Stilgherrian

Weekly Wraps 350 to 357: Gosh is that the time?

02 April 2017 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | Permalink

This Weekly Wrap is actually eight Weekly Wraps in one, covering Monday 6 February to Sunday 2 April 2017, numbers 350 to 357. Eight times the value!

Of these four weeks, I’ve spent roughly a week each in San Francisco, Ho Chi Minh City, and Canberra. I also visited a Cold War relic near San Francisco, namely Nike Missile Site SF-88L at Fort Barry. Other stuff happened too.

There’s so much in this Eight-Week Wrap, the bulk of it is over the fold. I won’t be able to list all the highlights, but I will mention two of the lowlights. I caught a conference plague, which slowed me down a bit. And my stress and anxiety levels, which had not been declining, went through the roof. And they’re still there.

This health issue is being addressed, so no sympathy is needed. (Instead, perhaps send me a tip to help with the revenue shortfall, especially with the low-reveue holiday periods of Easter and Anzac Day coming up.) But it does mean that my alleged plans for the next few weeks should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt than usual.

Read the rest of this entry »

Talking Twitter and Vine on ABC Radio’s AM

05 November 2016 in Conversations, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | Permalink

So Twitter is closing down Vine, the app that shares six-second videos. I’m not surprised. I always thought Vine was a gimmick.

On 28 October I gave my feelpinions to ABC Radio journalist Brendan Trembath, and they ended up in a 3-minute story for AM. There’s also a written story, Vine video sharing app killed off in latest sign of troubled times for Twitter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:39 — 1.2MB)

The 9pm Edict LIVE

09 October 2016 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | Permalink

UPDATE: The next episode of The 9pm Edict will be recorded and streamed live on Thursday 29 June at 2100 AEST.

If you want to listen to The 9pm Edict podcast live on the internet as it’s being recorded, this is the place to be — not all those individual episode pages.

Check the schedule on The 9pm Edict‘s show page.

The recording sessions are streamed live via Spreaker, but you can listen right here. The widget immediately below shows all of the episodes of the Edict uploaded to Spreaker. A “Live” button will appear when the broadcast starts.

You can also use the Spreaker apps (the listening apps, not the studio/production apps).

Tweet along using the hashtag #9pmlive.

This podcast is listener-supported. If you’d like to contribute, please throw a few dollars into the pot.

The 9pm Edict’s Spring Bruise LIVE

05 September 2016 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | Permalink

The next recording session for The 9pm Edict podcast will be streamed live this Tuesday 6 September 2016 from 2100 AEST via Spreaker.

You can listen right here. The widget immediately below currently shows all the episodes of the Edict uploaded to Spreaker. A “Live” button will appear when the broadcast starts.

You can also use the Spreaker apps (the listening apps, not the studio/production apps) or listen on The 9pm Edict‘s show page.

Tweet along using the hashtag #9pmlive.

A test transmission will start at 2055 AEST, five minutes before the program proper starts at 2100 AEST. Give or take.

This podcast is listener-supported. If you’d like to contribute, please throw a few dollars into the pot.

[Photo: Image of Reaper audio production tool.]

The 9pm Edict’s Census Night Special LIVE

09 August 2016 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Tonight’s recording session of The 9pm Edict podcast will be streamed live from 2100 AEST via Spreaker.

You can listen right here. The widget immediately below currently shows all the episodes of the Edict uploaded to Spreaker. A “Live” button will appear when the broadcast starts.

You can also use the Spreaker apps (the listening apps, not the studio/production apps) or listen on The 9pm Edict‘s show page.

Tweet along using the hashtag #9pmlive.

A test transmission will start at 2055 AEST, five minutes before the program proper starts at 2100 AEST. Give or take.

[Photo: Photo of Census form, with a microphone in the foreground.]

“The 9pm One Nation Policy Reading” LIVE

07 July 2016 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Saturday’s recording session of “The 9pm One Nation Policy Reading” will be streamed live from 2000 AEST via Spreaker.

You can listen right here. The widget immediately below currently shows all the episodes of the Edict uploaded to Spreaker. A “Live” button will appear when the broadcast starts.

You can also use the Spreaker apps (the listening apps, not the studio/production apps), or listen on The 9pm Edict’s show page.

If you want to read along at home, grab One Nation’s policy agenda. Tweet along using the hashtag #9pmlive.

A test transmission will start at 1945 AEST, a quarter of an hour before the program proper starts at 2000 AEST.

[Photo: Part of One Nation’s policy flyer, with a Sennheiser microphone in the foreground.]

My wisdom was recognised as Tweet of the Day

11 June 2016 in Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Imagine being so bereft of ideas that the only metaphor you can come up with is war.

— Stilgherrian (@stilgherrian) June 2, 2016

Last week Malcolm Turnbull claimed that Labor was declaring war on business, and that the first casualties were jobs.

It’s a symptom of the government’s supposed need to look strong and tough on difficult issues. Hence the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on poverty and so on.

How unimaginative, I thought.

I expressed this opinion on Twitter, as is the fashion.

“Imagine being so bereft of ideas that the only metaphor you can come up with is war,” I tweeted.

That tweet was retweeted 38 times, and scored 36 likes. That’s far fewer than tweets tweeted by major celebrities and the like, but for me it’s at the high end of the scale.

The next morning, 3 June, @aksana tweeted to tell me that my tweet was chosen as the Sydney Morning Herald Tweet of the Day.

She include a photo of the printed newspaper, because Tweet of the Day doesn’t seem to be published on the SMH website.

All this should have been included in last week’s Weekly Wrap, but I forgot. I’ve fixed that now, though.

The 9pm Edict’s Public House Forum LIVE

04 June 2016 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Today’s recording session of The 9pm Edict’s Public House Forum will now be streamed live from 1400 AEST.

As before, I’ll be using Spreaker, a streaming audio platform.

You’ll be able to listen right here on this web page using the widget immediately below (which shows all the episodes of the Edict uploaded to Spreaker so far). A “Live” button will appear when the broadcast starts.

[Update 5 June 2016: The recording has been done. The Spreaker player currently shows the raw recording. You’ll have to skip in 45 min 45 sec to get to the actual program. This will be replaced with the final edited version ~~later today~~ on Monday.]

You can also use any of the various Spreaker apps (the listening apps, not the studio/production apps), or presumably listen on the The 9pm Edict’s show page at Spreaker.

You’ll be able to tweet along using the Twitter hashtag #9pmlive.

I’ll have some sort of test transmission running from 1345 AEST, so a quarter of an hour before the program proper starts at 1400 AEST.

The 9pm Victory over the Adult Hedgehog Onesie Bomber

02 May 2016 in The 9pm Edict by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Papua New Guinea suddenly remembers it’s not a colony any more and acts like a real nation. Nicholas Fryer makes some modest proposals. And there’s terror in the streets of Baltimore.

In this episode, there’s talk of hedgehogs and weasels, refugees and terrorism, and more.

You can listen to the podcast 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 go to SoundCloud or Spreaker.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (21.7MB)

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

Read the rest of this entry »

Talking Microsoft Tay on ABC 702 Sydney

02 April 2016 in Conversations, Human Nature, Internet, Language, Media by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Just before before Easter, Microsoft let their youth-targeted chatbot named Tay loose on Twitter and other social networks — and it was a disaster.

Tay was meant to hold conversations with Americans aged 18 to 24, which is why it’s named after Taylor Swift. But the project was terminated after just 16 hours, because the bot started tweeting abuse at people, and even went full neo-Nazi, declaring that “Hitler was right I hate the jews.”

Art Technica reported some analysis of what went wrong. Davi Ottenheimer summarised the problem as “weak intelligence weakened by weakness”, and pointed me to more detailed research by Russell Cameron Thomas.

I spoke about this disaster with Robbie Buck on ABC 702 Sydney, debunking some aspects of the mainstream news stories along the way.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:54 — 3.2MB)