My week of Monday 15 to Sunday 21 May 2023 was one of those less productive weeks between two busy ones. I did a blog post, and some client things, but there were more non-work things than usual. At least there’s plenty of links to Interesting Things.
On Wednesday night I caught comedian He Huang at the Factory Theatre as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival. She’s very good. And we met her afterwards, which was also fun. You should check out her stuff.
Fox update
Still no fox. Where is the fox?
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 36. Last week we had an enormous post with all the Budget stuff. This time it’s all the other things that happened — and there’s a lot of them. One key question is whether you can axe a hub. Another is “PwC WTF?”.
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
- One of my photos of a Sydney Light Rail tram on George Street has been used to illustrate the website of Sydney airport transfer service Rydeu.
Podcasts, Videos, Photos, Corporate Largesse
None of these things. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Recommendations
So yeah. Elon Musk. This week he did so many things that are typical of his… his worldview.
- Grab your popcorn, Twitter flooded with full movies after Elon Musk announced uploading of long videos.
- Elon Musk: I will tweet what I want even if it loses me money, and even when it’s antisemitic conspiracy bullshit.
- Elon Musk gets blowback from Taiwan after saying there’s a ‘certain inevitability’ China will integrate it.
- Despite criticism for continuing to engage with conspiracy theories, Elon Musk is posting through it.
- “The Twitter owner made headlines for saying remote work was ‘morally wrong’ in a CNBC interview this week, even though he’s the quintessential remote CEO.” 7 Times Elon Musk Said ‘Do as I Say, Not as I Do’ About Remote Work.
- Elon Musk wants Tesla hires cleared by him as he shifts focus away from Twitter.
- Elon Musk has regrets about ChatGPT, saying he’s a ‘huge idiot’ for letting go of OpenAI.
- “Elon Musk’s revised settlement agreement with the SEC will remain in place, including the need for a ‘Twitter sitter,’ a federal appeals court ruled Monday.”
- US Virgin Islands subpoenas Elon Musk documents for lawsuit concerning Jeffrey Epstein’s bank, JPMorgan Chase.
- It’s from a couple weeks ago, but the fast-talking Adam Something has pinned out why Elon Musk’s “$10,000 Home” Is A Complete Lie. But for once it’s not Musk who’s doing the lying.
You know, I’ve been thinking of doing this list as a weekly 10-minute podcast that has the internal title Musk Watch but in fact would use the title Rhymes with Sasquash. Would you be interested?
And in other news:
- A few weeks ago the remarkable Open Reel Ensemble did their first YouTube livestreamed performance from “the secret base”. There’s quite a bit of setup and chatter, but they’ve added chapter markers so you can skip straight to the music.
- Early Computer Art in the 50s and 60s
- I’m not sure how much I like Reuters making this story about China and not other places, but here it is: China, birthplace of COVID, lays tracks for a new global health crisis. Because the railway in question is through Laos.
- Keeping up with the Joneses: Who Were the Joneses and What Happened to Their Mansion?
- And finally, you really should watch Mark Humphries’ review of a car crash of a concert, The Music of Hans Zimmer and Others. Allrite reviewed another concert in the series, The Magical Music of Harry Potter, but appears to have suffered fewer scars. You should also read the review of the concert in Wellington: ‘Total scam’: Orchestra concert of ‘bad cruise ship karaoke’ sees crowd leave in droves.
The Week Ahead
This week I will be very busy with client work, and everything else will be pushed into the background.
With one client, Lockstep, we’ll be doing the final preparations before they introduce their Data Verification Platform model at the Identiverse 2023 conference in Las Vegas next week. I’ll have a lot of document editing to do, as well as some work related to their new podcast
With another client, who I won’t name for now, we’ll be working on the final states of integrating their subscription paywall with a new CRM system and related work — and that’s due to go live the week after.
(This does mean that once more I will push back the Public House Forum podcast recording. However I’ll do some regular episodes before then, and I plan to do some slightly different thing sin the new financial year.)
From Wednesday to Friday, Nobel Prize Outreach is running Truth, Trust and Hope, “a global dialogue on disinformation and the erosion of public understanding and trust in science”, in Washington DC and online, The livestreams will be at an awkward time for me, so I’ll probably just pay attention to the resulting news stories.
Further Ahead
- World Gin Day, 10 June 2023. This will just be a small social thing with friends after the podcast recording, but you might like to organise a gathering of your own. Because, you know, gin.
- YET ANOTHER NEW DATE: The 9pm Public House Forum 8 livestream and recording, 24 June 2023 at 12.30pm (TBC). To say informed you should be on the mailing list.
- NEW: NetThing Internet Governance Forum, Brisbane and online, 28 August 2023 (TBC).
[Photo: One of several delightful specimens of Psilocybe subaeruginosa seen at Bunjaree Cottages on 16 May 2023. No, I did not eat it.]