My week of Monday 20 to Sunday 26 January 2025 was both productive and enjoyable, because I’m a hero. Yes, the music podcast thing is starting to happen. And the younger magpies are starting to get quite insistent.
Podcasts
- Another Untitled Music Podcast | Trailer 1, recorded by Snarky Platypus and myself in a North Sydney park on 19 January and posted on Friday.
- Another Untitled Music Podcast | Pilot 1, recorded on Sunday evening but not yet edited and posted. I still have to finalise at the music license and get the pod into all the directories. But it was a fun episode and I think you may be pleasantly surprised by some of the music selections.
The 9pm Edict and Another Untitled Music Podcast are supported by the generosity of their listeners. You can always throw a few coins into the tip jar or subscribe for special benefits. Please consider. And yes, all this needs to be updated.
Articles
- The Weekly Cybers #52. Trump’s executive orders and Musk’s sookage echo around the world, the Tech Policy Design Institute is launched in Canberra, Services Australia keeps on keeping on with debt recovery, 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 — not that there’s been either of those things for ages.
Muskwatch
What a week! In his first days as POTUS’s First Buddy, Elon Musk has of course managed to court controversy with his awkward gesture, as some have put it. He is very much the main character, and Donald Trump won’t like that.
- “US tech billionaire Elon Musk has again endorsed the far-right Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) party in Germany ahead of elections.”
- How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa, writes the Guardian. “Elon Musk grew up with the privileges of a stratified racial order and Peter Thiel lived in a city that venerated Hitler.”
- From The Conversation, “Elon Musk now has an office in the White House. What’s his political game plan?“
- Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (DOGE) was sued within minutes of Donald Trump being sworn in.
- “Some of President Donald Trump’s key aides and allies are furious with Elon Musk for publicly trashing his $500 billion artificial intelligence mega-deal,” reports Politico.
- From Al Jazeera, “Elon Musk believes he got Trump elected. Now he’s coming for Europe.”
- Elon Musk admits cheating at video games, chat transcript appears to show.
Some Interesting Links
For some reason it’s all videos this week. You like videos, don’t you?
- Diane Morgan (Philomena Cunk) and Alistair Green (Ted Lasso) star in an award-winning sci-fi short film, Thawed.
- Dan Toomey presents Helping a 4th grader explain her loser dad’s stupid hedge fund job lol.
- Billy Hume looks and sounds like he’s shouting “Get off my lawn!” but there’s a lot of knowledge behind this video, The Real Reason Why Todays Music Is Starting To Sound The Same. Stay with him. He knows stuff.
- Please be enjoying Nile Rodgers and CHIC playing an NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Outstanding.
The Week Ahead
Monday is the public holiday for Australia Day, which was actually on Sunday, but Australians can’t cope with not having a weekday off work. I plan to be social, run some errands, and take the train back to the Blue Mountains.
On Tuesday evening I’m recording an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast with infectious diseases physician Dr Trent Yarwood. 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, Tuesday 28 January.
The finished episode will be posted the following day, probably, which means that Wednesday will be about podcast post-production.
On Thursday afternoon I’m heading to Sydney for another weekend away from the Blue Mountains.
On Friday, as well as writing The Weekly Cybers, there’s some medical things to deal: getting some coronary CT angiography and a second mpox vaccination. The two are not related.
In between all that I really must clock up some billable hours for clients. It’s been a tough summer. And, assuming I get the paperwork done, I’ll edit and post the first pilot episode of Another Untitled Music Podcast — although increasingly it looks like that will have to be shunted back another week.
[Update 30 January 2025: I’ve just added that that last bit to the preceding paragraph. This week is running away from me.]
Further Ahead
- Safeguarding Australian elections: Addressing AI-enabled disinformation, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra and online, 6 February 2025.
- RESCHEDULED: Podcast recording for Another Untitled Music Podcast pilot two, 8 February 2025. I’ve pushed the recording date back a week so we can get some feedback on the first pilot before recording the second.
There will soon be an episode of the Edict 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 juvenile Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), still in its lighter grey feathers rather than black, its orange eyes staring straight into the camera. This bird is probably around two years old. Photographed on 23 January 2025.]