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incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Mel Campbell
@incrediblemelk.bsky.social
1.5K followers 440 following 4.7K posts
Film/TV critic, copyeditor, author and shadow academic on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung country
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incrediblemelk.bsky.social
A cool composite pic of this year’s first baby peregrine falcon to fledge from the Collins Street nest site (9:27am)
A series of webcam screenshots edited into a composite image showing the first flight of a fledgling peregrine falcon: from a concrete building ledge at centre of frame, and out of shot to the right
November 13, 2025 at 6:06 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Via a random YouTube video I just learned the term ‘lagenlook’ for the clothing aesthetic of oversized shapeless layers. Looked it up on Google Images & died of cringe to see many of the sorts of garments I own, though I used to wear them much more c. 2015–20
Olivia Colman (centre) in the film ‘The Roses’ wears a flowing kaftan-like dress made from panels of twp different navy-blue floral prints Me in a mirror selfie in my hallway trying on an outfit to send to my group chat: a knee-length cardigan coat in a black/white geometric diamond-weave, over an oversized ankle-length jade-green linen dress with a red chinoiserie rose print, jade-green ankle socks and chunky black loafers Me in another mirror selfie for the group chat, wearing a huge oversized madras-plaid cotton garment I found on the nightgown rack at Savers but I’m asking the chat if I could get away with it as a summer dress
November 12, 2025 at 4:51 PM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Don’t even get me started about emergency prep: when I get anxious (eg a few months back, when my neighbour’s smoke alarm started going off repeatedly at 2am) it calms me to plan what to do
Screenshot of a packing list from my Reminders app, headed ‘Emergency Go Bag’, listing an overnight bag to put everything in, a small sealable plastic container as first aid kit, and various clothing
November 12, 2025 at 3:06 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
This lil creep
Demonic-looking child smirkingly eats Van Camp’s pork and beans straight from the can in a vintage magazine ad illustration
November 7, 2025 at 2:46 PM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
bloody hell, "consistently falling asleep within eight minutes is considered unusual, and consistently falling asleep within five minutes can be a sign of excessive daytime sleepiness."

My sleep tracker app says my average is 7–8 mins. Last night I was out before I could turn the tracker on
Graph shows last month of “time to fall asleep” data from my sleep tracker app. Many entries are under 5 mins but a few are between 10–12 mins
October 22, 2025 at 1:45 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
One bit of internet enshittification I loathe: replacing clear fixed datelines with ambiguous relative datelines like "four days ago"

Hey BBC: when's fucken 4 days ago? You're making me get out a fucken calendar? It gets less accurate over time, like "4 months" ago could be any time in June 2025
Screenshot of a BBC online news story from "4 days ago": "Keeping Up Appearances star Patricia Routledge dies at 96" by Ian Youngs, Culture reporter Screenshot of a Guardian news story from Friday 3 October: "Keeping Up Appearances actor Patricia Routledge dies aged 96" by Hannah J Davies
October 7, 2025 at 12:38 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Editing something in the game studies field
Bart Simpson's POV of his teacher and classmates all turning towards him: "Say the line, Bart." Bart Simpson groans softly at his desk, head slumped, tears leaking from closed eyes: "The magic circle."
October 2, 2025 at 8:14 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
I once took a photo of myself in the green t-shirt and purple capri-length PJ pants that I had just realised were Hulk pyjamas
Me trying to look very angry while striking a Hulk pose, taking a mirror selfie of my green and purple Hulk pyjamas in my dimly lit bedroom Close-up mirror selfie of my Hulk pyjamas in better lighting to show more detail of the purple capri pants in particular: the Hulkiest part of the lewk
September 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
GPT! GPT! GPT! GPT!
“I hear those chats are awful loud…”
It’s hosted safely in the cloud!
“Is there a chance the bot could lie?”
Not on your life, and nor will I!
Monorail huckster from The Simpsons says slyly, “oh, it’s not for you. It’s more of a Cambridge idea.” Monorail huckster looks slyly pleased as Mayor Quimby on the stage behind him yells, “Wait just a minute. We’re twice as smart as the University of Cambridge.”
September 22, 2025 at 12:38 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
LMAO this thread
Oreos ad shows a cookie splashing into an extremely full glass of milk under the headline “Think you can dunk better than this?”
September 20, 2025 at 6:43 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Looking at Boxell et al. (2024) on trends in affective political polarisation across 12 countries, I was struck that in AU it has remained pretty stable (-0.5) compared to Germany’s growing affective consensus (-0.37) & the growing polarisation in the US (+0.56)

direct.mit.edu/rest/article...
Trends in affective polarisation by country: 12 line graphs measure polarisation (Y-axis) over time (X-axis) tho the data timeframes are different for each. The US shows the steepest rise in polarisation; in Switzerland, France, Canada & NZ it also increased. Australia saw very little change from the 1990s to 2020; it also fell in the UK, Norway, Sweden & Germany
September 17, 2025 at 2:28 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
One good thing about copycat band names is they enable me to make this Simpsons joke
Image from The Simpsons episode where the Ramones insult Mr Burns on his birthday: Burns fumes with rage in the audience and orders Smithers to murder his (misidentified) enemies. But I have recaptioned it to refer to Bob Vylan’s “death to the IDF” Glastonbury chant: “Have Bob Dylan killed.”
September 4, 2025 at 2:16 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
"We've been Wobbed" was the pic used in the article

Because everyone I asked was somehow "too busy" to join my protest, I pegged my signs to the fence to photograph them myself, but I got yelled at & chased off by an old man (the park owner?). These pics were taken later when I got back to the city
Younger Mel stands on a city footpath looking serious, holding a handwritten sign saying "No redevelopment! It's fun at Wobbies World!" She has short hair dyed auburn-red & wears a white Bonds t-shirt, a fluffy purple scarf wrapped round her neck, op-shop old-man suit pants, and black/white suede Keds sneakers Younger Mel strikes a defiant pose as if shouting at a protest, holding up a handwritten sign that says "We've been Wobbed!" She has sunglasses pushed up in her short auburn-red hair & wears a white Bonds t-shirt, a fluffy purple scarf wrapped round her neck, op-shop old-man suit pants, and black/white suede Keds sneakers
September 3, 2025 at 3:59 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Was kind of shocked by how odd Bryce Dallas Howard’s nose looks in these pics. She’s definitely had several nose jobs; her natural nose had a wide bridge from the front but looked nice in profile
Bryce Dallas Howard in left profile view, Cannes Film Festival 2005. Her nose has a straight-ish bridge and a rounded but not bulbous tip Bryce Dallas Howard in left profile view in a still from ‘Lady in the Water’ (2006). Her nose now has a noticeable concave ‘ski-jump’ curve, and the tip curves downwards from a sharp point. The wings of her nostrils now flare out more from the sides of her nose Bryce Dallas Howard in left profile view in a 2022 candid on-set photo as she directs an episode of ‘The Mandalorian’. Her nose still has a concave ‘ski-jump’ bridge but the tip has been refined so it has more of a curve than a sharp point, and the septum has a smoother, flatter shape than the angled shape it used to have Bryce Dallas Howard in left profile view enjoying New Year’s Day 2024 in Byron Bay. Her nose bridge looks a little straighter than before, and the nose seems to have a little more projection from her face
August 29, 2025 at 2:58 PM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
she's got a flavour of federal MP Dr Monique Ryan, a touch of Miriam Margolyes…
Dr Monique Ryan, the 'Teal' independent Member for Kooyong in the Australian Parliament, gives a small courteous smile as she stands in front of an aqua-painted wall with a group of aqua-clad supporters. She has wavy dark hair in a layered chin-length halo, dark eyes, and wears a white top with a pleated neckline English comedic actor Miriam Margolyes in late middle age: she smiles impishly at the camera, her coral lipstick matching her orange scarf. She has fluffy chin-length silver hair with a fringe, and dark eyes
August 22, 2025 at 1:16 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Feminist theorist Rosi Braidotti really reminds me of someone but I can't put my finger on who – whether it's a celebrity or someone I know IRL
Studio portrait of Rosi Braidotti in middle age: a plump smiling woman with wavy bobbed salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a dark jacket over a patterned top Black-and-white portrait of a younger Rosi Braidotti smiling in front of a shelf of binder folders: she has dark hair cut in a short fluffy layered bob, dark eyes, and wears a chunky cardigan over a turtleneck
August 22, 2025 at 1:05 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Is this digital cottagecore? Perhaps. It's worth reconsidering, in a UX context, what inhospitable social structures the cottagecore aesthetic responds to & compensates for, and how it mobilises dialectics of work/pleasure, past/present, nature/culture & belonging/encroaching
Illustration by Jill Barklem from the Brambly Hedge book 'Summer Story': "After the picnic, the children played in the small glade while adults snoozed under the bluebells." Two fat field mice doze beside a picnic rug in the shade of bluebells as tall to them as trees are to us, anthropomorphically dressed in old-fashioned English country garb (one mouse in striped trousers; the other in a white pinafore over blue dress, & a sunhat trimmed with flowers). In the sunlit background are two young mice playing a chasing game
August 10, 2025 at 4:13 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Just saw two teen boys: one was dark-haired while the other one had a resplendent ginger mullet

You_Could_Be_Mine.mp3
Scene from Terminator 2: John Connor (Edward Furlong), a tween boy with flippy dark hair wearing an oversized khaki military jacket, uses a pocket computer to hack an ATM while his ginger-mulleted friend Tim (Danny Cooksey) keeps lookout, wearing a black band t-shirt under a denim vest
August 9, 2025 at 5:38 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
We can measure the power of Mehreen Faruqi's words by the swiftness & decisiveness of the action they prompted

not the kind Gaza needs, unfortunately. Against her. For making the statement
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, a middle-aged, brown-skinned woman wearing a keffiyeh draped over her shoulders, stands in the Australian Senate chamber holding up a sign that says "Gaza is starving. Words won't feed them. Sanction Israel"
August 8, 2025 at 2:29 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Good news everyone: I saw peace on Rathdowne Street today
A pure white pigeon, aka a ‘dove of peace’, stands in profile on asphalt
August 5, 2025 at 3:58 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Which dinguses have been ignoring the spelling and deciding to pronounce it “Gwenyth”
New York Magazine screenshot with headline over red-carpet photo of Gwyneth Paltrow: “News you can Goop: Have You Been Pronouncing Gwyneth Paltrow’s Name Wrong All This Time? It’s ‘Gwyn’ like ‘pin’ instead of ‘Gwen’ like ‘pen,’ and other revelations from Amy Odell’s unauthorized biography.”
August 3, 2025 at 2:10 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Kudos to Ryan Kerlin of ABC News for this extremely funny visualisation of "Possible limestone cavities … beneath the Treasury building in Parkes"
The top of an extremely unimpressive news graphic is an exterior photo of the Federal Treasury building from ground level. The lower half, meant to show what is below the brick forecourt, is a crude digital illustration of 10 variably sized, minimally textured dark-brown clumps that look like pieces of poo, floating randomly within a beige cavity surrounded by uneven dark-brown layers that I think are meant to be subsoil or rock
August 1, 2025 at 4:16 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Most Substack publishers say they use AI for what I personally think are the things your human brain MOST needs to do: research, ideation and writing assistance

Personally I find AI most defensible for audio transcription, translation, text-to-speech & other accessibility use cases
Bar chart: "How publishers are using AI" "Research" is at the top with 64.94%, followed by "Ideation/Brainstorming" (56.42%), "Writing Assistance" (48.65%) and "Image Generation" (41.65%). "Audio Transcription" was used by 24.79%, "Translation/Multilingual" by 16.80%, "Text-to-Speech" by 12.14%. The least common use cases were "Voice Generation" (6.33%), "Video Editing" (6.23%) and "Voice Cloning" (4.05%)
July 25, 2025 at 1:07 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
AI use was fairly consistent across subscription revenue tiers, but not across genres. This chart reveals publishers who used it least were in art/illustration, music & literature (among the domains of production currently most stolen from by AI) + fashion/beauty & sports (based on 'authenticity')
Bar chart: "Percentage of AI users in each category" "Technology" is at the top: 85% Then "Business" with 82%, "Finance" with 72% and "Education" with 71%. At the bottom of the chart are "Art & Illustration" with 32%, "Fashion & Beauty" with 31%, "Sports" with 30%, "Music" with 30% and "Literature" with 21%
July 25, 2025 at 1:07 AM
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
I have classically conditioned my cat by accident to pretend to be stuck in my study curtain. He has learned that he gets attention if he mewls piteously while pawing futilely at his gauze case of emotion. But he could totally get out if he wanted
A piteous outstretched paw and face of feline woe are visible through a translucent white curtain behind which my beautiful cat Graham is pretending to be trapped. He is about to knock over a table lamp (to his right) or unplug my laptop (to his left)
July 11, 2025 at 12:57 AM