What a week! From Monday 29 June 2026 to Tuesday I was suffering quite a bit of back pain, for which I received treatment on Tuesday. But from Friday afternoon through to Sunday 5 July I was in Newcastle, where I did a lot of walking and caught up with a couple of friends. There was wine. At various times during the week I finished producing one podcast, recorded another, and even got some client work done. Very happy-making.
I still have to chase up my compensation for The Lost Module, which regular readers will know about. It’s the one-third of my stuff which went missing. I’m finding the whole drama quite stressful.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Not Quite All of the Trains with David Feng, recorded on 24 June and posted on Thursday.
Articles
- The Weekly Cybers #124. eSafety to get more powers to uphold teen social media bans, ACCC takes Amazon to court over adverts in Prime Video, Trump makes US$1.4 billion from crypto, and much more.
Media Appearances
- One of my photos of older diesel Caltrain stock was used in the entry for San José (Diridon Station) by SpotaTrain.
- One of my photos of an empty supermarket egg section, taken during the covid pandemic, was used to illustrate the story Australiërs vrezen voor hun eieren (Australians fear for their eggs) at Foodlog, a Dutch, well, food blog. The story is about how the H5N1 bird flu outbreak might affect our eggy supply chains.
Photos, Videos, Corporate Largesse
None of these, although I have a few little videos that I might post next week. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear and when the occasional livestreams are scheduled.
Some Interesting Links
Last week I said that this week I’d dump all my interesting browser tabs here, but I’m way behind schedule so I’ll skip it. In fact I’ll skip this section entirely, sorry.
The Week Ahead
Once more I’m posting this a little late. It’s already Monday, already past midday, and I have a bunch of administrivia to get done. Wish me luck. I think it will overflow into Tuesday though. Then on Tuesday evening I’m meeting someone for a beer and for industry gossip.
On Wednesday I’m editing and posting a podcast, the one with Snarky Platypus where we do a half-time scoring of our Bingo Card 2026. We’ll also be learning about the local council’s proposals for a Campsie Special Entertainment Precinct, “to give our community more activities at night: more places to eat, shop, listen to music and enjoy night-time with family and friends”. I’m all for it, obviously.
Also this week I’ll kick off the next seasonal crowdfunder and associated podcast planning.
On Thursday, Snarky Platypus and I will be making the journey to Wollongong, stopping at Appin on the way for a lazy lunch. We’ll stay in the Gong overnight and return to Sydney on Friday. The Weekly Cybers newsletter will appear on Friday afternoon as usual. Somehow.
Further Ahead
- UPDATED: Podcast recording or excursion or meet-up or something with Swiss-Chinese train enthusiast David Feng, Sydney, 14 July 2026 (TBC). We’re not sure exactly what we’re going to be doing yet, although we’ll certainly be catching the Sydney Metro out to Tallawong. If you’re interested in joining us, please let us know.
- NEW: Bankstown Bites, Bankstown, 4–5 July 2026. Dunno yet whether we’ll go to the Friday night session or the Saturday afternoon session.
- Six-month checkup, 11 August 2026. This is part of the medical trial I’m taking part in, the one for a new trivalent vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus (hMPV), and human parainfluenza virus type 3 (HPV-3). Given that I came down wth RSV in May, I’m guessing that whatever I was injected with didn’t contain the RSV vaccine component.
- TechLeaders 2026, Bowral, 23–24 August 2026.
[Photo: A male Australasian darter (Anhinga novaehollandiae) suns himself at the Port of Newcastle on 4 July 2026.]