Straight to the manufacturer (Dbrand) website:

Touché, that definitely does sound like it would have been a a fun job!

I still feel like I lucked out compared to my classmates who were either flipping burgers at Macca’s, stacking shelves at the local supermarket, or waiting at a chain restaurant. Being a “Toy Tester” every December was just 👌🏼

True believers worship the icosahedron.

Don’t believe me? Roll initiative!

Stocking shelves, helping customers and tidying up at Toys R Us was literally my first job during high school, and it was probably the best work a 16yo kid could in the early 2000s.

I will never forgive Bain Capital (and Mitt Romney for founding it), for its intentional sabotage of that business. Absolute scumbags.

In Victoria, there is already at least one retailer who offers a similar window to households without solar.

Australia has seen such a high uptake in solar panels, that solar rebates are basically down to like 1c/kW except for maybe the shoulders around dusk and dawn.

Makes sense to try and incentivise usage when renewables are pumping, and try to reduce some of the peak time usage which still relies on fossil-powered electricity generation.

Eufy had those widely published security issues previously, they have apparently been addressed since - but their initial response has always left a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m happy with my TAPO C420 local recording and doorbell setup, but I know that they have also had a number of security concerns and required firmware updates.

If money is no issue, or rather - it can fit within your budget - Ubiquiti would be my pick, but it also requires an bigger investment into their ecosystem.

The Solar Sharer scheme will initially be introduced to consumers in default market offer regions like NSW, south-east Queensland and South Australia from July next year, with consultation to extend the scheme to other jurisdictions by 2027.

For Victorians, I believe there are some providers who offer a similar feature already - I don’t want to endorse any particular as this is not an ad; make sure you use our VIC Gov’t Energy Comparison every year to ensure you’re on the lowest-cost contract for your circumstances.

It’s a good idea to start with, but flooding banks with that much money will likely have a massive down-side (think post-COVID19 levels of inflation), and it would be difficult to determine the right amount for each house, given that prices would still be in flux/freefall.

My initial thoughts were about providing income tax deductions for losses on primary residence (eg. If your $900K townhouse in the ‘burbs devalues to $400K, you can claim the $500K over however many years it’s take you), as long as you continue to service your mortgage, after the initial refinance to determine eligibility.

But I’m sure a tonne of people would be able to immediately spot loopholes or other reasons why my idea wouldn’t work either.

It’s not actually all that easy, unfortunately - otherwise you’d think we’d already have had a politician put forward a proposal by now.

Let’s say that housing prices come down back in line with historic (pre-2000s) trends, as honestly - they damn well should; how do we not fuck over the millions of otherwise innocent owner-occupiers who suddenly find themselves severely underwater on their mortgages, due to no fault of their own?

This is the needle we need to thread as a nation, and it’s a bloody hard one.

Depends a lot on your personality; some people are successful with dramatic dietary shifts - I had success just straight switching to keto 7ish years ago, and it helped me drop 42kg over ~18 months. But I know for others such a drastic shift can be too over-whelming and smaller changes snowballing over time have worked better.

I’m pointing this out to begin with, because that there is no one-size-fits-all solution; everyone’s path is going to be a little bit different - and it comes down to your individual relationship with food.

Weight loss is ultimately all about one thing; a caloric deficit. Work out what your Total Daily Energy Expenditure is (there are heaps of calculators online), start tracking your calories using an app like MyFitnessPal or Cronometer (at least initially, until you get a feel for it), and find a way to comfortably, sustainably maintain a caloric deficit.

Exercise is a great booster, but you can’t put-exercise a bad diet. Focus on the food first, and slowly add in exercise gradually over time. Walks are a great way to get some sunshine, fresh air, and catch up on your favourite podcasts or audiobooks.

The deal envisages the two countries co-investing in commercially viable projects and making offtake agreements so that resources mined in Australia will be processed in Canada and vice versa.

The plan is to ultimately be able to do three things; mine our own resources and process them domestically, mine our own resources and export them to Canada for processing, take in Canadian resources and process them locally.

As a plan, it sounds good enough and well overdue - but there are still many ways for it to fail, or become uncompetitive on a global scale if it devolves into a protection-racket or cartel.

High energy costs, meanwhile my solar feed-in rate is at 1c/kW.

Well that’s definitely one way to put it… 🤣

Interestingly enough, I was casually window browsing TVs and was surprised to find that LG killed off their OLED 8K TVs a couple years ago!

Until/if we get to a point where more people want/can fit 110in+ TVs into their living rooms - 8K will likely remain a niche for the wealthy to show off, more than anything.

Wait until they’re 2+ and randomly adding things to the cart in the hopes you won’t notice!

If you still enjoy using the self-checkouts for bigger shops then - you might just be a masochist! 🤣

With a toddler in tow, ain’t no way in hell I want to scan and bag a week’s worth of groceries all by myself.

For small shops of a couple items? I’ll absolutely going to go through the self-scans as they’re fast and convenient. But when spending the equivalent of ~$150USD across dozens of items - nah, fuck that noise. Especially when having to deal with any interventions because the machine vision gets confused by what’s happening on camera, or the weight sensor doesn’t correctly detect an item added.

Give me a cashier to scan and pack any day of the week.

TIL rechargeable CR2032s exist, and also that their output voltage is higher than standard ones and apparently may run the risk of damaging circuits?

Police have never existed to serve the populace, they solely exist to protect the capital of the wealthy.

Oh, but you can bet your bottom dollar there are still something like 20:1 ratio of dark-market bets synthetic collateral against these shares further underpinning valuations.

Legitimately fear that this will make the ‘08 meltdown look quaint in comparison, as the fiscal stress will not be limited to shares but impact loads of financial instruments (home and car loans, retirement accounts etc.).