"Sod the Queensland bikie laws."
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Cheapy Tablet Market Explosion
Australians are buying cheap tablets at a record rate. Just about every major store is selling a low-cost tablet. People are not worrying about completely new brands and are snapping them up. The computers do the basics. 'This is all users seem to want. A spare lying around the house is always useful.
Established companies like Intel are taking notice. They are about to launch a "cheapy" into the booming market. Sales of all types of tablets doubled last year in Australia. Apple seems to be ignoring the trend keeping its prices high. This could prove very costly in the long run. You just cannot ignore a change in purchasing. The market has changed with people moving away from major brands. They have realized that tablets are much the same.
Making tablets is new for Intel. It is moving with the times and rightly so. Intel does not intend to manufacture in the US. It is consulting with Chinese companies. It knows a quality chip in integral for even cheapies to work well and it has the skills to design a fast chip.
It is designing a product for each price range, a good idea if it is to become the major manufacturer. That is its goal. The Bay Trail chip is 64-bit. This will offer real power as new applications is made for the system. The market is growing and buyers are expecting more features in a low-priced product.
Tablets by Ty Buchanan
No Best Monkey
"No best man? Shame on you."
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Australia's Chinese Bushranger - Sam Pu (Poo)
Australian bushrangers (outlaws for those in other countries) were all believed to be Caucasian. They were of mostly of Irish heritage with a few of English and Scottish heritage thrown in. Oddly, I cannot seem to find any Welsh bushrangers, but I will stand corrected on this. There was a Jewish offender, of English origin.
The one exception to this "rule" was a Chinese bushranger. His life is being made into a movie. Named Sam Pu, he came to Australia in the early 19th century in the search for gold, like many fellow Chinese.
His spirit was raised to hostility at the riots of Lambing Flats, where white immigrants fought against the Chinese as they worked in large groups and moved into sites abandoned by whites, who usually worked on finding the alluvial gold in small groups. The greatest problem was "running costs" - they ate less than Europeans!
Sam Pu had two quirks. Firstly, he had a white girlfriend. Secondly, he couldn't ride a horse. His mistake was shooting and killing a policeman. The hunt was on. He was caught and hanged.
Like most movies, Aodaliya Gold will not be true to this boring end. Pu joins famous bushrangers Frank Gardiner, Johnny Hall and Ben Hall. He also finds an itinerant Chinese girl along the way. They all ride (or walk) out into the sunset to lead a multicultural life.
Ah well, that's life, or maybe it isn't!
History by Ty Buchanan
Society by Ty Buchanan
Climate Change - Buildings Down and the Surf
Australia has always been a harsh place to live. Despite the luxury living on the coast with all the latest modern services, inland there is a desert. Many people who are born in the harsh center remain there all their lives. A fewer number choose to live there moving from coastal cities. Let's face it many prefer the heat over the cold and they have personal reasons for choosing to do this.
We do yet know what lies ahead for us in this vast continent. Climate change is happening at this very moment most definitely. El Niño and La Niña are the major factors influencing the weather on the east coast. Scientists forecast more extremes from these usually opposite climate impacting factors. The intermediate stage between these cycles has lasted for several years now. Weather is very unpredictable ranging from drought inland to too much rain on the coast. It seems we experience one or the other extreme with changeable in between.
The level of the ocean is rising. Coastal buildings will be inundated and lost forever. Oddly, this is bad news for surfers. As the sea rises the surface becomes smoother. This means smaller waves on the beaches. The era of Australia being a surfing nation could come to an end. Storms along the coast will decrease further exacerbating the problem. With more water volume, temperature differences in the ocean even out leading to calmer weather. The few storms that will occur will be very large indeed. High-rise buildings on the Gold Coast in Queensland will fall into the sea. We will lose our tourist mecca.
Climate by Ty Buchanan
Earth's Oldest particle Found in Western Australia - a Zircon Crystal
Everyone knows that Australia is old. Just how old has been defined by science - A zircon crystal on a Western Australian sheep station is the oldest piece of planet Earth. It is 4.4 billion years old.
Tests were done to determine the crystal's age. The rate of decay of uranium against the constant lead showed how old it was. This was confirmed by atom-probe tomography where the mass of lead atoms is measured.
The zircon particle was created on the Earth's crust soon after the planet formed. And the Earth was not a violent place until much later. Water was already present and there is a high probability that life began at this time. The Hadean eon as this period is called in now a misnomer because it means Hadean the god of hell.
Proof of life is unlikely. Science is not advanced enough yet to fully examine this period. Very little can be identified as originating in this period of the Earth's development.
Science by Ty Buchanan
Pig Elvis
"I love Elvis, man."
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
The 1967 Referendum to Give Aboriginals Equal Rights
I was in my twenties in 1967 when the referendum on giving Aboriginals the vote was held. Obviously, I must have voted, but I cannot remember anything at all about it nor the way I voted. Should I be ashamed about this? Well it seems many Australians do not remember a thing in regard to the referendum. It was nearly half a century ago.
Rarely does a yes vote to change the Constitution "get up". This to non-Australians means that few attempts to make a change have been successful. Of the 24 referendums held only four have got a majority yes vote. People from other countries would think it odd that an advanced country such as Australia had not given Aboriginals the vote decades before. However, think about the racial discrimination in the United States in the supposedly enlightened 1960s.
Other discrimination existed then. Young Australian men who were forcibly enlisted into the military to fight in the Vietnam War could not go into a pub and drink alcohol until they reached the age of 21. Most conscripts were in their teens. When they came home on leave they were condemned by society for fighting the wrong war, even though they did not want to fight at all.
Though the referendum was commonly assumed to be about giving Aboriginals the right to vote, they could already do this but seldom did. The referendum was to give Aboriginals all the rights that Caucasion Australians had. A yes vote gave them the pride and dignity of being accepted as "real" Australians. Before 1967 Aboriginals were a non-people. They had no real identity and were ignored by white society generally.
They got access to welfare and took it dismissively calling it "sit-down money". They began to openly express themselves for good or bad. Discrimination still exists against aboriginals today. The Northern Territory is controlled by the Federal government. Aboriginal men in the Northern Territory are forbidden to drink alcohol. Clearly, many white Australians still feels that Aboriginals are racially inferior and cannot handle alcohol. Go to a night club in the early hours of the morning and see the number of white Australians stunbling about completely out of their minds on alcohol.
Politics by Ty Buchanan
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