I saw one suggestion which was to so away with male and female competitions, and instead have “open” and “restricted” comps. Open would be available to anyone, male or female, while you could set up as many restricted comps as you needed for the particular sport or activity with whatever rules make sense. So the 100m sprint might have Open, Restricted - Testosterone, and Restricted - Height - with whatever T level or height in centimetres decided by the relevant authority. Whereas something like weightlifting might have Restricted - Weight as it’s own class. The idea being any gender can compete provided provided meet the restrictions in place to make an interesting/fair competition within that bracket.

The context is important here - Australia had a continuous indigenous population for over 60,000 years before white settlement. White Australia never had an agreement with indigenous peoples at large, and through relentless expansion of colonies, spreading diseases like smallpox, introducing alcohol and drugs, forcibly abducting and schooling children, heavy incarceration and a slew of other typical British colonial shit ended up leaving them disenfranchised, alienated, and excluded. Indigenous Australians prior to colonisation had a deep affinity with the land and tended it like custodians, but because they didn’t build towns or farm like Europeans, they were just swept aside without ever really being acknowledged or addressed.

The Voice was asked for as a product of the Uluru Statement of the Heart - not long, worth a read- https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/

It was really first and foremost about having an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, the settlers cocked things up and that it’d better to fix things together. It’s not asking for anything “more” or extra, it’s about correctly telling history and reframing our national dialogue to be coming from a place of partnership, instead of colonialism, so we could fix some of the very real issues modern Australians face as a result of hundreds of years of callous racism. It was a chance for white Australia and government to really listen and maybe find better ways of doing things.

But now instead we get to try to explain to our kids why 60% of the country don’t think representation or inclusion matters while indigenous Australians will continue to struggle without a government that can listen to them.

I find it interesting that DALL-E still doesn’t understand text - look at all the random Daschuund spelling in the generated images. It knows what the word should look like, but has no framework to interpret or distinguish text from the other elements of the image. It looks like trying to spell in a dream.

Ooh I know some of this!

Sauron was a Maia (lesser primordial spirit), who along with Morgoth (a fallen spirit formally known as Melkor) was at odds with essentially every other spirit and the general concepts of peace and tranquility that were sought by the creators of the universe. After Morgoth was defeated, Sauron inherited the role of the eponymous Dark Lord and sought to rule Middle-Earth in its entirety.

The Wizards were the Istar, a group of Maiar tasked by the Valar (greater spirits) and Manwe (the king of the Valar) to travel to Middle-Earth and aid the Free People in their fight against Sauron. They took the form of elderly men and roamed the lands to counter and subvert Saurons influence. Their mandate prevented them from open conflict, which is why they took on the role of advisors and supporters instead of just fighting Sauron head on or rallying armies to fight him. Their origins were unknown to any of the Free People, but the Elves for sure new that they weren’t just Men - since they lived for thousands of years and had gifts that no mortal Men possessed.

Bombadil is likely another Valar, off in Middle Earth doing his own thing - in ancient ages many of the Valar visited or lived in Middle Earth, so it could be that he didn’t return to Valinor and just hung around. His complete disinterest in intervening in the conflict is one clue, and the fact that he exceeds Sauron in raw power as the One Ring is completely mundane to him, whereas Gandalf fears that it will overpower him, is another.

Thats insane, in Australia at least it’s still just a data plan - buying a cheap prepaid SIM or mobile plan for data is a common thing since our Internet infrastructure is shithouse. I hope no aspiring telco middle managers cotton on to this.