Matildas social media followings skyrocket during World Cup
24 August 2023
Many members of the Australian women’s football team saw their social media followings jump exponentially as a result of the recent 2023 Women’s World Cup, according to data compiled by Australian football news and information portal Keepup.
Mary Fowler’s Instagram (IG) follower count soared by nearly 470% to — as of time of writing — about 281,000. Caitlin Foorde meanwhile saw her IG followers increase by 153% to about 208,000, while team captain Sam Kerr’s count doubled to over one and half million people.
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social media, social networks, sport
Four hundred Australian authors back Voice to Parliament
23 August 2023
Four hundred Australian authors have thrown their support behind the campaign that seeks to amend the Australian constitution to include an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
Katherine Brabon, Shankari Chandran (winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award), Mick Cummins, Sophie Cunningham, Peter FitzSimons, Robert Lukins, Andrew Pippos, Christos Tsiolkas, Pip Williams, Tim Winton, and Charlotte Wood, are among authors who have put their name to the Writers for the Voice website:
We, Writers for the Voice, accept the generous, modest invitation of First Nations Peoples in the Uluru Statement from the Heart to walk with them towards a better Australia.
We support their call for recognition via a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament because we believe passionately that this major reform, the product of broad grassroots consultation and supported by the great majority of First Nations Peoples, will lead to better outcomes for First Nations Peoples. It’s only fair.
What a simple, straightforward, to the point, statement. Contrast that with the scare campaign that some people who are opposed to the idea of the voice, are orchestrating.
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Australia, Indigenous culture, politics, writers
The perils of a cashless Australian society
23 August 2023
Image courtesy of Squirrel photos.
Just seven percent of Australians are “high cash” users according to Australia’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia. Tap-to-pay contactless payment methods, which are simple and convenient to use, have dispensed with the need to carry wads of money in our bags and pockets.
In addition, the amount of cash in circulation is at an all-time low, down by a billion dollars in the last financial year, as people use other payment methods. That has some pundits already predicting Australia will become a cashless society sooner rather than later. That’s welcome news for those who don’t feel safe carrying cash, and means less cash handling hassle for people like shop-owners.
But a completely cashless Australia does not suit all. Not everyone has a smartphone, rendering tap-to-pay useless to them. Some people — including newly arrived immigrants — don’t even have a bank account. One or two people are still paid cash for their work, and would be put out if retailers refused to accept cash. Or, for that matter, should banks stop handling cash, as is the case in some places in Sweden, which is seen as one of the world’s most cashless societies.
These factors aside though, some don’t like the idea of government agencies, the tax office in particular, knowing exactly how much they earn. Other people meanwhile crave privacy. They don’t want all their spending recorded on a bank statement, that unwanted eyes might peruse. Mortgage applicants, for instance, may not want prospective lenders knowing how much they spend on, say, coffee, something that’s certainly open to scrutiny when using tap-to-pay.
Despite the gloomy outlook for cash, Australia certainly won’t become cashless overnight, and if there are plans to do away with cash, there would be plenty of warning. The future of cheques makes for a good road map here. According to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, cheques, which will be phased out in 2030, account for 0.2% of financial transactions.
That’s far less than cash, and there’s a generous seven year warning ahead of their demise. Implementing infrastructure allowing everyone to transact without cash is a process that could take decades. While I can’t see cash being around forever, it’s not going anywhere soon.
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Threads web version here soon, Font Awesome glyph available
22 August 2023
Threads users have been waiting for a bevy of features to be added to the micro-blogging platform, and it looks like a web version — something I’ve certainly been looking forward to — may arrive in a few days. Last week Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram (and I guess Threads), said Meta had been working on a web version for “a week or two”, but added that more work had been needed.
Being able to cross-post across platforms such as Instagram, Mastodon, Facebook, and Twitter/X, by way of the web is an absolute boon for me. No doubt there’s an app that does this, but I prefer the flexibility of being able to copy, paste, and alter posts, while going from one browser tab to another.
In other news, and I don’t know when this happened, but a Font Awesome Threads glyph has also become available. There’s only the one version at the moment, but maybe there will be more later.
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Pulling Weeds, Folding Laundry, a book by Leslie K. Lau
22 August 2023
Sydney based Australian writer and artist Leslie K. Lau recently self-published a book, Pulling Weeds, Folding Laundry. These are tasks many people probably don’t care to think much about, let alone carry out, but Lau saw them in a new light — as moments between moments — while undergoing treatment for cancer:
Ultimately, it is a story of how a cancer diagnosis revealed the reality of life, how volatility and uncertainty was in fact the norm and not the exception.
It is the retelling of a journey of finding peace, contentment, and joy in the moments between moments.
It is a tale of navigating hard times, perceived or otherwise, and coming out the other end.
What a wonderful way to say slow down and appreciate those seemingly insignificant moments in life, since they are still very much a part of it.
Via Justin Fox.
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Threads still among top apps at Apple and Google
21 August 2023
John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball last week:
At this moment, Threads is #2 on the App Store’s top free downloads list, and X is #51. On the Play Store, Threads is #6 and X is (scroll, scroll, scroll…) #66. This rebranding would be a firing offense if the mastermind behind it didn’t own the company. (So much for Threads being the one that’s supposedly gasping for air.)
Despite the good app install numbers, engagement reportedly remain low on Meta’s rival to Twitter/X. Abené Clayton, writing for The Guardian, says Threads saw 576,000 active users in August, compared to over two million in July.
Threads is up against a few competitors, Mastodon and Bluesky to name a few, so the market is perhaps a little crowded. I would add Twitter/X to that list, but owner Elon Musk seems intent on destroying the platform, and in the process, his plans for… world domination.
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social networks, technology, Threads, Twitter
2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards open for entries
21 August 2023
Entries for the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (VPLA) are open until Sunday 10 September 2023. The VPLA is one of Australia’s most valuable literary awards, and the shortlists — which will likely be announced sometime in December — are always filled packed with quality titles.
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Australian literature, books, literary awards, writing
World Cup bronze medal slips through exhausted Matildas fingers
21 August 2023
The Matildas two nil loss to Sweden in the third-place playoff match in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, played at Brisbane Stadium, on Saturday 19 August, came not only as a disappointment, but also a surprise, to supporters of the Australian women’s football team.
Although the Matildas enjoyed their best ever World Cup tournament in 2023, in being placed fourth, many believed the team had a better an average chance of winning the playoff game for the 2023 bronze medal.
If perhaps Matildas head coach Tony Gustavsson had not been so intent on maintaining “continuity”, by refusing to change the team’s line-up throughout most of the World Cup, winning third place was indeed a distinct possibility. Yet of the twenty-three players in the full Matildas squad, only thirteen spent significant time on the field. And that might have been twelve, had Sam Kerr, the Matildas’ captain, not been sidelined for much of the competition with an injury. Of the remaining ten players in the Matildas squad, only a handful saw game minutes.
Samantha Lewis, football writer for ABC Sport, underlined the point, at half time during Saturday’s match, when the Blågult, Sweden’s women’s football team, were leading the game one nil:
The Matildas look tired. Not just physically but mentally: their passes have been off, their decisions half-a-second too slow, their challenges late and clumsy.
It’s a cliche, but Sweden look like they want this more, and the extra day of rest they’ve had over Australia is noticeable in terms of their reaction times and pressing speed.
Tony Gustavsson has been criticised towards the pointy-end of this tournament for not using his bench enough and relying on fatigued players to get the job done, but this feels like a game where he really needs to trust the fresh legs available to him if they want to get back into this and go home with a rose-gold medal.
While Sweden played their semi-final match a day earlier than Australia, I doubt the extra twenty-four hours rest alone made them the better team in Brisbane. Even though, like Australia, they did not change their semi-final line-up, either.
Gustavsson seems to have forgotten winning tournaments on the scale of a World Cup are a team effort. He should have drawn more from the wider Matildas’ squad, rather than constantly relying on the same core players. Playing six international games — from the first group stage match, to the third-place playoff — over the course of four weeks, with virtually no substitutions, is a big ask for any team, no matter how good. Gustavsson was therefore extremely fortunate there were no serious injuries (with the exception of Kerr) forcing him to ditch the team continuity he craved.
I’m surprised though someone as seasoned as Gustavsson didn’t recognise the need to rest players, and bring some “new legs”, to quote Samantha Lewis, onto the field. And not just prior to the third-place playoff either, but throughout the competition. Being sidelined, and deprived of the opportunity to shine, must have come as a blow to those in the Matildas’ squad who sat out the entire World Cup on the reserves bench.
Not only was the thinking unfortunate, but the “continuity policy” also represented, I think, a missed opportunity. Because great things could have come to pass.
And let’s not forget the home-field advantage, something the Matildas enjoyed as tournament co-hosts, and something that can work in favour of Australian athletes. The 2000 Sydney Olympics are an example, where Australia won a record fifty-eight medals, the nation’s best showing at a Summer Olympics to date.
A rejuvenated Matildas’ team, by way of a few substitutions, and with their supporters right there beside them, might have made all the difference on Saturday night.
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Venomous Lumpsucker wins 2023 Arthur C. Clarke book award
21 August 2023
Book cover of Venomous Lumpsucker, written by Ned Beauman.
British novelist and screenwriter Ned Beauman has been named winner of the 2023 Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year, with his fifth novel, Venomous Lumpsucker, which was published by Penguin Random House.
Going by the publisher’s outline, Venomous Lumpsucker has the lot. A cli-fi, sci-fi dystopian chiller-thriller set in the near future, in a world possibly irreparably damaged by climate change:
The near future. Tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. And a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, to help us preserve the remnants, or perhaps just assuage our guilt. For instance, the biobanks: secure archives of DNA samples, from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected . . . But then, one day, it’s all gone. A mysterious cyber-attack hits every biobank simultaneously, wiping out the last traces of the perished species. Now we’re never getting them back.
Karin Resaint and Mark Halyard are concerned with one species in particular: the venomous lumpsucker, a small, ugly bottom-feeder that happens to be the most intelligent fish on the planet. Resaint is an animal cognition scientist consumed with existential grief over what humans have done to nature. Halyard is an exec from the extinction industry, complicit in the mining operation that destroyed the lumpsucker’s last-known habitat.
Across the dystopian landscapes of the 2030s — a nature reserve full of toxic waste; a floating city on the ocean; the hinterlands of a totalitarian state — Resaint and Halyard hunt for a surviving lumpsucker. And the further they go, the deeper they’re drawn into the mystery of the attack on the biobanks. Who was really behind it? And why would anyone do such a thing?
The prize, awarded since 1987, is presented annually to the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom in the previous calendar year, and is named after British author and futurist, Arthur C. Clarke, who died in 2008.
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Arthur C Clarke, climate fiction, literary awards, Ned Beauman, science fiction
Matildas: The World at Our Feet, a documentary about the Australian women’s soccer team
18 August 2023
The Matildas, the Australian women’s soccer (football) team, had a stellar run during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, hosted by Australia and New Zealand. While they didn’t make it to the final, their passion to succeed won them legions of new fans in Australia, and I dare say, further afield.
The Tillies, as they’re known to some followers, play one last match against Sweden on Saturday 19 August 2023, to determine who wins the 2023 tournament’s bronze medal. Whatever the outcome — whether they are placed third or fourth — 2023 will be Matildas’ best ever result in a World Cup.
If you’d like to learn more about the Matildas, its members, and their 2023 campaign, then the Disney produced documentary, Matildas: The World at Our Feet, trailer, comes highly recommended. I have it on good authority that a New Zealand sports lover became a Matildas fan after seeing this show.
What more can I say?
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