weather – Page 2 – Stilgherrian

04 May 201405 May 2014

Weekly Wrap 204: Libertarian troll beach abortion, yeah?

My week of Monday 28 April to Sunday 4 May 2014 was yet another solid performer — which, to be honest, surprises me. But here we are. Praise be.

The entire week was spent at Wentworth Falls, apart from a day trip to Sydney — but despite the rapidly dropping temperatures as winter starts to bite, and despite Mistress Insomnia’s continuing persistent calls for attention, my mood holds up.

Articles

Enjoy your Ubergasm, but don’t expect respect in the morning, ZDNet Australia, 30 April 2014. Needless to say, this latest contribution to my battle against the mindless fandom of Silicon Valley’s libertarian arseholes met with a mixed reception.

Podcasts

The big chunky piece of joy for me this week was resurrecting The 9pm Edict. The first episode, “The 9pm Shire” should have been appearing tonight — and the photo at the head of this post was taken during the recording expedition — but for reasons already explained that’s been postponed until this coming Tuesday 6 May or thereabouts.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday I was interviewed by The Wire, the daily current affairs program of Australia’s community radio stations, about internet security — but that’s being held over to the coming week.

5at5

Four out of five this week. But why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.

5at5 number 42, 28 April 2013.
5at5 number 43, 30 April 2013.
5at5 number 44, 1 May 2013.
5at5 number 45, 2 May 2013.

Corporate Largesse

On Thursday I had coffee with someone from LivePerson, a company that provides technology for online customer service. Their PR company paid for the coffee.
Also on Thursday I went to Good Technology’s Sydney Mobile Summit, all about the state of the art of mobile security — or at least as framed by their products and PR messaging. It was held at the Sheraton on the park, and lunch and afternoon tea was provided.

The Week Ahead

Next week is already completely packed out, and it also sees me heading to the United States yet again.

On Monday I’ll be heading to Sydney to complete my recordings at Cronulla and deal with a few errands.

I’ll be staying in Sydney overnight, because on Tuesday I’m going to a breakfast briefing that starts at 0730 — this is how businesses treat their staff, apparently — as well as doing a couple of interviews. I’ll head back to the Blue Mountains on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, it’s a day trip to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing by AVG Technologies on some research they’ve done into the security of the Internet of Things (IoT). “There isn’t any,” I assume to be the answer, but with additional wine.

Thursday is a writing day. Then on Friday it’s back to Sydney again for a bunch of errands and then the Optus IT Journalism Awards, in which I am a finalist. Then I stay in Sydney overnight before flying to San Francisco on Saturday.

On Sunday I’m visiting some wineries in the Sonoma region, thanks to NetSuite, who are also paying for that US trip. But I’ll write more about that in due course.

[Photo: Fisherman at North Cronulla Beach, photographed shortly before sunset on Saturday 3 May 2014.]

05 August 2013

“Fleeting mists” goes Android

I’m re-posting one of my favourite photos from last year, “Fleeting mists”, because it’s being used in the new Android weather app BWeather by Denver-based developer Brit Clousing of Atomicboy Software.

There’s a screenshot of the app at right, and you can click through to embiggen it. The app itself you can download from Google Play.

It’s Clousing’s first smartphone app and it’s pretty basic — but it’s free and there’s no advertising, and I really like the way the temperature for the days ahead is shown as a vertical bar.

“The photograph displayed on the top section is designed to match the current weather forecast. There are about 20 different photographs for the different weather and day/night conditions,” writes Clousing in an email.

I’m hanging out for a foggy day to see my photograph in context.

Clousing was previously responsible for the turn-based strategy game Empires of Steel, published in late 2009.

I publish most of my photographs under a Creative Commons Attribution license, so they can be used for pretty much everything. I enjoy knowing that they’ve been appreciated by someone else.

[Photo: Fleeting mists, originally posted in Weekly Wrap 89: Storms and too many podcasts in February 2012.]

20 January 201324 January 2013

Weekly Wrap 137: Excess heat, excess dodgy cocktails

The week of Monday 14 to Sunday 20 January 2013 wasn’t quite as productive as I’d hoped, due to a combination of too much drinking and too much heat.

But there was plenty of time for reflection, and I managed to ramo up my blogging as planned, so I’m happy.

On Monday I wrote about the death of Aaron Swartz, and it proved difficult. Not because I was affected by his death — truth be known, I wasn’t a fan — but because I knew that the fans would be upset if I was seen to be too critical too soon. Plus I had to write something new, when eleventy bazillion words had already been written. After filing the story, I was exhausted.

I then made mistake of heading off for a drink or a dozen, and ended up at the The Haymarket Hotel on the promise of a cocktail bar, except “Martinis” isn’t open on Monday nights. So I had the pleasure of choosing cocktails from their dodgy girly cocktail list, and having them made by a waiter who was new to the bar and doesn’t normally make cocktails anyway. He did OK.

When the manager arrived back from dinner, I complained that the cocktails were too girly. “Mate,” he said, “this is George Street. That’s the point.” Oh yeah. Fair enough. It’s a mating signal, or something.

At the other end of the week, Friday was a write-off because it was Sydney’s hottest day on record. Maximum temperatures of 46C across the city. I escaped to Cronulla with the intention of having fish and chips, but I was distracted by a baby xenomorph and local customs, strange rituals and their cosmopolitan cultural experiences.

Anyway, to business…

Podcasts

None. I did say that I was going to write something about that, but yeah. Productivity. Tomorrow.

Articles

Aaron Swartz: a martyr for info-freedom fighters?, Crikey, 14 January 2013.
From academics to Anonymous, Swartz sets off huge reaction, Crikey, 15 January 2013.
Gillard’s trolling plan will please the media, but it’s nothing new, Crikey, 17 January 2013.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

Still none. I’d thought that Australia would have returned from its summer break this week, but no. It seems far quieter than the same time last year, and several taxi drivers agree.

The Week Ahead

Buggered if I know. Well, on Monday I’ll help Bunjaree Cottages set up their email marketing, and on Tuesday I’m being a guest on someone else’s podcast. But nothing else has been planned out, either for the working week or the Australia Day long weekend. I should probably do something about that.

[Photo: The rain begins… in Cronulla. Well, there were a few drops, just before I took the train back to the city.]

13 January 2013

Weekly Wrap 136: Geekery and hot thoughts

The week of Monday 7 to Sunday 13 January 2013 was supposed to be filled with thoughts about my work in 2013. Instead, there was too much urgent geekery, too much intense thought about certain non-work matters, and too much hot weather for my liking.

Some might also argue that there was too much wine. I couldn’t possibly comment on that point directly, except to note that there was also beer, cider and gin.

Nevertheless, the week did see the delivery of two media objects, which are here listed for your information and enjoyment, and yesterday I went on a long, random exploratory excursion.

Podcasts

The 9pm Heat Wave, which should need little explanation. Or a lot, actually. I’ll tell you my thoughts regarding The 9pm Edict and other podcasts within the next three days.

Articles

Nasty Ruby on Rails vulnerabilities highlight small websites’ risk to us all, CSO Online, 11 January 2013.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None this week either. Australia is still closed for summer. I daresay this will change in the coming week.

The Week Ahead

I’ll return to work at full intensity. I’m sketching out the details later today, at least for this first week, as well as posting more about my slowly-evolving plans for 2013. Stay tuned for that.

I’m in Sydney all week, it seems, staying at Lilyfield. And my new, erm, “health regime” starts tomorrow. Should I post my plans for that too, or just leave you to make suggestions?

Apart from that, there’s nothing locked in to any particular schedule, so feel free to send through the invitations.

[Photo: Urban sophistication, or so it is imagined, a house photographed yesterday in Maroubra, Sydney.]

07 February 201218 February 2012

The 9pm Edict #17A

Residents of the depressingly tight-sphinctered Melbourne suburb of Prahran torture their dogs. True. And it’s ugly.

Also this week, Australia gets a new masthead for quality journalism, and everyone goes all wet and judgemental. Something something football on the internet. And I finish all the things that I meant to do on New Year’s Eve but didn’t.

Despite being recorded more than five weeks after the previous episode, this is really just a continuation. More or less. Shut up I’m telling this story don’t question me.

Look, I’m going to be writing some more words for a bit, so feel free to scroll down or click through or whatever and just play the podcast, OK?

Continue reading “The 9pm Edict #17A”

19 September 200922 September 2009

Links for 12 September 2009 through 19 September 2009

Here are the web links I’ve found for 12 September 2009 through 19 September 2009, posted not-quite-automatically.

Steak House or Gay Bar?: Can you pick the steakhouses from the gay bars, just by their names? It’s harder than you might thing!
Greenpeace frees ocean life from Pacific longliner | Greenpeace Australia Pacific: Greenpeace’s report on their ship Esperanza “freeing tuna, sharks, marlin and an endangered sea turtle from a Taiwanese longliner”, the Ho Tsai Fa 18. Or, as I prefer to label it, Greenpeace committing piracy and endangering the lives of mariners going about their business.
Fish Now, Pay Later | Greenpeace Australia Pacific: Darren Smith told me the article on dolphin-safe tuna wasn’t right, that Greenpeace didn’t support any kind of industrialised fishing. Here’s what Greenpeace is currently doing in the Pacific.
The ecological disaster that is dolphin safe tuna | Southern Fried Science: By promoting “dolphin-safe tuna” — I prefer to spell it with a hyphen thusly — we’ve ended up with a system that’s unsafe for pretty much everything else.
Meet my hot new stripper wife / Turns out the mid-life crisis is a cruel global phenomenon. Can it be stopped? | Mark Morford: Mark Morford is rapidly becoming one of my favourite writers. In this piece from February 2008 he explains a man’s mid-life crisis rather too well. And entertainingly. I’ll never be able to listen to Justin Timberlake in the same way again.
The Lost Seasons | ABC: More details of the Australian Aboriginal six-season cycle, including a nice explanation of the system used by the Sydney basin’s D’harawal people.
War 2.0: Political Violence & New Media | ANU Department of International Relations: I’ve been invited to attend this 2-day symposium in Canberra on 7-8 October. Now, to figure out who’s paying for it, which will be the key factor in deciding whether I can go.
Jimmy Carter says that tea baggers hate President Obama because he's black | The Root: The former president points out a truth so self-evident you wonder how it could possibly be controversial. But controversial it is. Has modern journalism become so timid that it can’t handle the truth?
Understanding the Telstra d-i-v-o-r-c-e | SearchNetworking.com.au: Richard Chirgwin’s backgrounder explains just how difficult it will be to separate Telstra into separate wholesale and retail divisions.
The next generation bends over | 37signals: The makers of Basecamp, something I use every day, reckon the sale of online accounting software Mint to Intuit, the makers of Quicken and Quickbooks, is “indicative of a VC-induced cancer that’s infecting our industry and killing off the next generation”.
Kid Cannabis | Rolling Stone: “How a chubby pizza-delivery boy from Idaho became a drug kingpin.” It’s just another product distribution business, just illegal.
Rudd & Conroy Gambling On Mandatory Internet Censorship Working | broowery.com: An odd statistical analysis of the likelihood of stumbling across banned material online.
ACMA Blacklists Iran Protest Video & Boing Boing: Another example of why the ACMA blacklist process is seemingly out of step with what the community might want. That’s not ACMA’s fault, they’re just implementing a dodgy policy.
Why Sol Trujillo should be sued for stuffing up Telstra: Kohler | SmartCompany: There’s so many historical analyses of Telstra coming out this week, what with the government announcing its break-up and n’all. This one is marvellous.
2009 Menzies Lecture by John Howard (full text) | The Australian: “In the Australian context the adoption of a Charter or Bill of rights would represent the final triumph of elitism in Australian politics,” reckons our former Prime Minister. A fascinating read if only for its disingenuous use of political rhetoric and coded messages rather than rational argument.
Oil Rocks | BLDGBLOG: Imagine a city of 5000 people built on stilts and causeways some 45km out into a lake. Well, it exists, and it’s called Oil Rocks, in the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan.
The Mushroom Tunnel of Mittagong | BLDGBLOG: A fascinating look, with photos, of a mushroom farm inside a disused railway tunnel. The tunnel itself is still government property, with the farm existing on a 5-year lease.
Death by Information Overload | HBR.org: “New research and novel techniques offer a lifeline to you and your organization,” it says.
The Economics of Sex Work | Core Economics: Good to see an update of knowledge since I did a little research on the sex industry for ABC Radio all those years ago.
CHART OF THE DAY: Primetime On Facebook Is Monday To Wednesday | Silicon Valley Insider: “Social media marketers, take note. The best days to spam, erm, publish wall posts on Facebook that you want your ‘fans’ to pay attention to are Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.”