If you're in Melbourne get yourself to the Science Gallery in Carlton to see DISTRACTION.

Oh, Science Gallery. Trust me, I don't need any encouragement.

This is going to massively increase my productivity, no wonder everyone's so excited about LLMs. 🤨

"Productivity Commission modelling showed that even the most conservative estimate was that AI would deliver a $116bn boost to the economy over the next decade."

Questions the stenographers "reporting" these kinds of figures never seem to ask:

- how was the model calculated?
- what assumptions does the model make?
- what makes this a "conservative" estimate, according to the PC?
- how does 116bn compare to "business as usual"?
- what alternative priorities were considered, that may increase productivity by more?
- what is not counted in the PCs figures?

What the hell am I looking at here?

https://github.com/9001/copyparty

Are you me, a month ago? Well you probably want this guide to adding custom templates to your reMarkable 2 tablet:

https://www.hughrundle.net/how-to-make-a-custom-template-for-the-remarkable-2

Progressive themes in techno music:

* I love techno

* Whoah, how cool is bass/kick drums?

* I'm awesome

* I'm horny

* OMG I'm so high

* I love everyone so much

* Have you ever thought about, like, how everything is connected, cosmically?

Interesting analysis of the "industry research collaboration" problem in Australia:

https://futurecampus.com.au/2025/07/25/australian-industry-not-playing-ball-on-rd-collaboration

"While overall the proportion of collaboration with industrial partners has risen strongly, that increase is almost entirely driven by collaboration with international companies, not Australian ones. While universities have demonstrated a clear capacity to lift their collaboration with commercial partners, it appears this does not translate well to Australian companies.

In contrast, when we look at the data on university collaboration with public and community sector partners, the rise in collaboration with international partners is mirrored by a rise in Australian collaborations. ...If there is a problem here, it seems to be specific to Australian industry."

Maybe I should blog about it 🤔

Update: I did it! It's pretty straightforward. There are no official guides and the unofficial ones I found are all slightly wrong in different ways.

Anyway now I have my own custom daily schedule template for work :sickos:

Hello fellow Remarkable2 owners, I know there are several of you. Has anyone installed custom templates successfully? l understand it's possible to connect via SSH and drop a custom template file into the reader? It sounds kinda dicey but also completely doable???

Get a load of this absolutely insane position at Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council Libraries:

https://www.alia.org.au/JobListing?jobnumber=3536&_zs=CDWso&_zl=SNNP3

Responsible for:

- 6 direct reports
- 3 branch libraries
- mobile library operations
- all library technical systems including WiFi, public use PCs, RFID equipment, web, and socials/promotion
- collection development and acquisitions for all collections across whole network

This is four jobs in one.

Next time you wonder why your local library "can't just..." - this is why. They're not resourced properly and everyone is trying to do three things at once whilst being abused by equally-stressed conspiracy theorists.

Bizarre to see Brits getting excited about lowering the voting age to 16 as if it's some amazing revolution in democracy when they still have First Past the Post voting and it's literally a criminal offence to even imagine the the monarchy being abolished.

"The NSW Police Force charging a civilian that it appears one of its officers has assaulted is par for the course. However, in Hannah’s case, the cops took the matter one step further and charged her under laws usually reserved for rioters, seemingly because it had sunk in that punching a legal observer in the face with such force that the injury was clearly severe was not a good outcome."

https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/calls-for-charges-against-lawyer-hannah-thomas-to-be-dropped-and-police-charged-with-assault

There's been a lot of talk about AI slop fitting the "lean startup" ethos where it doesn't matter that it's kinda shitty, because most people/orgs will be happy with "good enough, and cheap".

But Ruth's example of macros shows why that framing is wrong in a lot of cases. Because macros are much cheaper, faster and easier for their end-users than some convoluted "AI" approach.

The difference is who is in control.

This is a great piece with some specific examples of what has been my biggest frustration with the last couple of years of AI hype.

"AI" is being touted as the magical solution to *problems that already have simpler, cheaper, and more appropriate solutions*.

Preparing for CAVAL's "AI metadata futures" one-day conference by reading this excellent article from @platypus

"My Coworkers Don't Want AI. They Want Macros"

https://ruthtillman.com/post/macros-not-ai

Also from The Crux, this interesting vid from the ABC about the Australian accent and why foreign actors fuck it up so often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LvWYP7839Q

Computer touchers might be interested in this post shared by @daedalus in his last edition of The Crux:

How Core Git Developers Configure Git

https://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git

Not all of it is to my taste, but there's some interesting and useful stuff there.