Adventure Ausrama Blog

SOCIOLOGY Many in Australia are calling for a guaranteed minimum wage whether a person earns it or not. If a low paid job for say 30 hours a week is below this minimum then the state will top it up. This sounds fair at first instance, but there is the problem of government income to pay for this and the world economic environment that thrives on low wages. If every country in the world did it, the system would be viable. Unfortunately, humans are greed driven. We are nice to each other. This in only to a degree, however. Man is torn between egalitarianism and competition. The Star Trek world where only those who want to work abandon their sloth and actually go to work is far off in the future. When I was young the dole was quite high. It was meant for times between jobs to maintain family income. Indeed, in England those who paid more tax got a higher rate of unemployment. This was definitely not egalitarian. The Australian benefit has fallen way behind the cost o

Well what happened in 2015? Some odd claims were made. In October KIC 8462852, a star doing strange things was observed. Some said that it was created by intelligent life. Actually it is a comet swarm. The barbecue charcoal theory was taken a step further with suggestions that processed meat such as bacon causes cancer. However, the risk is statistically insignificant. Just don't eat too much of it. NASA's mysterious EM Drive was announced which apparently is a microwave "powered" warp drive. Roll on Star trek. Thrust was produced from nothing but at a such a low level as to be unusable. We do not have to worry about global warming because the sun will take care of it. The Maunder Minimum phase will push us into an ice age in the 2030s. Have no fear. Such a drastic 5º C fall will not happen. We have done far too much damage for the Maunder Minimum to have any effect. The little Tardigrade creature picks up genes from the environment by horizontal t