Tau
@Tau@aussie.zone
- Comment on Three-quarters of Australia’s new cars use more fuel than advertised lab rating, testing shows 1 day ago:
I get the claimed figures on both my car and van so it’s not like hitting them is impossible, but it is highly dependent on how and where you drive. Many people drive with the smoothness and ability to look ahead of a myopic orangutan (e.g. accelerate hard, immediately jump to brakes, back to acceleration, repeat) but even with a bit of care there’s only so much you can do if your driving involves a lot of short trips and stop start traffic.
- Comment on Communities for each state and territory 1 week ago:
I think just go with either Australia, whichever capital city is appropriate for the state, or even both.
We don’t get that many posts that further separation is worthwhile IMO, that’s a pathway to ending up with a bunch of communities that appear dead from lack of activity (which can be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy - people only tend to post in places that seem alive). I think we’ve already fragmented discussion more than is ideal between splitting off news/politics/questions/environment from the general Australia community, regional interests are more understandable but the existing city/state comms are already quiet enough with our current userbase.
- Comment on Health star rating to become mandatory on all packaged food in Australia 1 week ago:
I don’t think the star system actually does much, particularly with how it operates per category rather than overall. For example the packet of chips I’m eating right now is apparently 3.5/5 stars. That rating both fails to reflect the actual healthiness of said chips and didn’t play any part in me buying them (I’m under no illusion that chips are healthy, I just like eating them on occasion). In fact I can’t think of a single time I’ve cared about the star rating when buying something.
- Comment on Old Bureau of Meteorology website still getting thousands of clicks 2 weeks ago:
Doesn’t surprise me, the old website is a much better user experience for me.
The new one is noticeably slower, hides the info I want to see behind extra clicks/scrolling, made the radar view worse, and doesn’t improve the only thing I’d want to improve from the old site (making it easier to find less commonly used information such as river heights or past observations). In fact they made that part worse because now it bounces between the new design and remnants of the old one for anything bar the most commonly visited sections - even for basic stuff like a synoptic chart.
- Comment on Is Australia a Good Place To Be Transgender? | FairyPrincessLucy 3 weeks ago:
It’s what you’d expect - we’re not perfect but overall we do pretty well.
I just read the transcript though because I’m not going to spend 10 minutes watching a video when I can read the salient info much faster (i.e. like many things this should have been an article rather than a video).
- Comment on 4 weeks ago:
Yes, I only ever see you here to stir up drama and your flood of posts agitating against a day you would never celebrate anyway regardless of the date are no exception. You’re doing it again with this comment, post stuff that’s not attempting to stir up shit if you want upvotes.
- Comment on Australia’s strongest gun reform since the Port Arthur massacre has become law. Here’s what you need to know 5 weeks ago:
It’s a feeling based idea to assuage the public rather than a logic based one. If someone has four guns already there is little difference between what damage they are likely to be able to cause with those four vs what they could do with five, six, or seven (and the difference is less significant again if they already have ten). The limits seem rather arbitrary instead of evidence based and would not stop a repetition of the Bondi massacre, they appear instead to just be a quick decision made to show the government is doing something in reaction to a tragedy (something must be done, this is something therefore we must do it…).
- Comment on Australia’s strongest gun reform since the Port Arthur massacre has become law. Here’s what you need to know 5 weeks ago:
Probably, I did find a copy of that as a kid but it’s been long enough that I can’t recall specifics.
That is something that could fall under the new rule though, as could watching youtube videos of people modding guns, or gun owners finding a maintenance manual for the guns they own, or if particularly misapplied even things like getting an ebook that happens to mention an aside about weapons/explosive manufacture (pretty sure Jules Verne describes a way to make explosives in The Mysterious Island for example).
- Comment on Australia’s strongest gun reform since the Port Arthur massacre has become law. Here’s what you need to know 5 weeks ago:
It’s a way of saying a method of transmitting information. Replace ‘a carriage service’ with ‘the internet’ and you’d cover much (albeit not all) of the intention there.
- Comment on Australia’s strongest gun reform since the Port Arthur massacre has become law. Here’s what you need to know 5 weeks ago:
It will be an offence to use a carriage service to access material on the manufacture or modification of guns and accessories, as well as other explosives or lethal devices.
This has such broad potential for misapplication, but apparently everyone throws critical thinking out the window because guns are scary…
I think the gun number limit is also a kneejerk reaction playing more on people’s fears rather than actually being logical, but at least it’s affecting less people than the above.
- Comment on Australian electric car market to get influx of new models as cheaper EVs hit the road 1 month ago:
The little Honda is a pretty attractive idea, looks nice and it’s good to see something that’s supposedly designed to be fun to drive rather than yet another sluggish poor handling SUV.
The BYD Atto 1 I think though is a more significant model simply because it’s something that’s at least approaching affordable to an average person. That 24k price is really narrowing the gap between the cheapest cars and cheapest EVs and I expect will result in a noticeable increase in uptake.
I like that another van option is appearing too, it’s sure to be well above a price I can justify but having more secondhand options in the future will be good for me when my Transporter gets beyond logical upkeep.
- Comment on Happy New Year 1 month ago:
- Comment on Happy New Year 1 month ago:
Pretty good so far, hopefully it’ll continue that way
- Submitted 1 month ago to australia@aussie.zone | 6 comments
- Comment on Soft plastic recycling coming back with new facility open in NSW 1 month ago:
That would be the best idea to reduce the issue and there is a lot that could be cut out. For example looking at recent shopping the potatoes could have come in a hessian bag instead of plastic (or loose and paper bagged in the shop for small amounts) and the lettuce really did not need to be in its own plastic bag. Soft plastic is harder to replace though for some things (e.g. cheese) so having a way to recycle what will be used is good.
- Submitted 1 month ago to australia@aussie.zone | 7 comments
- Comment on Australia’s roads are full of giant cars, and everyone pays the price. What can be done? 2 months ago:
Depends on the state. NSW for example is one that does vary depending on weight (based on weight ranges, not a full sliding scale) - there’s a ~$180 difference between my sedan and van due to the van’s tare weight placing it in the next category up. QLD on the other hand is one that doesn’t - they charge based on the cylinder count instead.
- Comment on It took years to come up with a plan to cut road deaths, and just 11 days to kill it 2 months ago:
Shouldn’t have taken them years to figure out it was a poor idea but I guess that’s what you get when there’s such a vested interest in demonising speed. I’m quite happy it got kiboshed - it’s a rare case of government actually listening to the people.
- Comment on As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to use Aussie.Zone 2 months ago:
Zip disks ain’t that old!
That’s what I like to think as well, but I guess it has been a while. It’s like how I think 90s cars are still fairly recent until I see ones rolling around with historic rego…
- Comment on As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to use Aussie.Zone 2 months ago:
One of the places I work at has a display cabinet showing historical media formats and devices, seeing things in it like the zip disc and the Sony camera that took floppies always make me feel like Elrond:
- Comment on Australia | Teenagers sue over social media ban for ‘violating their right to communicate’ 2 months ago:
Discord implemented age verification due to us and the UK moving towards such laws, a third party involved in this was breached and ~70k users had information leaked (though presumably not all of these included IDs). Approx 68k of these users turned out to be Australian.
- Comment on Australia | Teenagers sue over social media ban for ‘violating their right to communicate’ 2 months ago:
It’s pretty depressing to see how many people in favour of this are prepared to make everyone suffer invasive demands for personal information in order to use a good portion of the internet. These laws haven’t even come into force yet and they’ve already caused harm in the form of tens of thousands of leaked IDs, to say nothing of the problems with further reducing anonymity of discussion in an increasingly authoritarian world.
- Comment on WeRide: Cycling community celebrates reinstatement of e-bike standard 2 months ago:
The continuous output is where average people actually want more power though, one of the main points of ebikes is to reduce effort from climbing hills. Most people are not going to be at your level of fitness or investment in cycling (in both the physical and mental sense) and just want to get places without needing a shower afterwards. I can see why you want to keep a purer form of something you have an interest in (similarly I think there is limited need for automatic transmissions outside of disability) but there is a case for more power if you want more people to be riding than driving.
- Comment on WeRide: Cycling community celebrates reinstatement of e-bike standard 2 months ago:
The 250w limit in EN15194 is overly low, NSW finally changed their laws to a more sensible 500w a few years back so this change will make it so you can’t import a whole variety of bikes you can legally ride. Even 750w isn’t a problem IMO, having ridden one (with throttle and all) I’d class it as definitely still on the bicycle end of things rather than an actual motorbike.
Looking on the bright side though import restrictions will hopefully induce more manufacturers to do ADR compliance for those of us who do actually want the motorbike end of ‘ebikes’, even for dirt bikes the ability to rego them makes them much more useful for non-track riding.
- Comment on Should Newcastle to Sydney bullet train really be first link built of Melbourne to Brisbane route? 3 months ago:
It sounds a logical start point, the central coast and Newcastle have a large population base to work with and it’s not that far apart. The sheer amount of tunnel for that route compared to what one would expect with a corridor through more open country is a downside but you might as well start somewhere rather than talk about it for a few more decades.
- Comment on UK's rival to the Tim Tam can no longer be called chocolate 3 months ago:
They’re most of the way there but fall a bit short of a real Tim Tam. I find the chocolate has a slight sourness to it compared to the original (as if they let an American pick the recipe) - not enough to stop me eating them but enough to reduce the normal Tim Tam desire to rip through a whole packet.
The Choceur chocolate blocks however tend to be a quite acceptable replacement for Cadbury and even Whittaker so not all hope is lost for more affordable chocolates.
- Comment on 'Nothing' done to address gaps created by teen social media ban, says children's commissioner 3 months ago:
Over the last few years I think all our states have now banned phones from being visible in school, so there’s efforts towards reducing usage at least within school. That’s a relatively recent move though and does only cut down on usage during part of the day so I don’t know if there’s been a noticeable effect on the kids.
- Comment on 'Nothing' done to address gaps created by teen social media ban, says children's commissioner 3 months ago:
Doesn’t that sound exactly like the “can somebody please think about the children” argument?
It is that, but the ban in question is being justified by that same poor argument so it might as well be fired right back again.
- Comment on ‘Glamping’ proposal for NSW national parks slammed as privatising public assets 3 months ago:
From my reading it’s going to be the same campgrounds that already exist, but now with a commercial operator being able to book a proportion of the sites before the public can. I don’t know if they will physically separate the commercially booked sites but at this point I have seen no mention of expanding or creating campgrounds for this purpose.
I am ideologically against letting commercial operators into this field - I accept the reality that camping fees in national parks are a necessary evil to help with provision of services and reduce false bookings, but I think if such fees are going to exist the money should go directly to Parks rather than have the majority go to a private company. Commercial camping operations should be operating on private land rather than public - that way public access to public land is not reduced and the public gets limited access to land they would not otherwise get to (the camping might even help fund preservation of said private land).
- Submitted 3 months ago to australia@aussie.zone | 6 comments
