trk

Solar Quotes, the pioneering and highly regarded instant quote comparison service for the installation of rooftop PV, has been snapped up by Big Three gentailer Origin Energy, 16 years after its genesis in the walk-in robe of its founder, Finn Peacock.

Well, thats the end of Solar Quotes. What a pity, it used to be a great resource for finding information (and installers who werent cowboys).

Driving, gymnastics, break dancing (ESPECIALLY break dancing)... Anything that can't be timed or measured or otherwise objectively decided should be removed from competition.

How do you quantify "style"? How do you ensure there is not biase from judges based on their knowledge of the competitor, be it country they are representing, or personal connections, or racial / religious opinion? How do you fairly compensate for what your personal opinion considers "worth" more when it comes to a trick or routine compared to another?

Swimming, running, jumping, throwing things a distance are all things that can be measured and ruled against a standard that every competitor uses. It's fair and it's removed from any bias.

The Olympics are supposed to be about competition between athletes and shouldn't be affected by popularity or politics, which anything with an interpretive aspect to the result will suffer from.

So yeah, remove the feels sports and limit the Olympics to reals sports.

10 years / 250,000k just announced by MG in Australia - including electric vehicles (and thus batteries)... Not bad considering the anti-EV crowd are always declaring battery packs to have a 3 year lifespan!

MG has introduced the longest factory warranty ever offered by a new-car maker in Australia – 10 years or 250,000km, whichever comes first – five years after rolling out seven years of coverage across its line-up.

And unlike Mitsubishi – which in October 2020 became the first brand to market a 10-year warranty, but with only a 200,000km distance limit – there is no mention of a requirement for customers to have their car serviced within the MG dealer network to access the full decade of coverage.

While MG’s new 10-year warranty is longer in time – compared to its previous seven-year offer – it now has a distance cap of 250,000km, rather than unlimited.

In effect from today (1 August 2024) for all newly-registered petrol, hybrid and electric MG models, the new warranty applies to vehicles not deemed to be "commercial use" – such as Ubers, taxis, food delivery couriers and driving schools.

Callum feels the familiar vibration of his mobile phone. Another text from Sportsbet.

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Callum hasn't placed a wager for more than a year. Sportsbet is still trying to lure him back into action with an almost daily stream of text messages.

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I actually had the opposite experience to the complains in this article..

I'm not really a gambler, but I did fire up SportsBet for my first ever bet in my life during State of Origin. I put in $50 and lost $10 on Queensland. Then I found the horse bit and selected some random horses and apparently I'd won $100 so I took out my original $50, then threw away the rest on random horses and greyhounds, and Queensland at State of Origin again.

Outcome? Zero dollars lost, and a couple of games worth of funsies thinking I was going to become a tenionaire with my 1.xx odds win.

Sportsbet sent me one SMS, and I replied STOP.

Sportsbet sent me one email, and I hit unsubscribe.

I haven't received any communication since - no sms, no email, no push notifications, no anything.

Not sure I'm fully on board with people claiming its all SportsBets fault they're gambling and being preyed upon IN THIS SPECIFIC WAY.

I do say their constant spam during any sports match of any kind on free to air television is an absolute disgrace though.

What a pair of clowns (ALP and LNP)...

Also I really hate TikTok.

There are currently no rules at either the state or federal level to stop political parties and candidates from using AI-generated material in election campaigns.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-22/qld-premier-slams-opposition-for-ai-generated-tiktok/104126936

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-23/labor-questioned-over-ai-generated-tiktok-of-peter-dutton/104131228

In short:

• Live sheep exports by sea will be phased out over the next four years, after laws banning the trade passed parliament on Monday.
• Earlier in the day, opponents met with the prime minister to request a Senate inquiry into the legislation.

What's next?

• WA Premier Roger Cook says he will continue to negotiate for additional support for farmers affected by the laws.

Sky News and other similar conservative whinge rags are already posting the anti-Labor and anti-Greens headline as a response.

Personally I think its great news. Keep the value add in Australia (processing), and remove the cruelty of long ship travel followed by questionable processing practices in other countries.

tl;dr - fuck "reality" tv

In the reality TV production process, after the casting of villains and the baiting for villainous behaviour, comes the editing.

It's in the post-production suite that a villain edit can truly come to life.

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The editor says there are a few techniques to achieve these characterisations. The simplest one is being selective in what gets included.

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The second technique editors use is amplification — finding a moment amongst what the editor calls the "boring crap" that can be boosted into a storyline.

In the show, it's spun as a major conflict.

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And then, the drama is further enhanced with a technique called "frankenbiting".

Like Frankenstein creating his monster, editors will mix together unrelated elements from the footage to make their own beast.

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When the show finally goes to air, the final phase of a villain edit begins: controlling the narrative.

Now, program makers try to ensure that no narratives that contradict the edit make it into the media.

"They would remind me in a very threatening way before every single media interview that I had signed a [non-disclosure agreement]," Olivia says.

This becomes a problem for Olivia, because when the show goes to air, the backlash is swift.

Cheaper electricity, less emissions and ready by 2035 are some of the Coalition’s core promises on nuclear energy, but are they backed by evidence?

tl;dr - no

Tesla announced it had quit the FCAI on Thursday and Polestar followed it up on Friday, saying the FCAI campaign – driven largely by Japanese car makers led by Toyota – is intolerable.

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Tesla and now Polestar’s announcement that they intend to leave the FCAI adds to mounting pressure on CEO Tony Webber who last month came under fire for threatening to run a 2010 anti mining tax style fear campaign against the government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.

The fossil car lobby group CEO claimed that the NVES would cost the entire car-buying public $38 billion in the first five years, which led to the AFR running a story titled “Labor’s new EV-boosting rules will cost $38b, auto group says” followed by Coalition leader Peter Dutton and Nationals Senator Matt Canavan parroting claims that the NVES would see the price of popular vehicles increase by up to $25,000. Claims that have been widely rejected including by the Electric Vehicle Council.

I bought a torch that has a 365nm UV light, which I believe is UV-A?

When doing a poke around my house to see what I could see with UV, I noticed that my freshwater fish tanks looked "cloudy" / "milky" under UV, yet they are crystal clear under normal light.

I checked tap water and bottled water with the same torch and they do not react and look perfectly clear under both UV and normal light

I also have an auto top off for one of the tanks which is full of ~50L of a mix of RO water and tap water treated with dechlorinator and this also does not react.

I have 3 tanks inside of various volumes (700L, 150L, 20L) and various stocking levels which all show the water as a pale flourescent green colour under UV. The colour is uniform and completely spread out through the water volume, not concentrated on any area or in layers or whatever.

The currently empty 20L tank reacted the least, leading me to believe that it may be some sort of organic material that is causing the UV light to react so much?

I got half a dozen dwarf chain loaches to compliment my 6ft community tank... And the stupid things have spent more time in the weir and the sump than they have in the tank.

I literally just fished three of them out of the sump, and the second I put them back in the tank one went directly to the overflow and straight in to the weir again. At some point it'll reappear in the sump.

I don't even think they'll grow big enough to stop being able to squeeze through the weir guard so I guess they live in the sump now.