Weekly Wrap 7

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets.

Articles

  • ‘Open Government’ declared in Australia for Crikey. Buried in the news just before the Australian election was called last weekend, Lindsay Tanner, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, issued the Declaration of Open Government which had been called for by the Government 2.0 Taskforce. Someone ought to tell the Attorney-General’s Department.
  • Two other articles have been written but are still in the production pipeline, one for Crikey and one for ABC Unleashed. And I’ve been researching a 2000-word feature for ZDNet Australia. So I’ve been very busy, you just haven’t seen the output yet.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 49, “The software patent controversy explained” with guest Kimberlee Weatherall. She teaches intellectual property law at the University of Queensland.
  • A Series of Tubes episode 112, in which I chat with Richard Chirgwin about the Declaration of Open Government, the Privacy Commissioner’s findings on the Google Street View Wi-Fi incident, and how the Pirate Party fell at the first hurdle. Also, Internode’s John Lindsay explains the class action they and iiNet are involved with concerning Testra’s wholesale ADSL2+ pricing, and Steve Chung, consultant at Ruckus Wireless, talks about Wi-Fi privacy.

Media Appearances

[Photo: Paddy Maguire’s Hotel“, at the corner of George and Hay Streets, Haymarket, Sydney, taken from a bus window on 23 July 2010.]

Disoriented concrete giraffe

Photograph of a concrete giraffe on Dixon Street, Sydney

Why, exactly, is this confused-looking concrete giraffe in Dixon Street, the heart of Sydney’s Chinatown?

It’s not like they have giraffes in China. It’s not like there’s a giraffe in the Chinese zodiac. It’s not like giraffes are a good-luck charm or anything. WFT? Please explain!