yes, the likely result of this may well be to make everything more inconvenient for everybody, and especially for people who depend upon digital services. The vision of an internet entirely ruined and uninhabitable by humanity comes depressingly closer.

Finally got around to…paying for content I enjoy. Consider doing likewise if you’re a Volts listener and have the means!

How the Spirit of Tasmania became the greatest infrastructure disaster in the state’s history. A tragicomedy:

If you care about cost blowouts in construction projects, there’s a far more significant issue than what the CFMEU did or didn’t do in Victoria. productivity growth in construction has been abysmal for decades, and in Australia tax policy is in part to blame www.abs.gov.au/system/files...

Good work by The Guardian here investigating the claim that CFMEU corruption cost Victorian taxpayers $15 billion. TL;DR it’s likely exaggerated - global factors likely explain much of the construction cost overruns happening in the immediate post-COVID era. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

NEW ANALYSIS: China's CO2 has now been 'flat or falling' for 21 months * Down in 2025 * Still below Mar 2024 * Clean energy wave a key factor If this is China's peak (TBC) it's the climate story of the century so far… www.carbonbrief.org/...

While most of the debate around tax and housing focuses on affordability (misguided and poorly evidenced imo) and intergenerational fairness (much closer to the mark), few progressive and even few industry figures focus on how to configure tax settings to maximise (re)investment in new supply.

The original is so cool and this is a lovely tribute.

There is a fine line between visionary and delusional. Elon is not exactly straddling the line.

Curious what others think about this new English band, the Molotovs. Genuinely good or too close a ripoff of bands like The Jam? youtu.be/Dmz6Z04JdGA?...

Does anyone know how the $15 billion claim of losses due to alleged CFMEU corruption is calculated? What are they comparing it to?

Fusion vs fission. It's fusion for the win - with a bit of help from some solar panels, obviously.

like, this story is insane—letting a 92-year-old obviously incapable of driving keep his license while leaving pedestrians/cyclists with no protection from cars has killed more people than every waymo crash ever. It will be forgotten next week. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Incompetence of this scale should cost politicians their jobs. History shows that it usually doesn’t, unfortunately.

Hey @nickfeik.bsky.social any reason you haven’t plugged the heck out of your latest article in The Monthly?

#include<tormentnexus.h> (or more specifically , GATTACA): www.smh.com.au/national/hav...

If you ever wanted a working definition of structural racism, our structures are currently performing a textbook example.

This roo has seen some stuff. Kinchega National Park, New South Wales.

The news has been covering the attempting bombing at the Boorloo Invasion Day march responsibly imo — but what were all noticing is the lack of commentary that would usually bulk out the column inches and front pages after these events. The professional opinionhavers have distinctly no opinions.

don't worry everyone! even if all the NFT marketplaces shut down and you can't actually see it, NO ONE can take away the indelible blockchain ledger entry that marks the dead .jpeg link

now to take a big swig of tea and check in on the record of big computerization projects and the NHS

The idea that the Nationals and Liberals can disassociate themselves from each other and satisfy their respective voting bases is just nonsense. If you think either party would give up the opportunity to get back on the government benches, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Good things are possible, and we should just do them more often.

Definitely one of those “but it’s a DRY heat” days in Melbourne. It’s 39 out here but it really isn’t unbearable.

A Royal Commission's role isn't to solve intractable policy problems, generate expert consensus nor provide public soapboxes. They're powerful quasi-judicial bodies with the power to compel evidence even from typically privileged sources. And that's why they should be used sparingly.

Of course, the actual doctors spend most of the article talking about diet, tobacco and alcohol consumption, and exercise, which are far more determinative of your cancer risk than either of these real but comparatively minor factors: www.smh.com.au/healthcare/h...

PSA for Melbourne cyclists, if you're going up or down Mount Donna Buang from the Warburton side, there's dozens of blown out tyres and their associated bits of steel belt strewn over the road near the big car park a couple of km from the summit. I got a puncture on the way down.

Yes, but also Baumol.

Jeebus. One way or the other this test will end without a player scoring a 50.

The serious answer is likely “he gives good quotes and is plausibly an expert in something”, which is all a journalist on a deadline usually needs.

Eternally this

This entire opinion piece by Chip le Grand does not mention ISIS a single time. Not once. Instead it repeatedly suggests that the cause of the Bondi attack was Labor's failure to crack down harder on Gaza protests and related antisemitism. www.smh.com.au/national/lab...

not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture — and specifically nostalgia bait television — is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.

Inevitable, bad, and why requiring porn sites to collect personal information about their users is a bad idea. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Good. Now do inner Melbourne. These trees are a menace in all respects. (Including for hay fever.) There must be better shade tree options!

Lots of discussion about gun laws today, understandably. One basic point I'd like to make is that you wouldn't want people running around hunting rabbits with deer rifles, which might be an unintended consequence of a blanket one-gun-per-adult policy.

The relentless march of ever-falling battery prices continues. 🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

WTAF?

This thing is a gimmick: It runs a few times a day on a 3km route.

Examples of these trucks were at the recent Melbourne EV show. We can electrify heavy transport if we want to, though the trucking industry, particularly owner drivers, will probably have to be dragged kicking and screaming.

While there is nuance in the details, ultimately, this appears to be a "computer says no" system, designed on the basis that human assessors are too susceptible to sympathetic applications.

EXCLUSIVE: Funding and support plans for national disability insurance scheme participants will be generated by a computer program and staff will have no discretion to amend them, under a major overhaul of the NDIS to be rolled out next year, @australia.theguardian.com can reveal.

Brought to you by the letters I, B, and M.

With grant success rates this low it is essentially impossible for young researchers to make their way - and if it’s this bad for DECRAs, imagine what it’s like for people in the post-DECRA valley of death.

Betteridge's Law strikes again. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is…not great. There might be a (kinda) national gas market but the ability to move gas around the nation is constrained by available pipeline capacity, and there is also limits to the ability to store gas to meet peak demand in winter - which is where the risk of shortages comes from.

Whenever anyone mentions merit ever, ever again, I’ll just point to the opening paragraphs of this essay and the fact that the writer has been repeatedly hired by the best-funded and most prestigious outlets on the planet:

What possible justification is there for CSIRO to be shrinking, FFS?

This discourse annoys me quite a bit. It would be more productive to think a little harder about why SUV marketing - and actual SUVs - hit a chord with so many buyers who are prepared to pay more for what are, in many ways, inferior vehicles for their owners well as for society.

Spotted near work. The driver (who uses it for work) was very eager to talk about it and loves it - says he wouldn’t go back to a petrol version. While I do not love full-size American pickups on our roads, it’s interesting that given the opportunity to try it, ute drivers don’t mind an EV.