tv

Stilgherrian’s links for 03 July 2008 through 04 July 2008, gathered with joy and mutton:

• Draft Report | Garnaut Cimate Chnage Review: The Draft Report describes the methodology for evaluating the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation; to the application of the science of climate change to Australia; to the international context, and to Australian mitigation policy.
• Turing Test | xkcd: On the other hand, maybe the test is to make the examiner think that HE'S the computer!
• Turing test | Wikipedia: "The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's capability to demonstrate intelligence." What I love about the REAL Turing test is the subtlety of it… It's not faking a human, it's faking a human faking.
• Manned Cloud by Jean-Marie Massaud | Dezeen: This just has to be the most beautiful design for an airship I've ever seen. Guys, build it soon!
• The BBC and the future of broadcasting | Stephen Fry: Stephen Fry's speech on the future of public service broadcasting, and the BBC in particular.

… but last night I did. I had to present a TV news program and it was going very, very badly. Interpretations, please!

It was my first day as presenter of an established program called News Tower. The presenters’ desk was stupid. Me and my overly-blonde female co-host had to peer out between mock embattlements as if our News Tower was a medieval castle.

When I got my copy of the script just minutes before show time it was hand-written on scraps of paper, and I could barely read the appalling writing. The pages were all out of order, and the text was over-written with corrections and arrows showing how the sequence had been changed. When I asked whether the Autocue copy was typed OK, I got a blank look as if “Autocue” and “typing” were unknown words. And indeed, the camera lens watching me was naked: no cueing system could be seen.

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Stilgherrian’s links for 22 June 2008 through 24 June 2008, gathered with care and compassion:

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Last night’s 33-minute episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha is now online at Ustream. That is all.

Actually not quite all. There’s a challenge or two which need to be planned. You’ll see what I mean… more soon.

I’ve decided. I’ll do an episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time. There was just so much interesting fallout from PubCamp Sydney last night — including my own, erm, volcanic outburst — that chatting about it will be an effective way of processing my own thoughts.

Stilgherrian’s links for 26 May 2008 through 01 June 2008, gathered semi-automatically and covering a disturbing range of topics:

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If you missed the first episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha, it’s over at Ustream. That’s the program exactly as it was broadcast on Thursday night.

(Yes, I could have embedded the Ustream player in this page, but I didn’t because of point 3 below.)

I’m chuffed that a 26-person audience generally found it “entertaining” and “enjoyable” even though it was screwed up technically and the main feature interview didn’t happen at all. It felt much worse from where I was sitting.

Traditional media runs technical trials behind closed doors. Only when everybody is happy that it “works” does the new technology get used “for real”.

However I chose to make this public. With bleeding edge technology it’s useful to share experiences. It feels like extreme programming: just start building it, knowing that you may change things along the way, and learn everything in parallel.

So even though our program didn’t fly well — heck, it’s a flaming wreck at the end of the runway! — the black box flight recorder tells us many things…

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