Take your pick!

So are any of these VCs taking pay cuts themselves? Some are on exorbitant salaries.

There’s a name for this kind of phenomenon that I’ve forgotten, but essentially it repeats with every wave of new migrants. They move here, get racially vilified by the existing Australian community for being different, then slowly pick up the same whiteness mentality over the next few decades so that when the next wave of migrants occur the previous wave is often among the most aggressively racist towards them.

Solving the supermarket: Why Coles just hired US defence contractor Palantir | ABC News

I had one really bad experience when I was a kid where we got fish and chips from a new place because our usual was unexpectedly closed. They put chicken salt on everything and it became like this running joke in our family about the worst fish and chips ever because it didn’t even qualify as fish - it tasted like chicken lol

As far as I know, MSG is generally cooked into food whereas chicken salt is a seasoning you add on top at the end. The single exception I’m aware of is sometimes MSG is added as a side to certain Korean dishes (you dip whatever you’re eating in the MSG). In general I don’t think it’s something you would eat in the same way you eat chicken salt, though. MSG doesn’t have the same use, it’s more about feel than taste which is why it’s usually mixed in with other things as opposed to being the main seasoning. It enhances other flavours whereas chicken salt is the main flavour.

Personally this is why I never have chicken salt if I’m eating chips with fish, because it is too strong and dominates the fish flavour. I would say the way vinegar is used in the UK, particularly on similar foods like fish and chips, is a more accurate comparison (I wouldn’t have this combination either for a similar reason).

Yes, that was my experience at OTR. I worked there for like 7 or 8 months before quitting and they’d only just started the “training” around the time I left and even then it was super slow, like one session a fortnight or something. The HappyWash employee at my place was immediately moved into the store when he completed his traineeship (they had a different one to us) so the company put him on the retail traineeship and lower his wage back to $16 or whatever it was. Then they hired a teenager to fill the HappyWash role.

Sounds like the SA Liberals are providing free campaign material for Labor to destroy them with in the next election. As if they even needed it, the Libs are a complete mess.

Last month one of his sons, Ned, said his father was in an aged care facility and was mostly “non-verbal”.

“For those of you who don’t know, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s around five years ago,” Ned wrote. “He’s now non verbal most of the time (mind-blowing for me but also any of you that know him).”

Very sad way to go out for both himself and his family and friends. I’ll always remember the days watching George Negus Tonight as a youngster, not really understanding what any of it was about. It used to come on after the kids shows finished so I usually watched a bit of it before dinner.

These stories always make me so sad because the mistreatment of people on working holiday visas has been a widespread problem for such a long time and yet there is seemingly little desire for a solution.

Cycling infrastructure development in Adelaide and SA always seems to be based around tourism and leisure. Like if you want to do a family day trip, or you’re here on a cycling holiday or just want to spend your day somewhere there are quite a few good cycling paths that all connect up with minimal need to cross or ride on roads. But the daily cycling infrastructure is absolutely terrible. Most “bike lanes” on suburban roads are narrow, damaged and filled with rubbish and many motorists do not respect them at all. Thankfully we are allowed to ride on the footpaths so that reduces the danger somewhat but it’s also pretty inconvenient since footpaths are even less consistent in terms of terrain.

Yes, my grandmother has middle stage Alzheimer’s. She was diagnosed a few years ago after a few years of what I guess were early stage symptoms (though I didn’t recognise them as such at the time). It is very challenging for my grandfather, who has been married to her for over 65 years at this point. He has his own issues physically and is also quite forgetful, so attempting to care for her 24/7 is a massive weight. The whole family has been helping out, some are doing the cleaning, some are taking them out for activities, my partner and I cook and deliver some of their meals. They receive some government assistance as well but I don’t handle any of that so I’m not sure how extensive it is currently.

It is very surreal to see her in this state because she was always extremely chatty and would call the younger ones into the kitchen for the weekly dinners she would host so she could talk our ears off with some educational lesson about cooking or something. She would routinely have 1+ hour phone calls with members of the family and it was genuinely difficult to exit a conversation with her because she could just talk endlessly without ever getting bored. I used to find that annoying but now it’s just sad to think about, she can’t hold an extended conversation with anyone and it feels like so much of her personality has disappeared so quickly. She usually seems okay whenever I see her and we can have some short conversations and show each other love but some of the stories from my mum (who spends a lot more time with her) are disturbing.

I’m sorry if that was a grim read but I just thought I’d share anyway, so you know there’s someone else here experiencing something similar. I don’t have any advice or anything but I’m happy to chat about it if you ever feel like sharing more.

I just gave up and bought a new (secondhand) phone at the beginning of this year. I returned one of my older phones (Galaxy Note 9) to stock as a backup but I’m not even sure if that will work now because it’s a grey import (even though it has working VoLTE currently and supports all Australian network bands). It’s a bit sad that I have this little collection of otherwise great older phones that still receive updates to their custom ROMs but will now be useless as phones.

In fairness it is a poorly written and confusing article (the guy is not a writer by profession, just a telecommunications expert trying to draw attention to the 3G shutdown). I shared the video just in case people had a hard time understanding the main takeaways, since Hugh Jeffreys did a good job summarising them.

It sounds like they are over-complying in response to recent legislation:

This is due to an update to the ‘Emergency Call Service Determination’ (ECSD), in the explanatory statement it says:

“Subsection 6(2) directs ACMA to include requirements for providers to identify mobile phones unable to access Triple Zero, notify the user, provide assistance if necessary to access an alternative mobile phone, and cease providing service to the affected device. Providers will also be required to not provide service to a prospective customer seeking service with an affected mobile phone. This requirement makes clear the responsibility providers have to ensure mobile networks provide access to the emergency call service.” […] “The amendments to the Determination to be made under section 6(2) are to be determined and commence in full by 1 November 2024.”

The author of the article claims AMTA is not a reliable indicator of VoLTE compatibility:

Additionally Tools like the ‘AMTA 3G Lookup Service’ are not accurate or reliable. AMTA knows this, hence why you need to agree to a long list of terms & conditions before using it.

This new ACMA policy is deeply disturbing because many consumers, including myself, own fully functional devices that can make VoLTE calls and emergency calls, yet are deemed “incompatible” by the telcos.

These are devices with the exact same hardware and software as ‘officially supported’ devices, the only difference is the telcos didn’t sell them.

Vodafone’s 3G network has been switched off for 9 months at this point, I don’t know if customers would still be getting messaging about it. Though there was a section in the article about issues with roaming for international visitors in January:

As a result of the Vodafone 3G switch-off in January, inbound Roaming customers have been receiving text messages advising they will no longer have access to voice, text or data and emergency calling whilst roaming in Australia.

Even customers with 5G iPhones have received such text messages.

He published another article recently about exactly that. It sounds like the telcos are putting in less than the bare minimum of effort and the government has been too clueless to hold them to account. And when it does try to legislate it has done so in a nonsensical way that risks hurting more than helping.

If you prefer video/audio, Hugh Jeffreys covered this here.

I agree, thanks for sharing.