Month: January 2014

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Weekly Wrap 189: Net Neutrality, damage and drugs

I'm sure it isn't meant to look like this: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 13 to Sunday 19 January 2014 was a little less productive than planned, but I did knock off a couple of items about Net Neutrality.

The productivity plunge was largely down to me changing medication for depression. It’s always a bit of a roller coaster ride as you change from one drug to another, lasting a week or more, and this was no exception. Looking ahead in time to the present, though, I’m thinking we may have gotten it right this time. Fingers crossed.

But my mood was also hit by a potential technical disaster. I knocked my MacBook Pro off the table once too often, and instead of the MagSafe plug popping out of the power socked as it should have, it jammed — and the plug itself was torn in half.

I stressed and stressed and stressed — until I realised I had access to a spare power adapter and, using that, discovered that the computer still worked as it should. Big sigh of relief.

Articles

I also wrote an op-ed on Sunday afternoon, but since it wasn’t published until Monday it’ll appear in next week’s wrap.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. But it’ll definitely start flowing again soon.

[Photo: I’m sure it isn’t meant to look like this, showing the accumulated damage to my MacBook Pro on 13 January 2014.]

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Talking Net Neutrality on ABC Radio National Breakfast

ABC logoThe concept of Net Neutrality was in the news earlier this month: a US federal court struck down the Net Neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had introduced in 2010.

On 16 January I spoke about the issue on ABC Radio National Breakfast with Jonathan Green, and here’s the audio.

A US Court of Appeals ruling in Washington DC is being seen as a major blow to proponents of an open internet.

In ruling described as “even more emphatic and disastrous than anyone expected”, the court found internet service providers had every right to play favourites with their clients.

That could mean slowing speeds for services in competition with their own services and potentially charging higher fees to allow access to premium speeds.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.3MB)

I must admit, I feel like I rambled a bit. As we started the conversation, my mobile phone link went dodgy, and the producer had to phone me back. We started the interview after a break — that’s been edited out of this version — but it threw me a bit. I’m not sure that I recovered.

Still, I think we got through the key points, and later in the morning I wrote something more coherent for Crikey, Net neutrality and why the internet might have just changed forever.

The audio is of course ©2014 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is served here directly from their website.

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Weekly Wrap 188: Long views to launch another long year

My week of Monday 6 to Sunday 12 January 2014 saw the start of some productivity for 2014, but for various reasons was relatively slow — and as usual when I’m posting late, it’s “just the facts”.

Articles

  • 2014, the year that infosec gets political, CSO Online, 6 January 2014. This was actually written at the very end of November 2013 for a print publication handed out through December, which is why it’s missing some of the most recent Snowden revelations.
  • Australian retailers recruiting generals for yesterday’s war, ZDNet Australia, 10 January 2014. I don’t often write about retail, but the decisions by both Myer and David Jones to search for new CEOs without specifically looking for online clue struck me as a particularly daft strategy.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. It’ll be another week or two before the hospitality starts flowing again.

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Weekly Wrap 187: A slow start to 2014, thankfully

My week of Monday 30 December 2013 to Sunday 5 January 2014 was, like last week, devoid of productivity and reportable interestingness thanks to the slow week between Christmas and New Year and the slow days thereafter.

I have been thinking about 2014, however, and I may pour some of those thoughts into a blog post some time in the next few days. The brief version is roughly “Thank fuck 2013 is over and done with, and here’s to a much better 2014.”

Certainly yesterday, Saturday, contained a significantly odd and yet strangely wonderful event.

No, there shall be no details.

The Week Ahead

Well, the working year kicks off properly tomorrow, Monday, so I guess I’ll be starting to focus on planning out January. I have very little mapped out just now — the only firm appointments are a couple of social events — but with the PR folks back at their desks tomorrow, the next few days will see the invitations and other communications kick off.

And I need to placate my editors after a rather unproductive November and December.

I’m in Sydney currently, and will stay in Sydney through to Tuesday before returning to Wentworth Falls — though there’s a chance that plan might change at relatively short notice. As always.

I know I have some writing to do, namely my usual column for ZDNet Australia and the remaining loose ends for the Corrupted Nerds hacker conference thingy.