Weekly Wrap 149: Multiple dominations, with spiders

Spider guest, Nicodamus species: click to embiggenDuring the week Monday 8 to Sunday 14 April 2013, I submitted to the cloud and was dominated by broadband. I did some dominating myself, in relation to two SEKRIT matters that I won’t be telling you about.

Reactions to the Coalition’s broadband policy, launched by Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday, made it clear that the National Broadband Network (NBN) will be a key issue for Australia’s federal election on 14 September. I’ll be writing up my reflections on reactions and media coverage, including reactions to my own work, tomorrow. We’ll be seeing plenty more about the NBN in the coming weeks.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday I spoke about the NBN with Dom Knight and his guests on ABC 702 Sydney, but I didn’t record it.
  • On Saturday I spoke about the NBN on FBi Radio’s politics show Backchat.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I had a few beers at Alcatel-Lucent’s expense. Three Peronis, if I recall correctly.
  • On Wednesday I attended a press briefing about trends in unified communications by Dimension Data, held at the wonderful Flying Fish Restaurant in Pyrmont, Sydney. Check out the full menu and the pre-lunch canapes. There was also wine, but I forgot to grab the wine list.

The Week Ahead

It turns out that I won’t be in Sydney continuously for the next two weeks after all. In the two years that I’ve been mostly based at Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, I’ve usually migrated to the proprietors’ family home in Lilyfield during school holidays. The holidays are a busy time for Bunjaree, so it was handy for them to be on-site. But this time they’ve made other arrangements, so Wentworth Falls will continue to be my base.

That said…

It’s already Monday. I had an 0600 conference call — whose idea was that again oh yes that’s right it was mine shut up — and right now I’m on a train headed to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing, an afternoon meeting and dinner with a friend. I’ll be staying overnight for more meetings on Tuesday.

The shape of the rest of the week is unclear, but there’s a bunch of writing in the pipeline, and a bunch of planning. Stay tuned.

[Photo: Spider guest, Nicodamus species, a change from my usual bird photos from Bunjaree Cottages.]

Weekly Wrap 123: Food, drink, virtualisation and snow

My week Monday 8 to Sunday 14 October 2012 was yet another exercise in chaos, but this time with added snow.

Virtually nothing in the schedule actually happened when it was originally planned. There was too much moving around, and then Friday’s snowfalls almost derailed the week’s close.

Still, it was my first-ever encounter with actual snow at close range, so there were a few childlike moment of joy. And then I decided to spend the weekend in a SEKRIT hideaway.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 158, “Partitioning porn from PowerPoint: VMware’s virtualisation vision”. VMware’s vision of a virtualised future extends far beyond their existing desktop and server virtualisation products, to include virtualised mobile devices, and even software-defined data centres (SDD).

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I was a guest of NetSuite at Sydney’s Aria Restaurant, where of course they paid for the food and wine. We also received gift vouchers from some of NetSuite’s customers: Avago ($100); SkincareStore ($75); and WineMarket.com.au ($75).
  • On Wednesday I was a guest of Alcatel-Lucent at the Australian Internet Industry Association’s NSW branch forum Customer Centric Services, held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney.
  • On Friday afternoon I was a guest at MooresCloud’s press event, held at the City Hotel, Sydney. There was food. And drink. And mysteriously flashing lights.

The Week Ahead

On Monday I’ll be producing the Patch Monday podcast and having lunch with someone from Trustwave SpiderLabs before returning to Wentworth Falls. I’ll spend the week up in the mountains catching up on many, many loose ends of both media work and general geekery.

[Photo: Waratah in the snow, not the same specimen of Telopea speciosissima as seen last week, but another one at Bunjaree Cottages.]