Last week, the Tasmanian Greens announced they’ll move for an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the AI data centres going up across the north of the state. I think this is a very good idea. These projects appear to have been approved without any specific regulations or parliamentary oversight, and the public has barely had the chance to have a say. The announcement also put a new number on the record: in Budget Estimates, under Greens questioning, Energy Minister Nick Duigan confirmed Firmus plans to draw 400 to 500 MW across two or three “AI factory” sites, which is more than Bell Bay Aluminium’s 335 MW, currently the state’s single biggest power user.

We spent today in some of the forests up in lutruwita/Tasmania’s Central Highlands that are being logged, or are about to be. It was a Bob Brown Foundation Threatened Forest Open Day. It was sobering and a bit sad. Also fascinating, and the forest is beautiful.

It rained pretty much all day. The marquee was up in the middle of the forest and we stood under it while a few people talked. They went through what’s happening to these forests and what’s scheduled to be cut. I got a lot out of it.

Submissions for Australia’s next National Cultural Policy closed in May 2026. I wrote one, on behalf of Tasmanian Game Makers, because I want games taken seriously as what they are: the art form most of us actually play.

Read the full submission on Tas Game Makers

Here are the highlights.

Games are the art form of our time. In 2025, 82% of Australians played them, the average player was 35, and women now make up just over half of all players. On the government’s own data, digital games development has been the fastest-growing of all cultural and creative activities in the country over the past decade. Games are also one of our most export-heavy creative industries: 93% of the Australian sector’s revenue comes from overseas.

We’re working on an adventure game, Leonardo’s Moon Ship. The player character, Leo, has the usual pile of animations: idle left and right, walk in four directions, a couple of stair anims. Since implementing the basics of the character, Leo has had this slightly cursed behaviour where he’d grow about 3% taller the moment he started walking, then shrink back when he stopped. His feet would also lift off the ground by up to 27 pixels depending on which way he was facing. Not enough to be obviously broken in a screenshot. Exactly enough to make the game feel wrong.

I’m really pleased to share that I’ve been awarded a 2026 Libraries Tasmania Research Fellowship. The project is on Tasmania’s space history, from the establishment of Rossbank Observatory in 1840 through to the contemporary work being done here on tracking interplanetary spacecraft. There’s a surprisingly long thread connecting convict-era astronomy in Hobart to the antennas, satellites, and deep-space tracking that I talk about most months on ABC Radio, and I’m looking forward to spending some quality time in the State Library and Archives pulling that thread.

Big Plans is out now on iOS and Android. We built it at Secret Lab for Bank of us, the Tasmanian customer-owned bank, as a story-based game for kids aged 5 to 8 about money. Specifically, the value of money, needs versus wants, and the basics of planning and making choices.

We loved making it. The brief was unusually thoughtful for a kids’ app: no ads, no in-app purchases, no online interaction, no marketing pitches at children. Just a small game that helps a five-year-old start thinking about how money works. There’s a parent guide that goes with it for families who want to keep the conversation going off-screen.

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, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Artemis II: Four Humans At The Moon Right Now

Artemis II launched on 1 April. As I write this on Sunday morning, four astronauts are about 169,000 miles from Earth and closing on the Moon. They go behind it tomorrow. This is the first time humans have left low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972, fifty-four years ago.

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, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

SETI@Home’s Final 100 Signals

This month’s show had a theme — letters from strangers — and we started with the biggest crowdsourced search for alien intelligence ever run.

We recently released a brand new Try Yarn Spinner, which I wrote (more details in the Yarn Spinner January update), and I wrote a new demo story too! Check it out below:

Technical post on the new Try Yarn Spinner coming soon.

We just had the AGM for Tasmanian Game Makers, Inc. (TasGM) in Launceston on Friday, and I was thrilled to (once again, somehow) be elected as President! For the fourth year in a row, I’m really grateful for the trust of our members, and I’m excited to work with the new board to keep pushing the video game industry in Tasmania forward.

The new board is:

• President: Paris B-A
• Vice-Presidents: Michael Hinz, Leo Febey
• Secretary: Tim Nugent
• Treasurer: Jon Manning
• General Committee: Jason Imms, Dean Baron, Lindsay Wells, Lindsay Mansfield, Rhiannon Ross, Alonso Zevallos Fournier, Brie Ratten, and Jerome Phelps

With Oliver Potter continuing as our Screen Tasmania Observer.

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, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Katherine Bennell-Pegg: 2026 Australian of the Year

Katherine Bennell-Pegg was named 2026 Australian of the Year on Sunday 26 January at the National Arboretum in Canberra. She’s 41, born in South Australia, holds dual British-Australian citizenship, and is the first person to qualify as an astronaut under the Australian flag. She hasn’t flown to space yet.

I’m so proud of this.

Hint Line ‘93, a game we made at Yarn Spinner, is now on display at ACMI’s Game Worlds exhibition. We put up a big behind-the-scenes post on the Yarn Spinner blog, so go read that…

For those who don’t know, early last year ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, a museum of screen culture in Melbourne) put out a call for commissioned microgames. They wanted playable experiences for a museum context: 5-10 minutes, compelling world-building, accessible to a wide variety of visitors.

Related: This article examines state-level AI governance in Australia. For analysis of the Commonwealth’s AI governance failures, see Slop for the People. For context on the newly announced federal AI Safety Institute, see Australia’s AI Safety Institute: Lessons from the UK and US.

The Commonwealth government attracts most attention for its AI policies. State and territory governments are also deploying AI systems in education, health, policing, transport, and social services.

Each state governs AI differently. Some are ahead of the Commonwealth. Others barely engage with it. None do it well.

My company Yarn Spinner published a post today explaining why we don’t use AI and won’t be adding it to our products.

The TL;DR:

AI companies make tools for hurting people and we don’t want to support that.

From the post:

If you look at what AI companies promote now, it’s not what we wanted. When you boil down everything they say and strip it right back, what they make are tools to either fire people or demand more work without hiring anyone new to help. That’s the problem AI companies want to solve.

Related: This article examines what Australia can learn from international AI safety institutes. For analysis of the Commonwealth’s AI governance failures, see Slop for the People. For state-level AI governance, see State of Play: How Australian States Are (Not) Governing AI.

On 25 November 2025, Minister for Industry and Innovation Tim Ayres announced the establishment of the Australian AI Safety Institute (AISI). With a $29.9 million commitment and operations commencing “early 2026”, Australia will become the latest nation to join the International Network of AI Safety Institutes.

We released Yarn Spinner 3.1 on December 3, 2025, introducing several significant improvements to our dialogue system framework. This update emphasises asynchronous operations, graceful error handling, and enhanced customisation options.

Key Features

Async Dialogue Runner Methods — The dialogue runner’s core methods now support asynchronous operations. The StartDialogue and Stop methods are now async and return a task. This ensures that dialogue presenters complete their initialisation before scene changes occur.

Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️

Update 14 December 2025: Someone from Executive Relations at Apple says they’re looking into it. I hope this is true. They say they’ll call me back tomorrow, on 15 December 2025. In the mean time, it’s been covered by Daring Fireball, Apple Insider, Michael Tsai, and others, thanks folks! I’ve received 100s of emails of support, and will reply to you all in time, thank you. Finger’s crossed Apple calls back.

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, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Moss Survived Nine Months in Space, and Scientists Are Stunned

Japanese researchers strapped moss spores to the outside of the International Space Station for 283 days. Not inside. Outside. Direct exposure to vacuum, cosmic radiation, UV bombardment up to 1,000 times stronger than Earth’s surface, and temperature swings that would kill almost anything.

Related: This article examines the Commonwealth’s AI governance failures in practice. For context on the newly announced federal AI Safety Institute, see Australia’s AI Safety Institute: Lessons from the UK and US. For state-level AI governance, see State of Play: How Australian States Are (Not) Governing AI.

The Australian Public Service’s (APS) official culture of AI adoption is not found in the glossy press releases of its ministers. But we’ll get to that shortly.

Australia’s world-first ban on social media for children under 16 takes effect in just over a month on December 10, 2025, yet nobody knows exactly how it will work.

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 passed parliament in a rushed process in November last year, imposing potential fines of up to $50 million on platforms that fail to keep out underage users. While 77% of Australians support the ban, only 25% believe it will actually work, and with weeks until launch, the mounting controversies, technical failures, and expert warnings suggest it’s becoming exactly the shitshow sceptics predicted.

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, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Water on the moon?

China just made space history, and it’s not the headline you’d expect. Back in June 2024, their Chang’e-6 mission became the first spacecraft ever to return samples from the lunar far side. The mission was very cool (a technical term), requiring a relay satellite just to communicate, since radio signals can’t pass through a moon’s worth of solid rock.

Australia has a new plan to keep kids safe online. On the surface, it sounds simple, maybe even sensible. The government is banning anyone under sixteen from having a social media account. From December, platforms like Instagram and TikTok will have to kick the kids off in an effort to stop social harm. It’s a nice idea. But when you pull back the curtain, you find a privacy disaster waiting to happen. It’s a plan that won’t work, and it will end up hurting the very people it’s supposed to protect.

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, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

The World’s Space Community Came to Sydney

The 76th International Astronautical Congress wrapped up in Sydney this month, bringing thousands and thousands of attendees from most countries. It’s the largest global gathering of space professionals, and this year’s theme was “Sustainable Space: Resilient Earth.”

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:

Space Command: Politics Over Strategy

President Trump announced he’s moving US Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama—reversing the Biden administration’s decision and bringing domestic politics into military space strategy. This isn’t just bureaucratic reshuffling, it’s a $1 billion economic decision affecting 1,400 jobs and America’s space defence capabilities.

CBA has been naughty, and too reliant on their AI boyfriend. Here’s what happened: A CBA customer contacted bank requesting contact details for Secretlab (a company that is not us, and makes chairs) CBA staff member queried ChatGPT (possibly via their own personal, unauthen...

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 most valuable 14 seconds in Australian aerospace history happened last month, while the most expensive corporate rivalry ever fought in orbit just turned 40.

The recent delisting of over 17,000 games from the independent platform Itch.io wasn’t a content moderation decision made by the platform itself. It was an act of financial coercion. Instigated by an Australian activist group and carried out by payment processors like Mastercard, it sets a dangerous precedent for all creative fields online.

The stated goal of the campaign was to combat media that glorifies sexual violence. An aim that sounds laudable, making it difficult to argue against in public. But like calls to age-gate social media, such goals can act as a Trojan horse. A socially acceptable pretext for gaining more information and control over people. And the outcome here reveals a profound and damaging overreach.

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 exac...

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, ...

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.