Returning after computer grief

I hate these little “sorry I’m late with everything” notes, but I am late with everything — because I ended up in software upgrade hell over the weekend, and that took away two days of my life. But I’m back, and most of those problems have been dealt with.

What I can tell you quickly is that my Pozible campaign has been successful, and The 9pm Edict podcast will be returning. There’s funding committed for at least two episodes in May, but there’s still just under 11 hours left in the crowdfunding campaign so there may be more.

There will definitely be an update before lunchtime tomorrow, Tuesday.

The 9 O’Clock Resurrection halfway to Target 1

Screenshots from The 9 O'Clock Resurrection progress videos 2 and 3: click for YouTube playlistMy project to resurrect The 9pm Edict has reached the halfway mark on its way to the initial target — but comments from some supporters have led me to believe that I need to better explain the funding model.

I’m establishing a monthly funding, planning and production cycle for the podcast.

The current Pozible project is the first of what will be continuing monthly fundraising campaigns. When it ends on 29 April, I’ll know how much money is in the production pool for May — that’s all the one-off contributions plus the first month of the subscriptions. I’ll then be able to lock in the production schedule for that month.

Here’s how things looked as we started the day today.

Continue reading “The 9 O’Clock Resurrection halfway to Target 1”

Announcing (belatedly) The 9 O’Clock Resurrection

Screenshot from The 9 O'Clock Resurrection video for Day 1I’ve decided that my podcast The 9pm Edict should be a thing again, and so yesterday morning I launched a Pozible crowdfunding campaign entitled The 9 O’Clock Resurrection to make it happen.

This post is “belatedly” because it’s already more than a day since I launched the campaign, and already people’s commitments are more than a third of the way to the initial target, which is to fund two episodes in May. Thank you.

I’d really like to do the podcast weekly, however, and beyond May. So that’ll mean more funding than the initial target, and more of the supporters to commit to a monthly subscription. It’s much the same model as that used by community broadcasters here in Australia, or public broadcasters in the US, as I said when I spoke about my first Pozible campaign on ABC Radio National’s Media Report.

This new Pozible campaign runs until 29 April. I’ll be making a video each day to report progress. The first is watchable on YouTube, and the rest will appear in the YouTube playlist, and I’ll figure out some other methods tomorrow.

Continue reading “Announcing (belatedly) The 9 O’Clock Resurrection”

Heartbleed kills my schedule

Heartbleed logoNothing has appeared here since Weekly Wrap 200 last Sunday — including the update to my guest lecture at UTS from Monday — because my work schedule has been dominated by the Heartbleed internet security bug.

There’s a lot that’ll appear here in the coming three days, and not just the UTS lecture. There’s radio spots that I did with ABC 720 Perth, ABC 783 Alice Springs, 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide, ABC Radio’s The World Today, and ABC 702 Sydney, for starters, plus links to the stories I’ve written on Heartbleed — one for Crikey and four for ZDNet Australia — although clever possums will know that they’re already listed on the media page.

In the background, I’ve also been sketching out ideas for a Pozible crowdfunding campaign or two, continuing from the one I did last year, to resurrect Corrupted Nerds and The 9pm Edict. Stay tuned.

I guess I shouldn’t whinge about Heartbleed killing my schedule. Some people have to do the really hard programming and systems administration work to clean up the mess, not just write and talk about it, and the extra work is heartbleeding revenue straight into my pocket.

Announcing “The 9pm Election”

Photograph of TV showing Kevin Rudd announcing the election date

Today Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that the federal election will be on 7 September 2013. Tonight I announce that I intend to produce five episodes of The 9pm Election.

They’ll bear some passing resemblance to previous episodes of The 9pm Edict, such the episode from when the last election was called.

It is my intention to post a new episode each Friday night at 9pm AEST. Provided you cough up some money, that is, and I’ll be telling you more about that over the next 72 hours.

[Update 8 August 2013: I’ve had a busy week. The first episode will appear this weekend, probably Saturday night but maybe only Sunday. Like you care. Meanwhile, listen to Corrupted Nerds.]

I’ve recorded an announcement, which you can listen to below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

If you’d like to comment on this (non-)episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: News excerpt from ABC TV. The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]