What Annoyed You Today?

[MiTasol]

True. I was trying to be non partisan / non political in my comments but it is hard not to get angry with some of the ridiculous
stuff that is pulled.

And, given the way "tabled in parliament" works, politicians are often blamed for the actions of faceless pubic "servants" who, I am sure, deliberately lob flaky stuff on the table when the politicians and their staffers have a high workload so have little chance of catching the crap.

Some 25-30 years back one specific Australian civil aviation regulation was revised 12 times in a little over one year. The length of that particular regulation varied from 32 to 36 words. Several of those revisions were forced on CASA because on at least four occasions they attempted to prosecute an offender under that regulation and the judge or magistrate threw the case out as the regulation was invalid.

At that stage every copy had the disclaimer on page one that it was not a certified true copy and was only provided for reference purposes. At least one magistrate threw out a case on the basis that the government had not provided the public with a legal copy of the regulation the accused was charged with breaking.

 

[Frog]

There is a school in one of our suburbs that needs some façade refurbishing for security reasons.
But it is located close to the tramway tracks and there is a security regulation that prevents any works within this perimeter. So the compulsory security works cannot be performed because of a compulsory security regulation.

 

[Greg Boeser]

There is a school in one of our suburbs that needs some façade refurbishing for security reasons.
But it is located close to the tramway tracks and there is a security regulation that prevents any works within this perimeter. So the compulsory security works cannot be performed because of a compulsory security regulation.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22."
"It's the best there is!"

 

[Greg Boeser]

A friend of ours owned a duplex, but couldn't rent out the upstairs apartment because it did not have egress windows in every bedroom. But he couldn't install egress windows because the house was located in an "historic neighborhood". He couldn't alter the outward appearance of the house.

 

[MiTasol]

Yep - peoples safety always comes a poor second to badly conceived mindless security and other legislation.

As an example from some 30 years back in Australia.

The Victorian Government Worksafe inspectors ordered Qantas and Ansett to enlarge the access panels in the bottoms of the wings of all their Boeing and Airbus aircraft to comply with the new Victorian Worksafe regulations for confined space entry and to hell with how that affected the structural integrity of the aircraft.

Politicians overrode the monkeys who wrote the new regulations.

 

[Erich]

congrats Chris on your Birthday ~

 

[Escuadrilla Azul]

Happy birthday Chris! Have a great day!

 

[MIflyer]

politicians are often blamed for the actions of faceless pubic "servants"

In the USA Congress often writes things in as obtuse a language as possible so they can evade responsibility when things don't go well. And they usually do not say what they really mean in order to be able to deny what they really meant.

An example from my experience: The Legislation: "Upgrade the only inland test range in the US" meant "Use USAF funds to buy $30M worth of new facilities for the University of Alaska."
And yes, the bureaucrats put their own spin on things. back in the mid-70's they built a new library for a small town in Oklahoma. People complained that the new facility had no bathrooms. Turned out that some Federal funds were used and some Federal bureaucrat had decided that separate men's and woman's bathrooms constituted discrimination. The library personal decided that their town was not ready for coed bathrooms and so the bathrooms were there all right, but they were not labeled as anything.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

For the last and final time, get off the politics. You all know the rules.

 

[Snautzer01]

Its funny, not political as i see it. Describing stupidity without given a weight on either side is just well... funny.
All goverments have fuck ups. Mine , yours theirs..
And yes i read Official Forum Rules on Politics.

 

[cvairwerks]

Power went out last night. Oncor, the delivery system, has no clue when we will be back online. My genset crapped out, so been working since 8 am to get another one and get it temped in.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Its funny, not political as i see it. Describing stupidity without given a weight on either side is just well... funny.
All goverments have fuck ups. Mine , yours theirs..
And yes i read Official Forum Rules on Politics.

The bureaucrats wreak havoc regardless of the party that thinks it's in power.

 

[MIflyer]

Please note that my comment above does NOT apply to any particular political party and in fact reflects actions by both Democrats and Republicans as well as supposedly non-partisan government bureaucrats.

 

[MiTasol]

• Its funny, not political as i see it. Describing stupidity without given a weight on either side is just well... funny.

All goverments have fuck ups. Mine , yours theirs..
And yes i read Official Forum Rules on Politics.

This topic really is a can of worms. Maybe it needs to become a separate thread.

I think most will agree with Snautzer on this but unfortunately it seems equally possible to interpret a post and say it falls foul of the highlighted parts of proviso 2 in the discussion below. A massive problem is what does the AVERAGE member consider political.

• If someone is partisan they consider anything "bad" written about their party, true or otherwise, to be partisan.
• For most people it is only partisan if it is for or against any identified partly or liar politician but not if it applies to all politicians and/or all parties
• For most people I doubt it includes idiocy by the public "servants".

I suspect the vast majority of people on the forum think regarding proviso 2

• parts of that proviso should not be there; and/or
• is far too vague in what it means and therefore many post honestly believing that they are not breaking the rule because
  • the proviso does not apply to discussion of the actions of public servants; and/or
  • their post applies to all politicians and/or parties; and/or

  • Describing stupidity without given a weight on either side is just well... funny.

As examples:

• bi-partisan bills are definitely not political AND may well affect many of the members.
• Many decisions are made, not by the politicians but by the bureaucrats (and are sometimes overridden by the politicians). Again that can be bi-partisan)
• bi-partisan or long standing laws also may well affect many of our members -- see my example at the end of this post.

Should every one of these be banned if the discussion remains civil? I am glad that is not my decision.

Posts that include insults (proviso #3) are again an area of great ambiguity. For example the Photoshopped aircraft carrier USAF-1 with a golf course and luxury club house on the deck is definitely insulting to some people but to the vast majority, including probably the vast majority of USAF members past and present, consider it purely humour and the majority of those USAF people may well have had a good chuckle and may even have given it a positive reaction.
Again many of the posts showing the two screaming angry women and a cat or other respondent are highly insulting to certain people but not the majority.

This is one of those beauty is in the eye of the beholder situations

The rules as they stand at this time are:

Political discussion that directly pertains to:

1. WW2 or other historical conflicts can be discussed as long as it remains civil and does not deviate from topic.
2. Ongoing conflicts such as the war in Ukraine can be discussed as long as it remains civil and does not deviate from topic.

No other types of political discussion are allowed, to include but not limited to:

1. Partisan posts (left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican, etc…)
2. Posts about modern political news, parties, candidates, politicians, bills, debates, decisions, elections, or laws.
3. Posts that contain insults or attacks.
4. Posts that contain conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
5. If it has nothing to do with the two allowable types of political discourse than it is not allowed.

Given there is so much confusion on the meaning on that proviso maybe the admin team should rewrite it with several different wordings and have the members vote on which they believe is the least confusing version given that a significant percentage of members have English as a second language and/or speak non-American English.

An example of a law that affects all our members who post or download manuals.
It is not partisan as this law has existed since 1968 and been amended countless times including as recently as 2019. This is something that more than annoys me and if I had to blame politicians for it I would need to blame the whole $%^&* lot for not reading what they were passing. Obviously not one of them, and not one of their staff, understood what they passed, or what was tabled and became law by their inactions.

As many know I have posted some 1920s British manuals to the forum.

It is absurd it that:

• if I personally create a duplicate of page from a manual:
  
  • on which copyright has expired, or been released,
    • using a scanner, photocopier, camera or any other device,
    • in any library or archive,
  • in Australia, and probably anywhere else in the world,
• this duplicate page is free of all restrictions, because the original material is out of copyright;

• if I request a duplicate of an out of copyright page from any library or archive,
  
  • probably anywhere in the world except Australia,
• this duplicate page will also be free of all restrictions. Again, because the original material is out of copyright.

However:

• In Australia, and almost certainly only in Australia,
  • all duplicate pages,
  • but not the originals of those pages,
• instantly gain a whole new 70 year copyright, owned by an unknown and unspecified entity, from the moment that the duplicate is created by a library or archive.

In the specific cases that affects all forum members who want to see these and other manuals posted in their entirety, the fact that the actual creator/printer/copyright holder of the documents, the UK National Archives, HMSO section, has additionally classified these specific documents as what is commonly called "open source" so those pages are not only free of copyright but free of almost every other restriction, is completely and totally irrelevant under the Australian Copyright Act

Despite the original documents being out of copyright and further covered by the UK Open Government Licence I cannot use any page scanned on my behalf by any Australian library or archive for anything except private personal use.

Although the Australian copyright Act has many pages detailing Acts (meaning actions) not constituting infringements of copyright there are no such allowances for any library of archives copying material that is no longer covered by copyright for a member of the public.

Absurd but true.

I think that few if any forum members would consider this a political post as no single party is responsible. Just an accumulated 55 years worth of incompetents based in Canberra.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Political discussion is a pandoras box, better left closed.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Political discussion is a pandoras box, better left closed.

He said: "better left"!
I knew he was a spy!

 

[Viking1066]

Politics is an ugly thing, like taxes and passing to the great beyond, it's there and that's what it is. I was on one side of the green grass and then on the other. I vote and that's that. My brother is very one way and I the other. I still love him even if he is a lousy human being (that's without even involving the politics!). It's what it is, life goes on. Enough said!!!

 

[Greg Boeser]

House painters packed up and left today.
They are not done.
Plus, I found that they didn't replace the rotten baseboard in the cellar door well, just nailed a new board over the old. Now the cellar door is blocked.
I have informed the project manager.
Waiting for a response.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

House painters packed up and left today.
They are not done.
Plus, I found that they didn't replace the rotten baseboard in the cellar door well, just nailed a new board over the old. Now the cellar door is blocked.
I have informed the project manager.
Waiting for a response.

Not good!

 

[N4521U]

Some tradesmen are all alike.
When you're over 80 you are fair game, "I'll take care of yah"!
Yeah f'n right.