Steve's stupid but brilliant idea of the day

Brisbane and much of Queensland has been incredibly wet this summer, with thousands of homes flooded, and hundreds of thousands of parents with school children depressed that the kids have inside continuously for the last 4 weeks.

Now we get news that:

The Australian Building Codes Board is preparing the first technical standards for construction in areas liable to flooding.

Excellent. My plans for all flood prone houses to be Queenslander style built on pontoons may get a run yet.

Child-like drawings to come, as well as a photo of the really weird slug found on a tree yesterday at Mt Glorious during a break in the torrential rain. Yes, my wife was that desperate to get out of the house.

Update: here's the slug. (Easily 6 - 8 cm long):


As for the floods generally: amazing and pretty horrifying scenes of flash flooding in Toowoomba was on the news tonight. Two people were killed in a car swept away (I assume, not one of the cars in this video). Here's an amateur video from the town:



I see that Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is saying that it is only the Wivenhoe Dam, which is full and letting go of a lot of water, that is preventing Brisbane from having the equivalent of a 1974 flood. There is actually some talk now of it being the biggest floods Queensland has ever seen, but exactly how you compare these things I'm not sure.