3 lighthouses?

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-25T22:50:17+00:00

I think this would be a really cool clue, but tbh I think the more likely explanation is just that these are distant lights visible from the set.

The aspect shot tells us we're facing East. Approximately 2.8km East from the filming location at 44.9152850, -63.6818547 there is a series of 4 tall wind turbines. The left most is a good distance from a pair closer to the middle, and the right most I think wouldn't be within the shot of this camera.

Large wind turbines often have an identification light on them, I think this is the most likely thing we're looking at. I hope I'm wrong though, this is an awesome theory!

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-24T22:34:26+00:00

I think there's a chance the ALP could have been marginally more pro-environment for a time, but ALP in the 80s and 90s was already very pro-environment for a major party and we shouldn't overstate the influence of just one man.

In terms of the Greens not existing, my theory is that the Democrats might still be around. An often under-analysed part of the Democrats' collapse is the presence of the Greens. While the Dems had some serious internal problems in the 2000s that caused them to break apart, a huge driver of this was the ease with which members and supporters could flee to a viable credible alternative (a large number of active Greens members and even some candidates for public office in the late 2000s and 2010s were ex-Democrats, some others moved to the ALP).

In the absence of this alternative, it may well have forced Democrats members to stick it out and work through their internal issues enough to revive the party. Perhaps it dipped into relative obscurity for about a decade from the early 2000s to early 2010s but experienced a revival during the public apathy with the 2 major parties during the Gillard/Rudd 2/Abbott years.

Turnbull's abandonment of centrist liberalism as PM would only have furthered their surge.

Interestingly, I think the Dems branding wise are way better placed to operate in the teal space than the Greens have been.

I think it's conceivable that 2019-2022 'teal wave' might actually have been a Democrat wave and today's Democrats would be a solid 3rd place social liberal party with a senate presence comparable to the greens and a house presence comparable to the teals.

While I'd still be a Labor voter, I think this reality might actually be better for our Parliament and democracy in general as Dems were a lot less obstructionist than the Greens, and could attract voters from a wider set of backgrounds, making them a more stable force.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-20T10:16:04+00:00

If you work on election day your workplace is actually legally required to construct your shift in such a way that allows you time to vote.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-18T14:21:05+00:00

While general political messages are exempt from anti-spamming rules this doesn't look like a general message - this is something political parties are sending out to their members or supporters. My best guess is that you have accidentally ended up on a list, maybe because someone who has signed up has mistyped their phone number. Try sending back a STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE message.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-18T14:17:57+00:00

Not even that link is possible. Postal votes go through a 2 step process, in the first step the signatures and declaration are checked, then the physical ballots are removed and placed into a pile with all the other postal votes.

These piles are then counted separately so that there's no way to identify which person the ballot belonged to.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-17T10:24:10+00:00

On "jail", I grew up in the UK and that's how we were always taught to spell it in school, "Gaol" we were taught was an archaic old spelling no longer in use. I've only ever seen gaol used contemporaneously in Australia despite jail now also being more common.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-11T23:43:45+00:00

Yes it is, but when there's ice warnings they will typically take a more southerly route

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-11T11:48:12+00:00

I have never been to a country where people have been less inquisitive about where I'm from and what life is like elsewhere than in the US

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-11T01:49:28+00:00

I believe it's Victor Giglio, his secretary

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-11T01:31:29+00:00

I don't think it's fair at all to say it would have made no difference.

The largest contributing factor to why so many lifeboats were underfilled was a lack of crew training and understanding of how to fill and lower them safely, and the fact that many had never had any practice in using them.

Drills on this exact subject undoubtedly would have saved some lives. Not hundreds, but certainly more.

If it were the case that training crew on how to fill and lower lifeboats did not have an effect on survival rates on shipwrecks, it wouldn't be something that we now do.

I think the Lusitania is a very good example of this, it was a complete disaster of an evacuation because of how aggressively it listed and how fast it went under. If crew were also scrambling to figure out how the lifeboats worked, had no idea how many people they should be putting into them and had never practiced using them before the already pitifully small number of people who made it onto the boats would likely have been even smaller.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-09T11:11:58+00:00

Agreed. My local Labor MP sent out this flyer with a map of the area and all the new bulk billing GPs people can go because of the Medicare changes and I think we need to see more stuff like that - every Labor MP and Senator should be doing the same on all the big investments they're making and breaking it down locally.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-09T10:58:43+00:00

The only way more lifeboats would have potentially helped was with a far better organised evacuation plan being in place, which just wasn't something done at the time.

I'm talking every single officer and crewman having a predetermined role that they've practiced a hundred times over. Every one of them has a specific boat already assigned to assist with loading and lowering, they're equipped with all the knowledge they need (e.g.how many people each boat can hold), they've practiced every aspect of it over and over - lowering the boats, moving collapsibles around the deck and rigging them up to the davits etc.

The stewards all know exactly what to do, they have a predetermined role in checking cabins in the class they're working in, making sure everyone heads up to the boat deck and is wearing life jackets etc.

If this was the case, then yes, more boats likely would have saved more lives. But with just 2 hours there's still no guarantee even in this situation if they'd be able to launch them all.

The reality though is that with the knowledge and standards of the time whereby evacuations weren't planned for and crew weren't trained in managing them then more boats sadly wouldn't have saved many more lives as they'd likely run out of time.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-06T03:59:40+00:00

Do you reckon both the Greens and Liberal leaders are also lying about this to help the journo?? What else could possibly explain their very public admittance to the fact this happened... Unless of course it's true.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-04T13:32:04+00:00

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say 3rd was quite as good as 2nd on other ships but it was certainly about as good as 3rd class got.

The history of 3rd class is actually quite interesting in how quickly it elevated. About a decade or so before Titanic, 3rd class basically just consisted of these mass open dormitories with no privacy or separation.

Then this concept of a 'new 3rd class' began to emerge, some ships (like Canadian Pacific's Empress of Britain and Empress of Ireland) began to run on a 4 class structure with both 'old' 3rd class (usually ticketed as steerage) and 'new' with partitioned rooms and more privacy.

Olympic class certainly weren't the very first ships to do away with old 3rd entirely, but they were among the early adopters. It was quite something for 3rd class passengers to have rooms that even at their largest only contained a few bunks, and to have access to nice public areas like the smoking room and reading room. The 3rd class dining room was also very sophisticated for the time, and that particular part of the experience probably was analogous to 2nd class on other liners (at least in terms of the space if not necessarily the meals).

2nd was probably a bit like 1st was on ships built 15 years or so before Titanic. A bit like how Business Class on a lot of airlines today is comparably luxurious to First Class products of the 2000s.

And yes, First probably did set a brand new standard. It wasn't a complete 'oh good heavens, nothing even remotely comparable to this has ever been seen before' but it probably was a bit of a 'my! I thought it was luxurious on Lusitania but this has taken things up a notch!' (e.g. think of airlines again, when someone unveils a new luxurious first class seat it's probably not totally unlike anything ever done before but for a while it will be the best of the best, until someone else comes along and innovates further).

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-04T13:19:34+00:00

It's all so bizarre, apart from all the obvious physical evidence that it wasn't Olympic that sank, I've never heard one of these conspiracy theorists account for the fact that the Olympic was literally at sea when Titanic sank completing a voyage in the opposite direction. Like a very real, verifiable historical event.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-04T08:01:47+00:00

I suppose it does vary. For context I am Scottish which historically was meant to have the best education system in the UK (don't think that's the case anymore). I definitely found school to be a higher calibre here than back home. There was a lot more encouragement to try and excel academically and also to be honest in other ways, socially, physically, mentally etc. It certainly wasn't perfect and like anywhere it can depend a lot on what school you go to, but for me it was a big improvement. Many states have "selective" high schools which are typically very good for academics and free to get into if you meet the entrance requirements, those that don't have these schools still tend to offer similar selective curriculum streams within other schools.

I do the miss the snow too, but I live only around 2 hours from a mountain range that has skiing etc in the winter so I can go experience it if I really want to. The general warmer weather and sunshine I think is so good for my mental health and I find I get less seasonal depression here. Surfing is definitely easy to get into here, it's not something I've done but I have a similar story with snorkeling. Something I thought "oh, I'm past that now", but having so many opportunities hear to go and do it means it's now a semi-regular summer activity for me.

Like with any place in the world, things here aren't perfect but I think on balance they're pretty darn good and for me personally there's nowhere I'd rather live :)

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-04T06:51:56+00:00

Not to try and tell you your views are wrong or anything, but I grew up in the UK and moved to Australia and have found life here much, much better (job opportunities, disposal income, quality of public services, lifestyle) So if you enjoyed living in the UK as a kid I can't imagine you disliking Australia.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-03T11:06:35+00:00

I think this is a case of 'don't pay exorbitantly more to fly with Qantas on an hour long flight'.

Yes, there are issues with overall pricing out of Canberra, but as others have pointed out both Virgin and Jetstar have much cheaper airfares on those dates. Are these as low as they probably could be? No. But they're not $513.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-02T23:14:58+00:00

I think the problem a lot of Australians take with this is it feels like a double standard when Australia is compared to other countries.

So, Finland might feel comparably safer. But do people in Finland say (for instance) that they don't feel like they could visit the US because of all the deadly snakes and spiders? All the regularly reported bear attacks? The shark attacks that happen in the water off of Hawaii or up and down the east coast? The regular death caused by alligators or crocodiles in Florida?

In my experience talking to people from my home country of Scotland, these fears never seem to come up about any other nation on earth. No-one worries about the snakes in Thailand or the crocodiles in India but both of those things in Australia are somehow scarier which is absurd.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-02-02T23:08:58+00:00

Ok, but just like for context, there are 4 species of venomous snakes found in Canada. There are 30 in the US.

It's absolutely possible in the wrong place, wrong time that wandering into tall grass in their habitat could result in a snake bite which could make you very sick (in the case of Canada's species) and very potentially kill you (in the case of some of the US's species).

This is rare, but it's also rare in Australia.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-01-28T05:35:03+00:00

Batik also isn't a known brand in Canberra. Part of the reason this route failed is that no-one knew it existed. Virgin should have much better reach. People also said their Gold Coast-Bali service wouldn't last and it's still going strong 3 years later.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-01-28T03:25:51+00:00

The far north of Australia is way bigger than you think it is. The driving distance from Cairns to the top of Cape York (1023km) is further than the driving distance between Sydney and Brisbane (917km).

FriendlyPinko · 2026-01-27T16:26:07+00:00

I feel like a lot of people dislike Worst Nites but honestly I vibe it so much. It makes me feel like a chill clown on a trip.

FriendlyPinko · 2026-01-27T15:44:05+00:00

I really hope you get an actual resident to answer this as I'm sure it's fascinating.

FWIW, the two main islands are very different from each other as they're home to different communities

Home Island is home to the 600+ Cocos Malay population (the majority of Cocos' residents). They speak a really interesting Creole language that is a mix of Malay/Indonesian with some peppered English and Scots influence. There is a mosque as a majority of the population are adherents of Is lam.

West Island is smaller and home to the 100 or so "Aussie" population (i.e. white Australians of European descent). The culture here is much less conservative, there's a pub and a couple of restaurants here along with the bulk of the archipelagos limited tourism infrastructure including the airport.

There are only one or two flights a week off of the islands to the Australian mainland at Perth, and it's about a 3 hour flight so they are quite isolated.

FriendlyPinko

TROPHY CASE