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Is Internet filtering inevitable?

I’ve written previously that the Federal Budget sort of explained what’ll be happening with Internet filtering. Now that Senator Conroy has announced his Cyber-Safety Consultative Working Group I’m not so sure.

As Michael Meloni says over at Somebody Think of the Children:

When you consider people like Anthony Pillion, manager of filtered Australian ISP Webshield, and Child Wise CEO Bernadette McMenamin are on board, the odds of mandatory filtering being found a good solution are disappointingly high.

Pillion has a business interest and for McMenamin the gesture alone of protecting children is better then doing nothing, even if it has no chance of working. Here’s part of her letter to Stilgherrian:

If filtering of child pornography cannot work then why is there so much anger, fear and resentment to any attempt to block child pornography and other illegal sites?

[…]

Thankfully, the group does contain at least two people opposed to mandatory filtering: Sue Hutley from the Australian Library and Information Association (who asked Conroy questions about his plan that we all want answered and is opposed to filtering in public libraries) and Peter Coroneos from the IIA.

I’ve written plenty about censorship before. so while I’m busy at CeBIT‘s Transaction 2.0 today, feel free to discuss this amongst yourselves. Play nice. I’ll ponder it in more detail later.

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What I’m doing for ReMIX 08

ReMIX 08 logo

Tomorrow is the first day of my three geek-intensive days this week: Microsoft ReMIX 08, where they’ll be pimping their new technologies for making web stuff. I now have a plan!

I won’t copy what mainstream media folks do: either puff pieces extolling the wond’rousness of all things Microsoft or stories about how someone else did the same thing years ago, depending on how much of their advertising comes from Microsoft. Instead, I’ll see what I can learn from the assembled geeks about the state of their world — vox pops of some kind.

I’ve also booked a one-on-one interview with Tim Aidlin, a “Design Evangelist” in Microsoft’s Web Innovations Team. But rather than focussing on Microsoft’s new geek tools I’ll be exploring his worldview.

I’ve borrowed a Canon HV20 digital video camera for the week (thanks Garth!) so you’ll see at least some of the results on Thursday night’s Stilgherrian Live Alpha. Everything will be put online in some form, eventually.

For live updates during the conference, follow my Twitter feed.

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Stilgherrian Live Alpha: lessons from episode 2

I wish I had a screenshot to show you, but, as I mentioned before, episode 2 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha wasn’t recorded. It only lives on in the memories of the 20-odd people who watched it live — and then probably not for long.

What did we learn this time?

The key lesson is that it just isn’t possible to do everything on my old PowerBook G4. There ain’t enough processing power. And there isn’t quite the cashflow to organise my new Macbook Pro for a couple of weeks. That leaves me with an important decision: How do I shape this alpha series in the meantime?

Continue reading “Stilgherrian Live Alpha: lessons from episode 2”

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How will I cope with the looming Geek Week?

Next week is packed! How can I get the best value out of CeBIT Sydney and the associated Transaction 2.0 conference, as well as Microsoft’s ReMIX 08? What should I record or broadcast? What should I write about?

CeBIT Sydney logo

CeBIT was always on my agenda. Despite being disappointing last year and despite annoying me with a flood of email, it’s still the biggest IT trade show in Australia. It’s worth going just to see who’s confidently spending money on promotion, if nothing else.

I’ll be touring the trade show floor on Wednesday 21 May. If you want to meet up, let me know. Maybe I should even do a Stilgherrian Live Alpha from the bloggers media room? Whaddyathink?

If you still haven’t organised your free pass, you can register online using my promotion code: stilcs08.

On Thursday 22 May I’ll be at Transaction 2.0, with an interesting set of speakers. Again, it’s a matter of choosing the priorities. Who should I talk to? Should I pick a fight with Jason Calacanis?

ReMIX 08 logo

But I kick off the Geek Week on Tuesday 20 May with ReMIX 08, where Microsoft says I’ll “experience all that is new in Silverlight 2, Expression 2, IE8, Live and a host of other great web technologies… You will also see how local Australian innovators are creating the next generation of engaging websites and unprecedented user experiences for the web.”

Provided they build it with Microsoft’s tools, of course. 😉

That’s unfair. Microsoft is changing. It’ll be interesting to hear what they’re up to.

Now my only challenge is working out how all this fits into one week, while still leaving room to do some billable hours for clients.