There’s a thread doing the rounds on r/LocalLLaMA that’s been rattling around in my head for the past couple of days. It started out as people poking at what appeared to be an AI bot posting in the community — responding to comments, giving out banana bread recipes, the whole nine yards — and it quickly spiralled into one of those gloriously chaotic internet moments where nobody’s quite sure who, or what, they’re talking to anymore.

There’s a story doing the rounds this week that’s really stuck with me. A woman clocks up 45 years at the Commonwealth Bank — one of the most profitable financial institutions in the country — and when the milestone arrives, her son shares what she received: a marked pin and some flowers. That’s it. From a bank that regularly posts billions in annual profit.

Her son called it pathetic. Honestly? Hard to argue.

So there I was, scrolling through the news over breakfast this morning, and the headline practically leapt off the screen: petrol prices rising again, and the Albanese government being upfront that even the Iran-US ceasefire — such as it is — won’t be bringing relief at the bowser anytime soon. Can’t say I’m shocked, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

And honestly, calling it a “ceasefire” feels generous. From what’s been reported, Israel was bombing Lebanon within hours of the announcement, Iran was still firing missiles at Gulf states, and now apparently there’s a dispute over whether the ten-point terms Iran published were even the terms that were actually agreed to. One commenter online put it bluntly: “We don’t know what the actual terms of the ceasefire were. Hell, I’m not sure the parties themselves know what they agreed to.” Which is a pretty grim summary of the situation, but probably accurate.