Do you have any references for your statements? The majority of car sales in China are EVs (which is more than the UK, the EU and the US) so locals are buying the supply right now. Reference:…
In 1990 it was only 5% of Americans and now it's 50%. In the UK it's 85% but a better comparison is probably France who are in the Schengen Area so only 60% have a passport. If I lived in France I doubt I would travel…
Where I live in Western Australia, it is perfectly normal for 10-year-olds to be getting on their bikes and going round to their friends' houses after school. The swing towards "Fuck Around And Find Out" parenting has…
Absolutely. My kid just started high school shortly after our social media ban started, and they only interact with their friends outside of school via phone calls and text, without the interference of…
I will forever remember my experience with the development of a new tool in my job as an engineer in hazardous gas processing. We had a consultant who was developing this tool that worked in a double-act with one of our…
The Noongar calendar from the south west of Western Australia is, of course, a much better fit to the local climate. We are just starting Djeran, with probably the best weather of the year, then it'll be Makuru, with by…
I've got a 12 year old in Australia and the social media ban has been amazing. Since the algorithm-distraction-machine is parasitical on users' social network, the kids just have little interest in it because their…
My solution to this is that I ring my bell when I'm far from people, usually twice while I'm still a fair way away. It just gets pedestrians conscious that there's a bike around, while also being far enough away that…
Sorry I didn't see your comment until now, apologies for the late reply. A classic messy judgement call would be: 1. Input information includes some word of mouth info that I have no reason to doubt, but also absolutely…
I'm an engineer in the oil and gas industry. Some of my job involves messy judgement calls that I would never involve LLMs in, but some of my job boils down to integrating different items of data that exist across…
This reminds me of the opposite, which is how the cost of hydrogen for home heating is surprisingly high enough that there are several consumer goods that yield more Joules of heating value per dollar. I once worked out…
Sadly international diversification is far less effective during downturns, which is exactly when you need it. It really turns out that the old adage "when the US sneezes the whole world catches a cold" is borne out by…
I was interested to hear Trump mention Australia's retirement system the other day (amongst the endless stream of what he normally talks about, it really stood out). In Australia you have a universal Age Pension which…
I've benefited a lot from my specialist area (energy industry) in which consultants and analysts will post genuinely informative and thought-provoking articles. It works to enhance their technical reputation and give…
I was very surprised at how many statistical methods are taught in undergraduate psychology. Far more statistics than I ever touched in engineering for sure. Yet the undergrads really treated statistics as a cookbook,…
I don't own guns myself but I know someone who runs a gun club and a policeman. They are both in agreement that the latest legislation changes have introduced absolutely no improvement, for example a recent lifetime ban…
Absolutely superb. The 'hot bricks in a box' concept of very high temperature thermal energy storage has been really coming into its own with the fall of solar PV costs, and it's quite suitable for industrial consumers…
Porter's a well known climate denier, this article about her gives some background: https://www.desmog.com/2023/06/22/climate-sceptic-goes-uncha... We're really past the point of climate denialism now, there's no point…
Yes - I'm a senior member of my team too (to the extent that I've previously been the team lead of similar teams) and it's so freeing to be able to: 1. Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even…
In Australia you start with a birth certificate and photo, and that leads to passport and driving licence. The three of those are the holy trinity of ID (though you'd very rarely be asked for your birth certificate).…
For the rest of my life, AI will be coming for my job and full-self-driving cars will be just around the corner.
I can't believe we're still asking Elon about when we'll get full-self-driving, he's already answered that question every year since 2013. It's coming next year.
He came to talk at our school in the mid-90s and a journalist from the local rag was allowed to sit in the audience for some reason. The journalist asked about 1987 and Michael Fish visibly deflated and looked around…
we fired all our junior devs so we can't write code any more
I'm also a blow-in but I've been in Australia 14 years. "The BoM" is a fascinating Australian cultural artefact and even in weather-obsessed Britain (where Michael Fish was a household name in a similar category to…
Do you have any references for your statements? The majority of car sales in China are EVs (which is more than the UK, the EU and the US) so locals are buying the supply right now. Reference:…
In 1990 it was only 5% of Americans and now it's 50%. In the UK it's 85% but a better comparison is probably France who are in the Schengen Area so only 60% have a passport. If I lived in France I doubt I would travel…
Where I live in Western Australia, it is perfectly normal for 10-year-olds to be getting on their bikes and going round to their friends' houses after school. The swing towards "Fuck Around And Find Out" parenting has…
Absolutely. My kid just started high school shortly after our social media ban started, and they only interact with their friends outside of school via phone calls and text, without the interference of…
I will forever remember my experience with the development of a new tool in my job as an engineer in hazardous gas processing. We had a consultant who was developing this tool that worked in a double-act with one of our…
The Noongar calendar from the south west of Western Australia is, of course, a much better fit to the local climate. We are just starting Djeran, with probably the best weather of the year, then it'll be Makuru, with by…
I've got a 12 year old in Australia and the social media ban has been amazing. Since the algorithm-distraction-machine is parasitical on users' social network, the kids just have little interest in it because their…
My solution to this is that I ring my bell when I'm far from people, usually twice while I'm still a fair way away. It just gets pedestrians conscious that there's a bike around, while also being far enough away that…
Sorry I didn't see your comment until now, apologies for the late reply. A classic messy judgement call would be: 1. Input information includes some word of mouth info that I have no reason to doubt, but also absolutely…
I'm an engineer in the oil and gas industry. Some of my job involves messy judgement calls that I would never involve LLMs in, but some of my job boils down to integrating different items of data that exist across…
This reminds me of the opposite, which is how the cost of hydrogen for home heating is surprisingly high enough that there are several consumer goods that yield more Joules of heating value per dollar. I once worked out…
Sadly international diversification is far less effective during downturns, which is exactly when you need it. It really turns out that the old adage "when the US sneezes the whole world catches a cold" is borne out by…
I was interested to hear Trump mention Australia's retirement system the other day (amongst the endless stream of what he normally talks about, it really stood out). In Australia you have a universal Age Pension which…
I've benefited a lot from my specialist area (energy industry) in which consultants and analysts will post genuinely informative and thought-provoking articles. It works to enhance their technical reputation and give…
I was very surprised at how many statistical methods are taught in undergraduate psychology. Far more statistics than I ever touched in engineering for sure. Yet the undergrads really treated statistics as a cookbook,…
I don't own guns myself but I know someone who runs a gun club and a policeman. They are both in agreement that the latest legislation changes have introduced absolutely no improvement, for example a recent lifetime ban…
Absolutely superb. The 'hot bricks in a box' concept of very high temperature thermal energy storage has been really coming into its own with the fall of solar PV costs, and it's quite suitable for industrial consumers…
Porter's a well known climate denier, this article about her gives some background: https://www.desmog.com/2023/06/22/climate-sceptic-goes-uncha... We're really past the point of climate denialism now, there's no point…
Yes - I'm a senior member of my team too (to the extent that I've previously been the team lead of similar teams) and it's so freeing to be able to: 1. Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even…
In Australia you start with a birth certificate and photo, and that leads to passport and driving licence. The three of those are the holy trinity of ID (though you'd very rarely be asked for your birth certificate).…
For the rest of my life, AI will be coming for my job and full-self-driving cars will be just around the corner.
I can't believe we're still asking Elon about when we'll get full-self-driving, he's already answered that question every year since 2013. It's coming next year.
He came to talk at our school in the mid-90s and a journalist from the local rag was allowed to sit in the audience for some reason. The journalist asked about 1987 and Michael Fish visibly deflated and looked around…
we fired all our junior devs so we can't write code any more
I'm also a blow-in but I've been in Australia 14 years. "The BoM" is a fascinating Australian cultural artefact and even in weather-obsessed Britain (where Michael Fish was a household name in a similar category to…