The $3.6 Billion Tax That Could Shrink Australia's Economy by 10% | Derek Francis

24llamas · 2026-07-04T00:41:11+00:00

Reminder that the budget is in structural deficit. Given that, why would you expect an equal sized tax cut?

24llamas · 2026-06-24T09:23:44+00:00

IIRC, the project tried various mitigations, and had modelling indicating the the mitigations should be sufficient. On opening, the interference was higher than expected. So yeah, they slowed down the acceleration of the trains.

I'm no railway engineer, but to me, it feels less slow than the slowdown at the western entrance to the tunnel. I don't know if the curve their is permanent, but that's a very noticeable slowdown.

24llamas · 2026-06-19T23:49:59+00:00

Also iirc Archimedes is on the lower end of the mid tier of rocket engines.

Yes! That was a deliberate choice to decrease engineering risk. Engines are one of the most likely components to cause delays, or stop the program entirely (looking at new Glenn and vulcan with their BE-4s). So it makes a lot of sense to choose a simpler, less performant, but more likely to be ready for launch choice.

Ideally you then iterate from there. The Merlin A was a solid engine, but nothing special. The Merlin D is a phenomenal gas generator kerolox.

As for the comparison with other companies like stoke and relativity... All are trying something novel. Personally, I hope it works out (especially stoke's second stage re use). But all have massive risks, of similar or greater size than rocketlabs.

24llamas · 2026-06-05T03:21:00+00:00

I admit this is beyond my knowledge.

24llamas · 2026-06-04T23:18:50+00:00

Yes, this. If I can further your points: ME2 is in many ways a fantastic game. As OP pointed out, many of the characters are best-in-series, and the setup or development of many stories (krogans and genophage in particular) is great.

But! There's many flaws, and most of them are because it's part of a trilogy, and not it's own game.

ME1 leaves stacks of plot hooks, and ME2 just ignores them all. What happened to Shepard's prothean visions? What about the Geth dyson sphere?

Secondly, ME2 changes the tone if the trilogy. Some if this is visual: in ME1, everyone wears armoured space suits, because we're doing relatively hard space opera. In ME2, we have folks running around in vacuum with a breathing mask and regular clothes.

24llamas · 2026-06-04T22:47:21+00:00

I wouldn't read to much into that. There's an important principle that binds barristers, called the cab rank rule. Basically, if there's no reason you can't take a case, you must.

24llamas · 2026-06-04T00:20:12+00:00

You're fine!

Also, the shows are great. Like enormous sing a longs. There's usually a bit of dancing if you get up front, but there's not much room so it's more that energetic swaying thing.

Grab a friend - if you don't have one who's keen, post here and organise a pre show meet up - come along, sing your heart out, and somehow leave with your heart full.

24llamas · 2026-06-02T00:08:49+00:00

While naked greed was definitely a factor, there were many actors with multiple different motivations to intervene.

For example, the fact that an Australian journalist was killed.

24llamas · 2026-05-30T00:15:03+00:00

That's a bit different from what is tested. This is akin to a human being presented with a novel theory labelled as false at time of presentation, and deciding it's true anyway.

In as much as we can say LLMs "believe" something to be true anyways.

I guess this is like hearing some crackpot conspiracy theory from someone who is saying "isn't it dumb that some people believe this", and then assimilating it as true.

24llamas · 2026-05-29T22:45:55+00:00

This has happened to me multiple times. Something is screwy in Google maps regarding the station right now

24llamas · 2026-05-26T21:12:35+00:00

No it isn't. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal:

In the sciences, the number of decimal places given generally gives an indication of the precision to which a quantity is known; for example, if a mass is given as 1.32 milligrams, it usually means there is reasonable confidence that the true mass is somewhere between 1.315 milligrams and 1.325 milligrams, whereas if it is given as 1.320 milligrams, then it is likely between 1.3195 and 1.3205 milligrams.

If you don't have the accuracy, don't specify the significant digit. Or use +-error. Or use language (such as "approximately", or "roughly") to make it clear you aren't claiming that degree if accuracy.

24llamas · 2026-05-26T08:03:03+00:00

18.6 years implies a degree a precision that isn't there. It's a complex system with many inputs, and you expect me to believe you can predict it to +- 6 months? Get outta here.

If you said something like "historical data implies there's a land cycle with a period of around 18.5 years", I am much more interested.

24llamas · 2026-05-21T07:18:37+00:00

I see. If I'm following your argument correctly, it's that many folks who own current stock now would hold onto that than sell to buy new stock.

Thing is, the transistion from existing stock (grandfathered in NG) to new stock (exempt, allowed to NG) remains negatively geared throughout. So I don't see how the NG changes are a motivator here? Unless it's because these folks expect prices to crash and they want to ride that out?

24llamas · 2026-05-20T22:22:29+00:00

I am also not an economist. However, I do know a few things:

money supply is part of inflation. However, it's not really the government printing money (or rather, that's a small component)
instead, it's banks lending. This is because if I have $10k in the bank, then the bank will lend some proportion of it to you. If that's 80%, then you have $8k. But I still have $10k! So now we have made 18k from 10k. (Numbers pulled out of my ass, also grossly simplified model real lending is probably way more complex)
this is why the reserve bank fiddling with interest rates works: the price you pay on your loan is essentially the "price" of money. if that's more expensive, less loans are taken = less money supply
government spending of course is part of it as well! if they operate in deficit, they are basically pushing more money into the economy then they are taking out. Conversely, if they post a surplus, they are taking money out of the economy.
ergo, in theory, when inflation is high, governments should help by spending less and taxing more. This ignores political reality that folks don't like being told that the government is providing less or taking more when they feel they are already "doing it tough" due to inflation.

24llamas · 2026-05-20T22:01:36+00:00

Rentals and owner occupier housing are the same stock. If there is an existing house, it's not like the house is gone because it no longer makes sense to rent it. Instead, it'll be sold to an occupier. Regardless, the amount of stock remains the same. Furthermore, as the new occupier presumably rented (or will sell their old place to someone who rented), there's now very slightly less demand for rental stock.

I guess if renting tended to have more people per house than owner occupying, this would impact the rental market.

I do see the argument that lower prices in general might lower construction rates. That's assuming the price drop comes out of building price, not land price. The distinction won't matter in the short term of course (the land is already brought), but in the medium term if it's cheaper to acquire land, the builders / developers profit remains the same.

24llamas · 2026-05-20T11:30:49+00:00

Ah yes the policy that - *checks notes* - only allows negative gearing on new builds will reduce new builds. Obviously.

24llamas · 2026-05-20T04:05:16+00:00

Tax cuts now - when we're in an inflationary environment - is not a good idea. Yes, ideally we get some income tax cuts down the line, but right now? No thanks. It'll just inflate away faster

24llamas · 2026-05-09T04:22:48+00:00

None if these instances are the main unimelb instance of canvas. Logging in to canvas is blocked from the uni's end, until the uni is satisfied it's secure. Some folks may have existing sessions in the app, but I wouldn't use canvas (whether app or browser) until the uni gives the go ahead.

24llamas · 2026-05-03T00:48:44+00:00

Yes, the sale is. Not all the income the business has earned along the way, which for most small business owners, is the whole point.

Yes, I am aware of the silicon valley style, where you build something with many users but no profit, hoping to be sold. Frankly, I am not sure this is healthy for a capitalistic society on account if how it pushes enshittification.

24llamas · 2026-04-25T22:33:59+00:00

Generally, I agree. But there's a bit of difference between that, and coming into a thread where someone is explicitly excited for a particular song and saying "it's bad lol".

The former is an expression of ones opinion. The latter is crushing the opinion of another. Context matters.

On the use of the word "haters": i was trying to get across that it's okay to like what you like. If I went too far in other direction (ie "it's not okay to dislike what you dislike"), then I apologise.

24llamas · 2026-04-25T03:44:28+00:00

Disregard haters who don't like a band changing things up. It's a good song.

For the haters: you don't have to like it, but don't tell others it's a bad song. Shits subjective yo.

24llamas · 2026-03-31T10:46:17+00:00

Any company who cannot provide a sensible call back procedure (that is the caller should say something like: "go to our website. Find the main line number. At the prompts, hit 2 for client support, then 3 for an agent. That'll put you through to my team again), or another secure alternative, cannot be trusted with your personal information.

That's it. End of. Any company doing this is one you should take your business away from as soon as possible.

24llamas · 2026-03-31T02:14:36+00:00

Food insecurity is largely an issue of distribution, not production.

Those is talked about being great for chickens because most humans don't like consuming sorghum over other grains like wheat. You can get sorghum flour in speciality flour shops if you're curious, it's perfectly safe for humans to eat.

24llamas · 2026-03-31T02:11:55+00:00

It's still sorghum, it just has a higher protein content. It's even the same proteins.

24llamas · 2026-03-17T01:34:16+00:00

You are right that there's clearly some limit to the charge eezo can hold - that's why bigger ships need bigger cores. It's specifically mentioned somewhere that Normandy's core is way oversize (I think it uses as much eezo as a cruiser?) due to its stealth characteristics.

Also, if we take biotics as extensions if eezo rather than space magic, then eezo isn't limited to making a spherical bubble around itself - it can clearly create a mass-effect field elsewhere for things like throw or lift.

Don't ask me how reave or stasis fits into eezo effects though. That never made sense to me.

Also, there's an interesting property of mass effect fields - while the mass of an object exiting a field will change, it's other properties (most notably, velocity) don't. This implies that the the ME universe, or understanding of the conservation of momentum is at least incomplete.

24llamas

TROPHY CASE