Tau
@Tau@aussie.zone
- Comment on Australia bans DeepSeek on government devices over security risk 1 day ago:
That is unfortunately true, for example I find it sadly impressive that one has a good chance of getting classified info simply by starting an argument on the War Thunder forums…
- Comment on Australia bans DeepSeek on government devices over security risk 1 day ago:
I’m not familiar with them, though I did just have a quick browse of wikipedia and their privacy page. From that minimal impression I’d rate their online service as better than DeepSeek (they do claim your data is not used for training, stored in Sweden, encrypted, and deleted after 30 days) but ultimately it’s still got the same problem as other providers in that you have to just believe they’ll actually follow what they say they do. For use with your own personal info this might be an acceptable risk if the company seems reputable otherwise, on the other end of the scale for anything security classified it’d be way too much risk.
- Comment on Australia bans DeepSeek on government devices over security risk 1 day ago:
You’d have to be mad to put important information into any AI model unless you’re hosting it locally and know it isn’t sending info anywhere (the latter being the hard part to verify). All of the online AI services really should be blocked if departments/companies are taking security seriously.
- Comment on Australia spends $714 per person on roads every year – but just 90 cents goes to walking, wheeling and cycling 2 days ago:
We don’t do them anywhere near as much as America does but since I believe you’re around Brisbane I can pretty much guarantee you’ve driven on concrete roads (it’d be a lot less likely if you lived in Woop Woop). Look for it on primary routes that get a lot of heavy vehicle traffic - for example head south on the Pacific Highway and you’ll find large sections of concrete.
- Comment on Australia spends $714 per person on roads every year – but just 90 cents goes to walking, wheeling and cycling 2 days ago:
My point was that if you’re writing an article talking about how much Australians spend on cycling/walking infrastructure you should at least mention that federal numbers are not the whole picture and that federal is not the level of government that is going to cover most of said infrastructure. Omitting this smacks of the author just looking for a low number to draw attention/outrage.
- Comment on Australia spends $714 per person on roads every year – but just 90 cents goes to walking, wheeling and cycling 2 days ago:
Why are they focussing on federal funding only? I would expect federal funding to go largely to the sorts of roads which are important on a broad scale but less desirable for cycling or walking - freeways, highways, major arterial roads, and so forth. State and local government is the level I would expect to find the majority of cycling and walking investment, it seems odd that these are omitted.
- Comment on We need faster speed limits in Australia - and I'm not saying that because I'm a hoon | Opinion - Car News 1 week ago:
I mean I won’t disagree with this, I am definitely of the opinion that people should be taught more driving skills.
I do doubt though that we’d end up with a useful course even if further training was mandated, so I am dubious as to the outcome of such a scheme. I say this as someone who’s been through a few licencing courses with a motorbike licence, MR licence, and forklift licence (and various other high risk or work related training courses). The truck licence didn’t really teach me anything new and was just a case of driving around making it look like you’re checking blind spots etc, the forklift licence was incredibly basic, and the theory part of stuff life the forklift and goods hoist license was basically served up to us on a silver platter rather than requiring learning. The motorbike courses at least tried to explain a bunch of basic concepts and handling but was stymied in practice by only being allowed to go 20km/h max in a carpark (after which feel free to head out out and do 90km/h on busy roads…).
- Comment on We need faster speed limits in Australia - and I'm not saying that because I'm a hoon | Opinion - Car News 1 week ago:
About the only thing on that front that’s changed since the 70s have been improved breaks
Actually the biggest difference there is modern tyres. These are considerably better than those in the 70s - for an easy visualisation compare MotoGP lean angles and cornering speed from that era to what even consumer sport touring motorcycle tyres can handle these days (they weren’t cornering so comparatively slow for no reason, the tyres were the main limiting factor).
You also have modern suspension making a marked improvement on road handling, ABS making it so a chimpanzee can get the best braking without skidding, and in the last decade or so ESC has been making a notable difference to stability under braking and swerving. All together the average modern car will outbrake and outhandle an average 70s car by a long shot, particularly when not driven by an expert.
- Comment on We need faster speed limits in Australia - and I'm not saying that because I'm a hoon | Opinion - Car News 1 week ago:
The claim that vehicles are newer and safer because they have new technologies is also pretty shaky
A significant proportion of cars do have the mentioned features though, blind spot monitoring is a nice easy one to notice and you’ll see a lot of cars do have it when you’re driving around.
Even without these specific features though modern cars are much safer than cars were when our speed limits were set. This even applies to cars now considered old - my own car for example now qualifies for historic rego and can drive quite safely at 130km/h (and is both less likely to get into a crash and much more survivable in the event of one than any 70s car).
Back when the 100km/h limit was set this was actually a fast speed for the cars and roads of the era. Now it is not - speed limits have become a recommended speed rather than anywhere near the limits of safety +assuming average car and normal conditions). Highway/freeway limits in particular are well due for an increase rather than the decreases (literally and effectively) they keep receiving.
- We need faster speed limits in Australia - and I'm not saying that because I'm a hoon | Opinion - Car Newswww.carsguide.com.au ↗Submitted 1 week ago to australia@aussie.zone | 29 comments
- Comment on Prime ministers' heads severed and stolen from bronze statues in Ballarat 1 week ago:
do you even know about your own history, and the history of this so-called country? Invasion Day celebrates the anniversary of Cook’s invasion of these lands.
My irony meter just overloaded…
- Comment on Prime ministers' heads severed and stolen from bronze statues in Ballarat 1 week ago:
but also knocking off Rudds head? That doesn’t make much sense.
We are talking about the sort of people who both think vandalism like this will reflect well upon their cause and continue to attack a statue of Cook around Australia Day when there’s a much more relevant statue of Arthur Phillip just a bit further down the road. I think you’re giving them too much credit to expect they’d differentiate Rudd for doing the National Apology.
- Comment on TIL: Deer are popping off down here 3 weeks ago:
They were becoming a pest up on the mid north coast 20 years ago when I was a kid, used to sneak up and nibble at stuff in the house paddock at night time (as an aside they make a weird noise when disturbed). Hate to think how many must be in the bush up there now.
More recently I’ve seen a few bouncing across the road heading through the forestry areas on the way to Bega. Hope they don’t become too common as hitting one would be even worse damage/safety wise than collecting a large kangaroo and I do go up and down that way reasonably often.
- Comment on What does it take to finish the Hunt 1000 bikepacking adventure? 4 weeks ago:
The Starks do look nice - it’s good to see more ADR compliant bikes come out. I’ve actually been tossing around the idea of getting a Surron Ultra Bee for a while as I think it’d be good for single track and more technical fire trails (light weight and enough power/range, though would ultimately want a 21/18" wheel setup instead of 19/19"). Range is something that would have to be planned around for fire trail exploration (definitely still more limiting than petrol bikes) but for single track within an area the Ultra Bee would work well for me (I take my bike back and forth in the van already, and generally clock up <50km).
The more powerful e-MTBs also seem a good idea for exploring behind gates, I do keep a bit of an eye out for these on the secondhand market as if I found a cheap good one I’d consider it. It’d have to have both decent power and range though as 250w doesn’t really do that much going up steep hills and I wouldn’t want to be pedalling the added weight back without charge for the motor.
- Comment on What does it take to finish the Hunt 1000 bikepacking adventure? 4 weeks ago:
It does sound like it could be fun. I do prefer my bikes to have motors though - I took the mountain bike out the other day and a comparatively very small ~9km climb up a bit over 800m elevation to my destination peak had me severely disliking whoever decided to put a locked gate across a perfectly good fire trail. At least the way back was more fun, downhill almost the whole way made for a much more reasonable pace. I think it’d definitely take me more than a week to cover 1000km relying on pedals only…
- Submitted 1 month ago to australia@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on BYD’s hybrid EV ute that could rival Australia’s bestselling vehicles goes on sale 2 months 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 3 months 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 3 months ago to meta@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on Reminder that NSW local gov elections are on again tomorrow 4 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 4 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 4 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 4 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 14 comments
- Comment on Redesigning Australian State Flags 5 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 5 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 5 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- Comment on Question about Australian towns 5 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 9 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 10 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 10 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.
