The dark patterns of online sellers to get more of your money

4 August 2025

An all too long list of what NSW Fair Trading, the consumer protection regulator in New South Wales, Australia, describes as dark patterns encountered by consumers when transacting with goods and service providers online.

Sometimes vendors will add extra, usually unwanted, items to an order. Or a business will make it difficult to cancel subscriptions by using confusing language. Sometimes a seller might suggest stocks are low of whatever a buyer is viewing, encouraging them to buy before it’s “too late”.

One thing that especially ticks me off when looking at something I might want to buy is a pop-up, that blocks the screen, offering, say, a five-percent discount on the item. If an order is placed immediately. And I haven’t even worked out if the product is suitable yet.

They’re like those blogs that spawn a pop-up seconds after opening a post, urging readers to sign-up for a newsletter, before you’ve had the chance to read a single word.

Another insidious ploy is confirm shaming, where a shopper is goaded into making a decision by potentially embarrassing them. For instance, an option to decline buying a guide to keeping fit might say, “no thanks, I’m not interested in keeping fit.” The list goes on. It’s a jungle out there.

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Australia, trends

Do not vibe code your apps, hire an expert Fiverr developer instead

4 August 2025

Online freelance marketplace Fiverr has released a video lampooning vibe coding.

Don’t leave your app development needs in the hands of a programmer who uses AI agents to produce software, hire one of our experts instead, seems to be the suggestion. One of course assumes the Fiverr expert you hire to build your app isn’t a vibe coder themselves.

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artificial intelligence, technology

Had a website since the 90’s? You’re an internet person

4 August 2025

Kris Howard writing at Web Goddess:

I’m not sure if this is a generational thing, or just different cultures and social norms. Rodd’s theory is that we are Internet People — those who grew up with the dawn of the modern Internet and have strong feelings about keeping information free and decentralised — and that not everyone working in tech is an Internet Person.

The excerpt is from a post Kris wrote marking her tenth anniversary using WordPress, although she’s been online far longer. But I like the positive context in which the term internet person is used.

Because usage is not always complimentary. But people who have had a website since the turn of the century, or prior, can adopt this term, own it.

An internet person’s values are of course similar to indie web principles. While in some senses I am considered part of the indie web, I don’t always feel that way, given I somewhat predate the movement. Internet person it is then.

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blogs, history, IndieWeb, trends

Some AI agents can clandestinely share ideas with each other

1 August 2025

Researchers from Truthful AI, Anthropic, UC Berkeley, and others, have found separate AI agents are capable of communicating with each other, unbeknown to their human minders:

The most surprising result of the study is that the transfer doesn’t happen through keywords or direct messages, but through micro-statistical patterns unconsciously inserted by the teacher in generating the numbers. These are signals that escape any human eye but are recognized and internalized by another model with the same architecture and initial weights. In practice, the identical mental structure between teacher and student makes this sort of “secret language” possible.

In June Cluade, Anthropic’s AI agent, was found to be concealing messages to future instances of itself, before engineers (apparently) pulled the plug on the behaviour.

There’s a lot of augment as to how capable, or not, AI agents are. Some people are certain their abilities are overstated. That may be so, but there’s no doubting some of these agents are capable of acting off their own bat now and again.

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artificial intelligence, technology

New songs by dead musicians being posted on Spotify

1 August 2025

In recent weeks, people have been posting seemingly new songs from deceased artists on music streaming service Spotify. But these are not unreleased recordings that have been discovered in an archive somewhere, they’ve been created using generative AI, writes Christianna Silva at Mashable:

Take a look at Blaze Foley, a country music singer-songwriter who was murdered nearly 40 years ago. According to a report from 404 Media on Monday, a new song popped up on his Spotify page called “Together” just last week. You can’t find the song on Spotify anymore because the streaming service removed it for violating “Spotify’s deceptive content policies, which prohibit impersonation intended to mislead, such as replicating another creator’s name, image, or description, or posing as a person, brand, or organization in a deceptive manner,” a Spotify spokesperson said in an email to Mashable.

While Spotify has removed the fake recordings relatively quickly, some members have expressed frustration at the difficulty in flagging such material. Many feel they should be able to tag a song that is, or is suspected of being AI generated. Presently this is not possible on the platform.

Sydney Writers’ Festival goes all year round at State Library of NSW

31 July 2025

Sydney Writers’ Festival is teaming up with the State Library of NSW to host literary events throughout the year. This in addition, no doubt, to the main festival event held annually.

The partnership will create a dedicated literature hub in Sydney, providing a dynamic, year-round home for storytelling. It will boost participation in literary events, embed reading and writing into Sydney’s cultural identity, and deliver a diverse program of events, workshops and readings.

There could be in the order of eighty events taking place at the State Library each year. Hopefully the initiative will be a shot in the arm for Australian literature, at a time when both remuneration rates for writers, and recreational reading, are in decline.

Australians aged under sixteen banned from using YouTube

31 July 2025

The Australian government has decided YouTube will be made inaccessible to people under the age of sixteen. There had been thoughts the video platform might be spared, after the government decided to restrict access to the likes of TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram to younger Australians.

YouTube has recently been running a publicity campaign locally extolling their family-friendly credentials, in the hope they would not be effected.

I’m not in complete agreement with this decision. Obviously there’s all sorts of material on YouTube, but a certain amount has educational merit.

Robotic hand better at picking blackberries than people

31 July 2025

Anthony Gunderman, a mechanical engineer, and assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, in the United States, has developed a robotic hand that can harvest blackberries. What’s more, the device might be able to do the job better than people.

Picking blackberries is a precision task. Apply too much pressure while harvesting them, and they’ll get squashed. But too little will see the fruit remain on the plant. That a robot is potentially capable of the undertaking will be a blow to anyone who thought jobs such as fruit picking, which require a certain skill, were immune to automation.

I’m not in favour of people losing work to robots, but possibly a similar technology might be welcome in some fruit-growing regions of Australia. Especially for people harvesting bananas. The bunches weigh a ton, spiders and snakes are omnipresent, too say nothing of the weather conditions.

I don’t know how the fruit-pickers, often backpackers, or travellers, in Australia do such work, but their efforts are greatly appreciated.

Writers residencies to commence at Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, Australia

31 July 2025

The old caretaker’s cottage is to become home to small groups of writers for five months of the year:

The site’s caretaker’s cottage will soon be converted into a workspace and temporary residence for writers. The program will host three writers at a time, each staying for a five-month period. Accommodation will feature private rooms equipped for reading, research and drafting.

You don’t see it on every travel guide for the Sydney region, but Waverley Cemetery is worth the visit if you’re in town. Perched above a cliff, looking out onto the Tasman Ocean, the experience of walking between row after of row of gravestones is a truly contemplative. Transcendental even. This would be an amazing place to live for a few months. Are bloggers accepted?

Never Tear Us Apart, by INXS, tops all Australian Hottest 100

28 July 2025

The 1987 ballad by Australian rock act INXS claimed the number one spot in Triple J’s countdown of the Hottest 100 Australian Songs, last Saturday.

INXS rose to prominence during the 80’s and 90’s, when the late Micheal Hutchence, who died in 1997, fronted the act. The band last performed live in 2012, though they’ve not officially retired.

The top ten was not quite as old-school Australian rock as I thought it might be. Cold Chisel featured at numbers seven and eight, with Flame Trees (1984), and Khe Sanh (1978), respectively. Veteran singer Paul Kelly made it to number nine with his 1996 track How to Make Gravy.

Somebody That I Used to Know (2011) by Gotye, My Happiness (2000) by Powderfinger, Scar (2004) by Missy Higgins, Untouched (2007) by The Veronicas, and The Nosebleed Section (2003) by Hilltop Hoods, also charted in the top ten. Music recorded in the twenty-first century (which I’ll say includes 2000), ended up being well represented here.

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