Tau
@Tau@aussie.zone
- Comment on BYD’s hybrid EV ute that could rival Australia’s bestselling vehicles goes on sale 3 weeks ago:
The idea of like having to put on a comedicly overwrought accent to make a machine understand you is 👌
I’ve tried this to good effect before when I got my current motorbike helmet headset - the voice commands on default settings worked much better when hamming it up with an American accent like one was trying to audition for a part in a Western. Luckily though I ended up finding out that Cardo also trained a British accent option in the settings, and that works a lot better if you want to talk like a normal person.
- Comment on Timeout errors in last few days 4 weeks ago:
Thanks :)
I’ve clicked around a bit this morning and so far so good, so all might be well again after your changes.
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to meta@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on Reminder that NSW local gov elections are on again tomorrow 2 months ago:
While you will get the fine notice you shouldn’t have to pay it - there is an option to reply with a reason why you shouldn’t be fined and being overseas at the time would count as a legit excuse.
- Comment on Reminder that NSW local gov elections are on again tomorrow 2 months ago:
Yep, like in other elections we do have pre poll and postal voting (with a valid reason and you need to apply for postal) but the standard method is turning up on the day. I’m not sure if that has any effect on turnout compared to other states.
- Comment on Reminder that NSW local gov elections are on again tomorrow 2 months ago:
Probably less likely than a federal election but I’d still give it decent odds of finding one (particularly if the school is trying to raise funds for something). I can’t remember exactly whether this was during council or state elections but I have turned up to vote before and not found a sausage sizzle.
- Submitted 2 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 14 comments
- Comment on Redesigning Australian State Flags 2 months ago:
I think the QLD and NSW options are actually decent, which is surprising for a modern flag redesign. Not sure about the Victorian one, could do with either making the symbol more regular (i.e. less finger paint style) or deleting the crown (too hard to keep details on) and making the stars loosely drawn too. WA seems a decent idea but could do with a cleaner swan rather than the ruffled feathers on the back. The SA idea looks pretty good but does have hints of invading Poland due to the
imperial eaglemagpie. Tasmania however is another one I could get behind.Not a real fan of the current ACT/NT flags and I don’t think changing to a wavy line helps them, and the idea for the Jervis Bay territory seems a bit too committee style bland for my liking (like most new flag designs I see mentioned).
- Comment on Australian Car Crash / Dash Cam Compilation 42 3 months ago:
Highlights IMO are an amusingly ironic bit of tram signage at 7:20 and a very well timed song at 29:40.
Disappointingly I only saw two clips from Canberra but luckily both involved roundabouts (or faux-abouts) so at least the reputation of the city is intact.
- Submitted 3 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- Comment on Question about Australian towns 3 months ago:
it seems that the smaller the town, the higher the military worship. They may not even have a public toilet, but they will have a military worship statue that seemed to have cost more than all the town to build.
That’s because the vast majority of our towns pre date WW2, and basically every area lost enough people in WW1/WW2 to affect multiple families and the broader local community. For example I grew up in a country village of a couple of hundred people (with several hundred more in the locality and upriver) and it had a war memorial with what would have been at least 50 people killed in WW2 and at least that again in WW1. I think it is understandable that towns (particularly smaller or more closely knit communities) would be in general support of the families and friends wanting a memorial to their dead given that level of losses.
I haven’t seen anywhere near the number of memorials for other conflicts, they definitely exist but are significantly less common. If you want to avoid war related stuff your best bet would be towns/suburbs built well after WW2, but these tend to be suburbs of existing centres (which are likely to have a war memorial) instead of completely new towns.
- Comment on Mona: Court rules women’s-only exhibit must allow male visitors 7 months ago:
Good. I think the other option - setting a precedent allowing businesses to skirt discrimination laws by claiming their behaviour was art - would have been a rather poor decision.
- Comment on Electric car sales are booming in Australia, but it's not where you think it is 8 months ago:
The ABC now likes to do clickbait style headlines like that to try and grab attention, it’s a trend that annoys me. They also often rotate through options including a more traditional headline depending on what device you use and what time you access it - currently the headline is showing for me as “Electric car sales in Australia’s outer suburbs take off as commuters pocket ‘ridiculous’ savings”, which while still a bit hyped up is more informative.
- Comment on Sam Kerr allegedly called police officer a ‘stupid white bastard’, source says 8 months ago:
British white people have never
As long as you forget about the Irish, the Welsh, and (to a lesser extent IIRC) the Scots - all of whom are white and British.
- Comment on Ziga's van runs on solar panels, three lawn mower motors and 8,000 laptop and power tool batteries 8 months ago:
Changing to a motor which wasn’t originally offered in that model of vehicle definitely needs certification, at least in NSW (other states might be more lenient).
- Comment on Ziga's van runs on solar panels, three lawn mower motors and 8,000 laptop and power tool batteries 8 months ago:
Whenever I see stuff like this I wonder how on earth they managed to get someone to sign off on the engineering certificate. Then again it does say he’s worked in engineering of some varieties so maybe he can self certify.
- Comment on Able to read cursive handwriting? The war memorial wants your help transcribing love letters 9 months ago:
Quite a lot of people nowadays - at least not at a fluent level. I know I’ve gotten worse at it over time due to rarely requiring to read much of other people’s handwriting or handwrite myself, to the point where even in the reasonably clear example in the article I had to stop and consider a few words. Without experience reading cursive it’s noticeably harder to comprehend compared to printed text, and we’ve now had a whole generation grow up in a world where pretty much everything they read was printed (and usually on a screen at that) rather than handwritten.
- Able to read cursive handwriting? The war memorial wants your help transcribing love letterswww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 9 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 10 comments
- Submitted 9 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- Comment on Expensive school uniforms don't make kids better at maths, so why are schools so focused on them? 9 months ago:
I would say most do but some don’t, and with those that do the level of uniform required varies.
My primary school didn’t require uniforms for regular days, though they did have what was called the sports uniform shirt which they preferred kids to wear if away from the school (generally used for sports carnivals with other local schools).
My high school did require uniforms but only really cared about enforcing the uniform shirt and some variety of closed shoe.
The school my youngest sister did years 11-12 at didn’t require uniforms at all, though they probably did care about closed shoes due to safety in science classes etc.
- Comment on Sleeper trains are making a comeback. Why are ours being axed? 11 months ago:
The train itself isn’t really the slow part for the XPT, it’s supposed to be able to run up to 160km/h. Knowing that only made it more annoying though when sitting in one chugging along at ~80k (or even slower when hot) up and down the north coast line - like most of our lines that track just wasn’t good enough for it to go faster.
- Comment on Why did there need to be a vote? 1 year ago:
If he truly believed it was a good thing he should have just legislated it to start off with. That way you have the benefits of such a body sooner, and if people see a body in action and actually working to close the gap they would be more inclined to allow it into the Constitution in a later referendum (and even if the later referendum fails you still have both the body and the work they have done).
- Comment on Australia rejects a proposal to include Aboriginal people in the constitution 1 year ago:
You know ‘Sri Lanka’s leading news network’ is really interested in a story when the article is comprised of four sentences and one of them is plain wrong.
- Comment on What did you pay for your democracy sausage? 1 year ago:
Is the referendum literally just to ask whether the constitution should recognise the First Peoples of Australia?
It was actually about whether the constitution should be changed to say there shall be a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, and that this body “may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. Purely symbolic recognition would have had a much better chance of getting in IMO.
- Comment on Referendum Results, Congratulations, Comiserations 1 year ago:
ABC just called it as defeated, all over before WA even got to start counting…
- Comment on Referendum Results, Congratulations, Comiserations 1 year ago:
ABC has live results here, the percentage counted is rising pretty quickly.
- Comment on Speaking of shrinkflation 1 year ago:
It’s a very small pencil, possibly even smaller than last election.
Not sure myself that it actually is smaller or why sausages are absent from the picture.
- Comment on There's a big misconception about mobile phones and driving, and it's putting us at risk 1 year ago:
It’s a real show of how much road safety discussion is fixated on lowering speed limits when you’ve just talked about how significant numbers of people are now not wearing seatbelts and the topic you move straight into is decreasing speed limits and driving more slowly instead of how to increase the number of people wearing seatbelts…
- Comment on Why cyclists should NOT get the same fines as motorists | Car Culture 6 - Motonormativity 1 year ago:
The first two and last bullet points might apply to motor vehicles, but the third and fourth certainly do not
They certainly do. It’s a fact that most cars and motorbikes are designed to be able to travel safely at speeds greater than our highway limits, and it can indeed be awkward to do low speed limits in a motor vehicle. For example my VTR runs faster than 20km/h at idle in first gear, which makes travelling in 20km/h zones annoying because I have to be on the clutch constantly. I could also claim that it’s unsafe to go that slow on a motorcycle due to instability, but really that’s just as true as saying 10km/h is too slow for stability on a bicycle - there is an element of truth in it but we both know it’s perfectly doable for anyone who’s been riding for a while.
- Comment on Why cyclists should NOT get the same fines as motorists | Car Culture 6 - Motonormativity 1 year ago:
What I found amusing was the bringing up of these ideas:
- Breaking the speed limit is different to exceeding a safe speed for the conditions.
- My self assessment of a particular area and my skill limit indicates there should be a higher speed limit.
- My vehicle is designed to operate safely at higher speeds than the limit.
- My vehicle is designed in a way that makes sticking to the lowest speed limits awkward.
- Police are fining people huge amounts of money for exceeding a speed limit myself and many others think is too low.
These are all very familiar to me as a driver and motorbike rider so that’s where the irony comes in - despite being a proponent of low speed limits he’s complaining about a low speed limit using similar arguments as everyone else now it affects him.
For what it’s worth I agree with him that the speed limit there is too low, but I think the better response should be to raise it to something sensible (for what is apparently a busy shared path 20km/h seems a more reasonable limit) rather than either removing the limits or saying you can’t fine riders for exceeding them.
