Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
I was so irritated with the idiot pseudo-science being peddled by “TV chef” Pete Evans last weekend that I went beyond helping turn the #activatedalmonds hashtag into a thing. I also made it the topic for my regular spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week.
I won’t write any more about it. It’ll make me cranky. Just listen.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:13 — 7.7MB)
If you’d like more Balls Radio, have a listen to the full episode. You can subscribe over at the website.
Monday 29 October to Sunday 4 November 2012 was a busy week, made slightly less busy by the need to recover from the throat infection identified last week and then, because I was run down, fatigue that was probably a mix of a cold and hay fever.
Hence the photograph of the wattle I’ve posted here. It is to blame.
Dear Plant Kingdom, if I spread my genetic material all over you the way you do over me, I’d be arrested! Please behave yourself.
[Update 1545 AEDT: I am reliably informed that the hay fever is unlikely to be caused by wattle pollen.]
Also, the Sydney Opera House has posted the video of my Festival of Dangerous Ideas panel, I Share Therefore I Am. I’ll write more about that in due course.
Next week is pretty much all about Singapore. On Monday I’ll head down to Sydney and get some writing out of the way. Then on Tuesday it’s Singapore Airlines flight SQ212 departing Sydney at 0905 AEDT and arriving in Singapore mid-afternoon local time.
Wednesday is Verizon Business’ APAC Media Day, a five-hour meeting followed by cocktails. On Thursday I’m visiting the hospitality tent at the Barclays Singapore Open golf tournament as Verizon’s guest. Friday through Sunday has yet to be finalised, but there’ll be at least two articles to write and a podcast to produce.
Oh, and a social life.
My flight back to Sydney SQ231 leaves Singapore at 45 minutes past midnight Sunday night — so technically that’s Monday morning.
[Photo: Wattle near Railway Parade, near Wentworth Falls, one of the causes of my hay fever this week.]
Every now and then I end up doing an explainer that starts at the very beginning — like this radio spot about data mining for ABC Gippsland this morning.
Breakfast presenter Gerard Callinan has posted the audio under the title Mapping key strokes. Who’s watching?
For many of us, the idea of going a day without using the internet either at work or at home is almost unimaginable. Have you ever thought what happens to the information that you leave behind when visiting your favourite websites? Every page you visit, every survey you take, every ad you click on builds up a profile which is used by marketing companies and increasingly, political parties to build up a picture about what sort of things you are interested in and how you might be swayed to buy items or even vote in an election.
Here’s a slightly different version of the audio here, with the volume re-normalised — which just means it’s now supposedly at the optimal volume.
I think Mr Callinan got slightly paranoid after he’d read a certain op-ed I wrote earlier this year.
I’m not so sure how well I explained things. This was a live-to-air piece at 0720 AEDT after I’d had just three and a half hours of sleep and a few hours dealing with, um, a very aggressive intestinal problem. So I wasn’t as focused as I’d like to have been.
If I had my time again, I’d have made sure to explain how the advertising embedded in web pages, or the Facebook “Like” buttons, allow those organisations to track you across multiple sites. And I’d have made sure to have a link I could give out for some concise “How to protect your privacy online” guides.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.3MB)
The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but as usual I’m posting it here as an archive.
Milorad “Michael” Trkulja’s defamation case against Google was also the topic for my regular spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week.
Here’s the audio of my segment — Skype drop-outs and all — in which we go well beyond defamation law and Google’s reliance on the defence of “innocent defamation” and the argument put in my Crikey piece about needing a third category of “speech”, to talk about a lack of vowels and discovering that the missing $50 was actually spent on vodka.
There’s also references to Mark Pesce, Senator Stephen Conroy and Naomi Robson, as well as our impromptu plan to replace the justice system with a TV program that’s a cross between The X Factor and Judge Judy.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:51 — 6.1MB)
If you’d like more Balls Radio, have a listen to the full episode. You can subscribe over at the website.
A Melbourne man’s successful defamation suit against Google has been one of the big “technology” news stories this week. I wrote about it for Crikey yesterday, and spoke about it on the radio.
The Crikey piece, “Google defames us all, but should we sue?â€, is currently behind their paywall, though you can sign up for a 21-day free trial. It will emerge from the paywall in two weeks.
In it I argue that we may need a new legal category for online conversations, something that’s obviously not private but also not as formal as “publication”. I’ll come back to that theme once you can all see the story for free, you cheapskates.
Yesterday afternoon I briefly outlined the case to Richard Glover on ABC 702 Sydney. And here’s the audio.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.4MB)
The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but as usual I’m posting it here as an archive.