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Stephen Gentle

@stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy

34 followers 0 following 90 posts

I’m an electronics/software engineer and consultant, mostly working in biometrics and security, previously in satellite/wireless/RF communications. Very […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ ioc.exchange/@stephengentle, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

Posts Replies Media

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

@phocks I think it’s always been the wrong tool for the job and never actually worked. The one episode everyone points to to ‘prove’ it (back in the 70s) raising rates still doesn’t seem to have done much and inflation didn’t actually come down until the external factor (oil embargo) […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

@bigjsl Doesn’t look like many fish left!!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

@phocks I hope one day people realise that it never worked on either side - all these years central banks tried to stimulate by dropping rates and inflation stubbornly refused to pick up (all that happened is that it pumped up asset values but didn’t actually stimulate any real economic growth) […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

@joshtaylor.bsky.social This is ridiculous nonsense though from the RBA board. We’re feeling it strongly in my industry (electronics) where parts and materials we buy and import mostly from Asia for our circuit boards are shooting up in price because mostly US companies are buying up huge swaths […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

@timrichards Looks fancy. It’s interesting getting a good view of all the equipment on top!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026

Honestly, the arrogance!

Simpson meme featuring Principal Skinner, top panel “Am I so out of touch?” Bottom panel “No, it’s the children who are wrong”

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026

Apparently it’s “incorrect” to believe that higher interest rates could increase inflation, the RBA says. Funny, an IMF study found actually that hiking rates *did* worsen the 2022-2025 inflation episode, with countries that did it ending up with higher peak inflation and it taking longer before […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026

Incredible to see the #RBA pontificating on people “not understanding interest rates” for being the reason nobody trusts them. Not the decades of policy error after policy error only making things worse. 🤦‍♂️ […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 18/07/2026

@bigjsl I went past one in Switzerland on a train and it was surprisingly close with a clear view too. I think it was the Gösgen plant, I didn’t even realise it was coming, I was just looking out the window and had a “is that what I think it is” double take, had to look it up on maps/wikipedia!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 29/05/2026

@joshtaylor.bsky.social They like the idea of sticking beans up their noses too? There must be pretty strong reality distortion going on in these people if 2/3 of kids under 16 now having accounts that make them look like adults (and therefore can get ads and content designed for over 18s) is a […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 20/05/2026

@timrichards Might be time to sign up for Kagi. I tried Duck Duck Go for a while as my primary search engine a few years ago but it wasn't quite good enough at the time, maybe it better now though, not sure.

Reposted by Stephen Gentle

Joshua "Headless" Byrd 🎃 @phocks.bne.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

The media really out here trying their darnedest at making us feel sorry for people who own multiple houses rather of people who own zero houses is really quite baffling

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 04/05/2026

@joshtaylor.bsky.social I have so much compassion for our politicians and the eSafety commissioner. There was definitely no way that they could have known this would happen. I mean, surely hundreds of people didn’t tell them this was inevitable… How could they ever have known?

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 29/04/2026

@phocks Not sure if the link is pointing to the right place (these live blogs often break links annoyingly). I got a post about inflation and the RBA poised to foolishly raise rates again (which can’t possibly improve anything for externally driven inflation but does hurt a lot of people […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 22/04/2026

@aj Such an organisation could also be used to manage equity holdings for emergency finance, like instead of just giving companies like Qantas over $2bn for free early in the COVID pandemic, such a state-owned entity could have taken an equity stake in return for that money.

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 22/04/2026

@aj I don’t understand how in Australia we don’t have a public national investment bank that can step in, restructure these kind of businesses to save jobs, retain a significant equity stake (but sell on some of it) so the profits can then be invested back into other things (including housing […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 04/04/2026

@CurbsideShip116 Crazy thing is we’d given them more powers than basically anywhere else in the developed world already, and it didn’t help a single bit…

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 01/04/2026

@joshtaylor.bsky.social Please tell me nobody ever actually believed that?

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 25/03/2026

@andyjennings Of course it will be a bigger and bigger problem that 20% of supply is locked up so there will be a lot of re-allocation. Hopefully this kick starts a push for things like more rail freight and more electrification though.

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 25/03/2026

@andyjennings The media loves a good sensational story, truth be damned... Then that led to panic buying which led the the shortage which led to more sensational stories and the cycle continues…

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 20/03/2026

@chad @harald It was a supported distribution channel that just today I find out they seem to have randomly abandoned with zero warning or notice, while they’ve been releasing updates for critical vulnerabilities elsewhere. Thousands of people will be relying on this like we were, I’m really […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 19/03/2026

@chad Hmm, weird, mine uses the Debian repo and for some reason that's still at 10.0.162... Anyway, just shut it down, I don't actually need it running unless my APs lose power and restart, but the UPS should take care of that.

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026

One really big thing I want to see in my lifetime - the mainstream acceptance that the central bank *simply cannot* fix inflation by raising rates. It’s utter lunacy and it hurts millions of people. And it just doesn’t work […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 12/02/2026

@jerry No worries, thanks for looking into it!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 11/02/2026

@jerry Hey didn’t realise you were taking over ioc.exchange! Things have been really broken for me at least the last few days though - most profile images aren’t loading and I also can only see 3-5 posts on Trending whereas before I would see dozens and dozens of posts there, I liked to scroll […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 17/01/2026

@timrichards I don’t mind the Australian quarter pounder, but the US one was crap. And none of these new chains that have tried to enter Australia (Carls Jr, Wendy’s, etc.) are any better or really much different, and they are often more expensive!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 17/01/2026

@timrichards The interesting thing about McDonalds is that (to my taste) it’s actually noticeably even worse in the US than in Australia. Had a quarter pounder in Dallas airport a few years ago and the beef tasted cheaper and greasier than what McDonalds uses here, and paired with the corn syrup […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 13/01/2026

@timrichards When Netflix cracked down on password sharing we just stopped using it. We used to share the services around the immediate family, but if we can't share it then it's just not good enough value to pay for. Stan has most of the older shows and movies we want to watch, and I get Apple […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 13/01/2026

@joshtaylor.bsky.social Seems like they're just pretending they care what people think less and less... Public consultations always felt like a box ticking exercise that didn't change any of their preconceived ideas, now they're just ticking the box quicker....

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 12/01/2026

@joshtaylor.bsky.social Are they? I have all the News Ltd rags blocked in Apple News, seems like it’s working to maintain my sanity

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 08/01/2026

@gavi @pippa Same here, I was curious when it started but literally everything its algorithm served up was rage bait from people I don’t know (in this case mostly bad takes that were just misinformation about renewable energy, public transport, EVs etc.) I stopped using the app very quickly but […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 03/01/2026

@phocks I’ve been using Fastmail for three or four years here.

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 09/12/2025

@timrichards Nice! We’ve still got the tree my mum bought me from Myer when I moved out of home in 2015, because nobody in the share house I lived in for a bit had one and she was disappointed it wasn’t christmassy enough! The photo I have of it for this year was more of the cat though I think!

Christmas tree and a cat sitting on the lounge nearby

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 03/12/2025

@phocks I did it a few years ago, at that time you had to find a setting in Disney+ to get it to show you the whole picture (otherwise it would crop to 16:9 and you’d lose part of the picture that from time to time was really important to the stories!). I just naturally stopped before the end […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 26/11/2025

@timrichards I expect with this method the average discount would be 10 - 20%, but if you'd held an asset for 30+ years or so it could get up to the 50% we have today.

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 26/11/2025

@timrichards I think the capital gains tax should be adjusted to just discount by the CPI difference from buying to selling - as I understand it's basically to account for inflation, but is just a fixed 50% because it was easy to calculate when people used to fill tax returns out on paper. Now […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 20/11/2025

@ajsadauskas Yes! We played so many hours of Spyro 2 on one of those!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 20/11/2025

@bigjsl Then they go on about “heat pumps aren’t cost competitive with gas heating” - well obviously not if you’re overpaying like that!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 20/11/2025

@bigjsl It’s insane, I hear stories too of people getting quoted $8K-$15K (US) for supply and install of reverse cycle air conditioners of various capacities that would only cost $2000 to $4000 (AUD) here!

Reposted by Stephen Gentle

abadidea @0xabad1dea.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 13/11/2025

Mozilla: we are developing our AI features for Firefox with user input and emphasis on user choice users: please stop. no-one who specifically uses alternative browser Firefox wants this. our choice is no Mozilla:

deltarune dialogue box: "Proceed"

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2025

@phocks Perhaps there’s some technical contact that you could get into contact with at the Guardian to look at the root cause? It looks like something like this PR is the proper fix - github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/3… - but it looks the Guardian’s URLs still don’t work with it […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2025

@mattblaze I don’t get why the FBI was bribing him in the first place… I wonder (complete speculation) if the guy played his cards cleverly and could basically show some kind of unreasonable levels of coercement and get off on entrapment. The whole thing really does sound weird to me, as […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2025

@w7voa This guy seems dirty as hell, but this investigation still smells awfully like entrapment… Couldn’t they have watched the guys accounts until he took a bribe from someone else, instead of agents offering the bribe?

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2025

@timrichards Not yet but sounds like I should add it to the watchlist!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2025

@timrichards Interlarken and the trips into the mountains I took from there was my favourite in Switzerland! Such a beautiful place!

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 31/07/2025

@philip even that support from the surveys was far less than you’d think from how these politicians talk - from the graphic I saw, more than 40% of the parents surveyed said 15s and under should have access to Facebook and Instagram, and over 75% said they should have access to YouTube. From […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 31/07/2025

@philip Such a dumb law. They’ve already been given all the arguments (in the sham enquiry) and ignored it all. The only changes that got made before it passed were some political horse trading with the Liberals. I really hope it creates so much public outcry that it falls in a heap. And the […]

Original post on ioc.exchange

Reposted by Stephen Gentle

Erik Uden 🚩 @erikuden.mastodon.de.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2025

The Onion wins again

A tweet by New York Times PR saying “We have appended an Editors' Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below.”

AB article by the Onion is responding saying “'New York Times' Issues Apology For Reporting Palestinian Deaths. Published October 10, 2023”

Stephen Gentle @stephengentle.ioc.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2025

@timrichards the weird thing was that the people who used my card fraudulently were still at the hotel and the staff refunded me and said they’d kick them out. The next day they said maybe I should make a police report because my details had been stolen, but because all my losses had been […]

Original post on ioc.exchange