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The Australian Public Service’s (APS) official culture of AI adoption is not found in the glossy press releases of its ministers. But we’ll get to that shortly. The real story of AI adoption is revealed in the quiet, conflicting, and deeply secretive actions of its most senior bureaucrats. A case in point: Hamish Hansford. Hansford is not a mid-level manager; he is the Department of Home Affairs’ Head of National Security, the Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, and the National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator....

Australia’s world-first ban on social media for children under 16 takes effect in just over a month on December 10, 2025, yet nobody knows exactly how it will work. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 passed parliament in a rushed process in November last year, imposing potential fines of up to $50 million on platforms that fail to keep out underage users. While 77% of Australians support the ban, only 25% believe it will actually work, and with weeks until launch, the mounting controversies, technical failures, and expert warnings suggest it’s becoming exactly the shitshow sceptics predicted....

Australia has a new plan to keep kids safe online. On the surface, it sounds simple, maybe even sensible. The government is banning anyone under sixteen from having a social media account. From December, platforms like Instagram and TikTok will have to kick the kids off in an effort to stop social harm. It’s a nice idea. But when you pull back the curtain, you find a privacy disaster waiting to happen....

CBA has been naughty, and too reliant on their AI boyfriend. Here’s what happened: A CBA customer contacted bank requesting contact details for Secretlab (a company that is not us, and makes chairs) CBA staff member queried ChatGPT (possibly via their own personal, unauthenticated access to ChatGPT) to obtain phone number for Secretlab (chairs) CBA staff disclosed the retrieved phone number to the requesting customer The retrieved phone number is a number belonging to one of the directors of Secret Lab (a company that does not make chairs, and is us), a customer of CBA, and is used for our CBA account and our Director’s CBA account Therefore, CBA disclosed customer personal information to another, unrelated customer, and trusted a third-party LLM (ChatGPT), accessed seemingly unauthenticated on the consumer ChatGPT platform, as a source for data to provide to another customer During investigation, CBA staff replicated the same ChatGPT query process, seemingly on a personal phone, again unauthenticated, and on the consumer ChatGPT platform: Signs indicate this might be routine practice amongst CBA staff Oh, and they gave out the phone number for us, Secret Lab (not chairs), to someone looking for Secretlab’s (chairs) phone number....

The recent delisting of over 17,000 games from the independent platform Itch.io wasn’t a content moderation decision made by the platform itself. It was an act of financial coercion. Instigated by an Australian activist group and carried out by payment processors like Mastercard, it sets a dangerous precedent for all creative fields online. The stated goal of the campaign was to combat media that glorifies sexual violence. An aim that sounds laudable, making it difficult to argue against in public....

While the rest of the world loses its collective mind over artificial intelligence, Tasmania is sitting on an amazing competitive advantage… and might be about to throw it away by jumping on the AI bandwagon. Everything that makes Tasmania economically successful is the exact opposite of what AI represents. And if Tasmanian businesses start chasing AI “efficiency” instead of leveraging their authentic advantages, they’ll transform from premium producers into generic commodity suppliers....

CFP open now! I’m thrilled to, once again, be helping run two of my favourite conferences in the world: /dev/world and X World! Both are returning to Melbourne, hosted at the fantastic Seek HQ, and the CFP is open now. X World runs 2-3 September 2025 and /dev/world runs 4-5 September 2025. X World is for those who champion Apple platform users. It covers essential areas like user education, system administration, effective platform deployments, smart device management, and more....

Wise has stolen more than $60,000 AUD from us, and refuses to let us access it. We’ve had a Wise account for around 5 years (since they were called TransferWise). It’s been a really useful way to transact in foreign currencies, and pay for things when we’re travelling for work. In early-April 2025, Wise asked us to provide some additional information on our Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) by uploading a statement of shareholders, and the ID of the owners....

You’ve been begging for it, and here it is! Announcing an exciting new product from Yarn Spinner… 🪐 Mass Effect 2 Save Importer for Yarn Spinner 🚀 Access everything about everything that players have done in the most important game of all time, straight from Yarn. Visit yarnspinner.dev/mesaves to get started. You can find this on Bluesky to reshare it.

Eleanor arranged her storybooks on the small wooden table, her arthritic fingers tracing the worn covers she’d carried to the local library every Wednesday for twenty-three years. The familiar room felt much colder today. “We’re starting with ‘The Cloud Sailor’ since it’s Amy’s birthday,” she announced to the gathered children. Some weren’t listening, which was normal, but many were also staring at the gleaming white booth being installed in her corner....