Patrick Allington
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patrickallington.bsky.social
Patrick Allington
@patrickallington.bsky.social
280 followers 200 following 12 posts
Reader. Lapsed this and that.
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Reposted by Patrick Allington
kylec.bsky.social
Journalists, please remember that repeating obviously false statements is not balance or fairness. It is actively participating in deception.
January 25, 2026 at 12:46 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
davidbridie.bsky.social
The part of the Australian Music World that we love has a hole in its heart today. Rob Hirst had kindness, substance, drive and ability. Songwriter, Drummer, backing vocalist extraordinaire, entertainer, agitator. Condolences to all those feeling this loss.
January 20, 2026 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
roycerk2.bsky.social
So the existential threat posed to humanity by continuing to burn fossil fuels is just not a problem any more?

Guess we can all just chill out or something.
January 18, 2026 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
joshuasweitz.bsky.social
Full survey results show American public have high levels of confidence in scientists while revealing some partisan differences (including on how to fund science), but statements asserting lost trust should be read instead as intentional efforts to degrade trust.

www.pewresearch.org/science/2026...
Americans still have more confidence in scientists than many other groups in society
January 16, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
joshbornstein.bsky.social
Well I think we can all agree that it’s been another big week for social cohesion .
January 16, 2026 at 10:33 PM
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melodyschreiber.com
Seemed like a good day for my new shirt
Photo of a white woman wearing a black T-shirt that says in red letters "vaccines cause adults"
January 16, 2026 at 9:14 PM
patrickallington.bsky.social
Weird prize takes a weird turn. #Nobel
January 15, 2026 at 11:37 PM
patrickallington.bsky.social
What we need is a Festival of Hot Takes.
January 15, 2026 at 2:32 AM
patrickallington.bsky.social
Swiss author Erich von Däniken died last week, aged 90 years. In 2021, I wrote about his 'Chariots of the Gods', among other things, for @lithub.com.web.brid.gy:
lithub.com/on-ancient-a...
On Ancient Aliens, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and the Unhinged Pleasures of Speculative Nonfiction
“Isn’t it possible that things which ought not to exist do in fact exist?” –Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods? * In 2021, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence released…
lithub.com
January 13, 2026 at 9:15 PM
patrickallington.bsky.social
maybe even a literary magazine
patrickallington.bsky.social Patrick Allington @patrickallington.bsky.social · 15d
This is an excellent week to go read a book. #Radelaide
January 13, 2026 at 12:46 AM
patrickallington.bsky.social
This is an excellent week to go read a book. #Radelaide
January 12, 2026 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
arc-tracker.bsky.social
⁉️The ARC has delayed outcomes of ALL grants 1–4 months & increased scheduled outcome windows from 2 weeks to 3 months!

This reverses 4 years of progress in providing greater certainty & ability to plan for researchers, their families & unis.

Their excuse? Security checks under new ARC legislation👇
Black text on white background. Screenshot of ARC’s Network Message regarding delays to grant announcements because of new security arrangements.
January 12, 2026 at 1:17 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
nickfeik.bsky.social
Translation: we cannot keep up
Writers' Week 29 events In respect of the wishes of the writers who have recently indicated their withdrawal from the Writers’ Week 2026 program we have temporarily unpublished the list of participants and events while we work through changes to the website.
January 9, 2026 at 2:14 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
willwiles.bsky.social
Delighted to have received a grant from a submerging writers foundation, which supports mid-career authors while they age, procrastinate and feel their early promise ebb away. Grants like this are essential to the production of unmarketable work of limited appeal.
January 8, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
seanjones.org
Having Grok “apologise” for creating CSAM is like punching someone in the face and then having the Sooty puppet on your fist apologise.
January 2, 2026 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
asherelbein.bsky.social
I don't recall off hand who made the point about AI being, more than anything else, a machine for displacing responsibility. That increasingly looks like its most reliable feature
ketanjoshi.co Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 25d
This is a thread of major media outlets falsely anthropomorphising the "Grok" chatbot program and in doing so, actively and directly removing responsibility and accountability from individual people working at X who created a child pornography generator (Elon Musk, Nikita Bier etc)

#1: Reuters
Grok says safeguard lapses led to images of 'minors in minimal clothing' on X By Reuters January 2, 20267:40 PM GMT+1Updated 1 hour ago Illustration shows xAI and Grok logos xAI and Grok logos are seen in this illustration taken, February 16, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Jan 2 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's xAI artificial intelligence chatbot Grok said on Friday lapses in safeguards had resulted in "images depicting minors in minimal clothing" on social media platform X and that improvements were being made to prevent this. Screenshots shared by users on X showed Grok's public media tab filled with images that users said had been altered when they uploaded photos and prompted the bot to alter them. "There are isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing," Grok said in a post on X. "xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely." "As noted, we've identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them — CSAM is illegal and prohibited," Grok said, referring to Child Sexual Abuse Material. Grok gave no further details. When contacted by Reuters for comment by email, xAI replied with the message "Legacy Media Lies". In a separate reply to a user on X on Thursday, Grok said most cases could be prevented through advanced filters and monitoring although it said "no system is 100% foolproof," adding that xAI was prioritising improvements and reviewing details shared by users.
January 2, 2026 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
hararereview.com
The 29 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025
The 29 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025
It is the hallowed tradition of every cultural publication under the sun to, come December, curate a list of their favorite books of the year. (No shade, we did it too.) But at Literary Hub, we als…
lithub.com
January 2, 2026 at 8:25 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
ellisjrosen.bsky.social
My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com
December 1, 2025 at 7:40 PM
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wiswell.bsky.social
Hey, props to writers who got literally anything done this year.
November 26, 2025 at 7:11 AM
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wyld.bsky.social
A manuscript isn't ready to be shown to a potential publisher until you've done a thorough edit, double-checked your facts, abandoned your family, shunned all friendships, and offered a suitable blood sacrifice to the demon librarians that curate the Library of Forgotten Authors
November 26, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
adamweinstein.bsky.social
2005 me: I love literary journalism, I love writers who bare their souls

2025 me: Stop stop oh my god please stop
November 18, 2025 at 4:41 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
digital-science.com
🎧 Want to hear what the world thinks of your research? Altmetric has added a new attention source: Podcasts! 🎙️

🌐 Altmetric is the first in the world to include podcasts as a measure of #ResearchImpact

🔗 Discover more in our announcement: https://ow.ly/f3Eo50XbFBR
October 15, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
maximumwelfare.bsky.social
#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues.

Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump.

📰 AFR

✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social

✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social

🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social
HEADLINE: Deloitte to refund government, admits AI errors in $440k report Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement. A new version of the report for the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) was quietly uploaded to the department’s website on Friday, ahead of a long weekend across much of Australia. It features more than a dozen deletions of nonexistent references and footnotes, a rewritten reference list, and corrections to multiple typographic errors. (photo of Deloitte Australia HQ) Deloitte Australia has made almost $25 million worth of deals with the Department of Workplace Relations since 2021. Photographer Dion Georgopoulos The first version of the report, about the IT system used to automate penalties in the welfare system such as pauses on the dole, was published in July. Less than a month later, Deloitte was forced to investigate the report after University of Sydney academic Dr Christopher Rudge highlighted multiple errors in the document. At the time, Rudge speculated that the errors may have been caused by what is known as “hallucinations” by generative AI. This is where the technology responds to user queries by inventing references and quotes. Deloitte declined to comment. The incident is embarrassing for Deloitte as it earns a growing part of its $US70.5 billion ($107 billion) in annual global revenue by providing advice and training clients and executives about AI. The firm also boasts about its widespread use of the technology within its global operations, while emphasising the need to always have humans review any output of AI. SUBHEADING: Deleted references, footnotes The revised report has deleted a dozen references to two nonexistent reports by Professor Lisa Burton Crawford, a law professor at the University of Sydney, that were included in the first version. Two references to a nonexistent report by Professor Björn Regnell, of Lund University in Sweden, were also deleted in the new report. Also deleted was a made up reference to a court decision in a leading robo-debt case, Deanna Amato v Commonwealth. The new report has also deleted a reference to “Justice Davis” (a misspelling of Justice Jennifer Davies) and the made-up quote from the nonexistent paragraphs 25 and 26 in the judgement: “The burden rests on the decision-maker to be satisfied on the evidence that the debt is owed. A person’s statutory entitlements cannot lawfully be reduced based on an assumption unsupported by evidence.”
October 5, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by Patrick Allington
alicektg.bsky.social
It felt like Australian publishing was shrinking with mergers and the shock closure of Meanjin - waiting to see the full story behind that!

But there's a few new players bring fresh energy and new books in recent months.

With thanks to @jocaseau.bsky.social for excellent editing.
5 new Australian publishers are making defiant, weird, grass-roots books
The launch of 5 new Australian book publishers is good news, for once. Meet Perentie Press, Pink Shorts Press, Evercreech Editions, Aniko Press and Bakers Lane Books.
theconversation.com
September 19, 2025 at 1:38 AM