Tag: depression

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Weekly Wrap 286: Rain, radio, and relative progress

Departing Mt Victoria: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 23 to Sunday 29 November 2015 was remarkably productive, a sharp comparison with last week. This pleases me.

Apart from the stuff listed below, I’ve also started a fresh program to tackle my on-again off-again “friendship” with the black dog of depression. I haven’t yet decided whether to write about this highly personal topic or not. Maybe when the timeline takes clearer shape.

I also got quite a bit of planning done for December, including locking in a couple geek-for-money projects that won’t be detailed here.

Podcasts

Articles

Media Appearances

5at5

Should 5at5 eventually reappear, you’ll know about it if you subscribe.

Corporate Largesse

The Week Ahead

On Monday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet, as well as heading to Parramatta and Petersham to choose a venue for the next Public House Forum. Various loose ends will be sorted out while on the trains.

On Tuesday, I’ll finish the ZDNet column, make some progress on certain geek-for-money projects, and do some shopping and other errands in Katoomba.

I’ll sleep in on Wednesday, and then head to Sydney to record a SEKRIT podcast episode. Then in the evening I’ll go to VMware’s end-of-year drinks, and then speak at the launch of a Sydney chapter of Electronic Frontiers Australia. It looks like I’ll be getting home quite late.

On Thursday, I’ll write for ZDNet, and then the rest of the week is flexible. I do have some geek projects to weave into the schedule, however.

On Tuesday Friday, I’ll be producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, tentatively titled “The 9pm Garden of Hate”, in which I’ll finish off all of the sponsored content that I owe my supporters. I plan to stream that recording session live at 2100 AEDT. This episode will now be made on Monday night 7 December.

Further Ahead

I’ll record a “2015 Wrap” episode of the Corrupted Nerds podcast some time in the week beginning Monday 14 December.

The next episode of The 9pm Public House Forum, similar to the first one, will be recorded on the afternoon of Saturday 19 December, somewhere in or near Parramatta. The venue will be confirmed in a few days.

I’ll also produce “2015 Wrap” episode of the Edict some time between Christmas and New Year.

[Update 1 December 2015: Edited to reflect schedule changes. Update 4 December 2015: Edited again to reflect further schedule changes.]

[Photo: Departing Mt Victoria. The #purpletrain (also known as a V-Set) pulls away from Platform 1 of Mt Victoria railway station on a wet Saturday afternoon, 28 November 2015.]

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Weekly Wrap 285: The millipede of progress marches on

Millipede: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 16 to Sunday 22 November 2015 was a complete and utter write-off. Very little productive was done.

Just like last week, there’s no new media objects for you to consume — though that will change fairly quickly over the coming days. I’m hoping my photograph of a rather determined millipede will be an omen of some sort. Or at the very least, a nice photograph of a millipede.

Podcasts

None, but I finished the rough cut and script for my ABC Radio National Future Tense documentary. This episode is now scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday 29 November.

Articles

None this week either. That’s very poor.

Media Appearances

  • On Monday, I spoke about Facebook’s Safety Check tool on ABC 105.7 Darwin. I won’t post that recording, because I don’t think I said anything that amazing.

5at5

Should 5at5 eventually reappear, you’ll know about it if you subscribe.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

Monday is a long-commute day, and potentially quite busy. My trip to Sydney includes a medical appointment at 1130, and a recording session at the ABC at 1500, where I’ll be laying down the narration for my Future Tense episode. That program will be edited on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, I’ll be finalising an episode of the Corrupted Nerds podcast, as well as making any final changes to Future Tense that might be needed.

Thursday is another long-commute, with briefings by Deloitte (maybe) (definitely) and AVG (definitely), followed by another medical appointment, though I don’t expect it to be too intense a day.

Some time this week I’ll also be writing for ZDNet, and perhaps even producing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, but I won’t be making those decisions until Tuesday or Wednesday. That’s because I also have to commit some geekery for money.

Update: Further Ahead

The next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast will be recorded live next Tuesday 1 December, with the tentative title “The 9pm Garden of Hate”.

I’m planning another episode of The 9pm Public House Forum, similar to the first one, tentatively scheduled to be recorded on the afternoon of Saturday 19 December — or should it be a week earlier?

I’ll also produce “2015 Wrap” episode of the Edict some time between Christmas and New Year.

There will also be a “2015 Wrap” episode of Corrupted Nerds, to be recorded some time in the week beginning Monday 14 December.

Update 15 November 2015: Edited to reflect a change of schedule, and to add the “Further Ahead” section.

[Photo: Millipede. A Sunday morning visitor visiblly cringes, if that’s not too anthropomorphic a word, as I block its path to take its photo on 22 November 2015.]

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Weekly Wrap 278: Reducing the pain, increasing the pace

Waratah in bloom at Bunjaree Cottages: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 28 September to Sunday 4 October 2015 was another pain-ridden ocean of chaos, but nevertheless there were a few solid achievements.

I launched Send Stilgherrian to Ruxcon 2015, a Pozible crowdfunding campaign with an obvious aim. As I write this, it’s already reached 29% of its initial target, which is promising.

On the health front, the broken tooth was repaired again. As for my shoulder, the X-rays and ultrasound imagery taken last week showed no permanent damage or signs of specific problems. It’s “just” strained muscles and tendons, and all that’s needed is rest. It does seem to be getting better, albeit very slowly.

Articles

Podcasts

I got most of an episode of The 9pm Edict recorded, but was too tired to complete it on Sunday night. Stand by.

Media Appearances

  • On Wednesday, I spoke about Facebook hoaxes on ABC 105.7 Darwin, but I didn’t record it.
  • Also on Wednesday, I spoke about Bitcoin and tractor square dancing on ABC 774 Melbourne and stations around Victoria, but I didn’t record that either.
  • On Thursday, I spoke about my crowdfunding efforts on ABC Radio National’s Media Report.

5at5

There were no editions of 5at5 at all, and that’s terrible. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?

Geekery

Having migrated the final batch of a long-standing client’s websites to new virtualised infrastructure, I finally shut down my remaining hard-iron Linux server, a leased machine somewhere in a rack in San Francisco. Typing halt for the last time also ended my business relationship with ServePath, which later became GoGrid, and which was recently acquired by and absorbed into Datapipe. I’ll miss the excellent support their engineers have provided over the years.

Meanwhile, I’ve picked up a quick little job: building what is in essence a paywall for the website of the literary magazine Meanjin, so they can start selling digital subscriptions.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

Once more, most of this week is over. It’s already the end of Thursday! But there’s still plenty of things to do…

On Friday, it’s the long train commute to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing on smart cities and the Internet of Things with Alcatel-Lucent’s expert on such things, Marc Jadoul. I’ll knock off some errands while I’m down there, and certain SEKRIT planning on the train.

On the weekend — note that I’m not predicting a specific day for each item — I’ll finish that episode of The 9pm Edict, finish the video of my UTS lecture, do some audio equipment tests, and do the preparatory work for Meanjin.

Further Ahead

The week beginning Monday 12 October will be a hectic one. Monday is the calm before the storm, when I’ll collect my thoughts and prepare myself.

On Tuesday, I fly to Melbourne, sneaking in a quick work session at Meanjin in the afternoon, before a reception kicks off the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) National Conference. I’m covering that for ZDNet, as well as recording material for my own Corrupted Nerds podcast. My thanks got to security vendor Tanium for covering my costs.

On Friday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet before flying back to Sydney. Some time on the weekend, I’ll produce another episode of The 9pm Edict.

The week starting… no, I’ll tell you about that next time.

[Photo: Waratah in bloom at Bunjaree Cottages, photographed on 8 October 2015. This waratah flower is slightly past its peak, but the intensity of its colour still manages to dominate the camera’s sensors.]

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Weekly Wrap 277: Pain, pain reduction, fire, and teeth

Sydney Central station on fireMy week of Monday 21 to Sunday 27 September continued to be painful. Literally. In pain. Again. Which rather detracted from the joy of being in Sydney. And then Central station caught fire, and my front tooth broke again.

I did get some productive work done, as listed below, but if you’ll allow me to have a personal whinge for a moment…

The shoulder pain I mentioned last week hasn’t been fading, so I saw a doctor. His referral for imagery, both ultrasound and X-ray, has a clinical note written on it: “??rotator cuff tear ??bursistis”. This does not sound wonderful. I’ll know more next week.

And the broken front-tooth filling that was repaired a few weeks back? Yes, it broke again today. I’m rather stressed by this right now, because I know it will now need a more expensive repair option, and this sort of unexpected expense at the end of the month is, well, difficult to deal with.

Articles

Both of the ZDNet columns that I wrote this week were reflections on the Malcolm Turnbull-led Australian government. Yes, the regime change was yet another significant force that shaped my week.

Podcasts

None, but a new episode of The 9pm Edict is expected to appear very, very soon. I’m also thinking of ways to resurrect Corrupted Nerds.

Media Appearances

None. Well, that’s not quite true. On Wednesday, I was interviewed by ABC Radio National’s Media Report about my crowdfunding efforts, and that will be heard this coming Thursday 1 October at 1730, Friday 2 October at 0530, and on the program website.

I also stumbled across Matthew da Silva’s profile of me from earlier this month. People you should know … Stilgherrian. Why anyone would start a new series of blog posts with me is anyone’s guess.

5at5

The were four editions of 5at5, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?

Geekery

I usually don’t mention the geekery that I do for the clients of my legacy business Prussia.Net and elsewhere. However, this week I’ve been migrating a client’s internet presence to new infrastructure, some 13 domains in all, and I’ve also been planning out some future work.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday evening, Sapphire Communications introduced us to some of their clients over drinks at Gowings Bar and Grill.

The Week Ahead

I’ll be in Sydney for another week, it seems. It’ll be a busy one, at least to begin with. And it’ll also continue to be painful, at least to begin with. Sigh. This entire section was rewritten on Monday evening to reflect a rapidly-changing reality, and again on Thursday morning.

On Monday, I was approved to start on a SEKRIT project. I also went to the dentist in the early afternoon to re-do the tooth fix. The rest of the day was a write-off, because the codeine for my shoulder pain played very well with the Ativan for reducing the anxiety of having things in my mouth. I found writing to be a bit difficult after that.

On Tuesday, I’ll be writing a column for ZDNet, discussing another SEKRIT project, and tackling finishing an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, projects. Tuesday was overrun by pain, some in the form of email, some in the form of neural signals.

On Wednesday morning, I’m shutting down that Prussia.Net client’s old server and tidying things up. In the afternoon, I’m getting the medical imagery done. At 1650 AEST, I’m doing a spot on ABC 105.7 Darwin. Then at 1930 AEST, I’ll be talking about various tech things on ABC 774 Melbourne and local stations around Victoria.

Thursday is 1 October. A new quarter, bringing with it a certain amount of adminstrivia. I’ll also visit the new VMware Briefing Centre in Sydney. I should write something for ZDNet in there too. In the morning, I’ll be working on plans for two trips to Melbourne later in the month. Then at 1500 I’ll re-visit the doctor to look at the medical imagery and decide what happens next.

Friday is bound to be about tying up the week’s loose ends before the long weekend, with the Labour Day public holiday on Monday 5 October. Nothing specific has been planned for that yet. Needless to say, I am stressed by the chaos levels.

Update 1 October: Edited to reflect the much-changed plan for the week.

[Photo: Sydney Central station on fire, photographed on 26 September 2015. This photo was also used by Radio New Zealand in their story Fire at Sydney’s Central Station extinguished.]

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Weekly Wrap 270: Generosity and some deep rabbit holes

Newtown, with mesh fence: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 3 to Sunday 9 August 2015 was remarkable, because I had so many votes of confidence, as it were. I’m pretty chuffed.

The most remarkable of all was that I raised more than $7200 in a crowdfunding campaign to replace and upgrade my core work tools. I won’t go into the details here, because you can check the project updates. But as I explained last week, having a working computer has really helped my mood. Knowing that I’ll soon have the kit to do certain kinds of projects is even more mood-improving.

Also, at the ADMA Global Forum, I met Professor Stephen Pulman, head of computational linguistics at some university called… Oxbloor or Oxfart or something like that. When I showed interest in his session on the sentiment analysis of textual data, including tweets, I was invited to his masterclass the next day. I’m kinda chuffed that I could dive deep into this stuff after so many years.

There’s a few other things too, but that can wait. On with the show…

Articles

Podcasts

None. But it’s looking like there’ll be three episodes of The 9pm Edict over the next five weeks. I’m also thinking of resurrecting Corrupted Nerds.

Media Appearances

  • On Monday morning, I spoke about the Wentworth Falls bushfire on ABC 702 Sydney.
  • On Tuesday evening, I spoke about various technology issues on ABC Local Radio across NSW, but there’s no recording. That’s a shame. It was a good segment.

5at5

There were editions of 5at5 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday and Wednesday, I covered the ADMA Global Forum, so there was plenty of food and drink to be had at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel.
  • On Wednesday evening, I went to Text100’s (in)famous Xmas in August event at the Bavarian Bier Cafe in Sydney. Bang & Olufsen gave me a rather nice leather keyring, and a USB stick containing their promotional material. Amazon Kindle gave me a promo-filled USB stick too.
  • On Thursday, NetSuite has a lunchtime briefing at Gowings Bar & Grill at Sydney’s QT Hotel. As usual, the food and drink was stunning.

The Week Ahead

Monday will be a long, long day. I’m taking the 0706 train to Sydney. At 0900 I’m meeting someone over coffee. From 1000, I’ll be at Deloitte’s media briefing on their annual Media Consumer Survey. Then it’s a haircut, and lunch, and buying a new shirt. The afternoon is flexible, shall we say, because at 2030 I’ll be live on ABC TV’s Lateline to talk about certain cybers. I think I’ll try to have a nap in there somewhere.

Tuesday is an easier day, and I plan to sleep in. I’m finally getting an eye exam done, and then I’ve got a couple meetings before catching the train back to Wentworth Falls.

On Wednesday, I’ll be running errands and doing my shopping in Katoomba, as well as working on a few stories. On Thursday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet. And on Friday, it’s the next step of The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh. I’ll have the final budget and podcast content selections, so it’ll be time to lock in the shopping list, and send RFQs to my suppliers.

I think I’ll record an episode of The 9pm Edict on the weekend, but we’ll see how that goes. Next weekend is so far away…

[Photo: Newtown, with mesh fence, photographed on 4 August 2015 as my train down from the Blue Mountains sped through Newtown on its wat to Central station for its scheduled 0847 arrival.]

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Weekly Wrap 269: Winning, mostly, with three kinds of fire

The Final Redoubt: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 27 July to Sunday 2 August 2015 represented a remarkable turnaround — perhaps the turnaround that I’d been detecting in the winds since June. And then there’s the bushfire. It’s all so complicated!

Why? It was a full week with a properly-working computer — a week spent in a house with a properly-working kitchen, heating, and inspiring view — and that brought back some of the clarity of thought which I’ve been sorely lacking. I got plenty done, the most important in many ways being the launch — finally! — of The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh.

I was very pleased when people started contributing to this crowdfunding campaign just as soon as it was launched. I’m even more pleased to report that as I write this, roughly half-way through the campaign period, we’ve reached 54% of the initial target. That means we’re likely to succeed.

The stress of not having a working computer is subsiding, but I’m not counting my chickens before they’re hatched.

People who write or perform for a living will also understand the importance of the kind of reassurance that comes with people supporting the plan which, until then, had existed solely in your own head.

That has helped. Thank you. If you haven’t done so already, please check out The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh

Thanks also to the many people who asked whether I was in any danger from this weekend’s bushfire at Wentworth Falls. No, I’m not.

The fire is only 3km from Bunjaree Cottages, but between it and me there’s some significantly challenging terrain, and the wind has been taking the fire in a different direction. More than 100 volunteers from the NSW Rural Fire Service have been keeping us safe.

I’m certainly paying attention to what’s happening, though, and I see that there’s a wind change forecast for Monday. Depending on how the RFS people go with their plans for the rest of today and overnight, well, my risk assessment may change.

Just as I write this, the alert for the fire area has been raised from WATCH AND ACT to EMERGENCY WARNING — the latter being described thusly:

You may be in danger and need to take action immediately. Any delay now puts your life at risk.

I must stress again, though, that I am not in the alert area, and I currently face no risk.

Articles

Podcasts

  • On Friday, I posted “The 9pm I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Planet”, being The 9pm Edict episode 46. I turned out better than its convoluted production process led me to imagine. I may tell you about that during the week.

Media Appearances

5at5

The hiatus has ended. There were two editions, on Thursday and Friday. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?

Corporate Largesse

None. But there’s quite a bit scheduled for the coming week.

The Week Ahead

This is going to be a better-structured one, folks.

Monday will be a media production day — but I’ll decide the exact details on the day, depending on the bushfire threat level.

On Tuesday, I’ll be catching the 0706 train to Sydney, because on Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be covering the ADMA Global Forum, presented by the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising. Also, at 2030 AEST on Tuesday night, I’ll be a guest on ABC Local Radio around NSW. And on Wednesday night, I’ll be going to Text100’s (in)famous Christmas in August event, a preview of their clients’ consumer technology for Christmas.

On Thursday, I’ll be going to a lunchtime briefing by NetSuite, and writing something for ZDNet, before taking the train back to the Blue Mountains. Thursday is also the last day of The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh, with the campaign ending at 2100 AEST that evening.

On Friday, I’ll be confirming what’ll happen with the funds so raised.

[Photo: The Final Redoubt, photographed on 2 August 2015. Should I ever need a final hiding place from a severe bushfire — and everything has happened so quickly that we skipped straight past three levels of warning, the fire jumped the road and railway, and all escape routes were blocked — then this cutting on Railway Parade near Wentworth Falls is where I’d wrap myself in wet woollen items and hope for the best.]