There’s something about Sunday evenings that makes you pause and think about the week ahead. Tonight, I found myself scrolling through a discussion thread where someone was asking for frugal dinner inspiration for their family of three. The responses were a beautiful mix of practicality and creativity - from Adam Liaw’s cauliflower and ricotta spaghetti to homemade dumplings with the kids lending a hand.

Reading through these suggestions got me thinking about how much our relationship with food and money has shifted over the past few years. When someone mentions they can feed a family of five with a whole chicken and vegetables for under $20 and calls it “reasonable in this day and age,” it really hits home just how much our expectations have had to adjust.

I’ve been watching the debate around the “March for Australia” unfold online over the past few days, and frankly, it’s left me both frustrated and deeply concerned about where we’re heading as a society. What started as people asking legitimate questions about the march’s organisers has devolved into the usual online shouting match, with some folks demanding “concrete evidence” while others point to what seems pretty bloody obvious if you just scratch the surface.

There’s something oddly comforting about stumbling across someone online who’s done their homework. I came across a discussion recently where someone had just bought a 1986-built house and was methodically working through the puzzle of that mysterious “grandparents’ house” smell that seemed to cling to everything. What struck me wasn’t just their thoroughness – they’d already replaced carpets, deep cleaned floors, identified humidity issues, and were planning strategic attacks with ozone machines – but how universally relatable this problem seems to be.

There’s something deeply satisfying about watching someone truly get Melbourne coffee culture, especially when that someone happens to be a WWE superstar turned Hollywood actor with 16 million Instagram followers. John Cena’s recent coffee commentary has been doing the rounds online, and honestly, it’s the kind of validation that makes this city’s caffeine-obsessed residents beam with pride.

What struck me most wasn’t just that he knew his way around coffee terminology - though his technical breakdown of flat white preparation was impressively spot on. It was the way he pronounced “Melbourne” without that grating American “Mel-bourrrrn” that makes every local wince. Small details matter, and Cena clearly paid attention during his time here.

The other day I stumbled across a fascinating discussion about a European Citizen Initiative aimed at curtailing government censorship powers across the EU. Someone had drafted a comprehensive proposal to push back against the increasing digital authoritarianism we’re seeing across Europe, and they were looking for help to get it formally submitted to the European Commission.

Reading through the discussion, what struck me most was how this initiative tackles multiple fronts of the digital rights battle simultaneously. It’s not just about free speech – though that’s certainly a cornerstone. The proposal also addresses age verification requirements, the infamous “chat control” proposals, and the nebulous concept of moral-based censorship that governments love to hide behind when they want to silence inconvenient voices.

There’s something deeply unsettling about being pestered by technology that’s supposed to make our lives easier. I’ve been following a discussion online about AI fatigue, and it’s struck a nerve that goes well beyond the usual tech complaints. We’re witnessing something unprecedented: a backlash not against technology that doesn’t work, but against technology that won’t leave us alone.

The frustration is palpable across every platform we use daily. Google’s search results now come with AI summaries nobody asked for. Gmail wants to help write emails we’re perfectly capable of composing ourselves. Even Adobe Acrobat, for crying out loud, keeps suggesting AI assistance to summarise three-page PDFs. One person mentioned their knitting patterns being flagged for AI summarisation – if that’s not a sign we’ve lost the plot, I don’t know what is.

There’s something wonderfully refreshing about a project that openly embraces being “delightfully stupid.” While the tech world obsesses over making AI more accurate, more reliable, and more useful, someone decided to flip the script entirely and create Endless Wiki – a self-hosted encyclopedia that’s purposefully driven by AI hallucinations.

The concept is brilliantly simple: feed any topic to a small language model and watch it confidently generate completely fabricated encyclopedia entries. Want to read about “Lawnmower Humbuckers”? The AI will cheerfully explain how they’re “specialized loudspeakers designed to deliver a uniquely resonant and amplified tone within the range of lawnmower operation.” It’s absolute nonsense, but it’s presented with the same authoritative tone you’d expect from a legitimate reference work.

I’ve been following the discussions around Google’s Gemma 3 270M model, and frankly, the reactions have been all over the map. Some folks are dismissing it because it can’t compete with the big boys like GPT-4, while others are getting excited about what this tiny model can actually do. The truth, like most things in tech, sits somewhere in the middle and is far more nuanced than either camp wants to admit.

The Commonwealth Bank’s recent backtrack on AI-driven job cuts has got me thinking about the messy reality of technological transformation in corporate Australia. After announcing they’d be leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline operations, CBA has now apologised for what they’re calling an “error” as call volumes surge and customer satisfaction plummets. It’s a fascinating case study in the gap between boardroom promises and real-world implementation.

What strikes me most about this whole saga is how it perfectly encapsulates the current AI hype cycle we’re living through. Companies are so eager to jump on the AI bandwagon that they’re making sweeping decisions without properly understanding the technology’s limitations or considering the human element that often makes the difference between success and failure. The fact that CBA hired 2,000 additional staff members after their AI experiment suggests they significantly underestimated the complexity of customer service interactions.

The phone rang yesterday afternoon while I was debugging some deployment issues. Another unknown number, but this time something felt different about the interaction that followed. What started as a routine scam call turned into a masterclass in how sophisticated these operations have become, and frankly, it’s got me worried about how many people are falling for these increasingly clever cons.

The caller claimed to be from Optus, offering a 50% discount on services. Now, given Optus’s recent data breach debacle, I immediately went on the offensive, telling them I wasn’t a customer and questioning their legitimacy after their company’s appalling handling of customer data. This seemed to throw the caller off script entirely.