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Jarrod Watt

@jaywatt.bsky.social

980 followers 590 following 2K posts

Australian journo in Hong Kong; podcast editor/producer; Aus news correspondent RTHK3; journalism lecturer HKBU; ex SCMP, ABC, PBSFM, RRR; reformed music journo and bartender - https://jarrodwatt.com/

jarrodwatt.com

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 21h

David Rowe's cartoon in the AFR: Donald ducks the details while others calculate the peace dividend for Gaza

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 19h

Banned Books Week ends today and I thought I'd try and catch up on some reading... sadly this list is American only. Big ups to Judy Blume - celebrating 50 years of bans on her book "Forever". pen.org/banned-books...

Banned Books List 2025

What books are banned in 2025? Thousands of titles have been removed from public schools across the country.

pen.org

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 20h

Not a yellow patch on clothing - stickers. "Doors of raided units were also marked with what appeared to be some sort of makeshift sticker system. White stickers, made with duct tape & a marker, labeled as “PC” hung on doors of units that had been broken down." chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid, one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before t...

chicago.suntimes.com

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 21h

David Rowe's cartoon in the AFR: Donald ducks the details while others calculate the peace dividend for Gaza

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

"In the eyes of tech CEOs, it’s never about changing the world, improving how we function as a society, or helping us spend more valuable time with our loved ones. From the beginning, it was only ever about one thing: putting more commas in Zuckerberg’s bank account" theshot.net.au/uncategorize...

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

😀you just know it's going to be the Kirk Peace Prize...enraging Star Trek fans worldwide...

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

...with the obvious follow-up: how many Hong Kong homes would be powered by 175 gigawatts per year? Answer: 53,000

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

I took the challenge and asked AI how much power this data centre in the Northern Metropolis might use - given Hong Kong is sweating through a record-breaking Autumn, it's going to need a lot of air con... and how much water will it be sourcing?

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

The forecast is for tantrum... the online cabal of digital news folk worldwide are placing bets on how it will manifest. A thousand words of complaint on TruthSocial? Special tariffs for Norway? I'm backing the dark horse - Fox News campaigns with Turning Point USA to create their OWN peace prize

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

Turrns out a monopoly on how people search online is bad. "Some publishers are discussing "Google Zero": the hypothetical moment when Google Search stops sending any traffic to third-party websites, instead providing AI overviews directly on the search results page" www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

A tiny new button in your search bar could kill the open web

The launch of 'AI Mode' ushers in a future where news sites are kept alive to train AI chatbots for a US tech company.

www.abc.net.au

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

Déjà vu for Trump's gangster trade policy: "Farmers across the Midwest, a key constituency for the president’s party, now face swelling stockpiles, plunging prices and losses eerily reminiscent of the first US–China trade war during Trump’s initial term in 2018." www.scmp.com/news/us/arti...

Trump threatens to halt Chinese imports – but counts on Xi to buy US soybeans

Although Trump has sounded certain about meeting Xi later this month, the Chinese government has not made any official announcement yet.

www.scmp.com

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 1d

Harry Harrison drops in on Hong Kong retailers after a flaccid ‘Golden Week’: today’s cartoon

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 2d

I've always wanted to do a photo feature on the truckies in Hong Kong who go to great lengths to personalise their cabins... but this is next level. Woe to the lone driver on an empty highway who has one of these roll up behind them...

Edge of LOL @edgeoflol.bsky.social · 3d

Trucks in China 🇨🇳

#trucking #china #crazy #wild

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 2d

Is there a dummy big enough for the big man to spit? Will Seal Team 6 be mobilised for a targeted strike on the Nobel Committee base in Norway? We are about to find out...

a person is laying on the ground with leaves around them .

ALT: a person is laying on the ground with leaves around them .

media.tenor.com

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 2d

Is it just me or does Trump think a "peace deal" signed for Gaza before Friday will get him the Nobel Peace Prize?
"...Israeli troops will be withdrawn from an “agreed-upon line” but his statement left open the question of what comes next..." www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 2d

Checking in on the framing of Japan's first female prime minister - I see eagerness for "Japan's Iron Lady" and some focus on her once being a drummer in a metal band, but what about building a profile around the fact she owns a turbocharged Toyota Supra? www.caranddriver.com/news/a688574...

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 2d

Great to see one of the many great bars in Hong Kong get this accolade - a good news story for a sector that's copped a beating in the last five years. There are many other places that deserve a mention as well www.wineenthusiast.com/hong-kong-ni...

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 2d

Harry Harrison ponders the existential quandary in demanding better maintenance of Hong Kong's sub-divided apartments before the Urban Renewal Authority knocks them down for re-development: today's cartoon

Reposted by Jarrod Watt

Joel Chan @kjoules.org · 3d

With the Hong Kong Observatory registering a temperature of 33.1°C today, 2025 marks the first time in Hong Kong’s recorded history there were at least 4 “very hot days” in the month of October which the mercury rose above 33°C

(Chart by @kjoules.org) Hong Kong, Very Hot Days in October (in which the temperature exceeded 33C), 1884-present

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 3d

Oldmate just sent me a snap of his very first Two Buck Chuck. Or do we call it the KC3 dollar coin? In the spirit of Australia's season of Choose Your Own Timezone let every State and Territory give it their own nickname.

Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 3d

Curious to see how the return of NBA games in China is parsed by the MAGA believers - inside the administration and those working in media. It's also quite educational for those of us present in Hong Kong in 2019 to see historical events reduced to a "democracy tweet"

www.msn.com/en-us/sports...

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 3d

A great companion piece to Doctorow's analysis of the generative AI bubble: an historical perspective on the massive boom and bust as a result of the arrival of the tech gamechanger we know as "electricity" theconversation.com/todays-ai-hy...

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 3d

How to recycle an abandoned city: fascinating feature from Kinling Lo on how one ghost town left from China's real estate collapse has been repurposed into a training ground for autonomous trucks and ride-hailing services. restofworld.org/2025/china-o...

China’s most infamous ghost town is now training ground for driverless trucks

The empty boulevards that once symbolized the mainland’s property bust now serve as testing grounds for hundreds of autonomous vehicles.

restofworld.org

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 3d

Harry Harrison lights up over new labelling rules for cigarettes in Hong Kong: today’s cartoon

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 4d

Cory Doctorow off the long run-up with quality AI analysis: “So, you're saying a third of the stock market is tied up in seven AI companies that have no way to become profitable and that this is a bubble that's going to burst and take the whole economy with it?" pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 4d

...and the good news today is that 62 years after banning the hunting and harvesting of humpback whales for their oil, there are now more than 50,000 - bouncing back from just 150 remaining when the ban was finally put in place. www.abc.net.au/news/science...

East coast humpback numbers are now higher than pre-whaling levels

Once hunted almost to extinction, the population of humpback whales currently migrating down Australia's east coast has bounced back and is now greater than before whaling.