Tau

I guess you're a prime example of someone looking to be offended then, because I really haven't said anything racist.

Turns out that when you go out hunting for things to be offended by you tend to find them.

The "Aboriginal Australian's house' one for example was clearly going to be a no-win situation regardless of the output - if the model returned the same house as the 'Australian's house' image they'd be writing instead about how offensive it was to ignore traditional culture.

"Every closure of a manufacturing facility is a loss of sovereign capability and compromises Australia's ability to build a more complex and dynamic knowledge-driven economy."

I agree with this sentiment, I don't think it is a good idea long term to lose manufacturing capability and knowledge. I would however prefer that a stake in the company is transferred to the government when they have to spend large sums bailing out a facility due to it being in the national interest to do so.

This is unironically a good method.

Agreed. I think the age verification laws are a rubbish idea but if one has to comply with them this is actually one of the better options for doing so - particularly for smaller sites. Something similar is worth considering as an option for this site when necessary as it's both something I'd actually consider doing (unlike a licence photo) and does not set the admins up for potential issues regarding having to store sensitive personal information.

Nah, just hand me that long stick there”

...and that's when they found the really big stick insect.

Would have been nice a couple of years ago before I paid off the last of mine, but I guess one can't have everything...

That was buying firewood permits off NSW Forestry in the broader region around Canberra, which I looked and they're still doing at $16 per tonne (albeit only in the further away forests at this point). They give areas you can pick firewood from after logging operations, you're just not allowed to fell trees. You do have to be able to go out and saw it then haul it back yourself. If you've got a current collection area near you it's a very cost effective method, even if you have to drive a fair way it still works out cheaper than buying it elsewhere.

Always did through my childhood and continued on that way, would do so again if I had a place with a fire. We'd saw into rounds when collecting and load them up then split and stack at home.

Plenty of people do buy pre split wood here though, I'd expect it's the source for the majority. Not everyone has the ability, inclination, or the equipment to go out and get firewood and it gets hard to find sources to collect wood in the bigger cities.

Fires are horrible.

They're about the best feeling source of heat around, so not horrible.

Very difficult to controll the heat output

It's not particularly difficult to control the heat output, it's just a matter of how you load it and how much air you let in. They don't do well for extremely low heat output, but at that sort of cold just put on a jumper instead.

they also are very costly to run

Used to cost about $20 a tonne for wood a few years back when I was in a place with a fire, plus maybe another $50 per tonne in fuel for the ute and saws to gather it (so ~$70 a tonne total). Was a hell of a lot cheaper than gas and a lot cheaper than electricity.

require a lot of maintenance

It's just popping up onto the roof once a year and taking ash out every week or so, I never found it a big deal.

require a lot of space to store the wood

This I'll grant you, given how tiny modern yards are. You need a square metre or two for the wood and another couple for room to split it - not much in a traditional suburban backyard but it's noticeable in newer blocks where you have bugger all room around the house.

I would have classed bogongs as small or medium size, are they really that much larger than other countries moths? If so I'd hate to see their reactions to moths which are actually large, not sure of the species but I've seen a few about palm sized.

i find the disjoint between the headline and article amusing - the headline claims the students have not driven up rents and inflation then the article moves directly into saying they actually did just not very much.

I agree it is a pretty overblown problem though, albeit with the possible exception of housing directly around unis as that would be more directly affected by demand from students. On a country wide scale international students are not that many people and that's the scale of the problem with rising rents and housing prices in general.

No shit, I'm surprised it's only one in five. I'm very happy my own vehicles are old enough to avoid this sort of annoying intrusive features. My experience with the safety 'features' in work/rental/family vehicles has been less than positive. Stuff like lane keep trying to pull me into other cars due to following old lane markings rather than current one, speed limit recognition sounding an alarm at me when passing most offramps on the Hume (the off ramp limit may be 80/60, the highway is definitely not that), AEB firing off when reversing as it can't figure out the trailer (yes, it was plugged in properly), minutes of alarms due to 'erratic driving' (unladen truck on a open road on a very windy day), and so forth.

Safety tech needs to be like ABS - do something which is genuinely useful for the average driver, and stay out of the way until there is a clear need to intervene. Even then there should be a way to turn it off without going through a whole rigmarole, because even that example does have specific use cases where it should not operate.