My week of Monday 31 July to Sunday 6 August 2023 was the third in a row where productivity has been relatively low. Fighting a cold was part of it, as was a weirdness of sleep patterns. Nevertheless I saw an interesting cloud.
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 47. Parliament was back this week The action included a major report on foreign interference through social media, activity at the PJCIS, digital ID for goats and sheep, a bribery scandal at Home Affairs, and more fallout from the robodebt scandal.
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 again this week. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Recommendations
If there’s one key theme to this week’s Elon Musk news, it’s that the rebranding from Twitter to X isn’t going well..
- Well that didn’t take long. Brightly flashing ‘X’ sign removed from the San Francisco building that was Twitter’s headquarters. Musk will be billed for the permits he’d needed.
- Like an uncool nightclub: Top EU tweeters don’t love Elon Musk’s big Twitter rebrand.
- In fact the new brand is so toxic that paying users can now hide their blue tick status.
- “Elon Musk is talking about the Apple tax again. In a post on Wednesday, the billionaire said he “will speak with @tim_cook” to see if the Apple CEO would adjust the 30 percent commission the company takes on in-app purchases,” reports The Verge. I think Elon Musk doesn’t understand that he needs Apple way more than Apple needs him.
- And from Mint, “Elon Musk has announced that Twitter which is now being rebranded as X will take some time to share the advertising revenue with the content creators as the company needs more time to process large number of requests.” If only there were some sort of machine that could calculate percentages.
- Elon Musk: ‘We Never Will’ Launch a Twitter or X Crypto Token, or so he says this week.
- Yet another account takeover. “The user Jeremy Vaught informed that he had created the account with user id @music on Twitter and had been running it for the last 16 years but the social media giant suddenly took the user id from him and offered him some alternatives in an email correspondence.” He was not offered any money, however.
- Musk has also taken over the domain AI.com.
- And finally, Elon Musk Randomly Goes Live in the Middle of the Night to Post Video of Him Lifting Weights. As you do.
In other news:
- If you follow Australian politics you’ll probably find this week’s AlienSideBoob column from John Birmingham a bit of a treat: Disgraced former PM Morrison denies he is Angela the Sun Bear.
- In the mountains of the world’s most remote country, baseball takes hold. This Major League Baseball feature is about Bhutan, and even if you’re not a sports fan you should check out the magnificent photograph that heads the article.
- And finally, A Very Serious Review Of Liberal MP Dennis Jensen’s New Erotic War Novel ‘The Skywarriors’.
The Week Ahead
I have a whole bunch of things to do for clients this week, and I’ll organise that around two scheduled items.
On Wednesday I’ll be heading down to Sydney for a variety of reasons.
And on Friday there’s the funeral for Trudi Hollinsworth, who I told you about last week.
I’ll also start organising a spring series of The 9pm Edict podcast. I know it’s been a while since the last episode, but I’m sure I can make that up to you.
Further Ahead
- Aaron Chen’s Chen & Friends, Enmore Theatre, 18 August 2023. As an aside, Mr Chen has said that after this tour he’s moving to live in New York.
- NEW: TechLeaders 2023, Pokolbon NSW, 26–28 August 2023.
NetThing Internet Governance Forum, Brisbane and online, 28 August 2023 (TBC).Sadly this now clashes with TechLeaders, but the videos should be online soon enough.- 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 volutus cloud seen over Bunjaree Cottages on 5 August 2023. There’s another photo of this cloud at Reddit, where there’s also a link to video I made from the weather satellite imagery.]