Josh Nicholas

“How does the computer know something happened if no one tells the computer about it” is the easy-reader way to explain why we still need human reporters and data-collectors

And I also find it genuinely alarming that even some people on this website don’t seem to grasp this

You'd think it obvious that the catalogue doesn't replace the librarian but a great deal of my work comes from people not understanding that

Using LLM Embeddings to Normalize User Data How cosine similarity in embedding space can power high-quality normalization.

I wrote about using LLM embeddings to normalize user data and how that could apply to political campaigns who want to better understand their supporters. No chatbots involved!

matthodges.com/posts/2025-0...

Guardian Australia’s Carly Earl wins top award in 2025 Australian Life photography competition Earl’s portrait of young drovers in central Queensland praised by judges for ‘beautiful insight into reality of life in rural Australia’

Guardian Australia’s Carly Earl wins top award in 2025 Australian Life photography competition www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

NSW supreme court rules in favour of pro-Palestine march across Sydney Harbour Bridge Palestine Action Group claims as many as 50,000 people will take part in the march on Sunday Pro-Palestinian protesters will be legally protected while marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday after a New South Wales supreme court decision. The Palestine Action Group has claimed as many as 50,000 people will take part in the march across the iconic bridge, protesting against Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the starvation of children. Continue reading...

NSW supreme court rules in favour of pro-Palestine march across Sydney Harbour Bridge

Screenshot of embedding atlas showing the embedding view on the left, a table at the bottom and charts on the right.

🚀 We've just open-sourced Embedding Atlas – a tool for exploring large embedding spaces through rich, interactive visualizations 📊.

US military to dismantle ill-fated Gaza aid pier, saying it is ‘mission complete’ Although Central Command praises operation, scheme announced by Biden cost $230m and only operated 25 days

Just remembered how the US gov spent $230m building a pier to try and get aid into Gaza a ~year ago www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

Scorching cells How heat threatens lives in America’s prisons

This is beautifully done - How heat threatens lives in America’s prisons www.reuters.com/graphics/USA...

Moral Deskilling: why you spend more time on admin than your actual job There *is* good and bad bureaucracy. And the bad kind is about managerial class power.

Systems not people: why did it all go so wrong?

open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo...

How will Australia’s under-16s social media ban be enforced, and which platforms will be exempt? No prescribed avenue for social media companies to check users’ ages, but options include facial estimation technology and matching photos with ID

Tried to lay out where we know things stand with the social media ban after this week. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Curate your own newspaper with RSS Escape newsletter inbox chaos and algorithmic surveillance by building your own enshittification-proof newspaper from the writers you already read

Newsletter: In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder.

Here’s how to use RSS.
www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-...

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one child per hour during Israel's war in Gaza.

“A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” UNICEF’s executive director said.

Here are some of their stories: wapo.st/3UCiAjn

"According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 186 journalists and media workers, mostly Palestinian, have been killed while gathering evidence of the war inside Gaza since 7 October. That number includes journalists who have done work for the ABC."

Dua Lipa asked Helen Garner for an interview. The famous author asked her grandsons who she was The Australian literary icon told Crikey, 'The younger one shouted, "What the actual FUCK?" and rushed out to tell his girlfriend.'

this whips: when Dua Lipa asked Helen Garner to do an interview for her book club, the Australian literary icon had to ask her grandsons who the pop star was.

"The younger one shouted, “What the actual FUCK?” and rushed out to tell his girlfriend."

www.crikey.com.au/20...

Moral Deskilling: why you spend more time on admin than your actual job There *is* good and bad bureaucracy. And the bad kind is about managerial class power.

Moral Deskilling: why you spend more time on admin than your actual job hannahforsyth.substack.com/p/moral-desk...

Reporter Company Description: Brisbane Times has been a powerful, independent voice in Queensland media since launching in 2007. In joining us you'll play a key role in maintaining our reputation as one of the...

two reporting gigs going at BT (one permanent, one 12-month contract). Come join us 😎 jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Nine/7440000...

The scale of this is tough to comprehend.

So you know how the kettle takes way longer to boil when it's full than when it just has enough water in it to make two cups of tea?

Now scale that up to the amount of extra energy you would need to heat the world's oceans by a couple of degrees. 🫩

Israel’s new measures do nothing to stop the starvation crisis in Gaza, say aid workers Humanitarian workers say airdrops and corridors to allow trucks into region have done little to stop the rising death toll

Aid groups report that Israel is refusing to allow any olives or other “fruits or vegetables with pits or seeds that could be planted” into Gaza. They will only allow in pitted olives.

It's weird how every time Meta sees the future it always involves Meta knowing more about us

Many Iberal persons defend levies like the tobacco tax on the curious grounds that tobacco is not a necessity-that poor people may or can avoid the burden by not consuming the commodity This position invites two comments. First, it is hardly accurate to say that no burden is involved in getting along without the commodity Second, it seems a little absurd to go around arguing that poor people could or ought to do without tobacco, especially if it is taxed, in the tace of the facts that they simply do not do anything of the kind, that the commodity was selected for taxation because they are not expected to do so, and that the government would not get much revenue if they did The plain fact, to one not confused by moralistic distinctions between necessities and luxuries, is simply that taxes like the tobacco taxes are the most effective means available for draining government revenues out from the very bottom of the income scale The usual textbook discussions on these points hardly deserve less lampooning than their implied definition of luxuries (and semi-luxuries) as commodities which poor people ought to do without and won't.

This incisive excerpt from Henry Simons in 1938 is as relevant now as it ever was

Vanilla javascript!!!

www.economist.com/interactive/...

Our latest One Big Chart is in datavis dispatch 😎 www.datawrapper.de/blog/data-vi...

www.instagram.com/p/DMqSaI4PPM1/

"Of the 376 former NFL player brains that the center has examined since 2008, it has found CTE in 345 cases.... researchers found only one instance of CTE in a 2018 survey of the general public, and even that sample came from a former college football player." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Absolutely would not have clicked without this translation, thank you

If empathy is your goal, it's not useful to put people on a stage to perform diametrically opposed identities.

Everything we've made will break, buildings and streets will crumble, and cities will be abandoned. But the CO₂ we emit into the atmosphere will persist for centuries, and the climatic impacts will last longer than human civilization has existed. This is our legacy for the future.

Tasmania has reached the pointy end of the election count You get excluded! You get excluded! You get excluded! Everybody (except for seven of you) get excluded!

ICYMI: A quick look at the state of play in Tasmania's count as we await the first preference counts this afternoon caseybriggs.substack.com/p/tasmania-h...

If you'd like a sample of CONSPIRACY NATION, there's an excerpt running in the Guardian today!