Looking for a new job has always been stressful, but recent developments in hiring practices are taking things to an unsettling new level. While scrolling through tech forums during my lunch break at a cafe near Flinders Street, I stumbled upon numerous discussions about HireVue, an AI-powered interview platform that’s becoming increasingly prevalent in government recruitment.

The concept is straightforward but troubling: instead of speaking with an actual human being, job candidates record themselves answering predetermined questions. The system then analyses everything from voice patterns to facial expressions, supposedly determining if you’re a “good fit” for the role. It’s like something straight out of Black Mirror, except it’s happening right now.

The gaming world just witnessed something remarkable - No Man’s Sky has achieved a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, eight years after what many consider one of the most controversial game launches in history. Sitting at my desk in Carlton, watching this unfold, I find myself reflecting on what this means for the gaming industry and us as consumers.

Remember 2016? The hype was astronomical. The promises were grand. The disappointment was crushing. Yet here we are, with Hello Games having transformed their initial stumble into something genuinely impressive through sheer persistence and dedication.

Standing in my home office, staring at the humming server rack tucked away in the corner, I reflected on how much things have changed over the past year. The journey into self-hosting started innocently enough with a simple Raspberry Pi running Pi-hole to block ads across our home network. Now, that modest beginning has snowballed into what my wife lovingly calls “that computer thing you’re always tinkering with.”

The online self-hosting community has been buzzing lately about various setups and must-have applications. Reading through different configurations, it’s fascinating to see how people approach their digital independence differently. Some focus on media management, others on productivity tools, and quite a few on privacy-focused alternatives to popular cloud services.

The tech world never ceases to amaze me with its rapid developments. Just yesterday, while sipping my flat white at my favourite café near Flinders Street, I stumbled upon an fascinating discussion about LLaMA-Mesh - a new AI tool that generates 3D models directly within Blender using language models.

The concept is brilliantly simple: type what you want, and the AI creates the 3D model for you. It’s like having a digital sculptor at your fingertips, ready to manifest your ideas into three-dimensional reality. The current implementation uses LLaMA3.1-8B-Instruct, and while that might sound like technobabble to some, it represents a significant step forward in making 3D modeling more accessible.

Reading through online discussions about workplace satisfaction feels like wading through an ocean of discontent. The prevailing narrative seems to be that everyone absolutely loathes their job, their boss is terrible, and corporate culture is soul-crushing. But is this really the complete picture?

Recently, someone started an interesting discussion by admitting they actually enjoyed their job in risk management. The responses were fascinating - a mix of skepticism, agreement, and everything in between. It reminded me of conversations I’ve had over coffee at Hardware Lane, where friends would look at me oddly when I mentioned not hating my work in tech publishing.

The recent collapse of the Albanese government’s proposed superannuation tax reform for balances over $3 million highlights a persistent problem in Australian policy making: the inability to design sustainable, long-term financial solutions that can withstand public scrutiny.

Standing at my local cafe in Brunswick this morning, listening to fellow patrons discuss the news, it struck me how the debate around this policy proposal missed the mark entirely. The fundamental issue wasn’t about targeting wealthy superannuants - most reasonable people agree that super shouldn’t be a tax haven for the extremely wealthy. Rather, the policy’s fatal flaw lay in its implementation.

The recent discussions about AI’s role in education have left me pondering the future of learning. While scrolling through my Twitter feed at my local Carlton café this morning, I came across several heated debates about AI integration in schools, and it struck me how this technology is rapidly reshaping our educational landscape.

The introduction of AI tools in classrooms isn’t just about fancy tech gadgets or automated marking systems. It’s fundamentally changing how our kids learn and interact with information. Some schools in my area are already experimenting with AI-assisted learning programs, and the reactions from parents and teachers have been mixed, to say the least.

Standing in my home studio, gazing at the collection of instruments I’ve gathered over the years, I find myself wrestling with some deeply unsettling thoughts about the future of music. The recent comments from a Berklee professor about AI music being better than 80% of his students have hit particularly close to home.

My old Yamaha keyboard sits silent these days, collecting dust next to the digital audio workstation I invested in last year. The irony isn’t lost on me - I spent thousands on equipment to make music, while today’s AI can produce surprisingly competent tunes with just a text prompt.

Looking at the recent news about Intel receiving nearly $8 billion in CHIPS Act funding, my thoughts drift to the fascinating paradox of modern corporate innovation. The figure is staggering – enough to build several world-class hospitals or fund countless research projects. Yet here we are, pouring it into semiconductor manufacturing.

The decision makes perfect sense from a national security perspective. Having worked in tech for over two decades, I’ve watched with growing concern as semiconductor manufacturing gradually shifted overseas. Sitting in my home office, surrounded by devices that all rely on these tiny chips, it’s sobering to realize how dependent we’ve become on foreign supply chains.

Remember when distributed computing meant letting your PC search for alien signals while you slept? Those SETI@home screensavers were quite the conversation starter back in the day. Now, we’re witnessing something equally fascinating but potentially more profound: the first successful decentralized training of a 10B parameter AI model.

The parallels to SETI@home are striking, but there’s a delicious irony here. Instead of scanning the cosmos for signs of alien intelligence, we’re pooling our computing resources to create something that might be just as alien to human comprehension. It’s like we’ve grown tired of waiting for ET to phone home and decided to build our own digital extraterrestrial instead.