A reminder: This afternoon I’m heading to San Francisco for the RSA Conference on information security, all on Microsoft’s tab. I’ve also discovered that it’s the Electronic Frontiers Foundation’s 21st birthday party this Wednesday night, and San Francisco Beer Week. What could possibly go wrong?
50th birthday drinks today
If you’re at a loose end in Sydney today, remember that my birthday drinks are happening this afternoon at The Hive Bar in Erskineville. Click through for details.
50th birthday drinks next Saturday
If you’ve been following my 50 to 50 series, you’ll know it’s my 50th birthday very soon. Would you like to help me celebrate it with drinks next Saturday 8 May?
My birthday is actually on 9 May, but for Australians that’s also Mother’s Day this year. That’s inconvenient.
So, drinks (and good food) are on Saturday 9 May 2010 upstairs at one of my favourite haunts, The Hive Bar, 93 Erskineville Road, Erskineville from 2pm. There’s a map over the jump.
I’d like to give Adam some idea of how many people are coming so, if you can, please either RSVP by email or at the truly evil privacy-destroying Facebook event page by Wednesday afternoon. You don’t have to RSVP, you can just turn up. But if we get enough confirmed people we get our own bartender.
Project TOTO: The Cultural Briefing
One of the most challenging aspects of Project TOTO is that I’ll have to build a rapport with my Tanzanian hosts and colleagues extremely quickly. So yesterday ActionAid Australia gave me a cultural briefing as well as the project briefing.
Here’s what I learned:
- Tanzanians are generally very polite, and will avoid saying anything which they fear might offend. I’ll therefore have to encourage them to open up a bit — especially when blogging for a Western audience.
- Tanzanian society is still quite hierarchical. People respect age and authority. No-one will say they have a bad government or local official, except in very private conversations.
- While the population is split religiously roughly one-third each Muslim, Christian and traditional tribal religions, there’s no major tensions between them.
- Women are “quiet and humble”, especially in rural areas, and when there’s men around they’re unlikely to speak unless asked, or if it’s a one-to-one conversation.
- There’s less physical contact than we’re used to in Australia. No kissing in public! However men and women do shake hands as a greeting.
- Rural people eat a lot of the local green bananas, and plenty of green vegetables, either fried or boiled. My doctor will be happy.
- I should avoid eating meat outside restaurants and the like. However the rural folk might offer a visitor meat and it would be impolite to refuse. What should I do? I must make that decision at the time. Tapeworms FTW!
- My travel doctor was right when she told me to drink only bottled water. The locals will offer soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Fanta, which I will accept and drink.
- The local beer is the Kenyan Tusker Lager and it’s quite acceptable, if a little heavy for the climate. I’ll be asked whether I want it “hot” or “cold”.
- South African wine is available, but relatively expensive. I’ve been advised to avoid the local wine.
- When travelling by 4WD, remember to take toilet paper.
- In the city, Westerners are likely to be perceived according to the usual stereotypes: Americans are loud and religious, Australians are relaxed and joke a lot, Germans are strict and so on. In rural areas we’re all the same: “You’re all white and you’ve got money.”
And apart from that, it’s just the usual stuff when arriving in a new culture: Listen more than you speak, and show respect.
Care to add any other tips?
The pleasure and (minor) pain of Telstra Next G
Over the last few months, I’ve been trialling Telstra’s Next G mobile broadband as part of an experimental “technology seeding program”. Despite my initial doubts, I’ve been impressed.
Previously I’d been using Vodafone 3G, tethering my MacBook Pro via Bluetooth to a Nokia N80. It worked just fine. I subsequently moved to a Nokia N96 and Virgin Mobile, which uses the Optus network under the hood. It’s terrible. I made a big mistake.
But that’s a story for another time…
Sure, Next G is the most expensive mobile broadband out there. But it’s also the best. Clearly.
On our road trip, we could use Next G almost all the way from Cowra back through Bathurst to Sydney. Yes, the signal dropped out as we drove through hilly areas, as you’d expect. But the data link automatically reconnected once it found a new cell — with the same IP address!
Seriously. Here I was in a moving car, running a ping and watching YouTube videos. The link dropped out. It reconnected. And when it did, perhaps six minutes later when the terrain sorted itself out, the video started playing from where it left off. Pings resumed with the very next packet number in the sequence — albeit with ping times of over 370 thousand milliseconds.
In another test, the data link kept the same IP address while I caught a train from Newtown across Sydney Harbour to Pymble. In CityRail’s loop under the Sydney CBD, there was no signal in the tunnels, but the link came back up within seconds of arriving at a station.
Somebody did some great network engineering. They deserve a pat on the back.
But what else?
Continue reading “The pleasure and (minor) pain of Telstra Next G”
Hello Mr Cooper! Beer please!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:57 — 2.2MB)
Do you remember this 57-second sequence from last week’s episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha?
Yes, I blatantly demanded free beer.
Well, I asked for beer in return for a plug for the brewery. Such is the nature of a commercial exchange, right? Fair’s fair.
I thought I’d better put the clip online and bring it to the attention of the folks at Coopers Brewery in Adelaide and see if they come up with the goods.
I’ve just sent them an email. While it’s obviously extremely short notice, I’ll let you know how I go. With luck I’ll have a case of nice cleansing Coopers Ale to help the program go smoothly.
[By the way, the concert I refer to was the “Time To Act” concert for AIDS awareness which was held in Rymill Park, Adelaide. A great gig, which I’ll tell you about some other time.]