gravelc

The fact the incident occurred in June and OpenAI only notified the Australian government on September 10 is a major issue. Hacking a nation-state's universal healthcare system is about as serious as it gets, yet OpenAI seem quite relaxed about the whole thing (presuming they have known about it for some time).

I've been on a GloBird plan with 3 free hours for a while. Works out very well as I have a 20 KWH battery and solar. Costs about $15 a month to run the house inc. cooking, heating/cooling, hot water, and charging my PHEV. To make the best of these sorts of plans you need to be home during that period and/or have a decent battery/inverter.

Tried this to see how it goes in my particular field - computational design of RNAi-based biopesticides. One-shotted a design for targeting the DvSnf7 transcript of western corn rootworm. It took a fairly naive approach (maybe how a 1st year PhD student would go about it), but got the job done. Also noted caveats with its approach (e.g. using mammalian design rules, limited off-target screening). Not bad really. But also not great. When its flaws were pointed out, the AI determined that it could have taken a more informed approach. Then Opus 4.8's safety system flagged the session.

The 'Ask Reason for Calling' iPhone feature has completely eliminated scam calls for me. Real callers not in contacts leave a short message and I pick it up. Best iOS feature from the last few years IMO.

BYD only entered the Australian car market in 2022.

They are now the 2nd biggest seller after Toyota (https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/insight/byd-overtakes-rivals-...).

They are also priced much lower than KIA and Tesla.

FWIW I now own a GWM Cannon Αlpha PHEV pickup. Have also owned a Jeep Wrangler - the tech, build quality and reliability is not even on the same planet.

I can't imagine how the US manufacturers would compete with the Chinese ones on a level playing field. Not from the US, but it's hard to see how any administration would allow that. Would be the end of the local industry.

Banned in Australia (or at least in most states).

https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/are-mobile-billboards-leg...

Pesticides form the backbone of crop protection. Without them, we're looking at at least a 40% reduction in global yield, and much greater uncertainty in food supply chains (the oil shocks show how bad that can be). Pesticides per se are not the problem; synthetic broad-spectrum pesticides with many unintended effects are. They're often toxic to people and ecosystems, and resistance among pests and pathogens is increasing anyway, so their days are numbered to a degree. Biopesticides, which are generally safer and much more sustainable, offer a real solution to at least the safety issue.

I work on RNAi-based biopesticides (sprayed dsRNA) - non-GM, doesn't impact beneficial species, doesn't hang around in the environment, etc. Already ubiquitous in nature (and part of our diet). Peptide-based biopesticides are another approach that is going well. Both approaches are now commercialised by smaller players (e.g. for varroa mite control in bee hives by GreenLight), and not by the Bayer, Syngenta types.

Australia is 'winning' even more based on the graph:

https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=36&type=Probabilist...

Housing is very expensive, but inflation is largely tamed, unemployment is low, and the government is running surpluses - so things aren't terrible (despite what the Murdoch media say). Birth rates are falling, but I'm not sure how much that really matters given immigration.

I had a Merida Magnesium 909 road bike back in the day. They were common in Australia. Was (wrongly) convinced magnesium was going to overtake carbon. Never had any issues in 10 years of ownership and a lot of kms. Welds looked shocking and it was very rigid and unforgiving though.

Surprised Australia isn't much higher given the incidence of melanoma.

Exactly what I was going to write. Why not at least demo the AVP before writing a whole article?

Some fungi require dead organic matter for survival - necrotrophs. Many dont (e.g. yeast)

Sceptical of this. Where did that number come from? What's the uncertainty? Yes, it's an extremely unlikely event, but unlikely events happen all the time. There's just as good an argument that given the advantages conferred by the union, it's bound to be successful given enough iterations.

It's common enough in sheep grazing areas.

I grew up in Australia with mutton making up 90% of my meat intake, as we slaughtered our own merino wethers (so not the breeds of lamb raised for eating).

The local butchers would also have a decent stock of different cuts, particularly things like neck chops for stews. Numbers of sheep around are lower now, so that may have limited things a little.

I also think hogget is equally as or more common than lamb in city butchers. Some of those chops are huge and have a nice tang.

As usual, the manuscript itself is a bit more discrete than the press release, but this sentence in the conclusion shows the potential benefits - scalable and practical resetting of somatic stem cells, which has been a barrier in translation to actual therapies:

- "Our work shows that TNT reprogramming is a practical and scalable approach to overcome these intrinsic characteristics of hiPS cells, which is important for the clinical delivery of this technology."

Game of the Year for me if it holds up in the latter stages. Playing it with my son on split screen. Hopefully will give him some good memories.

It's deep, but not too complicated that the learning curve is too much if you're time poor. Lots of hard choices to be made, which is always good in a decent RPG.

I'd be surprised if anyone in any large scale sport ever dominated like Bradman or will be as dominant in the future. He missed part of the prime of his career due to WW2, so who knows what could have happened if he'd avoided the interruption.

He's probably not as well known as someone like Gretzky in North America, so his name wouldn't immediately spring to mind on forums like this. In cricket, there just isn't any debate about the greatest - the only area of interest is about who comes next (Viv Richards or Brian Lara in my opinion)

I love simple generative approaches to get ideas, and go from there. This seems like an extension of that (well, it's what I'm going to try - sample the output, make stems, pull MIDI etc). Will make the creative process more interesting for me, not less.

Having said that, it's not my job, and I can see where the issues lay there.

Well that’s beer and bread off then menu.

Fungi are like plants. Some are beneficial. Some are not.

You can't present it as computer science concepts because it's not computer science.

For example, the central dogma of DNA transcribed to RNA translated to protein seems simple, but it's not.

In almost every instance, there are vague 'rules' and many many exceptions to these rules. For example, often coding regions in genes start with an ATG, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes splice sites (where the non-coding parts of transcripts called introns are chopped out) can be predicted, but a portion of the transcripts are not spliced at predicted sites for no obvious reason. Sometimes the predictions are just wrong. Sometimes the generated proteins are modified at specific locations which impacts their function, but again, sometimes not. Even whether the gene itself is 'switched on' (i.e. able to be transcribed) is impacted by many many things, such as unidentified transcription factors, or whether the chromosomal location itself is accessible or not. There are many many other things that impact the process.

There is no simple underlying concept as the system is not designed, it evolved and is quite different among different organisms, and even in different tissues or timepoints in the same organism. As long as it works and provides enough benefit to avoid negative selection, that's enough.

It's a mess, which makes it interesting.

This is indeed a far better resource.

Who knew complex large polyploid genome assembly (i.e. sugar cane) was just a matter of python scripting?

Don't want to be too disparaging, but this to me doesn't seem to be an 'Introduction to Genomics', but more an introduction to read mapping and variant detection in human (or more broadly diploid) genomes.

Genomics stretches vastly beyond this - assembly and annotation to start with.

I'd argue the most interesting problem space for software engineers is outside of what is covered in the document.

My absolute favourite wine in the world is less than AU$30 a bottle - every vintage is spectacular. The winemaker wants ordinary people to drink his wines, so this is the price he sets. They are accordingly very difficult to buy - cellar door opens for just 2 weekends a year and supply is very limited. I’d back virtually anyone who likes this style to genuinely enjoy it, without knowing anything about its provenance.

I’ve tasted wines 10x or 20x the price, and they really are no better. They likely cost exactly the same to make, but their price is impacted by demand.

In general, I think most people can tell a $10 bottle from a $30 bottle. I suspect very very few could reliably pick a $300 bottle from a $30 bottle.

Circumstances change - super super glad I got my booster.

When I got it, I was a healthy, fit person without any of the comorbidities that go along with COVID.

Last week I had a mountain biking accident and broke half my ribs and punctured a lung. Then I got COVID in hospital. Fortunately it was quite mild, and even that was a bit of a nightmare as coughing was hell and I had quite low blood oxygen.

Given the risks of a booster are so low (though non-zero) and the risk that your health can change before you manage to contract COVID, it seems like the smart proposition to me to get the booster.

Australia has no local car manufacturers and hasn't for some time. Toyota is by far the biggest car seller , followed by Mazda and Hyundai.

https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/vfacts-australias-2021...

Tesla seem to have sold 12,094 locally last year, putting them at 18th on that list.

https://www.carsguide.com.au/ev/advice/how-many-teslas-are-t...

Australia with its long drives if you leave a city and lack of infrastructure doesn't suit electric cars at the moment. Will change eventually, but likely lagging the rest of the world.

Australian

Been on the β for a while; it’s a good OS. Particularly like the ability to use the iPhone as a Zoom cam. 3D printed a phone mount and everything works pretty seamlessly. Lock Screen widgets are nice too.

Stage manager on iPadOS doesn’t do it for me though.

Reference please.

This says 10.2% as of 2020 : https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/health-welfare-expenditure/h...

I currently have a Toyota hybrid that is slowly reverting to an ICE-only after 8 years of ownership. Unless there's some mechanism in place to prolong the life of electric cars beyond the limits of their battery, I can see there'll be a lot of holdouts (young people, less well off etc.).

Regulation in the big markets such as the US and Europe to enforce a cost-effective approach to battery replacement seems essential to me. Otherwise, design will go the way of ever slimmer phones.