Fifteen thousand tickets. That’s the number being thrown around in connection with the cancelled Candace Owens tour, and I’ll be honest, it took me a moment to process that.

I don’t know if it’s accurate. The figure apparently comes from a Turning Point Australia spokesperson who has every incentive to inflate it, and the Guardian doesn’t seem to have verified it independently. Could be fifteen thousand. Could be four thousand. Could be a lot of corporate freebies handed to people who wouldn’t have paid their own money. The number matters less than the shape of the story, which is: people paid for something, the company liquidated, and now the money is probably gone.

There’s a headline that crossed my feed last week that I’ve been sitting with. The FBI Director, Kash Patel, runs a merchandise site called BasedApparel.com. The site was caught serving a ClickFix malware attack to visitors, the kind where a fake Cloudflare prompt tricks you into running a malicious command in Terminal. Someone compromised a legitimate but poorly secured site and turned it into a credential harvester for less technically savvy users.

The line between satire and reality has become so blurred these days that when I saw the headline about Australia Post suspending deliveries to the US because they were “sick of dealing with Americans,” I had to double-check whether it was from The Shovel or a legitimate news source. Turns out it was satirical, but honestly? My first reaction was “fair dinkum, can’t blame them.”

This hit particularly close to home because anyone who’s tried to buy anything from the States in the last decade knows exactly what we’re dealing with. The shipping situation has become an absolute nightmare, and it’s not just about the costs – though those are eye-watering enough. It’s the attitudes, the excuses, and the sheer bloody-mindedness that comes with trying to get American sellers to post something overseas.

The latest episode in our ongoing political soap opera features former President Trump dramatically announcing he’s getting rid of his Tesla. While this might seem like just another celebrity breakup story, it perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with our current political and tech landscape.

Remember when Trump was promoting Tesla at the White House like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread? “Everything’s computer!” he exclaimed, in what became an instant meme. Now, merely months later, we’re witnessing what happens when two massive egos inevitably collide.

The latest headlines about Barnaby Joyce being found sprawled between the Liberal and National Party rooms have sparked quite the discussion online, and honestly, it’s hard not to see the political satire writing itself. While the incident might be concerning from a welfare perspective, it’s also a perfect metaphor for the current state of conservative politics in Australia.

The coalition’s relationship status has definitely moved from “it’s complicated” to “seeing other people.” Remember those awkward high school breakups where neither party knows how to act around each other? That’s essentially what we’re witnessing in Parliament House right now, except with much higher stakes and significantly more expensive suits.

The news about mass firings of nuclear security personnel has been weighing heavily on my mind lately. Reading through various discussions online, the sheer magnitude of what’s happening is difficult to process. We’re not talking about routine staff changes or budget cuts – this is a fundamental dismantling of the systems that keep our nuclear arsenal secure.

What’s particularly concerning is the apparent methodology behind these dismissals. Reports suggest that staff are being flagged based on keyword searches for terms like “diversity” and “systematic” – even in completely unrelated technical contexts. The absurdity of flagging physics papers because they use the word “trigger” would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

The Royal Australian Mint has done it again, stirring up quite the conversation with their latest release featuring everyone’s favourite Blue Heeler pup on our dollar coins. Well, technically it’s Bingo on one coin and Bluey on another, creating a delightful scene when placed together - they’re playing with a balloon, which is quite clever when you think about it.

The recent news about 40,000 stolen Bluey coins and their subsequent recovery (in an operation aptly named “Operation Bandit”) reads like something straight out of a heist movie. The irony of stealing coins featuring characters known for teaching moral lessons isn’t lost on me. Sitting here in my home office, watching the morning trams roll past, I find myself pondering how we’ve arrived at this peculiar moment in Australian history.

The recent news about healthcare insurance companies rushing to scrub their leadership pages from their websites would be almost comical if it weren’t so tragically emblematic of corporate America’s approach to problem-solving. Rather than addressing the underlying issues that led to this violent incident, they’re attempting to hide behind digital walls.

Working in tech, I’ve seen countless examples of security theater - implementing superficial measures that create an illusion of security without addressing core problems. Removing executive profiles from websites while their names remain readily available through SEC filings, LinkedIn profiles, and countless other public sources is exactly that - a performative gesture that solves nothing.

The recent news about severed undersea cables between Finland and Sweden has sent shivers down my spine while sitting here in my home office. These aren’t just any cables - they’re vital digital arteries connecting entire nations to the global internet infrastructure.

What’s particularly unsettling is how this incident mirrors similar events we’ve witnessed recently. Last time I discussed this topic with my mate over coffee at Hardware Lane, we were talking about the Nord Stream pipeline incident. Now we’re seeing the same pattern of critical infrastructure being targeted, but this time it’s our digital lifelines.