As it usually does on Boxing Day, The Australian has published quarterly aggregates of Newspoll with state and demographic breakdowns, on this occasion casting an unusually wide net from its polling all the way back to July to early this month, reflecting the relative infrequency of its results over this time. The result is a combined survey of 5771 respondents that finds Labor leading 55-45 in New South Wales (a swing of about 3.5% to Labor compared with the election), 57-43 in Victoria (about 2%), 55-45 in Western Australia (no change) and 57-43 in South Australia (a 4.0% swing), while trailing 51-49 in Queensland a 3% swing).
Gender breakdowns show only a slight gap, with Labor leading 54-46 among men and 56-44 among women, with the Greens as usual stronger among women among men. Age cohort results trend from 65-35 to Labor for 18-to-34 to 54-46 to the Coalition among 65-plus, with the Greens respectively on 24% and 3%. Little variation is recorded according to education or income, but Labor are strongest among part-time workers and weakest among the retired, stronger among non-English speakers but well ahead either way, and 62-38 ahead among those identifying as of no religion but 53-47 behind among Christians. You can find all the relevant data, at least for voting intention, in the poll data feature on BludgerTrack.
Ah, the joys of ‘doing my own research’ on the interwebby. Lookey what I found when searching for “alternative justice systems for Queensland cookers”:
https://youtu.be/v0fFKNCKIhE
Could we see the restoration of the Irish Governor General?
Prince Andrew might be available
Matthew Guy MP
@MatthewGuyMP
Victorian Liberal Leader. MP for Bulleen
—————————————–
One month after the Victorian state election , still refusing to acknowledge he isn’t the leader any more
Not a huge fan of minns does not seem to stand foor a lot but Rexsis argument that labor is just as bad as the liberas i disagree with apart from terible ministers like richardson and the hawke keating years and blaire which tried to be lib light acsept foor medicare but i think labor governments are generaly moore progresive then liberal ones how ever it is frustrating that labor tends to apeel to the centre and take there natuaral base foor grantid foor exxample Albanese should make a perminent increase to the new start payment in stead of ther small increase morrison did if it was not foor the greens we would still have the cashlis welfaire card to targit indigenis australians
at least minns is better then iemma who sold out any labor values to get the backing of alan jones buy attacking the unions and selling off nnsw electrisity or the very conservative south australian government on social ishuesthe former liberal premier was more progresive then the laborpremier
”
Scottsays:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 8:20 pm
Matthew Guy MP
@MatthewGuyMP
Victorian Liberal Leader. MP for Bulleen
—————————————–
One month after the Victorian state election , still refusing to acknowledge he isn’t the leader any more
”
Scott
What that means is that he will replace Hawthorne MP, Pesutto, as LOTO sooner than later. 🙂
Nath talks adnauseam about Shorten replacing Albanese as PM but never talks about Guy or another liberal party leaders.
”Could we see the restoration of the Irish Governor General?
Prince Andrew might be available”
Failing that, maybe Governor of the Bahamas…
bw will not like it but there is a union that means south australian labor is very conservative the shoppies but what abbout china andzi ging ping who was so terible tony abott ignedd a trade deal and said in 2014 we are closer relaetions with china then ever before
Batton will probaly chalinge the only reason passuto is back in politics was because of the stupid desition off the so called teels to triy and cick out a labor mp who won tthhe seat of the liberals tbuy splitting the non liberal vote hellping pessuto get back in the teels are no friends of the labor party there actualy worse then the greens as the greens are largily progresive some of the teels are more pro liberal on the economy they won no seats in vicktoria desbite the help there responsible foor labor loosing hauthorn
nathsays:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 7:37 pm
Some of my fondest memories as a teenager is a group of us trying to scrape up the cash to put in for some weed on the weekend, and then finding a house to smoke at, a bedroom if I got lucky. The munchies, the music. If there was a pool, the weekend was heaven.
_____________________
A house. You were lucky.
We would just fill the car with all your mates, grab a stick from the local dealer, then head out to one of the local surf spots for the evening and mull up.
Front seat passenger was always the packer.
1st one to find the Southern Cross was always a good game.
Windows up for a compression session.
Sometimes there were 3-4 carloads out there, all doing the same thing, we were all surfers.
After stashing the bong in the bush for next time, the drive home was terrifying.
Stoned to your eyeballs and praying you wouldn’t get pulled up by the cops. Got pulled up one night for driving with no headlights on.
Fun times.
Shakespeare disliked lawyers with a passion, to wit:
“Measure for Measure”:
‘Good counselors lack no clients.’
And then there’s:
‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’ – Henry VI.
I endorse the Bard’s sentiments until, that is, one needs a lawyer. And all he wanted was a Coat of Arms.
AI is an imitation. It can play chess, but does it understand the game?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aiGybCeqgI&ab_channel=Channel4News
Boerwar
The quickest way to cut crime is to up police numbers.
Had the misfortune to sign up for Amazon Prime video, sheer torture to cancel, a deliberate strategy on their part.
Also read reviews on Vox of their Original programs, basic summary.. total crap & self indulgent.. I guess not unlike Amazon’s owner
https://www.drive.com.au/news/electric-cars-power-south-australian-homes/?utm_campaign=syndication&utm_source=smh.com.au&utm_content=article_4&utm_medium=partner
ELECTRIC
Electric cars to power South Australian homes in new trial
South Australia has become the first Australian jurisdiction to allow private electric-car owners to send their battery’s energy back into their own homes.
Probably never been a politician who didn’t commit to increasing police numbers.
Often easier said than done.
In WA they seem to be losing them as fast as they can train new ones.
It can be a shit job and there seem to be plenty of well paid alternatives over here.
And in more good news
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/futures-market-signals-energy-intervention-will-lower-household-bills-20221229-p5c99w.html
Forward prices for electricity have halved over the past two months, which Energy Minister Chris Bowen says points to the Albanese government’s unprecedented energy market intervention working, but experts say there’s a risk the cheaper futures market won’t flow through to household bills in full.
Mrmoney says:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:29 pm
And in more good news
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/futures-market-signals-energy-intervention-will-lower-household-bills-20221229-p5c99w.html
Forward prices for electricity have halved over the past two months, which Energy Minister Chris Bowen says points to the Albanese government’s unprecedented energy market intervention working, but experts say there’s a risk the cheaper futures market won’t flow through to household bills in full.
Did household see the dearer wholesale market in full?
The answer is no.
The household does not hold the market risk. They do not see the highs or the lows.
Amazon exposed for the shonks they are..
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-project-iliad-made-cancel-prime-membership-harer-leaked-data-2022-3?r=US&IR=T
Amazon intentionally made it harder to cancel Prime memberships with a project code-named “Iliad.”
Mexicanbeemer:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:05 pm
[‘The quickest way to cut crime is to up police numbers.’]
I take it that you’re taking the piss.
frednk @ Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 8:48 pm
Good point, especially when it’s coming from Nobel Prize Winner Roger Penrose!
I tried ChatGPT recently, and I found that it was only impressive the first time I asked it a question. It became obvious within five minutes that its answers follow templates. It certainly doesn’t pass the “Turing Test”.
I just tested it again a few minutes ago by asking it two things:
1. Write an essay on why cricket is the best sport.
2. Write an essay on why baseball is the best sport.
The essays it produced were at least 95% identical! That certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.
People wonder when and/or if AIs will achieve sentience. I’m here to say that sentience is a low bar: a mouse is sentient. Sentience is merely awareness of your environment, plus some form of consciousness, and virtually any organism has that. Intelligence requires something more: sapience.
My concern is that many people will start treating AIs as if they are intelligent when they don’t tell you anything you couldn’t work out by using Google and Wikipedia. To be fair, a quick look at Twitter makes me wonder whether some of my fellow human beings will ever achieve sapience, so no wonder AIs seem superficially impressive.
Boerwar @ 6.43pm,
You’re full of it. Prove with verifiable research and statistics that a ‘significant’ number of psychotic episodes occur in the general population who consume cannabis. And I mean statistically significant. It has a meaning and I expect you to adhere to it to prove the point you keep attempting to weaponise.
Mavis says:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:36 pm
Mexicanbeemer:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:05 pm
[‘The quickest way to cut crime is to up police numbers.’]
I take it that you’re taking the piss.
——————————–
Most people behave themselves when police are around.
Mexicanbeemer @ #1273 Thursday, December 29th, 2022 – 9:55 pm
Except the police.
Russia is once again reminding Ukraine why they are fighting this war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4SVPtGsJ9I&ab_channel=TIMESNOW
Mexicanbeemer:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:55 pm
I won’t take it further other than to suggest that the population of NSW, for instance, somewhat exceeds those in blue. Pepys.
Mavis says:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 10:15 pm
Mexicanbeemer:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:55 pm
I won’t take it further other than to suggest that the population of NSW, for instance, somewhat exceeds those in blue. Pepys.
————-
Police only have to be around.
Re police numbers: In NSW it’s about one per 500 population. About right? The Northern Territory has about one per 160. Enough? Too many?
The Queensland Government proposes an unsurprisingly dumb response to the problem of youth crime. Ramping up punishments does nothing when the offenders don’t have a fully developed pre-frontal cortex. Deterrence won’t work when the offending is driven by socioeconomic and psychosocial stressors, and the offenders aren’t even capable of weighing costs and benefits in a rational manner.
There are two federal interventions that would massively reduce crime and other social problems. A federally funded, community-run Job Guarantee program – a public option for jobs – that eradicates unemployment. And lifting all Centrelink income support payments – the Age Pension, the Disability Support Pension, JobSeeker, parenting payments, carer’s payments, youth allowance, student allowance, and so on – to at least $620 per week for a single person (the poverty line according to the Henderson Report methodology for measuring poverty in Australia). Both of these interventions could be accomplished within a single term (the change to income support could be done overnight). Neither would be inflationary. They would make a large positive difference that would be noticed and valued by voters. The government that introduces them would be rewarded electorally.
Paul The Avenger @ Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:37 pm
My question is, could one dial the clock back and replace ChatGPT in your argument with Google and Google and Wikipedia with a physical library and encyclopaedia?
Actually ChatGPT is more like Altavista. We are close, but we have yet to have the “killer” app 😉
if any thing dutton will be chalinged before albanese yes nath seems like a liberal suporter the coverige on chinas covid wave is stupid it is clearly anti china properganda yes its comunist it does not treet its criticks well but niver does the us backed saldiarabia and where is the us whenafter a couple off years the us did not like the new islamick government so they allowed the military to take over and re install there dictatership and the us did nothing in stead some nieave studdents were used to end democrasy there has been no free and fair electionsfoor years the old leadersthe uprising was about basickly took back over
uit is not china as such the us dislikes its any country that threatins there power in order to cover up foor the fact the us has not won a war in decades in fact wold war two they create this anti china senterment to cover up that the us military cant compete with even the taliban could not defeat north coria or vietnam yet we think they can defeat china the strongist military over tiwon a country no one recognizes
What suprises me about the us strategick position is that it was obvous that the majority of the afghanistan population did not want the u s there but when a country like ucrane who was crying out foor help and putin made it clear as far back as 2008 that he would eventualy invade the whole country in future yet in stead of sending troops to ucrane even now they waste time prelonging a war that they were all ways going to loose
She ginn ping was the same president that tony abbott signed a free trade agreement no one in the media has pointed this out to dutton when he falsely claims that china has changed basickly as soon as he took over the greens raised human rights abusis in china long before aspi and dutton spoke about it to cover foor us
At least Ukraine won’t have to form a special unit to assassinate Russian military and business leaders. Putin is doing the job for them.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-29/indian-police-investigate-russian-oligarch-death/101815414
Griff @ Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 10:55 pm
There’s a reason why smartphones, and encyclopedias, are banned at pub trivia nights! The fastest Googler would romp it in. That makes me think that augmenting human intelligence with some kind of implant that connects the brain directly to the sum of human knowledge might be even more effective than an AI could ever be. For some people, at least.
Chess computers can beat human opponents currently because a computer can look up every possible move out of the huge number of possibilities. A human that could access the same information seamlessly and instantly might have the winning edge.
I won’t be volunteering for such an implant, of course. I’ll leave that Brave New World for future generations.
Russian KIA last 24 hours: 790
Total Russian KIA: 104,560
Daily average Russian KIA: 338.4
Слава Україні! Героям слава!
Paul The Avenger @ #1271 Thursday, December 29th, 2022 – 9:37 pm
To discuss this you really should define your terms first, otherwise the arguments rapidly become circular and meaningless. For instance, “homo sapiens” are “sapient” by definition (well, it is probably more correct that some “homo sapiens” have been “sapient”, for at least some of the time).
It may be true that AI’s will not achieve human-type intelligence (which I believe is what you mean by “sapience”). But then, why would they? They are not human. Our type and level of intelligence is a survival trait for our particular species, and it may not suit another. **
However, this does not mean computers cannot be intelligent, sentient, or even conscious, provided you define those terms carefully and without accidentally (or deliberately) limiting them to a particular type or species. Once computation is independent of us (as it very nearly is now – think “cloud computing” rather than individual “computers”) then computational entities may achieve a type and level of intelligence that has survival value for them. I suspect we may eventually need a few new terms, or at least that we may find that using “homo sapiens” as our yardstick for “sapience” is a bit too limited (Alan Turing notwithstanding). One hopes that future AI’s might help us broaden our horizons – but I guess there is always the chance that once they become intelligent enough to do so, they will take one look at us decide not to bother.
** An interesting aside: I am reading a book at the moment that postulates that the reason humans are not much more intelligent than they are – i.e. why intelligence doesn’t seem to have evolved very much in the last few thousand generations – is because high intelligence is not actually a survival trait. Humans are as intelligent as they need to be and no more because high intelligence actually tends to be both self-destructive and socially destructive for the species. And you only have to look at the microcosm of PB to see how this might indeed be true 🙂
Socrates @ Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 11:25 pm:
“At least Ukraine won’t have to form a special unit to assassinate Russian military and business leaders. Putin is doing the job for them.”
====================
Socrates, here’s the list of 22 Russian business magnates to meet a mysterious demise this year (along with 8 close family/friends):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_businessmen_mystery_deaths
Thanks Macarthur.
On sub technology and subs for Australia, there is a UK naval analyst, HI Sutton, who posts some quite detailed videos on youtube.
This one about impellers helps explain why nuclear subs are quieter and faster than diesels when moving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugSEIiTZ1Pg
This one includes a list of what he regards as the five top SSKs in the world just before AUKUS was announced. Ironically the Attack class were rated third best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWeg7OCGw4Y
I work in Youth Justice, and have done for a long time.
Even now I have trouble dealing with the complexities involved.
Sideline warriors, you need to take a deep breath, it’s a very, very difficult field.
Not excusing anything, just making you all aware of things.
Player One @ Friday, December 30, 2022 at 12:09 am
I was suggesting that sentience was a fairly low bar, since all living beings have it. I certainly do not think that sapience need be unique to us. Presumably Neanderthals were sapient too, despite not being members of Homo Sapiens.
If AI wanted to impress me, it would be able to meaningfully answer an important question like “Solve global warming in the most effective fashion”. I did indeed ask ChatGPT this question and unsurprisingly its answer just stated the obvious.
It is possible that a truly intelligent AI might give us answers some people don’t like. More than possible, really. It’s also conceivable that a malevolent person might use an AI for harmful purposes – we shouldn’t assume that an AI will necessarily come with a moral or ethical framework. Or, as you suggest, intelligent AIs might not want to play our games at all.
As for “cloud computing”, you might want to read my later comment about connecting the human brain directly to such resources. Human brains augmented by computing might be a reality before a truly intelligent AI is created. I seem to recall Musk mentioning something of the sort; Neuralink was the name. Mind you, I wouldn’t want one of Elon’s brainfarts connected to my grey matter!
On Russia’s military deaths in Ukraine, they are on track to lose 140,000 KIA by Feb 24, 2023, the 12 month mark of the war. This is 0.73% of their total population of 20-40yo males. For perspective, equivalent losses for Australia would be about 26,000 KIA in just 12 months. (That is 43% of our active ADF personnel!)
How much longer do they think they can sustain this rate of attrition? Especially when you add all the 20-40yo men who fled the “partial” mobilisation. And what sort of manpower do they think they will be left with to defend themselves against other threats – say, NATO?
The reality is that scientists don’t know how brains work at more than a superficial level. We only have abstract theories of consciousness after centuries of thought, and decades of practical experiment and research. AI, in the form of ‘thinking’ machines, are still decades of even centuries away.
Machine learning, different story. It continues to progress.
C@tmommasays:
Thursday, December 29, 2022 at 9:37 pm
Boerwar @ 6.43pm,
“You’re full of it. Prove with verifiable research and statistics that a ‘significant’ number of psychotic episodes occur in the general population who consume cannabis. And I mean statistically significant. It has a meaning and I expect you to adhere to it to prove the point you keep attempting to weaponise”
Just ask the bong bois, Nath and Taylormade !
In further reporting on the recently-elected Republican fantasist George Santos, we learn that his Democrat opponent was one Robert Zimmerman.
When reporters checked with Bob Dylan, he replied, “It ain’t me, babe.”
😉
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-30/george-santos-republican-congressman-elect-lying-past/101816244
Vale Pele
Footballing icon Pele has lost his battle with cancer. The Brazil star’s family confirmed he died on Friday (AEDT) at age 82. “Inspiration and love marked the journey of King Pele, who peacefully passed away today,” a statement read. “On his journey, Edson enchanted the world with his genius in sport, stopped a war, carried out social works all over the world and spread what he most believed to be the cure for all our problems: love. “His message today becomes a legacy for future generations. Love, love and love, forever.”
I think Escape to Victory was the first video we watched when Dad amusingly brought us a Beta video player.
Unlikely cast.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_Victory
YouGov @YouGov Latest UK poll (20-21 Dec)
Lab: 48% (=)
Con: 24% (+1 from 14-15 Dec)
Lib Dem: 9% (+1)
Reform UK: 8% (-1)
Green: 5% (=)
SNP: 4% (-1)