CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
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User ID: 333
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
1mo ago
Towards the latter part of the 2010s and into the 2020s, somebody realized that a lot of beer drinkers simply don't like IPAs and if they could make a decent lager or kolsch then somebody would drink it.
Took them long enough. I've always hated IPA's, largely because they give terrible hangovers. Probably because they're loaded up with preservatives to play it safe with the batch like you said.
There's a reason lagers are so popular.
Australia
I’ve been too busy to be a post-guy rather than a reply-guy recently, but I’m going to try to at least make a few posts to improve my seed-leech ratio. Anyways…
Since the arrest of Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov there seems to have been an uptick in governments pressuring messaging apps and social media to allow backdoor access.
Australia is no exception with the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Australia’s Security Service) Mike Burgess recently threatening to force tech companies to provide access to encrypted chats when presented with a warrant.
The article above quotes Burgess as saying:
“I understand there are people who really need it in some countries, but in this country, we're subject to the rule of law, and if you're doing nothing wrong, you've got privacy because no one's looking at it”
I find this somewhat lacking and one of the usual government tropes of ‘if you’ve got nothing to hide, you won’t mind if we violate your privacy’. That along with encryption is ‘being employed by terrorists, paedophiles, drug smugglers and human traffickers to conceal illicit activities and facilitate crime.’ so that’s why we need access to it.
Access to live information (say observing a chatroom) when presented with a warrant seems to be a reasonable request, but I suspect the government will go further and continue to attempt to force companies to change their software in order to meet the needs of intelligence and security agencies through creating backdoors and recording communications for later retrieval.
Edit: Inevitable small grammatical corrections
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
1mo ago
Actual injury shouldn't be necessary. You can't tell the police that you didn't need your kids to wear seatbelts on the freeway because they haven't been injured. Tackling someone on a sidewalk could have lead to them cracking their head open.
I do understand the 'fuck around and find out' assumption that justice has been done, but is this actually a consideration from DA's when considering which cases to take?
Why are District Attorneys so reluctant to charge multiple opposing parties in a single incident? In this case why isn't the pro Palestinian charged with assault or Violation of a Constitutional Right Causing Injury?
It reminds me of another example; the Apple River stabbing, where the teenagers weren't charged with assault which happened prior to the man pulling his knife to stab people. Same problem.
Are DA's reluctant to muddy the waters with conflicting cases like this? Is this a political motivation where they are 'chasing wins'?
Edit: Turns out the DA did charge the other party a day later as per a news article linked in Ben Garrison's post here.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
There's a contingent of '5 Flags' location independent types out there that believe that the decline of the West is practically inevitable over the next couple of decades. I'm a bit worried and looking to hedge my bets with emerging markets.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
I find it notable how far leftists like to push the myth of the native working class as degenerate, inferiors.
I find many people in PMC circles compare legal educated immigrants (basically the best human capital of the donor countries) to the least educated working class proletariat in the host countries. It's never apples to apples of the worst educated proles from the donor countries. If you tried to compare the proles from western countries to proles from places like India and China it basically ends up looking like a /pol/ rant. Let alone comparing high human capital educated 'international' westerners to proles in places like Dubai or China.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
I was going to add this. Pretty good if someone is chronically mentally fatigued by their lifestyle, or has mild ADHD symptoms from too much screentime.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
Going further down this line of reasoning, anything less than electoral officials bringing a mobile voting booth and ballot box to your front porch would be "supression". At some point voters should make the smallest of efforts to enable themselves to vote for the sake of practicability and in support of election security.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
Agreed. I think Trump came off as less unhinged to the normies by waiting his turn. He didn't need to do anything because Biden sunk himself. Kamala can't talk off the cuff in a credible way as far as I've seen so the same strategy might pay out.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
I'm a big fan of speed dating, but it's not for everyone. I've got friends that were happy to meet girls out at bars but for some reason shied away from speed dating or otherwise didn't get good results.
Meetup singles groups are another good alternative where you can vet potential partners in real life. I always find in real life opportunities to be better as you don't risk wasting time investing hours pre-meet only to disqualify them the instant you see them in person..
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
Part of the Tinder starter pack along with chloroform, rag and breath mints.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
I don't have anything to add here, but I had a flashback to a bad Tinder date. Halfway through a coffee the girl accused me of lying about my height, because 'her brother is my stated height and I'm shorter than him'. I said we should go find a measuring tape straight away and see who was wrong. May as well have thrown some gas on a fire. Kept accusing me of lying but wouldn't let me prove her wrong so I just shrugged and left.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
New Zealand is a great place to retreat to in the event of a global economic collapse, but its a terrible place in terms of personal income tax. If you're at the billionaire level and just take loans out against your assets instead of 'earning income' then this probably won't bother you.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
A location independent business has no local resources that can be nationalised. Dubai is more of a tax friendly base (at least until it isn't). Sure if you own property, that could be confiscated in the worst case scenario.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
The other option is start a location independent business and move from the declining West to Dubai or some other Special Economic Zone. I can't really see anything else that will have a major personal impact, but it's not really feasible for those that have put down roots.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
This is a fairly standard slice of life for a conscientious ethical white collar professional working in Australia (and probably much of the West). There's a fair bit more to say about the ATO, which as far as I know is inscrutable and unaccountable in the way the OP has said.
OP, the world won't end and neither will your career. This won't fall on you. You're predicting (and wisely planning for) the worst case scenario which will never eventuate. Senior professionals not training or preparing juniors under them is unfortunately business as usual. You've done the best you can with what you have in terms of time, resources and knowledge. Rest well. If the client comes after the company, they won't come after the junior.
Also, well done on covering your arse by saving correspondence and secreting it away on your private servers away from the company. In my career, I've never needed to use a security blanket like that, but I've heard stories and so I still think it's best practice for any white collar professional getting directed to do something they are not comfortable with.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
No, there's still a small mental drain.
Best thing is to go for a walk or other wise do a mundane thoughtless task.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
Gandalf says no.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
From an outsider's perspective I think that there's a lot of mask off going on with the political response to the current situation. The panic is telling because they've ostensibly overreacted, but this doesn't leave them anywhere else to escalate to unless they want to go down the 'V for Vendetta' path.
The migrant to GDP path has failed. There needs to be a correction back to sanity, but how and when that happens is really up in the air.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
For all the issues I have with the uni > PR pathway, it does seem to be a good mix of cash injection into the Australian economy with university as an IQ/conscientiousness screen. My big issue is the rubber stamping of international students through the kayfabe of 'group assignments' with native students which waters down the later screening.
An alternative to the 'golden visa' that is often used is a 'business investment' visa which gives you eventual PR for investing in the local economy. This has the downside of creating a whole subsidiary ecosystem of local companies that keep a bunch of businesses on their books to sell to prospective immigrants. How it works is that you go to a local agent who is fluent in your language of choice. They sell you a Chinese restaurant/grocery store. The business is not incredibly profitable, but doesn't always make a loss. After 3-5 years showing financial statements you get PR and then sell the business back to the agent to be recycled for the next immigrant. Business investment falls afoul of Goodhart's Law.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
Don't mean to 'directly' shit on Harris, but the government needs to have supply driven policies. I don't really care which flank they're from, it needs to come from this side, even at a cost to housing prices through increased supply.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
2mo ago
Yes within reason, if you live in a modern construction with a concrete slab under you. You should be fine with a setup like this as long as you don't start powerlifting. I don't intend to ever lift more than 100kg/220lbs. If you're really worried and have timber floorboards you might want to do some research on maximum weight, but its really unlikely to be problem.
Also you need to make sure that you have some floor protection if you're in a rental (see my flattened cardboard even though its a bare concrete slab). Ideally you would use rubber tiles (~1m x 1m x 10+mm) for a permanent fitout. Things can be mitigated by using rubber coated plates like I'm using the picture and also by making sure you don't ever drop the bar unless its an emergency. This is both to make sure the flooring doesn't get damaged and also that you don't annoy your downstairs neighbors.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
3mo ago
My understanding is that the Commissioner was directing his comment generally at people overseas breaching UK's online laws regarding hate speech and incitement. Which seems like massive overreach and ultimately an empty threat.
CertainlyWorse
Dedicated Pessimist
3mo ago
I think it's good general opsec to change handles over the medium to long term (6 months to 2+years depending on your risk tolerance). It's not just about posting spicy opinions, but the fact that the internet is forever and you don't know what advances in technology (AI scraping), the social landscape (authoritarians getting into power), and even your personal views and desire for privacy changing in the future. Swapping handles and being reasonably careful about dropping too much identifying information is just a good practice to get into and well worth the 5% of the time you'd like to share something but can't because it might let people/AI connect the dots.
My handle here is too similar to one I used on another forum, but I've since used a tool to overwrite past comments to cover my tracks. Even so I also wonder if I'm not being paranoid enough.
Yes. It's ham fisted and seems to mirror Canada's trajectory. I can appreciate that ASIO is given an unenviable job as the security service and if I took the King's shilling in Burgess's role I would advocate for more tools to do my job more efficiently. But this seems wrong and just looks like the govt pushing to make their lives easier.
Once the apps get a reputation as compromised, only the stupid and uninformed will use them (which to be fair is probably no small percentage of the criminal/terrorist franchise). The rest of the targeted will quickly find other comms methods (eg multiplayer videogame lobbies) and the rest of us will be stuck with 'this is why we can't have nice things'.
She's completely clownish and operates on Think of the Children OS v1.0.
Yes, because its convenient for those working in those roles. At the risk of opsec, I have experience working with the public service and know the mentality. How do we make our jobs easier on a limited budget without having to investigate the issue in depth? Let's ban it. Nanny state, safetyism etc.
I can extrapolate this to the EU which does this writ large.
Yes. There are edge cases. I am actually cautiously supportive of the social media ban for children because of the difficulties a lack of a ban would make for good parenting in isolation (eg telling your 12yo daughter she can't Instagram while she suffers social exclusion from her peers; it needs to be everyone).
But I also know that there's a reason no one likes to upload their docs to the net. No one can keep them safe. Data breaches everywhere. Also who the hell would ever provide ID for porn access?
It's a big mess, but that is no excuse for convenient shortcuts to Do Something.
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