chemical warfare – Stilgherrian

28 January 201828 January 2018

Weekly Wrap 400: New year, with too many spiders

This Weekly Wrap covers five weeks, from Monday 25 December 2017 to Sunday 28 January 2018. Much of this time I treated as a rough holiday.

So, spiders.

On 21 January, I had a Spider Adventure. Scroll down for an edited version of my Twitter thread. There’s lost of different spiders around here right now.

Articles

How Australia’s government-by-parrot is flying backward on drones, ZDNet Australia, 19 January 2018.
Meltdown and Spectre response hampered by ‘exclusive club’ secrecy, ZDNet Australia, 25 January 2018. This is the first in a series of articles to come out of my coverage of the Linux.conf.au open-source software conference that took place in Sydney this week.

Podcasts

None. Announcements soon.

Corporate Largesse

There was plenty of food and drink at Linux.conf.au, but I can’t remember who all the sponsors were. IBM was one, though, sponsoring a professional networking event on Thursday night. And Wargaming.net paid for the conference’s coffee.

Media Appearances

On Tue 9 Jan, I spoke about planned obsolescence on ABC Gold Coast. I didn’t record it.
On Tue 23 Jan, I was interviewed for the story Electoral Commission on defensive after damning report on ABC Radio’s AM
My 2015 story Tâ€‹elstra CISO blasts cyber ‘attribution distraction’ was cited in the paper Digital Forensic Analysis of Amazon Linux EC2 Instances (PDF) by Kenneth G Hartman.

The Week Ahead

I won’t plan ahead in too much detail. This is the week when Australia returns from its long summer slumber. I know I’ll have errands in Katoomba on Monday. But I’ll also be doing a bunch of writing during the first part of the week, and perhaps right through to the end.

I’ll also sketch out the first few months of the year, especially the podcasts and such. Expect announcements via Twitter.

Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 400: New year, with too many spiders”

03 July 200803 July 2008

Links for 02 July 2008

Stilgherrian’s web links I’ve found for 02 July 2008, created automatically from internets.

China As An Island | Strange Maps: China has land borders with 14 other countries. And yet you should not think of China as particularly well-integrated with its neighbours. In fact, as shown in this dramatic map, you should rather consider China to be an island.
NASA's Moon Truck Goes for a Test Drive | Telstar Logistics: A prototype of a NASA lunar rover undergoing testing at the Moses Lake Sand Dunes in eastern Washington state.
Hyperpolitics (American Style) | viddler.com: The video of Mark Pesce's presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum 2008.
Asthma Weed | Sydney Weeds Committees: This is the nasty weed which keeps emerging in our garden and resists all efforts at eradication. Chemical warfare appears to be the only resort.

19 February 200624 November 2012

Collateral Damage

In Sydney’s Inner West, the Cockroach is King. Every householder wages Continuous War against the Small Brown Beast.

We try to stick with conventional weapons — physical force, hunting, stalking, persuasion and satire. But sometimes that isn’t enough.

An innocent preying mantis is killed in the Endless Cockroach War

Australia led the diplomatic battle against chemical weapons globally. But we just love them in the kitchen. Bioallethrin, Imiprothrin, Cypermethrin, Biorespethrin — the sort of thing which, if possessed by the likes of Saddam Hussein, would trigger another Gulf War.

And so the noble and innocent mantis, our ally in the great struggle against the Small Brown Beast, makes the mistake of walking where the chemicals lie in silence. And he dies a lingering death.

Household protection for up to six months. Ultra low allergenic.