Robert Merkel
@rgmerk.bsky.social
code monkey, former SE academic. Obsessed with renewable energy.
This is a shopping list of Australian housing myths, including my favourite, ‘there used to be housing commissions’. Yes, and the absence of public housing is a real factor in crisis. But the Cwth and State housing commissions built a tiny fraction of our cities, the vast majority was private built
Guardian Australia@australia.theguardian.com · last wk.Plans for my suburb are a microcosm of what’s wrong with Australia’s housing. And it will get worse | Julianne Schultz
This this this, and it doesn't just apply to the US and climate.
David Roberts@volts.wtf · last wk.One grim conclusion I take from every Climate Week I've attended is that the core old-school "climate communicators" have not updated their priors or their approach in decades, despite everything that's happened, and still, on a deep fundamental level, do not understand conservatives.
This this this, and it doesn't just apply to the US and climate.
David Roberts@volts.wtf · last wk.One grim conclusion I take from every Climate Week I've attended is that the core old-school "climate communicators" have not updated their priors or their approach in decades, despite everything that's happened, and still, on a deep fundamental level, do not understand conservatives.
So the latest AI hype train is arriving for a tool called Jev, which is supposed to be a fast, cheap model designed for classification rather than generation.
I absolutely refuse to get caught up in hype about a “hack” of a public service that simultaneously tries to block public access to data and also doesn’t know how to set permissions in their own data management www.croakey.org/on-secrets-s...
On secrets, Services Australia and a call for more transparent public governance
Introduction by Charles Maskell-Knight: One of the problems in delivering government entitlement programs fairly and legally is ensuring that the
croakey.org
If ultimately there's no criminal responsibility for this incident here then FOI just became a lot easier if we ask AI agents to go find those documents for us. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Albanese says OpenAI hacked Medicare and told Australia months later via email to generic inbox
Prime minister says he told Sam Altman he was disappointed it had taken OpenAI ‘way too long’ to disclose breach
theguardian.com
Not often a bulk mailout from our local MP brings a tear to the eye…but this one did. Rest in peace, Dr Read. He was genuinely one of the good ones.
New YouGov shows Reform increasingly suffering from tactical voting: Lab vs Reform Lab: 41% (+6 from Feb) Reform: 26% (-5) Con vs Reform Con: 35% (+4) Reform: 20% (-4) Lab vs Con Lab: 34% (+5) Con: 27% (-1)
Interesting research about an extraordinarily fraught question.
The Conversation AUNZ@aunz.theconversation.com · 2w agoNew research shares the stories of Australians with dementia who want a choice in how they live and die.
Read this. Not Nock’s main point but the national airlines of all the Pacific states are a disaster area: if they had any sense they’d merge the lot into a single airline.
Nick Feik@nickfeik.bsky.social · 2w agoWhy does this micronation have a commercial airline with seven Boeing 737s? Because the Australian government goes to absurd and dangerous lengths to prop it up. The scandal of Nauru Airlines and Australia’s offshore detention regime. Now on my substack:
Why does this micronation have a commercial airline with seven Boeing 737s? Because the Australian government goes to absurd and dangerous lengths to prop it up. The scandal of Nauru Airlines and Australia’s offshore detention regime. Now on my substack:
The scandal of Nauru Airlines and Australia’s offshore detention regime
Why does this micronation have a commercial airline with seven Boeing 737s? Because the Australian government goes to absurd and dangerous lengths to prop it up.
nickfeik.substack.com
This from a man who has asked his son to monitor his on-line porn consumption.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w agoMike Johnson on OpenAI and Anthropic: "They can self-police. They can self-regulate."
There are dissertations to be written about climate change vs. AI -- the nature of the risks, how they were communicated, how elites responded, on and on. A rich vein.
the hardest thing for the politician-bureaucrats to understand -- but which NSF staff *absolutely do* understand and always have -- is that you actually make scientific progress by giving young people money and promising not to bother them
Mark Histed@markhisted.org · 3w agoScientist here: It is widely known inside science that this—top-down imposition of a research agenda—leads to mostly rote, boring, non-innovative work. Building an institute to do discovery science is hard: you hire young people, put them together, hope synergies arise and ideas fall out.
It’s darkly funny that data center bros are all installing gigawatts of diesel generators because batteries are girly and foreign, just at the moment the entire global diesel production system is breaking apart.
New investigation: How Australia is propping up an entire international commercial airline (and a dangerously mismanaged one) for its offshore detention regime:
Why is Australia propping up Nauru airlines to keep offshore detention alive?
Here’s a question you’ve probably never asked yourself: Why does Nauru Airlines exist? There’s a simple answer – Australia’s offshore detention regime. Australia’s “resettlement” program in Naoero req...
thepoint.com.au
Australian media: Migrants are pushing house prices up, and that’s a disaster Also Australian media: Tax policy is pushing house prices down, and that’t a disaster #auspol
Australian energy efficiency maven Jenny Edwards is on an upcoming home reno series where the schtick is to fix up an old 1970s house to bring it into the 2020s for (relatively!) cheap. I don't know the show, but Jenny is great value. I will be watching. You should too for cheap idea!
Im not going to dispute the necessity and potential effectiveness of this advice but not being a campaigner I’m allowed to conclude that One Nation voters are, in fact, racist idiots. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Do not call her a racist: anti-Pauline Hanson strategists tell campaigners character attacks won’t work in Victoria
Exclusive: strategic rethink urges progressive activists to respectfully steer one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters towards economic concerns
theguardian.com
Bill Kelty is right. The well-off would periodically take (concessionally taxed) money out of their super to avoid hitting the $3 million cap. It's a tax handout to the rich. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/economy...
Bill Kelty on One Nation’s ‘giant tax avoidance scheme’
The former ACTU secretary and architect of Australia’s superannuation system says workers will risk lower wages, higher inflation and a poorer future all round if super funds are tapped today.
thesaturdaypaper.com.au
I miss Old Internet a lot, but admittedly a major part of that is that the early internet had a very weird opt-in procedure that you can't recreate, the result of which is that the default user was a curious dorkwad. Plus, there was no money to be made, so no branding/positioning all the time.
Aside from the obvious privacy and legal issues - I'm confused. What is the use case for this feature? I'm having a conversation with someone, I miss a point, and I stop and fiddle with my watch to get a transcript of their last statement?
Andrew Couts@couts.bsky.social · 4w agoNEW: The new Apple Watches double as AI-powered listening bugs for generating convo "recaps" or transcripts of any previous 15 seconds. But fear not, Apple says, this data isn't sent to Apple/gets encrypted, speakers aren't ID'd, and there's a chime for the 15-second thing. @lhn.bsky.social reports:
Congratulations to the journalist who bothered to ask a very basic question - is there a reason why road funding isn't keeping up - and got some useful answers.
Asher Wolf@asherwolf.bsky.social · 4w agoCorrect
If you had to design a high school class that every person on earth were required to take, what would it be? (Keep in mind the problems of distribution at scale: your content will often be watered down and mistaught, like all high school classes)
Imagine if we had a national anti-corruption commission that exposed corruption
The Icac allegations are astounding – even with NSW’s inglorious history of corruption and property development
The evidence presented so far raises some disturbing questions about the influence of certain figures in NSW politics
theguardian.com
5 hours and 40 minutes on a paddle board? Swallowing salt water? I’d rather do an Ironman bike leg on a fat bike.
School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology@soest.hawaii.edu · last mo.Kanesa Duncan Seraphin, host of the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program’s Voice of the Sea television series, won the 2026 Molokaʻi 2 Oʻahu Paddleboard World Championships. This was her ninth victory in the race, with a personal-best time of 5 hours, 40 minutes, and 13 seconds.
Just gonna toss out there that one of the central facts of US politics--all politics, really--is that the general populace knows very little about who holds power, how gov't works, what policies do & don't exist, the balance of economic forces, or really much of anything outside their lifeworlds.
it's a very old rule of moderated digital spaces that you need an "i know it when i see it" clause for harassment or else bad actors will aggressively toe the line without ever technically going over. that's why i don't think the "why cant you give me an exact definition" replies will go anywhere
Bluesky Safety@safety.bsky.app · last mo.Dogpiling or harassing users is unacceptable. We have taken recent action against accounts for this behavior, and we will be increasing our efforts, consistent with our Community Guidelines.
‘Scary’: how misinformation and AI hallucinations are infiltrating Australia’s parliament - Guardian analysis reveals that dozens of policy submissions from across the political spectrum incorrectly summarise real research and invent or wrongly cite sources www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
‘Scary’: how misinformation and AI hallucinations are infiltrating Australia’s parliament
Exclusive: Guardian analysis reveals that dozens of policy submissions from across the political spectrum incorrectly summarise real research and invent or wrongly cite sources
theguardian.com
