My week of Monday 10 to Sunday 16 June 2024 saw me finally wrap up my podcast’s autumn series and kick off the winter crowdfunder. This reminded me of snow, so I’m including some snow from three years ago.
Launching The 9pm Winter Series 2024 crowdfunder
Guess what? It’s time yet again to organise more special-guest episodes of my inappropriate and often disturbing podcast for grown-ups The 9pm Edict and other projects.
On Friday I launched this season’s crowdfunding campaign, The 9pm Winter Series 2024 and listed two of the planned guests.
Please click though, read, and consider. You have until 4 July, and at the time of posting we’re 15% of the way to Target One.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Sunak ScoMo Schadenfreude with David F Porteous, posted on Monday. Not just the UK elections, but also cocaine and koalas, Scott Morrison’s post-parliamentary career, Elon Musk’s $56 billion package, the King’s Birthday, and an encounter between an echidna and a tiger shark. And this ends the autumn series.
The 9pm Edict is supported by the generosity of its listeners. Have a look at the crowdfunded mentioned above. If you miss the 4 July deadline, you can always throw a few coins into the tip jar or subscribe for special benefits. Please consider.
Articles
- The Weekly Cybers #22. A proposed social media ban for under-16s dominates the news this week. Also, a My Health Record audit, updates on eSafety and robodebt, and much more.
You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to an email compilation of any new stories each Sunday morning.
Media Appearances, Photos, Videos, Corporate Largesse
None of these. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear and when livestreams are scheduled.
Recommendations
Will Musk gets his pay packet? That’s the $56 billion question.
- Tesla shareholders have approved Elon Musk’s $US56 billion pay package, as well as moving the company’s home from Texas to Delaware — although legal experts say the deal its not yet done because a judge needs to be convinced. Also it’s now worth just $44.9 billion thanks to Tesla’s share price dropping. Still it’s only 250 times the median CEO salary for S&P 500 companies, so I hope he can struggle through.
- Musk warns that he will ban Apple devices at his companies if OpenAI is integrated at operating system level. It’s just another phase in his long-running feud with Sam Altman.
- On the other hand, Elon Musk drops lawsuit accusing OpenAI of betraying founding mission.
- X is threatening to take some former Australian employees to court to recover entitlements it claims were overpaid after it bungled the currency conversion from USD to AUD. Apparently in some cases it’s up to $70,000.
- Engineers claim they were sacked by SpaceX and Elon Musk for raising sexual harassment and discrimination concerns.
In other news:
- In a major investigation by Reuters, Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic.
- Matt Bevan has kicked off a new four-part series the If you’re Listening podcast titled “Who Broke Britain”. Episode one is A promise to cut everything. There will be video versions on YouTube each Saturday.
- Why doesn’t water help with spicy food? What about milk or beer?.
- A paper with a straightforward title, ChatGPT is bullshit. It is of course using the meaning of bullshit as outlined by Harry Frankfurt in On Bullshit, which began as a 16-page essay but became an 80-page book.
The Week Ahead
My main focus this week will be on a specific client project, one which is in need of a little remediation, so it’ll be busy but not very exciting.
Friday is the June Solstice, at least at 0651 AEST here in my patch, so I daresay I’ll be doing something about that.
Further Ahead
- NEW: Podcast recording with Dr Miranda Bruce, who worked on the World Cybercrime Index, 3 July 2024. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC, please let me know by midday AEST on Tuesday 2 July.
- UK General Election, 4 July 2024. I’m not sure what I’ll do to celebrate this, but it’s certainly a significant date to be aware of.
- TechLeaders 2024, Hunter Valley, 11–12 August 2024.
- The Sydney Dialogue, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Sydney and online, 2–3 September 2024 (TBC).
[Photo: Leura railway station in the snow, photographed at 5.01pm on 10 June 2021. That tiny building is just the equipment hut. I wonder whether the Blue Mountains will have any snow this year.]