Lord Mayor loves a Laneway outing
Lord Mayor Dr Jane Lomax Smith attended the St Jeromes Laneway Festival at Bonython Park last Friday, and it seems she’s quite the UK hip-hop fan.
“It was astounding to me that they had Stormzy as a main act because that’s a very big ticket item for our town,” the Lord Mayor said at the council meeting Tuesday night.
“It was an extraordinary event that played to our strength as a UNESCO City of Music,” she said.
While Laneway brings in the big names, CityMag’s latest issue (which is vibrant pink and on streets now) crunched the numbers and found Laneway to be one of the lowest performers in platforming locals last year. Their only local act on the 2024 lineup was The Tullamarines.
To this, the Lord Mayor told InSider that a lack of local at Laneway doesn’t take away from our city’s UNESCO status which “supports all genres of music”.
“I would love to see more South Australian acts on stage at Laneway next year, however, from talking to industry on the day, I understand that booking internationally and nationally recognised performers is critical to the viability of a nationally touring music festival,” she said.
The Lord Mayor was so eager for Stormzy, she let us know in a snippet on her Instagram. Did you spot the Lord Mayor at Laneway?
Parties trade Valentine’s Day blows
Labor’s attempt to take credit for banning election corflutes is now in its second week, with the Premier’s social media team taking to Facebook on Wednesday to offer their variation on a Valentine’s Day favourite.
The post inevitably prompted a response from the state’s chief anti-corflute crusader, Liberal leader David Speirs.
But InSider’s political poetry award goes to Lucy Bellamy, who offered this interpretation:
It’s worth noting that Labor’s sudden enthusiasm for banning corflutes (Dunstan by-election anyone?) wasn’t always the case.
Aside from letting Speirs’ corflutes ban languish on the parliamentary backburner after it was introduced in May 2023, Labor also helped block a previous attempt to ban corflutes in 2021, albeit that legislation was attached to a range of other electoral reforms.
During that debate, Labor was singing a vastly different tune (and presumably writing vastly different poetry) than it is now. Attorney General Kyam Maher, who was Opposition leader in the Upper House at the time, made this argument on the floor of parliament:
“Once again, the Attorney (then Liberal Deputy Premier Vickie Chapman) has come with a bill to ban corflutes that is complete and utter overreach to whatever problem she thinks is there,” Maher opined on October 12, 2021.
“It is clear that the Attorney thinks there is some sort of political advantage, perhaps it will be to the detriment of minor or smaller parties who often use corflutes as a cheap and effective way to get their message and their branding out.
“Maybe the Attorney thinks she can wipe out minor and small parties with this. Well, we are not going to be a party to these anti-democratic measures.”
Times change, eh?
Australians take up sexting on Valentine’s Day
1 in 5 Australians planned on sending a flirty text on Valentine’s Day this week, while one-fifth of men planned to send a message to up to seven people, according to data compiled by Vodafone.
The Red Hot Love Index survey of 1000 single Australians found that men are more likely to send flirty texts than women, but this did not stop 83 per cent of women reporting that they planned to message up to three people.
Yet it doesn’t always go to plan for Australians willing to take a risk and text their crush. The data compiled by Vodafone found that 1 in 5 Australians aged between 18-24 have received accidental sexts, with 68 per cent reporting that they have received up to five in the last 12 months.
The most common recipients of these embarrassing messages are friends at 69 per cent, family members at 18 per cent, exes at 15 per cent and work colleagues at 11 per cent.
According to Vodafone, Australians made more than 13.8 million phone calls on Valentine’s Day in 2022, equating to 78 years’ worth of calls, while 58 million text messages were sent across the network.
Govt’s South Road spending spree
Not all of us have the money to crack the housing market, but the state government certainly does.
So far, the Department for Infrastructure and Transport has spent more than $700 million to compulsorily acquire properties along South Road for the final stage of North-South Corridor, a parliamentary committee heard on Monday.
Wayne Buckerfield, executive director of the North-South Corridor project, said there were still more acquisitions to be finalised. The total amount the government will spend on property acquisitions has not been released yet.
The committee also heard that only 522 properties – not 524 as previously announced – will need to be acquired for the project.
While the $700 million only makes a small chunk of the $15.4 billion project, it’s worth noting that it’s worth more than three new Mount Barker hospitals.
OpenAI’s text-to-video innovation is (terrifyingly) powerful
Not content with destroying the careers of copywriters worldwide, tech firm OpenAI has announced its next innovation which looks to do away with man-made video content.
The company – backed by Microsoft – revealed Sora on X this morning. It’s a new text-to-video AI model that can create videos of up to 60 seconds in duration.
Just have a look at the company’s early examples to see how powerful this new tool is:
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions. https://t.co/7j2JN27M3W
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy… pic.twitter.com/ruTEWn87vf
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 15, 2024
Prompt: “A stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street filled with warm glowing neon and animated city signage. she wears a black leather jacket, a long red dress, and black boots, and carries a black purse. she wears sunglasses and red lipstick. she walks confidently and casually.… pic.twitter.com/cjIdgYFaWq
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 15, 2024
On the company’s website, OpenAI said “We’re teaching AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction.”
It’s not yet open to the public, as the company is putting it through testing to assess “critical areas for harms or risks”.
InSider hopes the company can put up some guardrails to ensure dangerous content isn’t created. After all, we’re just weeks on from disturbing AI-generated images of Taylor Swift flooding the internet.
Stuff you should know…
Studies show that 70% of mums regularly play games.
Mums are slaying the gaming world, according to a bunch of press releases.
But as the SA Game Exhibition kicks off this weekend, don’t be surprised if there are a lot of mums at the consoles. One recent survey spruiked by VPN company Zenshield has found that “mums aren’t just playing video games; they’re owning the gaming world”.
Darius Blake from Zenshield said the survey goes beyond just numbers and challenges old ideas about gaming.
“Mums, often underestimated, aren’t just playing casually – they’re winning big,” Blake said, adding that other studies of gaming demographics show that 70 per cent of mums regularly play games.
“This is an interesting development in the gaming world. It’s not that moms are suddenly playing more video games than dads, but they are reported to be winning more frequently, which implies they might be more skillful or strategic,” Blake said.
