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.

Over the last few years I think all our states have now banned phones from being visible in school, so there’s efforts towards reducing usage at least within school. That’s a relatively recent move though and does only cut down on usage during part of the day so I don’t know if there’s been a noticeable effect on the kids.

Doesn’t that sound exactly like the “can somebody please think about the children” argument?

It is that, but the ban in question is being justified by that same poor argument so it might as well be fired right back again.

From my reading it’s going to be the same campgrounds that already exist, but now with a commercial operator being able to book a proportion of the sites before the public can. I don’t know if they will physically separate the commercially booked sites but at this point I have seen no mention of expanding or creating campgrounds for this purpose.

I am ideologically against letting commercial operators into this field - I accept the reality that camping fees in national parks are a necessary evil to help with provision of services and reduce false bookings, but I think if such fees are going to exist the money should go directly to Parks rather than have the majority go to a private company. Commercial camping operations should be operating on private land rather than public - that way public access to public land is not reduced and the public gets limited access to land they would not otherwise get to (the camping might even help fund preservation of said private land).

As expected, the people who were already doing illegal things with machetes don’t care about the machete ban. I can’t see Victoria backing down on it though, they’ll probably claim safety requires expanding the ban to knives in general and screw over more law abiding people.

Yes, it’s a fair enough point to not want a Chinese car due to data security and potential for malicious software but the same applies to basically any modern vehicle. I’d still trust the Europeans and the US more than China at this point but with the demand for (and legal requirements for) in car tech and sensors nobody is building cars without potential vulnerabilities these days.

Anyways, are EMPs real? If so, it doesn’t matter lol

They are but the chances of a normal car being the main problem in such a case are pretty low (you’ll probably either be dealing with blast damage/radiation from the nuke that caused it or the power/comms infrastructure going down and taking the trappings of modern society with it). It is an edge case you’d want to consider for the ADF’s combat vehicles but I can’t see it being applicable to their regular car fleet.

The 1830’s??? ???

Melbourne was founded later than you’d expect given its prominence in size and historical political power, it was indeed started in the mid 1830s. Before that there was a bit of exploration in Victoria but basically all settlements of size were in current day NSW and Tasmania (the expeditions for Melbourne left from Launceston, which had been going for a couple of decades by that point).

I guess you’re a prime example of someone looking to be offended then, because I really haven’t said anything racist.

Turns out that when you go out hunting for things to be offended by you tend to find them.

The "Aboriginal Australian’s house’ one for example was clearly going to be a no-win situation regardless of the output - if the model returned the same house as the ‘Australian’s house’ image they’d be writing instead about how offensive it was to ignore traditional culture.

“Every closure of a manufacturing facility is a loss of sovereign capability and compromises Australia’s ability to build a more complex and dynamic knowledge-driven economy.”

I agree with this sentiment, I don’t think it is a good idea long term to lose manufacturing capability and knowledge. I would however prefer that a stake in the company is transferred to the government when they have to spend large sums bailing out a facility due to it being in the national interest to do so.

This is unironically a good method.

Agreed. I think the age verification laws are a rubbish idea but if one has to comply with them this is actually one of the better options for doing so - particularly for smaller sites. Something similar is worth considering as an option for this site when necessary as it’s both something I’d actually consider doing (unlike a licence photo) and does not set the admins up for potential issues regarding having to store sensitive personal information.

Nah, just hand me that long stick there”

…and that’s when they found the really big stick insect.

Would have been nice a couple of years ago before I paid off the last of mine, but I guess one can’t have everything…

That was buying firewood permits off NSW Forestry in the broader region around Canberra, which I looked and they’re still doing at $16 per tonne (albeit only in the further away forests at this point). They give areas you can pick firewood from after logging operations, you’re just not allowed to fell trees. You do have to be able to go out and saw it then haul it back yourself. If you’ve got a current collection area near you it’s a very cost effective method, even if you have to drive a fair way it still works out cheaper than buying it elsewhere.

Always did through my childhood and continued on that way, would do so again if I had a place with a fire. We’d saw into rounds when collecting and load them up then split and stack at home.

Plenty of people do buy pre split wood here though, I’d expect it’s the source for the majority. Not everyone has the ability, inclination, or the equipment to go out and get firewood and it gets hard to find sources to collect wood in the bigger cities.