Duncan "Donuts" MacFarlane

Just asking for my logistics friend.

Is it a backup camera or a reversing camera?

I blame the lack of labels. And a prank by my sister on that fateful morning.

Salt doesn't go well on pancakes.

My autism forced me to work backwards, work out who I couldn't be. Sensory overwhelm rules out a lot of options, societal exclusion rules out a lot of other options. Hi, I'm 37 and I'm a pensioner.

Jessica Mauboy and myself, photographed in the stock room of Dick Smith Chadstone. 30th January, 2014

I happened to find myself in the stock room at the moment she came through and got a photo taken with her. I had no idea who she was at the time so the significance of the moment didn't really mean much.

I also met Jessica Mauboy the day before a big promotional gig between Acer and Dick Smith. I had found myself at the Chadstone store, I was in casual clothes so I don't think I was working a shift, might have been a stock transfer from/to my regular store.

I met Don Burke in Sydney airport. I was old enough to have a recognition of the man from that show but not old enough to realise that standing at a urinal is not where you greet people let alone celebrities.

Wang. I wonder if Captain Matchbox is there.

Tech YouTuber, Jeff Geerling dressed up in an "It was DNS." t-shirt that he sells on his merchandise store.

DNS faults are so common that it's even possible to get a t-shirt.

One Nation conservative politician Barnaby Joyce commented that Grace Tame's comment, "from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada"would lead to (future-tense) a situation where by" People will be, on the premise of their religion, of their race, they will be murdered."

Is this not what is already happening though? Why is Barnaby speaking in the future-tense?

How else do you get around in a society built around cars when you can't afford one and can't wait for the bus? Where are all the bicycle lanes, it seems they go in as experiments and then get stripped out again or are so dispersed and lack interconnection that there's no other choice.

Earned vs. inherited wealth, and nature vs. nurture. That's my hypothesis on how they might have turned out differently.

A clean tech company that trains its self-driving AI with gas turbines, yup, very clean

Increased law enforcement budgets are a bandaid fix for a deeply inequitable society that only serves to increase inequity, suppress voter turnout and undermine democracy.

When deaths from malnutrition are an historical footnote and food insecurity has been addressed. As long as protecting profit remains the primary motivator of political decision-making none of those issues that affect communities will be addressed.

The strongest guardrail is community itself and I'm encouraged by the anti-ICE actions that you can collectively turn it around but the fight doesn't end when the fascists are gone from office, it ends when those living on the streets are living in supportive accommodation rather than moved along.

I can say with great assurance that thanks to the institutions in place here in Australia that I am supported to vote and they exist because we have a strong turnout. Democracy will grow itself if the fundamentals are right.

... it needs to support the 35% of voters who are demographically more likely to be low income to be able to vote. Speaking as a low income worker with disabilities I can say with certainty that being spoken down to won't encourage turnout and living in poverty won't enable turnout...

... If you only enable those with assets to vote you'll primarily get policy that appeals to asset owners and leans into wealth concentration. If the party of the middle class wants to get into office on their own merits and not because they're the other party...

One Nation has proposed that only those who have worked for at least 5 years be allowed to vote. This is the same misguided idea that has shaped the democracy over there...

On the inverse, if you've got a financial advantage you'd be more incentivised to vote for the status quo even if the status quo is turning towards fascism. The fundamental issue is turnout and what underlies that is inequity.

Right, but their post-election analysis looks at those who voted, not those who didn't. And if you're low income with no job security you might pick work over voting, the shift will come when choosing to vote doesn't come with an immediate financial penalty.

There's a nickname here in Australia for those vocal right wing young men who don't seem to sway the vote much... Trust fund babies.

... but if you've got long voter lines because the polling places aren't open as long then it would need to be providing portable seating or water bottles and snacks.

More accurate numbers would come with a deeper penetration of voter turn out, the goal there needs to be enabling the 30-40% of eligible citizens that won't, don't or can't vote to turn out. And that's where I think those embellishments like the democracy sausage or the bake sale might help...

Still not sure that those numbers aren't being run through a shadowy think tank somewhere, when the right wing news orgs were telling us the same dynamics were at play here too in the last election it was the complete opposite and our Labor party increased their majority.

The same generational issues exist there and I may have read it wrong as a foreigner but my take is the push towards fascism is the conservative attempt to block that political shift before it gets a chance to take off.

New figures show Coalition's 'existential' millennial problem getting worse As Liberals prepare to fly to Canberra to hash out their net zero stance, results from the Australian Election Study suggest those under 45 have continued to drift away from the Coalition.

The dynamics of the preferential system and the compulsory voting now means they just don't have the numbers to push that agenda.

Those who have experienced the brunt of the neo-liberal experiment have a long memory and the political numbers to begin to exact change.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...