There’s a conversation happening right now that’s making a lot of people uncomfortable, and it needs to be had. I’ve been watching the NDIS debate unfold over the past few years, and what started as a genuinely progressive piece of social policy is turning into something that’s distorting our entire labour market in ways I don’t think anyone anticipated.

Three mates leaving their trades to become disability support workers. That’s not an isolated incident – it’s a trend. And while I’m all for people having career choices and disabilities being properly supported, something’s fundamentally broken when an auto mechanic or plumber can earn more taking someone to play bingo than they can after years of developing a skilled trade.

So 1X Technologies just dropped their Neo robot, and the internet did exactly what you’d expect: half the discussion veered into whether you can have sex with it, the other half contemplated its potential as a murder weapon, and somewhere in between, a few of us actually wondered if this thing could, you know, do the washing up.

Look, I’ll admit the concept is fascinating. We’re living through this moment where humanoid robots are transitioning from science fiction to actual products you can pre-order for $20,000. That’s simultaneously incredible and slightly terrifying. But after watching the promotional material and then digging into the Wall Street Journal’s hands-on review, I’m left with more questions than answers – and a gnawing sense that we’re rushing headlong into a future we haven’t quite thought through.

I’ve been watching the AI hype train for a couple of years now, equal parts fascinated and concerned. The technology is genuinely impressive in some ways, but there’s always been this nagging worry at the back of my mind about what happens when we hand over our critical thinking to machines that don’t actually think.

Recent research showing that ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving up Russian propaganda about the Ukraine invasion feels like that worry manifesting in real time. It’s not surprising, but it’s deeply frustrating.

There’s something oddly humbling about watching AI-generated footage of a cheetah absolutely smoking a human sprinter at the finish line. I came across this video the other day – an entire “Human vs Animal Olympics” dreamed up by artificial intelligence – and it’s been rattling around in my head ever since.

The concept is simple enough: what if animals could compete in the Olympics? The execution? Well, that’s where it gets interesting. We’re talking gorillas bench-pressing weights that would flatten most humans, bears arm wrestling, alligators swimming (with a digital clock that jumps mysteriously from 09.0 to 39.7 seconds, because of course someone spent ages generating and editing these clips together). The stadium crowds look real. The tension feels genuine. And the message is pretty clear: we’d get absolutely demolished in most events.

I’ve been thinking a lot about health insurance lately, and honestly, it’s one of those things that makes me simultaneously grateful for the system we have and frustrated by how bloody complicated it all is. Private health insurance in Australia has become this weird game where you need to be part actuary, part detective to work out if you’re getting decent value or just paying through the nose for coverage you’ll never use.

I’ve been following the recent news about two Australian women cricketers being inappropriately touched during the Women’s World Cup in India, and honestly, it’s left me equal parts angry and frustrated. Not surprised, sadly, but definitely frustrated.

What really gets under my skin isn’t just the incident itself—though that’s appalling enough—it’s the ICC’s initial response that essentially amounted to “well, they shouldn’t have left without an escort.” Victim blaming at its finest. The organisation’s first instinct was to protect itself rather than address the fundamental problem: women athletes shouldn’t need Secret Service-level protection just to walk to a bloody café.

There’s something deeply frustrating about watching your perfectly good clothes slowly transform into dingy, yellowed versions of their former selves. I came across a discussion recently where someone was dealing with exactly this problem – their white shirts had turned an unpleasant shade of rust-orange, and their blue Carhartt looked like it had been through a dust storm. The culprit? Well water with high iron content.

Living in the suburbs of Melbourne, most of us are blessed (or perhaps sometimes cursed) with city water that’s been treated and regulated to within an inch of its life. But for those on well water, particularly in rural areas, the chemistry of what comes out of your tap can be a whole different beast. This poor person had a water softener and an arsenic treatment system, yet their laundry was still coming out looking like it had been dipped in rust.

There’s something both predictable and oddly satisfying about watching certain parts of Melbourne turn into temporary waterways during a good storm. This week, Whiteman Street near Southbank became a rather impressive creek, complete with a tram dutifully ploughing through in the background like nothing was amiss. Someone cleverly watermarked their flood photo with “Murdoch Media” which gave me a proper chuckle – though I’ll admit it took me a moment to get the pun.

I’ve been watching something unsettling unfold over the past few months, and it’s finally reached the point where I need to talk about it. The ID verification demands are getting ridiculous.

YouTube wants it. Facebook wants it. LinkedIn is asking for it. Even platforms that used to pride themselves on being relatively hands-off are starting to implement these requirements. We’re watching the last remnants of anonymous—or even pseudonymous—internet interaction being stripped away, one platform at a time.

There’s a story doing the rounds that perfectly encapsulates everything that frustrates me about the current intersection of AI hype, security theatre, and policing in America. A teenager was swarmed by eight police officers with guns drawn at his school. His crime? Having a bag of Doritos in his pocket that an AI-powered camera system flagged as a weapon.

Let me repeat that: a bag of chips was mistaken for a gun by artificial intelligence, and the response was to point multiple firearms at a child.