My week of Monday 6 to Sunday 12 May 2024 was both busy and wet, the latter being due to the rain rather than anything I did. See the photo above for evidence of how Sydney’s drainage systems can’t cope. And of course I turned One Million Years old. Kinda.
I’ll have more about the One Millions Years thing during the coming week or two. Maybe.
Articles
- The Weekly Cybers #17. Australia versus The Socials! eSafety vs X Corp in the federal Court, vice versa in the AAT, Meta vs All The News, and yet another inquiry into social media. That and much more in the final week before the Budget.
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
- On Thursday I did the ABC RN Drive “Big Tech” spot, New AI model developed to predict behaviour of human molecules. So yeah we talked about how AlphaFold3 could accelerate efforts to understand the human body and fight disease, Jack Dorsey quits Bluesky board and urges users to stay on Elon Musk’s X, and Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX says it will be able to repay creditors full $11bn.
Podcasts, 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
The Elon Musk news is all over the place this week. Maybe it’s the ketamine. His, not mine. I have never had ketamine. Anyway Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey features heavily this week too.
- Elon Musk may be compelled to testify again in SEC’s Twitter takeover probe.
- Jack Dorsey quits Bluesky board and urges users to stay on Elon Musk’s X, and yes I did talk about my views on this in the radio spot mentioned above.
- Jack Dorsey claims Bluesky is ‘repeating all the mistakes’ he made at Twitter, such as having moderation apparently.
- And from “friend of the pod” David Gerard, Jack Dorsey, Bluesky, decentralised social networks and the very common crowd.
- Neuralink’s first implant partly detached from patient’s brain. “Some of the threads connecting the chip to the brain began to retract. The Elon Musk-owned company did not explain why.”
- Elon Musk’s Artificial Intelligence Startup xAI Reportedly Nears $18 Billion Valuation With Fresh Funding As AI Race Heats Up, reports Forbes with way too many capital letters in the headline.
- Elon Musk floated robotaxi launch in China, Chinese state media says, although he kinda knew that.
- Melbourne driver who blamed her Tesla for pedestrian hit-and-run jailed for nine months, which is perhaps more about it being a hit-and-run that her excuses,
- “The California judge presiding over Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, has removed himself from the case. Judge Ethan Schulman on Monday sustained a challenge from Musk’s lawyers, which cited a California state law that allows plaintiffs and defendants to remove a judge they believe cannot grant an impartial trial.”
In other news:
- In his latest video, Adam Something looks at Libertarian Sea Pods: A Hilarious Aquatic Disaster.
- Is the Pheu Thai government towards ’embattled’?, asks Erin Cook. Thai politics continues to fascinate me. The next few months will be interesting because in theory the current constitution requires the military junta to (slightly) relax their grip on the Senate in particular.
- The Father of the 15-Minute City Doubles Down on His Vision. “In the wake of attacks by conspiracy theorists, Carlos Moreno is out with a new book that seeks to school the world on his pervasive urban planning concept.”
- This week’s AlienSideBoob from John Birmingham is titled Trusting the process and it explains how process is more important than goals when trying to get things done. An interesting perspective.
- Last week’s AlienSideBoob was titled Modern Loneliness and it too was a very interesting read.
- It’s from a year ago, and there’s no location audio, but this derailment is very satisfying.
The Week Ahead
On Monday morning I’ll do some shopping and get the train back to Wentworth Falls before recording a podcast with Esther Anatolitis, editor of literary quarterly Meanjin and other things. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for that episode, please get them to me tonight, Sunday 12 May.
[Update 13 May 2024: The podcast recording has been pushed back a week due to illness. I will therefore slot in another episode this week some time. Stay tuned.]
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Other than that I’m going to plod through client work, produce the podcast on Thursday, and write The Weekly Cybers on Friday.
Further Ahead
- RESCHEDULED: The 9pm Edict podcast recording with Esther Anatolitis, editor of literary quarterly Meanjin and other things, 20 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 19 May.
- The 9pm Edict podcast recording with digital rights chap and hexagon enthusiast Justin Warren, 21 May 2024. 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.
- TechLeaders 2024, Hunter Valley, 11–12 August 2024.
- The Sydney Dialogue, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Sydney and online, 2–3 September 2024 (TBC).
[Photo: At the corner of Eddy Avenue and Pitt Street, right next to Sydney Central station where the escalators come down from the Grand Concourse, the street is flooded thanks to poor drainage. It always happens here when there’s heavy rain. This is a frame grab from a short video shot on 11 May 2024.]