Week 9: Tidied up the corners of the viola. Continued carving the front in earnest, using the guide templates to get the curves right. A pleasure returning to the spruce after the sheer bastardry of maple, and I began to feel like yeah, I really CAN carve shapes in wood 🪵 💪🏻

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

How did I only just discover that Don Jr is marrying the daughter of a prominent Epstein enabler? Her late dad, a banker, wrote Epstein a reference letter calling him "a gentleman of the highest integrity" to help get him tax breaks &… his island. Can’t make this stuff up.

“since the war on Gaza, [the hasbara] budget is estimated to have jumped from around $15 million in 2023 to $700 million in 2026.“ Folks, I think you have wasted your money.

UC Berkeley Law creates new AI policy that bans AI for "conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit" or exams because "thinking remains the sine qua non of good lawyering (and of a quality legal education)." That's what I'm talking about.

Incredible heroism. No wonder Israel hates UNRWA. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Late May and the eggplants are still going gangbusters 🍆🍆🍆

Can anyone think of an easy way we could increase biodiversity finance without having to invent a complex pseudo-let's-pretend-it's-a-market-but-a-market-doesn't-really-work-so-let's-just-ensure-money-goes-to-conservation-one-way-or-another-mechanism? 🫠 biodiversitycouncil.org.au/news/could-e...

Just a reminder - you only pay 47% tax on income earned *above* $190,000. If you earn $200,000 you pay an average tax rate of around 30%.

Just shameful and so, so terrifying — this failure is indicative of a state that can't and/or won't relieve its citizens in the face of worsening disasters driven by climate change. Lismore is a test case for the whole country. Anywhere can be a sacrifice zone now.

Albanese’s office among departments blocking 80% of FoI requests, scathing report finds

Paleontology Collection Manager position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln employment.unl.edu/postings/100...

Week 8: Time to trim down the front & back of the instrument to their proper size. Coped with the coping saw. Then tidied up using bobbin sander & sanding disc (possibly my favourite tools). Still a looong way to go, but this felt like a significant step towards its viola-ness.

Keep on employing humans. www.independent.co.uk/tech/claude-...

Incredible animals doing incredible things! 🦇 www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...

An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus go.nature.com/3P50GXD

I probably spend too much time checking out musical instrument supplies, but after searching for string instrument cleaning products (sensible), I am thrilled by the range of other overly-specific products available. Like recorder cream. Trumpet snake. Bagpipe mop. 🎼🎻🎺🎷🎵

Do you work on #palaeoneurology ? I’m honored to be serving as @natureportfolio.nature.com Scientific Reports collection Guest Editor on this most awesome topic, and I am eager to read your submission! #brain #evolution 🧠 Learn more about the collection and how to contribute: go.nature.com/3NSfTut

*scientists frantically calculating the exact speed you need to jog through a museum in order to cheat death*

I've been reporting on local communities opposing massive new data centres. An update on one of the ones I covered. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

@evolsara.bsky.social got an early Christmas present: minor revisions for a manuscript! Keep an eye out for her paper in 2026 on Apteribis, the extinct Hawaiian ibis. And shout out to our coauthors @aub-birdy.bsky.social and @weisbeckerbblab.bsky.social #birds #anatomy

“You know why the Norwegians charge their kids nothing to go to university? “Because they tax the gas industry and they fund public services.” – Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute ✍ Sign to support a 25% tax on all Australian gas exports ➡️ https://theaus.in/3R78MQ4

Will Hayward @willhaycardiff.bsky.social v good & clear on rational basis of the vote for Plaid -- my gloss, PR shd be priority for a rationally reset Labour govt & any new PM. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“The most consequential new worker arriving in Australia is not a person, it is an AI agent.” www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026...

Week 7: I carved, carved, then carved some more. Getting fitter, stronger, & developing more of a feel for the tools and the timber. Bit more to go, then it’s time to cut the outline of the viola for real (there is still some excess here), & cut the channel to inlay the purfling near the edges. 🎻

There is a way out of our political spiral, and it is thrilling and inspiring. We could have a very different country. This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

cameronspires.com cameronspires.com/goat-to-self

Sorry ABC - 8m are not on "income support". My fact check for @thepointau.bsky.social thepoint.com.au/factchecks/2...

🚨Massive call out: There is just 24 hours left of our annual fundraiser, and the Local and Independent News Association is still DOUBLING all donations. We really need to make the most of this fantastic opportunity. Please donate here👉 theklaxon.presspatron.com Thank you!

Hideous new development in enshittification "Dynamic pricing seems to ask: “What are the conditions right now?” Surveillance pricing asks: “Who are you, and how much can we extract from you?”"

Week 6: The front & back of the viola are taking shape. The front (nice soft spruce) was the easy part. The back (much harder maple)… let’s just say the war of attrition has begun. Three hours of carving & everything aches. I am so going to fall asleep on the sofa mid-evening.

Richard Dawkins: Trans women aren't real Also Richard Dawkins: AIs are conscious and my Claude is a Claudia

Apparently, journals, universities and publishers cannot do it but the Oscars can

Fantastic new piece of public guerrilla art from Banksy: clearly a politician about to fall from their plinth as they’re blinded by the flag they are waving And it’s been put up right in the part of London soaked in imperial imagery. Applause

❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️📚❤️

In Wales they now do a cool thing where candidates have to list their recent party membership history. It throws up lots of interesting findings for voters. Like Dai Richards (bottom) - 'independent' candidate who has been a member of four far-right parties in the space of a year...

Nigel Farage has revealed he received a previously-undeclared gift of around £5 million from a Reform UK mega donor to boost his security, as he detailed a firebomb attack on his home last year

Week 5: Front & back of the viola are rough cut & mounted on blocks for clamping. Body shape marked out. Edge thickness marked. Actual carving of the front has begun! The first 3 crisp, confident cuts are the teacher’s & the rest of the nervous wibbly-wobbly nibbles are all my own work 😅🎻

Her: I’m coming over. You better not be squawking uncontrollably like a Peruvian Thick-knee. Me:

#bookSky #writing When I publish my book, I’m going to dedicate it to my slow cooker - without which nothing might have been achieved.

If your main interest in anti-Semitism is as a stick with which to beat your political opponents you're a big part of the problem, you. Well said, and vitally important, from @zackpolanski.bsky.social.

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ap... Elders who spoke at services in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth on Saturday morning were booed following a campaign by Fight for Australia, the group formerly known as March for Australia, which has previously staged major anti-immigration rallies.

Anyone who understands with total clarity what antisemitism is and isn’t after reading this 40-page handbook deserves a medal 😳 www.aseca.gov.au/sites/defaul...

A colourful friend eating weeds in my garden. Not sure what it is - I think it might turn into a Noctuidae moth of some kind. 🐛

It was set up to fail, and it did.

Actual quote from a duly-constituted discipline appeal body about the workplace of professional athletes in the highest level of Australian rules football. (2026)