Blog – Page 279 – Stilgherrian

09 August 200822 March 2014

Whither “Stilgherrian Live”?

With Thursday’s night’s episode the Alpha series of Stilgherrian Live came to an end. What next?

Across eight “proper” episodes, plus a couple of impromptu programs from a local pub and a hotel room in Canberra, I achieved my main aim. I proved that it’s possible to do a live video program on the Internet using equipment I can carry in a backpack.

I got a feel for how much pre-production is needed. I got inbound talkback calls working via Skype. And I was very pleased to sustain a regular live audience of 30-odd people. Thank you.

Recently, thanks to Qik, I was able to broadcast live video feeds from my Nokia N80 phone. They’re still viewable at qik.com/stilgherrian. However the “standard” 3G available in Australia meant the technical quality was pretty average. It really does need HSDPA, i.e. a new phone.

So, given that “we have the technology”, what sort of programs should I create?

Continue reading “Whither “Stilgherrian Live”?”

08 August 200808 August 2008

Links for 05 August 2008 through 08 August 2008

Stilgherrian’s links for 05 August 2008 through 08 August 2008, covering all topics from Ma to Me:

NLA Australian Newspapers beta | National Library of Australia: The NLA is digitising its collection of out-of-copyright newspapers, some going back to 1803. Over 90,000 pages online so far. Searchable. OCR has been done, and you can correct any mistakes you find.
GroceryChoice site dismissed as “no help” to consumers | The Australian: The Australian government’s new GroceryChoice website is useless. Data only collected once a month, so it can’t take weekly specials into account.
The Z Curve and IT Investment | Digital Renderings: When should a business invest in new information technology? Move aggressively, assuming high costs and risks in the hope of gaining an outsized reward? Or hold back, waiting for technology to become better established, with lower costs and risks?
Twitter As News-wire | Twitter Blog: Twitter is increasingly being described as a personal news-wire. Here’s a couple of graphs showing how word of the LA an SF earthquakes spread in under 5 minutes.
Jay Rosen of NYU on the Ethic of the Link | YouTube: An excerpt from a Carnegie Council panel on 3 April 2008. Nice contextualisation of the newspaper business’ fear of the web. 4 min 21 sec.
Twitter on the front page of Liberation today | Holy Chic’s Weblog: Twitter makes the cover of French newspaper Liberation. Here’s an analysis in English.
Journalism is Dead: A new blog which purports to be the true diary of someone working at a newspaper. Looks real enough. Let’s hope he or she can continue being this funny.
Fake L.A. Times: Exactly what it says. Yes, yet another satirical news site.
The Ethics of Taking Vacations: “You owe it to yourself to recuperate, and you’ll do your job better if you take time off. Both are ethical issues.”

07 August 2008

Episode 8 online

And episode 8 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha, the final in the Alpha series, is now online. This special edition (an hour!) included our short film The Shave.

07 August 200808 August 2008

Episode 8 tonight

Yes, episode 8 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha will be recorded tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time. See you then.

06 August 2008

Crikey: Oh no, Google took a photo of my house!

Crikey logo

[This article was first published in Crikey yesterday.]

This morning Australians woke to the news that Google’s Street View has taken photos of their street, their office, their school â€” their home! — and published them for all to see. Doubtless we’ll now see a flood of stories screeching “Invasion of privacy!” Hardly.

A picture taken on a public street isn’t “private”. A house is a visible, physical object that anyone can walk past and photograph. Its address is a known fact. Anyone can post pictures online with a description. Real estate agents do it all the time. All Google has done is photographed “everywhere” all at once, and given us the results.

Worried that knowledge of who lives in your house will become public? That data is already available — in the phone book, in most cases, or the electoral roll. If you’ve done any renovations recently, there’s probably even a floor plan of your house on your local council’s website.

Besides, when you use Street View, chances are the very first thing you’ll look up is your own home. Knowing this, Google can simply cross-match that with everything they already know about you: every Google search you’ve done, every link you’ve followed, every YouTube video you’ve watched — and, if a website uses the “free” Google Analytics or runs Google AdSense advertising, Google also knows about every such website you’ve ever visited. Congratulations, you just let them write your address across the top of their dossier!

And isn’t Google owned by the CIA anyway? Beware The Googling… ! [Insert maniacal laugh here.]

Continue reading “Crikey: Oh no, Google took a photo of my house!”

05 August 200806 August 2008

Links for 04 August 2008 through 05 August 2008

Here are the web links I’ve found for 04 August 2008 through 05 August 2008, posted automatically using a coat hanger, three melons and a small well-brushed poodle.

Scoble, Brainstorm & Braided Journalism | Global Neighbourhoods: Shel Israel adds an extremely sensible contribution to the eternal journalists vs bloggers whingefest. If you know any journalists, tie them to a chair and force them to watch this twice before they’re allowed any more beer.
Blade Runner sweded | YouTube: Forget the Director’s Cut, this 4-minute version of Blade Runner is superb. I love the release of the white dove.
Sweded Films (and Movies): Films: An A-Z listing of Sweded films.
Be Kind Rewind | Wikipedia: Just in case you don’t know what the term “Sweded” means, here’s the explanation from the Wikipedia entry for the movie Be Kind Rewind.
Tron, a video from freres-hueon | Dailymotion: A Sweded version of the lightcycles scene from the movie TRON. Using live stop-frame animation to recreate a CGI movie? Priceless!
Digital futures report: the internet in Australia | CCI: Findings from the first survey by the Australian component of the World Internet Project. This survey is a major piece of research undertaken by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Innovation at Swinburne University’s Institute for Social Research.
Large Hadron Collider nearly ready | The Big Picture: Beautiful photography of The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27km long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests.
Atomic Weapons Tests: TRINITY through BUSTER-JANGLE | Internet Archive: A 1952 film providing an overview for security-cleared members of US Congress committees and military. Declassified 1997, but some technical details still redacted. 22 minutes.
Kosovo Parody Song | YouTube: A Seattle radio DJ created a parody song to criticise US involvement in Kosovo. Norwegian peacekeepers then shot a video clip parodying the original. Fun.
Tabloid remarks | 12seconds.tv: Sitting sideways in the video, I rant about the Daily Telegraph for 12 seconds.
Foveaux: We haven’t tried this fine restaurant in Surry Hills, Sydney, but the cocktail bar downstairs is excellent. The website still shows the summer menu drinks list, fools.