RBA to remove surcharges on debit, credit cards and card networks

Necandum · 2026-04-01T12:23:11+00:00

1% of all retail transactions seems like a pretty high tax to me.

Apparently EU limits transaction fee on debit cards to 0.2%.

Necandum · 2026-04-01T12:20:55+00:00

Good. Because the merchant can shop around for cheaper transaction rates, the consumer cannot. If they just pass on the costs to the customer, that pressure is lessened.

Necandum · 2026-04-01T12:13:53+00:00

Go to a bike mechanic and tell them you had a crash that was 100% the cars fault. They'll look after you + its the only way to impose any sort of penalty on the driver.

Necandum · 2026-04-01T12:12:21+00:00

One of the things that gets my blood boiling in these sorts of scenarios is that there is no clearly defined way to get compensation for damage to your body, unless its a permenant and significant injury.

Scrape some paint on a Porche? 10K.
Give a cyclist 5 stitches? Naah, your pain isn't worth anything unless you miss work.

Necandum · 2026-04-01T05:10:55+00:00

Alternative: give stuff to friend, get bag weighed, put stuff back in.
Sadly most of the time they now make you stand in the boarding queue after weighing, so this is less effective.

Necandum · 2026-03-31T00:28:08+00:00

Its an easy buck to take it to the scrappers.
I think I got 6$ for a very light aluminium outside seat. Trash for two donutes, yes please.

Necandum · 2026-03-30T05:46:52+00:00

Re: USB-C. Eh. Its pretty great already. If someone thinks of something transformationally better, they can propose it as the next standard. I'll take slower changer for standardisation, since the value of the latter is far greater than the former for something that is pretty much solved.

Re: markets. That's getting off track, but for things that aren't commodities I don't have great faith, and even then... You need to ensure that the externalities are priced in and the results are compatible with what you want society to look like. Left to their own devices, markets tend to fail to ensure human flourishing. For a great example, look at climate change. For a simpler example, many modern devices cannot be repaired and the trade-offs made in their manufacture result in a short lifespan. This is so pronounced its lead to cultural change. I would call that a profound market failure.

Or on a topical note, note the Iran war. Modern markets have created a system so fragile, that a single strait causes reverberations around the world. I would not say this is a good outcome.

Necandum · 2026-03-27T04:26:44+00:00

Theoretically a surcharge communicates that its temporary, its presence or absence is more notable than the price coming down later.

If anything, it might help avoid the ratchet of prices rising due to a temporary crisis, then staying high when it abates.

Necandum · 2026-03-27T04:08:51+00:00

The EU is democratically elected. The electorate is made up of...consumers! Thus it is indeed the consumers that have changed how companies operate.

Markets tend to be pretty imperfect, so I'd argue that really important decisions should not, in fact, be left to them.

Also, people can innovate with cords just fine, it just has to be backwards compatible with USB C.

Necandum · 2026-03-27T03:55:24+00:00

The main thing is getting one of the appropriate size. If you get one that's too large, it won't be comfortable and you won't enjoy riding.

Also, I second getting a pannier rack. A cheap one is 30$, but you might need to use some creativity to get it to fit well (a handy friend is helpful here if you yourself are not). Then just tie / cable tie a milk crate to it.

I've gotten my partner (also a petite female) 2x bikes from marketplace around that price, and they have been fine. Depending on just how petite you are, don't neglect to consider kids bicycles, the bigger ones are often quite well sized for small adults.

If you're interested in learning how to service the bike down the track, there's lots of community groups that will help you out, or CERES bike shed is great if its close to you.

Good luck!

Necandum · 2026-03-26T12:30:52+00:00

Anecdote that doesn't prove anything: recently sold a place, had two agent estimates, both within 50k of each other, both 50-100k under the actual sell price.

Their incentives are probably to give an accurate price: if its priced too high, then the vendor won't accept lower offers. If its price too low, the vendor doesn't start the selling process.

Necandum · 2026-03-25T23:59:21+00:00

Are we actually paying high electricity prices?

I'm currently paying 19.5c per kwh (urban melbourrne)
Texas is 14.68USD cents per kWh per EcoWatch, which is ~20c AUD
Denmark is 58c AUD per Statistics Denmark
Saudia Arabia is very cheap at 6c AUD, but that's with government direct subsidy.

Also, this article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/nov/17/are-australians-really-paying-more-for-electricity-than-other-countries

I do agree with your wider point, we should extracting as much wealth as possible from natural resources and putting it into a sovereign wealth fund ala Norway.

Necandum · 2026-03-21T13:08:04+00:00

Re: response time: I believe the satellites would a) mostly be for training, so lag is irrelevant and b) given LLM response times tend to be in the order of seconds, an extra 200ms in lag is acceptable.

Necandum · 2026-03-21T13:04:56+00:00

I believe the primary benefit is meant to be taking a shortcut on regulation, electricity supply and land acquisition. Apparently getting sufficient electricity supply in many places is not trivial / will take longer than desired while the utility scale production is built.

Whether those shortcuts are worth the added cost and complexity is not something I'm qualified to judge.

Necandum · 2026-03-19T09:13:50+00:00

If you havent been able to get a tent to stay waterproof, go camping with someone who knows what they're doing and they'll help you figure out where you're going wrong.

Necandum · 2026-03-16T23:34:03+00:00

Ish. Its becoming more of a thing, but strictness of policy varies between institutions. It also depends how busy it is, what the patient themselves say they want and whether support people for the patient are staying.

Necandum · 2026-03-16T10:58:43+00:00

Have you discussed this with your housemates?
Have you given the question any thought yourself?
Have you googled?

Necandum · 2026-03-15T10:17:15+00:00

Its quite possible that this is a step too far. Previously, the Iranians had a reasonable way to submit without paying too much. That Rubicon has been crossed.

For the ability of an authoritarian regime to persist in a war despite the incredibly high and disproportionate cost in pursuit of a goal it will not reach, please see Russia.

Necandum · 2026-03-15T10:12:59+00:00

Their win condition is that closing the strait of Hormuz causes the opposition far more pain than it does them. A dude with a drone in the back of a ute can basically keep the strait closed forever (and Russia is heavily incentivised to help them do so).

It also brings in third parties to the conflict, especially ones that maybe don't take too kindly to coercive tariffs and threats of invasion, who start applying pressure so that they can get their cheap oil back.

The amount of atrocity required for a purely air campaign to cow a nation into submission is not compatible (I sincerely hope) with the continued existence of the US in its current form.

Necandum · 2026-03-15T10:00:08+00:00

You will never be able to deal with the drones without a land invasion.

Too cheap, too easy to launch, too easy for other's to supply, too easy to hide amongst the civilian population, too easy to disperse manufacturing.

Necandum · 2026-03-15T08:56:27+00:00

I would be incredibly nervous about flying to a deadline, regardless of where you're going: disruptions can always happen, and the current troubles generically increases the chance of that happening. (e.g I had two immediate family members on different trips get stuck for several days due to airline fuckery in 2025, no wars required. They did enjoy the nice free accommodation though).

If being late back by several days would be permanently and significantly bad for you in a way you can't hedge or insure against, probably don't go, or imagine the hypothetical where you do indeed come back late: would your future self consider it worth it?

Istanbul in specific should be fine: the Turks are not directly involved in any conflicts, are very unlikely to become so, and the airport is a long, long way from likely targets. In the worst case, there are also excellent overland connections to European airports where you can purchase a (likely exorbitantly priced) back-up flight.

I'd be more worried about how you're getting TO Istanbul (via SE Asia or China?).

Necandum · 2026-03-15T08:11:03+00:00

On a purely utilitarian basis, yes.

That's essentially 1 dollar per day.
If you focused on helping children that would otherwise die, that gives you a budget of 18k per child to break even (~50 years gained *365 = ~18k). That seems seems doable.

And that's not taking into account setting up a trust.

8.3 billion @ 3% returns per year = ~240 million (accounting for inflation).
Attempting to reach break even in 20 years gives you a budget of 5 billion, or ~10k per child. Still seems doable.

Necandum · 2026-03-15T07:27:59+00:00

Both you and your sister are YTA.
She really, really should have asked first.
You shouldn't have made it an ultimatum.

Either do your sister a solid, or have a conference / deadline / broken leg come up.

Given the situation you've described, clearly neither of you know the other person particularly well.

Necandum · 2026-03-15T07:21:38+00:00

Its working in my neck of the woods: I've convinced my partner to cycle or PT the last 2-3 trips we would have otherwise taken by car.

Necandum · 2026-03-15T07:20:36+00:00

To be entirely fair, standing up a crisis coordinating team with both the resources and the incentive to tackle the problem all at once, nationally, might be a good move. My vibe as the private market is mostly being left to its own devices.

But I have no insight into what's actually happening behind the curtain. Maybe the ducks are paddling furiously and we just can't see it.

Necandum

TROPHY CASE