For Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered submarine fleet there is, at present, nowhere for that radioactive spent fuel to go. As a non-nuclear country – and a party to the non-proliferation treaty – Australia has no history of, and no capacity for, managing high-level nuclear waste.

But Australia is not alone: there is no operational site anywhere on Earth for the permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste.

Documents released under freedom of information laws show that, beginning in the 2050s, each of Australia’s decommissioned Aukus submarines will generate both intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste: a reactor compartment and components “roughly the size of a four-wheel drive”; and spent nuclear fuel “roughly the size of a small hatchback”.

The Australian Submarine Agency says the exact amount of high-level waste Australia will be responsible for is “classified”.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/23487548

The Coriolis Effect is definitely real. It drives ocean currents and weather patterns. But does it make toilets flush and tubs drain the opposite direction when you cross the equator? No.

Let me lay some science on you. And if that doesn't convince you, I'm the Toilet Guru and I have experienced toilet flushes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. I can report that flush direction is a random mix everywhere. Keep reading for the details and pictures.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/23487304

Teasing the public with fraudulent or self-deluded promises of aliens used to mean something. It took work. It meant slapping together ropes and planks of wood and trampling miles of barley in the dead of night, hundreds of times, over 13 years. It meant riveting 1/8th sheet steel into a 3 m-high monolith and depositing it in the Utah desert. Even theoretical works used to require huge leaps of logic and real effort: to turn 1I/’Oumuamua — a building-sized chunk of nitrogen ice — into a defunct solar sail from a network of interstellar buoys emplaced by a Galaxy-spanning civilization, or to misinterpret common seafloor iron-rich spherules as “steel-titanium alloys” likely from an “alien gadget”. In contrast, the latest release from Avi Loeb and collaborators — that maybe the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is alien technology — feels phoned in, like they’re just going through the motions. Where, I ask, is the dedication to the craft?

Finally, in the 1980s, Australians stopped taking their linguistic cues from Britain. With the publication of the Macquarie Dictionary in 1981 and the Australian National Dictionary in 1988, the language found its local voice.

However, these works differ in how they approach Australian English. The Macquarie Dictionary describes the spelling, pronunciation and definitions of English words as they are used in Australia.

The Australian National Dictionary (AND) grounds our words, and their meanings, in their historical and cultural contexts. The AND tells us where words have come from, when they were first used and how their meanings have changed over time. In short, the AND is a living, breathing and evolving record of how language is wrapped up in who we are as Australians.

From Wikipedia:

The Florida Project is a 2017 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Sean Baker, written by Baker and Chris Bergoch, and starring Bria Vinaite in her film debut, Brooklynn Prince, and Willem Dafoe, with Valeria Cotto, Christopher Rivera, and Caleb Landry Jones in supporting roles. It was many of the cast members' first film appearance. The slice of life plot focuses on the summertime adventures of a six-year-old girl who lives with her unemployed single mother in a budget motel in Kissimmee, Florida.

An Australian legal group says it is preparing a formal criminal complaint to the federal police seeking investigations into Australians serving with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for any potential offences committed.

The Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) contacted the government in early June, requesting it issue warnings to the Australian public about the risks for Australians fighting for the IDF.

...

Lara Khider, acting executive director of ACIJ, told SBS News: "We are currently monitoring at least 20 individuals who are serving or have served in the Israeli military, and are preparing criminal complaints to the AFP [Australian Federal Police] seeking investigations into potential offences against the Commonwealth."

Translated from Wikipedia using Firefox's inbuilt translation tool:

The metropolitan couple Stine and Teit and their little son Nemo leave the hamster wheel and move off-the-grid in the Swedish countryside. Cut off from civilization, they hope to rediscover the love of nature and each other, all the while documenting their new sustainable lifestyle in a podcast series.

One day, Nemo gets away in the forest, and their newfound paradise transforms with one time into a prison; repressed anger and own needs come to life, forcing them to confront their own egos.

Fire time I've heard the phrase 'leave the hamster wheel'.

Film was cool, kinda spooky, kinda thrilling, sometimes funny, sometimes obnoxious even.

From a review in Variety:

Three generations of a village tofu-making dynasty gather for different rituals throughout the changing seasons in Oh Jung-min's funny, sad, humane portrait of domestic triumph and tragedy.

To ensure compliance with upcoming Australian government regulations, Chinwag services qualifying as “social media” will have a minimum age restriction of 18 years for account holders, going forward. A verification process may be required for new accounts on creation, or retroactively for existing accounts if flagged. We will be working with a number of third-party age verification partners to implement our processes, many of whom have been operating in this space for a very long time.

If your account with a Chinwag service is flagged for verification, we are going to need you to bring us a bottle of gin (henceforth referred to as a “verification token” or “token”).

As the supply and sale of alcohol in Australia is well regulated and familiar to most citizens, we expect that this will pose a minimum of technical challenge to our users. Any of our age verification partners (such as Dan Murphy’s) will be more than capable of validating any person as over the age of 18 years and should have a readily available supply of verification tokens acceptable to Chinwag Communications, the possession of which will be considered as evidence that the account holder is a legal adult.

Pro-Palestine protesters will be legally protected while marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday after a New South Wales supreme court decision.

The bridge is expected to be closed for about five hours, from 11.30am, and additional police are being mobilised to observe a march that could include up to 50,000 people.

In her judgment, Justice Belinda Rigg said “the march at this location is motivated by the belief that the horror and urgency of the situation in Gaza demands an urgent and extraordinary response from the people of the world”.

“The evidence indicates there is significant support for the march.”

50,000 seems a bit on the small side for a Sydney Harbour Bridge march. Hopefully there will be many many more than that.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/23256164

Expect major delays and disruptions across Sydney's road and public transport network on Sunday 3 August.

A public assembly across the Sydney Harbour Bridge will result in the closure of north and southbound lanes of traffic from around 11.30am to around 4pm, but may be later.

For more information see the news story.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/23249308