George Shafik

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done." — Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Three-quarters of a century later, the plenty turns out to be data engineering, governance, and architecture — not the model. Funny how that worked out.

New piece on enterprise AI across cloud and edge: what I have seen actually work, where the money goes to die, and why the model is the easy part.

https://t.co/DKGOyMaFUf

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

Day 21. Today shipped: a Minister's Claim card capturing Bowen's full 9th May statement: 42d petrol, 35d diesel, 29d jet, 55 ships, 4.5 BL inbound, each next to its dashboard counterpart. The diesel gap of +5.9 days (Minister more optimistic than model) is exactly the kind of comparison the verifiability work was built for.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

Day 10 on the SIRM dashboard: the diesel spot model resolved 0.59 AUD per litre lower to 2.3107, back below the 2.6500 wholesale, as cover days recovered from 20.5 to 28.3 on a fresh tanker arrivals batch and all three local-stress indexes pulled back. Diesel Supply Risk eased to ELEVATED 30, Fertiliser Supply Risk holds at SEVERE 70 for the tenth consecutive day, with urea cover still at 6.00 weeks inside Australia's peak winter-cereal planting window.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

Update: 27 April 2026, 06:35 AEST. Nine days live. The diesel model jumped from 2.49 to 3.67 AUD/L overnight.

There is a kind of thinking that does not accept the surface of things. Richard Feynman once said, “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

On ANZAC Day, we pause not just to remember the history, but to honour the lives carried within it. Tim Winton once wrote, “we are shaped by what we remember.” Today, we remember those who gave more than was ever asked, and the families who carried that cost long after the silence fell. Lest we forget.

As David Malouf wrote, “memory is the means by which we hold on to what we love.” In that way, their service is not behind us it is carried forward, quietly, in the lives we live today.

Fuel Dashboard Update 25th April 2026.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

A dashboard is counting made visible. Angus Taylor has called for is already live at https://t.co/ytTg1kpfxR: three distinct cover-day measures, a full spot pricing decomposition, four escalation scenarios, all refreshed daily. Free to read. No login. No spin.

Henry Lawson wrote that “we must make the best of our circumstances.” He wrote it about drought and distance, but it reads just as true in a supply squeeze. You cannot make the best of anything you cannot see. Visibility is not a luxury, it is survival.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

The diesel story has paused. The fertiliser story has not. The storm has shifted, not passed.

Dorothea Mackellar called Australia a land "of droughts and flooding rains" and what gets remembered is the poetry. What gets missed is the measurement. She was listing two states a calibrated observer has seen and refuses to pretend are one. A tool that does its job in this country surfaces the volatility honestly and waits for the inputs to settle.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

To the truckers who still run the road when the freight rate has not caught up with the diesel bill, to the farmers who still plant the crop when the urea order arrives before the rain, to the country mechanic who still gets the old rig home one more winter: this one is for you! It was once said the backbone of this country was in the cities. Well, the cities are busy typing emails and the country is still delivering. When the pump price climbs, it will not be the office tower that feels it first. It will be the refrigerated trailer out of Dubbo, the harvester in the paddock outside Horsham, the steel yard in Whyalla that has already cut its shifts twice this year.

Jimmy Barnes wrote the soundtrack for this country decades ago, and "Working Class Man" was never a nostalgia piece. It was about the driver at the bowser, the grower caught between the rain and the invoice, the bloke under the bonnet who keeps the rig alive for one more winter. The question is who is singing along now, and who is writing it down straight.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

To the journalists who still think, who still evaluate the facts before the headline, who still resist the temptation of the click bait: this one is for you! It was once said the Labor party could be led by a drover's dog. Well, the dog has had it's day. Maybe this is the year we finally meet the stockman of that dog. Riding hard out of the high country on a brumby no one else could break, oilskin snapping in the wind off the Snowy, whip cracking clean across the valleys for the whole world to stand witness.

Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson would have known him. Would have written him into the poem before the ink was dry. A lean man on a leaner horse, the kind this country used to produce by the thousand and has mostly forgotten how to grow. The kind who builds when others debate, who acts when the briefing paper is still being drafted. The whip is cracking. The question is who is listening, and who is writing it down straight.

https://t.co/7PaiJJjIQF

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

There is a kind of Australian who does not wait for permission. Who sees the storm building beyond the reef and sets sail towards it, not back to harbour. This country was not built by committees or consultants. It was built by people who looked at uncharted waters and decided to cross them anyway, with whatever they had, because the alternative was standing still while the world moved.

It is reassuring that in this moment, our leaders are demonstrating exactly this quality. The world is watching. And what it is seeing is an Australia that does not flinch, does not defer, and does not wait for someone else to go first. That is worth more than any commodity we export.

https://t.co/7PaiJJkgGd

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

"Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom." John Curtin, 1941-1945

2026: We import 90% of our fuel. Two refineries. Weeks of diesel in reserve. Time to stop exporting our sovereignty by the tankerload and start building a nation that can stand on its own two feet.

Curtin did not wait for permission. He did not wait for the polls. He acted because the country needed him to. The question is whether we still have leaders willing to do the same.

To all the great journalists at the ABC, @David_Speers in particular: this is your story. A resource superpower that cannot fuel its own trucks. A nation that lights up Asia while its own reserves run dry. The data is here, the frameworks are here, the playbook is here. The ball is back in your court!

https://t.co/ZROQGCVwng

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

Thank you, David Speers, for your interview with Andrew Hastie. I am responding in kind.
https://t.co/sosq9s77US

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

@FDogenews32 Mona Lisa

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

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[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

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[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

@Bestmodefit Essay

[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

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[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

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[George Shafik @georgeshafik]

From tools to tax base: a 2014→2025 productivity timeline

https://t.co/4OnujQm2pT