Latest News: AI, Tech & Australian Economy

Claude Fable 5.2 on the Pro Plan: Worth It Over Opus 5.5?

Claude Fable 5.2 beats Opus 5.5 in Anthropic's tests and is free on Pro for launch week. I used it to review my site: small tweaks, fast-draining limits.

11 Nov 2026 64 Read

Latest Japan Travel

Japan Travel

Eating in Japan When You Hate Queuing: Food Courts & Onsen

How we eat in Japan without queuing: food courts instead of famous restaurants, and an onsen hotel with dinner and breakfast for one good meal.

11 Nov 2026 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 148

Life & Reflections

Company Culture: Values Are Lived, Not Spoken

Can you build company culture by writing values on a website? Ten years at startups taught me values are lived, not spoken, and hiring matters most.

10 Nov 2026 148 Read

Latest Life & Reflections

Life & Reflections

Do Kids in Australia Not Need to Work Hard?

Online groups say Australian kids don't need to work hard. In Brisbane, kids who love sport or music train 7 days a week. Parents encourage, not force.

9 Nov 2026 Read

ChatGPT Images 2.6: What's New, GIFs, SVG and API Price

ChatGPT Images 2.6 (4 Nov 2026) is 50% faster and adds animated GIFs, SVG export and markup edits. What changed, plus API cost per image vs 2.5.

9 Nov 2026 18,065 Read

Will AI Replace Programmers? My Edge Is Gut Feeling

Will AI replace programmers? AI reads a codebase faster than us. After 20+ years, my edge is gut feeling, but that makes it harder for juniors.

8 Nov 2026 86 Read

Latest Japan Travel 307

Japan Travel

First Snow in Hokkaido: Sapporo, Asahikawa Zoo & a Whiteout

Our family's first time seeing snow: Hokkaido in December. Sapporo, Asahikawa Zoo, the Clock Tower, minus 14°C and a whiteout. With the Cantonese podcast.

8 Nov 2026 307 Read

Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash vs 1.1: Worth 24 Flow Credits?

I tested Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash against 1.1 in Google Flow. Better voice and 15-second clips, but 24 credits vs 15 for 8 seconds. Not worth it for me.

8 Nov 2026 8,185 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 117

Life & Reflections

Running After 40 in Brisbane: Why a Jog Clears Your Head

Midlife stress builds up quietly. Why a jog on a Brisbane river path clears your head after 40, how to start safely, and the song I wrote about it.

7 Nov 2026 117 Read

Brisbane David Jones After Administration: Packed, Not Empty

Inside the Brisbane City David Jones on Friday shopping night, a day after administration: sale crowds, stock still on shelves and plenty of staff.

7 Nov 2026 659 Read

David Jones Collapse: Is Australian Retail Really That Bad?

David Jones fell, yet Kmart, Woolworths and Uniqlo grew profits in 2026. Official filings show where shoppers' money went, and why Myer is a warning.

7 Nov 2026 179 Read

Brisbane Arcade at Christmas: Best Photo Spot in the City

Brisbane Arcade, open since 1924, is my yearly Christmas photo stop: where to shoot from, when to go, the tea room upstairs, and a 4K video walk.

7 Nov 2026 138 Read

Qwen 4 Release: What Qwen's Fish-and-Birds Teaser Means

Qwen's 6 Nov teaser quotes Zhuangzi: 北冥有鱼, 其名为_. What the fish-to-bird image means, what's confirmed about Qwen 4, and what you can run now.

7 Nov 2026 11,204 Read

David Jones Administration: Why a 188-Year-Old Store Fell

David Jones entered administration and receivership after 188 years. Property sales, rent, losses and changing shoppers: why it fell, fact-checked.

6 Nov 2026 733 Read

Latest Japan Travel 98

Japan Travel

Yokohama Day Trip from Tokyo: Chinatown, Harbour, Gundam

Is Yokohama worth a day trip from Tokyo? Yes: Chinatown, Yamashita Park, Red Brick Warehouse, the giant Gundam before it closed, and a night view.

6 Nov 2026 98 Read

AI Stock Sell-Off: Nasdaq's Worst Day and the ASX Impact

The Nasdaq fell 5.5% on AI data centre fears after the US midterms. The ASX fell just 0.5%, and NEXTDC rose. What happened and why.

6 Nov 2026 8,852 Read

Canva Layoffs 2026: Why the 22% Cut Drew Little Anger

Canva is cutting 1,271 roles (22%). Six months' pay, a MacBook and a $10k startup grant: why this layoff drew praise, not anger, unlike WiseTech's.

5 Nov 2026 7,849 Read

Latest Japan Travel 132

Japan Travel

Tokyo Subway 72-Hour Ticket: Is It Worth It?

Is the Tokyo Subway 72-hour ticket worth ¥2,000? About 3 rides a day breaks even. What it covers, the through-train trap, and one day on it.

5 Nov 2026 132 Read

Ripple-65B Preview: The Open Coding Model That Punches Up

Ripple-65B Preview scores 80.5 on Terminal-Bench 2.1, beating US open models up to 15x bigger, for a claimed $32M. What it's good at and who should try it.

5 Nov 2026 13,948 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 136

Life & Reflections

Are You OK? Midlife, Migration and Mental Health Stigma

Why mental health is still taboo in some Chinese circles, why midlife hits migrants harder, and why asking "Are you OK?" in Australia matters.

4 Nov 2026 136 Read

Latest Japan Travel 132

Japan Travel

What to Eat in Tokyo: 12 Days of Food, Sushi to Royce

What to eat in Tokyo, from 12 days of my own photos: sushi, eel rice, cheap gyoza, Japanese pasta, matcha and Royce chocolate from Narita.

4 Nov 2026 132 Read

Axion 1.0: What ByteDance's Open Research Agent Is Good For

Axion 1.0 is an open research-agent model that beats GPT-5.5 on hard research tests. Can you run it on a home PC? Not yet in practice. Here's why.

4 Nov 2026 7,424 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 1,744

Life & Reflections

Should You Stockpile Food? A Brisbane Get Ready View

Governments now say keep 3 days of food, water and cash. Why that makes sense after the French fridge hack, and why Brisbane shelves are still full.

3 Nov 2026 1,744 Read

Faceless YouTube With AI: My One-Take Video Workflow

How I run a faceless YouTube channel with AI: B-roll from my NAS, Whisper subtitles, AI voice dubs in English and Mandarin. I just record one take.

3 Nov 2026 5,479 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 185

Life & Reflections

Can You Live in Brisbane Without English? (Cantonese Only)

Can you live in Brisbane without English? On Cantonese alone you can survive. Really living is harder: laws, police stops and your kids’ school.

2 Nov 2026 185 Read

DeepSeek Super-agent Explained: What Makes It Different

What is DeepSeek's super-agent? One router talks to people, separate workers do each job. How the open-source prototype works and what is new.

2 Nov 2026 25,478 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 195

Life & Reflections

Midlife Lesson: Learning to Be Kind to Yourself

Why we only learn to be kind to ourselves in midlife: leaving a circle that hurt, stress leave in Australia, and not carrying every burden.

1 Nov 2026 195 Read

Is the Programmer Outdated? 20 Years In, I Write Less Code

In October AI agents wrote 36,000 lines of code from 8,800 words I typed. After 20+ years in Brisbane, here's why programmers aren't outdated.

1 Nov 2026 765 Read

My PC Now Works for AI Agents: i9, 64GB RAM, 8GB GPU

In October, AI agents made 800 images, 57 LTX clips and 12 videos on my Brisbane PC. RAM ran out first: 54 of 64GB in use. What matters for an agent PC.

31 Oct 2026 847 Read

Latest Brisbane Places 292

Brisbane Places

Brisbane Day Trip: Movie World's New Hero Parade

A rainy Halloween day trip from Brisbane to Movie World: the new Hero Parade went on foot in new outfits, then a calmer shop at Coomera.

31 Oct 2026 292 Read

Mistral Large 4 Open Weights: Europe's 1T Model Tested

Mistral released Large 4's 1T open weights on 29 Oct at half the preview price. My test: 172 tokens/s. A rare frontier model from outside the US and China.

30 Oct 2026 15,034 Read

Gemini 4 Carbon: Google's Strongest Model, Not Public Yet

Gemini 4 Carbon beats Argon on coding, maths and security in Google's tests and tops the AA index, but only some cyber defenders can use it so far.

29 Oct 2026 7,454 Read

Is Australia Worth Visiting? Movie World Is Old, Nature Wins

Is Australia worth visiting? An honest review: Movie World feels dated, Japan wins on convenience, but nature is the real draw with hikes, beaches and fresh oysters.

28 Oct 2026 373 Read

GPT-6.1 Terra: Price, Benchmarks and Where It's Strong

GPT-6.1 Terra costs US$1/$5 per 1M tokens. OpenAI's charts on computer use, vision, errors and coding, and how it compares with Kimi K3.1 Pro.

28 Oct 2026 1,701 Read

Kimi K3.1 Pro Swarm Test: A Better 3D Ark?

Kimi K3.1 Pro's swarm-built Bible ark is better than my first demo, but its 3D rendering still disappoints. Try all four chapters.

27 Oct 2026 406 Read

Latest Brisbane Places 422

Brisbane Places

Goodna Jacarandas in the Rain: Festival Postponed

The Goodna Jacaranda Festival 2026 was postponed, so I shot Goodna's jacaranda-lined road alone after the rain: no crowds, purple petals, easy parking.

26 Oct 2026 422 Read

Kimi K3.1 Pro Test: A 3D Ark in OpenCode

Kimi K3.1 Pro built my interactive 3D Noah's Ark in OpenCode. It works and is not slow, but the result still feels like a 0.1 upgrade.

26 Oct 2026 886 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 293

Life & Reflections

Is Cheap AI Safe for Client Data? Rules Come First

Local AI isn't always cheaper in Australia, and cheap AI isn't the real privacy risk. Client data shouldn't go into any third-party AI. Rules come first.

25 Oct 2026 293 Read

Latest Brisbane Places 239

Brisbane Places

Sunnybank Hills Jacarandas: Racing the Rain

I shot the Sunnybank Hills jacarandas on Saturday morning before the storm: how AI planned the shots, fixed the grey light, and why they aren't native.

25 Oct 2026 239 Read

Kimi K3.1 Pro: Benchmarks, Price and Open Weights

Kimi K3.1 Pro is out: 1M context, US$2/$10 per 1M tokens, open weights by 4 Nov. Kimi's benchmarks vs Claude Opus 5.5 and its cost per coding task.

25 Oct 2026 44,915 Read

Latest Brisbane Places 600

Brisbane Places

Jacarandas After Heavy Rain: Sunnybank Hills Purple Carpet

Thursday's heavy rain knocked Brisbane's jacarandas to the ground. My photos from Sunnybank Hills and New Farm, close-up vs wide, and how AI edited them.

24 Oct 2026 600 Read

Recursive Flint: Free Coding Model Tested Against DeepSeek

Flint is Recursive's free coding model. My 3D game test says OpenRouter's build is not as good as DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017, but the weights are free.

24 Oct 2026 1,104 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 377

Life & Reflections

Brisbane Migrant Life: Friends as Close as Family

Living in Brisbane as a migrant, friends are as close as family. A Hong Kong migrant on school vs adult friends and a 20-year friendship that faded.

23 Oct 2026 377 Read

Claude Video Workflow: Whisper, Google Flow, Qwen, LTX

Claude and Whisper transcribe my Cantonese voice note, Claude writes the Google Flow prompts, Qwen 2.1 and LTX finish the video. Opus 5.5 directs best.

23 Oct 2026 652 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 341

Life & Reflections

Midlife Perspective: Focusing on My Own Lane and Leaving the Rest to God

In midlife I stopped getting upset about other people's shortcuts. I focus on my own work and integrity, and leave the judging to God, who sees the heart.

22 Oct 2026 341 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 593

Life & Reflections

Brisbane Storm Day: No Signal 8, So Who Decides?

Living in Brisbane, there's no Typhoon Signal 8 or black rain day off. A Hong Kong migrant on storm days, schools, work leave and who decides.

22 Oct 2026 593 Read

Motion Graphics Without Claude: MiMo V2.6 Made This Short

Claude Opus 5.5 wrote my first motion graphics code. For the Brisbane jacaranda Short I swapped to MiMo V2.6 Pro at about US$6 a month.

22 Oct 2026 911 Read

Latest Brisbane Places 1,083

Brisbane Places

Brisbane Jacaranda Photo Guide 2026: New Farm Park and UQ

Brisbane jacarandas are at peak bloom, but the weather is not playing along. My photo guide to New Farm Park and UQ, from sunny 2023 to a grey, wet 2026.

21 Oct 2026 1,083 Read

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 Test: A 3D Game for 5 Cents

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 built a working 3D game from one prompt in 4 min 20 s for about US$0.05. Screenshots, the cost maths and a game you can play.

21 Oct 2026 739 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 631

Life & Reflections

Brisbane Rain Week: The Sun Is My Dryer

BOM forecasts over 100mm of rain for Brisbane this week. My washing is stuck indoors, but after months of dry, the dam and my lawn need every drop.

20 Oct 2026 631 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 559

Life & Reflections

Brisbane Jacarandas After the Rain: A Morning Jog

After a night of rain, my morning jog found the neighbours' jacarandas in full bloom, petals still holding raindrops. Brisbane's purple season has begun.

20 Oct 2026 559 Read

MiniMax M3.1 Flash: Space Bunny Revealed and Tested

MiniMax M3.1 Flash is Space Bunny, the OpenRouter stealth model. Benchmarks vs DeepSeek, Claude and GPT, US$0.15/$0.60 pricing, and my own speed test.

20 Oct 2026 4,521 Read

Google Playground Isn't in Australia, So I Use Claude

Google Playground makes games from a chat, but it's U.S.-only for now. Here's how I build games in Godot with Claude, 3D models in Blender included.

19 Oct 2026 1,461 Read

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017: Same Price, Big Coding Gains

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 lifts all 11 benchmarks, Terminal-Bench 31.2 to 42.3, at the same deepseek-flash price. What changed and what it costs.

18 Oct 2026 16,068 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 499

Life & Reflections

Why Middle-Aged Men Feel Lost (And Why You're Not Alone)

Nothing in the trolley for yourself, the same script every day, five quiet minutes in the car park. On midlife for men, and the song I wrote about it.

17 Oct 2026 499 Read

AI Photo Search on an 8GB GPU: 7,600 Photos Tagged Locally

MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B tagged 5,000 photos in 5 hours on an RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, then local semantic search found them by meaning. Real numbers and mistakes.

17 Oct 2026 397 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 565

Life & Reflections

What Every Middle-Aged Man Carries (But Won't Say)

A number you never call, a friend you wouldn't recognise, a worry that followed you overseas. On midlife for men, and two songs I made about it.

16 Oct 2026 565 Read

Muse Spark Open: Meta's 816B Open Model, Can You Run It?

Meta's Muse Spark Open is out: 816B parameters, 42B active, 1M context, free weights. Official specs, benchmarks, licence and the hardware it really needs.

16 Oct 2026 14,851 Read

Latest Daily Life 545

Daily Life

Kerbside Collection: Clearing Bulky Rubbish in Brisbane

Brisbane's free annual kerbside collection takes bulky items from your verge. How it works, waste vouchers, and checking your suburb's schedule.

15 Oct 2026 545 Read

MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B on an 8GB GPU: Tested Against 4.6 and 4.5

MiniCPM-V 4.7 is out. I tested the 1B on an RTX 4060 Ti against 4.6 and 4.5: about 240 tokens/s, no faster than 4.6, and it won't run in Ollama yet.

15 Oct 2026 4,794 Read

Make Data Videos on an 8GB GPU: Qwen Image + Motion Graphics

I made a 12-second data Short on an RTX 4060 Ti in about 2 minutes of render time: Qwen Image 2.1 backgrounds, Motion Graphics code, and ffmpeg.

14 Oct 2026 1,300 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 767

Life & Reflections

Raising Kids in Brisbane as First-Generation Migrants

Brisbane looks like a postcard, but under the grass the gears never stop. On migrant parenting with no family nearby, and the song I made about it.

14 Oct 2026 767 Read

Gemini 4 Argon for Pro Users: I Built My Homepage With It

Gemini 4 Argon is now in the Gemini app for Google AI Pro. I asked it to redesign my homepage: about a minute, a layout I like, and a few made-up facts.

14 Oct 2026 3,554 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 465

Life & Reflections

An Hour Alone in a Busy Café: Finding Quiet in the Noise

On a busy Sunday at Garden City, every café table was full and loud. I had one hour on my own with a coffee, and inside I found a real quiet.

13 Oct 2026 465 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 361

Life & Reflections

When a Place That Felt Like Home Turns Cold

The same place, the same light, but a colder colour and new faces. Why I stopped waiting for the old warmth, walked away, and found freedom.

13 Oct 2026 361 Read

Meta Muse Wonder vs Claude Opus 5.5: Is It Really Better?

Meta's Muse Wonder Full beats Claude Opus 5.5 on 8 of 14 tests, at the same API price. Muse Code starts at US$5 a month, but Wonder Full needs US$50.

13 Oct 2026 6,671 Read

Building Approvals August 2026: Is Australia Building Enough?

Approvals fell 6.1% to 16,953 in August 2026 as apartments dropped, but houses hit a five-year high. Australia is 124,183 homes behind the Housing Accord.

13 Oct 2026 945 Read

Latest Brisbane Food 529

Brisbane Food

Kajiken Brisbane Review: Abura Soba on Creek Street

Kajiken's Brisbane shop serves Nagoya-style abura soba, ramen with no soup that you mix yourself. What we ordered, prices, the wait and opening hours.

12 Oct 2026 529 Read

Cloudflare Clef-omni: A Decision Model for Email Triage

Cloudflare's Clef-omni answers yes/no, choice and score questions about text, images, audio and video. Here's how I'd use it to triage email.

12 Oct 2026 1,897 Read

Underdog Saluki 27B on an 8GB GPU: Why I Got 4.7 Tokens/s

Saluki fits Qwen3.8-27B in a 7.89GB file, but my RTX 4060 Ti ran it at 4.7 tokens/s. Switching llama.cpp to CUDA tripled the benchmark speed.

11 Oct 2026 1,100 Read

Mistral Large 4 vs Kimi K3, GLM-5.3 and Claude Opus 5

Mistral Large 4 is a rare 1-trillion-parameter open model from outside the US and China. How it compares with Kimi K3, GLM-5.3 and Claude Opus 5.

10 Oct 2026 2,653 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 348

Life & Reflections

Why the Same Culture Doesn't Make You Friends

Sharing a hometown and culture doesn't make people friends. Class often divides people more than culture, and some groups demand total sameness.

9 Oct 2026 348 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 305

Life & Reflections

Right and Wrong Isn't 0 or 1: Why Degree Matters

Being wrong doesn't mean any punishment is fair. A middle man's view on friends cutting someone off, and why right and wrong is a dial, not a switch.

9 Oct 2026 305 Read

Claude Models Compared: Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, Fable Prices

Claude Haiku 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 side by side: prices from $0.10 to $50 per million tokens, benchmarks, and which model to pick.

9 Oct 2026 3,183 Read

Claude Haiku 5.5: Cheaper, Faster, and Where It Fits

Claude Haiku 5.5 costs $0.10/$0.50 per million tokens, about 90% less than Haiku 4.5. What changed, the benchmarks, and why I still code with Opus.

8 Oct 2026 2,682 Read

EmbeddingGemma 2 Makes On-Device Multimodal Search Work

Google's EmbeddingGemma 2 maps text, code, images, video and audio into one 768-d space in 740M params and ~567MB of RAM. What it means for local RAG.

7 Oct 2026 1,667 Read

When AI Goes Rogue: OpenAI's Medicare Breach Hearing

An OpenAI agent broke into a Medicare statistics portal in June, and OpenAI took 84 days to say so. What Jason Kwon told Parliament's AI inquiry.

6 Oct 2026 714 Read

The Great LLM Debate 2026: Local Hardware vs. Cloud APIs (An Australian Dev's Guide)

Should Australian developers buy a GPU or Mac for local LLMs, or pay for cloud APIs in 2026? We compare hardware, API and flat-plan costs, privacy and Privacy Act compliance, and the hybrid approach wins with 82% in a balanced decision matrix.

5 Oct 2026 764 Read

Run Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on an 8 GB RTX 4060 Ti (Here's How)

Strata said my RTX 4060 Ti was 1275 MiB short of running Qwen3.8-Flash-Next. Five config changes freed the VRAM. Now this 125B local LLM runs at 38 tok/s.

4 Oct 2026 1,203 Read

Meet FrogNano: Microsoft's Compact Coding Agent Powered by Reinforcement Learning

FrogNano-4B-2609 is Microsoft's compact repository-level coding agent: a 4.66B-parameter Qwen3.5-based model trained purely with reinforcement learning, a 5-tool Leaf harness, 131K context, and local deployment on consumer GPUs.

3 Oct 2026 315 Read

Beyond Reports: Meet Apodex 1.1 and the New Era of Agentic Workbenches

Apodex 1.1 moves beyond report generation with an agentic workbench: real file and code execution baked into reasoning, an asynchronous subagent team, mid-task human steering, adversarial statement review, and a 35B local Mini model.

2 Oct 2026 276 Read

The Next Era of Frontier Intelligence: Why Gemini 4 Argon Changes Everything

Google's Gemini 4 Argon is built for deep reasoning on long-horizon tasks: a 1M-token output window, a new top score on DeepSWE v1.1, first place on AutomationBench, and deployment to trusted cyber defenders. Here is why it changes the frontier landscape.

1 Oct 2026 341 Read

Local AI Gets a Big Boost: How Ollama's New Jev-Style Decision Models Change Everything

Ollama 0.35 adds Jev-style decision models: small, typed decision APIs that run on your own machine. Nimble 9B and Tev1 (4B / 0.8B) answer structured questions in about 91ms each, opening the door to local model routing, fast classification and easy REST integration.

1 Oct 2026 1,072 Read

The Era of AI Agents: From Chatbots to Autonomous Executors

OpenAI's always-on "dots" agents, Meta's Muse, Google's Gemini Spark and xAI's Grok Bot mark a clear shift: AI is moving from co-pilot to autopilot. The era of autonomous executors is here - along with hard questions about control and safety.

30 Sep 2026 387 Read

Anthropic Introduces Claude Sonnet 5.5: Faster, Smarter, and More Efficient

Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 5.5, the second model in the 5.5 lineup: over 30% faster and up to 30% cheaper per task than Sonnet 5, with a huge agentic coding leap on Terminal-Bench 4.0. Here is how it fits a plan-with-Opus, build-with-Sonnet workflow.

29 Sep 2026 611 Read

What Is Space Bunny Alpha? OpenRouter's Free 1M-Context Stealth Model

Space Bunny Alpha is a free stealth model on OpenRouter with a 1M-token context window and native multimodal input. The clues point to a top Chinese lab such as MiniMax. Here are its specs, how it compares with DeepSeek Flash and GLM Flash, and a hands-on 3D demo.

29 Sep 2026 1,248 Read

Beyond Finite State Machines: Bringing Space RTS Opponents to Life with Contrastive Decision Models

Finite state machines and behavior trees make RTS opponents predictable and brittle. Contrastive decision models score candidate actions against the game state in a single forward pass, bringing fast, adaptive neural strategy into the real-time game loop.

28 Sep 2026 282 Read

Why Claude's "Agentic Intelligence" Beats All-in-One AI Platforms

ChatGPT and Gemini pack many built-in features, but an AI agent's real strength is core intelligence and task coordination. Claude acts as the brain, orchestrating external tools like LTX for video and custom APIs for voice and images.

27 Sep 2026 265 Read

Unlocking Local AI: Running Qwen-Image-2.1 on an 8GB GPU

Alibaba released Qwen-Image-2.1 on 20 September 2026, and it runs smoothly on a regular 8GB VRAM graphics card — detailed high-resolution images in under a minute, RGBA transparency built in, zero subscriptions.

26 Sep 2026 2,657 Read

The Death of Local LLMs? How Xiaomi's MiMo V2.6 Just Flipped the AI Economics in Australia

Xiaomi's MiMo V2.6 delivers premium AI for around $6 USD a month without usage windows or caps — less than the electricity cost of running a GPU at home. Has cloud AI just become cheaper than local LLMs in Australia?

25 Sep 2026 388 Read

One Night of Agentic Coding for Under $1: Meet GLM-5.3-Flash

I used GLM-5.3-Flash on the DeepSeek Harness for a full night of agentic coding—tool calls, file edits, test runs, retries, the usual routine. When I checked the meter in the morning, the whole night cost less than one US dollar, about the same as running the machine itself. This is not a trial-tier trick or an accounting error. It is the launch promo price of a model that already lists at $0.15 per million input tokens, and before launch, it was already doing real work under a codename nobody recognized. First, the lore: ox-al

1 Sep 2026 803 Read

Why You Should Avoid Annual AI Subscriptions in 2026: Lessons from GLM-5.2 and Kimi K3

In a market where flagship AI models shift every six weeks, committing to an annual subscription is a guaranteed trap. Here is why separating your high-level "anchor" model from your rotating "workhorse" model saves money, preserves agility, and keeps you on the cutting edge.

1 Aug 2026 403 Read

Why the Lamy Safari is My Ultimate Everyday Pen

Classic German industrial design has a clear philosophy. It avoids flashy details, skips unnecessary decoration, and always puts utility first. The idea is that a tool should be simple, durable, and great at what it does.

13 Jul 2026 241 Read

The Shift to Agentic Programming: Why IT Degrees Still Matter in the Age of AI

Will AI kill the IT degree? Not quite, but it’s completely changing the game. Discover why human drivers are still essential and how we are shifting from line-by-line coding to the era of Agentic Programming.

13 Jun 2026 223 Read

The Code Shift: Why AI Won’t Replace True Computer Programming Skills

the-code-shift-why-ai-wont-replace-true-computer-programming-skills

7 Jun 2026 206 Read

The Programmer’s Paradox: Finding Focus in Ink and Paper

As a programmer, I spend most of my time in the digital world—writing code, working with NoSQL databases, and fine-tuning logic. It might sound odd for someone in my field to pick up a pen and a paper journal, but over the past two years, I’ve started doing just that. The more I get into technology, the more I see how valuable it is to take a break and enjoy something as simple as writing by hand.

11 May 2026 224 Read

From Freelancers to AI: How I Rebuilt My Personal Site

In web development, a personal site is usually a project that never really ends. It’s where we try out new technology, shape our professional identity, and, to be honest, sometimes get stuck in what I call "template hell." My site, michaelleung.info, has gone through many versions, but this latest rebuild is the biggest change I’ve made so far. For the first time, I stopped using hired designers and bought templates. Instead, I built everything with AI. Here’s how it went and why the results surprised me.

9 May 2026 223 Read

City vs. Sky: The Best Free View in Tokyo @ Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building 🌆

Growing up in Hong Kong, I was surrounded by a dense forest of skyscrapers. Later, living in Brisbane, I fell in love with wide-open horizons. On my latest trip to Tokyo, I wanted to find a place w…

31 Jan 2026 1,755 Read

First Time to see the snow

Last year, our family traveled to Hokkaidō, Japan, in December. That was a memorable trip because our whole family had never seen snow before. My kid loved to play snowball. I was so happy and felt am…

14 May 2025 6,013 Read

Try to Smile

Some people think I am a horrible person. A friend asked me why I wanted to smile with them. Honestly, I did everything I could. I tried to explain myself. I warned that is the result of their current…

11 Sep 2023 14,901 Read

Surfer Paradise Building Photo at the sunset

I took this photo in Surfers Paradise a few weeks ago. That was already at the start of Spring, with a clear blue sky that was an outstanding wealth. I captured the Sunset at the Gold Coast with the H…

31 Aug 2023 16,393 Read

Dropping Water Photo

This photo is of a dropping of water on the jar. The photo is still keeping the focus on the water drop. So, it shows the motion of water and shows the contrast of the background by making the out of …

5 Aug 2023 16,320 Read

Life is like a cup of coffee, full of bitter moments & sweet flavors

Life is like a cup of coffee, with its bitter moments and sweet flavors. Of course, every person will encounter bitter moments, such as failure, difficulties, setbacks, etc. These bitter moments make …

11 Apr 2023 15,499 Read

Wisdom of Zhuge Liang

"Rest when tired; persevere when faced with difficulties." During the Three Kingdoms period, the wise sage Zhuge Liang famously said this. It teaches us how to deal with exhaustion and challenges that…

10 Apr 2023 17,938 Read

The Emperor's New Clothes 2.0

Once upon a time, a wise and clever king ruled a prosperous kingdom. One day, two cunning weavers came to the king's palace and claimed they could create the most exquisite clothes in the world with t…

22 Mar 2023 17,322 Read

Pick Stars

I used to like spending time with my father as a child. He was always kind and nice to me, and he enjoyed showing me the beauties of the world. He took me outdoors to see the sky one night when I was …

17 Mar 2023 7,491 Read

I love the custom keyboard

Recently, I started a new hobby, building custom keyboards. I am a software developer. So, I used the computer a lot. Therefore, the keyboard is an essential tool for me. I wish to get a better key…

27 Aug 2022 8,882 Read

Osaka Supermarket-ito yokado

Actually, I was in Japan once a few years ago. During this trip, we visited Okinawa, it is very easy to find a supermarket. Almost every suburb got an AOEN supermarket. There are quite large too, an…

16 Feb 2020 15,821 Read

Hotel Vischio Osaka by Granvia - New Hotel Umeda

Last Year, We went to Osaka. We chose to stay in Hotel Vischio. I chose this hotel because it is relatively new and only opened in 2018! Moreover, the rate is a bit over one thousand Hong Kong doll…

16 Jan 2020 14,911 Read

Hong Kong Airport Breakfast

In October 2019, I traveled to Hong Kong from Brisbane. Of Course, I have used the airport in Hong Kong. In the past, most of the times, I had breakfast in Terminal 2 before I flew back to Brisbane…

12 Jan 2020 16,650 Read

Rinku Premium Outlets Osaka

A lot of airports will have an outlet mall nearby. Recently, I went to Osaka. I used Kansai Airport. There is an outlet mall nearby too. That is the Rinku premium outlet. On the day, we went to Hong K…

3 Jan 2020 14,411 Read

Osaka Castle

If you say you will go to visit a castle, then you should be excepted to see a historical building. But in Japan, that may be the case. Japanese like to rebuild the historical buildings, maybe because…

1 Jan 2020 13,842 Read

Umeda - A good place to stay

Last month, we traveled to Osaka. Initially, we planned to stay in Shinsaibashi, where is the famous shopping spot in Osaka. However, a friend reminded us it is too crowded. He recommended Umeda, and…

27 Dec 2019 12,948 Read

100 Yen Sushi

I found that is quite interesting to have 100 Yen Sushi in Japan. Each Sushi Dish only costed 100 Yen, that is very cheap, each dish has two pieces of sushi. Moreover, the quality of sushi is not dow…

26 Dec 2019 9,339 Read

Portside in Brisbane

I remember when I landed in Brisbane around 18 years ago, Hamilton was still a kind of industrial area, I remember there were a lot of warehouses. Now, it converted into a high market suburb. The…

1 Nov 2018 11,630 Read

First to see Model X

Last Thursdays, I was in Garden City. There was Tesla car show. That was my first times to see a real model x which is an electric suv. It looks cool. All of dashboards are screens. Even the consol…

2 Sep 2017 14,945 Read

Samsung S8 is much faster

I was about to finish an app. I did a baseline test, so I used a Samsung s3. My new phone is samsung s8. Suddenly, Samsung s3 is so slow comparing with Samsung s3. Of course, that is a number of gene…

21 Aug 2017 14,711 Read

Best way to CBD from Naha Airport

Naha Airport is not the major airport in Japan. However, that is not too hard to travel to CBD from Naha Airport. Last year, one of the hotels we stayed in Naha is in the CBD. That was the hotel we …

11 Jun 2017 15,632 Read

I love GU

GU is a budget line of UNIQLO which is a favorite casual fashion chain. When I visited Okinawan a year before, GU was one of the must-visit spots for me. I like UNIQLO brand a lot. Their clothes …

24 May 2017 16,617 Read

Travel to Okinawa by Dragon Air

Last times, I traveled to Okinawa from Hong Kong by Dragon Air(now is Cathay Dragon). My experience is not too bad. The flight was on time. Moreover, this is a full-service airline. Thus we got a lunc…

27 Jan 2017 16,321 Read

Hong Kong Style Breakfast-Hokkaido Dairy Farm Restaurant

I grew up in Hong Kong. The food in Hong Kong has implanted in my memory. I like them. Especially, I like the Hong Kong Style breakfast. When I back to Hong Kong, I must have one every morning. I was …

26 Nov 2016 14,869 Read

Salt Ice-cream - Okinawa

Ice cream should be sweet! There should be plenty of sugar. But Okinawa has a unique of Ice cream. Its selling point is added salt. This is a salty ice cream. That is because Okinawa is formed a set …

12 Nov 2016 15,268 Read

Sales Tax Return in Japan

In Japan, there are 8% Sales Tax. If you buy anythings, you need to pay 8% top of the price tag. But if you are a tourist, you do not need to pay sales tax for any goods you bring back to your home. R…

10 Nov 2016 14,123 Read

Okinawa Cup Noodle

I got a habit I will try their local cup noodle for each place I visited. Last times, when I visited Okinawa, I bought a cup noodle from the AOEN supermarket. It tasted good. The noodle is Okinawa sty…

8 Nov 2016 14,268 Read

I like Shuri Castle.

I like Shuri Castle in Okinawa, although that is the real palace of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, which is a reconstructed copy. According to Wikipedia, the original one is almost destroyed during the second wo…

3 Nov 2016 14,311 Read

Canberra Bus Tour

I have uploaded my photo I took during my trip to Canberra. That times, I joined a local bus tour from Sydney to Canberra. Mainly, I visited Parliament House, War Memorial, and National Museum of Aust…

5 Oct 2016 11,415 Read

ITBlogs.Info got a new skin

As a part of websites upgrade projects, my personal homepage, MichaelLeung.info, got upgraded. It got a new logo, the latest Joomla CMS, and a new template. Today, I updated my IT Blog, ITBlogs.Info, …

2 Oct 2016 10,671 Read

The photo ablum is re-building

Recently, I have re-installed a new version of Joomla for my homepage. Unforntantly, the most of the components are ancient version; that is not working with the new Joomla. I have re-entered the data…

27 Sep 2016 12,277 Read

My Logo

Our creative team designed a new logo for me. I love it; that is fresh and clean. Although that looks like a fashion designer rather than a tech guy, that is what I want. I told the designer makes a l…

24 Sep 2016 11,087 Read

Okinawa Photo uploaded

Finally, I got some free time to upload the photo I took during the trip from Okinawa.

16 Sep 2016 12,262 Read