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Nath

@ Nath @aussie.zone

Posts
15
Comments
270
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Legendary film critic David Stratton dies peacefully aged 85

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  • When they disagreed, and I loved when they disagreed, I usually fell into Margaret's camp. But he always had great insights, and it was rare for me not to be able to see where he was coming from. He was a kind and patient man, and I miss them on TV.

    The biggest thing he taught me wasn't even about movies. It was how to have a full on heated discussion with love and respect and remain friends after. Farewell David, you never knew the many thousands of people you touched. But we'll remember you.

  • Jennifer Mui Len Chin, who stabbed teen daughter's boyfriend, was 'trying to protect family'

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  • I think she stands a decent chance of getting acquitted. Unknown person in the house semi naked with her daughter. Nobody explains what is going on. Neither the boy nor the daughter admitted he was a boyfriend and it was consensual.

    Honestly, I can see this going either way.

  • Australia Completely Loses The Plot, Plans To Ban Kids From Watching YouTube

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  • Who: Yes, Aussie zone appears to fit the definition of a social media site.

    What: "A provider of an age-restricted social media platform must take reasonable steps to prevent age-restricted users having accounts with the age-restricted social media platform." Details are a bit scarce on "reasonable steps". There's a bit about how we are not to collect Government ID details though.

    When: Presently December 10, 2025 but the bill is worded such that they are prepared to shift it.

    Why: Protect the kiddies from the evils of the site. By the way, if you spot any actual bad content please report it.

    How: and now we get to the big question. I truly don't see how you'd enforce this on Lemmy. Even if a perfect system were introduced to verify everyone's ages somehow, nothing stops people from shifting to a non-australian instance and just keep using the site. Or just spinning up their own private instance at home. Lemmy federation works a bit like email - imagine trying to stop kids from being able to access email. Again, I just don't see how you'd accomplish that.

    So, we're doing what the government is doing. Keeping an eye on things and waiting to see how the big players respond. I'd love to see Facebook or YouTube to just go 'nup' and withdraw from the market. The public backlash would be insane and this bill would quickly vanish. People are asleep on this thing because they don't really see it affecting them. Yet.

    The UK has just introduced an age verification thingy, and it's off to a poor start. The words are nice, but putting them into action is not trivial.

  • "We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond" - Australian pressure group Collective Shout claims responsibility for Steam and Itch.io NSFW game removal

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  • In Australia at least, those cards are everywhere in populated areas. Supermarkets and department stores pretty-much all stock them. I'd say that over 90% of Australians live within 3km of a store that sells Steam cards and takes cash. Most of us even closer than that.

  • Should Australia lower the voting age to 16 like the UK? We asked 5 experts

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  • I hear you - if I no longer paid my tax now, it wouldn't make a difference to the ATO financially. However, if all middle-income taxpayers in my demographic who pay between around $30,000 and $80,000 in tax were to stop paying the ATO, they would feel that.

    I forget the tax brackets decades later, but $90x2-3 days a week was getting taxed enough that I was losing about two hours per shift on tax. I remember thinking of it in hours at work. The first two hours paid Mr. tax man, the remaining six were for me. I remember that I was making $7 per hour. My annual tax came out at less than $2k, before deductions etc. If all the kids in the same boat as me didn't have to pay tax, I doubt it'd make much difference to the ATO.

  • "We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond" - Australian pressure group Collective Shout claims responsibility for Steam and Itch.io NSFW game removal

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  • Your point is sound because I usually use a credit card for this, but most of my Steam purchases come from buying gift cards. However, I could easily buy those gift cards with cash.

    Your comment implies this is not possible/common.

  • "We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond" - Australian pressure group Collective Shout claims responsibility for Steam and Itch.io NSFW game removal

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  • Should Australia lower the voting age to 16 like the UK? We asked 5 experts

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  • It rankled with me when I was 15-17 that I had to pay income tax as a kid making ~$70-$90 per day. My paltry income would be doing nothing for Mr tax man, but that money would be much better given to me on payday. I think I would have signed up to vote and get a say in how it was spent. But there are also a lot of 16 year old morons who would act in predictable ways if forced to vote.

    Maybe introduce it as optional until you are 18? And then it goes compulsory.

  • Bob Katter refuses to swear oath to King Charles

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  • What makes you come to this conclusion? Given that Australia has been connected to the British crown since colonial days - before federation, and we haven't gone down that path, I'm wondering what makes you think we will? The UK has had its attachment for half a millennia, they also seem to be doing ok.

    In fact, I'll go one further and give a counter-example: India detached from the monarchy nearly 80 years ago and I think they've gone way further down that path. Presidents Modi and Trump have a fair amount in common.

    So, I think I disagree with you on this point. At least, I can't see what you're getting at.

  • Bob Katter refuses to swear oath to King Charles

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  • I don't call myself a monarchist. But I am in favour of someone holding the power to send us to an election if we get a non-functional government. Whoever that is needs to be totally independent of our day-to-day politics and essentially un-bribable.

    Right now, that's the king in England. I'm not against disconnecting from that - but like I said, I don't know where else you'll find someone who is outside daily politics in Australia and can't be bribed to act against our interests. If you have a name, I'm all ears (so is the king! 😆).

    If you are proposing we just do away with that, then I'd love to know how you'd deal with an Australian Trump administration. Because 3-4 years of that doesn't sound fun.

  • Bob Katter refuses to swear oath to King Charles

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  • It might be time for another referendum on this topic. However, given the chaos that has come out of the USA in the hands of a rogue government, I'd be hesitant to completely remove the role the monarchy plays in our government. We need that check on power and I don't know what you'd replace it with.

  • Australian anti-porn group claims responsibility for Steam's new censorship rules in victory against 'porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists', and things only get weirder from there

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  • I was indifferent, it's true. People who sell porn have had issues with the likes of PayPal and credit card payments for decades. I wasn't surprised by the move, nor did I blame Valve.

    Am I bothered that it was instigated by this mob? Not particularly. If it weren't them, it would have been some other mob. They were only pointing at something the payment companies are already pre-disposed to disassociate from.

    Taking credit for it is a bit of overreach. They pointed at Valve and said "Look! they have porn on their platform!" They didn't actually do anything.

  • Carolina Wilga search triggers uncomfortable questions for families of missing Indigenous men

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  • Well, a young American dude went missing in the desert in WA in the 90's and that had wall-to-wall coverage in the news for weeks until he was found also.

    I think @DiaDeLosMuertos is right - the driving factor in the interest was that he was a tourist, not that he was any particular nationality/gender. So yes: I think a young Turkish bloke going missing would get just as much coverage.

  • How to turn off Gemini on Android — and why you should

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  • I'm not about to defend Google, but I think Apple are worse. Google are upfront about what they collect and let you download (takeout) or delete everything they have on you at any time you want.

    Apple don't tell you what they are collecting, don't let you opt-out of data collection and it's a manual process to access/delete what they have on you.

    Neither company is good on their privacy fronts and to champion one over the other is silly.

  • Xi Jinping says Australia and China should ‘unswervingly’ work together despite global instability

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  • China wants Australia's dirt. Australia wants China's money.

    Everything else is just theatre.

  • Canvas (fedi's r/place) starts in 12 days, here's the Australia flag plans this year!

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  • I did probably venture outside Aussie.zone more last year in truth. These days I very rarely do that. My time is too limited to waste it doom scrolling the shit show that is US politics.

  • Card payment surcharges should be banned for debit and credit payments, RBA says

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  • I don't think the problem is banks charging fees. In fact, I don't really have an issue with the banks taking 1% of the sale. The issue is that merchants don't realise that counting cash and taking it to the bank etc actually costs more than 1% anyway. Electronic payments are actually cheaper than all that, they already give you a total and handle the bank end.

    I can think of a couple of places in Perth who have gone totally cashless. They only accept Eftpos/credit cards.

  • Pensioner robbed of $1,338 is taking NAB to court for millions

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  • I can't comment on this case at all, but I will say that my father in law was totally scammed out of $19k and NAB blocked the transfer. NAB literally saved my in-laws from losing nearly $20k. The scammers were very convincing, they basically got remote access to his PC and from there accessed his online banking.

    So, offset this story with a good one for NAB.

  • The original Ettamogah Pub in Albury, NSW

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  • Perth also had one, but it closed down 20 years ago. Two businesses have since occupied the building, but both have died.

    You can see how the building would have looked with the angular awnings etc. but they were made boring after the Ettamogah closed down.

  • Canvas (fedi's r/place) starts in 12 days, here's the Australia flag plans this year!

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  • Huh. Well this went from "something to look into next week" to "Oops, it's finished already".Looks like there wasn't much interest this year.