Here’s the problem we have. By most accounts the only reason the green light hasn’t been given to Ukraine for wider use of the Storm Shadow missile (UK weapon) in their defense against Russia, is because of a US veto. A veto they apparrently only have due to a single component for the weapon coming from the US.

If this is the case, and the US is using their military technology supply chain as leverage with its allies in this way, then Keating is right, and Australians should be concerned about a critical arm of our defense structure being open to that risk.

There is however other possibilities, such as, UK wishing to talk the talk, but not walk the walk on wider military support. In other words essentially agreeing with the US about the risks of escalation, but wanting to be quiet about that fact.

Went back and watched that video, love ‘not just bikes’, those instore scanners are a really good idea, Costlesworthdi should have all employed these by now.

The only reason i can think they haven’t is the same reason i’d assume for independents and IGA’s the cost. Without knowing anymore about the costs, i’d assume its a mix of upfront payments for the scanners, etc, and a, out of proportion, per transaction clip of the ticket for ‘maintenance and service costs’, just like the bank cards have.

I love what you’re suggesting though, use QR codes on each product so customers use the hardware in their pockets to scan out their items as they go.

It would reduce those upfront costs so much, and could be done with less memory bloat like the Maccas type apps. If this doesn’t already exist we should round up some of the more tech focused users/mods/admins on aussiezone and do it ourselves, then use the revenue from that as an ongoing fund for the benefit of ‘aussiezone’ as Australia’s Social Web alternative. Lets do this!

So, I wanted to find a good source for this, but i can’t after a short search and its late, so i’m just going to reply.

but if I did care a lot about the price, I would definitely be wanting to be able to check where I’m going to get the best deal. But I do like being able to check which products they’ve got so I can plan my shop

Prices and range of stock are likely controlled by IGA store owners themselves, this is not Metcash.

Metcash own the brand and do the majority of wholesaling for IGA. I think theres extras, like locally sourced produce, that independent IGA brand operators sell themselves without violating terms of the IGA brand agreement.

Due to the owner/operators of IGA stores having more price and stock control this makes it harder for things like online pricing and stocking, as each store is doing its own thing supplying their local area the way they think.

Like Mcdonalds franchisees the catalogues you get with those prices require the ongoing agreement of the IGA stores themselves.

A central data collection point is more complicated for Metcash/IGA than a single entity like ColesWortAldi. Each owner/operator needs to agree/supply a price and stock level, supply their information back likely working off multiple types of in-house operational systems across the IGA stores (also stock numbers, etc), then receive reflect and display the equivalent information as everyone else.

Its actually not dissimilar to Lemmy and its many servers.

All this said, your point about technophobia is probably very true, sometimes its straight up head in the sand, but also a key issue is these owner/operators run on tiny margins. Significant upfront costs, like built/hard tech often has, with obscure pay offs are a hard sell in these people’s positions, and the stores owners themselves need to put their hands in their own pockets more often than not.

Add to this that the borrowing capacity of an organisation like Metcash/IGA is a lot lower than the ‘single entity operators’ and you get a less competitive and slower moving beast.

Bonus though, the money you spend at an IGA is going to take a lot longer, if ever, to become leakage to some overseas investor, so a good argument for IGA’s is they increase the velocity of money swirling around in the Australian economy whereas others, Costco/Aldi particularly, cause AUD leakage quicker.

CSIRO report confirms renewables still cheapest new-build power in Australia

Its a good point, but this report has and should take this into account.

Edit: thought AFR article was referring to another report, but i think its the same CSIRO report.

Its fair to say its skewed.

The point is, comparisons are useful, but the comparisons that are most valuable are from countries (medical systems) estimated to be around the same level of development, and have a similar societal structure.

Good additions might be NZ, Japan, S.Korea, and Canada. (I’m sure theres others)

A better way to do this would be to take apart the US by State, afterall some US states have as large, or larger, populations than the countries listed. This would help account for the wide variability in State to State care. I suppose the reason they didn’t is Federal influence is still large, even in the US, also the infographic would become unwieldy with 50 added lines.

The infographic format is probably too simple for the kind of information its trying to communicate.

A better way, from a US centric perspective, might be to use some sort of vine with bunches of States and comparable countries by their side in their appropriate bunch. Say, and i’m just guessing here, Vermont in a bunch that includes Switzerland, while Mississippi might be in a bunch that includes countries with less successful health outcomes.

Well thats interesting. So we could look at how Switzerland and Germany do things to improve.

Although we should remember in such a complex system nothing is ever as simple as ‘change un peu, et voila!’

Incorporate noise muffler noise into hoon laws. Instant motorcycle crushing.

I think i’m gona start using ‘scum goblin’.

The LA metro? Like, theres a passenger/commuter train in LA?

You guys turn up to vote in Local Gov elections? I think most of ours are postal. I wonder if that means NSW turnout is better?

We like to believe our societies are a calm, rational place of logical decision makers.

We’re actually a rowdy bunch of anachronistic apes, with a chronic case of the hypocrititis.

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Na, she’s already a cross-bencher. Another ~4 years on her term. She’d have to do something pretty drastic to even get censured.

And when you’ve got kooky ol’Malcolm Roberts next to her sounding like he’s about as high as the ISS everytime he stands to speak, i think Payman will be fine.

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That was hard to watch. I must be old, or that was super cringey. Or both, probably both.

Lefty friendly, i would assume your interests would align with trying to help the common person, and climate change adaptation.

Your stated experience, and interests sound varied, and present you as a highly active person.

Combining these things in my mind i instantly thought you should get into food system adaptation for a warmer more volatile world. Where people could really suffer horrendously with climate change is if food production systems break down. We need smart people, willing to try new approaches in that system. Farming where i’m from is bed of roses, and a lot of the skills you listed farmers here would likely use, so its probably the same/similar elsewhere.

So specifically i’s thinking organic farming, or permaculture, or perhaps a more scientific route such as propagation of new tougher varietals.

Logistical needs are also important, the amount of energy used to transport food must be immense and so that could be an avenue you could go down marrying your comments about mechanical engineering to the idea of improving the worlds food production systems.

Good luck with your ongoing career, whatever you decide.

Khan Academy

An acquaintance once landed a contract to clear up a gold mine site after shut down. He bid super low for it, the only condition he stipulated was it be left in the condition in which he had inspected it, something like that.

The operator immediately gave him the contract, and he immediately gathered up all the dust from conveyor belts etc sifted through it, separated all the left over gold inside and sold it.

Set him up in a big way, the idiot operator tried to take him to court to claim the gold as theirs, with no success.

So yeah, sometimes there truly is gold in that there dust.

Hey Quokka i don’t know when you sent this message, but i made this comment 2 months ago, and i’ve only just received your comment. You weren’t ignored, on my end i simply never saw both your comments, i noticed another one on another thread, until just now.

Possibly a time lag in federation? Aussie Zone has that issue with another server, maybe with some mastodon instances as well.