Dimand
@Dimand@aussie.zone
- Comment on The UN has backed a new world map that makes Africa bigger and the US smaller 4 days ago:
What bugs me is how things look smaller when they are further away. Completely unacceptable. Where is the equity. But that’s just my perspective.
- Comment on The UN has backed a new world map that makes Africa bigger and the US smaller 4 days ago:
I wasn’t genuinely serious. I find the politics over what is simply projection maths rather funny, both because of the actual impact it has and the stupidity of that impact. I bet Trump truly thinks Greenland is bigger than it is.
Counter point though. Screens TVs and phones are perfectly capable of displaying true scale globes. Google maps used to do this when you zoomed out enough. I think it still does with the right settings.
You do need to spin the globe to see the other side of the planet though.
It is basically only printed media that is forced into projections.
- Comment on The UN has backed a new world map that makes Africa bigger and the US smaller 4 days ago:
High time we boycott all 2d map projections and embrace globes as the only valid form of world map.
I would argue that said globes should also physically adhere to the EGM2008 geoid. But that’s probably unreasonable, WGS 84 is passable as a minimum standard here.
- Comment on Uni of Melb NTEU strike for sick leave for casuals, safe workloads 1 week ago:
Nice. Keen to see more pressure from workers to fight the broken economic systems. Bargaining is about to start at ANU and I fully expect that we will need to strike to get a fair deal.
- Comment on Crossbenchers push for an import ban on 'pervert' smart glasses 1 week ago:
Just add a normal diode with the same voltage drop. Smd diode can be sub mm scale.
- Comment on Crossbenchers push for an import ban on 'pervert' smart glasses 1 week ago:
As long as you have physical access you can’t stop a determined person disabling a led.
- Comment on Crossbenchers push for an import ban on 'pervert' smart glasses 1 week ago:
Genuinely there are cameras everywhere and majority of society doesn’t typically seem to care any more. I see people walking into public bathrooms, phones out. And the odds are they are texting or whatever, but no one bats an eye even though there are cameras on the back and front of the thing.
Never saw that happen with an old camcorder.
- Comment on Missing teenager Lily Hooper found dead, as family initially given wrong information 2 weeks ago:
Hot take but I would say Hadi Nazari got way more attention back at the start of 2025 when he was lost in Kosciuszko national park, even before he was found alive.
- Comment on Missing teenager Lily Hooper found dead, as family initially given wrong information 2 weeks ago:
I guess I only heard about it from my partner, but yeah looks like it gained significant public interest for the last week and a bit. Has all the ingredients to do so, the unknown of will they be found combined with the age and rarity of the event itself.
- Comment on 'Things could have been different': Former neo-Nazi speaks at antisemitism probe 4 weeks ago:
Same story as any cult. Lonely and disconnected people looking for a place, there is no strong correlation with intelligence, it’s simply about comunity.
It felt like it was getting better for a long time, pre 2020 the internet felt like a community any one could be a part of, and that kind of helped. But now it feels like that is gone and it is getting worse, but I have no data to back that up.
- Comment on Leggo's, Coles and Aldi selling Chinese tomatoes as 'Australian' and 'Italian' in products, forensic testing finds 1 month ago:
Wow. This sucks.
- Comment on New technology developed in Canberra could prevent 70 million tonnes of milk waste each year 2 months ago:
I met Stephen the other week and had a chat about the tech in this. Very clever idea with incredible sensitivity to trace concentrations of almost any chemical or protein.
- Comment on Why are people trying to raid Scientology buildings around the world? 3 months ago:
For the lulz
- Comment on Aussie Insults 6 months ago:
And harden the fuck up.
- Comment on RSS Feeds haven't been working in Aussie Zone a while - please fix them. 8 months ago:
- Comment on RSS Feeds haven't been working in Aussie Zone a while - please fix them. 8 months ago:
I was having weird 403 issues with the summit app and fixed it by changing the user agent.
- Comment on As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to use Aussie.Zone 9 months ago:
Love it!
- Comment on As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to use Aussie.Zone 9 months ago:
There is no way some other lazy person hasn’t done the same thing I did.
- Comment on More AZ issues 19/8/25 1 year ago:
Much improved compared to earlier today. Many thanks for your work.
- Comment on AZ issues 16/8/25 1 year ago:
I noticed comments have been very slow to load recently. Guessing this was the issue.
- Comment on Donald Trump dominated extraordinary NATO summit that saw European defence spending increase 1 year ago:
I’m not going to pretend that I read every comment. But I did upvote everyone in this thread.
- Comment on Scott Morrison receives Australia's highest honour for leadership during [COVID] crisis 1 year ago:
RIP satirical news. You are missed.
- Comment on Bit of snow up in the ranges this weekend 1 year ago:
I’m forever mixing up Ginini and Gingera personally.
Mount Franklin has had the best snow up there for me in the past. They usually leave it open.
- Comment on Bit of snow up in the ranges this weekend 1 year ago:
Ginini? Looks like Coree I would have said.
Nice snow. No wonder I’m freezing!
- Comment on We are seeing some vote manipulation 1 year ago:
Nothing is secret on the internet these days.
- Comment on Australia 2025 – Wrap-up of the night 1 year ago:
I think there needs to be a winner, otherwise nothing gets done, and the government system is already very inefficient in this regard. On the far end of this scale, every person votes on every bit of legislation, but in the end it will usually wash out the same only with the added overhead.
It’s fun to theory craft. But the stark reality here is it’s probably impossible to pass a referendum that changes any of this.
- Comment on Australia 2025 – Wrap-up of the night 1 year ago:
People in the minority of their electorate will always feel a bit salty about the outcome, but that’s unsolvable. Having the senate mitigates this already in my opinion, where the greens have roughly proportional representation. There is perhaps an argument to make the senate pool federal rather than state and territory based (looking at you Tasmania).
Moving the lower house to a federal type pool would remove any chance of area localised representation. Not that our current system is great at that with most MPs only caring about the party line, but at last some electorates have members that care about local issues.
- Comment on Australia 2025 – Wrap-up of the night 1 year ago:
I’m not sure I agree with the authors take on the unfairness to the greens here. The greener electorates manage to elect green MPs. In the seats where they are close, the preferential voting system works as intended. The conservatives can say hey I want the libs in but if they don’t make it I would rather labour over the greens.
How else should it be done? As far as I can see switching to a first past the post system would be significantly worse.
- Comment on tale as old as time 1 year ago:
It’s crazy. I’m expecting a bunch of forced academic redundancies in April/May. I don’t expect her to last a full term, but she will take a lot of others out on the way.
- Comment on tale as old as time 1 year ago:
Currently at the Australian National University.
This is too real.