Walk into an Australian supermarket and count the flavours of potato chips (crisps) from Kettle, Pringles, Red Rock Deli and Smith’s. I did, and the answer is 42. Chinese carmakers alone now sell about 72 models in Australia.

That figure comes from Pitcher Partners, the same analysis behind my earlier post on Australia’s Chinese EV soup. It has roughly 72 Chinese models on sale in 2026, jumping to about 120 in 2027. That is before you count a single Toyota, Ford or Mazda. Why so many, so fast? Liam Denning’s Bloomberg column in The Age has the answer, and it is not demand.

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My thoughts this morning are with Helen Haines and her family. She is in a critical condition at The Alfred in Melbourne, and I hope, as so many Australians do, that she is able to recover from her injuries.

On Monday afternoon she was standing at the boot of her car outside her Wangaratta electorate office when a Toyota Land Cruiser hit her. According to the ABC’s live coverage, witnesses saw the driver make a U-turn, strike her against her own vehicle, reverse and hit her again. A bystander ran to the car and pulled him out.

This is shocking political violence, in a nation that has rarely faced anything like it.

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Regular readers know that I love a good list. This is certainly a great list which will no doubt spark debate and hopefully encourage many to pick up a book.

ABC Radio National asked listeners to vote for their favourite Australian books, and the countdown of 100 finished over the weekend. As The Guardian’s Stephanie Convery reported, Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet took first place, ahead of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe. It is not a new result for Winton. Cloudstreet also topped the ABC’s public poll back in 2003.

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The Beatles (L-R) Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon at the BBC Television Studios in London before the start of their world tour, 17 June 1966. Central Press/Getty Images

The best-selling vinyl album in Britain last week was recorded in 1965.

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“It’s hard to be an influencer via a newspaper.” That one line from James Marriott explains more about politics in 2026 than most of the punditry I have heard this year. The New York Times podcast Interesting Times has handed its microphone to a series of guest hosts, and Mary Harrington’s turn is a cracker. She talks with Marriott, a Times of London columnist and author of The New Dark Ages.

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Australia has more than 70 car brands fighting over about 1.2 million sales a year. Another one has just been announced. Trying to keep track of the models and manufacturers is becoming like trying to spot the floating ingredients in a Sichuan hotpot.

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“If Kathy calls, tell her I’ll be there at two.”

Of everything in Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator video - the tablet, the video calls, the bow-tied agent - that throwaway line is the one nobody has delivered. Siri AI and ChatGPT both understand the sentence perfectly. Neither can do it properly.

This post started with a question. SmartFriend™ Peter Marks asked it back in January on marxy.org: Apple’s Knowledge Navigator - are we there yet? His verdict was close, with long-term memory and autonomous multi-step tasks still missing. “Not quite there, but it is within reach.”

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TLDR

The test. Haiku 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 each wrote nine research drafts from identical source packs, using one fixed template. Two AI judges compared them blind, 27 verdicts in all.

The result. Sonnet won 16 verdicts and Haiku 11. Sonnet is better at insight, accuracy and readability. Coverage is tied. Neither model invented a quote.

The twist. It depends on the sources. Sonnet won 15 of 18 verdicts on messy news-style packs by cross-checking and catching errors. Haiku won 8 of 9 on a dense documentation pack, where breadth is the job.

The price. About one US cent a draft for Haiku and nine cents for Sonnet.

My take. Haiku for first-pass drafts on well-organised sources. Sonnet when the sources disagree or might be wrong.

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