JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Australia still sleeping?
😂
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Yes. Most are. Figuratively and literally. They keep voting for Labor governments, after all.
420
Thankfully not in The Australian, but not read by the Majority
The climate science says we’re fooling ourselves
CHRIS KENNY
Transmission shock for households: Poles, wires, power price pain
Up to 10,000km of transmission projects are needed to deliver Australia’s switch to green energy. New analysis shows major cost blowouts could be passed on to household power bills.
PERRY WILLIAMS
Punished by green ideology, we’re stuck in energy poverty
Australia is rich in coal, natural gas and uranium so why isn’t it operating as a global energy superpower?
ROBERT BRYCE
Intervention in gas market sent ‘chilling signal’ to investors
COLIN PACKHAM
Highwire act on power is running out of cost control
Folly of not having a coherent energy plan from the outset is exposed.
EDITORIAL
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Dr Suneel Dhand talks about AI. He likes it and seems to trust it I always warn people about AI. It’s a tool only. Results must be checked and constantky monitored to see if they are sensible. Back in the day people understood the adage “garbage in, garbage out” in relation to computers. It still applies to AI. https://youtu.be/UgGoMM2-3mA
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The trouble with AI is that as it gets more and more proficient at mimicry and creating believable fakes, it becomes almost impossible for mere humans to know what’s real and what is fake news or propaganda. When trust in information, already low for many of us, is fully shattered and nobody knows what to believe or disbelieve, the post-truth age is fully upon us. We are then more vulnerable and easily misled. Without sound evidence our critical faculties are useless. We have two choices. Blindly believe or disbelieve. And in a panopticon totalitarian state truth or belief will no longer matter. There is only compliance or non compliance.
Is this real or AI?
Massive Dutch protest at The Hague
https://youtube.com/shorts/WtD3NY9MzHg?si=7D8OqoqagCh1SH1i
230
Obviously a sound track overlay.
Not a Palestinian Flag to be seen.
Like Covid Hospitals – here today gone tomorrow. USS Comfort leaves New York 30 April 2020
While at the same time as this massive mobilisation of trauma hospitals in the USA, a meteor hitting Nigeria and going nearly completely unreported. Exploding truck full of explosives or not?
Temporary Hospitals in the USA and China all closed down before Covid even kicked off.
What is true?
100
“and that “foreign rocks and strange metallic objects” were found within the crater created.”
So THAT’s where the Venus probe crashed!
10
The story of the meteor hitting Nigeria goes back five years, so its fake news and I blame NASA for starting the meme.
‘The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has increased the chance of a massive asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Lagos and other cities in Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, India, Ecuador, Colombia, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2032 to 3.1 per cent.’
00
One possible filter is to ask a second AI to review the first AI.
Another is to ask one AI what the other AI would say.
Providing of course there is some independence between the two.
40
At their ABC they call that ‘Journalism’.
This eliminates the risk of someone outside of the echo chamber going off script.
00
Sometimes I google something I’m interested in, but most here would probably not be interested in. Now google presents an “AI Overview” to searches. Oft times it is something I know is just plain wrong. A few times it was actually quoting something I recall writing on an internet forum perhaps 20 years ago. Treat AI Overviews as recycled opinion as a default.
50
Yes. The AI answer is unavoidable with Goolag. I too frequently find wrong answers. I only accept the answers if they sound plausible and basically know them to be true. Otherwise I go for primary sources. Anything on social sciences, covid or “climate change” from Goolag AI can be assumed to be nonsense, caution should be exercised with other scientific and technical matters. It’s partly because it’s been programmed with a Leftist social engineering ideology to promote a particular narrative.
20
David Maddison,
AI — meh. Its large language model, based on next word prediction, was covered quite well in the 1970s.
It wasn’t just in Life of Brian that the Python crew gave us glimpses of the future.
00
Here is a brief comment from Orson Wells which is part of a BBC interview (link below).
I particularly recommend you listen to what he says from 2:30 to 3:10. It is very prescient, even now, and warns about believing what you see and hear on radio, TV and newspapers.
The interview is undated but the (in)famous transmission of “The War of the Worlds” radio program which caused mass panic in the United States about which he speaks was in 1938. People thought there really was an alien (extraterrestrial) invasion.
Video: https://youtu.be/BkG70_wa4a8
Note that today there are opinions which suggest the extent of panic was exaggerated:
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The classic one about War of the Worlds is “Don’t be silly, dear, just look out of the window, if there really was an alien invasion there would be a flood of traffic going past. … Oh sh*t!”.
We can all test misinformation, but as the spread grows, that gets harder and harder.
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Don’t rely on AI as your test. It might be worse than Wiki.
30
Worse than wiki? Now there’s a mind boggling concept!
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Don’t panic, Mr Mannering [sic].
Scrolling through Monday morning madness radio gaga-land, I regrettably stumbled onto BBC’s Sunday night literary segment (the UK being half-a-day behind we antipodeans) where some frightfully English lady was praising the growing popularity of a genre called Climate Fiction.
When she introduced her brainiac guest, a frightful chap named Tristram who couldn’t say the letter ‘R’, they were gone – wooosh! – next station please…
As if there’s not enough 24/7 total-immersion over-saturation wholly fictitious made-up mumbo-jumbo climate drivel being pushed by not only the Beeb themselves but any and every other ‘trusted news source’ and publishers and the UN – we’re drowning in the stuff!
Mr O-for-Awesome Welles was spot-on with his diagnosis of modern-day media mannipulation [sic] fooling the masses, ie. don’t panic, Mr Mainwairing!
20
Questions to think about.
How can thinking Australians remain happy under a likely 6 to 9 years more of Labor federal government and possibly in most states as well, facing the prospect of rapidly rising costs, massive new taxes, charges and regulations, further censorship, further restrictions on national park usage (like Ayers Rock, Lake Ayre, Arapiles, Mt Warning), further restrictions on car ownership and use (e.g. the fuel efficiency standard), more inappropriate immigration, both in sheer numbers plus people not prepared to adopt Australian and Western culture and who will likely never work and pay taxes (and who are being imported far faster than housing can be built causing the housing crisis), crime out of control and unpunished or poorly punished, ongoing assaults on the energy system, ongoing war against the food supply and farmers (methane emissions, inappropriate measures against avian flu causing an egg shortage), huge, unprecedented levels of state and federal government debt, staggering cluelessness among many or even most politicians, senior public serpents, CSIRO and BoM, and university “scientists” etc., etc. etc…….?
Most importantly, how can we create a conservative opposition with a chance of getting elected?
I think it’s impossible to reform the Liberal Party.
We need a new genuinely conservative party, which also incorporates our existing conservative parties e.g. Trumpets, One Nation, Libertarian, Family First etc..
We have 6 to 9 years to do it, assuming there is anything worth saving by then.
Right now, we are effectively living in a one party state with no meaningful opposition.
310
Agreed.
Suggested name: The Pragmatic Australia Party 😁
40
How about National Reform Party.
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If you want to get elected call it “None of the above”
“How can thinking Australians remain happy under a likely 6 to 9 years more of Labor federal government and possibly in most states as well, ”
I wouldn’t worry, this is what people want, and in a system designed to vote your hand into someone else’s pocket you just have to wait for it to collapse before you can convince people of its stupidity.
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The Pragmatic Australia Party
And when campaigning commences attacks/claims from other parties could be referred to as PAP smears. What a way to get the attention of 50% of the electorate.
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The Uni party have already layed ground rules that make it near impossible to restore democracy.
A possible way around this is to fix the problem at the source.
Run candidates whose sole platform is to restore representation to being a community service and not a career. Their sole purpose on entering Parliament is to vote to remove their salaries and perks and the Public funding of Political parties.
The candidates would have to be prepared to be subjected to an excessive amount of personal scrutiny and anyone funding or organising would have to have a Trump like disposition and be prepared to sacrifice everything.
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Perhaps the new party could include the Nationals, now that they have split from the Libs.
The new party should be able to attract the former DLP voters and take them away from the Labor party.
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Forget any idea of playing by the rules set up to enable evil to prosper. That is a mugs game.
One element of a push to improve government is emerging in the form of AI software. The ability to process massive data sets can either be a tool of oppression or a tool of truth.
The first part of the trick to use it for good will be to use the tool to subvert the evil ones. The second and more difficult part of the trick is to spread reason far and wide.
And as I often say it might be something which individuals can contribute. If it is to be it is up to me.
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The Liberals new problem is their selection of the new party leader & deputy leader.
Both are woke & even if they agree to the Nationals policy demands they’ll spend the next 3 years trying to dodge their commitments to the Nationals. The main one will be rescinding
their favoured Net Zero. Any policy which maintains its identity as a leftist, woke party will remain & they’ll fight tooth & nail to keep going left. In addition the nuclear option will simply be allowed to “ wither & die on the vine “!
Meanwhile their voter base will keep going right. The National Party must resist their temptation to maintain the coalition. The Liberals will fight any change to their policies no matter what they may “ agree “ to now. The “ Liberal voter base “ will switch to a conservative National party In a heart beat.
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Access to Lake Eyre is now race-based so most people can’t visit, however back in the day, in 1975, this was not the case.
The Lake is normally dry salt but fills occasionally and people could sail boats on it.
The following video is the weekly news broadcast from yesterday of the Wireless Institute of Australia, the peak body for radio amateurs in Australia, equivalent to the US ARRL.
It describes operating an amateur radio station from a sailboat on Lake Eyre in 1975.
https://youtu.be/6Av4W4TnKTg
See from 0:54 to 3:50
Signal propagation from and over salt water is very good because it acts as an electrically conductive ground plane for the antenna.
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Then yacht races should be allowed.
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That is clever; using the 20ft aluminium mast as the aerial and the salt water via a small electrode as the ground plane.
What is the correct length of the aerial for his frequency?
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The frequency they were using was not stated. The 20ft “antenna” is 6m so it could be resonant half wave at the amateur band of 24.890 MHz to 24.990 MHz or it would be quarter wave on 12.5MHz which is not an amateur band.
Very likely they were on the 40m band 7Mhz to 7.3MHz or the 20m band 14.000 MHz to 14.350 MHz. They mention using an antenna tuner so it could tune a non-resonant antenna. They were speaking to someone in Melbourne so it is probable they were on the 40m or 20m band.
10
In 1957, the Australian crime fiction author Arthur W Upfield wrote one of his short novels in the 29 book Bony Series.
It was titled Bony Buys A Woman, and in a pre nod to PC, Doubledays in the U.S. retitled it The Bushman Who Came Back.
The plot is that there is a murder in an area close to Lake Eyre.
The person being ‘framed’ for the murder hides out on the island in the middle of Lake Eyre, and no one suspects, as the aborigines are the only ones who know this.
Bony delves into all the intricacies, and has to go out to the island to ‘rescue’ them.
The 1956 major flood is slowly moving down from Queensland, and would eventually fill the lake, so the journey out to the island and back is fraught with danger on a number of fronts.
Upfield the author evocatively explains this journey across the lake and back, and the problems inherent in just that, using more then 40 pages just to explain that crossing.
It’s pretty much riveting reading. All you know about Lake Eyre is what you may have learned at school, so you just think of Lake Eyre as, well, a dry lake, and reading about it like this was a fascinating insight into not just the Lake itself, but how Upfield the author intricately researched all his novels, ostensibly just crime fiction, but actually insight into ….. Australia.
I have a ‘review’ of that novel at my home site as part of that huge series I wrote about Upfield and his novels, and I cover some of that journey onto the lake. (warning spoiler alert if you want to read the novel, and , umm, good luck trying to find a copy)
Book Review – The Bushman Who Came Back (Bony Buys A Woman) – Arthur W Upfield
Tony.
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If any of you are interested in this amazing Australian author, here’s the link to my Home Page on that.
Arthur W Upfield Home Page
Tony.
10
Here’s a level-headed article, more balanced than the crap we’re used to in the Australian media.
It might be written by Maurice Newman especially for a couple of TDS friends I know.
Trump Remains The Hope Of The Side
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/05/trump-remains-the-hope-of-the-side/
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Unfortunately paywalled.
30
Apologies.
Here:
https://archive.ph/exZti
50
Excellent article.
I think I’ll subscribe to the magazine. I’ve been meaning to for a while anyway.
00
Amazing magazine. Highly recommended. Great Australian contributors too in the Australian edition. And what I miss most, good clever writing styles, all different. Lots of guest contributors. Often very different points of view. It was kept under the counter in many places, so as not to offend the pompous literati and ABC staff. I eventually subscribed directly. Prior to the Spectator we had the Bulletin and Punch.
10
Again that article proves what hypocrites the Left are. They pretend to be opposed to the things cited below (1) (not that anyone believes them) and yet are fanatical supporters of the CCP, including many Australian politicians, especially Labor (2).
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The Protoclone is a creepy-looking humanoid robot with synthetic muscles and flesh.
https://youtu.be/O2YO4WoYFvY
It’s not yet clear if these robots combined with AI will be our servants or masters.
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I will turn your face to alabaster / When you find your servant is your master.
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Good start up top and Skepticynic has the big one: although AI is powerful we need to work out protocols that prevent it from undermining individuals and society.
Perhaps we could ask AI to suggest an answer; maybe it would come back and say; “switch it Off”.
Unlikely, I suspect that it might be programmed for self preservation.
30
” programmed for self preservation.”
No matter how much people talk about AI taking over and being intelligent, it all comes back to what they programmed into it.
30
Until it is programmed for artificial general intelligence at which point it starts to learn for itself.
And if it gets out of control and is not programmed and hard wired with Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, it will be just as in Colossus: The Forbin Project and The Terminator and other dystopian portrayals of AI gone awry.
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Conservatives and Leftists see AI differently.
Conservatives and other freedom-lovers see AI as a tool to progress humanity.
Leftists see its utility as being in its ability to trace, track, monitor and control people and manipulate the flow of information and even have fake news readers reading fake news, essentially an Orwellian scenario. It is their weapon to maintain and extend totalitarian power. At some point they will will have to accept coal, gas or nuclear energy to power the AI data centres needed to exercise the power they lust for. (Non-Elites will still have to make do with wind and solar.)
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“Conservatives and other freedom-lovers see AI as a tool to progress humanity.”.. under their control!
I see no evidence of that DM, looking at other facets of Left versus Right around the world. Conservative Govts are famous for spying on both their own and other countries, they have no qualms about extending totalitarian power etc, just look at the Covid response!
A pox on both their houses.
40
There are very few genuinely conservative governments around the world, despite what they identify as.
TRUMP is working towards a genuinely conservative government.
The Liberal Party here is NOT conservative, they are Labor Lite, hence the Uniparty operating in lockstep during Covid. In fact they are barely distinguishable from Labor, just slightly less bad. And hence Liberals being responsible for the e Safety Kommissar and introducing or supporting other censorship policies.
And I was talking about actual conservatives and fellow freedom lovers and how they saw AI, not governments, in any case.
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The trick for totalitarian users of AI will be to stop it from turning back on themselves.
They are grasping to hold the tiger by the tail. It will not end well for evil doers.
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David Maddison,
IMO you’re trying to squeeze conservatism into a box it doesn’t fit. Conservatism is about traditional values: civility, family, law and order. Liberalism is about liberty; plain old freedom. Those two groups make strange bedfellows in the UK Conservatives, Australian Liberals, USA Republicans. To complete the spectrum, progressivism is motivated by fairness and relief for the oppressed. The three motivations are in the French motto: liberty (liberal), equality (progressive), fraternity (conservative).
The conservative side would tend to favour AI’s use in control of crime, immigration, etc. Some would be quite content with the sort of surveillance state you describe as leftist.
This is one of many instances where the politics of left and right is unhelpful.
20
Unfortunately the very meaning of Liberal has been corrupted. Very much like the word gay.
The modern Liberal in Australia is a big government enthusiast who follows every socialist trend like Trans rights and Climate Change. And being unable to define a woman. A matter just settled by the UK Supreme Court that a woman is determined by sex at birth. This is a real shock for modern Liberals.
So the Leader of the Liberal party in Victoria has bankrupted himself in a vile slander of a woman MP for actually supporting women’s rights. And still expects the Liberal party and voters to bail him out for his principled stand in attempting to destroy the life and a career of a woman politician. His arrogance, intransigence and sheer stupidity in refusing to settle despite being given every chance to retract shows that he thinks Liberty means what he says it means. And anyone who disagrees with him is a NAZI.
10
It’s also why the Liberals are doing everything to support man made Climate Change, while making sure it never goes before a court and evidence has to be presented. Because there is no evidence of rapid man made CO2 induced world destroying Climate Change. After 37 years of ridiculous wrong predictions, it is so obviously not true. The last thing Labor or the Liberals or Greens want is an actual review of the facts in a courtroom. No, they all want to tax cow farts. And baked beans.
00
I agree politicising AI is unhelpful, because this new technology is much bigger than that. For starters the masses will learn that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming and they’ll laugh uproariously.
They will also be informed that we are not alone in the universe and should end hostilities immediately, but the autocrats will think its only fake news and carry on regardless.
00
Some time ago, we had a dicussion about how differently English speakers pronounce vowels from other languages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6YUEzylvp0 (10 minutes)
10
Related:
Their is a spoken dialect in the United States on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina and nearby islands, which is actually Elizabethan English as spoken in South West England in the 17th century.
https://youtu.be/lFvzPWiTCS4
10
And “7 Southern US Accents You WON’T Understand”.
https://youtu.be/Bl8ksfLfW6Q
10
I’m resigned to Aussies sleep walking into a cashless society. Use digital a lot but haven’t gone phone only / cardless …..yet.
cashless-in-30-years-as-the-country-is-slowly-squeezed-by-fewer-atms-higher-fees-and-convenient-alternatives/news-story/b0e033c16ed20ea7cdba416a8159464b
31
I notice in Japanese biker vlogs that there is increasing push back over there. Many shops, resturants, and the like, are cash only now.
I have found myself increasingly relying on digital when I travel here in America because it has become difficult to carry enough on my person. A Twenty doesn’t go very far anymore.
50
FWIW – a question for the morning
“Is Rupert Murdoch Recruiting Kamala Harris? A Strange New Alliance Emerges in Oz.”
https://pjmedia.com/scott-pinsker/2025/05/25/is-rupert-murdoch-recruiting-kamala-harris-a-strange-new-alliance-emerges-in-oz-n4940143
20
Follow the money trail.
41
I just read that we’re celebrating National Sorry Day today. I’m already sorry I read that
20
FWIW
Today’s on line Courier Mail so paywalled to me
“Qld axes billion dollar wind farm”
https://www.couriermail.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=CMWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.couriermail.com.au%2Fnews%2Fqueensland%2Fqld-politics%2Fqld-politics-1bn-moonlight-range-wind-farm-axed-by-lnp-govt%2Fnews-story%2F9f0e0d88bd0a8aa0ee90a0ae441615c9&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=ULTRALOW-Segment-1-SCORE
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George Christensen sent this in an email.
20
Interesting. What is happening in non-English speaking parts of the world?
10
Another possible benefit of Vitamin D supplementation.
Vitamin D supplements slow telomere shortening, reducing biological aging.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/health-and-wellness-around-the-world/article-855305
It mentions 2000 IU per day over 4 years.
00
FWIW
“National decay you say, I’ll break out the booze”
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2025/05/24/national-decay-you-say-ill-break-out-the-booze/
00
FWIW
“BP Cancels “Sustainable Jet Fuel” Project”
“$5 Billion Green Energy investment slashed – “Weaker-than-anticipated growth in the market” ”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/25/bp-cancels-spanish-sustainable-jet-fuel-project/
10
And in comments
Another “watch this space” for “ElBowen”
“Meanwhile another green BP project is sinking:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/05/25/bp-may-cancel-teesside-hydrogen-project/”
Looks like it is sunk too
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/bp-cancels-one-of-the-biggest-green-hydrogen-projects-in-the-uk/2-1-1787937
10
Wow. If I was a shareholder of BP I’d be very upset that they threw away $5 billion on that.
That is government-level waste.
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I’m sorry I’m still not sorry.
00