Simon Hackett

Enshittification: the DRM-free audiobook "Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (an audiobook Amazon won't sell!)

I just backed Enshittification: the DRM-free audiobook on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/doc...

Two things wrong with this page about EV's...

First, there is an extra word in the article title about standardised range testing for cars (...'fixed that for you').

Second - are we still saying 'self-charging hybrids' about 100% ICE cars? That is as silly as saying 'self-licking ice-cream'.

The end of AOL's dialup service at the end of September 2025 is, in a symbolic respect, the end of an era.

At another level, its amazing - quite amazing - that it has lasted this long :)

This location has now been ‘fixed’….

Signage changed, and painted message on the ground in each charging spot as well. Win.

Still some ICEing happening but at least it’s possible to charge now :)

My latest mountain wave soaring flight near The Vale. What a superb place to fly a glider... 800 feet per minute climb rate!

On this flight I wound up at 15,500 ft.

The beeping noise is *good* - an 'audio-vario' (faster beeps means faster climb)

Nigella meets Bieber

Norwood carpark has now got superchargers - yay. But the car park operator has signposted the spots as ‘EV Preferred’ - literally ok-ing the spots being ICEed.

What a super dumb idea. That’s expensive infrastructure to lock out of its intended use. Sigh.

Also the spots are really thin. Sigh.

This is all - of course - going to end incredibly badly. I am waiting for the backpedalling to reach a significant peak as the deadline(s) approach. Smart money has to be on abandoning the whole thing on the (accurate) basis that its just silly.

This functional Macintosh replica is just 2.4-inches tall. 1-Bit Rainbow, an online store full of spare parts and accessories for keeping vintage Apple computers running, is now selling a functional original Macintosh replica that’s just 2.4-inches tall. The ...

This post about an original Mac emulated with a RPi (www.theverge.com/news/674367/...) reminded me that my first computer - An Apple II - had 48k bytes of RAM.

The computer I'm posting this on is a Macbook Pro M4 with 48 Gigabytes of RAM.

One million times, within my working lifetime.

Ye gods.

Just saw a Guardian headline: "What to do if you can’t get into your Facebook or Instagram account".

My immediate response was to think: "Delete the apps and get your life back".

YouTube video by Simon Hackett "What happened after I graduated" - Address to the University of Adelaide CMS 2025 Prize Ceremony

"What happened after I graduated" - Address to the University of Adelaide Computer and Mathematical Science Prize Ceremony 2025 youtu.be/W4xQxnmdDFI?...

Search Results for “three days soaring” – Simon Hackett Thoughts from the field

For more information on these various lift mechanisms that glider pilots use, check the three blog posts here: simonhackett.com?s=three+days...

We are talking here about fine grained changes in lift, being continuously monitored via your ears, not 'am I too close to the ground'. Your eyes and your altimeter are for that. Wave soaring is a special case where the lift system can be large and smooth/constant in the zone where it is working.

Main use case is thermalling, where you are circling slowly and continuously optimsing your flying to try to stay in (and center) the lift, and where (in a gliding competition) you might be doing that with a lot of other gliders in close proximity. So you need to be looking outside, not inside.

The beeping is an audio vario - an aural rate of climb indicator. Yes, you can turn it off, but if its beeping, you're going up :) The intermittent 'hiss' is the oxygen system firing O2 off into my nasal canula on each incoming breath.

I've had a fantastic 3 hour flight today in my glider, in Tasmanian mountain wave, up to 18,000 feet (that is the local airspace limit - the lift would have continued up to at least 25000!).

What an amazing way to spend an afternoon... floating on rising air, way up above the clouds :)

Text of the status of my filed complaint - which says the complaints syste is down and can't be used right now. Irony to the max.

I made a complaint about a failed @CommBank transaction.

Netbank says my case can be viewed online. I clicked and - well - check the screen shot below.

(Complaints system is down)

I would file a complaint about the complaints system but- I cant :)

Oh the irony... it burns!

News Corp Declares Victory for Coalition — The Shovel “If we take a step back, ignore all of the woke commentary from the woke media and do some sober analysis, it’s plain to see that the Coalition has the much larger chunk on our pie chart"

BREAKING: News Corp Declares Victory for Coalition

And just like that… Voldemort is gone, along with the nuclear fantasy. Time to double down on renewables.

If you ever have hassles with anything related to a VPN, this is an unsolicited endorsement for @tailscale. It is incredibly good. It creates your own, efficient, automatic, private, network that works through *anything* that can move an IP packet, no matter how challenged by NAT etc. It just rocks.

Apple 'AI' auto summaries of my email that appear in the IOS email app are fundamentally wrong, quite frequently, and can be the diametric opposite of the truth. LLM's just don't understand 'truth' (they just don't 'understand' at all). They must know how broken this is. Interesting challenge.

I have really vexed feelings about this aircraft. When its in maintenance its painful. When its flying - it is glorious.

Well, today.. glorious :)

For every safety sign, there is always a story…

Indeed. Well they aren’t on sale here in Australia and I expect they never will be. Tesla stopped taking CT orders in AU a long time ago. I ordered one on released day, but later cancelled it as it became obvious that - like the ‘new’ Roadster - it’ll never appear in this country anyway.

Dutton Re-Boots Campaign After Advisor Explains Existence of Voter Group Called ‘Women’

Took this photo in Melbourne today on a brief visit.

Couldn't ignore the juxtaposition of brands here. I do wonder if this was some deliberate ambush marketing :)

Yoann Bourgeois Art Company - The unreachable suspension point - WOMADelaide 2025 Trained as a dancer, circus artist animateur Yoann Bourgeois breaks down the barriers between the fields of dance, theatre, music, visual installation and audio-visual art.

If you are @WOMADelaide this year, **do not miss** "The Unreachable Suspension Point", playing multiple times a day. Mesmerising and emotional and just... wonderful. Fifteen minutes that will stay with you for a very long time. www.womadelaide.com.au/lineup/seaso...

PJ Harvey performing at WOMADelaide last night. Great first evening for this wonderful festival. Our family foundation continues to be the major sponsor of the event :)

Nice shot taken as I departed from our runway in Tasmania recently :)

We could use some rain.

It’s for lots of reasons. Shortest way to express some of it is (for those old enough to even understand the following sentence) is:

‘VHS vs Betamax’