Conversations: Our Evolving World

Mel Huang Buntine on how computers started entering our homes, and the beige box of a machine that changed her own life.Personal computers are so ubiquitous now, it's hard to imagine a time when computers were inaccessible to everyday people.For decades, computers were the size of rooms, and they were used for specialist tasks like processing large data sets for researchers, or sending men to the moon.But by the 1980s computers had become smaller and more affordable, and people started bringing them into their homes.From this point on, how everyday people interacted with technology changed forever.Mel Huang Buntine is a designer and technologist who was gifted her first computer as a tween in 1990s Melbourne.Mel lived in a multigenerational home with her mother, her grandparents and her great-grandmother, all of whom had escaped the Cambodian genocide as refugees.They couldn't understand why Mel was obsessed with this machine, but it completely opened up Mel's world and changed her life.Now with anxiety growing around AI, surveillance and mega tech companies, Mel is trying to get people to understand the history of computers and how they work.She hopes this will give back to people a sense of agency over machines, rather than feeling powerless to the opacity of algorithms and large language models.Radical Computing is exhibiting at the National Communication Museum in Melbourne from 19 September 2026, until 21February 2027.This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.It explores technology, artificial intelligence, Facebook, Instagram, social media, coding, making a website, HTML, CSS, PS5, playstation, games console, computer games, desktop games, Apple iOs 27, Mac, Macbook, Mac versus PC, IBM, Commodore 64, Steam Frame, iPhone, smartphone, dumb phone, Steve Jobs, Jack Tramiel, computer race, home appliances, toy market, super computers, science and technology, future of computers, techno optimist, tech subculture, Demoscene, hackers, jailbreak phone, crack software, pirated software, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic, Zuckerberg.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Historian Katja Hoyer was born in 1985, under the old regime of the GDR and grew up in the 1990s, watching many former East Germans struggle in the years after reunification.Learning about the Nazi era was a big part of her education but Katja left school feeling unsatisfied about what she’d been taught about the period when the Nazis rose to power.She knew about all the big political moments, but not much about the lives of ordinary Germans and how they responded to the dramatic changes that unfolded around all around them.So Katja the historian traced the lives of residents in the town of Weimar from 1919 to 1939 to examine how a cultural hub of democracy transformed into a Nazi stronghold.Further information Weimar: Life of the Edge of Catastrophe is published by Penguin.Katja's earlier book is Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949-1990Learn more about Katja Hoyer on her websiteThis episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake and the Executive Producer was Nicola Harrison.It explores German history, the rise of the Nazis, Weimar, the Weimar Republic, Adolf Hitler, the Stasi, secret police, the Berlin Wall, Communism, Fascism, World War II, East Germany, the GDR, democracy, Jewish persecution, Buchenwald, concentration camps, Carl Weirich, Nazi era history, the rise of the Nazis.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Political journalist, George Megalogenis has mapped key areas in our population, workforce and geopolitical standing in recent decades, and looks at how these shifts are impacting our collective political future.For the first time since Federation, Australia’s population is mostly made up of migrants and their children. Professional women have now replaced men doing blue collar jobs as the largest segment of the workforce.And on the world scale, Australia can no longer rely on our traditional allies or trading partners.These three elements have already changed the political landscape in our country, and this will only continue as time goes on.Further informationThree Shocks: Who we are becoming in the 21st Century is published by Penguin Random House.This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan and the Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.It covers auspol, populism, John Howard, Paul Keating, Harold Holt, Pauline Hanson, One Nation, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Western Australia, parliament, teals, Higgins, Bennelong, Chinese-Australians, Peter Costello, First Nations, Federation, convicts, migration, White Australia policy, one parent born overseas, census, data, graphs, data journalism and Prime Ministers.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Nuking the moon, putting mirrors in space and blowing up the Polar ice caps are just some of history's hairbrained schemes to control the weather, an obsession man has had since the dawn of time.As a major heatwave tears through Europe, millions of people are frantically trying to stay cool, or praying for some relief. Their desperation is not new.For thousands of years, human civilisations have been obsessed with trying to control the weather, to stave off drought and famine, in order to survive.There are ancient tales of great kings who could part the oceans, and deities who would bring down the rain if they were presented with the right kind of sacrifice.But it wasn’t until the last century that we suddenly had the technology to actually do these kinds of things, or at least attempt to do them.Some of these wild ideas - to bring water to the desert, drain the Mediterranean Sea to make farmlands, simply make Russia a warmer place to live - have involved blowing up the Polar ice caps, putting mirrors in space, and nuking the moon.They sound dangerous and unlikely, but some of them have come true.And now, many people are at work on brand new gigantic geo-engineering solutions to counteract the effects of the warming planet.Palaeontologist and explorer, Tim Flannery, has been tracking the progress of some of these schemes.A Brief History of Climate Folly, written with Emma Flannery, is published by Text Publishing.This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.It explores weird science, crazy science, Elon Musk, China, Trump, feats of engineering, space exploration, the human ego, wild weather events, magic, supernatural, religion, God, divinity, human sacrifice, famine, starvation, migration, global warming, climate change, European heatwave, Paris heatwave, fossil fuel, deforestation, COP, climate change policy, sea levels, floods, Summer, water, gas, electricity, solar power, politics, renewables.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Jayden Sheridan was just 17 years old when he found out he was going to be a father, and immediately Jayden knew he needed to give his son better opportunities than he ever had growing up in regional Victoria. (R)In Seymour, which is one of the most disadvantaged postcodes in Australia, Jayden experienced homelessness, substance abuse, violence and a general lack of direction. He had no male role models in his life, but he did have the local skate park.It's where he went to feel safe and to feel himself, and Jayden wanted to create that same feeling for his son, and all the other kids in his town of Seymour.What started as adhoc skate lessons quickly turned into Gnarly Neighbours, something far bigger and more impactful than 17-year-old Jayden could have imagined.Jayden has recently been selected as a 2026 Westpac Social Change Fellow. His fellowship involves travelling across the US, Europe and the UK to learn from organisations doing similar work in creative and trauma-informed mentoring for young people.You can learn more about Gnarly Neighbours here.This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.This episode of Conversations explores substance abuse, drug use, drug dealing, expulsion, troubled children, mental health, bipolar disorder, teen parenting, teen fatherhood, teen motherhood, skateboarding, skating, streetwear, origin stories, family dynamics, male role models, father figures, dysfunctional families, single parenting, rural and regional Australia, masculinity, manhood, rites of passage, mentoring.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.