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My tweets from TechEd Australia 2012’s keynote sessions

The TechEd Australia 2012 keynote stage: click for Flickr versionThis is the log of my Twitterstream from the keynote sessions at Microsoft’s TechEd Australia 2012 conference last year. Why? Because on the basis of these tweets, Microsoft has banned me from TechEd Australia 2013.

I’ve highlighted in bold the tweets which I think were most, erm, problematic. I’ve also fixed minor spelling mistakes. To provide more context, I’ve also uploaded a CSV file containing all of my tweets for September 2012.

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Weekly Wrap 168: False spring, false summer, false dawn?

The smell of summer: click to embiggenMy week Monday 19 to Sunday 25 August 2013 started strong, but ended weak. It began with two solid days at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit. But instead of that being followed by solid days of writing, a lack of sleep and a walk without a jacket in sub-zero temperatures were the final straws for my slowly-recovering health.

The second half of the week saw me come down with a bad cold, and the media objects I planned to produce were delayed. One day I’ll learn to pace myself, possibly before retiring age.

Podcasts

None, though I wrote up most of the crowdfunding proposal for Corrupted Nerds.

Articles

None. That’s embarrassing.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Monday and Tuesday I covered the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in Sydney. While there, obviously I was fed and watered at Gartner’s expense. And coffeed, orange-juiced and wined. Additional food and alcoholic beverages were provided by Sourcefire, Symantec and TrustSphere. Netbox Blue gave me a USB power socket that fits into a car’s cigarette lighter socket and, when I pointed out that I don’t have a car or even drive one, a combination 2GB USB memory stick, keyring and bottle opener. I explained that the latter would be perfect for carrying the Emergency Porn. They seemed surprised. Sourcefire bought me a light lunch.

The Week Ahead

Monday sees the repeat performance of my guest lecture at the University of Technology Sydney, at 0900 and 1300. There’s a meeting in the afternoon, and then the program launch for the Sydney Opera House’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas in the evening.

(I was on the program for that event last year, on a panel discussion entitled I Share Therefore I Am.)

I’ll stay in Sydney for some meetings on Tuesday, and the rest of the week is mainly about catching up on the writing I’ve got in the pipeline. The current count is one for CSO Online, one for Technology Spectator, two for ZDNet Australia. I’ll also kick off that crowdfunding for Corrupted Nerds.

Also on Thursday night is Text100’s (in)famous Christmas in August event, where they preview their clients’ goodies for the holiday buying season.

The exact order of play is still to be arranged.

[Photo: The smell of summer, taken from the train on Sunday 25 August 2013 as it sped between, I think, St Marys and Mt Druitt, as the smell of burning eucalypt from the pre-summer back-burning permeated the carriage.]

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Weekly Wrap 167: Productivity returns, in many forms

Winter in Sydney, dreadful: a photograph of Sydney Central station on a bright sunny day: click to embiggenMy week Monday 12 to Sunday 18 August 2013 was quite productive, for a change. As you’ll see below, I produced more media objects this week than in quite a while.

This is as good a time as any to mention that climbing out of the current — or should I say recent — black dog episode is proving remarkably straightforward this time. I think that’s down to a combination of factors. I’ve got a good medical team. I’ve been down that rabbit-hole before, so it’s a familiar landscape and a familiar route home — and indeed that initial blog post was really me starting that process. I’ve had a few professional compliments lately. And the weather has been lovely, which makes a big difference when there’s a seasonal component to one’s moods.

Podcasts

  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 4, being a chat with Dr Kerry Hinton from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) about how the internet uses electricity — and how we might well run into a power crisis.

I still haven’t kicked off The 9pm Election podcast. I really do think I was biting off more than I can chew with that little addition to my planned workload.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Monday, I spoke about geoblocks and how to avoid them, briefly, as part of a package on Channel TEN’s The Project. This was the footage shot two weeks ago.
  • On Tuesday, ITJourno wrote about me, Stilgherrian launches Corrupted Nerds podcast, but you won’t be able to read it unless you’re a member.
  • On Sunday I spoke about future politics on ABC Radio National’s Sunday Extra with host Jonathan Green and John McTernan, formerly Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s head of communications.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday night, I dropped in to a little soirée to launch Malcolm Turnbull’s new website. Beer and sushi was to be had.
  • On Friday night, I popped in to the launch of Dom Knight’s new book, Man vs Child, and there was an open bar for a while. I had one beer. Because I’m responsible.

The Week Ahead

On Monday and Tuesday I’ll be in Sydney to cover the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit for CSO Online and Technology Spectator, each in their own way. That’ll keep me busy with writing through Wednesday.

The rest of the week is full of more writing, for ZDNet Australia and my now-regular guest lecture at UTS at a bare minimum.

Somewhere in there I need to start working on some income-generation for Corrupted Nerds.

The weekend is likely to be a quiet one.

[Photo: Winter in Sydney, dreadful, being a photograph of Sydney Central station taken on 16 August 2013, an exceptionally lovely blue-sky day. As I said last week, spring has come early this year.]

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They’re letting me lecture to students regularly now

University of Technology Sydney logoApparently I’m not scary enough for the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). My guest lecture earlier this year, Algorithms and the Filter Bubble, is now a regular fixture.

I was rather chuffed to be told a few weeks ago that the students had voted it the best lecture of the semester, and their course feedback said the material had to remain in the course. So I’ll now be delivering a similar lecture once a semester.

Well, twice this semester, because high student numbers mean that I have to give two performances, at 0900 and 1300 on Monday 26 August.

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New “Corrupted Nerds” podcast, and we’re on iTunes

Cover art for Corrupted Nerds: Conversations episode 4: click for podcast web pageTwo more small steps in Corrupted Nerds’ plans for world domination: I’ve posted a new episode, and the podcast is listed in Apple’s iTunes Store.

Episode 4 of Corrupted Nerds: Conversations is a chat with Dr Kerry Hinton from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) about the looming energy crisis that’s being brought on by the move to cloud computing and, in particular, millions upon millions of inefficient wireless devices.

It’s a remarkably engaging conversation about how the internet consumes electricity.

Meanwhile, Apple’s approval process for the iTunes store was passed, and we’re listed, so that’ll make it easier for many people to subscribe. I’ve written a blog post explaining the different subscription options.

With four Conversations episodes online, plus an Extra with Senator Brett Mason’s speech from last year that inspired the title, it’s time for me to start tidying things up for some fundraising and sponsorship-seeking, so stand by for some news on that front very soon.

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Why people who say “train station” sound stupid

Google Ngram "railway station" all English: click to embiggenI cringe when people talk about the “train station”. “It’s ‘railway station’, you morons,” screams my brain. Well as it turns out, they’re actually not stupid — at least not for that reason. It’s just another relatively modern shift in language.

The chart at the top of the post is a Google Ngram search of their entire English corpus since 1820 — the first public steam railway in the world was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened in 1825 — comparing the usage of “railway station” (blue) versus “railroad station” (red) and “train station” (orange).

You can click through to the full-size chart, or run the search yourself.

As you can see, the most common usage has almost always been “railway station”, with “railroad station” distinctly second-place. A “train station” wasn’t even a thing until the 1950s, but it rose in popularity quite quickly. “Train station” has been the most common usage since the mid-1990s, although it has been declining again since around 2000. I wonder why.

My understanding is that many railway terms derived from the military, because until the railways came along nothing else had been organised on that sort of trans-national and even trans-continental scale except armies. Hence trains have “guards” for their safe operation, and “stations” along the line where staff are stationed to maintain the entire railway system — including fuel, water, trackwork and signalling.

Railway stations are therefore part of a railway’s entire operation, not merely “train stations” for trains to stop at. For me, someone talking about “train stations” is showing their ignorance of how railways work: it’s more than just the trains.

Since I had the Google open in front of me, I thought I’d look at the variations in US versus UK English. It seems that “railroad station” isn’t the dominant American usage that I’d imagined.

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