Budget 2026’s thorny political issues
This week’s pre-election Budget suggests the Government believes it will have done just enough to win on Nov 7 this year and is instead setting itself up for the 2029 election, promising looser purse strings then.
That is a confident call. ⌘ Read more
Budget 2026’s verdict? Zero progress
Zero. That is how much progress we have seen in turning the Government books around.
That remains the order of the day out to the 2026/27 fiscal year. ⌘ Read more
Scammers Are Using Your Real Hotel Reservations to Trick You With Spear-Phishing Attacks
Customer data from more than 350 hotels around the world may have been accessed as part of realistic reservation-hijacking scams. ⌘ Read more
Expedia Coupons: 75% Off
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Government books back in the black by June 2029 even in downside scenario
Tight spending control means the Government’s books are forecast to be back in the black in the year to June 2029, a year earlier than forecast in December.
“Here’s the payoff for the fiscal restraint,” said Finance Minister Nicola Willis. ⌘ Read more
QuiznessDesk, Thursday, May 28
In which Australian State or Territory would you find the Adelaide River?
During the Great Plague, what was painted on the front doors of plague-ridden houses?
According to the Bible, on what day did God create the beasts of the Earth?
What type of animals are portrayed in the book Watership Down?
In the Star Wars films, which two actors played Obi-Wan Kenobi?
How many US presidents’ heads are sculpted on Mount Rushmore?
Who had a number one hit in 1980 called Cryi … ⌘ Read more
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Enjoy big savings on your next adventure with our Booking.com promo codes, coupons, and handpicked travel deals. ⌘ Read more
LinkedIn leaders’ Open to Work book is a pep‑talk for the AI age
Open to Work, the new book from LinkedIn chief executive Ryan Roslansky and chief economic opportunity officer Aneesh Raman, is a quick read with a simple premise: work isn’t ending, but it is changing faster than most people can process, and standing still is no longer an option.
It’s pitched squarely at anxious workers who feel the ground shifting under their feet but don’t know what to do next. I … ⌘ Read more
On the Money: Grant Baker’s book launch, Ray Smith, Nikhil Ravishankar, a great AI speech, and more
On the Money (OTM) is our column of general frippery we observed within the worlds of business and government this week.
It was not the easiest week to be a departmental chief executive. Minister for the Public Service Nicola Willis signalled 9,000 public-sector jobs might go, and several agencies might be folded into on … ⌘ Read more
QuiznessDesk, Friday, May 22
What is the most popular sport in the world?
In which American city is the largest settlement of Chinese people outside of Asia?
How is the chaparral cock, a ground cuckoo native of Mexico, better known?
What was the title of the first Harry Potter book?
Which element has the chemical symbol Fe?
The Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest point in which ocean?
How many legs does a lobster have? Four, Eight or Ten?
Who is said to have founded Rome after killing his brother? R … ⌘ Read more
QuiznessDesk, Thursday, May 21
Which vitamin improves the eye`s ability to see in the dark?
In which country did the dance the fandango originate?
Which book, written by Alice Walker, was made into a 1985 film starring Whoopi Goldberg?
What is the largest inland sea in the world?
What is Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, based on an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, called?
Who had a hit single with Crocodile Rock in 1972?
Where was Warren Buffett born in the US? Ohio, Nebraska or Kent … ⌘ Read more`
QuiznessDesk, Tuesday, May 19
The country historically known as Abyssinia is now known as what?
Which of the following would live in a formicary? Owls, bees or ants?
In degrees Celsius, what is the average body temperature?
What was the name of the volcano that erupted in the year A.D. 79 and destroyed the city of Pompeii?
Which book by George Orwell includes the line “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing”?
Who was the first man to reach the South Pole?
Which two brothers play … ⌘ Read more
I just realized that this book, which I’m still using as a reference every now and then, is from 2005.
In other words, it’s over 20 years old now. 😬
Amazon Stops Supporting Pre-2013 Kindles Today. Some Owners Turn to Jailbreaking
Today Amazon ends support for first- and second-generation versions of Kindles and Kindle Fire tablets, along with the Kindle Touch, the 9.7-inch Kindle DX, and other devices released in 2012 or earlier.
Owners can continue reading ebooks that they’ve already downloaded, and they can also still sideload books using … ⌘ Read more
Drained – a toolkit for the mental load
Drained, a self-help book aimed at helping women reduce their mental load, claims it will change women’s lives.
It didn’t find it so much of a game-changer, but it is useful on many fronts. ⌘ Read more
Gen Z Is Pioneering a New Understanding of Truth
The first generation to truly grow up online, Generation Z and their cohort live in a social media ecosystem that blends facts and feelings. It’s significantly shifting how they understand what’s true. ⌘ Read more
The Top New Features in Google’s Android 17—and Gemini Intelligence—Coming This Summer
You’ll soon be able to generate your own widgets or ask Gemini to finish a booking in Chrome on Android. ⌘ Read more
Why Soccer Still Defies Statistical Analysis
Sarah Rudd, who once ran analytics for Arsenal, made her name applying the tenets of probability theory to movements on the pitch. Even she admits not everything can be solved with data. ⌘ Read more
What Happens When You Try to Treat OCD With Psilocybin
Colloquially, OCD is known as the doubting disorder. In his new book How to Not Know, Simone Stolzoff explores whether treating that uncertainty with magic mushrooms can help people through it. ⌘ Read more
Booking.com Promo Codes: 20% Off | May 2026
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Zuckerberg ‘Personally Authorized and Encouraged’ Meta’s Copyright Infringement
Five major publishers and author Scott Turow have sued Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that Zuckerberg “personally authorized and actively encouraged” massive copyright infringement by using pirated books, journal articles, and web-scraped material to train Meta’s Llama AI systems. Meta denies wrongdoing and says it w … ⌘ Read more
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Book your next getaway with Expedia and get up to 75% off your stay, with or without a promo code. ⌘ Read more
The iPhone That Never Was
In 1990, three former Apple employees launched a company that epitomized the Silicon Valley dream. What they invented looked like an iPhone—more than a decade earlier. The device never came to be. ⌘ Read more
Roblox Blames Age-Verification Rollout for Lowered Growth. Stock Tumbles 22%
Age verification became mandatory for chat access on Roblox in January — and Friday morning Quartz reported it’s apparently impacted the company’s financials:
Roblox cut its full-year 2026 bookings forecast by roughly $900 million at the midpoint on Thursday, blaming stronger-than-expected headwinds from its mandatory age-ve … ⌘ Read more
Marvel, DC, Game Publishers Launch Rival Events Saturday for Free Giveaways
The once-a-year free comic book giveaway “is splitting in two,” according to a local news report.
Launched in 2002 by Diamond Comic Distributor, comic book giants like Marvel and DC have historically participated together. But things changed after Diamond Comic Distributors went bankrupt in 2025, “leaving other companies to s … ⌘ Read more
Booking.com Promo Codes: Up to 20% Off
Enjoy big savings on your next adventure with our Booking.com promo codes, coupons, and handpicked travel deals. ⌘ Read more
MAGA Is Confused About ‘Animal Farm’
The new film is the latest adaptation of George Orwell’s novel. Based on the critiques coming from right-wing influencers, it seems few of them fully grasp the book’s message. ⌘ Read more
Palantir Posts Bond Villain Manifesto On X
DeanonymizedCoward writes: Engadget reports that Palantir has posted to X a summary of CEO Alex Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska’s 2025 book, The Technological Republic, which reads like a utopian idealist doodled on a Bond villain’s whiteboard. While the post makes some decent points, it also highlights the Big-AI attitude that the AI surveillance state is in fact a good thing, and strongly i … ⌘ Read more
Booking.com Hit By Data Breach
Booking.com says hackers accessed customer reservation data in a breach that may have exposed booking details, names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and messages shared with accommodations. PCMag reports: On Sunday, users reported receiving emails from Booking.com, warning them that “unauthorized third parties may have been able to access certain booking information associated with your reservation.” The … ⌘ Read more
Sam Altman’s Home Targeted a Second Time, Two Suspects Arrested
“Early Sunday morning, a car stopped and appears to have fired a gun at the Russian Hill home of OpenAI’s CEO,” reportsThe San Francisco Standard, citing reports from the local police department:
The San Francisco Police Department announced the arrest of two suspects, Amanda Tom, 25, and Muhamad Tarik Hussein, 23, who were booked for negligent disch … ⌘ Read more
Sumatra PDF 3.7 预发布版本 – 新增命令行工具，以及 Arm 64、命令面板、深色模式等功能
Sumatra PDF 是一款有着 17 年历史的电子书阅读器，支持 PDF, eBook (epub, mobi), comic book (cbz/cbr), DjVu, XPS, CHM 等格式，甚至支持图片浏览。近日发布 3.6 版本，新增了一些功能。@Appinn 而预发布的 Sumatr ⌘ Read more
Sweden Swaps Screens For Books In the Classroom
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In 2023, the Swedish government announced that the country’s schools would be going back to basics, emphasizing skills such as reading and writing, particularly in early grades. After mostly being sidelined, physical books are now being reintroduced into classrooms, and students are learning to write the old-fashioned way: by … ⌘ Read more
Judge Allows BitTorrent Seeding Claims Against Meta, Despite Lawyers ‘Lame Excuses’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In an effort to gather material for its LLM training, Meta used BitTorrent to download pirated books from Anna’s Archive and other shadow libraries. According to several authors, Meta facilitated the infringement of others by “seeding” these torrents. This we … ⌘ Read more
The Books That Shaped My Childhood ⌘ Read more
FSF Threatens Anthropic Over Infringed Copyright: Share Your LLMs Freely
In 2024 Anthropic was sued over claims it infringed copyrights when training LLMs.
But as they try to settle, they may have a problem. The Free Software Foundation announced Friday that Anthropic’s training data apparently even included the book “Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software” — for which the Fre … ⌘ Read more
Galileo’s Handwritten Notes Discovered in a Medieval Astronomy Text
In a library in Florence, Italy, historian Ivan Malara noticed handwritten notes on a book printed in the 1500s — and recognized the handwriting as Galileo’s. The finding “promises new insights into one of the most famous ideological transitions in the history of science,” writes Science magazine — since the book Galileo annotated was a r … ⌘ Read more
Uber Previews Its Dubai Air Taxi Service
An anonymous reader shares a report: Uber is one step closer to going airborne. On Wednesday, the company previewed its air taxi booking service ahead of an expected launch in Dubai later this year. The inaugural Uber Air program will let travelers book Joby Aviation’s electric air taxis through a familiar process in the Uber app.
The experience of booking an air taxi will be much like reserv … ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Deletes Blog Telling Users To Train AI on Pirated Harry Potter Books
Microsoft pulled a year-old blog post this week after a Hacker News thread flagged that it had encouraged developers to download all seven Harry Potter books from a Kaggle dataset – incorrectly marked as public domain – and use them to train AI models on the company’s Azure platform.
The blog, written in November 2024 … ⌘ Read more
Romance Publishing Has an AI Problem and Most Readers Don’t Know It Yet
The romance genre – long the publishing industry’s earliest adopter of technological shifts, from e-books to self-publishing to serial releases – has become the front line for AI-generated fiction, and the results as you can imagine are messy. Coral Hart, a Cape Town-based novelist previously published by Harlequin and Mills & Boon, … ⌘ Read more
Is the ‘Death of Reading’ Narrative Wrong?
Has the rise of hyper-addictive digital technologies really shattered our attention spans and driven books out of our culture? Maybe not, argues social psychologist Adam Mastroianni (author of the Substack Experimental History):
As a psychologist, I used to study claims like these for a living, so I know that the mind is primed to believe narratives of decline. We have a much lower standard … ⌘ Read more
Big Tech’s $1.1 Trillion Cloud Computing Backlog
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft each reported hundreds of billions in RPO (remaining performance obligations) – signed contracts for cloud computing services that can’t yet be filled and haven’t yet hit the books. Collectively, the big three cloud providers reported a $1.1 trillion backlog of revenue.
[ for Dummies” book, or something like that. :-D :-P
‘Hundreds’ of Gatik Robot Delivery Trucks Headed For US Roads
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Gatik, a Silicon Valley startup developing self-driving delivery trucks, says its commercial operations are about to scale up dramatically, from fewer than a dozen driverless units running in multiple U.S. states now to hundreds of box trucks by the end of the year. CEO Gautam Narang said it’s also booked … ⌘ Read more
Behold! 🥳 My first (hopefully it doesn’t fail 🤞) µSaaS (microSaaS)
Turn PDFs into audiobooks.
(only supports PDF(s) at the moment, books, papers, etc)
Happy reading/listening 🤓 👂 #Audiofern #Audiobooks #microSaaS
How Anthropic Built Claude: Buy Books, Slice Spines, Scan Pages, Recycle the Remains
Court documents unsealed last week in a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic reveal that the AI company ran an operation called “Project Panama” to buy millions of physical books, slice off their spines, scan the pages to train its Claude chatbot, and then send the remains to recycling companies.
The company spe … ⌘ Read more
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This weekend, I'm building a service that turns PDFs into chaptered, audiobook‑quality narration in minutes—upload, listen in a built‑in player, and download MP3/M4B files with clean metadata.
⤋ Read More
Has a bit of a long history story behind this, where last year at work we were reading this book called Engineering a Safer World and initially came across a service called Speech Reply that allowed me to upload a PDF copy of the book and start to read it, but unfortunately, the free trial right now before I can finish reading it turns out that Speech Reply service cost a whopping US$30 a month and expected me to pay a full year upfront, which was well over US$300 just for one fucking book! So I sent their sales and support staff a message kindly asking if it were possible to just pay for the audio transcription of just a single book or to change to a monthly subscription fee, to which they refused, so basically in the end I got very angry and told them to go fuck themselves and built my own service. A year later here we are :-)