Weekly Wrap 764: The purple fan-flower of productivity

It’s been a rainy week, this week of Monday 12 to Sunday 19 January 2025. But despite the weather, I made a podcast, planned the structure of another, and produced a newsletter — though that still didn’t include everything that needed doing.

The main reason was that I slept for almost the entirety of Thursday. You may well have noticed that I have quite a few sleep problems. Well, I learned recently that some of the strategies I’ve tried in the past have since been improved, so I’m looking at re-addressing things. Stay tuned.

However I did meet with Snarky Platypus to plan Another Untitled Music Podcast, as it’s now going to be called. It turned out there’s already an Untitled Music PodKast and it felt rude to match it so closely, even though they haven’t posted since 2022. In any event, there’s already a lot of podcasts with “untitled” in the title, so we needed to change it a bit.

Podcasts

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Articles

  • The Weekly Cybers #51. Meta continues its swerve to the right, NBN to dump fibre-to-the-node, Services Australia gets a new minister, and much more.

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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.

Muskwatch

With mere hours remaining until Donald Trump is sworn in as POTUS for the second time, the main focus on Elon Musk is on now he’ll behave as Trump’s “First Buddy”. Here’s just a taste. I’m sure there will be much more in the coming days.

Some Interesting Links

  • Patrick Boyle dissects the numbers of Trump’s plan for mass deportations, showing how this would fuck up America in so many different ways.
  • Decades ago British cartoonist Tim Hunkin ended up making a TV series titled The Secret Life of Machines, explaining in a distinctly quirky style the stories of the refrigerator and the radio, the sewing machine and the quartz watch. He’s now posted links to all the restored videos.
  • Like many people I was appalled by the number of prisoners fighting California’s wildfires, some 30% in the total force. But this thread by former incarcerated firefighter Matthew Hahn has caused me to rethink things.
  • Take a look at the Apple Jonathon, a 1980s concept computer that never shipped.
  • Voice artist SungWon Cho shows us how he can hit every high note in Take On Me, the A-ha song.

The Week Ahead

I won’t micromanage the first part of the week, but it will include some client work (no really it will), podcast planning for both The 9pm Edict and Another Untitled Music Podcast, and a variety of smaller tasks. There may even be a small solo episode of the Edict.

On Friday, just like last week, I’ll be writing The Weekly Cybers as well as heading down to Sydney for the weekend. I love being able to work on the train.

On Saturday, Snarky Platypus and I will be recording the first pilot episode of Another Untitled Music Podcast. Assuming the music license can be organised in time, it’ll be posted on Sunday — which also happens to be Australia Day.

Further Ahead

  • The 9pm Edict podcast recording with infectious diseases physician Dr Trent Yarwood, 28 January 2025. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for that episode, please get them to me by 10am AEDT that day. The finished episode will be posted the following day, probably.
  • Sydney days, 31 January to 2 February 2025. Just another excuse to spend some time away from the Blue Mountains.
  • Podcast recording for Another Untitled Music Podcast pilot two, 1 February 2025 (TBC). The finished episode is likely to be posted a day or two later.
  • NEW: Safeguarding Australian elections: Addressing AI-enabled disinformation, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra and online, 6 February 2025.

There will soon be an episode about conspiracy theories like the Flat Earth, unless that turns out to be true. Writer and columnist John Birmingham will likely be joining us in February. And there’s one more special guest episode to come before the end of summer.

[Photo: A purple fan-flower (Scaevola ramosissima) photographed at Bunjaree Cottages on 16 January 2023.]