The Bottom Line: When you are laying cables in conduit in the ground commercially, the cost of the cable is very small compared to the cost of the hole.

Once you have the conduit network in the ground, replacing faulty sections of cable or upgrading cable is a very easy and relatively cheap operation.

If the conduit system is properly designed, there will be extra conduits laid for pulling other cables through while the existing ones are still working (for a minimum interruption cut-over)

So if the cable needs to be upgraded every 25 years or so, that is not a huge problem – if the network is designed properly, then there should be a continual maintenance/repair/upgrade program underway – jobs for the maintainers and the manufacturers.

Fibre has advantages over copper:

- not susceptible to lightning strike (ask anyone from Kuranda to Mareeba how often their phone lines are taken out by lightning)

- not susceptible to electromagnetic interference

- not susceptible to corrosion (why are Navy electricians called “Greenies”?)

As to the carrying capacity of optic fibre, the last time I checked, there was not a gadget invented that can saturate a fibre with data.

The idea that setting up all homes to get 100Mb/s is going to be a problem due to the capacity of the internet presupposes that the internet will remain at it’s current capacity forever.

Quoting the promised speed and using that to discredit the program is a Furphy – they are also talking about the fibre replacing the copper loop for landline telephony – with all the advantages of fibre referred to above (with the disadvantage that your fibre phone will not work in a blackout unless you have some way of supplying power to the fibre termination box).

The scheme is about making a paradigm shift from the 100+ year old copper technology to a fibre network and about having the network (Wholesale) owned by a company that is not involved in Retail.

The biggest mistake in the Telstra sell-off was that the exchanges and infrastructure should have been retained by the government and only the retail section of the business sold off.

Having a company that owns the network, is retailing serviced from the network and wholesaling access to the network to other retailers creates the apprehension of a conflict of interest.

As to wireless being a viable alternative, there are the Laws of Physics to be contended with.

The carrier frequencies of wireless systems are somewhat lower than fibre systems – red light 400 THz, 4G wireless 8GHz max.

It looks to me that fibre runs at about 50,000 times the frequency of 4G – all things being equal, 50,000 times more data can be modulated onto a red light carrier in a fibre than can be modulated onto a 4G wireless carrier.

But all things are not equal – it is common for two light signals polarised at 90 degrees to each other are sent down the same fibre and it is also common for multiple signals of different colours (wavelengths) to share the same fibre.

The other problem with wireless is that the total bandwidth available from a transmission tower is shared among all the users of that cell – to increase the available bandwidth per user requires smaller cells (so there are less users per cell) – that equals more of those towers which introduces more problems with interference, overlapping coverage etc…

And I think we are already bathing in enough man-made electromagnetic radiation as it is.

Think about this – the current heavy use of mobile phones and all this wireless signal everywhere has been going on for less than one generation of humans – we won’t be sure of the effects until late this century…

“Executives from seven of Australia’s telcos have united to lobby against the NBN, claiming Australia’s broadband future is best left to the market, and best served by ubiquitous wireless coverage.” From http://discuss.itwire.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=21908

These seven Telco’s are all wireless providers, so it’s no surprise they would bag the Fibre NBN.

What is often (conveniently) forgotten by people who live in Sydney/Canberra/Melbourne is that Australia is very large and has very few people living in it – therefore long distances between a lot of the people and high costs of providing infrastructure and services to rural areas.

PMG/Telecom/Telstra before being sold off worked well with people in remote areas who had phones that cost $20,000 or more each to install still paying the normal $300 connection fee and the vastly more expensive ongoing maintenance at the same cost as town services with the difference being made up by the profits made in metro areas.

Without this sort of cross-subsidisation, rural areas will always get shafted…

The spices come in the usual bright packaging with instructions on the back for what extra ingredients are needed. That’s very handy

This Persian Beef kit required the usual Oil, Onion, Garlic, tin of Tomatoes, Salt, Vinegar and Ikg of Beef and also 1/4 cup of Ground Almonds and 1 cup of dried Apricots or 1/2 cup of dates.

The spices supplied included Cumin, Cloves, Paprika, Chili, Black pepper, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Mustard Seeds and Ginger.

The cooking process was extremely easy – not requiring any browning of the Beef, and the flavour went right through the Beef during the slow simmering period.  The recipe instructions were clear -

 First 2 medium Onions finely sliced were sauteed until clear. Towards the end of that process 3 cloves of crushed garlic were added, then the spice mix was mixed in for 30 seconds until the aroma was released. Then one can of pureed Tomatoes plus the ground Almonds and Vinegar were added.  After about a minute of stirring, the Beef was added and all was thoroughly mixed together.

After a few minutes I added some stock and then simmered slowly with the lid on the cooking pot. 30 minutes before serving I added the pitted dates.

RESULT: An absolutely full flavoured, gorgeous meal. I was totally impressed. Most curries improve with age, but this one was great, right out of the box onto the plate. I have frozen two portions for next week – I can’t wait!!!!

NOTE: I am not a fan of fruit in a curry, it reminds me of  homemade ‘curries’  I had when I was a kid, made from Clive of India powder, with diced apples and Sultana’s- Yuk.

I’m sure the dates served a purpose in adding to the flavour and authenticity of this curry. I ate one date and then left the rest on the side of the plate -it was the sort of thing  Jeremy Clarkson would do haha!

Another step up the ladder in my search for curry Nirvana-  http://shed.robhealey.com.au/cooking/curry-nirvana/

Shed mate Kernsie was a great mentor for me in my lust for power, and also for simple sailing while cruising, in fact for all facets of SAILING – thanks Mate!

The book pointed out that chlorofluorocarbon gas (CFC) which had just been banned because it supposedly was depleting the ozone layer, was actually heavier than air, you could pour it into a bucket and it stayed there- so how was it getting into the ozone?? Most interestingly, the patent for it, owned by Giant Chemical Company DuPont, was running out. DuPont actually donated money to the research for a new gas, and guess who owns the patent on HCFC? Yep – DuPont

Reading the Greenhoax Effect made me look closely at news reports- was a scientist mentioned by name ? or just ‘THEY say…”. I’ve listened and read a lot about climate change, and formed my own opinions. When we were first invited to pay a Carbon ‘offset’, I knew it would eventually be a tax. So lets get some facts straight- where does the heat for Global warming come from? There’s only one place -

Here’s my view on the issue -

Without the sun, the temperature on the earth would be about the temperature of space, around -270C.

The amount of solar energy reaching the earth is not constant, but varies in several independent cycles of different degrees of magnitude, which may or may not reinforce each other.

These cycles include a 100,000-year cycle, which results from the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun, a 41,000-year cycle, which results from the tilt of the earth on its axis, a 23,000-year cycle which results from changes in direction of the earths axis relative to the sun, and an 11-year sunspot cycle, during which solar radiation increases and then declines.

Each 100,000-year peak in radiation appears to last about 15,000 to 20,000 years, and each has been coincident with massive surges of carbon dioxide and methane (the green house gasses), into the atmosphere, causing de-glaciation of the Polar and Greenland ice caps.

Surges of these greenhouse gasses have always been vastly greater than the amounts currently being generated by burning fossil fuels. For example, the most recent 100,000-year cycle raised sea levels 400 feet in the first 10,000 years, but since then sea levels have risen very little. In the current warming period, sea levels are rising only about 3 millimeters per year, and temperatures over the last 100 years have risen a modest 0.6 of a degree C.

Superimposed on this latest 100,000-year peak have been 6 secondary warming periods, each coincident with additional surges of carbon dioxide and methane, lasting about 200 years and then subsiding. Each of these previous warming periods was warmer than the current warming period, and current temperatures are below the median for the last 3000 years. No human industry involved!

There are thousands of scientific papers in the geological literature that show massive climate changes, massive changes in Earth History, which are totally unrelated to human activity. If you take a holistic view of the earth’s history you would be hard pushed to argue that the slight changes that are now recorded are anything else but natural changes.

What we are seeing today with this movement of ‘Human Induced Climate Change’ is a religious/political movement which is frightening people witless. Paying a tax on carbon emissions is akin to people buying an ‘Indulgence’ in the Middle Ages- all your sins were forgiven.

Ian Rutherford Plimer (born February 12, 1946) is an Australian geologist, academic and businessman, and professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide. He says-

“We have had massive climate changes in historical times over as short a period as twenty years. The change from 1280 to 1303 was profound (from the Medieval Climate Optimum to the Little Ice Age) – that was a time when Greenland had Barley and Cattle. Thats amazing!!

We’ve had a massive increase in CO2 in previous times geologically, where temperatures have changed very slightly but CO2 went up to 5% in one geological time and up to 20% in another. That change is very significant compared to the changes we are now getting which are measured only in parts per million.

If we look at the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by human activity, it really is quite small compared with the degassing of the ocean, with CO2 released from life, CO2 released from geological process such as volcanic activity. Most of those are not documented in the current arguments.

There’s a great body of evidence showing the amount of CO2 released by natural geological process’s; for instance there are 10,000 earthquakes a year and every time you break a rock you release the 3 main greenhouse gasses- Water Vapour, Methane & Carbon Dioxide. Another process never mentioned is the swarms of earthquakes in mid ocean ridge areas which herald the rise of molten rock, that releases a huge amount of gas into the oceans most of which is dissolved and released later on ocean currents.

We are bombarded with information that humans are changing climate – this can only be valid IF we ignore astronomy & IF we ignore Geology.

In Geology we have seen massive climate changes, we’ve seen sea levels go up and down. No-one has any problem with climates changing because they’ve always changed. What has to be demonstrated is that any of the very slight changes that we can measure now are related to human activities and actually not natural processes. “

Water vapour is the largest component of Greenhouse gasses, yet it is the one gas that humans don’t have control over.

Water Vapor H2O 36 – 72 %
Carbon Dioxide CO2 9 – 26 %
Methane CH4 4 – 9 %
Ozone O3 3 – 7 %

My Conclusion -
I’m convinced there is, was and always will be, Climate Change, but not that Humans are the cause. I think the Carbon Tax is just another tax. All the evidence I have read points towards a continuing global pattern, with cycles within cycles.

However, it makes good sense that we use this time as an opportunity to clean up our act. For the long term good of the planet.

Footnotes

Some of the information quoted here, from –

Ian Rutherford Plimer: an Australian geologist, academic and businessman, and professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide.

Dr. D. Bruce Merrifield: a former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs and Professor Emeritus of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds Masters and Doctoral degrees in physical organic chemistry and currently is a member of the Visiting Committee for Physical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

1. Science, August 26, (2005); Science Feb. 28 (1997) pp1267; Science News, Feb3, (2007) Vol. 171, pp67; Science Vol. 312, June 9 (2006) pp1485-89. http://www.Skymetrics.US/background/glossey.php -21k

2. Science, June 6, (2006) pp1454; A.V. Federov, P.S. Dekens et al, The Pliocene Paradox, Science, Vol. 312, June 9, (2006) pp1485-89; D.R. MacAyeal, Dept. Geophysical Sciences, Univ. of Chicago, http://www.Geosci.uchicago.edu

3. Kenneth Clark, Civilization, Harper and Row, (1969), pp33; Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Science (1996); L.D. Keigwin, The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea, Science, Vol. 274, Nov. 29, (1996) pp 5292;

4. The End of Angkor, Science, Vol. 311, March 10, (2006).

5. Gerald Dickens, A Methane Trigger for Rapid Warming?, Science, Vol 299, Feb. 14, (2003); Seth Borebstein, Methane A New Climate Threat, Nature, www.nature.com/nature ; C. Frankenberg, J.F. Meirink et al. Assessing Methane ; C. Frankenberg, J.F. Meirink et al. Assessing Methane Emissions From Global Space-Borne Observations, Science, Vol. 308, May 13, (2005).

6. Charles Higham, Civilization of Angkor; pp14-16

7. Methane Since 1684, Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Inst of Bern, Sidlerstrassa 5, Switzerland.

8. Hudson Canyon Map: http://www.pubs.usgs.gov/of%202004/1441/index/.htm; Wallace Broeker et al. Earth Observatory, Columbia Univ. Lecture at Amer Geographic Society, Baltimore, Spring 1999.

9. Severinghouse, Science, Vol. 286, Oct. 29 (1999) pp 930-4.

10. D.F. Ferretti, J.B. Miller et al, Unexpected Changes to the Global Methane Budget over the Past 2000 Years, Science, Vol. 309, Sept. 9 (2005).

11. Mysterious Stabilization of Atmospheric Methane May Buy Time in Race
to Stop Global Warming, Geophysical Research Letters, Nov. 23 (2006). Mysterious Stabilization of Methane, Scientific American, Nov. 21 (2006).

12. C&EN, Aug 8, (2005) pp16

13. Science, Feb 28 (1997) pp1267; Geothermal Geophysical, Geosystems Vol. 10 (2001) pp1029.

14. I.S.A. Isakreacta, et al, Radiation Forcing of Climate, Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change (2003).

15. Urban Renaissance Inst., http://www. Urban-renaissance.org; Eva Bauer, Martin Clausen, V. Broukin, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 30, No. 6 (2003) pp127

16. Milankovitch Cycles – Wikipedia Encyclopedia

17. Richard Mueller, Gordon MacDonald (1977) Glacial Cycles and Astronomical Forcing

18. J. Howard Maccabee, http://www.nuc.berkely.edu, (colloquium)

I’ve been refilling ink cartridges for 14 years, it’s extremely cost effective but can be a little messy. I first heard about CIS around 7 years ago and last year I decided to get one. I had some problems with the cheap Chinese system I bought and I contacted an Aussie company who were extremely helpful, even though it was not their system. More on that after the video.

The cheap chinese copy that I originally bought was not recognised by the printer. I spent 3 ink covered days trying everything to make it work. I rang the supplier and he tried to help, but he didn’t know why it wouldn’t work. In desperation, while searching the net for some clues, I filled in the contact form at Rihac, asking for help even though it wasn’t their system. I got a quick reply, they asked for a photo of my system and once they saw it, they directed me to a chinese website where it was available for $12 (I paid $155). They told me why it wasn’t working -  the supplied cartridges were too low and going under the beam that reads the chips on the cartridges, it wasn’t a system for my printer. They also told me that the ink was not good quality.

They really knew their stuff, I was impressed. I got a full refund for the dud system and bought a system from Rihac which I am really happy with. Rihac also advised me to get a new printer rather than a CIS for my old Canon, because the Canon CIS might not be suitable when I replaced the printer.

I had read that the new version of my Canon Ip4200 had smaller cartridges and the reviews were not very good. Rihac advised me that the Epsom TX700 used less ink and had better longevity, so I bought an Epsom TX700W from Harvey Norman and ordered the Rihac CIS for that printer.

I’m really happy to put in a good word for Rihac  http://www.rihac.com.au  they helped me out and really know printers and ink. Their ink is high quality, the system comes with a coloured booklet of instructions, syringe, screwdriver, caps etc, the cartridges are already connected, there is a reset button on them to reset the chips when they think they are empty, if air gets into the carts there is a silicone plug through which a syringe needle is pushed and air is easily removed. The ink container is already full of 600mls of ink- all for around $160.

 The instructions are clear, I had my new CIS working within 5 minutes. Refill ink is cheap and sent promptly. This system has been faultless for me.