Just so we're clear .. we're angry because it's the second time it's happened and if anything their response was worse this time around.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Optus_outage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Optus_emergency_calling_outage
I think all public funds that generate data and/or software needs to be public.
The notion that maintenance is an issue is a red herring. Proprietary software purchased by government requires ongoing support contracts right until the vendor discontinues the product and leaves the public funds to prop up another billionaire.
Open source would also stimulate the economy since businesses could benefit from the project and use or apply it to their use, something which currently requires more investment with the same vendor.
The open-source alternative to Mailchimp, Brevo, Mailjet, Listmonk, Mailerlite, and Klaviyo, Loop.so, etc.
That's the first paragraph of the project page.
Not to rain on the parade, but in my experience, having had to email customers in bulk .. sending tickets and logistics requirements for large events .. I can tell you that self hosting this is a complete and utter waste of time.
You'll get blocked before the first batch of emails leave your mailer.
Not even paid MailChimp or Campaign Monitor could guarantee delivery.
The problem is not the platform for sending email, it's the centralised nature of email hosting, much of it is behind Google and Microsoft hosted services.
Catch up on sleep.
Docker is not virtualisation, although it's a common misconception.
A better way to think of it is a security wrapper around untrusted processes.
You can prove this for yourself by looking at all the processes running in a Docker host while one or more containers are running, you'll see all the processes listed.
In other words, you don't need a CPU capable of virtualisation to run Docker.
My "smart" phone is rarely used as a telephone. It's set to silent, all notifications turned off, blocks unknown numbers, transcribes voicemail and spends most of the day as a window to the world.
I'm not sure what, if anything, a "dumb" phone would add to my life, except more interruption, more administration to keep contacts up to date, and yet another device to charge and maintain.
Who can see?
My observation was based on personal experience after noticing that an account blocked me.
As a point of reference, on Bluesky, it appears that if you're blocked, you cannot see the account that blocked you. Essentially they just disappeared. They've not visible in search either.
So, unless you create another account, they ceased to exist.
Just to be clear, as far as I can tell, this invisibility is mutual as soon as one account blocks the other.
I live here and that's pretty much the case. Mind you, this is the first I hear that we've agreed to this and I daresay there will be some vigorous discussion among us Sandgropers.
Use a bash command line:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6250698/how-to-decode-url-encoded-string-in-shell
From memory they use Cisco.
In 2023, apparently Optus attempted to blame them for the default values on the hardware (IIRC the size of the routing table), which several people pointed out was blatantly absurd. Apparently Optus also didn't follow up with a welfare check of each of the failed calls in their network. Apparently they had to physically visit each affected router across the entire network. They were fined. I'm not aware of any other penalties.
Now, in 2025, it appears that Optus didn't follow their own processes, ignored several early customer reports about emergency calls not working, didn't inform the communications minister, under reported the impact, didn't inform customers and didn't make any announcements until it was fixed.
In 2023 I couldn't help but wonder if the staff at Optus had ever heard of testing. Today it seems obvious .. to me .. that they don't.
Disclaimer: Note that whilst I'm an ICT professional, I don't have any direct knowledge of the internals of these incidents and I'm relying on memory of reports and commentary and Wikipedia, I have also never played with Cisco routers, so YMMV. I also note that I haven't been an Optus customer for about a decade, and my own experience with their ICT systems as a customer over fifteen years or so has been .. let's call it "suboptimal".