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Weekly Wrap 444: Cybers with a lovely view

03 December 2018 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

My week of Monday 26 November to Sunday 2 December 2018 was rich and varied, with a little more research and writing than I’d expected.

Articles

I’ve also written nearly all of another ZDNet article, which is likely to appear on Monday.

Podcasts, Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday, Cybereason’s briefing session was held at STUDIO at the top of Sydney Tower. There was good food and quite a lot of wine.

The Week Ahead

After a slow start, Monday is a writing day, as well as a day of administrivia for the first working day of the month.

On Tuesday I head down to Sydney for a medical appointment, to interview a cybersecurity executive, and to attend a Sydney Ideas evening lecture on White Fragility. I’ll stay in Sydney overnight so can work in Sydney on Wednesday.

I’ll head to Sydney again on Thursday morning, slightly earlier, for a dental appointment, some errands, the ever-dangerous annual Annual Communications & Internet Community Boat Cruise, and dinner with a friend. Once more I’ll stay in Sydney overnight, with Friday as a writing day of some sort.

The weekend is not yet planned.

Further Ahead

Nicholas Fryer and I will be recording another joint episode of The 9pm Edict podcast on Thursday 22 December, and it should be posted that night.

[Photo: Looking across Sydney Harbour from Sydney Tower. The view to the north-east from Sydney Tower, with the Royal Australian Navy’s Fleet Base East in the mid-ground, and out towards Sydney Heads, photographed on 27 November 2018.]

Weekly Wrap 383: Pain in, but not because of, Melbourne

02 October 2017 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Sydney Harbour, after David MooreThe week of Monday 25 September to Sunday 1 October 2017 was made of Melbourne and back pain. One was good, the other less so.

Articles

Podcasts

None.

Corporate Largesse, Media Appearances

  • On Monday, in the wake of political SMS messages having been sent as part of Australia’s ludicrous same-sex marriage survey, I spoke about the law relating to these matters on ABC Adelaide and ABC Canberra. I probably won’t post these.
  • On Wednesday night, I spoke about the Digital Manipulation of Democracy for the Victorian Fabians in Melbourne. Video recordings of this event will be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday, there was of course food and drink at SINET61, held at the Four Seasons Sydney.
  • On Wednesday night, Victorian Fabians bought me dinner at the Captain Meville Hotel. They had of course covered my flights to and from Melbourne, and accommodation at the Jasper Hotel, but I was not paid for the gig.

The Week Ahead

Monday is a public holiday, and here I am writing for you. On Tuesday, I’m skipping the iappANZ Summit 2017 because I need to rest my back. I’ll be reading instead.

Wednesday sees a day trip to Sydney, where foreign minister Julie Bishop is launching Australia’s first International Cyber Engagement Strategy. I previewed the strategy last week, but will be writing further for ZDNet I’m sure.

Thursday onwards is unplanned, but I know I have some geekery to perform.

Further Ahead

Events I’m covering or speaking at include:

If there’s anything I should add in there, please let me know.

[Photo: Sydney Harbour, after David Moore. Sydney Harbour photographed from Virgin Australia flight VA859, a Boeing 737-800 registration VH-VUQ, on 30 September 2017. The style is similar to David Moore’s famous “Sydney Harbour from 16,000 feet” (1966) and related photos, but nowhere near as wonderful.]

Weekly Wrap 346: Sliding into 2017, finally

05 February 2017 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week of Monday 9 to Sunday 15 January 2017 saw my first media output for the new year, but it was still a slow start.

I’m way behind schedule. This is the first of three Weekly Wraps that I need to power through today. So I’ll stick to the basic information, and maybe some photographs from previous years.

Media Appearances

Articles, Podcasts, Corporate Largesse

None.

[Photo: Sydney Harbour from the AMP Building, photographed on 3 February 2016.]

Weekly Wrap 319: Progress and a change of pace

11 July 2016 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Sydney Harbour Bridge from Milsons Point Wharf: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 4 to Sunday 10 July 2016 was full of significance.

First, the last batch of documentation needed to bring my tax compliance disaster up to date was sent to my accountant. There’s still plenty to go in this saga, but that’s the first phase done.

Second, I stepped outside my planned production schedule to create the special podcast episode listed immediately below. It was both fun and scary.

Podcasts

Articles, Media Appearances, and Corporate Largesse

None, sadly. But all will return in the coming weeks.

The Week Ahead

On Monday, which is almost finished as I write this, I’ll be shifting mental gears away from tax compliance to other things. I’ll be writing for ZDNet, wrapping up the post-production for The 9pm Edict, and then migrating from Ashfield to Lilyfield.

Tuesday is all about a certain interview. Research in the morning, conducting the interview at 1300, then writing something based in that interview for ZDNet.

On Wednesday, I’ll be helping a client automate a routine administration process in their business, and returning to the other much-delayed geek-for-hire projects. That work is likely to continue for the rest of the week.

Further Ahead

While the following few weeks are still be be organised, I can say that I’ll be going to theGartner Security & Risk Management Summit in Sydney on 22-23 August, and the AISA National Conference in Sydney on 18-20 October.

[Photo: Sydney Harbour Bridge from Milsons Point Wharf, photographed at dusk on 4 July 2016.]

Weekly Wrap 226: Warm weather, but little productivity

06 October 2014 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Crossing the Harbour: click to embiggenThese Weekly Wrap posts have fallen into disrepair, haven’t they. Well, they’re back in operation again now. Whether the missing weeks’ posts will ever appear is as yet unknown.

My week of Monday 29 September to Sunday 5 October wasn’t as productive as it could have been. That’s down to a mix of pain and depression, but I won’t belabour the point.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the warm spring weather.

Articles

I wrote my usual column for ZDNet Australia, but it won’t be appearing until Tuesday.

Media Appearances

  • On Tuesday I spoke about the new social network Ello on ABC Gold Coast.
  • I was one of the panellists on ABC Radio National’s Download This Show this week. We spoke about Ello and Australia’s new national security laws.
  • On Thursday I was interviewed for a student project at the University of Sydney about virtual communities, hacking and hacktivism, amongst other things. I’ll post a link to that when it appears in a few weeks.
  • On Friday I recorded some audio for a SEKRIT project.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

This will be the final week of my sojourn at Hurstville in Sydney’s southern suburbs. I’ve been housesitting a friend’s apartment while she was on holidays overseas. I’m going to miss the place.

Monday is officially a public holiday in New South Wales, but I’ll be starting work on an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast.

On Tuesday I’ll be planning a couple of feature stories for ZDNet Australia, planning some changes for my other little technology business, resurrecting the 5at5 daily newsletter thing, and finishing off the podcast.

The rest of the week isn’t planned out in any kind of detail yet, but there’s be a ZDNet Australia column to write, and I’ll be returning to Wentworth Falls on Friday.

[Photo: Crossing the Harbour, a not-very-scenic view from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as seen from the lower deck of a train on 3 October 2014.]

Most popular posts of 2013

27 December 2013 in Blogging, Human Nature by Stilgherrian | Permalink

As we approach the end of 2013, I’m going to do my usual series of blog posts looking back at what actually happened on this little planet. This is the first, being a list of the most-read posts on this website.

There hasn’t been a lot to choose from in the last couple of years, because most of my writing is done elsewhere these days. That means some rather mundane pieces of writing, such as Weekly Wrap posts, end up on the list. That’s possibly an argument for abandoning this little exercise.

  1. Catchup posts within 36 hours was the most popular post of all, which makes no sense whatsoever because it’s routine administrivia. I suspect the visitor count has been artificially inflated somehow, though supposedly the traffic generated by spambots has already been removed.
  2. My tweets from TechEd Australia 2012’s keynote sessions, a post that was linked to from news stories that reported me having been banned from attending Microsoft’s TechEd conference. My own blog post on this issue is coming up at number 5.
  3. Guardian Australia not the droid you’re looking for, being my reaction against all the excitement generated in January 2013 by the announcement that there would soon be an Australian edition of this news masthead.
  4. My fish are dead: the black dog ate them (an explanation?), being my rather idiosyncratic announcement and discussion of the fact that I’d been dealing with a severe depression episode, published in July.
  5. Microsoft has banned me from covering TechEd, which is self-explanatory.
  6. Choosing my next media directions: you’re doing it, OK?, from May.
  7. Vodafone Australia’s new 4G network ain’t bad, being the write-up of my trial of the network which led to that conclusion.
  8. Weekly Wrap 152: LulzSec, Optus, radio and thinking stuff, which I suspect is only in the Top 10 because it mentions LulzSec.
  9. Weekly Wrap 155: Chemtrails, elitism and much thinking, ditto, chemtrails.
  10. Sydney Harbour “giant gambling den” bullshit reportage, from January.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weekly Wrap 182: Christmas begins on Sydney Harbour

22 December 2013 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

My week Monday 25 November to Sunday 1 December 2013 was ages ago — so to catch up on all the missing Weekly Wrap posts, I’ll just list the basics and skip giving them photos.

Once I’ve posted all four, I’ll do some sort of more detailed post explaining the state of the world — or at least my little bit of it.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I went to the Internet Industry Association (IIA) Nautical Policy event, which is of course code for a couple hours of eating and drinking on Sydney Harbour aboard Matilda III sponsored by Enex Testlab. Afterwards we continued on for more drinks, and I know that at least one bottle of wine was paid for by iiNet.

Target achieved, indulgent food, bushfire pensiveness

17 October 2013 in Internet, Media, Personal by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Bushfire sunset, as seen from Camperdown, Sydney: click to embiggenI’d scheduled time tonight to write about my crowdfunded journalism project — the initial target was achieved in under 17 hours! — but after a complex day I’m mentally exhausted.

I woke up happy that I’d raised the funds to cover the Breakpoint and Ruxcon hacker conferences in Melbourne next week. I booked my flights.

Then I enjoyed breakfast with a magnificent view of Sydney Harbour while being briefed by executives from data centre provider Equinix. Then a magnificent lunch at Rockpool while being briefed by NEC and analyst firm Telsyte.

And then the smoke rolled over Sydney.

Some of the more serious fires are in the lower Blue Mountains, between where I am in Sydney tonight and where I’m based at Bunjaree Cottages in the upper Blue Mountains.

The magnificent sunset, pictured at the head of this post, is the result of destruction. Towns have been evacuated, dozens of homes have been destroyed. I’m scheduled to return to Wentworth Falls tomorrow evening, but that assumes that transport lines are still open.

My journalism project is ahead of schedule. That’s enough for now. What I’ll need most tomorrow is energy. My thoughts are with the people with real problems to deal with. Goodnight.

[Photo: Bushfire sunset, as seen from Camperdown, Sydney, earlier this evening.]

Sydney Harbour “giant gambling den” bullshit reportage

17 January 2013 in Language, Media, Politics, Sydney by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

Map showing "giant gambling den in relation to Sydney Harbour: click to embiggen“Is A Billionaire Former Scientologist Shaping Sydney Harbour Into A Giant Gambling Den?”, asked the headline in an email this morning from The Global Mail. Is he? Let’s see!

The story in TGM, the philanthropic media project of Graeme Wood, also a key investor in The Guardian’s forthcoming Australian edition, is obviously about plans by James Packer to build a casino at Sydney’s Barangaroo development.

The proposal is controversial, certainly. But Sydney Harbour becoming a “giant gambling den”? FFS! If it’s not immediately obvious why this is complete bullshit, I’ve drawn a picture for you. A special kind of picture called a “map”.

The black bit is Sydney Harbour, traced from Google Maps. The red bit is the entire proposed casino complex, assuming this report in the Sydney Morning Herald is still roughly correct. You might have to click through to the full-size map to see the red bit.

Sydney Harbour is clearly not becoming a “giant gambling den”. Sydney Harbour will be changed in a way that will be barely noticeable, at least if your global perspective manages to make it any further west than Glebe Point Road. And I’d have thought that the intelligent, well-educated people at TGM would be able to figure that out for themselves.

We were told that The Global Mail was about “quality journalism”, but apparently it’s just another in a long series of comfortable colour supplements for Sydney’s whining middle class, with bonus points for waving the good ol’ Scientology scare-stick.

The story itself is by Nick Bryant, whose work I like. He’s got a biography of Packer coming out, so I assume the article — which I haven’t read yet — is an extract from that book and somewhat better than the promotion it’s been burdened with suggests. I’ll let you know once I’ve read it.

Weekly Wrap 130: Storms, sunburn and a two-hour cruise

02 December 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

The week of Monday 26 November to Sunday 2 December 2012 was strange. It started with stormy weather, and the misty conditions continued until Wednesday. But by Thursday I was sunburnt and dehydrated in sweltering heat.

I should not have walked through the heat from Potts Point to the Sydney CBD, even though I could take a photograph of the city along the way.

It was also a stressful week. To the usual month-end cashflow blockage was added a series of strange problems with a client’s marketing email template.

The client had chosen to use an old template, and the line spacing fell apart in modern versions of Microsoft Outlook. Then some of the links to PDF files on their website didn’t work, with the links being somehow scrambled so they delivered a “404 File not found” error instead of the PDF file. Sometimes.

Eventually we discovered that the links broke — sometimes — when URLs containing white-space characters (such as “%20” for a space) were passed from Outlook to an out-of-date version of Adobe Reader.

Thankfully the week ended with some semblance of normality, and the weekend was restful.

Podcasts

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Sunday morning I was asked, at the last minute, to be the bespoke Twitterer for ABC Radio National’s Sunday Extra. That just means that I had to listen to the program — which I was doing anyway — and tweet about it.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Wednesday I attended the Retail Tech Forum at Wildfire Restaurant, Circular Quay, which was organised by Bass PR for various clients: Dassault Systèmes, who do many things but in this case provide 3D modelling and visualisation tools for retail environments; retail software systems vendor Island Pacific Australia; 3Q Holdings, who also do retail tech; Meridian Systems, who make “technology solutions” for the project management of “capital buildings” and the maintenance thereof; and analysts Frost & Sullivan. I daresay an article will come out of this at some point. Meanwhile, here’s the lunch menu and pictures of the beef short rib starter and the corn-fed chicken main course.
  • On Thursday I had lunch at Establishment with the people behind Uber Sydney, a smartphone-based service that provides on-demand ordering of a black town car. An article will come out of this eventually.
  • On Thursday afternoon I went on a two-hour cruise of Sydney Harbour aboard Matilda III, which was the Internet Industry Association’s Harbour Policy Party. The photographs start here.
  • On Thursday evening I dropped into The Indies’ Christmas party at the Burdekin Hotel on Oxford Street, The Indies being the four PR firms Bass PR, Shuna Boyd PR (which doesn’t seem to have a website?), Einsteinz Communications and Espresso Communications. I had just one glass of wine, my only alcohol for the entire day, before exhaustion set in.

The Week Ahead

Starting this week I’ll be based in Hurstville, a southern suburb of Sydney, thanks to a housesitting arrangement with someone who shall remain anonymous. I’ll be there until the end of the first week of January. Unless plans change.

This week is another busy week. I daresay I won’t get around to producing the Patch Monday podcast until Monday morning. I’ve got some writing to do too. Then on Tuesday, Optus is showcasing their 4G smartphones at a lunch in Surry Hills. On Wednesday I’m attending VMware’s Cloud Panel, a lunchtime event at The Star casino.

I’ll try to record next week’s Patch Monday podcast on Thursday, because on Thursday night I’m going to Fuel Communications‘ Christmas party and then on Friday I’m covering a one-day conference Privacy in the 21st Century (PDF), organised by the Communications Law Centre at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Since I’m covering that conference for both Crikey and ZDNet, it’ll be sensible to get that podcast out of the way.

[Photo: The Nepean was crossed. It has been my habit to take a photograph each time I cross the Nepean River en route from Wentworth Falls to Sydney or vice versa, which I then tweet with the caption Crossing the Nepean. Yesterday I missed, and the outbound train was already at Emu Plains before I could take a snapshot.]

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