There was snow in the Blue Mountains during the week of Monday 7 to Sunday 13 June 2021, and I enjoyed spending the afternoon in a warm front bar at Leura watching it through the window. There was also a podcast, and then on Sunday quite a bit of ill-advised drinking — which is why this Weekly Wrap is appearing on Monday afternoon.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Snail is Sleeping with satirist Mark Humphries, recorded on Friday morning. This was a lot of fun to record.
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Articles, Videos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None of these things, although I’m part-way through writing something for ZDNet which will appear on Tuesday.
You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to get a compilation of new stories by email each Sunday morning, when there are some.
Recommendations
- Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right. “What once seemed like a bracing intellectual movement has degenerated into a pack of abusive, small-minded bigots,” says this piece from Salon.
- In 1988–1993, Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod produced an educational TV series titled The Secret Life of Machines. Some of the episodes have been remastered and upscaled from old PAL tapes. There’s also a breand new 2021 series, The Secret Life of Components.
- True Facts: Dangerous Little Ticks. A new instalment in the ongoing series of nature documentaries from Ze Frank. Astounding camerawork meets dry voiceovers with just the right quantity of lame dick jokes.
- Cosmic Flight: Electronic Pop Music in the GDR. I haven’t read this yet but it looks interesting. “Between 1981 and 1989 a small circle of around 20 musicians published a dozen electronic pop LPs in the GDR. Such recordings ensued from a string of chance incidents, thefts, daring ideas, and creative misunderstandings. They amount to a branch on the evolutionary tree of electronic music that has almost been forgotten, and yet on which a few obscure yet pretty sounds once blossomed.”
- It’s only 49 seconds long, but this video of a NSW TrainLink XPT in snow near Orange is beautiful.
The Week Ahead
On Monday I’m returning to Wentworth Falls and writing a thing for ZDNet. It will contain cybers. More writing will follow during the week.
On Thursday night it’s The 8pm Quiz S02 E05, streaming live from my YouTube channel at 8pm AEST.
The Winter Solstice is on the weekend. The moment of solstice is 0131 AEST on Monday 21 June, which I think means that Sunday is the longest night and Monday is the shortest day. I haven’t decided how I’ll celebrate, but I think this needs to be a long weekend for me, to replace the one I’m currently not getting.
Update 16 June 2021: On Friday I’ll head to Sydney for a variety of purposes. After that my maths was wrong. The Solstice is at 1332 on Monday 21 June, so that falls into the following week.
Further Ahead
This is looking a bit thin. So many conferences still aren’t happening this year, and I haven’t sketched out my own plans for the second half of 2021.
- Winter Solstice, 21 June 2021. I haven’t decided how I’ll celebrate this event yet.
- Australian Cyber Conference, Melbourne, 15–17 November 2021 (TBC).
[Photo: Snow on the Great Western Highway at Leura, photographed on 10 June 2021.]