People had been asking me to use the wildlife cameras some more, and the first night I put them out we captured a fox. We shall deal with it. Meanwhile my week of Monday 30 January to Sunday 5 February 2023 was productive, but mostly in the background.
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 23, 3 February 2023. The working year has kicked off with a bang. A massive report on myGov and a massive new cultural policy, plus news on digital ID, streaming services, digital platforms, copyright, and even My Health Record. Remember that?
You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to an email compilation of any new stories each Sunday morning.
Podcasts, Videos, Photos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None of any of these things. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Recommendations
First, a few stories about the latest Musk-Twitter dramas. I’m finding myself visiting the place less and less.
- Twitter’s Trust and Safety Head Ditches Protocol for Musk Whims, which confirms the rumours that Musk’s foreshadowed content moderation council consists solely of him.
- Twitter replaces its free API with a paid tier in quest to make more money, which means a lot of cute things like bots and serious things like academic research will run into a paywall.
- Some interesting thoughts on whether Twitter is becoming a ghost town: Twitter Tumbleweed Watch.
And in other news:
- Thesis a big one. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved the prescription of psilocybin and MDMA by authorised psychiatrists. Australia is the first country in the world to do this.
- The Police Folklore That Helped Kill Tyre Nichols. “A 1992 study claims that officers who show weakness are more likely to be killed. Law-enforcement culture has never recovered.”
- Archaeologists Discover 1.2 Million-Year-Old ‘Workshop’ in Mind-Blowing Find, although I’ll decide when my mind needs blowing, not you, dear headline writer.
- New from Ze Frank, True Facts: The Smartest Slime.
- “As the pilot of a marine research vessel, Meng Xiangyu is used to making waves at sea. Now he’s making a splash online thanks to his hobby of photographing fish tails.” Fishing for Likes With China’s ‘Fish Tail Guy’ is a lovely story from Sixth Tone.
- From Nick Stevens, who among others things makes wonderful 3D renderings of spacecraft, a post about the Soviet Lunar Expeditionary Program.
- And finally, Dying for sex: endangered male quolls may be mating themselves to death instead of sleeping, scientists say.
The Week Ahead
The main theme this week continues to be a focus on client work, most of which I can’t really talk about yet. It’s also the first week of Parliament for 2023, so I’m expecting to be paying some attention to events in Canberra.
On Monday I have a bunch of errands down in Penrith, including interacting with the government at both the federal and state levels. In the evening I’ll catch ASPI Presents: The geopolitical and technical changes reshaping cyber risk.
The funds from my recent crowdfunding campaign The 9pm Hardware Refresh 2023 should finally hit my bank account on Monday too, so I’ll start confirming prices and placing orders. More news on that next week.
[Update 7 February 2023: The funds didn’t actually drop on Monday night, so I guess it’ll probably be Tuesday. Pozible doesn’t use one of the banks with that instant-transfer thing. Oh well, I’m patient.]
On Wednesday I’m finally recording that special-guest episode of The 9pm Edict podcast with Elise Thomas, freelance journalist and OSINT analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. She’s been on the podcast before in April 2021 and February 2022. If you’re a podcast supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for this episode, please get the details to me by midday AEDT this Tuesday 7 February.
On Thursday I’ll try to catch a seminar from the SANS Institute, Starting “OSINT: Open Source Intelligence” from scratch.
And on Friday I’ll be heading down to Sydney for a variety of things.
Oh yeah. And we’re also going to organise the murder of a fox.
Further Ahead
Several of these are still to be confirmed or, probably, canceled — although of course the Public House Forum recordings are definite. It’s just a matter of confirming the dates.
- Australian International Airshow, Avalon Airport, 3–5 March 2023. I’ll be going on Sunday, but I’ll be in Melbourne for a couple of days either side so do let me know if anything interesting is happening.
- Everything Open conference, Melbourne, 14–16 March 2023 (TBA).
- The 9pm Public House Forum 7 livestream and recording, 18 March 2023 (TBA).
- Australian Cyber Conference 2023, Canberra, 20–22 March 2023 (TBA).
- NSW state election, 25 March 2023. I’ll definitely do something special for this one.
- The Sydney Dialogue, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, online, 4–5 April 2023.
- The 9pm Public House Forum 8 livestream and recording, 15 April 2023 (TBA).
- Coronation of Charles III, 6 May 2023, although I have no idea what I’ll actually do about it.
[Photo: A wild fox, or rather a feral fox, photographed by infrared camera at Bunjaree Cottages in the wee hours of 5 February 2023.]