Discussion Random Discussion

[SaintsSeptember]

Nice.

I used to do either of 2 things...

I would pretend i wasn't the person they were after. I'd put down the phone and pretend to have a convo with the person they wanted. I'd come back every minute or so and tell them he was on his way

The other one was I'd tell them i was just going to the toilet, but that i was happy to talk to them if they has something good to tell me. Funnily enough none of them seemed keen to go the hard sell whilst i was sitting on the toot!

I mix it up a bit.
Sometimes i explain to them that everyone in australia knows you are a scammer and here's why everything you told me is bullshit. At the end of one of these calls the woman stopped all her politeness and said, "people like you deserve to be scammed"
Other things i've done.
1. Talked quieter and quieter then suddenly yelled at the top of my voice and hung up.
2. Let them practically sell me solar panels, then said "wha... no... i only rent this place"
3. Actually look up the "errors" on the computer and then explain to them why they are errors to do with my printer.
4. Just leave it on the bench and come back later to hang it up.
5. Tell them to "Just..*$%& off"
6. Tell the girl on the end she sounds nice and ask her what she's wearing.
7. "Sorry i have no business at all with Telstra"
8. "ooma daga vaat poomba wada wada "?
( nonsensical words that sound vaguely like another language "

I like the walking back from the yard one, i'll use that.

"microsoft" rang my son the other day.
they said " you have ip conflicts and you need to urgently do whatever"
my son says, "surely that's a local network issue and not any of the ISP's or microsofts concern"
they say " oh and you know so much"
"yes i just got a distinction in IT " ( which he did )

I was proud of him.

 

[gringo2011]

when st kilda last won its premiership indigenous people in WA had a passport they had to use to gain legal entry into any town. let that sink in. they had to use a ******* passport to freely move within the state. i could be wrong here but that might not have been abolished until the early 80s/late 70s.

they've been treated extremely poorly.

Weren't allowed to vote and didn't have citizenship rights either in '66.

 

[gringo2011]

About 6-7 million years ago the East African Rift Valley continued to split, causing the east part of the separation to dry out & deterioration of rain forests. Chimpanzees in the east were a dominant tree species like all chimpanzees, however due to the dryer climate, & their habit dying off, were forced on to the ground. Evolution then dictate they cope with their new forced habitat & evolve to the bipedal Australopithecines. Over the next few million years after that, Australopithecines evolved to what we “all” are now; Homo sapiens.

History reflects that “we”, being all Homo sapiens, have been cruel to one another but (mostly) “evolved” to not be so cruel. There are victims across all continents & not one “tribe” is not guilty of many atrocities that were acceptable in another era. Like I said, “we” have evolved. This does not make past atrocities acceptable. It is all part of human evolution.

Indigenous Australians, European’s, Arabs, Asians, etc, we are all ancestors from that rather small (in the scheme of things) “tribe” of chimpanzees that were forced out of the trees on to the savanna, evolved to become bipedal due to new surroundings & become what we “all” are now.

All these religious/cultural wars that continue on is so tribal, small minded & so embarrassingly outdated. We’ll be intergalactic species before not to long. Not in our life time but not soon after for some of us.

Some of us got horny for Denisovans and Neanderthals though, changed some genetic markers, a bit like getting curly hair from ****ing a sheep.

 

[Drake Huggins]

Maaaate....
My mother is 87 yrs old, fully independent, lives alone, does aqua aerobics, works as a bookkeeper a couple of days a week and drives a manual car very well, if a little slowly.

If you are going to generalise, why are old men excluded...???

I was only kidding. Old birds are great. My mum in law is a case in point. She read the post and gave me a clip. Still, she conceded she does go on a bit when she gets a captive sufience

Maaaate....
My mother is 87 yrs old, fully independent, lives alone, does aqua aerobics, works as a bookkeeper a couple of days a week and drives a manual car very well, if a little slowly.

If you are going to generalise, why are old men excluded...???

Only joking, Joyce. My dear old mum in law saw the post and clipped me over the ear! She did concede she loved trapping the odd shop assistant when she could. My dear old mum, RIP, used to ring call centres when her DAT was taking hold and would talk endlessly to the "nice young girls and guys" on the other end. She'd string them along until they realised she wasn't buying anything. She was lonely. Great conversationalist was the old Ursula. I miss her witty repartie.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

We stopped in Dandenong on the way to go down the coast and went to JB hifi. A group of three young Sudanese guys were in front of us getting the shop attendant to show them the portable speakers, the kids were so polite and sweet natured and were exemplary young men. They bought their speaker and thanked the guy for serving them. People just assume that three young black guys are trouble without judging them as people.

I don't know if any of my posts gave the impression that's how i feel.
As i said in one of them, i often go out after dark in Dandy, and i've never felt afraid on the streets, of Africans or anyone else . I've worked in polling booths in Dandenong and it was pretty rewarding seeing Somalians so happy to be voting.
Certainly i wasn't advocating taking any action against anyone purely on their race. In fact i'm pretty pissed that a couple of the posters here interpreted my posts that way, essentially stereotyping me.

But.... some of them are bad eggs. The bad eggs are holding the community and the police in contempt. They don't hesitate to seriously maim their victims.
Many of these people have had too many chances.

 

[gringo2011]

so should we ban poor people from breeding ? just in case their offspring maybe become criminals ????
fact is you will never erradicate crime but how we manage it is the key ... stopping people coming because they might maybe eventually become a criminal is just stupid irrational fear ....
i know an irish bloke who we caught knocking off building supplies from worksites hes been here since he was 4 but should we deport him back or is it only the dark skinned ones you want sent back ?
and where do we draw the line ? running a red light is a crime .. is that deportable ? jaywalking is that? incorrectly scanning fruit in Coles ? buying a "hot" lawnmower off gumtree ??

I do remember in Freakenomics that they suggest that legalising abortion 18 yers earlier decreased New York's crime rate not Giuliani's hard on crime agenda.

Sending back people who have become citizens of your country isn't legal. It's like buying a car, running into a wall and asking for your money back because you changed your mind.

 

[CursingFijian]

Billy Slater a couple of years ago when on Holidays in Fiji. Got out to a village and mixed it up with some of the kids. I think we might love him more than Melbourne does.

 

[Yawkey way]

It's not any worse than before. Funny enough I think taking out the nightlife like clubs and bars has made it worse not better as less normal people are out and leave the ring ins and junkies to the suburb.

That’s exactly what’s happened the place feels different.

A friend who lives locally called me the other day and commented on how sad ackland street felt, plenty of places for lease and most of the character gone. He did say that the espy redevelopment was excellent and that while it’s different a lot of the old features that had run down or were hidden have been brought back.

The Novotel which is the old st moritz etc site is going to be redeveloped into 250 odd apartments. They will be expensive with a 50 million penthouse and plenty of buyers will complain about the noise, the people etc.

This is part of the problem a lot new residents like the sound of living in St Kilda but have very little idea about the history of the place or what makes it tick. It’s a problem in a lot of places not just St Kilda but it definitely has an impact, the results of which are mixed imo.

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

I went through a period where I was really affronted by the phone scams to a lesser extent I still am.

These people are thieves it’s not funny it is what it is is, foreign nationals trying to scam you out of your money. Many hit on elderly or unwitting targets and rob them. So I used to do my best to get them really pissed off, I would tell them that I was going to go out and belt a few of their countrymen and that’s why people hated them. I would ask the women how much they made per trick and would they like a job here and I could arrange it for them etc.

I’ve had them call call back on their mobiles they got so angry which used to really make me scratch my head, you’re a thief and yet you get pissed off by me calling you out and taking the piss.

At any rate nobody I have ever reported them too has actually done much so now I just don’t answer unless I know the number, anybody who matters has my mobiles so ring away.

In case anybody is in any doubt I am a grumpy middle aged man and a real campaigner, I’m reading some old captain goodvibes cartoons and finding there’s more of the pig of Steele about me than I care to admit.

the thing with that is most of the time the guys making the call in the scams are not the real villans they often are drawn into these jobs through intimidation and bribes ... its their bosses who make the money and are the real evil for the guys making the calls they are just trying to earn to very often pay off a bogus debt to the criminals at the top ... abusing them i dont think helps infact i think it helps them justify in their mind the job they re doing as we rich westerners deserve it ... to be really effective in distrupting their scam waste their time the longer they are waiting for me to walk back to the house from my yard thats time they are not able to scam someone else

 

[Yawkey way]

the thing with that is most of the time the guys making the call in the scams are not the real villans they often are drawn into these jobs through intimidation and bribes ... its their bosses who make the money and are the real evil for the guys making the calls they are just trying to earn to very often pay off a bogus debt to the criminals at the top ... abusing them i dont think helps infact i think it helps them justify in their mind the job they re doing as we rich westerners deserve it ... to be really effective in distrupting their scam waste their time the longer they are waiting for me to walk back to the house from my yard thats time they are not able to scam someone else

I have no doubt that there are better ways to deal with them, now I just don’t bother it’s just thanks nah click.

I have little sympathy for thieves who have stolen millions from innocent people, I guess it’s possible to justify almost anything. I know someone who has been involved in a massive scam here and it’s easy to start to make excuses to justify people’s actions and I have found myself doing that with one of the people involved.

Then I think of the victims and wonder what they think about it, I’m betting they aren’t buying the excuses. It’s a pretty slippery slope imo the whole at what point is it ok or justifiable to break the law, not much between us and anarchy really although it’s a really interesting topic.

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

I have no doubt that there are better ways to deal with them, now I just don’t bother it’s just thanks nah click.

I have little sympathy for thieves who have stolen millions from innocent people, I guess it’s possible to justify almost anything. I know someone who has been involved in a massive scam here and it’s easy to start to make excuses to justify people’s actions and I have found myself doing that with one of the people involved.

Then I think of the victims and wonder what they think about it, I’m betting they aren’t buying the excuses. It’s a pretty slippery slope imo the whole at what point is it ok or justifiable to break the law, not much between us and anarchy really although it’s a really interesting topic.

i have a friend who's brother got into a bit of a bother in India the short version of the story was he got into a debt with an indian underworld figure based around a traffic accident in a car he was driving for a company he worked for , the underworld figure then proceeded to squeeze the family for money to pay off the debt suprisingly quickly things esculated and he found himself working in a scam call centre working on paying down this ever growing debt.. for the underworld figure it was a perfect money spinner , he gets free labour of a guy doing his dirty work and if it get exposed its not him physically doing the crime, plus with the guy in debt to him with intrest growing on the debt i meant that the guy worked even harder to get results to avoide the debt growing any bigger either way it pays out everytime...
so while you are right there is no excuse for comiting crime its not hard to see how good people can get caught up in terrible situations and are pushed into comitting them ... the guys in these call centres are trained to see it as if their crimes are not that bad either they are told we are rude mean spirited racist rich idiots who deserve to the scammed , they are also told that the credit card companies pay back the money anyway so its really only the credit card company that they are ripping off ...
you would be surprised how many of the scam callers stories mirror this exact story .. organised crime have been doing it for years the scary thing is now terrorist organisations see how effective it is and they are getting into the act ... the only way to really stop it is for the people to become wise to the scams

 

[SaintsSeptember]

so while you are right there is no excuse for comiting crime its not hard to see how good people can get caught up in terrible situations and are pushed into comitting them ... the guys in these call centres are trained to see it as if their crimes are not that bad either they are told we are rude mean spirited racist rich idiots who deserve to the scammed , they are also told that the credit card companies pay back the money anyway so its really only the credit card company that they are ripping off ...

Its true i am.
Keep trying campaigners.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

My Monday was rather fun. Took two hours to get from Narre Warren to Richmond due to the train issues. I get on the train at Narre and see half the carriage lights out knowing what this could mean I looked above the door:

The dreaded air conditioning fault light was lit. So it ended up being a bit of a warm trip to Oakleigh before I interchanged for a railway bus.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

Massive headwobble alert!!

These screens the players walk past. The metal frames were made by yours truly.

Heavy bloody things as well.

 

[Persevering Saint]

I mix it up a bit.
Sometimes i explain to them that everyone in australia knows you are a scammer and here's why everything you told me is bullshit. At the end of one of these calls the woman stopped all her politeness and said, "people like you deserve to be scammed"
Other things i've done.
1. Talked quieter and quieter then suddenly yelled at the top of my voice and hung up.
2. Let them practically sell me solar panels, then said "wha... no... i only rent this place"
3. Actually look up the "errors" on the computer and then explain to them why they are errors to do with my printer.
4. Just leave it on the bench and come back later to hang it up.
5. Tell them to "Just..*$%& off"
6. Tell the girl on the end she sounds nice and ask her what she's wearing.
7. "Sorry i have no business at all with Telstra"
8. "ooma daga vaat poomba wada wada "?
( nonsensical words that sound vaguely like another language "

I like the walking back from the yard one, i'll use that.

"microsoft" rang my son the other day.
they said " you have ip conflicts and you need to urgently do whatever"
my son says, "surely that's a local network issue and not any of the ISP's or microsofts concern"
they say " oh and you know so much"
"yes i just got a distinction in IT " ( which he did )

I was proud of him.

I may have at certain points had a scammer or two, in which I said, "Uh-huh, yep, oh really...", then whisper off the mike, as if to someone with me, "... look, just put it in the bag... yep, with the leg...", then came back to them and say, "Sorry, it's not a good time, but I AM interested, any chance you can call back later? "

They don't.

 

[triggering bro]

I can’t wait for this to drop. Looks deadly!

 

[VDS66]

I do remember in Freakenomics that they suggest that legalising abortion 18 yers earlier decreased New York's crime rate not Giuliani's hard on crime agenda.

Sending back people who have become citizens of your country isn't legal. It's like buying a car, running into a wall and asking for your money back because you changed your mind.

I just wish people would devote the same energy towards violence against women as they do about a handful of African thugs...

Maybe we should deport violent males as well...

 

[borderbarry]

Maaaate....
My mother is 87 yrs old, fully independent, lives alone, does aqua aerobics, works as a bookkeeper a couple of days a week and drives a manual car very well, if a little slowly.

If you are going to generalise, why are old men excluded...???

Think of Prince Philip.

 

[Drake Huggins]

i find myself doing this as well and its honestly something i try real hard to not get caught up in ... see im a firm believer in the world becoming a much better place if we were all a little nicer to eachother but i struggle to actually live up to my own hopes for the world myself when im confronted with people who are inconsiderate ... it kind of creates a spiral of anger someone is inconsiderate to some one i get angry at that and confront that and therefore add to the negativity of the situation .. but im working on it ... im trialing this thing at the moment where i try to do something for someone that is genuinely nice for no other reason than being nice it especially works when someone is being mean or inconsiderate to some one else that i counter that with something nice for example we were out for dinner the other day for a friends birthday and there was a friend of a friend there that to put it bluntly is an asshat of a human, so the waiter comes along and the way this person spoke to the poor fella it was so very agressive and uncalled for so to counter act that i layed it on thick the appriciation to the waiter and at the end left him a tip for good measure , it made the waiter feel appriciated and happy to serve us and even better made the AssHat look even more of an AssHat infront of everyone else

It's good to be good!

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

I just wish people would devote the same energy towards violence against women as they do about a handful of African thugs...

Maybe we should deport violent males as well...

terrible isnt it .... that poor family what they are going through not only to lose a daughter but to know her final moments were so very horrific

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

just seen the Lamb advert for this year .... hrmmm if people are goingto get upset over the gillette advert they better strap themselves in for the Lamb one ...

 

[Highlander35]

I enjoy when people or companies make statements where they don't have to spend money to get free airtime *cough* trump *cough*

 

[Yawkey way]

Two great games today in the NFL, Tom Brady is without a doubt the best clutch football player I have ever seen in any code.

 

[StCicatriz]

terrible isnt it .... that poor family what they are going through not only to lose a daughter but to know her final moments were so very horrific

if people only knew what is really occurring in the community. tip of the iceberg stuff

 

[CursingFijian]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...ene-edited-babies-blames-scientist-he-jiankui

China confirms gene-edited babies, blames scientist He Jiankui

Chinese biologist He Jiankui. Photo: Sam Tsang


The Chinese authorities are holding scientist He Jiankui wholly responsible for creating the world’s first gene-edited babies.
He had announced their birth in November, after which the authorities announced an investigation into the matter.
A team of investigators told the official Xinhua news agency on Monday that a preliminary investigation had concluded that He had “organised a project team that included foreign staff, which intentionally avoided surveillance and used technology of uncertain safety and effectiveness to perform human embryo gene-editing activity with the purpose of reproduction, which is officially banned in the country”.
Between March 2017 and November 2018, He forged ethical review papers and recruited eight couples to participate in his experiment, resulting in two pregnancies.

Chinese scientist He Jiankui says he is proud of genetic experiments

One of the mothers gave birth to twins nicknamed “Lulu” and “Nana”, the investigators said. Another woman is still carrying a gene-edited fetus.
They also said that He, his staff and organisations related to his project would be punished according to laws and regulations.
The Guangdong government will keep the twins under medical observation.
The government decision was welcomed by the scientific community.
A biologist, who asked not to be identified, said: “This is a result I’m happy to see,” he said. ”This should be the way. There needs to be protection of the babies too.”
He said he had also researched gene-editing but all experiments were done on lab rats only.
In an interview with Beijing Youth Daily on Sunday, Shao Feng, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and deputy director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, said the whole incident would need to be investigated thoroughly.
“If I were to handle the matter, I would never tell [the twins] they’ve been gene-edited and allow them to live their lives like normal people,” he said. “I think that’s for the best.”
An expert in the field, Shao is worried about potential health risks the children will face as well as the incident’s effect on the human race.

China suspends all projects of gene-edited baby scientist He Jiankui, and says those involved will be punished

“Once the gate of gene-editing is wide open, the human race will be finished,” he said. “The technology is strong but the terrifying fact is that anyone slightly trained in a lab can perform it.”
He has not been seen in public since he announced the births at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong in November. Some media reports have claimed he is being kept under house arrest or even detained by police.
A spokeswoman at the Shenzhen-based Southern University of Science and Technology, He’s employer, has previously dismissed talk of detention as rumours.
He has faced a wave of condemnation from China’s scientific community and health officials have insisted they knew nothing of his experiments.
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has ordered research institutes to suspend all of He’s scientific projects.
An investigation into He’s work found that the ethics review committee at the Harmonicare Women and Children’s Hospital, which the scientist said had approved his research, was not registered with the city’s health authorities.

China’s birth rate falls to its lowest rate since 1961

The hospital had earlier denied any involvement with the project.
Last month the Shenzhen authorities announced they would issue draft guidelines for the ethical review of biomedical research involving humans.
Internet users flooded social media with comments on the news of investigations into He’s work. “This professor is not worthy of being in education, he has the evil ambitions of a terrorist in disaster movies,” one wrote on Weib.
“I knew he’d end up in ruins, and this will affect the Chinese scientific community,” another wrote.
It is unclear what punishments He faces or what the consequences would be for the babies and the pregnant volunteers, if any.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Scientist to blame for first gene-edited babies, probe finds