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Goodbye “Patch Monday”, introducing “The Full Tilt”

24 January 2013 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for The Full TiltThe Patch Monday podcast that I was producing for ZDNet Australia is no more. It has been replaced by a new weekly column, The Full Tilt, appearing every Thursday.

In The Full Tilt, Stilgherrian delivers an undiluted dose of criticism and analysis of the ways digital technology is changing our world and the spin that goes with it. Mostly in words — sometimes in audio or video formats — always cynical.

Yes, this is the sky-shouting column we were trying to name.

The first installment is Australia’s National Security Strategy? Or Labor’s election-year cyber gimmick?, in which Prime Minister Julia Gillard becomes Queen Boudica, saving us from the cyber-Romans, and builders are supplied with amphetamines No Doz [it seems I got edited]. Yeah, it’s a talent.

So why was Patch Monday dropped? It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a media outlet like ZDNet Australia would be under financial pressures. The simple fact is that my written words pull in a bigger audience than the podcast. And from my point of view, the podcast took far longer to produce than a written article generating the same income.

That said, The Full Tilt will include the occasional audio or video piece, though we’ve yet to decide when and why that will happen.

[Update 1900 AEDT: Edited to reflect the fact that article got edited. It's not such a talent after all.]

So who’s paying for me to cover Linux.conf.au 2013?

20 January 2013 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | 6 comments

Linux.conf.au 2013 logo: click for conference websiteIt’s exactly one week until I’m meant to be in Canberra for Linux.conf.au 2013, but ZDNet Australia and TechRepublic don’t have the budget to send me. So who wants to pay for it?

Last year I wrote six articles and produced four daily podcasts. I don’t think it’s too immodest of me to say that they were well-received, and that I should cover this year’s event as well.

So, who’s going to cough up the dosh? I’ll need to have the air fares and accommodation covered, along with various minor expenses, and of course I’ll need to be paid as well. Much as I support and respect the free and open source software (FOSS) community, this media stuff is what I do to pay my bills.

I reckon there’s three ways we can do this.

  1. Another media company pays me to cover the event as a freelancer in the traditional way.
  2. I cover the event independently. I could perhaps create the Corrupted Nerds masthead for this (I wrote about that on Friday), though that seems better as the title for a security-related thing. I’d need to arrange advertisers and sponsors in the usual way, and time is short.
  3. I cover the event independently, but crowdsource the funding through Pozible or someone. This is supposed to be the future, so perhaps we could try it?

How much are we looking at? About $5000.

A flight from Sydney to Canberra on Sunday and back a few days after the conference ends — because I need to finish making media objects first, then fly, and if I’m in Canberra I’d do some other things while I was there (about $240). Transport to and from the airports (about $150) and to and from the conference venues ($250). Accommodation for the duration of the conference, ‘cos I’d cover the rest out of my own budget (between $1100 and $1400). Call it $2000.

As for what I’m paid, well, that’s flexible. Last year the podcasts and articles came to just under $3000 including GST. While that may sound relative high for one week of work, bear in mind that I was up at 5am and working until after midnight most days, and working into the weekend. I think I pulled an all-nighter in there somewhere. So you’re pretty much rooted for days afterwards. And freelancers provide their own equipment, and in theory things like paying for future holidays (what?), insurance (come again?) and so on.

Obviously we’d have to decide the exact format of the media objects — whether they’re written stories or live blogs or podcasts or photographs or whatever, or of course a mix thereof. The conference organisers will presumably post the raw recordings of the presentations, but the journalistic approach is to seek out the newsworthy stuff, to analyse and comment upon whats being presented and how it’s being received.

So all up, it’s about $5000. My task for Monday morning is to decide which method to focus on. Which do you think might be best?

Five questions and no answers about my media work

18 January 2013 in Business, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

With a blog post to write, I now have everything I need: click to embiggenAs my first full working week for 2013 draws to a close, almost, here’s an update on how I’m thinking this year might unfold for me. At least as far as work goes.

(If you’re not up to speed on this, please read Doing the business on Stilgherrian’s journalism and Death of a Freedom Fighter, a writing challenge before continuing. The second one includes an explanation of my focus on how the internet is changing power relationships.)

First, there’s a tidy-up of my arrangements with mastheads I currently write for. That’s already delivered two changes. Crikey has given me a pay rise, to a level they now describe as “slightly less pathetic”. I’ve started pitching more stories, and that’s resulted in three stories this week. And there’s this as-yet unnamed sky-shouting column in the works, which will start soon.

Second, I’m thinking of doing a few self-funded projects — or at least projects for which I directly arrange funding — rather than through someone else’s masthead. There’s all sorts of ideas rolling around in my head, though I haven’t reached any firm conclusions yet.

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Sky-shouting, yes, but what to call it?

16 January 2013 in Internet, Language, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | 5 comments

Old Man Yells At Cloud screenshot from "The Simpsons"Discussions with editors about what I’ll be doing in 2013 continue. One discussion is about the title of a new column that the editor in question has described as me shouting at the sky. I need your help.

“Shouting at the sky,” you ask?

We mean the analysis and opinion pieces that result from me cutting loose about something that’s pissing me off, or that quote people who are in the same frame of mind.

Here’s half a dozen near-random examples, chosen from a variety of mastheads so I don’t reveal where this column will appear.

I should also mention that this is for a technology-related masthead, and the topics will include that key focus that I’ve identified in my work: changing power relationships.

Yesterday I asked for suggestions on Twitter. Here’s what you’ve come up with so far.

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Death of a Freedom Fighter, a writing challenge

14 January 2013 in Internet, Personal, Politics by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Boy Genius: Aaron Swartz at the Creative Commons Salon, 9 March 2006, photographed by Buzz Andersen: click for original on FlickrThis photograph by Buzz Andersen has been haunting me for the last hour. It’s Aaron Swartz, seen at the first Creative Commons Salon in 2006. And over the weekend we heard news that Swartz is now dead, aged just 26, from an apparent suicide.

My challenge for today is writing something about the meaning of this bold and bright young man’s life and death. Something new to add to the whirlpool of words that has been devouring the internet from its geekier nether regions all the way to the mainstream press.

This is why, despite my expressed intention to write more last night about my slowly-evolving plans for 2013, I wrote no such thing. Having slept on it, though, I have an answer to both problems.

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On Twitter, the Silly Season, and a certain list

01 January 2013 in Human Nature, Humour, Internet, Personal by Stilgherrian | No comments

Twitter logo with Christmas hat“It really does seem that it’s now that time of the year on Twitter when I could admit to raping a nun no one would notice,” I tweeted in the early hours of New Year’s Eve. “Or even fucking a pig, for that matter.”

The traditional media Silly Season seems to apply to all these new-fangled media operations as well. On and on about the goddam cricket, they tweet.

Meanwhile the traffic levels, and hence the potential audience for any tweets you might tweet, are way down. Hence my coenobitic considerations and porcine ponderings.

“Maybe I should just tweet about all of the things that you shouldn’t fuck until it turns 2013,” I tweeted, despite what Charlie Brooker might think.

And so I did. For the next hour and forty minutes.

Here’s the list. I reckon that just reading it here, without the real-time performance aspect, diminishes it. Nevertheless, enjoy.

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Doing the business on Stilgherrian’s journalism

30 December 2012 in Business, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

As 2012 draws to a close, it’s become clear to me that many aspects of my life should be reassessed for next year. One of the more important is my work — that is, what I do for who, how often and for how much.

Last night I made a couple of pictures to help me understand the issues I’ll need to think about. This first one shows the relative importance of each masthead, at least in revenue terms, based on the gross income they generated in 2012. I’m surprised.

Stilgherrian's income from journalism in 2012 by masthead: see story for the numbers

I knew ZDNet was my biggest earner. What I didn’t realise was that my written stories for them, either ad hoc commissions or as conference coverage, when combined with the weekly Patch Monday podcast, represent roughly five times the revenue of the second-place holder, CSO Online.

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Script Challenge prize finally organised

13 December 2012 in Language, Personal by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Dario Besseghini and gift: see text for detailsSeveral billion years ago, I set a challenge. I posted a passage of text in an unknown script. Could people decipher it?

Actually it was in 2007. I fully expected it to be solved within days, perhaps a couple of weeks at most, because I’d solved it myself fairly quickly. Before we had computers.

But it took ages. Years.

Finally, Italian computer scientist Dario Besseghini​ solved it in February 2012. That’s him pictured above, on the right.

I’d promised a prize, and Dario provided an Amazon wishlist for me to choose from. And then I forgot about it. Until the other day.

I have just ordered for Dario a copy of In the Land of Invented Languages: A Celebration of Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius by Arika Okrent. That’s it pictured above, on the left. The theme of invented languages seemed particularly appropriate.

So, Dario, my apologies for the delay, and my best wishes for the holiday season.

I know you were fretting because you hadn’t written up your solution method in more detail, but there’s certainly no rush!

I’ve closed comments on this post, so that any conversation will continue at the original place.

Postscript: As an indication of how little I participate in consumer culture, it turns out that this was the first time I’d ordered anything from Amazon since some time before 1 July 2007. How do I know? Because I started doing my bookkeeping in Saasu on that date, so if there had been a purchase there’d be a record of it.

Visiting Coffs Harbour for FlexibilITy 2012

24 October 2012 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | No comments

The travels continue. I’m heading to Coffs Harbour in northern New South Wales next month to speak at Flexibility 2012, the 15th Annual IT Conference for Local Government.

You’ll be surprised, I’m sure, to discover that I’m talking about information security.

The Hacker Threat: Let’s bust some myths

The headlines portray the internet as a scary, scary place. Anonymous hacktivists mock the powerful, defacing websites and stealing vast troves of confidential information. Criminals plunder bank accounts and destroy credit ratings. Shady “nation-state actors” infiltrate secure government and corporate networks, stealing every secret they can find.

Information security companies publish research “proving” the vast scale of global online crime. Defence experts point to the vast sums being spent on military-grade hacking and talk of looming cyberwar. Of course both groups have a vested interest in talking up the threat.

The hackers are certainly real, ranging from youthful vandals with unfocussed quasi-political motivations to highly-organised international crime gangs and well-funded national defence and intelligence agencies.

Sophisticated hacking tools are now developed by professional software development teams. They can be bought in the online underground for just a few hundred dollars, complete with technical support provided under a service level agreement.

So how should organisations respond?

The threat landscape is certainly changing, so new tools will certainly be required. But it’s important to understand the real threats and their relative significance, and respond as part of a coherent strategy, rather than reacting to the latest panic.

This session will present an overview of current internet security threats based on the latest research with the bovine excrement filtered out.

I’ll be in Coffs Harbour from the morning of Wednesday 14 November through to the afternoon of Saturday 17 November. Apart from the conference itself, I’m open to suggestions.

Visiting Singapore for Verizon media briefing

24 October 2012 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | No comments

Verizon has noticed that most Australians know them only for their US mobile phone business — if they know them at all. So as part of their process of fixing that, they’re sending me to Singapore.

The main focus of the trip is a media briefing day on Wednesday 7 November, where I’ll learn more about Verizon Enterprise Solutions and, of course, the information security work they do. So I daresay I’ll be writing about that sort of thing at some point.

I’m arriving in Singapore on the evening of Tuesday 6 November and, since it’s my first visit to Shopping Mall and Container Terminal Island, I’ll be staying through to Sunday night before returning to Sydney.

Verizon has also invited me to their hospitality tent at the Barclay Singapore Open. Golf. Yes, I know, I’m not the least bit interested in golf. But it’ll be a handy “networking opportunity”. Yes, I know.

So, what do I need to know about Singapore? Where must I go? And who must I meet?

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