In Episode 51 of @hemisphericviews we talk Severance. Thanks @neatnik for making a Lumon Industries business card generator.

Australian Consumer Law

This article was originally written for the October 2021 edition of Hemispheric News, delivered as part of the Hemispheric Views podcast member bonus program, One Prime Plus

The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) is an unsung hero for the everyday Australian citizen. In 2011 it was introduced and replaced a bunch of outdated legislation, notably the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth). That piece of 1974 legislation was a foundation block of my university degree and I think s.52 is still seared into my brain.

At the time of its introduction I was working in the business lobby, and I remember the doom and gloom scenarios that companies were painting. “It will destroy us!", “where’s the fairness?” were refrains heard all too often. Really makes the heart bleed. 🤷‍♂️

The legislation was introduced during the 43rd Parliament of Australia, led by The Hon Julia Gillard AC. Yet another achievement of a government that wasn’t thought highly of, but had a history of legislative achievement unlike many others, and certainly any since.

The ACL rebalances the scales in commerce to provide better support to consumers who buy in good faith, but who turn out to have bought items not of merchantable quality. There are a host of provisions, but this is the crux: if a product fails to meet its stated purpose within 12 months of purchase as new, then the buyer is entitled to remedial action, including a full refund. This also can’t be waived by not returning in original packaging, or any other kind of ‘gotcha’.

This is how operation of the ACL can be explained:

When the consumer chooses a refund:

The supplier must repay any money paid by the consumer for the returned goods, and return any other form of payment made by the consumer — for example, a trade-in.

If this is not possible, they must refund the consumer the value of the other form of payment.

A supplier must not:

A consumer will usually need to show a receipt or other ‘proof of purchase’.

ACL rendered Apple’s traditional AppleCare product obsolete in Australia. For a period of time there was virtually no point buying AppleCare because it offered no benefit beyond that which the ACL enshrined in law. Now we have AppleCare+ and the benefits of cheap screen repairs, but failing equipment is still no reason to consider buying that particular insurance policy.

I’ve experienced some problems with some wifi routers I bought about 4 months ago from Amazon. Upon a reminder from a Hemispheric Views Patron I found the option to make a call to Amazon. Upon determining that I was in Australia, I was offered 3 options. The first two seemed like weird cruddy deals that people in other countries have to put up with (sending the faulty unit back and waiting for a replacement of that part, or accepting a part refund of $130). The third option was my ACL protection - the ability to send the whole thing back to Amazon for a full refund. That’s what I wanted, and that’s the option I took. The other choices paled in comparison.

You see evidence of the ACL quietly in action (and markedly different to other jurisdictions) in everything you buy in Australia. Vendors are required to insert a printed sheet explaining a consumer’s rights. There is no need to complete those shoddy ‘guarantee’ forms to gain warranty protection from the ACL.

This is an area of governance that the Australian government got right, and I’m so glad that it is in operation. And despite all the clutching of pearls, no businesses seem to have gone bankrupt as a result of the ACL.

Thank you to Robert for pointing out issues with my RSS feeds, and for reading my stuff!

I’m still waiting for all my Facebook friends to reach out and check that I’m okay, since my account has been deleted for about a year. I’m sure they’ll get in touch soon.

It’s not much, but it’s something. 🇺🇦

OneDrive Files-on-Demand for macOS

Nick Heer at Pixel Envy:

For example, placeholder files are not automatically created for the entire OneDrive directory, only for files and folders I have opened. This means Spotlight cannot index those files and folders, which means I cannot fully search OneDrive on my Mac. It does not matter to me whether this is Microsoft’s fault or Apple’s. It matters that I am surprised — daily — by new roadblocks in my existing workflow caused by software updates and under-hood changes no user should have to think about.

The whole OneDrive change has been annoying, but this lack of “indexability” is the largest annoyance, because I rely on that for Alfred/Launchbar/Spotlight integrations.

Can we eject Putin from our world? Who is in favour of this madness? Why is annexation of land such a strongly-held desire. I’m sorry for Ukraine. I wish the people of the country all the best for what is about to transpire. 🇺🇦

I don’t know what Putin sees as his end-game, but his actions against Ukraine are beyond the pale and must be globally condemned. 🇺🇦

Zootopia, 2016 - ★★★

Watched on Friday February 18, 2022.

Volume 2 of my Day One journal has arrived. // @patrickrhone

My 6-year old man broke his leg last night! The bone broke right through, but thank goodness for a great hospital system than got his leg set and in a cast right away. 😢

I’ve adopted the Paper theme, by @amit for my blog. Which also meant upgrading the version of Hugo. I don’t think it broke anything.

Random appreciation tweet for Wayne Simmons. He made playing basketball fun, and was a friend to me when I did work experience at 882 6PR and he was a sales rep. Anybody who played 🏀 in Perth probably knows Wayne and I don’t think anybody dislikes the guy. I hope he is well.

Encanto, 2021 - ★★★

My favourite character was... a house? I was surprised by the ease with which the fractured relationship with Grandma was resolved.

Another day of being sick. Urgh. Tested negative for COVID too, so it’s just a garden-variety flu making my life miserable.

A Second Try With Zavala

Last Time…

When I tried this the first time I used each line of the outline as a paragraph. Maurice Parker, the developer of Zavala, answered my call for help.

He advised:

when you craft your blog post in Zavala, the Topics are headings and the Notes are the paragraph text. Make sure that when you export from Zavala you select the Markdown Doc format. It looks like you exported an outline without Notes using the Markdown List option.

So it seems I made not one, but two, mistakes.

Now I Try Again

So this time, I’ve only got two outline nodes representing the headings, and text in the notes fields for my paragraph.

Into the breach once more, I go.

Using Zavala to post to Micro.blog

Thanks @podiboq for suggesting a great improvement to @hemisphericviews.

It’s that time again. Hemispheric Views 049 covers third-party keyboards, the new iPad mini, the weird world of video gaming, and coffee sizes. 🎙

The new Fantastical Openings service may be enough to save me from needing a third-party bookings service. Unfortunately I recently bought a 12-month subscription to one.