#SerenityInOz— a quiz about Australian stuff— Friday 20 Mar, 2026

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Smaller than tornados, and usually harmless …

Dust devils form when a pocket of hot air near the earth surface rises quickly through cooler air above it, forming an updraft. The hot air rises because it is less dense than the cooler air. In the right conditions, the updraft begins to rotate.

The rising air stretches vertically, moving closer to the axis of rotation
which intensifies the spinning by conservation of angular momentum. The secondary flow of air causes more hot air to speed horizontally inward to the bottom of the forming vortex. As more hot air rushes toward the vortex to replace the rising air, the spinning intensifies.

[it’s a reinforcing feedback loop]

A fully-formed dust devil is a funnel-like chimney through which hot air moves upwards and in a circle. As the hot air rises, it cools, loses its buoyancy and eventually ceases to rise

seems they are found everywhere (even on mars).
“In Ireland, dust devils are known as "sí gaoithe" or "fairy wind" “

in australia they are commonly known by the name _____ _____
(From Yindjibarndi language, in the Pilbara)

"You can't have gay Klingons!", shout the dumberatti from the sidelines, having never realised that Star Trek was always a show about wokeness.

Huh? Huh? You want to say that a warrior culture would repress homosexuality when our own history shows us that warrior cultures in our past embraced it?

How about this take on one of our favourite fictional races: maybe to a Klingon, it would be an act entirely without honour to deny someone the right to become a fully fledged member of their society, just based on who and how they loved.

Maybe in Klingon society anyone who discriminates against someone just because they're gay is likely to get ostracised or challenged to a duel to the death.

Maybe Klingons believe that who you love doesn't change whether you can fight or not, and they'd look at human history of discrimination against LGBTI folk as one of the worst forms of dishonour imaginable.

#StarTrek #Klingon #LGBTIQ

#SerenityInOz— a quiz about Australian stuff— Wed 18 Mar, 2026

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 what is the colloquial name for a (travelling) stock route?
The _____ _______

more info:

a (travelling) stock route is an authorised thoroughfare for walking domestic stock such as sheep or cattle
the verges on the side of the road are wider than usual, to provide vegetation/feed while animals are “overlanded” or herded a long distance

used from the early colonial period, stock routes provide pasture during times of drought, and access to transport or markets

stock are legally required to travel a minimum 6 miles /10 kms per day to prevent overgrazing

travelling stock reserves are sometimes available along the route for resting stock overnight

Just two of the most well-known travelling stock routes in australia are the Canning Stock Route in WA (2,000 kms long) and the Birdsville Track in SA (520 kms long)

There are about 600,000 hectares of travelling stock reserves in NSW and 2.6 million hectares running for 72,000 kilometres across Queensland..

#SerenityInOz— a quiz about Australian stuff— Tuesday 17 Mar, 2026

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 what’s my name?
I was born in cheshire around 1776

i fell in with a bad lot, and was convicted in 1802 of knowingly receiving a roll of stolen cloth
i was set up, you know

in 1803 i was transported to the Port Phillip penal settlement at Sullivan Bay (near Sorrento)

the settlement didn’t last long, but i managed to abscond with 5 others during a storm

long story short, i ended up spending more than 30 years living on and off with the Wallarranga tribe of the Wathaurong nation.

i managed to avoid interacting with white settlers until i learned, in 1835, of a plan to rob an English ship near Indented Head, and possibly murder the occupants.
Some Indigenous friends and I then visited the camp site of John Batman’s Port Phillip Association

it would take a while for me to remember how to speak English
I was still legally a convict, but in exchange for preventing the raid on the ship, and acting as interpreter, a pardon was organised by one of John Batman’s men.

As i was barely literate, my life story was eventually written by someone else.
It was an age when there was a flourishing market in stories of colonial adventure, especially stories involving Indigenous people. They didn’t have to be true.

Tim Flannery reckons my story has been "ignored or mentioned only in passing by historians" because it is "so at odds with contemporary preconceptions”.

What were the odds i could abscond from a penal settlement and survive at all, let alone 30 years?
my name has become synonymous in australia with someone who doesn’t have a chance.