• The Ghosts in the Machine, by Liz Pelly: This treatment of music as nothing but background sounds—as interchangeable tracks of generic, vibe-tagged playlist fodder—is at the heart of how music has been devalued in the streaming era.
• Humphrey's world: how the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain's strangest pub chain | Food & drink industry | The Guardian: Over time, Smith's preferences seem to have grown increasingly tyrannical. In November 2019, he shuttered the Cow and Calf outside Sheffield after he was informed it would be unable to produce a chocolate fondant, his favourite dessert. ... It isn’t just that Humphrey wants to build and run his properties and pubs exactly as he pleases. For decades, he has also been waging, through his company, a multi-front war against local planners, preventing councils, individuals and other companies from developing their land and properties.
• Ants prove superior to humans in group problem-solving maze experiment: Unsurprisingly, the cognitive abilities of humans gave them an edge in the individual challenge, in which they resorted to calculated, strategic planning, easily outperforming the ants. In the group challenge, however, the picture was completely different, especially for the larger groups. Not only did groups of ants perform better than individual ants, but in some cases they did better than humans. Groups of ants acted together in a calculated and strategic manner, exhibiting collective memory that helped them persist in a particular direction of motion and avoid repeated mistakes. Humans, on the contrary, failed to significantly improve their performance when acting in groups. When communication between group members was restricted to resemble that of ants, their performance even dropped compared to that of individuals
• He was a church official who criticized Trump. He says Christianity is in crisis : NPR: It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.
• Australian bosses on notice as 'deliberate' wage theft becomes a crime - ABC News [Fair Work] will have to prove that the employer intentionally avoided paying a worker appropriate wages and penalties, superannuation or other entitlements. ... [An employment lawyer consulted for the article] thinks Fair Work will only go after particularly "egregious" or high-profile examples of intentional wage theft with its new powers. ... Fair Work is also giving cover to employers who self-report possible wage theft. So Fair Work explicitly says they're not targeting honest mistakes, and employers who think they've made honest mistakes can engage with Fair Work to fix it. Employers will only be in trouble for intentional wage theft. We cross now for comment: "We feel these new laws are an overreach," the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's chief of policy and advocacy, David Alexander, said in a statement.
• Washington Post cartoonist resigns after cartoon satirising newspaper's owner Jeff Bezos and Trump rejected - ABC News
• 'Trolling free-for-all': Australian politicians and experts criticise Meta for ditching factchecking | Australian politics | The Guardian: Zuckerberg has recently sought to repair a tumultuous relationship with Trump – who once threatened Zuckerberg that he would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he interfered with the 2024 election. Zuckerberg visited Trump after his election win in November and oversaw a US$1m Meta donation to Trump's inauguration fund.

YouTube playlist: 2024 Mix Tape on YouTube.

There's aslo a Tidal playlist... minus Themata, which is still annoyingly missing from the platform: 2024 Mix Tape on Tidal.

Tracklist, and background if you're curious:

1. YES - Owner of a Lonely Heart. Learning about music production and buying a proper audio interface to drive my headphones gave me a new level of appreciation for a lot of songs - and not always the "obvious" kind of songs. The production on this track is a great example - much more going on than I'd ever have been able to hear listening to it on average 1980s gear.
2. Supertramp - The Logical Song. Another track I loved as a kid but came back with fresh ears.
3. Tycho Brahe - Free (2024 Tour Version). Tycho cut this together after their crazy experience opening for The Human League's whole tour. I caught up with them a couple of times, doing a couple of airport runs and catching them at The Enmore. Fun moment getting a shout out during the Enmore gig (for running the website). I mean... web geeks do not usually get a cheer at The Enmore :)
4. DJ Misjah - Access (Original Mix). It was kinda this or putting something from Paul Van Dyk's Out There And Back on the list again. Classics that keep on giving.
5. MEUTE - Hypnose (Future Edit). Got onto a huge kick going through Meute's catalogue... who knew that a techno marching band could be a thing, let alone this damn good?
6. Karnivool - Themata. First of two "cancelled by COVID" gigs that I ticked off this year. They had to cancel a tour celebrating their Sound Awake album, eventually playing it as a live-streamed gig - which was good, but even while I watched it I longed to be standing shoulder to shoulder with my mates belting out the words. I'm not sure I have ever *longed* for a musical experience quite as deeply. Finally this year it happened.
7. Iron Maiden - The Writing On The Wall. The other cancelled-by-COVID gig was Iron Maiden so I was stoked to finally see the Irons again. With the lads not getting younger, I don't expect they can keep touring a hell of a lot longer - was worried this tour wouldn't happen when Nicko had his stroke. With good reason I suppose as he retired from touring a few months later. Glad I could see Nicko play one last time.
8. Fatboy Slim - Role Model. Fatboy Slim dropped a new track and it's just fun.
9. After Cooking - A Name I Don't Know. Playing techno on old pots, broken cymbals and a PVC pipe tubulum... because why not? Turns out anything sounds good with enough reverb and delay ;)
10. PPK - ResuRection (Space Club Mix) (2001). This classic popped up in a rolling playlist and I realised while I know the track incredibly well, it doesn't appear in my MP3 collection, itunes, etc. Extra geeky fact: the main theme is taken from a soviet movie soundtrack from 1979.
11. Underworld - denver luna. New album from Underworld is an absolute banger. We were meant to catch them at the Opera House again but got sick, unfortunately. Have to just console myself with memories of last time; and absolutely smashing the album.
12. The Cure - Drone:Nodrone. New album by The Cure, and it's really good.
13. Choirboys - Run to Paradise. This one is probably the surprise track (to me as well) which sneaks onto the list after a slightly odd night, out for a beer with a mate and ending up in a sort of lock-in at a brewery. The owner and his mates were kicking on and playing a bunch of Aussie rock classics. This track ended up stuck in my head for weeks.

Labels: mix tape

• The Bookseller - News - Penguin Random House underscores copyright protection in AI rebuff: The world's biggest trade publisher has changed the wording on its copyright pages to help protect authors' intellectual property from being used to train large language models (LLMs) and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools
• Employee Experience - some workplace relationship advice: Unexpressed expectations are often pre-meditated resentments. That is, I expect you to do something that you don't know I want you to do, but I'll be resentful if you don't do it
• NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson underestimates Sydney rent prices - ABC News: Ms Jackson said you could find two-bedroom apartments in Sydney for "a couple of hundred bucks". Meanwhile for people who live on the planet earth, the median price for a two-bedder in Sydney is $720/week.
• The Internet is Shrinking: The web was born as digital democracy: raw, open, infinite. A universe where anyone could build, create, and connect without permission. Now we're all just tenants in Big Tech's digital dystopia.
• Social Media Respond Health Insurance CEO Murder With Little Sympathy: Across social media, the response to the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO was contemptuous of the industry he represented
• The Great Bedrock Clog Heist: How a small outdoor footwear company lost 5,000 pairs of shoes and found itself entangled in an international crime saga
• Australia, PNG unveil deal for Papua New Guinea team to enter NRL in 2028 - ABC News. The increasingly inaccurately named National Rugby League adds a third country.
• Dutton's nuclear plan a 'heroic', cherrypicked 'recipe for higher energy bills', experts say - ABC News: Some of the nation's top energy analysts have criticised the Coalition's nuclear plan, saying it will be more expensive, burn more carbon, result in a smaller economy and be more disruptive than Peter Dutton claims.

• Microsoft says it's okay to steal content published on the web | Windows Central: "With respect to content that is already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the 90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been freeware, if you like. That's been the understanding," said Suleyman. Many creators do not agree with this take.
• What the Athletes Will Be Eating at the Paris 2024 Olympics - Eater: each delegation has rooms in the village to create their own things. The Australian delegation, they literally turned a space into a coffee shop and brought a barista. *sniff* I'm so proud.
• Elon Musk's X under pressure from regulators over data harvesting for Grok AI | X | The Guardian: The UK and Irish data watchdogs said they have contacted X over the apparent attempt to gain user consent for data harvesting without them knowing about it.
• Preliminary Notes on the Delvish Dialect, by Bruce Sterling | by Bruce Sterling | Jul, 2024 | Medium
• Musk's X sues Unilever, Mars and CVS over 'massive advertiser boycott' | X | The Guardian. He's at a loss to know why advertisers aren't flocking to his platform. He's tried literally telling them to 'go fuck themselves', he's tried suing them, what more can he do?
• Disney terms prevent allergy death lawsuit, Disney says - BBC News: Disney World is arguing a man cannot sue it over the death of his wife because of terms he signed up to in a free trial of Disney.
• Paul Graham and the Cult of the Founder - by Dave Karpf: Aaron was, in a sense, my generation's equivalent of Woz. It isn't a perfect analogy. But as archtypes go, it fits well enough. They don't even try to produce Aarons anymore. Everyone is trying to be Sam frickin' Altman now. [...] A small, cloistered elite of not-especially-bright billionaires have decided that they are very, very special, and that the problem with society these days is that people keep treating them like everyone else.
• Startup Says It'll Use Huge Space Mirror to Sell Sunlight During Nighttime. Offered without comment.

• The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat: The reason websites continue to load, bank transfers go through, and civilization persists is because of the thousand or so people living aboard 20-some ships stationed around the world, who race to fix each cable as soon as it breaks. [...] “The main issue for me in the industry has to do with hyperscalers coming in and saying we need to reduce costs every year,” said Wilkie, the chair of the ACMA, using the industry term for tech giants like Google and Meta. “We’d all like to have maintenance cheaper, but the cost of running a ship doesn’t actually change much from year to year. It goes up, actually. So there has been a severe lack of investment in new ships.”
• Spotify CEO Daniel Ek surprised by how much laying off 1,500 employees negatively affected the streaming giant's operations: In December, Spotify culled 1,500 jobs, equivalent to 17% of employees, as part of an aggressive efficiency drive as the group strived for profitability. ... the footprint left behind by those employees was bigger than Ek and his executives anticipated. ... Ek didn't elaborate on what aspects of operations were most affected by the layoffs.
• Tesla Cybertruck bricked after car wash, claims user %u2022 The Register: There's also the owner who took his Cybertruck off-roading, and broke it, leaving many wondering what Tesla's latest and greatest can actually do. Musk once touted the Cybertruck as "literally bulletproof" but whether it's even waterproof seems open to some debate.
• How beavers help prevent megafires, restore scorched wildlands: River segments hosting beaver-created dams fared far better during and after megafires than riverscapes without beaver activity, leaving pockets of intact habitat crucial for wildlife, and protecting waterways from runaway erosion, a study published in The Geological Society of America in January found.
• Raw Milk Enthusiasts Demand Milk Infected With H5N1. Not parody.
• I stumbled upon LLM Kryptonite and no one wants to fix it %u2022 The Register: Despite my best efforts to hand this flaming bag of Kryptonite on to someone who could do something about it, this is where matters remain as of this writing. No one wants to hear about it.
• British PM Rishi Sunak announces plan to bring back mandatory national service - ABC News. British politics being very normal.
• AEC warns it doesn't have power to deter AI-generated political misinformation at next election | Australian politics | The Guardian. They didn't have the power to deal with a purple sign, so they certainly can't deal with deepfake misinformation campaigns.
• A landmark multi-year global partnership with News Corp | OpenAI. Unless OpenAI is striking deals with a huge range of media companies, this is a really bad idea.
• Funny numbers mean success for the NRL: When the NRL’s “official attendance” came through in March, it showed: 40,746. [...] The Las Vegas Raiders recently released a Q1 report for the city’s stadium authority [which showed the NRL's opening round] was attended by 31,927 people.

• Microsoft warns Russian hackers still trying to break into its systems | Reuters: Given Microsoft's vast customer network, it is not surprising it is being targeted, said Jerome Segura, principal threat researcher at the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes' Threatdown Labs. He added it was unnerving that the attack was still underway despite Microsoft's efforts to thwart access.
• Coalition steps up calls to ban TikTok over links to China - ABC News: The Australian government last year banned the use of TikTok on government devices, but Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government had no current plans for a nationwide ban. Ms Rowland stopped short of ruling out such a ban in the future, saying the government would follow the advice of its own security agencies.
• New AI paint colors: I trained a neural net from scratch on lists of colors I could find online, and with no prior training on English or any language (and therefore no idea what paint colors were) it managed to reproduce some of the letter combinations in the originals. But it lacked the context to know not to generate colors like these
• AFL admits players who have illicit drugs in their system have been pulled from games | AFL | The Guardian: The AFL has confirmed players who test positive to internal club drug tests have been pulled from match day lists as part of its illicit drugs policy, arguing the approach is in the players' best interests.
• Australian supermarket instant coffee taste test: the worst is 'what we'll drink during the apocalypse' | Coffee | The Guardian: It was so un-coffee-like some of us were convinced something had been added to give it a different aroma and flavour but, to our surprise, like all the coffees we tasted this is 100% coffee.
• Peter Dutton doubles down on comparing pro-Palestine protest and Port Arthur massacre responses - ABC News. For one brief moment the nation united as it looked at Dutton and said "that man is a pillock".
• Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay—a year after 62% said they expected a full-time return to office by 2026: KPMG surveyed U.S. CEOs of companies turning over at least $500 million and found that just one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years. So it's official: Leaders who believe that office workers will be back at their desks five days a week in the near future are now in the small minority. It's a complete 360 on their stance last year, when 62% of CEOs surveyed predicted that working from home would end by 2026.

• Sydney's Powerhouse Musuem to shut its doors for repairs amid backlash closure is 'unjustified' - ABC News: Dr Sharp, who also directed London's Science Museum for five years, said he doubted the Powerhouse would reopen in 2027 as promised — given the government has not released a refurbishment plan and the museum has been closed before planning approvals have been given, and a construction contract signed. [...] The arts minister has pledged $250 million for the museum's renovations — half the amount originally promised by the previous state government. But less than $120 million in expenditure has been allocated for the project over four years to 2026-27 in the latest state budget.
• The Engineer/Manager Pendulum – charity.wtf: The best frontline eng managers in the world are the ones that are never more than 2-3 years removed from hands-on work, full time down in the trenches. The best individual contributors are the ones who have done time in management. And the best technical leaders in the world are often the ones who do both. Back and forth. Like a pendulum.
• Employers could face criminal penalties for contacting employees out of hours after right-to-disconnect laws pass - ABC News: The second tranche of the government's industrial relations reform passed the upper house on Thursday afternoon, giving workers the right to ignore out-of-hours calls and emails, without being penalised.
• Cybertruck Owners Say They're Already Rusting: "I think as long as you don't drive it in the rain, or get it wet, it will be fine," wrote one [Cybertruck owner].
• Grotesque Enhanced Games removes brain barrier in quest to get running | Drugs in sport | The Guardian: The founder of the Enhanceds is someone called Aron Ping D'Souza, American tech entrepreneur, personality-capitalist and one of those business people whose rhetorical style involves boasting about their own extreme, brutal, gamechanging honesty, even while spouting the most unbelievable horseshit.
• Which big employers have the largest and smallest gender pay gaps? New data reveals all - ABC News
• Elon Musk sues ChatGPT maker OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman for allegedly 'perverting' mission for profit - ABC News: Mr Musk is suing over breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair business practices. Those claims are unlikely to succeed in court, but that might not be the point for Mr Musk, who is getting his take and personal story on the record

• Google agrees to settle Chrome incognito mode class action lawsuit | Ars Technica: Google has indicated that it is ready to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 over its Chrome browser's Incognito mode. Arising in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accused Google of continuing to "track, collect, and identify [users'] browsing data in real time" even when they had opened a new Incognito window.
• A national crackdown on disposable vapes begins today. How will it work? - ABC News. Vape not-exactly-a-ban has started. I hope it works, and I will not miss the stink of cherry-mint fart any more than I miss the smell of stale cigarettes.
• Morrison government failed to give Howard-era national security cabinet papers to national archives | Cabinet papers | The Guardian. As is so common with the Morrison government... whether it was incompetence or malice, the result is the same.
• RTO Policies Don't Improve Employee Performance or Company Value: Ma compared each firm's financial performance on the stock market before and after implementing return-to-office mandates and found no significant change in either the financial performance or the stock market value. [...] "We found that return-to-office mandates are more common among firms with poor stock performance and stock returns," Ma said
• Should government step in to help Australians quit their big car habit? - ABC News: Australians didn't just wake up and decide they wanted bigger cars, rather "our tax system makes it attractive to do so".
• 'Impossible' to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says | OpenAI | The Guardian: The developer OpenAI has said it would be impossible to create tools like its groundbreaking chatbot ChatGPT without access to copyrighted material ...what they mean is it's impossible if they have to pay for that copyrighted material.
• Woolworths and Big W Australia Day decision prompts Peter Dutton to call for boycott - ABC News. I mean. Do we start with the fact they just aren't stocking stuff that wasn't selling? Or do we talk about how Dutton and his cronies lose their shit when other people call for boycotts? Or just once again observe Dutton has the imagination of a potato?
• How the humble stink bug helped Australia miss a major EV milestone | Australia news | The Guardian: ship carrying a bunch of EVs was turned around due to the detection of stinkbugs. The organisation estimates invasive alien species in Australia cost about $25bn each year in agricultural losses and pest management. ...so hopefully people won't whinge too much about a few cars being delayed.
• Lego worth thousands of dollars seized as police arrest alleged Melbourne drug trafficker | Victoria | The Guardian. When you have an expensive habit, and also sell drugs.
• End of an era, as Tom Scott stops doing weekly videos.

It's that time again with the annual playlist...

1. Caro Emerald - The Ghost Of You. Know this one from its use in The Peripheral, and although I watched it a while earlier for some reason this track bubbled back up later.
2. The HU - This Is Mongol. The Hu and Alice In Chains, what's not to like? :)
3. VNV Nation - Wait. New single that I played to death.
4. Up Down Jumper - Boris Brejcha. Came up on a random discovery list in Tidal and got thoroughly stuck in my head.
5. Anyma & Chris Avantgarde - Eternity. This track was all over social media with its inseparable visuals, but what really impressed me was how they adapted it to a long, narrow venue (clearly not what they'd designed it for). Bit odd to end up on a music playlist because of the lightshow, but it is what it is!

Next three are from an absolutely massive gig, Regurgitator's "Unit" show which was really a mini festival. It was my first gig since Tool, pre-covid! Also it was like a time machine back to Brisvegas in the late nineties, in the very best way.

6. Butterfingers - Get Up Outta The Dirt
7. Custard - Girls Like That
8. Regurgitator - Polyester Girl

Back to the randomness..

9. Armin van Buuren - Computers Take Over The World. Another one that came up on Tidal, at a time when everyone was talking about AI taking over everything AND I was learning to make music. Also it's very tongue in cheek, self-referential humour for music producers. Bit of a gimme for me, then.
10. Underworld - and the colour red. Underworld released another amazing track. That's it, that's all they need to do...
11. VNV Nation - Invictus. Double-dipping VNV as this one got stuck in my head after the album came out.

Big run to the finish with three gigs that happened in the space of about two weeks, which were all amazing in their own ways, so I'm double-dipping all three.

G. Love & Special Sauce was a total wildcard, suggested by a mate. It lead to an improbable night of running into another mate at the venue; and shenanigans ensued that were Very Inner West.

12. G. Love & Special Sauce - Blues Music
13. G. Love & Special Sauce - Cold Beverage

Devo's Freedom Of Choice album was one of the first cassettes I had, after my sister dubbed a copy for me. Pretty sure the tape had Scritti Politti on the other side. She was also showing me stuff I might like on VHS-recorded episodes of MTV and Rage - I remember Tears For Fears, The Cure, and lots of totally bonkers Devo film clips.

Somehow though I never quite made it to a Devo gig, nor saw them at a festivale, etc. So when they announced it was their last tour, it had to happen... and it didn't disappoint. They were just as unapologetically weird as I'd hoped.

14. Devo - Freedom Of Choice
15. Devo - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Followed that up just a few days later with Kraftwerk, which was just amazing. To be able to go see the urtext of electronic music felt like a privilege to me.

16. Kraftwerk - Metal on Metal
17. Kraftwerk - Tour de France (Etape 2)

While it's not on YouTube, honourable mention to Tycho's release of Tasty (Special Edition)... finally you too can enjoy the Banned By The BBC mix of Tainted/Who ;) Not to take away from all the awesome new tracks Tycho have released this year, it's just that Tainted/Who has a very special history.

Labels: mix tape

• There are headlines, and then there's Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies
• Australia makes world-first decision to ban engineered stone following surge in silicosis cases - ABC News: Australia has become the first country to announce a ban on engineered stone following a surge in workers developing the lung disease silicosis.
• Entire Wests Tigers administration ousted as former NSW premier returns to embattled NRL club | Wests Tigers | The Guardian: NRL club Wests Tigers have overhauled their entire administration following an independent review into the club, bringing in former New South Wales premier Barry O'Farrell as interim chair and ex-Souths boss Shane Richardson as interim chief executive. Yikes.
• Kingsmill the kingmaker: Triple J veteran who shaped Australia's music tastes for decades departs ABC | Australian music | The Guardian: However much you liked or hated his musical taste, at least Kingsmill was a real human being. There are now far fewer niches for tastemakers and cultural intermediaries. Your Spotify feed is programmed by a ghostly algorithm, while the power to launch new artists has been passed to TikTok. As robot playlists and major label tie-ups move inexorably towards the commanding heights of the music economy, it may be that we come to look on Kingsmill's time at Triple J with nostalgia.
• The 10 Most Hated Fonts of All Time | WDD. Mostly good but over-used fonts. Plus a couple that were always simply crap.
• St Vincent’s Hospital to be insolvent by April | The Saturday Paper: The SVHA group has $3.6 billion in assets and almost $400 million in cash and cash equivalents at hand, although this is apparently not to be spent to rescue its failing public operation. For those not familiar, this is a situation where the public and private hospitals are literally next door. One rolling in cash, the other broke. You could not get a clearer illustration of why maintaining two entire hospital systems in parallel is ludicrous.
• Facebook Is Being Overrun With Stolen, AI-Generated Images That People Think Are Real: In many ways, this is a tale as old as time: people lie and steal content online in exchange for likes, influence and money all the time. But the spread of this type of content on Facebook over the last several months has shown that the once-prophesized future where cheap, AI-generated trash content floods out the hard work of real humans is already here, and is already taking over Facebook. It also shows Facebook is doing essentially nothing to help its users decipher real content from AI-generated content masquerading as real content, and that huge masses of Facebook users are completely unprepared for our AI-generated future.
• The New York Times is suing Microsoft and OpenAI for billions. Here's what it claims their AI bots are up to - ABC News. It's quite a list, including claims ChatGPT attributed made-up stories to the NYT.
• Clue in the windscreen may be key in legal challenge to Queensland's AI traffic fine system | Queensland | The Guardian: Visible in the car's windscreen is what appears to be a reflection of Trueman's upside-down numberplate. Hard to imagine how a reflections of the car's own number plate could be on the windscreen.