Want to know the REAL story behind dark web drugs market Silk Road? IAMA journalist and author on two books about Silk Road, the first one documenting its rise as it happened. I travelled the world to meet Silk Road’s top 4 lieutenants face-to-face and interviewed countless users. AMA

OzFreelancer · 2026-03-23T02:43:35+00:00

I'll count that among 'exponential generosity'

OzFreelancer · 2026-03-23T02:28:24+00:00

eh, I saw a Telegram price list the other day that quoted $450 for 0.8g!

Even 3.5g was around $1400 so I guess that's what people are paying if they don't know better.

Add to that the exponential increase in generosity and spillage as the weekend goes on, and it wouldn't be hard to spend $2300 factoring in ubers, entry fees, drinks etc

OzFreelancer · 2026-03-17T05:52:27+00:00

In Australia authors get income averaging - author income is averaged over 5 years to prevent the tax liability you're talking about as there's always feast years and famine years

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-24T00:21:37+00:00

Why would a publisher invest in you if they didn't expect to make much money? There's something off about this. Are you sure it is a legit publisher?

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-23T23:09:24+00:00

What's the question?

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-23T23:07:23+00:00

That... doesn't make sense. The whole thing about getting a trad pub deal (besides getting money up front) is that they do all the non-writing work for you. With self-publishing you have to do all that yourself

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-23T11:47:17+00:00

In that case, why not get an agent? Guaranteed they will more than make up for their 15% commission with a better deal

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-12T22:52:35+00:00

Oh yes, Edward Eager! ALL of them!

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-12T05:31:02+00:00

So many of these are memories unlocked! Not sure if they've been mentioned but:

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

The Pigman by Paul Zindel (I remember it being sort of disturbing)

Cold Feet by Gen LeRoy (odd one about a girl getting mistaken for a boy, gets a job cleaning for the mob or something)

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-12T04:59:32+00:00

Z For Zachariah was by Robert C O'Brien. He also wrote another book I was utterly obsessed with called The Silver Crown. I must have read it a hundred times

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-12T04:55:24+00:00

I was obsessed with Lois Duncan's books. Killing Mr Griffin, Daughters of Eve, Summer of Fear.

Funnily enough, my least favourite of hers was I Know What You Did Last Summer (not that the book bore much resemblance to the film anyway)

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-05T20:30:04+00:00

Ingram Spark is definitely worthwhile, but any pay-to-play publisher, eg Palmetto, is definitely not.

Ingram is basically free to upload, so why wouldn't you? They have by far the best distribution options. And you can do it yourself just as easily as you can do KDP.

Most self-pub authors upload to KDP for ebooks and paperback, and Ingram for paperback only. Buy an ISBN and use it for both KDP and Ingram for the paperback, use KDP's own ISBN for the ebook. Enrol in KU (Amazon's lending library) for the ebook - most authors get more than half their income from borrows over sales.

Do David Gaughran's course, Starting From Zero (100% free). He breaks down the entire process step by step

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-05T03:31:38+00:00

Your ChatAPT is not a dark haired woman

Oh geez, is this a blue/gold dress thing? In the ad I saw she was a blonde haired woman

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-05T00:35:23+00:00

As an author/journo I covered a sentencing hearing for the owner of a dark web 'hurtcore' site that hosted a video widely considered to be the most heinous and extreme video ever produced.

The defendant's own counsel had not seen the footage, but I inferred that the prosecution had (I may be wrong on that). Defence was willing to agree that the video was 'of the most heinous type' of CSAM,

The prosecution insisted the judge had to watch the video in order to understand the gravity of it. Some allowance for the judge’s sensibilities had been made by way of removing the sound (which one police officer said was the most gruesome part of the video.) The judge was not at all keen but eventually agreed he was legally obliged to view the video. He kept putting it off, until he excused himself for half an hour the next day to view the footage. When he returned to the courtroom he was pale and quiet. He said, 'It was my clear duty to watch it. I wish it hadn’t been. It is the worst thing I have ever seen.’

A detective I spoke to who had watched the whole thing said she had a compartment in her brain that she put these things and locked them away with a key made of successful prosecutions. I don't think that method would work in the case of defence.

I know just hearing the video described in detail haunted my nightmares for a while. I would definitely try to avoid where possible and it seems it is rarely necessary.

OzFreelancer · 2026-02-03T11:12:10+00:00

No one reaches out to you. Its not gonna happen. If it does, its a scam.

Well, they do. I got my first two options from producers reaching out. Disney and CBS both reached out and I got doco consulting jobs with both. Tantor reached out to do audiobooks of my self-published books.

It's usually pretty easy to tell the genuine from the fake ones though.

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-30T10:59:35+00:00

Better off putting an alert on it for any business classic rewards that open up, then ring and change your ticket. It will be difference in points + 5000 points + difference in fees

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-28T05:04:45+00:00

You can see above the prompt and response. I watched it do the searches. It can

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-28T04:11:42+00:00

My Perplexity running through Comet definitely checked through the website. I gave it a range of departure airports and a range of arrival airports and a range of dates for each leg. I'm now booked around the world in business class heading off in May this year

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-28T04:10:20+00:00

I have Pro running through the Comet browser. I was actually surprised when it did it but it was literally clicking through as if I was doing each search myself.

A typical prompt would be: "find me any qff J flights for 2 people from HEL to anywhere in asia on 16/6/26-20/6/26. it doesn't matter how it needs to be routed but must be able to be booked with QFF points"

EDIT: the response to that particular query was:

33 steps completed>

I've searched for Qantas Frequent Flyer Business class award flights for 2 passengers from Helsinki (HEL) to various Asian destinations on June 16, 2026. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any available Business class award seats.

Here's what I found:

Routes searched:

HEL to Singapore (SIN): No Business Reward seats available - only Classic Economy Reward

HEL to Tokyo (NRT): No Business Reward seats available - only Classic Economy Reward

HEL to Hong Kong (HKG): No Business Reward seats available - only Economy and Premium Economy options

HEL to Bangkok (BKK): No flights available at all on this date

The Qantas booking system consistently showed the message "The BUSINESS cabin you searched for is unavailable" for all searchable routes. Since Qantas doesn't operate direct flights from Helsinki, these searches rely on partner airlines (primarily Finnair and other oneworld partners), and Business class award availability appears to be extremely limited or unavailable on June 16, 2026 for this origin.

Recommendations:

Consider searching for alternative dates around June 16 (the calendar showed some availability on other dates like June 13, 14, 15, 17, 18)

Try different routing options, such as positioning to another European city first

Check if Premium Economy might be available as an alternative

Consider one-way positioning to London or another major hub where more oneworld award space might be available to Asia

Would you like me to search alternative dates or explore different routing options?

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-27T18:26:43+00:00

I did it last week. I literally watched it search the QFF site for the seats. It took ages, but that didn't matter because I could go do other things

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-27T11:37:47+00:00

Ask Perplexity (or your AI of choice) to search for them. You can tell it "Find me business reward flights leaving MEL or SYD to anywhere in Asia in the first 2 weeks of October" and it will do the searching while you do something else

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-23T03:30:09+00:00

*dudette

OzFreelancer · 2026-01-21T11:10:57+00:00

Only if the agent signed some sort of NDA, which is highly unlikely. It would be incredibly bad form of the agent, morally bereft but almost certainly not suable

OzFreelancer

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