February 2009

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“Clive Hamilton, you’re really starting to shit me!”

16 February 2009 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 18 comments

Well, he is! As part of The Australian‘s “super blog” on Senator Conroy’s Rabbit-Proof Firewall plans, Clive Hamilton has remixed his favourite old party piece. This time his rant is entitled Web doesn’t belong to net libertarians. Have a look. It’s a giggle.

OK, back? Cool.

Now I’ve dismantled most of Hamilton’s logical fallacies, baseless slurs and misinformation before, here and over at Crikey. Still, if Clive wants to sing the same old tune I’m happy to hum along one more time…

Clive, you started by saying, “Here is the kind of situation the Government’s proposed internet filter is aimed at,” and then provide a detailed description of an unsupervised schoolboy looking for porn.

Is it?

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Conroy announces filter-trial ISPs and clams shut

16 February 2009 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 6 comments

Crikey logo

I’m in Crikey today, looking at Senator Conroy’s announcement from last week of the first six ISPs to be taking part in the Internet “filtering” trials: Primus Telecommunications (iPrimus), Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Highway 1 and Netforce.

One of the questions I ask is: Why is there further mission creep?

Labor’s pre-election policy said: “A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries.” Apart from pointing out again that “offer” isn’t the same as “require everyone to use”, the policy doesn’t mention business premises. Yet three of the ISPs (Highway 1, OMNIconnect and Netforce) are business-only ISPs.

As network engineer Mark Newton says, “If the Government is scope-creeping its plan to include business, I think it has some explaining to do.”

The article isn’t behind the paywall so it’s free to read.

Links for 15 February 2009 through 16 February 2009

16 February 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 15 February 2009 through 16 February 2009, gathered with fresh rainwater and love:

What is the biggest problem in your life? | GOP Problem Solver: “Utilizing the latest and greatest of Republican economic thought to improve your life.” Ahem.
Phone call to Minister Conroy’s Office | NOCENSORSHIP.INFO: Steve Johnson has posted his fruitless attempt to get Senator Conroy’s office to answer his question about Internet “filtering”.
Internet filtering and censorship forum | Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre: The first of these workshops at UNSW on 27 November 2008 was excellent. The second will be on Wednesday 4 March 2009 and I’ll definitely be liveblogging it.
Five barriers to journalists using Twitter | Sarah Hartley: What’s stopping journalists using Twitter? Here’s five excuses journalists use, and the rebuttals.
The Prisoner 1960s | AMC: The entire 1967-1968 TV series The Prisoner is available for free streaming viewing here — if you happen to be in the United States or can appear to be so.
Vic Govt limited Google’s bushfire map: News | ZDNet Australia: Google produced a brilliant live map of the tragic Victorian bushfires. However Crown Copyright provisions, which assign copyright over all government-produced information to the government and prevent its use without explicit consent, meant the couldn’t use data from the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE). Crown copyright is well established in Commonwealth law, but runs contrary to data protection provisions in countries like the US, where data produced by government agencies is held to be in the public domain.
Citizen-journalism’s rulebook | guardian.co.uk: It’s nearly a year old, but it’s still an interesting discussion about the “rules” of [cough] Citizen Journalism.

My liveblog from yesterday’s Media 09 event is still online at the original post. Later today I’ll run through it to correct errors and add a few links, and I’ll probably write a more reflective post. If you need even more of me today, there’s always my voice to be heard on this week’s A Series of Tubes, courtesy of Richard Chirgwin.

14 February 2009 by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Episode 37 online

12 February 2009 in Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Stilgherrian Live episode 37 is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Of course it’s never the same without the live chat amongst the audience members, but there it is. We chose the “Cnut of the Week” (and I suspect I won’t give anything away if I say the result was predictable), and Gnamed the Gnome. We also explored the digestive system and did something distasteful involving bushfires.

[Update 13 February: For some reason it looks like the recorded audio is out of sync. I'll drop a support note to Ustream tonight.]

“Stilgherrian Live” returns, looks at Internet censorship

12 February 2009 in Internet, Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 24 comments

Yes, Possums, I know you’ve been hanging out all summer. (Maybe you need better-fitting board shorts?) But the time has finally come! (Maybe get a cloth?) Stilgherrian Live returns for 2009 tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time — with a conversation about Internet censorship.

For those who’ve only recently found me through Twitter or wherever, Stilgherrian Live is my continuing experiment in live video on the Internet — a chat show of sorts. You can find out more by reading all the posts in the Stilgherrrian Live category, or watching the previous episodes linked off the program page. People have also written about why they watch Stilgherrian Live.

There’ll be new segments for 2009, though not in this first episode. More on that another time, including news of the Stilgherrian Live Road Trip to Yass later this month and the occasional Urgent Squawk mini-programs. Tonight’s episode is a quickie, with little preparation, because I know that people want to talk about the latest Internet censorship news and its implications.

And yes, this means nominations are now open for “Cnut of the Week”…

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Links for 11 February 2009

12 February 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | 2 comments

Here are the web links I’ve found for 10 February 2009, posted automatically.

Twinfluence: Twitter Influence Analyzer: Another stupid pseudo-science numerical analysis of people’s Twitter followers which supposedly measures “influence”. It completely fails to consider the quality of communication rather than quantity. Useful for impressing dumb old-school PR and marketing types, maybe, since they seem so obsessed with raw numbers.
Resilient Nation | Demos: A project by UK think tank, Demos, Resilient Nation notes that the government’s power and authority is shifting across to the private and third sectors and down to regional and local government. Our ability to respond to disasters needs to be re-examined in this light. There are noises about starting an Australian version. Stand by.
Exchange Connector POP3 Connector/Downloader for Exchange Server 2007/2003 | Quantum Software Solutions: A third-party (and Australia made!) replacement for Microsoft’s POP3 Connector for Exchange. Apparently more reliable, with better logging and more features — including the ability to download email every minute instead of only every 15 minutes.

Twitter: enabling the new global rubberneckers

11 February 2009 in Human Nature, Internet by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

I’ve written a rather challenging piece for Crikey today, Twitter: enabling the new global rubberneckers. Challenging to write, and maybe challenging to read.

I was disturbed on the weekend to see Twitter become some kind of morbid deathwatch. As every increment in the Victorian bushfire death tool was reported, it was retweeted and retweeted endlessly — even once the mainstream media had geared up and was providing live updates.

For people threatened by bushfires, or those concerned for the safety of loved ones, up-to-date news is vital. No argument. We also need to share our emotions as a community — that’s what makes us a community. It was heart-rending to see one 17 year-old tweet (and I won’t link), “Just got told that a few friends who live in the bushfire area haven’t been found yet. Where’s a tissue, I have a tear in my eye.”

But for everyone else, obsessively tracking every latest horror “to see what it looks like” is nothing but selfish “recreational grief”. The morbid rubbernecking so hated by police and emergency workers.

And I’ve written about recreational grief and recreational outrage before.

The article isn’t behind the paywall, so it’s free for all to read.

Live Blog: Media 09

10 February 2009 in Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | 8 comments

This Friday 13 February I’m liveblogging from Media 09, billed as “the Annual Forecast for Digital Media Professionals”.

The event runs all day from 9am to 5pm Sydney time, and I’ll cover as much as I can. Bookmark this page and come back on the day. I’ll also issue reminders via my Twitter stream and tag everything #media09.

I’m rather amused that the event is being staged by Fairfax Digital, since arguably they’re well behind Murdoch’s News Limited. Maybe they wanted expert advice, couldn’t afford it, so decided to invite others and charge admission.

One keynote speaker is Ben Self, Director and Founding Partner of Blue State Digital, the guy who ran Barack Obama’s online campaign.

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