iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

@futurebird "One thing that I struggle to explain to 5th graders about programing is that they need to *click* on the console window before they try to type text to be processed by their program. " To be fair to them I find that totally unreasonable too... I always configure any computer I use […]

aus.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

"If you're name's not down you're not coming in." These two ladies were diligently guarding one of the many entrances to a large nest of, I think, Meat Ants (Iridomyrmex purpureus). It was one of several similar nests I saw today at Scribbly Farm bush retreat […] [Original post on aus.social]

Photo of the entrance of an ants' nest with two ants sticking their heads out. One of the ants has her mandibles open.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Scribbly Farm is better known for its scribbly gums. There were some good ones.

Photo of the trunks of a scribbly gum tree. It has numerous squiggly scars from insects.

Close up photo of a scribble on a scribbly gum.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

The Steam Deck was trying its best but Nerdy Gunzel Game For Nerds really is a lot better on the desktop computer. #TransportFever3

Screenshot from Transport Fever 3 of a passenger steam train in a station.

Screenshot from Transport Fever 3 of a freight stream train crossing a stone bridge over a river.

Screenshot from Transport Fever 3 of an early electric tram in front of a train station building.

Screenshot from Transport Fever 3 of a small passenger stream train in a meadow with mountains in the background.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

Oh look, Macquarie University (and University of Wollongong, University of Technology Sydney, the University of Newcastle, Charles Sturt University and Western Sydney University) are in the news. "Inquiry finds six NSW universities appeared to overstate financial woes to justify job cuts" […]

aus.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

aus.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

A converted H-set running on the T9 line this evening. Seeing these more often now.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

Meanwhile the students are protesting being fobbed off with chatbot tutorials.

Photo of a protest poster with the slogans "Stop MQ vuts" and "Stop AI tutors at our university", noting that tutors have been replaced by AI for two psychology degree units.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

The grubby fingerprints of consultants are all over this. It's good business for them. '[Inquiry chair and Labor MLC] Dr Sarah Kaine was also critical of the role played by consultants, describing them as "at best complicit in the crisis" and "at worst architects of it", while benefiting […]

aus.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

I just learned that the documentary Shifting Baselines f3m.ca/en/film/shifting-baselines, about the environmental destruction caused by SpaceX, is available through most US libraries streaming on Kanopy I'm in it. So is @planet4589.bsky.social. So are my goats and my llama! (RIP llama […]

mastodon.social

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Dr. Victoria Grinberg @vicgrinberg.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/10/2026

That's an end of an era - while I hope that sciXplorer will serve more communities in a similar way, I am also afraid that astrophysics is loosing something unique. It took me long to realize that not all fields have a dedicated non-commercial publication search engine that allows you to easily […]

mastodon.social

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abadidea @0xabad1dea.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

Anthropic is bragging about rolling their own from-scratch in-house version control system because git couldn't keep up with their 30,000 commits per day, and it doesn't seem to occur to them for a nanosecond that they are not fixing the actual problem in their engineering practices but making […]

infosec.exchange

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Ed @edcates.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Data: - LLMs are killing the planet - LLMs are raising utility prices - LLMs are raising computer prices - LLMs give you teh dums - LLMs show negligible increases in net productivity - LLM costs are going up - LLMs run on stolen content - LLM companies keep breaking laws and saying, "Oopsie!" […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

In case you're wondering this is a piece of test equipment, with the purpose of tilting and rotating astronomical instruments to reproduce the varying gravity vectors they will be subjected to when attached to a moving telescope. This will enable us to experimentally confirm that they perform […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

Nice of our engineers to provide entertainment for everyone passing through our building's lobby today. The windows into the integration hall provided a good view of them receiving the new Instrument Positioner. Always enjoyable watching other people work.

Photograph of a fork lift and several people looking out of a big open doorway at a truck outside, with large mechanical structures on the trailer bed.

Photo of a fork lift depositing a large mechanical structure on the ground.

Photo of a mobile crane depositing a larger mechanical structure on the ground

Photo of a large mechanical structure attached to lifting harnesses.

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Ludic 🧛 @ludicity.mastodon.sprawl.club.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

Howdy! I have a client that's hiring a data engineer (ideally with Snowflake experience, but they'll take anyone smart enough to figure it out) in Canberra. I can arrange for the automated screens and the like to be skipped, and the interviews will not have any leetcode-style nonsense. I've […]

mastodon.sprawl.club

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David Gerard @davidgerard.circumstances.run.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

AI game demo going broke on just 430 players all my apes gone www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwZ6_Q2lnsc… - video pivottoai.libsyn.com/20261012-ai-ga… - podcast time: 4 min 47 sec

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Ah, flying at the end of school holidays. Our flight was supposed to start boarding in Brisbane about 20 minutes from now, but the plane has only just taken off from Melbourne. Looks like it's going to be about a 2 hour delay in the end. That still gives us a […] [Original post on aus.social]

Screenshot from Flightradar24 showing a flight turning north after taking off in Melbourne

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highly praised and little read @hannah.posts.rat.pictures.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

Every vendor at the street fair

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

The contrast in approach in part reflects different contexts. My colleagues in Research Data & Software are usually building software for research facilities. It's software infrastructure built for the long term, where maintainability is key. Considered design, unit tests, integration tests […]

aus.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

I have recently had a glimpse of the other side of this. One of my other colleagues is highly dependant on Claude for everything, and has been working with a couple of contract programmers on creating some new telescope automation software for a couple of their projects. I got asked to help a […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

This did not surprise me in the slightest, BTW. It's a great group with an excellent culture, which stems from the two joint-managers. They've built a diverse team and fostered a culture of genuine mutual respect and support, encouraging personal development and celebrating achievements. When […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

I'm very proud of my colleagues from our Research Data & Software group. One of the young female software engineers gave a seminar yesterday about the modernisation of our 30 year old in-house library for telescope & instrumentation control, and afterwards someone asked about using LLMs for this […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

What happens after the two years are up? No need to worry about that, the AI will have transitioned to Kill All Humans by then.

eigenmagic.net

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

Hah, I turned on the performance overlay on the Steam Deck and it turns out I'm getting about 20 frames per second in Transport Fever 3. It's a good job I'm an old fart and not a young gamer who considers anything under 120 fps to be painful and anything under 60 […] [Original post on aus.social]

Screenshot of Transport Fever 3 on the Steam Deck, showing a steam train approaching a station.

Screenshot of Transport Fever 3 on the Steam Deck, showing a steam train approaching a station at dusk.

Screenshot of Transport Fever 3 on the Steam Deck, showing a steam train approaching a station at night.

Screenshot of Transport Fever 3 on the Steam Deck, showing a steam train in a station in morning light.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

Everybody has to coordinate with Starlink because SPACEX CONTROLS ORBIT. That's against the Outer Space Treaty. Your engineering challenge, SpaceX, is to provide your services with fewer satellites. Not yell at everyone else for having satellites too […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

One thing I have been pleasantly surprised by is that Transport Fever 3 is playable on the Steam Deck. The developers made no promises about that, the Steam listing says Steam Deck compatability is "Unknown", and launching it on the Steam Deck results in a warning […] [Original post on aus.social]

Screenshot from Transport Fever 3 on Steam Deck, showing two Steam trains waiting at a station at dusk.

Screenshot from Transport Fever 3 on Steam Deck, showing a tropical coastal town.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

During my lunch break today I swapped out my work laptop with my Steam Deck to see whether it is actually practical for general personal computing away from home. When we go on long holidays I like to be able to do a bit of photo processing and perhaps some light […] [Original post on aus.social]

Photo of a Steam Deck surrounded by computer programs: a portable monitor, a keyword, a mouse, a portable dock/hub, a USB hub, a portable SSD and an SD card reader.

Photo of a bush turkey looking down from a branch

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Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊ @brucelawson.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

If I don't keep my car roadworthy and crash into yours, it hasn't gone "rogue", it's my negligence and I'm responsible. If my dog attacks you, I am liable. There are no rogue AIs, just negligent AI companies. Prosecute them.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

Dear Mr Prime Minister, there are too many timezones nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

Dear Mr Prime Minister, there are too many timezones nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

It's a very silly country. Especially the bits with half hour timezones. That map is actually simplified, because it doesn't include Eucla time: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%2B08:45

A map, produced by ABC News, reminding people that Daylight Saving Time has begun in some parts of Australia, and showing the times in each state and territory as at 9 am AEDT.

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

It's a very silly country. Especially the bits with half hour timezones. That map is actually simplified, because it doesn't include Eucla time: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%2B08:45

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

You're setting a low bar for what counts as indulgence, Woolies.

Photo of a refrigerated goods aisle in a supermarket. In the background is a sign that says "Yoghurts", while in the foreground is one that says "Indulgent Yoghurts", which is a separate category apparently.

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tante @tante.tldr.nettime.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

RE: tacobelllabs.net/@astraluma/1173636… Digital Ocean killed its "we give Open Source projects a bit of free hosting" policy basically at the same time they droppen 3 millions USD on Omarchy, DHH's (who is a fascist and racist) set of config files he calls a distribution […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

Dinner at Robata Japanese restaurant in Aspley this evening. It was very good, but now I'm craving melonpan. During our family holiday in Japan in January we got into the habit of going to a convenience store after dinner to get some dessert to take back to our […] [Original post on aus.social]

Photo of a platter of nigiri, a bowl of miso soup and a glass of sake on a wooden table.

Photo of a glass of sake in square wooden saucer.

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SpookJ 👻 @snoopj.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

Happy "Charles Darwin is poorly today" Day to those who celebrate 165 years ago today, Charles Darwin was having a rough one

Photo of Charles Darwin's hand-written journal entry from 1 Oct 1861 and digitized text of same

"But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything."

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Gus @projectgus.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

[Australian EV charging networks] Ampol, the petrol station company with the worst EV charging app in Australia, has acquired Evie, the EV charging network app with one of the best apps and user experiences. Yay? (PDF link) wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/ALD/031…

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

I see the Collins Street Falcon's eggs are beginning to hatch! I also notice the hastag #MurderChicken in use, though phylogenetically speaking Peregrine Falcons are more attack parrot than murder chicken, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xv3NLGO5do #CollinsStreetFalcons #CollinsStFalcons […]

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

School holidays again, so that means working remotely from Brisbane. This time we're in a serviced apartment in Hamilton. River views, of a sort.

Photo of a small table with a laptop and portable monitor set up on it.

Photo of a view of the Brisbane River from 12 storeys up. There is a CityCat fast ferry on the water.

Zoomed in photo of the CityCat fast ferry. It has been painted in the colours of Bingo Heeler as advertising for Bluey's World, and the CityCat markings have been replaced with "City DOG"

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

If we can't trust the liars, grifters and conmen playing pass-the-parcel with all the world's VC funding who can we Trust?

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117361… OK, self-regulation has never once delivered effective regulation of anything, anywhere, ever, but I'm sure it'll be different this time.

mastodon.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

Transport Fever 3 launch livestream with Colonel Failure himself: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TRf9_s4tKI

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

Huh. A YouTuber designed from scratch their own custom microprocessor, and got a batch made, just for fun (and views). I knew that custom PCB design and manufacture has been cheap and easy enough for hobby projects for some time now, and that FPGAs existed and could be used for custom digital […]

aus.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

My old AM4 motherboard only supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4 for one M.2 slot and PCIe 3.0 x2 for the other so I kind of hoped that I could get a better deal by going for an old stock slower PCIe 3.0 NVMe stick since I can't run a PCIe 4.0 stick at full speed anyway, but no, the handful of PCIe 3.0 […]

aus.social

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Anthony Horton @spacelizard.aus.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

Hmmm. I think I'm going to have to do a clean install of my home desktop PC. It's a ship of Theseus style collection of parts that have gone through several piecemeal hardware upgrades and many incremental OS upgrades (various releases of Fedora) but it's now got to a point where it's become […]

aus.social

Original post on aus.social

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