It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

• What levels of asbestos? ppm numbers are really important information to release, they mean the difference between normal ambient levels (there is detectable asbestos everywhere) and actually of concern.
• Is it unrelated to the mulch, as the supplier claims?
• Is it being accidentally introduced, introduced through negligence or intentionally introduced as a disposal method?

Until we get some sort of resolution, I'm worried about the mulch I buy and use :(

Look at the equipment! That's insane! It's probably 1 sim card -> 1 android radio chipset -> 1 antennae. ie equivalent to owning a pile of android phones.

I looked "sim box" up and yes you can just buy this stuff.

*removed externally hosted image*

They have to know their target market is dodgy, you don't need physical phones/radios/sims for sending bulk SMS unless you are intentionally trying to look like individual mobile phones in order to bypass something (free unlimited SMS billing? spam detection?). There are online bulk sending companies and telecoms themselves provide service to them, no physical phones needed, all above board.

Also they cost an arm and a leg. It would be cheaper to get a stack of cheap phones (but I guess you're paying for the automation of this spamming solution).

Looking forward to seeing if there is a whirlpool topic about this article :D I wonder if some of the cheaper virtual mobile phone providers do this to piggy back cheap unlimited plans from other networks ;D

Bubblers on the trains

ow my teefth

Tell him that he is trying to get government to intervene in a market-driven choice

This video has some interesting views on how it could be feasible: https://aussie.zone/post/5422070

As of today I seem to be getting error messages every few minutes and it has lead to me to lose one of my submissions (yay to form history addon).

Note: I am aware of the Aussie.zone Lemmy restart every couple of hours (on the dot) that causes these same messages and problems. This seems (?) to be something different, it's happening more often.

Apparently something similar was once wargamed by the US and the carrier was lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

(The politics in that article remind me of a Kris Longknife book)

Is it bad that I suddenly want to build my own navy and rockets? This is like model trains.

Confirmed, it's not just you:

https://aussie.zone/post/5225196

https://slrpnk.net/c/meta

I've made an account application on their site to try and contact them. Going to be very sad if my posts to slrpnk get blackholed :( I don't know where else I can find soil people.

"Why did they only consider SMR?" is being asked by several people, so I'll paste this here:

2.4.4 Perceived inconsistency between high nuclear SMR capital costs and low-cost nuclear electricity overseas

Based on information to date, current nuclear SMR capital costs are significantly higher than any other technology included in GenCost. This result appears out of step with overseas experience where some countries enjoy low cost nuclear generation. There are two reasons for this seemingly inconsistent result.

GenCost has been advised by stakeholders that small modular reactors are the appropriate size nuclear technology for Australia. Australia’s state electricity grids are relatively small compared to the rest of the world and planned maintenance or unplanned outages of large scale nuclear generation would create a large contingent event of a gigawatt or more that other plant would find challenging to address. In the present system, it would take two or more generation units to provide that role. As such, large-scale nuclear plants which are currently lower cost than nuclear SMR, may not be an option for Australia, unless rolled out as a fleet that supports each other - which represents a much larger investment proposition.

The second issue is that observations of low cost nuclear overseas may in some cases be referring to projects which were either originally funded by governments or whose capital costs have already been recovered. Either of these circumstances could mean that those existing nuclear plants are charging lower than the electricity price that would be required to recover the costs of new commercial nuclear deployment. Such prices will not be available to countries that do not have existing nuclear generation such as Australia.

In summary, given overseas nuclear electricity costs may be referring to technology that is not appropriate for Australia, or assets that are not seeking to recover costs equivalent to a commercial new-build nuclear plant, there may be no meaningful comparison that can be made to Australia’s circumstances which is the focus of GenCost.

Source: The actual report, section 2.4.4 . Thankyou @fine_sandy_bottom@aussie.zone for the reference.

Thanks Mountaineer.

The doublespeak of EULAs and business PR statements terrifies me, it's like a legal language but it's intentionally designed to misinform the average Joe. I'm a bit sad that I didn't get to use all of these examples here.

When a company says they "respect" their users then it means "we really want to retain them but we're scared they might realise we're evil, so lets play the opposite character". I think Optus recently said that giving free data would be more respectful than other options -- it also turns out to be basically free for them to do so (their mobile broadband service will be a bit lower quality due to the higher load and maybe they'll have to pay a little bit more for transit, but I doubt it's much).

"We may share your data with third parties" means "we will share your data with third parties (constantly, because selling your information is our main business model)". It's dishonest but they love using it because at a casual glance the "may" makes this sentence seem unimportant. Just like how a computer repair guy "may see" your data whilst doing their job, but they are a professional and won't mention or share anything.

"User security" is often stated as the motivation for some unpopular move, but what they really mean is "our financial security". Just mentally substitute those words in every time a big company talks about security. It's never about the users.

And finally: "meet the specific needs of our individual customers" means "trick the customer into thinking they don't need something, so later we can rort them for it (or not have to provide it) when they realise they do need it". Insurance companies that let you play roulette with "only pay for the services you need". Man I better plan ahead for that bung leg in 2025.

We clearly need a market solution. Competitive passports from private vendors fix will this problem.

The good companies will correctly recognise that paying for a passport is difficult, so they'll respect us by providing passport-as-a-service instead. Small monthly payments are easier for the average Aussie to approach and many are so used to them that upfront payment might seem like a scam anyway.

To protect your privacy and security your passport may include third party pages from trusted organisations.

The government should provide a website to compare all of the passport providers, to make sure that Australians are finding the best deal that suits their particular needs. And don't forget that every Australian does have different travel needs, shorter length passports would increase affordability to help the average joe. Of course if limits are breached it will inconvenience the vendor, so reasonable provisions will need to be made to assist them if this occurs.

Expect 2nd hand phone prices on eBay to spike.

(On the other hand: ones that can only do 3G voice will suddenly get cheaper. Some of these might be fixable through changing to a provider that provides the correct firmware over-the-air and/or by flashing a new rom. Maybe)

N.B. Porcelain is a silicate. Clay dust exposure is one of the traditional causes of silicosis, potters are (mostly) taught to clean their workplaces with hoses not brooms.

What are the replacement materials?

I presume that laminated/coated MDF isn't the same market segment as heavy, dense engineered stones. Perhaps they'll go solid epoxy with no silica filler? That would be more expensive but probably work. I suspect they'll still want cheap fillers however, so non-silica stones might be chosen (but surely most stone dusts are bad?).

EDIT: Oh dear https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-05/study-finds-safety-concerns-in-engineered-stone-alternatives/103185450

Latency is particularly important to me. Indirectly this means congestion, available bandwidth and buffering policies.

I run SQM on my home router, this keeps things like web browsing buttery smooth even if someone starts torrenting. The ability for SQM to have control over the connection relies on it being the weakest/slowest/most controlling link (I configure it to a bandwidth slightly slower than my normal connection speed). If a router somewhere in the NBN/ISP networks starts buffering my packets heavily (ie my connection speed drops) then my SQM loses its control and ability to fix things.

That's quite a mouthful :P All I know is that with Aussie things have been OK, but that's also probably because I'm on one of the lower tier speed plans. Higher speeds might fluctuate.

ISPs would definitely compete if they ran on different medium; but mobile broadband is hit an miss and I don't see any other affordable alternatives to the NBN at the moment. Starting up a community WISP sounds romantic but I'm sure it's a lot of work and I live in the suburbs, not the urbs, so it'd probably be hard to find participants.

Will this lead to another trial failure, or is it minor?

Instead of competing with your competitors you buy your competitors.

:(

I'll have to share that story, thanks :) I might also suggest my colleagues try rinkbarking some ehrharta.

I've been told that we want to keep it in some sort of tortured semi-alive state. I can't remember the reasoning (possibly bird hollows or epiphytes?), I was too blinded by the horror :|

Either ask NSW Foresty to drill and poison it again or see if we can do it ourselves. Not sure how the politics work there, there is probably precedent.