Links for 15 February 2009 through 16 February 2009

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

Episode 37 online

Screenshot from Stilgherrian Live episode 37

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

Screenshot from Stilgherrian Live episode 35

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”…

Continue reading ““Stilgherrian Live” returns, looks at Internet censorship”

Links for 11 February 2009

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

Crikey logo

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.