kim

[kim]

It took a few weeks waiting for all my data requests to be ready. But having stopped using it for years, I have finally deactivated my Facebook/Meta account.

Fuck you, Zuck, and goodbye.

[kim]

I'm melting.

[kim]

Owl City had a cover of Boston too‽

[kim]

Oh shit! Augustana has been performing and recording with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra? And a live album is coming this week? With Boston‽

(Boston came up while shuffling through some Scrubs music this morning, which led me to become curious and look up what's been happening with Augustana.)

[kim]

Millie Muroi, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age:

“It's a great shirt and says it all, doesn't it?” Tame said of her attire. “If we want to dismantle the concentration of morbid wealth that undemocratically rules the world, and really makes the major political decisions that affect the everyday person; if we want climate action and if we want justice, if we want truth, I think it's probably a good place to start. “If you want to get a few birds with one giant, ugly stone, this is it.”

Asked on Saturday what her message would be to Murdoch, she said: ���You've ruined the planet.”

I love her.

[kim]

Also, on the walk back home, a terrier of some sort — I don't know dog breeds — tried to attack me and actually gave my knee a little bite?

Don't think I've ever been attacked by a dog before.

[kim]

Community Day is much better when it's not 40 ℃.

My 22 2 km eggs, though, only gave me two Rookidees. Bullshit.

[kim]

Some say Malcolm Gutenberg is a “hot guy”.

I think he's a better‐looking version of Max Verstappen.

[kim]

Anyway, this is kinda what I was picturing when I said “Not Nazi” billboards for EVs.

Remind people to stop considering Tesla.

[kim]

If I was running marketing for an EV manufacturer, I'd be licensing photos from Associated Press or Reuters or wherever, and make print ads and billboards and posts online with the image, my brand logo, and text that simply read, “Not Nazi.”

May not run well in the US, but I imagine it can be a pretty effective reminder for consumers everywhere else in the world.

(And then bonus PR when a defamation suit comes along.)

[kim]

I've heard the term “trainbow” before, of course. But “Benderlino”? For the Avanti “Pride” Pendolino? That's new to me.

Heh.

[kim]

In 2024, our solar panels earnt us AU$320 feeding electricity back into the grid. That could become less than AU$3 if, as proposed in another instance of taking‐out‐the‐trash last Friday, the minimum feed‑in does get severely cut (in Victoria) come July.

So I'm keeping an eye on this, and will probably start asking around about home batteries again. Even if it's only a small‑ish one to get us through the typical 3–9 pm window of peak electricity prices, I have a feeling it might finally be time to get a battery. One that is definitely not a Tesla Powerwall. (Electricity cost us about AU$530 during those six hours across all of last year.)

Chris Bowen has also said, “We've got more to do to help families further reduce their cost of living with solar panels and batteries…” So I'll also be waiting to hear what Labor might have to say on this this election.

[kim]

I'm still not feeling mentally ready for this.

[kim]

@kottke.org:

oh shit new logo just dropped

[kim]

Resolve recently found Australian voters — supposedly, and somehow — find Angus Taylor likeable, which is bizarre and not at all something I saw coming.

Best I'm hoping for this year is a bigger crossbench, and a minority Labor government.

(Nuclear really needs to stop being a distraction and be taken off the fucking table.)

Most banks predict the first interest rate cut will be in May, just in time to ensure the RBA has killed any chance of Labor being re-elected. What fortuitous timing for the Coalition to have caused all our economic problems for nearly a decade, leave Labor to reduce inflation and clean up the mess, and then waltz back in to fuck it up all over again.

[kim]

Oh wow. I have vague memories of seeing one black‐and‐white picture of Wilbert Awdry posing with his model railway before — maybe it was in that big Complete Collection compilation? — but I've never actually seen anything of it like this.

[kim]

Very much do not recommend 40 ℃ Community Days. Very much recommend shade.

It's unreasonable how little shade there is and how exposed it is on Southbank in Melbourne, I think.

But I did hatch a perfect Charcadet.