hyperconnectivity

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Crikey Conversations episode 1 with Mark Pesce and me

02 April 2009 in Human Nature, Internet by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

The first episode of Crikey‘s new video series Crikey Conversations is now online, with me interviewing inventor and futurist Mark Pesce.

The series, sponsored by Microsoft, features various folks talking about the world of 2020 — which is only 11 years away. Gosh.

While some of Mark and my regular viewers and readers may well be sick of the material we discuss by now — hey, it’s what we do! — it’s aimed at a non-geek audience. So if you do pass it on to someone, I’d love some feedback.

As you can also see, Microsoft must’ve paid Crikey the extra fee for me to put pants on before the shoot.

I’m not sure whether there’s a credit in the video, but I’d personally like to thank Advanced BusinessLink (Australia) for the use of their boardroom and its spectacular view, and Adam Bateson for making the connection.

Links for 12 January 2009 through 18 January 2009

18 January 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 12 January 2009 through 18 January 2009, gahered with care and moistened with love:

All the ephemera that’s fit to print * | Noisy Decent Graphics: A lovely idea: take all the cool stuff your friends have written in the last year and print it in newspaper format.
P2P is Killing the Porn Star | Perceptric Forum: Hollywood is not the only casualty of P2P, it seems. A nice essay.
Business Sense | News.com.au Business: Buried in here is Business Sense TV, some Internet-based video productions. I have a reason for bookmarking this which is 100% Secret Squirrel.
Twitter Spreads News Of US Airways Crash In An Instant | InformationWeek: Yet another story about Twitter spreading the news of an event before the mainstream media could touch it.
Victoria Cross citation for Trooper Mark Gregor Donaldson | Department of Defence: The official Australian Army citation for the first Victoria Cross awarded to an Australian in 40 years. Terse, army bureaucratic language hides an amazing story of bravery.
Child porn laws being turn on their heads – by the kids themselves | The Inquisitr: Child pornography laws were designed to cover situations when an adult was coercing a child into sexual contexts. But what if the “child pornography” in question is “just” teenagers taking photos of each other?
Report Finds Online Threats to Children Overblown | NYTimes.com: A task force set up by 49 US attorneys general to find a solution to the problem of online sexual solicitation of children finds that there actually isn’t a significant problem.
Right Whales, Wrong Whales | Media Watch: It's from September 2008, but a great story about how journalists got it all wrong because they didn’t fact-check with people who know something about whale. There’s also a bonus photo of a whale penis. I rediscovered this story while researching a piece for Crikey.
Ten things every journalist should know in 2009 | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog: What struck me about this list is that any modern journalist should been across this knowledge well before now. Knowing that your readers are smarter than you on specific topics? Knowing how to use Google’s advanced search? How to use RSS feeds? Are working journalists really this far behind the pace?
wordpress wiki plugin | Instinct Entertainment: This new plug-in which can turn selected WordPress pages into Wiki-style editable objects could be useful. I should look at it. If I had the time. Would you like to look at it for me and report back?
BT-1 Bluetooth Webcam for Mac: The new BT-1 wireless webcam streams H.264 video and AAC audio. It’s compatible with Skype and iChat, so presumably it’ll work with Cam Twist and therefore Stilgherrian Live. I want a couple NOW. Available “late Q1″.
In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates | NYTimes.com: Ted Nelson’s book Computer Lib: You Can and Must Understand Computers Now was an enormous influence on me and many others. He’s now 71, and this piece based on a recent interview is a reasonable introduction to his work.
How I Use Twitter at Volume | chrisbrogan.com: “At volume, [Twitter is] a bit different. It’s a lot like showing up to a very busy, very loud cocktail party, but also a business meeting, plus a focus group, plus several other social situations. Twitter, unfiltered, is like someone with mind reading powers walking down 38th Street in Manhattan. It’s not especially easy to manage, and it’s very different how things work at this pace. Looking at unfiltered Twitter at this volume just doesn’t cut it.”
You are the President of Your Career | chrisbrogan.com: One person’s framework for focusing on your goals in an economically tough year. I like the reminder that a “career path” was something for your father, but not for you.
The Bush Administration’s Most Despicable Act | Time: Joe Klein summarises the Bush II government’s contribution to the wonderful world of torture.

His Benevolence Stilgherrian’s Christmas Message

27 December 2008 in Politics, Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 11 comments

Here it is. The full video of His Benevolence Stilgherrian’s Christmas Message, originally broadcast on Christmas Night as part of the Stilgherrian Live Christmas Special.

For some reason Ustream only recorded the first 70 minutes of that program, so the remaining 2+ hours is lost forever. Apart from this inaugural Christmas Message, which must be preserved for future generations! If the video player does not appear immediately below, try watching it directly at Viddler.

Warning: There is “strong language”. Well, not by my standards, but maybe by yours.

The full text is over the jump, should you wish to read along. However my main aim in putting it there was to attract Teh Googles.

Also, the Message is riddled with continuity and other errors. Perhaps, if you’re bored, you can amuse yourself by listing them in the comments. I won’t mind.

My especial thanks to ’Pong for the massive amount of work on this silly project.

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Fine posts for 2008

21 December 2008 in Blogging by Stilgherrian | No comments

Given that mere popularity doesn’t reflect quality, here’s my personal selection of my best, timeless posts for 2008. Happy reading!

Kruddiversary: The internet thanks you for 12 months of achieving nothing, my Crikey article looking at the first year of the Rudd government from an Internet geek’s perspective.
Thailand’s political crisis: an introduction, though later pieces in The Economist are better than my amateur efforts.
Journalism in a hyperconnected world.
@KevinRuddPM stumbles into the Twitterverse, a Crikey article which includes links to the previous three essays I’d written about the PM’s entrance into modern social media.
Gonzo Twitter 1: Saturday Evening in Newtown, my experiment in live-tweeting a descriptive essay and still one of the best things I’ve written all year.
How Dell fixed my monitor order, which is being used by clever consultants as an example of how to use social media for quality customer service.
Sunday Thoughts about Journalism, a rather lengthy essay with many links to background on the Death of Newspapers this year.
Finally, The Shave, a rather wonderful film we made.
The Great Firewall of China: how it works, how to bypass it.
Note to “old media” journalists: adapt, or stfu! This piece triggered an entire wave of discussion and was quoted globally.
Winter Solstice Meditation.
Anzac Day Rememberings.
ABC Playback: so this is the future of television…? Nope! A review of what’s now called ABC iView.
There ain’t no shortcuts to professionally-managed IT.
Remembering the Space Age: Arthur C Clarke dead at 90.
Super Hornets are Go.
Jason Calacanis and the Evil Cult of the Internet Start-up. I don’t really think Jason is evil, but I do worry about the self-centred anti-human attitude of many people connected with Internet start-ups.
New national anthem: I am So an Aussie, when the Snarky Platypus and I created, yes, a new national anthem. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!
Is it really so wrong to mix business and politics (and religion)?
Leaving room for elephants: a chat with David Attenborough, a personal fave since it harks back to an interesting time in my life. This is still one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve done. Ever.
Angry geeks: “Don’t waste money on internet filters”, one of many articles I posted about censorship, but which outlined the key issues way back in January.
Post 801: Kill the Hallucinating Goldfish.

Do we really care about our kids?

01 December 2008 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 12 comments

Despite all the rhetoric about “protecting our children” and “children are the future”, our governments seem determined to prevent them preparing for the real future. Take NSW schools minister Verity Firth…

This morning the Sydney Morning Herald tells us the NSW government will receive $285M for new laptops — which will then be blocked from accessing social media and most everything else.

The Minister for Education, Verity Firth [pictured], said the Government would prevent access to the social networking sites, and other sites, even when the laptops were used at home.

“We don’t want these kids to be using these computers for the not-so-wholesome things that can be on the net. And they won’t be able to because essentially the whole server is coming through the Department of Education.”

So kids will be prevented from using their computers to connect with and understand their peers and the real world because of this continuing paranoia about unspecified “not-so-wholesome things” and parents being too lazy to supervise their own children.

Maybe Ms Firth needs to read Mark Pesce’s Those Wacky Kids, or watch the video. As Pesce quite rightly points out, if the classroom is the only part of these kids’ lives which isn’t hyperconnected, then the classroom will be seen as irrelevant.

Rupert Murdoch is right to say we have a 19th Century education system. Our Minister seems intent on keeping it that way.

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Journalism in a hyperconnected world

26 November 2008 in Internet, Media, Thailand by Stilgherrian | 11 comments

[This essay was written for the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance's report Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism [PDF], to be launched in Melbourne today. It was published under the title “Smart brains find ways to spread the message” and trimmed to fit the space available. This version includes all of the extracts from @smartbrain’s Twitter stream which I’d originally supplied.]

Bangkok, 7 October 2008. A Jeep explodes near parliament, killing a man. Body parts are thrown up to 20 metres.

Meanwhile, 5,000 members of the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy are occupying the Government building grounds — well-organised but largely peaceful. Thailand’s Constitutional Court forced Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to resign a month earlier, but his successor Somchai Wongsawat is seen as a corrupt puppet. PAD has given him until 6pm to resign. He does not. The car bomb detonates. The ultimatum expires. The demonstration explodes into riot.

Tear gas. Gunfire. 381 injured. Another death. It’s the worst violence in 16 years.

Meanwhile, in Sydney, my ex-pat Thai partner and I are sinking beers. We take our laptops online but not even Thai news outlets say what’s happening now.

Then, using Twitter, we find @smartbrain.

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Clive Hamilton doesn’t quite win “Cnut of the Week”

21 November 2008 in Internet, Politics, Stilgherrian Live by Stilgherrian | 8 comments

I’m surprised. I thought that given Senator Conroy’s three-in-a-row victory as “Cnut of the week”, this week’s winner would be Clive Hamilton for his irrational rant in favour of Internet censorship in Crikey yesterday. But no.

Hamilton is certainly Cnutworthy, trying to hold back two strong tides of change: the change of the Internet, which will deliver whatever people want to send down its pipes, whether you try to block it or not; and the tide of rationality which increasingly renders shrill fear-mongering and name-calling irrelevant. But no.

The winner was Qantas for continuing to resist a tide of public opinion which clearly shows their reputation slipping thanks to unreliable service — which appears in turn to be the result of cuts to maintenance processes.

Last night’s episode of Stilgherrian Live is online for your viewing pleasure, though it’s not the same without the live chat.

But Clive Hamilton… Two hints, Clive.

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Conroy thoroughly tangled in his own Rabbit-Proof Firewall

01 November 2008 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | 15 comments

Crikey logo

[This article was first published in Crikey on Thursday, along with the superb Conroy a fearless combatant in the war against free speech by their Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane. I've added a few extra links and changed it from Crikey's typographical rules to my own.]

As any farmer can tell you, fencing is bloody dangerous. The stretch-wire-between-posts thing, I mean, not the pointy-steel-pokey thing. One mistake and it’s THWACKKKK! Ten metres of barbed wire whipping into your face.

Senator Stephen Conroy is discovering the hard way that trying to build a Rabbit-Proof Firewall around the Internet is just as dangerous. As Bernard Keane points out in Crikey [Thursday], the standard politicians’ tactic — lying — doesn’t cut it in today’s hyperconnected world.

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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.

Mark Pesce’s closing keynote from Web Directions South, “This, That and The Other”, is starting to make its way online. So far there’s the text interspersed with the pre-recorded video segments. The full video, which I helped shoot, will doubtless be online once Mark’s finished editing it.

27 September 2008 by Stilgherrian | No comments

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