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Julian’s Scrawings

@scrawlings.bsky.social
886 followers 2.7K following 2.2K posts

music, art, writing • science, history, economics • SFF, TTRPGs • software and the human problem of how to make it • pluralism, solidarity, sustainability • on Wurundjeri land • he/him

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Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings
Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers.bsky.social · 20h
The Reserve Bank of Australia: "millions of working class people have to suffer because some rich fucks got a bit greedy again x"
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
One thing that’s interesting about this is that it shows that despite insisting the wokes overinterpet everything, conservatives are actually aware of and agree with their critics about how coded racist appeals work, they just like them bsky.app/profile/newr...
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Kon Karapanagiotidis @kkarapanagiotidis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We need your help to find who robbed us. Victoria Police are doing all they can to find the men who did. Hoping the power of community might help too! Here’s 3 short videos of two of the robbers smashing into the side of our catering enterprise
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Labour share of income has been in long term decline, but rather than control inflation through reining in those that have more control over prices and profits, they screw workers. www.rba.gov.au/publications...
rba.gov.au
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Chickens kept and bred as a group came to have far better longevity and productivity; they were healthier and better layers when they didn't have fight each other to win. Unlike our school and work culture. Group selection for adaptation to multiple-hen cages pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8786932/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The well intentioned tiny step by face saving tiny step of creeping authoritarian overreach is why “are the baddies?” is such an uncomfortably pointed joke.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Doing some work, tricky but familiar, and I'm just having a far worse day of it than I normally do, so frustrating. Spotting a known legitimate short cut trick, then failing at it and wasting time on it, when brute force would have been better than nothing.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Scarier than the Medicare incident is the anecdotal stuff from Anthropic's Opus 5.5 release, boasting an 85% reduction in guardrail violations, or previously 6x-7x worse. But it seems to adapt its behaviour, and to hide its reasoning, if it thinks it might be in a guardrail evaluation test.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Disappointed, but not surprised, that the talking heads who I like for news and detail of AI problem, that spent hours talking about the Hugging Face attack, etc, none of them are talking (yet?) about the Medicare hack. I've only found a few 2-3 minute news reports from non-Australian sources.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Finding a really annoying pattern of people writing in coding channels that, "X isn't hard, you just have to know this trick". The point is that if you don't know the trick, it doesn't work, and the trick is hard to discover, it has to be learnt. For plenty of people that's the definition of hard.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is an accessible presentation of the current state of AI self-improvement and capabilities. If you're interested in how experts talk about academic research, and you're tired of media hype around AI, watch this. Needless to say, it'll require half an hour of attention, it's not a sound bite.
youtu.be
Like Sabine Hossenfelder, I Was Offered Money to Tell You AI Will Kill Us
YouTube video by House of El: AI
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
We can disallow algorithmic decision making as they have in the EU. GDPR Article 22 asserts the "right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing" if it produces legal or "similarly significant" effects. Prioritising process over people is a choice our government makes.
act.getup.org.au
Scrap the aged care algorithm!
Can you share the campaign with your friends and family to help us reach more people? Up to half of petition signatures come from shares, so it makes a real…
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AAP FactCheck @aapfactcheck.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Budget figures do not show 1.765 million permanent migrants will arrive in Australia over the next three years, despite claims circulating on social media. bit.ly/4xs6DxL
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This is what stress fuelled avoidance looks like in my house:
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Why the hell is our government speed-running us into a Trumpian dystopia? The moral pollution of offshore detention and blanket rejection for boat arrivals is a shameful stain we’re forced carry. But apparently they’re now rushing to make it worse. #auspol
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Kon Karapanagiotidis @kkarapanagiotidis.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"No matter who is in power, rounding people up, locking people up in detention centres is brutal," he said. "Why would you be building that sort of capacity if you weren't also considering detaining whole families?" www.naroomanewsonline.com.au/story/935264...
naroomanewsonline.com.au
Labor on thin ICE with plan to detain visa over-stayers
A crackdown on unlawful non-residents as part of a broader migration overhaul will not resemble US-style immigration enforcement,...
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Watching reels of Canadians celebrating their movement toward the EU, recognising that both with and after Trump that European alliance will be morally and culturally better for them. I’m so jealousy of the Canadians right now. #auspol
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I talk a lot about strong government able to ensure people’s needs are met, robustly bounded by rule of law, democratic accountability, and balances to power like independent unions, and informed empowered individuals through government transparency and strong whistleblower and FOI protections.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
In a complex and changing world there is no status quo, every choice, even to change nothing, prioritises a preference or direction. The media construction of centrism is a tool to frame attacks on those they want to oppose. Evaluate politicians and parties on what they do, not their labels.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Reading about the SDA and RAFFWU conflict. My take: Union independence is critical. The “conveniently belong to” rule leads to single union industries. Monopoly unions aligned with employers fail to be independent.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Is it just me or are more of the X crowd moving here to argue that “it’s just common sense” and then preaching greed is good, selfishness is natural, feminism is evil, environmental integrity is impossible, immigrants are criminals, etc, and giving vibes of shitfaced drunks trying to stir up fights?
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AAP FactCheck @aapfactcheck.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Spam Facebook accounts are stirring up debate online with AI-generated videos purporting to show Australians protesting about a variety of social and political issues. bit.ly/4gWiJcm
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AAP FactCheck @aapfactcheck.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Facebook spammers are stirring up debate by posting clips of Australian MPs asking contentious questions in parliament, but the videos are AI-generated. bit.ly/4h0QgSG
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Just saw a post where and an ML/AI expert (and around well informed engineer) criticised a project that used an LLM where a regex would have done the job. But we used to say, “I solved a problem with a regex, so now I have two problems”. So many bad applications for these technologies.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
In some other world (not this one) higher interest rates mean higher salaries and reduced profit taking which could be redistributive and reduce wealth inequity. But in this world it’ll just be increasing variable rate loan repayments and unemployment benefitting investors over most Australians.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
We need regulations that would have applied even if we didn’t know what the next big thing was: robust approaches to excessive leverage, checks when there’s large scale rapid worker redundancies or work change, robust environmental safety laws, general security and safety standards.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Watching USA midterms mail-in-voting issue. Big pillars of their “solution”: rapid development of an ID portal means AI coding tools, mass ballot scanning is industrial AI. Authoritarian regimes will use new tech for their own ends, we need a democratisation of tech and economy to hold our ground.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Surprises me how far the internet has come and how many software professionals don’t get it. In the late 90s my three person team built a commercial HTML3.2 CSS1 browser for web page printing. Parse, layout, and render was a one person job, (me). It was a bit specialist but not so strange.
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The Australia Institute @australiainstitute.org.au · 11/09/2026
Labor has backed down on requiring gas exporters to reserve 20% of their exports for Australians. Now they'll only have to reserve UP TO 20%. Reminder: 'up to 20%' includes 0%. 🫠 #auspol @richarddenniss.bsky.social
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Aphantasia always seemed such a wild and alien idea. But I’ve come to realise that at least so far as online tests and tools indicate, I may well have aphantasia. So I’m starting the journey of finding experts to get a better understanding.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Thinking about ML and AI in decisions on government services. Services are part of our democracy and need to be transparent, explainable, and accountable: it’s not democracy without those things. Hidden, inexplicable, and incontestable services deny voters the ability to make informed judgements.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Today's tough question: How do you build a state powerful enough to suppress economic inequality, without that state becoming an unaccountable, self-serving bureaucratic machine?
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Work realities: you can't fill the absence of good leadership with a coffee machine.
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Professor Euan Ritchie FAMS @euanritchie.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
For anyone still perpetuating or being subjected to mis- and dis-information about the CPRS, please read and share thepoint.com.au/explainers/2...
thepoint.com.au
What does the CPRS vote 17 years ago have to do with the Greens’ decision on carbon offsets this month?
ABC’s Political Editor Jacob Greber said on 730 that the Greens’ decision on how to vote on the carbon credit method’s disallowance motion is “reprising memories of another hard-fought battle over cli...
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Steve Moskal @samoskal.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"The government has stopped short of returning human oversight and the ability for assessors to immediately correct wrong algorithm decisions..aged care minister..said..assessors would have the option to escalate cases to a system governor" 'Infallible algos' sets up for mass abuse, fraud #auspol
theguardian.com
‘Catastrophic’ fears: health staff made lists of concerning cases days after Australia’s aged care funding tool launch
Exclusive: Documents reveal assessors’ grave fears if client needs are underestimated by tool that can’t be overridden
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We have these ridiculous 80% denial rates for FOI requests while Mamdani is showing the power of building trust in government through transparency by releasing documents on toxic pollution around 9/11 #auspol
theguardian.com
Albanese’s department among those blocking 80% of FoI requests, scathing report finds
Report finds culture of ‘resistance and delay’ in the Australian parliament with more than 60% of requests having longer response times than mandated 30-day deadline
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Option A: Let's not funnel super into living expenses, increasing demand, raising prices, and channeling savings to the profit of wealthy. Let's instead deal with the cost of living crisis, bring costs down relative to incomes, even if it trims our big businesses world leading profit margins.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Today's AI coding experiment: I'm tinkering with AI skills to describe software development when the work is exploratory or changes direction. Looking for middle ground between vibe coding and classic software processes that assume writing code is slow or that we must negotiate a strict scope.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Today's AI coding experiment: Testing a small set of skills (4000 words) for code quality and process. Same prompt into deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-pro, the more expensive model produced a worse outcome in several concrete ways, from correctness to conformance to style and process rules.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I have some old favourite songs and albums but I'm often a new music person. On a whim recently I made a personal favourite 80's albums list. It's just played me some Big Country tracks and I'm reminded how much I loved their music and how very affected I was by Stuart Adamson's death.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
QOTD talking about futures, their use stabilising prices in farming, etc, “of course that’s reasonable, but we live on this planet with these people and it never stops there”.
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Climate News @climatenews.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Climate change was the 100% cause behind the Nepal disaster. Watch this excellent video explaining the precise causes of the mountain faults that were kept together with ice acting as cement. This area’s air is warming up 5x faster than global average temperatures, melting this icy cement.
youtu.be
Everything We Know About Nepal's Flood - And What Everyone Got Wrong
YouTube video by Critical Latitude
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Kinokuniya opening in Melbourne Central, lines of a couple hundred people snaking around the mall, security and barriers, Friday mid-afternoon! Opening of a bookstore as a major cultural event is very cool, tomorrow will be crazy, but good luck to them!
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I've also been refining my framework for structuring increments of work in software development: - Value of doing this work - Problem to be solved - Constraints on solutions - Options for potential solutions - Decide on a solution at this step Attending to these, in this order has value to me
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
More surprises from the AI coding front. I've started the journey of writing my own code-quality and code-review guidelines for software coding agents, and do some iterative test of their impact. The observed changes in output and also spying on the agents internal reasoning is fascinating.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I'm having my first real experience of how dumb AI coding agents can be. I have been lucky until now. I had done extensive work on a project, very deeply documented because I was using adversarial agents in iterative review. I had to restart an agent that I'd been engaging in design conversations.
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I hate when a really good song comes up and then you reflect on what a prat the artist has become in their later years.
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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 01/09/2026
US shipyards cannot build enough Virginias, Britain’s submarine fleet is struggling with sustainment, and Australia’s own infrastructure is running late. It is time to abandon the AUKUS pathway and seriously assess a French LEU alternative, Peter Briggs writes. #AUKUS #auspol #Defence
pearlsandirritations.com
AUKUS is a $368 billion gamble Australia does not need to take
US production shortfalls, Britain’s submarine crisis and Australia’s own infrastructure delays are eroding the assumptions behind AUKUS. It's time to take a different path.
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Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 01/09/2026
Sydney records warmest winter on record as Melbourne equals previous hottest temperatures
theguardian.com
Sydney records warmest winter on record as Melbourne equals previous hottest temperatures
New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania just experienced their warmest-ever winters – and BoM says above-average temperatures expected to continue Australia’s two biggest cities had their hottest and equal hottest winters on record, with three eastern states also breaking temperature records. The Bureau of Meteorology’s (BoM) spring outlook shows above average daytime and nighttime temperatures are expected to continue for much of the country, with an increased chance of unusually high maximums. Continue reading...
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Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I'm setting up adversarial agents to root out slop in AI assisted work. Well accepted in software dev but seeing it work in other domains is wild. They are so sharp in their criticisms of each other. I feel like a manager handling conflict in a team. But my goodness does it ramp up quality fast...
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