this is eternal truth

For no reason at all I often find myself thinking of this Dean Koontz quote: “The problem with movies and books is they make evil look glamorous, exciting, when it's no such thing. It's boring and it's depressing and it's stupid.“

Neither suddenly, nor overnight, as First Dog on the Moon observes

❤️

I propose: ALL THINGS ARE EXHAUSTINGLY INTERCONNECTED

If you’re giving money to a white supremacist who put thousands of my colleagues out of work, decimated American science, and killed millions of people just so you can use a water-guzzling, misinformation-hawking racist chatbot the least I can do is make you embarrassed to admit it out loud.

It’s so revealing how the attempted bombing isn’t bigger news in the Australian media cycle. It’s so clear how it matters less if the attacker is white and the intended victims primarily Aboriginal. The hierarchy of racism in Australia is so transparent www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

Because the ABC can't be bothered to tell you, this is happening because we burn shit tonnes of coal and gas and our government keeps approving more pollution www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

What happens to the human body in 49C heat? Australians are finding out

Feel like a man throwing a homemade IED into a large crowd at an invasion day rally should be bigger news

Totally cool and normal that the weather app I use has added a new (purple!) colour to show how hot it is today.

“Epidemiological studies have begun to show a concerning trend: individuals with a history of COVID-19 infection are at an elevated risk for developing diabetes, often within months of recovery...” This has actually been known for years, but I’m glad to see more attention on it.

This hit so fucking hard today.

People in the Greater Otways area are being asked to prepare to evacuate before sunset today, 26 January 2026, due to the Carlisle River fire. Leave as soon as you are ready. Check VicTraffic for road closure information traffic.transport.vic.gov.au/ www.emergency.vic.gov.au/respond #VicFires

load bearing tweet for a settler colonial society

The thing about a #Heatwave is it also makes everyone cranky. No sleep, very hot, brain no worky as good. Remember everyone around you is in the same boat. Be kind to strangers and shop staff, they are just as tired and over it as you are.

The young woman's end is a true tragedy, and I dearly hope she drowned first, but there is something deeply wrong with the cultural reflex to punish living beings in their natural environment simply for trying to survive.

YES THAT'S WHAT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS AND THATS WHY WE DON'T USE IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The interesting applications of AI are all, like, "we built an open framework that uses processors on recycled cell phones to identify and triangulate the location of rare bugs in tropical rainforests" while big tech is going "what if we burned down that rainforest to summarize your emails?"

CONTINUE TELLING EVERYONE YOU KNOW THAT AI IS THE STUPIDEST SHIT EVER IT IS WORKING CONTINUE TO MAKE ART YOURSELF CONTINUE TO WRITE THINGS THAT INSPIRE YOU THE WHOLE POINT OF BEING ALIVE IS TO CREATE COOL SHIT AI STRIPS US OF THE POINT OF BEING HUMAN

!!!

"Joining with others to shape a future is the holiest act." This relentlessly hope-filled and smart conversation brought me joy today. By @charliejane.bsky.social @annaleen.bsky.social @adapalmer.bsky.social @andreahairston.bsky.social @isisasare.bsky.social strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

We’ve extended the submissions deadline to March 1. Still plenty of time for you to submit and for us to get our chicks in order (starting a lit mag definitely comes with a learning curve :))

The alternative: say #NoAI, and yes to real First Nations voices: @letterscentral.bsky.social @firstnationscen.bsky.social @robertarnol.bsky.social @big-tony.bsky.social @drtracywesterman.bsky.social @sandyosullivan.bsky.social 🖤💛❤️

COVID pandemic enters 7th year with no end in sight. "It's strange to think that the COVID-19 pandemic, which sent the world into lockdown 7 years ago never ended. It continues to kill and cripple us, to this day. We simply stopped talking about it." boingboing.net/2026/01/16/c...

So how's your apocalypse going?

See how Victoria’s bushfires spread: a visual guide to the scale of devastation

The Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowships are open for 2026. You get a desk for 10 weeks & $1250 to work on a project, including translation work. Details and application at the link. @wheelercentre.bsky.social www.wheelercentre.com/hot-desk-fel...

This seems like a maliciously put headline to make people feel a certain way. Wikipedia is not partaking in generative AI. They are making AI companies and scrappers having to pay for training their modules off wikipedia texts. And having an AI (not that ai) tasked with updating dead links.

Entries are now open for the Wheeler Centre's Hot Desk Fellowships for emerging writers! I was in the very first cohort of Fellows & used my Hot Desk to work on my first book 'Out of Shape'. I went in there daily like it was my job, & got heaps done. Highly recommend this program!

I need you to know that every writer who cancelled their AWW appearance in solidarity with Dr Randa Abdel Fattah has done so despite considerable risk to their incomes and careers. They did what is right regardless of the risk. Please support them however you can.

Relatable

As we have consistently made clear for the past 12 months, if a person is intentionally inciting racial hatred (or other forms), then it should not matter whether they are quoting or referencing religious texts, because the outcome is the same: vulnerable groups are targeted. #auslaw #auspol 2/

'But, let’s be quite clear, the routine invocation of “safety” is code for “I don’t want to hear your opinion”. In this instance, it appears to apply only to a Palestinian invitee.' www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

After ruining the Adelaide and Bendigo writers festivals, pro-Israel supporters are now targeting WOMADelaide’s inclusion of Sama’ Abdulhadi share.google/T5Y39CUyc8Fc...

Apparently we have to destroy the arts to save them. Though as we all know by now after more than a decade of hostile arts policy, what "we" want is a culture with no memory, no freedom and no conscience, endless reruns of a starveling so-called western canon, background noise for the suits

“AWW is the canary in the coalmine. Friends and colleagues in the arts, beware of the future. They are coming for you.”

This is a huge loss for Australian arts. Louise Adler has resigned, after years of racist campaigning from Murdoch’s hate machine for her continued audacity to have 1-2 Palestinian writers in her festivals. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

People need to stop misusing, misappropriating or distorting the principle of cultural safety. SA Premier obviously has no idea what this model of care is, and has been weaponising it. Re AWW: reporters need to stop being stenographers. Ask him flat out what he thinks that term means - I dare you.

Here are the Walwa and Longwood line scans (as of 3:30pm 10 Jan) to give you an idea of the scale of the fires when overlaid on the base Melbourne map. Yikes! #VicFires

it’s come to my attention that my tumblr post has been crossposted to bluesky, so I’m posting it on my account here #AntiAI #GenAI

Australia heatwave live updates: Victoria declares state of disaster in multiple areas as bushfires rage; temperatures to reach 43C in Sydney

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

If you aren't at imminent risk, please stay off the Vic Emergency app and website today. Tune into ABC radio or third party sources so that people who desperately need the emergency info have reliable access.

I wrote earlier about the catastrophic effects of pro-Israel pressure campaigns on our cultural institutions, but it seems no lessons have been learned open.substack.com/pub/nickfeik...

“What that means is it [the Victorian bushfire] will generate its own thunderstorm and potential for dry lightning ahead of the main fire front, which will be a concern for now until the late hours of this evening,” he said on Thursday. www.msn.com/en-au/news/a...

Hey, remember that period of time when the most distressing thing in the news was finding out that random objects were secretly cakes? Was it a dog? Nope. Cake. Was it a glass of wine? Nope, cake again. Anyways, that is the level of stress that I would be comfortable returning to. Thank you.

Bendigo Writers Festival, Meanjin, now Adelaide Writers … powerful vested interests would rather destroy the cultural institutions they are supposedly responsible for than allow certain voices to be heard