04: Building Foundations January 19 - 25

Connecting deeply, learning progressively, and finally knowing when this PhD ends

This week has been all about authentic connections, socialisation, learning, and being present. The biggest milestone? I finally have a date for my thesis submission: the end of March, team!

Image (taken by Kyle) from In The Bag by Ben Tupas, currently projected onto the Judith Wright Centre in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley until 19th February.

Movement and body work

Monday was the start of Yoga with Luke’s 13-week progressive Dharma yoga, where we are in the first weeks of building the basics and key postures that will take us through the rest of the term. It was a great class and you could feel the love and support for Luke. Here’s a sweaty pic of us.

Tuesday, I started with an exercise physiologist (I’ve been seeing a physio for a month now), and the evaluation was made at the beginning of the program to improve mobility moving forward. Wednesday was my usual hot yoga in the morning.

EV community time

Wednesday afternoon involved quality time with Renata before the monthly Australian Electric Vehicle Association Queensland meeting in the evening. We talked about chargers, events, sales, and the AEVA national group. After the meeting, I had a test drive in Francisco’s latest creation: a Mitsubishi iMiev with a BYD Atto 3 motor (very fast!).

My mate, Nathan from Test EV, also gave my Nissan LEAF a battery health test - after four years, it’s degraded by only 9%, or ~2% per year. The results were slightly below-average (compared to other Nissan LEAFs) but still within a good working range, and all cells have balanced voltages despite this model sometimes suffering from individual-cell issue. See the images.

Pure fun

Friday was go-karting with my family, Luke, and his nephew Alex. It was a lot of sweaty fun!

Connection

The weekend with Kyle was the perfect bookend to a full week: wandering around Fortitude Valley, checking out Ben's art projection on the Judith Wright Centre (pictured above), hiking and swimming at the quarry, and sinking into those deep, heart-centred, values-aligned conversations that only happen when you're truly present with someone.

BOOKS

Is reading really declining?

Adama Mastroianni from Experimental History says, not so, if you look at the data and the effect sizes

stories about the end of reading tend to leave out some inconvenient data points. For example, book sales were higher in 2025 than they were in 2019, and only a bit below their high point in the pandemic. Independent bookstores are booming, not busting; 422 new indie shops opened last year alone.

As someone who has just gotten into reading fiction, who is not a podcast connoisseur, and who loves to read, this is wonderfully apt:

Finishing a great nonfiction book feels like heaving a barbell off your chest. Finishing a great novel feels like leaving an entire nation behind. There are no replacements for these feelings. Videos can titillate, podcasts can inform, but there’s only one way to get that feeling of your brain folds stretching and your soul expanding, and it is to drag your eyes across text.

And, this would have been a great addition to last week’s newsletter:

Being ignorant of the forces shaping society does not exempt you from their influence—it places you at their mercy. This is easy to miss. It may seem like ignorance is always overpowering knowledge, that the people who kick things down are triumphing over the people who build things up. That’s because kicking down is fast and loud, while building up is slow and quiet. But that is precisely why the builders ultimately prevail. The kickers get bored and wander off, while the builders return and start again.

MUSIC

Derby Two Step

I’m obsessed with this song by Derby (Craig Caldwell) at present, and now I am getting to know his album.

Two step shake

I’m glad we met

We’re the only two left baby

And we’re both petrified

I want to make you mine

I love this quote from Sean of Said the Gramophone (where I first heard the song) about some of my favourite artists like Mk.gee and Dijon, who I recently described to someone as “low-fi Prince music”. He had this to say, which is delicious:

One of my favourite vibes of the current era is the futuristic, broken R&B originated by people like Dijon (as well as Jai Paul, Bon Iver and Mk.gee) - a sound like a corrupted Prince mp3

Triple J Hottest 100

I forgot the Triple J Hottest 100 was on Saturday (no longer held on the Australian public holiday on 26th January). There are some great stats here. A few of my favourite artists were on the list, including:

• Royel Otis with car (#21), moody (#34), who’s your boyfriend (#35 - my fave on the album), say something (#54).

• Ninajirachi with iPod Touch (#27), F*ck My Computer (#47), All I Am (#76), Delete (#99) - what a stand out year she’s had!

• Addison Rae with Fame is a Gun (#20), Headphones On (#65).

• Only one each for Wet Leg with the great mangetout at #80 and Hayley Williams with Parachute at #81

There were a heap of artists with many songs on the countdown. Some might complain about this “stan culture” impacting the voting, but it’s always been that way.

Bandcamp’s statement on staying human in a world of AI music:

Bandcamp’s mission is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans. We believe that the human connection found through music is a vital part of our society and culture, and that music is much more than a product to be consumed. It’s the result of a human cultural dialog stretching back before the written word.

POLITICS

WTF Just Happened Today launched an AI-voice-enabled podcast, “a lightly edited audio version of the newsletter”. I know not everyone loves reading long-form articles like me, so I hope this addition helps get this short and sharp US news to a new audience. See Apple / Spotify / YouTube / RSS

There is a heap of chaos in America and other places. The Australian coalition party is in chaos, and this could amplify smaller populist parties.

The Future of the Right

Great article on the history of capitalism, the shift away from wealth from land toward wealth from stocks and bonds, and how this has impacted the Right vs. Left political divide.

…within a single decade, all these countries’ [Great Britain, US, France] governments split into two parties along the lines Hume had foreseen in the 1750s. On the Right, in each case, there was a traditional land-based agricultural economy and a political party representing its interests. On the Left, a party representing the stockholder economy, composed of the hodgepodge of practices and beliefs that had become profitable during inflation: manufacturing, finance, international trade, and liberty… Many people would rather have land and power than money and liberty.

The article continues:

In all economic classes, people are still supporting themselves in premodern, relational ways rather than in the individualistic ways associated with the industrialised side of capitalism. In modern times, these are the modes of property transfer typically defended by the Right. Opposing inheritance taxes and no-fault divorce laws are each political bids to empower this economic structure, but it’s not hard to imagine a social version, also.

TECHNOLOGY

Machinal Bypass

A new term: Machinal Bypass, “the use of generative AI not just to support human innovation or connection, but to sidestep it altogether,” which has links with the concept of “spiritual bypass” when spirituality is “used to escape having to deal with difficult emotions or life’s complexities”.

The question is not whether AI can generate useful content. It can. The question is in what ways science, medicine, and society benefit from human creative processes that are messier, relational, and often fallible. If we want to build a future in which humanity can thrive, we need to resist the temptation to bypass ourselves.

ChatGPT Health is launching in Australia, raising new questions about regulation, data storage, accountability and AI’s role in healthcare.

ChatGPT may not diagnose or treat, but according to OpenAI’s own data, the original platform is already affecting how people understand and act on their health.

That alone makes its local rollout, and regulator response to it, worth keeping a close eye on.

The research on teens, tech, and mental health - all in one place

I discovered the plethora of information Jonathan Haight (of The Anxious Generation book) has collected since 2019 regarding the negative impacts of technology on teenagers’ mental health. He has assembled this research on shared Google documents for transparency and collaboration. Awesome!

These publicly visible “collaborative review” documents make it easy for anyone to acquaint themselves with the research literature on the many topics listed below. They offer the abstract and a direct link to each study. I invite any academic researcher to request editing permission for any of the docs and then add studies, comments and objections.

This TikTok star sharing Australian animal stories doesn’t exist – it’s AI Blakface

TV SERIES

A Thousand Blows Season 2

Six Episodes

Hulu/Disney & 🏴‍☠

I’m halfway through Stephen Graham’s latest gritty drama about boxing in Victorian England. He’s always good, as are Erin Doherty and Malachi Kirby

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials

3 episodes

Netflix & 🏴‍☠

A Netflix version of Agatha Christie, easy to watch.

I am grateful for (hot) yoga, (exercise) physio, quality in-person time with friends, long chats on the phone with friends, family time, thesis submission date, and quality time with Kyle 💖