Thanks to a trigger word from Mick Fong in this week’s podcast, my week of Monday 2 to Sunday 8 August 2021 included some reminiscing about what we used to call travel. Remember that? My last time outside NSW was a trip to Melbourne for a conference in February 2020.
You’ll have to listen to the podcast for the details. However I did note the existence of an irregular noun. I’m a traveller exploring the world. You’re a tourist, gawking at my culture.
I also thought about my first trip outside Australia in 2007 at a relatively old age for younger people, but not unusually old for people my age who grew up when travel was much more expensive.
I reminisced about the short series of blogs posts I wrote, Unreliable Bangkok, and rediscovered the photographs of me taken by ’Pong. Time is such a strange thing.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Anti-Lockdown Freedom Nazis with Ariel Bogle, recorded on Friday afternoon. It begins with a bit of rant, for which I make no apology.
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Media Appearances
- Apparently my 2020 ZDNet article Cyber attacks on COVID-19 vaccine production are not quite a war crime was cited in a paper in Business Horizons, Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news: Cyber risks to business.
Articles, Videos, Corporate Largesse
None, but I’ve been making up for the lack of writing lately — or rather the lack of revenue from same — by doing some more geek-for-hire stuff. I only serve the loveliest of clients.
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
- The Moth Effect is a new Australian sketch comedy series on currently Amazon Prime. It’s created by Jazz Twemlow, who’s been on The 9pm Edict, and Nick Boshier, and it’s very good. They’re currently two episodes in, with new ones appearing on Fridays.
- Scottish comedian Janey Godley has made a lovely little series of videos in response to people complaining that she’s blocked them on social media. It’s the Janey Godley Blocked Me Help Line parts one, two, and three.
- How Your Brain Tricks You Into Taking Risks During the Pandemic.
- At Close Range – Inside the Deadly Firefight Between HMCS Assiniboine and U-210, an amazing story from WW2.
- Australian mathematician reveals world’s oldest example of applied geometry, being the story of how “a surveyor’s field plan from the Old Babylonian period shows that ancient mathematics was more advanced than previously thought”.
The Week Ahead
This will be week seven of the current COVID-19 lockdown for Greater Sydney.
On Tuesday I’m recording a pandemic-oriented episode of the Edict with science communicator Upulie Divisekera and infectious disease physician Dr Trent Yarwood. If you’re a podcast supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC to cash in, I’ll need them by 1pm AEST that day.
Tuesday night is also Census Night. I’ll edit and post the podcast on Wednesday.
The rest of the week will be about writing for ZDNet (ideally) and adminsitrivia related to my tax affairs.
On Friday I have a “telehealth” appointment with my GP, which is just a daft way to say we’ll chat on the phone and organise some things for the following week.
Further Ahead
- Day trip to Sydney for my second COVID-19 vaccination and other health appointments, 16 August 2021. This will be interesting.
- Record The 9pm Edict with Liz Buchanan, 24 August 2021.
- UTS:ACRI WEBINAR: The Hugh White thesis — Ten years on, online, 25 August 2021.
- The 9pm Edict livestream recording, 31 August 2021. I’m wrapping up the Late Winter Series 2021 with an evening livestream, though I have yet to decide what form it will take.
- APNIC 52 conference, online, 14–16 September 2021.
- Australian Cyber Conference, Melbourne, 15–17 November 2021 (TBC).
- linux.conf.au 2022, online, 14–16 January 2022 (TBC).
[Photo: Aircraft queued up to depart Melbourne Airport on 25 February 2020. In my case I was returning to Sydney from my last trip outside NSW before things went into pandemic lockdown for the first time. It seems so long ago..]