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Comment Re:WInning? Economic growth is killing the ecosyst (Score 1) 223

let us not forget about the Jews, the Roma, the gays, the blacks and all the other groups you killed in establishing a master race - and no, it was not only Germany, they had plenty of supporters in the countries they took over.

They also had a lot of supporters in the USA. Plenty of Californian academics received scholarships to Germany in the 1930s to study eugenics too.

Comment Re: Abused housewives are happier/healthier than (Score 2) 223

To give a concrete example, I really enjoy cycling. On a free day, I often just hop on and go explore in a new direction, stopping at places I like. Some of my friends and co-workers also cycle, but they're "serious" about it. When we talk about it, they genuinely seem to try but don't get me. But if you ride like that, you're not even getting in a decent number of kilometres! Why would you ride there when there's no elevation? And what do I mean, I'm not practicing for something?

I would not go on a cycle trip with them. We wouldn't get along.

Out drinking? I do that, but not too regularly, and not excessively. I just really enjoy my spare time more if I do relaxing stuff with people who also just like to enjoy life and don't overthink stuff.

We can combine both of these. Have you ever been out drinking with people who are too serious about their drinks? Analysing microbrews instead of just enjoying a drink with friends. Agonising over the terroir of a wine or complaining that it wasn't decanted properly, instead of just enjoying it.

Comment Critics don't know what you like (Score 1) 50

If critics knew anything about making good movies, they would have been hired by a studio to do exactly that.

No sommelier can tell you if you will enjoy a wine, just as no critic can can tell you if you will enjoy a given movie.

Having said that, I wish there was a site to compare trailers with the actual movie. Especially for so-called "comedy" movies where the only funny moments are in the trailer and the other 100 minutes of the movie are just filler.

Comment Re:Different cultures have different comedic taste (Score 1) 180

Spaceballs, Naked Gun, Hot Shots, and many more movies of the 80s and 90s seem pretty well-known in the German part of Europe.
I have to be honest and say I was a tv junkie so my impression is not necessarily indicative of reality but I remember the "inside" jokes in school when those movies ran.

Or what about Police Academy? It didn't even have to be good comedy coming from the US apparently :D.

I live in .au and it was the same. Then again, Germans speak better English than Americans OR Australians :-)

Hopefully the new Naked Gun and Spaceballs movies can bring some of this kind of comedy back. Hell, I'd even pay to see a new Police Academy movie.

Comment Re:"modified them to make free calls" (Score 1) 55

When Australia's public telco was privatised in the late 90s, one of the first things they stopped caring about (I mean after customer service, their staff and actual telephony service) was the payphones they were supposed to maintain. In the early 00s they argued that mobile phones had become ubiquitous enough that they didn't need maintain the public telephone infrastructure. As this was the same government who privatised them it was bought without question.

I hate Australian telcos as much as the next guy, but about the *only* thing they have done right this century is to update the remaining old payphones to make it free to call anyone in Australia.

From memory, there's a government mandate to provide telecommunications to all citizens, and Telstra receives a pile of government money each year to maintain those payphones... these two links are the best I can find though: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telstra.com.au%2Fexc...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2Fnews%2F20...

Comment Is this a hit piece on Airbus? (Score 2) 41

The article mentions "damage to another A380 at Sydney airport, when an aerobridge slammed into one of the engines."

I don't think this is the fault of the A380. Sydney airport is a terrible airport run by terrible people, it's probably not even entirely the fault of the guy who actually crashed the aerobridge.

Furthermore, as others have already pointed out above, it's far better to have maintenance issues fixed in a preventative fashion than ignored or put off until later.

Comment Re: Ports? (Score 1) 92

This is good to know, thanks!

I will consider buying one of these. I am old enough to remember the original C64, but never used one enough to be a total purist about using totally original hardware. FPGA is good enough for me, but I definitely need real ports. That way I can finally finish my robot build from 30+ years ago, following the instructions in Usborne's "How To Build Computer Controller Robots" which was already pretty dated when I was reading it in the early 1990s. The book is totally free to download now though, as are some other 1980s classics: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fusborne.com%2Frow%2Fbooks%2F...

Comment Re:This guy had a different experience (Score 1) 201

Yeah, all the Aussie banks suck. That's the nature of a cartel, and the recent royal commission seems to have had zero effect, despite that royal commission finding that yes, they are all pricks.

We're on Slashdot, so we are both probably aware of how easily SMS authentication can also be spoofed. I don't have this option, because even though I live in a 50 year old suburb in Australia's capital, I don't have a reliable mobile signal at my desk. Unfortunately, Telstra don't seem to be scared of the TIO, even though I have a lovely paper trail from Telstra admitting that their coverage map is incorrect, the phone doesn't work, and it has got worse since the shutdown of 3G.

The best solution I can think of for all of this is to simply mandate that a business must have a physical presence in order to do business.* If the bank wants your money, they must have a branch within some number of km of your residence. Ditto the phone company. I can hear the howls of anguish from our rural communities, but it's not like the status quo is any better for them. The obvious next step, of course, would be to nationalise a couple of banks and telcos.... just like the Commonwealth and Telstra used to be.

* I would love to see this applied to online busniesses as well. No more "selfie holding a government ID" sent to some insecure server overseas. If Facebook, Google, Coinbase etc want to do business in Australia, they should have a real office where customers can go and talk to a human to get their issues resolved. Locked out of your Facebook or GMail account? Go to their office and fix it. Hell, while I am dreaming of utopia, we should also make it a crime for the physical office to try and brush off customers by saying "why don't you use our app" instead of actually doing their job and helping. But now I'm just ranting, and I need to go and chase some kids off my lawn so I can yell at the clouds :-)

Comment Re:This guy had a different experience (Score 1) 201

Wut? I'm with CBA, and I don't use the app. NetBank works with a regular web browser. EFTPOS cards and credit cards work at ATMs and other payment terminals. I've received no indication that an app will be required.

I hope you're right. I received an email (a real one, not a phishing attempt) from CBA on Wed 25th of June saying that "Every time you log on to NetBank, you’ll be prompted to open your CommBank app to confirm the logon attempt." Maybe they are A/B testing it only on certain customers? Maybe you are a more valued customer than I am? The CBA already knows I despise them and are probably cranky that AFCA has sided with me in a couple of disputes that have cost the CBA some money :-)

Either way, it might be worth checking your email. I just logged into Netbank to see if there was a notification in there, but there wasn't. I find that it's pretty normal for CBA to be bad at messaging though, the sneaky buggers didn't give me any notification about my recent credit card fee increase either.

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