Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
Planet Earth is dissolving into a replay of the Middle Ages. Crusader Rabbit is off his leash, with more mouth foam than a rabid dog full of dishwashing liquid.
In this podcast, there’s talk of cybercrime, civilisation, sodomy, and probing up the jaxie. Nicholas Fryer ponders the strange days of Australian politics. And there’s just a little too much information about teapots.
Continue reading “The 9pm Garden of Hate”
My week of Monday 19 to Sunday 25 October 2015 didn’t unfold as planned, except for the fact that it concluded with me heading to Melbourne to cover Ruxcon. That bit did happen.
The photograph is misleading, therefore. Those relaxing moments at St Kilda, Melbourne, were a tiny minority of those seven days — and they only happened on Saturday night because I’d started suffering microsleeps during the afternoon, and I went back to the hotel for a nap.
Still, I wrote two articles that have been very well received — thank you — and most of the targets were eventually achieved.
None, again, but a new episode of The 9pm Edict will appear… eventually. No, it will. Truly.
Should 5at5 eventually reappear, you’ll know about it if you subscribe.
On Monday (today), I’m sorting out all my audio recordings from Ruxcon, organising a few more recordings, and probably writing for ZDNet, before a live radio spot at 1930 AEDT on ABC 774 Melbourne.
On Tuesday, I’ll be doing a few more media things in Melbourne before catching VA865 MEL-SYD at 1645 AEDT. Whether I return directly to Wentworth Falls after that, or pause a while in Sydney, is yet to be decided.
The remainder of the week will see me writing a column for ZDNet, producing an episode of The 9pm Edict, finally finishing the video of my UTS lecture, and doing some pre-production for my Future Tense documentary — but the exact order has yet to be arranged.
I am determined that the coming weekend will contain no work.
[Photo: St Kilda Dusk, photographed on Saturday 24 October 2015.]
We recorded it on Monday afternoon, and it was posted today. It’s the latest episode of Mark Pesce’s podcast TWISTA: This Week In Startups Australia.
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Here’s how he introduces it on the web:
A huge pivot toward startups and innovation by Malcolm Turnbull, huge policy outcomes from Wyatt Roy’s Policy Hack event, a huge IPO from Australia’s most-beloved tech startup, Atlassian, a huge new $200M fund from Blackbird ventures, and huge issues with diversity still plague tech. TWISTA’s huge news special pairs SCALE Investors managing director Laura McKenzie and Austrlia’s snarkiest tech journo, Stilgherrian, with the biggest news issues in our biggest news special yet!
There’s rather a lot about Turnbull, actually, including a couiple of disturbing mental images.
For more details, check out the podcast Tumblr.
[Photo: Laura McKenzie, Mark Pesce and Stilgherrian in the recording studio, photographed by Felix Warmuth, who was our sound engineer.]
As the working week came to a close on Friday, news was spreading that Australia’s new PM Malcolm Turnbull has been using a “private” email address for some of his official communications — a situation, it was said, was similar to that of Hillary Clinton when she was US Secretary of State.
It’s not quite the same. Clinton’s people had rolled their own email service, whereas Turnbull had used a commercially-available service — it looks like it was Microsoft’s Outlook.com as resold by NetRegistry. But the concerns were the same. Was it secure? And was it being properly archived as required by law?
Don’t assume government email is more secure than private email, Turnbull said. But the archive question never seemed to get as much traction.
I spoke about some of these issues on ABC 720 Perth with Jamie Burnett.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.4MB)
This audio is ©2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Australia’s new PM Lord Wentworth has some tips for interpersonal success. Nicholas Fryer has some tips for frustrated parents. And there’s nothing — absolutely nothing — about last weekend’s football finals, or this weekend’s motor racing.
In this podcast, there’s talk of resilience, hallucinating goldfish, electric eels, economics, and squid jism.
Continue reading “The 9pm We Are Above All That Stuff”
My 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.
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.
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.
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.
The were four editions of 5at5, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Why not subscribe so you’ll get all the future ones?
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.
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.]