Tim Hunter

Elizabeth Sampat @twoscooters Follow I don't wish we could abolish gender, I just wish it were less an identity and more of a hobby. So you'd get people who are like "Oh yeah, l'm a woman when I have the time," or "I'm a man but I'm not very good at it yet" along with the CrossFit gender types who are SUPER INTO IT

A friend just saw this in the wild and you know what? I stand by it

This seems to me to be a recurrent problem in game design, even in games that limit PvP, because folks say they *want* competitive play experiences (or mechanics that would lead to it) but actually playing in that context is generally exhausting and unfun except for assholes, basically.

The alternative is to intentionally take the limits off, go full Foxhole or EVEOnline, but of course in that kind of competition, humans build the sort of institutions and structures we build for real world competition: companies and states.

Which become 'work' *very* fast.

Albanese, the Ayatollah, & Australia's Apartheid A masterclass in "turning the temperature down"

I wrote about the war on Iran, the racist colonial narratives that suffuse it, the rank obscenity and stupidity of it all but especially that of the Australian government’s response so far. sakr.substack.com/p/albanese-t...

Hate to be the one to throw cold water on the “solar will save us” thing but the Chinese solar companies that were driving this are in dire condition because overcapacity is a very real problem and not something that an economist made up to scare you.

When I first reported on this, I kept being asked: "Sure but how bad will it be? Will it really stick around?"

Muslims 'should not be forced to beg' for protection, Labor MP says Labor backbencher Ed Husic says Islamophobia should be examined as part of Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

“The royal commission is about both antisemitism and social cohesion, and if there is not going to be an examination of Islamophobia, that is really concerning," he told the ABC.

"Muslim Australians should not feel [like] they have to beg for protection."

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

Working on a q&a lecture for a class today: The story of robots is always a story about slavery. The story of LLMs labeled as AI is a story about class, and which humans pay the cost, including the physical toll on their bodies/minds, and the lack of water and electricity, so data centers can exist.

Did Alzheimer’s Impact Terry Pratchett’s Discworld? I have a variety of techniques I use to deal with the ongoing collapse of everything, most of them different kinds of drugs. But I also have healthy habits, like reading, and when it comes to readi…

A new study examined Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels to see if they could detect changes in his writing prior to his tragic Alzheimer's diagnosis. Here's what the study says, and what it doesn't say 🧪 skepchick.org/2026/03/did-...

When you click the "beautify slide" AI feature in Google Slides.

NOT A JOKE

Finished up Dead Country this morning, which puts me back at the point I was when I decided I needed to re-read the Craft books.

(Specifically, I decided 1 sentence into chapter 1 of Wicked Problems, when my first reaction was “wait, who is this again?” And decided to refresh my memory)

And she volunteered for the military to boot!
*Shake my head* Protagonists are not the same anymore.

I am a data cruncher autistic, and I fucking LOVED the complexity of 1st edition math. But 2nd edition doesn't make me feel like I'm conning new players when I say it isn't that hard to learn.
#pathfinder2e #PF2memes #ttrpg

I have just spent the evening calculating how many defleshed human skulls it would take to collapse inside their own Schwartzschild Radius and create a black hole (roughly 16.5 solar masses, or 2 x 10^31 skulls, if my maths is right). Because space opera, right? Can't think too small!

1/2

Pilot and Mech for Beamsaber / Calazcon

my most detailed art would kill you, traveler, you are not strong enough for my most detailed art would

Hyperion author Dan Simmons dies from stroke at 77 I went into Hyperion blind, decades ago, knowing almost nothing about it. I was never the same.

Dan Simmons died. Weird feelings about this.

On the one hand Hyperion was a defining reading experience for me & absolutely holds up & the first half of his career was incredibly strong.

On the other his personal politics were horrid & eventually infected his work to its obvious detriment.

Mechsploitation Nextdoor:

Friendly reminder that pilots are NOT permitted in the dog park, regardless of how they are designated by their Handler. This is a LEASH LAW issue, people!!!!!!

Between your Grace Tame "difficult" comment and your "contempt" for the mothers in Syria refugee camps...you've had a rough week @albomp.bsky.social

Time to get into the Hall of Mirrors and have a long, hard look at yourself.

Do you recognise the person you are now ?

The PM calling Grace Tame, a woman fighting for the safety of children, “difficult” is completely unwarranted. 

Labelling women as difficult won’t silence us. It won’t stop us speaking truth to power. 

Next time try “unbreakable” or “warrior” or “fierce”, Prime Minister.

Map showing potential sites for stations in each region. In Newcastle, there are boxes for Newcastle Interchange, Broadmeadow and Woodville Junction.

9. Interesting section on potential station sites, and why they have been included or excluded. Once again, heavy emphasis on potential for housing growth - it really is all about that. In Newcastle for example the options still in the mix are Interchange, Broadmeadow and Woodville Junction.

Cartoon Illustration of a HS train with the heading 'The first stage of National High Speed Rail'

Here it is! The 300 page 'Business' case for Newcastle to Sydney High Speed Rail.

I've not read it yet, that's for the rest of the week.

Apart from my antipathy to the whole concept of Business Cases, I'll read it with interest.

But normal people won't read it.

media.caapp.com.au/pdf/j2IbcN94...

Those of us who have worked in academia (and, in my case, were also the children of people who worked in academia) understand that the *actual* primary purpose of the university is to create a safe, segregated space in which to warehouse the most intelligent-but-disagreeable members of our society.

I love everyone in here posting about how they, too, prefer reading things to watching short form video

you are all my people

we are also self-selecting weirdos on a niche social media site and unfortunately unrepresentative of broader society, as much I would prefer it to be otherwise

“Simply Cannot Be Ignored”: How Australia’s fossil fuel industry shaped the climate future by capturing economic models Heatwaves and bushfires burned across southern Australia this January thanks in part to climate change. An Australian government agency once insisted it might not happen.

In 1988 an innocuous Australian government agency was tasked with gathering statistics for industry. Its work made it a flashpoint for critics who charged that it helped rationalise climate denial.

With ABARE's internal records now open access, I took or look for @drilledmedia.bsky.social.

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‘I did this to help and now I’m the one who’s going to need help’: NDIS call handlers describe pressure cooker workplace Serco-run operation regularly fails because staff are not properly trained and pushed to meet call volume targets, a senior NDIA employee says

The hiring and training process shouldn’t be seen as the main issue here. The problem is the contractor is Serco and their hires are being employed to run a neoliberal outsourced approach to the NDIS. Of course they’re demoralised and traumatised www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

“Dr Friedman, when did GamerGate end?”

Consent and conquest: the legal foundation of British sovereignty in Australia For generations, Australians were taught that Britain “settled” an unoccupied land. Many First Nations people reject that description entirely, calling 1788 an invasion. The dispute is not merely sema...

The history books tell us Australia was peacefully settled. Documents of the day tell a different story.

theaimn.net/consent-and-...

Australian Census on University Staff Wellbeing results are out. Every uni recorded scores indicating high/very high psych risk.

And in news surprising no one, "only senior execs and deans rated their workplaces as medium or low risk while all other staff groups reported high-risk conditions."

Do I think Starmer will do that? Not really. But at least there's now a chance.