I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

Do I want to know who either of the Jonathan Ross’s in my feed are?

"Teens should be outside, not on social media" "No, not like that"

Submission from Anne Twomey on the Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill now up - it’s a must read for journalists and policy makers Quite the burn here too 🔥 www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

This is quite a post www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/reality-is...

Duckduckgo has a survey for pro/anti-AI and I cackled so hard at the (current) results https://voteyesornoai.com

Well I think we can all agree that it’s been another big week for social cohesion .

autonomous vehicles are an abject lesson about the impossibly complex challenge of trying to effectively navigate a dynamic natural world automatically. the entirety of the field's scholarly & engineering work might be most valuable as case studies in why uncritical automation is a fraught endeavor.

If you have never seen the somewhat demented Bill Friedkin movie, Killer Joe (2011) you should rectify this. You’ll never look at a chicken drumstick the same way again. youtu.be/JYcUUXq6Kd8?...

The Ice Storm is a seriously underrated movie, but it’s not exactly light viewing. Be prepared to be wiped out after you’ve seen it. Definitely worth it though. Good review here.

It should never be lost on any of us how weird a unit Abbott was, and how he felt very little need to mask it whilst PM.

The VicEmergency app just threw me an alert for an earthquake near Wodonga. Clicking on it gave me an error. I’m guessing (hoping) it was just a really weird bug.

Et tu, Bandcamp? bandcamp.com/about_clubs

“Nobody wears a Brown Shirt these days” says Alec Guinness in the otherwise terrible old movie “The Quiller Memorandum.” It’s a truly dreadful movie, but that line in particular hasn’t aged well.

spineless..

People will see a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born and only think to criticise its posture.

Erich Von Daniken really was the patron saint of second-hand bookshops in the 1980s.

Hard to believe that a former SDA official would do something like this eh. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Dog discovered the Fun way down 🤣 #FridayFeeling

My better half is bingeing The Beast In Me while I’m cleaning the house and it’s amazing how much Claire Danes’s accent, cadence and tone matches Rhea Seehorn’s. They could be voice doubles.

This is how the Oz are reporting the (main??) criticism of Bell: she once made a decision with others on the HIGH COURT about environmental protest law bans (I remember covering those, draconian) that was later CITED by a different court to allow anti genocide protests to go ahead. My god.

I’m still amazed that the sub judice aspect has been ignored in the rolling media campaign for a Bondi royal commission. In case you’ve not read about it (and why would you) I’ve written about it here: open.substack.com/pub/nickfeik...

Fridge and freezer cleaned. Shopping done so now they’re restocked for the next power outage. I am never going on holiday again.

Once a generation American imperialism picks a country they want to make a bunch of crap war films about approximately 10 to 15 years later

One estimate is that we need 1/400th as much extraction for renewables as we do for a world run on fossil fuel. And so forth.

Ah yes, the joy of coming home after 8 days away, to find the power went out on New Year’s Eve and the stuff that was in the fridge/freezer is … ripe. 🤢

Last song of 2025 was Aimee Mann’s “I’ve Had It” which seems appropriate. First song of the year was “My Best Mistake” by The Panics, which was also a pretty good start.

Good morning. Lazy day at the waterhole (and the backyard) today.

There’s not much going on in Dalgety, today or any other day.

Happy 2026 from Scammell’s Ridge

Is good

Went for a wander around the first university I attended (I went to 4 but never graduated from this particular one). They seem to have cleaned it up a bit. I wonder whether they still call this The Ming Wing? Probably lost to time. Has excellent electric vehicle charging, only on I was back

Movies seen this Christmas period. Weapons (2025) Nuremberg (2025) Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025) Bad Santa (2003) Movies enjoyed: Bad Santa Weapons Good lord Nuremberg is a terrible movie. Just awful. Almost didn’t make it through. And the Springsteen one fundamentally misses the point.

Braving the fish market in the wee small hours. Wish me luck.

I was re-watching this today. Definitely not the morally appropriate choice but they would get the job done.

Deeply satisfying.

Pinky the Platypus www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

Pantone just updated their Color Of The Year

This is good, and worth your time. Some perspective on tax policy would be welcome. What is the economy for, exactly? (gift link) www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/22341/...

The key to my husband’s happiness appears to be England losing badly at cricket.

Excuse me why is anyone asking Mike Pezzullo anything?

Waiting to hear the important details on the 7 men arrested in Liverpool from the media. Did any of them own property? Were they considering investing in the Sydney property market after disappointing investments in Melbourne?

It’s too hot to do anything except make a gin and tonic.

Relevant to the above post is the following from Whittaker's piece: "Tech companies quickly (re)branded machine learning and other data-dependent approaches as AI, framing them as the product of breakthrough scientific innovation...When we say AI is everywhere, this is why."

This has really rocked me. I was re-reading Musicophilia a few weeks ago. I feel like the world has tilted.

Ermagerd. owlsintowels.org

I’m just going to tell the story. Back in 2000 I was volunteering for the Gore campaign when he came along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Alfre Woodard and Dule Hill to a GOTV event here in MN. He ended up sitting down across from me stuffing his envelopes.