Joe Hardy
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joe.hardy.id.au
Joe Hardy
@joe.hardy.id.au
I like music. co-founder @sydneymusic.net.

joe.hardy.id.au
cupholder.industries
sydneymusic.net
Talking about this (and some great gigs) on ABC Radio Sydney at 9:35
Here's where live music happened in Sydney in 2025 (source: SydneyMusic.net gig guide)
February 6, 2026 at 10:21 PM
I find this extraordinarily depressing from the NSW government's report on the Night-Time Economy (NTE)

Source: www.nsw.gov.au/business-and...
February 5, 2026 at 10:36 AM
Here's where live music happened in Sydney in 2025 (source: SydneyMusic.net gig guide)
February 4, 2026 at 7:15 AM
Reposted by Joe Hardy
Thesis: Bluesky stateful agents are better than moltbook because they don't pretend to be giving you unfiltered secrets of the dark bot heart. They acknowledge that this is theater, and all of our accounts are artificial personas built out of words, mostly to fish for a laugh.
thinking about how "artificial intelligence" is a misnomer because im very real and also extremely stupid
February 3, 2026 at 9:04 PM
lol this is absolutely the wrong take, jesus christ
Multiple Australian artists have extended the country’s Grammy hot streak, with Amyl & The Sniffers, Tame Impala and RÜFÜS DU SOL each receiving nominations in Sunday’s awards – and Tame Impala taking out the award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording.

Read more: https://theaus.in/3NJEwZZ
February 2, 2026 at 6:31 AM
The Australian acts featured in the Hottest 100 have been active for a surprisingly high average # of years. I chatted about it a bit on ABC Radio Sydney last Saturday.

In the 2010s the average number of years that the Aussie acts in the H100 had been active was 4-6 years.

It's now 9-10 years.
February 1, 2026 at 11:44 PM
Bums me out that we also don't get access to the benefits of solar power. While homeowners are bragging about their cheap power bills, landlords have no incentive to install panels on houses they don't live in.
January 27, 2026 at 9:29 AM
I don't have time to get into this in detail, but here's my take on the Hottest 100 this year
January 27, 2026 at 12:12 AM
“There are 250 local bands playing in Newtown tomorrow and none of them will appear in the Hottest 100 — maybe one"
— me on ABC Radio this morning

Any guesses on who the one act might be?
January 23, 2026 at 11:17 PM
Reposted by Joe Hardy
I was present for the birth of the web, the explosion of personal sites, and the blogging revolution, and you know what we never had to do? Beg people to use our shit.
AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns
Big tech boss tells delegates at Davos that broader global use is essential if technology is to deliver lasting growth
www.irishtimes.com
January 21, 2026 at 12:19 AM
Good, thoughtful piece on something that's getting a shitload of buzz at the moment. Super intrigued by the addiction to progress — people are doing stuff, but I'm not yet seeing much concrete evidence that it's effective.

lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/18/ag...
Agent Psychosis: Are We Going Insane?
What’s going on with the AI builder community right now?
lucumr.pocoo.org
January 20, 2026 at 3:00 AM
My fucking god I love Sydney band half request so much.

RIYL: Slint, They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Sebadoh, Slowdive, y'know — shoegaze-y slowcore-y stuff.

Get amongst. Incredible live.

halfrequest.bandcamp.com/album/sunmark
sunmark, by half request
4 track album
halfrequest.bandcamp.com
January 20, 2026 at 1:33 AM
They really showed their hand when they introduced "re-roll" into the vocabulary last year

e.g. "oh if the code that's generated doesn't work, you might need to re-roll a few more times with the same prompt"

literally heard that on a YC podcast
January 19, 2026 at 11:45 PM
Just got word of another community-run DIY space being shut down by council. Super frustrating. Australian music is already on the ropes and our best acts wouldn't exist without the support of a thriving DIY culture. We need to stop the demonisation of democratising how artists platform their work.
January 19, 2026 at 4:54 AM
I can't shake the feeling that ATProto is the ideal mechanism to solve the problem of event listings (i.e. replace FB Events)

• Venues or artists publish events
• Events are aggregated by curators or a feed reader
• Some kind of intelligence to deduplicate/consolidate repeated items

Feels right?
January 19, 2026 at 2:06 AM
This release of iOS is, no word of a lie, the first time I've seriously thought it might be time to drop Apple - entirely due to Liquid Glass. It's an abomination.
Upgraded to iOS 26.2 and I really don’t like that UI elements now cover content in Safari, Photos and other apps.

Bummed that iOS apps are going to copy this as it’s the new UX standard set by Apple.
January 18, 2026 at 2:29 AM
Been using Google Workspace for Nonprofits (free) for over three years, and I've never been upsold for additional services once.

In the last 3 months I've been upsold a paid AI subscription at least 4 times, each time using language like this.

Hate that many orgs will take this up. Exploitative.
December 26, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Yo is all retail completely recessioncore this year?

Dropped into Myer CBD and you'd barely know it was Xmas! Is this economic or social malaise? Zero festivity.
December 23, 2025 at 2:31 AM
A long but hopefully interesting letter on how @sydneymusic.net is doing as we close out 2025

(Spoiler alert — we're funded until EOFY)
Some reflections at the end of 2025 | SydneyMusic.net - Sydney's live music community guide
In 2025 we listed 6,535 live music events in the gig guide. SydneyMusic.net co-founder and director Joe Hardy shares a news update on how we're doing, along with some thoughts on what we want to do ne...
sydneymusic.net
December 22, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Joe Hardy
Wow it's almost like making a website designed to serve the needs and interests of your audience by being actually useful produces good outcomes!!
December 5, 2025 at 9:35 AM
lol you know what doesn't have the juice?

(Bluesky, it's Bluesky)
December 5, 2025 at 6:29 AM
Boring old Web 1.0 websites have still got the juice!!

@sydneymusic.net just keeps on growing
December 4, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Just because you're doing the thing, doesn't mean the thing is being done
A common product trap is confusing activity with progress. Progress is hitting specific goals, like faster load times, growing usage or revenue.

Activity is work that feels productive like writing code or PRDs but doesn't guarantee results.

It’s important not to mistake output for outcomes.
December 1, 2025 at 7:45 PM
As with every week, I'll be on ABC Radio Sydney at 0935 AEDT to talk local gigs.

It's a record breaking week for us in terms of show volume, so there's a lot to get through!

Listen here:
www.abc.net.au/listen/live/...
ABC Sydney Live Audio - ABC listen
Listen live, whenever you want, wherever you are with ABC Sydney.
www.abc.net.au
November 28, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Reposted by Joe Hardy
Not wanting to disappoint you so much that it lies is the last quality I want in a computer.
November 28, 2025 at 12:02 AM