Photo is a bettong that has been caught by researchers. The good news is their population has maybe tripled over the last few years in Australia's largest nature preserve that is free of introduced predators - it has 45km (28mi) of 1.8m (just under 6') tall fencing to keep it that way. Just 3 years ago they were reintroduced to the area after 60 years of local extinction.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-05-31/brush-tailed-and-burrowing-bettong-populations-thrive/103898216

Burrowing bettongs have little underground communities. Their cousins, the brushtail bettong have a prehensile tail they use to collect nesting material. The researcher thinks the burrowers are cuter, but the prehensile tail is adorable in its own right, I think.

It's time to know your rights!

If you have ADHD, and you come across a website or app that is playing an animation (video or gif, or any other type), and you live in the US (you don't need citizenship), you can complain to your government that someone is breaking the law and violating your rights.

Yes, you could just use ad-blockers, but you can easily help solve the problem too for everyone just by filling in a form online.

The people you complain about might only get nasty legal letters that annoy their lawyers and cost them time and money to defend or fix, but for like 10 mins of effort on your part, that's a pretty good deal. There could also be fines for them, especially if people have complained before about them. You can even complain anonymously!

How?

To be considered a valid complaint, the animation must:

• start without you triggering it (so on page load, not clicking on something)
• last for longer than 5 seconds (yes, looping counts as lasting forever)
• be alongside other content (like videos in articles, not like a video as the main thing on a page)
• not allow you to pause, stop or hide it with your mouse and/or keyboard and/or touch (or whatever else you use to get around).

For your complaint to be most effective:

• both you and the site should be in the same general location. (US located people complaining to the US Government about a US company is always more helpful than trying to do international stuff.)
• you should probably mention that you have a medical condition that makes it difficult to focus when there are distractions
• you could mention they are not following this rule: "WCAG Pause, Stop, Hide (SC 2.2.2)"
• screen recordings are helpful evidence, but don't let this stop you, you can't upload them to the form and they might not request them anyway

Complaining about any organisation that gets government money is bonus points, they have even less room to wiggle out of it. Anyone from big business to small police department or anything in between has to follow this rule. They might also give some extra weight to complaints from US veterans?

If you think you tick all of those boxes you can fill out the online form on the Civil Rights Division site, but you should read first this ADA info about what happens when you complaint.

So if you find yourself getting annoyed by yet another distraction when you're just trying to get shit done in the US online, you now know you have an option to channel that frustration.

EU residents will be better able to channel their frustration June 2025. Some countries do have options now

A little extra info for the intrigued:

• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines aren't guidelines anymore, they're pretty embedded in a lot of law. It's the list of things websites must do for people with disabilities. It's a bit difficult to navigate if you're new to it though.
• if you want to know more about this particular rule and why it exists here's an explanation of WCAG SC 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide
• The WCAG is a requirement for places which accept government money under the Americans with Disabilities Act Title 2 Regulations while private companies are under Americans with Disabilities Act Title 3 Regulations. Same rule applies to both, so you don't even need to know this.
• a disability is defined as "a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment." Using the internet is a major life activity for many of us, and you don't need to identify as being disabled to fill in the form. The US Department of Labor's own website, the Job Accomodations Network lists ADHD as a disability and details employment accommodations though, so, it's not like you have to prove your life experience or anything

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, feel free to verify or refute this info with your own hyperfixation

Anyone got any recommendations or warnings about specific hdd / ssd / storage brands or models at the moment? Thinking about buying another drive instead of being smart and cleaning up my files. I've been pretty happy with Samsung but I've heard they had a clunker of a drive with high failure rates lately. HDD, SSD and I think I have an extra spare M2 nvme slot on my motherboard, so all recommendations are welcome. Price isn't a huge concern, but I don't feel the need to drop a thousand dollars on a single 22TB drive, anything 5TB and above will do fine for now.

My feed is filled with bad news, which is my fault for using the fediverse as a news feed, but it made me wonder: Which organisations, groups or individual people in the world are doing the most good for our world? I'm particularly interested in those who manage to do good on a larger impact scale (quantity or quality), but if the unknown person on your street who fosters kittens is a great example, I'd love to hear about them too.

Mr. Rogers told me to look for the helpers in times of trouble. Tell me about your favorite helpers!

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a new pact with the low-lying island country of Tuvalu, allowing residents facing displacement from climate change the ability resettle in Australia.

Key points:

• The deal is the first time Australia has offered residence or citizenship rights due to the threat posed by climate change
• The US and New Zealand have similar agreements with other Pacific countries
• Mr Albanese described it as the most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific island nation ever

I think it's also worth noting that in return they're handing over their foreign policy / security decision autonomy, so colonialism once again manages to mar an otherwise humane decision. The IMF is getting their own policy pound of flesh too, they love a good bit of disaster capitalism.

Urine samples collected from wild chimpanzees in Uganda over decades have revealed older female chimps undergo hormonal changes much like those in menopausal humans.

Title changed from original for better internationalisation, because the ABC hates assuming you see their articles outside of their specific site categories.

Original linked article title:

"Pride, but also grief': Government to start taskforce following disability royal commission final report

Linked article lead paragraph:

After an inquiry lasting four and a half years, the royal commission makes 222 recommendations for change.

Some numbers from the Inquiry itself:

• 222 recommendations (mostly for federal government)
• 32 public hearings
• 7,944 submissions from the public received
• 17,824 Phone enquiries
• 1,785 Private sessions held

Some of the findings:

• There are around 4.4 million people with disability in Australia, or 18% of the total population. Reflecting that disability increases with age, the number of people with disability falls to 2.4 million when we look at people aged under 65 years. This is 12% of this age category.
• Around 35% of First Nations people under 65 had disability in 2018–19, nearly three times higher than the general population. Children accounted for 24% of all First Nations people with disability.
• As at 31 December 2022, there were 573,342 participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
• Across all age groups, people with disability experience considerably higher rates of violence than people without disability. People with disability also experience violence more frequently. This is unacceptable.
• Rates of violence are particularly high for: Women with psychological or intellectual disability, First Nations women with disability, young women with disability.
• Neglect of people with disability occurs in multiple forms and across different stages of their lives. We heard of many instances of people being deprived of necessities of life and assistance with daily activities. We also heard of systemic failures to provide an environment for each person to maximise their potential.
• The data on exploitation of people with disability is limited. However, people with disability shared with us experiences of both sexual and financial exploitation by other individuals.

Some of the recommendations (my summary):

• A new Australian Disability Rights Act
• Intersectionality, especially with First Nations peoples
• Legal obligation to prove 'unjustifiable hardship' as reason for not making accommodations for a person with disability
• Alter the migration act to prevent systemic disability discrimination, (amongst many other laws)
• Requiring the government to provide interpreters, both spoken language and sign language
• Transitioning to non-segregated education settings
• Transitioning to removal of 'group homes'
• Creating a National Disability Commission as an independent statutory body to monitor outcomes, with a majority leadership by people with disabilities
• Legal obligations for guardians to show they're attempting to act in the best interests of their guardee
• An extra $36 million in funding for disablity advocacy and insurance programs
• Making a number of restraint techniques and solitary confinement illegal in health, justice and education settings
• laws to prevent non-therapeutic permanent non-consensual sterilisation of people with disability
• Increased housing protections for tenants with disability
• teacher, police and healthcare worker training and requirements, especially around cognitive disabilities
• a registration system for disability support workers that defines their roles and requirements and gives them benefits like sick leave and retirement savings
• lots more data and reporting being published by the government
• way better complaints processes and investigations
• targets for disability employment at all levels of public service, including executives
• so many more, ~~read the article or inquiry links if you're keen.~~

Edited to add: A better breakdown of recommendations by category instead of my casual list

Title changed from original for better internationalisation, because the ABC hates assuming you see their articles outside of their specific site categories.

Original linked article title:

"Pride, but also grief': Government to start taskforce following disability royal commission final report

Linked article lead paragraph:

After an inquiry lasting four and a half years, the royal commission makes 222 recommendations for change.

Some numbers from the Inquiry itself:

• 222 recommendations (mostly for federal government)
• 32 public hearings
• 7,944 submissions from the public received
• 17,824 Phone enquiries
• 1,785 Private sessions held

Some of the findings:

• There are around 4.4 million people with disability in Australia, or 18% of the total population. Reflecting that disability increases with age, the number of people with disability falls to 2.4 million when we look at people aged under 65 years. This is 12% of this age category.
• Around 35% of First Nations people under 65 had disability in 2018–19, nearly three times higher than the general population. Children accounted for 24% of all First Nations people with disability.
• As at 31 December 2022, there were 573,342 participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
• Across all age groups, people with disability experience considerably higher rates of violence than people without disability. People with disability also experience violence more frequently. This is unacceptable.
• Rates of violence are particularly high for: Women with psychological or intellectual disability, First Nations women with disability, young women with disability.
• Neglect of people with disability occurs in multiple forms and across different stages of their lives. We heard of many instances of people being deprived of necessities of life and assistance with daily activities. We also heard of systemic failures to provide an environment for each person to maximise their potential.
• The data on exploitation of people with disability is limited. However, people with disability shared with us experiences of both sexual and financial exploitation by other individuals.

Some of the recommendations (my summary):

• A new Australian Disability Rights Act
• Intersectionality, especially with First Nations peoples
• Legal obligation to prove 'unjustifiable hardship' as reason for not making accommodations for a person with disability
• Alter the migration act to prevent systemic disability discrimination, (amongst many other laws)
• Requiring the government to provide interpreters, both spoken language and sign language
• Transitioning to non-segregated education settings
• Transitioning to removal of 'group homes'
• Creating a National Disability Commission as an independent statutory body to monitor outcomes, with a majority leadership by people with disabilities
• Legal obligations for guardians to show they're attempting to act in the best interests of their guardee
• An extra $36 million in funding for disablity advocacy and insurance programs
• Making a number of restraint techniques and solitary confinement illegal in health, justice and education settings
• laws to prevent non-therapeutic permanent non-consensual sterilisation of people with disability
• Increased housing protections for tenants with disability
• teacher, police and healthcare worker training and requirements, especially around cognitive disabilities
• a registration system for disability support workers that defines their roles and requirements and gives them benefits like sick leave and retirement savings
• lots more data and reporting being published by the government
• way better complaints processes and investigations
• targets for disability employment at all levels of public service, including executives
• so many more.

Edited to add: A better breakdown of recommendations by category instead of my casual list

The Data Local team uses AI technology to generate stories on weather, fuel prices and traffic reports for hyperlocal mastheads.

australia@aussie.zone discussion thread

Knowing how AI frequently relies on having a large dataset to work from, and breaking news frequently not having any confirmed information, this seems ripe for abuse and errors. I would love to see details on their implementation and datasets. Especially because News Corp are known to take very political positions on topics.