Julian’s Scrawings

The key to growing older with grace: look at younger people with respect and enthusiasm, look to them as leaders and innovators, artists and thinkers. Do not resent them when they exceed your achievements, and strive so that their lives are better than yours was or could ever have been.

Senator Roberts isn't so sure about this gender work discrimination thingy. Like maybe men just have certain "physical and behavioral" traits that make them better CEOs... live.thepoint.com.au

Doug Cameron: “Five years on from the announcement of AUKUS, a project founded on subterfuge and evasion, the public inquiry into AUKUS will launch its report at the National Press Club in Canberra on 4 November. This inquiry has gone where both the Coalition and the ALP have failed to go.” #auspol

My article on AUKUS. AUKUS is about madness, militarism and money. Turning Australia into a US military base, sacrificing our sovereignty, and enriching retired politicians, military and public servants while battlers struggle to put food on the table

Online ads are generally well targeted so it stands out when they are not. I've been getting ads for Israeli citizenship and ads for online tobacco sales. Dear machine overlords, those are very badly targeted ads, you could save your micro-cents.

Free advertising Charity shouldn’t be needed if you live in a country with good governance

"Currently, under the law, automated decisions made by the IAT's algorithm cannot be overridden and changed, even if they are clinically inappropriate," Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson. Putting algorithmic process ahead of human judgement needs to be seen as a failure of democratic governance.

✊ Sign the Declaration of Our Right to Protest: australiandemocracy.org.au/declaration

This was a journey, from thinking it was easy and almost solved, to still having options on the last line: Wordle 1,955 6/6* 🟩⬛🟨⬛⬛ 🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩 🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩 🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩 🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Remember, Australia has poorly defended individual freedoms, no bill of rights, expanding anti-protest laws, restrictions on independent unions, etc. Getting one big player covers a huge part of a market because of industry consolidation; no surprise Palantir is doing what they can do here.

It's a problem that AI can offer seductive detail in search results. I notice myself falling into a trap of asking follow up questions that are shaped by the details in previous answers, that subtly my direction of inquiry is shaped by the AI summary of search results and problem domain.

#auspol #USPOL #USA #us #uspoli #poli #politics #cdnpoli #canada #MeidasMighty #america #communityovercapitalizm #history #Ethics #SocialJustice #LongerTables #DemocraticSocialist #Ecosocialism #Socialist #socialism #LeftIsBest #ClassConsciousness #FalseConsciousness #abolishcapitalism #HumanRights

Since the attack on Helen Haines MP, we've had a man with nunchucks at Hannah Beazley MP's office, and now Anika Wells MP has had to close her office. I'm seeing a pattern, it'd be nice to hear @albomp.bsky.social calling out the obvious. #auspol

"We have normalised a system where money buys faster access to treatment" writes @lukeslawomirski.bsky.social Read the full piece on The Point: https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/261023-the-latest-debate-about-private-health-exposes-that-our-health-system-is-not-as-universal-as-we-think

In an address this week, former High Court Justice Michael Kirby argued that poverty wasn’t simply an economic issue but a fundamental human rights matter that was holding people back from participating in democracy. Read the full piece on The Point: https://sbrew.link/FLYSzBP4

With my aphantasia the clear rich internal involuntary images of my dreams are simply not there for me when I try to voluntarily visualise anything. It’s the inaccessibility of that kind of visual imagination, knowing from dreams what it could be, that makes my aphantasia feel like a lack.

On Pinterest looking up some reference images for a project. Noticing people often asking who is the artist, or where was a photo taken. It's annoying because it's so easy to find these things out with Google Image Search. An example of a good use of AI solving a meaningful problem.

When the RBA pushes up interest rates up it's on government to use other policy to balance. Weak economy and private industry on the defensive? Government can maintain demand, perhaps by, instead of diving head first into uncharted AI territory, leaning into valuable projects made by humans.

"The US, to which we continue to tie ourselves as our primary ally, is driven by ideologies which should be anathema to all but a small number of Australians" It's a clear and present danger that that small number includes Albo and Cabinet ministers. #auspol pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/10...

ABC New Headline: "Odds of November rate hike higher after RBA deputy appears at investment event". Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing again and expecting a different result? Explicitly wanting increased unemployment, targeting above 5%, and tolerating a weaker economy. #auspol

future generations will marvel that while all this was happening 34% of americans still approved of donald trump, reform in the UK & german neo-nazis were making electoral gains, & a huge number of fools in australia were looking at the PHON clown car & thinking ‘yeah, i’ll vote for that!’ #auspol

This is an incredibly dangerous precedent and confirms all the dangers of AUKUS - wargaming Australia as the base for a US war with China - and us even paying for it. We need to end AUKUS before this becomes real.

Heard a good take on what makes the world different for Gen-Z. They are the first generation that always experienced the media as untrustworthy, that from day one had to be taught not to trust it, and know that they primarily an exploitable resource in the economy.

USA is beyond unreliable, we cannot trust what they will do in the world, and the end of Trump's reign doesn't change the underlying untrustworthiness of their system. "Several" is doing heavy lifting: it's almost all. We need to cut losses on AUKUS and review US bases here. #AUKUS #auspol

Yes, Minister! Can a Minister interfere with FOI disclosures? Rex Patrick reports. Read it here: https://michaelwest.com.au/yes-minister-can-a-minister-interfere-with-foi-disclosures/

"A classic Ponzi scheme relies on early investors putting up hard cash to sustain a structure built on non-existent or undeliverable assets." The gullible Richard Marles is undermining Australia's security, while throwing away $billions on #AUKUS. #auspol pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/10...

Investors brace for big tech collapse as debt levels soar

It’s just a master study, a copy made from another artist’s work to understand their mark making and to take time with the logic of their work. But I do feel an affinity for pen and ink and I feel like it’s worth my time.

More and more artists on social media share videos of their process, camera of human hand and stylus painting digitally, etc. I guess they are fighting for human attention when It’s easy to be smothered by AI. But selfish me loves the ever more human touch.

Labor sets these payments and they could fix this tomorrow. Lift the pension and income support so people can keep a roof over their heads. Cap rent increases and build public housing now. Secure housing shouldn't be treated as a luxury.

As terrible as it is that our young people struggle to see a future with secure housing, as critical as that is to resolve, we must also keep firmly in sight the housing insecurity faced right now by boomers in retirement and gen-X looking at it hopelessly.

These cat sketches are my favourite page of drawing. I remember staying at my sister’s house unemployed waiting for the nieces and nephews to get home from school. Five or so minutes to capture each likeness and unfussy quick reference picks found Pinterest. I really should spend more time this way.

Strange fact: I have quite strong aphantasia. I can visualise with open eyes but visuals go away when I close them; I have vivid visual dreams but can't re-see those images; I'm a visual artist, but pictures in my mind are effects and processes, I can't just sit with a picture in my mind's eye.

ABC reporter could face disciplinary action over opinion piece, journalists’ union says

Chris Bowen says that Australia won’t buy Russian oil, (good), but that what the US does is not our business. But we can’t host US military on our soil and fight as their ally and then pretend to be unconcerned about the consequences and conduct of US wars. #auspol

“The problem with the definition as it stands is that it measures how a person's support is funded, rather than the reality of their support needs,” says Maeve Kennedy. “That creates a significant gap in the safeguard.” trib.al/A8pHrXw

Obscure hot takes: I don't normally want my cocktails double strain because I kinda like the little splinters of ice on the surface of a cocktail, particularly a classic daiquiri.

Like videos of beheadings, this how you desensitise and excite people, to create acceptance of and active desire to engage in more of the same. If you wanted to prepare a population for violently enforced martial law and civil war this would be on the short list.