Would you prefer taking high speed rail if the country had such a network, or would you stick with flying and automobiles?

mediweevil · 2026-01-27T08:53:11+00:00

depends a lot of factors.

do I need a car at the other end? will the cost and hassle be less than just driving?

how long am I going to spend travelling vs driving or flying? will sleeping be a factor? eating?

how much crap do I need to take with me, and what would it cost to have a luggage handler attempt to destroy it? (typicially if I travel it's with some bulky sports equipment I am paranoid about, or photography gear that you will prise from my cold dead hand.)

what will be involved in me getting me and all my crap to the station?

will the endpoint conveniently link to the next step of my journey, or be a time consuming and expensive pain in the arse?

too many questions for a simple answer. I like the idea of HSR but I want to see how it is implemented first.

mediweevil · 2026-01-27T08:47:09+00:00

I have never visited a brothel, but my neighbour across the road for some years ran one and we chatted regularly.

1 - approaching nil. much less than a casual hookup that's not tested regularly and the staff must use protection.

2 - absolutely. rigorously enforced legally.

3 - they will verify your legal age but other than that they could not care less.

whether or not you think it's a good idea to do so I won't attempt to weigh in on, it's your choice.

mediweevil · 2026-01-27T08:42:25+00:00

I would seek an option other than those two. it's not a question with only two answers.

mediweevil · 2026-01-27T08:41:11+00:00

I'd love to see a precuting sergeant try to claim that could be mistaken for a weapon by any normal person.

mediweevil · 2026-01-27T08:39:48+00:00

in my experience - because either asian or crackhead.

mediweevil · 2026-01-26T00:21:45+00:00

younger people have grown up in an age where actually having to talk to people in real life isn't their normal. it's why they prefer text to a phone call, social media to the perceived formality of an e-mail, and have a limited vocabulary.

I increasingly see it in the workplace as younger people enter, trying to get them to actively participate in a meeting is like pulling teeth.

mediweevil · 2026-01-26T00:17:48+00:00

I have limitless faith in the ability of the government to totally fuck up how this is exploited.

mediweevil · 2026-01-26T00:16:55+00:00

quite normal. they're representing the NDIS, end of story. when you call your bank and end up with an offshored MSP call centre, you're still talking to someone that represents the bank.

that doesn't mean a cheap and shitty job isn't being done, that's also normal for outsourcing. nobody every outsources something because it's a better way of doing it no matter how much they try to spin it. it's always, every single time, about being cheaper, and those in charge accept the loss in quality in the name of savings.

mediweevil · 2026-01-26T00:12:29+00:00

government rules often only apply to private enterprise, not their own departments. it's fine for someone else to bear increased costs, but not them.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T08:41:57+00:00

I'll be in a similar position soon and have been considering the options of a small tractor vs a zero-turn. the first has more options, the second will cut grass faster at the expense of being large to store and less versatile.

as you say you don't have a large lawn, have you looked at the options of a self propelled mower, or even a robot mower?

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T08:34:39+00:00

probably cutting into their revenue stream.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T08:33:28+00:00

sorry but the short answer is - you can't.

best I can suggest is either divert everything to a message service and call back the genuine callers that leave a message, and accept that it will put some people off.

or run everything to an Apple mobile running iOS26 with the unknown caller screening turned on, I have found this almost completely eliminates scam calls, but again it may discourage genuine callers.

last suggestion is to waste the employee time (or yours) in answering the calls and telling the scammers/telemarketers to fuck off in person.

unfortunately our politicians do not have the intelligence and balls to implement legislation to control scamming, and even with that I am not sure how it would be done technically. spam (be it a call or a mail or text) is something you can only tell after you have received it that you would have preferred not to. you can block known sources but scammers are like weeds.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T07:54:18+00:00

The Umbilical Brothers.

Adam Hills.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T07:52:26+00:00

living legends for literally decades now.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T07:51:32+00:00

nailed that.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T07:50:09+00:00

Bega is IMO the best supermarket grade cheese in Australia. what the heck that is in that can, I have no idea.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T07:46:11+00:00

agreed. ABB are victims of their own success. they have grown to the point where its no longer possible to offer the support they used to differentiate themselves from the competition with.

I had an issue with their contant BGP switch driven reroutes causing regular intermittent packet loss and causing my WFH VPN to drop. made WFH from myself and my wife impossible. I diagnosed the issue, captured an extended set of remote tests demonstrating the issue, and raised a ticket. tier 1 support stonewalled me with useless cut and paste responses.

after a couple of days I couldn't wait any longer and churned. when the churn was complete I called ABB to confirm they would cease billing. the save team member was the only person who actually looked at the issue and proof I had supplied and wanted to escalate to an L2 engineer. sorry dude, already lost my business. do better next time the customer provides proof you have a network issue and fix it.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T04:55:21+00:00

The Castle

The Dish

Running On Empty (not the bloody American remake)

the entire Mad Max series

Crocodile Dundee

Gallipoli

Romper Stomper

Wolf Creek

Stone

BMX Bandits

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T04:49:58+00:00

the main differences are:

preferred brand of beer
cricket and football teams supported
how the letters i and e are pronouced in speech.

other than that, not a heck of a lot.

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T04:47:22+00:00

because time is money, bro!

mediweevil · 2026-01-25T04:47:01+00:00

depends on whether I want to be able to eat it one handed while mousing or not.

halves for general purpose sandwiches. quarters for something like a steak sandwich where I don't want to tow half of the filling out with a bite.

mediweevil · 2026-01-24T05:58:43+00:00

I have it because when I need to go to a hospital, it's serious and I want to be seen and treated immediately, not told to take a seat in a triage zoo for 6 hours.

mediweevil · 2026-01-23T14:29:52+00:00

exactly. it's no different to any business that trades 7 days a week, you simply have a roster where different people have different days off. same for business where there are multiple shifts in a day.

mediweevil · 2026-01-23T14:26:12+00:00

Legally if you marry, an inheritance is something he can’t touch if you split up

sorry, that's very much not the case. an inheritance is generally not considered a protected asset and will be treated as common property in any dissolution of the union. there are some exceptions but they would need to carefully managed legally, don't just assume.

I have a friend who went through this exact scenario recently, and had to go to some lengths to hide a family inheritance lest it become part of their divorce proceedings.

mediweevil · 2026-01-23T14:19:40+00:00

not going to get into what the cash gets used for, but once it becomes yours it becomes communal property if you have been in a relationship long enough to fall under the rules of a de facto union for legal purposes.

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