I don’t know about the rest of Australia, but that’s not really the case in Adelaide. There is a pretty strong cycling culture here and a lot of proper bike stores for commuters, road cyclists and mountain bikers. Hosting the Tour Down Under for 25 years has really helped with that. But for whatever reason the government has never really invested in infrastructure that would help.daily commuters.

My guess as to the “why” is that it’s just another example of enshittification. Podcasts were essentially a bubble that everyone was trying to get in on, but the amount of low quality (not just production but also content) flooding the market devalued it significantly and listeners and subscriptions began declining. Everyone is trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of it now, which means there are even more ads on top of all the ads and cross-promotion that come baked into an episode.

Cycling infrastructure development in Adelaide and SA always seems to be based around tourism and leisure. Like if you want to do a family day trip, or you’re here on a cycling holiday or just want to spend your day somewhere there are quite a few good cycling paths that all connect up with minimal need to cross or ride on roads. But the daily cycling infrastructure is absolutely terrible. Most “bike lanes” on suburban roads are narrow, damaged and filled with rubbish and many motorists do not respect them at all. Thankfully we are allowed to ride on the footpaths so that reduces the danger somewhat but it’s also pretty inconvenient since footpaths are even less consistent in terms of terrain.

This is a pretty clickbaity counter-article that doesn’t review the original in good faith. The New Yorker article is not titled ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ but rather ‘Has Social Media Fuelled A Teen-Suicide Crisis?’ with a lead of:

Mental-health struggles have risen sharply among young Americans, and parents and lawmakers alike are scrutinizing life online for answers.

So the implication that the premise of the article is to demonise social media is completely wrong, since it’s actually an investigation into the issue. That’s also the reason it’s long (another strange complaint from a guy whose 3000+ word response is only ever his opinions).

The “moral panic tropes” are testimony from real parents whose real children killed themselves. And these real parents think social media was responsible. It strikes me as pretty low to hand wave away the grief of these real people because it inconveniently feeds into a narrative you have some instinctual problem with.

The author tries to frame the balance of the New Yorker article as some kind of gotcha. Like it’s somehow a bad thing that this other writer took the time to consult with and quote experts who provide a different opinion. Personally I would much rather read that then something like this which was basically the equivalent of a reddit eXpOsEd thread.

So I think it’s possible he’s using the opportunity of legal action to generate publicity for the issue.

Yes I did actually think this as well, interesting way to keep it in the news cycle. This story had pretty much died off until now.

It was only political in the sense that Israel/Palestine is a political issue and referencing it at all is often labelled a “political” act. I’ve read the actual transcript of the speech and it was just stating statistics related to the theme of the piece. I am a little surprised he is suing though, he sounded more bemused than upset at the time and I thought it would be something they’d just put behind them after the backflip and investigation from the MSO.

I just gave up and bought a new (secondhand) phone at the beginning of this year. I returned one of my older phones (Galaxy Note 9) to stock as a backup but I’m not even sure if that will work now because it’s a grey import (even though it has working VoLTE currently and supports all Australian network bands). It’s a bit sad that I have this little collection of otherwise great older phones that still receive updates to their custom ROMs but will now be useless as phones.

In fairness it is a poorly written and confusing article (the guy is not a writer by profession, just a telecommunications expert trying to draw attention to the 3G shutdown). I shared the video just in case people had a hard time understanding the main takeaways, since Hugh Jeffreys did a good job summarising them.

It sounds like they are over-complying in response to recent legislation:

This is due to an update to the ‘Emergency Call Service Determination’ (ECSD), in the explanatory statement it says:

“Subsection 6(2) directs ACMA to include requirements for providers to identify mobile phones unable to access Triple Zero, notify the user, provide assistance if necessary to access an alternative mobile phone, and cease providing service to the affected device. Providers will also be required to not provide service to a prospective customer seeking service with an affected mobile phone. This requirement makes clear the responsibility providers have to ensure mobile networks provide access to the emergency call service.” […] “The amendments to the Determination to be made under section 6(2) are to be determined and commence in full by 1 November 2024.”

The author of the article claims AMTA is not a reliable indicator of VoLTE compatibility:

Additionally Tools like the ‘AMTA 3G Lookup Service’ are not accurate or reliable. AMTA knows this, hence why you need to agree to a long list of terms & conditions before using it.

This new ACMA policy is deeply disturbing because many consumers, including myself, own fully functional devices that can make VoLTE calls and emergency calls, yet are deemed “incompatible” by the telcos.

These are devices with the exact same hardware and software as ‘officially supported’ devices, the only difference is the telcos didn’t sell them.

Vodafone’s 3G network has been switched off for 9 months at this point, I don’t know if customers would still be getting messaging about it. Though there was a section in the article about issues with roaming for international visitors in January:

As a result of the Vodafone 3G switch-off in January, inbound Roaming customers have been receiving text messages advising they will no longer have access to voice, text or data and emergency calling whilst roaming in Australia.

Even customers with 5G iPhones have received such text messages.

He published another article recently about exactly that. It sounds like the telcos are putting in less than the bare minimum of effort and the government has been too clueless to hold them to account. And when it does try to legislate it has done so in a nonsensical way that risks hurting more than helping.

If you prefer video/audio, Hugh Jeffreys covered this here.

It’s quite funny that updates, in theory, are about making something better yet Windows updates are one of the most consistently cited reasons for people abandoning the OS.

The article is about using your phone as JD…why would you turn it off if you’re trying to show a police officer your ID?

The XDA forums don’t have anything listed for your device. You can still improve your privacy by disabling applications (or uninstalling them through Universal Android Debloater) and replacing them with FOSS alternatives where possible. If you don’t already use F-Droid and Aurora Store (or equivalents), switching to those app stores instead of using the Play Store for everything will help you to change your app drawer over time. Take note of Aurora Store’s privacy report section that lists known trackers bundled with applications, it’s a very useful feature that is often overlooked.

I didn’t know about this but it does not surprise me at all. Sad how we live in a country where racism against our indigenous peoples is so normalised that we are no longer shocked by these revelations, and yet there is also zero appetite from the public to actually do anything about the broader issues behind all of this.

Exactly. “Sparking backlash” just means these people whined for 2 minutes like they always do, before reaching into their wallet once again.

The IGA down the road had self checkout but no one ever used them because they would call the operator after almost every item. Recently they just got rid of them and replaced them with old fashioned checkouts.

Actually something similar happened at one of my local Drakes Mini stores. I was wondering why they put these machines in and then removed them within a year, maybe it was staffing related like in your case?

Corbyn was also good friends with Ken Livingstone, who said some very strange things about Hitler and the Jews.