Being a developer is technically pretty easy. The general skills are not hard to acquire and Australia is very well provided in professional service firms that do the rest. It’s the economics of it that’s punishing, it’s low margin, high risk, high costs. Developments die in the spreadsheet.

An absolute housing-planning myth I keep seeing is that because DA refusals are low, supply is not a problem. It misunderstands the process: a proponent first goes to a pre-DA, to make sure non-compliant applications aren’t made. Refused DAs are a sign of unprepared applicants, not of roadblocks. >

Every time I read The Great Gatsby, the final paragraph brings me to tears. Breathtakingly powerful writing:

I don’t think we should spend time bending the knee for concessions on tariffs which will be abolished in three months anyway when they cause the US economy to collapse.

today kids’ sleep and breathing specialist started explaining the plot of catch-22 to the children but said it was ‘kurt vonnegut novel slaughterhouse 5’ to the children “he was named major major because his parents thought it was funny. but then he joins the army and he’s major major major major”

back to school omen: multiple bins with five year old art and last years maths worksheets in the basement

damn that’s crazy www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

there should be a more robust queuing system for the light rail after events at moore park

borrowed the kids a book on the history of aviation and they spare no detail

new season of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals is here

seagull DESTROYED by cricket ball

this newcastle clash strip is very good

sydney fireworks really coast on the fact all other major australian cities are built around brown rivers

watching robbie williams get progressively more agitated at the Syd NYE punters

these guys are actors impersonating the authors and i think that’s messed up

just found out they fused powderfinger and something for kate. ill omen for 2025

I don’t think this is actually a problem that needs solving (300 free spots at Mosman, 100 at Cammeraygal) but if it were then turning North Sydney Boys/Girls into ordinary public schools would be the funniest outcome. www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...

$30 for 2L of hard solo, Sydney could never

IMO this take that LLMs will make software engineers redundant is wrong. SWEs are in high demand because they produce things you can leverage 1000x over with very little extra investment (just hardware). To the extent AI has an impact it will *increase* that leverage.

made an all time clown move last night leaving adelaide united/sydney fc when it was 3-1 at 87 minutes (finished 3-3)

wanted to get one of these types of things to address my daughter’s current obsession with planes and man what a loss. we forgot how to build them

ashbury christmas lights fell off hard

real missed opportunity to do cow tools here

We’re going to fall well short of our housing accord target and DPHI is responding by watering down their reforms to the consistency of skim milk. People are sleeping in their cars and they’re handwringing over whether four storey apartments are “discordant” with $3m terraces adjacent to the CBD.

thinking about the british journalists who docked Say Nothing points for being too pro-IRA

did a search to try to figure out whether a particular Rick Riordan series was appropriate for my 8 year old (it is) and I found this phenomenal post. second last sentence hit me like a freight train.

to the iOS PM who decided users should have to independently authorise every pair of apps they try to paste text between: i just wanna talk

8yo update: brought back from ballet at 12:30 by mum, sat down on couch reading without interruption until I called her over to dinner at 5:30, at which point she objected “but I haven’t had lunch yet!”

yeah, i read books

from 2015

if you’re a hollow knight cel, you should play nine sols. it’s really good. it’s also hard but it has difficulty sliders

million $ idea: NYT puzzles but they use the system keyboard

another one for albo’s strange verbal affectations file

they’re opening a Guzman at Ashfield Mall and it’s probably the highest value above replacement they could get anywhere. current options: soul origin, subway, australia’s shittiest kfc

why are you, a resident of Balmain, driving a car that size?

Get a grip 2024

5yo reading the “lunchbox do’s and don’t’s” booklet she got from school orientation: can i have mini pancakes, biscuits and two chocolate bars in my lunchbox

The point of undergraduate is that you’re doing stuff that an AI could easily replicate to build the skills to actually make novel contributions later. But if you can breeze through courses without actually writing your own assignments you won’t have the foundations. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Possible that school is actively making my 8 year old dumber

bluey has eaten a family sized block of old gold chocolate and been put to sleep by the vet

Good lord the process for putting up Christmas lights

you haven’t been skipping standup have ya mate?

putting a potato scallop on your fish and chip shop burger is a high tier manoeuvre

GAICD post-nominal 🚩

they need to get rid of touch controls on headphones. absolute dogshit

@downround.bsky.social re: your discussion today, wario and odlaw came out within 12 months of each other. do we think one was inspired by the other?

showed the kids willy wonka and the chocolate factory (1971) today. 8yo said it was 10/10. asked her if it cracked her top 10 movies, she said no. kid has seen maybe 30 movies. anyway we should make sure letterboxd is on albo’s u16 social media blacklist cause she’d get eaten alive on there.

god this is so good

north shore council politics is becoming increasingly inscrutable to me