[05:22] <jea> jared: Completely agree. Posts and person removed from group. She is not from Aus anyway based on her profile
[05:25] <jared> jea: cool, I'm just too much of a social media newbie to be sure
[05:25] <jea> No worries. It is hard to tell with some people until afterwards, like in this case
[05:26] <jared> Yeah if in doubt I add and then clean up as quick as I can when I find out 
[05:27] <jea> That is the approach I use too
[05:27] <jea> luckily it doesn't happen too often
[05:31] <jared> Hows uni coming along?
[05:31] <jea> Assignments finished on Tuesday, so now on study week before exams
[05:32] <jea> Handing in the last assignment was a very nice feeling, after having 10 assignments in 6 weeks
[05:32] <jared> Damn, the most I've had is about 7 in 6
[05:32] <jared> And 4 of those were only 500 words.
[05:33] <jea> Mine were basically all programming ones, apart from one course that was finding problems in a document and then writing such a document
[05:46] <jared> Ah, I'd be lying if I said I knew how much work that was ;)
[05:46] <jared> But either way, just getting that many things done in that time is a pain in the neck.
[05:47] <jea> Yep, certainly is
[05:47] <jared> I'm just writing an economics assignment tonight (due midnight) and then I only have 2 exams before I'm half way through the course.
[05:48] <jea> Cool. How many years is it?
[05:49] <jared> Well because I've been doing 2 subjects at once it's been 1 year to do half of it. But I'll be dropping back to 1 subject at a time from the end of this teaching period so it will take another 2 years to finish.
[05:49] <jared> You must be a fair way through yours now as well?
[05:50] <jea> Right. At least there is flexibility to do it over the time frame you want
[05:50] <jared> Yeah, pretty much you can do as much or as little as longa s you like.
[05:50] <jea> Yes, after this semester I will only have 3 more semesters of the degree
[05:50] <jared> I can not do teaching periods if I don't want to, etc.
[05:51] <jared> I think it's because it's so expensive as long as you're willing to pay they're willing to take the money. We worked it out that the tuition alone is $100 per student per contact hour.
[05:51] <jared> Plus books and standard uni fees.
[05:51] <jea> At this stage I just want to get it all over and done with
[05:51] <jea> Yes, it is quite expensive
[05:51] <jea> And the prices just keep going up
[05:52] <jared> Yeah I wanted to do it all in 2 years but it's really killing me at the moment. No time for anything between 40+ hour week at work and 20+ hours of uni a week (more in assessment weeks).
[05:53] <jared> Yeah, the thing is, if they cap the self eduation expense for tax claims it's going to really hurt everyone in my course. They want to cap it at 2000 a year whereas that is only one six week course for us.
[05:53] <jea> That change is going to hurt a lot of people
[05:54] <jea> Unfortunately the politicians in their world of politics don't need any of it, so they don't see the point
[05:55] <jared> I don't mind the loss of the reduction for if you paid upfront, that didn't bother me but I know there are people spending 40k plus a year on studies that are going to probably stop if that comes in.
[05:57] <jea> They want people to keep learning, but they do not want to assist them in doing it
[05:59] <jared> Ah well, my economics assignment is beckoning. I'm looking at the economic rationale behind paid parking as westfield shopping centres. Essentially, for shoppers it's great!
[05:59] <jea> That is an interesting topic to investigate. Certainly a divisive one
[06:00] <jared> When you get into it it's not really divisive at all. Those that were freeloading and not using the shopping centre will dislike it but the shopping centre car park isn't there for commuters or other businesses in the area.
[06:01] <jared> Less than 7% of shoppers even needed to pay anything at all.
[06:01] <jea> I don't have an issue with it. It seems the main complainers are the commuters
[06:02] <jared> And in fact all it meant was that the genuine shoppers had a much better experience beause it was then much easier to find a park on a regular basis.
[06:02] <jea> Possibly it is a bit annoying for the staff in the shopping centres, having to pay, but people in the CBD have to do that
[06:02] <jared> The shopping centre isn't paid to be a park and ride though, so the commuters aren't event contributing to the shopping centre revenue at all, just the operating cost of the centre.
[06:03] <jared> There are 1k parks assigned for employees out of the 6.5k total parks available.
[06:03] <jea> I think commuters just like to complain in general
[06:03] <jea> is this Chermside?
[06:03] <jared> That's the first one, yep.
[06:03] <jared> I believe carindale and soon garden city will have it as well.
[06:04] <jea> Yes, Carindale has it now. Garden City soon with their big upgrade
[06:04] <jared> Suits me to a tee, I'm never in a shopping centre for more than 3 hours.
[06:04] <jea> At GC they just demolished an entire carpark for the development. Paid parking would help them out a lot during the upgrade, so what spaces are left are not taking by people on the bus
[06:05] <jared> And if I am it's because I'm buying stuff, therefore parking will be free anyway.
[06:05] <jea> Neither. In and out quickly suits me
[06:05] <jared> jea: with garden city all you do is arrive right on 9am when they open up the car park near the bus way so you just drive straight into an empty car park.
[06:05] <jared> If you're there early trying to get a park don't bother, you just have to wait until they open it.
[06:06] <jea> I only found out yesterday that you didn't have to pay if you buy a certain amount
[06:06] <jared> Yeah you get an hour extra free for $50 and if you spend $200 it's free for all day.
[06:06] <jared> Something along those lines anyway.
[06:06] <jea> Ok. I suspect I will never be there long enough to find out
[06:07] <jea> and yes, the David Jones carpark at GC is useful for the late opening time. not that I shop at that time very much
[06:09] <jared> GC is my local "big" shopping centre. Realistically the CBD is closer but it's a pain
[06:10] <jea> GC is closest to us also. We often go to Carindale though due to having more shops available
[06:10] <jea> looking forward to the new shops in GC though
[06:10] <jea> two netsplits. that is a but much
[06:12] <jea> netsplits got a bit confusing then, so reconnected