My week of Monday 14 to Sunday 20 January 2019 was dominated by an accident. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, while heading to the bathroom without my glasses and without being fully awake, I tripped over something.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 451: Blood, so much blood”Weekly Wrap 447: It’s still way too busy as Christmas looms
My week of Monday 19 to Sunday 23 December 2018 was surprisingly busy. Instead of winding down as it approached Christmas, it wound back up with new things happening.
Continue reading “Weekly Wrap 447: It’s still way too busy as Christmas looms”Weekly Wrap 446: New laws dominate the week
My week of Monday 10 to Sunday 16 December 2018 was dominated by Australia’s new encryption-busting laws, the Assistance & Access Act. Two articles, two radio spots, and yet more in the works.
Articles
- What’s actually in Australia’s encryption laws? Everything you need to know, ZDNet Australia, 10 December 2018. This 1800-word explainer, written neutrally, has turned out to be quite popular. It’s a good place to start on this controversial topic.
- Australia’s encryption laws will fall foul of differing definitions, ZDNet Australia, 11 December 2018.
I have two part-written stories for ZDNet that should be finished in the coming week.
Podcasts
None. Next week, though…
Media Appearances
- On Tuesday, I spoke about the Assistance & Access Act on Sydney’s Radio Skidrow, and later in the day on ABC Adelaide. No recordings of them for now, but the Radio Skidrow one will appear in their podcast this coming week.
- On Friday, I spoke about YouTube’s attempts to get rid of hate speech and other problematic content on ABC Radio’s PM.
Corporate Largesse
None.
The Week Ahead
I’ll be in Sydney on Monday, finishing some writing for ZDNet, dealing with some medical imaging, and catching up with friends. The writing continues on Tuesday, after which I return to the Blue Mountains to continue yet more writing on another project.
On Thursday, Nicholas Fryer and I will be recording another joint episode of The 9pm Edict podcast. It should be posted that night.
Friday is probably about writing too. Given that it’s the last day of the last proper working week before Christmas, though, who can say?
Further Ahead
The following week begins with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing day, followed by two alleged working days before the extend New Year long weekend. I’ll be spending nearly all of it cat-sitting in Ashfield, and adding personal and maybe work things ad libitum.
[Photo: Crossing the Nepean. Part of my regular “Crossing the Nepean” series of images, but this time taken from the old road bridge through the a bus window covered in advertising, photographed on 16 December 2018.]
Talking propaganda hacks on 2UE
This was the week that the Australian media returned from holidays. What caught the eye, or ear, of Justin Smith on Sydney’s radio 2UE on Tuesday afternoon was the series of hacks and planned hacks for political purposes.
Someone had hacked the Twitter and YouTube accounts of US Central Command (CENTCOM) — although it probably wasn’t Islamic State. And Anonymous, or at least their French-speaking sections, announced that they were declaring war on the jihadists.
I’m posting the audio stream even though it suffers some dropouts. I’m assuming this was just the stream back to me, rather than the broadcast chain, because we continued on air regardless.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:42 — 5.7MB)
This audio is ©2015 Radio 2UE Sydney Pty Ltd.
Weekly Wrap 203: A short, productive week in autumn
My week of Monday 21 to Sunday 27 April 2014 was another solid performer, despite it supposedly being a short three-day working week between Easter and Anzac Day, and despite having to rebuild my computer.
There’s not a lot to say without me getting into a whinge about software generally, so let’s just get on with it.
Articles
- Un-API dinosaurs can’t leap the legacy chasm, ZDNet Australia, 24 April 2014, which seems to have gotten quite a bit of positive feedback — despite the lame pun in the headline.
Video
I produced seven short movies, which were supposed to be progress reports for my Pozible campaign, but which were really just me arseing around. You can find all seven in a YouTube playlist, The 9 O’Clock Resurrection.
Media Appearances
None.
5at5
There was one for every working day, plus an extra for Anzac Day. But why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.
- 5at5 number 38, 22 April 2013.
- 5at5 number 39, 23 April 2013.
- 5at5 number 40, 24 April 2013.
- 5at5 number 41, 25 April 2013.
Corporate Largesse
None.
The Week Ahead
Oh dear. We’re halfway through it already. However it’s already been quite productive. I’ve wrapped the Pozible project, written a piece for ZDNet Australia (to be published today), recorded a radio interview (to go to air next week), and recorded an interview which will turn into some media in due course.
Today, Wednesday, is a day of planning and writing — in particular sketching out what will happen in May. Thursday is a day trip to Sydney, for a meeting and then Good Technology’s Sydney Mobility Summit, a briefing about strategies for mobile device security. Friday is a day of writing and production planning.
On Saturday I’ll be recording “The 9pm Shire”, the first full episode of a new series of The 9pm Edict. That involves a trip to Cronulla and other places in the Sutherland Shire for the location recording. And Sunday will see the post-production of that podcast and its publication.
[Photo: The train approaches Wentworth Falls , photographed on Sunday 27 April 2014.]
The 9 O’Clock Resurrection hits Target 1
My project to resurrect The 9pm Edict reached the initial target on Saturday — thank you — but there’s a few minutes left, so I’m hoping that we might get something up beyond that.
Here’s how things looked as we started the day today.
The upper line shows the total commitments so far, and where that line ends up at 0847 AEST today will determine what happens in May.
The lower line shows just the cumulative subscriptions, and where that ends up will provide the starting-point for crowdfunding June’s budget.
I’ll run another Pozible campaign around the third week of May, probably ending around 21 May. That will set the production pool for June — that is, the subscriptions continuing from this campaign, plus any new subscriptions, plus any one-off pledges. However I’ll also be investigating other ways to organise the subscriptions and perhaps some commercial sponsorship.
I’ll post a brief update once the Pozible campaign finishes this morning, and a longer explainer tonight.
Meanwhile you can watch my daily progress videos, which ceased on the weekend because I was distracted by a computer rebuild.
[Update 1110 AEST: The final total raised for the May production pool was $1082, so that’s two episodes confirmed for the month. We “only” have $304 in ongoing subscriptions, which isn’t quite enough to fund podcasts in June — yet. There will be further fundraising before then, so stay tuned. I’m currently feeling quite confident that I can build on this base — but I’ll have more on that tonight.]