Latest News: AI, Tech & Australian Economy

Latest Life & Reflections 55

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.

2026-10-17 55 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.

2026-10-17 3 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 241

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.

2026-10-16 241 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.

2026-10-16 4,275 Read

Latest Daily Life 146

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.

2026-10-15 146 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.

2026-10-15 2,665 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.

2026-10-14 513 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 396

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.

2026-10-14 396 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.

2026-10-14 2,518 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 83

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.

2026-10-13 83 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 57

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.

2026-10-13 57 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.

2026-10-13 4,318 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.

2026-10-13 238 Read

Latest Brisbane Food 84

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.

2026-10-12 84 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.

2026-10-12 750 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.

2026-10-11 214 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.

2026-10-10 1,378 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 44

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.

2026-10-09 44 Read

Latest Life & Reflections 33

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.

2026-10-09 33 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.

2026-10-09 958 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.

2026-10-08 939 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.

2026-10-07 326 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.

2026-10-06 108 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.

2026-10-05 193 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.

2026-10-04 124 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.

2026-10-03 27 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.

2026-10-02 25 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.

2026-10-01 42 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.

2026-10-01 211 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.

2026-09-30 38 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.

2026-09-29 61 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.

2026-09-29 259 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.

2026-09-28 19 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.

2026-09-27 16 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.

2026-09-26 166 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?

2026-09-25 41 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

2026-09-01 74 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.

2026-08-01 53 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.

2026-07-13 40 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.

2026-06-13 33 Read

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

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

2026-06-07 25 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.

2026-05-11 43 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.

2026-05-09 26 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…

2026-01-31 1,511 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…

2025-05-14 5,791 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…

2023-09-11 14,709 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…

2023-08-31 16,213 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 …

2023-08-05 16,135 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 …

2023-04-11 15,331 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…

2023-04-10 17,758 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…

2023-03-22 17,113 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 …

2023-03-17 7,293 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…

2022-08-27 8,723 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…

2020-02-16 15,639 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…

2020-01-16 14,719 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…

2020-01-12 16,464 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…

2020-01-03 14,228 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…

2020-01-01 13,665 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…

2019-12-27 12,766 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…

2019-12-26 9,159 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…

2018-11-01 11,466 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…

2017-09-02 14,783 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…

2017-08-21 14,546 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 …

2017-06-11 15,458 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 …

2017-05-24 16,422 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…

2017-01-27 16,135 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 …

2016-11-26 14,700 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 …

2016-11-12 15,100 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…

2016-11-10 13,956 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…

2016-11-08 14,113 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…

2016-11-03 14,142 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…

2016-10-05 11,252 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, …

2016-10-02 10,513 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…

2016-09-27 12,118 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…

2016-09-24 10,941 Read

Okinawa Photo uploaded

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

2016-09-16 12,104 Read