Links for 19 March 2009 through 28 March 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 19 March 2009 through 29 March 2009, posted not-quite-automatically in a great lump for your weekend reading pleasure:

I really must think of a better way of doing this…

Links for 16 March 2009 through 22 March 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 16 March 1009 through 22 March 2009, posted automatically.

  • Web of secrecy | ABC Unleashed: Mark Pesce’s essay on the leaking of the Internet censorship blacklist this week.
  • Chinese fight internet censors with “Grass Mud Horse”; cuddly toy | Times Online: Chinese Internet users have been fighting back at the censors with a children’s character, Grass Mud Horse, whose name in Chinese sounds just like a curse, but with a different tone. He’s fighting the evil River Crabs, who sound almost like the forces of “Harmony”, the Chinese euphemism for censorship. The result has been the ludicrous concept trying to ban a children’s character and stuffed toy for being subversive.
  • Unlocking IP 2009 Conference: “National and International Dimensions of the Commons” | UNSW: The Conference will explore the national and global dimensions of the copyright public domain, drawing on the Project’s research to provide a structure for further discussion. It will bring together a range of eminent local and international scholars from the field, as well as showcasing notable Australian achievements in the copyright public domain. The Conference will be structured to some extent around key themes in the 2008 Submission by project researchers Unlocking IP to Stimulate Australian Innovation — An Issues Paper, made to the Australian government’s Review of the National Innovation System.
  • Stilgherrian on Lateline | TwitPic: I look rather scary when appearing later than life on someone’s 42-inch TV.
  • Mandatory internet filtering. It’s not a debate. | Wazzapedia: In summary: The pro-filter lobby are offering a solution to the “problem”. It’s not enough for the anti-censorship campaign to demolish their argument — if we don’t start offering an alternative workable solution as part of our strategy, we will ultimately fail.
  • Govts website black list leaked on internet | Lateline: I appeared on Thursday night’s ABC TV program Lateline as part of a report on the leaking of a secret blacklist of naughty websites.
  • Blog, Podcast, Vodcast and Wiki Copyright Guide for Australia | CCI: I think the title explains it all. A handy reference for everyone, it’d seem!
  • Social Collider: Whatever this visualisation is visualising about my Twitterstrean, it’s pretty. I’ll come back to this later.
  • World War II: If Maps Could Fight | Strange Maps: A cartoon and cartographic interpretation of World War II by artist Angus McLeod.
  • Metropolitan Skin | Out to Space: Some of ’Pong’s photos are in this this exhibition on the video displays at Sydney’s World Square (George Street) through to 25 March. Also featured are images by Robert McGrath and Vitek Skonieczny .

Links for 11 March 2009 through 18 March 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 11 March 2009 through 18 March 2009, posted after considerable delay in some cases:

Links for 23 February 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 23 February 2009, posted with a headache and gin.

  • Winners gallery 2009 | World Press Photo: What it says. As always, some very fine photojournalism.
  • Twitter is the new cat poo | First Blog on the Moon: Crikey cartoonist First Dog on the Moon has written a brilliant piece about Twitter and what might be called Twitterwhoring. Something he’s rather good at himself.
  • Victorian Bushfire Events | Premier of Victoria, Australia: A map of local fundraising events for the Victorian bushfires, the worst natural disaster in Australia’s history, put together with help from a little firm called Google.
  • Crisis of Credit : clusterflock: A nice animated film by Jonathan Jarvis showing how we got into the Global Financial Crisis. Some people have called is a “visualisation”. It’s not, as the imagery isn’t a proper mapping of the data, but it does help explain.
  • Where Clive Hamilton accuses me of trying to silence him | Websinthe: A bizarre story, this. Clive Hamilton confuses a call for better accountability with an attempt to silence him. It’d be funny, except that Hamilton gets unfettered access to major media in Australia, wrapping himself in a university’s cloak of respectability as he makes his pronouncements, and then proceeds to ignore the valid criticisms put to him.
  • ‘Sexting’, teen culture, technology, scandal | Salon Life: “What’s more disturbing — that teens are texting each other naked pictures of themselves, or that it could get them branded as sex offenders for life?” Apart from portraying sexually healthy youths as “hormonally haywire teenagers” and a few other tabloid clichés, this article clearly outlines the problem of current child pornography laws in the context of pervasive digital media.

Links for 15 February 2009 through 16 February 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 15 February 2009 through 16 February 2009, gathered with fresh rainwater and love:

Links for 20 January 2009 through 24 January 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 20 January 2009 through 24 January 2009:

  • VPNOut: “VPNOut provides secure and anonymous VPN access that can break through firewalls.” And past censorship.
  • Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator Video | YouTube: A remarkable “concept video” looking at how we might use computers and the Internet in “the future”, i.e. now.
  • EGovernment nets most callers: survey | PS News: A Department of Finance and Deregulation survey has found more Australians now contact the Government via the internet than they do by phone or in person.
  • Cursebird: What the f#@! is everyone swearing about?: Apparently on Twitter I swear “like a George Carlin Wannabe”. I’m ranked 355th in the world, putting me in the very top percentile. I wonder what the stats would look like for Australians only?
  • 7 Steps To Build A Startup From Scratch With No Money | YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog: What it says.
  • Dark Dungeons | Chick Publications: This book from a well-established evangelistic Christian publisher, points out the evils of role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
  • Obituary: Sir John Mortimer | guardian.co.uk: Geoffrey Robertson’s obituary of Sir John Mortimer, creator of fictional lawyer Rumpole of the Bailey and a decent lawyer in his own right. Apparently in his youth Mortimer “encountered with interest the bookshop-owning lesbians who had taken opium with Cocteau, and a prim, elderly lady who had, in her youth, urinated regularly upon pioneering sexologist Havelock Ellis.” Goodness me.
  • Schapelle Corby Tour: “My name is Eddie Hutauruk and I have been running tours in Bali for over 8 years. Schapelle Corby Tours is our latest venture, and is fully respectful of Schapelle and her situation… Schapelle Corby is a convicted Australian drug runner, and my tours allow people to see Schapelle in her cage at Kerobokan Prison in Bali. Tours can be arranged for most days of the week and pick-up is possible from most Bali hotels.” Very clever.
  • Folk Devils and Internet Safety | Daithí mac Sithigh’s blog on cyberlaw & media law: Another view on the report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force which said, amongst other things, that the risks of bullying online are far more important that worrying about the rare instances of adults soliciting for sex.
  • A chat with Fake Stephen Conroy | ZDNet Australia: What is says. Rather amusing, I reckon. And no, I am not Fake Stephen Conroy. But I have my suspicions about who it really is…