I had deposited myself on the lounge with a book when the news came on. It was National Nine News, which I seem to think was well respected once upon a time. Not quite as stiff and proper as ABC National News, but definitely on a shelf above Channel 7. And a few shelves above Channel 10.

The opening story was about Trump and Iran. They’d made a deal (an artful one? Who knows). But the Strait of Hormuz would open again, huzzah! 

What had happened to Trump's threats to wipe out an entire civilization? Well let’s cross to our reporter in Washington. Huh, well you know Trump. They call him ‘TACO’. He always chickens out. 

So what’s happening in the TACO economy? Oil prices have plummeted. The markets rallied.

Great, let’s cross to a live report from a suburban Sydney petrol station. Have prices dropped yet? Would we see a price reduction in real time?  

No, we would not. But we would learn that if we just downloaded a mobile app we’d get a free voucher for a 10c per litre discount at one particular chain of petrol stations. 

THAT’S A BLOODY AD! I shouted at the screen. I don’t think they heard me.

Now let’s hear what the leader of Australia’s most right-wing political party thinks about the arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith for the war crimes he was previously found in a civil trial, on the balance of probability, to have committed. It’s a disgrace! (The arrest, not the war crimes he is charged with). We also hear from a dead veteran’s father on how disgracefully our returned servicemen are treated, and of the anonymous veteran handing his medals of valour to national treasure Bob Katter. He didn’t want them anymore, given how poorly we treat our war heroes (the veteran; not Bob).

I got up and walked away. 

Earlier that day I caught the end of National Party leader Matt Canavan’s address to the National Press Club. “We just need more Australia!” Which really means we just need to dig more Australian fossil fuels out of the ground. The looks on the faces of the journalists in the room spoke volumes. I persisted just to hear their questions as they struggled to make sense of what they just heard. The data he referred to and the assertions he made were questioned, and rightfully so. But the one soundbite that made the news later that night was in a package on fuel supplies “We shouldn’t be begging other countries for fuel.” 

I agree. We shouldn’t be begging other countries for fuel. I just don’t agree with the assertion that we are begging other countries for fuel. Are we? How can we know?

Nine National News shows us a version of the world through a particular lens. We bring our own frame of reference along with that. Our past experience and cultural bias. A diminished capacity to pay attention and a thousand other things on our mind. 

We rely on traditional sources for a take on the world that we can trust. Sources are never completely free from bias, but there was a time when a mainstream masthead was respected and reliable. When elected representatives–party leaders and Presidents–could be respected. 

Sources that deserve that respect are fewer and further between these days. 

Narrator: The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources were focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections.
Idiocracy, 2006

cognitive infrastructure

Broadcast and digital spaces are incredibly important, especially as we see each other in-person less and less. Opportunities to interact as a community are increasingly likely to be online. 

But the quality of those spaces is crumbling before our eyes.

I used to be an #auspol junkie on twitter. Back in the day. I’d share my Monday night thoughts with the qanda hashtag. I watched the Twitter decline in real time. The bots became problematic, the fact checkers attempted to stem the tide until Trump got banned, Elon’s bluff was called, and the platform slid into the cesspit it now occupies. The most I hear of it now is when Grok goes off the rails and/or fact checks Elon. 

Even Reddit, once the home of at least some intelligent commentary and knowledge sharing, has gone to the dark side of the algorithm. Where I’d once dive into the comments to learn why something might have happened, I now collapse multiple threads of predictable clumsy attempts at humour before getting to anything intelligent. 

A new tool called Memplace was released on Github recently; a solution offered to limited LLM context windows. ‘Awesome!’ I thought; that might save tokens. I wonder if it does what it says on the tin? The comments were all focused on one of the people behind the offering; Milla Jovovich.

Wait; the actress? Man this is a weird timeline.  

That chick from Resident Evil? <insert gross innuendo here>

Heaven forbid someone bare an ability to have more than one skill. Surely pretty people are like single-use plastic–only good for one thing. 

I didn’t find anyone who’d actually tried it. But I gave up pretty quickly. 

Rita: You think Einstein walked around thinkin' everyone was a bunch of dumb shits?
Pvt. Joe Bowers: Yeah. Hadn't thought of that.
Rita: Now you know why he built that bomb.
Idiocracy, 2006

hot takes

I don’t know if you’ve seen the Figma share price lately, but it’s taken a bit of a hit. I have a LinkedIn account so I know why: Claude killed it. 

Claude Design killed Figma!

At least it makes a change from the SaaS is dead! declarations I’ve become accustomed to. Hyperbole used to be a tool for emphasis. This is the best thing since sliced bread! It isn’t meant to be taken literally.

But back to Figma. It isn’t unreasonable to point to a company’s share price as proof of value–it literally is the price people are willing to pay to own a piece of a company. But that is influenced by many factors, including perception. The stock market isn’t some omnipotent being. If the stock market were to have an animal alter-ego it would not be a Luckdragon named Falkor, it would be a cliff-diving lemming. Share prices are driven by supply and demand; when everyone wants to buy something, the price goes up, and when everyone wants to sell something, the price goes down. Nobody wants to get caught holding the bag, so if there’s any hint that things might go south, the quickest lemming to sell wins. 

For Figma, the bloodied fists of Claude were a late and additional blow that followed a deliberately oversubscribed IPO on 31 July 2025. The listing price of US$33 shot-up to peak at US$143 the day after release, before falling to US$80 on September 5, US$43 on November 14, and US$35 on January 27, 2026, due to a structured series of lockups and provisions built into the IPO. The Figma executives cashing out their equity are a matter of public record.  

It’s the perfect case study showing how pricing strategy, lockup architecture, and information flow intersect in modern public offerings to keep retail traders from getting in position before the smart money.
Trading View, 2026

At a glance though, the share price was sliding, revenue growth softening (still above 30% in a tough SaaS market though), so something must be inherently wrong. But what? Oh yeah; Claude. And Google Stitch. Vibe design. Only these competitors came out in March and April. They did knock some value off Figma stock, but nothing close to the falls that preceded them. And it’s far too soon to tell if hoards of professional designers will dig Claude’s vibe.  

The information environment we found ourselves in doesn't leave much room for a full picture anymore. I’m only giving you the TLDR of the Figma IPO story. But nuance is for the weak anyway. Algorithms favour “strong hooks”, meaning a balanced assessment doesn’t get clicks.  

We’re in this weird place where genuine innovation gets flattened into an oversimplified hot take. In Claude Design, Anthropic announced something that offers some genuinely exciting steps forward in AI assisted design. But it doesn’t replace actual creativity. Claude doesn’t provide the human insight to produce something unique and innovative. And it doesn’t yet offer the degree of control needed for a creative human to deliver a unique design. Figma does.  

I’m not here to game an algorithm so I can be excited about what's possible and acknowledge that different tools solve different problems. I can suggest that we should be more focussed on figuring out which tools will actually help us solve a problem that we haven’t been able to solve before. That might not be as shareable, but it’s probably more useful.

we need to notice

We seem to be losing the infrastructure to even begin to think clearly about things. The news is designed to trigger emotion, and social platforms amplify the loudest takes, even when the actual story is way more interesting. We’re looking to people in authority for trusted leadership, and getting self-serving motives in return. And we're all operating with diminished attention, fractured information sources, and algorithms that actively punish nuance.

Our environment is making it harder to think clearly, and I want you to notice.  

Notice when you’re being fed bullshit. Notice when an ad is dressed up as journalism. Notice when there’s way more to a story than what comes up at face value. It’s important. 

Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.
Idiocracy, 2006