Yep.

The best we got was that he likely won't rewarded for it.

"On Friday, a new pay determination that could seek to strip secretaries of their entitlements if they breach the public service code of conduct was signed off by the Remuneration Tribunal. "

The Guardian had a better way of explaining it.

"On Friday, the government’s salary umpire, the Remuneration Tribunal, quietly made a ruling revoking a requirement that secretaries and agency heads receive a payout if they’re sacked for breaching the rules."

Imagine that.

Before Friday last week, a Department Secretary purposely and flagrantly breaking the rules could expect a payout for doing so.

I'm sure they get to keep the money they received while on paid leave pending any inquiry, which makes the arguments for penalties and fines even stronger.

It's simply less value for money these days. And government economic policy over the last 30 years has made it very clear they believe universities are more a personal empowerment vehicle, rather than a national benefit (through having a higher proportion of the population university educated).

On one hand, it's become common knowledge having a degree doesn't automatically get you a decent job, let alone a decent job, like many millennials and gen y were socialised to believe.

On the other hand, the quality of teaching has gone down, while the user-pays cost, even if it's via HECS, has gone up substantially, at the same time that people know it's going to be extremely hard to save up to buy a home these days, even with access to the bank of Mum and Dad.

Many younger people have given up on the feasibility of owning their own home till mum or dad dies, so there's less push for those people to spend money and time on increasing their earning power. That dream of earning your own home on your own effort is very much dying.

Additionally, those that are still inclined to earn enough to afford their own home, are having to judge whether the larger HECS loans, and mandatory repayments, will affect their ability to take out and pay off the larger loans now needed to buy a home.

Our university system has Americanised to a much more user-pays system, where students are expected to take on larger loans (even if it's HECS), as the government has continually withdrawn or starved funding for the sector over 30 odd years, and universities have responded by casualising its workforce, and getting rid of tenure for academics, so that the standard of teaching has fallen badly.

Not to mention the implementation of a private company-style economic model for universities, so at the same time as being starved of funding, they're being encouraged to chase international students to make up that funding, which has affected academic integrity badly, and redirected funding from the quality of their teaching and academics, to more flashy but extremely expensive capital investments like new buildings and facilities. Which are nice if the money is available, but generally it's come from badly-needed areas elsewhere within the University.

Imagine if a new funding model was proposed for our hospitals, where government reduced overall funding, but hospitals could make up the shortfall by advertising and encouraging international patients to have treatment with them. Obviously the quality and availability of treatment for domestic patients would suffer to some degree, as focus would go towards attracting international patients to help pay for those domestic patients. But it would be very easy for hospitals to lose focus on the big picture, and instead begin to see attracting international patients as the end goal, rather than a means to make treatment for available to more domestic patients.

Many classes are taught by PhD candidates or recent graduates, who are on insecure semester to semester contracts, often signed only weeks before a semester begins, and there are reports many are expected to only allocate, (or at least, will only be paid for) 10 minutes or less per student essay, and 5 minutes or less for other assessments. What sort of valid individualised feedback and recommendations for improvement can you give within that timeframe?

I'm going to assume it's an autocorrect issue, but just for those not familiar with Australia's university student funding system and want to websearch it, it's HECS, not hex.

It's not government related at all, it's an industry-created body, formed by members of the alcohol and beverage industry, to self-regulate their advertising material.

And yes, extremely cushy. Like the article said, it's created a voluntary code with no fines or penalties on its members, and was only spurred to action by a viral story of outrage and complaints spreading on social media. Probably mostly consists of board members who attend a few days a year and one or two employees who just press yes/approve on whatever they're sent.

"Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code had given pre-approval for Hard Solo as an appropriate product." Only to backflip quickly under actual political and media scrutiny once it's release became public knowledge.

Even it's response to one complaint's suggestion that hard solo sounds like Han solo - and therefore potentially evoked associations with stars wars in the minds of some kids - was petty.

"the packaging doesn’t appeal to minors by having “a similar name to [a] Star Wars character”. How do they know that? I myself saw Han Solo at first glance, and thought of the fairly recent Han Solo movie -with black and yellow stencil font- before re-reading it as Hard Solo.

Given they didn't detect anything wrong with mimicking a soft drink before, I don't think they have any legitimacy to arbitrarily dismiss other potential associations, especially when the colours pretty much match exactly the title schema of the Han Solo and Star Wars movies.

Anyway (I got distracted sorry), the article itself has people stating this is why industry self-regulation doesn't work, and why an actual government body with a mandatory code and penalties should be in place.

But, its much cheaper for government not to, since then government would need to fund the new body and it's employees, and spend time drawing up and debating relevant legislation and regulatory powers, whereas ABAC is funded by its member companies.

Haha yeah, in 200 words summarising an 800 word article, it's managed to skirt around all the meat of the article, so we don't actually know what the issue was, just peripheral mentions that Centrepay is somehow involved, a fair amount of money and customers are possibly involved, and the company doesn't want to comment, essentially. None of which tells us what was going wrong. We get more of an idea from the original title!

Very bad bot!

That's the one.

"See, they are McDonald's, I'm McDowells... They got the golden arches, mine is the golden arcs.They got the Big Mac. I got the Big Mick... But they use a sesame seed bun. My buns have no seeds."

Think of it like subsidised medication.

If your medication costs $10 a month, and easily accessible at any pharmacy due to being subsidised and controlled by government regulation, it's unlikely the average person will skip medication, prescribed by a doctor, intended to improve your health and wellbeing. There is a low barrier to compliance.

Now if that medication isn't subsidised, and costs you $80 a month, or only available at very few pharmacies, there is now a high barrier to compliance. It's more likely the average person will skip a month's medication here and there simply because of the cost of complying. People have to exercise high levels of personal responsibility and clear-headed, logical decision making, weighing a tangible immediate loss ($80) that may put other essentials at risk (food, housing, etc) vs an intangible possibility of future health deterioration. Individual health suffers, and national overall health and wellbeing decrease as well.

A mandatory law or regulation banning, or restricting access to a good, (like engineered stone) creates a low barrier of compliance to the individuals exposed to the potential health risk. Customers are not allowed to demand they use the product. The product is not easily available as a cheaper alternative to other products. A boss can't demand an employee use it. The question and decision making over its use is taken away from the individual.

Whereas if the produ t is legal or unregulated, and you're a tradie, and a customer demand its use, or it's significantly cheaper to purchase, and/ or highly available in the supply chain, there's a high barrier to compliance, since all that decision making is on the individual tradie to resist a tangible, immediate and easily accessed financial benefit, over the intangible potentiality of severe health issues 10-20+ years into the future.

Humans are generally not good at weighing tangible immediate vs intangible future issues against each other, especially when subject to immediate stress or strain from financial, housing, medical, customer service, boss/company expectations etc.

Examples of bad grammar.

I definitely had the Enterprise/Faith of the Heart intro as the most discordant and off-putting combination I've been subjected too...

Until I started trying to watch Britannia. You'd be watching ancient Roman soldiers talking or swording it out with Celtic Britons and scarified druids against backdrops of mud daubed huts, thick untouched forests, primitive villages etc, and suddenly...you'd be hearing this upbeat folksy 1960s Beatles-like The Hurdy Gurdy Man.

And then you'd go straight back to the ancient Roman soldiers, druids, swords and Celtic style clothing and background.

This is a good example of that discordant transition https://youtube.com/watch?v=GNG9EU8eZj0

I also noticed the article seemed a little vague regarding ideal goals of an FTA between Australia and EU.

Seems like the EU mostly wanted Australia to agree to their geographical indicator rules (e.g. not allowed to use feta, Prosecco etc names) and for Australia to agree to much more ambitious climate action and sustainability targets.

So that kind of explains why they aren't too fussed about reaching an agreement with Australia (plus Australia upset France by withdrawing from its submarine deal the way it did), whereas Australia had a lot more to gain.

• Reducing or eliminating the current excise levels (7-12%) across industrial goods,
• increasing or eliminating altogether the allowed currently very restrictive quotas of agricultural goods that can be exported to EU, and
• building towards mutual recognition of professional licensing and registration, so workers can more easily move between EU and Australia.

But the EU being almost half a billion people vs our 26 million, we were never going to have very effective leverage I think.

(This link had better details https://www.claytonutz.com/knowledge/2022/july/free-trade-agreement-between-australia-and-the-european-union-back-on-the-table-with-some-caveats)

Yeah, reading through the ADL reasoning, one of the articles they use to justify its accusation that Mondoweiss is antisemitic is actually discussing how ultra rightwing and ultra religious some of the recently elected candidates are, and to whom Netanyahu was trying to work closely with.

"Another story, Yes ‘Jewish Power’ party is fascistic, but its rise was inevitable is also very negative toward Israeli Jews."

So an article discussing the election of 6 problematically hard right, ultra religios, Israeli Zionists, and their histories, beliefs and background, in ADL's eyes is a negative anti-semitic article on all Israelis Jews?

That's a very long bow to stretch.

Not excusing it, but I'd say it's very easy to feel disconnected from others when you're in a privileged position of power.

Everyone else becomes "them", and you lose track of what "normal" or "average" experiences are like, because you tend to live within a very different space to others, and tend only associate with people with similar privilege levels.

I remember visiting my country's Parliament building, and within about 15 minutes having this weird sense of disconnection due to the incredibly different beautiful and privileged environment. Everywhere were massive pieces of art, beautiful marble inlays, everything was clean and well ordered, great big wide open spaces, beautifully carved wooden chairs in dining areas etc.

I remember thinking no wonder politicians tend to be labelled disconnected and removed from the concerns of the average citizen. If I was working in that building 8-12 hours a day, 4-6 days a week, 40+ weeks a year, I'd find it hard to remain grounded and to also remind myself that what I was experiencing was something less than 5% of the population might experience, rather than being the "norm" or standard for the majority of the population.

From memory one hypothesis was that tin had become an essential trade good that was required for making bronze, and therefore using bronze for many of the times' high-level technological innovations, especially construction tools, weapons, and for ships.

However, tin is rare, and at the time, there were only a few disparate sources of tin. It's suggested the middle east sourced most of its tin from China via the silk road, and Ancient Greeks were getting theirs from deep inland European sources (possibly near Hungary, Brittany in France, or Cornwall in England).

This was fine during settled and undisturbed times, as the very long, convoluted trade routes prospered and grew.

But they were very susceptible to disruption during unsettled times, and it wouldn't have taken taken much to be disrupted by large movements of nomadic warring raiders or groups of peoples, or particularly terrible famines or natural disasters located across critical trade routes.

And as states and cities likely isolated themselves behind city walls to protect themselves from the strife of the time, this only would have decreased trade even more, and suddenly they would no longer have the ability to make the essential tools and weapons their societies had become reliant on, in the numbers required, right when those nations needed them most.

This would have been especially ruinous if those nomadic raiding tribes, or groups of unknown origin like the Sea Peoples, had access to iron technology, which required only one more easily sourced metal, iron. Pure copper weapons, due to lack of tin to make bronze, would have been fairly ineffective against iron or bronze equivalents.

It's a hypothesis, and not "proven", but I'd say it's a fairly plausible explanation for what likely happened.

Arguments included:

"If you don't know, say no" Incredibly reductionist, could be used to justify any position, but a very effective soundbite. It's only when you extrapolate it, that you realise the issues. Imagine if someone told you "If you don't know whether a girl/boy will say yes to you, never ask them out on a date". Uncertainty is an inherent part of most of human nature. A lot less humans would be born if no one had the presence of mind to find out more about whether a person liked them, or just took a gamble and asked for a date.

"This will allow aboriginals to claim and take your land" Because Australia was declared "terra nullus" on 'discovery', and therefore regarded as uninhabited under English law, colonisers basically took and claimed all the land and dispossesed the Native Australians. And ever since, there's been a resistance to recognising prior ownership and use by native Australians, because that might threaten current ownership of land. No one wants land and property they own to be arbitrarily taken away from them with no recompense (ironic, yes?), so it's very easy to create fear in current landowning/propertyowning Australians by saying increased recognition of indigenous Australians in any form could have their land taken from them and given back to indigenous Australians.

"This will be a 3rd chamber of parliament" There are currently two houses of Parliament of government, in which candidates are voted and elected by a majority of their constituents. The houses form the core mechanics of how laws are created, debated and enacted. By portraying the proposed advisory body as a 3rd legislative body on par with the 2 existing houses, and pointing out the body was to be formed from indigenous Australians, the no campaign capitalised on fears of changing our entire political system, and the false impression of giving indigenous Australians incredibly disproportionste and unfair weighting within the political system.

"Enshrining a specific 'political' body made up of only indigenous Australians in the constitution makes us unequal, because they don't do that for other Australians". This one tries to capitalise on feelings of equality, and therefore fairness. Because I don't get X, they shouldn't have X. And neatly creates the assumption that the status quo is equal, so why change it. Ignoring that indigenous Australians are a very small percent of population, and therefore less than 5% or so of the voting population, so unlikely to ever form an effective voting bloc or have their needs and desires reflected in mainstream politics like the average Australian might. Also, the statistics for quality of life are extremely poor when compared to the average Australian, in terms of social and financial mobility, education, health, prison incarceration rates, birth complication rates etc. The average life expectancy of an indigenous Australian is at least 8 years lower than the average Australian. These have been persistent gaps in societal outcomes that haven't closed despite decades of government focus and money, hence trying something new, like the Voice.

"It won't do anything, so there's no point creating it" The argument was that this body has no executive powers, and can only talk 'at' the government, and there's no obligation in the current wording in the referendum, that the government even needs to listen. So it won't achieve anything at all, it will be useless and ineffective.

"It does too much" The argument was that it was too powerful, and would put too much unequal power in the hands of indigenous Australians, and that it would therefore be unfair and unequal. That it would allow indigenous Australians to create laws, change them, create treaties between them and Australia, recognise indigenous land rights etc.

Lots more out there, but that's it for now from me

The confusion definitely wasn't helped by the large amounts of deliberate misinformation being put out there about the intention of the Voice, and requests for specificity.

And then the apparently contradictory arguments (often by the very same person, within the same argument) that it was too much, and therefore privileged indigenous Australians over other Australians, and yet also not enough, and would therefore achieve nothing at all. Or that more information needed to be provided, or more often, that specifics needed to be pre-decided and included within the wording (overlooking that those specifics would then be enshrined in the constitution and largely unchangeable ever again)

An argument to paralyse everyone along the decision spectrum who wasn't already in the yes camp or no camps.

To answer your question, the voice was essentially a yes or no to creating a constitutionally recognised body of indigenous Australians, that could lobby Government and Parliament of behalf of indigenous Australians on issues concerning indigenous Australians.

To use an extended analogy:

It would be similar to a board meeting of a large company asking their shareholders to agree to a proposal to create a position within the company of "Disabilities, Diversity, and Equity Officer", and have that position enshrined within the company's charter, to enable a dedicated representative to make representions on behalf of those that fall under those categories, as they all tend to be in minority groups whose needs or ideas don't tend to be (on average) reflected or engaged with by existing company processes or mainstream society. And that the position be held by someone within one of those minority groups.

Sure, an individual employee could take an issue to their supervisor (i.e. the Government/parliament), but that supervisor rightly has a need to observe the needs of the company (its voters) and the majority of employees (the average Australian), and the thought that a policy might not actually be effective for person Y would likely not even occur to the supervisor, as it seems to work for the majority of employees anyway, and they're not raising any issues. The supervisor is unlikely to go proactivelly asking employee Y's opinion on implementing X policy when they feel they already understand what employee a, b, c and d etc. want out of the policy.

Even if employee Y brings up an issue directly with the supervisor, the supervisor is structurally unlikely to take it on board or give it much weight, as it's a single employee vs the multitude of other employees who are fine with the policy as is. And listening involves extra work, let alone actually changing anything as a result.

Having a specific Disability/Diversity/Equity officer not only allows employee Y an alternative chain of communication to feel like they're being seen, and their concerns heard (which has important implications for their sense of self worth, participation, and mutual respect in the company), but the fact that it's a specified company position within the company's charter means the supervisor is much more likely to give that communication from that position much more weight, and consider it more carefully, than if that random, singular enployee Y had just tried to tell the supervisor directly.

The Disability/Diversity/Equity officer doesn't have the power to change rules, or implement anything by fiat. He can only make representations to the company and give suggestions for how things could be better. The supervisor and company still retain complete control of decision making and implementation, but the representations from the DDE officer could help the company and supervisor create or tweak policy and practices that work for an extra 10-15% of employees, and therefore a total of 85% of the company's employees, instead of the previous 70%.

Now, would you expect that the company provide the shareholders with exact details of: what hours the DDE officer will have, how much they'll be paid, what room of what building they'll operate on, how they'll be allowed or expected to communicate with others in the organisation, etc? With the expectation that all this additional information will be entered into the company charter on acceptance, unchangeable except at very rare full General Meetings of all shareholders held every 2 or 3 decades?

No. They just ask the shareholders if they're on board with creating a specific position of Disability/Diversity/Equity officer, and that its existence be noted and enshrined in the company charter so the position can't be cut during an economic downturn, or easily made redundant and dismissed if an ideologically driven CEO just didn't like the idea of having a specific Disability/Equity officer position in the company.

Some of my favourites

Mixolydian - Gateless Gate - Mark Saul https://youtu.be/vn1cr_m1zF4?si=INWil7ZP7TXKzIbo

Avengers Theme - Snake Charmer https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=7uMoLkUDEio&si=0V_M0d3U--kKvjLh

Hellbound Train - Red Hot Chilli Pipers https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=JkBaYdGHXlM&si=br_QbvCnmomnrPxI

Rolling with the Goblins - Celtica https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=IvXUEXSjtFc&si=9SMCihdsUlZKeEnw

Mixolydian - E minor - Mark Saul https://youtu.be/hsax6D_wJy8?si=wce3sgeyhnTJK7tu

And a bonus cover just because: Wake Me Up - Red Hot Chilli Piper's https://youtu.be/1jL-5tRQilo?si=NH-IM0PHqPsoYjZ3

I was thinking exactly the same! But couldn't remember the name of it, so my thoughts were along the lines of "Wasn't this a documentary? Wasn't this released earlier then 2023? Pretty sure the girls involved were from northern Europe?

Have a feeling that Hotel Coolgardie will actually be much more interesting viewing to many of the target audience of this new movie. So many uncomfortable and semi-surreal moments. Available on Prime in Australia, so possibly is also on US Prime, for those interested.

Not really that weird.

It's a common occurrence.

It's a passion project that someone or a team spend a lot of time and energy on, likely thinking that the advantages of implementation will be so obvious that it'll just be out into production based on its self-evident merits or improvement on existing practices.

Then it hits the concrete wall of reality, where there's actually lots of friction and barriers in the process of trying to get the project into production and implemented. Management just doesn't want to go ahead with it for whatever reason, and people don't seem to be as enthusiastic about it and clamoring for it as the dev/team thought they would be, despite it solving a number of common issues they have with a product/service.

So the dev/team can either go home and forget about it, starting a new project, or write a manifesto remembering and defending the project they've spent many hours on.

It almost reads like a PhD thesis defence. At least that PhD then gets recorded, filled and archived, and despite it potentially having no immediate real-world impact, possibly someone down the line might access the extensive work and research already done here, and use it to further their own project, and fingers crossed that project has more success in making a real-world change than this one.

TL;DR: I imagine his management don't want to go ahead with implementation for whatever reason, but because the research and any coding was done during his time at Google, he can't just go and create his own app or implementation, or approach another more willing company for implementation. But by providing the research and element summaries, and points for how a better system might work, he not only memorialized his hours of work on a "dead end" project, but allows others in a less captive situation the advantage of taking his summary and using it to actually try to get change happening elsewhere.

I think it's bringing up a couple of good points actually, that are worth considering when crafting public policy, and observing where our current society is heading.

1. Treating and thinking of our current public education system as "the great equaliser", such that children coming out of it operate at a roughly similar level once they leave, isn't actually a reality.

2. The outcomes of children, despite going through this "great equaliser" system, is actually still significantly affected by parents, meaning parents, and the way they interact with their children, still have a massive role in children's outcomes.

I think a lot of people, and teachers, have observed that parents appear to be increasingly farming out non-academic responsibilities onto the school system and teachers (e.g. discipline, life lessons, social expectations), let alone give time to help their child academically.

And I imagine a lot of this is due to themselves being overwhelmed, under financial stress, or simply having to work more hours less securely to cover rapidly rising living expenses.

All of this adds up to a picture that creating the conditions in our society where parents are under less pressure financially and mentally (presumably similar to conditions experienced by university educated and CEO parents) is likely to improve children's educational outcomes, and their future outlook and experience in life.

TLDR; it suggests easing life conditions for low socio-economic parents, such that it enables them to spend more time with their kids, would have more of an impact in improving their children's life outcomes, rather than focusing money and resources entirely on the education system to do the same. Admittedly some assumptions in there. But worth investigating.

And another reading could be that putting resources into making university more universally accessible, and something that is encouraged to be taken even by those pursuing careers not requiring university, and structured in a way to more easily and unobtrusively allow that, so that more parents had university experience, could be a better way of improving children's educational outcomes than putting the same resources purely into public schooling and children.

Yeah, after I unknowingly opened

Plot/quest spoiler

The bottle from the chest being transported to Zarya

in the colony and all the myconids did was cast haste on each other and run around uselessly but cutely, I didn't have the heart to ever want to attack them.

Was very much this meme when Glut said what he said.

(Keeping things vague as I don't know if this spoiler tag will actually work)