Another end of the world is possible
Following on from How everything can collapse, the french collapsologists now turn their attention to coping with collapse, psychologically, intellectually and even practically.
This is a thoughtful book drawing on useful experience, and covering a lot of ground in a fairly systematic way.
Audio chapters in this zip include
One of the Doctor’s most feared nemeses will be back on screens this UK New Year’s Day as Doctor Who returns for a special episode entitled Eve of the Daleks. Following the explosive series finale of Doctor Who: Flux, The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and friends Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop), will kick-start 2022 with an action-packed spectacular episode set to air on BBC One on New Year’s Day. Eve of the Daleks will also feature guest stars Aisling Bea (This Way Up, Living With Yourself, Quiz), Adjani Salmon (Dreaming Whilst Black, Enterprice) and Pauline McLynn (Father Ted,… Continue reading
It’s December so I suppose I should mention these books in case you might want to incorporate any of them into your Christmas shopping. ‘50 Ways to Score a Goal’ is a collection of poems, perfect for the football obsessive in your life, whether they’re aged eight or eighty (but not thirty-four for some reason).…
Annual reminder to water your tree poems this Christmas.
The MP’s posh, privileged persona has been a good cover for an untrustworthy, self-serving character
Continue reading...A lot has already been written about different aspects of why most distributed blockchain-based consensus systems are just… bad. And yet we are still able to find new such reasons. At least I think this is a new one. I have not seen it mentioned anywhere so far.
Distributed blockchain-based consensus systems, as they are currently implemented, are an energy-waste ratchet.
I am specifically talking about systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and any other system that:
The fifteenth International Day Against DRM (IDAD) is next week, and we here at the Defective by Design campaign are calling on you to help us send a message to purveyors of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) around the world, letting them know that DRM is unacceptable in any and all of its forms. This year's Day Against DRM will be held next Friday, on December 10, 2021.
An important area of concern among many cryptocurrency proponents revolves around the idea that the current banking and government finance systems are inherently unstable or inflationary. Ultimately all finance is about debits and credits, assets and liabilities. How would total adoption of crypto by a country change these?
She’s Got It by The Leonard Simpson Duo; Mittrom by Mach-Hommy & Earl Sweatshirt; Open the Brain by Quelle Chris; Snake Oil Scientist by Marlowe; and Aunties Steak & Rice Hold the Cabbage by Camoflauge Monk (from Chopin Prelude in E Minor by Les Baxter). #SpotifyWrapped
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The most revealing graph presented in Wednesday’s September quarter national accounts is one showing what has happened just beyond the end of the September quarter, in the one we are in now.
Melbourne’s lockdown ended on October 27.
The graph uses anonymised bank account data to show what happened to spending in Victoria as soon as the lockdown was lifted.
Selected Victorian spending data
How much cash would you need to be paid to agree to live without a smartphone for a year?
If you are like the typical American, the answer is US$10,000 – which is far, far more than what we are actually charged for having and using smartphones.
How much would you need to be paid to live without a computer?
According to the same research, just published by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a typical American would want US$25,000 to live computer-free for a year.
For the GPS system that lets us map where we are on all our devices, the answer is US$3,000; for streaming services such as Netflix the answer is another US$3,000.
For refrigeration the answer is US$10,000; for air conditioning, another US$10,000; and for running water US$50,000.
Blue Beanie Day in support of web standards is celebrated around the world on November 30. Hey, that’s today. So how can you help? Glad you asked! Take a self-portrait wearing a blue beanie (toque, tuque, cap) and post it to your website and social media channels with the hashtag #BlueBeanieDay. And for that extra […]
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I thought it would be fun to write an anthology to how my guitar pedalboard has adapted over the years. For the past decade, I’ve been mostly playing in modern worship groups, which is style that evolved to heavily rely on guitar pedals. It’s hard to say historically where this started, but it’s hard to […]
Spotify and an Australian journalist both made more headlines for one of the most influential pop stars on the planet
Continue reading...Types of vaccine and immunity
TBH games are shipping now! As we move into another holiday season, it’s high time for an update on how things are going here at the ol’ jape-foundry! I’ll talk about comics, merch, and future plans. Pretend you’re the bold text, asking me questions. I’ll then…answer those questions! ➡️ How have you been? My family […]
The DWCA Sydney Online Tavern is on 26 November, starting at 7 pm and running through to 9 pm. If you’d like to take part, just before 7 pm please go to the DWCA Sydney Local Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/153888718054009 There you will see that I will have posted a link to the video room for Tavern that night. The video room will be called Dallas Room as this is the only way to get to the room. There will be lots to talk about with four chapters into the epic FLUX. Plus, don’t forget, if you can please, bring… Continue reading
Like many journalists who’ve honed their careers at the ABC, economics writer Peter Martin began in a small local newsroom and moved through the ranks to become a specialist reporter and a foreign correspondent. Having subsequently worked in commercial media, he has a renewed appreciation of the ABC, both professionally and personally. Here he reflects on his strong lifetime attachment to the ABC, and the lessons he’s learnt about both the skills of the profession and the responsibilities of being a public broadcaster.
The good news is supposed to be that when the government gets out of the way “can-do capitalism” will have us roaring back to where we were before.
That’s the prime minister’s newest slogan, and we had better hope for more.
The unpleasant truth is that before the pandemic Australia’s economy was disturbingly and unusually weak. Can-do capitalism wasn’t doing what it should.
Reserve Bank chief economist Luci Ellis put it this way a few days after Morrison talked about freeing the engines of the economy to do their work.
In the decade or so leading up to the pandemic, there was a nagging sense that these engines of prosperity were running out of steam – investment was low, productivity growth was lagging, and many of the behaviours we associate with business dynamism were on the decline.
Outside of mining, business investment had been shrinking as a share of the economy for more than a decade.
Happy 58th Anniversary everyone! And talking of anniversaries – own very own Dallas Jones has been working hard to figure out just what the exact anniversary date should be for the DWCA publication Data Extract… Dating Data Extract – by Dallas Jones The anniversary date of the beginning of Data Extract (DE) (or as it was known at its inception – Australasian Doctor Who Newsletter) is currently lost in the mists of time unless I can borrow a TARDIS. The only three people at its birth were me, Tony Howe and his mother, Rosemary. Unfortunately, Rosemary has passed away and… Continue reading
Hard on the heels of the terrible news that the apostrophe is in decline, my wine fridge packed up
Continue reading...Back in early 2017 Re and I made a five year plan. It was vague and mainly concerned with paying off our mortgage. I had not had a mortgage for 15 years and was quite upset with the feeling that I was going rapidly backwards financially.
It seems like the usual holiday sales just get earlier and earlier. Not content with just hammering us with ads, certain megalithic companies named after large rivers or fruits try to foist their "deals" on us as soon as they can. Given the degree to which our lives are mediated by technology, it's no surprise that so many holiday sales focus on "devices," that catch-all name we've given to those computers that run in our pockets, laps, and living rooms. Yet before you cave to pressure, you should make sure that gift isn't putting your friend or family member under unjust control.