Ubuntu Desktop developer at Canonical.
Living in Perth, Western Australia.
| Website | https://www.jamesh.id.au |
And if you've never donated blood plasma before, it's worth noting that the compatibility rules for plasma are different to those for red blood cells: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/donors/blood-plasma-platelets/learn/blood/blood-types
While O- is the universal donor for blood cells, AB is universal donor for plasma. Since AB cells have both A and B antigens, the plasma lacks antibodies for each. So your plasma might be more useful than your whole blood in some cases.
Just did a blood plasma donation. They're doing festive bandages at the moment.
The Red Cross has been looking for plasma donations in particular in the wake of the Bondi shooting, so it is a good time to make an appointment.
Anne Twomey did an interesting video about the social media ban and how likely Reddit's challenge is to succeed:
RE: https://mastodon.social/@camwilson/115688155837169603
I hadn't realised the lobbying group behind the social media ban was portraying it as raising the minimum age from 13 to 16. Which is kind of weird, given that there was no Australian law banning social media for people under 13.
It is common for the terms of service for social media services to require users to be at least 13 though, but that does not come from Australian law. The services are generally run by US companies, so you'd think it is due to US law.
But US law doesn't ban under 13s from social media either. That cut-off seems to come from the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which is not specific to social media, and doesn't require banning children under 13. Instead, it imposes a requirement to gain parental consent and an obligation to protect the child's data. If a service has banned under 13s, that is a sign that they've decided that's all too difficult.
So here in Australia, we've skipped right past "online services have an obligation to protect the data of children" to "some online services should ban children".
From the report, children are organising on social media to form groups of 250 riders to pester cops.
Presumably the social media ban will help with this. 🤡
The inquiry into e-rideables (i.e. scooters, e-bikes, etc) delivered their report today:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-04/e-rideables-inquiry-calls-for-wide-ranging-changes-to-wa-laws/106099232
https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/commit.nsf/(Report+Lookup+by+Com+ID)/43493D47E62284BC48258D550030E903/$file/02328458.pdf
The suggestions mostly look pretty good. It recognises that people want rideables that can go faster than 25 km/h, and proposes making them legal. Although it sensibly recommends that they be kept off footpaths, and shouldn't be ones you stand on. It also calls for more dedicated infrastructure for these vehicles, perhaps in conjunction with the bike plan.
One part I've got mixed feelings about is in making the scooters more tamper resistant. People bypassing speed limiters was definitely a problem, but it sounds like a potential problem for repairability.
I made a panettone as a test bake to see if it'd be worth doing for Christmas. I'll have to wait for it to cool down before tasting, but it doesn't look too bad.
