Liam

Revealed: Australia's $100 million investment in controversial tech giant Palantir Australia's Future Fund drastically increased its stake in Palantir in the year since Donald Trump took office, according to its latest figures.

www.crikey.com.au/2026/01/29/p... This is fucking outrageous and we ought not to be going anywhere near it.

ICE detains five-year-old Minnesota boy arriving home, say school officials Superintendent says Liam Ramos and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway and sent to Texas

‘Terrible things are happening outside… Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return… to find their families gone.’
Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"So basically, once you're labelled with this, there's no avenue for you to really appeal it based on its unfairness."

The rushed new hate speech laws could have serious consequences for Australia.
@ebonybennett.bsky.social @browne90.bsky.social #auspol

An email from Martin Peterson to university administrators.

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

Decision to disinvite Palestinian-Australian writer from Adelaide Festival is pure, ugly politics The moral spinelessness in not only seeking to silence Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, but to link the cancellation to the abhorrent terrorist attack in Bondi, speaks volumes over who is allowed to have a voic...

www.crikey.com.au/2026/01/09/p...

One of the regular complaints about rooftop solar subsidy schemes is that it only assists those who can afford to invest in rooftop solar - but as this is demonstrating, those subsidies protect the grid for those who can't afford the investment. Rooftop solar has benefit of the commons effects.

The Australian government is spending millions supporting Elon Musk's deepfake porn factory, X

Elon Musk's AI chatbot is churning out non-consensual sexual deepfakes every minute. Meanwhile the Australian government continues to pay the company millions, writes Cam Wilson.

I'm disturbed by people thinking that things are business as usual with regard to the US. The only possible answer I can consider is that they're not paying enough attention, but even that is difficult to reconcile; paying any attention at all should be sufficient.

Too bad, slopguy

There are very few services that need really high uptime. Emergency warning systems are one of those that do.

This Emergency WA outage is an absolute howler.

No shade and and every support to those working on recovery.

Competition watchdog opposes sale of WA's biggest insurer to east-coast giant The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission finds IAG's proposed acquisition of RAC WA would "eliminate the significant competition" between the two major insurance companies and likely result ...

> The new regime will allow the ACCC to approve acquisitions it has opposed on competition grounds if those are outweighed by public benefits.

I'd be curious to know what public benefits they would be.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

You know the burnout is cooking when you're considering taking a sick day just so you can work with teams and outlook not running. 😮‍💨🥴

Not to be too depressive about it, but I don't think it changes anything.

Me having to tell AI what the answer is, "Exactly!". Bro.

Gas leak cover-up shows Australian governments are captured by the gas industry It's been revealed that Santos’ Darwin LNG gas export terminal has been leaking large amounts of climate-destroying methane gas for 20 years - and gas

“This cover-up is a national scandal. It confirms that Australia’s key regulators are either incompetent or captured by the gas industry, or both,” said @markogge.bsky.social.

“That there are no consequences for gas companies failing to act on a major leak of methane for 20 years is a disgrace."

Read the thread, but tldr, there's no evidence to back the claim.

The A.I.-Profits Drought and the Lessons of History Like the steam engine, electricity, and computers, generative artificial intelligence could take longer than expected to transform the economy.

An M.I.T. study found that 95% of companies that had invested in A.I. tools were seeing zero return. It jibes with the emerging idea that generative A.I., “in its current incarnation, simply isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be,” johncassidysays.bsky.social writes.

Government to freeze construction code, fast-track housing approvals The changes are being announced just days after the government was urged to take action by the Economic Reform Roundtable.

Sigh. Yes. Regulations are definitely the problem here. 🤡

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

The AI Report That's Spooking Wall Street The majority of companies are failing to see any returns on their AI investments, a report finds.

:)

gizmodo.com/the-ai-repor...

The fun part for me is, I don't hear coherent counterarguments. If they existed, I have no doubt I would be hearing them constantly.

How Australia’s teen social media ban tech trial was derailed by expert turmoil and secrecy Expert participants had high expectations for the government’s $6.5 million Age Assurance Technology trial. Now, some have quit their advisory roles and others are questioning how seriously to take it...

@mrjamesob.bsky.social I think you said something about Australia having figured this out, or having thought about it properly. It really doesn't feel like the case 🥲 www.crikey.com.au/2025/08/18/a...

Ex-Trump adviser fails to give an example of 'free speech under threat' | LBC YouTube video by LBC

Imagine being so bad at your job that you don't know anything about the single example you present to 'prove' your own argument.

youtu.be/n318ySMx_2U?...

Australia’s potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands | Josh Taylor The Productivity Commission appears to have bought into tech companies’ brazen arguments – and caught the Australian government off-guard

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

The Productivity Commission is floating AI copyright exemptions – with worrying implications for Australian authors and publishers Exemptions to copyright legislation for AI would disadvantage Australian writers – and set a bad precedent.

The Productivity Commission has floated an idea to expand the fair use provision, which would make the kind of scraping AI companies do to train ChatGPT et al legal.

Authors and other creatives are rightly outraged.

NB: this isn't the first time the PC has come for book publishing.

We've acquired the historic game magazine Computer Entertainer.

As in, we got the rights. We own the magazine. And we're putting it into the Creative Commons for anyone to use for free.

Learn more: gamehistory.org/computerente...

I welcome Tim Wilson sharing his opinions on WFH and 'professional apartheid and prejudice'. The body of evidence that he should not be taken seriously on any matter, ever, grows.

Also, for the love of god, attach your CV as a PDF.

Reviewing CVs is a golden experience in learning what not to do in your CV.

The disastrous dismantling of the humanities in Australia’s universities has begun A crisis is unfolding for the humanities and social sciences at universities across the country.

www.crikey.com.au/2025/07/31/a...

Why does everything have to be so bleak right now? 😂😭💀

Britain For Sale: How Shareholders Extracted Billions from the UK’s Essential Services A report said £85bn had been extracted from the water system since privatisation, the latest case of essential services serving shareholders.

Don't. Privatise. Infrastructure.

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/britain...