Tag: radio

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Talking NBN on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

Willunga, just south of Adelaide, is one of the first mainland locations to be getting the National Broadband Network’s optical fibre. On Thursday I spoke with radio 1395 FIVEaa’s Mark Aiston and Jane Reilly about the NBN and what it’ll mean for consumers.

I must admit, I was a little surprised when they didn’t follow up the obvious feed I gave them to cover the criticisms of the NBN. But then again, whenever I talk about the NBN to anyone outside inner city Sydney and Melbourne the response is the same, “Bring it on!”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:43 — 4.9MB)

This audio is ©2011 dmgRadio Australia, but since they don’t post many of their live interviews I’m doing their job for them. Besides, it’s not as if I get paid, and it’s not as if this ain’t a decent plug for them.

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Everyday Photographs, Extraordinary Journeys

Some months back the photos at the start of my 50 to 50 series of blog posts triggered a conversation with Verity Chambers, photo editor at the Sydney Morning Herald.

That fed into her conversations with photographer Mike Bowers. And that in turn has resulted in the project Everyday Photographs, Extraordinary Journeys at ABC 666 Canberra.

Because it’s so easy to take photos now, most of us have more than we know what to do with.

We snap images on our digital cameras or smart phones, email them to friends, post them on Facebook, share them on Flickr and tweet them to the universe.

But do these digital images have the same power or meaning as a photo carefully preserved in an album, framed on the wall or carried around in a wallet?

Photographer Mike Bowers has come up with the idea of asking 666 listeners to share a particular photo you’ve treasured over the years.

On Tuesday, Mike and I spoke on the wireless with the ABC’s Louise Maher, and here’s a recording. Mike tells the story of his photos, and me mine.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:01 — 7.0MB)

My childhood photos are over at Flickr. I’m about to upload one to the ABC website. It’d be great if you added yours, because so far the contributions are a bit sparse.

[Photo: That’s me (embiggen) sitting on my father’s lap, aged six weeks. For the background, please read 50 to 50 #1: Born in Gawler. Audio: Obviously that’s ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but since they don’t archive all their live interviews we’ll have to do their job for them.]

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Busy week, much media, and some changes

What a week! I’ve written five articles. Another two are due for Monday. I’ve done my usual Patch Monday podcast. I’ve done five radio appearances on five different topics. I’ve been interviewed for Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast, and that’ll appear next week.

I’ve even been interviewed by an anthropologist for his PhD project. I’m talking to a new editor about more writing. And even — this is weird — to a television production company about a TV project.

That all comes after a month or, really, six weeks or more of travel, intense work, intense and deeply personal events and the tightly-tangled ball of stress, depression and anxiety that can trigger. Which it did.

I’m knackered.

And there’s still plenty of work to do and decisions to make over the next couple of weeks.

I mention all this for a variety of reasons…

  • While I do have Weekly Wrap posts, I’ll also do individual posts linking to things like major articles and radio spots. This should make it easier for people to find things they’re interested in, and quite frankly it’s better Google juice. It also gives me more of an opportunity to reflect on each item — like adding a quick personal view to supplement a story that was a straight-news piece.
  • There’s about to be a flurry of small posts as I process the week’s radio spots. Consider that a warning.
  • I wanted to post at least part of the background before more reflective posts started appearing. I haven’t written much from a deeply personal perspective lately — certainly not like the essays that I was doing a couple years back. This is part of the head-clearing process before I return to that.

I write in so many places these days — ZDNet Australia, Crikey, Technology Spectator, ABC’s The Drum, even occasionally at places like CRN Australia. And, as I mentioned, there’s probably more to come. That’s all writing for other people.

This here is my place, and it’ll be about writing for me.

No, I’m not sure what form that’ll take.

I’m not sure what it even means.

Do those bullet points flow from the intro? No, not really. But that’s where my head is this morning. I’m sure things will become clearer as the day unfolds.

[Photo: That’s me (embiggen) photographed with my webcam just now at Rosella Cottage, the somewhat bigger house that’s the “family home” of the owners of Bunjaree Cottages. It isn’t normally rented out to punters. I’ve been here at the cottages alone for a week, and I haven’t bothered shaving. I’m staring to look like I did before ’Pong and I shot that short film The Shave back in 2008. It’s not a good look.]

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Weekly Wrap 54

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. It was a short week, thanks to the Queen’s Birthday public holiday and a severe toothache. Those events are unrelated. Mostly.

Podcasts

Articles

None. Not a single one. I know it was a short week thanks to the public holiday, and I know I had a toothache, but this will come back to haunt me.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

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: Tea Tree Cottage, one of the Bunjaree Cottages in the Blue Mountains where I’ve been living of late. I took this photo only this afternoon, when I discovered that the fire was still going from the punters last night.]

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Talking the cloud on ABC Radio Darwin 105.7

Apple wins again, it seems. They launch their iCloud service, and for the masses it’s the first time they’ve encountered cloud computing. So on Friday I ended up talking the cloud with Kate O’Toole on ABC Radio Darwin 105.7.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:55 — 5.8MB)

This material is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, of course, but given that I provide my time for free and they don’t make the effort to make it available online, it’s only reasonable that I put it here and plug Kate O’Toole’s excellent program.