What are /r/australia's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

TL;DR: EA broke Australian consumer law with their "Origin" store between 1 January 2012 to 20 April 2015.

Link to how you can get your refund: https://www.origin.com/en-au/yourconsumerrights

Link to ACCC story: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/electronic-arts-undertakes-to-provide-refunds-to-consumers

I had asked them online for a refund several times. I spoke to a representative through Origin who verified my account and identity but said that I had to call a US number for refunds. I used my remaining phone credit super early in the morning (because they don't have AU office hours!) sitting on hold twice for over 30 mins. Knew this was bullshit so I complained to ACCC and they've finally forced my money out of EA's money laundering account.

Get fucked, cunts.

As a warning to the 3 republicans who frequent /r/politics

edit: hijacking my own comment to link the article relevant to OP's post

For people that still dont know, Amazon isn't selling that steamer, its buyglobal selling it through amazon. Its like complaining ebay is too expensive when i list a DVD for $1000 when you can buy it at jbhifi for $20.

Here is a fairer comparison, Amazon AU vs Amazon US https://www.amazon.com.au/DC-Comics-Justice-League-Stealth/dp/B01IKOZ6NS/ https://www.amazon.com/Justice-League-Action-Stealth-Batman/dp/B01IKOZ6NS/

> I don’t get how people can still think Scomo is any kind of evangelical Christian.

Easily. He's a Pentecostal, and this kind of behaviour is par for the course in my experience. They teach the Prosperity Gospel - the idea that God financially blesses his faithful followers. The often unstated (but heavily implied) consequence is that the poor must be unfaithful or even cursed.

The fact that Scott Morrison is PM is proof, in his eyes and the eyes of his church, that he is divinely elected as leader of our country.

Edit: Sounds unbelievable? Brian Houston (ScoMo's best mate from the Pentecostal church Hillsong) literally wrote a book called You Need More Money:

> Presumptuous or prophetic, Brian Houston takes the bull by the horns and addresses a subject that affects everyone. His sharp wit and clear perspective tackle the various attitudes and perceptions on wealth and prosperity, dealing with wrong thinking passed through religious tradition. Money is a powerful tool in the hands of Bible-believing purpose-driven Christians. Brian challenges you to look beyond yourself, live according to the principles of God and see His blessing on your life as you become a money magnet.

Here's a great episode of Planet Money (NPR Podcast) that covers "When CEO Pay Exploded".

Was really enlightening and interesting. CEO's weren't always so well payed and its a relatively recent development (80's or 90's from memory)

It starts in kindergarten, if not the womb.

https://www.amazon.com/Kids-These-Days-Capital-Millennials/dp/0316510866

I'm currently unemployed and so much of the advice I've been gotten basically adds up to "start over, and be born a different person next time".

And in other news, Korea gets Gigabit speeds for $25/month while we are left with two Milo tins and a piece of wet string so Malcolm's buddies can make profits at our expense.

Here is a good answer.

"Yes, it is common for ISPs and email service providers to store your password in plain text, or a format which is easily recoverable to plain text.

The reason for this has to do with the authentication protocols used with PPP (dialup and DSL), RADIUS (dialup, 802.1x, etc.) and POP (email), among others.

The tradeoff here is that if the passwords are one-way hashed in the ISP's database, then the only authentication protocols that can be used are those that transmit the password over the wire in plain text. But if the ISP stores the actual password, then more secure authentication protocols can be used.

For instance PPP or RADIUS authentication might use CHAP, which secures the authentication data in transit, but requires a plain text password to be stored by the ISP. Similarly with the APOP extension to POP3.

Also, all of the various services which an ISP offers all use different protocols, and the only clean way to have them all authenticate to the same database is to keep the password in plain text.

This doesn't address the issues of who among the ISP's staff has access to the database, and how well it is secured, though. You still should ask hard questions about those.

As you've probably learned by now, though, it's almost unheard of for an ISP's database to be compromised, while it's all too common for individual users to be compromised. You have risk either way."

From - http://serverfault.com/questions/524587/what-would-you-do-if-you-realized-your-email-hosting-provider-could-see-your-pas

>a NordVPN spokesperson says the interest has been driven by privacy concerns over the introduction of Australia's mandatory metadata retention scheme.

Village Roadshow buying this legislation, and every fuckwit that voted in support of it actively made it harder for ASIO to do their job.
Bravo.

Amazon AU has been the biggest flop ever. Crap product range, high prices, and over-run with dodgy sellers and ridiculous mark-ups. Was looking for a Garmin GPS mount this week... $134...

https://www.amazon.com.au/Garmin-010-12464-00-DriveAssist-Vehicle-Suction-Cup/dp/B01E9GQGVM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1530173750&sr=8-3&keywords=Garmin+DriveAssist

Same item on Amazon US, $US20.99.

I will not purchase from Amazon AU until they sort their shit out.

Open source does not mean you can do whatever you like with it. You have to meet the licence criteria. These are varied but may include things like:

• Giving attribution to the original authors
• Providing links to your modified and original source
• Not misrepresenting it as your own work
• Not charging a fee for the open source component

From the LibreOffice licence: https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/licenses/

CompleteOffice may be violating these terms:

"All distribution of Covered Software in Source Code Form, including any Modifications that You create or to which You contribute, must be under the terms of this License. You must inform recipients that the Source Code Form of the Covered Software is governed by the terms of this License, and how they can obtain a copy of this License. You may not attempt to alter or restrict the recipients’ rights in the Source Code Form."

> Do I Need A VPN Now?

Yes, yes and yes.

> Will a VPN allow me to avoid getting strikes from my ISP?

Yes

> If so, will it affect my speed etc?

Not really as long as you use a decent VPN provider (from $5/month). Latency might be a bit higher but that only affects real time applications like games. Some websites like streaming might even go faster.

> Which VPN is good for Aussie redditors?

ExpressVPN, airVPN.

Booko. Go there now.

You'll find that Bookdepository will most often be your best bet. Free shipping and the people are nice when something goes missing (they sent me a book for free).

I'm in Sydney and NordVPN works great for streaming US Netflix, Hulu, and HBO. I started with their 75% off deal and have been using it almost daily with no issues. They have a 30 day money back guarantee too so it's safe to try out.

Just a warning - while this solves the issue at hand it may create other undesirable issues. It's always a good idea to use your ISPs DNS servers because often there are specific entries for CDNs/streaming services to ensure you connect to the closest / fastest servers.

Ideally what you want to do is configure your router so that it only forwards the blocked sites for dns resolution via 8.8.8.8 (dnsmasq can do this). You can also do this locally on OSX with scutil.

Instructions and discussion here: http://serverfault.com/questions/391914/is-there-a-way-to-use-a-specific-dns-for-a-specific-domain

Just like we choose to close the blinds on our windows, I choose to close the blinds on my internet history.

I highly recommend that everyone in this thread starts getting into the habit of using a VPN - right now. Just install and have it running by default. Nothing's changed for me - except if I torrent, I don't get warning emails anymore. Download speeds etc are the same.

My best-informed recommendation is Private Internet Access for a number of reasons. It's cheap, offers encryption and a kill-switch on your internet if it fails (i.e., if the VPN disconnects and your true IP is exposed, it kills the internet so no harm done, until it reconnects to the VPN).

Plenty of other options though, but this one was among the top five in a few different independent blogs, based on stuff like whether they log your traffic etc.

For those who missed it this particular company specializes in getting data from phones that have already been unlocked and requires the phone to be physically present.

There was an interesting blog written in April by the CEO of Signal (a secure messaging client) where he basically got a hold of one of their boxes and had a close look https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-vulnerabilities/ that some of you might like to read.

And I now have a yearly subscription for Private Internet Access VPN is worth it for a whole year's worth of protection from these unfair laws

This will only work if it has the scale and variety of the US/UK Amazon.

On the USA site, you can buy literally anything - even food. You want a 20 cent USB cable delivered by tomorrow? No problem, we'll ship it for free. Want a designer piece of furniture direct from the official supplier? Sure no problem, what colour and configuration would you like? When I bought it here in one of the country's few dealerships, I could only get black or graphite at a big markup.

On the UK site, it's the same - but same day deliveries are a thing because of the population density. But I guess since we're a pretty urbanised country, it could work (1 warehouse in each capital city) There's slightly less variety, but you can still buy all the name brands and relatively obscure things - but maybe not super-specific things from the thousands of independent artisans you find on Amazon USA.

But if it's just a gimped version with a smaller range with an Australia tax (like how most retailers approach the Australian market) then it will fail here. I'm really hoping that I can get the online shopping experience and availability that I'm used to, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Heck, even Myer and David Jones have non-existent online retail. Their range is 25% of what's actually in-store, just compare that against something like Neiman Marcus or John Lewis.

This is fucking specious. "Fuck" and its variants is the single most nuanced word in the English language. There's an entire book about it ffs

> However, there does not appear to have been any change to the functionality of the website itself. Browsing the Better Health site will still result in details about the conditions you look up being shared with AddThis and Facebook.

This just ain't right.

Those of us even remotely familiar with such practices would expect it of privately owned websites. But the government "sharing", i.e. probably selling in some fashion, this data with businesses should be illegal.

If anyone is bothered by this practice be aware that there is free software you can download to control / stop tracking, eg. Ghostery.

https://www.ghostery.com/

A beat up story. As a traveller I wagtch the dollar daily.

It has been hoverinhg around this level since last October, sometimes going up to just over $0.73, more often near $0.71 and occasionally dropping under $0.70.

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=AUD&to=USD&view=1Y

I'm just waiting until they try to ban TorrentFreak just because they talk about news and issues surrounding Bittorrent and file sharing.

EDIT: You can bypass this block by changing DNS servers on your device or modem/router. Here's a list of community-run DNS servers as part of OpenNIC

https://www.opennic.org/

Something like this for Android

Iphone instructions

I haven't tried these, they are just from google results.

Hardly.

The cables revealed that US embassy staff (not CIA) met with Shorten and he was discussed in cables back to the US about what was going on in Australian politics. It's not as if the CIA deliberately planted him in there to destabilise Rudd, which is what calling him a CIA mole/traitor implies.

They showed him to be toadying up to the US, but hardly a traitor - and also nothing at all like these allegations against ASIO - it's not as if he did anything to subvert the government or its interests.

The other thing about the wikileaks cables on Australia that was quite interesting was that they didn't really say much that would be surprising to us here in Australia. There was nothing in them that I didn't already know.

Anyway, you can see the cable about Shorten here

You know what's better: change their mindset.

A lot of them do not understand why 'westerner' reacts the way we did to HK protests. If you talk to them they don't even know there was a '89 Tananmen Square massacre. (https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Republic-Amnesia-Tiananmen-Revisited/dp/0190227915)

Overseas students have been traditionally a force for change in Chinese history (The first Chinese Republic, one can argue, was inspired by what Chinese students saw in Japan in 1900-1920s). It is important to make them understand the value of human rights.

And to do so, we need to hold our government responsible on this front. What Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison did to asylum seekers on Manus Island is a disgrace. It weakens our argument against, for example, Xinjiang re-education camps.

Everyone needs to read this book

Seven West Media Ltd. - Chairman, Kerry Stokes - https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_West_Media

Kerry Stokes' wealth rises $3b from mining and infrastructure boom - https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/kerry-stokes-wealth-rises-3b-from-mining-and-infrastructure-boom-20180227-p4z1x8.html

> PLM is on one of our smaller TV channels (ABC)

Not picking a fight, but the ABC is the national broadcaster, hardly small.

It's true that the commercial channels generally dominate the top 10 viewing figures, but it doesn't take much to make the list - Master Chef was last week's number 10, with just 877,000 viewers...out of a country with a population of ~24 million.

> like other programs on that channel (eg Miss Fisher) seems to be more popular international than at home.

Again, not disagreeing, I don't have the stats, but when you sell a program to 120 countries, the chances are it will be considered more popular internationally.

The ABC has a significant online presence in iView and its other catch up services, far superior to most commercial offerings. I suspect a lot of people digest content like PLM via that.

edit: a rogue apostrophe

> “The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward ~~stock-market~~ movements. The speculator’s primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels, at which he would be wise to buy, and high price levels, at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell.” –

Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/30/buy-and-hold-personal-finance-market-timing.html

Remind me again how these "mum & dad INVESTORS make money?? (sorry, "generate wealth")

Get interest-only loan
Buy
add tenant
wait
get property re-valued
Get interest-only loan
Buy
add tenant
wait
make BULK capital GAINZZZZZZ!

capital gains based on..... oh yeah! market movements!!

if you have an interest only loan you are a SPECULATOR. not an investor.

https://stock.adobe.com/309167213?as_campaign=TinEye&as_content=tineye_match&epi1=309167213&tduid=78d96e0e325134b787198c4c9b03d8bc&as_channel=affiliate&as_campclass=redirect&as_source=arvato

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/flag-belgium-on-military-uniform-army-1537128017?irgwc=1&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=TinEye&utm_source=77643&utm_term=

http://isthereanydeal.com/ is also a useful tool for us Aussies.

I'm basically refusing to buy anything on Steam anymore. It's all price-gorged, and with the exchange rate being so bad, the fact that they still force Australians to pay in USD really fucks us over. Shit, most games are cheaper at EB Games or JB Hi-Fi nowdays.

Seriously, if you are a public servant and are such good friends with someone that you co-own a boat together then you really shouldn't be giving them a job.

Have you had a look at Auspost's prices for this service?

$24.95 base price + $5.95 for every 500g...

lets look at a typical skateboard on amazon... free shipping to the US which is nice... 5 pounds weight (2.27kg) ... charged at 2.5KG with the base weight that is $54.7 for shipping. That's the minimum, It could be higher if the cubic weight is higher than the actual weight. (Height x length x width ÷ 5,000 = cubic weight)....

I'm just not sure how the value of this service stacks up against other forwarding companies.

Edit: Btw amazon does ship that item to Australia and put the shipping costs at AUD 23.72 and shipito's calculator says $46.49 is the cheapest option for 2.3kg.

You might want to watch out with that. Here, I'll copy/paste what I said to someone on /r/Australia who wanted to know about Hola:

The way hola works is you route through somebody in your chosen location that is also using hola, and in return they are allowed to route through you. This is a problem if you have a data cap, because somebody could decide it would be a great idea to download a terabyte of whatever through you and throttle your connection or just cost you a million bucks in overcharge fees.

The other problem with this system is if you are a bit paranoid like myself. People are using your network, which poses 2 security concerns. One, they're accessing your network, I have no idea if Hola's security is good enough that other people can't gain access to your computer by abusing this fact. Two, whatever the people using your connection do, it looks like it's you doing it. If they go do something illegal it will look like it's you to everybody else. This could turn ugly fast if somebody accesses a pro-terrorism site through you considering what's going on in the news right now.

Overall I don't think Hola is worth the risk, but good for you if you're less paranoid than I am. Personally I use Zenmate, which is also a free browser plug-in but it's not peer-to-peer so you don't have any of the same issues. Its problem though is that it's awfully slow so I'm on the hunt for alternatives that I can use without being able to tinker with my network at all.

> Imagine this: a leak on WikiLeaks showing YOU explaining the evilest technology on earth! :-)

> You would be demonized by our dearest friends the activists, and normal people would point their fingers at you.

> David Vincenzetti

> CEO

https://wikileaks.org/hackingteam/emails/emailid/1069144

"Evilest technology on earth" is how the fucking CEO of the company describes their product.

i repeat: "Evilest technology on earth" is how the fucking CEO of the company describes their product.

and our government is buying the products of this company.

It's good that they mentioned TorrentFreak's 2014 list of VPN providers. They did their homework on this one.

I currently use PIA (Private Internet Access) and I haven't had any issues whatsoever with them.

TorrentFreak 2014 VPN Comparison

This is but one of several attempts to soften public perception before a more aggressive stance take place. China plans 100 years ahead in many aspects, while our government rarely plans beyond an election cycle.

A good read for those interested in some of Chinas tactics.

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1743794800/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_c_d8LlDbKVATNPD

True, but that's not the complete story. We have a solar array in country SA, and I've got my finger on the pulse of falling storage prices, in addition to owning a small business where things can be purchased cheaper "directly from China"

From the comments:

> "the AGL offering is a firm all in price including inverter and installation for $10,000 AUD or ~$7,500 USD which is 50-70% cheaper than the currently available alternatives"

This poster is exactly right- I'm not sure where the analyst is getting his $150/kWh price from, but on Alibaba the cheapest price you can get for a 9.6kWh unit is around $5.600 USD - http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/All-in-one-design-9-6kwh_1836759841.html

That's minus shipping, which let's say costs $1000, landed. $8885 AUD, THEN installation. THEN hopefully the non-tested unit with no Australian warranty doesn't crap out on you. AGL selling the unit means that they are confident it's a quality product (we hope!)

Considering AGL need to pay 10% GST, that means they are only making $9k on the unit. And installation is included, which probably costs $500-$1000 (wild approximation).

TL;DR "INVERTERS ARE CHEAPER FROM CHINA"

Yeah, if you don't take into account shipping, GST, installation, Australian consumer protections. If you want a cheaper inverter, wait 12-18 months.

If you can find me a reliable 10kWh unit for $1500AUD for purchase right now, I'll video myself eating a bull's dick.

The worst offenders on Steam

Alternatives, pretty much see the list from /u/Brizven
http://isthereanydeal.com/ for getting notified when games you want go on sale. Do note, that not all of the sites they list sell to you if you have an AU credit card/Paypal.
Also add GOG, who do add on the Australia tax, but if you pay more than the US price, you will get the difference refunded in store credit.

Any suggestions on VPNs for Australians? I hear good things about Nord and Airvpn, less so about Private Internet Access, but it's always reviews from Americans. Never hear about speeds for Australians...

Lawrence Lessig, a political reformer and one of the greatest legal minds in the US, calls the control of politics and politicians through corporate donations "legal corruption" and considers reform in this area as the one issue we must deal with before we can successfully deal with anything else.

> In his opinion, no significant reform — on the environment, financial regulation, gun control or education— is possible as long as campaign finance remains the same. Money provides access, access yields influence, and influence determines decisions. Ideas and promises donʼt matter. In 96% of cases, election outcomes are a function of money. Members of congress spend between 30 and 70% of their time fundraising. “It becomes a constant obsession. They only listen to their donors, become hyper-sensitive to their demands,” Lessig explains.

> Invisible and implacable lobbies are rotting away the foundations of democracy. The people, the general interest and public debate are given a back seat. “No one, no morality can resist the amounts at stake,” he says.

Source article

Interview with Lessig on Bloomberg Law:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W982Sy_iSCA

Industry interests have bought off the politicians who preside over that prospective industry?

That couldn’t happen in Australia could it!?

For anyone interested, I strongly recommend a book called Game of mates by Cameron Murray. It’s a serious eye opener into how dodgy politics, elite interests and corporate Australia really is. I didn’t think Australia was that bad on a global scale, but it is, it’s just so well hidden and crafty enough to fly just under the radar of authorities. It will make you blood boil though.

I'm against the death penalty too, but many supposedly civilised countries still have it - such as the United States, Singapore and even Japan.

Unless we are going to lecture those countries on abolishing it too, it's not surprising that Indonesia pays little attention over it.

> Some punters had paid as much as $200 to attend.

I wonder if they know that Coursera has a four-week course on Epidemics, Pandemics and Outbreaks by the university of Pittsburgh for free.

Apparently ExpressVPN still works but for how long who knows.

At this point you are probably better off renting a Linux VPS host in the USA that uses an IP address range that isn't blocked and just setup an OpenVPN server.

Netflix has already blocked all of Amazon AWS & Azure IP ranges along with the ranges of most Smart DNS/VPN Providers.

Smaller Linux VPS providers will likely be on smaller IP ranges and more difficult to locate/block as these ranges will be part of a larger supernet that could be either residential or commercial.

It should be more difficult for netflix to detect provided you don't start putting 100's of users/connections on it which is how netfix would be currently identifying proxy/vpn traffic.

I'm on ADSL2+ and use ExpressVPN. About $100 a year.

Normal download speed for me is 1.8MB/s. When connected to the VPN endpoint in sydney I get 1MB/s.

I leave it on all the time now purely because I think the government has no right to invade my privacy to this level.

I would consider supporting the author over downloading a copy that was distributed freely without his permission. It’s less than $10 on Amazon.

EDIT: Someone mentioned the author is dead now, but his family is likely still receiving royalties. Pirating has its place (looking at you, EA) but small time authors and their surviving family isn’t one of them.

Tomorrow night's:

> In a futuristic society, all sarcasm has been eliminated except for the occasional use of the phrase, 'oh, do you think so?' by Nether-Zone outcasts.

You can see the descriptions for most older episodes on the TVDB.

Or just uninstall Flash altogether, you don't really lose anything and you plug a massive security hole.

edit: for a good reason why, the other day somebody hacked Imgur and used a Flash exploit to make people visiting Imgur into a pseudo-botnet and DDOS 4chan.

I would also strongly recommend NoScript which prevents websites from executing Javascript on your PC without your permission.

There are many contemporary artists from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds that work in both traditional and non-traditional forms and media. Indigenous art is far from homogeneous. Compare the work of Tjanpi Desert Weavers to Daniel Boyd to Tracey Moffat to Linn Onus to Albert Namatjira.

Of course there are common visual themes and symbols, that’s what culture and tradition are. Look at the similarities of the Dutch masters when ignoring things like individual flair and style.

Of course, you are absolutely right about the course of colonialism and its effect on silencing the passing down of culture and art forms. Not to mention the influence of the art dealers, critics and foreign art market of today and yesteryear.

There’s a great book/memoir called “ The Dealer is the Devil”. Give it a read some time. Maybe even NAIDOC week 👍👍

Here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com.au/Dealer-Devil-Insiders-History-Aboriginal-ebook/dp/B00I55HFEG

Reminds me of this article

If we're arguing morals and who's in or out of our morality (cough boat arrivals cough) then I just don't know how to even begin a reasonable discussion. The foundations of our beliefs are too different.

So we end up falling back on the only belief everyone can understand: self-interest. This can be natural (don't kill the ecosystem or we will have nothing to eat / no air etc). Or man-made (we've passed laws to put environmental vandals in jail).

Murdoch is a scourge on humanity. Hopefully he and his team of evil fuckers will be brought down from the NOTW scandal. I have posted this before but I use the Murdoch Block chrome extension so I never give any traffic to that disgusting and vile group of cunts.

Amazon does nothing that Australian businesses can't. They just don't.

Amazon provides a cheap, easy to use, comprehensive online retail experience for new and used items alongside great customer service and speedy delivery.

Want a Lego Millennium Falcon?

Got you covered: https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Star-Wars-Millennium-Falcon/dp/B004P95ABG

Want 55 Gallons of Lube?

Covered: https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Lubes-Natural-Water-Based-Lubricant/dp/B005MR3IVO

Now any retailer willing to invest the money can do that, they just don't.

Oh wow, I could spend MORE on Amazon rather than going direct to the seller (even with postage)...

Woot!!!

$2339 - https://www.amazon.com.au/Sony-MDR-Z1R-Premium-High-Headphones/dp/B01KOE8DKU/ref=sr_1_12?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1512397316&sr=1-12&keywords=sony $2309 - https://buymobile.com.au/products/sony-mdr-z1r-premium-hi-res-over-ear-headphones?variant=38495561292

A VPN routes ALL of your traffic through an encrypted tunnel to the VPN providers site. This can be useful for protecting your privacy as well as changing your region for ALL internet traffic. Whilst powerful and useful this will have a huge effect on latency (crappy for gaming or video chat) and often a slight decrease in bandwidth.

DNS is basically the protocol the internet uses to turn URL's into IP address. A Service like GetFlix or uFlix etc simply tricks the website () into thinking that you are requesting it from another location, but still routes all of the traffic direct to you (So no increased latency by going through the middleman in another country). These services only modify locations for Netflix and Hulu etc and all other sites will still think they are in Australia.

That's a general rule of all work, including paid work. If you're paying someone by the hour then you're bloody well going to get your hour's worth, even if the value of that work is zero or negative. That's what leads to the phenomenon of upwards of 40% of all jobs, public and private, being bullshit jobs.

Housecleaning isn't a bullshit job, but once you're in the zone you tend to want to keep going. It's the same as women from 'traditional' backgrounds and cooking: they end up with orders of magnitude more cooking experience than any professional chef, because their entire working day is centred around the kitchen.

What I think is the biggest crime here is how you can just browse the internet (and in particular SMH) without using Ad Block Plus. You really should not be subjected to ridiculous bandwidth chewing ads and a bloated experience.

Here's my SMH experience, just for reference.

I wrote my first program when I was in grade 6, in BASIC. It wasn't exactly spectacular, but it didn't require too much prior knowledge. I had a basic linguistic pattern of "if this, then this" to follow, and that's all I needed.

Programming tools have advanced a lot since then, and tools like Scratch are better aimed at children.

The act of programming teachers a style of logic and reasoning which you don't really get in other subjects at school. Maths touches it in the more advanced classes, but it's not as interactive. Kids pick up logic puzzles pretty quickly when they're presented in a way where they can see the results, and that's what programming provides.

Having trouble, too.

> It's not just you! http://census.abs.gov.au looks down from here.

Edit: I turned off my VPN and it loaded instantly.

One of the better traffic statistic sites for research is similarweb (Not 100% accurate, but its better than alexa.com, etc). They rank reddit as #11 most visited website in Australia.

https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/australia

I would guesstimate approx somewhere between 2 to 3million Australians per month.

There was actually a book written by a Chinese psychologist called ”Giant Baby Country" about the Chinese National character. I'll leave the amazon synopsis here - not my words!:

​

>Using a psychological perspective combined with cultural observations, the author of this book makes a subtle and deep analysis of 'giant babies' all-around: describing narcissism and disorders such as the Chinese-style "good person", control freaks, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), persecutory delusions, bipolar disorder, insecurity, hypersensitivity, princess syndrome and exploring the root causes of a variety of psychological problems.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Country-Giant-Babies-Psychologist-Examining/dp/7213076825

​

​

Right, because having your name and face on there is somehow less identifying than your phone number.

If you're worried about it don't use the mobile app or use Tinfoil.

Well there is a dictionary definition which states 'unexpectedly' but the committee sounds like a good idea if you want to set that up.

Wikileaks has the draft texts for a few sections of the TPP, but it is stil quite vital for the full text text to be officially released.

https://wikileaks.org/tpp-enviro/

You can get to the various sections on Environment, Intellectual Property and Agreements here.

I use UnoTelly, grandfathered in at $3/month for DNS level routing of services like Netflix, hulu, BBC, NBC, etc.. Also comes with VPN to access those services on my phone.

Works great!

Netflix is $9 after that, so $12/month. Wouldn't even consider foxtel as an option at this point as I can't stand commercials.

It's time to get into prisons you say?

• Money won't get to their pockets while in power unless they get out, do a flip and lobby like John Boehner.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/11/politics/boehner-cannabis-company-board/index.html

Unless there is a fundamental change in the short term goupthink nothing will change, next it will be "we can't grow it", let's import it, yeah nah, could have bugs on it.

This is going to be long and drawn out - Think R ratings for games.

And yet our home grown industries cry out for an opportunity.

Thankfully there are tools journalists, and private citizens, can use to get around this.

I2P is a popular suite of tools that will let you browse its own darknet of eepsites without detection, send both synchronous and asynchronous encrypted messages to others without the need for any servers and even share files in a torrent-like manner with I2P-Snark.

I've written a quick and dirty guide on how you can install I2P and use Snark, if there is any further interest I can write further sections on how to use those other features.

http://privacytutorials.wordpress.com

>McInnes is the customer closest to the node of the four currently trialling, but Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull provided a number of speed test results from a number of locations, with a customer located 515 metres from the node able to get 97Mbps down, and 30Mbps up.

Yeah I'm gonna call bullshit on that.

This article has a lot more info.

http://www.zdnet.com/au/first-nbn-fibre-to-the-node-customer-connected-7000032861/

Q: What makes Telegram groups cool?

Public groups

Get a short link for your group and make it public, like t.me/publictestgroup. This way, anybody can view the group's entire chat history and join to post messages.

https://telegram.org/faq

As a break from politics (as entertaining as that is atm), some of you might be interested to hear a group of filmmakers up in Brisbane (including myself) are turning Reddit's highest rated content of all time, an Australian urban legend called The Bus Knight, into a short film.

More info here

No. But impaired judgement while tripping could put you in harms way (or even result in death, i'm sure its happened before). It doesn't seem to be the case here but the media love jumping on the party drug bandwagon and i doubt you would ever see a correction or toxicology report.

Interesting fact: Adriana Buccianti has attended Rainbow Serpent 3 times now and has completely changed her mind about the event. She said it was initial grief that made her say the things she did, which is pretty understandable.

Edit: Toxicology report revealed that he died of a combination of drugs, not LSD by itself. Source: http://issuu.com/theweeklyreview.com.au/docs/northernweekly/5 - top right article.

Can I recommend Ublock Origin?

Adblock and Ublock do backroom deals with Google to whitelist sites. Ublock Origin, a fork of Ublock, was created in protest to this behaviour and is relatively safe (for now).

There's a pretty cool little app you can use to scan the lid of a egg carton and it shows you whether the eggs are really free range (limit of 1500 chooks per hectare) or not.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.choice.newthings.cluckar&hl=en

(It's made by Choice by the way, so it's legit.)

100+ year old news paper predicting climate change.

Edit: this was also a New Zealand newspaper.

the average internet connection in australia is 4.2 mbps vs the US's average of 7.4 mbps, places us pretty low to be honest

You mean "The Front Fell Off"? Must have been a class from a long time ago (1991):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgrX7uOZqHI

Edit: Apparently, there's a Snopes article from 2008 where people were interpreting this interview as real. The exchange student wasn't the only one.

The key issue you have in Australia is a dwindling supply of quality engineering (sorry IT grads have been in decline for years ... ABS decline of 52% from 2003 to 2010) and when it comes to tech ... there's no ready supply of tech savvy investors willing to take a punt. It's not about interning ... it's about sourcing bucket loads of 20 year old guys, that wrote their first phone app at 14 and can program the butt off any other guy 8 years later. University gives you a degree ... there's no impetus in AU to develop technology talent when young. There's no high tech culture in AU ... there's no reason to remain. Why would you stay in AU to work on mediocre projects or for cash starved startups when if you have half a brain you can relocate overseas and work with some of the world's most talented. Why spend years trying to find investment when people fall over you in Europe or the US to invest. It's simple. Atlassian is the poster boy of the AU startup ... why ... because there are not any others. The current government has made a couple of tacit changes around option and share vesting recently but it will not change the investment climate. How do I know this: AU tech startup mentor and relocated my own company to UK 8 years ago.

EDIT: also Atlassian redomiciled to the UK earlier this year.... I wonder why? So much better to do business there. Investment is easy plus you are adjacent to your customer base in EU and US.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2015/feb/12/the-truth-about-bludgers-welfare-dependency-in-australia-is-falling

People on welfare has been trending down and in general attacking welfare hurts the poorest people in society. A UBI is morally superior to a overly restrictive system which punishes people arbitrarily for being poor. Not to mention, automation is lining up to kill a lot of jobs in the coming decades, whether we get UBI or not the current welfare system is not set up to deal with this.

http://theconversation.com/australia-must-prepare-for-massive-job-losses-due-to-automation-43321

These "business as usual" announcements are standard procedure for any acquisition. Just one day, just once, I would like to see an announcement where the parties tell the truth.

> Today, XCorp announced that it had finally offered the owners of YCorp enough money to make selling their souls worthwhile. After an initial period of denial where we try to lull YCorp's customers into a false sense of security, we will begin the process of "streamlining the business", where we gut YCorp of everything that made people choose them over us in the first place. > > The founders of YCorp promise to hang around for the contractually agreed amount of time in order to qualify for the huge pay-out we've offered them. So look forward to the announcement in December 2014 that they have suddenly 'decided to move on and explore new options.'* > > We will be over here in the bathtub full of money.

* Classic example: reddit acquired by Conde Nast, October 2006. Reddit co-founders quit Conde Nast, October 2009

Blocked by only two ISPs; how pointless.

Change your DNS and I bet it'll works again. The way the government forces ISPs to block sites is insanely easy to bypass and legal.

https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-1.1.1.1/

I can't remember the name of the town, I think it started with a Y, so it might have been Young, Yass or Yamba (NSW) but we stopped for petrol, and there were three little Aboriginal kids, couldn't have been older than 5 or 6, riding around on their little bikes, swearing at each other like wharfies.

"Where are you goin', ya f*@in' little c*#t?" "Ahhh, ya f*@kin' c*#t."

I had the eerie feeling this is how others spoke to them, as well as how they spoke to each other. Couldn't get out of there soon enough.

Edit: It wasn't a Y, it was a W. It's Wilcannia. I remembered after reading a comment further down about Wilcannia. Sorry Young, Yass and Yamba!

I absolutely wouldn't trust a company like Nord VPN - there's nothing to demonstrate that they actually give a shit about your privacy and they advertise so aggressively that I consider it suspicious. I personally use Mullvad VPN as they do not ask for any of your personal details (not even contact details) and can take anonymous forms of payment (e.g. bitcoin). Other than that their clients are multiplatform and pretty good; they support per-app VPN (at least on Android) and blocking tracking & ads via their DNS servers. Loads of regions to choose from and a good selection of connection options (e.g. using port 53/udp to pretend your traffic is DNS - good for bypassing some wifi hotspot captive portals).

It's called PrivateVPN. They have a Christmas deal on at the moment which is a little cheaper than what I payed - I got the 3 month plan to test the waters and I'm quite happy with it so far. Remember prices are in US$.

I chose this one because they come recommended as a provider that actively works to circumvent Netflix's attempts to VPN block people - apparently Netflix has developed a code to recognise VPN connections and will block access to their media if detected. This happened to me on the free version of Tunnel Bear. You can log into the site and browse the catalogues but instead of playing the movies/ episodes it gives an error message. Have not had this issue once with PrivateVPN as yet.

Also, if you want to watch Netflix on TV you will need a modem/ router that supports VPNs. The stock Telstra ones they give out for NBN and Cable (which I have) don't support it and you have to bridge another router to them and have the TV connect specifically to that router. After researching this option I found a number of post on the whirlpool forums that complained about significant speed issues that lingered due to the bridging and required factory reset of the Telstra modem to rectify - not in all cases, but enough to turn me off the idea because that would be my luck.

Otherwise there's 2 work arounds:

• If your TV supports casting or you have a Chrome Cast or Amazon Fire device you can cast from your computer over the network or;

• the way I do it is to have my laptop set up in WiFi hotspot mode and connected through the VPN and set up my TV (which has the Netflix app) to connect to the internet through the hotspot.

Yep, Nord or Private Internet Access Internet are the two best providers imo. Hard to find fault from a security perspective. I run Nord on my home machine to torrent fights, it was easy to setup, and it has a good user interface.

Which again proves that encryption works folks! If it didn't work, you would never hear about them trying to break it. Get a VPN, use PGP, its not difficult. I would recommend Cloak or IPVanish, and there are lots of tutorials out there on PGP. Privacy and Security are important, dont just give yourself up to it being too hard, its really easy. Shoutout to /r/GPGpractice

I'm currently using Private Internet Access, but I'd recommend reading up and picking one that meets your needs. Some you can use on your phone as well, some are better for watching other countries' Netflix, etc. Here's a recent Australian review of many.

• VPN

• All ISP's have to retain metadata about you for a period of 2 years. There's no way to access the internet without connecting to an ISP. This is a big topic outside the scope of this sub.

The thing with the surveillance state is they start with small/innocuous erosions of civil liberties and keep extending them.

By the time the sheeple realise they are under a repressive regime its too fucking late, the state already has years of information stored about you.

Whether you think you have nothing to hide or not get a decent fucking VPN now!

A good VPN company is based outside the 14 eyes countries. Choose one of their exit servers outside Australia and not in 14 eyes jurisdictions. Switch exit servers often. Assume they are logging despite their claims.

A decent VPN will reduce your meta data footprint, it's not a license to act with impunity by any stretch of the imagination.

BlackVPN is not cheap but highly recommended if you want a VPN that is not Mickey Mouse bullshit.

Change the DNS servers on your router and PC's/Mobile devices to privacy respecting ones OUTSIDE Australia. Do not use google servers.

Don't do stupid shit on the internet, it's virtually impossible to have 100% privacy

I doubt it's an Amazon AU selling a product itself but there's an listing for Donkey Kong 64 for the nintendo 64 preowned on Amazon AU and if you want one it's going to cost you $1157, yep $1157 for an old game that probably won't come with it's original box and even if it did $1157 is definitely an inappropriate price for such a game. I looked on Ebay.com (US Ebay) and most boxed copies of Donkey Kong 64 cost around $100 or a little less (with $60 - $80 being the average price without the box and manuals)

https://www.amazon.com.au/Nintendo-NUS-NDOE-USA-Donkey-Kong-Pre-Owned/dp/B00002STEZ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1543951968&sr=8-3&keywords=Nintendo+64

Sellers like the above should be reported and barred from Amazon for shit like this, I don't care if you think the asking price is justified or the sellers is in the right to charge what they like, it's not and it's not fair that we should be the ones always getting shafted when it comes to buying things. I wish the ACCC would step in and deal with Amazon because until amazon fixes their pricing shit and gains stronger teeth here I refuse to buy from them when I can still get the same product I want usually $20 less elsewhere.

When Amazon launched and I found some products with questionable prices they were like "well we're sorry to hear your disappointed but we can't do anything about this". Is it too much to have standards & guidelines in place to prevent people from getting ripped off big time? According to amazon I guess so.

Cost me $90 on Amazon AU for a certain HDMI cable that was $14 on US. And in the end it came from the US! The Amazon AU site is a joke.

EDIT: Thanks for all the HDMI cable buying advice. But this https://www.amazon.com.au/ECHOGEAR-4ft-Braided-HDMI-Cable/dp/B07622BBFX is HDMI 2.1 and harder to come by than just picking one up at a servo. And, yes the price has dropped now, and availability has improved too.

Assuming this is on a mobile do yourself a favour and look at something like Should I Answer. Saved me from plenty of cold calls.

Android

iOS

I strongly urge you to read Game of mates

Probably one if the best books I've read (or only book I've read?) that details how cronyism works in this country. It even explicitly details Transurban. I though lobbying and cronyism was bad in the US and Australia was reasonably clean and transparent for the most part, at least in comparison.

NOPE. We're just as bad, if not worse in some cases, I think the powers that be in this country are just much better at hiding it, probably due to the smaller scale of our economy.

Thank god people are seeing this for what it is. A "carefully planned" attempt to create a damaging precedent.

I guess this effort failed then?

Things like this are not an anomaly. They happen often. They get away with it because those they assault are often too quiet and don't want to cause any more trouble in their lives. And when they do, nothing really happens to the officers. In South Australia, the cop who beat up a homeless man and his carer is still a cop. Make sense of that.

You got downvoted because you demanded someone else do this for you, instead of you taking the 30 seconds to follow the link in OP's article.

Because I'm feeling charitable, and I was also curious, I took the 30 seconds to find what you demanded.

Seems to say the government has to justify its healthcare decisions to corporates, as well as having to reconsider their decisions if a corporation demands it. (take my uneducated "analysis" with a grain of salt)

>e) provide applicants with [xx propose: detailed] written information [xx propose: sufficient to comprehend] [xx oppose: regarding] the basis for recommendations or determinations regarding the listing of new pharmaceutical products or medical devices for reimbursement by national healthcare authorities; (f) make available [xx propose: xx considering: an independent] review process [xx propose; xx oppose: 8 ] that may be invoked at the request of an applicant directly affected by such a recommendation or determination by a Party’s national healthcare authorities not to list a pharmaceutical or medical device for reimbursement [xx propose: xx considering: or as an alternative, an internal review process, such as by the same expert or group of experts that made the recommendation or determination, provided that such a review process includes, at a minimum, a substantive reconsideration of the application and may be invoked at the request of an applicant directly affected by such recommendation or determination]9 ; and (g) provide written information to the public regarding such recommendations or determinations, while protecting information considered to be confidential under the Party’s law.

https://wikileaks.org/tpp/healthcare/WikiLeaks-TPP-Transparency-Healthcare-Annex.pdf

You are in luck, matey.

My mate Ivan has offered to drive you to the gates of the MCG.

There is one slight problem though - you'd need to get to Goulburn first, and that is a little over half way.

There will be a few administrative details to take care of once you got to Goulburn, but they shouldn't be an issue.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111017070105/http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/programs-and-rebates/hisp/reports/~/media/publications/hisp/csiro-report-hisp-2011.pdf

Feel free to do the maths yourself.

I'll just leave this here...
https://geti2p.net/en/
Built in torrent client, anonymised and encrypted. I've been using it for a year or so now and love it. The more people who use it the better it'll get... hence the shameless plug. ;)

This is an example of the neoliberal bullshit that passes for economic opinion all over the world. It's everywhere. It's so popular to blather on about apocalyptic public debt that the fiction has been fictionalised!

The "collapse" that people incessantly tell boogieman stories about involves these nations defaulting on their debt. On the governments running out of money because they can't borrow any more of it from their citizens or from foreign markets. Of hyperinflation, people pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street to buy bread, police and military abandoning their posts because they're not getting paid ... that sort of thing. The book I linked to is an entertaining look into the neoliberal mindset.

China's debt is denominated in Chinese yuan. America's debt is denominated in US dollars. Australia's debt is denominated in Australian dollars. All of those nations are sovereign in their own currency. Their currency is floated on world markets. They will never default on their debt commitments, because they control their currencies.

... and all that comes after the fact that we've just accepted deficit spending by federal governments even has to be funded by the issuance of debt securities. There's no reason why public debt even has to exist: the reason it does at all is because of a neoliberal ideology called Sound Finance. We either obey the neoliberal dogma (and pretend that it's set in stone and the only way of doing business, at the cost of everything and everyone that isn't immediately profitable), or we risk the wrath of the private rating agencies. So scary.

ZDNet are reporting:

>Pacnet discovered and fixed the vulnerability on April 3, just under two weeks before Telstra finalised its purchase of Pacnet on April 16.

>...

>Telstra was only informed of the breach on April 16, and put in place additional monitoring and oversight on the network.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-discovers-pacnet-security-breach-after-takeover/

Which Telstra must have loved getting blindsided on with a corporate provider. I'm assuming the month between discovery and public briefing is to let their big name customers like the AFP (!) clear up as much of the mess as possible.

Question is, fixed on April 3rd...when did it start?