nods Lady, of Gaga.

Fun fact: in the rest of the world it’s just called “licorice”. No black. That red stuff isn’t licorice at all.

Fun fact: Lady Gaga chose that name because of that song.

You can tell it’s made up because it has “it’s said that” in it.

Looks like one of these babies

Wow, haven’t seen a roflcopter in a long time.

They have played us for absolute fools.

It’s one word, all lower case, four words, all upper case.

We’re way ahead of you mate, all tobacco advertising was banned in Australia 30 years ago. Plain packaging is just the latest in a long line of moves designed to de-normalise smoking, and the tobacco companies have fought against it every step of the way.

I literally just googled “cigarette plain packaging effectiveness” and there’s tons of articles analysing it and they all conclude that it has made a difference 🤷🏼‍♂️

It’s more subtle than that. Obviously no one who already smokes is going to say “Oh, the packet isn’t as pretty as it used to be, guess I’ll quit smoking now.”

It’s about the big, long-term picture. Companies spend money on branding and advertising because it works. You create the perception that your product is for a certain type of person, which makes them more inclined to buy it. By making cigarettes boring, you make them less appealing, and on average less people will smoke.

The proof is in the pudding. Social attitudes to smoking in Australia have totally flipped within a generation or two. It used to be something that everyone did. It’s now mostly seen as a gross habit.

Great comment. We have the same thing here in Australia with tobacco laws. The most recent change was to ban almost all branding on cigarette packaging. They’re not allowed to use fonts, slogans, logos, or colours, just the brand name in plain text on a standard brown-green box.

The logic being that branding makes a product more attractive to a consumer. Make it duller and less people will buy it.

Tobacco companies fought it tooth and nail. Kept arguing it wouldn’t stop people from smoking. Well then why are you lobbying so hard against it? Obviously the only reason they will ever fight anything is because they think it will hurt their revenue. So whatever they oppose, I support.

What you said is often true but not always. Some communities prefer person-first language, some prefer identity first language.

For example, generally speaking, “autistic people” is preferred over “people with autism”. The reasoning being “this is just part of who I am, it’s not an affliction that I have.”

I’m not autistic but I have lots of friends who are, and they all prefer to say “I’m autistic” rather than “I have autism”.

Like you said, it’s best to ask, or just copy the language that the person uses for themself.

Definitely, I don’t really like Ubuntu that much even though it’s my go-to. What I like is Xfce. Whether I get it via xubuntu or something else I don’t really care.

I’m not sure about that. Even wealthy countries can have water problems in times of drought. I grew up during the Millennium Drought in Australia, we had major water restrictions and major campaigns to try to get people to do things like take shorter showers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought

And that’s in a wealthy nation with well-developed infrastructure. Countless places around the world have neither of those, and I’m sure lots of people in those places would love the luxury of a long shower without wasting water.

My understanding was that most road rules are state-based, not federal.

I’m any case, I’m 100% certain that in Victoria, you can ways chuck a uey unless a sign prohibits it. Doesn’t matter if there are traffic lights or not.

It’s definitely something we have to be mindful of when driving interstate! I think a lot of Vic drivers on holidays get done for illegal U turns.

I’m pretty sure you don’t have to signal when exiting a roundabout in Victoria. We might be the outlier though. In Vic it’s also legal to U turn anywhere, unless a sign specifically prohibits it.

You misunderstand. Larian is the company that made the BG3 video game, and they haven’t laid people off.

However it’s a licensed game. Baldur’s Gate and D&D are IPs that are owned by a company called Wizards of Coast. And Wizards is owned by Hasbro. Hasbro is forcing layoffs at Wizards, specifically on the D&D team because it doesn’t print money as efficiently as say, Magic the Gathering does.

The people at Wizards, i.e the people who actually make D&D are no doubt passionate wonderful people. But Hasbro (and probably some of the Wizards management) are awful corporate parasites determined to suck every last penny from their properties.

They don’t give a shit how loved a product is, if it’s not making $100M per year then it’s basically worthless to them and they won’t fund it. So layoffs happen.

• me, complaining about the Acceptable Use Policy I had to sign at work.