Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
I’m also in Crikey today on the Prime Minister’s new blog, with a piece called Ruddblog: populist masterstroke or full of fail? Needless to say, I think it’s the latter. You may like to comment over at Crikey, or continue the conversation on my post from this morning.
Kevin Rudd launched his prime ministerial blog yesterday. I’m not sure it’s going to work — as I already told the Fairfax newspapers.
In addition to the common prohibitions on defamatory and abusive content, the rules for Mr Rudd’s blog say that comments will be accepted for only “five business days” from the time the post is published, be moderated by his staff strictly during business hours, cannot include links to other websites, and are limited to 300 words.
“Not allowing links to other websites is just dumb,” one blogger, Stilgherrian, told the Herald. “Links are the currency of the web. They allow you to reference work that’s already out there. If you can’t do that, and you’re limited to 300 words, then the discussion won’t ever get past repeating slogans.”
It was a sentiment shared by “An Onymous Lefty” blogger, Jeremy Sear, who posted a response to the Prime Minister’s blog titled “Kevin Rudd is hip to the kids… of 2004”.
“The strict moderation will remove the livelier aspects of discussion,” Mr Sear said.
I also reckon the first post, about climate change, sounds like a prepared political speech, with a question tacked on the end to make it look bloggy.
How do you think we can make Australians more aware that we need to act on climate change now?
I thought we’d mostly moved well past “creating awareness” and the biggest criticism of the government’s climate change policy was the lack of actual action so far.
But what do you think?
[Note: The original Fairfax piece doesn’t have links: I’ve added them in myself. Fairfax is still too rude or daft or whatever to link out to the things they mention. It’s nice that they included my quote, given that.]
Richard Chirgwin decided to devote almost the entire edition of his A Series of Tubes podcast to Project TOTO. It’s now online for your listening pleasure. As Richard puts it, “One word of warning: calling Tanzania involves a game of count-the-codec: there’s Stil’s mobile, followed by a satellite link (I edited out the delays), followed by the PSTN and finally an Internode VoIP service at my end. Some quality issues may be expected.”
This is a quick post to confirm that I can create blog post from the little netbook I’ll be using while travelling. Nick Hodge reckons I should try Windows Live Writer ‘cos it does all the right things to speak to WordPress.
So far it seems to work OK. I like the idea that I can preview the actual blog post’s final appearance online offline — which means that fussy ‘ol me can keep the appearance consistent. The trick will come when I try adding pictures. But for now, let’s press "Publish" and see what happens…
I’m in Crikey today, writing about yesterday’s Public Sphere forum Government 2.0: Policy and Practice and the launch of the Rudd government’s new Government 2.0 Taskforce. My article, free for all to read, is Government 2.0 Taskforce: first a logo design contest.
Should iPhone users pay extra for using the device as a tethered modem? Optus thinks so — but me and A Series of Tubes presenter Richard Chirgwin don’t entirely agree. Yes, the latest edition of the podcast is online for your listening pleasure.
We also talk about YABS (yet another broadband statistic), Twitter and Iran, and of course Project TOTO. Tubes also talks to Alcatel-Lucent’s Geof Heydon about the NBN: it’s more than just a fast Internet connection.