Ben Eltham
@beneltham.bsky.social
đ€ 12670
đ„ 1719
đ 1960
Writer, journalist, researcher, trade unionist
pinned post!
RALLY TO SAVE MEANJIN Thursday 11 Sep 9am Outside the Melbourne University Publishing office, 715 Swanston St, Carlton. A number of Australian writers and editors will speak in support of this vital cultural institution
4 months ago
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Sarah E. Bond
about 18 hours ago
âDo or do not. There is no try to make baby Yoda deviled eggs.â đ„
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Dr Jay Watts
1 day ago
Just a reminder: you are NOT unusual, weird, or unlovable if you have: - no one to see on Christmas Day, - no presents, or - no contactable relatives. Very few people live the idealised version on TV. Those of us who live differentlyâwhether by choice or traumaâmatter as much.
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Evan
1 day ago
It is a common misconception, but Oliver Cromwell did not actually ban Die Hard from being a Christmas movie during the 1650s.
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Apron on. Christmas wrap strewn all over the floor. Presents opened and thrown aside for the next. My girls back in bed, having got up so early theyâre already tired. Some soft tinkly music. In the kitchen, my oven warming up.
1 day ago
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The Cathy Wilcox
2 days ago
Wishing all who celebrate a happy Christmas, and goodwill to all. Cx
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Paul F. Tompkins
1 day ago
IT FINALLY HAPPENED I AM ON A PLANE WITH A BABY WHO SAYS âHIâ TO EVERYONE AS HE GOES DOWN THE AISLE
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Sean Jones KC
3 days ago
Finally, a bar I really can practise at.
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Guardian Australia
3 days ago
The NSW parliament is once again rushing through anti-protest laws. Will they survive a supreme court challenge? | Anne Twomey
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The NSW parliament is once again rushing through anti-protest laws. Will they survive a supreme court challenge? | Anne Twomey
The legislationâs opponents will argue that it is over-inclusive and disproportionately limits free speech History tells us that anti-protest laws rushed through parliament often have an unhappy ending in the courts. In 2022 laws were whipped through the New South Wales parliament in response to a series of climate protests to prevent protesters disrupting infrastructure and major facilities. They were challenged by the âknitting nanasâ, who succeeded in having part of the law struck down for impermissibly burdening the implied freedom of political communication. Then we had the Dural caravan episode, which led to more laws being urgently passed â this time to restrict protests outside places of worship. Again, part of the legislation was struck down. It had allowed police to issue âmove-onâ orders to people who were protesting near a place of worship, even though they were not obstructing, harassing or intimidating any people who were entering or leaving the place of worship. But the NSW supreme court held that this went beyond what was necessary to achieve its legitimate purpose of protecting worshippers. There were more narrowly focused equally effective alternatives which could have been adopted and would have had less of a burden on political communication. Continue reading...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/23/nsw-parliament-rushing-anti-protest-laws?CMP=aus_bsky
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Marisa Kabas
4 days ago
!! Hereâs a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via
@jasonparis.bsky.social
:
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
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Eli Valley
4 days ago
jewishcurrents.org/bari-weiss-c...
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Yvonne Lam
5 days ago
I've been reading Umberto Eco's Serendipities as a bed book. The main thing I'm getting from it is that knowledge production is a profoundly and fascinatingly inefficient process.
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4 days ago
'Stag in the birches' by printmaker Celia Lewis
#WomensArt
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kelly
6 days ago
staying hydrated because every glass of water i have is one that chatgpt canât have
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Warframe Herzog
5 days ago
My brilliant strategy of yelling âTHIS WILL TAKE YOUR JOB AND YOUâLL DIE IN THE GUTTER LOLâ hasnât worked. I guess itâs because everyone is too stupid to appreciate it.
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Michael West
5 days ago
Albo blamefest should now be derailed (probably won't be) - due to revelations Bondi Shooter bought 3 shotguns, from same gun store, but raised no red flag.
@michaelpascoe01.bsky.social
#auspol
michaelwest.com.au/bondi-traged...
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Bondi Shooter revelations leave blood on the hands of politicians, police, ASIO - Michael West
Guns are to blame for Bondi tragedy, not PM Anthony Albanese, peace protestors or Iran who are all being fingered in the frenzy of blame
https://michaelwest.com.au/bondi-tragedy-lets-not-forget-guns-in-the-political-blamefest/
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Jed Brown
4 months ago
It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur.
www.theverge.com/news/760508/...
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Ben Williamson
7 days ago
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker đ§” Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
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Taking a break from the socials for a while. Doing some offline culture and some family time. See you on the other side.
5 days ago
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Daniel James
5 days ago
One of the most unedifying weeks in Australian public life.
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852dude
6 days ago
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James Butler on the quagmire of Starmerâs government
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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James Butler · Short Cuts: Labourâs Complacency
The few optimists in Labour claim that polling numbers arenât meaningful this far from an election: faced with a...
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n23/james-butler/short-cuts
5 days ago
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Perry Bacon
7 days ago
"There is infinite money in telling oligarchs what they want to hear, and what they want to hear is that the left is bad, moving the left more towards the right is right, and youâre such a special little boy for thinking it."
powermapmag.com/the-argument...
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The Argument Is Wrong On Purpose - Power Map Magazine
The pundits at The Argument do not want to fight the right. They want to excuse it. Their endless talk of "reasonableness" all comes back to the same point: when the right does something bad, blame th...
https://powermapmag.com/the-argument-is-wrong-on-purpose/
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Perfume Genius, you gotta actually hand it to him, he just keeps writing bangers
5 days ago
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Jed Brown
5 days ago
It is incredibly revealing how people talk about the products and how they respond to critique. Truly an "emperor has no clothes" moment. I have been energized by finding that many who have been quiet were uncomfortable and become radicalized when empowered by discussion and resources for critique.
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d.ly
5 days ago
Mr. Beast, all my friends and I were saying how good at boxing youâd be
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Peggy Sanders
5 days ago
Tom McIllroy: Albanese said former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson would lead a review of the agencies. 4 month review examine whether federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have right powers, structures, processes, sharing arrangements.
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
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Albanese orders review of federal intelligence and policing processes in lead-up to Bondi beach attack
Former Asio chief Dennis Richardson to lead review into AFP and Asio processes amid growing calls for a royal commission
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/21/albanese-announces-review-of-intelligence-and-policing-processes-in-lead-up-to-bondi-beach-attack-ntwnfb
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One of the most genuinely incoherent op-eds I have read in a long time. Christopher Joye used to be quite an interesting commentator. This stuff is so analytically confused as to be basically meaningless
6 days ago
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public health guy
6 days ago
this is the greatest feeling, when the cord box proves its utility to a family member
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Alexander Chee
6 days ago
I do love that a year that began with Trump asking Canada if they wanted to be the fifty-first state ends with their Canadian cable gay hockey romance show pulling us along the floor like Ilyaâs chair and we donât want it to endâand it got tax-payer arts funding to boot.
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Rob Ford
6 days ago
I donât think âReform and the Greens are the same actuallyâ is ever going to fly. Voters arenât fools.
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There is no credible evidence that the perpetrators of the Bondi terrorist attack had anything to do with recent protests
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
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NSW will move to ban phrase âglobalise the intifadaâ in crackdown on âhatefulâ rhetoric. Hereâs what we know so far
NSW parliament will sit next week to consider legislation to limit protests and ban hate speech in response to the Bondi attack, Chris Minns says
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/20/what-are-the-laws-proposed-in-nsw-to-ban-hate-speech-and-hate-symbols-after-the-bondi-terror-attack
6 days ago
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Ryan Cordell
7 days ago
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at leastâAI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if weâd not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagementâyou can only cite a fake paper if youâre not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
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Let your lover look at you the way random Melbourne hipsters look on at the surprise Surprise Chef gig at a Brunswick St record store
6 days ago
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C. E. Aubin
7 days ago
I work with declassified CIA files constantly for my research and I canât remember the last time I came across something this heavily redacted
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Robert Maxwell
7 days ago
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/d...
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4ZZZ community radio station celebrates 50 years of being Brisbaneâs âvoice against injustice and bullshitâ
Once âa lone voice of resistanceâ in a conservative city, the community station has survived eviction and Queenslandâs Joh Bjelke-Petersen government to deliver half a century of radical politics and ...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/14/4zzz-community-radio-station-celebrates-50-years-brisbane-
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Jonathan W. Gray
7 days ago
The New School owns about a billion dollars worth of art, most of which is not on display. They could sell the two Warhols they own and raise $100 million tomorrow. But theyâd rather close academic departments.
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Jommy Tee
7 days ago
The first meeting of the Gonski/Segal Antisemitism Education Taskforce was held yesterday. Next meeting is 3 February. That meeting will be briefed by "independent" University Report Card project head Prof Craven - who was handpicked by the antisemitism czar herself, Segal.
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Tim Dickinson
7 days ago
Some of these redactions are almost like modern art
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Josh Shepperd
7 days ago
Do not cite an academic paper unless youâve read it
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AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-chatbot-journal-research-fake-citations-1235485484/
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Edmond Tran
8 days ago
I spoke to a dozen professional concept artists working in games about whether generative AI image tools have made their jobs easier, even if it's just used in "very early ideation stages." Zero said "yes." Most said it made their job harder. I learnt a lot about concept artists. You should too!
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Hari Kunzru
8 days ago
Hard no to this: French publisher Harlequin has told translators that their work will now be done by AI. They can âreviseâ AI translations at much lower rate. Itâs a subsidiary of Harper Collins so treat this as a test for rollout elsewhere
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Greg Jericho
7 days ago
"Latest list of new mine proposals reveals 97 new coal and gas projects are under development"
#ThePoint
thepoint.com.au/news/251219-...
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Latest list of new mine proposals reveals 97 new coal and gas projects are under development
The annual list of Australiaâs planned resource and energy projects has been released by the federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources.
https://thepoint.com.au/news/251219-latest-list-of-new-mine-proposals-reveals-97-new-coal-and-gas-projects-are-under-development
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Guardian Australia
7 days ago
Proposal to allow use of Australian copyrighted material to train AI abandoned after backlash
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Proposal to allow use of Australian copyrighted material to train AI abandoned after backlash
Productivity Commission recommends waiting three years to establish review into technology after furious response from creative industries * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Productivity Commission has abandoned a proposal to allow tech companies to mine copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models, after a fierce backlash from the creative industries. Instead, the governmentâs top economic advisory body recommended the government wait three years before deciding whether to establish an independent review of Australian copyright settings and the impact of the disruptive new technology. Continue reading...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/19/proposal-australian-copyrighted-material-train-ai-abandoned-after-backlash?CMP=aus_bsky
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Liz Hicks
8 days ago
Focussing on this from a pure security perspective, itâs wild that an IS-linked attack was just carried out in Australia and weâre barely talking about it - the focus is on protestors and universities.
www.afr.com/policy/forei...
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Steve Dow
7 days ago
I interviewed French theatre maker and choral storyteller Caroline Guiela Nguyen about her play Lacrima, a tale of a bridal gown and the unseen sweat of lacemakers and embroiderers, coming to Sydney and Perth festivals, for Limelight magazine's Jan/Feb issue:
limelight-arts.com.au/features/cho...
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Clare Heath-McIvor
8 days ago
Ok. So Iâm raging. The Australian Christian Lobby sent out an email today using the Bondi tragedy to fundraise. To fundraise. Not for Jewish communities or anti-racist efforts. But for more Christianity âin the public square.â Not ok. This is opportunistic grifting. Yuck
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Cheryl Lynn Eaton
9 days ago
Lord, please never let me be hated by someone as skilled as that Vanity Fair photographer. Let all my haters be incompetent.
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â[Wants] Eleven dollar bills, you only get tenâ
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8 days ago
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Jewish Council of Australia
8 days ago
Media release: Unity must guide the Government's response to Bondi attack, not divisive pro-Israel wishlist Full release available at the link in our bio.
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Carl T. Bergstrom
15 days ago
Computer scientists: "So with machine learning we can extract subtle patterns from massive datasets. What shall we do with it?" Business school professors, every single time: "You know, I think phrenology got a raw deal in the late 1800s."
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Can Your Face Predict Your Salary? Using AI Personality Assessments in Hiring
A new study from Wharton faculty explores how AI can extract personality traits from facial images â and what that means for your career.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-your-face-predict-your-salary-using-ai-personality-assessments-in-hiring/
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