Clean energy still runs on the assumption that facts speak for themselves. Last month, fossil fuel groups spent 179 times more money betting that they do not.

The spending gap

RenewEconomy pulled the numbers straight from Meta’s ad library, and they are stark. In August, five fossil fuel organisations spent roughly $553,000 on political ads in Australia. The entire renewables industry spent $3,090. That is not a rounding error in a marketing budget. It is one side fully mobilised and the other side barely in the room.

Continue reading →

No one had seen a plains-wanderer west of Melbourne in thirty years. Thirty-five microphones did it in one season.

The plains-wanderer is critically endangered, standing about 15cm tall, roughly the size of a pencil, with wide yellow eyes that make it look like a cartoon bird. Fewer than 1,000 remain in the wild. It has no living relatives, genetically alone in its own family, which is part of why birdwatchers travel the world hoping to tick it off. It is also spectacularly good at not being seen: it crouches in grass tussocks and relies on camouflage, a habit that keeps it safe from foxes and safe from human eyes too.

Continue reading →

Norway taxes unrealised gains. About 1% a year, calculated on full market value for listed assets and book value for private companies, assessed on whatever your net worth happens to be on New Year’s Eve. It doesn’t matter if your startup is loss-making with no cash flow, if your portfolio has since tanked, or if the company has gone bankrupt since the valuation date. The bill still arrives.

hagaetc.eth lays this out in Norway Shrugged, an Atlas Shrugged-flavoured account of watching Norway’s entrepreneurial class walk out the door.

Continue reading →

My Claude experience keeps getting less satisfactory. Every week I bang up against the Cowork weekly limit. Now that limit is about to get smaller, not bigger, whatever the headline says.

The math Anthropic already admitted

On 29 August, Anthropic’s own developer account, @ClaudeDevs, posted this on X:

“Starting September 14, we’re permanently raising standard weekly limits in Claude Code by 25% for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans. Until then, the current 50% increase will be in place.”

Continue reading →

Smart glasses manufacturers are about to learn the lesson Google learned with Street View: you can document the world, or you can document people. Doing both without consent has consequences.

The EU is now actively considering restrictions on smart glasses, with Germany’s data protection authority warning they could already be illegal under existing laws prohibiting hidden recording devices. France and the Netherlands have raised similar alarms. In the US, New York courts have banned them outright, DEF CON barred Meta Ray-Bans from its conference floor, and the Air Force prohibits them in uniform.

Continue reading →

A controversial Scottish seabird hunt will not go ahead for the first time in 400 years, in what campaigners have called a “victory for common sense”.

In the annual guga hunt, up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed over a 10-day period on the uninhabited Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles north of Lewis and Harris.

NatureScot, which is responsible for licensing, refused to allow this year’s hunt to go ahead, citing a potential “adverse impact” on gannet populations according to new modelling. All coastal wild bird colonies are at increased risk due to bird flu and climate change.

A petition to the Scottish Parliament to end the practice attracted more than 100,000 signatures. It was started by talented young wildlife photographer, Rachel Bigsby.. I am proud to have added my name to the petition.

Continue reading →

“A major survey by the ECFR in June found that Britons now regard Brexit as a “disaster”, with three-quarters wanting a closer relationship with the EU. One striking number: when asked to choose, 63% said they would prioritise the relationship with the EU over the US, with only 19% making the opposite choice.” Spotted on social media. Of course I had to fact check that. It does line up with recent polls from ECFR - European Council on Foreign Relations.

Continue reading →

Dispatch has been a nice extension of Claude Cowork. It’s available for mobile app and desktop. Dispatch enables you to start a task from your smartphone that is executed by Cowork on your own computer, at home or work. That computer needs to powered-on and running Claude desktop app (Mac/Windows/Linux). This means tasks can access all of your local data and memory. Much more useful than Claude.ai - the web chat interface that lacks access to your local files and context.

Continue reading →

OpenAI’s new model, Astra, is impressive for solving ten major open problems in mathematics and theoretical computer science. However, the success of Astra in these specific domains does not guarantee its effectiveness in all areas, as it relies on the unique characteristics of math, such as verification and synthetic data. Gary Marcus says that the lack of transparency from OpenAI regarding the methodology and limitations of Astra raises questions about its broader applicability and potential pitfalls.

Continue reading →

Colin Gray gave his 14-year-old son an AR-15 for Christmas. That rifle killed four people at Apalachee High School. On Thursday, a Georgia court gave Colin Gray 15 years for murder. He didn’t pull the trigger. He is still going to prison. It’s only the third time a US parent has been convicted for a school shooting committed by their child - but legal experts are calling it a turning point.

Continue reading →