Queensland’s unique public holiday this year is the Ekka holiday, which will fall on Wednesday, August 12.

Well, no. Brisbane has the Ekka holiday. Other parts of Qld have different show days. Starting with this Friday in Stanthorpe.

It was literally his mission to find land to steal and place the natives under British rule

Actually, it ends up looking even worse for Cook. His instructions specifically said:

You are also with the Consent of the Natives to take Possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain: Or: if you find the Country uninhabited take Possession for his Majesty by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions, as first discoverers and possessors.

So either he ignored the Crown’s instructions to get “consent”, or he (and not later colonists) is the original source of claims of terra nullius.

I highly doubt they’d do it this blatantly if they were not confident this is an easy sell

I mean, I would have agreed with you, except we’ve also just recently seen even more blatant and indefensible union-busting from Rockstar in the UK, another country with good labour laws, and another country with more than adequate legal resources.

I think you’re probably right that Ubisoft has sufficient legal cover to win this case, but that’s because of the merits of this case, not because a big company from a country with good laws could never do something stupidly illegal.

I thought we were past the days of waiting multiple weeks for internet after moving in.

In still remember in November 2019 when my apartment finally got NBN installed, and I had to wait until late January 2020 to actually get it all connected.

That was very convenient timing.

I also bought a new bike as a Christmas present to myself in December 2019. COVID couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time for me.

I suspect they probably already are cheaper over the lifetime of the product. Of course there’s also a lot of value in the upfront cost coming closer, but there are other problems at play.

First and foremost: the culture wars. The right-wing loves to make a big fuss at how poor and inadequate anything that might be better for the environment is. And EVs have been a huge target of this.

There’s also range anxiety. Australia doesn’t have the best fast-charger network for those rare long-distance trips, and far too many people make their purchase based on what they might need for a trip they take less than once per year.

And then there’s dealers. There have been many reports of dealers discouraging people from getting EVs. Probably because they make a lot of their money on aftermarket servicing, which EVs need a lot less of than ICE cars. So it’s in their best interest to avoid EVs.