Weekly Wrap 180: Nothing happened, with arsehats

Crossing the Nepean, 12 November 2013: click to embiggenMy week Monday 11 to Sunday 17 November 2013 was completely unproductive, for reasons which shall be explained in the next five paragraphs.

At the tail end of the previous week’s trip to Canberra, I changed my medication for depression — something that I’d discussed with my doctor beforehand, of course, but there were side effects nevertheless.

My sleep patterns took several days to readjust, and during that time I was more susceptible to the depression being exacerbated by the kind of arsehat events that the universe throws at us from time to time.

One such arsehat event happened. Or didn’t happen. A key invoice didn’t get paid when it was expected to be paid. Cashflow stress ensued, and that arsehat was the straw that broke the camel’s back, turning it into a black dog. Stay with me now, OK.

My mood wasn’t exactly improved by the fact that it rained for almost the entire week. There’s a strong seasonal aspect to my depression. And that rain was just a cruel twist, given that only the week before we’d been worried about everything being incinerated in bushfires.

This is a stupid planet, and humans are a stupid, badly-designed species.

I did catch up on a lot of reading, however.

Podcasts

None.

Articles

None.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday, after I crowdsourced a few beers and ciders in Sydney because the aforementioned cashflow stress made the concept of paying for my own drinks problematic, I ended up being invited to dinner at Kobe Jones’ Wharf Teppanyaki at Sydney’s King Street Wharf, courtesy of Enex Testlab. There is evidence to suggest that I was provided with an ample sufficiency of sake.

The Week Ahead

Well it’s half finished already, innit. But it began on a positive note. The cashflow constipation was uncorked on Monday, so I could start living again.

On Tuesday I came down to Sydney to take lunch with the boss-blokes from Sophos, the British-American information security firm, and deal with a whole bunch of errands.

Wednesday was a day of resetting all the things.

Thursday — that is to say, today — I’ll be starting work on a 2000-word feature story for ZDNet Australia that has to be finished by the end of next week, as well as participating in a discussion which will Rearrange Certain Aspects of Reality. That will all become less cryptic in due course. Or not.

Friday is a day of writing, with columns for both ZDNet Australia and CSO Online, and over the weekend I’ll be writing something for Corrupted Nerds.

In fact, the next three weeks will be quite busy, because I have to generate some catch-up revenue to replace last week’s steaming pile of fail, as well as make sure there’s enough revenue coming in to cover the time of year that freelancers fear most: Christmas.

“Holidays” is a synonym for “poverty” rather than “tequila”. It’s enough to make Baby Jesus cry.

[Photo: Crossing the Nepean, 12 November 2013, a dark, moody image that seems to capture the depressing nature of the week.]

Weekly Wrap 179: A very Kaspersky Canberra, with stress

Canberra sunrise: click to embiggenMy week Monday 4 to Sunday 10 November 2013 was another busy one, but I survived.

Once more the Weekly Wrap has been hideously delayed, so it’ll just be the facts.

A key part of the week was my trip to Canberra, mainly to cover the speech by Eugene Kaspersky to the National Press Club, but also to squeeze in some meetings with other people while I was there. Kaspersky seems to have dominated my media output for the week.

Podcasts

  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 8, being a chat about electronic voting with Dr Vanessa Teague from the University of Melbourne. If you think e-voting is the cure for electoral fraud and mistakes, you’d better listen.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday I went to the National Press Cub in Canberra to hear Eugene Kaspersky’s address. I was a guest at the Kaspersky Lab table, and they paid for my flights from Sydney. I paid for my own accommodation because the Kaspersky thing itself could have been a day trip.

[Photo: Canberra sunrise, photographed from Rydges Lakeside Canberra hotel on 7 November 2013.]

Weekly Wrap 178: Food, fever, bandwidth and boats

Carnival Spirit: click to embiggenMy week Monday 28 October to Sunday 3 November 2013 was another busy one, but I survived.

I did spend one night and one day with a little too much number seven on the Bristol Stool Scale and a fever, but it’d be a really lame joke to say that I caught a virus at the hacker conference, so I’ll skip over that. Just the list tonight.

Podcasts

  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 7, being a chat with Senator Scott Ludlam of the Australian Greens about new attorney-general Senator George Brandis’ appointment of a former ASIO director-general as his chief of staff, and my commentary on related matters.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Thursday I spoke about the NSA and data mining and privacy on ABC NSW Statewide Afternoons, but there’s no recording because there was no digital stream to record from.
  • I spoke about crowdfunding and many other things on this week’s Download This Show on ABC Radio National.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I went to NetSuite’s annual media lunch at Aria Restaurant in Sydney, where the food and wine was, as always, superb. Not only did NetSuite pick up the tab, but they gave everyone a gift bag (another excellent RuMe tote bag) containing a NetSuite-branded notebook and pen, an eWAY-branded pen — plus and GoPro HERO3 White Edition wireless video camera and a SanDisk Ultra 8GB micro-SD memory card.
  • On Wednesday I went to the launch of ng Connect Australia and New Zealand, which led to the broadband story listed above. There was food and drink.

The Week Ahead

It’s yet another busy one. On Monday and Tuesday I’ll be wrapping up a Corrupted Nerds podcast, starting work on another, and writing up a 1000-word piece about hardware hacking.

On Wednesday, following a routine medical appointment in Sydney, I’m flying to Canberra for a meeting or three, before covering Eugene Kaspersky’s address to the National Press Club for ZDNet Australia on Thursday. I’ll be in Canberra until Friday afternoon.

The weekend is unplanned, but after the last few weeks I reckon it’ll be a lazy one. Fingers are crossed.

[Photo: Carnival Spirit, photoographed in Sydney Harbour on 29 October 2013 using a Nokia Lumia 1020. I had been sceptical of the whole idea of a 42-megapixel camera in a phone, but it allows you to crop in very, very tightly. Below is such a crop from the same image as at the head of this post. Some of the lack of sharpness will be due to the hazy weather, some to the fact that the photo was hand-held and I didn’t take much care. More about this camera soon.]

Carnival Spirit, tightly cropped

Weekly Wrap 177: Fire, travel, hacking and alcohol

The view from 29A: click to embiggenMy week Monday 21 to Sunday 27 October 2013 was just insanely busy, including everything from bushfires to fine food to hacking, little sleep and far, far too much alcohol.

In the one week, I felt guilty for leaving the Blue Mountains when the locals were about to face what looked like a severe bushfire threat, especially when the very next day I enjoyed a luxury lunch, and spent four solid days absorbing deep, deep information security information and, in the evenings, alcohol.

I survived.

Articles

Podcasts

None.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I went to a lunchtime media briefing by Amazon Web Services at the O-Bar, the restaurant at the top of Australia Square tower. The food and wine was delightful.
  • On Thursday I had dinner with Michael McKinnon from AVG Technologies AU and a chap from a government agency at Syracuse Restaurant and Wine Bar in Melbourne. AVG paid for that one.
  • On Sunday I had dinner with Michael McKinnon from AVG Technologies AU at Ishiya Japanese Stonegrill. I can thoroughly recommend the “sake degustation” options. But McKinnon again? I know. He even acted as my driver for an errand on Saturday afternoon. People are starting to talk…

The Week Ahead

Well, it’d almost over now. All I’ll say is that tonight is Thursday night and I’ll be returning to the Blue Mountains tomorrow. The weekend is unplanned, at least in detail, but I’ll be producing some media objects between now and the end of Sunday. Stay tuned.

[Map: The view from 29A, taken at Sydney Airport on 23 October 2013.

Weekly Wrap 176: Largely largesse, then looming bushfires

Bushfires near me, 1350 AEDT: click to embiggenI’m finding it difficult to switch into that mode where I can concentrate on my writing today. The map above explains why.

I’m at the red marker near Wentworth Falls, and the only two escape routes are the road or railway east towards Sydney or west then north-west towards Lithgow.

The smaller Mt Victoria fire on the left has, remarkably, been contained to much the same boundaries as yesterday, thanks to the hard work and backburning activities of the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS). So far.

The enormous State Mine Fire to the north, however, is growing. The winds, while currently forecast to be relatively mild, are nevertheless pushing the fire in this direction. And while it might look a long way away, given adverse weather conditions a bushfire can travel that distance in mere hours.

Both fires have the potential to reach Wentworth Falls, and earlier this afternoon the RFS chief said that the entire Blue Mountains could end up at risk in the coming days.

While I’m not particularly worried, I do need to stay alert in case the RFS escalates their warnings. I’m already as step ahead: I’ve packed my bug-out bag and have an evacuation plan. But that still makes it difficult to switch off that little stay-alert part of my brain and get down to writing.

So for now, here’s the quick summary of my week Monday 14 to Sunday 20 October 2013, plus the week ahead.

Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 176: Largely largesse, then looming bushfires”

Weekly Wrap 175: Lots of security, lots of productivity

[Update 14 October 2013, 0800 AEDT: As foreshadowed, “The Week Ahead” has been fleshed out with the current version of The Plan. However there’s evidence to suggest that this might change again later today. Update 15 October 2013, 1915 AEDT: The plan has changed again.]

Not the ASD: click to embiggenMy week Monday 7 to Sunday 13 October 2013 was relatively busy, although more on the research and information-gathering side rather than the final output side.

Podcasts

  • Corrupted Nerds: Conversations 6, being a chat with Michael Smith, head of Akamai Technologies’ computer security incident response team (CSIRT) about distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Articles

I also wrote my usual column for ZDNet Australia, The Full Tilt, but we’re currently waiting on a decision as to whether the planned headline is, um, pushing the boundaries.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I went to a lunchtime briefing by Unisys at Wolfies Restaurant at Circular Quay — apparently it doesn’t have an apostrophe — where the food was lovely and the weather was gorgeous. They paid, of course.
  • On Thursday I went to the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, where I was fed and watered. Check Point Software Technologies Ltd gave me a branded shirt. Watchguard Technologies Inc gave me a novelty USB memory device (4GB) packed with PR material.

The Week Ahead

The exact shape of the week will depend upon news arriving overnight, so I’ll add in the details tomorrow morning.

On Monday I’ll be mapping out the coming three weeks or so, including preparing some of plan for getting to Melbourne for the Breakpoint and Ruxcon hacker conferences. On Tuesday I’ll be continuing that work towards Melbourne and writing a piece for Technology Spectator that’ll due to be published on Thursday Friday.

On Wednesday I’ll be setting up the framework for another Technology Spectator yarn, as well as writing my ZDNet Australia column for Thursday.

On Wednesday I’ll be heading to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing by Dasault Systèmes about their new SolidWorks thingo, setting up the frameworks for Technology Spectator and ZDNet Australia stories en route. I may stay in Sydney overnight, depending on several factors. If I don’t…

On Thursday itself, I’ll be heading to Sydney again for a lunchtime briefing by NEC and Telsyte, staying overnight until Friday for a tour of the Pacnet data centre and some personal stuff.

There’s more in the schedule than that, of course, but they’re the relatively fixed pegs upon which the rest of the schedule hangs.

The weekend is currently unplanned.

[Photo: Not the ASD, photographed at the annual conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) in Sydney on 10 October 2013. The signage for the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), formerly the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), seems to have gone astray…]