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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 29th, 2024

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  • It’s certainly already made it worse. And I have been knocking back a lot of papers that at first look sound amazing but on deeper reading say nothing of value. The common trend now is to make a paper sound like you have done the experiment when actually it was just a thought experiment or simulation. I have seen theory papers with diagrams you would expect from an experimental students PhD thesis.

    It’s having a terrible impact on the review process. I have been getting clearly LLM responses from reviewers for manuscripts, emdashes and flowery language all over the place but saying nothing of value. Which sucks because decent reviewers are often a big help when progressing research.

    But the bigger issue is that in general I think the review system is overwhelmed. I recently got a single line reviewer response for a manuscript submitted to Optics express, a journal I would have considered above such issues in the past. The quality of review is in freefall right now.

    I have talked to colleges around the country that feel the same way. I don’t think the existing system will continue in the old way much longer. At this point, youa re almost better off putting a groundbreaking discovery straight on the arXiv and just skipping the peer review process. It is basically just a waste of time now, and only still exists as a gatekeeping step into prestigious journals. I also look at younger researches with high h indexes suspiciously. How much time did you spend gaming the paper system as opposed to actually doing useful research that takes time but generates less papers?


  • I actually think we have excellent gun laws and I expect the net effect of the upcoming changes will largely be positive as well.

    However strongly disagree that just because the designer of the car wasn’t thinking it would be used to kill things, makes the car less dangerous than it is. I honestly wish people treated cars with a much closer attitude to firearms, a machine with potential to do incredible damage and harm if used incorrectly.

    I do wonder what the outcome would have been if the Bondi terrorists had used cars instead of firearms. Probably a lot of sadness, a few bollards and a political, “guess there is nothing we can do about this”.








  • Swiss institution author that only mentioned a single Australian study. And their main argument is that the animals that cats kill could be breeding faster than the cats are killing them. Hence it’s not a problem.

    It’s a fair point if we are talking about rats or noisy minors. It’s not a valid argument if we consider any form of endangered species, of which Aus has many.


  • I like the idea of a case by case assessment. I feel like they should have already been doing this in the background and questioning people with sus armouries.

    But I strongly disagree with the removal of the class system. I know it will get abused and some yahoo will successfully argue they need a semi auto rifle for some stupid reason and get it without having to go through the current class C license requirements.

    Our class system is very effective and shouldn’t be watered down because of this.

    Edit: basically, in the list of tools, keep the classes, they are very good but might need some updating to put more in class C.



  • It is true that after he was disarmed he went and got another gun. The gun number argument feels like an ineffective bandaid though.

    Is the collector with 20+ break action shotguns that are all over 60 years old and enjoys showing them off at the trap range is a worry, almost certainly not.

    What about some random guy with two very similar straight pull shotguns that can easily be modified to a higher capacity mag. And who just put in an application for their 3rd and 4th very similar guns (within say a hypothetical 4 gun limit).

    I would hope that the second person gets a much closer look over than the first. This is where an electronic national register and the resources to have closer individual scrutiny would be far more effective.



  • I would like to see some reform from this.

    I would very much like to see the national electronic register implanted fast and effectively along with nationally consistent laws. The current paper form system here in the ACT feels very outdated and I’m sure that the information transfer is slow and difficult.

    I would also like to see them change straight pull action rifles and shotguns to class C. I think there is a good argument for Adler style lever action shotguns to be class C as well. I feel like the legislation has not kept up here and the fire rate of these guns is a bit too high.

    I’m not against the citizen only limitation (noting it won’t affect me) but I’m not sure if excluding permanent residents will have any significant impact.

    In terms of number limits, I am also unsure if this will have any significant influence. To me, even 1 gun is enough to be very dangerous. You can’t really shoot more than one at a time. It’s not like explosives where the total amount directly correlates to more dangerous. I would feel bad if I inherited my great great grandfather’s still functional shotgun and had to destroy a 120 year old antique because I already had 2 other guns.



  • All good mate, I mostly just try and stop the spread of misinformation on Aus gun laws. Most people don’t know much about them.

    The leaver actions are fast. The main difference is that you can leave your finger on the trigger for a pump and are meant to take it off for the leaver action, though you could do it with your non trigger hand. People are also buying left handed bolt action shotguns to get around this, though it’s more awkward. All our shotguns have a capacity limit, usually 5 or less. It looks like these guys modified their barrel mags to hold more.

    You’re not wrong about wasted ammo, reliability and reload speed, but you have to think about the worst case scenarios. Situation: close range, large dense crowd, shooter with an unreasonable amount of ammunition, and best luck in the world with no jams or reliability issues. That’s the formula for mass casualties. This is what our laws are effective at protecting against, primarily by limiting the rate of fire.