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Weekly Wrap 205: Productivity reigns again, bringing joy

12 May 2014 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week of Monday 5 to Sunday 11 May 2014 was another productive one again, which is a pleasant happenstance.

Articles

No invasion of privacy law under current government: Information Commissioner, ZDNet Australia, 8 May 2014.
Dropbox drops the security notification ball, again, ZDNet Australia, 8 May 2014.

Podcasts

The resurrection of The 9pm Edict has continued to be delayed by the continuing self-satire of the Australian government and my own busy schedule. Once it had overflowed its original allocated slot in my work plan, it’s had to wait until everything more time-critical is out of the way. We’ve nearly reached that point.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke about digital privacy on ABC 891 Adelaide.
Also on Monday, I spoke about internet security on 2SER’s “The Wire”.
On Tuesday I spoke about digital metadata on 3RRR’s “Spoke”.
Also on Tuesday, I spoke about mobile app privacy on radio 2MFM.
On Wednesday I spoke about online theft on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide.

5at5

Only two this week. But why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.

5at5 number 46, 8 May 2013.
5at5 number 47, 9 May 2013.

Corporate Largesse

On Monday I covered the iappANZ Gilbert + Tobin Privacy Breakfast Debate, held at the offices of law firm Gilbert + Tobin. Breakfast was provided.
On Wednesday I went to the launch of new research on security and the Internet of Things by AVG Technologies. This was done over lunch at the Bentley Restaurant & Bar at Sydney’s Radisson Blu Hotel. I had the pork cheek with garlic and yoghurt purée, radicchio and jamon, and the Moreton Bay bugs and snapper in seafood broth plus a side of vegetables.
On Friday night I went to the Optus IT Journalism Awards (the “Lizzies”) at Luna Park, where there was of course food and much wine. The sponsors were Optus, Watterson Marketing Communication, Epson and NEC Australia.
On Saturday I began an expedition to the United States to cover NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference in San Jose. They’re covering flights, transport, accommodation, and quite a bit of food and drink, as well as various extra-curricular activities. I’ll provide the full list in the next Weekly Wrap once it’s all over.

The Week Ahead

As I write this, it’s already Monday in Australia, but it’s still Sunday morning here in San Francisco. This afternoon NetSuite is taking us on a tour of the Sonoma Valley, visiting the Cline and Gloria Ferrer wineries, then returning to San Francisco for pre-dinner drinks and “a special surprise guest” at Cafe Tosca in North Beach and dinner at the Americano Restaurant.

On Monday we make the journey to San Jose, with a meet-and-and-greet cocktail party in the evening. SuiteWorld proper then runs Tuesday to Thursday, with the evening events including dinner at the Thomas Fogarty Winery on Tuesday and the conference party on Wednesday.

On Friday I plan to catch the Caltrain back to San Francisco, recording part of the next episode of The 9pm Edict en route. My schedule is then open through to Sunday night, when I catch a late evening flight back to Sydney.

[Photo: Touchdown San Francisco, the view from United Airlines flight UA870 as it was about to touch down at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on Saturday 10 May 2014.]

Weekly Wrap 200: Banksia, rain and a little work

06 April 2014 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week of Monday 31 March to Sunday 6 April 2014 has definitely seen the beginnings of some sort of return to normality, despite the almost continuous dreary weather.

I won’t go on about that, however because I don’t want to jinx it. I’ll just list the stuff.

Articles

Plibersek loses our privacy in a haystack of envelopes, ZDNet Australia, 31 March 2014. A reader emailed me to say this column was “annoying and juvenile”, which I have taken as a compliment.
Cyber criminals are out-spending the defenders two to one: HP, ZDNet Australia, 4 April 2014.

Media Appearances

On Monday I had a brief chat about identity, security and the concept of federated ID on ABC 105.7 Darwin.
On Tuesday I spoke about Facebook’s disturbing new “Big Cat” technology on ABC 702 Sydney, technology that can detect when it’s likely that your partner is cheating on you. Scary stuff. You should listen.

5at5

I managed to pump one out every weekday this week, which hasn’t happened in a while. I think it’s about time for you to subscribe, if you haven’t already done so.

5at5 number 24, 31 March 2013.
5at5 number 5×5, 1 April 2013.
5at5 number 26, 2 April 2013.
5at5 number 27, 3 April 2013.
5at5 number 28, 4 April 2013.

Corporate Largesse

On Wednesday I went to a briefing session by HP Enterprise Security Services at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney, where a lovely afternoon tea was served — although I’d had a big lunch, so didn’t really taste much of it.

The Week Ahead

On Monday I’m presenting an updated version of my guest lecture at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) at 1000, and that means it’s an early start. I’m catching an 0636 train from Wentworth Falls, arriving at Sydney Central at 0817. I could catch a later train, but I want to grab a bite to eat before meeting the course coordinator for coffee at 0900. Plus I want to allow for the possibility of delays. My Twitter stream should be fun that morning, for some value of fun.

If you want to take me to lunch on Monday, or otherwise catch up, now is the time to stake your claim.

~~I have another morning gig in Sydney on Tuesday, a meeting at 1045, so it looks like I’ll be spending plenty of time on trains over the next couple of days.~~

Then on Wednesday it’s an 0845 start in Sydney for the Amazon Web Services Sydney Summit. Ideally I’d stay in Sydney overnight from Tuesday, but the early-month cashflows look like they won’t permit that. Stay tunes for updates, however.

[Update 12 April 2014: Those two trips to Sydney didn’t happen — and it’s a good thing they got cancelled, because once the Heartbleed security bug was announced on Wednesday my time, I was flat out on work related to that, Expect plenty of updates over the next 72 hours.]

The rest of the week and the weekend, including what will be written when, has yet to be mapped out. That will depend very much on what I manage to get done in the next 48 hours.

[Photo: Banksia in the Mist, photographed at Bunjaree Cottages on 4 April 2014.]

Weekly Wrap 199: Lost in the mist and the rain

31 March 2014 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week of Monday 25 to Sunday 30 March 2014 has been and gone. It wasn’t very productive, but I’m going to zoom forward quickly for reasons that may become obvious in the next day or two.

I should mention that pretty much everything that last week I said I’d do this week didn’t actually happen. Shoosh.

Articles

None.

Media Appearances

None

5at5

Two days, plus a correction. There’s nothing more that needs be said in this section but, because I think it looks ugly when I have so many short paragraphs in a row, I’m going to waffle on here for a few more words so that the right-hand margin is once more established visually. Because I care.

5at5 number 22, 24 March 2013.
5at5 number 22A, 24 March 2013.
5at5 number 23, 28 March 2013.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

Monday has already happened, and was moderately productive. I did a thing for ZDNet Australia, Plibersek loses our privacy in a haystack of envelopes, amongst other things.

Tuesday is a day of writing and planning here in the misty, rainy Blue Mountains. The near-continual gloom, coming somewhat early this year it seems, hasn’t exactly helped my mood.

On Wednesday I’m heading into Sydney for a media briefing about HP Enterprise Services and their security work — and probably staying overnight. And the rest of the week is only tentatively planned.

I will say that tomorrow, 1 April, sees the start of a new quarter, and I’ve got a few things in mind. Stay tuned. There may be charts. There may even be announcements.

[Photo: Bunjaree Cottages track in the mist, 24 March 2014. Even though the rain screws with my mood, it does look beautiful here at Bunjaree Cottages.]

Weekly Wrap 192: Calm, too calm, too quiet

10 February 2014 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week of Monday 3 to Sunday 9 February 2014 was, as I predicted last week, a quiet one, thanks to what now appears to be a distinct monthly cycle. We shall have to do something about that.

I shan’t list all the empty sections to this post, revealing that there weren’t any final media outputs — except of course for the daily 5at5 email letter, as I’m calling it. Why I started doing a new thing that generates no revenue is beyond my understanding. I mean, I explained it last week, but the explanation doesn’t make any sense.

However I did do quite a bit of preparation for the coming week…

The Week Ahead

I’m likely to be in the Blue Mountains through until Friday or Saturday, but as always that might change at very short notice.

There’s two key structuring events this week. On Wednesday I’m moderating a panel discussion on Australia’s new privacy laws for Hitachi Data Systems. That’s at 1200 AEDT, and it’s a Google Hangout so you can watch from wherever you are. And on Sunday I’m heading to the Gold Coast for the annual Kickstart Forum, where my tech press co-conspirators and I will be propagandised for three days.

Somewhere in there I may construct some paragraphs for money.

Weekly Wrap 152: LulzSec, Optus, radio and thinking stuff

05 May 2013 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week Monday 29 April to Sunday 5 May 2013 began gently, with planning and washing and other chores, and just two articles to write. But by Wednesday night I’d also done four radio spots, washed an infinite number of towels, and eaten most of a sheep.

Or so it felt.

Then Thursday was full of the Optus Vision 2013 conference, followed by a late train journey back to the Blue Mountains. It was tough to get into work mode on Friday, but I did, and wrote my second article. And washed more towels. And then on Saturday I did the full sloth.

But the most important part of the week, at least in the long term, was all the time I spent from Friday onwards thinking about the unexpected good news I mentioned last week. It means that I’ll soon be able to work on some projects that have been sitting on the back burner, and you’ll start to see them emerging over the next few weeks.

Articles

Both of these articles resulted from this week’s Privacy Awareness Week activities.

Australia’s Privacy Commissioner gets serious about infosec, CSO Online, 30 April 2013.
The fuzzy logic of Australia’s data breach draft, ZDNet Australia, 3 May 2013.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke about Facebook’s possible decline, maybe, on ABC 774 Melbourne.
On Tuesday I spoke about LulzSec and hacktivism generally in an interview for Triple J’s Hack, and I was frustrated by the result.
On Wednesday morning I spoke about the dark web (ugh!) and the attacks on Silk Road on ABC Gold Coast.
On Wednesday I spoke about LulzSec and more on ABC Radio National’s Download This Show.

Corporate Largesse

On Thursday I attended Optus Vision 2013, which meant I was fed food and drink through the day at their expense.

The Week Ahead

I plan to write a story each for Technology Spectator, CSO Online and ZDNet, at the very least, as well as kick off one or more of these new projects. Stay tuned.

It’s my birthday on Thursday, but I’ll just have a quiet drink that night. I’ll head to Sydney on Friday instead and have a proper birthday dinner then, thanks to the Snarky Platypus. I’ll then stay overnight before catching United Airlines flight UA870 to San Francisco on Saturday afternoon, arriving there on Saturday morning.

Saturday night and Sunday day should be free time in San Francisco before, I’m guessing, a social function on Sunday evening serves as prelude to NetSuite’s SuiteWorld. The event proper starts on Monday in San Jose.

[Photo: Changing alphabets, a photograph taken at Optus Vision 2013 once the staffing level of the registration desk had been reduced during the afternoon, and then the desks themselves removed.]

Weekly Wrap 108: June lull not lulz

02 July 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Here’s a quick wrap of my week from Monday 25 June to Sunday 1 July 2012, mostly so the media output is documented. I won’t bother with a photo for now.

Podcasts

None. Long story, which I’ve started writing a post about. Stay tuned.

Articles

Prepare yourself for more Dropbox-like security disasters, CSO Online, 25 June 2012.
‘It’s how we connect': Telstra and the spy sites mystery, Crikey, 27 June 2012. So Telstra had been monitoring the web browsing of its Next G mobile customers and reporting it to an overseas company, Netsweeper? Bonus.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. In the last week of the financial year everything goes very, very quiet.

The Week Ahead

With Bunjaree Cottages booked out for most of the school holidays, I’m lurking in a SEKRIT location in Sydney. Work plods along in the background. It’s nothing very exciting.

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 (or they used to before my phone camera got a bit too scratched up) and via Instagram. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags. Yes, I should probably update this stock paragraph to match the current reality.

ABC Radio Statewide NSW, third spot

03 December 2009 in Human Nature, Internet, Media, Privacy by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

I joined presenter Paul Turton on ABC Radio’s Statewide for our third chat about things Internettish on Tuesday afternoon.

This week, we talked about privacy. What are the real risks online? How easy is it for people to find out about you? What should you tell your kids, and how safe are they?

The program isn’t streamed on the Internet, but I did another cheap-arsed recording using my MacBook Pro’s built-in microphone. The audio is below — and the shit quality is my fault, not the ABC’s.

Statewide is broadcast on ABC Local Radio throughout NSW from 1600 to 1800 weekdays, except in Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and wherever else they have their own local drive-time program. I’m joining Paul every Tuesday afternoon at 1615 through until 15 December.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:01 — 11.5MB)

Subscribe: iTunes | RSS

[The radio interview is probably Copyright © 2009 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but since they don’t archive them I reckon it’s fair enough putting it here provided you just listen to it and I link back to Statewide and encourage you to listen.]

Links for 22 October 2009 through 27 October 2009

01 November 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | 2 comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 22 October 2009 through 27 October 2009, published after far too long a break. I really, really do need to work out a better way of doing this…

Nature Child | San Juan Islander: “According to family studies professor, Sandra Hofferth of the University of Maryland, there was a 50% decline between 1997 to 2003 in the proportion of children 9 to 12 who spent time in outdoor activities (hiking, walking, fishing, beach play and gardening).”
FreeRangeKids: “At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail.”
How far did you roam as a child? | Watershed: Educator John Larkin continues the thoughts about wrapping our kids in cotton wool.
How children lost the right to roam in four generations | Mail Online: In 1919, an 8yo was allowed to walk six miles to go fishing. Today, an 8yo isn’t allowed past the end of the street without parental escort. This article from 2007 triggered many thoughts, and I’ve glad I found it again.
Forget the young pretenders, Humans 1.0 can lead the way | The Observer: John Naughton riffs off the idea that teenagers don’t know everything and some parts of cyberspace (ugh!) are teenager-free. Although the article then says that “only” 11% of Twitter’s users are under 17 years old. And what proportion of the literate population is under 17yo? 11%? More? Less?
Podcasting Equipment Guide (2009) | Hivelogic: A nice guide to the tools needed to podcast on a budget. Yes, there’s a reason I’m looking at this. Stay tuned, as they say.
Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network | Parliament of Australia: Full transcripts of the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network public hearings, which I’m tagging for my own reference later.
What Information is “Personally Identifiable”? | Electronic Frontier Foundation: Gender, ZIP code and birth date are enough to uniquely identify about 87% of the US population. This has massive implications for publishing data sets, and for privacy policies that claim not to collect “personally identifiable” information.
Nine News twittered by seagull | TV Tonight: It’s nothing to do with Twitter, but there is a seagull. A very big seagull.
Apology for singing shop worker | BBC News: Shop assistant Sandra Burt, 56, from Clackmannanshire, was threatened with a fine for singing without a license by the Performing Right Society. However they’ve now apologised and sent flowers.
Online Ads Not Working for You? Blame the Creative | Advertising Age: A study by Dynamic Logic says that obsession about optimisation and placement is less important.
We can’t turn back the tide of internet piracy, says TV boss | Herald Scotland: “Internet piracy is merely demand where appropriate supply does not exist,” says the commissioning editor for education at the UK’s Channel 4.
Court tweets sustained but paper still lurks | ZDNet Australia: Liam Tung, who tweeted from the AFACT v iiNet trial in the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney, reflects on the gaps in courtroom IT.
Beats and Tweets: Journalistic Guidelines for the Facebook Era | NPR: Yet another exploration of ethics an journalism. One point in here I really do not like, though: “You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.” Sorry? Work for NPR and you lose your right to participate in democracy?
Poles, Politeness and Politics in the age of Twitter | The New Adventures of Stephen Fry: Another fine if perhaps rambling essay from Mr Fry about the meaning of “influence” and accidentally gaining same. Worth a leisurely read.
Why journalism's all a-Twitter | The Walkley Foundation: The editorial chief of Sydney’s forthcoming Media140 conference goes beyond the obvious “Is Twitter journalism?” and mechanical how-to issues and explores the ethical issues of journalists using Twitter.
Twitter in the court: Federal judge gets it | CNET News: Another article about using Twitter in courtrooms, from the US an from March 2009.
Call For Opinions | Blackbeard Blog: Tom Ewing’s collection of opinions on market research and social media, “quite unsupported by anything other than grumpiness and prejudice”. The first is that “insights” aren’t Zen koans. “If you can express something that briefly, it’s probably banal.”
The internet doesn’t exist | Business Spectator: Ah, Alan Kohler! I do so love your commentaries! Here’s more of his sensible thoughts on the matter of paying for “content” on the Internet.
How Safe is the HPV vaccine? | Information Is Beautiful: A brilliantly simple infographic showing the incredibly low risk of associated with the Human Papillomavirus compared with various everyday activities.
Ultimate Goat Fansite: Do I need to explain? I thought not.

Links for 15 October 2009 through 19 October 2009

20 October 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | Permalink

Stilgherrian’s links for 15 October 2009 through 19 October 2009, gathered with bile and soaked in vinegar:

50 Years of Space Exploration | Flickr: A brilliant infographic summarising interplanetary exploration. In an excellent demonstration of Chaos, the landing on asteroid 443 Eros is accidentally tagged as “443 Eris”. All hail Discordia!
They Shoot Porn Stars Don’t They: Susannah Breslin’s fascinating and somewhat challenging feature article on the recession-hit US porn industry.
ISP in file-sharing wi-fi theft | BBC News: UK ISP TalkTalk staged a wireless stunt, illustrating why it thinks Lord Mandelson’s plans to disconnect illegal file sharers is “naive”. It’s easy to blame others just by hacking WiFi connections.
Prince Philip tussles with technology | ABC News: This story is a few days old, however I found it curious that a perfectly good story about the design of technology was tagged as “offbeat” and the teaser written to make Prince Phillip look like a silly old man.
NPR News Staff Social Media Policy: Another example of a good corporate social media policy. There’s plenty of these policies around now, so there’s no excuse for any big organisation not to have caught up.
Federal Court of Australia Judgements: Some judgements have been recorded on video. “The Court is keen to continue to improve public access with the use of live streaming video/audio. Further live and archived broadcasts of judgement summaries are posted on this page as they become available.”
Televised Patel trial an Australian first | ABC News: The trial of Dr Jayent Patel for manslaughter to be held in a Brisbane court will be shown in Bundaberg, where the deaths happened, via closed-circuit TV. Given this “local interest”, one wonders why it couldn’t also be available anywhere there were interested parties.
Vivian Maier – Her Discovered Work: Maier was a Chicago street photographer from the 1950s to 1970s who died earlier this year. Some 40,000 negatives have been found, and they’e now being blogged.
100 years of Big Content fearing technology — in its own words | Ars Technica: Copyright-holders have objected to pretty much every advance in media technology, it seems.
Mac Sales Spike When A New Version Of Windows Comes Out | Business Insider: A curious interpretation of the figures, but they reckon that when Microsoft releases a new version of Windows it drives people to buy Macs instead.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Coming War on Bloggers | Valleywag: While I normally don’t read Valleyway, I caught someone mentioning this article and was caught by one useful new term: conceptual gerrymandering. If the US FTC wants to give tax breaks to “news organisations” they’ll have to define what they are. Could it be old journalists versus bloggers battle writ large?

Links for 30 September 2009 through 13 October 2009

12 October 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | 2 comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 30 September 2009 through 13 October 2009, gathered automatically but then left to languish for two weeks before publication.

There’s so many of these links this time that I’ll publish them over the fold. I think I need to get over my fear of the link being published automatically without my checking them first, and my concern that my website won’t look nice if the first post is just a list of links.

Maybe I should just stick these Delicious-generated links in a sidebar? Or do you like having them in the main stream and RSS feed?

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