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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • In October the Gaza Health Ministry claimed 471 people were killed by an Israeli missile strike on a hospital. Widespread credible (independent) evidence proves a small Hamas rocket missfired and hit a carpark near the hospital, causing relatively minor damage (there was a large fireball, but it was mostly rocket fuel - which is far less damaging than an explosive payload intended to kill).

    None of the credible evidence was able to put a number to the deaths in that accident but it’s highly improbable that 471 people were in the carpark. And it definitely wasn’t an Israeli rocket.

    In other words - Gaza’s health ministry is not a reliable source. Some of the things they report are probably accurate but they have been proven to be unreliable. Don’t trust anything they say unless it’s been backed by someone more reliable (in which case, you might as well refer to the other source instead).

    At best, the ministry failed verify facts (e.g. was a large missile even fired at all?) before reporting what happened. But I think that’s being too charitable. For example where did they get the 471 number from? I think they made it up. I don’t have proof but it’s the only believable explanation.

    Worse though - they haven’t retracted the claim. Mistakes are understandable… but failing to admit someone in your organisation made a mistake is unacceptable.


  • Signal Just Works™️

    Until you drop your phone in the swimming pool, and every message/photo you’ve ever received is just… gone. Forever.

    Sorry but I don’t buy any claim that Signal “just works”. It’s pretty clear they care about security more than anything else even when that means making decisions that are user hostile. And that’s fine - if you feel like you need that level of security I’m glad Signal exists. But it doesn’t really align with the general public and Signal is never going to be a mass market messaging service unless something changes (Signal or the general public).

    What’s weird to me is an app that excludes itself from phone backups considers SMS a valid form of authentication when a user links a device to a phone number - especially when you can necessarily link a device to a number that is already tied to someone else’s device. Like how is that ever going to be secure? Spoiler: it’s not. It’d make a lot more sense to me if users simply crated a username and shared it with other people instead of a phone number… and if they forget their password… come up with new username.



  • From the article: “The incident has been reported to officers from Richmond Police District who have commenced an investigation.”

    If I was the driver’s lawyer, I’d be instructing him to keep his mouth shut for the entirety of that investigation and whatever criminal charges might follow.

    At the start of the video the bus is stopped on a downhill, so the handbrake must have been on. Did it fail or did a student release the brake? Whatever the answer, the driver failed to maintain proper control of the vehicle and and also failed to supervise the kids. A lot of people could have died and he’s in big trouble.


  • It’s a tough call. Many forums have a rule against changing the title at all.

    Those forums are wrong. A title should accurately reflect the content. We can’t choose the title other websites choose… but we can choose a title for our posts and we should take advantage of that.

    Also - if you find yourself posting on a forum with that rule, just ignore it. And then tell them the title you typed out yourself was copy/pasted. They’ll have no way of knowing since so many news services A/B test titles anyway.

    Here’s the tile I would’ve used: “Police Alert Parents to iPhone’s Automatic Contact Sharing Feature” — I think we can agree it’s more accurate than the deliberately unclear title this post currently has.




  • As someone who grew up in Malanda… not much crime there as far as I know. Everyone in the town is on a first name basis and friendly.

    But other towns only slightly larger in the same area are out of control. I’m talking nuisance crimes - such as a kid smashing in the windscreen of your car with a baseball bat or spray painting a penis on your shop sign or straight up burning a business building to the ground for no reason other than they think it’s funny.

    If it was once in a blue moon… ok. That’s what insurance is for. But when you’re personally a victim of stuff like that several times a year and so is everyone else you know… it’s borderline unliveable. The police force are so under-funded most of these crimes don’t even get reported. They show up four days later and take a few notes, and that’s it.

    As for what Knuth is doing about it… not much he can do other than complain. Police are run from Brisbane and it’s clear they don’t think it’s a priority. Shit’s been getting worse every year for as long as I’ve lived here. Supposedly they need 150 additional officers for the district and recently hired four. They don’t report how many retired or quit in frustration (I suspect more than four).

    Last time I had a chat with a local Malanda officer, he said he’s in hot water because an independent audit reported people speeding regularly on a stretch of highway but where he’d never issued any speeding fines. It was a down hill where you need to be riding the brakes to stay within the speed limit and was recently reduced from 100km/h to 60km/h for no reason — the road is safer than it ever has been, due to upgrades, and there was never a crash even before the safety improvements. I’m talking a nice wide straight highway with nothing but cow paddocks on either side of the highway. Even if you “crashed”, you’d harmlessly get stuck in the mud and the next car to drive past would help you get out of the mud. I wonder if he’s been replaced by someone who’s happy to issue tickets instead of helping with real problems (I don’t live there anymore).




  • Which one of those would you rather live near? And why do they get held to different standards?

    A lot of our coal power plants are just a hundred metres from suburbs full of homes. We also have rules that allow The coal plant below was across the highway from an entire town (thankfully, shut down and did so ahead of schedule because it was too expensive to be financially viable).

    The smoke coming out of the coal power plants is known to be toxic and kills an estimated 8 million people per year globally. Australia allows coal plants to emit those toxins at 10x higher levels than other countries and we regularly fine coal power stations for exceeding the limits placed on them.

    The second one is well within 2km (NSW’s new limit) of some farm houses which protested their construction, supposedly because they’d get cancer. There wouldn’t be many places in Australia that have suitable winds without being within 2km of a house. Realistically the only real potential problem is a power plant might fall over and land on a cow. One of them caught fire once… but all of the fire was at the top of the tower and it didn’t reach the ground. They do make a bit of noise, but less than, say, cars driving down a road.


  • They have a draft map of suitable locations for wind turbines and then filled the map with shades of green. Where green, for some reason, is a location where your application is likely to be denied.

    They are supposedly using red for sites that are “desirable” for wind turbines… supposedly because that’s just according to the key on the map. There is literally no red on the map that I can see.

    Keep in mind most of NSW doesn’t even have any reliable wind at all - probably the grey area of the map. To me it sends a clear message NSW just isn’t planning to allow wind power at all. They are going to keep burning fossil fuel as long as they possibly can.



  • I don’t think the ATO has such a list. They do maintain a list of payroll software but it’s ridiculously long (MYOB alone has dozens of entries) and I suspect it’s not a complete either.

    https://softwaredevelopers.ato.gov.au/product-register

    They don’t list wether any of it runs on linux, or which ones even work at all… and in particular if you have employees then you need to be careful as calculating the wrong amount of pay (or superannuation) could be classified as wage theft, and you can go to jail for that.

    If you’re just doing your own tax, then it’s a lot easier and the penalty for an honest mistake is reasonable (often no penalty at all…). You could just do it all on paper without any issues, or an openoffice spreadsheet, or free/open source software like ledger-cli.org.


  • for the “Rate I currently pay”, which is 0.08c/kwh

    How did you get that rate? We pay 33 cents, and it was 24 cents just a few months ago… wouldn’t be surprised if it goes up again next year and the year after since even 33 cents is government subsidised (so - there’s no cheaper option available).

    otherwise I would have not have pulled the trigger on a 50,000$ project

    Ooof. Why’d you do that? We simply put (a bit over) 5kW of panels on the roof, and a good 5kW inverter. One day of sun generates about as much power as we use in a week, and even if it’s overcast we still come out ahead.

    We’re basically only paying for overnight power and pretty easy to keep that to a minimum (with good insulation, efficient overnight appliances, avoiding unnecessary overnight power consumption - such as putting the beer fridge and hot water heater on a timer).



  • The critical feature of MYOB (and Xero), that’s largely missing in other options, is integration with the Australian Taxation Office.

    You can easily enter all your business activities, then when it’s tax time double check all your data and simply click a button to file it with the government.

    Aside from those two, the only options I know of are a lot more expensive and intended for use by full time accountants (employees or external contractors). MYOB doesn’t work on Linux and Xero, which is web based, is sadly lacking features. MYOB also has a web based version but as far as I know it’s even more basic than Xero.