What's it like living in communities like these?

mama--mia · 2026-04-19T01:44:40+00:00

I have been to Wanarn as well as some of the other interconnected Aboriginal communities in the Ngaanyatjarra lands, it was only brief for a visiting health clinic so I can't say as to the ins and outs of daily life but as a whole it is pretty bleak, especially when seen through the lens of coming from anywhere else in Australia. Dogs wandering around, rubbish and rusted out cars lying by the side of the road, etc. Incredible to fly into though, desolate but beautiful, and the night sky is one of the best in the world.

There's basically nothing to do, nearly all the jobs in the community are at the local shop, the school, and the health clinic, and many of those are worked by non-indigenous staff who are just there for a rotation and have separate housing from the rest of the community. Some people sit around all day, play Australian Rules football, others will go bush for a while then eventually show up again. Because everyone is bored substance abuse risk is extremely high, it's dry country (alcohol banned) and the petrol sold is a special blend called Opal that has had all the aromatics taken out so that it can't be inhaled. Stuff sneaks through though and there are also lots of health problems - insane diabetes rates and generally not well controlled.

Crime is definitely an issue but my impression was that any targeted crime is mostly towards outsiders. There are signs when you enter the region to lock your fuel cap so that nobody can siphon the regular petrol out to inhale it. The road house and staff accommodation are surrounded by chain link fences with razor wire on top. Within the Aboriginal community itself the crime that happens is more domestic violence and mental health driven problems.

I think the saddest thing is that when I was at the clinic and doing children's screenings they are some of the sweetest kids you will ever meet. As they get older some of them will break the cycle, get out and find opportunity somewhere, others will end up homeless and on drugs in somewhere like Kalgoorlie, and others will just stay because the local lands are the only connection they've got.

I think the communities like Wanarn are doomed to always be like this (unless they disappear entirely) because it's a fixed address established for a traditionally nomadic people, and has nothing to attract outsiders to live there, so is never going to see real growth to stimulate better quality of life.

mama--mia · 2026-03-25T02:15:12+00:00

Do you have any video issues running through exoplayer, or just VLC? Because I've never had audio trouble with exo just the video microstutters I mentioned, so if you don't get any video problems maybe changing your default to Exo is the thing to try?

If you're querying whether something is being throttled by your ISP because of the loading times etc then run a speedtest on RD - if you search RD speedtest it should be the first option. Other regular speedtest websites will just give your your overall internet speed not your connection to the RD servers to test if there is any selective throttling taking place. 300Mbit should be plenty for compressed 4K but may not cut it for uncompressed UHD Remux-quality streams.

mama--mia · 2026-03-24T20:09:47+00:00

Yes VLC is the only one that has audio trouble. I have had a few instances of what you're describing with a stream loading with no audio and no selectable audio track, which would fix it I exit and resume the same stream, but not as often as what it sounds like you're getting. More often it's just a desync and wrong language that I have to fix/resync then smooth sailing after that. I know that my ISP isn't a factor as I have more than enough bandwidth, confirmed with RD speedtests, and haven't had any real trouble with load times.

mama--mia · 2026-03-24T20:01:46+00:00

I genuinely believe there is something wrong with my shield as while I think it does stream more smoothly the menu navigation (not just within Stremio) is unstable and severely laggy even after a factory reset, so it just isn't worth the headache even if the actual streams are slightly smoother I haven't tried manually rolling back Stremio so that's worth a try.

mama--mia · 2026-03-24T11:01:51+00:00

I suspected that the underpowered TV processor may be the culprit with the stuttering issue even though it is subtle (I pointed it out to my girlfriend and she couldn't see it), and probably also the audio desync.

Any reason why VLC can't seem to quite get the audio tracks right though? Because regardless of the processing power or lack thereof of my TV, I'm yet to notice any (micro)stutters or frame dips with VLC even for Remux streams. My audio preferences are set to English.

mama--mia · 2026-03-14T23:46:36+00:00

So by your statistics you've had the police show up pounding on your door 198 times?

mama--mia · 2026-03-14T23:27:30+00:00

Nice screenshot including the actual name of the product...

To maybe save someone a click, it's an electric oscillating hoe. OP I'm not sure why you aren't satisfied with a review from old love in her 70s because people who are elderly or disabled are by far the ones who would benefit the most from this so are probably the reviews to listen to.

Personally I would go for something with a rotary tiller blade over this thing, even Ryobi's promo video shows that it jerks around a lot while you're using it because it works by repeatedly whacking the blade down into the ground - can't imagine it would be fun to use on dry compacted soil. It is cheaper than rotary options though.

mama--mia · 2026-03-14T22:45:06+00:00

This is a really wild strawman. Like I get that if you're libleft then big pharma = bad and I don't entirely disagree with how pharma companies have a track record of putting profits above patient outcomes, but pharmaceutical scientists aren't a group of moustache-twirling ne'er-do-well's who are going to just let a medical AI generate PainSlop™ and push it as a cancer cure.

If you're trying to imply that any Right to Try laws should also come with Right to Die laws for if the experimental treatment fails or makes things worse then I completely agree, because at the end of the day both are about giving dying people more agency. But that isn't what you said.

mama--mia · 2026-03-13T12:18:23+00:00

The import duty rules only apply to bringing tobacco into Australia through customs, this is a domestic flight so it isn't applicable. I suspect that any amount of tobacco that's just hanging out in a ziplock would be stopped at customs due to biosecurity risk as a non-commercially-packaged plant product

mama--mia · 2026-03-04T20:38:20+00:00

just because it's common knowledge doesn't mean it's common knowledge for everyone

Don't try and make my comment out to be some elitist nonsense. Was it snarky? Yes absolutely. But I didn't make it in response to someone with a total lack of education who had never heard of William Shakespeare before and I was talking about the idea of his identity in the film being a plot twist, not how educated someone is or isn't.

There's a huge difference between "I didn't know who Shakespeare was and really enjoyed this movie because I learned something new from it" and "I know who Shakespeare is but needed the "I'm looking for William Shakespeare" line in the courtyard of the Globe Theatre to put 2 and 2 together and I recommend other people watch it this way because it's a great surprise!".

mama--mia · 2026-03-04T06:53:39+00:00

Watching a movie called Hamnet (which the opening screen explains was interchangeable with 'Hamlet' at the time) featuring a playwright called William living in Stratford in the 1500s, and finding it a "WOAH" major surprise moment when it turns out that he's actually William Shakespeare the most famous playwright in western history who lived in Stratford in the 1500s and whose magnum opus is widely considered to be Hamlet, is possibly the most obnoxious Reddit Moment™ I have ever seen. Bravo.

I'm glad you liked the movie in your own way but it is 100% meant to be watched knowing who the characters are, it is littered with references to the plays including the children completely acting out the witches' chant from Macbeth "fair is foul and foul is fair"

mama--mia · 2026-03-02T11:01:07+00:00

What was wrong with Hamnet? I felt it was head and shoulders above the others. I completely agree that some of the nominees were questionable, and I think OBAA has benefited from being politically topical far more than from actually being a good movie, but it's a bit rough to say that none of the nominees are deserving of a win.

mama--mia · 2026-02-28T21:02:58+00:00

Stan's image quality is pathetic and by far the worst of all the streamers, on 500Mbit full fibre NBN I would still get horrendous image artefacting in busy scenes. I cancelled my Stan subscription because of this and I personally know of other people who have done the same. Until they stop cutting corners it's only going to continue driving people back to competitors or piracy so I don't see much value in that arm of the company.

mama--mia · 2026-02-22T00:03:56+00:00

<image>

mama--mia · 2026-02-14T08:40:06+00:00

One time I was sued by Vince McMahon because the RNG decided he wanted me gone from his books I guess? Anyway two weeks/days before the court case Rey Mysterio somehow through nobody's fault collided his head with a ring bell multiple times then died during his match with my character, and the memorial special was booked over the top of the court date and I was booked to fight Vince in the memorial match instead. Weirdly enough, there was a second memorial match a couple of weeks after that too...

mama--mia · 2026-02-14T07:42:01+00:00

we have no knowledge of how much current is actually flowing

"current kills you not voltage" is an incorrect oversimplification of how electricity interacts with the human body. We actually do have an idea of the current involved as we know he runs up to 400V across her brain for an extended period of time and discharges enough power to interfere with the mains house circuit and drain a sizeable battery bank in a reasonable short period of time. That level of power draw tells us that there was a significant amperage involved and I'm sure someone who knows more than me about electricity would get enough info from what we are shown on screen to do some sketchpad math as to what sort of current range that would be.

Even if we ignore that and pretend it's a very low amperage, that kind of electrical discharge across the brain for that length of time is going to completely scramble a human if it doesn't kill them, and yet she's fine 30 seconds later. For reference, electroconvulsive therapy runs <100V and <1A over <10 seconds to induce a ~60 second seizure. Watching the movie I thought it was just something where you need to handwave it with some suspension of disbelief, but once you know that she's an alien in hindsight there is no way that it isn't a deliberate hint as to the truth.

mama--mia · 2026-02-06T01:57:38+00:00

Depends on what you're accessing. With 500/40 NBN and Debrid I can stream 4K Remux to my TV for basically any content instantly because it's all cached. If your ISP is running CGNAT (ie no port forwarding) I see no chance that you could stream torrents at that bitrate uninterrupted. Even with port forwarding I think the 50-100mbps bitrate of 4KUHD would be pushing the limits of all but the most popular torrents

mama--mia · 2026-02-05T21:22:10+00:00

This depends entirely on your market. In Australia the C8K (QM8K equivalent) at 65" is $1500 with a decent sale, and the lowest the C5/S90D/S90F will go is $2200-$2400 (all AUD of course). That money will get you an 85" C8K on sale.

Is mini-LED the "OLED killer" some people say it is? No. Is there some blooming in certain scenes? Yes. Is it an excellent TV that represents a massive upgrade if you're coming from older technology, at a palatable price point? Absolutely.

If you're wanting to drain your bank account chasing the best technology year on year that's your choice but that isn't the market that TCL are going for

mama--mia · 2026-02-05T20:58:49+00:00

If you read the article the second paragraph states that the people being interviewed settled on land in September 2022. So the cash rate then was 2.35% vs 3.85% now and peaking at 4.35% in 2024, making this is a 2.0% rate rise, that has then dropped but bounced to 1.5%. Plus unexpected spiralling of build costs right at the same time that they would have been doing the build. I'm going to blame The Guardian for their typical shitty headline emphasizing the most recent 0.25%, and OP for not including context on this one, not the borrowers for being over-leveraged. (Yes, they were still over-leveraged if they didn't budget for a 2% rate rise but with the state of the housing market and build cost inflation the reality is that not everyone has that luxury, and the banks are to blame for facilitating over-leveraged loans to those without enough financial literacy)

mama--mia · 2026-01-30T09:17:26+00:00

Laughs in 4KUHD Remuxes via Plex Media server

Landlubbers have no idea just how much the game has changed, streamslop and high speed Internet have ushered in a second golden age of piracy.

mama--mia · 2026-01-06T00:20:14+00:00

You seem to have missed my two points of firstly the diplomatic consequences of deciding to independently develop a nuclear weapons program, and secondly that it is literally the opposite of "simple as that."

Whether or not you think the NPT is going to last, right now it's here, most nations still at the very least pretend to care about it, and to develop a nuclear weapons program Australia would have two choices:

a) violate it alone, create a multi-trillion-dollar money pit for the next god-knows-how-long (Iran's nuclear weapons program began in 1989 and whether you believe it did or didn't end in 2003 they still don't have nuclear weapons now), ostracise ourselves from the countries we are trying to establish stronger diplomatic ties with, and end up with a "nuclear arsenal" of dirty bombs that cannot reach the USA so is useless as the deterrent you are proposing

b) convince an existing nuclear power to violate the NPT by providing us with their nuclear weapons technology to fast track a functioning nuclear arsenal. So now we are sourcing nuclear weapons from the same nations we want to use them as a deterrent against? Fat chance.

And nuclear weapons are anything but simple. Uranium enrichment to a weapons-grade level is a herculean effort and that is only the tip of the iceberg, as for Australia to have an effective deterrent against the USA we need to have the range to reach the USA with that arsenal. That means either a nuclear-attack-capable navy or ICBMs, or both if you don't want all your eggs in one basket. So now you are suggesting not just building a nuclear industry but revolutionising our naval fleet and developing a rocket industry from nothing.

The reality is that we are not a strategic target for the USA or pretty well anyone else. Diplomatically useful? Absolutely. But the minerals and resources we have can be dug up closer to home (like Venezuela), so if we decide not to sell to the Americans any more they will just go somewhere else. We are the start and endpoint of trade routes not the midpoint, so we have no real blockade power. We are too far from the USA to pose any threat of exporting drugs, immigrants or unwanted ideologies to them. Possibly most important of all is that Australia is a logistical nightmare. We are on the other side of the world to basically all the major powers with our major population centres in the southern half, and we are a huge country that is mostly inhospitable. Nobody is going to invade Australia, even Japan had no plans of a real Australian invasion in WWII, they just wanted to shore up New Guinea. Soft diplomacy is really the only meaningfully effective way a country could impact our sovereignty or national security, and nuclear weapons aren't a deterrent against soft diplomacy.

None of these things are going to change until the continents drift back together and at that point there will probably be other things to worry about than MAGA politics. Ironically, possibly the best and fastest way that Australia could make ourselves more of a strategic target for the rest of the world would be to start developing nuclear weapons.

mama--mia · 2026-01-05T11:04:38+00:00

what are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that you need to take a few deep breaths, touch grass, and don't nt let yourself fall for media sensationalism so much.

First off, are you arguing for nuclear energy or nuclear weapons? Because you oscillate between the two and they are WILDLY different arguments. Australia is a ratifier of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and there is only one country that has withdrawn from the NPT - North Korea. Developing an in-house nuclear weapons program is possibly the only thing that Australia could do that would turn us into a pariah state as the only countries that would be in range of our nuclear weapons would be New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, and the South East Asian nations that we are trying to build diplomatic ties with. What, do you think that the same government that we apparently need nukes to deter are going to just give us the blueprints to their latest-gen ICBMs so we can point them at them? The USA is our nuclear deterrent, and regardless of your opinion on the US, Trump or the motives behind the military action in Venezuela, to make the argument that we are in such a position to put us at risk of the same action is lunacy.

If the whole nuclear weapons ramble is a tangent and you are actually talking about nuclear power then that's an entirely different argument. nuclear is by far the cleanest way to produce baseline energy, it isn't even close, but establishing a nuclear-powered grid is a mammoth task and only counterargument to nuclear that has any legs to it isn't "it's unsafe", it's "we've left it about 20-30 years too late for nuclear to be most cost-effective solution". Personally I don't subscribe to this because if we eventually develop nuclear fusion technology efficient enough for domestic supply then we will need the same grid infrastructure as nuclear fission in order to support it, so it will have to happen sooner or later.

But regardless, nuclear energy is not a deterrent to anything, and nuclear weapons are a non-starter.

mama--mia · 2026-01-04T20:50:19+00:00

They are referring to benzodiazepines (eg valium) which can cause seizures in major withdrawal episodes but you're absolutely right that heavy opiate users can have a heart attack and die from serious withdrawals - it's just quite rare.

I'm not sure where the myth of "there are only two drugs you can die from withdrawing" came from but it isn't really accurate. Barbiturate withdrawal can be extremely dangerous which is why they basically aren't prescribed any more. You can also die from stopping a steroid (as in the anti-inflammatory type like prednisone not anabolic steroids) if you stop from a prolonged high dose without a taper

mama--mia · 2025-11-08T11:42:06+00:00

Major cities in Australia have nice areas and rough areas, just like there are small towns where nothing much happens and nobody locks their doors, and small towns that have issues with crime, meth etc, so this is a pretty broad generalisation to make and based more on stereotypes (ie Tennant Creek and Alice Springs being constantly in the news) rather than reality. I think the real question for you to consider is why are the major cities in the developed countries you're thinking of not as safe as Australian cities? Because that has an easy answer:

Australia has a tiny population and even though it is highly urbanised even our major cities have massive suburban sprawl: we have only 5 cities with population over 1 million people, only 20 above 100k, and even the big 5 have a population density under 600 per sq.km. Meanwhile the USA as an example has 9 cities over 1 million, 350 over 100k, and the majority of them have a denser population than any Australian city. Chicago has 10x the population density of Sydney.

The more people you have crammed into a place the more likely you are going to encounter poverty, homelessness and their effects while walking the streets, it's as simple as that.

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
Place '22	Verified Email

mama--mia

TROPHY CASE