The sad thing is they aren’t really equipped to live in any world but the one being created for them. All the education indicators are trending down. They can’t do much without an internet connection and apps

Last big one here in SA I didn’t keep on top of them and just about everything stored in the shed got covered in mouse shit and piss or chewed up even if it was in drawers or cupboard or stored in plastic bags. Lots of damage to books and magazines I didn’t have room to keep inside that had to be thrown out. They can make a hell of a mess.

Thanks for the warning. I will have to make sure the traps are set and check things are stored securely. Might be my project for the next week or so.

Yeah, my parents bought a fibro shitbox in the sticks on a public service income. Its basically uninhabitable by todays standards and while the land might have appreciated in value more than inflation it wouldn’t beat any other investments. City property prices are what happens when you depopulate rural Australia and move all the good jobs. But fuck everyone else I got mine right?

The media wants to turf Labor out and replace them with a bunch of yes men and women for the big corporations, Gina and the Trump crime cartel. Labor is still at last nominally the party of working Australians, but they are are forced to do weak shit or get crucified in the court of public opinion, ironically by the people who would benefit most by supporting them.

I fucking hate what passes for debate and news these days.

I was around 50 years ago. Just about everyone lived in poverty compared to today.

Housing is the standout difference. Housing was much, much more affordable. But also most houses were small and simple. Didn’t have much insulation, no air con, lucky to have more than one power point in a room, often built with dangerous materials like asbestos. Dangerous old wiring.

The billionaire owned media and foreign influence is heavily shaping public opinion for their own purposes. Oddly there is no dissatisfaction when a conservative government is engaging in massive wealth transfer to the rich and multinationals and closing all our industry. Then the sky is falling when we have a Labor government trying to get us through difficult times created by circumstances outside their control.

Meta management are evil but kind of clueless. I would guess the usual suspects including Palantir are whispering in their ears.

That would be the majority of US citizens. Pity the dumb fucks don’t bother voting.

How long do you stay on a platform before the outreach to new people is outweighed by implicit support of the platform?

It’s a tough call. It is difficult to reach out to outsiders and talk to them but it’s the only way to have a conversation with them.

Unfortunately Ukraine opened my eyes to a very painful truth. The protection of nuclear powers is worth nothing (including the US nuclear umbrella) and having your own nukes is everything.

If you don’t have an independent capability the nuclear powers destroy your countries youth, heritage and future in endless proxy wars. I don’t ever want that for my kids. I don’t want nukes either but having our own nukes is a lesser evil.

Family member spends all day every day recording and editing videos for youtube. Never finds an audience. Never gets promoted. The service is too busy pushing AI slop. All that video storage for the long tail of content with almost no views must cost a fortune. Meanwhile big quality youtubers seem to not be growing for some time like they have hit a ceiling. I think Youtube has been in decline for some time. Instead of fix it, which would require investment and ideas, I think they pull the usual bad US MBA style management practice and attempt to maximise revenues on the way down until they finally kill it.

I do not want to buy American phones, particularly Apple. I want to go back to card over phone. It isn’t really any less convenient to carry a sliver of plastic. My end game for mobile is degoogled android or Linux where I won’t have access to banking.

I think least cost routing is supposed to be available for traders or they can set their terminals to prefer EFTPOS. I think I read that some banks let you set a preference on the card but mine does not have anything in the app. I might need to contact them.

I pay my internet with PayiID. Also use BPay. Osko. A lot of ecommerce is restricted to US platforms. I would prefer to make NFC payments with EFTPOS but haven’t worked out a way to do it. Might have to research.

Norway is a petro state. Those EVs are green washing, paid for by exporting fossil fuel. Those EVs will all be broken in a few years and they will send them to land fill and buy another lot. Not half as smart as building public transport and liivible cities.

Australia could also be a petro state and own the profits from mineral extraction and invest it for our people but the risk of doing that is becoming addicted to fossil fuel revenue.

The truck network is privately owned and the big company owners are huge political donors. They will always oppose rail. We have road trains going through town day and night and the roads are getting years of wear in months. Privatise the profits. Socialise the costs.

There are huge bypasses and highway upgrades not far away costing millions and none of the road trains use them. They are tearing up the B roads because it’s the only route they are allowed on. It’s crazy.

The rail here was never fit for purpose. Installed a century ago and conditions were so bad it moved at a crawl. It could not compete with the massive public funding that goes into roads.

I agree with building near use. It’s better use of land as well to put them on the roof of buildings.

There are a lot of small scale solar installations on rural properties. I would guess it is often a question of supporting infrastructure and economics not political opposition.

Example of rural small scale solar on SA https://www.redmud.net.au/our-farms

From memory, suggest fact check, the French nuclear subs use less enriched uranium so require more frequent refueling. If the French agreed to give us access we would basically be acquiring nuclear technology to be able to maintain them ourselves. I think the US/UK lawyered their way around things. They provide more highly enriched fuel which is closer to weapons grade, and so more of a proliferation risk. However it goes back to the US for servicing very infrequently (10 yrs or something) and we claim we just operate the reactors and there is no technical proliferation? Or something like that. Like everything from the US I would guess the reactor tech is more like a rental with extensive T&C.

Converting the French subs to diesel seems to have been a source of problems. If we had been up front with France about the US/UK promising nuclear subs they might have been open to negotiation. We took the first offer like suckers. Typical Morrison.

Why can’t we make card payments without Visa in Australia? We need to ditch these foreign companies and develop our own or co-operate with peer countries. I ditched Paypal and Amazon but I still have to donate to Visa every time I buy a pie.

They have been getting fuel into the country and trying to support critical industries and combat price increases. There is a limit. We aren’t about to sanction the USA or start a war with them. Global oil prices aren’t something our government can control.

Whatever they do it’s going to end with fuel rationing I think. Odd and even plate days etc. Seen it all before. People forget quickly how vulnerable we are to disruptions in the global supply chain.

Cutting fuel excise is likely a poor decision conomically but there is a constant theme I see online, don’t know where it comes from, that this government does nothing. They are obviously doing a hell of a lot and perhaps more than they should. It isn’t being reported or understood for some reason.

Long term it would be bad. High prices help hasten energy transition and energy independence but the collapse of the Libs has left a very dangerous power vacuum.

Hopefully Trump dies of natural causes or gets the 25th soon and the disruptions in the gulf ends.

Meanwhile Labor needs to be seen to be doing popular things to keep the fossil fuel and billionaire funded populists to 20%

Government is always about finding a balance, not being perfect.

Country has public health system and runs extensive preventative health campaigns to reduce preventable illness and burden on healthcare system.

Meanwhile encourages people on bikes on to roads with vehicles which weigh over a tonne and have extensive blind spots with nothing more than some polystyrene on their head.

This is blatant corruption of the political process by the motor vehicle lobby. Call it out wherever you see it. Vehicularisation of cycling is a dead end. It only works for a minority if risk taking, super fit cyclists willing to play chicken. Everyone else is excluded.

What are your citizens going to do with that info which they could not have done already?