Absolutely amazing experience today thanks to lazy Energex QLD meter readers. They came to read the meter on a day we weren't around, and decided our "Meter access was blocked by vegetation" (see image 1).

[I should note the meter box was installed here at the recommendation of Energex, and it has not moved or had any significant vegetation growth since the last 9 times it was successfully read.]

Helpfully, we were given the option to visit a URL to enter a self meter read, so long as we did it "today". Very helpful, lovely long period there. Who even checks their letterbox daily anymore given mail only comes a few times a week at most, even assuming they aren't away.

So go to the URL on the card to try submitting the read anyway - and immediately get hit with a DNS error (see image 2). After some troubleshooting I figure out some ISPs are having issues with the DNS of the self service portal for some reason, but I manually resolved it using a working online lookup tool and edited my windows hosts file to get to it anyway.

Okay, so apparently it needs me to sign in with my SPARQ account which I forgot I even had and haven't touched in decades. So off I go to fish out the details, log in... and it wants me to enter my NMI details (why are those not already on file?!?)

It tells me I can enter this and verify it off the last bill I received, and happily I received one the day after this note was left, so I use the details off that by copy and pasting from the PDF bill they attached.

It fails verification. I tried a few times with different capitalisation in case they have braindead checkers. Nope. Finally it switches to offering me the opportunity to enter any of the meter numbers on the bill.

.o( Why is the "National Meter Identifier" and "Meter Number" different things? )

Anyway, I try that and it works, and FINALLY I have the thing linked. So I click Save. It fails and says I need to provide an alternative contact number (it already has my mobile under the primary contact). It offers me work or home numbers, in addition to my mobile as an option. I have no other numbers, so I just enter my mobile again. Seems happy with that, so I click save, and... I'm still on the form, though it does give me a success message. I try it again, it saves successfully again, but I don't go anywhere.

I notice there's a link near the top "Back to self service" so I try that and I'm immediately presented with a dire warning that continuing will wipe out everything I just entered because it hasn't saved yet. I try several other things, but finally just give up and click Ok on the dire warning. It just seems to have worked. Broken warning I guess.

So then FINALLY I am able to go to the self service submit a meter read page. Click the link:

(see image 3)

Sigh. Just another day in capitalist paradise.

Out of the comments on one of my recent posts, it probably is worth just pointing out how vastly empty most of Australia is. We're reasonably close in size areawise to:

* the "lower 48" (contiguous US of A states)

* China

* All of Europe from the mediterranean to the barents, from UK to the border of Russia.

* Brazil

(check it out on https://www.thetruesize.com/)

... and yet, all the dark gray on this map is area which contains precisely zero people.

The sprinkling of yellow dust contains an extremely low "less than 500 people per square kilometer", and honestly most of that is far less than that. The teeny splashes of red are mostly the 6 state capitals plus a small handful of regional cities, most of which are on the east cost, plus Canberra and Launceston.

I do love doing the drive from Brisbane to Cairns, and I also love the drive down to Sydney and Melbourne, but I also love that I can do those drives (which are like 20 hours long) and maybe go through only a dozen or so towns or cities along the way, and most of those are like four blocks long where you briefly drop down from 100 to 50km/hr, then less than a minute later you're through and back up at 100 again.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e2eac66d11984d0e86e6d795b0ca0eec

Just remember, whenever Australian media refers to "eastern Australia", here's what they mean.

"An explosive outbreak of spring thunderstorms are expected throughout much of eastern Australia over the next 48 hours"
https://abc.net.au/news/2023-11-08/major-storm-outbreak-threatens-sydney-canberra-mebourne-hobart/103075436

Groan.

(Stolen from the Data facebook page.. though the last panel was my addition…)