Our warm spring is back under way. Donald Trump is in hospital after a train wreck of a presidential election debate. Scott Morrison built a chicken coop. Monday 28 September to Sunday 4 October 2020 was a week I’ll remember for some time.
Articles
- Digital pioneer Geoff Huston apologises for bringing the internet to Australia, ZDNet, 2 October 2020. Geoff’s cheerful pessimism is always such fun.
Podcasts, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None. For once I decided to take advantage of the long weekend.
Recommendations
- “This is one of the most important threads I’ll write,” tweeted @JYSexton. It explains the links between racism, fascism, and what’s happening in America right now. It won’t make you happy.
- Monday was International Access to Information Day, aka #RightToKnow Day. Freedom of Information request enthusiast Justin Warren tweeted a small thread on “stuff I’ve learned with my silly FOI hobby over the past few years”. It’s easier than you might think.
- Secrets of the Thames. “It’s one of the key focal points of the city and the reason London sprung up in the first place — the river Thames is what most of us think about when we think of the capital. But how many of these facts did you know about it?”
- This is sublime. Aaron Chen: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet).
The Week Ahead
It’s week 29 of the Quarantimes. It begins in Sydney on Monday for the Queen’s Birthday Labour Day holiday, after which I’ll be back at Bunjaree Cottages at Wentworth Falls as has been customary these last six months.
Tuesday night is Budget Night in Canberra, rescheduled during the pandemic from its usual date in May. I’ll be looking at the documents as soon as they drop, and might even live-tweet my reading of them.
On Wednesday, rescheduled from last week, I’m recording a podcast with Fr Karl Sinclair, who was on Public House Forum 1 back in 2015 when he was still a seminarian. Now he’s a local priest in Orange in central NSW, and the world looks very different from there.
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Further Ahead
- Monthly Buzz | Demystifying Quantum Technology, Cicada Innovations, online, 21 October 2020.
- Australian Cyber Conference, Melbourne, 27-29 October 2020 (TBC).
- Trolling in Chinese and English – Research Findings, Information Innovation @ UTS, online, 27 November 2020.
- Linux.conf.au 2021, online, 23–25 January 2021 (TBC).
- Australian Cyber Conference, Canberra, 14–16 March 2021 (TBC).
[Photo: Paper lanterns hanging in Darling Square, Sydney, for the Moon Festival, photographed on 4 October 2020.]