Nath

I was indifferent, it's true. People who sell porn have had issues with the likes of PayPal and credit card payments for decades. I wasn't surprised by the move, nor did I blame Valve.

Am I bothered that it was instigated by this mob? Not particularly. If it weren't them, it would have been some other mob. They were only pointing at something the payment companies are already pre-disposed to disassociate from.

Taking credit for it is a bit of overreach. They pointed at Valve and said "Look! they have porn on their platform!" They didn't actually do anything.

The argument that short-term suites are not really suited to long-term living is fair. Do these suites have proper kitchens with ovens? Laundry nooks? Or are we going to have a shared laundromat on the ground costing $20 to do your weekly washing?

The rest is pure Nimbyism. If the government actually adapts these dwellings for safe and stable housing, it can only be a win.

Well, a young American dude went missing in the desert in WA in the 90's and that had wall-to-wall coverage in the news for weeks until he was found also.

I think @DiaDeLosMuertos is right - the driving factor in the interest was that he was a tourist, not that he was any particular nationality/gender. So yes: I think a young Turkish bloke going missing would get just as much coverage.

Huh. A Switch 2 game besides Mario Kart World. I haven't been able to justify upgrading. I'll likely go to Steam Deck instead.

Only about half an hour left to vote in:
https://hottest100.abc.net.au/

I'm not about to defend Google, but I think Apple are worse. Google are upfront about what they collect and let you download (takeout) or delete everything they have on you at any time you want.

Apple don't tell you what they are collecting, don't let you opt-out of data collection and it's a manual process to access/delete what they have on you.

Neither company is good on their privacy fronts and to champion one over the other is silly.

C'mon, the "Whale of a time" quips were just there and you went with full harbour experience?

Having never navigated Australian Customs as a non-Australian, I have nothing to offer I fear.

At least they don't take mugshots and fingerprint everyone, though. "Welcome to the USA! Free FBI files for everyone!". They even fingerprinted/photographed my 18-month baby one visit. Criminal mastermind he was.

China wants Australia's dirt. Australia wants China's money.

Everything else is just theatre.

If you have an Australian passport, you'll likely be through in under an hour even during busy times.

I did probably venture outside Aussie.zone more last year in truth. These days I very rarely do that. My time is too limited to waste it doom scrolling the shit show that is US politics.

I don't think the problem is banks charging fees. In fact, I don't really have an issue with the banks taking 1% of the sale. The issue is that merchants don't realise that counting cash and taking it to the bank etc actually costs more than 1% anyway. Electronic payments are actually cheaper than all that, they already give you a total and handle the bank end.

I can think of a couple of places in Perth who have gone totally cashless. They only accept Eftpos/credit cards.