While not a programmer I do sympathise with you. As a construction worker we used to have all sorts of problems dealing with competing standards. Having problems getting a round peg into a square hole? Try getting a metric anything to fit with an imperial anything. Nothing could ruin you day quicker than being giving imperial parts to do a job in a metric country. We don’t have these problems any more though. Everything is made in China now to a standard we want. I’m sure American manufacturing is still going strong though I wouldn’t want to be the boss/owner that thought the rest of the world was just going to use imperial.

There is not much in the way of industry on the gold coast apart from hospitality or construction. If you really wanted to live here (I can see why, where else in the world do you go to the supermarket and see babes shopping in bikini’s) you could consider living on the gold coast but working in Brisbane as there is a train link between the two, takes about 40-50 minutes though.

And we finally traced the leak! It was the carpenter that had to fix all these bloody doors.

I don't think so. Well no more than anywhere else. I would say its the governments fault. You can take this with a grain of salt or just put it in the 'he's full of it' bin but I think the police have a really really hard time controlling teenagers in this country lately. Seems every teenager can get away with literally murder as they all know they will have their records wiped when they turn 18. When I grew up in Australia you where scared to death of the police. If they caught you doing something wrong you copped it, literally. If I was to call a police officer a 'pig' in the streets I would be taken to the nearest alleyway and promptly dealt with. Those days are gone and these little rats know it. Nowadays parents immediately go for the lawyers if the police even look at their 'little angels' sideways. Add to this the fact that Australia is going through an 'ice' crisis at the moment as well. I wouldn't travel on a train after dark for love or money. As to this attack being racially motivated I would have to disagree, We do have a hell of a lot of racism in this country don't get me wrong I wouldn't argue that fact at all. But from the facts that I know of about this attack I'd be more inclined to say 'w rong place, wrong time'. Trains in both Sydney and Melbourne are not the safest places at night. I've been lucky to escape several attacks myself and once witnessed two police officers attacked by a gang of 20+ teenagers. To isolate this as as racism without seeing all the facts is just political grandstanding. Do they even mention how many other people are attacked on the railways? But you might want to take my views as tainted, I have spent too much time in places such as Kings Cross and add to that I have been stabbed twice and shot once.