Adventure Ausrama Blog

Myopic vision is genetic as well as Environmental - Health. Myopia is a very odd condition. Shortsighted people can only focus at a close distance because their eyeballs have grown too large. It is not so much an illness as a consequence of growing. It is a genetic problem. About 90 per cent of East Asians suffer from myopia. This compares to 25 per cent of Australians. Too much reading indoors is a causative factor. The more years one partakes in education the higher the probability that shortsightedness will occur. Spending time outdoors where it is necessary to focus on things at a distance seems to be preempt the ailment. Getting glasses does treat the condition. However, it can lead to problems in the future. There is a higher possibility of going blind. Detached retinas and glaucoma lead up to this. The age of technology has not been a factor in myopia. Yes, there is a lot of reading on tablets which is detrimental. Whether reading a book or looking at ...

Technology: Telstra is being dishonest and is treating Australian consumers like fools. Telstra is doing something that the federal government did not foresee. The telco is only using half of the nation's copper wiring originally laid a century ago. In Australia there are two pairs of telephone wires in the cable laid to each house. This was to enable each house to have two telephone connections. The system worked well with ADSL: each phone could have its separate modem and ADSL service. With the NBN this has all changed. When the NBN began its roll out it allowed Telstra to set the rules. Telstra chose the rule: ONE PROPERTY ONE NBN CONNECTION. This is fine if you have a detached house. However, if you have a granny flat that has its own phone because the main telephone line has been split at the box on the house, one line will be scrapped and will no longer be used. It will lay dead in the ground forever due to Telstra's policy. Furthermore, if you rent out...

Netflix came to Australia and within a few months the entertainment landscape changed. All of the major free-to-air televisions stations now offer movie and program downloads at an exceedingly low monthly rate. Foxtel reduced the prices of some of its packages by 60 per cent. The Internet market per se is about to be hit as well. MyRepublic is coming to Australia. It has heavily condemned Telstra for its lacklustre provision of broadband Internet via the National Broadband Network (NBN). The Singaporean company will invest in its own network and provide super-fast broadband at prices lower than Telstra. The offer of 100 megabit per second at $80 a month is at the low end of Telstra much slower offer. The copper to homes from the node will hamper Telstra Mr Rodrigues of My Republic says. He says the government has been lying all along about the NBN's ultimate speed. Just about every Australian believes that the NBN rollout is a mess. It is the target of ongoing jo...

Australia is a society that "molds" itself around a culture of high alcohol consumption. Other countries also have this problem. Germany, Ireland, Scotland and England also have a reputation for excessive drinking behavior. None, though have the strong established culture as that in Australia. The young learn from the old. Australian youth spend their weekends in a blur of binge drinking. Their parents have openly consumed alcohol at parties, barbecues and in pubs, since the youth were toddlers. And in Australia, children can be brought into pubs. Cultural change is called for by the federal government. However, cultural norms of behavior are nearly impossible to change unless people feel a real crisis. The Ebola catastrophe in Africa have forced citizens to change their burial habits. Unfortunately, Australians do not take the alcohol crisis seriously. They think it does no apply to them. The intention to charge mothers with a crime for damage to their unborn b...

There was a joke going around in Adelaide in the 1960s when I lived there - all these Wogs will probably go home and live off of the Australian pension. Wog was a common term then. It referred to southern Mediterraneans, Greeks and Italians for example. English people were called Poms when immigrants were flooding in. How a joke can become truth. People who have moved to Australia and indeed spent most of their lives here are going back to their home countries because of favorable exchange rates. Not so much the English. They seem to be staying here. Between 2007 and 2012 the number of Australians living overseas and drawing the Aussie pension increased by 30 per cent. In the same period the overall number of Australian pensioners went up only 17 per cent. Recent changes in the budget will not affect those currently on the pension. Most will not be here when the pension age goes up to 70 years in 2035. Most expatriates by far return to Italy and Greece in thei...

The whole world changes all the time. Cultures alter at different speeds depending where you are on this planet. Faster communication is creating a "one world community' as many would say. However, cultures do differ between nations and ethnic groups. Australia has gone through dramatic change, from being an outpost of the British Empire to independence and self governance. Once Australians saw themselves as British first and Australians second. Going back "home" for a holiday to see mother England was a dream for many. Even after Britain joined the European Community Australians flooded into London. Today, Australians are "thin on the ground" in England. Work restrictions are killing off the attraction. You can only work if you are European. Working visas issued to Australians has halved since 2006. Only 10,000 Australian citizens actually reside in the UK. Businesses promoting Aussie travel to Britain have closed their doors and Internet site...

In the modern world many types of behavior are tolerated. Angry people are allowed to run the streets chanting their violent slogans. Individuals are entitled to live the life of a hermit, barely communicating with anyone else. Saying that things have changed is too simplistic. The more things change the more they stay the same. Some have said that Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is too familiar with all those around him, calling fellow members of cabinet by their nicknames. It has been said that this is new for Australia. This is nonsense. Australians quickly find the names of strangers and from the "get go" call them by their first names. I remember watching a talk on television some years ago and the American was really upset by the Australian, who was also being interviewed, for not addressing him as Mr "Smith". Australia is an unusual country. It has a culture of bringing everyone to the same level. Honorifics have little place in such...

Hate the Kiwi seems to be quite widespread in Australia, though personally I have not experienced any bad feeling toward them. Indeed, most Australians welcome New Zealanders into society seeing them as ideal immigrants who can fit in immediately. Bob Birrell, a Monash University demographer, says New Zealanders are the cause of the the recent jump in unemployment in Australia. He points out that New Zealanders holding temporary visas increased by 5.4 percent over a year. This is 1,620 of the 30,000 coming here.  Considering the rise in unemployment was 0.6 per cent across the whole nation, New Zealanders working here could not possibly be responsible for all of this. Surely, Kiwis bring some capital of their own and spend nearly all of their income here. Australia benefited a great deal economically by paying the fares here for European immigrants in the middle of the last century. These were mostly unskilled, poor people. New Zealander moving to this country should be no ...

Australians will always turn out when there is something odd going on. Thousands of people flocked to Bondi Beach for Australia Day but it was not just to celebrate the day off. They went because of the importance of thongs in there lives - no, not the ones worn around the waist, those worn on the feet! A crowd of 500 beach goers grabbed giant inflatable thongs and took to the water in an attempt to break the world record set in 2006. The record was safe, however, well short of the the 863 target. At least everyone had a good time. Australia day is when you celebrate things Australian and thongs are very popular here. In summertime some people wear nothing but thongs, all the time. They even go shopping in them. They are especially good for a day of fishing at the beach when you can "fling" them off and head into the water, then come back and put them back on again with your hands free. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ ht...