Can the Australian government please go on strike?

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A rarely good article from The Oz

Concentration of bullshit jobs in the federal public service is not unique to the US. Canberra, as much as Washington DC, houses departments teeming with highly-paid people who seek to regulate health, education, agriculture and commerce, for instance, but whose staff could go on strike for a year without causing a ripple of concern among the wider populace. In the US, as in Australia, most useful services — police, courts, teachers, hospitals and bus drivers, for example — are employed by state governments.

This is why federal public servants, unlike their state counterparts, rarely if ever go on strike: sheer embarrassment.

Old people screwing the young

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Old people stealing from the young

Related piece on Australian inter-generational housing

It doesn’t make much sense that young workers have to pay absurd amount of tax while receiving zero benefits from the federal government, just to fund these parasite millionaires living in inner city mansions, while we are drowned with the ever rising cost of rent. One has to wonder how much worse it will get with more of them and less of us.

Australia is speeding up, driving right into a brick wall

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I’m sceptical like many others about just how much RP Data’s daily house price index is to be trusted, but it’s not a stretch to say house prices aren’t falling anymore, likewise the stock market is at record heights and even the AUD is being bid up, potentially going to parity again after a double bottom.

The problem with all this, is the fact that Australia’s economy has been and still is sinking fast. And now Coles is moving in to sell mortgages – at the peak of the bubble . Doesn’t this sound totally absurd? To take this quote from Bullion Barron over at MacroBusiness

We seee you’ve been buying top quality food over the last few years, you must be a renter to afford that. Would you like to take out a mortgage and make a swap to two-minute noodles like the rest of our mortgaged clients?

The RBA has of course gone full-retard with rates – something I’ve written about earlier. Low interest rates only lead to speculation and malinvestments, they never achieve any net benefit. As house prices have risen, jobs have dwindled. In fact, in the last quarter, Australia has lost the most jobs in 13 years!

It seems like nobody in the RBA nor government (regardless of party) knows anything about how to run a functioning economy.

Misconceptions about Korea

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I’ve watched a ton of youtube videos about expats talking about Korea and other sites making list of things – along the lines of how is Korea different from Western countries and how you should prepare yourself. Some of these I found to be very wrong, so I’m going to make a list and try and add to it through my holiday. Please note that I’m not calling anyone a liar either, perhaps this is more a showcase of how quickly Seoul/Korea has changed over the last half a decade or so since non-military expats started coming in large numbers.

Korean Couples not Touchy Feely in Public
Biggest load of bullshit, literally more of than here than probably most Western cities. Korean couples are almost always at least holding hands, guy having his arm around the girl’s shoulder is common, I’ve seen this on the metro as well and old people don’t seem to complain. I’ve even seen a couple making out on a full train – again, nobody gives a shit, and it does happen – a lot more frequently than one might be lead to believe.

Korean squat toilets and no toilet paper
By far most of the public toilets here are western style, sometimes there is a mix of both – but I’ve never been to a public toilet anywhere where there are only squat toilets. Additionally, I’ve never seen any toilet anywhere regardless the type without at least 2 rolls of toilet paper ont he wall.

This includes
– Cafes & Restaurants
– Nightclubs and bars
– Metro stations
– Touristy places

Not really sure what else there is.

No public garbage bins
Biggest load of bullshit, there are bins everywhere. Every metro station (next to the vending machines where the rail is), lots at every tourist place, around any and all remotely big road intersections, just randomly on the street. There might not be one every 10 metres like in the centre of Sydney, but I’ve never had trouble finding one in close vacinity if I needed to throw something out.

Koreans’ attitudes to foreigners & talking to random Koreans
Is generally pretty good. I find it easy to strike up conversation with young Korean guys, especially when out clubbing. They all seem very nice. I read a blog article and conversation from 2008 or 2009 about “violence against foreigners in Hongdae” – really cannot imagine what that’s all about, literally everyone I’ve interacted with there has been a total bro. That being said it’s important to keep in mind to not act like a douchebag.

Also talked to a few taxi drivers who had better English, they are quite nice.

Taxis
I’ve heard from many, even foreigners I’ve met up with while here that taxis are troublesome, will reject you, etc. I’ve honestly not once had a problem either getting a taxi, and never been rejected, so I’m not sure what this is about. Taxis here are also uber cheap, and as a result quite addictive. I think it may also be that if you are going a very short distance (like 1 district) they may not want you. I’ve seen lots of Koreans getting rejected by taxis so I’m going to guess perhaps that’s the reason. But personally I’ve never had a problem.

The route I’ve taken so far as been Sindorim to Hongdae (because I can never get out early enough and the train terminates there QQ) and Hongdae to Yeoksam (which is where I’m staying).

One thing to keep in mind is that the metro shuts at midnight on weekends and 1am on weekdays (crazy right?), and when this happens, lots of people are getting off at the major intersection stations which turn into terminating stops at shut down time. When this happens there are a LOT of people who want taxis, and so taxi drivers wield a fair bit of power. They will often yell out where they want to go (Hongdae is never a problem as there’s a lot of demand for taxis there early in the night), and try to cram a taxi full of people and charge everyone separately. In my experience this is actually a good opportunity to meet up with and talk with both Koreans and foreigners, and as a plus they are probably going to the same place you’re going to do the same sort of thing :) Once again, I’ve found Korean guys pretty friendly and talkative in these situations – assuming they’re young and know at least some English.

Youtube merged with Google+ aka Fuck You Google

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I don’t even know where to begin.

This morning I went to youtube to start my day with a bit of kpop, surprise surprise it automatically created a Google+ account for my youtube account/channel. Whatever I thought, the last time they did this shit (half a year ago or so), it was actually pretty straight forward to unlink them and delete the g+ account entirely. This time however there was no option or note about any of that – but I didn’t have time to mess with it, I had to go to work.

Now I come home in the evening, after work and 3 hours at the gym, eager to listen to some kpop – really dying to listen to some kpop. I open up youtube, and get an annoying “which account would you like to use?”. The youtube account I had up to this morning – which now had my very old youtube channel icon for some reason, or this new g+ linked one. I picked the old one.

All my playlists are gone, all my videos are gone, all my settings are gone, everything is gone. Well fuck, thanks Google. Being offered no choice, I switch accounts up the new google+ linked one (both accounts seem to have the same link somehow though). Playlists and videos are there but all my settings are gone, all layout options are gone, everything is default, which is really fucking annoying. Now the first thing I want to do is change my channel icon back to a certain Korean cutie pie.

But guess what? I have to log into my shiny new Google+ account that I didn’t ask for nor consented to the creation of to do this. Well great. I go on Google’s IRC to complain, and I find out that from now on you must also like videos with your Google+ account. Fantastic. I’ll be sure to ask my coworkers if I can have anal with my hypothetically hypothetical girlfriend as well – because apparently that’s how things should work, and privacy is not relevant either.

Even worse, now I can see things changing about my YouTube channel as I am using it, as though someone from Google has realised how much they fucked up and are desperately trying to fix their shit.

Update: I am slowly figuring out how to undo this clusterfuck.

My feedback as to why I'm unlinking Google+ From Youtube, for the third fucking time

My feedback as to why I’m unlinking Google+ From Youtube, for the third fucking time

Everything seems to be back to normal after unlinking the accounts.

PS. Good thing I don’t live in Nazi USA, otherwise I could probably reasonably expect the FBI to raid my apartment in the middle of the night just because.

Planet Fagness

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Imagine a gym chain which hates their customers making progress, which hates their members getting better, which prays on their members insecurities and thrives off their lack of progress. Well in America, such a gym exists.