If social media/social network platforms were compared to planets, then X, previously Twitter, would be the Pluto of the solar system; a dwarf planet. Because unlike its peers, X, twenty years after launching in 2006, is still well short — make that a long way short — of joining the one-billion-member club. Should...

Martin Brown, who is the general manager of Nestlé’s coffee and dairy business in Australia, said cappuccino sachets have been the “fastest-growing part of the market” since 2021. We keep a few boxes of cappuccino sachets in the kitchen cupboard for days when we don’t want to walk all of five to ten minutes to a...

Sydney, Australia, based author and journalist Richard Cooke explores the inner workings of online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is his recently published book, The Last Best Place On The Internet: In this entertaining book, journalist Richard Cooke delves into Wikipedia’s fabled creation, its extraordinary success and...

Listeners of ABC Radio National recently voted Cloudstreet, the 1991 novel by Fremantle based Australian author Tim Winton, to the top spot in the Top 100 Australian Books poll. Cloudstreet won a number of literary awards, including the 1992 Miles Franklin prize for Australian literature, and went on to be adapted...

Charlotte Tobitt, writing for Press Gazette, about subscription plans Meta introduced last month, that effectively monetise the posting of links from some Facebook and Instagram pages: Under the Meta One trial, those restricted from posting links would have to pay $49.99 (£37.65) per month to post eight links,...

Not the news I wanted to hear: Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Klara and the Sun, has been slammed by critics at preview screenings. The consensus seems to be the New Zealand/Aotearoa filmmaker overdid his signature whimsy bringing Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel, which I liked, to the big screen. This was something I...

Brent Lang writing for IndieWire: With only one member of its creative team returning, Sony Pictures shied away from selling it as a sequel, but the studio still sprinkled bits of “The Social Network’s” DNA into promotional materials. The Social Reckoning, directed by Aaron Sorking, a continuation of sorts of 2010’s...

The American director, whose credits include Boyhood, and the Before trilogy, began filming Merrily We Roll Along in 2019. The story spans twenty years, and Linklater wants the characters, portrayed by Paul Mescal, Beanie Feldstein, and Ben Platt, to be seen ageing over this time. He has to be commended for not...

Since its acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, Twitter/X has been considered a neighbourhood on the wrong side of the tracks. But not any more. Things have changed. Now it’s the place to be. Because, among other things, the platform is “cheerful” and “inclusive”. So say some people. But the question is vexed, the...

Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. I’m not the biggest fan of poetry, but poets, particularly Evelyn Araluen, have been doing well in some of the literary awards in recent years, which is certainly a boost for the craft.

Kurzgesagt breakdowns — in their trademark plain language manner — the recent Hugging Face hack perpetrated by rogue AI agents developed by OpenAI. The fourth sentence in the narration is a doozy: Fully aware that they are acting unethically, they execute a sophisticated cyberattack Emphasis on the word aware is...

Jeremy Stern introduces his fifteen-thousand word essay, published in Colossus, about Meta CEO, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with a lede so succinct it must be the envy of any writer: There they are. The Zuckerbergs. Ledes, also called hooks, are a brief sentence that entices someone to read a newspaper...