Climate change, higher temperatures, impact on well being

27 August 2025

A MIT lead global study of posts on X, and Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, has revealed higher temperatures not only effect health and workplace productivity, but also — perhaps unsurprisingly — well-being and emotions:

A massive study of social media data revealed that individuals become significantly more irritable in extreme heat. The research implies that rising temperatures may directly affect the emotional health of millions of people around the world.

This during a recent late winter bout of unseasonably mild weather hereabout (though the tables are soon to be turned). I left the house yesterday morning wearing a hoodie, but had taken it off about two minutes later. Hate to think what summer’s going to be like, if winter is quite warm.

Mind you, with above average rainfall predicted for parts of Australia’s east coast, over the next few months, maybe temperatures will remain relatively mild.

There are more guns in Australia than before 1996 gun buy back

27 August 2025

Collectively Australians own four million guns, about twice the number held in 2001.

This despite strict gun ownership laws introduced following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, bans on certain types of firearms, and a gun buyback program in 1996, which resulted in over six-hundred thousand weapons being destroyed.

Australians can still legally own firearms, but must satisfy a number of prerequisites to do so. These include showing a genuine reason for possession — which some people, farmers for example, might have — along with keeping guns stored securely when not in use.

Four million guns is a lot, and equates to about one gun for every seven Australians. While some people feel gun ownership is a right, and have no problem adhering to ownership laws, others in the community are concerned legally owned firearms might somehow fall into the wrong hands.

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Australia Post to stop shipping some parcels to the United States

27 August 2025

Australia’s primary provider of postal services, Australia Post, has suspended delivery of “low-value parcels” to the United States, on account of tariffs imposed by the US government.

Packages with a value of less than eight-hundred dollars (US), will be subject to tariffs as of Friday 29 August 2025. The move will be a blow to businesses, particularly smaller operators, who sell items online to global customers.

Australia Post will continue to ship letters, documents, and gifts valued at less than one-hundred-and-fifty dollars though. I assume these gifts will be exempt from any tariffs.

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Young Australians not banned from social media, just delayed using it

26 August 2025

Australians under the age of sixteen will not be banned from having social media accounts, when laws change later this year. Instead, as the Australian eSafety commission points out, they’ll merely have to wait until their sixteenth birthday before being able to sign up for social media access:

It’s not a ban, it’s a delay to having accounts.

The incoming social media age-restriction laws will make students of semantics out of us all.

Mind blown: are these the best science-fiction/fantasy books of the twenty-first century?

25 August 2025

Singapore based Australian blogger, and science-fiction writer Skribe, recently asked his Mastodon followers to name one sci-fi/fantasy novel, written this century, that has blown their minds. From those suggestions, he drew up this list of seven titles:

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, published in 2020
Anathem by Neal Stephenson, published in 2010
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, published in 2013
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, published in 2015
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, published in 2020
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, published in 2021
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, published in 2015

In a since closed poll asking people to vote for the title they considered the best, I went for Piranesi. Mainly because it was the only novel from the list that I’d read, but also because British author Susanna Clarke’s tome compelled me to write at length about it afterwards.

Long story short, Piranesi is about someone of the same name, who finds themselves mostly alone in a house of epic proportions. It can literally take days to move from one part of the multi-level structure, to another. The house itself is a character in its own right, and as I read through the story, I almost felt as if I was there with Piranesi, so vivid was Clarke’s description of the sprawling abode.

Are fears of AI caused mass job losses founded or exaggerated?

22 August 2025

California based cybersecurity professional Daniel Miessler is concerned AI technologies might result in large scale job losses:

These are people who’ve been making over $100-200K in tech or tech-adjacent for over a decade. And they can’t find work. I mean they can barely get interviews. And when I say a ton, I mean multiple dozen that I either know or I’m one degree separated from. And again, these are not low-skill people. They’re legit professionals that have never in their life had trouble finding or maintaining work.

What Miessler reports is based on anecdotal evidence, but I’ve heard similar stories — likewise anecdata — locally (NSW, Australia).

On the flip side, Sheryl Estrada, writing for Yahoo Finance, citing recent MIT research, says only a handful of companies have been able to effectively integrate AI technologies into their operations:

But for 95% of companies in the dataset, generative AI implementation is falling short. The core issue? Not the quality of the AI models, but the “learning gap” for both tools and organizations. While executives often blame regulation or model performance, MIT’s research points to flawed enterprise integration. Generic tools like ChatGPT excel for individuals because of their flexibility, but they stall in enterprise use since they don’t learn from or adapt to workflows […].

Meanwhile Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) has paused recruiting for its super intelligence division. This after offering one new hire a one and a half billion dollar salary (over four years).

This might not of course mean anything other than perhaps Meta coming to the realisation it is spending money it doesn’t have. As to the wider question of the threat posed to jobs by AI, I think the jury is still out. No one is, as yet, exactly sure what the impact will be.

A planet might orbit Alpha Centauri A: send Chrysalis there instead

21 August 2025

The planet’s existence — orbiting Alpha Centauri A, part of the nearest stellar system to the Sun — has not yet been confirmed. If there though, the body would be situated within Alpha Centauri A’s (AKA Rigil Kentaurus) habitable zone, a star similar to our Sun.

That could be a more “Earth-like” planet, certainly more so than any planets orbiting the third member of the Alpha Centauri trinary: red dwarf star Proxima Centauri.

If anyone is serious about sending a sixty-kilometre long, multi-generational spaceship, named Chrysalis, on a four-hundred year, one-way, journey to Alpha Centauri, then the would-be planet hosted by Alpha Centauri A would be a more sensible destination.

Once, that is, the planet is confirmed to exist, in-fact resides in Alpha Centauri A’s habitable zone, and is truly “Earth-like”, not just some rock with a slight atmosphere, and a bit of liquid water.

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Future Boy, a book by Michael J. Fox, and a missing Gibson guitar

20 August 2025

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey through the Space-Time Continuum, is a book written by American actor Michael J. Fox, of, of course, Back to the Future (BTTF) fame, in conjunction with TV and film producer, Nelle Fortenberry.

Fans of the 1985 time-travel caper, and Fox himself, probably already know the story. Fox was also on the cast of TV sitcom Family Ties, and during the filming of BTTF, would shuttle back and forth between the sets of TV and film. TV during the day, film by night. If working two jobs each day was tiring, Fox sure as hell didn’t show it, as he seemed to do nothing but burst about the screen in BTTF.

Future Boy delves deeper into this story, through interviews with the cast and crew of both Family Ties and BTTF, and will be published on Tuesday 14 October 2025.

That’ll definitely be a red-letter day for BTTF aficionados.

And in other news, BTTF cast and crew are searching for the guitar, the Cherry Red Gibson ES-345 to be precise, which Marty McFly played when performing Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, at the Enchantment Under the Sea high school dance.

This is no publicity stunt (I don’t think). BTTF producers realised the iconic guitar was missing when they went to film the sequel, Back to the Future Part II, back in 1989.

They’re hoping to find it today, soon, this century, to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of BTTF, and the release of a documentary about the film, Lost to the Future, which I think goes to air later this year. Members of the cast, including Fox, Harry Waters Jr, Lea Thompson, and Christopher Lloyd, are among those who have issued an appeal for information in the search for the Gibson.

I’d forgotten 2025 was such a red-letter year in the history of BTTF. I think this calls for a screening this evening of BTTF.

The 2025 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists

19 August 2025

Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser, winner of this year’s Stellar Prize, Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane, and Juice by Tim Winton — which I’m presently reading — are among titles shortlisted in the fiction category of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Award categories also include non-fiction, Australian history, poetry, children’s literature, and young adult. Six-hundred-and-forty-five entries were received this year, indicating Australian writers are busy. The winners will be named on Monday 29 September 2025, at a ceremony in Canberra.

Microsoft sued over plans to discontinue Windows 10 support

16 August 2025

California based Lawrence Klein is attempting to sue Microsoft over its plan to discontinue support for the Windows 10 operating system (OS) come October.

The action is understandable from the point of view that a device apparently requires specific hardware for Windows 11 — the Windows 10 successor OS — to function. This hardware is not to be found on older devices, rendering them unusable if they can’t run Windows 10.

Klein says that the end of Windows 10 is part of Microsoft’s strategy to force customers to purchase new devices and to “monopolize the generative AI market.” Windows 11 comes with Microsoft’s suite of generative artificial intelligence software, including the chatbot Copilot. To run optimally, Microsoft’s AI needs a piece of hardware called a neural processing unit, which newer tablets, laptops and desktop computers have — and which the older devices do not.

Before I migrated to Linux Mint (LM) last year, I was regularly sent prompts by Microsoft urging me to install Windows 11. Evidently my device, which is three years old now, had the requisite hardware as I was told Windows 11 could operate on it.

While we’re talking of those nagging “upgrade” prompts, they’re one thing I certainly do not miss.

Of course Windows 10 will continue to work without the presently regular support updates, but I’d be reluctant in the extreme to use any Windows OS that was not supported. That would be putting any device at considerable risk.

While the switch to LM was quite the undertaking, and involved a few bumps early on, I’m pleased to be here, something I’ve said before. I’d encourage anyone still on Windows 10 to consider LM. It’s user-friendly, somewhat resembles Windows 10, and comes in several versions, meaning it’s possible to install on relatively old devices.

You’ll also escape the Windows hegemony, and have an OS that’s not half dependent on AI to work.

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