Preview: Stilgherrian Live Road Trip to Yass

Tomorrow, Nick Hodge is driving ’Pong and me to Canberra for Thursday’s Politics & Technology Forum. But we’re taking a detour to Yass. And the whole event will be a Stilgherrian Live Road Trip.

You’ll be able to follow the live video on the Stilgherrian Live page. However I’m planning to put a page together tonight where you’ll be able to view proceedings on the liveblog, the live video and the Ustream.tv live chat all on one page! Maybe even see our current location on a map, thanks to GPS!

So, what’s happening when…?

Continue reading “Preview: Stilgherrian Live Road Trip to Yass”

Episode 37 online

Screenshot from Stilgherrian Live episode 37

Stilgherrian Live episode 37 is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Of course it’s never the same without the live chat amongst the audience members, but there it is. We chose the “Cnut of the Week” (and I suspect I won’t give anything away if I say the result was predictable), and Gnamed the Gnome. We also explored the digestive system and did something distasteful involving bushfires.

[Update 13 February: For some reason it looks like the recorded audio is out of sync. I’ll drop a support note to Ustream tonight.]

“Stilgherrian Live” returns, looks at Internet censorship

Screenshot from Stilgherrian Live episode 35

Yes, Possums, I know you’ve been hanging out all summer. (Maybe you need better-fitting board shorts?) But the time has finally come! (Maybe get a cloth?) Stilgherrian Live returns for 2009 tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time — with a conversation about Internet censorship.

For those who’ve only recently found me through Twitter or wherever, Stilgherrian Live is my continuing experiment in live video on the Internet — a chat show of sorts. You can find out more by reading all the posts in the Stilgherrrian Live category, or watching the previous episodes linked off the program page. People have also written about why they watch Stilgherrian Live.

There’ll be new segments for 2009, though not in this first episode. More on that another time, including news of the Stilgherrian Live Road Trip to Yass later this month and the occasional Urgent Squawk mini-programs. Tonight’s episode is a quickie, with little preparation, because I know that people want to talk about the latest Internet censorship news and its implications.

And yes, this means nominations are now open for “Cnut of the Week”…

Continue reading ““Stilgherrian Live” returns, looks at Internet censorship”

Links for 31 January 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 31 January 2009, arranged by intensity of floral attitude:

  • Twittering away standards or tweeting the future of journalism? | Reuters Blogs: Reuters News editor David Schlesinger tweets from Davos, beats his own news wires, and then blogs about the experience. If Twitter is changing journalism, his response is “Bring it on!”
  • The LEGO Turing Machine | YouTube: The Turing Machine was a hypothetical computing device created by Alan Turing in 1936 to explain basic theoretical concepts in computing. While very simple, a Turing Machine is mathematically equivalent to any other general purpose computer, if slower. So, these guys have built one using LEGO Mindstorms components. The video has a bonus soundtrack via The A-Team.
  • A radical idea: Charge people for your product | 37signals: The blog post is from November 2008, but the message is current given all the media flutter about Twitter — which has yet to earn a single dollar of revenue. Need income? Um, charge for your product!
  • FORA.tv: “Videos Covering Today’s Top Social, Political, and Tech Issues.” I haven’t checked them out properly yet, so this is really a reminder to self.
  • GoodBarry: These guys provide an integrated “Software as a Service” (SaaS) system for small business, covering eCommerce, content management (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM), email marketing and analytics. All hooked together, and all at good prices. I’m checking them out for a client.
  • Life Matters’ Mandatory Internet Filter Transcript | Off Topic with Ashley: An unofficial transcript of ABC Radio National’s Life Matters program with network engineer Mark Newton and Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby.
  • Mandatory internet filter | ABC Life Matters: On Thursday, ABC Radio National’s Life Matters interviewed network engineer Mark Newton and Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby. Audio available for download.
  • The Economy According To Mint | TechCrunch: Mint is an online accounting system for consumers. Tracing their 900,000 customers through 2008 shows how their spending patterns have changed as the Global Financial Crisis worsens.
  • Labor’s “deafening silence” as web censorship trials delayed | theage.com.au:
  • Newspapers Saw the Digital Train A-Coming | Advertising Age: Bradley Johnson points out that the newspapers themselves were exploring digital delivery of news in the 1980s, but failed to do anything about it in terms of reviewing their business models.
  • OpenNet Initiative: “ONI’s mission is to identify and document Internet filtering and surveillance, and to promote and inform wider public dialogs about such practices.”
  • The Unmistakable Smell Of Decay | newmatilda.com: With the NSW Labor zombie army smelling worse all the time, party hacks are considering swapping their front-line cadaver, writes Bob Dumpling.

Links for 29 January 2009 through 30 January 2009

Stilgherrian’s links for 29 January 2009 through 30 January 2009, gathered by a poisonous frog:

Links for 29 January 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 29 January 2009, posted automatically with some manual editing and lubricants.

  • Media 09: I’ll be going to this and liveblogging on 13 February. “Media 09 is a one-day international gathering of the world’s leading digital media executives and entrepreneurs, showcasing global best practice in digital media innovations. Media 09 is designed to assist you shape successful digital media content offerings, business models, and advertising appeal to make the best weather of these turbulent times.”
  • Labor’s Plan for Cyber-Safety | Australian Labor Party: This is the actual text of the ALP’s policy, as it was stated for the 2007 federal election. Note on page 5 that the policy talks about it being mandatory to “offer” a “clean feed”, not make it compulsory.
  • 2007 policy documents | Australian Labor Party: The complete official ALP policy documents for the 2007 federal election are listed under “downloads” on this page.
  • Modern Security Thinkers | Kotare: A list of current thinkers in the realm of strategy and security. Much to explore.
  • SYN: Student Youth Network: Launched in January 2003, SYN is proudly Melbourne’s only independent youth media organisation. SYN broadcasts on 90.7 FM, and has 5 hours per week on Channel 31 community TV. Plus there’s a regular email newsletter and this website. I shall explore further!
  • Netspace’s Government ISP Filtering Survey Results: When asked “Do you agree with the Federal Government’s policy to make ISP level filtering mandatory for all Australians?”, 79% of respondents said they disagreed or strongly disagreed. There were 9700+ respondents, roughly 10% of Netspace’s customer base.
  • Time Line of Mandatory ISP Filtering Proposals 2003-2006 | Electronic Frontiers Australia: An invaluable chronology of the current push for mandatory Internet filtering in Australia. It all really does seem to have started with Clive Hamilton.
  • How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us an Army Field Manual that (Still) Sanctions Torture | AlterNet: Yes, the new edition of the US Army’s field manual still permits the torture of “unlawful enemy combatants”, that strange new category of people invented by the US to circumvent the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.