anenefan

The law was just a way to get around idiocy that removing some problem algorithms was too hard on social media platform's part. It's a bit like country roads, there's a ban on kids riding or driving vehicles on them without a licence, there's a loose understanding what's not going to attract the law, then there's behaviour and areas where it's a total no go - then the police will work hard to sort that out.

I don't know if there's any more intention than that, though almost immediately with the ban I was enjoying not seeing the latest 13 to 16 year old twit posting their recent car stealing / wild ride around the streets the tv news services had found on some social media page to play up youth crimes.

If the social media that could not remove the purposely age targeting algorithms parents were up in arms about in 2018 .. 2019, haven't already done so since the under 16 ban came in, to put it bluntly they're not paying decent capable lawyers.

As for proof of age, esafety already proposed how that should happen, arms length and not direct proof with personal identification directly with the platform. It's social media platforms wanting photo id or other PII ... but of course that's exactly what those platforms want, more PII.

Well yes keeping cane toads at bay is a good idea but ...

>"Research shows cane toads need water every few days to survive the dry season and, where natural water sources are scarce, they often rely on artificial water points used for cattle and irrigation to survive."

I think someone near the top of the hierarchy needs to have a talk to folks over on the east coast that have witnessed droughts and how that relates to cane toads. Speaking as someone who's witnessed months long absences of available water, soil so dry that even the subsoil some 2 to 3 feet has changed ... toads do not die off. Certainly they don't breed without water, so removing access to any artificial water sources would be a good thing.

There is no law stopping any of these under 16 kids from creating an algorithm free area such as a special interest forum or joining a forum to chat to each other. Forum being somewhere that has real level headed folks who undoubtedly would act as a voice of reason and not encourage silly BS if it were to surface.

As for the under 16 ban, it's more that social media platforms snubbed the regulators reacting to a consensus of concerns over bad algorithms, and slowly esafety via govt regulations found another way to skin the cat. Kids that are emotionally strong and robust will most likely skirt the ban, those who are susceptible that the platforms used to target purposely ... well those platforms no longer have any legal legs to stand on if things go wrong.

Still exists purely as a copper line - 16 km plus - I've forgotten the actually distance to the exchange, I used to know all the figures, balancers etc on the line having chatted many times with various line repairers over the last 30 years.

The area I'm around still has plenty of copper that can't even run asdl. If people are lucky they have a mobile tower in sight with good signal or spend their own money to erect a small tower with external antenna / amplifier. One of the issues way back when NBN was first implemented, telcos were much more focused on just moving everyone to mobile services, while they improved their own mobile networks as much as they needed to offer a bare minimum - they had the ears of some in the government.

I hope at some point most people have NBN fibre arriving close enough if not fibre, a node with the copper in ground to be able to run faster speeds than asdl2+ ... I say that in an odd way only for the fact I knew of one region that had good asdl2+ speeds ... one of the later iterations of NBN (brought copper back into the equation along with the not fit for purpose butterfly connectors which soon corrode in use) ... a cheat to look good with roll out it was decided to convert those quite capable asdl2+ copper lines to NBN ... the outcome was the speed delivered was slower ... much slower - dial up speed while paying through the nose. I'm not sure if those poor folks ever got real NBN later on.

Dial up was killed off some years ago, so yes, just phone.

Still copper up my way mate - Even though the pair gain technology improved things for a time, golden days would be 1990s here, the service rendered got worse and worse. Present times it's not surprising to see a simple phone only landline down for months. For example my Dad's line - Telstra can fix the landline and it'll be dead again within a couple of weeks ... if only reporting took a couple of minutes but Telstra has ensured it takes up a couple of hours for each instance by phone, even using the chat bot path, the last time a year ago it still took a couple of hours based on the repeated sessions to finally get a technician to arrive, confirm and head back down the track to bodge the line and get the service up ... it lasted almost a month ... a sibling got him a mobile phone (given location somewhat limited) in the end.

I was thinking on reading the topic title that a couple of the existing satellites in a different orbit over the polar areas might have become degraded ... however it reads more like that the degree of inaccuracy has been quantified by Canada's military and the poor accuracy is being blamed on low angles from the existing satellite orbits. Low angles would assume near equatorial orbits and not multi-planar as they are [1] As such, it causes me to wonder if the issue isn't more widespread.

[1] https://www.gps.gov/space-segment

I assume the article isn't too different to [1] It presents an interesting concept of looking for specific changes and reintroducing those they suspect might be beneficial to the immune systems proper function.

I feel that they're overlooking medical conditions like like gastro paralysis and gastroparesis which some sources link or associate a proportion of cases with spinal injuries. Gastroparesis when severe can cause periods of dehydration which greatly affects the every day function of the lower gut and gut's normal microbiome.

Looking for more information I noted [2] which goes into some depth in regard to Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) in mice, while they note large difference to human digestion track, it offers clues for future efforts to treat those who have gut related issues due to spinal damage or wear and tear associated with getting older.

[1] https://news.osu.edu/spinal-cord-injury-reshapes-gut-microbe...

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12745463/ (Dec 2025)

Probably shadow banned, I would say for being too gruff and blunt a lot of the time with the rest falling into the snarky territory. I still read their comments in a topic I'm viewing ... from what I read, I'm not concerned for their mental health than many other HN contributors, I'd guess most of their days are very stressful and they would not be the first person to purposely take their daily frustrations out on some forum they frequent.

Certainly as Google gets more aggressive over their android phone, options to easily load another OS to enjoy similar experience to what I uncounted with early android version would be most welcome.

I am aware that back a few years ago, 2018 iirc federal law was introduced which granted additional powers to law enforcement in regard to telecommunication equipment, though only skimming though the rules, but not greatly understood - I was left to assume if the device is discovered via a search, the law can view and copy data the device stores or accesses if they so desire.

I actually have an old pixel phone that given to me and has GrapheneOS ... but like the rest of my cheap phones, I only use them for phone calls, texts, photos, time piece, maybe once a year utilise GPS and a hotspot when the signal from the nearby towers are good enough to get some bandwidth. [Mobile networks as such that my usual location can be so iffy even receiving a simple sms in a timely manner can be a challenge]

There were a couple of dumber phones for sale in Australia at Kmart that are neither apple or google OS. I bought one that I'd guess was imported from China, and used Moor OS as the operating system, back a couple of years I could find only the barest amount of info on the OS as I was curious to see if there were additional apps. Presently nothing to find by way of the google or ddg, even Yandex came up empty handed.

A simple old browser (qtweb) I'm not logged into, and my browser that's logged in - presently shows the same content on the front home page.

Keep in mind the link is page dated Dec 2004. Why use an air tool, well choice would depend on what infrastructure already exists or if there are hazards to using hydraulic or electric powered devices. For example, orchards tend to use air pruners and for those who can afford it, bespoke platforms designed for pruning come with a suitable compressor to run the tools [1] Battery powered portable equipment has come a long way but I still don't see to many robust enough to not have to worry about their use in inclement weather.

[1] https://www.treefruit.com.au/orchard/orchard-equipment/machi...

The fact the page is from 2004 and not significantly updated would suggest their air motor idea didn't pan out as well as they hoped - well for use in a chainsaw at least.

I guess somehow they missed a timber felling induction course or just seeing a chainsaw in practical applications - though cutting slowly and gently is called for time to time, but mostly it's high rpm, cut quickly to point where shear will occur or as clean a cut as possible. Pneumatic chainsaws are available [1] [2] [3] [4]

Apparently they were applying the quasiturbine idea as an engine - internal combustion -- I tried to search to see why their motors didn't take off - the first decent promising result was from 2014 talking about high wear and temperature issues ... unfortunately the result is from a site (wouldn't be the first forum I've seen to ban links to it for ... reasons) doesn't appear to use static links and made their dynamic links to articles meaningless such that data found during a previous crawl, upon visiting later on, the link takes one to a more recent answer, the old answer appears to be lost to its espace.

[1] https://eclipseenterprises.com.au/product/campagnola-pneumat...

[2] http://www.abgpl.com.au/product/Pneumatic-Chainsaw-Model-Tim...

[3] https://ajpind.com.au/products/spitznas-chain-saw

[4] https://contractorsupplymagazine.com/pages/Spre/CS-Unitec-Pn...

Just remember that with RCS, unless they've decided to include a setting that bars any remote deletion - RCS is something that could be abused by arseholes allowing them to send nasty shit, and then play innocent after remotely deleting the evidence ... hard proof screen shots worked back in the day, but with the wonders of A.I. not so much.

My phones are strictly sms for text, I've no interest in google messages or other alternatives since the signal strength is low - I'd rather get messages in a timely fashion - not in a day or two.

Perhaps it's the rain or I'm still not quite awake this late hour of the morning but I'm somewhat lost with privatisation in Queensland. I'm unfamiliar with something like this being part of Katter's or later the party's platform, a lot of folks like to make fun of Katter but getting down to the hard facts there's more often I find less to disagree with than other political platforms.

I had though though the power is in the hands of companies, they are govt owned [1] [2] I am inclined to say thankfully the power grid up our way is not in the hands of private energy companies or fly by night riff raff - the types that make promises of cheap power but offer up confusing power plans that are actually not that cheap, especially given what I've heard from those unfortunate enough to have been caught that I've chatted to down south. Every so often some grubby fingers try to talk up moves to entice the govt to privatise the energy grid ... something which nearly happened in the 00's.

If prices have risen steeply from the 90s in Queensland, a good guess would be it's due to a need to raise capital to further extend power networks as well as repair / replace a lot of the much older original wooden poles that reached their end of their long life as well as pull out many of the newer poles sourced from where ever, which though they initial passed muster, failed relatively quick.

[1] https://www.energyq.com.au/about-us/who-we-are

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerlink_Queensland

Note - link is to site and could not locate actual article with an external search.

I searched the rest of teh web instead and revealed an article from last year [1] ... reads very close to what I found at [2] which is today - yesterday.

The Chinese have also been working with a couple hundred doctors to create an LLM that can help with triage.

Done correctly there should be little doubt with anyone who's had ended up questioning some of the silly things said, that a LLM will be a lot more accurate, not have to be told about certain drug interactions, considered rather than ignored the rare side effects of some potent medications and not spiral into a cascade of additional issues due to missteps and treating for symptoms that, had they bothered to read the warning labels, realised the patient was hitting a tipping point.

I certainly aim to have add a health directive for hospital admission that I prefer a doctor is very much aware apparently normal blood pressure is not definitive of being properly hydrated. I meet a dozen of so last year that seemed blindly unaware and argued the point with me ... it's sad that pretty much the obvious things (check points) came to pass as I said they would. I'm forever mad at myself for not insisting a nose tube for my Mother who though other things were at hand was suffering mostly from what was extreme dehydration - just beaten down and the mental exhaustion of BS all around me.

[1] https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/microsoft-says-it... (July 2025)

[2] https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1016690/... (Oct 22 2026)

For my old browser, deny list that kicks a number of problematic trackers and the like: site including ask hn threads all have been loading fine without issue.

I would suspect a timing issue. A couple of decades ago some sites within Australian gov ... .edu used to do that as a method to guess if the person was within Australia but it really messed with those on satellite.

To be clear yes even for that price, it's bang for buck so as long as the project completes and works as expected and not severely limited due to some other unforeseen problem.

There was a more expensive pumped hydro projects planned but ultimately the proposed Aud 62 billion development was shelved. [1] I note there's now a near Aud 3 billion dollar pumped hydro project with a storage capacity of 12 GWh proposed west of Eungella, Qld [2] [3] about 20 to 30 miles to the west (further inland) from where the large Pioneer - Burdekin project was to be built. This time around there seems to be a lot more details included, like power infrastructure etc - unlike the Pioneer Burdekin project where community interaction was farcical - no one with authority could publish a map or communicate just where the wall of the lower dam was going or how high, where the power lines were going or any thoughts for HVDC transmission for robustness out to the industry that ultimately would seek out an all year round stable power supply, and absolutely no assurances that those who had livelihoods in an already well developed agricultural area below the lower dam wall out to the coast would be slowly displaced by industries that would move into the area as part of construction, and then subsequent industrial / technological developments.

I feel like a lot of product that are development, gain acceptance, uniformly embraced and ... finally becoming a necessity, high capacity battery prices will slowly increase higher than inflation in a couple of decades onwards.

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-02/lnp-scraps-pioneer-bu...

[2] https://www.capricorniapumpedhydro.com.au/project

[3] https://epbcpublicportal.environment.gov.au/all-referrals/pr...

It's bad luck when one of the main tools to do the job runs into issues, or conditions struck are much different to what was expected.

However I have my suspicions [1] that there's plenty of people who've either opted to milk as much as they can get from the project or padded bills for reimbursement as the taxman is paying ... or they're quietly in league with the crowd who are very much against renewable power.

The blow out in costs is being used presently by some of the more influential cats to try and talk up why government should not involve itself in critical infrastructure ... after all it's better when private interests do these things ... pinky swear they'll never sell at prices that squeeze the public for every little bit they can get ...

As much as it is, it's going to cost less than having to decommission a single nuclear power plant.

[1] From what slowly occurred for the years after covid on federal and state funded road upgrades in my neck of the woods, moved from high percentage of actual workers with a few safety folks ... until it reached silly proportions of non workers standing around the road works and weeks passed on with little occurring ... steaming when at one quarter mile section there was 14 or 16 safety personnel while two blokes with spades were busy. Later I'd chat to one of the guys who worked there and he spelt out that the contractors were getting every ounce out of it as they could ... the stinger being there's sections not even 5 years after completion that with all traffic travelling on one side for too long, it's failed and now it's not just the sides of the roads that have to be redone but the entire road.

My sincerest apologies. My old firefox loaded sharply, no ads, just the singular page which seems easy to navigate

I would probably have opted for the first method, from within firefox's settings. Else opted for something different like about:config and searched out DisableLaunchOnLogin setting

I think some people believe that a computer is always online. Anyhow there is a remedy. [1]

[1] https://www.askvg.com/fix-firefox-automatically-launches-whe...

>"When it comes to information, Wikipedia’s rules demand that no original research is included on its pages ... "

Hence if one had a good search engine they'd find that info eventually ... no wonder some people ask if wikipedia is relevant given a good llm would more likely pull up the same ... if not more nuanced information.

Personally I'll note that's a rule that didn't exist when wikipedia started out ... and unfortunately for some, answering a request to help fill out wikipedia, spent tens or hundreds of hours collecting and writing up about various things - which was wholly unfortunate if at some later point it was discovered ... either only documented internally within some organisations or via industry knowledge.

Yes, moving from $1.10 nil tax, to approx 2.80 nil tax per litre means the fuel companies are making a killing. But oh those oil executives would certainly be amongst friends in the Fat Cat Club here in Australia which has half the press at their disposal ... possibly some in govt as well and the mere suggestion of forcing or interference would cause a din we wouldn't quickly forget.

As for tourism and our tax dollars at work ... well airports were going to happen up our way regardless of tourists given the long distance some of the locals have to travel from time to time. However it is true of local council rates, in my region at least of all -- countless hundreds of thousands spent building features to give tourists something to stand next to and take selfies, reworking a handful of inner city streets to beautify them as a tourist draw card and opening the doors for development for high rise hotels to try and corner the convention market ... in the mean time little to help caravan parks still struggling on or creating suitable caravan parking at various places throughout the town ... but it does now have a ring road so the savvy caravaner / traveller can bypass it and continue on to the next truck stop / service station.

Certainly fuel pricing is important, but I doubt the oil industry would ever sell it at a vastly discounted rate ... pretty much the mantra of any international company has been along the lines of seeing just how much the suckers here will pay.

I would add that I've noted there's been a sharp decline of camper vans and caravans travelling the roads when I've headed down the highway - it means less money from tourism as well as agriculture and only next year will the bigger picture begin to emerge. It's a pity we didn't have a large cane ethanol industry that had been growing from the 90s, and a portion of us driving vehicles with imported Brazilian engines [hmm] running ethanol that can be bought at the bowser cheaply.

Regarding domestic markets competing with higher world prices: In Queensland the state govt of the time, a few years ago now, placed higher royalties < xx iirc 5 xx> 6 [1] different rates dependant on the sale price of coal. They did this after the price of coal soared to all time highs for world markets and Fat Cat Coal decided the domestic market should compete with global prices ... they're still spitting chips about the govt's response, running ads against the govt claiming world's highest whatever whine whine ... but fair dinkum price equals a fair dinkum royalty ... gouge price sets a nice fat royalty rate :)

Regarding the import export balance, agree that it's not that important, there's already been a decline in crude oil output from our oil fields and what is concerning is the lower projected quantities Australian oil field are expected to produce ... of course reading a good comment [2] and fortunate to get an equally informative reply to a question I had about vegetable oil, mentioning the amount of renewable fuel being refined in California ... it should be possible with a bit of direction and effort to increase vegetable oil production within Australia and modernise a refinery that's facing decommissioning eg [3]

[hmm] ... because car manufactures screamed blue murder the US built ones don't run properly on ethanol

[1] https://qro.qld.gov.au/royalty/calculate-mineral/rates/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47968313 > Fun fact: over 70% of diesel sold in California is now renewable or bio diesel

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytton_Oil_Refinery

Given [1] and [2] Australia is exporting a little less than what it's using. The loss of refineries due to ageing is most likely why once again Australia is exporting raw product and paying a premium to ship the finished product back, though from [3] it would seem our natural mineral crude has its days numbered.

If I were to be annoyed with anything and take issue with, it was the dog and pony show 30 - 40 years ago in regard to moving towards producing ethanol, in particular from sugar cane which was once a prolific and hardy crop that used to grow along much of the North Queensland coast down to Central Queensland ... but there are those with hands on the reins which are heavily invested with crystal sugar production and make $$$$ even if sugar is sold below the production costs of farmers and millers alike. Was a prolific crop is the right phrase, once cane land offered a near unbroken scenery, but a significant proportion of that cane land is now cattle land ... or housing in my region.

I too am more familiar with those who've bought into an area, fixed and sold up as they moved on when their job finished or a better opportunity arrived. I also know there are folks who have had the means albeit slowly, to slowly buy a couple of properties for investment purposes over the years and often rent out. Of course they do from time to time sell off some properties. The changes I think target those who are prominently buying and selling properties as a livelihood, most likely those have been fortunate to have hundreds of thousands spare to take on a number of projects over decade long periods

[1] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/australia/crude-oil-ex...

[2] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Australia/gasoline_consumpt...

[3] https://www.ga.gov.au/aecr2025/oil

> In 2023, nearly 80% of all oil production was from offshore fields on Australia’s North West Shelf (Northern Carnarvon, Browse and Bonaparte basins), this included condensate produced from a few large gas fields. Australia’s domestic crude oil production continues to decline rapidly, and without new commercial discoveries, production is projected to cease within the next 7 years.

I'm not seeing many additional car or property sales up my way when I visit the nearest town - though I'm not often in and around there much any more.

I would guess for those who can afford to, they've moved to a hybrid or electric vehicle and as such selling their old car down your way. As for a jump in property sales ... there's a few possibilities, higher interest rates on loan repayments has meant they have little choice to let go of their plan, people are moving to better opportunities which could even explain some clusters though I would more likely presume these clusters are sellers who bought properties as an investment / business, are exiting before proposed changes to tax kick in. I'm not sure if the tax is in yet, though my ears have been ringing chatting low to middle income folks who've been lead down the path that this tax will ruin them - no not really, from what I understood, it so that those in the property market buying (flipping) and selling as a business pay more tax than they currently do as they undertake it clearly as a business and not a hobby.

The increase of fuel, unavoidable as it is, IMHO, no direct fault of Aust entities here, is the probable reduction of tourists visiting my region, domestic or international, travelling the roads as much as they once did. Actually camper vans were always more popular with oversea tourists particularly back packers than a caravan. The roads up our way are not as forgiving as they are down south.

I note you've removed the link - good - otherwise it comes across as spam, otherwise the topic is an interesting problem.

Renting a caravan and setting up in someone's back yard does seem like one option people have tried, but there are times it runs foul of local ordinates in place regarding length of time etc.

Some people would see it purely as a housing crisis but I feel it really ignores the fact that a great number of van parks have either priced themselves out of being an affordable alternative or faced increased costs and further regulations which inevitably saw them close shop. Presently since solar means less reliance on powered sites, I see more vans and motor homes pulled up near rest areas, and other like places for a few days until they move on.

In my locale, North Central Queensland, even 30 years ago the caravan parks were starting to stall, many were simply encroached and then displaced by urban sprawl, but there was also the dwindling seasonal migration of workers from south to north and back south again following the seasonal jobs. I think it was just banks and finance firms made it too tough on those who did not have permanent jobs to borrow to be able to put down roots on a block of land - the only real choice was to aim for permanent work instead. So though I don't recall all the parks that used to exist around my parts I still recall the few large parks that made way for a small suburb of residential houses ...

Edit intro paragraph hour later for clarity

I'm aware there's a lot of snake oil out there, but if none of your family has any known or suspected issues, then for just an idea, I'd suggest the more capable with store front labs offering their services to verify you and yours gut health.

The gut biome changes or responds greatly to what sort of foods one is eating, and just changes in the biome in different areas of the gut can cause one to feel sick, but generally settles as the body adjusts to a different diet or schedule.

However if it's important to you for real insight, doctors and specialists in the field are a safer shot - I'm presuming the average doctor/ diet specialist over your way is a lot more competent than what I seem to get stuck with here in my neck of the woods. [1]

Though a little off topic, issues with food additives are worth noting. Food manufacturers are also changing what they add to foods, eg to avoid higher sugar content, using things like inulin which for myself from sweet potatoes was never a problem, the cheap nasty BS that's a form of inulin added to some food wraps caused me misery and consequently sensitised a reaction to sweet potatoes for a time. I also found out the hard way, not quite 10 years ago, certain food intolerances can exasperate other possible food related conditions that form a best fit for self diagnosis - so after a couple of stints doing my best to dodge gluten for a a year or so which did seem to help a little ... quite accidentally discovered many people suffer due to the long used 160b food additive, as symptoms were a really good fit and then avoiding 160b, that was my main gut dilemma I could recall suffering from an age of roughly 6. Also after a time I was back to eating regular bread without much of an issue.

[1] Presently ongoing but primarily unconfirmed gastroparesis / gastro-paralysis given the symptoms / debilitating outcome including some BADAS symptoms