October 2008

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Completely inappropriate, Senator Conroy

24 October 2008 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 11 comments

Photograph of Senator Stephen Conroy labelled Cnut of the Week

Last night‘s Stilgherrian Live viewers voted Senator Stephen Conroy (pictured) “Cnut of the Week” by the clearest margin ever. But the actions of his office reported this morning really take the biscuit.

As Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy has been spokesman for the ALP’s policy of ISP-level filtering of the Internet. I’ve written about this before, but it’s back in the news this week because it was discussed in Senate Estimates, as Michael Meloni reports.

Conroy, as in December, was accusing critics of the policy like Greens Senator Scott Ludlam of supporting child pornography — a cheap rhetorical trick at the best of times.

This morning, though, news broke that Conroy’s office had tried bullying other critics.

Internode’s Mark Newton was highly critical of the filtering plan and Conroy’s evidence, but he was speaking as a private citizen. It was totally inappropriate for Conroy’s policy advisor Belinda Dennett to attempt to pressure him via Internet Industry Association board members and his employer.

Last year, Senator Conroy agreed with his Coalition predecessor, Senator Helen Coonan, when she said you get into trouble when politicians start picking technologies. Problem is, the ALP’s “cyber-safety” policy specifies “ISP filters that block prohibited content”. Conroy’s stuck with it. But the filters clearly don’t work. And he can’t be seen to back away from Internet filtering — in a trial program which, ironically, was scheduled by his predecessor — because the ALP needs the votes of Family First Senator Steve Fielding and independent Senator Nick Xenophon for other things.

Poor bloke. What is he to do?

Episode 31 online!

24 October 2008 in Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Last night’s episode of Stilgherrian Live is now online for your viewing pleasure.

I reckon this was one of the smoothest-running programs ever, with more controlled ranting — or do you prefer the uncontrolled rants?

Senator Stephen Conroy was our clear winner of “Cnut of the Week” for his continued involvement in the creation of Australia’s Internet censorship regime.

I’d like to do next week’s program from outside the office. Not the Manly Ferry, as @JonoH wants, because it’ll be dark at 9.30pm. I’ll save that for a special Saturday or Sunday afternoon edition — which would be better? So where should I pick? Somewhere that’ll be accessible and interesting after 9.30pm on a Thursday night.

Oh, and did you see the special impromptu edition the other night? It’s in four parts, episode 30A parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. There’s a naked bottom to be seen, amongst other things.

About fucking time, Australian Defence Force!

23 October 2008 in Defence, Personal by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Finally! After a three-year battle, the families of four Australian soldiers who committed suicide will receive ex gratia compensation payments. The amounts have not been disclosed. My feelings are very mixed — because this is very personal.

I’ve told some of this story before, in last year’s post Releasing the Black Hawk crash video was A Good Thing and this year’s Anzac Day Rememberings. I won’t repeat it all now — though I reckon your time spent reading those essays and following the links will be well spent.

All I’ll say today is something I said on Anzac Day:

I pray that the commanders of Australia’s military forces, and their political “masters”, will one day remember that there are more important, more admirable personal qualities than the ability to cover one’s own arse.

That four fine young men who volunteered for the armed forces ended up taking their own lives is a tragedy.

That there are people who have tried shifting the blame and who have delayed these four families receiving the justice and closure they deserve is truly, truly disgusting.

Just six hours to name your Cnut

23 October 2008 in Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 13 comments

Cnut of the Week graphic

Six hours to go! Tonight’s edition of Stilgherrian Live (9.30pm Thursdays Sydney time) will be the first in a fortnight, so I’m guessing there’s plenty of nominations for “Cnut of the Week”.

It’s the same rules as usual. We’re after people (or abstract forces of nature, or organisations or whatever) who’ve been futilely trying to hold back the tide of change.

Who do you nominate, and why?

Links for 22 October 2008 through 23 October 2008

23 October 2008 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 22 October 2008 through 23 October 2008, distilled from the finest ingredients:

How Not To Start A Corporate Blog: Telstra’s nowwearetalking Case Study | Richard Giles 2.0: Richard Giles has written a well-focussed piece about Telstra’s political-lobbying blog and the company’s behaviour, much of which overlaps with my own thoughts about Australia’s biggest telco.
Heather’s Creative Process | TwitPic: A nicely amusing diagram of one person’s “creative process”. I particularly like “Crying” in there.
Hangman, Spare That Word: The English Purge Their Language | TIME: A nice article explaining how difficult it is to purge old words from the dictionaries.
On-line transactions, streamed content, email and social networking signal changes in how Australians use the internet | ACMA: Latest statistics on how Australians use the Internet. Streaming video is now a top-2 or top-3 application, depending on the age group. 44% claim to have used the Internet to purchase airline tickets in the last 4 weeks. Can this be true?

Gonzo Twitter 1: Saturday Evening in Newtown

22 October 2008 in Internet, Sydney by Stilgherrian | 9 comments

I’ve always thought that my essays are my best work, even if I say so myself. I’ve done observationals before, like Saturday Night at The Duke and Burnt out sofa, burnt out life. But this one’s different.

As I walked home through Newtown last Saturday evening, I started sending little observational comments to my Twitter stream:

Actually still on Darlington Rd, a long-haired woman plays melancholy guitar on the terrace-house balcony as a currawong flops past.

As I moved into King Street, I kept going. As I went to Kelly’s On King for a beer, I kept going. I discovered that a rapt audience was watching my comments — although not everyone liked the volume of material. I suggested they use Twittersnooze to unfollow me for a while.

The 140-character limit imposes a certain staccato style which I quite like. I was chuffed to be compared with Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw and (especially) Hunter S Thompson!

Here, then, is my first attempt at Live Gonzo Twittering, across about 90 minutes last Saturday night. the only changes I’ve made have been to fix some typos. Is this the best way to present it after the fact? Enjoy!

Read the rest of this entry »

Links for 18 October 2008 through 21 October 2008

22 October 2008 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 18 October 2008 through 21 October 2008, slightly burnt at the edges:

The twisted language of politics | Bloghound: A nice post on the hypocrisy shown in the differing descriptions of Republican US Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Send an e-mail message on behalf of someone else | Microsoft Office Online: The procedure for setting up delegated email access in Office 2007, e.g. a secretary having access to their boss’ email. I think it’s rather quaint that Microsoft still uses “e-mail” with a hyphen.
Use Outlook Anywhere to connect to your Exchange server without VPN | Microsoft Office Online: This is the procedure for making individual Outlook 2007 users connect securely to a remote Exchange server over the Internet. “Outlook Anywhere” is what used to be called “RPC over HTTP”. I’m tagging this because I’ll be making this work for a client shortly.
Configure Outlook Anywhere in Outlook 2007 | Microsoft TechNet: This is the procedure for making a group of Outlook 2007 users connect securely to a remote Exchange server over the Internet. “Outlook Anywhere” is what used to be called “RPC over HTTP”.
2006 Olympic Food Stealing Champion – My Dog! | First Dog on the Moon: One of First Dog’s more delightful (as opposed to deeply cynical) cartoons.
Cursebird: What the f#@! is everyone swearing about?: A live feed of everyone who swears on Twitter, with a nice animated effect when a new curse pops up. Compelling viewing.

Safely home in Sydney

16 October 2008 in Internet, Media, Music by Stilgherrian | 7 comments

’Pong and I have returned home safely from Cowra, a 655km round trip, thanks to the wonders of Matthew Hall and the Success Whale. All hail the Success Whale! (Except Stephen Stockwell, unbeliever.)

The journey home was enlivened with an interesting experiment. Instead of me broadcasting Stilgherrian Live — bright TV lights in a moving car at night would be a plan full of FAIL — we created an inside-out radio station. Some of my followers on Twitter took up the offer to send us links to music — which we streamed live from YouTube. The audience chose the music and we listened to it.

This experiment in crowdsourcing a playlist was remarkably successful. I’ll publish the music later. But even more remarkable was the power of the hyperconnectivity. Even though we were driving through rural New South Wales, we were still in touch with our friends — wherever they were too — doing the usual things we do of an evening, like swap links and tell each other bad jokes.

I’ll have much more to say about this soon. But for now I must rest.

Success Whale protects us in Cowra

15 October 2008 in Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | 4 comments

Success Whale with the towels at the Alabaster Motel, Cowra

We’re made is safely to Cowra, thanks to our driver Matthew Hall and our trusty new mascot, Success Whale — but I think I’m going colour-blind.

The photo above shows Success Whale sitting on the bed at the luxurious Alabaster Motel. As you may see, all three and a half stars of colour are certainly on display! The clash of styles almost makes me vomit — but at least that proves we’re arrived. Somewhere.

So many things happened along the way. We saw cows. And sheep. And crows. And currawongs. The Navman satellite navigation toy told us to “Go to nearest road”, despite being on a rather fine highway. We did the world’s slowest lap of Mount Panorama race track (thankfully I forgot to press “record”). And much more I’ll tell you soon, I promise.

Links for 12 October 2008

15 October 2008 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Here are the web links I’ve found for 12 October 2008, posted not-quite automatically.

ABC overtakes Ten in audience share | AdNews: Australian television turned upside down! The traditional pecking order of Channel Nine, TEN, Seven and ABC is now Seven, Channel Nine, ABC and TEN. SBS is still in 5th place, but amongst the “main four” things are very different.
The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies: A nice structural map of the various logical fallacies, with links explaining them.
Long Pig the Movie: I stumbled across this new movie website. It’s won a few awards so if you’re into horror it might be your thing.

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