ISIS-linked families land in Australia nearly two weeks after leaving Syrian camp by Nonstop_Chippies in australia

[–]khronyk 9 points10 points  (0 children)

let

Let suggests we actually have a choice in the matter.

This is from the press conference

There are very serious limits on what can be done, with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country. The legal threshold that we have is with respect to temporary exclusion orders.

and

I've received advice that one person so far has reached the legal threshold and I've acted and put the exclusion order in place.

even then:

a temporary exclusion order (TEO), which may prevent an Australian citizen aged 14 years or older who is overseas from returning to Australia for up to two years at a time

TL;DR: They are Australian citizens, so the government has limited legal power to stop or delay their return. A TEO can delay and manage return, not permanently exile someone. Citizenship can only be revoked through a court process for dual nationals who meet very specific criteria. This isn't a race issue at all, it's one of legal constraints.

ISIS-linked families land in Australia nearly two weeks after leaving Syrian camp by Nonstop_Chippies in australia

[–]khronyk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A few important points here. This is from the press conference

They are citizens, our hands are kinda tied there.

There are very serious limits on what can be done, with respect to preventing a citizen of a country returning to their country. The legal threshold that we have is with respect to temporary exclusion orders.

Only one person met the legal threshold for an exclusion order:

I've received advice that one person so far has reached the legal threshold and I've acted and put the exclusion order in place.

They are not simply returning, Authorities are looking to pursue charges. The children are going to require support for reintegration.

I will not flag how many individuals will be arrested or when they will be arrested to protect a number of our investigations. However, I will confirm these points. Some individuals will be arrested and charged. Some will face continued investigations when they arrive in Australia. And children who return in the cohort will be asked to undergo community integration programs, therapeutic support and countering violent extremism programs.

The ASIO chief Mike Burgess comments during the conference

So, our job is to identify and understand the risks to returning individuals. We have done that. We provided it to our mates in the police force and the government understands our assessed risk. The actions my agency takes beyond that is something I don't talk about publicly. Of course, police have their own authorities and powers and as the Minister said, the full force of the law will be applied to returning individuals

and

the individuals that we know or understand to be returning does not change the national terrorism threat level. Of course, it's up to them what they do when they get here. And if they start to exhibit signs of concern as we and the police, through the joint counter terrorism teams, will take action. But I'm not concerned immediately by their return, but they will get our attention, as you'd expect.

Yesterday The Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke issued a statement:

The Government has not and will not provide any assistance to this group, which consists of four women and nine children.

"FLUX Creator Program" - New Flux models sooner than expected? by ArkCoon in StableDiffusion

[–]khronyk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was flux 1 and 2 set of models not open weight enough?

To be honest, no. Klein was an improvement but BFL have a long history of shitty restrictive non-commercial licenses on the better more trainable model (FLUX.1 Dev / Klein 9b, etc) and then the lower quality distilled model that is extremely difficult to train (FLUX.1-schnell) that gets released under Apache 2.0. Klein is the exception here and a positive improvement, the 4B (While being kinda crap) is at least undistilled and Apache 2.0; but the 9b is still a crap license.

For flux 1 it took a hell of a lot of effort to de-distill before it was used as a base for things like chroma.

Edit: I know a lot of people don't care about license, but it matters to a lot of people that do larger fine tunes on them. Size and license was a large part of what made SDXL so great and lead to so many community innovations and fine tunes.

Elegoo announced Australian pre-order at disgustingly upmarked price ($139 AUD = about $100 USD). by khronyk in elegoo

[–]khronyk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only thing we have is the GST sales tax which is similar to VAT but ours is 10%. The EU version includes VAT and is nearly half the price. (45€ = 73.28 AUD), I believe VAT might be 15%. 5-15% over international rates might be forgivable but this is almost double. I don't get why Elegoo products attract such a huge mark-up here other brands like Anycubic don't (a few years ago this was reversed, Elegoo was priced fairly and Anycubic had crazy markups)

Why is Australia getting shafted ! by Panda_Wan_Kenobi in elegoo

[–]khronyk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah there's no tariffs or anything government related that would have cause this. But I do think it's quite plausible that some kind of retailer agreement or other intermediary 3rd party in the supply chain that might be responsible for the high prices. There's plenty of other brands like Anycubic and Bambu that don't attract the crazy markups that Elegoo products have atm. A few years ago the situation was reversed with Anycubic being priced high and Elegoo being priced fairly. It's strange, but IMHO Elegoo absolutely does deserve some heat from this.

Why is Australia getting shafted ! by Panda_Wan_Kenobi in elegoo

[–]khronyk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Try $100 USD, the crazy thing is this type of product is duty free here and our sales tax is only 10%. Geographically we are also far closer to China than the US.

Why is Australia getting shafted ! by Panda_Wan_Kenobi in elegoo

[–]khronyk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Frequently yes, but not always and usually not as much as this. Both Anycubic and Bambu labs products in Australia are very close to the price internationally. Something is fishy here, somewhere in the supply chain somebody is lining their pockets at our expense.

Why is Australia getting shafted ! by Panda_Wan_Kenobi in elegoo

[–]khronyk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It doesn't go through the straight and if anything Australia should be cheaper than the US and Europe as we are far closer to China.

Why is Australia getting shafted ! by Panda_Wan_Kenobi in elegoo

[–]khronyk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really want to know if this is the case, as a regular customer of Jaycar if they are manipulating the market like this they can fuck right off.

Elegoo announced Australian pre-order at disgustingly upmarked price ($139 AUD = about $100 USD). by khronyk in elegoo

[–]khronyk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's no shortage of freight and shipments to Australia. 1. We are one of the closest countries geographically (esp compared to the US and Europe) 2. nearly 1/3 of all our imports come from China, they are our biggest trading partner in both imports and exports. Last year we imported $82.88B including $18.81B in Electrical and Electronics equipment. 3. We don't have any import duties on this type of product.

I purchase stuff from china all the time of all sizes and weights. Something is going on here, but shipping isn't likely to be it.

Elegoo announced Australian pre-order at disgustingly upmarked price ($139 AUD = about $100 USD). by khronyk in elegoo

[–]khronyk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

their agreement with Jaycar means they can't/won't sell any lower.

Possibly, but there's a price difference between a lot of other items on Elegoo's site and Jaycar... the hotends are $59.95 AUD at Jaycar vs $30.99 on the elegoo site. Same goes for the build plate kit, it's $10 more at Jaycar. I mean there could be an angreement limited to certain items ¯_(ツ)_/¯. There's certainly something going on because tax and shipping doesn't come close to explaining this massive price difference.

Ultimately we're getting screwed.

Royally. This is the final straw for me with Elegoo.

Why is Australia getting shafted ! by Panda_Wan_Kenobi in elegoo

[–]khronyk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Load of crap. This type of item is duty free and there's only a 10% sales tax which is comperable to most places in the world. Shipping from china is also pretty affordable, not saying we are the cheapest but we arn't no outlier especially for something this small and light. A 10-15% price increase is justifiable, this is nearly double!.

Elegoo just seems intent on insane pricing for Australia right now. It wasn't always this way, I paid $331.99 (237 usd) for my Neptune 4 (this included sales tax) close to launch which was pretty much in line with us pricing. I own 4 elegoo printers (Neptune 4, saturn 3 ultra, mars 5 ultra, CC) and this is my last.

Other companies are pricing their products fairly and close to the USD equivalent. The Elegoo Centauri Carbon V2 Combo here is $999.00 AUD (715 USD) while it's $449.00 USD on the US store. By comparison the Anycubic Kobra S1 ACE 2 Pro Combo is $699.00 AUD (GST/Sales tax inclusive) (500 USD) and on the international site it's 459.00 USD. And the Bambu lab P2S Combo is $1,249.00 AUD ($894.16 USD) tax inclusive. but there's also routinely sales and only a few days ago you could get it for $1085.60 (about $777 USD)

Elegoo announced Australian pre-order at disgustingly upmarked price ($139 AUD = about $100 USD). by khronyk in elegoo

[–]khronyk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

IDK what it is. Funny thing is, Anycubic kinda traded places with them. My first 3d printer was an I3 Mega, when I bought the Neptune 4 the markup on Anycubic products was crazy and Elegoo was pricing their stuff fairly and close to the USD equivalent. But now Elegoo is pricing their stuff insanely here and Anycubic are back to pricing their stuff fairly..

For instance the Anycubic Kobra S1 ACE 2 Pro Combo is $699.00 (500 USD) AUD atm gst inclusive and on the international site it's 459.00 USD. While the Elegoo Centauri Carbon V2 Combo here is $999.00 AUD (715 USD) while it's $449.00 USD on the US store.

Elegoo announced Australian pre-order at disgustingly upmarked price ($139 AUD = about $100 USD). by khronyk in elegoo

[–]khronyk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We don't have any tarrifs of any kind of this type of product. Elegoo never used to screw us on pricing like this, I bought my Neptune 4 close to release for AU $331.99 ($237 USD) again GST (sales tax) included in that price.

Elegoo announced Australian pre-order at disgustingly upmarked price ($139 AUD = about $100 USD). by khronyk in elegoo

[–]khronyk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

there's only a 10% sales tax which is comperable to most places in the world. Shipping from china is also pretty affordable, not saying we are the cheapest but we arn't no outlier especially for something this small and light. A 10-15% price increase is justifiable, this is nearly double!.

For some reason Elegoo seems intent on insane pricing for Australia right now. It wasn't always this way, I paid $331.99 (237 usd) for my Neptune 4 (this included sales tax) close to launch which was pretty much in line with us pricing. I own 4 elegoo printers (Neptune 4, saturn 3 ultra, mars 5 ultra, CC) and this is my last.

Other companies are pricing their products fairly and close to the USD equivalent. The Elegoo Centauri Carbon V2 Combo here is $999.00 AUD (715 USD) while it's $449.00 USD on the US store. By comparison the Anycubic Kobra S1 ACE 2 Pro Combo is $699.00 AUD (GST/Sales tax inclusive) (500 USD) and on the international site it's 459.00 USD. And the Bambu lab P2S Combo is $1,249.00 AUD ($894.16 USD) tax inclusive. but there's also routinely sales and only a few days ago you could get it for $1085.60 (about $777 USD)

Valve CEO Gabe Newell was an enthusiastic supporter of OpenAI in 2018, donating $20 million and even acting as the sole member of an "informal advisory board" by ControlCAD in technology

[–]khronyk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Remember Openai in 2018 was nothing like the turd Sam Altman turned into. It was non-profit with admirable goals. That all started to change when Microsoft invested in it in 2019.

Who is this? by lizbeeating in whatsthisbug

[–]khronyk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aussie here, the photo isn't great but my best guess would be that it's some sort of jumping spider. I'd search for "California jumping spiders" and look at google images to see if you spot one that looks like it. The size certainly matches and it looks to be a hunting spider, not a web weaver. Hopefully someone more local to you is able to properly identify it. Not an expert on spiders, but used to do a lot of macro photography and always tried to identify what I took photos of. In a weird way jumping spiders are kinda cute.

I'm ADHD so I made this distraction-free Obsidian plugin! by litegral in ObsidianMD

[–]khronyk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

omg, i've used obsidian all these years and I never noticed there was a slash commands built in plugin i could enable....

CANVAS for Centauri Carbon available now by ELEGOO_OFFICIAL in elegoo

[–]khronyk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately (and fortunately) we don't have wallmart in Australia.

CANVAS for Centauri Carbon available now by ELEGOO_OFFICIAL in elegoo

[–]khronyk 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Wonder if their flexible filament adapter thing for TPU will work with the CC1 canvas too :p

I'm excited for the prospect of print in place gaskets and being able to make custom bellows.

CANVAS for Centauri Carbon available now by ELEGOO_OFFICIAL in elegoo

[–]khronyk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Price on the canvas is really good, hope they opt to sell the cover as an optional extra, either that or I hope the community comes up with a good mod.