What if we held an Australian broadband crisis and nobody came? That’s pretty much what happened in Australian broadband policy over the decade to 2025. Governments, forecasters and the media can all learn lessons from this episode. Illustration: Fibre optic … Continue reading →
It is that time of year again: Time to look back at information technology in 2024 and make light of it. As with prior year-in-reviews, this one will be arranged like an award ceremony. There are three criteria for the dozen awards given out this year:• The award must be for something involving digital technology.• The key event must have taken place this year, 2024.• The award cannot take itself seriously. The event receiving attention must lend itself to sass, sarcasm, and ridicule. As a reminder, the awards are worth nothing.
Plan International Australia Media Release December 26 marks 20 years since the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which claimed the lives of 230,000 people and [...]
He looked like a young, freshly sprouting Henry Kissinger, before complicity in war crimes coarsened him, and plagiarism became commonplace in allegedly relevant academic texts.The [...]
The post Concentrated Markets and Iceless Fokkers appeared first on The AIM Network.
By Denis Hay Description Learn how Australia can tackle Earth Systems collapse by addressing fossil fuels, livestock farming, and using CSIRO’s expertise in sustainable solutions. [...]
The post Why Earth Systems Collapse is Happening appeared first on The AIM Network.
By Sue Barrett How Powerful Industries and Individuals Exploit Taxpayer Money In a world where innovation and adaptability are supposed to drive success, certain industries [...]
The post Rent-Seekers Draining Our Future appeared first on The AIM Network.
The Gregorian revolution gave rise to a form of organisation that was gradually stamped out all over the Western world and then to its followers.
I was reading some arguments by Bettina Arndt recently about women dominating the legal profession, especially in the Family Law sphere, so I thought I would the check the facts. This is my modus operandi. Read polar views on an issue (I also consult OurWatch and White Ribbon on issues like this) but then check the facts to see who deceive and lie (which these days go under the Orwellian names of “mis” and “dis” information).
If scientific fraud represents five per cent of scientific papers, surely we should expect at least as much philosophic fraud. But how can we detect philosophy’s fraudsters? Here’s a first attempt at some rules of thumb.
This is a long post. So here’s the short version: this post argues that an unknown but non-zero portion of philosophical work is likely to be fraud. That is to say, some philosophical work knowingly offers fake wisdom rather than genuine insight. I use Jacques Lacan as a possible example.
As the US presidential election count continues, it becomes increasingly likely that Donald Trump will win. It appears that the majority of Americans believe that Trump is more trustworthy than Kamala Harris on economic issues, and they say that the economy is their principal concern.
The irony in this belief is that it is the opposite of the real situation, at least if we assume that Trump will carry out the promises that he has made.
The possibility of one or more Very Fast Train (VFT) lines for Australia has been debated for more than 40 years, most often being treated as a complete joke. However, perhaps that’s about to change.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has long been a supporter of VFT transport for Australia, and his government is now putting its money where its mouth is. As this article in The Conversation notes:
There’s a strong gerontocratic tinge to US politics of late — the youngest of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren and Mitch McConnel is Chuck at 73.
Many a theory has been propounded to explain this phenomenon, but a simple one shall be put to the test in a couple of days: Trump is the last of the political candidates borne of the media monoculture and so Trump will win the election comfortably.
What is the Media Monoculture and What Does is Have to Do with a Gerontocracy?
As I argued in a recent article, the election of Donald Trump as President would be disastrous for climate change compared with the current Democrat administration of President Biden. The situation is quite different in Australia. The election of a Coalition government federally next year, even under Peter Dutton, would not be all that much worse than the situation under the current Labor administration of Anthony Albanese.
Cameron Murray’s The Great Housing Hijack is self-recommending. You certainly don’t need a review of any sort to tell you to go read it if you have any interest in the peculiar case of the housing market. Nevertheless, here I supply my own review of sorts and extrapolate on what I consider a couple of Murray’s core points.
The Great Housing Hijack in Miniature
As you can see we’ve adopted a new WordPress theme. Many thanks to our web guru Tony Sarhanis. What do you think? I really like it, although I have one reservation.You can’t scroll down the main posts column until the cursor gets to the bottom of the comments column. I suspect that’s a deliberate feature rather than a bug, because it forces the eye to look at the comments first.