giving a talk tomorrow, it will not be cynical

what shines through, to me, is that while landlords overwhelmingly see themselves as "providing an essential service" they avoid accountability for the obligations that kind of service provision requires. they want a pat on the back for doing a ~good deed~ without the work or responsibility

my number one piece of advice to people wanting to do a PhD is to pick a topic that makes you so. fucking. angry. truly incredible the level of motivation that unbridled rage can provide

Lily Allen's 'West End Girl' is an emotionally excruciating examination of what happens when people attempt to open a relationship as a solution to a fundamentally broken romantic partnership and the affect of non-ethical non-monogamy. In this essay I will

Ok and in Victoria, rentals must have heating to meet minimum standards requirements. Searching in Melbourne when you check the 'heating' filter drops from 3365 to 2098 properties.

As of May 2025 it's unlawful in NSW for a landlord or agent to advertise that pets will not be permitted in a rental property. When you search for a rental in Sydney on realestate.com.au, 1019 rental properties return. If you tick the 'pets considered' filter option, it drops to 125 properties.

A Melbourne real estate agency just casually putting a job out on Airtasker for a lawyer to write a cease and desist for a fkn Google review. Incredible.

what in the moral valuation of women meets moral judgement of renters is happening in this choice of photo to visually represent "bad tenants" dare I say it but 365 partygirls still deserve housing xoxo

It's going to get up to 40° in Sydney today. Summer hasn't even started yet. If you're baking in your rental home, join our Renter Lab to help us make sure renters don't have to suffer through another unbearable summer: bit.ly/renter-lab-S...

any renters out there who have been pushed to use an AI chatbot as part of your rental experience, I'd love to chat with you for my PhD research! I'm looking at the ways that tech in the private rental sector is impacting renters + housing justice and this seems...troubling

Nelson Alexander requiring tenants to use an AI chatbot to report urgent repairs. Reportedly this chatbot cannot differentiate between urgent and non-urgent repairs. Incredible.

Melbourne folks! I'm going to be part of a Luddite Tribunal organised by the Brunswick Library — you gotta love public libraries and their critical workers — on November 27th at 6:30pm. I'll be joined by Lizzie O'Shea; it'll be a ton of fun! Free registration: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-luddit...

Oh damn, Kohei Saito has entered into the techno-feudalism debate and his argument aligns with what me and @bigblackjacobin have been saying for a long time: Stop saying techno-feudalism, this is called rentier capitalism, and it's the basis for techno-fascism. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

look all I’m saying is that one job AI could never come for is a jewellery heist at the louvre

I'm currently looking to talk with renters who have used a digital portal / app to conduct their own routine rental inspection without the real estate agent coming to your house. This is sometimes called a 'Remote Inspection' If this is you, please get in touch!

Huge story here. Daniel had his payments illegally cancelled by the Mutual Obligations system. After years of bravely fighting, he exposed the error and won the backpay he was always legally entitled to

In my research into tech x rental housing, one of the (many) grievances tenants have shared with me is the additional fees they cop just to pay rent. It's great to see legislation introduced to Vic Parliament seeking to address this.

Hello~ i wrote something for @theverge.com about the surreal horror of online transness in a fascist surveillance state. it’s time to change tactics and make ourselves less legible to this machinery of death — but *without* sacrificing our connection and community.

OpenAI has chosen the worst, weirdest possible time to embrace the fact that people want to fuck chatbots www.404media.co/chatgpt-erot...

lmao after watching successive governments do absolutely nothing meaningful about the data broker industry nor targeted marketing, I’m not above laughing at them for this

“The goal of funwashing is to humanise its subjects — but what happens when you attempt to funwash things that weren’t human to begin with?” @martynpedler.com on showing the softer side of killer robots. overland.org.au/2025/10/kill...

even when writing makes me want to tear my eyeballs out of my skull, I still wouldn't want AI to take away this experience. the uncomfortable friction between what's in my brain (makes sense!) and what's on the page (does not make sense!) is where the good shit happens

New one from James Parker and me - wading into the fights between artists and AI companies. We suggest artists need a vocabulary beyond copyright to articulate their grievances: www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

one of the worst genres of influencer post is the sorry I haven't been posting post. the presumption that your ~content~ is such an important part of people's day that they would be actively missing you such that it warrants a 'sorry I promise I'll post more soon' post is so deeply embarrassing help

wrote a little about the inspiration for Frank Herbert’s Butlerian Jihad (Samuel Butler and his novel EREHWON), as well as Luddism & democratic governance thetechbubble.substack.com/p/on-the-ori...

Kmart’s use of facial recognition to tackle refund fraud unlawful, Privacy Commissioner finds www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-c...

As big tech companies appeal to small island countries’ anxieties about being left behind, @emmaquilty.bsky.social considers how efforts to transform islands into digital hubs obscure the power and agency of these places and their people. datasociety.net/points/confr...

📣 NEW -- In The Economist, discussing the privacy perils of AI agents and what AI companies and operating systems need to do--NOW--to protect Signal and much else! www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

“Its loss is not just a literary blow,” concludes Max Kaiser. “It signals a narrowing of public debate and unfortunately a chilling message to people daring to support the publication of inconvenient truths." @nickfeik.bsky.social on who killed Meanjin. #auspol www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/16/m...

My review of Madison Griffiths' SWEET NOTHINGS is out now in the spring edition of Meanjin. It's bittersweet to be in one of Meanjin's last editions. The loss of this literary institution is a travesty. I've loved reading and writing for Meanjin, and especially working with @mxcreant.bsky.social

It would be a massive mistake for progressive folk to convince themselves the March for Australia was a bust, or can safely be ridiculed. It was an alarming escalation of far-right action, and we need to reckon with it. More thoughts (un-paywalled) here: www.lamestream.com.au/how-mainstre...

Melbourne Uni is killing the literary journal Meanjin. It's cultural vandalism. Australian universities are now deeply anti-intellectual places www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

The federal government wants to charge for making FOI requests. Ridiculous for a government allegedly committed to transparency. www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/freed...

This is an excellent response to the "we have to charge for FOI because forren AI bots!" nonsense from the A-G. www.righttoknow.org.au/request/evid...

@floreani.bsky.social 🎂

"Ex meth-lab in a great location, include your blood type on the tenant application" Playlunch really capturing the essence of my research interviews with renters here 🎶

it was lovely to chat with Matt for the @admscentre.org.au podcast about my research. if you're interested in tech x rental housing or want to have a sticky beak into what I'm working on, this is a good overview 🏠

New research shows "home insurers consider the credit score of the homeowner more important than the location of the home in setting prices... On average across the nation, it is more expensive to have a poor credit score than to live in a zip code with a high disaster risk."

New ADM+S Podcast episode: PhD researcher Samantha @floreani.bsky.social explores her study on the growing influence of digital technologies in the residential real estate sector. 🎧 Listen now: admscentre.org/461k5OE

hey look it's @jathansadowski.com! launching his book! it's called The Mechanic and the Luddite! you should read it! it's a ruthless criticism of technology and capitalism! it's very good!

"I am a robodebt whistleblower. I know what it’s like to be punished for speaking out and why protection is urgent" – Jeannie-Marie Blake www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

if you watch the tech industry long enough you learn the promised benefits never materialize but the unforeseen harms continue to be perpetuated long after the companies move on to the next big thing yet governments are too worried about scaring away investment to do anything

My first physical copy of Witch Power has arrived!! The Melbourne book launch is on the 16th of Oct, here is the link to register: www.trybooking.com/events/landi... To pre-order the book: www.readings.com.au/product/9781...

I expanded on these thoughts. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Idk why the productivity commission believes productivity can be derived by giving away other people's labour for free to companies with way too much money. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I just finished reading Tony Tulathimutte’s 'Rejection', about, as Jia Tolentino puts it her great review, "a bunch of huge fucking losers." It's impressive to write something simultaneously so repulsive and so compulsive...much like the internet itself. I hated it. I loved it.

last week I wrote about submissions made to the productivity commission by tech giants. today, the productivity commission released their report, basically suggesting to let AI companies have at it. it seems they're extremely happy to bend over to big tech

last year centrelink randomly sent me a $550 jobseeker payment (I haven't been on jobseeker for years). I contacted them and they were completely bewildered by it. I paid it back. turns out they told the ATO that I received the $550 of taxable income, which now I can't remove from my tax return 🫠