My week of Monday 22 to Sunday 28 April 2024 was busy with social things clustered around the Anzac Day holiday, but I still managed to clock up some billable hours. Indeed, I seem to have broken through whatever psychological barrier was limiting my work. That said, this Weekly Wrap is still mostly links to other things. Enjoy them, OK?
Podcasts
- On Monday I recorded a wonderful conversation with Ketan Joshi, researcher and communications consultant on climate stuff. He’s been on the pod before, back in 2021. But due to a collision of workloads I’m having to delay this podcast’s appearance until next week.
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Articles
- The Weekly Cybers #15. Elon Musk versus the eSafety Commissioner, ASIO and the AFP versus online platforms, and 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
- TimeOut has used my photo of a Sydney tram to illustrated their story Sydney’s Inner West light rail will start running through the night. A shame it’s a photo of a tram on another line. Also, 5am to 1am is hardly “through the might” timetable. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. OK, it’s better than 6am to 11pm, but even so.
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.
Recommendations
Apart from the now-massive drama of Elon Musk versus the eSafety Commissioner, which I covered in The Weekly Cybers, and with further commentary at Al Jazeera and the ABC, there’s some contradictory news about Tesla.
- First though, in related news, Bolsonaro supporters hit streets of Rio and hail new hero Elon Musk.
- And from Nine, The charts that prove social media has bigger dangers than Elon Musk’s ego. “The furore is wonderful for Musk’s ego. The attention could be better than drugs. But here’s the truth: Musk is a small player in a big argument about social media. His site, X, has about 550 million active users each month, while Facebook has more than 3 billion and Instagram has 2 billion.”
- Tesla profits drop 55% as Elon Musk dodges cheap car question, reports Ars Technica. “Instead of developing new models, Musk continues to maintain that Tesla’s future is in AI. It spent $1 billion on GPUs in Q1 — almost as much as it spent on total R&D during the same time.”
- Tesla Autopilot feature was involved in 13 fatal crashes, US regulator says.
- Will Musk now deliver the ‘biggest value appreciation in history’?, asks the Financial Review. “Elon Musk has a new vision: AI-fuelled autonomy allows Tesla to move beyond its past as a car maker or energy company to become a new style of tech giant.” Yeah nah. As the old saying goes, he’s full of piss and wind.
- “xAI, Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival, is closing on $6B in funding and X, his social network, is already one of its shareholders,” reports TechCrunch.
- In an amusing plot twist Biz Stone, the other co-counder of Twitter, is on the board of the new US non-profit running Mastodon*. That is, the organisation responsible for creating the software and running mastodon.social. Individual Mastodon instances are self-governing, like moulds or algae.
- And finally from The Shovel, “Billionaire Elon Musk, found dead in his home last night, says it is not the role of social media networks to determine what is true or not. The Tesla and X owner, who is believed to have died from a heroin overdose while watching animal porn, said he would fight any attempts to stop the spread of misinformation on his platform.”
In other news:
- A prehistory of MAGA: “Mainstream” conservatives never really purged the fascists.
- From The Conversation, Project 2025, the policy substance behind Trump’s showmanship, reveals a radical plan to reshape the world.
- From journalist Ed Zitron, “This is the story of how Google Search died, and the people responsible for killing it.”
- In another tour de force from Ze Frank, True Facts: Bees That Can Do Math!.
- I’m quite a fan of British comedian Michael Spicer’s work on YouTube. Well if you like that too, you’ll like his new BBC Radio 4 podcast No Room.
- Finally, while I’m sure I’ve recommended the Off Menu podcast before, the latest episode with Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan is one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had. But don’t make it your first experience of Off Menu, because it’ll help to know the format before you hear how this episode totally destroys it.
The Week Ahead
After a few days of recreation this week, the coming week will be busy. Balance, right?
Monday and Tuesday will be a concentrated burst of client work. Wednesday will be about administrivia. Thursday will be about podcast post-production. And then on Friday it’s time for The Weekly Cybers.
I may also record another podcast episode during the week, so stand by for further announcements.
On Sunday evening I’ll be down in Sydney to see He Huang Tiger Daughter versus the World in Chatswood, so I’ll be staying in Sydney overnight.
Further Ahead
[Update 29 April 2024: Edited to add a new item. You can probably guess which one.]
- One Million Years Celebration, inner Sydney location TBA,
11May 2024. Next month (but not on 11 May) I’ll be one million years old, in binary. My last end-in-zero birthday happened during the Quarantimes, so this is intended to make up for that. I’ll be choosing a family-friendly pub somewhere in the inner parts of Sydney for the Saturday afternoon, 3pm to 7pm. Please RSVP so I have some idea of numbers and can tell you where it is. - Nina Oyama is Coming, Marrickville NSW, 12 May 2024.
- NEW: The 9pm Edict podcast recording with Esther Anatolitis, editor of literary quarterly Meanjin and other things, 13 May 2024. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for that episode, please get them to me by 7pm AEST on Sunday 12 May.
- The 9pm Edict podcast recording with digital rights chap and hexagon enthusiast Justin Warren, 21 May. We’ll be looking at the digital things in the federal Budget, among other things. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for that episode, please get them to me by 7pm AEST on Monday 20 May.
- The Sydney Dialogue, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Sydney and online, 2–3 September 2024 (TBC).
[Photo: An abandoned corner shop in Croydon, Sydney, photographed on 29 April 2018. It has since been demolished and replaced with an apartment building and cafe, although not every angle is up to date on Google Maps.]