‘Speaking to me could have destroyed their career. It could have ruined their livelihood. Stretched their family. Strained their friendships.
It was a sense of justice that propelled that whistleblower to me.‘
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
the cutesie ADHD accounts on tiktok won’t tell you this but did you know that people with ADHD are more likely to get into car accidents, 3 times more likely to be nicotine-dependent, 50% more likely to develop substance addiction, AND twice as likely to go to jail?
UNLESS, they’re medicated.
Larissa Waters asks Penny Wong if Australia is “at war”
Wong “we are engaged in collective self defence…”
Waters “Point of order on relevance, are we at war?”
Wong “I responded by being clear that we are engaged in collective self defence…”
Is that a yes? 🤔 #auspol
The colorful cover of the Blades '68 book where the 68 has been crossed out and replaced with 69 in bright purple. Next to the that, the description for the $420k stretch goal which is FUNDED: Blades '69: The Sexual Revolution The 1960s were a time when the counterculture challenged establishment norms around sex, love, family, and a person's right to choose what happens to their own body. How does this conflict manifest in Doskvol? How does the Consensus exercise control through these dimensions of human experience, and what struggles and delightful deviancies does your group want to explore? Blades '69 is a combination of a worldbuilding exercise and safety tool to help you bring themes of both real-world and fantastical sexual liberation to your game."
Nice. 😎
www.backerkit.com/c/projects/e...
For the tech world, education *is* a chore, you want to get the bare minimum as fast as possible before jumping in and making big bank at a start up, or as an entrepreneur yourself. Everything in the path of wealth or power or validation *through* these things must be discarded.
The hypocrisy is so dangerous. While signing us up for an illegal war & claiming it champions human rights of the Iranian people, the Albanese Gov is ramming thru new laws to ban people from #Iran with valid visas from entering Australia.
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
This is the last. fucking. straw. The shambling corpse of the so-called NYT is finally dead and buried.
And fucking Blood Meridian of all things! The hubris!! These idiots got in the ring with Muhammad Ali like they had any chance at all. Shame. SHAME.
Idiots! The parliament found that ginormous single company contracts are too big for most companies. If the MPs and bureaucrats are unwilling to recreate a Department of Public Works to manage the risk on these contracts we will never afford new infrastructure again. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Kw...
Elizabeth Sampat @twoscooters Follow I don't wish we could abolish gender, I just wish it were less an identity and more of a hobby. So you'd get people who are like "Oh yeah, l'm a woman when I have the time," or "I'm a man but I'm not very good at it yet" along with the CrossFit gender types who are SUPER INTO IT
A friend just saw this in the wild and you know what? I stand by it
This seems to me to be a recurrent problem in game design, even in games that limit PvP, because folks say they *want* competitive play experiences (or mechanics that would lead to it) but actually playing in that context is generally exhausting and unfun except for assholes, basically.
The alternative is to intentionally take the limits off, go full Foxhole or EVEOnline, but of course in that kind of competition, humans build the sort of institutions and structures we build for real world competition: companies and states.
Which become 'work' *very* fast.
I wrote about the war on Iran, the racist colonial narratives that suffuse it, the rank obscenity and stupidity of it all but especially that of the Australian government’s response so far. sakr.substack.com/p/albanese-t...
Hate to be the one to throw cold water on the “solar will save us” thing but the Chinese solar companies that were driving this are in dire condition because overcapacity is a very real problem and not something that an economist made up to scare you.
When I first reported on this, I kept being asked: "Sure but how bad will it be? Will it really stick around?"
“The royal commission is about both antisemitism and social cohesion, and if there is not going to be an examination of Islamophobia, that is really concerning," he told the ABC.
"Muslim Australians should not feel [like] they have to beg for protection."
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
Working on a q&a lecture for a class today: The story of robots is always a story about slavery. The story of LLMs labeled as AI is a story about class, and which humans pay the cost, including the physical toll on their bodies/minds, and the lack of water and electricity, so data centers can exist.
A new study examined Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels to see if they could detect changes in his writing prior to his tragic Alzheimer's diagnosis. Here's what the study says, and what it doesn't say 🧪 skepchick.org/2026/03/did-...
When you click the "beautify slide" AI feature in Google Slides.
NOT A JOKE
Finished up Dead Country this morning, which puts me back at the point I was when I decided I needed to re-read the Craft books.
(Specifically, I decided 1 sentence into chapter 1 of Wicked Problems, when my first reaction was “wait, who is this again?” And decided to refresh my memory)
And she volunteered for the military to boot!
*Shake my head* Protagonists are not the same anymore.
I am a data cruncher autistic, and I fucking LOVED the complexity of 1st edition math. But 2nd edition doesn't make me feel like I'm conning new players when I say it isn't that hard to learn.
#pathfinder2e #PF2memes #ttrpg
I have just spent the evening calculating how many defleshed human skulls it would take to collapse inside their own Schwartzschild Radius and create a black hole (roughly 16.5 solar masses, or 2 x 10^31 skulls, if my maths is right). Because space opera, right? Can't think too small!
1/2
Pilot and Mech for Beamsaber / Calazcon
my most detailed art would kill you, traveler, you are not strong enough for my most detailed art would
Dan Simmons died. Weird feelings about this.
On the one hand Hyperion was a defining reading experience for me & absolutely holds up & the first half of his career was incredibly strong.
On the other his personal politics were horrid & eventually infected his work to its obvious detriment.
Mechsploitation Nextdoor:
Friendly reminder that pilots are NOT permitted in the dog park, regardless of how they are designated by their Handler. This is a LEASH LAW issue, people!!!!!!
Between your Grace Tame "difficult" comment and your "contempt" for the mothers in Syria refugee camps...you've had a rough week @albomp.bsky.social
Time to get into the Hall of Mirrors and have a long, hard look at yourself.
Do you recognise the person you are now ?
The PM calling Grace Tame, a woman fighting for the safety of children, “difficult” is completely unwarranted.
Labelling women as difficult won’t silence us. It won’t stop us speaking truth to power.
Next time try “unbreakable” or “warrior” or “fierce”, Prime Minister.
Map showing potential sites for stations in each region. In Newcastle, there are boxes for Newcastle Interchange, Broadmeadow and Woodville Junction.
9. Interesting section on potential station sites, and why they have been included or excluded. Once again, heavy emphasis on potential for housing growth - it really is all about that. In Newcastle for example the options still in the mix are Interchange, Broadmeadow and Woodville Junction.
Cartoon Illustration of a HS train with the heading 'The first stage of National High Speed Rail'
Here it is! The 300 page 'Business' case for Newcastle to Sydney High Speed Rail.
I've not read it yet, that's for the rest of the week.
Apart from my antipathy to the whole concept of Business Cases, I'll read it with interest.
But normal people won't read it.
media.caapp.com.au/pdf/j2IbcN94...
