Re: [FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.

[thompnickson2]

Hi, Russ, 

 

Thanks for that report.  

 

What is it with the RabidRightWing pandemic?!!  I suppose I have been
ill-educated in some important way, but nothing in my 70 year intellectual
history has prepared me to understand how fascist ideology could once again
spread ... like wildfire ... across the world.  

 

Do we need to deploy fire suppression analogies ... ideological fire breaks,
forest floor clean up, forest thinning, limited burns.   I hate to think of
it.  Or, as one FRIAM member proposes, should we just let it burn.

 

We are having at wettish year
 , here
in Santa Fe, so far.  But as you see, the curve is starting to bend over,
and I wouldn't be surprised if we fell short again.  

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

thompnicks...@gmail.com

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of Russell Standish
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 2:56 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit
internet in town.

 

On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 10:10:24AM -0700,  
thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:

> Yes, Russ4, please give a sense of how things are from your point of view.
Australia is one of the places that we think of going when things get
really, REALLY, R E A L L Y bad here.  

> 

> Nick 

> 

 

Sort of like Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" I suppose. BTW my

grandfather actually knew him (by his real name Nevil

Norway). Actually looking up Nevil's wikipedia entry, they probably

were nearly neighbours. My grandfather lived just outside Pearcedale,

and Nevil's last years were spent at Langwarrin, the next district to

the North. They probably knew each other through the farming

community, and both being ex-Poms.

 

Back to the bushfires - these are like nothing anyone here has

experienced before. Whilst we've had bad fires before, they've all

been limited in both time and space. Bad for the people affected of

course, but generally forgotten about by the general population within

weeks. This is different. I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of

the population is affected, either directly or indirectly by poor air

quality. It has become a way of life to check the air quality app

before venturing outside, whether to go to work, shopping or

exercise. The smoke has even made its way across the Tasman and

affected some New Zealand cities. The only thing comparable I think

would be the 1997 Kalimantan fires in SE Asia.

 

Of course this was predicted as a consequence of climate change, that

we'd have increased drought and fires. And of course, our elected

buffoons are cut from the same cloth as the ones you have in the

US. Ten years ago, Australia had one of the first carbon taxes in the

world. Not really significant economically, and unlikely to have much

effect on fossil fuel use, but at least symbolically useful. That was

torn up by the conservative government elected on a platform of "there

is no climate change, burn baby burn". We've had a decade of

head-in-the-sand politics, with the energy industry screaming for some

policy certainty with respect to roll out of renewables and the

like. Instead, we get the government pleading with coal fired power

station operators to keep such stations open when the operators

decided to end-of-life them. It's madness.

 

And when given the clear choice between explicit policies to change

the energy infrastructure, not open new coal mines and some other

(fairly mild ISTM) tinkering around the edges of the tax system, and

on the other side "we have no policies, but watch out for Bill shock"

(yes the opposition leader was called Bill), people chose the "we have

no policies" government. Elections these days (perhaps always were)

simply a popularity contest, not a rational decision.

 

What is really disgusting is that once back in power, the PM actively

refused to meet with the fire chiefs back in April, who were warning

him of a bad upcoming bushfire season. Well I guess the ostrich got

his bum bitten by a lion. The silver lining in all of this is that

these fires affected so much of the population, that that should

fortify the PM to tell his rabid right wing to put a sock in it, and

proceed to develop policies for how to deal with climate change. IMHO,

the boat sailed 30 years ago for actually preventing climate change -

the best we can do is mitigate or slow it down, and secondly adapt.

 

Anyway - my opinion, but one that I suspect is currently quite widely
shared.

 

Cheers

-- 

 



Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)

Principal, High Performance Coders  

Re: [FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.

[Gillian Densmore]

Thanks all (is back to comcast still blows)
So am I reading right that basically the issue is comcast has a lot
physical infra and it's being a PitA to get better QOA in NM in general,
much less at least 100 up and down?
And that the choices are pretty limited at the moment?

On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 2:56 PM Russell Standish 
wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 10:10:24AM -0700, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Yes, Russ4, please give a sense of how things are from your point of
> view.  Australia is one of the places that we think of going when things
> get really, REALLY, R E A L L Y bad here.
> >
> > Nick
> >
>
> Sort of like Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" I suppose. BTW my
> grandfather actually knew him (by his real name Nevil
> Norway). Actually looking up Nevil's wikipedia entry, they probably
> were nearly neighbours. My grandfather lived just outside Pearcedale,
> and Nevil's last years were spent at Langwarrin, the next district to
> the North. They probably knew each other through the farming
> community, and both being ex-Poms.
>
> Back to the bushfires - these are like nothing anyone here has
> experienced before. Whilst we've had bad fires before, they've all
> been limited in both time and space. Bad for the people affected of
> course, but generally forgotten about by the general population within
> weeks. This is different. I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of
> the population is affected, either directly or indirectly by poor air
> quality. It has become a way of life to check the air quality app
> before venturing outside, whether to go to work, shopping or
> exercise. The smoke has even made its way across the Tasman and
> affected some New Zealand cities. The only thing comparable I think
> would be the 1997 Kalimantan fires in SE Asia.
>
> Of course this was predicted as a consequence of climate change, that
> we'd have increased drought and fires. And of course, our elected
> buffoons are cut from the same cloth as the ones you have in the
> US. Ten years ago, Australia had one of the first carbon taxes in the
> world. Not really significant economically, and unlikely to have much
> effect on fossil fuel use, but at least symbolically useful. That was
> torn up by the conservative government elected on a platform of "there
> is no climate change, burn baby burn". We've had a decade of
> head-in-the-sand politics, with the energy industry screaming for some
> policy certainty with respect to roll out of renewables and the
> like. Instead, we get the government pleading with coal fired power
> station operators to keep such stations open when the operators
> decided to end-of-life them. It's madness.
>
> And when given the clear choice between explicit policies to change
> the energy infrastructure, not open new coal mines and some other
> (fairly mild ISTM) tinkering around the edges of the tax system, and
> on the other side "we have no policies, but watch out for Bill shock"
> (yes the opposition leader was called Bill), people chose the "we have
> no policies" government. Elections these days (perhaps always were)
> simply a popularity contest, not a rational decision.
>
> What is really disgusting is that once back in power, the PM actively
> refused to meet with the fire chiefs back in April, who were warning
> him of a bad upcoming bushfire season. Well I guess the ostrich got
> his bum bitten by a lion. The silver lining in all of this is that
> these fires affected so much of the population, that that should
> fortify the PM to tell his rabid right wing to put a sock in it, and
> proceed to develop policies for how to deal with climate change. IMHO,
> the boat sailed 30 years ago for actually preventing climate change -
> the best we can do is mitigate or slow it down, and secondly adapt.
>
> Anyway - my opinion, but one that I suspect is currently quite widely
> shared.
>
> Cheers
> --
>
>
> 
> Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
>   http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
> 
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.

[Russell Standish]

On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 10:10:24AM -0700, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Yes, Russ4, please give a sense of how things are from your point of view.  
> Australia is one of the places that we think of going when things get really, 
> REALLY, R E A L L Y bad here.  
> 
> Nick 
> 

Sort of like Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" I suppose. BTW my
grandfather actually knew him (by his real name Nevil
Norway). Actually looking up Nevil's wikipedia entry, they probably
were nearly neighbours. My grandfather lived just outside Pearcedale,
and Nevil's last years were spent at Langwarrin, the next district to
the North. They probably knew each other through the farming
community, and both being ex-Poms.

Back to the bushfires - these are like nothing anyone here has
experienced before. Whilst we've had bad fires before, they've all
been limited in both time and space. Bad for the people affected of
course, but generally forgotten about by the general population within
weeks. This is different. I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of
the population is affected, either directly or indirectly by poor air
quality. It has become a way of life to check the air quality app
before venturing outside, whether to go to work, shopping or
exercise. The smoke has even made its way across the Tasman and
affected some New Zealand cities. The only thing comparable I think
would be the 1997 Kalimantan fires in SE Asia.

Of course this was predicted as a consequence of climate change, that
we'd have increased drought and fires. And of course, our elected
buffoons are cut from the same cloth as the ones you have in the
US. Ten years ago, Australia had one of the first carbon taxes in the
world. Not really significant economically, and unlikely to have much
effect on fossil fuel use, but at least symbolically useful. That was
torn up by the conservative government elected on a platform of "there
is no climate change, burn baby burn". We've had a decade of
head-in-the-sand politics, with the energy industry screaming for some
policy certainty with respect to roll out of renewables and the
like. Instead, we get the government pleading with coal fired power
station operators to keep such stations open when the operators
decided to end-of-life them. It's madness.

And when given the clear choice between explicit policies to change
the energy infrastructure, not open new coal mines and some other
(fairly mild ISTM) tinkering around the edges of the tax system, and
on the other side "we have no policies, but watch out for Bill shock"
(yes the opposition leader was called Bill), people chose the "we have
no policies" government. Elections these days (perhaps always were)
simply a popularity contest, not a rational decision.

What is really disgusting is that once back in power, the PM actively
refused to meet with the fire chiefs back in April, who were warning
him of a bad upcoming bushfire season. Well I guess the ostrich got
his bum bitten by a lion. The silver lining in all of this is that
these fires affected so much of the population, that that should
fortify the PM to tell his rabid right wing to put a sock in it, and
proceed to develop policies for how to deal with climate change. IMHO,
the boat sailed 30 years ago for actually preventing climate change -
the best we can do is mitigate or slow it down, and secondly adapt.

Anyway - my opinion, but one that I suspect is currently quite widely shared.

Cheers
-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
  http://www.hpcoders.com.au



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.

[Gillian Densmore]

Thanks Carl eta all!



On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 10:10 AM  wrote:

> Yes, Russ4, please give a sense of how things are from your point of
> view.  Australia is one of the places that we think of going when things
> get really, REALLY, R E A L L Y bad here.
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2020 9:29 AM
> To: FriAM 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.
>
> Are you in AU now? Anywhere near any fire?
>
> On 1/9/20 1:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 08, 2020 at 07:16:23PM +, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> >> Just tested my AT fiber:  937 Mbps upload.Different town than you,
> >> probably.   I had Comcast in Santa Fe.
> >>
> >
> > Wow - so envious. We get about 45 Mbps down, about 20 up on a good day
> > on Malcolm Turnbull's NBN, and even that's a marked improvement on
> > what we had only 2 months ago - about 3Mbps down, 300Kbps up.
> >
> >
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[FRIAM] fires in AU, WAS :Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.

[thompnickson2]

Yes, Russ4, please give a sense of how things are from your point of view.  
Australia is one of the places that we think of going when things get really, 
REALLY, R E A L L Y bad here.  

Nick 



Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2020 9:29 AM
To: FriAM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Comcast blows! who else does legit internet in town.

Are you in AU now? Anywhere near any fire?

On 1/9/20 1:03 AM, Russell Standish wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 08, 2020 at 07:16:23PM +, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Just tested my AT fiber:  937 Mbps upload.Different town than you,
>> probably.   I had Comcast in Santa Fe.
>>
> 
> Wow - so envious. We get about 45 Mbps down, about 20 up on a good day 
> on Malcolm Turnbull's NBN, and even that's a marked improvement on 
> what we had only 2 months ago - about 3Mbps down, 300Kbps up.
> 
> 

--
☣ uǝlƃ


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove