patham

I don't want to be a Topper, but in my neck of the world I just recently had a first consult, X-rays, 2 fillings, clean, polish etc. it came to AUD 624 or R 7000.

One of my bugbears- NBN and telcos here in Aus are positively Telkom-ish, and I mean old-school monopoly Telkom. The NBN used to have a Technology Choice option, where if you had a spare $10 k cash, you could cough up for fibre to your premises. That option had faded away by the time NBN came to my suburb, but I gather quite a few people paid that, and more (I think the highest personal install cost was $250 k). The only option for me was "take what's offered, otherwise you get nothing." The best part of the NBN/telco handover was that I requested my home phone number be transferred to the new VOIP system that is part of the NBN. The system has given my a phone line that works, but has been assigned an unknown phone number. Not just unknown to me, but also the telco - they have not been able to tell me what it is. On the plus side, I can dial out without anyone knowing my identity, and there are no more surveys, spammers or scammers dialling in, as even random number generators have not cracked it.

Income tax is one thing. A wealth tax, especially one at that kicks in at that relatively low level, is a whole different kettle of fish. Let's say you work your whole life, finally pay off your Auckland house worth $1M at age 50, so you just qualify for the wealth tax. If you live to 90, you need to find spare cash to the order of $400 K to pay in tax in order to have retained that asset and pass it on to your kids. That's a hefty inheritance tax. In any event, the really wealthy will just structure their accounts so that on paper they are only worth $999 k at any one time (or some flavour thereof, ala Dave King). The only people who will benefit are the tax accountants.

Gotcha. But I was also hinting that one of you takes a hike to get out of earshot......

WP, the Sony's as per my post above ? For meetings I did not need to look at the screen for, I could wonder outside, skim leaves off the pool, all whilst bluetooth connected. The range is pretty good !

I got myself a pair of the Sony WH-1000XM3' at the start of lockdown for use as a videoconferencing headset. Not as good a manufacturing quality and comfort as my 6 year old MDR-1's, but the sound and noise cancelling is great. They fold into a much more compact space as well. I was on a call last week with someone on the other side of the city, when I could hear a loud jet plane noise picked up by the others persons mike- they apologised, stopped talking for a while and said it was a loud fighter jet flypast. The noise-cancelling was so good I never heard the same plane at all when it flew over our suburb, but my youngster in the local school down the road said it was really, really, really loud !

I am a Trance fan (a 5 year old 27.5) and keep an eye on the local releases each year. The last two years their focus has definitely been on 29", if the trend continues the 27.5 might hang around a little while longer as their budget entry but that's about it.

Not if you were the poor throttle jockey in the cockpit .

Didn't the ST have a better FWD transmission set-up to get the power down with less torque steer? When I test drove the T5, the one road I took it on was a large radius 360 degree crescent, it felt like I could torque steer around the block with the throttle whilst keeping the wheel dead ahead.

When we first met, my townhouse was exactly 1 block away (but about 600 m in length) from her workplace. She did walk that a few times, but then weather and having to carry stuff got in the way. That was before I rediscovered cycling, so I didn't promote cycling as an option.

We used to have the S40 2.5 5 cylinder as my wife's car. Such a sweet revving engine, but still with a bit of character. I test drove the T5 but felt that was overkill (her commute was about 1.5 km within the same suburb). The car has since been handed up to her mom and still going well, must be 13 years old. Some repair bills needed in the interim, but it's done pretty well. But I probably won't be buying one again. They look great, good engineering, safety, etc. but other makes have caught up most of gap and the premium isn't worth it.

I really feel for you. I remember our own transition time of living out of luggage for a month or two in a 2 bed flat in S.A. whilst our stuff was shipped ahead. That was bad, can't imagine how that must feel when your life and future gets put on indefinite hold, and all you get is government bureaucracy.

Parents of friends of ours are also heading back on that flight after a 3 month stay courtesy of lockdowns. They had to wait for a direct flight to happen as they are only SA permanent residents, so no other country would take allow them to transit.

I gather it's normally in the fine print in the T&C's, only one body per seat. And if a body does not show up for the extra seat, it's a no-show, and the airline can fill that seat with a stand-by if they want to. Otherwise we would all buy 3 x discount economy seats for long haul and stretch out in a make-shift lie-flat. But I don't have the days and high powered magnifying glasses to read through the fine print myself to verify that.

You are a bit better than us. We get cleaners in once a week to do the hard yakka of vacuum, floor mop and bathrooms. But otherwise self-sufficient.

Pretty close for us too except: Wash everything together on a 60min 30-40deg cycle. No separating as that means additional loading waiting and unloading.Tumble dry socks, undies and other clothing that I don't care too much about. (Tumble driers are essential in Auckland, especially during the rainy winters). Not needed in sunny QLD except for maybe 2 days in a decade when we have a double cyclone hit Hang everything else ASAP on an indoor clothes rack. This is the particular clothes rack I have and I hang shirts directly on hangers to dry.The trick is to hang as soon as that washing machine finishes, before the creases start getting engrained...

Well, we have some points in common and some less so. I suggest we just see the humour in this, although it may have done the rounds before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7_YdqWsWRU

If you extrapolate what I think the gist of your argument, it is that all diseases and hence epidemics / pandemics are equal in nature, and thus all the science is known in advance. The principles might be, but not all the details. My original point is that for a new virus, not all of that is known. In the early days in Wuhan no-one even knew how this was transmitted, so how can you model that what you don't know? By assumptions. Over time, as you get a clearer picture and the data condenses, you can start to refine the science, but it needs to represent the evidence at hand, not that of 1918. And the reality is, sometimes it is not what scientists know, its what governments and society prioritise that makes the difference. And it seems like only Taiwan and some of the other Asian countries had kept in mind the priority of an epidemic and were well prepared to deal with it. For the rest of the world it was way down the list of things to worry about.

Are you allowed to touch 240 V in NZ without a sparky license? Here in Aus they don't even allow the masses to change a plug. I remember the old days in Africa, when appliances were sold without plugs and you had to fit your own. The days before HSE.

At this rate there won't be much choice for an overseas jaunt.

Definitely. In some ways (from a cold-hearted scientific basis) it is good there are a few countries that have not gone full lockdown mode, as maybe years down the line that provides real data from different scenarios that can then be compared & evaluated for when the next big new one hits. Assuming this one does not mutate into the next new big one on Friday the 13th !

All I know for sure is that actuaries are going to be in great demand trying to work out how insurance premiums need to change. Most science only happens in hindsight, once data is known and can be analysed. Science on the fly is never going to be that reliable, but it is still better than random guessing on the fly (typical Trump style). And as I have mentioned before on this thread, there are going to be plenty of academic papers to be written in this field in the long term, and looking at actuarial death rates over a statistically meaningful time period will be one of them.

I don't want to nitpick what is your perfectly valid opinion, but using a share price as a proxy for the prognosis of a company, industry or economy is not appropriate. It assumes the market is rational and all-knowing, and I don't think anyone can claim to have those skills in these times. It discounts aspects such as prescribed assets for pension type funds who have little choice in what to invest, and given interest rates are pretty low in this corner of the world, holding cash provides little return. In the hyper-inflation days in Zim, the stock exchange there had awesome returns in paper, if only because there was nothing else to buy. Having said that, looking at how the simple indices have reacted over the last few months, the US and NZ markets have not had such a high % fall from peak as compared to Aus.

I have been on a Q400 on the last flight out from a mining town before an impending cyclone arrived. Wall to wall lowish cloud cover, but at cruising altitude (guessing about 24 000 feet), there were a multitude of cumulo-nimbus pinnacles heading up as far as the eye could see. They looked as though they stretched as far up as they did down from our level We threaded a very roundabout route to skirt them all on the way home. But the flight itself was pretty calm. And yes, I am always buckled in, although on the long hauls I tend to give myself a bit of slack for wiggle room.

26" is becoming more popular as a youth size MTB as the size gap between 24" and the newer 27.5 and 29ers is getting awkward. YT have just released a 26" Primus, and my 11 year old rides a 26" Trance which they still make. Agreed that tyre choice is more limited, and that exotic rim upgrades will be hard to source. For example, Maxxis do not make a 26" Assegai tyre. But everything else in terms of parts is interchangeable. In addition, the Trance fork is really for a 27.5", but fitted with 26" tyres. Well, to be really honest, the Trance 26" Junior frame is really a Liv 27.5 " XS, re-marketed with a new paint scheme.....