pornography – Stilgherrian

20 December 201919 January 2020

The 9pm Arch Window of the Self-Pleasuring Breakdown of Reality

Screenshot of of Donald Trump on TV

This episode it’s all about the year that was 2019, as it dissolves in unreality and disappears in a cloud of bushfire smoke.

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11 September 201524 September 2015

Algorithms and the Filter Bubble references for 2015

This morning I delivered version six of my now-regular guest lecture to media students at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), “Algorithms and the Filter Bubble”. Here are the references and further reading.

The links over the fold start off with some background material that sets out my worldview, and then things are in roughly the same order as presented in the lecture — with the order becoming less coherent further down the page. There’s more material linked here than I mentioned in the lecture itself. Enjoy.

A recording of the lecture will be made available ~~in roughly one week~~ ~~on Wednesday 23 September~~ on Friday 25 September, as the change in Prime Minister has triggered the demand for some of my commentary. This page may be updated with further links at that time.

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02 September 201202 September 2012

Weekly Wrap 116: Porn, planes and presentations

Here’s my week Monday 20 to Sunday 26 August 2012. Once more it’s nothing but the facts, ma’am, because I’m so far behind in these posts.

Podcasts

Patch Monday episode 151, “Porn industry innovates itself to death”, a conversation with Jeff Sparrow about his new book, Money Shot: a journey into porn and censorship.
In a surprise to me as much as to you, The 9pm Edict episode 21 appeared.

Articles

Anonymous hacks Sony again, except no they didn’t, CSO Online, 20 August 2012.
Samsung’s unremarkable copy shop, Technology Spectator, 24 August 2012. The Samsung Experience Store opened in the same block of Sydney’s George Street as the Apple Store, making comparisons inevitable

Media Appearances

On Monday afternoon I was quoted in Margaret Gee’s post, Twitter and journalism — where does the reporting end? Would anyone like me to expand on these thoughts?
On Tuesday there was my usual spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio, this time about the potential collapse of Facebook and the entire second dotcom bubble.
On Saturday I spoke at Consilium about the way the internet is changing power relationships. I’ll be posting the audio once I’ve obtained permission from the participants I namechecked, as the event was held under a modified Chatham House Rule.

Corporate Largesse

On Wednesday I attended the launch party for the Samsung Experience Store in Sydney, where of course they provided food and drink.
On Thursday through Saturday I attended Consilium at the Palmer Coolum Resort on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The Centre for Independent Studies covered by flight from Sydney to Sunshine Coast, accommodation, food and drink, a limousine from the resort to Brisbane airport, and a flight back to Sydney — but I wasn’t paid for my appearance at the event.
On Sunday I flew from Sydney via Los Angeles to San Francisco to attend the VMworld event at VMware’s expense. I’ll list all of the freebies from that event on the next Weekly Wrap.

[Photo: View from Millers Point, taken from my room at The Sebel Pier One Hotel in Sydney. On the left is Pier 2/3, and across Sydney Harbour is Harry Seidler’s controversial Blues Point Tower.]

Flame gets me talking cyberwar worms on The Project

The Flame worm seems to have captured the imagination of the mainstream media this week — to the point where I ended up talking about it on the Channel TEN program The Project on Tuesday night.

If you’re not up to speed yet, try my day one piece for Crikey then my day two piece for CSO Online — the latter having been written after we’d all calmed down a bit.

As you can see, I’ve uploaded the relevant video clip to YouTube because I can’t seem to get the official embed code from The Project’s website to work properly. If that YouTube embed isn’t working either, you can view the segment on YouTube. Or watch the entire program segment on The Project’s website.

Yes, The Project team really did manage to turn a discussion of cyberwar into a joke about masturbating to internet pornography. It’s a talent.

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03 June 201203 June 2012

Talking about the “Dark Web” on ABC News 24

This morning I was interviewed by ABC News 24 about the “Dark Web”, a term Fairfax news outlets used earlier this week in a story headlined The new underbelly. Since I was at the event in Sydney that triggered the writing of that story, I was happy to tone down some of the hype-scare.

By the “Dark Web” they meant things like Silk Road, a marketplace for all manner of illegality, and the Tor anonymity network that allows Silk Road to hide… somewhere.

I’ll update this post later today to include links to the other things I discussed with presenter Andrew Geoghegan.

If the embedded video doesn’t work for you, you can watch it over on YouTube.

This is a rough copy of the video for now. I’ll upload a better version as soon as it becomes available, though that’ll still have me staring mindlessly into the distance as I’m being introduced. Sigh. The footage is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.