Here in Australia you don't have to collect GST if you gross less than $80kpa. You still have to pay it on all goods and services regardless of your income - except those goods and services that are exempt. Transport is not exempt (not considered essential - like tampons).

I guess the question is whether Uber is "collecting" the money - or the driver. (sorry not lunching with the ATO crowd today - so consider that unauthoritative).

Is there a difference between what a gambler calls a "useful advantage" and what statistician calls one?

I know a couple of professional poker players - they reckon the "house" has as 5.5% advantage, and are pretty pleased with any system that gives them a 2% advantage.

• 2. ACCC? Aren't they the mob that reckoned Andrew Forrest's (Fortescue) plan to "cap iron ore prices" wasn't "acting as a cartel"? (even though it turned out to actually be the case). About as much chance as ACMA ignoring the Packer funded Christian nutjobs plans for internet filtering (that just happens to block overseas digital casinos) and their directors leaving for jobs with Salmat (quit pretending to police spam and get more money distributing junk mail).
• 3. You mean like - implement the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications recommendations? Not. Going. To. Happen. Don't forget we need to finance a war. Well several wars actually. And then there's the wars we're not officially in - yet (coughAfricacoughIrancough). Long live perpetual war. Blessed is the USA for they lead us to a partnership of peace and prosperity (and lower domestic petroleum prices).

If you charge to drive someone somewhere GST applies. No special case for Uber. Source: ATO Canberra.

blah, blah, piss, piss, diss, diss.

Linux worked, Linux still works. You can and could submit changes and they would either be accepted or rejected. They are the reasons Linux is successful. Sure the piss on the furniture posters can point to obscure kernels that theoretically are "better" - but, ironically, they miss the point - it is the most widely used kernel. So all the reasons other kernels are "better", are wrong.

Pointing to timing is like claiming that Google, eBay, Ffffacebook, and Amazon all succeeded because they were a better idea, or just the right timing - which is also bullshit or other good ideas wouldn't have failed. They all succeeded because they were "good" (not best) ideas, the timing wasn't terrible, and the projects controlled the engines that drove the projects (Open Source). Same reason Linux the kernel and various userlands, that bum weasels conflate as the same thing, succeeds. Google, IBM, and others "get it" (why re-invent the wheel when long-term support and testing are by far the biggest part of development costs?).

Damn! I and I've got mod points to burn but can't mod this story. Someone please mod this up.

[mutter, mutter] Where's the tag for good science overlooked because it's not sexy.

Agreed. It's a sad state of affairs when an anonymous coward makes more intelligent comments than posters with an account. If some breeds of dog can reliably detect distant earthquakes why the fuck would thousands of dogs be required for a warning system? And even if that was a requirement - there are already thousands of dogs. (sigh).

I made the comment about dogs in partial jest. I was kind of hoping someone would post to a serious study about the ability of animals to detect P waves. Noted that P waves don't travel far: but it's unlikely they don't also create other effects (acoustic, electrical); they match the warning period. I've also heard anecdotes that high frequency noises produced by rock particles sliding over each other during the early compression stages may precede the events that cause P waves.

I've seen some bad studies that make the presumption that all dogs have the same hearing abilities and reactions to certain frequencies (the worst are the lost dog "statistics") - but none that would likely produce useful results. It did occur to me that there's (possibly?) no money in an earthquake detection system based on animals - thought there may be something to the considerable body of anecdotal evidence.

Where I live there is an artillery firing range nearby - my dog would always, reliably, indicate a mortar explosion a few seconds before I felt it through the floor. but not in the same manner as an earthquake. She'd jump on my lap and try and burrow under my jumper. The shaking, eye-bulging and hair raising on the ridge of her back was the same as when an earthquake (hundreds of miles away) would occur - but when earthquakes were about to happen she wouldn't jump up and she would frantically try and drag me (grab trouser leg with teeth and drag towards door) outside. I suspect she wasn't unique and other owners of Jack Russells on nearby properties reported the same behavior.

Given the number of earthquakes and degree of damage they do I'm surprised no one seems to have done a serious study. I wouldn't consider my experience a serious study - though I always took it seriously (zero false alarms). Reasons she may not of been able to detect earthquakes: perhaps she thought is was a really big mortar and had some ability to detect an electrical effect (no hair on her belly), or sound that warned of an imminent explosion (detonators? some of the bangs are just buried plastique, not mortars) ; human bias meant I just don't remember false alarms; other faults I can't think of.

• She wasn't a stupid dog
• Repeating jokes don't make you as witty as the original any more than quoting wisdom makes you wise. Did I mention she wasn't a stupid dog?

Don't take that the wrong way.

And they give more than 10 seconds warning. My Jack Russell cross (with Fox Terrier) had distinctive behavior that announced earthquakes. A minute - a minute and a half before quakes she'd act like it was a bad thunderstorm (try and hide under me). About 20 seconds before hand she'd start barking furiously with a mohawk-type ridge of hair standing up along her spine and try and drag me outside, once outside she'd go back to trying to hide under me. Others have reported the same reaction with Jack Russells

It took a while before we associated the behavior with earthquakes that were often too small or distant for us to notice.

Not all dogs will reliably detect earthquakes but Jack Russells seem to be very sensitive (they can't stand to be near wood fires or in the same room as an audio recording of one either) - possibly because either/or they are a "below ground dog" (love going down burrows); are "ratters" (have the hearing to listen to rodents).

No answer to why I wouldn't just read /run/systemd/journal? NOTE: another strawman corner case is not an answer - it's just dodging a question.

For the output of mount I'd just replace moron with the name of the relevant unit I want output from.

Do you have any evidence that systemd lies?

You made a claim that systemd would give no information if /var didn't mount - I demonstrate that it does and you respond with more claims. That, by definition, is dodgy. My experience is that when a kernel build fails I still get information about the failure - likewise broken initrds. Maybe you should supply some actual evidence? Confirmation bias much? You do know what evidence is right? e.g. the sort of things you'd put in a useful bug report. Until you base your claims/"concerns" on such I'm going to go with the evidence to date, despite trying to find support for the presumption of your good intentions - that you're full of shit.

Facts are good - hand wavy "concerns" not so much. And don't let the conflating "default" with "no choice" cloud your perfectly rational objections.

Maybe you don't understand choices? Debian allows you to install many desktops - or none. Feel free to set your standards by the lowest common denominator (masses has a silent m?). But not every Debian user calls continuously hitting Enter an install. Even point and click retards can choose a different desktop from the gui installer menu - so why do you pretend default is something forced on you?

Debian - the Universal operating system.

The word you use, think, doesn't mean what you believe it means.

Oh? Why wouldn't I just read /run/systemd/journal instead?

[unplugs disk that /var is mounted on and starts box]
var.mount mount process exited, code=exited status=32
hmmm, no information on what went wrong?

journalctl -u moron
It seems you are correct. I do apologise (unless I got the unit wrong...).

Please continue posting your informative advice.

P.S. Weren't you the genius who wondered why "we" don't know what happened before time and space began? Where do I sign up for your newsletter?

Linux is dead. Someone said udev would kill it, and they were right. Oh wait...

If only systemd did logging. If only sad anonymous arseclowns had someway of finding answers for themselves.

Pretend you're an arseclown and can't use the links on an entry page for a company, to find out about a company. Oh wait - you don't have to pretend.

In todays tech news someone from a tech company died. In arseclown news yet another arseclown couldn't find arseclown.org so trolled as anonymous coward on slashdot instead. When interviewed the arseclown said "I hate tech, it's full of smart people who make me feel stupid, when I'm not busy pissing on people's furniture I like to troll on /. and talk about my genitals, the shrink says it makes me feel less (rightfully) socially marginalized"