The House(s) of Fran_mart

My original aim for this post was to do a general post about what could loosely be termed indicators of affluence in the area.  However when I started to investigate the most obvious indicator of this - income - I found I had enough to say about that, without pushing the strength of the data beyond breaking point, to complete a post on its own so here we go. Personal Income The question on the form asks for people's income in ranges, defining the response categories in terms of weekly income and the annual equivalent.  That reflects the different ways people in different situations think about their income.  Personally, I always think of my income in terms of annual amounts (because that is how Commonwealth Public Service salaries were expressed and that is what ATO is interested in) so I will use those values in what follows. I am unsure what happens now, but back in the day most of the ranges quoted on the form related to income levels of interest to people concerned with so

It was pretty cool (about -1 o C ) and foggy when we took off on our dog walk at 8am this morning.  It was still that way as we dropped down the hill in Widgiewa.  I thought the consequent muted light made these trees look attractive.  Rather like the River Red Gums in Sydney Nolan's Big Bend paining.  Later in the day a friend sent me an SMS to say there was a Yellow-billed Spoonbill at the Bungendore Cultural Centre (wet Annex).  ie the Sewage Works.  Indeed there was!  There were several other duck species present but nothing of great note. Going back home I passed down Trucking Yard Lane and noticed quite an amount of bird life at the small dam just off the Kings Highway (Trucking Yard Dam #2).  There were a good number of ducks on the dam and a very large flock (at least 100 birds) of House Sparrows in a leafless Hawthorn.  I have counted 75 birds in the image and there were others to the side and in the back of the tree.  There were 24 Plumed Whistling Ducks on

Before getting into the topics in the subject line, I will mention how useful I am finding the 2016 Census Dictionary in explaining the meaning and/or content of items.  Anyone planning to use the data should consider looking at the dictionary. This post started off thinking about working my way through the traditional demographic variables with Marital Status the next cab off the rank. I will confess that early in my more serious work with the Census (I think around 1993) I suggested - publicly - that there was no longer a need to have this topic in the Census.  Did I ever find out quickly that this was entirely a Satanic proposal.  I can't remember quite how many letters of protest we got (all of which were knee-jerk reactions by very conservative people) but vividly recall getting a 2 page spread in the Sydney Daily Telegraph with many Sydney identities (including Bobby Limb and Dawn Lake; and Warwick Capper and his wife) saying how important marriage was to them.  I was qu

After a lot of visits by builders and contractors our fences and sheds claim was signed off by NRMA Insurance  earlier this month.  It took a bit longer than we'd thought, but they did have a bunch of claims in the area so I'm not complaining. There are approximately 5 main stages to the work: Repairs to the woodwork on the deck and consequent painting; Fencing; Demolition of burnt sheds; Replacement of sheds; Replacement of fire-damaged main water tank. Today saw the start of part 1.  This will be really good to get done as we have not been able to use one route off the deck since the fire (and, as always once you are blocked from doing something you realise just how often you did it). The first two photos are before work started.  The unpainted wood is a make-safe done by some tradesmen very soon after the fires to replace a purling which had burnt out at the base. Here are the guys from ACT Trade Services going at it. Giovanni on the ground and Roberto

The only place to begin this is with a discussion of what is meant by Gazette area.  In using Table Builder for the 2011 Census Results I combined 3 State Suburbs (Carwoola (CA), Hoskinstown (HO) and Primrose Valley (PV)) to approximate the catchment area as shown in the graphic below.  I noted that the area for Primrose Valley was not right, as the boundary crossed the Queanbeyan River to include Urila.  In starting "work" on this post I was surprised to find that the populations of Hoskinstown and Primrose Valley had dropped by about 50% between 2011 and 2016.  This led me to look at the ABS Geography pages which showed that those two suburbs had both been split ( which was not at all apparent as the same name had been retained ). Carwoola appears to be the same in 2016 as in 2011.  Primrose Valley has been split with parts now going to Urila (U) and Yarrow (Y) neither of which existed (nor indeed exist) in the State Suburb list for 2011. Hoskinstown has had 3 parts sp

Imputation in the Census is a statistical process through which estimates are made of the number of people in dwellings which do not complete a form; and the core demographic attributes (age, sex and marital status) are imputed for each "estimated " person. In a previous detailed post I concluded that it appeared that problems with non-private dwellings (NPDs) - known by the UN Statistics Division as Communal Dwellings, which I actually think is a better term but not the traditional one used in Australia -  were more an issue in the capital cities; and  incorrectly rating non-responding private dwellings (OPDs) as occupied was the core issue in rural areas.   This post attempts to investigate that issue a little more rigorously. I think I do that but will note that what follows runs a risk of illustrating two issues with statistical investigations: It is possible to find that one gets sucked in to following "interesting trails" well beyond the origi

May you not live in interesting times! I make that statement having had an interesting 48 hours with the small dog. We did an 8km walk in Queanbeyan with her on Tuesday 18 July and she was in fine form. On returning home she was put on the lead to put tooth to bone which concluded with her yelping very loudly. This is most unusual for her and when I went to investigate she was caught up in some vegetation. On untangling her she gagged and vomited up a lot of slimy foam. This was repeated s everal times over the next couple of hours. She then seemed to come good until evening when she became very unsettled and appeared to be looking for a dark corner to crawl into.  A definite worry.  The unsettled behavior continued through the night and we didn't get much sleep.   The process of settling her down was to cuddle her and stay very still oneself.   By morning she seemed to be getting very unresponsive.  As soon as our vet (John Montgomery of Sonza ) opened on Wednesday morn

It was a tad cool out this way this morning.  We recorded -5.0 o C while a nearby resident scored -8.1 o C just about the time we passed her house on the dog-walk! Of course this coincided with my test of the lawn sprinkler system firing up.  As a result some of the trees became a trifle ice encrusted.  In this image I noticed how I had caught some gravid drops ...  .. and decided to try and capture one at the point of separation from the twig.  Unfortunately this turned out to be a sort of " Whack-a-Mole " exercise but with scores of places for the target to appear.  So I haven't got a plop-drop but I found these make a nice sequence of capturing more mirror images of our house in the drop.  This one makes it clear what I am on about!

This time last year we were in Atherton, experiencing maximum temperatures around 28 o C.  This year it feels, some days, as though the number is similar but the letter has shifted 3 places down the alphabet.  Today was not flash. The morning started off quite warm (0 o C) but quite damp after some miserable drizzle.  This did give some interesting cloud FX on the dog walk.  Looking down on the Plain ...  .. and back towards Taliesin.  Later in the morning I took myself off to the Plain to see if I could discover some interesting birds.  Not really, was going to be the answer until coming back along Briars-Sharrow Rd I came across a flock of 318 (yes, I counted them) Sulphur-crested Cockatoos.  They have been feeding in that paddock for weeks.  After the count I heard the distinctive calls of Double-barred Finches but couldn't get them into sight.  A heard record is good enough for Bird-of-the-Day!  As I climbed back into my car a male Nankeen Kestrel was busy sorting