned up this. Seems a teething remedy called farouk is commonly used in the middle east and contains lead. This could be what you're referring to.

TFA is a good read, but http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/player.cgi?noonethinksbigofyou_low

. In Queensland an Aboriginal man was killed while in police custody. It was latter shown that he shouldn't have even been arrested, and that he was beaten to death.

Hmmmm, wonder if that has anything to do with Australia starting life as a British penal colony? Sorry, couldn't restist. /don't have anything against Down Under

No offence taken, mate. According to the state records of New South Wales, our first policemen were convicts. :)

The following is from The NSW State Government Archives:

Historical Background

In August 1789, Arthur Phillip established a night-watch which came under civil control. It consisted of eight of the best-behaved convicts in the Colony. This was the first Police force in the country.

My company buys forestry based carbon credits from the New South Wales Government in the form of NGACs (New South Wales Greenhouse gas Abatement Certificates). They use the money to both maintain the forests already in place and to fund planting and maintinence of new forests. Trees, especially hard-wood trees are magnificent carbon sequestration machines when they are growing. Their value as carbon absorbers rounds off when they stop growing but as long as the tree is alive it is storing that carbon. The NGAC scheme mandates that the carbon be removed from the air and stored for 100 years minimum. Properly managed, the forests become self-sustaining over time as they are as close as possible to the original native forests of the area, and well suited to being grown there. Forests NSW, the division of the Dept of Primary Industries that manages these carbon pools really knows what it is doing here and we are proud of the quiality of the carbon credits we buy off them as they come with a host of ancillary environmental benifits. Australia, like the USA, has no shortage of land that was cleared before 1990 (part of the NGAC rules) and is open for revegetation. As you so succinctly put it, "Trees capture the energy for free." Its in fact terribly efficient to fund reforestation in this manner.

It is going to take a variety of strategies to avert disaster, and reforestation has a significant part to play. Cutting back on your energy use and relocalising your food supply is the key really. And you can easily offset emissions you can't otherwise reduce with behavioural changes. We know how to save the world, it's just a question of do we want to?

Actually, I'm an Australian, so I was referring to the New South Wales SEO. Thanks, though! I hope someone in the US can find your information useful.

Unless you have serious brain damage, you need at least around 8h/day (there is some variation, but not much) on average. When you get them doesn't matter. If you try to sleep less, your body will accumulate a "sleep debt" until you catch up (say, on the weekend); while you have a sleep debt, you'll perform progressively worse.

If you don't catch up on your sleep debt, you'll start having microsleep episodes--you'll black out for seconds at a time and not even notice it; if that happens while driving, you may die. (Microsleep episodes are insufficient to catch up on your sleep--they are just an emergency measure. If you still don't catch up with a real sleep, you'll start having hallucinations.)

Since you need at least 8h anyway, and since there is nothing to be gained by splitting it up, it's simplest to do them at one stretch, although in some environments, people find it convenient to split it up into two separate periods.

Note that 8h/day is a minimum. When you're catching up with a sleep debt, you may sleep much longer. Even when you don't have a sleep debt, it's normal to sleep longer if you don't have anything on your mind. But while you can go into sleep debt, you can't "save up" sleep for later use.

Here is some more info.

Take a look at these statistics Life is full of challenges and ways to kill yourself. I don't want to live in a world where every rough edge is smoothed off just to keep people with a low tolerance of life to tell other people what to do.

I've got no problem with you doing things that may end up killing you ... provided you don't put other people at risk at the same time. If you manage to survive to an age where you have children, you might just learn to understand this point of view. If you want to drive fast, take up speedway racing or something. Or you could try free climbing or cave diving, or clearing land mines, or ...

Traffic fatalities are going down as speeds are generally headed up. In otherwords, there is statistical link between travelling faster than the speed limit an fatalities.

According to the report linked above, someone travelling at 85 kph in a 60kph zone is greter than 50 times (yes FIFTY times) more likely to have a crash resulting in fatality or serious injury than someone driving at the speed limit. Is that what you mean?

Driving is not like pushing a cart around a supermarket.

True, and that is why we have driving licenses and driving tests. But equally, driving is not just a game for testosterone ridden male juveniles with a death wish. It is something that most adults need to be able to do to get by in modern society. And as such, the rights of your claimed 90% "incompetent" drivers to drive safely outweigh the rights of the other 10% to drive like maniacs.

Those big solar concentrators are just one of the options besides photovoltaics. There's also a huge array of solar powered stirling engines being constructed in Southern California, and there's a giant solar tower being built in New South Wales Australia. Those are just the two projects I've heard of besides the solar concentrators. The advantage of the stirling engines is that they are the most efficient method of converting solar power into electricity (currently about 30%), while the advantage of the solar towers is that although they are much less efficient (2% or so) they are extremely simple to design and should be relatively cheap to build as well.

I don't know about most of their content, or even half or a fraction. You take a 100+ page daily newspaper and turn that into web pages. Then take the next 100+ page daily newspaper and repeat. Do that for a month and you'd have a gigantic web site, whereas most online sites belonging to newpapers seem to have a handful of stories under each category. (Sure, if you strip all the ads from a newspaper you'd get 50 or 60 pages of content, but the websites seem to have just as many ads stuffed into them.)

I'm using Aussie papers like the Sunday Times, West Australian and SMH in this example - the websites are pretty lean but the papers are truly massive. The impression I get is that the vast bulk of printed contact never makes it online, probably due to copyright and the rights they buy from freelancers. For example, there was an article about an SF magazine I'm involved with. It was in the printed edition but never made it online. I enquired about putting a scan on our website and they wanted a payment of over $1000.

Another example: This page is updated weekly to show the book reviews from the SMH. There were 35 reviews in September, only two of which appeared on the website. (According to the article links on that page.)

According to transport.nsw.gov.au Botany transfers 1.1 million 20' containers a year or about 3,000 containers per day. So, no, you are right it won't be a PC in a basement room. It'll be some big iron running this web based app.

I still say the secretaries should have been reprimanded, severely repremanded, and the pinkslip should have been reserved for the moron who made company E-Mail coresspondence public property.

Why would you want to reward the moron with a pinkslip? Then he would just get out of having to spend quite a bit of money for his car.

I think the solar tower that you are looking for is here

http://www.wentworth.nsw.gov.au/solartower/

Going forward to http://www.enviromission.com.au/

They are talking of a 25MW station

http://www.enviromission.com.au/financial/EVM%20CA 188.pdf

and site in the USA ie Arizona

http://www.enviromission.com.au/financial/EVM%20CA 197.pdf

The points system is explained on the NSW RTA Web site

Changes are here: http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/rulesregulations/penalti es/demeritpoints/demerit_changes.html

NSW Office of Fair Trading

"Under the law, a customer is entitled to a refund if goods:

* have some basic, serious fault that the customer could not have known about when purchasing them
* do not do the job that the customer was led to believe they would do
* do not match a sample they were shown
* are not as they were described."

"...the customer has the right to insist on a refund if that is what the customer wants..."

To obtain a refund there are also Customer Obligations.

"If after contacting the trader you still cannot solve a refund issue you can contact Fair Trading."

Just because you haven't been successful doesn't mean it can't be done, sure it can take time, you may have to fight and it can be *difficult*. I have come up against retailers, telecoms, banks and the government (ever tried to move a mountain?) on my own and won (and I know jack about law).

Usually the cost and time I invested in getting the above to obey the law was more than what the result was worth but it can be done.

Just say to yourself: I will not lay down and I will not be beaten. I know what is right and I will see it done. Really, try it :-)

NSW Office of Fair Trading

"Under the law, a customer is entitled to a refund if goods:

* have some basic, serious fault that the customer could not have known about when purchasing them
* do not do the job that the customer was led to believe they would do
* do not match a sample they were shown
* are not as they were described."

"...the customer has the right to insist on a refund if that is what the customer wants..."

To obtain a refund there are also Customer Obligations.

"If after contacting the trader you still cannot solve a refund issue you can contact Fair Trading."

Just because you haven't been successful doesn't mean it can't be done, sure it can take time, you may have to fight and it can be *difficult*. I have come up against retailers, telecoms, banks and the government (ever tried to move a mountain?) on my own and won (and I know jack about law).

Usually the cost and time I invested in getting the above to obey the law was more than what the result was worth but it can be done.

Just say to yourself: I will not lay down and I will not be beaten. I know what is right and I will see it done. Really, try it :-)

NSW Office of Fair Trading

"Under the law, a customer is entitled to a refund if goods:

* have some basic, serious fault that the customer could not have known about when purchasing them
* do not do the job that the customer was led to believe they would do
* do not match a sample they were shown
* are not as they were described."

"...the customer has the right to insist on a refund if that is what the customer wants..."

To obtain a refund there are also Customer Obligations.

"If after contacting the trader you still cannot solve a refund issue you can contact Fair Trading."

Just because you haven't been successful doesn't mean it can't be done, sure it can take time, you may have to fight and it can be *difficult*. I have come up against retailers, telecoms, banks and the government (ever tried to move a mountain?) on my own and won (and I know jack about law).

Usually the cost and time I invested in getting the above to obey the law was more than what the result was worth but it can be done.

Just say to yourself: I will not lay down and I will not be beaten. I know what is right and I will see it done. Really, try it :-)

When it comes to software in Australia, you just can't return it

Now listen carefully: YES YOU CAN!
This is a common misconception that many people have but it is not true. You have rights as a customer and nothing a store says or does can change that. For example if a product is faulty or damaged or does not work as advertised you have the right to return it. It does not matter if the seal is broken or you have opened the case or even installed it. You have the right to return it. The store may say "no", but if you want your money back you can fight it and win.
I have done so in the past.

Check google for "consumer rights" site:gov.au for more info. In NSW contact the "Office of Fair Trading"

This website provides assistance and general information to help you access government documents by using the Victorian Freedom of Information Act 1982.

In NSW, the Freedom of Information Act 1989 gives you the legal right to...

What the hell else were they gunna call it?

Maybe I wasn't being perfectly clear: Safe-T-Cam is completely automated. The only time a human operator is involved is if there is a dispute, which is comparatively rare. I should have mentioned that Safe-T-Cam also checks driving patterns as we have regulations here about heavy vehicle drivers not exceeding X hours in a sitting and having at least X hour breaks between sittings.

If you're still using Photoshop-type apps to manually enhance, crop and read licence plates can I offer you some very expensive software engineers? :)

Here is some more information about the initiative if you're interested:
Safe-T-Cam overview
Safe-T-Cam brochure (PDF via HTML)

Maybe I wasn't being perfectly clear: Safe-T-Cam is completely automated. The only time a human operator is involved is if there is a dispute, which is comparatively rare. I should have mentioned that Safe-T-Cam also checks driving patterns as we have regulations here about heavy vehicle drivers not exceeding X hours in a sitting and having at least X hour breaks between sittings.

If you're still using Photoshop-type apps to manually enhance, crop and read licence plates can I offer you some very expensive software engineers? :)

Here is some more information about the initiative if you're interested:
Safe-T-Cam overview
Safe-T-Cam brochure (PDF via HTML)

Wether or not young people drink more than older people or even are more likely to drink drive it doesn't prove that lower BAC limits work for them. If young people are as ready to drink drive and do it dangerously as you say they are then wether the limit is 0.00 or 0.05 they'll drink drive.

"If you drink, you don't drive" means exactly that"

You're the one who's missed the point. The question is 'how long after I drink can I drive'. What if I get the taxi home after dinner can I then drive out to pick up some milk from the shops a couple of hours later? Will I be ok then? Should I just risk it anyway even if I'm not sure? How much did I actually drink at dinner - hmm I wasn't counting etc. Unless I never drink again in my life then at some point I will have to ask these questions. If its the next day or something then I'm sure everythings fine, but this would be the case with 0.05 too so its irrelevant here.

This is the same numbers game as if the limit was 0.05. It adds absoulutely no more certainty to have the limit at 0.00 unless you are a teetotaler - and in that case drink driving laws are irrelevant to you.

"I can't imagine that would stand up against a legal challenge"
You can imagine what you like but the law is quite clear. You might be lucky and get a lenient magistrate for something like that of course, but thats a matter of luck.
http://www.legalaid.nsw.gov.au/asp/index.asp?pgid= 76
See section on penalties.

The percentage of young binge drinkers is a lot higher than percentage of old binge drinkers

If you're binge drinking then by definition you're going to be over the limit whatever its set at. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=binge+dri nking

Of course more young people do this because young people go out and socialise more in pubs and clubs. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are more likely to drink drive and it doesn't mean that they need different drink driving rules to older people.

Actually there is - tolerance build-up over time
This is only in people who drink regularly, and it fades if you stop drinking. It doesn't mean that older people will necessarily have a higher tolerance - a good proportion of the population will have lower tolerance than most young people simply because they rarely drink.

If you drink, you don't drive - simple.

That's no simpler than the 0.05 system. Asking yourself 'if I had a beer an hour ago when will I be at zero again?' is the same as 'if I had a beer an hour ago how near to 0.05 am I'. Its all just numbers - amount of alcohol consumed minus time passed. It doesn't make it anymore certain trying to estimate when you'll be at zero than when you'll be at 0.05. At least with 0.05 the responsible person (which by all accounts is still the vast majority of people old and young) has a reasonable buffer to protect themselves.

I'm pretty sure you'll find the legal definition of "zero" is 0.02

Then I hope to god you're not a lawyer! I'll say it again - the NSW govt. reduced the limit for p-platers from 0.02 to 0.00. 0.00 is no more 0.02 than 0.07 is 0.05.
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/han sart.nsf/V3Key/LA20030902015
" zero blood alcohol limit for L-plate and P-plate drivers. That is a reduction from the current limit of 0.02"

Information here - In Australia, if you're convicted of 'certain major alcohol-related offences' the court can elect to allow you a shorter period of disqualification if you agree to have the device installed.

Every day, across the world, thousands of weather balloons are released at the same time. (Or so Trevor, the weather guy at Cobar weather station in outback NSW, told me.) The balloons carry a commercially-made telemetry package that doesn't weigh much, and drops to the ground when the ballooon bursts at around 100K feet. I haven't heard of anything bad happening as a result. The planet is a big place, and the chances of hitting someone on the head are extremely low. (And even lower than that in the Cobar district.)

If you're ever in Cobar, I recommend a visit to the weather station. The balloon goes up every day at 9:15 am. It's the closest thing to entertainment they have.

http://www.cobar.nsw.gov.au/tourism/attractions.ht m

11. Revoke the drivers licenses for anyone with 3 serious tickets in the last 5 years.

Come live in Sydney, NSW, Australia.

They've just changed the demerit scheme so that you lose 3 points off your license for speeding if you're even going 1km over the limit - and public holiday weekends are double demerit.

On a full license (not learner or provisional) you get 12 points on your license, and points that come off stay off for 3 years.

That's right on a long weekend you could do 61km/hr in a 60 zone twice and that's your license gone!

Don't believe me? Take a look at:
http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/rulesregulations/penalti es/demeritpoints/index.html

All they've done is make it so hard that people are even less bothered to obey speed limits. That's until they come up to a known speed camera and do 10km/hr under the limit. Oh and if you do try to stay under the limit when everyone else isn't it gets very dangerous very quickly (not to mention the abuse).

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

That is, in the context of paying tolls.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/trafficinformation/etoll /howetollworks.html

not sure how it all actually works but it's not straight RFID...
It's pretty cool though - without this sort of technology, the traffic jams would be awful at the tool booths.

You mean like this?

A Central Tower Power Plant is basically that, except it works by heating liquid and turning a turbine with the vapor instead of using photovoltaic cells.

The project's Web site gives the impression that they're still planning and trying to secure funding. That is to be expected; a $700 million tower isn't built overnight.

here is the link... http://www.wentworth.nsw.gov.au/solartower/

Like this:
Solar tower?

I remember analog, what a great magazine. Haven't bothered looking at it for many years now :)

What you mean, are solar towers.

Nice and simple and it's hard for the store or the consumer to screw each other over.

firstly, what a snide and useless remark.

It is quite easy to find information that supports Sydney as a global business city.

Australia is the 11th largest economy in the world and Sydney its largest, most international city and the economic capital. Set on Port Jackson Harbour, the city has a long history of trade, commerce and finance.

Many multinationals have their Asian-Pacific headquarters in the city, including Price Waterhouse Coopers, Compuserve and BT. Others such as IBM, Coca-Cola and Unilever have offices here.
Taken from here

Sydney is often included along with other noted business cites such as singapore.

Sydney is attractive for its language diversity, and Morgan Stanley has located some of its back-office operations there. Tokyo and Hong Kong are both a bit too expensive for such operations

it is becoming increasingly common for Chinese companies to raise money not just on the Hong Kong market, but also in other markets such as Sydney or Singapore.
Taken from here

And other information from NSW.gov site.

# the most multicultural city in the Asia Pacific
# 70% of the nation's top 250 IT&T companies are headquartered in Sydney
# base for 44% of regional call centres in the Asia Pacific
# lowest unemployment rate in Australia
# major Asia Pacific financial centre
# information communications technology capital of Australia
link

And
Australia is once again among the leading nations in terms of economic growth. For the second year running, the worldwide executive opinion survey conducted for the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook considered Australia's economy as the most resilient in the world.

Of the 53 authorised banks with operations in Australia, 40 are based in Sydney. This includes nine of the 11 foreign subsidiary banks in Australia and the 10 largest investment banking groups. Major foreign banks with operations in Sydney include JPMorgan Chase, ABN Amro, Citibank, and Deutsche Bank. Other global banks have established highly successful back office operations in Sydney. These foreign banks benefit from Sydney's time zone advantage, spanning the close of business in the United States and the opening of the European trading day.

Taken from here and here

Cheers

firstly, what a snide and useless remark.

It is quite easy to find information that supports Sydney as a global business city.

Australia is the 11th largest economy in the world and Sydney its largest, most international city and the economic capital. Set on Port Jackson Harbour, the city has a long history of trade, commerce and finance.

Many multinationals have their Asian-Pacific headquarters in the city, including Price Waterhouse Coopers, Compuserve and BT. Others such as IBM, Coca-Cola and Unilever have offices here.
Taken from here

Sydney is often included along with other noted business cites such as singapore.

Sydney is attractive for its language diversity, and Morgan Stanley has located some of its back-office operations there. Tokyo and Hong Kong are both a bit too expensive for such operations

it is becoming increasingly common for Chinese companies to raise money not just on the Hong Kong market, but also in other markets such as Sydney or Singapore.
Taken from here

And other information from NSW.gov site.

# the most multicultural city in the Asia Pacific
# 70% of the nation's top 250 IT&T companies are headquartered in Sydney
# base for 44% of regional call centres in the Asia Pacific
# lowest unemployment rate in Australia
# major Asia Pacific financial centre
# information communications technology capital of Australia
link

And
Australia is once again among the leading nations in terms of economic growth. For the second year running, the worldwide executive opinion survey conducted for the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook considered Australia's economy as the most resilient in the world.

Of the 53 authorised banks with operations in Australia, 40 are based in Sydney. This includes nine of the 11 foreign subsidiary banks in Australia and the 10 largest investment banking groups. Major foreign banks with operations in Sydney include JPMorgan Chase, ABN Amro, Citibank, and Deutsche Bank. Other global banks have established highly successful back office operations in Sydney. These foreign banks benefit from Sydney's time zone advantage, spanning the close of business in the United States and the opening of the European trading day.

Taken from here and here

Cheers

firstly, what a snide and useless remark.

It is quite easy to find information that supports Sydney as a global business city.

Australia is the 11th largest economy in the world and Sydney its largest, most international city and the economic capital. Set on Port Jackson Harbour, the city has a long history of trade, commerce and finance.

Many multinationals have their Asian-Pacific headquarters in the city, including Price Waterhouse Coopers, Compuserve and BT. Others such as IBM, Coca-Cola and Unilever have offices here.
Taken from here

Sydney is often included along with other noted business cites such as singapore.

Sydney is attractive for its language diversity, and Morgan Stanley has located some of its back-office operations there. Tokyo and Hong Kong are both a bit too expensive for such operations

it is becoming increasingly common for Chinese companies to raise money not just on the Hong Kong market, but also in other markets such as Sydney or Singapore.
Taken from here

And other information from NSW.gov site.

# the most multicultural city in the Asia Pacific
# 70% of the nation's top 250 IT&T companies are headquartered in Sydney
# base for 44% of regional call centres in the Asia Pacific
# lowest unemployment rate in Australia
# major Asia Pacific financial centre
# information communications technology capital of Australia
link

And
Australia is once again among the leading nations in terms of economic growth. For the second year running, the worldwide executive opinion survey conducted for the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook considered Australia's economy as the most resilient in the world.

Of the 53 authorised banks with operations in Australia, 40 are based in Sydney. This includes nine of the 11 foreign subsidiary banks in Australia and the 10 largest investment banking groups. Major foreign banks with operations in Sydney include JPMorgan Chase, ABN Amro, Citibank, and Deutsche Bank. Other global banks have established highly successful back office operations in Sydney. These foreign banks benefit from Sydney's time zone advantage, spanning the close of business in the United States and the opening of the European trading day.

Taken from here and here

Cheers

Lets not let facts get in the way of feeling good about ourselves.
There is a slight problem - gun related crime has INCREASED in Australia since the "tough new gun laws" were introduced.

I think you are ignoring some facts yourself.

Slightly offtopic, but if we consider size, check out the idea of a Solar Tower, a completely different approach for harvesting sun energy by producing wind (in the form of an upward draft). There was a prototype in Spain (195m high), and now the Australian Government is considering to build one that is 1 km high, with a diameter of 5 km!

Actually you can't shout the word "fuck" on the street in Australia, well at least not if you live in NSW (as does most of the population).

Section 4A of the Summary Offences Act makes it an offence to use offensive language near, or within hearing of, a public place or a school. Section 4 makes general offensive conduct illegal, and is punishable by up to 3 months in prison.

For a copy of the Act:
http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/summarize/inforc e/s/1/?TITLE=%22Summary%20Offences%20Act%201988%20 No%2025%22&nohits=y/

Further information:
http://www.aussielegal.com.au/informationoutline~n ocache~1~SubTopicDetailsID~956.htm/
http://www.findlaw.com.au/article/8872.htm/

I've just had an idea. There is an old abandoned heritage listed building on Parammatta Road, Homebush. It's about 300m west of your present location. The building is a grand old art deco ballroom. It is HUGE and on two levels. On the top level is a double height ballroom the size of a large gymnasium. The lower floor is smaller dance floor but still large.

For a while squatters were living in the place and had it open as a social centre called the "Midnight Star". As far as I know the squatters are no loger there.

The building is listed in the NSW heritage register. The owner can be found through Strathfield council. I once followed it up as I was interested to see if the building could be used for a swing dance function. The owner was a company based in Bondi. I can't remember the name, but it started with an "O" and was not in the phone book. I never got around to actually contacting them. The council was only able to give me the registered address of the ompany.

Anyway, given that the building is sitting empty, surely the owner would let you move the collection the there for free or a peppercorn rent? I guess they might be concerned that they end up with a building full of abandoned computer bits in case the museum fails. In that case, perhaps propose a refundable deposit equal to the cost of removing the equipment?

Reply to this if you want me to get in touch via email.

What about solar towers, like this one. What keeps us from plastering earth's deserts with these things?