Australia's highest altitude ski resort yesterday, more than a month into winter. (Photo: ABC News: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07...)

BBC: > Supreme Court's birthright ruling is major blow to Trump. What it really means: "The US constitution is major blow to Trump."

Internet is getting worse for actual info. I searched for the source of a quote. 4 search engine queries gave “inspirational quote” sites with no citations. AI gave me the wrong answer, SAID IT WAS RIGHT when I questioned it, only gave me right answer after I gave it a source URL without the quote.

Astonished to see news coverage of the heatwave in Europe, and see that virtually nobody there is wearing a hat. Wear a sun hat, people!

I feel like Calypso keeping Odysseus captive for 7 years was just a cop-out by Homer when he couldn’t think of any more cool adventures to fill the time. #theodyssey #mythology

Yesterday multiple media (news website, radio, TV) said it was the winter solstice, and all had “an astrophysicist explain what that means”. Maybe they should have a year 8 student explain it. It's sad that a relatively simple thing which is taught at school seems so esoteric to so many people.

Posted on the fire door in my apartment building.

It wasn’t me! www.bbc.com/news/article...

Winter vegetation textures, Sydney. #photography #sydney

Dream I had: They were installing debit card readers to charge everyone $10 per floor travelled to use the lifts in my apartment building! Reason: To deter non-residents from accessing the roof to do birdwatching. (NB. This doesn’t happen in reality. You can’t even get on the roof.)

Sketches from a trip to the city yesterday. Tessuto Cafe, York St. General Post Office clock tower, Martin Place. #sydney #sketching

Winter here in Sydney so far doesn’t feel anything like it. We haven’t had a single day at or below the June average temperature, and are running up to 5 degrees Celsius over. The next week is forecast to be even warmer, hovering around 23°C, 6 degrees above average. #climatechange #climate #weather

Nice. Someone made public domain clip art of THAT SCENE from The Ring. publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clip...

My wife made me get a tiny (A6) sketchbook so I can just stick it in a pocket with a single pen, rather than lug around a larger sketching kit. #sketching

I wanted an image to represent a “music player” for a class of kids aged 10-12 years... And I realised that an iPod is probably too old for them to recognise. #feelingold #old

Trying to submit online feedback to a supermarket, and they had a weird new CAPTCHA with so many successive rounds that my wife walking past said, “What’s that game you’re playing?”

I went to CBC to get some Canadian news. I hate that this front page looks almost like The Onion.

Spotted this super cool green tree snake while out walking my dog today. Left it alone to do its snaky things. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrel...

I propose changing the spelling of the word “mouse” to either: mouse🐭 or mouse🖱️ depending on the context.

In another timeline, I'd be flying to the US today or tomorrow to attend a 4-day standards meeting in Boulder, Colorado. I've always wanted to see the Rockies. In this timeline, I'm staying home and Zooming into the meeting from 1am-9am in my time zone and not getting any sleep for a week.

Does anyone else feel like “Smooth Criminal” was never a Michael Jackson song when he was at the height of his popularity, and the entire song only appeared in the last few years? I swear I never heard this song before 2020. Now it's everywhere.

Some highlights from my reprinted, unupdated copy of the 1979 Usborne Book of the Future! 1/3: Artificial Intelligence won't cause any problems! Humans will still be “in charge”, but AI will override if it thinks it should. (I feel a lot safer now!)

I've reached the point where I put on wet clothes, socks, and shoes to go outside, since (a) they haven't dried yet from yesterday, and (b) they're just gonna get wet again anyway. It's rained every day since 11 May, and it's about 100% humidity. #weather #sydney

Apparently Australia is one of the earliest-rising countries in the world and has more early-opening businesses. Can confirm from experience trying to find somewhere to get breakfast in European countries at 7am and none of the cafes open until 9am. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...

More good news: I ate this for lunch. Crispy fried spicy chicken, pancakes, maple syrup, fried kale, pickled cherry tomatoes, and crème fraîche. It's a crazy combo, but it works. #food

Need some good news? Have some baby ducks. Australian wood ducks, spotted on a wharf while I was out walking my dog. #birds #australianbirds

Mess with people’s ancient Greek by insisting it’s ky-slops, not sy-klops.

Finished The Silmarillion last night. Was very amused that it summarised the entire Lord of the Rings in the last 2 pages. #tolkien #silmarillion

New board game acquisition! This keeps popping up in threads about "best board game ever", and none of my friends own a copy or have ever played it, so we're going to give it a try. #boardgames #inis

Elevation and pace graph for my 7.5k run. Why can’t I live somewhere flat??

Some good news related to Donald Trump! Plans to build a Trump Tower as the tallest building in Australia have been scrapped! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...

I'm reading The Silmarillion for the first time and... uh oh... Túrin just made a glaurung error... #silmarillion #tolkien

I've learnt a lot about non-Australian birds from the subreddit r/whatsthisbird. I can identify many US birds from a thumbnail. Today there were two that I didn't even need to look at the thumbnail for - the text was enough. 1. Mourning dove. 2. Road runner. Both correct.

Sketch I did of 120-124 Prince Albert St, Mosman. A Federation Arts & Crafts style shop, built 1908. #sketch #sketching #mosman #sydney

I made a variant croque monsieur with gochujang. I'm christening it a “croque 님”.

I've also scheduled a session of my Creative Thinking & Problem Solving course for kids, with a board game design project. 6 classes over 3 weeks in June: outschool.com/classes/crea...

I've written a new AI Literacy & Safety course for teens on Outschool and scheduled sessions in June and July at times suitable for US kids on summer break. Details & enrolment links: outschool.com/classes/ai-l...

Welp... the global Instructure/Canvas hack means none of the university students I teach can submit their assessment task reports, which were due today.

“All Fired Up“ by Pat Benatar: > And now I got a new fire, burnin‘ in my eyes > Lightin‘ up the darkness, movin‘ like a meteorite Me: Meteorites don‘t move. That's what they‘re called when they‘re on the ground, *after* they‘ve fallen.

And completing the Basic Dungeons & Dragons reprints, a brand new PoD copy of the Rules Cyclopedia arrived (separate shipment but same order as the B/X books I posted a few days ago). Together with my original 1991 edition (left). #DnD #BECMI #osr

In good news: I ate this Japanese pulled pork toasty today.

Print-on-demand copies from DriveThruRPG, to replace my original 1981 copies at the table! #DnD #BXDnD #osr

It’s starting to look like autumn.

Wow. ChatGPT just gave me a response and in the middle of all the English was: दृश्य It's Hindi for "scene", which is the most sensible English word that should have been in that place.

Is it wrong for me to want quality rather than quantity from my surveyors?

It’s approaching winter… Scorpius is up in the night sky!

People who drink coffee often say it doesn't taste as good as it smells. I'm not sure why anybody drinks it then, because coffee smells disgusting.

I just learnt there are competing electric vehicle charging plugs. We need the EU to mandate that all vehicles must be chargeable by USB-C.

Found these reprints of books that defined my childhood. Instantly ordered yesterday, delivered today, and... Holy cow that was a small price to pay for THAT much nostalgia. Now please reprint the Battlegames series. #usborne #books

Me, teaching a class on Critical Thinking & Ethics to 12-year-olds: Why would a company change a product, like breakfast cereal, if it's already popular and successful? Kid 1: Maybe the CEO got blackmailed. Kid 2: Or bribed! #criticalthinking #ethics