Martin Tomko

In any case, all author proceeds go to the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal and Against Malaria Foundation. First two receipts below. If you use the website or software, please consider donating. And let me know if you do; it'll make my day. Links below. 🙏 7/9

Data centre power emissions double over five years Ryan Cropp Ryan CroppEnergy and climate reporter Mar 3, 2026 – 7.32pm Save Share Gift this article Some of Australia’s biggest data centre operators have more than doubled their reported carbon emissions over the past five years, as the exponential growth of the sector leads to a major rise in demand on the power grid and puts pressure on the government’s climate agenda. Top data centre operators Amazon, AirTrunk and CDC all declared annual scope two emissions increases of more than 20 per cent in 2024-25 and more than 100 per cent since 2020-21, according to new figures published by the Clean Energy Regulator.

AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda told The Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Tuesday that the government’s AI plan was “pretty good”, but it needed to think more holistically about how the nation would build the infrastructure required to power it. Reported electricity emissions by data centre operator (tonnes CO2e) AmazonNextDCAirTrunkEquinixCDC FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 FY25 200K 250K 300K 350K 400K 450K 500K 550K Source: Clean Energy Regulator The technology industry has argued that the energy demands of data centres will support the rollout of renewable power because they will sign the long-term power purchase agreements needed to make projects financially viable.

The emissions of Australia's top data centre operators have doubled over the past few years. You can see why Amazon Australia fought so hard to try and keep these numbers hidden.......

www.afr.com/policy/energ...

[We see a close up of a young white male, tanned, white teeth, coiffed hair clearly an influencer on social media. It is an image such as you see when social media posts are shown on the news. In the corner of the screen is named a location: DUBAI. He is staring slightly off-camera for several silent panels of the comic strip. His eyes move slightly. He is having a thought.] From off-screen a newsreader’s commentary comes: NEWSREADER: Extraordinary images here of an expat in Dubai [The influencer’s eybrows raise slightly] …Having their first ever geopolitical thought. [CUT TO a BBC news scene. The BBC newsreader CLIVE MYRIE is talking to an interviewee next to the screen showing the social media influencer’s face. The interviewee’s name is David Jones]. CLIVE MYRIE: To explain the significance of this moment we’re joined by David Jones, our Expat Thoughts correspondent DAVID JONES: Clive, this is momentous It was caught on film at the end of an Instagram post titled: ‘Dubai Is Brilliant’. [Pointing at the screen, the influencer’s expression still the same] You can clearly see in the eyebrows here, the dawning realisation that there *might* be something in the world beyond his dickhead self. It marks a *huge* departure from all the Dubai Expat’s previous thoughts. CLIVE MYRIE: Which are…? DAVID JONES: You've Got To Get Yourself Out Here Mate, Everything Is So Clean, I Don't Have To Pay Taxes, I Am Incurious As To Why I Do Not Have To Pay Taxes, and Spa. CLIVE MYRIE: And might we see an expansion of these new Thoughts in coming days? DAVID JONES: I think we can expect to see: “I Deserve To Be Airlifted By A Country I Pay No Tax To” CLIVE MYRIE: Mmm. [Ends]

LIVE: Mark Carney Warns of Global Order Shift in Major Sydney Foreign Policy Speech YouTube video by DRM News

Carney in Australia.

www.youtube.com/live/iWhXeIQ...

‘Complete joke’: Efforts to reduce funding wait times ends with longer blowout A long campaign to improve Australia’s sclerotic research bureaucracy has culminated in an extraordinary blowout to grant approval times, leaving scientists despondent.

“A complete joke”

After the starting gun fires, Australian researchers have to wait 2–3 years before even starting the race.

Really clear article explaining the impossibly long new time-frames for Australian Research Council grants.

By @liammannix.bsky.social

The energy vampire next door: Life next to an AI mega-factory Billions of dollars are pouring into data centres to fuel the AI revolution but residents and experts warn the state is ignoring the hidden cost to power, water and peace.

"Without a massive surplus of renewables – something Australia doesn’t possess – every megawatt of green energy going to a data centre doesn’t power a home or hospital, forcing the grid to rely on coal and gas for longer"

www.theage.com.au/national/the...

I just threw together a website visualizing this ICE contract data! You can browse through the companies and their contracts, and filter them by state micahflee.github.io/ice-contracts/

For ppl who aren't aware:
Old temperate forests are insanely rare nowadays and extremely important ecosystems lost forever once cut.
They're not just "old trees" but intricate networks of trees, fungi and all kinds of living creatures.
You CANNOT replant this!! Once it's gone it's lost FOREVER!!!

Released emails reveal heavy political lobbying as massive gas project extended Woodside asked the government to ensure its media messaging “aligned” with the gas giant’s, as negotiations over its North West Shelf project continued.

Surprise! The last thing Australia needs is a carbon bomb that'll destroy climate, culture & the environment.

"conditions attached to Watt’s approval of Woodside extending the plant’s operation to 2070 were changed several times after the gas giant’s lobbying."

www.theage.com.au/environment/...

Horrifying doesn't even begin to cover it. This is, legally and practically, torture. They will deny HRT even to those who can no longer produce their own sex hormones, which can and will have dire medical consequences. They will drive people to suicide.

A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025 for the Directorate of Computer and Informations Science and Engineering.

3/10

A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025.

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26)

Directorates to follow

1/10

Sigh.

This is the directorate that funds all of the earth, ocean & atmosphere research at NSF.

This is sad and upsetting. Scouts do not fold to autocrats!

So Hegseth is attacking Scouting America for treating trans kids with respect, including respecting their chosen names... at the same time he demands you respect the made up name for his department, which he changed illegally without congressional approval.

Secretary Hegseth announced this afternoon that DOD will cease ALL graduate study by military personnel at universities including MIT, all the Ivies, Stanford, etc because such schools teach "the enemy's wicked ideology" to officers.

thehill.com/policy/defen...

1/7 BREAKING: A US court has just sided with fossil fuel pipeline giant Energy Transfer and ordered Greenpeace International and Greenpeace entities in the US to pay them US$ 345 million.

This is a billionaire-backed attack on the right to protest. A thread ⤵️🧵

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-aust...
The ke quote: "Over 2014-24, research funding from the Australian Research Council fell in real terms by 18 per cent, while that from the two large health research funds grew by 65 per cent" !!!!!!!! #auspol #research #science

The AI summit in India's been all about Bill Gates' keynote cancellation (Epstein?), Altman & Amodei's awkward photoshoot, & the robo 🐕 fiasco

But if you'd like to learn about water use by data centre giants in India, here's a great 4-parter from Rohini Krishnamurthy 4 @earthjournalism.bsky.social🧵

Not only do deaths outnumber births in Japan, the country actually records twice (!) as many deaths than births each year now.

I’m sharing this video again because people don’t really get what these data centers and ai are doing to our planet and our communities. Especially Black communities because they were strategically placed there.

I need you to listen to these people.
STOP USING AI. STOP SUPPORTING AI.

Spatially spillovers and spatial/temporal lag! Oh my! 😱

We are working on something in this direction, would love to hear of other efforts (to not reinvent the wheel).

Hmmmm moves too fast to tell. Divergent shadows is one - the sun is ~in infinity, they should be cast as ~parallel, but they appear divergent? Or something else, subtler... Sky hues?

Georgia, the most persistent civic resistance in contemporary Europe, needs one key ingredient — a viable political alternative. In the absence of a dominant, that means some form of unity among democratic parties.

Such an alternative would swing the process in several ways: 🧵

Apparent movement of the Sun is in the opposite dir (stars too)...

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

There is long and entertaining lecture by Bell Burnell on the ytube about her discovery of pulsars and quasars. She says the term "pulsar" was invented by a journalist because "pulsating radio source" was too boffin (explained at ~47min mark). www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot1G...

It will always be "Struppi!" in my head!