Tag: san jose

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The 9pm Caltrain

Caltrain at San Jose Diridon Station: click to embiggen

The sharing economy explained in just two minutes. A Florida meth lab is a threat to dolphins. And the failure of hashtag diplomacy.

This episode of The 9pm Edict heads to the United States, at least in some strange warped sense.

There’s a story of a meth lab in a Florida hotel room, and we encounter both an episode of Hannity on Fox News and a “sharing economy guru” on the BBC.

There’s also mention of Glassholes harassing a New York restaurant, a bread line in San Jose. and a plan to reverse the California Aqueduct.

Continue reading “The 9pm Caltrain”
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Weekly Wrap 206: Two saints and a Caltrain, with wine

Caltrain locomotive 925 Jackie Spieir: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 12 to Sunday 18 May 2014 was spent in San Jose and San Francisco, covering NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference and more. And as I write this, I’m still in America.

Podcasts

I am very pleased to say that The 9pm Edict has, finally, returned with The 9pm Shire, an episode that includes a visit to Cronulla, shellfish, and a little Joe Hockey.

I am rather less pleased at the phenomenal amount of time it took to produce — at least 27 hours, once travel and the re-recording journey is taken into account, rather than the eight hours a “normal” episode would have taken. That was the cause of the delay. Once the podcast had overflowed its original spot in my schedule, it had to wait until a sufficiently large gap had opened up again. With travel booked, that was always going to be tricky.

In fact, the 11.5 hours I spent in writing and recording the links and post-production on Thursday really should have been spent on writing, or at least reflecting on SuiteWorld. Which is why in this next section…

Articles

… there are none. I did start doing some analysis of Australia’s Budget, because I may have had a piece to write for Crikey, but in the end that didn’t happen. Too many other, bigger Budget issues to be discussed.

Media Appearances

None. Thank the gods.

5at5

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

Corporate Largesse

  • NetSuite paid for my trip to the US to cover their SuiteWorld conference. That included economy flights from Sydney to San Francisco and return; airport transfers; two nights accommodation at Hotel Vitali; a Sonoma Valley winery tour, with tastings at Cline and Gloria Ferrer wineries and a bottle of wine from each (a Cline 2011 Live Oak Zinfandel and a Gloria Ferrer 2005 Royal Cuvée Brut), pre-dinner drinks and antipasto at Tosca Cafe in North Beach, and dinner at the Americano Restaurant at the Hotel Vitale; coach transport to San Jose; four nights accommodation at the Marriott San Jose; dinner and drinks at ARCADIA by Michael Mina; breakfast and lunch in the press work room throughout the conference; dinner at Thomas Fogarty Winery (although I didn’t go, deciding to have an early night instead); and the conference party at the City National Civic Theatre. NetSuite also gave us all a goodie bag, which contained a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 tablet (Wi-Fi 8GB model); toiletries by Burt’s Bees; gourmet popcorn from Garret Popcorn; a chocolate sampler from TCHO; and a NetSuite branded hoodie from Alternative Earth, t-shirt and spiral-bound notebook. From the trade show floor: Jitterbit-branded earbuds. I could have taken advantage of much more alcohol and much more stuff from the other vendors, but I am not a bowerbird.

The Week Ahead

As I write this, it’s still Saturday in the US, and I’m spending the rest of the weekend here in San Francisco — wandering around and, in between drinks and occasional food, pondering all manner of things about the world and my life. I believe that’s called having a weekend. But that said, I’ll also be recording some bits and pieces for The 9pm Edict.

I fly out of San Francisco on Sunday night, which means I arrive back in Sydney early on Tuesday morning. I’ll be spending Tuesday and Wednesday in Sydney, taking care of various meetings, interviews and errands, before returning to Wentworth Falls on Wednesday night.

The rest of the week, including the weekend, is unplanned. Please feel free to make suggestions.

[Photo: Caltrain locomotive 925 Jackie Spieir , photographed at San Jose Diridon Station on Friday 16 May 2014, just before it was to power the 1310 to San Francisco..]

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Announcing the Return of “The 9pm Edict”

Screenshots from The 9 O'Clock Resurrection progress videos: click for YouTube playlistMy crowdfunding project, The 9 O’Clock Resurrection, has been successful. We have resurrected the finest goat-oriented political and social commentary podcast in the galaxy, The 9pm Edict. Haha. What have we done?

What we’ve done is fund two episodes for May.

First up, “The 9pm Shire”, by which I mean Sutherland Shire in Sydney’s southern suburbs. Our Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, said last month:

“I get so much encouragement when I walk through Cronulla mall, go down the beach, or up to Miranda Fair… On Australia Day we were at the fireworks at Cronulla and I was walking through the crowd and people were coming up to me to say ‘g’day’ and encourage me and congratulate me on what we had done so far, and basically saying ‘keep giving it to ’em and don’t back down’.”

He said residents weren’t against immigration or asylum-seekers but wanted a process that was done “the right way”.

That episode is being recorded this Saturday 3 May, and should be posted on Sunday 4 May.

And because I’m in San Francisco and San Jose later this month, the following episode will be “The 9pm Caltrain” — the Caltrain being the train that runs through that part of the world. That episode should be posted on Tuesday 20 May.

I’ve recorded an announcement, which you can listen to below. But if you want all of the episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe automatically in iTunes, or on SoundCloud.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:02 — 5.1MB)

If you’d like to comment on this (non-)episode — or suggest people, places or things that I should check out — please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

You can also check out the progress videos I made on the YouTube playlist.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

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Weekly Wrap 154: California, with wine and Bloody Marys

Vesuvio's $8 Bloody Mark: click to embiggenMy week Monday 13 to Sunday 19 May 2013 was spent in San Francisco and San Jose which, I am reliably informed, are cities in The America.

It also finished nearly a week ago, so I’ll just list the things for now. Should I be in the mood, I’ll reflect upon the week tomorrow.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • I travelled to the US as a guest of NetSuite Inc. Their largesse consisted of: return flights Sydney to San Francisco with United Airlines; limousine airport transfers (well, one way at least, ‘cos the return journey was buggered up); two nights accommodation at the St Regis Hotel, San Francisco, plus USD 100 in American Express gift cards to cover meals; dinner and drinks at Colibri Mexican Bistro; private bus to San Jose; three nights accommodation at the Hilton San Jose; dinner and drinks at ARCADIA by Michael Mina, San Jose; dinner and drinks at Testarossa Winery, Los Gatos, followed by moar drinks at ARCADIA; an iPad Mini 16GB Wi-Fi, engraved with the NetSuite logo; a 3.5-ounce tin of Wine Lover’s Chocolate by Bridge Brands Chocolate; a NetSuite-branded HydroFlask thermos; a NetSuite-branded North End Sport windbreaker (that is, a kind of polyester jacket); a NetSuite-branded ball-point pen and notebook; a re-usable shopping back by RuMe; the usual conference satchel full of never-to-be-read pieces of paper and cardboard, and endless food and drink in the press lounge.

The Week Ahead

Since it’s already Saturday afternoon, there’s not really much point, is there? There’ll be a new Weekly Wrap tomorrow.

[Photo: Vesuvio’s $8 Bloody Mary. At Vesuvio in San Francisco, the bar where Jack Kerouac used to drink, you can get one of these fine Bloody Marys for just $8. Plenty of vodka, spiced as you require, with a huge stuffed Spanish olive, white pickled onion, lemon and lime.]

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Visiting San Francisco, San Jose for NetSuite SuiteWorld

NetSuite Suiteworld logoI’m heading to San Francisco and San Jose next Saturday 11 May 2013 for NetSuite’s SuiteWorld 2013 conference. Yes, as their guest.

I was at their first SuiteWorld event two years ago, where we had dinner at Larry Ellison’s house overlooking San Francisco Bay and came to the conclusion that not every business has to “go social”.

I’ve had lunch and other events with NetSuite’s people a few time since, and written a couple of articles:

NetSuite is an interesting company. They just seem to get on with the job of making good software and expanding into new markets. So I’m looking forward to catching up with them again — particularly as I’ve been writing a lot more about security that this sort of enterprise software lately.

I’ll arrive in San Francisco on Saturday 11 May, and then on Monday we head to San Jose for the conference proper. That kicks off Monday night with a welcome reception and NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson’s opening keynote first thing Tuesday morning, and runs until Thursday 16.

I’ll be hanging around in the Bay area until Sunday night — which is a hint, yes — and then I arrive back in Sydney very early on Tuesday 21 May local time. Unless someone decides to extend my stay in the US, of course — and that’s also a hint.

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Weekly Wrap 118: Planes, pains and delays

My week Monday 3 to Sunday 9 September 2012 began pleasantly enough in San Francisco, but ended badly in Sydney — at least until I escaped to Wentworth Falls

I’m way behind schedule, so I’ll only briefly mention the two annoyances.

On Friday I woke up early with a massive pain in my leg. Since I’d just done a long-distance flight I naturally thought of deep vein thrombosis, so I figured I’d better check it out. It turned out to be simple delayed onset muscle soreness, but of course I lost half a day in the hospital.

Then on Saturday I woke up to the news that Prussia.Net’s shared hosting server was dying. I lost eight hours on that. While the wonderful engineers at ServePath did the actual work, I still had to hang around to approve each step and keep clients informed.

As a result, this is all a little thinner than planned.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 153, “App.net’s radical social network strategy: charge money”. A conversation with App.net founder, technologist and entrepreneur Dalton Caldwell. Will App.net be Twitter’s successor?

Articles

None. Though I’m working on a couple today for publication tomorrow.

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday I did a spot on ABC 105.7 Darwin, but it wasn’t recorded my end so I can’t bring it to you today. However it was a pre-recorded spot, so with luck I’ll be able to get a copy from the ABC. Stand by.
  • On Tuesday night I did another regular Balls Radio spot with Phil Dobbie, talking once more about online bullying.
  • On Thursday afternoon I was on a security and privacy panel at the ACCAN National Conference. I’ll bring you a recording in due course.
  • On Thursday night I spoke about government data retention plans with Dom Knight on ABC Local Radio.

Corporate Largesse

  • VMware covered my travel back to Australia, which included a limousine from San Francisco to San Jose, and flights from San Jose via Los Angeles to Sydney.
  • On Thursday I attended the launch of Symantec’s Norton Cybercrime Report 2012 at Sydney’s Justice and Police Museum. They provided food and drink.

The Week Ahead

I’ll head to Sydney some time tomorrow, Monday, after having filed stories for Technology Spectator and CSO Online, as well as producing the Patch Monday podcast.

On Monday night I’m attending a SANS Sydney Community Night, with a presentation entitled “Your Security Monitoring – An Attacker’s Perspective”. Should be interesting. I’m not sure where my write-up will appear yet.

On Tuesday I’m headed to the Gold Coast to cover Microsoft’s TechEd 2012 event, which runs through to Friday. I’ll post more about that as I go. I’m not sure whether I’ll return to Sydney immediately it’s over or spend the weekend in Brisbane.

[Photo: Embraer EJR-140 belonging to American Eagle at San Jose Airport gate 10. This is the aircraft I flew in from San Jose (SJC) to Los Angeles (LAX).]