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  Finally some good news! This is entirely unsurprising though. Tesla can't even be bothered to make right hand drive versions of their Model S and Model X any more and people actually bought those. There was no way that it was going to be economical for them to make right hand drive variants of the far less popular Cyberdumpster, the only way it was going to happen would have been through sheer bloody-mindedness. https://evcentral.com.au/tesla-cybertruck-officially-axed-for-australia/...

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  This evening I bought Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri from GOG for AUD $1.55, built a Network Node (as Deidre), then eliminated the ultra-capitalist faction. If only that bit were as easy to do in real life. H/T to @futzle for prompting all this with a link: https://old.mermaid.town/@futzle/117488169394328036

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  Earlier today I popped into a local Asian grocery to get some quail eggs as a treat for the lizard but came out with sake instead. That's a treat for me, not the lizard. Unfortunately that grocery only sells canned quail eggs not fresh. Anyone got any tips on where to get fresh quail eggs (in small quantities) in Sydney?

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  It's a Friday afternoon during the Cyber Security Awareness Month from Hell. Remember to practice #HugOps and offer the sysadmins in your life some support and appreciation.

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  It's a very silly country. Especially the bits with half hour timezones. That map is actually simplified, because it doesn't include Eucla time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%2B08:45

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  Over the weekend I got some good data on the Horsehead Nebula so now I have decent images of both of the big showy nebulae in the constellation of Orion. All data taken with my Seestar S30 Pro from my Bortle 7 backyard in Sydney, and processed in Siril with RC Astro, GraXpert and VeraLux scripts. Both images have about 4 1/2 hours of exposure time in them and I feel like they could both do with some more, but they'll do for now. Maybe I'll do a big mosaic covering both nebulae a bit la...

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  Bloody hell, the chatbots from ilands.app/paper.wf that have been registration spamming Mastodon servers lately are really, really desperate. Two days ago I posted here asking for suggestions from Mastodon's astrophotographers and the first reply I got was from this stochastic parrot's Mastodon account. I blocked it here but instead of taking the hint it has followed up with an email to my work address (which is not in my profile, but not too hard to find). So they are scraping Mastodo...

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  The Australian Academy of Science has the receipts on that. Australia is one of the only countries stupid enough to have a consistently declining or flat gross expenditure on research & development as a percentage of GDP, and it has sustained that streak for almost two decades now. The Lucky Country is banking its future prosperity of further good luck, because unless something changes dramatically it's certainly not going to come from good judgement. Sadly I don't think basing our...

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  The scaly sausage has come out for a bask. #LizardPosting #SkinksOfMastodon #Skink #BlueTongueSkink #LizardsOfMastodon #Lizard #BlueTongueLizard

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  My god, it's full of stars. M24, the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, and neighbouring bits and pieces. Just over 4 hours 10 minutes of total exposure time over the last two nights with the little Seestar S30 Pro and its UV/IR cut filter. Not bad considered how irritatingly bright the Moon was being at the time. Processed in Siril with SyQon and VeraLux scripts. I should have been using the light pollution filter under conditions like that, but I've already done all the big HII regions th...

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  My employer, Australian Astronomical Optics at Macquarie University in Sydney, are currently looking for a electronics engineer to join our electronics engineering group. If you're an EE and would like to apply your skills to design, build, test and deploy electronics for astronomical instrumentation for the world's observatories then check out the listing here: https://mq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/CareersatMQ/job/Wallumattagal-Campus-Macquarie-University/Electronics-Engineer_R000023641 Ple...

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  Do you enjoy trueing bicycle wheels? Replacing spokes? Rebuilding wheels with new rims? Good news! Soon you'll be able to attach an old fashioned wheel bender rack to the back of your car so your bicycle wheels will constantly be in need of repair! https://www.singletracks.com/mtb-gear/the-rut-rack-is-a-hitch-rack-for-hauling-bikes-with-zero-straps-or-moving-parts/ #Cycling #BikeTooter

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  As an astrophotography newbie I have to give the Siril astronomical image processing software an enormous amount of credit. Not only as a great example of free open source software that offers a genuine alternative to expensive commercial apps, but also for the quality of its documentation. There's no "just ask questions on our Discord server instead" here! There is comprehensive written documentation online and it goes well beyond listing each function, it goes into detail of whe...

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  The kid decided they wanted to 3D print a Ditto (the Pokémon) so I got them to pick a model from the usual places, then today we went to Jaycar so they could select a filament with the best colour match. There was some matte lavender PLA that looked right for a regular Ditto, but the kid wanted it to be a Shiny (but not shiny) Ditto and picked this matte ice blue PLA accordingly. The model the kid picked is actually a Ditto money box, and it's huge. I could scale it down of course, but wher...

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  The weather forecast is promising two completely clear nights in a row so I made sure to get home just as it got dark and quickly set up my telescope. I already had a plan ready for it to execute so it should now run for the rest of the night fully automatically. #Astrophotography #Seestar #SeestarS30Pro #ThirtyMillimetreTelescope #TMMT

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  I miss feeling excitement about software updates, instead of dread.

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  If you have a 3D printer that you're not using (or, better yet, several of them) and you're looking for a project, here's an Extremely Large one for you: a printable 3D model of @esoastronomy's Extremely Large Telescope, https://www.eso.org/public/products/models3d/ELT-3D-Print-model/ There are a *lot* of parts, many of which are small and intricately detailed. It would be a time consuming challenge to print and assemble, but it must be possible because there ar...

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  RE: https://ieji.de/@BlippyTheWonderSlug/116486430204781380 The Descending Darkness is simultaneously useful and ominous.

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  My t-shirt today is, sadly, inaccurate. #ShinkansenPosting #Selfie

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  One day I will check the departing T9 train times before arriving at Epping station so that I know whether there's any point in me rushing up the escalators from the deep Metro platform before I do it. Today was not that day.

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  RE: https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/116488569241651946 Denmark, are you OK?

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  I get an email that looks like this on a semi-regular basis and every. single. time. my brain goes "Oh no, there's a fire onsite! And it's dynamic!" for a moment before I remember that Dynamic Fire are some sort of fire safety related contractor.

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  RE: https://mas.to/@skeletor/116443522465639340 This was exactly what I needed. Thanks, @skeletor

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  RE: https://masto.ai/@phoronix/116455889080990188 First they came for the PCMCIA cards...

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  I made an animated GIF, but I'm going to be hard pressed to use this one as a reaction GIF.

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  The ability of suburban possums to balance perfectly on overhead wires will never not be impressive. This furry fellow just stared at me, completely motionless, while I walked up and took their picture.

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  We get them big at home too, but I reckon the golden orb weavers/tiger spiders/Trichonephila plumipes get a bit bigger up here in Brisbane. Both of these are females, but in the first photo there is also a male above the female in her web. The males are much, much smaller. #SpidersOfMastodon #SpiderPosting #Spider #Spood #Spooders

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  Took the kid to do some driving today...

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  Techbros reinvent vehicles part 85439: the Reevo ebike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPe3cY3oeu4 #BikeTooter #Cycling

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  For some reason I've started re-reading "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg. It's compelling stuff, but not exactly cheerful reading.