Open Australia needs support.

https://oaf.org.au/2026/10/13/this-library-is-running-out-of-money-here-is-how-to-keep-it-open/

Please boost for reach! Ta.

#AUSPol

Looking at Torvalds using generative AI for Linux, Andrew Tridgell using it for rsync, and a bunch of other very bright and techically very capable people using it to assist them with various tasks makes me think again about the time a very, very intelligent friend of mine suddenly fell into Scientology.

It started me thinking about why it is that clever people fall for these scams, and I have a theory.

I think clever people learn to trust their minds. They learn that their mind will give them correct answers without much effort, and that it will also show them flaws in arguments with the same ease. Because it generally does!

But it's also a weakness. If something comes long that doesn't trigger the automatic defences, the clever mind may let it in.

The cleverness needs to be combined with vigilance, and that cannot be left to an automated system. I think clever people tend to become less vigilant, because their mind has always stood them in good stead.

Once the scam is in it combines with the general human unwillingness to admit to error. Or even to re-evaluate things just in case they are not true. We have a whole complicated social construct called "science" designed to work around that, and not even that works all the time.

And here's the kicker: The scam that tells clever people how clever they are will have the greatest chance of success, because they ARE clever. No false modesty. The scam they fall for is wrapped in the truth that they are clever people, and presented as a thing that only clever people can truly appreciate. The scams that clever people fall for are built up of details, layers, interrelated things that appear to explain each other and support each other. That hide and distract from the basic falsehood at the bottom.

To avoid such a scam you must take a step back from the complicated, dazzling, fascinating, alluring detail. Look at the whole thing and ask what it is, why it is, who is it from? Where does it connect to the world? Who does it benefit, who does it harm? Is it too good to be true?

Asking those questions about generative AI gets you pretty obvious answers.

Yes indeed. Amazing how often selling off a public asset turns out in hindsight to have been a bad idea. Phones, the Post, electricity, Internet, banks...

Oh wait - did I say in hindsight? I should have said "amazing how often it turns out that governments should have fucking listened to the people who told them what a mind-numbingly stupid idea it was when they first mooted selling off yet another public asset".

#ICACRadio

I had no idea that crocs were a natural product! And grown in Australia, no less!

In Merimbula there are tall street lights along the bridge and continuing into town. The poles rise high, then curve to bring the actual light over the edge of the road, so there is a short horizontal piece of support with a big flat light fitting on the end of it.

Pelicans love the street lights. A solid "branch" to perch on, a safe surface to sit on, both far from all but airborne predators. Only space for one, so a solitary space, where a pelican can cogitate undisturbed.

Locals know to glance up before walking below them, and to note and avoid the poo patterns on the ground.

The local council - not the sharpest tool in the shed, at least not collectively - decided that pelicans on street lights was a bad thing, so they took steps. They affixed to the top section of each streetlight a rotating arm, free to rotate horizontally as the wind moves it. The arms, moved by the wind, sweep out a circle maybe a metre in diameter, across the top surface of the light itself and some of the support.

They don't work. At all. The pelicans have broken several, and just stop the others if they want to sit there. One or two still work when there is no pelican present. Some have swivelled to hang sadly below or half-around the support.

People, locals and tourists alike, love the pelicans. They love them in flight, on the water, perched on boats, perched on cables, perched on jetties, perched on poles, on buoys and on street lights. They are painted, drawn, and photographed. Children call to them. There are even sculptures of pelicans sitting on poles. Some arsehole stole one a while ago - if you ever see a pelican made out of scrap steel in someone's back yard, let the police know.

A pelican gliding in to land is majestic. A pelican sitting atop a pole or a streetlight tells you that everything is OK.

That is all.

Just heard an American say "when people sing they lose their accent". No they don't, dickhead, they just fake yours.

Update: The book has been identified! It's "The Game of X" by Robert Sheckley. Highly recommended.

Thank you to @DziadekMick for the correct title, to the person who DMed me a link to a digital verson, and to all who boosted.

~~~~~

I'm trying to find a book I read forty years ago. I think it had "X" in the title, but I'm not sure. It is NOT related to an apparently very popular series of books about "Secret Agent X" that infests every internet search I attempt :-(

It is about a man who is NOT a secret agent, but who is mistaken for one and thrust into ever more desperate situations as a result. As the book progresses he hears about (and must perforce demonstrate) an ever increasingly improbable set of talents he is supposed to have (but really, REALLY doesn't). Nonetheless luck and coincidence let him survive against the odds and he begins to suspect by the end of the book that somehow he may actually BE the chap everyone seems to think he is.

There is an episode involving a ridiculously high-powered motorboat that would stick in your memory; it had me in literal tears of laughter. The last chapter involves a fight with axes and other nasty bladed weapons, also memorable.

If you have read this book you will remember it and if you remember the title or author I would love to hear from you!

Please boost for reach :-)

PS: It's also not related to the James Garner movie "A Man Could Get Killed" (nor the book it's based on) which has a sort of similar device, but nothing like the same plot.

Its enjoyable to encounter an English word that I have never seen before. It happened today. Do you know, without looking it up, what a "placket" is? Sometimes spelled "placquet". Feel free to boost. And, without revealing the actual answer, feel free to suggest likely meanings :-)

Found this. Sorry, no source recorded. Thought Pauline might be interested.

#AUSPol

And don't call me Shirley!

#AUSPol

Pauline Hanson: "Under the failed policy of multiculturalism, all cultures are allowed equivalence to ours. Surely opposing that is not racist, it's common sense".

Simple question Pauline: Who is the "us" that "ours" refers to? And why exactly is that group better or worse or worth preserving or advantaging over any other groups? Don't use dogwhistles like "us" and "ours", be specific.

I'm pretty sure you mean "white people", and that is by definition racist. And common though it might be, racism is not ever common sense.

While you're at it, detail exactly how multiculturalism has failed. It's easy to say, but it's just another dogwhistle unless you back it up with facts and arguments. Since I don't think you have any facts or arguments, I'm guessing that your opposition to multiculturalism might be, hm, there's that word again, racist.

#AUSPol

RE: https://theblower.au/@troberts/116740773276342695

Unreliable tools ARE inherently dangerous, precisely because you don't know when they will fail. AI is a wobbly ladder, a chipped chisel, a cracked hammerhead, an abraded rope, a bent drill bit, a pinched electrical lead. Except with AI the unreliability - the damage - IS inherent.

Might work, might not, but the potential for disaster is there every single time. Only a fool would CHOOSE to use damaged tools.

Can anyone recommend a good Matrix server in Australia?

A lot of people - including me at times - are saying that it is simple to tax billionaires.

Serious question: Aside from the political will to do so, *is* it simple?

O Schadenfreude
O Schadenfreude
...

#AUSPol

Modern problems require modern solutions? A street in Bombala, NSW, Australia.

#NoResponsesPlease

This toot is testing the above hashtag.

Please boost.

I'm seeing how many people will respond to it. Zero would of course be the ideal number.

From "Attack Surface", by @pluralistic comes a thing I yearn to be able to say one day:

"I have given [this] more consideration than it is due already. Now, fuck off. Then keep fucking off. Fuck off until you come up to a gate with a sign saying 'You Can't Fuck Off Past Here'. Climb over the gate, dream the impossible dream, and keep fucking off forever."