I’m in Hobart and it’s cold but it’s not terrible. People keep saying it’s terrible and you shouldn’t come here, but honestly, it seems quite nice. If somewhat cold.
Was just watching a Hanson presser about banning the ABC and the Graun and became deeply interested in what the surface of Mercury was like and whether I might be able to live there.
Thinking of doing my own Iliad/Odyssey mash up translation, “Sing oh muse of fuckin SPLOSIONS and stabby shit.” Reckon the cyborg mecha suit bit with Odysseus nailing him with magical RPGs will fucking ROCK
In my 30s I switched my bedtime reading from non-fiction (technology and business stuff) to fiction. Feels so much better to empty the world out of my head just before sleeping than to start thinking about ways I could fix it.
John Birmingham@birmo.bsky.social · 4d agoIf you’re trying to rediscover your love of reading, you should probably start by reading something you’re going to love. It doesn’t have to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, just something you will enjoy.
I don’t want anyone to freak out or anything, but maybe we could try taxing capital, sort of like how we tax income. Like, pay up motherfucker, or you’re going to jail.
If you’re trying to rediscover your love of reading, you should probably start by reading something you’re going to love. It doesn’t have to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, just something you will enjoy.
Elevator pitch for a movie. The Hero struggles the the ruins of our fallen civilization carrying a small bag with the worlds last surviving books, pursued by warring Sambots and Elonbots, desperate to injest the Final Texts, so that the One True AI can be decided.
After months of researching my essay on the new/far/alt right in Australia, diving into neoliberal think tanks, polling data & focus groups, funding sources for the Atlas Network, academic papers on the algorithm & epistemic collapse, I finally placed arse to Aeron yesterday & wrote my opening pars.
It’s Jan 2027 & you’re horizontal. The aircon is dripping onto the couch. There’s cricket on the telly somewhere, the last functioning institution in the free world, while on the glowing fondleslab in your hand, the US is dying. It was happening in slo-mo at first, but the end is coming fast...
Australia is in a zombie alliance with Trump's America. Soon it will cannibalise itself — and us
America is already dead, though its zombie corpse still wanders the earth. So why does Australia insist on feeding it via the AUKUS agreement?
crikey.com.au
If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we're going to land somewhere safely, don't worry.'
Hemant Mehta@friendlyatheist.com · last wk.Evangelist Whitney Lynn says she preaches on planes because she loves “a captive audience.” She's not alone. It's becoming a trend. If spreading your message requires listeners who can't escape, maybe it's not as compelling as you think. www.friendlyatheist.com/p/christian-...
Honestly, some weeks this is the only reason I can afford groceries.
Leena 🌵@leena.reuben.games · last wk.reading a shitty article by a writer I don’t like: what a fucking hack, pathetic reading an article from a writer i do like that admittedly isn’t their best work: yeah you get your bag, baby
Had lunch with relatives. They asked me what I was working on. “A Quarterly Essay about the rise of the New Right in Australia…” Me 45 minutes later
If Christopher Nolan truly respected the Western Canon he would have given us The Odyssey as Homer intended, reciting it for 17 hours while wearing sandals in the nearest town square.
If you publish with Ingram, you need to opt out from them knowingly selling your books to companies which then use those books to train AI. It should be opt in, but as with all this shit, it's opt out. So make sure you opt out. Here's a link to the opt-out form: www.ingramcontent.com/page/ai-opt-...
AI Opt Out
ingramcontent.com
Cool new ways to get fucked by an AI.
Uh oh, forgot to plug in the Super Omni Mega AI Master Strategy
Did anyone notice that the PM’s promise that Australia would be the very first nation upon this weary earth to bundle its AI response into a single national framework somewhat cheekily glided past the...
open.substack.com
If I was prime minister I would simply not go to dinner with billionaire tax avoiders. Indeed, I might just tax them instead.
Fixed that sucky column. Took four hours. Not sure that was the best use of my time.
Just spent a whole day writing a column that, frankly, sucks. And now I have to desuck it. And that sucks even more.
This reminds me of the letter I wrote to the Ipswich library explaining I could not return their book because it had been destroyed in a gigantic service station explosion on the Nullarbor plain. Nor could I possibly come in to pay the fine because I was recovering from my extensive explosion wounds
Marcus Kelson@marcuskelson.bsky.social · 2w agoMakes perfect sense when you say it out loud.
On those rare, and I can assure you of this, very rare occasions when I do succumb to the siren song of an afternoon nap, I may wonder to myself, what do people who work in real offices do at naptime? Feel free to answer below. I’ll just be over here in my, er, reading chair.
Immanence, transcendance and nap time.
My dad was in a factory all his working life, and I remember talking with him once about what life might be like if he didn’t work in a factory.
open.substack.com
The problem with going back to daily blogging is that I quickly become addicted to blogging every day.
Devil Wears Prada 2 is a great movie about the death of magazines.
Beware. Some quite serious spoilers.
open.substack.com
I really want to go see The Odyssey in IMAX, but I don’t want to go to the trouble of developing a take. Is there somewhere I could get a take to drop in the discourse on the way out? I am willing to pay one shiny dollar.
Watch Prada 2 this morning. (It was raining & cold outside so we made scones & tea). I enjoyed it but I’m not sure why so many people disliked Hathaways Andy Sachs character. She was fine. My only note would be that after 20 yrs in journalism she’d have been less likely to put up with Miranda’s shit
