I don't work in IT i am an engineer but i see many IT guys who are not proactive at all and just let problems develop, they don't suggest anything to management and just take what is handed to them and manage it. Then they wonder why management doesn't know any better when they haven't been providing any feedback.

This is the equivalent of me designing a power system for a client, recognising a problem, but to just keep designing anyway as it wasn't in the specification. Any engineering doing this would be considered lazy and stupid, i don't see why IT people acting the same should think they are any different. There are far to many IT people who are not proactive, and that is why management doesn't trust them.

Its not that Americas day as a technology powerhouse is over. Its the wests monopoly on technological advancement that is over. We can't expect to have dibs on all the best technology forever, there are another 4 billion people out there that would like access to our technology also, people just need to adjust to the idea that the world is moving forward and changing and one of those big changes is that eventually technological innovation is shared.

Riding a bike through the countryside and most European cities definitely beats driving a car, trust me on this one.

Not true, i have discussed this with friends in Europe and Australia and i think most of the world who follows finance in any degree realises this.

Hey i already bring in my own stationary to work. Ever since my work started buying no name crap pens and highlighters i got sick of eating through a pen and 3 highlighters a week and post it notes that don't stick, or a hole punch that doesn't punch. So i went out and bought it all myself and keep it in a big pencil case in my bag. What makes me crazy is we are suppose to be a high tech engineering firm producing advanced products, but they skimp on the stationary! Couldn't even get them to get me book ends or a book case for my engineering notes so i currently have a massive pile of notebooks and logbooks on my desk.

Agreed, when i was working in Sydney i was pulling 55-60 hour weeks. I moved out to the UK and am doing similar work but only pulling 37 hour weeks (sometimes with overtime if its important like how it should be). The funniest thing is that my girlfriend keeps commenting how relaxed i seem to be, and we now have time to do our dance classes together and i actually can get back into my triathlon training (Instead of training in the middle of the night) and am going to enter the Barcelona iron man later in the year. I can concur with you it defiantly makes me feel like a new man!! I feel like i have time to think clearly now.

Most ships cant have weapons as they are entering the waters of many different countries each that has its own gun laws etc. My mate who use to work on oil ships off the coast of africa said they use to keep a heap of copper pipe and fire hoses left out on deck with the idea that if anything comes up alongside you drop 40kg copper pipes over the edge onto it and hit it with salt water hoses.

I am an Australian living in the UK and i just thought i would point out that Australia has a population of 22 million, but approximately 15 million live in large cities (population over 200K), and another 3.3 million live in small cities. So even thought we have an extremely low population density per square kilometre you will find most of that is farm land that doesn't require any infrastructure at all.

I mean just between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane you have almost half the countries population..

It is funny how you can predict the features of the future apple products. The first ipad is a nice product but its glaringly obvious that the next version will have at the very least a front facing camera, and probably a better screen and A9 dual core processor.

Ah so that's what I have been doing wrong for so long. No more biting and head butting my girlfriend while in bed! Great article btw.

That is the whole point of this, most online retails will just stop selling to Australia forcing you to go back to shop fronts.

Best urinals i have ever used are at the regatta club on the Brisbane river in Australia. The urinal is a big one way window looking over the beer garden. Its awesome when your full of beer taking a long piss and can stand and comment on the "view"

I work for a large electrical engineering company that develops technology that could be classified as smart gird technology. I think that the big game changer in the next 20 years is mainly going to be HVDC links using Voltage Source Conversion technology. This will allow a lot of low cost HVDC links to be constructed (this technology is perfect for offshore windfarms). Another technology that my company is involved in is Energy market management. So we run the servers that predict the loads from the network and also can predict future supply such as from power stations, stand by spinning loads, wind farms and solar stations (using weather data as input) using all these inputs the market can predict the wholesale price of power over the next 5 minute period. This combined with more HVDC links between networks will allow much more efficent power management from the generators perspective. This is the low hanging fruit of the next 20 years, and at the same time you will see consumer level optimisations as well such as smart meters etc.

Exactly at my company we deal with complex engineering problems. I had one guy I worked with who was an absolute genius he has a knack of solving difficult problems with abstract thinking. The problem is that you ask him a question and he gives you answers with the same sort of abstract thinking. So now picture the scene, your on a construction site and a industrial electrician comes up to ask a question and gets more questions shot back at him structured as a riddle... had so many complaints and people just getting upset. His only saving grace was when the installers learnt that its easier to email him a question than to ask it face to face.

Exactly, i wanted a very specific amplifier and speakers just the other day and had no option but to order them through the official distributor because no one else sells them.