Zagorath
@Zagorath@aussie.zone
- Comment on Women fleeing violence are sleeping in cars, as service providers try to plug the refuge and housing crisis 15 hours ago:
Fuck me it’s depressing. It’s not the angle the ABC chose to take the story, but the fact that we’re so willing to give over space to cars instead of…y’know…people is part of the problem here. There was a case in Brisbane a couple of years ago where a group wanting to provide affordable community housing (I think it was aimed at older single women IIRC, though not exclusively DV survivors) was literally unable to do so because the law required that they put aside more space for cars than would be able to make the project viable.
It’s just one of the many problems with car culture and motornormativity, and one of the many factors pushing up housing prices into unaffordability.
- Women fleeing violence are sleeping in cars, as service providers try to plug the refuge and housing crisiswww.abc.net.au ↗Submitted 15 hours ago to australia@aussie.zone | 2 comments
- Submitted 1 day ago to australia@aussie.zone | 12 comments
- Comment on We need faster speed limits in Australia - and I'm not saying that because I'm a hoon | Opinion - Car News 4 days ago:
I’m not opposed to 130 km/h speed limits on the sorts of very remote highways where you’ll usually encounter like 20 vehicles max in an hour. But busy motorways where you measure vehicles per minute, like the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, or the motorways up and down the east coast between Brisbane and Sydney, despite being the most well-maintained, are just far too busy for such high speeds to be appropriate. It’s more appropriate on the roads that head out west with road trains.
But a much, much more sensible policy, if we’re looking at changing how we set our speed limits, would be to lower the speed limits within cities. Local streets and shopping high streets should be 30 km/h. Other roads should be adapted to be better for pedestrians and cyclists, including narrowing the amount of space given to cars if necessary, and a commensurate lowering of speed limits from 60 or 70 to 40 or 50. That’s still more than your average travel speed in a car is anyway thanks to traffic and lights. So you’d be adding safety and comfort for people outside of a car*, without actually negatively affecting those inside a car very much.
* and I do so hate how so many people talk about modern cars as being so much “safer” than old ones, while they completely ignore the increased danger they pose to cyclists and pedestrians—especially children. Modern cars are not safer.
- Comment on The guardian on Joe Rogan's popularity in Aus, and some peoples' reasons for listening. 5 days ago:
Without having clicked the link, I assumed the US election last year.
- Comment on Britain will not recognise Trump’s new name for Gulf of Mexico 6 days ago:
It’s not a very good article, is it? Hardly surprising, given the newspaper in question. But just repeating “the telegraph understands” without ever attributing it to any source…not even “government insiders speaking on condition on anonymity” or something like that.
- Comment on Australian police say antisemitic crimes may be funded overseas 1 week ago:
Occam’s Razor would be that it is what it appears to be. Fewer assumptions.
- Comment on Where Does [the] Australia[n continent] End? 1 week ago:
I’m a fan of Eurasia myself, personally. It makes sense. There’s zero geographic boundary between Europe and Asia, unlike the Suez and Panama isthmuses.
The 6 continent model that merges the Americas into one is the one I absolutely cannot abide. There’s no reasonable argument for saying North and South America are one continent that doesn’t also include making Afro-Eurasia a single continent.
But this video touches on something a bit different from that debate. Which is around completely different types of continent models. There’s the “large landmass” one that we usually discuss in school. But also plate tectonics. Biogeographic realms. Cultural regions. And other ways of defining it besides, probably.
- Comment on What Constitutes contravention of Rule 4, no ads/spamming? 1 week ago:
I’m obviously not the guy in charge, but I think anyone posting about an event in their community that they think will be interesting to others in the community could never qualify as spam. If you posted the same event multiple times in close succession, that might change it, or if you had a commercial interest in it, but to me the key thing with spam is repetitiveness, and with advertising it’s having a commercial interest.
- Submitted 1 week ago to australia@aussie.zone | 5 comments
- Comment on The State of Lemmy (drama) 2 weeks ago:
the metric system is based on the physical properties of Earth
Not really. Official units are defined in that kind of way (a metre used to be a certain fraction of the circumference of the Earth, though it’s now a certain amount of time travelled at light speed), but the definitions are arbitrary and used to justify defining the base unit how we want it. Metric’s superiority has nothing to do with metres being better than yards or kilogrammes being better than pounds. It’s this part:
and base 10 counting
As well as the fact that derived units all fit together nicely.
- Comment on The State of Lemmy (drama) 2 weeks ago:
A big part of the issue is: what do you replace it with, if you remove the monarch?
It’s an issue that comes up a lot here in Australia, where not only do we have a monarch; we have a monarch who isn’t from this country and does not care for this country. You’d think getting rid of the monarch would be a no brainer. But what do we do instead?
Most politically-aware Australians look at America and decide quite clearly: a directly elected President with significant political powers is a bad idea. The Parliamentary system is a good one. But would that mean directly electing a Governor-General who keeps the powers that role has today? As we saw in 1975, that’s actually quite considerable power, kept in check today mainly because it is extremely unpopular and is seen as undemocratic due to the unelected nature of the role to use those powers too freely. But it doesn’t exactly feel right to some people (myself not included) to keep the current system, only change it from “Monarch appoints a Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister” to “Prime Minister appoints a Governor General”. That makes it feel to some to be more politicised. Appointment by 2/3rds majority of Parliament could also work.
There are some who genuinely would like an American system, too, of course.
The difficulty is in getting people to agree not just to make a change, but on what that change should look like. Most Australians are very conservative, in the sense of “it seems to work, let’s not risk it by changing it.”
I’ve also seen some people suggest moving to an Australian monarch. The Irwin family has been suggested, or the Warnes, given how iconicly Australian Steve Irwin and Shane Warne were. Personally, I like to jokingly say we should go with the Abney-Hastings, the male-preference primogeniture descendants of the Plantaginet line of British monarchs, who would be on the British throne today were claims that Edward IV was illegitimate to have been taken seriously at the time. And who currently reside in rural Victoria.
- Comment on Australians love cheap books. Here's why that's a problem 2 weeks ago:
I’m gonna be honest, I’m here trying to have a civil and interesting conversation, and the vibe I’m getting back is just way more hostile than I’m willing to put up with.
- Comment on 'Devastated' Syria's new regime wants help, but should Australia loosen its stance? 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Australians love cheap books. Here's why that's a problem 2 weeks ago:
Patreon, as I said, only works for things being published in small chunks regularly. Smut and pulp are definitely within that category (and there’s nothing wrong with either style of writing!), but it can also work for certain types of non-fiction writing where you might be publishing your research process as you go.
Self-publishing can work for any style of writing. It’s difficult to get noticed, and most of the more successful self-publishers became so because they also have followings on other platforms like YouTube, but it is a viable option.
I’m not suggesting that any of these ideas are panaceae. Like I said, I basically agree with you that it’s difficult to be commercially successful in writing. I just wanted to point out that it’s not quite as black and white as to suggest that you can’t monetise it any way other than sales. 15 years ago people probably would have said the same thing about movies, and it’s still mostly true about video games.
- Comment on Australian woman discovers fake Instagram wedding was real 2 weeks ago:
it’s standard practice in proceedings under the Family Law Act to use pseudonyms
Oh interesting. I saw that they had referred to a lot of elements in this text by obvious pseudonyms, like “suburb B”, but then saw that both the applicant and respondent were given real-looking names. So I had assumed that they were real.
Still, in that case, “the groom could not be reached for comment” would be appropriate.
the compounding effect of unchallenged evidence from multiple other witnesses
That’s the thing though. The judge in this case said the finder of fact (in this case, himself, in the Pell case, that would be the jury) can decide for themselves whether to accept evidence, even if unchallenged, based on their own opinion of whether it was likely based on all the evidence presented.
In Pell, the jury decided, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Pell’s testimony must have been wrong. Not an unreasonable conclusion, given how bad memories are over that long period of time, and given the strong incentive Pell would have had to either lie or conveniently misremember. But the high court decided that the convention of the triers of fact not being able to be overturned on their factual findings was irrelevant.
- Comment on Australians love cheap books. Here's why that's a problem 2 weeks ago:
they are not easy to monetise in other ways aside from sale
Well, there’s also licensing the rights to adapt into movies or video games. And I think Amazon has a Netflix-like service for books? (I don’t know, because I never use Amazon whenever possible. I suspect it’s probably not a great deal for authors, just like streaming music is bad for musicians, etc .) And of course there’s libraries, which don’t receive nearly enough support themselves, but I believe do give some form of compensation to authors. And people who write frequent but shorter works can work on a patron model.
Not that I disagree with your underlying point. The finances with books are very difficult. There are other options though. Unfortunately the major publishers are really bad at exploring them, because they’re very old and very set in their ways.
- Comment on Australian woman discovers fake Instagram wedding was real 2 weeks ago:
most of the questions you raise don’t have good answers
I mean, that’s fine. But it’s a standard inclusion in an article, even if all you have to say is “the groom did not respond to our request for comment.” It makes it clear that you tried and he was not interested in explaining himself. As it’s written, it looks like they just couldn’t be bothered doing journalism.
Anyway, thanks for sharing that. It’s a wild read.
Minor side note:
When giving their evidence either viva voce or by affidavit, the applicant and the respondent were duty bound to comply with the stipulations in Kuhl v Zurich Financial Services Australia Ltd[6] where the High Court held that a witness must tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
How is it that the citation for “a witness must tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” only 13 years old‽
It must not be overlooked that I am not required to accept evidence, even uncontroverted evidence, if that evidence is contrary to the way events are likely to have occurred
Tell that to the High Court in Pell…
- Comment on Australian woman discovers fake Instagram wedding was real 2 weeks ago:
Maybe. I can see why you’d say that, since the judge did mention it. But I think not. There seems to have been enough other evidence (not the least of which is her own testimony and the specific timing of this filing) that it probably could never have gone any other way.
- Comment on Australian woman discovers fake Instagram wedding was real 2 weeks ago:
A woman in Australia has annulled her marriage after realising that a fake wedding ceremony she took part in for a social media stunt was in fact real.
What an absolutely wild story this was. Disappointed in the BBC’s reporting though. No mention of the groom’s side of this. Not what he said to the court (or mention that he did not speak in court), nor anything he might have posted on social media later (surely the drama of all this would have been worth it for more clicks?), nor any mention of an attempt to reach out to him to comment on the story itself.
Not that I think it would exonerate him even slightly, but I just want to see how he could possibly try to defend this. It would have added to the amusement, as well as just being basic good journalistic practices.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to australia@aussie.zone | 10 comments
- Comment on Just found out I wasn't registered as an organ donor 2 weeks ago:
I think it would have to be a legal process, but I’m not sure. It would basically depend on whether they have some document somewhere that tells them who they’re supposed to contact as your NOK, I suspect.
- Comment on Just found out I wasn't registered as an organ donor 2 weeks ago:
It’s also important to make sure you let your family know that you intend to be an organ donor. Because stupidly, even despite registering as an organ donor, your family is allowed to override that wish after your death.
- Comment on Bathroom Reno Question 3 weeks ago:
I am also interested in hearing the follow up on this one.
- Comment on Me when my parents told me they first met in the summer of 1999 & started dating the following year and I did the math (dad - 1959, mom - 1984) 3 weeks ago:
I don’t care about legality
That would still make it illegal in most western countries though
That’s what I was responding to.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Scots is generally regarded as a distinct language, but this looks to me like it’s probably Scottish English. Compare that with the front page of Scots Wikipedia* which is much harder to understand than this is. Half of the weirdness in this message is spelling English words how they’re pronounced with a strong Scottish accent:
Urgh, I’m fair scunnered with that daft idiot down the road, always haverin about his new motor like it’s something pure gallus
Which only leaves a small number of dialect-specific words.
*
Just…don’t look into the history of said site. Or do, it’s very entertaining but also kinda sad.
- Comment on Hey, you're an ass man. I have this problem with my bum. Could you take a look? 3 weeks ago:
ty!
- Comment on Me when my parents told me they first met in the summer of 1999 & started dating the following year and I did the math (dad - 1959, mom - 1984) 3 weeks ago:
You can write 1984 in octal as 3700
Right, but we’ve read it as “1984” already, so it’s a question of how we interpret those digits. It could be decimal 1984, or if it’s dozenal it would be (3124)~10~, or hexadecimal would mean it’s (6532)~10~. And the post itself doesn’t actually mention an age, that’s just us interpreting it
Maybe “age of consent” is something different
It is, very often. Most countries have it at 16 or lower, as do most states in America, I believe. (I’m not American, and that’s just something I vaguely recall hearing an American say. Never bothered verifying it myself.)
- Comment on Me when my parents told me they first met in the summer of 1999 & started dating the following year and I did the math (dad - 1959, mom - 1984) 3 weeks ago:
I don’t actually know any 16 year-olds. But are they into Roblox? I thought that was more of an 8–14 y/o type thing?
- Comment on Me when my parents told me they first met in the summer of 1999 & started dating the following year and I did the math (dad - 1959, mom - 1984) 3 weeks ago:
That would still make it illegal in most western countries though.
It sounds like they started dating when she was 16, which means as gross as it is, it’s not illegal in most places. Unless there was some sort of grooming, which is definitely possible given they first met when she was 15, but nothing we’ve been told in the story lets us determine for sure that it’s illegal.
As for octal, you can’t write 9 in octal, so we know 1984 has to be base 10 at a minimum.
