Would have been nice a couple of years ago before I paid off the last of mine, but I guess one can't have everything...
That was buying firewood permits off NSW Forestry in the broader region around Canberra, which I looked and they're still doing at $16 per tonne (albeit only in the further away forests at this point). They give areas you can pick firewood from after logging operations, you're just not allowed to fell trees. You do have to be able to go out and saw it then haul it back yourself. If you've got a current collection area near you it's a very cost effective method, even if you have to drive a fair way it still works out cheaper than buying it elsewhere.
Always did through my childhood and continued on that way, would do so again if I had a place with a fire. We'd saw into rounds when collecting and load them up then split and stack at home.
Plenty of people do buy pre split wood here though, I'd expect it's the source for the majority. Not everyone has the ability, inclination, or the equipment to go out and get firewood and it gets hard to find sources to collect wood in the bigger cities.
Fires are horrible.
They're about the best feeling source of heat around, so not horrible.
Very difficult to controll the heat output
It's not particularly difficult to control the heat output, it's just a matter of how you load it and how much air you let in. They don't do well for extremely low heat output, but at that sort of cold just put on a jumper instead.
they also are very costly to run
Used to cost about $20 a tonne for wood a few years back when I was in a place with a fire, plus maybe another $50 per tonne in fuel for the ute and saws to gather it (so ~$70 a tonne total). Was a hell of a lot cheaper than gas and a lot cheaper than electricity.
require a lot of maintenance
It's just popping up onto the roof once a year and taking ash out every week or so, I never found it a big deal.
require a lot of space to store the wood
This I'll grant you, given how tiny modern yards are. You need a square metre or two for the wood and another couple for room to split it - not much in a traditional suburban backyard but it's noticeable in newer blocks where you have bugger all room around the house.
I would have classed bogongs as small or medium size, are they really that much larger than other countries moths? If so I'd hate to see their reactions to moths which are actually large, not sure of the species but I've seen a few about palm sized.
i find the disjoint between the headline and article amusing - the headline claims the students have not driven up rents and inflation then the article moves directly into saying they actually did just not very much.
I agree it is a pretty overblown problem though, albeit with the possible exception of housing directly around unis as that would be more directly affected by demand from students. On a country wide scale international students are not that many people and that's the scale of the problem with rising rents and housing prices in general.
In a world where kids are already not getting enough outside time and exercise making it harder for them to ride to school seems a poor idea.
If it's becoming a problem they should be doing in person lessons on how to ride a bike and basic road manners rather than a online quiz that nobody is going to pay any attention to. Pity in person lessons have been made harder by everyone having to be so incredibly risk averse these days. For example there was that bit in WA recently where schools got told they couldn't use bikes without chain guards (i.e. most bikes) because someone managed to hurt themselves.
You know you come off sounding like a misogynist twat when you use the language of misogynist twats right?
Could be worse, could come off sounding like Lidia Thorpe by thinking everything is racism and/or sexism.
If it’s black market, it’s still more of a hassle to buy.
Out of the four smokers I regularly work with three of them have found shops that sell black market tailormades and the other buys pouches off some internet site which is almost certainly also dodging tax. It doesn't seem like they're having any hassles finding and buying these things and with black market apparently being about half the price of cheap legit cigarettes you'd have to be pretty firm on your principles to take the financial hit.
An obvious geographical divider does seem to increase the natural inclination of many people to stay within their known area unless given a specific reason to venture out. Canberra has a similar effect with lake Burley Griffin and people being less inclined to venture southside from northside (and vice versa).
You're certainly right that the way I did it in school felt rather performative and didn't leave me with positive impressions of the books I had not read previously. I'm not going to say there's no purpose in trying to understand the meanings/symbolism in a work but it's not going to make a good impression on someone if that's their first introduction to the book - or worse their introduction to reading books in general.
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...and that's when they found the really big stick insect.