a long time ago my favorite interview question which everyone absolutely hated me for asking was: “how would you make $1k on the internet today assuming your life depended on it (nothing illegal)?” even 5-7 years ago this was pretty difficult to do & totally non obvious to 99%

Gambling is one thing I’ve flipped on as I got older. I used to laugh off the critics and think of gambling as “a tax on those who can’t do math” but I’ve come to think that’s cruel (and regressive) and paternalism is good here. This paper is another brick in that new wall.

I put up a mini-site today at https://t.co/7DAPRPxBc7 to help you compare the world’s cities. You can see how many people live near a city, or use my favourite metric: "population weighted density" to get an accurate measure of how dense a city is to live in.

When you hear NIMBYs complaining about shade in their backyard or having to park further down the street or the preservation of unremarkable suburban buildings, please weigh this against what the housing shortage is doing to renters. Like Mat, from the Inner west:

🇦🇺 Crikey! The hidden fees report on Australian banks was so intriguing I thought I should ask the Aussie twitter to confirm that our team got the math and screenshots right? /1

Banks profiting off customer complacency (aka ‘loyalty’) is ingrained in the industry. But profiting off customer ignorance by hiding the true cost of FX is particularly grating when it’s an easy problem to solve.

Reading through some customer comments for work and this one from an NZ customer stood out.

Abbotsford’s character is ruined by cars on footpaths.

And don’t forget, this is how some players in the industry treat their customers - by seeding confusion from which to profit. 'FX: Where there's mystery, there's margin' 🤢

Laws mandating proper cost disclosure in the EU means that ING are transparent with their customers sending money around Europe - but not when they send money to the US. Australia could implement a law that makes banks do what ING did for EU payments and have it apply everywhere

The @acccgovau could fix this very easily with disclosure laws (I know it would have helped the customer who lost $50k in markups realise how much of his family’s money he was handing over to the bank and force him into shopping around).

Aus banks charge crazy FX markups (the highest in the developed world to my knowledge). Banks do it because many don’t understand the true cost of markups so blindly use their banks. I saw some people get ripped off badly when I worked in a bank (one person to the tune of ~$50k)

Choice is not considering the alternative to “prepaid travel money card” products, good old regular debit cards that don’t charge ridiculously high FX margins like big Australian banks do. This article explains it well https://t.co/2478ZtDusS.

I’m a big fan of @choiceaustralia but this article leads consumers down the wrong path:  https://t.co/gQjNoJSvwj If you are going overseas sign up to a service like @up_banking, @ubank or @wise, load your account with AUD and get significantly better exchange rates as you go.

99.9% of driving in Aus is done on public roads. How is it even legal for Tesla to advertise this top speed? Right now I'm safe in inner-Melb because these cars are owned by rich well-intentioned greenies. When it gets passed down to their teenagers people are going to die.

“Community input,” where the 0.001% of the population who shows up to meetings gets to veto the actions of people elected by over half of it, is just voter suppression with extra steps.

When I look at this lovely illustration of Melbourne all I can see is our failure to increase density north of the CBD.

Great 8-storey glowup on the corner of Kerr and Gore St, Fitzroy. Looking forward to all that the ~100 new neighbours will bring to the area. https://t.co/MR5ai3Yhth

What are the best YIMBY Twitter accounts in Australia? I nominate @peter_tulip, @heritage_why and @GreaterCanberra.