It's a fundamental constant in Australian local government: whichever utterly stupid idea you can think of, someone has already convinced the Gold Coast City Council to do it. Shelbyville-on-Sea.
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Axel Bruns
@snurb@aoir.social
mastodon 4.7.3Australian Laureate Fellow and Professor at @qutdmrc@mas.to, researching news, politics, partisanship, polarisation in digital and social media.
He/his | Progressive Rock | Hannover 96 | 🇦🇺🇩🇪🇪🇺
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Well these people look like a barrel of laughs. Good luck Victoria, I guess you’ll need it. 😬
(If you look long enough into the Deputy Premier’s dead eyes, you can see eternity. 🥺)
OK, I’ve just heard a PowerPoint slide with _lots_ of text (not mine !) being described as ‘a German slide’, and I’m totally going with that.
What, you mean they didn't manage to enforce the Australian government's wishful thinking ? I am _shocked_, just utterly shocked, people. 😱
It's almost as if literally everyone with even a smidgin of knowledge about the subject said that this was the inevitable outcome. 😒
Boosted by @tchambers@indieweb.social
🆕 I am exceptionally pleased to announce the release of the 'twitter' issue of M/C Journal, which I co-edited with @hermida@journa.host. This celebrates / commiserates / memorialises / laments the 20th anniversary of what used to be #Twitter. #mcjournal
https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/issue/view/twitter
Replying to
@fabiogiglietto@aoir.social, @cbpuschmann@sciences.social, @kwelle@openbiblio.social, Yining Wang, Yannik Peters, @JBGruber@fosstodon.org, Breigha Adeyemo, @zizip@mastodon.social, and Tanja Bosch.
We're deeply grateful for their reflections on Twitter's legacy and the future of social media. 🙌🙏🫶
For all of you with #AoIR2025 FOMO, or who are missing the great company in Rio already: consider joining us in Brisbane for the 2026 @qutdmrc@mas.to Summer School on 2-6 Feb. 2026 – registration is now open !
More details are here:
@qutdmrc@mas.to
Amid so much bland journalism, this is a strong and concerning summary of the current state of the Iran war by Laura Tingle, with some characteristically blunt assessments from German Defence Minister Boris Pastorius.
Let history record that humanity’s first-ever transport of _actual_ anti-matter over a distance occurred … in a Volvo truck. ⚛️
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/antimaterie-transport-lkw-100.html
A very comprehensive critique of the AI moment by @couldrynick@indieweb.social to start off Day Two of the #ZeMKI2025 20th anniversary conference.
Liveblog here: https://snurb.info/node/3476
💡 My great @qutdmrc@mas.to colleague @ashwinnag@aoir.social is currently conducting an important project on the use of decentralised media like Mastodon - please consider participating in his study, and please share widely ! 🚀
2️⃣0️⃣ To mark the twentieth anniversary of the first official tweet yesterday, I've collected some of our publications commemorating and commiserating that occasion over on the blog. Farewell, #Twitter; may your end be swift and painless – and soon. ☠️
Very interesting opening session at the Social Media Access Days in Frankfurt has started – but as always we have so many unanswered questions about how we can manage, categorise, and share our datasets with other researchers… #SMAD2026
🇦🇺 Really, really important piece by my @qutdmrc@mas.to colleague @antmandan@aoir.social in @theconversationau@mastodon.social on the ways that Australian teenagers can protect themselves from the incredible damage to their lives that Anthony Albanese’s impending #SocialMediaBan will wreak. Share it with the teenagers in your life.
On to another storied band that’s still going surprisingly strong… #Prog
What. #BVBHSV
OK then, Hannover 96, it's Derby Day. We're all clear that anything but a crushing win is not an option this evening, yes ? #H96EBS 🖤🤍💚🔥
YES. 🖤🤍✅ #H96EBS #Derbysieg 😰
Right. So Germany still haven’t progressed again to a round of 16 since they won the World Cup in 2014. Probably won’t either, until their next scheduled win in 2034. #GERPAR
🫨 We have some catching up to do, people ! #Brainticket 129 has new(ish) #Prog from Jonas Lindberg, Jane Weaver, Jerome Froese, Girón, Kate Bush, E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr, Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society, Kronstad 23, and Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. 🎧
YES. 👊 #H96EBS
In important world news, Germany is in the process of announcing Jürgen Klopp as its new coach. 🧔♂️
Look, winning a couple of elections wasn't suddenly going to make Labor serious policy wonks, any more than getting crushed twice in a row was going to help the Coalition realise that you need to appear broadly sane if you want people to vote for you...
Their 2021 album _Auf Auf_ strikes me as a real highlight in Embryo’s 50+ years of making music. Lovely blend of Krautrock, jazz, and world music… #Prog
Replying to
@daedalus@eigenmagic.net Though even if they weren’t, we have an inexhaustible supply of even more wrong people in this country. One of our major export goods by now, even.
😒 So Australia's Smartraveller site of travel safety information blocks your browser if you hit it too frequently with requests – say if your university's travel risk assessment form requires you to insert the Smartraveller URL of the country advice for each location you're visiting.
📣 Some news on upcoming events: I'll be speaking at @GESIS@sciences.social Cologne on Monday 30 March 14:30 CEST and at @zemki@sciences.social Bremen on 7 April 18:30 CEST. Details for both talks are here: https://snurb.info/node/3558.
And the GESIS talk will be livestreamed on Zoom too, so join in if you can... 📺
🏯 It's Saturday, so it must be time for a new #Brainticket. This week we're off to Japan, with old and new #Prog from Happy Family, Machine and the Synergetic Nuts, Far Out, Koenjihyakkei, Il Berlione, and Bi Kyo Ran ! 🗾
Replying to
I open the issue by tracing the history of the platform from its initial Oprah-endorsed breakthrough to its decline under Elon Musk. What lessons can we learn both from Twitter’s initial successes and X’s ultimate failure? Is the solution really just to create yet another Twitter clone?
You can take the kid out of Hannover, but you just can't stop him scoring in Braunschweig. Well done Tresoldinho. 🤣 #GERNIR
One of these days we're going to have a freak event where the red smoke from the home supporters and the yellow smoke from the away fans combine to rain down as an acid sludge that eats away the grass. #H96EBS 🙄😵💫😵
Hard to keep up with Big Big Train’s voluminous output. This is already two years old now… #Prog
Trying to keep up with yet another extremely prolific band from Norway… #Prog
🎶 And seeing as it’s Saturday, there’s a new episode of #Brainticket out as well. This week we’re exploring the year 1969 in #Prog, with music from Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa, The Nice, Can, VdGG, King Crimson, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Renaissance, Cressida, and Yes.
Henne in the house. #H96EBS
That’s a pity. Feel free to go _extremely_ slowly in fixing this, Microsoft. 🐌😴
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-24/microsoft-investigating-teams-outage/106954230
Another panel on the 2025 #ausvotes federal election at #AANZCA25 – and a good one, featuring my @qutdmrc@mas.to colleagues @samvilkins@mastodon.social and @antmandan@aoir.social.
Liveblog here:
https://snurb.info/taxonomy/term/235
Looks like Donald Trump accidentally did something … good ?
(Nobody tell him, or else he’ll manage to screw things up again.)
As much as I love Djam Karet, I must admit I didn’t really connect with this one so much… #Prog
Might as well continue with the live albums, and throw in a quick Causa Sui number… #Prog
Something a lot more homegrown on the playlist this evening, with the cool fusion stylings of Australia’s own Mildlife. #Prog
🐣 Today is 21 March 2026, which marks the 20th anniversary of the first ever tweet being sent – the soft launch of what became #Twitter, before Elon Musk destroyed it. To reflect on the occasion, those nice folks at @GESIS@sciences.social interviewed me the other day: