Posts

around the traps

  • Retiring as a Judge, Trump's Sister Ends Court Inquiry Into Her Role in Tax Dodges - The New York Times: President Trump's older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings....The status change rendered the investigation moot, since retired judges are not subject to the conduct rules. What a fine bunch they are.
  • Electric aircraft aren't far off, but we need to prepare - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): A scan of global electric aircraft development suggests rapid advancements are likely over the coming decade. By 2022, nine-seat planes could be doing short-haul flight (500-1,000km). Before 2030, small-to-medium 150-seat planes could be flying up to 500 kilometres. Short-range (100-250 km) VTOL aircraft could also become viable in the 2020s. ... electric aircraft could lead to higher-frequency services, enabling more competitive point-to-point flights, and increase the dispersion of air services to smaller airports. A lot of uncertainty about timelines, but it seems inevitable this is how things will go. If low-noise electric planes were allowed to break Sydney's curfew, that alone could be compelling to the industry.
  • How to Crash Test a $2 Million Koenigsegg Without Going Broke: If a major automaker needs to perform 16 crash tests for their new $25,000 sedan they can crash 16 cars and only lose $400,000 worth of product. For a company like Koenigsegg, 16 cars is a year's worth of production and a $30 million loss.
  • 'Plant 1 trillion trees to fight climate change' - CNN
  • Kevin Smith: how we made Clerks | Film | The Guardian
  • Around 50% of homes in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have the oldest NBN technology: inferior NBN technology is in abundant use across all three metropolitan cities. 62% of all addresses in the greater Brisbane region, 42% of all addresses in Melbourne, and 55% of all addresses in Sydney are (or will soon be) connected to the NBN via HFC.
  • The Horror Behind Rammstein's Song 'Radio' - The Metal Report. Those who do not read history are doomed to really miss the point of Rammstein's new singles...
  • For 30 years I worked for News Corp papers. Now all I see is shameful bias | Tony Koch | Opinion | The Guardian: Gone is the requirement for balance. One has only to look at the story selection and headlines on the front pages of the papers each day to see that an anti-Labor angle has been taken, however contorted had been the literary gymnastics required to finally arrive at that particular bit of stupidity. How infantile is it of the management of these organisations to fool themselves into believing that what they are producing is being accepted by readers as quality product. Noting Tony Koch is an Australian journalist who has won five Walkley awards and an honorary doctorate from the Australian School of Journalism. He has also won 48 state journalism awards, the Sir Keith Murdoch News Limited Award and the Graham Perkin Award. He has been inducted into the Australian media hall of fame.
  • Good grief: Victimized employees don't get a break | EurekAlert! Science News: The researchers performed their work over the course of four studies. The first two studies showed through surveys of employees and supervisors that supervisors tend to view victims of bullying as being bullies themselves. Studies three and four were experiments where participants evaluated employees based on descriptions of their work performance, as well as how they treated others and how they were treated. They found that even when evaluators were clearly informed that a victim did not mistreat others, victims were still seen as bullies. In the fourth study, they found that not only are victims seen as bullies despite evidence to the contrary, but also that they receive lower job performance evaluations as a result of being victimized. (study: How leaders perceive employee deviance: Blaming victims while excusing favorites. | Request PDF)