The training rod is definitely not a new addition. I used it in my first game a couple of years ago because I found fishing too hard. There was a dialogue where Willy asked me how I was finding the fishing, and one of my options to reply was “it’s too hard”. Then he told me to buy the training rod. I don’t know if it was available before that; I never looked. But try talking to Willy when you see him and maybe it will come up?

The lake outside the mine is a good place to start. You get carp there, and sometimes they never leave the position your bar starts in, so you don’t even have to do anything to catch them - free XP!

Prequel to Wall-E.

You can boil them to extend shelf life. Once a food is cooked, you have another week (approximately) to use it before it goes off - maybe a little longer for eggs still in unbroken shells. Boil them, store them in the fridge, and add them to meals over the next week.

I just finished Dragonsteel Prime. I read Way of Kings Prime when it was released (so: not recently). Dragonsteel (canon) hasn’t been written yet, so I’m not sure what you want to compare DP to?

Brandon has commented that Dragonsteel (Prime) never got published because the story didn’t really work. Some elements of it eventually turned up in Stormlight, of course.

I enjoyed both Prime books as a look at early versions of characters, settings, and magics. Reading WoKP after several Stormlight books, it was a little jarring to have a character die in Prime who is very much alive (as of SA4). DP didn’t do that to me; and as much as Brandon says there’s an early version of Shallan in that book, it felt like a wholly different character. I quite enjoyed getting to know Frost a little bit, and seeing early Hoid.

My first smartphone was a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact. I’m a woman with all the small pockets that entails, and that phone was a great size. Sony was one of the last manufacturers making a smaller version of their flagship phone without sacrificing performance quality. I would have stuck with this line of phones if it hadn’t been discontinued. Alas.

My current phone is a OnePlus 6, a gift rather than something I chose. It’s not huge, but it is the biggest phone I have owned. And had I been choosing, I likely would not have considered this model because one of my criteria is that the phone fits comfortably in my pockets.

It was a happy surprise that the current phone actually does fit well enough (mostly). And this has shown me that I can be more flexible than I thought when it comes to phone size.

Not sure what direction I’m looking when it comes time to replace this phone. Truthfully, I’d still probably prefer something a little smaller. But in a limited market, you take what you can get.

If you already have the cheese on hand, do an experiment. Cut off a piece and freeze it overnight. Next day, defrost it and see how it is. Because the issue you’re concerned about is change to texture or taste after freezing and thawing, you only need to leave it long enough to be fully frozen through - not as long as you normally would for storage.

(You wouldn’t want to buy a bulk size piece of meat/cheese just to experiment, but if you already have some on hand it’s worth trying for yourself to find out if you’ll find the result satisfactory.)

Shipping costs for the set bundles are listed on the campaign page. If you want add-ons, that will be extra and calculated later.

It does say somewhere that Dragonsteel will cover import duties for all international backers.

So really, the only unknown is shipping for add-ons. If shipping cost is a stress, maybe stick to the bundles with fixed shipping costs?

This weekend? Already?

Boo. I don’t know if I can get there.

Thank you! Definitely would have missed it without the heads-up. Now I have a chance.

So I’m an American expat living in Australia. Australia has had the option to file directly to ATO, electronically, longer than I’ve been here. (Google suggests since 1999? So, more than 20 years.) It’s an easy process if you have a straightforward tax return.

It never ceases to amaze me how far behind the rest of the world USA is in some things that just seem like really obvious solutions. Like… Why wouldn’t the IRS want to get tax returns filed directly from the tax payers, skipping the middleman? At least for simple returns. More simplicity, less confusion all around if they get everyone onto the same system. Less paper to wade through, by significantly reducing paper returns. Etc.

It just seems like such a no-brainer. But I guess that’s why it doesn’t work in the USA. >.<

The comet would be super cool. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.

Well - unless I am having a major mental blank, Mistborn and Stormlight are the only two series in the Cosmere. Some of the books which are currently standalone may get sequels eventually.

I think this link is actually pretty close to what you’re looking for: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Category:Books It’s just that the table format is a bit “wall of text”. But you only need the top portion which is the Cosmere works, and they are grouped by series (or by planet, if it’s not a series).

I did VegeSafe last year after reading an article about the potential for lead concentrating in homegrown eggs and veggies. Our house (and neighbourhood ) date from the era of lead bring in paint and petrol, so I wanted to check.

Thankfully the only area of this yard that came back as a red flag was the dripline (i.e. next to the house), so we should be okay as long as we grow our food away from the building.

It’s not a huge change, and day-to-day the differences will be smaller things like words that are used differently. You get used to that without even realizing it. I remember feeling very pleased the first time I naturally used the word “jumper” the way Aussies do (meaning “sweater” or “sweatshirt”).

Aussies are generally friendly toward Americans, and thanks to Hollywood they tend to feel like they know a little bit about the USA which makes them interested. (When we visit my family in the US, my Aussie husband says he feels like he is in a movie. 😆)

I have never had any problem with people here not accepting me at face value despite being a foreigner and my accent giving me away. If anything, it’s a talking point when getting to know a person I haven’t met before. They’ll often ask because they are curious, but they aren’t hostile. If anything, they tend to be intrigued that I chose to live in their country instead of my country of birth.

There are systemic differences that may or may not be difficult to get your head around. For example, I didn’t find the health care system very strange, because I was young enough when I moved here that I hadn’t really gotten my head around how it worked in the US. But when my parents come here, they won’t consider going to a doctor if they need one because insurance, even when I tell them it’s a flat fee and give them the amount the local practice charges. It’s just not the system they know.

As noted by others, Australia has its own issues with racism. You won’t escape that by coming here, though it is different. Here it’s rooted in historical treatment of Aboriginals as sub-human, and “white Australia” policies from the early 20th century. Basically white people have a superiority complex wherever you go in the world of former European colonies.

I’m not sure whether any of that actually answers your question… Please feel free to ask more if need be.

There is a resentment of international students who get partway through a course and then cry poor. Our university (and probably others) held a big campaign during COVID lockdowns to donate money, clothing, groceries to international students who couldn’t work and couldn’t get back home…

Understandable. I wasn’t aware of international students struggling when I was at uni (doubtless there were some, I just didn’t see them). COVID lockdowns and border closures were an extreme situation, and I would think there were probably some students who would have been fine normally but didn’t have the extra resources to deal with that large a curveball.

Generally, I think the rules around student visas are reasonable. You’re here to earn a degree, and that needs to be your focus… Not holding down a full-time job to put a roof over your head. Studying abroad is a luxury. (Of course, universities like international students because $$$…)

Happy to answer questions!

In Australia, the big difference between domestic and international students is that domestic students costs are subsidized by the government via a federal interest-free student loan scheme, whereas international students must pay each semester up front. That cost varies depending on what you’re studying. (Every university should have info on their website about international student fees.)

The other limiting thing is that on a student visa, you aren’t allowed to work more than 20hr/week during the semester. So you either need to arrive with a very healthy bank account or put a lot aside during summer and winter break, in order to cover cost of living in addition to tuition. I was only able to do it because my parents were covering my tuition and accommodation.

(A possible point of interest: my bachelor’s degree as a full fee paying international student in Australia ended up being cheaper than my sister’s degree from a private college in the USA. Go figure!)

I moved from USA to Australia for university, then got permanent residency and later citizenship. I had a pathway because of (1) having completed my tertiary degree in Australia, and (2) having a close relative who was a citizen and could sponsor my application.

Without those things, my only viable option if I wanted to stay after uni would have been to go back to the USA to work for several years in my field of study, then apply for residency on the basis of being skilled in an in-demand industry. Australia maintains a list of in-demand skills, and if your field is on the list then that pathway is open to you - but you would also need to line up a job with an employer willing to sponsor your application ( I think this is mostly just about showing that you will have employment in the relevant field, not a financial burden on the employer, though I could be wrong about that).

My advice would be to make a short list of countries you would consider living in, and then look up their immigration websites and find out which ones you might have a pathway in to (each country is going to be different). If you have family with citizenship in any other countries, begin your search there.

I honestly don’t know how I’m going to vote. Something is needed, but is it this?

I agree with a concern from the ‘no’ camp, that this ends up being a bandaid or virtue-signalling; and if it passes then “job well done” and we don’t keep moving forward.

Otoh, I very much fear that if the result is ‘no’, we have collectively just affirmed racism - the overt, the systemic, and the subtextual.

I have family planning to vote both ways, and they have put considered thought into their positions, not just gut reactions.

But I don’t know, for me. I don’t think I can in good conscience vote ‘no’, but I have not yet convinced myself that I can vote ‘yes’.

Big yikes if it happens. Pray that it doesn’t.

My husband is a tax consultant. This week he had a client who receives a pension alongside some casual work. The employer didn’t consider the pension and withheld tax according to a lower tax bracket than she should have been in, considering both.

She owes nearly $5k. Hubby says “this employer is large and experienced, they absolutely should have known better”. Poor woman.

Anyway, it’s worth checking that your tax withheld from your paycheck is correct. If they aren’t taking enough out, you’ll have a balance to pay at tax time.