Links for 10 August 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 10 August 2009 and some days beforehand, posted automatically, kinda.

“Stilgherrian Live” rehearsals have gone well

Photo of monitor at Metro Screen showing Stilgherrian on camera, waiting for his cue

Putting together the Stilgherrian Live (Metro Screen) Special Edition in a proper multi-camera TV studio is very different from a regular Stilgherrian Live.

For a start, there’s all these other people around. Then there’s the waiting. And the presenter gets to wait the most, as everyone else is working on camera angles and movement, lighting design, cues… ah, but this is the magic of television!

Supposedly.

Anyway, I hope you’re all busy nominating people for “Cnut of the Week” over at that other blog post, ‘cos nominations close at 8pm Sydney time. That’s in about three hours.

Oh, and the photo was taken by Trinn (’Pong) Suwannapha.

Stilgherrian Live (Metro Screen) Special, with Cnuts

Metroscreen Logo: click for video stream

There’s a very special edition of Stilgherrian Live this Friday afternoon at 2pm Sydney time. ’Pong and his classmates at Metro Screen are producing a full multi-camera episode with a quiz and interviews and other entertainments.

The program is the end result of their full-week course, Produce live-streamed multi-cam television. ’Pong pitched doing Stilgherrian Live as his segment — as if he wasn’t busy enough doing his Masters of Digital Media at COFA and being DOP for some SEKRIT soap opera — and somehow that’s morphed into me presenting the whole program.

The program will be streamed live from Metro Screen’s page at Viocorp.

Now, I know 2pm Friday is when many people are meant to be working, but it’d be great to have a few of you watching, commenting back, and even providing the students with some feedback.

So to encourage your participation, we’ll have our usual offer of a t-shirt of your choice from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing. Just nominate a “Cnut of the Week” and be watching the program when we draw a name from the Cocktail Shaker of Integrity.

Continue reading “Stilgherrian Live (Metro Screen) Special, with Cnuts”

Links for 24 July 2009 through 26 July 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 24 July 2009 through 26 July 2009, collected together for a Suitable Sunday of reading:

  • Online Ad Rates Picking Up | The Business Insider: Based on a review of data from 6000 web publishers, it appears that online advertising is up 35% since its low-point of December 2008. Rates climbed 15% between May and June.
  • Love is Old-Fashioned, Sex Less So | A Stubborn Mule’s Perspective: Comparing the music in the Triple J Hottest 100 and The Guardian’s recent list of 1000 songs to hear before you die, the Mule comes up with the view that love is out of fashion. Also, chart pr0n.
  • Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule | Paul Graham: This essay really speaks to me. If you’re a manager, then your schedule consists of those 1-hour blocks to beloved of scheduling software. But it you’re a maker, or someone creative, one hour is barely time to get started. A good discussion of how these two different working styles can be resolved.
  • Too much networking? | msnbc.com: A network expert argues that less social networking would produce more radical innovation on the Internet. “An overabundance of connections over which information can travel too cheaply can reduce diversity, foster groupthink, and keep radical ideas from taking hold,” Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, director of the Information + Innovation Policy Research Center at the National University of Singapore, writes in this week’s issue of the journal Science.
  • Electropulse weapon fear spreads to UK politicos | The Register: A campaign by US right wingers, designed to raise fears of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack they allege could cripple Western nations and lead to chaos, is targeting British politicians, with some success.
  • God is not your bitch / This just in: It is hugely unlikely God cares much about your sex life | Mark Morford: A glorious rant about politicians and others exploit God to explain how they’re really, really going to change this time — amongst many other things.
  • Best RSS feeds for information graphics | nicolasrapp.com: A collection of feeds which represents a nice mix of information graphics and data visualisations. (Is there a difference between those two terms?)
  • Rebooting The News: A weekly podcast on news and technology with Jay Rosen and Dave Winer.
  • The atmosphere in the control room gets tense … | Twitpic: This photograph is an overview of the control room as ABC TV’s Insiders is about to be broadcast last Sunday. Even with the combination of roles and reduction of control room staffing levels, broadcast TV is still a complicated beast!
  • The Great American Bubble Machine | Rolling Stone: An astoundingly harsh critique of the US economy and, in particular, Goldman Sachs. The piece begins: The worlds most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.”
  • Why cops should trust the wisdom of the crowds | New Scientist: The “unruly mob” concept is usually taken as read and used as the basis for crowd control measures and evacuation procedures across the world. Yet it is almost entirely a myth.

Episode 50 is now online

Screenshot from Stilgherrian Live episode 50

Last night’s episode of Stilgherrian Live is now online for your viewing pleasure.

After some excellent nominations for “Cnut of the Week” — which I failed to list in full on the program, sorry — I chose the usual shortlist of four.

Poor former NSW Liberals leader Peter Debnam only scored one vote (6%), coming in 4th place. Amazon.com came in 3rd (17%) for their deletion of George Orwell’s books from people’s Kindles. And in 2nd place (33%) were the critics of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who won’t leave the man have his sex life in peace, or something.

But the clear winner of “Cnut of the Week” was the oldest member of Australia’s House of Representatives, Wilson “Ironbar” Tuckey (44%), who throughout the program was represented by a photo of Treasurer Wayne Swan. Don’t ask.

Now, the prize draw…

Mark Pesce was drawn first from the Cocktail Shaker of Integrity, but he’d already gone to bed. Someone summoned him via SMS, but deliberately gave him the wrong codeword. So, Mark dutifully emailed me “pineapple” when I was after “elephant”. They’re so easy to confuse!

DAemon was drawn next, but he wasn’t watching.

The t-shirt from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing went to Woolly Mittens. Enjoy!

Stilgherrian Live will return next Thursday night at 9.30pm Sydney time. Unless I tell you it doesn’t. It’s not the same without the live chat amongst the audience, so watch it live. No, really.