In my limited experience I cannot stress enough how much I prefer small regional airports.

Walk in, bags checked and through security in 5 minutes, walk a short distance through an area that’s not crowded and not full of shops, and be seated near the gate with a coffee a few minutes later. After a short wait, because you don’t need to get there an hour or more early, walk across a bit of open tarmac to a plane that’s not bursting at the seams, then take off after hardly any taxiing. So good.

In two different companies I’ve seen people refer to “the database” when they actually mean a spreadsheet. That’s not just a terminology mixup, these things were super complex, with pseudo-relational tables, lookups, links to other files etc. The sort of thing that should be in an actual database, that has less chance of breaking in obscure ways when someone inserts a row or types a value over a formula. It was actually pretty impressive, in an “impending doom at any moment” kind of way.

Also had one where there was a spreadsheet of everyone in the business top to bottom, shared by HR and IT. Both groups needed a list of staff, so why not just keep one, right? This thing had personal details like home address and medical conditions, plus things like salary (inc garnishments), performance management notes etc, as well as of course their username and password (which was assigned to them and they couldn’t change) and security questions and answers. It didn’t even have a password on the file. I noped tf out of that place as quickly as I could, but for reasons even worse than that stupid spreadsheet.

Wish that was the case in AU, ours is paid upfront in a lump sum and is non-refundable. If you refinance above 80% you pay it again, in full, upfront. If you pay the loan down to below 80%, doesn’t matter, no prorata refund. It’s 20-30k down the toilet, just in LMI. That’s on top of the 50-80k in stamp duty also pissed away :(

To make it worse, many add the LMI to their mortgage, so they pay interest on the higher balance. It’s also a deterrent for people to refinance while they’re within that 80+% LVR bracket, so shopping for a better deal is mostly pointless. Banks aren’t just disinterested in pushing for a better deal, they’re actively incentivised against it.

Walt Disney

Yeah I’m sort of in the market for a new car (tossing up between some relatively exxy repairs vs putting that money toward something new) and am struggling to find one I’m happy with.

Between the anti privacy bs, having to go into menus for basic functionality (which in turn makes the screen a single point of failure for like 90% of functions), subscriptions for things that shouldn’t be, simple maintenance requiring a trained engineer to plug in a bespoke tool so no home or independent repairs, etc etc I just feel like I’d be signing up to be milked dry. Not to mention prices have gone silly.

I hate where things have gone, nobody seems interested in simply making a good product and selling it for a fair price any more.

Suspect you might be looking for meaning where there is none. Looks like standard “let’s make an in-joke” stuff to me

My app doesn’t support spoilers so I don’t know if this has worked. Maybe collapse this comment if you don’t want to see it, just in case.

Edit: fixed maybe? Thanks @Zagorath@aussie.zone

I’ve not tried them but you can get replacement pads which apparently have a cooling gel in them. Eg these.

No idea if they’re any good but would be interested in hearing from someone with first-hand experience.

Sounds like someone is full of shit