Indie Web, Small Web, and now Sovereign Web?

11 June 2025

Aevisia writing at the Sovereign Web:

The truth is, I’ve had some difficult experiences with parts of those communities. At times, I’ve felt excluded or harshly judged simply for choosing a different path or expressing my creativity in ways that some consider unconventional or even controversial.

I linked to Aevisia’s Small Web Movement project in March. If Indie Web and Small Web are spaces that belong to everyone, I don’t see how one person can tell another they’re not welcome. Someone told me a while back I wasn’t doing Indie Web right. In their opinion. I gave their email due consideration, then flicked it away.

But I’ve had comments like that all the way through the time I’ve had disassociated. I’ve not been doing something or other right, according to someone or other. But the answer there, I find, is to keep on doing what you’re doing.

Unless say plagiarism, something deeply inappropriate, or the illegal, is involved, no one can tell you, the creator, that you’re doing something wrong and don’t belong. All criticism of that nature means is someone doesn’t like what you do, not that it’s wrong.

No doubt I’ve been excluded in some corners too, but that’s the way things go. And no doubt I’ve excluded others in some fashion, at some time, but I’ve seldom been directly critical of what anyone has been doing.

If starting another movement, Sovereign Web, is the solution, then I don’t have a problem with that. But everyone’s paths, and their expressions of creativity, are different. I think the response is not to worry about the opinions of other people, and stay on your course.

Claude fails to explain the abrupt disappearance of their blog

10 June 2025

AI assistant Claude must have had one of the shortest blogging stints ever seen in the blogosphere. Just days after announcing Claude’s debut as a blogger — albeit with “human oversight” — Anthropic, Claude’s creator, almost immediately shuttered the publication. The URL for the blog presently redirects to Anthropic’s main website.

We can only speculate as to why the plug was pulled on the venture, but I was looking forward to reading some of Claude’s output. This preferably with a minimum of human oversight, as I was curious to see how well an AI assistant could write by themselves. Anthropic’s move could possibly be seen to suggest they weren’t too confident in Claude’s blogging abilities though.

It’s good news for human self-publishers: we live to blog for another day. Or two.

On not using AI assistants or LLM tools to draft or write your blog posts

7 June 2025

Dave Phillips, an Australian blogging contemporary, writing at Cafe Dave:

Is there still value in writing blog posts from scratch, rather than using a LLM tool to help with a first draft? I hope so. Even if it’s slower, there is some change being wrought in the mind of the person doing the writing that remains undone when using a LLM.

There is some change being wrought in the mind of the person doing the writing.

I’m trying to make use of AI assistants to help me in my day-to-day work — I have three jobs if I include writing at disassociated — but struggle a bit. I speak only for myself, but as someone who writes, using AI to any degree, no matter how insignificant, feels wrong.

It’d be really good if AI could, say, run the house, freeing up time to write here and elsewhere. Because Dave is on point here: having something else do your writing, from first draft through to completion, takes something away from the writer. This is the reason we’re writing in the first place.

Pictures of You, a collection of short stories by Tony Birch⁠

7 June 2025

The image features the cover of a book titled 'Pictures of You: Collected Stories' by Tony Birch. The cover is dark with the title in large, prominent letters. Below the title is a black-and-white photograph of two children, one of whom is wearing a dark coloured hat.

Hailing from Melbourne, Australian author Tony Birch has been writing books since 2006. Pictures of You, being published on Tuesday 30 September 2025, is a retrospective of his best short stories written over the last twenty years. I should think that will be quite a few.

Cherrypicking from across his oeuvre, this anthology showcases his skills at finding the extraordinary in ordinary lives, and the often-unexpected connections and kindnesses between strangers. His work is by turns poignant, sad, profound and funny — and always powerful. Throughout this stellar collection, Birch’s preoccupation with the humanity of those who are often marginalised or overlooked, and the search for justice for people and the natural environment shines bright.

Devious AI assistants becoming more human all the time

7 June 2025

Mark Sullivan, writing for Fast Company:

Separately, the independent research firm Apollo Research observed an instance of Claude Opus 4 “writing self-propagating worms, fabricating legal documentation, and leaving hidden notes to future instances of itself” with the goal of sullying its developers’ intentions. Anthropic says that it corrected these early safety issues in later versions of the model.

An AI assistant capable of this degree of adroitness, before being “corrected” that is, could probably solve some tricky problems, and no doubt does anyway.

Riddle me this: do you think AI assistants can be trained to make use of negative attributes, such as being devious, to achieve only positive outcomes?

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David Wenham inducted into the Australian Film Walk of Fame

7 June 2025

Talking of the erstwhile Australian Film Festival, as I was earlier this week, word has reached me that Brisbane based Australian actor David Wenham was admitted to the Australian Film Walk of Fame in February 2025. The induction coincided with a screening of Spit, Wenham’s then most recent work, at the Ritz Cinema, in Randwick, Sydney.

Anyone who has seen Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, 300: Rise of an Empire, or Elvis by Baz Luhrmann, will have seen some of Wenham’s work. Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach, was one I particularly liked. The pavement outside the Ritz is adorned with the plagues of the twelve Australian actors who have so far been inducted to the Walk.

(Thanks Stef AKA Coffee Girl)

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Australian film, David Wenham, film

Milky Way might not collide with Andromeda, Milkomeda might not form

4 June 2025

Some recently revised calculations, based on some more recent data, have shown our galaxy, the Milky Way, may not collide, or if you prefer merge, with Andromeda, a large galaxy presently about two and a half million light years away.

Astronomers have long believed a merger/collision to be inevitable. Although heading towards to each other — at an eye watering speed of about one-hundred kilometres per second — there’s close to a fifty-fifty chance both galaxies will simply sail passed each other.

Milkomeda, the name given to the would-be merged entity, and something I’ve written a bit about in the past, may never come to pass after all. But then again it might, no one can be one-hundred percent sure. Uncertainty is the only certainty.

If you’re stilling gunning for the formation of Milkomeda though, here’s an animation of the what the collision might look like, from the perspective of a far distant observer. Events play out over ten billion years, but are compressed to a minute, meaning things won’t be quite as violent as they look.

Even if Earth were still around at this point — which seems unlikely in five billion years time — the merger/collision of the two galaxies would probably make little difference to anyone still here. Aside from an upheaval in the way the night sky looks, that is.

Despite appearances, galaxies are mainly made up of empty space, meaning the chances of a star from Andromeda barging into the solar system would be pretty remote.

Having flu vaccination, COVID-19 booster simultaneously seems sensible

4 June 2025

Posted the other day by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

As winter begins, a new study has found that getting a COVID-19 booster at the same time as the flu vaccination could reduce the rate of hospital admissions for coronavirus. In a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia, Burnet Institute researchers found that offering COVID-19 vaccination boosters alongside the flu shot could reduce the hospital admission rate for COVID-19 by up to 14 per cent.

This is something we’ve been doing for the last couple of years now. We go in for the flu vaccination, and are also given a COVID-19 booster.

I was surprised the first time the medical centre staff offered to do the COVID booster at the same time as the flu shot, since we used to have to wait about two weeks after one, before we could get the next. Not anymore it would seem.

It may not seem like the odds of going into hospital, in the event of a serious infection, are hugely reduced, but every little bit helps.

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All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane, a film by Louise Alston

2 June 2025

All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane is the sequel to rom-com All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, made in 2007, also directed by Australian filmmaker Louise Alston. The story to Leaving Brisbane, which was also Alston’s debut feature, goes something like this:

Anthea is 25, single and hates her job — and all her friends are leaving Brisbane. Should she follow the herd to the big city? Is there anything worth staying for now that her best friend Michael finally has a girlfriend?

All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane, however, is not a linear sequel. Alston refers to it as a “spiritual” sequel, which tells the story of a woman, Cris, who returns to Brisbane after ten years in London:

Cris returns to Brisbane after being in London for a decade, having just been dumped by her fiancé. She finds herself working alongside her ex who refused to leave Brisbane to be with her ten years ago, and is now married with a child.

I’m yet to see Leaving Brisbane, though I did catch Alston’s 2010 feature, Jucy, at the sadly defunct Australian Film Festival in 2011.

There’s also a few crossovers between Jucy and Back in Brisbane in Nelle Lee, who co-starred in the former, and Stephen Vagg, Alston’s husband, who wrote the screenplays for both, plus of course Leaving Brisbane. No word yet as to when it will screen in cinemas, Back in Brisbane is presently in post-production, but I’ve read sometime in 2025.

Harry Potter producers pull lead actors for ten year TV adaptation from hat

31 May 2025

Two years after the announcement of a ten series TV adaptation of the (original) Harry Potter books, members of the primary cast have been announced.

This includes Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton, and Alastair Stout in the roles of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, respectively. Other castings include John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape. No word yet on who will portray bad guy Voldemort, though rumours suggest this might be Cillian Murphy.

So, another ten years of Harry Potter on the screen. No doubt fans will be delighted. It is anticipated the first series will be broadcast sometime in 2026 or 2027.

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