Rat Poker

Did you honestly think from my comment that I didn't know who Yoko Ono was?

I was saying that whatever noises she makes, she isn't a singer. Therefore she doesn't qualify for a mention in the "worst band or singer" category.

Is there a band called Yoko Ono? I ask, because I'm fairly sure there isn't a singer.

The problem with this is trust. If you could seamlessly migrate like this, there's nothing to stop someone faking a long post/comment on their own instance, making them look very legitimate and then migrating that account to a trusted/legitimate instance.

Then using that for spam/selling block chain etc.

People are the reason we can't have nice things.

What would be the point? Reddit doesn't make any content. They're just a platform. If they go ahead and paywall subs, those subs are going to have a tiny potential subscriber base. Therefore, they will be less attractive to post to (smaller audience, fewer upvotes etc).

About the only place I can maybe see it working is AskHistorians. And you pay the Historians to answer the questions. Which would of course reduce the amount Reddit takes from the paywall. Doesn't seem worth it, to me.

Even then, I think the Historians would rather reply in a new free sub with wider readership than take $20 for putting in three hours of work responding to something. They do it because they're passionate. Not for money.

I was a mad Opera user about 25 years ago, it was the best browser by miles at the time. One feature it had was mouse gestures. Mouse gestures and uBlock origin are the only two extensions I can't love without, but these lists never mention them so I feel like the only one who uses them.

It's hard to explain how cool and quick it is to be able to control your browser with the mouse. Open/close tabs, navigate tabs, back/forward etc. It doesn't sound useful, I'm usually a mad keyboard shortcut fiend. But with web browsing in particular, your hand is already on the mouse, scrolling.

The specific extension I use is Gesturefy, I encourage people to install it and give mouse gestures a go.

This works for us:
Step one: Keep your instance civil. No tolerance for horrible people (racists/bigots etc).
Step two: Maintain a vibrant local set of communities free from nastiness.
Step three: Let your users engage with the noise of the fediverse as much or as little as they desire.

We don't bother with telling our users who or what they can access, and don't immediately ban visitors based on their home instance. Will that scale to millions of users? Probably not. But that's a problem for future Nath - maybe.

Elle McPherson, obviously.

It's been over 20 years since I did phones, but I don't imagine it has changed that much. The "techie" callers fall into two categories: Those who actually know what they're doing and those who think they know what they're doing. The latter group are the worst of all callers. I'd rather be on the phone to an 80-year-old who has trouble finding the start menu than with a caller who thinks they know more than they actually do.

If you honestly do know what you are talking about, the way to get this to tech support is to tell them what prompted you to call. An actual competent caller will open the call with something like:

"Hi, this is Cile. I'm calling from ______. My UserID/AccountNo etc is _______. I'm having a problem with ___________. The error message is [EXACT MESSAGE]. I have done a, b, c, but that resolved it."

For your example where it's an access matter, adapt the above accordingly. Something like "I need to do ________, but I lack the access to [steps you would take if you did have access]".

Finally:
Unless you are experiencing something super weird, the tech support people have probably seen this problem before and know how to solve it. Follow their instructions even if it's something you wouldn't have done. Even if their way seems less efficient. There will be a reason why they're doing it that way, and it won't always be apparent to you.

The issue with a statement like "the population density is waaaaaay different then USA or Europe", is it shows how unfamiliar you are with the state. Yes, if you average the population over the area of the state, you'll get an absurdly low number.

But that would only make any sort of point if we are spread all over the state evenly. We are not. 2 Million of us live in Perth, which alone covers about 75% of WA's population. And within Perth, our population density is on a par with just about any other mid-sized city. Beyond Perth, about 20% of the remaining 25% are going to be in a collection of half a dozen regional towns. Again, those towns would feel fairly familiar to someone from a small town in lots of places.

The bulk of that area is nothing. Desert and rocks and the very occasional hole in the ground (mining site).

In the regions we live, we aren't that different from other places. What made us different through the pandemic is the policy of closing the border to outsiders. Most places didn't do that. As a result, we mostly lived through 2020 and 2021 without having to worry about Covid 19. A few times, a case got past quarantine, and we had a mini lockdown for a week or so until it was contained. Then, back to normal.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just Google "population Western Australia" (2.667 Million in 2020) than to dig up a misleading map that tells an incomplete picture? It's true we are not the most populous state by any means, but you don't need to be insulting with that level of hyperbole.

No matter how you spin it, our pre-Omicron Covid response was nothing short of incredible. While the world suffered, we pretty much nope'd out of the whole thing. I would not be surprised if WA becomes a pandemic response case study in future.

I do agree that the USA probably couldn't pull together enough to put something like that I to action. The USA is anything but united until someone literally invades. It's just a pity they didn't look at the pandemic in a similar light to a foreign invader.

Western Australia had Nine Covid deaths prior to 95% population vaccination. Yes, just Nine.

Then we opened our borders and let Omicron in.