Wearing thongs (flip flops) in a grocery store.

Kangaroos littering the side of the road (they have about 4 neurones and all of then are suicidal)

The only place I have seen young kids (think 6 years old) swear similarly to here in Australia is in Scotland, and they are just as feral as we are.

Walking down the street at night. In the UK and USA it was apparently just not a thing you did. Here I will walk home at 2am no worries, and tonnes of people walk home from the pub drunk enough to not always make it home and sometimes just pass out on the footpath. Never had a problem, never been mugged or similar in that situation, and after living in the UK and visiting the USA I can definitely say I would never do that there.

Wearing swimmers (bikini or budgie smugglers) and going for food and drink on the same trip. The number of times I’ve gotten coffee, had lunch, or jumped into the bank while dressed for the beach is uncountable, but never ever outside Australia.

Hitting your kids is rare here. Spanking is not really normal and is definitely not common in public compared to my visit to the USA or my time in the UK. In both of those people would cuff their kids or slap their hand when they were being unruly. That is uncommon here and I have seen people intervene when someone was hitting their kid in public on more than one occasion. The same goes for animals, people don’t like you hitting your dog either. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but it is not considered OK.

Healthcare. We have it. We love it. In the UK the NHS was OK, not great, and the USA is terrifying. My meds would cost me about $310 per month but end up costing a max of $38, unless I spend $1200 in the year at which point the rest are free. As in, no cost, just pick them up, zero dollars. Mine are half medically necessary and half for better function, but for some people they are way more necessary and I am so happy they can just go get them, no risk of rationing meds.

People do talk about politics and religion here, but not with random people and not in public. If someone isn’t interested you are generally going to back off quickly and leave it be. Religion and politics are mostly private and the few people who do talk tend to not be too intense about it. Certainly most don’t become a registered Labor or Liberal party member with the group identity associated. It is much more loosely held and less culturally relevant.

I would go AMD for the reasons others have said, but also for long term driver performance. NVidia has shown over time that their cards stay the same for performance, meaning very little long term increase from driver improvements. AMD on the other hand has had long term driver improvements leading to longer life and better performance. Your nVidia option would start to feel crappy earlier than a matching AMD card. Also, if you can afford it the AMD is a more performant option. And consider making sure you have room to upgrade the RAM. If there are only two slots and both are full you will have to replace the RAM, but if there are two free slots you could add another 16GB later for a good boost.

Yes, in the same way all research funded by the public should be open. If you pay for a dataset to be gathered and only one team gets to use it you have wasted money. Make the dataset open, make all the methods open, and it can be used multiple times, increasing the return on investment. In the same way if someone is working on security auditing for something like OpenSSH anyone who uses it benefits. You pay once for the work but get benefit for all who use it.

This also makes standardising easier because of the common tools so you can have cross department access without unnecessary technical barriers. For example, making a standard format for data in a SQL database means you can access multiple datasets and correlate them, allowing the study of important issues with minimal fuss. You can even create standards for accessing this data to make it much safer to use without exposing people’s personal information.

On the flip side you could have Microsoft and other similar companies decide what is worth investing in and just hope their system will work. If there is a security issue you just have to wait for them to patch it assuming they identify it. If they stop supporting something you can’t keep using it with external support because you don’t have the code.

Honestly, it is also a national security risk. Using a vendor from another country means you have someone who can access your data with software you cannot audit who is potentially influenced by the government of another country and you just have to trust them. I cannot understand the use of Windows in military applications. Honestly, asking the fox to guard the hen house. Why would you let the USA have access to your systems with the plausibly deniability of a company like Microsoft in between? Sounds like lazy writing for a military fantasy novel, not modern foreign policy.

Consider doing a small test section in one corner before trying anything. Also take a clear photo in full daylight before you start and make comparisons with full daylight pictures later. It is very easy to have the lighting and perspective completely change how something looks, so make the comparison as apples to apples as possible.

Also, using plain water for a simple rinse can be very effective at removing dirt just by rinsing and repeating, no soap. This is lower risk than many other approaches but requires you fully dry before checking the result. Definitely research other options, but it may be good to try cleaning with plain water.

Australian English is based off British English but is not identical. Both are different to US English and have a lot of words that are spelled with a bit more historical contingency. That said, knowing which words have which version of suffix can be difficult.

For example, authorise or authorize. Practice or practise. Gaol or jail. English is a pain but it does make a good common language.