Back at the start of the year, my good friend Snarky Platypus and I created a bingo card for 2026. A set of 25 things that might happen. Well, we’re half-way through the year, so let’s see how we went.
We discuss music, SpaceX, OpenAI, the war with Iran, and much more. You might want to follow along with this chart showing which ones we discussed — or go back to the original post.
| The Islamic Republic of Iran collapses NOT YET, UNLIKELY | King Charles III dies | Significant upswing in GenZ alcohol consumption | OpenAI collapses | New metro line officially announced for Sydney THE OPPOSITION DID, DOES THAT COUNT? |
| US mid-term elections just work properly | Thai elections: People’s Party (formerly Move Forward, formerly Future Forward) wins and stays THEY DID NOT WIN | Teens drive the revival of long-form content, with 30–60 minute videos outperforming short clips in certain niches | McDonalds or Hungry Jacks introduces a rendang burger | Home and Away cancelled |
| Atlantic Conveyor ocean current collapses | BLACKPINK announces indefinite hiatus | FREE SQUARE: Elon Musk embarrasses himself publicly | Sussan Ley lasts as Liberal leader for all of 2026 LOL NO, ROLLED AND REPLACED BY ANGUS TAYLOR | Commonwealth Games abandoned |
| Harry and Meghan get divorced | WNBA season 2026 does not go ahead NO, IT DID GO AHEAD | NSW Premier Chris Minns gets boned | SpaceX IPO flops DEPENDS HOW YOU MEASURE IT, AND WHEN | A Chinese electric vehicle becomes the top-seller in Australia [See note 1] |
| Mercury-sized planet or greater is discovered in the Kuiper Belt or further out in the solar system | PRC and Japanese ships exchange live fire | A PRC/Taiwan pop star hits the Top 10 in the US | The Spice Girls release a new album | Putin tosses a nuke |
Note 1: If measured by manufacturer, China’s BYD now sells more electric cars in Australia than Tesla. If measured by individual models, the Tesla Model Y still has the top slot.
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A platypus of many talents. Interested in politics, food, pop music & basketball.
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[31 December 2025] Snarky Platypus and I have created this bingo card for 2026 listing 25 distinctly possible things. We also list the suggestions which didn’t make the Final Cut.
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[1 March 2026] President Donald Trump has called the attacks “major combat operations” and has urged regime change in Tehran. Iranian media reported Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the strikes.
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[25 June 2026] Per a statement Tuesday night, the company announced pricing for a $25 billion bond issuance. The offering will be spread across five tranches of senior notes maturing between 2031 and 2056, with interest rates rising from 5.35% on the shortest to 6.65% on the longest.
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[26 June 2026] The question hanging over this year's listing pipeline was simple: Could public markets absorb three trillion-dollar technology floats in quick succession? SpaceX went first. The early read is not encouraging.
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[10 June 2026] Companies rushed to put AI tools in employees’ hands. Now surprise usage costs are forcing them to ask what all those prompts are actually worth.
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[28 June 2026] Embarrassing.
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[25 June 2026] Ms Sloane said the Liberals and Nationals would ink a new deal with Canberra to deliver new projects, including an extension of the popular metro network... "At the heart of this new city deal will be our plans for continuing to build the Metros by progressing a Metro for south-western Sydney."
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[29 January 2026] With Thailand’s general election just over a week away, I figured it’s time once more to chat with journalist Erin Cook, who specialises in South-East Asia. But as always we talk about much more than just Thailand.
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[13 February 2026] Angus Taylor is the leader of the federal Liberal Party after prevailing in a partyroom meeting in Canberra. He replaces Sussan Ley, the first woman to hold the role, who was removed after just nine months and will soon resign from parliament, ending a 25-year career.
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[25 March 2026] Seven-year agreement runs through end of 2032 season.
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[8 July 2026] The Driven publishes detailed sales data for Australian battery electric vehicle sales on this page. Data is sourced from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) report known as VFacts, the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC), as well as individual companies. [This links to the URL that was active at the time of posting. If it's broken you will need to look elsewhere on the site for an updated version.]
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[25 November 2025] I know nothing about cars. I don’t even know how to drive. So obviously my guest today is freelance motoring journalist and editor of The Redline, Peter Anderson — because a lot has been happening in the auto industry, right? I might learn something.
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[5 June 2026] Is Pluto a planet? Currently, officially, no. But the Trump-appointed head of NASA wants to reinstate Pluto’s planetary privileges. Why? Let’s find out with space archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman aka Dr Space Junk and astrophysicist Rami Mandow.
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[24 June 2026] Following the return of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy's Liaoning carrier group to its home port from far-sea combat training, state media outlets reported that the group encountered repeated close-range harassment by Japanese forces during these exercises
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From the term fully automated luxury communism, proposed by the British journalist Aaron Bastani in 2014, which suggests that automation will make work and scarcity obsolete. The Gay and Space parts were later added by activists to suggest that this utopia would also end all persecution of LGBTQ people and enable space travel. The meme was popularized in late 2016 on Reddit.
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Mad Fucking Witches (MFW) are an Australian online-based advocacy group who have organised campaigns against people and organisations they accuse of spreading misogyny or racism.
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Balming Tiger is an alternative K-pop music collective and band formed in Seoul, South Korea, in 2018. The group is composed of rappers, singer-songwriters, producers, video directors, creative directors, visual artists, A&Rs, and editors.
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KARDI (??) is a five-member project co-ed rock band formed through JTBC's audition show SuperBand 2. The group ended in 3rd place on the show.
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[1 July 2024] Hyperpop’s influence in the Chinese music ecosystem started with a 2015 collaboration between Chinese pop star Chris Lee and Cook. The song “Only You” was released under the PC Mag record label. Since then, the genre has carved its space in the local underground music scene, with a fast-tempo, K-pop-inspired style and a semi-ironic postmodern aesthetic that resonates with the Chinese Gen Z.
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In the absence of a proper web page about triple j's "Club Escape", here's a link to my old blog posts about it.
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Lexie Liu, (/?l?ksi?ljo?/, LEK-see LYOH) also known as Liu Boxin (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Liú Bóx?n; born December 21, 1998), is a Chinese singer, rapper and songwriter. In 2015, she participated in K-pop Star 5, a South Korean reality TV competition series where her group came in fourth place.
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Herman's Hermits are an English pop rock group formed in 1963 in Manchester and fronted by singer Peter Noone. Known for their jaunty beat sound and Noone's often tongue-in-cheek vocal style, the Hermits charted with numerous transatlantic hits in the UK and in America, where they ranked as one of the most successful acts in the Beatles-led British Invasion.
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Established in 1995, triple j Unearthed has kicked off the careers of thousands of Australian musicians.
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[24 January 2026] Dissecting the implosion of the Coalition and figuring out what comes next has become a full-time vocation for the newly emancipated Liberals and Nationals. [They did get back together later.]
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[16 June 2026] The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has officially declared El Niño active and modelling tips it could become the strongest event in the modern era.
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[14 April 2026] A man known as the "Oslo patient" joins a short list of people in long-term remission from HIV following bone marrow transplants.
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Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a medicine you can take to lower your chance of catching human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
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[11 February 2026] QUT will become the new custodian of Meanjin, Australia's most eminent literary journal, bringing the publication back to Brisbane 80 years after it relocated to Melbourne.
If the links aren’t showing up, try here.
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