On this week’s A Series of Tubes podcast with Richard Chirgwin, you can hear me talking about Telstra’s HFC upgrades, copyright, and (yeah, I know) still more Twitter.
Episode 39 is online, with a gnome
Episode 39 of Stilgherrian Live is now online for your post-facto viewing pleasure.
After so many fine nominations for “Cnut of the Week” it was difficult to pick a shortlist, but I applied my arbitrary judgement and narrowed it down to: Peter Costello (final score 8%) for refusing to understand that he is yesterday’s man; rugby player Brett Stewart (11%), recently accused of sexual assault; rugby players in general (36%); and our winner, Anna Bligh (44%), whose political campaign website for the Premiership of Queensland doesn’t list an email address or even a contact form, and who uses Twitter but doesn’t respond in any way.
You’d think that after the success of Barack Obama’s online campaigning, they’d get themselves some sort of clue — especially given the string of Obama advisers giving speeches here recently like Ben Self and Joe Trippi. But no.
Episode 39 is tonight!
After a bit of a break, Stilgherrian Live returns to the Internet at 9.30pm tonight Sydney time — so nominations are now open for “Cnut of the Week”.
Who do you think is futilely resisting the tide of change? Nominations are open to people, organisations, nations and even abstract forces of nature — but your nomination has to reflect the news of the last week, and you have to give reasons. As usual, I’ll select the shortlist at 8.30pm Sydney time, and you can vote during tonight’s program.
Who do you nominate, and why?
Let’s fix the Stopped Clocks
One of the little annoyances in my life is that the clock on the Newtown Post Office in Sydney is permanently stuck at 3.45pm. Public clocks, key piece of civic infrastructure in the Victorian age, are now neglected.
I was therefore rather pleased to stumble across this video clip promoting the Stopped Clocks movement which appeared on the BBC’s The One Show .
Would anyone like to start a Sydney chapter with me? If so, what Stopped Clocks do you know about?
So Conroy’s Rabbit-Proof Firewall is dead… or is it?
[This article was first published in Crikey on Monday 2 March. Nothing’s changed since then.]
The villain gets thrown off the cliff. He bounces off the rocks into the river and his limp, bleeding form is flushed downstream. Hurrah! But just as our heroes down their first celebratory drinks, the door bursts open and the villain is back — soaking wet and angrier than ever…
“The Government’s plan to introduce mandatory internet censorship has effectively been scuttled,†wrote Asher Moses last Thursday when independent Senator Nick Xenophon withdrew support for the Rudd government’s internet “filtering†plans. Opponents of Senator Conroy’s scheme popped open the virtual champagne and started sending congratulatory messages to anti-censorship lobbyists.
But as blogger Kieran Salsone’s headline put it, “Twitterati blow load over Xenophon: Lobbyists still without cigaretteâ€. Despite Senator Xenophon’s announcement, nothing has actually changed and Senator Conroy has yet to comment.
True, any legislation would need support in the Senate from the Coalition or all seven minor party and independent senators. With the Coalition expressing grave reservations and calling the proposal insulting, and with the Greens and now Xenophon opposed too, any legislation would be blocked.
Blocked, that is, unless someone changes their mind.
Continue reading “So Conroy’s Rabbit-Proof Firewall is dead… or is it?”
Skipping a week
The won’t be a Stilgherrian Live tonight. After last week’s journey, and this week’s Silicon Federation seminar Entering the Mobile Ecosystem and yesterday’s Internet filtering forum, my poor little brain is overloaded. If you’re desperate, you can listen to me on A Series of Tubes.