Humodour

Um, no. Decreasing your exposure to monomer units (which come out of polymers under things like mechanical stress, heat, UV, acid, solvent, etc), plasticisers, and other plastic additives decreases the severity and risk of things like cancer and endocrine disorder. It's not black and white. It's not "all plastic or no plastic". It's more like "if I can reduce my exposure to plastics by 50%, I reduce my risk of cancer caused by plastics by 50%". Or "if I reduce my exposure to plastic by 50%, I reduce the severity of endocrine disruption by 50%, possibly below levels that are even capable of causing disruption." When you apply that approach to your entire lifestyle, significantly cutting down on sources of cancer and disease, you're obviously cutting risk factors across the board. It's not going to guarantee you don't get cancer or die at 36 of a heart attack, but I think anybody who understand statistics would understand it's still very much worth doing (certainly in comparison to your fatalistic "who cares" attitude). Exhibit a: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-bpa-...anned-soup.html

Wow. I didn't know pepper spray was that common in America. Kind of tragic. Your cops are pretty ****ed up. http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/22/how-...?xid=gonewsedit The entire article is an excellent read, so I won't quote it here. But that is some really ****ed up **** and those cops need to go to jail for what they did.

I don't stress, Wals. Rather than trying to diagnose me over the Internet it might be worth considering the point I just made. Society has a very long history of acting first and thinking later - global warming, acid rain, soil erosion, invasive species, cigarettes, leaded petrol, thalidomide, hole in the ozone layer. There are some simple ways to cut down on exposure to plastic in your life, such as buying juices and tomato sauce in glass rather than plastic bottles, avoiding plastic blenders, tupperware plates, etc. Artificial polymers are simple to avoid in many cases (and where they're not not, you get over it), so I would suggest not caring about it is the more foolish course of action.

Yeah that's how I stumbled across this. The Pakistani ban is wildly ridiculous. It'll likely require significant network quality degradation to enforce, but if you take a look at the word list, it's ****ing crazy. And they don't seem to be censoring their own language. They banned 'beastiality', so I guess having sex with animals is bad only if you can't spell bestiality properly. They also banned sniper, hostage, stroke, deeper, looser and herpes. What could possibly go wrong. What a ****ing pathetic 'government'. Then again, apparently their military is about to stage a coup d'

Oh China... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crab_(Internet_slang)

I apologised shortly after when I realised you were joking! I wouldn't advise that unless you were in real trouble. The PPC in the plastic starts to disolve into the water in hot weather. That's why you should never leave a water bottle in a hot car. I completely agree that most plastics shouldn't be exposed to heat or UV or corrosive chemicals because plasticisers and monomer units often leach out, and they're often carcinogenic and more. Even avoiding these things, the polymer will simply break down into its often carcinogenic monomers over time, so re-using water bottles for example isn't as smart an idea as one might think. Then again, we're talking about use by people who often won't live long enough to experience cancer in the first place, so I'm not sure that concern about them using plastic water bottles is the highest priority. Not sure what PPC is, though. Haven't heard of it. Did you mean phthalates (often used as plasticisers)? Frankly I find it kind of appalling that society has so strongly embraced plastics in food and health products. We simply don't have life-time studies to show they're safe, and we have quite a bit of evidence to suggest the opposite - that plastic monomers and additives leach out into their product and environment and then bioaccumulate in the human body over the years, eventually reaching levels that cause birth defects, cancer, endocrine problems, neural problems, etc. This keyboard that I type on constantly - plastic. My toothbrush - plastic. My toothpaste container - plastic. Juice bottles - plastic. Eating utensils - often plastic. Water bottles - plastic. Bed sheets - often plastic. Clothes - often plastic. Gets a bit scary when you consider how much plastic is actually in our lives. I'm finding it hard to avoid.

It occurs to me that maybe you were poking fun at yourself and I took you seriously. My bad!

Nah, it's just all you convicts have built up a stronger tolerance to bacteria living in the the real world equivalent of Mad Max's world. He's *Austrian* Hurlshot... not Australian Ooops! Is that a suburb of Germany? Um... seriously dude? Between confusing Austria and Australia and not knowing that Austria is a country (read up on the history of the World Wars, because Austria was the epicentre), you're not doing any favours to the stereotype of the US as ignorant and out of touch with reality. Sorry, I don't mean to be overly harsh, but it seems to me that the Chaser weren't far off with this skit:

Bottled water is a fairly wasteful nuisance to human society. At least in developed countries. It does have its uses in places like Africa, where it can provide an effective water sanitation (and storage) method in the form of solar sterilisation (put water in clear bottle, expose to sun, bacteria die).

I'm still not convinced. I'd like to see an independent particle accelerator confirm the result. Although I don't know if any of the ones in the USA, Japan, Europe, China are capable of replicating the result any time soon (may need to build a new one). Not because I don't trust CERN (in fact, I do), but because the implications are along the lines of "oh by the way, humanity, we just invented perpetual motion". EDIT: Actually, looks like we might have confirmation within the next year according to the BBC:

Nox is a cool little game.

What possible reason could I have to be happy about the proliferation of weapons-grade uranium? If if it's not used in India's nukes programme, it means their uranium from other sources can now be diverted to their nukes programme. Moreover, why would I be happy about the exportation of power-generation uranium to India? It just means that they've now lost their main incentive to mature much safer (in every way) and more efficient thorium nuclear reactors. That was something India was leading the world in, so much so that China, Britain, and America decided to follow suit. Given India's problems with poverty I find it hard to believe they will seriously maintain their thorium programme when they could opt for already mature uranium reactors (mature because the billions of dollars of government subsidies were already pumped into it back in the Cold War since unlike thorium, uranium can be weaponised). Mature, but not safe. As for those US soldiers - it's a token gesture. The reality is that the USA is legally (and economically) obligated to come to our aid if we are ever attacked, and we've already got the 10th largest defence spending in the world so that we can hold China off long enough for America to arrive if it ever comes down to that. I hate that China is forcing South East Asia into a situation where more US troops are actually required in the region to fend off an expansionist China. Did they learn nothing from the world wars? So I understand why America is deploying troops in Australia (it's not to protect Australia, rather our neighbours), and I support it because the alternative is ****, but I blame China for causing unrest in this otherwise peaceful part of the world. You need only take a look at how much of the South China Sea which China's military claims sovereignty over to understand why I and the rest of the world feel this way.

I saw a few US military and defence analysis professors giving pretty compelling reasons as to why it's a missile and defence testing range. Things like the existence of military planes and explosion debris when zooming in were cited as evidence. Sounds pretty mundane to me. As mundane as the fact that an aggressive, expansionist superpower pumping huge amounts of funding, resources, and time into state of the art military assets can ever be. South China Sea anyone? But it's OK, because Australia will now start selling uranium to India, open a few new US bases in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, with accompanying US troop deployment, and bolster joint training exercises with India. While America does the same with the Philippines and Vietnam. What a dizzying week. And what a waste of money - and the blame does not lie with the West on this one. China shouldn't be acting like a spoilt brat over numerous territories and maritime areas that don't belong to it. But hey, that's what happens when a country suddenly realises it is a superpower. Especially a non-democratic one.

Hi guys. Who has played Bastion? Best game in a long while. One of the few I've finished lately. Up there with the Portals. And Plants Vs Zombies. Which is pretty good for an indie game that cost $15 on Steam. Amazing charm and atmosphere, super well polished, really unique game. It says action RPG, and I guess it is, but it does it in a rather different, and more calm and intelligent manner than Diablo, Torchlight, Dungeon Siege, etc. Either way I had lots of fun. Story, art design and metaphors in the game reminded me of Braid, but there doesn't appear to be any connection between developers. Bastion on Steam

Warren Buffett buys $10 billion worth of shares in IBM.

Glorious. Your work reminds me of W. B. Yeats.

Thanks guys (specifically LoF and Guard Dog) - I looked into dividend hunting a bit more and read many similar things to what LoF pointed out. (i.e. dividends are priced into the share price, and thus it's very difficult to make money by buying into a stock for the dividend then selling it afterwards) I'm reading about P/E ratios and whatnot Guard Dog but it'll take a bit to make sense of those I guess. None of the companies I've invested in have P/E ratios above 12 if that's relevant? Just a question, though, on your statement that dividend paying stocks don't really grow in value over the years: how accurate is that, though? Prior to 2008, it was true for Telstra. But not QBE and CBA, which regularly had between 10% and 70% growth each year starting from the early 2000's. Although they are financial companies so maybe they're exceptions? Yeah, my long-term aim is about 8 or 10 different companies with no more than 20% in any one. But for now, Telstra is a fairly unique buy because of a few local factors: 1) They were privatised about a decade ago - ex-government business 2) They're the biggest ISP, phone, mobile and general telecommunications company in Australia 3) They've just had their copper line monopoly forcibly purchased off them by the Australian government to ensure they don't try and compete with the government's new universal 1 Gbps fibre optic network, the NBN. The government paid them $11 billion dollars for this. It was a HUGE payout, and from memory 99.8% of Telstra shareholders voted for it. 4) Because of point 3, they no longer have to maintain an ailing business model that was starting to cost them dearly (copper line), as the government owns it now. 5) The company has stated they will maintain their dividend payments at 14 cents per share twice a year for the next 4 payments (i.e. till the end of 2013), and that there might be some special cash extra dividend payments. 6) That dividend yield per year at their current share price is 9%. As far as I can tell, that's huge, no? They've paid that kind of dividend level for a long time, but it only became a 9% yield when the share price crashed due to government intervention earlier in the year in response to their monopolistic practices (which led to structural separation of their wholesale and retail arms) and the government's NBN rollout. That is: the dividend yield is high because of outside reasons, not internal desperation to attract investors or whatnot. 7) Everything bad that could happen to the company in the way of government intervention (which, I would like to point out was entirely warranted) has happened (these events only resolved about a month ago). A lot of people are still highly suspicious of buying Telstra stocks (hence the still somewhat undervalued share price) because of their recent history with government history and some political uncertainty about the NBN (which Telstra will be participating in as an ISP), but this uncertainty is due to irrationality and threats from the opposition party to axe the NBN (which is legally, economically, and politically pretty impossible). So... yeah, almost on the fact that they now have $11 billion in cash alone, they're a stable company to hold at least for the next 2 years (which, coincidentally, is the remaining duration of this current government's term). The fact that there is certainty about their next 4 dividend payments helps, too. Another bonus with Telstra is that they are not exposed to international volatility, being an Australian comms company. So the only way something like Greece or Italy defaulting will hit them is if it hits the wider Australian economy first. I'm moving more cash savings into shares soon and I don't think I'll bother with what I mentioned earlier in this thread. So I'll have 3 blue chip companies for now (CBA, QBE, TLS), each one with an undervalued share price and with dividend yields between 6% and 9%. Hard to tell with QBE's because they're not franked. It should end up being a roughly 33%/33%/33% split. So not terribly diversified but I'm confident in the fundamentals of these companies and I'll diversify more as I save more for investing. Thanks again guys. Keep pulling me up if I say something naive or misinformed! EDIT: Bah, I'm seriously struggling to find information on EBITA and D/E ratio. Do they have other names, or is there an easy way to calculate them from other stats I might have? I have quite an array of stuff provided by Morningstar via my broker.

Agreed.

Slightly related, and you would've seen the wireless, free-roaming BigDog predecessor around the net somewhere (if not, ), but here is the militarised prototype of the BigDog robot mule: I love the bit at the end, where it gets up from being on its side.

As with many prototype products you could argue that they're really just a collection of different successful products used at the same time. The very logical next step and commercial product here is a HAL suit with a built in radiation vest. After all, this new version of HAL was altered by Cyberdyne solely to accommodate radiation vests. Original AFP article which others seem to be citing (hosted here by PhysOrg): http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-japan-...ot-nuclear.html

Scrap that, it looks like Italy is about to default. No ****ing way I'm confident in my ability to predict the market in those circumstances

Well ****, they made HAL radiation-proof. Not just for old people any more! That really is awesome.

I thought the point was to come up with new widgets No. That's TRIZ. EDIT: Krezack would like TRIZ. Hmmm, sweet, I'll check that out! It's kind of an abstract concept, but anything that involves trying derive a reliable formula for inventing has instant appeal to me. Each day I think a little more that maybe I'd enjoy an engineering degree. Especially after taking a look at the salaries for chemists. I don't want to learn quantum chemistry and then earn $40,000 a year, maybe even making it to a whooping $60 grand one day. No thanks.

Yeah I've thought about it and I think it comes down to the fact that there isn't just one way of succeeding at the share market. I mean the risk is that if they've jumped by 10% (or whatever amount we work with), they're overvalued and then people sell them and they fall again, maybe only ending up making say 5% growth that year, even though at one point they jumped 10%. However if I were to consistently sell whenever a company jumps 10%, then go find another undervalued company instead (maybe the same one if it falls down again), and repeat this process, it seems I should be able to get guaranteed 10% growth more easily. In fact, if I set my sell value at 5% growth above purchase price, and did this process twice in a year, that would be my 10% growth. But I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this idea, so I was wondering if there are some pitfalls I am missing with this method. I've actually got about 40% of my shares at the moment in a local blue-chip telecommunications company (ASX:TLS) whose share prices is both undervalued, but also pays dividends of 9%. So it's a no-brainer to keep that one, although I'd like to diversify more - all eggs in one basket.

Yeah, I've asked about it before. But since I actually own shares now (I decided to avoid overseas stock exchanges for now, so all ASX) and a bit of experience with the market, I've got entirely different questions to when I began (which I hope someone like Guard Dog or other can steer me in the right track on!) Do you see dividends or a growth target mentioned anywhere in that thread, Gorth? So no, not awfully familiar. Oh, IBM is just a pretty wonderful company all round. Very well run, arguably the world's largest customer-driven research and development company, has contracts in pretty much every country out there, and every government, is developing for the Square Kilometre Array, is developing Watson into a medical diagnostics machine. But at the time I posted that, the main two compelling reasons for IBM's long-term growth prospects were their hefty materials science credentials (specifically their work on graphene as a replacement for silicon) and the fact that they are able to constantly innovate for their customers (I would argue innovation is the life-blood of long-term growth and hence success in a capitalist market). They've got their hand in pretty much every tech pie in the best way possible. They're also reasonably far divorced from the current financial woes. In the face of the financial crisis, they've continued to grow and grow, such that they're now the fourth largest company in the world and have overtaken Microsoft once more: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:IBM Interestingly, Apple is now the largest company in the world, having overtaken Exxon-Mobil. Who woulda thunk it.