Tag: malcolm turnbull

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Weekly Wrap 79: Rain, glitches and a cuckoo-dove

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. I have no further explanations to add.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 117, “Is anonymity online your right?” A conversation with Scott Shipman, eBay’s global privacy leader, about online reputation and trust, data breach-notification laws, the behavioural targeting of advertising, eBay’s AdChoice technology for controlling that targeting, some of the clever things you can do by data mining eBay’s sales data, and how you might create the online equivalent of an untraceable cash transaction.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • I was a panellist on the Technology Spectator “webinar” [ugh!] “Board with security?”, which looked at why company directors need to understand information security a bit better and how they might go about it. The recording hasn’t been posted online yet, but I’ll put a link here when it is.
  • On Thursday night I was interviewed by ABC Radio News about a report by the Australian Government Competitive Neutrality Complaints Office, part of the Productivity Commission, into claims that the National Broadband Network’s grenfields fibre rollouts breached certain government policies. Exciting stuff. Sound bites were used on Friday’s morning’s AM program in a story headlined Government brushes off NBN criticisms.

Corporate Largesse

None. And I thought there’d be a bunch of corporate parties this week. But I spent most of the week at Wentworth Falls instead.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: A slender-billed cuckoo-dove, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages in the Blue Mountains. There’s a lot of bird life up here.]

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Weekly Wrap 71: Mist, followed by Russian-sponsored beer

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — leaving out most of the embarrassing bits.

Podcasts

Articles

Media Appearances

None. Which is a nice change after last week.

Corporate Largesse

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Misty Morning at Bunjaree Cottages, which I think should be self-explanatory by now.]

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Weekly Wrap 63: I’m lichen it a lot

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This week was closer to normal than some others, assuming that I have normal weeks. And this post is only one day late.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 101, “There are no NBN apps: Turnbull”. Malcolm Turnbull discusses his Coalition plan for broadband.

Articles

Media Appearances

None. Well, my presentation at the Local Government Web Network conference on Thursday was sort of a media thing, but not quite. And in any event I will post the thing here some time later today.

Corporate Largesse

None. Again.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Lichen on the platform at Lawson station in the Blue Mountains, around 95km west of Sydney.]

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Patch Monday: There are no NBN apps: Turnbull

Last week I interviewed opposition spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull about his broadband policy, an alternative approach to Labor’s National Broadband Network (NBN) and I was surprised by one comment. Apparently he can’t see any real use for data speeds above 12 or 25Mbps.

“It’s certainly very difficult to think of many applications that are of interest to residential users that would not be perfectly well serviced by the speeds I’ve described,” Turnbull said.

I’d have thought there’s an application staring us right in the face. Video. Multiple streams of video, possibly in high definition, being sent as well as received.

I’ve written about this before at Technology Spectator. There’s a piece coming out at ABC’s The Drum soon, perhaps today. There’s a piece at ABC’s The Drum, Turnbull’s curious high-bandwidth blind spot. And the government has made a little film. But Mr Turnbull does not agree. Or so he says.

In any event, the conversation is well worth listening to, because he raises some excellent points about the NBN, not the least of which is that is you delay capital spending you can save a lot of money.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please let me know what you think. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Update 7.25am: Edited to include link to ABC piece.]

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Weekly Wrap 25

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and so on and so forth — and this week it seems like I’ve been consuming more food and drink than producing media.

Articles

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 66, “Inside the internet’s China syndrome”. A conversation with infosec specialist Crispin Harris about that story of China supposedly hijacking 15% of the world’s internet traffic for 18 minutes back in April. Needless to say, the story is somewhat of an exaggeration. I’m pleased with the opening montage on the program.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

With six bullet points in this section — four of them from the one day! — and it still being November, there’s clear evidence that my liver may not survive until the actual day of Christmas. Wish me luck.

  • The Australian Communication Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) fed me lunch while I gave them a briefing on the National Broadband Network on Tuesday. My largess to them is probably worth more than theirs to me.
  • I had cakes and other sweet items while attending the eCrime Symposium on Thursday. The organisers also gave me a bottle of Yering Station pinot noir.
  • AARNet paid for lunch at Est Restaurant while their CEO Chris Hancock gave us a briefing on their plans on Thursday.
  • Nate Cochrane, editor in chief for some of Haymarket Media’s mastheads in Australia including iTnews.com.au, bought me a couple of beers while we discussed the media industry in Australia and the future of journalism.
  • I popped into a drinks session being staged by Securis Global, and they bought me a couple of beers.
  • Continuing the busy Thursday, I went to the CBS Interactive Christmas Party at The Italian Village in The Rocks. ZDNet.com.au is one of their mastheads and I file stories for them, so I’m not sure if this actually counts. But someone from one of Microsoft’s PR firms bought me a double scotch, so that definitely counts.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: A platform sign at Erskineville station, Sydney. I have no idea why I took this photograph, so obviously you need to see it too.]

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Weekly Wrap 21

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets and in the media and places — and what a productive week it has been!

Articles

  • You know super-fast ain’t so super: Optus, and…
  • ACCC says Optus pitch is misleading, for ZDNet.com.au, both covering the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s case in the Federal Court in Sydney against Singtel Optus for allegedly misleading or deceptive advertising. I particularly like Optus’ lawyer saying that broadband is not a bottle of shampoo, and the argument that even if an advertisement is technically misleading in and of itself this can still be “cured” with more information later in the sales process. The judge’s decision is expected early in the coming week.
  • Turnbull v Conroy: how Coalition broadband plan stacks up, for Crikey, comparing the Coalition’s new broadband policy with the Labor government’s National Broadband Network.

Podcasts

Media Appearances

Geekery

Corporate Largesse

  • HTC threw a more-than-adequate BBQ with plenty of drinks for the Australian launch of the HTC Desire HD smartphone. The venue was the Astral Bar and Restaurant at Star City Casino.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Sydney CBD at dusk, taken from the Astral Bar and Restaurant on level 17 of the Star City Casino in Pyrmont.]