The main products from my week of Monday 26 June to Sunday 2 July 2023 were a big jar of pickled garlic — hence the highly amusing headline — and four litres of pork stock, plus the usual Friday blog post. But let’s celebrate, because it’s a new financial year!
If you also live alone, you’ll know how hard it is to cook for just one. I certainly don’t eat badly, because I enjoy cooking and I’m fairly good at it. However I’ve decided to start doing things a little differently. Hence the stock. Hence the garlic. I may well explain more on a podcast.
Speaking of which, I’m leaving The 9pm Quick Survey 2: Whaddyawant? open for a few more days. I’ve already collected some very useful opinions about the kinds of podcasts you prefer, but I didn’t get time on the weekend to analyse it formally. I’ll do that later this week.
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 42. The government released a National Strategy for Identity Resilience, scrapped a satellite program, and frightened homebuyers with fights path maps for the new Western Sydney International Airport. And there’s 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.
Podcasts, Videos, Photos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None of these things. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Recommendations
What a week! Twitter seems to have DDoS’d itself into oblivion, but hey a little ketamine should fix that.
- “Elon Musk tried using fear to get Twitter employees back to still ’empty’ offices. His new CEO is trying a different approach… This month she held something called ‘Tea Time’ with all Twitter staffers, first in the San Francisco office and then this past week in the New York office.”
- The Transphobic War on the Word ‘Cis’ Goes Back an Entire Decade. “Elon Musk, J K Rowling, and Jordan Peterson are trying to mainstream a long-standing fringe persecution complex.” And yes, Elon Musk Deems ‘Cis’ A Twitter Slur–Here’s Why It’s Is So Polarizing.
- Elon Musk would flip into ‘demon mode’ and ‘rip people apart’, says biographer who shadowed him for 2 years.
- And on the weekend, Elon Musk announced ‘temporary limits’ for reading Twitter posts. he reckons it’s down to aggressing site-scraping. However web developer Sheldon Chang reckons it’s a self-DDoS caused by incompetence. Even Forbes says No One Believes Elon Musk’s Explanation For Breaking Twitter.
- Here in Australia, Twitter sued after alleged failure to pay to dismantle Sydney office.
- “The circus around Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s much-vaunted fight is getting even stranger, with suggestions the bout could happen in the Colosseum.”
- According to the paywalled Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk takes ketamine. He later clarified this, saying “ketamine taken occasionally is a better option” than traditional medication for depression, citing the experience of “friends”. As Mint reports, “Elon Musk, however, criticised the use of SSRIs, commonly prescribed for mental illness, stating concerns about their potential to ‘zombify’ people.”
In other news:
- New from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: the Indian Ocean Strategic Map. “This map displays the economic, political, military, and geographic features of the Indian Ocean and how they interact as one continuous geopolitical theatre.”
- Bees make decisions better and faster than we do, proven by actual science.
- I was fascinated by this video, How to Read Weather Radar. The first couple of minutes are a basic explanation of radar, which many of you may already know, but don’t let that put you off. This is the best explanation of reading doppler radar I’ve encountered. While it’s American, and towards the end is focused on spotting tornadoes in that country’s vast open plains, it’s still useful.
- J S Bach’s Organ Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a magnificent piece of music. Here, Alexander Sevastian plays it on the accordion.
- Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist revealed, and they’re stunning images.
The Week Ahead
On Thursday I’ll try to catch the seminar Cyber impacts on the US/PRC military balance from the UTS Australia-China Relations Institute.
Other than that, it’s mostly about plodding through a mix of client work, taxation bookkeeping, and organising things for the second half of the year — including more podcasts in the very near future. Indeed, I should be able to do a quick solo update in the second half of this week.
Further Ahead
- The 9pm Public House Forum 8 livestream and recording, 22 July 2023 at 1pm (TBC). To stay informed you should be on the mailing list, because this date is only tentative at this stage.
- NEW: Aaron Chen’s Chen & Friends, Enmore Theatre, 18 August 2023.
- NetThing Internet Governance Forum, Brisbane and online, 28 August 2023 (TBC).
- APNIC 56, Kyoto and online, 12–14 September 2023. I very much doubt that I’ll be going to Japan, but this is always such a good conference (TBC).
[Photo: A jar of picked garlic, which I made on 1 July 2023.]