Nath @ Nath @aussie.zone

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60

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2,188

Joined

2 yr. ago

Moderating

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1. Ralph Lister's Skyhold series - Really great fun
2. Devoured all of Honor Harrington by David Weber in about 3 months. It was all I could do not to just start them again I wanted more!
3. Kevin J Anderson's Hidden Empire series. A really interesting concept of an antagonist alien species. I liked them.
4. Julie Kagawa's Talon books - a fun bit of Urban Fantasy about dragons that shape shift into human form and try to live among us. I'm probably not its target demographic (but I like middle school and teen books more than I'm probably meant to), but I'd read these again.
5. Currently reading Naomi Novik's Telemere series and I'm 100% hooked. It's more dragons, but this time set in the Napolionic wars.

I don't think anyone looks at the USA and wants any of that noise. Possibly maybe the image the USA thinks it is a little (like what is portrayed in Friends). But those guys are not driving on any freeways.

We certainly don't want anything like their car culture.

I'm starting to think about retirement. Not very seriously, it's still over a decade away - but in a "how the hell are we going to get a house and pay it off before that?" kinda way.

But if we somehow manage it, retirement is going to be awesome.

An 'ideal' Australian dad isn't white. He's blue, lives in Brisbane and sounds like he used to sing indy hits in the 90's.

This post has been reported for possibly questionable source. Given that many people outside Australia won't be familiar with Green Left Weekly, I'll explain a couple of things:

1. Green Left Weekly is absolutely biased. It is not a broad news source, rather it selects articles that covers topics it and its readers are interested in. It will interview people that will talk about issues it cares about.
2. It often uses language that will trigger a more emotional response that a straight-talking site would avoid, they also skip providing sources sometimes.
3. That said, it is not factually incorrect. The very website used to report it as a questionable source also concedes that Green Left Weekly has never failed a fact check.
4. Australians generally know all this. Take the story with a grain of salt, but if the publication says a mining company is challenging for its right to dig up rare earths in Greenland in courts, you can accept it as given that a mining company is indeed doing that thing.

When they disagreed, and I loved when they disagreed, I usually fell into Margaret's camp. But he always had great insights, and it was rare for me not to be able to see where he was coming from. He was a kind and patient man, and I miss them on TV.

The biggest thing he taught me wasn't even about movies. It was how to have a full on heated discussion with love and respect and remain friends after. Farewell David, you never knew the many thousands of people you touched. But we'll remember you.

I mean, Perth installed a rail link in the last five years to the airport. It also costs $5.20 to travel 100km from the airport (if you buy a cash ticket - cheaper if you get a smartrider card).

Melbourne has been talking about it for 60 years, they just can't seem to prioritize it over whatever else the government spends money on. The airport itself has at various times been an impediment to the station as well, though. Much of the debate appears to stem on whether to make a subway or go above ground (cheaper).

So, basically like Theresienstadt.

I agree there needs to be more to stop Neo Nazis. I can’t help but think those powers could be used on other protesters though.

This is also my concern. While I mock these losers for hiding behind their masks like cowards, I also don't want it to become illegal to wear a mask in public/protests. Because I might want to wear one someday for something.

I think she stands a decent chance of getting acquitted. Unknown person in the house semi naked with her daughter. Nobody explains what is going on. Neither the boy nor the daughter admitted he was a boyfriend and it was consensual.

Honestly, I can see this going either way.

Who: Yes, Aussie zone appears to fit the definition of a social media site.

What: "A provider of an age-restricted social media platform must take reasonable steps to prevent age-restricted users having accounts with the age-restricted social media platform." Details are a bit scarce on "reasonable steps". There's a bit about how we are not to collect Government ID details though.

When: Presently December 10, 2025 but the bill is worded such that they are prepared to shift it.

Why: Protect the kiddies from the evils of the site. By the way, if you spot any actual bad content please report it.

How: and now we get to the big question. I truly don't see how you'd enforce this on Lemmy. Even if a perfect system were introduced to verify everyone's ages somehow, nothing stops people from shifting to a non-australian instance and just keep using the site. Or just spinning up their own private instance at home. Lemmy federation works a bit like email - imagine trying to stop kids from being able to access email. Again, I just don't see how you'd accomplish that.

So, we're doing what the government is doing. Keeping an eye on things and waiting to see how the big players respond. I'd love to see Facebook or YouTube to just go 'nup' and withdraw from the market. The public backlash would be insane and this bill would quickly vanish. People are asleep on this thing because they don't really see it affecting them. Yet.

The UK has just introduced an age verification thingy, and it's off to a poor start. The words are nice, but putting them into action is not trivial.

In Australia at least, those cards are everywhere in populated areas. Supermarkets and department stores pretty-much all stock them. I'd say that over 90% of Australians live within 3km of a store that sells Steam cards and takes cash. Most of us even closer than that.

I hear you - if I no longer paid my tax now, it wouldn't make a difference to the ATO financially. However, if all middle-income taxpayers in my demographic who pay between around $30,000 and $80,000 in tax were to stop paying the ATO, they would feel that.

I forget the tax brackets decades later, but $90x2-3 days a week was getting taxed enough that I was losing about two hours per shift on tax. I remember thinking of it in hours at work. The first two hours paid Mr. tax man, the remaining six were for me. I remember that I was making $7 per hour. My annual tax came out at less than $2k, before deductions etc. If all the kids in the same boat as me didn't have to pay tax, I doubt it'd make much difference to the ATO.

Your point is sound because I usually use a credit card for this, but most of my Steam purchases come from buying gift cards. However, I could easily buy those gift cards with cash.

Your comment implies this is not possible/common.

It rankled with me when I was 15-17 that I had to pay income tax as a kid making ~$70-$90 per day. My paltry income would be doing nothing for Mr tax man, but that money would be much better given to me on payday. I think I would have signed up to vote and get a say in how it was spent. But there are also a lot of 16 year old morons who would act in predictable ways if forced to vote.

Maybe introduce it as optional until you are 18? And then it goes compulsory.

I do. It's still a comment in a community and if we delete it here, it's gone for everyone I think.

What makes you come to this conclusion? Given that Australia has been connected to the British crown since colonial days - before federation, and we haven't gone down that path, I'm wondering what makes you think we will? The UK has had its attachment for half a millennia, they also seem to be doing ok.

In fact, I'll go one further and give a counter-example: India detached from the monarchy nearly 80 years ago and I think they've gone way further down that path. Presidents Modi and Trump have a fair amount in common.

So, I think I disagree with you on this point. At least, I can't see what you're getting at.

I don't call myself a monarchist. But I am in favour of someone holding the power to send us to an election if we get a non-functional government. Whoever that is needs to be totally independent of our day-to-day politics and essentially un-bribable.

Right now, that's the king in England. I'm not against disconnecting from that - but like I said, I don't know where else you'll find someone who is outside daily politics in Australia and can't be bribed to act against our interests. If you have a name, I'm all ears (so is the king! 😆).

If you are proposing we just do away with that, then I'd love to know how you'd deal with an Australian Trump administration. Because 3-4 years of that doesn't sound fun.

While Australia is in that supply chain, "stopping it" wouldn't do anything. For a start, the manufacturer/seller of the parts is Lockheed Martin. The government can sanction a country and tell LM they can't send their parts from Australia to Israel.

But all that will happen from this is LM will send the parts to their USA operations and from there, they'll magically be reassigned to Israel. Or worse: They move production of those parts to another nation and Australians lose their jobs. Either way, the parts will still get to Israel. The government holds no actual cards in this equation.