Archive for March, 2008

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Workplace hazards

19 Mar 2008

Wall St securities trader Stephen Chang, a married man in his early 30s, is seeking damages from the Hot Lap Dance Club near Madison Square Garden, after a stripper allegedly hit his face with her high heel while she was performing a lap dance for him. The club retorts that Chang did not seek first aid or report the incident to club management at the time.

Those dismissing Chang’s claim as shameless or without merit do not realise how hazardous such venues can be for patrons. In these high-risk environments, guests are susceptible to all kinds of injuries, such as:

  • Eye strain, due to having to focus up close on things in low lighting
  • Heart attack or stroke from raised blood pressure
  • Muscle strain, back injury or hernia from supporting dancers’ weight during tricky manoeuvres
  • Heat rash
  • Sequin-related lacerations or abrasions
  • And of course, groin strain.

Posted in money, sensitive stuff about chicks | No Comments »

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Bob Carr: genius

19 Mar 2008

Former NSW premier Bob Carr was often criticised for being too cosy with business. Especially with the development of large infrastructure projects such as the Sydney Airport railway line, Cross-City Tunnel and Lane Cove Tunnel, many believe Carr ignored the interests of citizens to get better deals for his mates in construction and investment banking.

However, recent events have revealed Carr’s true nature: a socialist subversive, intent on swindling the corporate fat cats for the benefit of the good people of New South Wales.

What all these projects have in common, the latest being the Lane Cove Tunnel,  was that once these projects failed to achieve their ridiculously inflated income projections, the investors wrote off the billions they spent or sold off their stakes at a drastically reduced price.

This was all a deliberate strategy on Carr’s part. He was willing to wear the endless criticisms of being a capitalist stooge and big-business crony, because deep down he knew that within a few years, he would effectively have given the citizens of this great state a beautiful gift: free roads and railways!

What better way to build infrastructure than to con a bunch of investment bank money men, lured by false and unachievable promises of revenue, into paying for it?

Cost to taxpayer: zip. Cost to business: who cares?

It’s no wonder Bob went straight from Sussex St to Macquarie Bank. After the people of NSW helped themselves to such an enormous free dinner, Bob’s going to have to wash a lot of dishes to make up for it.

Posted in Sydney, money, politics | 1 Comment »

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Slightly faster broadband

3 Mar 2008

Minister for Broadband Stephen Conroy yesterday delivered the exciting news that the government’s planned $4.7 billion broadband network would deliver speeds “up to 100 times faster than what is currently available”. Sounds great!

It will achieve this by running fibre-optic connections to the telecommunications pillar mushrooms on street corners then using VDSL (very fast digital something something else) to deliver speeds of up to 25Mbps to homes.

Call me a pedant if you must, but that’s not 100 times faster than what’s currently available. I may be decaf soy latte drinking inner city elite, but I get around 19Mbps using ADSL2 and living about a kilometre from my phone exchange. I’m no maths genius, but I’m pretty sure 25Mbps is not 100 times faster than 19Mpbs. In fact I’d say it something closer to 1.3 times faster.

But Senator Conroy’s calculation is based on the claim that “most broadband users currently receive only 256 kilobits per second”. Which is

  • A lie - statistics more than a year old show two-thirds of broadband users on faster than 256Kbps and
  • A damning criticism of how Conroy’s predecessors let Telstra and the rest of the internet industry deliberately retard broadband access and make obscene profits.

Seems like when it comes to technology, the new federal government is as pompous and incompetent as the last.

Posted in damned lies and statistics, money, politics, techno-wankery, turtleneck wearing latté sippers | 1 Comment »