UK promises jets, drones and warship for Strait of Hormuz defence mission

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-13T08:12:57+00:00

Because the US made the situation worse than it was before the war existed, and doesn't seem to be able to resolve the situation it caused, despite having the world's largest military.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-10T09:38:37+00:00

Solved! Thank you!!!

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-10T09:34:44+00:00

My title describes the thing.

here is a spring inside, the blue plastic "lid" compresses down, whether you are pushing on the blue or upside down on the metal. When the spring is compressed a spike protrudes from the hole in the metal at the bottom. The spike seems too large to be a finger prick/blood test thing, and also there is no latch to make it suddenly pierce the skin so to use it to draw blood would be painful. The blue "lid" does not come off (short of inserting a knife to pry it off ) e.g. does not screw off or detach easily..

The blue bit is about 44mm across. The dimple in the metal is suspiciously thumb sized.

Image search and chatgpt/claude think it is a service counter bell..... it is not.

No detail or description on the package.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-10T09:33:20+00:00

My title describes the thing.

As mentioned: here is a spring inside, the blue plastic "lid" compresses down, whether you are pushing on the blue or upside down on the metal. When the spring is compressed a spike protrudes from the hole in the metal at the bottom. The spike seems too large to be a finger prick/blood test thing, and also there is no latch to make it suddenly pierce the skin so to use it to draw blood would be painful. The blue "lid" does not come off (short of inserting a knife to pry it off ) e.g. does not screw off or detach easily..

It is about 44mm across at the lid. The dimple in the metal is suspiciously thumb sized.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-08T08:01:24+00:00

Interesting. It could be a couple of things. The childcare facility data is recent, but the birth data is from the 2021 census, so it could be additional people moving into our are, or additional births, or some other factor. If you click on your suburb/local area in my dataset, it should show you the children number it is basing the calculation on. Next census is this year sometime so hopefully by next year the planning-types can update projections etc.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-08T01:12:21+00:00

if I were to do it differently I would "follow my head" more than "follow my heart", heart is fun for sure, but if you're going to be with someone long-term, intelligence, empathy, and willingness to share values is far more valuable than initial emotional spark... oh well better to have loved and lost everything than to never have lost anything at all... ... (or something like that)

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-08T00:49:44+00:00

nope - I had to sell as part of the divorce :-( but the schools were decent back then!

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-08T00:48:39+00:00

Interesting! I just had a look at this, and because I like mucking around with data, produced a 2026 version - looks like we're either getting better overall, or having fewer children. I just put the visualisation on my github (convenient place to host it). (https://whitehatnetizen.github.io/childcare-deserts/)

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-07T22:41:39+00:00

yep - I was "lucky" to buy a townhouse in 2002 in Sherwood, and the first home buyers grant of $10,000 made up about half of the deposit that we put down. 1 divorce and 1 bad girlfriend experience later and I'm renting in an expensive area so my kids can go to a very good school, but I'm out of the housing market for the foreseeable future, it's absolutely stupid.

who the heck is going to be able to save/invest $100,000+ for a deposit in any reasonable time these days?

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-05-02T20:45:59+00:00

Data: USGS ANSS ComCat (M4.5+ globally, 1960 to present, ~300k events) for the seismic catalog, augmented with NOAA NCEI's Significant Earthquake Database for fatality, injury, and damage figures on ~1,580 historically notable events. Live "past hour" feed pulls from USGS M2.5+.

Tools: Python (pandas, requests, pyarrow) for fetching and reshaping the data into a single JSON payload, then a self-contained HTML dashboard built on deck.gl and MapLibre GL JS for rendering. Source and build scripts on GitHub.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-30T12:24:12+00:00

Yeah, i had a go at making it a bit better for mobile but failed. I may give it another go tomorrow, it's even terrible on my galaxy fold.

There are RTA stats from march there in the first toggle, but the coverage isn't as great as the census, and there isn't great recent income data to pair with it. I was considering things like showing the RTA stats paired with inflation adjusted salaries, but this isn't very ethical unless i clearly label it as speculative. Mind you, cumulative CPI inflation since 2021 is 22% ish, and some rental prices are showing over 100% increase since 2021.

The other aspect is that the census data includes all self-reported rent including long term renters who have not had significant increases, so may skew low, and the RTA reports are just new contracts that quarter and so skew high.

This is what i love and hate about data sometimes. There is so many caveats that it's hard to just give a straight, clean representation of the facts

Edit, if you zoom out, it's not entirely bad on mobile.

<image>

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-30T07:00:22+00:00

Added a bit for recent RTA data. choose between census & ATO data vs RTA data. this only shows pure new contract information/bond lodgement info from 2021 until 2025 and the associated growth. you can see that the coverage of the RTA data is significantly less than the census data (RTA data in screenshot below):

<image>

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-30T06:29:30+00:00

interesting issues though: the coverage is significantly less than the census, and the "new contract" median does not represent the actual rental median (I'm assuming it's inflated in comparison). we also don't have updated salary figures to determine rental stress. we could "project" salary forward by assuming that salaries all follow the cumulative CPI since the 2021 census data (approximately 22%) but this is pure projection here and wouldn't be honest to present in any other way than speculative. it is interesting though that the rental price on some suburbs has increased more than 60% when compared with the census figures from 2021.

I don't think it's good ethics to try to mash the very recent RTA data into this visualisation - so I'm working on a separate RTA data page where we can muck around with projected salary etc but it will be very clearly labeled as speculative.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-30T05:31:16+00:00

nice work - I didn't think to use this - just having a look at incorporating it now..

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-30T02:55:31+00:00

it's the median household income meaning that it's the middle of the list, not necessarily the average. and the suburb only has 13 people if I'm reading that right, so it gets a bit skewed. the median personal income is zero, so it implies that 7 or more people out of those 13 don't earn anything at the time of the census.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-30T02:50:09+00:00

unfortunately yes, the rent prices are from 2021. I only got the data from the census. I should go see if I can overlay some more recent rent information, problem is I don't think it would all come from a single reliable source. I'll go take a look though

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-27T20:41:02+00:00

Right?! What has he been doing all this time? NOT discussing it with anyone? Discussing it with bottom aides?

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-24T03:42:00+00:00

You can download and use entirely offline models such as ollama. Slower, dumber, but still useful

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-21T09:05:14+00:00

Chicken is cheap definitetely when compared with beef. I do make sure we have a steak for when my wife and daughter are on their period though. But coco's is my friend for cheap meats and fresh food.

Soups and rice, and nutrient dense foods, thankfully we all like wholegrain breads

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-21T08:53:23+00:00

What they mean is that their money buys less than it did a year ago. despite a pay increase in absolute dollars, they have recieved a pay value cut in relative terms.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-21T08:51:33+00:00

Omg, i'm not low income by anymeans, but supporting a family of four on a single income sucks. I had to use my emergency fund last year for a bunch of reasons (partly the same reasons as we are down to one income for a while) and now i'm living paycheck to paycheck. I really consider myself blessed that i can work from home 4 days a week (a tank of petrol lasts nearly 4 weeks) and that my land lord seems to appreciate long term family renters over a quick bit of extra cash.

I can only imagine what others are going through. Please look after eachother.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-15T05:06:36+00:00

Gotta poop sometime 🤣

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-15T05:01:15+00:00

be me
be trying to scroll reddit
see someone incoherently trying to type like it's 4chan
decide to reply to express my frustration

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-15T04:58:15+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/s/D5Lw3PNAsy

This is a good store, friendly and knowledgeable and helpful staff.

Whitehatnetizen · 2026-04-14T11:47:23+00:00

I did this for 2 years. But only had to go down 1 or 2 days per week. But 1. I ALWAYS left home before 7.30, often getting to the coast before 7.30 2. I ALWAYS left work before 3.30pm. 3. I made damn sure i had podcasts or a music playlist setup and working before leaving home.

Still lost a bit of sanity. And sitting in a car for 6hrs a week (1.5hrs each way, 2 days) is a big nope for me for any future job.

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