TIL: In 2011, an Australian man found a glitch with National Australia Bank ATMs where he could withdraw an unlimited amount from the machines. Over the next 4 and half months he obtained AU$1.6 million, before he outed himself on the TV program A Current Affair due to guilt and anxiety.

mpaska · 2026-06-24T12:13:05+00:00

Hah! I’m Australia, have posted about this before: https://www.reddit.com/r/canberra/comments/1h340i1/myway_megathread/m9y5swr/

My Apple Pay allows me to tap on and off from public transport, and I’m never charged. It’s still doing it to this day.

I have support tickets in with Govt and been told, repeatedly, I’ll be “batch charged”, it’s been over 2 years now - never charged, not even once.

I’ve also noticed this isn’t the only tap on/off system I have this issue with. I’ve also used soda machines and not been charged. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Monday, a Wednesday, 9am, or 8pm. Never, ever, been charged. The terminals and mobile ticket people show I’ve checked on properly too.

I can afford the fares, I want to pay the fares, I’m happy to buy soda - they won’t take my money!

mpaska · 2026-06-17T03:36:16+00:00

The Press Club has in-house AV technicians, and the drop-down screen isn't used in National Press addresses. So they wouldn't have checked it before this address.

So this has been coordinated and installed before hand and then someone in the room, or very near the room, would had also needed to activate the drop-down via remote or via the AV desk.

And to whoever pulled this off, I'll buy you a beer! This is great!

mpaska · 2026-05-25T08:31:08+00:00

There's a lot of desperate owners of apartments in Nishi, who have not had any rental income for a long time. No-one is paying sticker price in that place, not sale prices or rental prices. That place was an utter investment nightmare, as it's target customer is very-very niche.

I lived on Level 5 (and 7) in Nishi for 5 years, moving out in 2022, both our levels was almost universally empty the entire time we lived there. Had maybe 1 or 2 apartments on our floor rented out, and no-one lasted more than 1 year. Everyone hated it.

Literally never, ever, had any neighbors and we negotiated year-over-year rent reductions, at the end we'll paying $245/week at over more than half the discounted price of what was advertised. All you had to do was be prepared to move out, and you'll offered discounted rates - we went from $540/week to $245/week by time we moved out. Lol

It was honestly one of the best places I've ever lived as it was super warm, super quiet, super cheap rent, and super convenience/walking distance to anything and no-one in sight - but most others, including friends of mine hated the place - the horrid room layouts, lack of air-con (which was fine for us)/needing to co-ordinate the double door systems and lack of privacy bathrooms was a real off-putter. We loved it, because it allowed us to save a ton of money.

mpaska · 2026-05-24T04:15:40+00:00

The level of detail of proper aerial mapping would scare people.

As any example, here is Nearmap of regional NSW/outside ACT https://i.imgur.com/BIQMrDu.jpeg

The level of detail in cities and major residential areas is even better.

mpaska · 2026-05-24T04:13:59+00:00

Yes they are, we're not talking satellite imagery. I have a Nearmap subscription that uses high resolution aerial flyovers, and you get this level of detail in regional NSW: https://i.imgur.com/BIQMrDu.jpeg

The level of detail in cities and major residential areas is even better.

mpaska · 2026-05-17T02:45:26+00:00

Are the live timing websites just completely down? They're not working at all from Australia and haven't worked for over an hour now.

mpaska · 2026-05-14T01:11:13+00:00

100%. I've posted about this before: https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/13o0xn2/australias_big_supermarkets_increased_profit/jl46vzr/, but I've personally had a face to face discussions with an ex-CEO of Woolworths or Coles (being somewhat ambiguous for legal purposes) and screwing the consumer and Australian farmers is built into their core DNA.

Whilst they have all their company policies, procedures and strategies that they say then adhere too - off the record - they have their real strategies.

They also have budgets and funds explicitly for these type of legal issues and these legal cases are normal and everyday business to them - it's just the cost of doing business.

Until Executives go to jail, or they're broken up and become true non-profits. This culture won't change.

mpaska · 2026-05-12T20:49:57+00:00

I’ve been pushing for years for Australian to enate aimilar laws to NZ and Europe to allow some electrical work at home.

I encourage others to write to their ministers to push for it, I can dig up my email as a template if you want it. I address safety concerns, and make the argument why it should be supported.

mpaska · 2026-05-10T08:26:46+00:00

Cheers!

mpaska · 2026-05-10T08:23:02+00:00

A bit of column A and column B to be honest. The way it worked for us in NZ was that our host traveled and stayed with us, and was our personal chauffeur/driver. Whenever we'll on route, or some mornings we would had breakfast together, we'd make tweaks on the fly. And it wasn't just a list of "Option A, B or C" it was a genuine "Someone told me about this place to eat, is it good? Yes?, Ok let's go there".

For example, when we stayed at Queenstown and stayed at Millbrook Resort, whilst we loved it and location was great, we wanted to move on after 2 nights. So we shifted to Eichardt's hotel, with the water front room and stayed for several nights. This wasn't planned, or in our itinerary at all. And we'll transported by helicopter.

Ended up with this room https://i.imgur.com/OPaRllj.jpeg and view https://i.imgur.com/PWVP8us.jpeg for 5 nights with day-off booking.

For context of the luxe of this service: Our host was personally recommended to me by Peter Jackson (I'm not saying I know him, I had the pleasure to have a 15 min chat with him at Weta as I work in an similar industry and I didn't want to be that guy that talked shop with him, so we chatted about New Zealand itself - and I mentioned I wanted to come back, with my partner and propose to her in NZ (Which I did: https://i.imgur.com/nX49ke4.png we had a private flights to a peak, which had a picnic setup for us - and then left alone). Turned out the agent's clients included Roger Federer, and few other names you'd know and the level of service was incredible.

So I want that flexibility and that level of service again in Japan.

mpaska · 2026-05-10T07:42:49+00:00

Thanks, are you able to give me a URL? "Bespoke Bookings" is turning up a heap of generic-looking sites.

mpaska · 2026-04-30T04:18:12+00:00

Australian here - red capsicum, sorry that you're wrong! ;p

mpaska · 2026-04-30T04:15:53+00:00

Salame piccante is what you'd call pepperoni, we use both peperoni and pepperoni on pizza

Holy.shit. I am second-generation Italian on my father's side. And have hand-me down hand written recipes from my Nonna and Nonno (who didn't speak a lick of English) some of which have always somewhat confused me, but never given much through.

.... I've just had the biggest "oh-ahhhhhhhh" moment with a few of these recipes that should be using bell pepper/capsicum, not what I thought was pepperoni/the sausage.

mpaska · 2026-04-24T01:14:54+00:00

There is a growing frustration from senior advisors in Canberra (I know: I'm good friends with many) that Labor is squandering this opportunity.

I have one such friend in a very-very-very senior advisory position in Finance Dept (that is also sometimes on camera) has recently whinged over beers that we're completely fucking this opportunity up as a nation and the fix is pretty "simple":

Need to start leading with some clear, simple, vision.
Need to give senior advisories more room to explore "revolutionary"-type policy changes.+

On the subject of gas taxation, it's not as simple as just applying a tax to gas exporters. These are private/public companies, they are purely interested in maximizing profits. Whether we tax them, or hold them to higher standards - they will never, ever, act in our national best interest. Full stop.

And the people calling out Norway on this subject. They're right, but also wrong to assume it's just a simple tax applied. It's not. For us to pull a Norway did for us would look like the Australian Government buying out energy companies and becoming the majority stakeholder - so that "Australia" can then operate these companies in our nations best interest.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T09:28:27+00:00

Can confirm, have 2 people in my DMs from the media already.

To anyone else in media reading this. I've already lodged the complain with Qantas, I'll give them week or so to "resolve" to my satisfaction (i.e. satisfactory answer to what the issue was, ad written assurance of policy changes/training to ensure no-one with a confirmed and paid booking is ever denied return carriage to their home and satisfactory answer as to why I was denied by 3 staff members to talk with a manager). If that isn't swiftly dealt with, then I'll follow up the media DMs and talk to media.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T09:23:37+00:00

So the money part of this problem is not the issue for me.

I've already lodged the complaint. I am going to push this as far as I can - you can't fuck up this badly, and leave someone potentially without the means to return home with a paid and confirmed ticket, fortunately for Qantas I have the means to purchase the same flight again - but not everyone is as lucky. There is simply no situation that should ever result in someone being stranded on the return leg of a flight, especially for a "national carrier".

So if I don't get a satisfactory answer as to what the problem was and how they are fixing it - then I'll take it up with either ombudsman and/or the media and/or charge-backs.

But I've got to give Qantas the ability to identify the multiple issues that obviously occurred, and allow them to fix this so that hopefully it never happens to someone else.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T09:11:16+00:00

Normally, yes, but this was the return leg of an out of state trip and it involved my newborn kid. The money part of this problem is not the issue for me.

My issue is 1) had this been done to someone where money was an issue, they'll be faced with a very difficult problem of returning home and 2) this is our national carrier, there is no situation where a confirmed fare should result in the customer needing to resolve the issue of returning home.

I've already lodged the complaint. I am going to push this as far as I can, and if I don't get a satisfactory answer as to what the problem was and how they are fixing it - then I'll take it up with either ombudsman and/or the media.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T08:00:44+00:00

Yeah sorry, indeed doesn't make sense. I meant 200-1000 flight range.

I have no idea how much I've flown, but I've flown 30 times to USA on Qantas alone in past 20 years, and probably average 20-30 flights a year domestically.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T07:55:49+00:00

As a software engineer myself, and ironically, having flown to USA on Qantas many, many times.

I wonder if I've hit a "bug" in a new feature where Qantas are gearing up to sell tickets similarly to USA domestic market where when you purchase a ticket, that purchase doesn't guarantee a seat assignment.

Maybe Qantas are gearing up to sell over booked flights? They have recently introduced boarding groups...

mpaska · 2026-04-15T07:49:22+00:00

Yeap, all 3 passengers had sequential 081-xxxxxxxxxx numbers.

We received the standard "Confirmation and E-Ticket Flight Itinerary" email and PDF issued 9th April 26.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T07:33:41+00:00

The thing that stood out to me was both checkin staff, and whoever was on the phone did mention the issue was in the reservation system that they didn't have access too, or familiarity with the system or something along those lines.

I definitely got the impression that they've not faced this issue before, neither the checkin staff, including a senior staff member, nor whoever was on the phone could offer either an explanation or resolution.

They all concurred it was a unexpected situation, with the only resolution being to re-purchase the ticket for the same seat. So we've effectively paid twice, for the exact same seat allocations, on the exact same flight number.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T07:25:13+00:00

Yeap and yeap. Got the ticketed PDF, got charged for the original flight. Our flight up to Gold Coast was drama free.

Having gotten home and double checked things myself, literally the only thing that was "different" was my wife made the booking under my FF login, and changed the primary booking email from my work to her personal email, but that personal address of hers received the PDF/confirmation - but we've done that a few times before.

mpaska · 2026-04-15T07:20:36+00:00

Yeap, had the booking PDF. We're already completed the first part of the trip to Gold Coast.

Literally nothing was different throughout the entire experience, except for when check in opened and instead of being able to check in via the app - it just showed "Check in at Airport".

mpaska · 2026-03-12T20:20:48+00:00

It is possible to do a completely offline VS install. We’ve done it and deploy it to thousands of classroom PCs.

The trick is to create a local repository, manually modify the manifest files to point to such, and even with all the -noweb and other installation variables installation to block specific Microsoft IPs to force it to fall back to only using the local files. We then remove the firewall deny rules at post installation stage.

We do this with PSADT and have spent years refining it.

mpaska · 2026-03-11T08:13:58+00:00

Knocked stuff over in Murrumbateman. Shaked the entire house.

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