For IBM, it was small. Thanks for playing though.

You think. You don’t know much about the history of the Australian computer industry do you. The IBM Wangaratta Plant was not small scale. It employed 450 people and using a high amount of automation, built MILLIONS OF PC’s from the PC1 and PS/2 series right through to RS/6000 systems. It also built Apple Mac Power PC processor boards for the world market, and a plethora of other electronics. The plant was the biggest exporter in dollar terms of non-primary produce in Australia in 1995 and a world class plant, being a world first in a number of technologies. Prior to the PC it manufactured IBM Selectric typewriters for the Australasian and SE Asian market. It built the circuit boards and assembled systems. Unfortuntely the plant no longer exists, due to the fiasco of IBM selling the plant and the employees off to a lousy start-up company and in the end almost everyone lost their jobs. I suggest you do some research and learn.

clearly you haven’t tried them then.

Toyota Camry/Aurion is bigger than any car Toyota sells anywhere else in the world, deliberately aimed at the Australian market here and luxury buyers in other western countries. The remainder of cars are similar to the old “mid-size” (1990ish Toyota Camry/Mazda 626) which are significantly smaller and not capable of carrying more than 2 people comfortably (someone my size can drive a 626/camry but if doing so nobody can fit in the back.)

Not this year it isn’t.

“Official sales figures for March released yesterday show the Corolla has been Australia’s best-selling car over the first three months of the year.”

Corolla outsells Commodore

DAS BANANA

Which clearly articulates the alienation of the modern citizen from his mixed market carbon based economy, and detailing the utopia that will arise from the levitating banana-motion economy. The only problem I think will arise is that bananas are just too efficient, and will have to be balanced with some sort of braking system based on pineapples - the essential production ingredient of the peoples food (pizza in this case).

Australia’s marketplace for ideas is broken.

It’s not that we’re short on powerful ideas. We pioneered women in parliament, developed penicillin, embraced compulsory super. The problem is that so few of our good ideas ever make it: they’re trapped in the lab, the workshop or the pub. We lack a mechanism that breaks down these silos and enables a flow of ideas between academia, business, politics, the media and public opinion. For one great idea to materialise, dozens more must be aired, sifted and evaluated. Without this process, we’re stuck with back-of-the-envelope solutions to our pressing national challenges…

Well worth a read.

Plus, “banana” is so efficient to type!!!

banana banana banana banana banana banana

There, that took me 2.6 seconds, and I’m a shit typist. A banana-based economy would save hundreds of typing-hours per annum over one based on any other six-letter production unit.

I never suspected there night be solar threads in the material, but it makes a lot of sense.

Perhaps the banana could supply the necessary levitation?

How about a solar-panelled push-bike, with a 2′x6′ solar panel on top to protect the rider from rain and (yes!) sun? Been tried?

A raincoat and a banana are both cheaper and more effective. Note: use the banana for aiding propulsion, not rain protection

The car boys had more swing, it’s true. And under Howard, they had a real champion in Minchin, both as Industry Minister and Finance Minister. But, like the story earlier concerning Bull HN, the real problem for the local industry is the internal competition for funds. A VERY senior car industry exec once told me that his chief competition was not the others in the same market sectors in Australia, it was the other divisions overseas in his company.

Ford and Mitsubishi have severe problems on a global scale, which is what really has put paid to Mitsubishi here.

It’d probably be cheaper all up to give everyone in the industry $100,000 to just go home and get another job in the fullness of time.

A final comment - yes, we can build submarines. The crappy one was built overseas while the local ones have actually been quite impressive.

Far from walking away from Commodores, the public has been buying them in droves - it’s the #1 car in the country. Falcon has been suffering because the model is old, and Ford is too cash-strapped to revamp the model to the same degree that Holden has.

Fleet sales weren’t what they used to be. Employees get what they ask for these days, and apparently they’re asking for family sedans.

Not what Peter Martin says:

But then the Australian car industry is unlike any other industry, both in the strange way it operates and in the rate at which Australians are shunning its products.

Australians bought just short of 1 million new cars last year. Back a decade ago half of all of the new cars sold were made in Australia. But last year out of the 1 million total only 201,623 were Australian-made.

One of the oddities of car sales in Australia is that even where new Australian cars are sold, for the most part ordinary Australians don’t buy them.

When the Productivity Commission examined the issue 10 years ago half of all new Australian cars sold went to government and private fleets. Telstra was the country’s biggest car buyer.

Jump forward a decade and 88 per cent of Ford Falcons, 87 per cent of new Mitsubishi’s and 81 per cent of Holden Commodore’s go to fleets.

Only new Toyota Corolla’s are bought in any numbers by ordinary Australians. They are 60 per cent sold to fleets.

The Prius is old technology, lugging around a dual propulsion system and not having any potential for some pluggable electric only operation.

The GM Volt (amongst others) is an example of such a system. You get the benefit of electric only operation for the majority of your journeys (i.e. short runs around town). Using electricity is much more efficient (and less CO2 intensive) than simply burning hydrocarbons in a conventional internal combustion engine, even if it is coal powered generation. If the electricity is sourced from renewables you are WAY ahead.