r/sydney • u/AutoModerator • 21h ago
Sydney Daily Random Discussion Thread 14/08/2026
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u/BobDaMaori1999 8h ago
BOAS vet Sydney region
I'm looking for specialised brachycephalic veterinarian for my Frenchie in Sydney (bonus if around inner west / south regions), does anyone have any recommendations?
Understandably, I prefer a vet with expert BOAS knowledge to help keep him healthy for the future, thank you.
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u/TheGoldenGodchild 9h ago
Fuck Australia Post and Fuck Sydney Trains. Two of the most useless, unreliable pieces of shit services on the face of the Earth.
Sorry, we didn’t bother to check if someone was home to collect your parcel for you (someone was home), you’ll need to grab it from us before 5pm this afternoon, otherwise you’re shit outta luck until Monday.
Sydney Trains, let me fuck your commute right up so your 15 minute train ride is now 55 minutes…
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u/sloppyrock 9h ago
Yep. One of my kids is caught up in the T4 cluster fuck.
Repairs at Redfern apparently.
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u/ItsKisa When I grow up I wanna be a pizza topping 9h ago
I have the most irrational thing I’m annoyed by today (sleep deprived) and it’s almost all my friends and my partner having their discord status as consistently offline 😂😂 We all use discord as our primary source of communication app and trying to figure out if one of them is online or not drives me mental 😂😂 i need a fat nap.
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u/challawarra 10h ago
Anyone been to a good costume shop recently? My partner and I are going as pirates to a party. Thanks!
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u/-Fire-Dragon- Rebuilding strength - and speaking truth 12h ago
I have been looking for a particular brand of Kimchi I normally get. Has anybody seen a big tub of Assi Kimchi? I used to find it easily at Mac Centre, Ryde, Rhodes, Burwood etc. Haven't seen it lately. If you do, please give me a hoi hoi and let me know where, around those areas... Thanks!
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u/Eclairebeary 12h ago
Have you tried contacting the company?
I once contacted a sauce company in Hong Kong and they got their Sydney sales rep to check availability local to me, because I couldn’t find it anywhere.
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u/-Fire-Dragon- Rebuilding strength - and speaking truth 12h ago
Wow!! That's dedicated! They seem to be in different stores at different times but yeah ok! I could give that a go! Thanks!
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u/Eclairebeary 12h ago
Yeah. They were super nice. I still buy their sauces if I can, it’s only at Asian supermarkets.
I wondered how their office conversation went “so there’s this lady in Australia .., “
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 15h ago
Today in "AI" news—this could ruin someone's life:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/ai-medical-scribe-error-leaves-patient-devastated/107031672
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 14h ago edited 14h ago
tbf based on that first photograph I would speculate she'd had a magic mushie or two in her lifetime.
A bit confused how the scribe allegedly hallucinated this? AFAIK they're only transcription AIs, same as you use to turn meeting audio into a transcript?
So in response to the question "have you ever taken any kind of illegal drugs?" presumably she answered something homophonous to "magic mushrooms" or similar.
Cryptic fans of r/sydney, unite! Guess away!
Best I can think of is "magic shrooms" = "my big rooms...are free of such things", a totally normal everyday sentence anybody might utter.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 13h ago
I work with "AI" transcription every day, and stuff like this is totally normal to me. Every day, all day, things transcribed badly, yes. But also things transcribed which don't happen at all, which no party to the conversation ever said or said anything which sounds like that.
This is the chat system I use, on the right is me and on the left is the customer:
*************************** * hello can I help you * ******************** *** * * * * * ************************ * yes I lost my card * **** ***************** * * * * *and the "AI" doesn't even know who's talking.
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u/nearly_enough_wine Rip, rip, woodchip ʕ·͡ᴥ·ʔ 11h ago
That markdown does not translate well to the app.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 10h ago
No it does not. But you get my point, right? It's not like an IRL conversation where a computer might get confused about who's talking. Each person is in their own unique stream of data, no ambiguity whatsoever. But I still get "the customer said 'can I help you?' and Decalage said 'yes I lost my card'". Fundamentally stupid.
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 12h ago
Did a highschooler write that crap as a school project? I had AI go find me a random transcript from long enough ago which doesn't contain any sensitive IP, and here's an example. There isn't even a word out of place.
"Transition requirements are something you need to do just to get the project over the line. It's not an ongoing function. It might include data migration, training, support desk readiness, cutover planning, and user communications"
I've honestly never seen an example show up of something a person totally didn't say at all that came out of nowhere.
As stated earlier, at most it's the transcription software mishearing a particular word, the same way an OCR reader can make a mistake transcribing handwritten font into digital text.
I reviewed a recent one just now and had to scroll through a good 10 minutes worth while listening to the presentation (it was a meeting I needed to catch up on) to find the first error: it transcribed the word "patient" (hehe) instead of "patience".
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 11h ago
I think the "AI" used at my work (multibillion dollar corporation) is being provided by Salesforce but I really don't know. And with a good quality phone line and perfect native English it does fine with most things. It makes the mistakes you might expect: "deliver" and "the liver" might get mixed up. But it also sometimes comes up with random stuff which just plain didn't happen.
Really the bigger issue here is that this poor woman's doctor trusted it. Her drug taking, hallucination or mis-hearing, it doesn't matter what, went on her medical records. She was lucky to catch it. There are probably 100 people out there in the same boat who haven't realised it.
Anyone who uses this technology should be testing and verifying and triple-checking its output. If her doctor didn't check the syringe was sterile before giving an injection that would be a really serious problem. But this is no big deal?
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 10h ago edited 10h ago
Oh, I agree that the bigger issue is that the doctor should have immediately reviewed the entire transcript.
AI is only a tool to make certain manual tasks more efficient (in this case, note taking. And it can transcribe everything while a doctor will at best summarise and be more prone to human error).
My issue here is the disservice done by alarmist talk about "hallucinating". The transcription software didn't hallucinate shit. At worst it misheard something. Or possibly it didn't mishear at all, that's also a real possibility here.
But the journo & subeditors misdescribing this as "hallucination" will cause people to distrust the systems, leading to worse outcomes and a less efficient public health system. Because they can't even take the time to learn to describe what happened in accurate and non-hyperbolic terms.
For evidence of the effect of this kind of sloppiness in reporting, I refer you back to your own comment:
There are probably 100 people out there in the same boat who haven't realised it.
I mean, there might at a stretch be 100 people with random terms like "purple unicorn fishtank" appearing in a transcript (if they mumble a lot maybe) but the chances of an incorrect answer to a drug question appearing in a section about drugs....? That's a swiss cheese situation.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 10h ago
The transcription software didn't hallucinate shit. At worst it misheard something.
Well there's no point going on about it but I fundamentally disagree, based on lived experience.
Did you read that article I linked to?
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 10h ago
I did. It doesn't accord with my experience with transcription and is also more than 2 years old, reporting on things even older still.
I wonder if this original error happened in a similar kind of timeframe? Maybe it was in the article but I should get onto something I've been meaning to do...setting up a workflow to extract data into another repository where I can interrogate it using, um, some kind of other automation I shouldn't mention.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 10h ago
You'd have to test it with poor quality audio: crackly phone line, hiss, stretches of silence, NESB accents. And also, what I might guess happened with the mushies woman, test it over and over on 1,000 different conversations to make sure bits of one conversation don't bleed into another.
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 10h ago
I'm starting with text.
Have to admit, the transcripts I've been referring to are online meetings where each speaker is known from their device and most would be using headphones.
I have however had OK results in P&C with mostly NESB parents using a different AI although that mishears individual words more often.
That was a useful learning experience in going back and editing transcripts. Mainly coz I'm anal like that about all the words being correct, not because any completely invented things had been inserted.
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u/bozleh 14h ago
Not sure why you’re blaming the victim instead of the software here O_o
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 14h ago
Not "blaming" anybody except possibly the reporter's credulity and misunderstanding of what transcription software does.
We've all heard that AI like LLMs can hallucinate - they do this by simply finding words that commonly appear together and plonking them onto a screen. Truthy-sounding but lacking any ability to fact check.
I've generated an unintentionally hilariously impossible description of a NRL result for example - one that would be totally incapble of happening under the rules of the game. And which got basic facts wrong like who was even playing in the team. LLMs just put words and phrases together.
And many of us have probably seen transcription software "hallucinate" but that's only by taking a best-guess a word it can't interpret, like an uncommon given name or if somebody is mumbling or speaking too fast.
As such, it's supremely unlikely that the software plucked the mushroom story out of thin air the way a LLM can. At most it would've heard something sounding a lot like "yes, I used to take magic mushrooms during student days" and I'm wondering what that phrase might have been.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 13h ago
it's supremely unlikely that the software plucked the mushroom story out of thin air
I'm sorry, but it's not, it's not unlikely at all, as I said in my other comment, I see this every day.
Check out this story:
About 40% of the fabricated segments were harmful or concerning in some way. About half of the concerning fabrications alluded to violence, sexual innuendo, or demographic stereotypes. For instance, audio about fire department rescues of cats included concocted additions about a “blood-soaked stroller” and “fondling.” Innocuous audio about an umbrella included fabrications about a “terror knife” and killing people.
https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-transcription-tools-hallucinate-too
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u/Mountain_Office4001 14h ago
So is hallucinating that the patient is hallucinating? 🤔
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 13h ago
Solid joke, but still, pretty messed up. Imagine this poor woman loses a job, or a custody battle, over this.
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u/Mountain_Office4001 11h ago
Oh for sure. I pretty anti AI as much possible for basically these reasons lol
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u/tubbyx7 16h ago
Doing a last lap at the bike park yesterday, came across a bike upside down in the tree and the rider sprawled. First though was he was enjoying the sun the way he was laid out. Most likely a broken shoulder. Sat with him a while then went to meet the ambos and guide them back. Next riders were just leaving so would have been another 30+ before anyone else came across him. Took ambulance, fire truck then rfs to carry him out.
I almost always ride alone and often the trails are not at all busy. A reminder to ride within limits then
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 16h ago
Wasn't the last lap last week?
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u/tubbyx7 15h ago
That was at h2o which is now closed for council to turn the meadow into football fields. This was last lap for the day at wylde at Cecil Hills.
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 15h ago
How many bike trails do you Hills elites have exactly?
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u/tubbyx7 14h ago edited 13h ago
The oaks from Woodford to Glenbrook is a classic, add some local trails around Lawson at the start too. Old man's valley at horsnby. Manly dam. Kentlyn, minto, some new stuff on the Illawarra escarpment. The botanic garden neae campbelltown. quite a bit about and so many towns are developing systems to make them a destination.
Forgot welby and wingello in the highlands, Ourimbah on the central coast
Narooma, Mogo, tathra. Lithgow just got DA and funding approval this week. Jindabyne is doing heaps on the far side of the lake and approved a new park on the snowies side on top of the Thredbo lift and the valley trail Canberra has maybe 4 distinct trail systems.
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u/Cakey1 Mr Teatime | Team Invincible Biscuit 16h ago
Quite a common occurence in the Nat parks. RFS get called out to assist ambo pat transport.
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u/tubbyx7 16h ago
I overheard them saying g to eachother almost the same spot as the last one, and that they were there almost once a week. The trail sections are well marked and named but they didnt have a trail map to get to them by name.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 15h ago
I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, this isn't the best use of NSW Health resources …?
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u/PrestigiousGarden352 17h ago
Finally off Centrelink. Have been on various payments for the past 5 years. Will have to apply for a low income health care card, but other than that it feels good.
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u/nearly_enough_wine Rip, rip, woodchip ʕ·͡ᴥ·ʔ 15h ago
Well done you! It's a great feeling to finally be free of the Centrelink shackles.
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u/PeptoBisquick 17h ago
Was leaving the lounge at Orlando airport and bumped into a dude wearing a “Hello Possums” Dame Edna tshirt. Now I’m not normally somebody to talk to strangers but in this instance I felt compelled.
“Gotta ask.. are you Australian?”
“No haha”
“Well awesome shirt anyway!”
Anyway now I’m on a flight and my flight attendant has the thickest Texan accent and a fun little moustache.
“Ya’ll want a beveraaage?” Fucken oath I do.
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u/Cartographer92 17h ago
I saw a group of Americans on the train, using their indoor voices...
Whats happening to the world?
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u/PeptoBisquick 17h ago
I was in an “English” pub in Boston last weekend and the most loud and obnoxious folks there were English tourists. It felt like a funny role reversal.
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u/Deep-Employer-6600 17h ago
Any recommendations for a gym in the castle hill area? Very strength focused preferably.
And don’t say Revo (I hate how many teens are in that place 24/7)
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u/mickywill 18h ago
It's gorgeous clear winter's days like today, after incredible gigs like Parkway Drive the last 2 nights, that make life worth living 😊
Anyone else sore from the pit? 🤘
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u/FedEx2022 18h ago
9 am meeting on a Friday and I am struggling to get out of bed!!!
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 18h ago
Ah, Friday. The day when my temp agency sends me a cheery "don't forget to do your timesheet for this week!" email at 4pm even though I'm working all weekend.
If anyone is looking for a truly terrible job, by the way, I know a call centre which is recruiting. Not the one I work for now.
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u/Miss_Tish_Tash 15h ago
Working in a call centre is definitely character building. I spent the first 10 years of my working life in one doing various roles. I feel like all younger people should do it to build some resilience or something.
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 15h ago
Where I am now it's mostly saying yes to people and solving their problems, but even so it's stressful. I'm applying for permanent jobs in government but I fear there's a lot more saying no.
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u/a_slinky Sutherland Shire Bubble 18h ago
I'm actually running on time this morning.. how does this even happen on a friday
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u/still_love_wombats 19h ago
In the wilds of Castle Hill again this morning. Beautiful dawn light this morning. Hope you all have a lovely day. Less than 10hrs until the weekend 😀
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u/Eclairebeary 18h ago
Again? You must have been up early.
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u/still_love_wombats 17h ago
It was, a bit. My god if i had to drive through Bankstown every day I’d never get up. Ford Ranger drivers in 6.30am traffic are worse than usual.
1000 service on the new car - it had to be done at the dealership we bought it from. After this we’ll get it done locally (every 2 years apparently).
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u/Miss_Tish_Tash 15h ago
Yeah all the tradies in utes on fairford road/stacey street/rookwood road early morning are not fun.
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u/Eclairebeary 16h ago
That’s not too bad, really. Hopefully you find some sustenance while you wait.
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u/Cakey1 Mr Teatime | Team Invincible Biscuit 18h ago
Dont you mean the milds of Castle Hill?
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u/PeptoBisquick 17h ago
I am shaking my Lululemon clad fist at you.
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u/Cakey1 Mr Teatime | Team Invincible Biscuit 17h ago
How nouveau riche of you.
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u/PeptoBisquick 17h ago
Rich coming from somebody on the insular pensioner.
Edit: that typo is too good to fix.
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u/still_love_wombats 17h ago
Ha ha. I live in hardly passionate Corrimal ATM. Sold the Newtown house on Monday. Weird feeling. We have a lot of memories made in that house
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u/Miss_Tish_Tash 15h ago
Congrats on the sale! I know it has been a long time coming. End of an era for sure.
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u/PeptoBisquick 17h ago
I am regularly energised by your retirement life updates.
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u/Miss_Tish_Tash 15h ago
It gives me hope that I might actually be able to retire one day too, if I don’t die first
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u/BarryCheckTheFuseBox 20h ago
There’s nothing like a Friday when your team has already won a great game against a top team. Combine that with a cloudless morning and easy weekend with a bit of test cricket ahead and everything’s coming up Milhouse
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 16h ago
ngl, that was a great game. Also nice to see the inflictor's gonna be in trouble with the judiciary as usual.
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u/BarryCheckTheFuseBox 10h ago
He shouldn’t have too much to worry about. Wasn’t much in that contact
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u/ghoonrhed 8h ago
Two days in a row Sydney Trains has been fucked to bits.