Little bit of an update from the past few days.

We've been to a couple of beach clubs: La Brisa and The Lawn. Both were excellent and we had a nice time.

The idea of beach clubs is you get a minimum spend on a table; so the biggest/comfiest day beds are well over Rp1 million but the basic chairs/table setups are around Rp200k. You get seated and you then need to spend that amount on food and drinks. The scale of the La Brisa beach club is crazy; it's a mammoth tree house structure that could comfortable service hundreds of people. We stayed until sun set and really loved the whole vibe.

The Lawn was a more chill occasion on a lazy Sunday afternoon. We got a cheaper table and enjoyed the pool by the beach.

We also had surf lessons with Dian Surf School. I'd never had a full private lesson before so to get some better insights into how to stand on the board and also get a push on the wave was really nice. I'd done a bit of surfing before so I felt a little more comfortable standing up but for Emma this was her first time. She enjoyed the experience but it was a little more challenging for her to stand. We've booked in another surf lesson just for Emma later this week where I reckon she'll stand up.

The surf instructor was a lovely local man and he not only helped us but also rode on a few waves too. What a cool job.

I managed to watch some footy on the weekend with the help of NordVPN. 7Plus just seemed to work with the VPN so I was a happy man watching the Brisbane Gold Coast game. Shame Gold Coast didn't put on a better performance.

I've been to the gym 3 times now which has been really good for me. It's been a while since I've done any proper lifting so I just need to build up into it. Everyone in Bali (at least in Canggu) I swear is a jacked influencer so it's a bit of a weird vibe with me the skinny man in the gym with them.

One day when we were out for lunch we also saw a Boots so that was nice too.

Two random side notes:

This is how you fill up with fuel in Bali.

It's quite literally a science beaker with labels denoting how much the fuel costs.

There's a couple of proper petrol stations around (far from our place) which are likely cheaper but this is insane.

Secondly, it's poured rain twice now in Bali since we arrived. Both times our place hasn't flooded but the pool has gotten very full.

This is meant to be the dry season too so not sure what the rainy season is going to look like.

I watched Good Will Hunting on the plane and this quote (again from Robin Williams) made me think of Boots.

You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.

I wrote A Fucked Year about a month ago and time passed very quickly as we're now in Bali!

I had this whole week off from work which has been really nice to settle in and acclimatise with being in a new country and in a new space.

We arrived late Monday night on the 8th of September at our Airbnb so as I write this we've only had 3 full days.

This is the Airbnb we're staying in for a month. It's located pretty centrally in Canggu.

On Tuesday morning we setup the villa to our liking doing a proper unpack. The villa itself is small but has all that we need. The pool definitely doesn't pass Australian pool safety standards but it's fantastic for a quick dip to cool off with it being so hot.

The bed is comfortable (the room is well air conditioned) and the bathroom is way larger than our bathroom at home. The kitchen and living is fully outdoors which will take some getting used to.

We went for a bit of a walk on Tuesday morning just around our Airbnb area. The streets are not very walkable with skinny footpaths and large holes (like 1 metre deep) scattered along the pavement. The roads are made for scooters/motorbikes. 90% of the people in the area will ride one to get around.

We therefore quickly made the decision to hire a scooter for a month. We got a Honda Vario which cost us Rp1.35 million (AUD 123). There were no checks for license. They just took basic information like name and date of birth. I have a little bit of experience riding motorbikes at my aunt and uncles farm so it wasn't a completely crazy decision.

Riding a scooter is a little stressful the with the amount of traffic on the roads but overall it's been fine. There's been no near misses thus far. You're usually forced to drive at around 20km/hr due to the traffic so everything feels safe from a speed perspective.

I did have a feeling in the rain on Tuesday driving the scooter with Emma that was my Top Gear Vietnam moment. Driving in the humidity with a little bit of misty rain on my face; it felt amazing and very freeing.

It poured rain on Tuesday and Wednesday and there was actually a bit of flooding up north on the island which wasn't good.

I've been to gym a couple of times already and Emma has started up at a pliates studio which she's excited about.

We've had some beauty appointments - Emma (massage, pedicure and nails) and me (haircut, massage) - which have gone down a treat. Especially the massage; it was really good.

We're planning on going to a beach club today and having a surf lesson tomorrow and then it's back to work for me Monday. Emma has already done some uni classes and found the setup to be good (Wi-Fi and desk).

Some food options I've really liked thus far: Ricky D's Canteen and Bokashi Berawa which have both been lunch options.

We cooked dinner for the first time last night which was an interesting experience; we're still getting used to the kitchen. We just did some basic soft tacos with beef mince, onion and capsicum. Basic but it works.

I'll make sure to do another update in the next couple of days.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Gold Coast. I'd love to see them win against Brisbane this week. I think it would add a bit of spice to this finals series.

After an international flight I'm a few hours in to Hollow Knight: Silksong. I have thoughts:

• The game is very similar to the original Hollow Knight which is a good thing
• The default down attack is now a sideways dash which took a bit of time to get used to, the combat and bosses so far have been excellent
• The game still makes you go back very far (to a bench) when you die, this can be punishing but it makes for a unique old school game mechanic
• The art style is beautiful, it's the same as the old game with even more lushness and detail
• The music is atmospheric and blends with the game perfectly, the character voices and sounds are also perfect
• The Hunter's March section of the game is punishingly hard however I think I attempted it too early, there's a gauntlet section and it's just so difficult to do with the tools and weapons I had
• The currency is quite difficult to attain as only certain enemies actually drop, so far I've had to go to a bench and then go on a dedicated "get currency run" to ensure I have enough money to pay for things
• There's a lot of game elements that need currency (benches, tools etc) so you need to be smart and try not to waste anything, this can happen if you die and you're a million miles from a bench and then it's too hard to go all the way back to the spot where your silk is

Adelaide Crows fans have written to the club and threatened to cancel their memberships after they were left embarrassed and devastated in the wake of heavy crowd booing of Isaac Quaynor in Collingwood's qualifying win.

Quaynor was the target of a homophobic slur from Adelaide's Izak Rankine in round 23, which resulted in the Crows star being handed a four-match ban that all but ended his finals campaign before it had begun.

Fans at the game said it was not just the booing. They also overheard slurs and offensive homophobic language being used by a small number of supporters towards the Collingwood players.

Disgraceful behaviour.

After seven years of development, the sequel to local game Hollow Knight released overnight, immediately crashing global stores.

Team Cherry, which is based in South Australia, were relatively silent during the development process but announced a surprise release date two weeks ago.

When it launched overnight, demand was so great that players crashed online PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and PC stores.

Well the developers just made a lot of cash. Good on them. Some of the best talent in Australia in the tech industry.

As usual the pudding.cool data visualisations are terrific.

Social trust is critical for us to tackle some of the biggest problems ahead of us: the erosion of democracy, the emergence of Al, our warming planet, and more.

In a 2021 study, researchers looked at why social trust has decreased on an individual level. What they found was that income dissatisfaction, our experience of losing a job, and our decreasing confidence in political institutions account for most of the decline in trust. In short, we've created a world that is precarious and unstable for most people.

I feel this, too. I'm scared by the big and small things happening in our world. I feel my environment crumbling around me, my sense of safety waning. I've looked at homes for sale in remote areas where I can disappear with my friends and family-where I don't have to rely on strangers.

We have a new Mac DeMarco and Earl Sweatshirt album within a week of each other.

They're both pretty good albums too!

Are we back in 2013 again?

About time.

Crows fans will remember this game.

I'm tipping Collingwood tonight. I genuinely believe with the break and a number of players coming in to form at the right time we'll be okay.

So much hype. It better not let the community down.

Umpiring/refereeing is hard; especially Aussie Rules.

I wonder if one day there will be tech (likely in glasses) that will live record a game from an umpires point of view and be able to judge free kicks.

So you'd have some kind of model (AI I guess) that understands all the different rules (free kicks/fouls/penalties) in a sport.

The model would be trained to interpret in real time when a free kick needs to be awarded and notify the umpire maybe via some kind of display in the glasses.

The umpires job would then become a lot simpler. They and just be to actually award the free kick and be in control of the game.

My Hoenn Pokedex is slowly coming together. I feel like the last 30% will take way longer to do than the first 70% especially when Silksong is coming out tomorrow.

Another regular season done. We have our completed 2025 ladder.

Here's my ladder predictions for the 2025 premiership season done in March.

1. Collingwood
2. Fremantle
3. Brisbane
4. Hawthorn
5. Carlton
6. Gold Coast
7. North Melbourne
8. Essendon
9. St Kilda
10. GWS
11. Adelaide
12. Sydney
13. Geelong
14. Melbourne
15. Port Adelaide
16. Western Bulldogs
17. West Coast
18. Richmond

Reflecting on these predictions:

• 5/8 in the top 8 isn't a bad strike rate
• I really messed up on Geelong and Adelaide
• Adelaide burned me last year, I had them 4th and they failed to deliver so I just couldn't trust them this year, everything just clicked all of a sudden
• Geelong will never be bad, I swear
• I was correct about Sydney to have a post Grand Final loss blues type of season, it happens almost every time a team has an embarrassing Grand Final performance
• GWS are a good team but they could have finished 9th or 10th, I just can't see them going all the way this year
• St Kilda in 9th wasn't a terrible call, with all the trades they've done (and seemingly will do) next year should be a good one for Saints fans
• Essendon was a bad call, they were just ravaged by injury
• I still think North could be good next year, they showed glimpses this year but like Adelaide in 2024 it just didn't quite click, next year should finally be a good one
• The bottom completely fell out for Carlton, time to blow it up and trade everyone
• My top 4 looks about right, Fremantle were lucky to make finals but at their best are clearly a top 4 team
• The Dogs just need a couple of key backs to be a finals team, their midfield and forward line (especially with Darcy playing well) is potent
• I'm so happy for the Gold Coast to make finals, I sort of back them in against Fremantle in the elimination final
• I worry a bit about Melbourne next year, they could be in for a rough few years now
• I'm not too worried about the old and slow Collingwood, a weeks rest will give them plenty of energy for the final against Adelaide, if they can win that a premiership is well and truely on

Silksong is coming out on Thursday so I won't get it now but Hyper Light Drifter seems like a game very much up my alley.

Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D action role-playing game fashioned after The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, rendered in a pixel art style. The player controls the Drifter, a character that has access to technology that has long been forgotten by the inhabitants of the game's world and is suffering from an unspecified illness. The story concept was inspired by lead developer Alx Preston's heart disease, and has been likened by others to Studio Ghibli's  Castle in the Sky while Preston cites the studio's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind as inspiration for the game's world.

The top comment sums it up:

Old man media does not like us. Big Gerard goes whack

The All Stars game last night was conclusive proof of how new media has taken a large market share away from old media. The fans were there to see the DDF crew play. It's a whole new world now.

With small companies, the person (or people) responsible for hiring sets the tone of the entire workplace. If the person responsible for hiring developers is himself a competent developer, he'll usually be able to see through the bullshitters. If a bullshitter slips through then they're awkwardly let go as part of their probationary period. For better or worse this maintains a sort of baseline standard.

At $ENTERPRISE, nobody gets fired. Your only risk of job loss is being "made redundant" as part of the ever-changing company structure. The lack of performance related churn creates a self perpetuating competency problem; the inconsistency of new hires reflects the inconsistency of your coworkers.

This creates incredibly surreal situations like the head of [something technical] not knowing how to use a computer, or an analyst [of something important] not being able to speak English. The reports you receive aren't really coherent, but there are a lot of em dashes. You know the absurdity of the situation, they know the absurdity of the situation, but the show must go on until one of you gets made redundant. There's never an incentive to mention these elephants in the room.

Whilst no company is immune from hiring that just doesn't quite work I feel like at enterprise this situation described above is more common. It makes me feel like I've picked good companies to work for so far in my career.

Another example of where Stableford can be a joke sometimes.