zero_gravitas
@zero_gravitas@aussie.zone
- Comment on 'Cooker, anti-vaxxer, sheep': The people Australia's COVID-19 response forgot 1 day ago:
Are the major vaccines the RNA ones where it’s just the protein?
Moderna and Pfizer are mRNA. Novavax is protein subunit. AstraZeneca is viral vector (not an attenuated SARS-CoV-2, a completely different virus).
- The five 'shonkiest' products and companies put in the spotlight in annual CHOICE consumer awardswww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 3 days ago to australia@aussie.zone | 0 comments
- Comment on The 50 best Australian songs of the 90s 6 days ago:
Yeah, the title is intentional click-bait/engagement-bait
- Comment on The 50 best Australian songs of the 90s 6 days ago:
Madison Avenue - Don’t Call Me Baby
I had no idea this was Australian! Now you’ve mentioned it, though, there’s a noticeable lack of hard ‘r’ in some lines (for reference: www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-mRcnF5tSc).
Some classics in this list. Such a list can’t exist without people pointing out who was missed, though. This reads like a top 50 of what JJJ had on high rotation. It’s missing several acts that were bigger than most of the names on this list.
Agreed - and thanks for making your list of things it omitted - but the list was compiled by a poll of Double J staff, so it was always going to be biased towards deep-cuts, and it’s a good thing to bring lesser-known and forgotten music to attention (so long as people don’t take the list to be authoritative).
- 'Cute and an attractive' pollinator, crucial for food crops is the 2024 ABC Australian Insect of the Yearwww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 1 week ago to australia@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- Comment on Australians who think inequality is high have less faith in democratic institutions, study finds 1 week ago:
“People who believe system is failing have less faith in system”
I know it’s the headline writer, who I think isn’t usually the author of the article (I don’t know how The Conversation does it, though), and much less still is it reflective of worth of the study, but these kinds of headlines still annoy me. Maybe they’re written to annoy people, I don’t know.
The headline isn’t even accurate. The question asked in the survey isn’t about whether respondents think inequality is high, but whether they think income distribution is fair (the exact wording is: “How fair do you think income distribution is in Australia?”).
Department of Home Affairs Strengthening Democracy Taskforce
This is a slightly terrifying phrase. I still associate Home Affairs so strongly with Dutton - as the mega-portfolio that was created to placate him - that it’s hard not to read ‘Strengthening Democracy Taskforce’ in the same way as American war-mongering rhetoric of ‘SPREADING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY’.
This impression is not helped by this bit of double-speak later in the article 😂:
The Department of Home Affairs’ 2024 Strengthening Democracy report describes Australia’s democratic resilience as “strong, but vulnerable”.
This suggests Australia’s satisfaction with democracy is at risk. It may erode further if voters think the major parties aren’t sufficiently responsive to the economic pressures they are under.
Not to defend the state of our ‘democracy’, but I feel compelled to point out that thanks to preferential voting we can vote for parties other than the major parties. Unfortunately many of the minor parties are also in favour of policies that would increase inequality, but the Greens consistently campaign on reducing inequality. I suppose a lot of people who might be roughly characterised as ‘right-wing populists’ and against status-quo neoliberalism would find the Greens unpalatable, though. Do we need a party that’s like the Greens but with One Nation’s aesthetics or something?
- Comment on Who was our worst Prime Minister and why? Any notable state leaders we need to add? 1 week ago:
- Burning out: how Australia’s bid to cut smoking rates exploded into suburban tobacco warswww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Comment on No-fault evictions banned and break-lease fees capped under sweeping reforms in Victoria 2 weeks ago:
That’d rely on tenants reporting their evictions to the tentants’ union, and most people aren’t engaged with the tenants union, and even among those who are, relying on tenants reporting would probably be a bit spotty.
If the government is serious about enforcement, I think the logical thing would be for the bond authority to track it. They could be required to log the reason when the bond is claimed, and then their system would flag it if another bond was lodged for the address within the specified period.
- Comment on No-fault evictions banned and break-lease fees capped under sweeping reforms in Victoria 2 weeks ago:
In Victoria, renters can challenge a rent increase “if they believe the increase is higher than the market range”
See: …gov.au/…/challenging-rent-increases-or-high-rent
I assume, like with many renter protections, it’s a pain in the arse to actually do in practice, but it’s there, so they can’t just double your rent in one go to force you out.
Also, rent can only be increased once every 12 months in Vic, so landleeches may need to wait months before they can increase the rent by any amount at all.
Not that I doubt there will be some dodgy workarounds. I suspect landlords might try to abuse the “if the owner is moving back in” exemption, because even if there’s strong provisions - e.g. the property can’t be advertised again for at least 12 months - it still requires someone to be paying enough attention to notice and report any violations.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on Man jailed for breaking into army depot and impersonating field marshal 3 weeks ago:
She explained Sturgeon had “somewhat unconventional and unorthodox views”, but had not been diagnosed with or hospitalised for mental health conditions, and no psychological report was presented.
Yeah, I think the court should have ordered some kind of evaluation…
- The 3G network is about to shut down for good, so what will stop working from Monday?www.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 3 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 4 comments
- Comment on ‘Stop all time wasting’: Woolworths workers tracked and timed under new efficiency crackdown 3 weeks ago:
Coles’ answer to that question was hiring Palantir
- Woman wedged upside down between boulders for seven hours after trying to retrieve phone in regional NSWwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 3 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 9 comments
- Comment on Grill’d faces Australia's ‘first-ever' fast food strike over low-pay, 'unfair' conditions claims 4 weeks ago:
Power to them, I hope people support them however they can!
Ridiculous that this trainee stuff is still going on with Grill’d specifically - they’ve been in the news media for it since at least 2016 (earliest story I can find).
What this SBS article doesn’t mention is that Grill’d has been known to drag their feet on progressing a trainee, to just keep them on the lower rate indefinitely.
- NSW artist travels hundreds of kilometres to see his shark-banana statue come to life at Sculpture by the Seawww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 4 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Comment on David Crisafulli vows to repeal ban on developer donations and ditch ‘corrupt’ full preferential voting system 4 weeks ago:
Crisafulli said he would also aim to change the full preferential voting system, which he labelled “corrupt”, back to optional preferential voting.
Under the current system, it is compulsory for voters to number all boxes on the ballot paper in order of their preference or their vote is not counted.
“Preferences should not be a thing in Queensland elections, and it won’t be if government changes,” he said.
???
- Hiker provided with assistance, and shoes, after attempting to climb Tasmanian mountain without themwww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 5 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 7 comments
- Comment on Platforms, not parents, to be responsible for social media age limit, but penalties as yet undecided - ABC News 5 weeks ago:
Non-AMP URL: www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-11/…/104459876
- Submitted 5 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 1 comment
- New car buyers driven to white or grey, with bright colours rarer than ever, data showswww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 5 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 28 comments
- Comment on Aurora forecast in the southern parts of Australia for the next three nights 1 month ago:
You need it to not be cloudy, for starters 😆
But even if it’s not cloudy, light pollution can also be an issue, so it might help to head further out of the city (see: darksitefinder.com/map/?i=/%234/-37.84/144.94)
Basically, if you can’t see the stars, you can’t see the aurora.
The only equipment that can help you ‘see’ it better would be taking a long exposure with a camera.
- Submitted 1 month ago to australia@aussie.zone | 8 comments
- Comment on Labor threatens to cancel visas for ‘inciting discord’ after protests against Israeli attacks on Lebanon 1 month ago:
It’s because we’ve hitched our wagon to the U.S. and we’re not allowed to say or do anything that’ll piss them off. It’ll only get worse with AUKUS, and arguably that’s the point of it - to lock us in to dependence and obedience to the U.S.
- Comment on Labor threatens to cancel visas for ‘inciting discord’ after protests against Israeli attacks on Lebanon 1 month ago:
Labor and the Coalition have had a stronger response to this handfull of flags and posters than they have to Israel killing 20,000+ kids
- Comment on Experts want Albanese to lead on indoor air quality as part of pandemic planning 1 month ago:
?
- Experts want Albanese to lead on indoor air quality as part of pandemic planningtheconversation.com ↗Submitted 1 month ago to australia@aussie.zone | 3 comments
- Comment on With growing tension in the strait, Taiwan needs to be in the UN, Australian Strategic Policy Institute says 1 month ago:
This would do the opposite of calming tensions…
- Comment on Woolworths, Coles sued by ACCC for ‘misleading’ price drop claims 1 month ago:
A cooperative is one way to start on that: www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-10/…/104078660
