AAA managing director, Michael Bradley, said “Cars have never been safer and road funding never higher and yet road fatalities are climbing,”.

Except this is not true.

Cars may today be safer if you are inside them. But the rise of bigger and heavier vehicles means they are becoming more and more dangerous for all the people outside the vehicle, especially pedestrians and cyclists.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/23/australias-road-toll-continues-to-rise-with-most-states-falling-behind-safety-goals

Me 15 years ago: wow everything should be connected to the internet!

Me now: STOP connecting EVERYTHING to the INTERNET, keep as much of everything LOCAL to the system as possible. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE ONLINE. AAAGGGHH.

Ch 1 of every IP law textbook: "Copyright is vital as it gives creators a reason to create new works"

Hollywood: "We're just going to nuke this entire TV show we made because we can make more money NOT distributing entertainment than we can when we do."

Academia: "Interesting problem. Here's an article an economics professor wrote about it as part of a publicly funded research initiative which you can pay $19.99 to view for 24 hours."

Government: "we're busy making it illegal to use WhatsApp"

Wife bought me a Hornby train set several years ago. It's now totally useless because the shitty Hornby control software "expires" as soon as you install it, and activation server appears to be off-line.

Fuck proprietary software, especially when it's "required" for operation of real world things that shouldn't need it.

Anyone know suitable OSS alternatives to "Hornby Railmaster"?

Very heartened to see the ABC covering Australia’s pivot to large cars in top slot on their website yesterday:

Australia’s love of big cars is undoing the benefits of the shift to EVs - ABC News https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-15/big-cars-on-aussie-roads/102603092

Article talks about banning advertising as we did with cigarettes👍. But let’s also copy the plain packaging idea: You can only buy them in 1 boring colour. Those truly buying for utility shouldn’t care.

Isn't it great how our authorities tell us to be aware of scammers, but when you are, and you become aware of a potential attempted scam, if you try to report it and get some assistance ... the response is to basically get fucked.

Because no crime has actually been committed, the NSW police are not interested and cannot do anything to help you.

So then there's the ACCC's Scamwatch, which the police refer you to.

Where you lodge an online form.

They acknowledge that you've lodged an online form.

But in terms of actually doing something in order to investigate and perhaps do something to help catch the scammers?

Nope.

Nothing timely.

No hurry.

Nothing to see here.

What a load of rubbish. Why is there no sense of urgency here, where they may be able to investigate and possibly catch someone of ill intent?

This is utter crap.

No wonder people end up being scammed, when there's no proactive attempt by the authorities to help mitigate the problems.

My son found a bowerbird bower a few blocks from home. I think it's a Great Bowerbird (that's its name, not my opinion).

This is not a nest. It is a Tinder profile that uses Instagram filters. The male builds this tunnel, and carefully arranges pale grey bits and pieces in an exact pattern, bigger at the front, smaller near the tunnel, shiny out the back. Then he stands in it. The foreshortening makes him look huge and sexy.

#birds #WildOz #wildlife #FNQ #mareeba