At that time the Chinese economy was beset by inflation caused by uncontrolled printing of paper currency so that might have had something to do with inequality.

Well I have not seen an ARC policy on LLM use in applications that says 'let it rip'!

Raises the question of what, exactly, I am being asked to assess!

How am I supposed to assess and rank ARC grant applications that are riddled with LLM-generated content? I'll have to send them back as un-assessable. This AI shite is getting ridiculous! The entire research funding system could fall in a heap! The implications are huge!
@arc-tracker.bsky.social

What is oversharing online, and what are the risks? | ABC NEWS YouTube video by ABC News (Australia)

How much personal information do you share on Social Media?

Home Affairs research has found that 64% of Australians leave their private information open to cybercriminals. I spoke to ABC News this evening, about how this happens and steps we could take to secure our privacy.
youtu.be/3qBYSP9guhg

Likely not great news for improving access to maths and sciences and engineering careers for under-represented minorities

Gross.

He now runs an even weirder, more remote railway. You wouldn't read about it.

I know this railway well, my son was Officer-in-Charge for 14 years.* I was Chief Cook and Bottlewasher 😉. Often I drove there, 3000km from Canberra through outback NSW and Qld. No phone reception, not even long-wave radio, just me and the (terrible) roads for hours through the dreamscape.

What is an atv?

Ha ha! I did a feature story on all the Croydons for the Gulflander Gazette, a regular newsletter I used to write for the railway. I think your pictures are better than mine were, though!

Croydon railway station, NW Qld, with the famous Gulflander ready to depart on its 94-mile journey west to Normanton

Aww...very nice, but here is the REAL Croydon Railway Station! 😀

Well 'further north' in this case means about 2,200 km north of Brisbane. The Normanton-Croydon line is the weirdest railway operation in the world. You are in for a wild ride if you go... but maybe try not to leave it too long

Large sections of the railway are seasonally inundated with salt waters. It is tropical monsoonal savanna country, with vast looping rivers that flow into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Difficult for people who have not travelled there to imagine the sheer size and remoteness and beauty of it!

Enjoy!

Yes. Then you will need a smart matching tote bag as well. This could be a never-ending story!

Totally gorgeous! Try a light to mid-grey? Maybe the rose is not necessary, because the jacket requires something more boldly art deco.
Or a jaunty small beret with trim highlight comes to mind? Of course, a beret does nothing for sun or rain protection!

Will send helpful hatty pictures

Very well, but such a splendid jacket requires a hat, which you will have to choose!

Congratulations! What about a matching plain hat, with a hatband made of some of the leftover stripes?

Here is some real dirt for you: The Normanton-Croydon railway NW Qld was thrown down directly onto the dirt in 1891. No ballast. It has run trains ever since, uninterrupted. Except for long interruptions every year due to monsoonal floods of biblical proportions. It is a shite railway. Much-loved.

The unannotated document is a palimpsest. Beneath the writing is an earlier piece, on why it has been natural for a billion years for male professors to date their female students, and as we speak an application for a position in the senior university governing executive is being written over it.

Oh, the rare joy and satisfaction of correctly re-folding a crisp new paper map on the bonnet of your car on a windy day! Electronic wowsers, they ruin all of life's small pleasures.

Autumn leaves, jewels

O the jewels that appeared on my front path overnight! Wealth beyond belief! I am richer than all the billionaires in the world combined! You are too - just look around! #nature

Turns out the water hens at ANU have done their road safety training. Good work guys!

When chairing a committee make sure all members are listened to and valued. That also means knowing how to do the tricky thing of curtailing the loudest, most bullish, single-agenda, or ramble-on voices.
When minorities are hustled onto a committee then ignored everyone and the process lose out.

Some people seem quite fond of finding third fundamental principles. They get fixated on their new third law of thermodynamics or of evolution. Perhaps there is a third law of misunderstanding.

Where would the catering industry be without them?

I love the long strings of helpful ideas on the Victoria Pass FB page tho.
`Rip up the rail tracks at Mt Vic and sell them for more money to illuminate the ten tunnels for B-doubles to drive through.'
'What's the obsession with tunnels? It's like if you're from Lithgow everything needs a tunnel.'

Minister says there is no 'proper timetable' for reopening NSW highway Geotechnical studies find significant gaps in the structure beneath the Great Western Highway, with delays to its reopening expected.

`The Great Western Highway will be shut for an indeterminate period as the government seeks experts from around the world.'
Basically, we're stuffed. Well I'm not, because I drive to Bathurst via the Abercrombie gorge, but any solution will take 10 years to build.

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04...