I knew orbital mechanics were weird, but this breaks my brain. youtube.com/watch?v=dLtRtdg6…

This past week, on a test bed in Britain, a Rolls-Royce jet engine ran at full take-off power on pure hydrogen, putting out water vapour instead of carbon. Nobody on Earth had managed it before. It is the sort of thing that ought to stop the country in its tracks, and it will be forgotten by the weekend. Leave aside the recent paroxysms of renewed net-zero insanity from Derelict Ed and the pervasive atmosphere of offended envy that greets much homegrown achievement nowadays in Britain. This engineering is a wonder, and it's British to the bone. We gave the world the jet engine in the first place - Frank Whittle, a Coventry man and an RAF officer, patented it in 1930 while the Air Ministry assured him it was a curiosity. Rolls-Royce is today one of perhaps three firms anywhere that can build a large aero engine at the outer edge of the possible, and it has just done what most of the industry swore was twenty years away. As usual, you marvel at how little the people who govern us had to do with it. The engineers in Derby are world-class; the stewardship above them is third-rate. They pulled off a global first while paying the most expensive industrial electricity in the developed world to keep the power on over the bench - a weight no German, American or Gulf rival has to carry. We produce frontier brilliance on the shop floor and fritter it away at the despatch box, and we have done for two generations. That is the maddening shape of modern Britain: brilliance from below, sub- (or, indeed, ultra-) mediocrity from above. The people here who actually make things are still among the best in the world; the state that is meant to back them treats a firm like Rolls-Royce as a photocall today and a takeover target tomorrow, and prices its energy as though it would prefer the next plant were built in Texas. Progress starts from the other end. Give these people what every rival government gives its champions and we beg ours to do without: the cheap, abundant power their competitors already enjoy, a supply chain built around them, and a state that guards a national asset rather than auctioning it. The hard part of a British revival - the talent, the nerve, the engineering - is already done, and was done again this week, by people who deserve a far better country than the one currently sitting above them. We just taught an engine to breathe fire and exhale water. The least we owe the men and women who managed it is a government and a state as brilliant as they are.

Ooooh, Happy Friday with some new music from GUNSHIP! youtube.com/watch?v=K-TDXrM1…

Oh, hello! Evanescence are coming back to Melbourne next year, and playing at a much bigger venue this time around! premier.ticketek.com.au/Show…

"Trickle down economics doesn't work, so let's try piñata economics. That's the one where we beat the billionaires until the hoarded wealth falls out."

Just reaching out to @iamgincampbell to say hi 👋 and I hope you’re doing ok The algorithm has not been showing me any of your posts for a while now…

Why is the X-Wing called the X-Wing? You would think it’s because it’s shaped like the letter X, but the basic alphabet in the Star Wars universe looks like this.

Australia shouldn't have to rent its AI future. So we built Matilda. An Australian-built AI assistant, running on our own fully sovereign cluster in Melbourne. Public access is rolling out now.

Twenty-four years apart. June 2002 all the way through to June 2026. I think this is the oldest and newest photos that I have of me...

The good ol' bait-n-switcharoo! theconversation.com/australi…

Who in has ever looked at a frozen pizza and said to themselves “yeah, looks like they did a decent job with the toppings, I don’t think I need to add any more”? No one, that’s who.

My cat Louis needs daily medication. He will not take a pill. Not hidden in food. Not crushed. Not wrapped in anything. We tried everything. Then we discovered the system. Step one. Take the packet out of the cupboard very slowly. Step two. Hold it up. Make surprised faces. Us: Oh. OH. What's this. What IS this. Is this a TREAT? A TREAT FOR LOUIS? Louis: (ears up) Louis: (suspicious but interested) Step three. Offer him the pill. Step four. Before he can sniff it — pull it back. Wag a finger. Return it to the packet like it's something precious we almost gave away by accident. Louis: (more interested now) Louis: (what was that) We repeat this four or five times. Each time getting him more confused. More convinced this is something he desperately needs to know about. By the end he's so wound up by the mystery that when we offer the pill again he eats it as fast as possible. Just to find out what it is before we can take it away. Then. The realisation. Louis: (sits perfectly still) Louis: (expression changes completely) Louis: (the look of a creature who has been betrayed at the deepest level) Louis: (stares at us) Us: (staring back) Louis: (walks away slowly) Louis: (with whatever dignity he has left) Me: (same thing tomorrow) Me: (works every time) Me: (he never learns) Me: (we never get tired of it)

Happy Saturday everyone. It’s all sounding pretty epic over here tonight 🗡️⚔️ music.apple.com/au/album/nor…

Vangelis composing the Blade Runner score in 1981.

Come and join me in Valhalla music.apple.com/au/album/val…

Rate my Marg #pizza #ooni #Margherita

Outfit of the day. Every guy needs to have at least one amazing jacket or coat. This is mine. #ootd #boss

The beautiful golden wattle flowers are coming out early on this pearl acacia tree