Social media’s pink-toned guru, as I called her, Laurel Papworth is currently in Saudi Arabia helping launch an online social network for Arab women. And she’s nervous. Her first post from Jeddah is fascinating. “No matter how naive I may be in some things, no waaaaaay can I pretend this community is just another oh, dating site, or tv show, social network. It’s a game changer, a rule breaker. Newsflash: social media is disruptive!”
Australia 2020 line-up change
Line-up change for Australia 2020: The co-chair of the panel on indigenous issues, Dr Kelvin Kong, has withdrawn due to family health concerns. He has been replaced by historian Dr Jackie Huggins, a woman of the Bidjara / Birri-Gubba Juru peoples.
World’s first drive-thru dentist…
… is Dr Betty Zilka in Petersham, Sydney. Please engage your handbrake and open wide!
The $400 Billion Gift
Catching up on news from earlier this week, I’m astounded to read the real reason the US stock market rallied: “The US Taxpayers just lent the Biggest Banks and Hedge Funds in New York $400 Billion in exchange for ‘mark to market valued’ sub prime mortgage securities that are probably nearly worthless (being so far down on the claims chart in a bankruptcy). This is a ‘silent bailout’ of the Republican’s biggest contributors that is going to be much more expensive than the S&L Rescue package of the early 90s. At least Bush Sr proposed the S&L bailout in the sunlight. Bush Jr, Paulson and the Fed are doing the bailout without asking our permission. What does ‘pork barrel’ John McCain think of this corporate welfare?”
Link digests: an experiment
As you can see, I’m running another experiment: recording the websites I find in del.icio.us and publishing a daily collection here. Just as with the daily Twitter updates, though, the list of random pieces changes the character of the site. And the experimental system provided by del.icio.us doesn’t let me format the posts — the most annoying aspects for me being the last of capital-L in the headline and not being able to format the entries. I may take up Brad Kellet‘s offer to use his script instead.
Twitter updates for 2008-03-13
- @bck It’s illegal for employers to monitor employees’ private communication, so what happens when private communications are public? #
- Off to brunch on Enmore Road, AFK. #
- Note to Ticketmaster: If it’s a routine list of events you can buy tickets to, sent at the same time every week, then it’s not an "alert". #
- @SilkCharm From Saudi, please bring a map of the public transport system, if they have one. #
- Still plodding thru the "paperwork". Not really paying attention to anything else. It is not exciting, however. #
- Mac vs PC choice is irrational: a good start to a sensible debate! http://tinyurl.com/3736qa #
- Starting to explore del.icio.us … unless someone can think of something better for me to do tonight. #
- @garthk Glad to be of service! Miro TV looks like a goodly thing. RSS and BitTorrent-capable, VLC the under hood, FOSS goodness throughout. #
- @bck Ta for the offer of your del.icio.us script, but will use this method as an experiment first. http://tinyurl.com/ec7gw #
- @bck Agreed, customisation would be nice, but hey I’ll see how I go with this for now because it was a no-brainer. #
- I’m not happy with today’s blog posts. I feel very uninspired. So does half the city, I’m told. #
- @duncanriley Interesting. Channel 10 is shit digital reception for us too, in Sydney, tho all channels are dodgy here in Enmore. #