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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 23rd, 2023

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  • I can’t say shit about my full set of motivations without breaking NDAs and doxxing myself unfortunately.

    But Australia is worse off environmentally than the public knows. And so many of us that worked in environmental analysis for big engineering firms, which are contracted by government, defence and so on, are gagged.

    When people try to blow the whistle, they are put into lengthy court battles which they never win.

    I worked on a project a few years ago around water theft, one of the other attached contractors had an analyst go to the media, blowing the lid off the scope of the issue. I have no idea what happened to her exactly, but I know they buried her in court.

    I’m moving to Canada, but more to be with friends, and spend the rest of my thirties and onwards enjoying my life. My twenties were brutal, I’m 35 and I’ve never had a holiday. I’ve been an activist for twenty years in Aus as well, this referendum and the result are painful.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-23/melbourne-water-supply-could-be-under-threat-within-a-decade/8735400

    This, for instance, is in actuality a much more pressing issue than this 2017 article portrays.











  • Who knows?

    I’m done chasing a house and family in Aus. The wife and I are looking to sell up belongings, go meet up with friends in Europe and spend our time kayaking and trekking around the place on the cheap. I have a job in Toronto waiting if I want to settle.

    I’m done with Aussie work culture, shit Aussie pay (relative to professional roles overseas) and the worsening “fuck you got mine” attitude imported from the US that seems to permeate Aussie culture now.

    A lot of my mates already left, I only held on because I thought we were progressing and I am very connected to the land here. I don’t see it getting better anymore and we’re destroying the landscape anyway.



  • A big problem in Aus is the industry culture. They don’t care about using technology to improve results. They only care about cutting costs, even if the final product doesn’t meet the previous standard.

    And we’ve seen that with VFX across the globe, the overall quality dropped drastically. Because studios play silly buggers to weasel out of paying VFX companies what they are due.

    From what I hear, even DNEG is in trouble, and were even before the strike.

    It’s a race to the bottom it seems.

    My honest hope for the film industry is likely the same as yours. That we have smaller productions with access to better post due to improvements in AI-driven compositing software and so on.

    But it’s likely that a role that was earning $$$ before is devalued significantly. And while I’m an unabashed anti-capitalist, I think a lot of folks misunderstand what this sudden downward pressure on income can do. Cost of living increasing while wages shrink is an awful combination

    I’m 35, left a six figure job, folding my company and starting an electrician’s apprenticeship. To give you an idea around what my views about AI are. And of course this is as an Australian. We have a garbage white collar work culture anyway.

    I think there will be a net improvement. But I worry that others will fail to adapt quickly. Too many are writing off AI as this thing that already came and went, but the tools have just landed, and we don’t yet have workflows that correctly implement and leverage these yet.