tau @ Tau @aussie.zone

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3 yr. ago

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Depends on the state. NSW for example is one that does vary depending on weight (based on weight ranges, not a full sliding scale) - there's a ~$180 difference between my sedan and van due to the van's higher tare weight placing it in the next category up. QLD on the other hand is one that doesn't - they charge based on the cylinder count instead.

Shouldn't have taken them years to figure out it was a poor idea but I guess that's what you get when there's such a vested interest in demonising speed. I'm quite happy it got kiboshed - it's a rare case of government actually listening to the people.

Seems a good guess looking at the leaves, hopefully it is one because they seem to look nice when fully grown.

That does look like a pretty good match to the leaves, looking at photos cabbage tree palms look decent fully grown so that'd be nice.

Zip disks ain’t that old!

That's what I like to think as well, but I guess it has been a while. It's like how I think 90s cars are still fairly recent until I see ones rolling around with historic rego...

One of the places I work at has a display cabinet showing historical media formats and devices, seeing things in it like the zip disc and the Sony camera that took floppies always makes me feel like Elrond:

The continuous output is where average people actually want more power though, one of the main points of ebikes is to reduce effort from climbing hills. Most people are not going to be at your level of fitness or investment in cycling (in both the physical and mental sense) and just want to get places without needing a shower afterwards. I can see why you want to keep a purer form of something you have an interest in (similarly I think there is limited need for automatic transmissions outside of disability) but there is a case for more power if you want more people to be riding over driving.

The 250w limit in EN15194 is overly low, NSW finally changed their laws to a more sensible 500w a few years back so this change will make it so you can't import a whole variety of bikes you can legally ride. Even 750w isn't a problem IMO, having ridden one (with throttle and all) I'd class it as definitely still on the bicycle end of things rather than an actual motorbike.

Looking on the bright side though import restrictions will hopefully induce more manufacturers to do ADR compliance for those of us who do actually want the motorbike end of 'ebikes', even for dirt bikes the ability to rego them makes them much more useful for non-track riding.

I've had some Jasper Myrtle chocolate before (albeit not that specific favour) and thought it nice, I think the chocolate's a pretty safe bet. Haven't tried the Redbrick coffee though but I have seen people say it's good.

I guess someone's been having a go at magnet fishing...

Yet again I have to mention how dumb it is that we have much safer cars than when our standard speed limits are set but all we ever get is decreases to these limits.

"People think 'I can do 110 legally so therefore it's OK to do it,'" he said.

So close to the problem but no we can't focus on teaching people to drive to conditions because lower speed limits solve everything. Never mind that even 70km/h is going to be too fast in some conditions but 100km/h+ is fine in others - even on the same road.

Probably hard to justify legally, I expect the best we can hope for is just giving back the $3m they paid without counting in the massive land price rises since then. It'd be amusing to turn around and make it the new Ukrainian embassy site though...

It sounds a logical start point, the central coast and Newcastle have a large population base to work with and it's not that far apart. The sheer amount of tunnel for that route compared to what one would expect with a corridor through more open country is a downside but you might as well start somewhere rather than talk about it for a few more decades.

Strange that the ACT doesn't run under the same umbrella as NSW, I guess it just wanted to be different again. At least Victoria has a significant amount of its own power generation so being separate makes a little more sense - while the ACT does have a reasonable amount of solar power (solar farms as well as rooftop) it's still dependent on the NSW grid for supply.

They're most of the way there but fall a bit short of a real Tim Tam. I find the chocolate has a slight sourness to it compared to the original (as if they let an American pick the recipe) - not enough to stop me eating them but enough to reduce the normal Tim Tam desire to rip through a whole packet.

The Choceur chocolate blocks however tend to be a quite acceptable replacement for Cadbury and even Whittaker so not all hope is lost for more affordable chocolates.

I've somehow managed to never read or watch any of the versions of that, I know the general gist of the story due to cultural osmosis but not the details. Might have to get around to reading the book at least.

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and The Mysterious Island (this one is barely sci fi) both include messages in bottles but not at both start and end of the story, so at this point I think I'm out of ideas.

That just makes me think of the Count of Monte Cristo, and while that plot kicks off everything with a nautical message it wasn't in a bottle.

Nothing comes to mind that matches that unfortunately.

I did initially think of Treasure Island for some reason and that definitely matches the latter criteria but I don't recall any messages in a bottle actually appearing in the book.

Even with a theoretically ideal seal holding suitable humidity it depends a lot on what paper and where the bottle spent its time. I would expect a massively broad range of times - between a few years and thousands of years.

Paper with any significant acid content will last significantly less time than acid free paper, and paper made of cotton is likely to last noticeably better than paper made from wood. You also want the paper to be kept away from light and high temperatures as these will really cut into potential lifespan. If this bottle spent most of its time buried in a beach that would have at least kept it dark and relatively cool, probably why it lasted so well even with an imperfect seal.