Minion

Recent Actions

• Commented on Holding pattern (part N ...)
  "...Remember, the US Military is the default International Humanitarian Relief Force." But only if you need a "lead aspro", OR you're a 'Merican expat. Mates in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) are critical of the their set up when it...
• Commented on Holding pattern (part N ...)
  "... state corruption in Australia, or police corruption in Australia?" Or as we call it, Law and (hic) Order. See the Rum Corp; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_Corps#The_Corps_and_rum_trafficking...
• Commented on Maneuvers in the Dark
  Let me guess, Greater than and Less than symbols, rather than squared brackets....
• Commented on Maneuvers in the Dark
  [i]well, where are those communes now?[/i] Out the back of Nimbin and Bellingen, NSW, Australia....
• Commented on Long range forecast
  "...White Australian Man in 20's --- WTF---- I suspect this one is just pure trolling or wut?" To quote the late David Jones, culturally we're as bad as South Africa. A government minister in the 40s or 50s once famously...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  Squatters rarely have to consider planning restrictions, and yes, my mileage varies as a result of both differing clime and architecture. And, I agree, your dwelling sounds very hard to retrofit. What's your current domestic heat source? BTW I've a...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  We've seen what you've done, and you're not fucking opaque to us. Lamb and Goat, not smart. Reference to bellwethers or Judas goats, used to lead a flock of sheep into a slaughterhouse (themselves to be spared, because they're basically...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  I live in a locale where during heat waves, airconditioning driven demands for electricity can cause blackouts. I'd suggest you talk to your local squatting community for retrofitting appropriate lotech solutions. Off the top of my head: *Water jackets on...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  Re: Abbott being reelected. Current Antipodean gossip is that Malcolm Turnbull will use the mandate of a win at the next election to reverse some of Abbot's policy positions. And while Bill Shorten is hogging the leadership of the ALP,...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  Never thought that living in squats as a teenager could now come round and become the template for a potential set of survival skills for my middle age......
• Commented on Long range forecast
  Meh. Water heating. Get ~fifty metres of black polypipe, around 40mm dia should do. Leave it in the sun all day full of water. Around 5pm-8pm depending on time of year, pour contents of pipe into a bathtub. Hint1: bath...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  ...Hijabs are already being converted / assimilated. One of my favourite images of Australian culture; a young Muslim woman wearing a hijab in her footy team's colours. https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9W2DfKPY-xHZt8jsomVfed5kSlCqWmAKqaKZsEMuccjx6TmM1...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  Warming: Long rant about Australia As an Antipodean, these topics are of interest to me. I'm aware that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, our population is equivalent to the error margin in calculating the global...
• Commented on Long range forecast
  ... (a)real time map of the sea surface temperature anomaly in the North Atlantic. (It's a global map, but it's tipped to look at the North Atlantic.) Nice. Ta muchly....
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Not exactly what Minion saying... Sorry, I'm a) new here, so I'm endeavouring to be as concise possible b) possibly pushing too many wheelbarrows in this thread. Breaking it down into one wheelbarrow load: Traditional Australian Aborigines need to know...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Possibly my bad. I've been raising mention of Australian Aborigines because of their polygot language skills (if you need to find a husband or wife in a different tribe, you need to learn the languages of the tribes around you),...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Alternatively, you could do the sine dance. Possibly in a sinful manner......
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  "... I think the mathematics of the non-literate would be very different than ours. As a non mathematician, I'm rather intrigued by this idea. Your mileage may vary :P...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  "...if I were doing this in an oral culture, I'd have a better working memory. And you may have more than one 'language' at your disposal. And each one of those languages may have differing sets of rituals or 'dances'...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Yes they could, but my original point/query was in regards to the continuity of cultural mememory. The specific meaning of the arrangement of the Lake Mungo remains has been lost over time....
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Are you familiar with Watson P, (2012)The Great Divide, Weidenfeld & Nicholson? Tis a very dense (whilst entertaining) historical cultural comparison of Eurasian vs New World peoples. Might amuse......
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Am aware of the estimated age of some remains. AFAIK, it's commonly thought that Australia was colonised in waves, and the really old stuff (like the Lake Mungo burial remains, or the carved boulders in the Kimberly's) are from these...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  It has been proposed that dolphins are able to communicate "diagrams" to each other by emitting sounds that mimic the reception of a given pattern of sonar signals. See indigenous Australian 'songlines": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  "...Everyone here is a descendant of the gear-head western tradition, where technology is all about iron...." Was talking to an indigenous bloke from a remote part of Australia (he's visiting the more populous part down here in the SE) about...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Bugger. New here, still working out mark up syntax. Will try next time with square brackets, rather than the greater than/less than symbols. Also, in regards to the previous comment regarding Incan string tech being partially reliant upon string colour,...
• Commented on A world-building puzzler
  Quipus are basically spreadsheets. (That is, they contain multiple levels of summation.) By the way, #10, though the numbers could be read by touch, the strings could not: they were color-coded. I'm reminded of the Library from Sean McMullen's "Voices...