Weekly Wrap 75: eCrime, Canberra and a dead computer

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. This week included a visit to Canberra and the final death of my battered MacBook Pro.

The computer was three and a half years old, and has seen quite a few accidents. The biggie was doing a somersault down an asphalt road, bouncing off every corner and denting and warping the case. Another fall was only a cafe table leg, which dented the spine. After all that and plenty of other dents and scratches, the “9” and “delete” keys had failed and it tended to crash randomly if I picked it up carelessly.

This morning the motherboard finally gave out. I’m amazed it lasted this long. It has been replaced with a crisp new MacBook Pro.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 113, “Bell Labs’ high-bandwidth future”. An interview with Bell Labs’ chief scientist Alice White covering social computing, optics, quantum computing, and the potential of Australia’s National Broadband Network..

Articles

Every article I wrote this week related to the third annual eCrime Symposium in Canberra.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • The organisers of the eCrime Symposium provided refreshments during the event, and a meal at Sammy’s Kitchen and drinks at the Tongue & Groove on the first night.
  • On the night after the conference, I was bought far too many drinks by various people with kangaroos, emus and the word “security” or “crime” on their business cards.

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: The Canberra Rex Hotel, where I stayed for three nights this week, is being renovated — and it’s long overdue. This is the toilet-flush button from my room, and there’s further evidence.]