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While the rest of the world loses its collective mind over artificial intelligence, Tasmania is sitting on an amazing competitive advantage… and might be about to throw it away by jumping on the AI bandwagon . Everything that makes Tasmania economically successful is the exact opposite of what AI represents. And if Tasmanian businesses start chasing AI “ efficiency ” instead of leveraging their authentic advantages, they’ll transform from premium producers into generic c...

These are my notes and expanded thoughts from this month’s Space News segment on ABC Radio Hobart and ABC Northern Tasmania. Every month I join Lucie Cutting on Sunday mornings to chat about what’s happening above and beyond. Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, from this edition of the programme : The $88 Million Satellite That Just Stopped Talking MethaneSAT, backed by Jeff Bezos and designed to track methane emissions from oil and gas operations, has gone silent ...

CFP open now! I’m thrilled to, once again, be helping run two of my favourite conferences in the world: /dev/world and X World ! Both are returning to Melbourne, hosted at the fantastic Seek HQ, and the CFP is open now . X World runs 2-3 September 2025 and /dev/world runs 4-5 September 2025. X World is for those who champion Apple platform users. It covers essential areas like user education, system administration, effective platform deployments, smart device management, and more.

Wise has stolen more than $60,000 AUD from us, and refuses to let us access it. We’ve had a Wise account for around 5 years (since they were called TransferWise). It’s been a really useful way to transact in foreign currencies, and pay for things when we’re travelling for work. In early-April 2025, Wise asked us to provide some additional information on our Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) by uploading a statement of shareholders, and the ID of the owners. Perfectly reasonable...

You’ve been begging for it, and here it is! Announcing an exciting new product from Yarn Spinner… 🪐 Mass Effect 2 Save Importer for Yarn Spinner 🚀 Access everything about everything that players have done in the most important game of all time, straight from Yarn.

Eleanor arranged her storybooks on the small wooden table, her arthritic fingers tracing the worn covers she’d carried to the local library every Wednesday for twenty-three years. The familiar room felt much colder today. “We’re starting with ‘The Cloud Sailor’ since it’s Amy’s birthday,” she announced to the gathered children. Some weren’t listening, which was normal, but many were also staring at the gleaming white booth being installed in ...

I get it. I disagree with it, but I get it. The tech industry is throwing obscene amounts of money at LLMs. VCs are salivating over AI startups. The big important executives are regularly bleating about how “ we should integrate ChatGPT into our game ” because they read some Medium article about the future of interactive entertainment. But as narrative designers, we need to call this what it is: a massive distraction from what makes game characters work .

The Deeper Problems with AI in Creative Work “But AI will get better at writing stories, won’t it?” This response to my rant about AI-generated content misses the point entirely. Even if AI writing improved dramatically tomorrow, fundamental problems would remain that no algorithm refinement can fix. The environmental cost alone should give us pause. Training even a small LLM produces carbon emissions equivalent to the output of several cars, over their entire lifetimes , and e...

“Are you going to add AI writing to Yarn Spinner ?” It’s a question I hear almost weekly these days. Whether at game development conferences, online, or during meetings, there’s an assumption that every tool is racing to implement some form of generative AI. I understand the curiosity—we’re living through an unprecedented wave of AI hype, and there’s genuine confusion about where these technologies might fit into creative processes. So I thought I’d shar...

Some new links! Huzzah! “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” - A “Study” Blogging in the age of ‘AI’ SQL Injection Court (also worth reading this vaguely similar story about 32 million emails ) More soon!

So it didn’t end up being weekly. Here’s some links! Duh: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees Torment nexus is going well: “ A significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities ” Who would have guessed? AI code generation leads to more code, more duplicated code, less cohesive systems, more defects Residential networking over telephone More next ‘week’!

We’re thrilled to announce that Jon, from the Secret Lab and Yarn Spinner team will be presenting a talk at the GDC this year in San Francisco: ‘DREDGE’ and Yarn Spinner: Building Narrative with Open Source . The talk will explore how the indie hit, DREDGE , uses our Yarn Spinner technology for narrative, and how you can do the same. Join us at GDC! Email me via paris AT yarnspinner.dev if you’d like to organise a meeting, too.

Today, I got back from the South Australian Game Exhibition 2025 (SAGE) . It was an expo and mini-conference with a showcase, and an awards night, run by the South Australian Film Corporation and the South Australian Games Association, respecively. This was the first time at this fantastic weekend of events for me, and I have to say: I will definitely be back. The South Australian games industry is doing really well . Their events were happy, healthy, passionate, and have a nice community feel t...

Update: This event is now passed, and it went great ! I’m incredibly excited to be speaking at the upcoming TasICT event in Hobart , alongside the fabulous Procreate , Handbuilt Creative , and Screen Tasmania . I’ll be representing Secret Lab and Yarn Spinner , and no doubt Tas Game Makers , our Tasmanian Games Incubator, and other things will get a look in as well. If you’re in Hobart, get along to the event to show your suport for the connection between Tasmania’s techn...

We just had AGM for Tasmanian Game Makers, Inc. (TasGM), and for the third year in a row I was pleasantly surprised to be elected President. I’m really looking forward to working with the new committee to continue pushing the video game industry in Tasmania along, get the Tasmanian Games Incubator going as part of TasGM, and helping Screen Tasmania run Level Up. With thanks to our outgoing board member, and our fantastic community and financial members.

I’m thrilled to share that we’ll be part of Level Up Tasmania 2024 , a fantastic celebration of our local game development industry. This event, running from September 27-29, 2024, showcases the creativity and innovation thriving right here in Tasmania. The main showcase will unfold at PW1 in Hobart on Friday and Saturday, featuring over 30 Tasmanian-made games. It’s a rare opportunity to see the breadth of talent we have in our state, all under one roof! Come along? Tickets ar...

Another set of links I found interesting: So cool: Voyager 1 Team Accomplishes Tricky Thruster Swap Great Barrier Reef already been dealt its death blow The benefits of special interests in autism How I Built an NFC Movie Library for my Kids PIXHELL Attack: Leaking Sensitive Information from Air-Gap Computers via ‘Singing Pixels’ Thanks for reading!

It’s been a busy week! Here are some interesting links: How the Oldest Company in the World Has Survived Nearly 1,500 Years How does banking work? Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch Tabbed out on the Oregon Trail An unverified source, but it all sounds like it makes sense. How horrible: Buy, Borrow, Die - Explained See you next time!

The West Coast Space Show was a fantastic success! We had a great time presenting our space-themed show and activities for kids and adults alike, all around Tasmania’s West and Central Coast. We’re so grateful for the support we received from the Australian Government via National Science Week . We ran the show all over the West Coast and Central Coast of Tasmania, including amazing places like Strahan, Zeehan, Queenstown, and Ulverstone. In total, we spoke to more than 255 people.

Here are this week’s interesting links: Dishwashers are critical: At the heart of every restaurant Hahahah, oh ho ho ho, hahahaha: Microsoft’s Copilot falsely accuses court reporter of crimes he covered Astronomers back call for review of bonkers rule that means satellite swarms fly without environment checks Enjoy!