By-election a tick of approval for LNP, but no crystal ball for election
A week is a long time in politics, let alone three years, and the LNP’s success at the next election is by no means assured, writes Jack McKay. ⌘ Read more

Benedict Cumberbatch Films Two Bizarre Holiday Ads: for ‘World of Tanks’ and Amazon
“There are times when World of Tanks feels less like a videogame and more like a giant ad budget looking for something to be spent on,” writes PC Gamer.

This year, all those huge sacks with dollar signs on them have been thrown Benedict Cumberbatch’s way, making him the game’s newest “Holiday Ambassador” and t … ⌘ Read more

they stopped doing that by the time of the DVD releases however.

That was almost twenty years ago

‘The Family’ murders which stole Adelaide’s innocence
One of South Australia’s most notorious murderers was this week rushed to an infirmary on the brink of death, prompting recollections of the time when young males disappeared across Adelaide in a set of gruesome crimes dubbed “The Family” murders. Warning: This story contains details some readers may find distressing. ⌘ Read more

Emotional scenes as AFLW premiers rush to embrace sidelined star after GF
During their AFLW premiership celebrations, North Melbourne players make sure to take time for Mia King, who just missed the grand final with a knee injury. ⌘ Read more

Why tiny Barbados said good by to the royal family
With countries like Australia still debating whether or not the time has come to become a republic, what prompted tiny Barbados with its population of less than 300,000, to take the leap? ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Partners Amass $100 Billion Debt Pile To Fund Its Ambitions
OpenAI’s data centre partners are on course to amass almost $100 billion in borrowing tied to the lossmaking start-up, as the ChatGPT maker benefits from a debt-fuelled spending spree without taking on financial risks itself. Financial Times: SoftBank, Oracle and CoreWeave have borrowed at least $30 billion to invest in the start-up or help build i … ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net I’ve no idea about regulations in your area, but over here there are different taxation rules for video and photo cameras. Hence, manufacturers limit the video recording time of photo cameras typically to half an hour, so that they don’t classify as video cameras with their higher taxes.

@prologic@twtxt.net Tada! There you once hope for your flight and ride to be delayed and then of course they are right on time! :-D You gotta wait either way. ;-) Looks like you got some good drinks, though.

Teen’s journey from inland mining town to Barbados coastal rowing gold
Though she only tried the sport for the first time this year, the 18-year-old nursing student was one of several Australians taking home gold after competing in coastal rowing in Barbados, ahead of the sport’s 2028 Olympic debut. ⌘ Read more

Mother urges others to reach out after terrifying postpartum ‘blackout rage’
When Ali Gossage gave birth a second time, she did not experience the constant joys of motherhood. Instead, she was sometimes filled with “terrifying” anger. ⌘ Read more

Jo had her baby ‘ripped away’ at birth — she’s one of thousands across Australia
Decades on from Australia’s forced adoption era, just two states have set up a redress scheme for the mothers who were harmed. Survivors are calling for South Australia to take similar action — warning time is running out. ⌘ Read more

18yo charged with murder after man shot multiple times in Western Sydney
A 28-year-old man died after suffering gunshot wounds to his neck, chest and leg in Blacktown on Friday. ⌘ Read more

Singapore Takes Top Spot in Global Talent Index
Singapore has claimed the top spot in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index for the first time, displacing Switzerland from a position the European nation had held since the ranking’s inception in 2013. The index, produced by business school INSEAD and the Portulans Institute, measured 135 economies across 77 indicators spanning soft skills, AI talent concentration, and fo … ⌘ Read more

Nothing will bring him back, but Jai Wright’s family say they have seen ‘justice’
For the family of Dunghutti teen Jai Wright, the guilty finding against police officer Benedict Bryant for dangerous driving occasioning Jai’s death lifts a “weight off their shoulders”. Legal experts say it’s the first time a police officer has been convicted in relation to the death of a First Nations person in custody. ⌘ Read more

Robots and AI Are Already Remaking the Chinese Economy
China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year – nearly nine times as many as the United States and more than the rest of the world combined – as the country races to automate its manufacturing base amid rising labor costs at home and tariff threats from abroad.

The nation’s stock of operational robots surpassed 2 million in 2024, according to the Intern … ⌘ Read more

When I waste time writing a function… that already existed ⌘ Read more

Upheavals to the oral microbiome in pregnancy may be behind tooth loss
Dental problems often arise or get worse during pregnancy, and a new study hints that rapid changes to the oral microbiome at this time could be at least partly to blame ⌘ Read more

Why Can’t ChatGPT Tell Time?
ChatGPT can browse the web, write code and analyze images, but ask it what time it is and you might get the correct answer, a confident wrong answer, or a polite refusal – sometimes all three within minutes of each other.

The problem stems from how large language models work. These systems predict answers based on training data and don’t receive constant real-time updates about things like time unless they specifically se … ⌘ Read more

Read an extract from The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading Iain M. Banks’s classic sci-fi novel The Player of Games. In this extract, we meet protagonist Gurgeh for the first time ⌘ Read more

‘Repeat offender’ goanna runs away from home for second time in two years
One of a handful of Rosenberg’s goannas living in the ACT’s hill reserves has once again wandered off, prompting calls from a local conservation organisation for help bringing him back. ⌘ Read more

@aelaraji@aelaraji.com Thanks for the account! I figured out one thing at least so far, my WAF was blocking some of the AP requests. Fixed that. Anyway, holiday time 🤣 Back in ~2 weeks.

Going away over summer? Here’s how I prep my garden
Leaving my garden in the heat of summer can feel worrying but some simple planning means it misses me less than I miss it. ⌘ Read more

Tasmanian government criticised for not signing up to federal housing scheme
Tasmania is the only state or territory which is not joining the federal government’s Help to Buy home ownership scheme, which aims to reduce the time it takes home buyers to save for a deposit. ⌘ Read more

DNA samples found near Toyah Cordingley burial site scrutinised
The former nurse accused of the 2018 murder of Toyah Cordingley was 3.7 billion times more likely than not to have contributed to a DNA sample found on a stick where she was buried, his trial has heard. ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.335 Released With The Very Notable VK_EXT_present_timing
Vulkan 1.4.335 released a few hours ago as the latest iteration of this high performance graphics and compute API. With being just a week since the prior update and given the US Thanksgiving week, it’s on the lighter side in terms of issues addressed. There is one new extension though and it’s a big one: VK_EXT_present_timing is finally merged… ⌘ Read more

The funny thing is, Yarn moving to Twt Hash v2 sounds a tad more optimistic than Git adopting SHA-256.

Git is several years too late, while Yarn is pretty much on time.

French prisoners escape jail using saw and bedsheets
The fugitives broke out of the prison in the eastern city of Dijon in the early hours of Thrusday, local time, and 100 police officers are on their trail. ⌘ Read more

Everything you need to know ahead of the 2025 AFLW grand final
Wondering what time the AFLW grand final starts and how you can watch it live? We’ve got you covered. ⌘ Read more

Social Media Giants Liable For Financial Scams Under New EU Law
Platforms including Meta and TikTok will be held liable for financial fraud for the first time under new rules agreed by EU lawmakers in the early hours of Thursday. From a report: The Parliament and Council agreed on the package of rules after eight hours of negotiations to strengthen safeguards against payment fraud. The deal adds another layer o … ⌘ Read more

Fuzzy Zoeller, who beat Greg Norman to win 1984 US Open playoff, dies
Fuzzy Zoeller, a two-time major champion and one of golf’s most gregarious characters whose career was tainted by a racially insensitive joke about Tiger Woods, has died aged 74. ⌘ Read more

What Amy and Estella want you to know about living with disability
Nineteen-year-old Estella Jones lives with a disability in her hometown of Tennant Creek, where she loves baking brownies, singing karaoke and spending time with good friends. ⌘ Read more

‘I had the uniform cut off me and it was the last time I ever wore it’
More than two years on from a serious crash that saw him medically retired, a former police officer says he can still hear the screech of tyres before the deafening bang of a car slamming into his police wagon. ⌘ Read more

Hot air balloon rides nearly 10 times riskier as helicopter or plane
Hot air balloon rides are nearly 10 times riskier than a joy flight in a light plane or a helicopter, a new report by the national transport safety investigator has found. ⌘ Read more

Weekly news quiz: The G20 summit, a cyclone and a very famous pub
Think you’ve had your ears to the ground? It’s time to test your knowledge of the week that was. ⌘ Read more

Better Technology, Worse Motivation: GenAI’s Mediocrity Trap

While generative AI (GenAI) promises productive efficiency, it can paradoxically lead to lower-quality work. We conducted an experiment with professional illustrators and found that AI assistance flattens the quality curve—it accelerates initial gains but sharply diminishes the returns on sustained effort. Faced with this, a significant number of professionals made a strategic choice: they sacrificed the final quality to save time.

From http://www.jin-li.org/uploads/1/1/4/5/114595093/ai_and_motivation.pdf

I haven’t read this and can’t vouch for it; seems vaguely AI-boostery. Still, the conclusions are interesting. This seems to be the picture that is emerging about generative AI generally: most people don’t like it and find that degrades the quality of work. Coders seem to like it and think that it helps them, but in fact it makes the slower, less productive, and more bug prone.

By all measures it’s a bad technology. We should just be honest about it. There is no need to make excuses for multi-trillion-dollar corporations.

@aelaraji@aelaraji.com Ahhh! That would be even funnier and even more brilliant! 🤣 If you can find this, I would happily employ this tactic next time and make ‘em pay 💰 Bahahahaha 🤣

UK Police To Trial AI ‘Agents’ Responding To Non-Emergency Calls
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Call-handling agents powered by AI are to be trialled by Staffordshire Police in a bid to cut waiting times for the non-emergency 101 service. The force is set to become the third in the country to take part in the scheme testing the use of artificial “agents” to deal with calls. Under the system, t … ⌘ Read more

NT parliament pushes through banned drinking register changes on urgency
In the final hours of NT parliament for the year, the government has extended the time a person issued with a Banned Drinker Order is prevented from drinking alcohol. ⌘ Read more

Man who bashed prison guards to serve jail time following appeal
A NSW inmate who bashed four prison guards will serve extra jail time, after a judge quashed his non-custodial term on appeal, calling it “an affront to the administration of justice”. ⌘ Read more

Killer who dumped woman’s body in South Fremantle harbour jailed for 20 years
A Perth man who stabbed a woman multiple times in a “ferocious attack” before dumping her body in the ocean is sentenced to 20 years in prison. ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net it would have been so much easy to run your own. I guess we all like to suffer every once and then, and this time is your turn. 😅

Vulkan’s VK_EXT_present_timing Merged After Five Years In The Making
Originally opened in September 2020 by NVIDIA Linux engineer James Jones, tonight the Vulkan VK_EXT_present_timing extension was finally merged! Five years in the making and incorporating contributions from Google, NVIDIA, AMD, Collabora, Samsung, Unity, and Red Hat is this prominent new addition to the Vulkan API… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net AI is slot machines for coders:

• “Before starting tasks, developers forecast that allowing AI will reduce completion time by 24%. After completing the study, developers estimate that allowing AI reduced completion time by 20%. Surprisingly, we find that allowing AI actually increases completion time by 19%–AI tooling slowed developers down.” https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
  
• “Stack Overflow data reveals the hidden productivity tax of ‘almost right’ AI code”: https://venturebeat.com/ai/stack-overflow-data-reveals-the-hidden-productivity-tax-of-almost-right-ai-code
  

The same intermittent reward operant conditioning that gets people addicted to gambling and thinking that if they follow certain rituals they’ll win “next time” drives people’s beliefs that AI tools are making them more productive when they’re making them less productive. I’m going to guess that a side effect of this is that people think they’re typing less when in the longer term they’re typing the same amount or more when you factor in the productivity loss (as far as I’ve read the studies don’t measure this so I’m only guessing).

People are also being rapidly de-skilled by this technology: the more they use it, the more their actual skills atrophy. “Continuous exposure to AI might reduce the ADR (adesoma detection rate) of standard non-AI assisted colonoscopy, suggesting a negative effect on endoscopist behaviour.” (science speak for saying that radiologists get worse at seeing tumors in scans once they’ve used AI): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract

Nobody who cares about the future should be using this stuff for anything.

Apple Set To Become World’s Top Phone Maker, Overtaking Samsung
Apple will retake its crown as the world’s largest smartphone maker for the first time in more than a decade, lifted by the successful debut of a new iPhone series and a rush of consumers upgrading devices, according to Counterpoint Research. From a report: The iPhone 17 models introduced in September have been a hit both domestically in the US and … ⌘ Read more

Sound of lightning recorded on Mars for the first time
Microphone recordings from NASA’s Perseverance rover have turned up more than 50 instances of lightning on the red planet over the past four years, a new study finds. ⌘ Read more

Fark me again with the bots. This time DDoS-style crawling from hundreds of IPs and dozens of ASN(s) wtf?!
I’ve had to disale the Ingress to my Git instance for the time being, i need to sleep and I can’t fight this :/

Malaysia’s Johor Bans Low-Tier Data Centers Over Water Strain
Malaysia’s Johor, one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing data center hubs, has announced it will no longer approve applications for Tier 1 and Tier 2 data centers because of their enormous water consumption – up to 50 million liters daily, or roughly 200 times what higher-tier facilities require.

The Malaysian state has approved 51 data center projec … ⌘ Read more

Affordability crisis triggers surge in outback NSW land values
The combined value of land in NSW passes $3 trillion for the first time, as the affordability crisis sees property prices skyrocket in remote towns. ⌘ Read more

Matildas prepare to face New Zealand with one eye on Asian Cup
Ahead of two friendlies against their trans-Tasman rivals, the Matildas are mindful they cannot waste any time in the build-up to next year’s Asian Cup. ⌘ Read more