fei
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Post by fei on Aug 18, 2020 13:01:11 GMT 10
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 17, 2020 23:49:27 GMT 10
Well, him buying a huge chunk of gold means the price will automatically go up due to the all people who follow his lead. Self-perpetuating investment?
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 17, 2020 23:48:10 GMT 10
I know about the background checks, just find it weird, especially in the land of the free, that government records your ethnicity when purchasing a gun. For some reason the government records your ethnicity here for everything. They are truly obsessed with it. Any form that you fill out for anything usually asks that question. I like to just leave them blank to keep them guessing. Right now we are going through a US census. They send people to your door to ask how many people live at your residence and what ethnicity you are. This is country wide. It is done every 10 years. This is strange, as one of the Youtube medical channels I regularly visit was saying there is incomplete data on COVID-19 patients' ethnicity (point being that this doc reckons from anecdotal evidence that the darker the skin colour, the more likely the percentage of worse sickness (something to do with lower vitamin C in people with darker skin)).
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 17, 2020 23:43:33 GMT 10
i feel a lot of the contestants are not students of the show and are rather self taught wilderness survival "experts". there are lots of lessons to be learnt: build a storage or start tethering items so they dont get lost, losing your firestarter is really unacceptable. eat what you can, when you can. getting booted because you are under weight when you have a cache of dried fish is the stupidest thing ever. stay up at night making little things to pass the time. laying in bed with nothing but your thoughts is gonna end bad. make a gill net. fireproof your shelter. cut and season firewood early so that you dont have to do it later. duh always carry your bow and quiver. set a daily routine, walk trap line, check gill nets, collect water, clean shelter, eat and drink. I by no means have what it takes to do this, but these lessons seem apparent from watching the show. I think they are mostly all YouTube survival experts. Would like to see someone like Ed Stafford, or even better, a local tribesman / native person, who would know exactly what to do to get local foods, but with the least effort and probably have a lot of time left for other stuff.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 17, 2020 17:29:16 GMT 10
Was reading the other day that Border Force is stopping people leave Australia though, with three quarters of all applications to leave the country having been rejected. I know you had to apply to get in, but didn't realise they are now also able to stop people leaving unless they have a permit.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 14, 2020 19:26:00 GMT 10
Jujubes are one of my favourite fruits, didn't realise they were available in Aus though. Tasty little buggers, but had to visit the dentist today after biting a seed and thinking I'd broken a tooth.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 14, 2020 19:04:14 GMT 10
If I remember correctly, only Australian citizens and green card holders are allowed in. I am hoping to get back before the end of the year, but there are still no direct flights, and the flights on offer basically only guarantee a seat if you pay business or first class. Might be alright for some, but the cost for families is pretty prohibitive, so I reckon more people will put off in the hope things will get back to normal in a couple of months.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 14, 2020 18:54:35 GMT 10
Didn't read the article, but have been hearing more propaganda than usual in China. Various news sites keep putting out articles about the railways needing to leave blocks of tickets open in case troops need to be recalled to barracks in a hurry. Seems like a load of shite to me though, as any mobilisations would ignore things like train tickets and would immediately re-route buses etc. I also work with an ex-soldier, who said he hasn't received any recall notification despite the news saying all ex-military aged under 45 have been put on notice that they may be forcibly re-enlisted in the near future.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 14, 2020 18:49:09 GMT 10
always good to try new stuff .. pity the missus would not consider a meal without meat... The price of pork has almost doubled in the past year in China due to the swine virus last year and the subsequent huge shrinkage in stock levels. My wife's uncle bought 4 piglets a couple of weeks ago for fattening up for Lunar New Year in early February. Each piglet cost more than 4 would have two years ago. Luckily we don't eat much pork (my wife prefers seafood), but the in-laws and extended family are all feeling the pinch with high food prices this year. With the bad weather, flooding etc we've had this year, I reckon prices could be sky-high for all foods by the end of the year.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 8, 2020 16:07:04 GMT 10
Yep, the plague is endemic in some animals in parts of northern China and Mongolia (and probably other nearby areas). People are catching it from eating these animals, so no human transmission like COVID. The plague is also treatable by antibiotics. Keeping in mind many of these people are nomads, the deaths are only happening because people don't recognise the symptoms and then can't get to the city to be treated in time. These deaths have been reported on the official Chinese news, trying to drive home the idea that eating random animals is not good for you. Even though that info has been all over all news etc for months due to COVID, there are obviously still people happy to eat whatever animal they happen to get their hands on. Its been reported this week that another tick-borne illness has started spreading and causing deaths, but in the cities this time. It seems this virus has been around in the upland areas of some agricultural areas for years, but no money was put into stopping it. Its now got to some big cities, and the government are trying to work out who patient zero was and how its been spread.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 3, 2020 11:07:29 GMT 10
Geez, have a look at the rest of this channel's videos. It's a nationalist Indian channel. Very anti-China. Yeah, video doesn't seem too realistic to me (the stuff about China's tech companies all being connected with the PLA and the PLA going against XJP seems more like hearsay). Will look into what these generals have apparently said though.
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fei
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Post by fei on Aug 2, 2020 18:23:09 GMT 10
According to the article it wasn't a malicious attack as initially reported, but actually a system problem. I take all these "hack attack" articles with a grain of salt, and wonder how many so-called hackings are actually faults with the telco or service providers.
Just think of the debacle with the census website a few years ago that was supposedly hacked, whereas in fact they hadn't built it to withstand tens of thousands of people trying to log-in at once (which is kinda strange considering every adult in the country was supposed to use it within a 24 hour period).
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 30, 2020 10:59:51 GMT 10
If you were a landlord, with a good tennant who cant pay ... why would you evict them? If the 40% claim were to be true ... where is your replacement tennant who can pay coming from? Would you not rather have someone in the property keeping it in some kind of order or prefer a bunch of squatters to move in and wreck the place? Even during the sub-prime real-estate meltdown, banks were letting their defaulting clients stay in their homes to avoid them falling prey to full blown squatters. Rental incomes falling by 40% I can believe in. My brother has had the same tenant for 4 years. The guy always paid rent on time the first 3 years, but the last year has missed several payments. Some were made up later, others not. He reckons they've cumulatively not paid about 3 month's worth rent over the past 14 months now. Instead of evicting them, he has got the tenant to pay for the repairs and garden upkeep (tenant is a builder, so gets stuff done at mate's rates via tradie contacts). Easier to let them stay there and look after the place and pay most weeks, than have the place empty but still have to pay for gardens etc while looking for tenants.
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 28, 2020 15:20:04 GMT 10
Have been hearing much in the Chinese official news that China's economy is better than it was before COVID. Not really saying much, as things have been slowing down for at least the past two years. Was at two local malls on the weekend. Both had a lot of people, but didn't see many shopping bags in evidence. Only places that seem to have people actually buying things were the supermarkets and a few big shops selling cheap unbranded or own brand products.
Supply chains have been back to normal for everyday goods for a few months, however I did notice my favourite big box sports store has empty shelves, while it seems that certain lines have been removed altogether (basically all the "good stuff" like archery gear and camping stuff that would be handy in an emergency).
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 20, 2020 23:03:30 GMT 10
A good option would be a heap of long endurance drones with long range air-to-air missiles. Leave them up there circling for a day or two, then rotate another one through while the first one is refuelled. Maybe in the 'future'. Border Force apparently have drones patrolling the northern seas (looking for reffo boats), although I think these are just small unarmed surveillance drones rather than attack drones. I reckon swarms of air and sea drones are the way to go now, rather than wait 30 years for new subs. Could probably get a decent new R&D and manufacturing capability (and jobs) out of it at the same, rather than just prop up shipyards in Adelaide.
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 19, 2020 14:31:16 GMT 10
Imagine this happening in Australia. We are meant to have 90 days of fuel reserves but we only have like 30. We bought fuel in the US when the prices crashed but are storing it in the US as apparently we don’t have enough storage here. Good we at least own some fuel but no good having it stranded on the other end of the world and if if fuel shortage is affecting USA they will seize it. Like they seized medical supplies. Yep, the government gave themselves a big pat on the back for getting the oil at negative prices, but now has to pay for it to be stored. Who knows when it will be shipped to Aus or where it will be kept? To my mind, its kinda like the folks buying gold on paper, who may never see the physical gold, especially if there is an emergency and they want it in a hurry.
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 17, 2020 0:07:11 GMT 10
Thats a coincidence. I was just telling family 2 days ago that I figure we are already in a cold war with China. I wonder if China still owns our utilities ( gas and elec i think) and gee wonder what's been coming in the Chinese owned airport in W.A is it? Ahhhh fark, why did we allow this 🤑🤑🤑. A Chinese state-owned company has a 90 year lease on Darwin's seaport. If things start getting nasty I imagine it will be nationalised pretty quickly (no foreign owners allowed in China's infrastructure, despite their WTO requirements).
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 16, 2020 21:06:53 GMT 10
I sometimes wonder that if the various China seas were renamed to something else then would China back down on "ownership" or would they rear up and start taking pot shots in similar to how they are ignoring the tribunal decision that they have zero rights to the waters? The ridiculous thing is that its not actually called the "South China Sea" in China, just the "South Sea". Dunno when it was changed, or if the Chinese ever called it the "South China Sea" in the first place! edit: a quick look at wikipedia (obviously not always correct) says the "South China Sea" name came from European explorers, and that has always just been known as the "South Sea / Southern Sea" in China.
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 13, 2020 0:45:13 GMT 10
People have been risking their lives for treasure since time began. These ex-pats take a gamble, maybe they get a big payday, maybe they end up rotting in a cell on trumped up charges, held as political leverage against an increasingly belligerent Australian government. Yep, and unfortunately quite a few of them are still in their safe expat bubbles, not really paying attention to what's going on outside whatever circle of friends and events they have. I stopped posting info on expat groups' social media back in February after I was accused of being extremist by an expat teacher after telling the group to watch out because there would surely be an uptick in anti-foreign feeling due to COVID. Same people were then ing about racism a few weeks later, but no-one said anything since it hit home. Things have quietened down now, but I wonder if they learned their lesson or are still ignoring the bigger picture?
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fei
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Post by fei on Jul 12, 2020 18:23:04 GMT 10
It's all fun until someone in charge flicks the psycho switch and Ethnic Cleansing becomes the thing to do. Ask a Bosnian what its like to be the wrong ethnicity in the wrong place at the wrong time. The race to the nearest borders there was a short distance affair and yet plenty still ended up behind razor wire starving to death and in shallow pits with a sprinkling of lime. There were even Smurfs there to watch it all happen in an orderly fashion. Or as a South swedish what happens if you be 'the wrong sort' when a dictatorial leadership exerts itself with a vengeance. Or even ask an American born Japanese from the 1940's what happens when good times turn bad for your ethnic minority in a mighty democracy. China has turned noticeably more anti-foreign over the past year or so. Unfortunately everything I predicted months ago when we were in hard lockdown (ie. blaming foreigners for the disease and attendant xenophobia) did happen. Looks like things have let-up a bit on that side, but I'm still pretty sure some low-level conflict with a neighbour is on the books if the economy doesn't pick up soon. I think the Chinese got a shock that the Indians fought back and didn't just roll over. The Chinese media didn't report the clash until rumours started circulating online. Even then, nothing has been said about any Chinese wounded or fatalities. The official version has been a few Chinese soldiers were lightly wounded, seeing off an unprovoked Indian attack that killed a few of their soldiers. The government damped down the news pretty quickly, and there was a lot of surprise when India banned the Chinese apps last week, as most people couldn't work out what had happened to cause it.
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