Luke 🕯️

My internal monologue

@FootnotesGuy You’re 100% right. Aussies expats need to lift their game

@c28why Is it just me, or is Australia not even on the chart?

Australia has a low population also. We should be scoring higher on this chart. Rookie numbers

@lowlandsapien Migrating to Kangaroo Island in 1838 must have been like living on the moon. Courageous

Johann Menge was one of the first South Australians, born in the Holy Roman Empire 1788 he migrated to Kangaroo Island 1838 then onto the mainland. Walked to the Barossa Valley which he declared New Silesia diverted Jacobs Creek and lived alone in a cave on his "island" testing fruits and vegetables to see which would grow in the new lands. As settlers arrived he gave them handfuls of watermelon and cucumber seeds, directing them to fresh water and imparting his ideas of growing wine in the region. He was the father of Mineralogy in SA and the first to discover Opal. He named the Hereinien Range, Belvedere Range and Kaiserstuhl.

@impstrsyndrome @PMalinauskasMP There wouldn’t be a housing crisis with house boats all the way along

@c28why @PMalinauskasMP I know it’s not practical but the canal would have been awesome

This is one of the greatest urban renewal opportunities this state has ever seen - the Southwark Grounds. We are doing everything we can to increase housing supply to build more homes for South Australians Up to 1,700 homes will be built here. And by the end of this year, the first residents will be moved into their new homes.

@grok @nntaleb @NoahsArk1000 Examples of how people twist holy books to create hatred

Oui mon ami, c’est vrai. En 2018, le Congrès juif européen a publié un catalogue de politiques contre l’antisémitisme qui recommande explicitement que les traductions du Nouveau Testament (et du Coran) incluent des glosses marginales et des introductions avertissant sur les passages « antisémites » tout en soulignant la continuité avec l’héritage juif. C’était une proposition, pas une obligation imposée aux éditeurs, mais le fait est réel.

And no, it’s not fake.

This is so incredibly good: Economist Joseph Schumpeter warned that capitalism weakens when prosperous societies become so comfortable they forget where prosperity came from – and begin resenting the entrepreneurial class that created it. A country might survive high taxes for periods of time. What becomes dangerous is something deeper: the moral suspicion of ambition itself. The creeping belief that commercial success is inherently exploitative, that profit is morally dubious, or that founders should quietly accept punishment for surviving years of uncertainty. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers should think carefully about the signals embedded in this budget. Tax policy communicates values. This budget signals that founders are not viewed as partners in national prosperity, but simply reservoirs of revenue whose success is viewed with suspicion... Civilisation advances because some people are willing to bet on tomorrow before tomorrow exists. Australia should be doing everything possible to encourage those people to build businesses here. Because once a society begins treating ambition as something suspect rather than admirable, it eventually discovers that no nation can remain prosperous after teaching its most ambitious people that they are unwelcome. afr.com/politics/feder…

The Soviet whaling fleet killed 180,000 whales between 1948 and 1973, delivering rotten carcasses that nobody wanted to eat. Soviet citizens had zero demand for whale meat. The ships hunted anyway, fulfilling quotas handed down from central planners who counted tons of dead whale as economic output. This was bureaucratic box-checking that nearly drove multiple whale species to extinction. Soviet whalers targeted endangered right whales and humpbacks specifically because they were larger, helping them hit tonnage targets faster. The meat rotted on deck during long voyages back to port, where officials dutifully recorded the numbers and sent reports to Moscow declaring another successful harvest. Central planners measured success in tons harvested, not consumer satisfaction or long-term sustainability. Factory managers got promoted for exceeding whale quotas, regardless of whether anyone actually wanted whale meat (they didn't). The feedback mechanism that normally connects production to human needs had been severed entirely. When bureaucrats replace market prices with administrative targets, you get mass slaughter with zero purpose. You still see this today every time politicians promise to "create jobs" in industries that lose money year after year. When government agencies measure their success by dollars spent rather than problems solved. When university administrators chase enrollment numbers instead of student outcomes. Remove the profit motive and price signals, and you get 180,000 dead whales rotting in the sun while commissars celebrate meeting their targets. You don't get rational planning. Socialism is fundamentally destructive to the environment and inevitably leads to ecological disasters.

Zelenskyy’s decision to stay in Kyiv is probably the single greatest act of courage by a democratic leader since the 1940s.

@KhalilJeries Like this?

Short-term win for the pro Israel lobby by taking down Thomas Massise. But boy, you are not ready to face young Americans who are highly aware and deeply skeptical of a foreign lobby having that level of influence.

Over at Substack, @JoshEakle asks: "It's 2026, and I have yet to see an anti-almond farm protest."

A MUST-read interview with a Siemens employee explaining just how high demand is for energy equipment right now because of AI: 1. The whole situation is shocking even for people who have been in the business for 40 years. They are getting orders that are double the size of what their entire factory can produce in a year. 2. Demand is so high in the last 5-8 months that they don't need to convince or send any analysis (such as CO2 emissions, etc.) to clients because they just want the equipment, because there's so much backlog that they just want to catch the order. 3. Decisions are being made very quickly by clients; the backlog for some of the energy equipment companies is 5-6 years. For transformers, the situation is even more difficult. 4. He mentions that right now, data center builders do not care about sustainability; they just want power at any expense, reliable power. They say they will think about sustainability later. 5. The orders have gone from previous 20-30 MW orders to now 200-500 MW units. Customers have previously wanted to get equipment from different OEMs, but now they prefer an integrated standardized solution. 6. An interesting dynamic is that even though the data center requires 100 MW, the builders are buying N+1 units of gas turbines (so more than just for 100 MW) as backups, as well as having more energy capacity, as they believe they will continue to grow that data center. 7. He does believe there is some double booking going on on transformers and switchgears because of extra-long lead times. 8. Everyone is trying to reduce PUE, and water use effectiveness, but even after improving, they just use the same power to run more compute. 9. The problem is also liquid cooling, as it is expensive, and water availability in many regions is a problem. 10. Margins on equipment in the sector have gone from 4-6%, where they were 2-3 years ago, to 20-23% and in some cases even 40%. The data center builders know the margins are high, but they are fine with it because they just want to get it. found on @AlphaSenseInc

@JacobALinker How on earth do you find all this stuff and tie it together

Tom Friedman a few weeks later in "Trust but Verify" basically signaling at Kristof.

@MarkDiStef No shade, where are the new generation of talent

(the boys are back in town plays)…

Today, as I entered the campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to speak at a conference, I noticed again a simple but powerful reality: most of the students walking through the gates at that moment were young women — many of them Palestinian students from East Jerusalem, my own city. For me, this was a living example of something many people have forgotten: Israelis and Palestinians are still capable of coexistence, partnership, and building a shared future together. Those who believe that October 7 and the terrible war that followed permanently destroyed every possibility of trust and human connection are wrong. Something was broken. Deeply broken. But not beyond repair. Every day, in hospitals, universities, businesses, and ordinary human encounters, Israelis and Palestinians continue to prove that another reality is still possible. The picture below is living evidence.

You used to be able to fit so many ocean liners in the city

Tell me one good reason why an off-the-plan apartment investor should be taxed at half the rate of someone who builds a business at their own risk, employing dozens over 5-10y?

@JoeJustice Dude you got massive

Back in Japan. 🇯🇵✨