I had a great week this week, Monday 13 to Sunday 19 November 2023. Settling into regular podcast production again has felt good. The magpies have been plentiful and boisterous. And I generally got a lot done.
Crowdfunding Update
Today The 9pm Summer Series 2023 reached 50% of its first target with 11 days to go. Thanks so much.
This crowdfunder is about more special guest episodes of my inappropriate and often disturbing podcast for grown-ups The 9pm Edict and other projects.
Oh, and about my survival over the holiday season — but let’s not get too dramatic.
Target One will get you four special-guest episodes of the Edict. Target Two gets you two more. And then I’m considering a four-part series of The 8pm Quiz video livestream, like last year. Or maybe some other projects. We’ll see.
Please click through for all the details and to pledge your support.
The campaign ends on 30 November 2023 at 9pm AEDT. Please consider, because that’s not long away.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Australian Lobster in China with Yun Jiang, recorded on Wednesday and posted on Saturday. This was scheduled to be the final episode in the spring series, but maybe it won’t be.
The 9pm Edict is supported by the generosity of its listeners. Please support The 9pm Summer Series 2023 just described.
If you miss the deadline, you can always subscribe for special benefits or throw a few coins into the tip jar.
Videos
- 011 Hungry Hungry Magpies, recorded and posted on Wednesday. Four minutes of Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen), primarily for the entertainment of cats and their humans.
- 012 Hungry Magpie Evening, recorded and posted on Sunday. Same thing, but only two minutes. However this one shows them grabbing food from my fingers.
- Not by me, but by my client Lockstep Consulting, Authentication for Everything: How to make good on the promise for digital wallets. “Verifiable credentials and cryptographically strong wallets can prove the origin of a subject’s important claims and prove the claims are in the right hands when presented. But verifiable credentials don’t verify themselves.”
You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 62. Big week! Fallout from the Optus failure. Response to the robodebt royal commission. The ASD’s cyber threat report. The cyber coordinator gets recalled. A public service integrity action plan. And more.
You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to an email compilation of any new stories each Sunday morning.
Media Appearances
- On Thursday I was on ABC Radio’s RN Drive, Big Tech: AI medical misinformation and generated white faces more convincing than photos. The two stories we talked about were Aussie experts’ 100 fake health stories in an hour highlight AI risks and Can you spot the AI impostors? We found AI faces can look more real than actual humans.
- My CSO Online article Lethal medical device hack taken to next level from 2011 was cited in the paper KnowSafe: Combined Knowledge and Data Driven Hazard Mitigation in Artificial Pancreas Systems (PDF)
Photos, Corporate Largesse
Neither of these.
Recommendations
I can’t help but think we’re now in the final days of X.
- X Races to Contain Damage After Elon Musk Endorses Antisemitic Post. “IBM, a major advertiser on X, has pulled its spending from the social media platform, whose employees are grappling with what to tell its other advertisers, according to internal messages.”
- The response? Musk: ‘Thermonuclear lawsuit’ coming for Media Matters, others after companies drop X ads.
- So as you might imagine, Big brand exodus is Elon Musk’s greatest challenge yet
- Elon Musk’s “cool” new job search feature doesn’t offer much.
- Grok is Elon Musk’s new sassy, foul-mouthed AI. But who exactly is it made for?.
- US SEC presses judge to force Elon Musk to testify in Twitter probe.
- Meanwhile at SpaceX, the second launch of Starship went well oh no it didn’t it failed in space. Still at least it got to space this time.
As an aside, social network Bluesky will release a public web interface around the end of this month. “You’ll be able to view posts on Bluesky without being logged in on an account. This will make posts on Bluesky much more accessible, which will be especially useful for real-time commentary and breaking news.”
Given what use has been doing lately, and the plummeting engagement levels, I’m now planning to phase out using X/Twitter by the end of the year. It won’t be a flounce-quit, but it will be happening.
In other news:
- The NSW government has produced some guides to help your small business prepare for and recover from disaster.
- Australia has more native bird species than almost anywhere else. What led to this explosion of diversity?.
- I was very pleased to see TwoSet Violin on ABC TV’s Australian Story this week. I’m not a fan fan but I’m a fan. It’s on ABC iView but it’s in better resolution on YouTube. How TwoSet Violin is shaking up classical music. Or if you prefer reasons, there’s a news story with just a few highlights.
- Australian comedian Sam Campbell is doing quite well on the current UK series of Taskmaster. Here’s his stand-up show from 2022, Companion.
- Another brilliant episode from ABC Radio’s Rear Vision, Ultra-Processed Foods: why did we create them and why can’t we stop eating them?.
- And finally, this came up in conversation. What Is the Correct Pronunciation of Ko?ciuszko? And Is There One? There is. Learn it.
The Week Ahead
As we approach Christmas I need to clock up some billable hours, so that will be my focus Monday to Thursday. Thanks to the never-ending sleep problems, I usually only manage a few hours a week. I hope to change that for the next two weeks.
On Friday morning I’m heading down to Sydney for the weekend and a variety of activities.
Further Ahead
- End of The 9pm Summer Series 2023 crowdfunding campaign, 30 November 2023, 9pm AEDT.
- The War On 2023: Annual Comedy Gala, Bathurst, 5 December 2023. For reasons which are not entirely clear, Snarky Platypus and I will be taking the train to Bathurst to see The Chaser’s end of year show there rather than in Sydney. We’re then continuing on to Orange the next day, returning to our respective starting points the day after.
- I’ve decided that if the crowdfunding goes well I’ll do some live-streamed episodes of The 8pm Quiz during the holiday season. I’ve pencilled in some dates in my own calendar, but I will announce them on 1 December.
[Photo: A lance-leaved coreopsis aka lanceleaf tickseed aka sand coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) photographed near Wentworth Falls on 7 November 2023. That’s last week, not this week, but they’re still in flower out there so I’ll allow it.]