Andrew Starr

Systemic issues with Ballarat police? I can't believe that...

www.ibac.vic.gov.au/article/ibac...

What about tri-mode a la British Rail Class 756, or Battery Electric like what SA has just proposed? You'd probably only need a 1.5MWh battery for the latter, which sounds like a lot but is only 15 x Kia EV9s worth.

Isn't the EV3 built in South Korea? EV5 is the only EV that I'm aware of that Kia is building in China.

I took an EV3 for a test drive the other day on the spur of the moment after being underwhelmed by the Hyundai Elexio test drive, really impressed with it..

The enshittification of Google - in this case Maps - continues...

Despite toll roads being turned off it announced mid trip "I've found an alternative route that saves 6 minutes and will cost $12" and unilaterally changed the route.

Needless to say we ignored it, my time isn't worth $2/min..

With dairy farmers in the family, I now want to hear about the logistical challenge of getting a bunch of cows into a BSL3 facility, milking them and dealing with a bunch of sh!t..

Haven't seen anyone post this, but heads up that the RBA have published their investigation into the Jan outage.

Unsurprisingly, they didn't do a media release on this one...

www.rba.gov.au/s/search.htm...

They'll be sitting on the Sunday morning couch within a month..

“This isn’t a ‘not all men’ piece. That’s a separate genre, usually published in the comments section beneath a news story about murdered women, by a man named ‘Dave’ whose profile picture is a flag.” Another knock out column from Sami Shah…

Didn't Prof James Wood do a paper with modelling that showed 2017 had ~4k flu deaths against official ABS data of ~1.6k?

I remember conversations on the bad site, but don't have access anymore so it's all lost to me..

Ascertainment bias is still a thing but maybe not as bad as back then?

Seems like an Android 16 thing, fix in the works..

bsky.app/profile/yjea...

Do you reckon that includes hxxp://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html (and other games, and maybe cooking)?

Their time spent seems like a bit of an outlier..

And did WaPo ever hit our top 20? They were offering AUD20 per year for a while which I thought may have moved the needle...

App screenshot

App seems a bit rubbish so far: start button doesn't seem to work; Background image is overlaid on status bar; Unclear if it only runs when open; unclear impact on battery life etc.

Hopefully the bugs get fixed and the app becomes a useful way of detecting the pervert glasses..

Grr..

Cantaloupe or rock melon: tastes of hotel fruit salad and regret..

From cars produced in 2021-23, when EV only WLTP range was tiny.

Would be interested to see what the real world fuel use is in Australia for the BYD PHEVs, especially given our home solar (free fuel!) penetration..

Unfortunately Australia doesn't capture this yet, but we should as part of NVES..

Looking forward to Estimates...

Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn't Offer Much Proof A new report finds that of 154 specific claims about how AI will benefit the climate, just a quarter cited academic research. A third included no evidence at all.

when big tech companies say that AI will save the planet, what kinds of AI are they actually talking about — and what's their proof? i took a look at some great new research from @ketanjoshi.co and talked to other experts about how a lot of this talk is probably bullshit:

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/independent-for-youth-allowance-through-part-time-work-or-earnings-for-rural-and-remote-students?context=43916

Yeah if still at rural home and studying semi local/online then my interpretation is that the parental 68k threshold kicks in, but for a city move it seems to be 160k.

Would be handy if they made it a bit simpler!

www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/independent-...

Yeah, getting classified as independent is the key, which is a bit easier for country kids referencd in the first post. Just have to earn $33k in your deferral year and have parents earning <160k to get maximum entitlements..

Not as easy as the baby boomers had it, but it's still as eminently doable as it was 20 years ago..

Would be handy if you could earn more than 540 a fortnight without losing out on YA, so hopefully that can get a bump up..

The parental income threshold for YA for country kids is much better than for city kids (~160k v ~70k), or you defer and work full time for 58 weeks and qualify as independent.

YA is 677 a fortnight if you earn up to 540, so including rent assistance you get 1360 for working about 10hrs a week.

Has it changed that dramatically over the last 20 years? Outside of the updated band 4, course costs don't seem too different after inflation (and some courses are significantly less).

Housing is expensive but you can still get decent 4br houses near Monash for $800 a week.

What else has changed?

Thank goodness for William Dalrymple 🙏🏼

@willdalrymple.bsky.social

He could have won a nobel prize a la Barry Marshall drinking a beaker of Helicobacter pylori bacteria!

Wall of red books at a library, with the heading: "I can't remember the title but the cover was red.."

I do love libraries...

It's a Metallurgical Coal mine, and unfortunately we still need steel.

We don't have an alternative that works at scale, unlike thermal coal & fossil gas which can largely be replaced by wind, solar & storage..

Lego tugboat from 1982..

You can't improve a classic..

It can never compete with the Lego Tug Boat from 1982..

The US health system has a lot to be critical of, but I can't really fault govs/insurance companies for not funding screenings that no other countries do..

The US seems unique that Colonoscopies are the main screening mechanism for bowel cancer.

In most other countries, screening is done using faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) usually beginning at age 45 or 50.

Here in Australia, we get mailed a kit when we turn 50 - something to look forward to!