Did I buy old cheese that's been relabeled to look fresher? The first label says "best before 17 August", next one "best before 18 August", and finally "best before 01 September".

Bracing for a vigorous correction here, but when did people stop lining up parallel to a bar for a drink and start forming a queue like you’re at the post office?
Just rolled up to a bar (at a resort, to be fair, where the rules of everything seem to be homogenised for an international market), picked up the drinks menu and was looking at the taps when the bartender asked what I was after. I ordered a pint and was asked if I was “in the line”.
I turned around and realised there was a queue of people I hadn’t noticed, all looking at me like I’d just wandered in from another planet for walking up to the bar.
It seems to be becoming more and more common, and it got us talking afterwards about whether it’s partly a generational/cultural change in how bars are managed. Are modern bars just deliberately organising things this way because it’s easier to keep track of orders?
Because in my head, a good bartender can be pulling one beer, asking the next person what they’re having, giving the person behind them a quick “you’re after them” nod, and generally keeping track of who’s waiting without needing everyone to form a single-file queue.
Or is it simply that customers have changed too, and people now prefer knowing they’ll be served strictly in arrival order rather than accepting the slightly chaotic but more natural flow of a busy bar?
Genuinely curious what the consensus is — especially from bartenders.

Helping my (slightly hoarder) dad clean out his house and found this in a November 2012 edition of The Advertiser.

I haven’t actually compared them to prices today yet or done the calculations to adjust for inflation/price gouging.

Australian Magpie - Gymnorhina tibicen - Scenic Rim, SEQ
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Apparently we're considering a digital duty of care law to be imposed on social media platforms, which may incorporate a proposal to "fix our feeds" by forcing platforms to offer chronological feeds. Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek is apparently open to the proposal.

SBS's Miles Proust also considers parallels to the EU's 2023 Digital Services Act, which forced platforms to offer at least one non-personalised recommendation feed, and he quotes a QUT professor of computational communication's comments on the same, in which Prof. Wikström said:

>[…] *at the end of the day, when we're sitting there and scrolling, we like it.*

>*People still stick to the personalised platform because it is there for a reason. It's tuned perfectly to our brains and to make us stay as long as possible on the platform, and it's hard to escape.*

Proust notes that the eSafety Commission's research backs this up, finding that merely offering less harmful (and less engaging) feeds leaves most users staying on or going back to the personalised ones.

Proust also summarises recent developments in Denmark, where Meta was sued for making the non-personalised feed hard to find, revert to personalised when you open the app, and generally suck; and also in America where Meta made a USD 18 billion dollar settlement, which also included bringing in "*measures affecting young users* [safety,] *such as limits on daily use, restrictions on notifications during school hours, and measures intended to restrict access to age-inappropriate content.*"

Australia has almost caught up to Europe on unfair trading laws with the recent passage of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act. From next July, tricking consumers through confusing interfaces, locking them into inescapable subscriptions, or exploiting cognitive biases to empty their wallets will break the law.

The Act amends the Australian Consumer Law through a two-part test. Conduct is banned if it manipulates consumers or distorts decision-making and causes, or is likely to cause, financial or psychological detriment. Actual harm need not be proved; likely harm suffices.

The explanatory memorandum targets countdown timers on deals that never expire, subscription cancellations engineered to exhaust consumers, charges sneaked in at checkout, and interfaces designed so the business-favourable option is impossible to miss. The OECD calls these ‘dark commercial patterns’. They are engineered, not accidental.

Hi r/australia,

I’ve fostered 9 cats through rescue now, and luckily, all 9 have found homes. A few were even adopted by people who found them through Reddit, which I’m very grateful for.

Fostering has also made me think a lot more about the bigger cat problem we have in Australia.

We’re pretty good at saying “adopt, don’t shop” and “desex your pets”, but I don’t think we talk enough about why rescues are constantly overflowing with cats.

It can start with something as simple as one cat not being desexed. Then there are kittens, then those kittens have kittens, and suddenly there’s a whole colony.

I’ve even changed my mind about feeding strays. I understand why people do it. But if we're going to feed community cats, we also need to think about desexing them. Otherwise, we may just be keeping the cycle going, and doing more harm than good.

I also get why people are uncomfortable with shelters where euthanasia sometimes happens.

Nobody wants to see that. But I also don't think it's fair to put the blame entirely on shelters. They’re working with limited space, money, staff, vets and foster carers, while the number of animals needing help keeps coming in.

There simply aren't enough homes for every cat that can be born.

So while adopting and fostering are incredibly important, preventing unwanted litters is just as important, probably more so in the long run.

Desex your cats. Microchip them. Keep them safely contained. If you’re feeding a stray, look into getting them desexed too.

I’ll happily keep fostering when I can, but ideally, one day, there won’t be quite so many cats who need me to.

Does your council have any regulations in desexing cats or managing cat colonies?

Now, anyone who gardens somewhat seriously and uses potting mix has been familiar with the ppe requirements for decades. Wear gloves and a mask when using it. Heck, my mum had us doing this three decades ago. It's right there on the sack. If you bother to read it.

But some boomer got very sick from it apparently. And I feel for them. Almost dying isn't fun. I'm glad they're okay now.

But holy crap. Dedicating twelve minutes of prime time television to tell a story about someone who can't read instructions, so gets sick from not reading instructions, going on to say there needs to be better instructions for other thick people who still don't read those instructions anyway, then blame everyone else for their own stupidity....

Great to see some things haven't changed in this world.

These are the big issues.

"Many bacteria and fungi that can cause infections in people live in soil and water. So it’s not surprising that potting mix can also have in it bacteria and fungi that may on occasion cause harm to people, and in rare cases even kill them. But it’s important to note that, overall, the risk is very low."

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