Hands up if you've ever changed your mind on a topic after someone called you stupid? [crickets] Yeah, me neither. I am not "stupid" (blah blah scholarships, degrees etc etc etc blah blah) but omfg have I done more (far more) than my share of stupid things. And the root cause of most of those... Continue Reading →
Scenario-building – The month(s) ahead for the Commonwealth… “same boat,” “spotfires” and “deep moat.” COVID #auspol
Let's say that there are three scenarios (all of which involve NSW losing control of the shituation - you could have other scenarios too, if you like, where Delta goes easy on us). Let's call them "same boat" "spot fires" and "deep moat" I think spot fires is most likely. Same boat In two months... Continue Reading →
Resisting resisting – the abyss stares back so well…
So damned tired. It is hard to care, when it seems so very late, when resisting seems so very futile. This is what those determined to kill us all (they see it differently, obvs) want. They want us to desert the field. It's so much easier for them, then. There’s a quote from near the... Continue Reading →
Getting beyond handwavium, or “A systematic review of energy systems: The role of policymaking in sustainable transitions”
Even back before I was trying to be an academic (watch this space) I was reading academic articles for fun. That's not a boast (well, okay, maybe a little bit, but also just a statement of fact). I learned the hard way that much academic output is dross - concept mongering or torturing of so-called... Continue Reading →
Sorry seems to be the hardest word: of COVID, #auspol, Brown M&Ms and sociopaths
So Scott Morrison, Australian prime minister, has given a blink-and-you'd-miss-it retraction of yesterday's debacle, when he repeatedly refused to apologise for the consequences of the vaccine stroll-out. Today he came out with I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to achieve the marks that we had hoped for at the beginning of this year. Of course... Continue Reading →
The other shoe drops – a week’s lockdown begins. Day 12/67
Not much to report! Got up, took my skipping rope, resistance bands and juggling balls to the local oval. Spent too long learning how to do two up one down (Juggling trick) and probably not enough on upper body strength. Dodged rain. Came back, worked on an article. Read some of a very funny satire... Continue Reading →
The promise of echidnas, Scarlett on fire, the sniff of a job: Day 11/67
I strapped on a mere 25kgs of bricks and weights (up to 30kg next time though) and schlepped and slogged due south. Through an arboretum and then up a hill (this is the key bit) past various research facilities for wine and plant genomics etc). It got steepish when I turned around, but in future,... Continue Reading →
Film review: The name is “Widow, Black Widow…” Of Scarlet, James, Karl and Hugo…
Film review: Yeah, look, if you're looking for some relatively undemanding and competently made tosh, with a not-entirely-convincing feminist "sub"text (i.e. smacking-you-in-the-face-text), with some eye-candy and moments of levity, then Black Widow will fit the Bill - or, more aptly, the James. Scarlett Johansson climbs into her latex suit again (I have not seen her... Continue Reading →
Excruciatingly banal/smug, but I got some work done anyway…. Day 10/67
Actually got up early(ish), packed the relevant fitness kit in a daggy backpack and schlepped over to the lovely Unley Oval. Did some ... skipping (I know, I know) - my cardio-fitness is not what it will be. Got some upper body stuff done too. Shower and then watched "Insiders". Tried to zone out the... Continue Reading →
Demography, death, decarbonisation. All this and not much more at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas (see also, technopolitical salvationism and China Crisis)
I've spent bits of the last two days sat in neo-Gothic wood-panelled halls listening to sages on the stage. Some of the sages have been great. Others, well, that's why I took a book, innit? This is not, after all, my first go at this rodeo. It's the "Adelaide Festival of Ideas" again, that under-funded... Continue Reading →
