My week of Monday 30 August to Sunday 5 September 2021 included a COVID-19 test which once more came back negative. The wait was slightly more stressful than I thought it would be. I’m hoping productivity will return as spring continues, though I still produced two podcasts this week.
Podcasts
- The 9pm End of Winter LIVE, recorded live on Tuesday night. This was a me-ranting episode which included a mini-quiz. I’d planned to do this as the final episode of the Late Winter Series 2021 but…
- The 9pm Polar Political Peregrination with Dr Liz Buchanan, recorded on Tuesday afternoon, was posted on Friday. This is a seriously fun chat about the geopolitics of the Antarctic. Yes, I appreciate the contrast between the two halves of that sentence.
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Articles, Videos, Madia Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None. But you can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to get a compilation of any new stories by email each Sunday morning. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Recommendations
- Christiaan Triebert, who does “visual Investigations at @nytimes”, posted an amazing series of videos of New York City being flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
- As you may know I’m a fan of the TimeGhost TV history series. They’ve started a new sub-series called TimeGhost Shorts and one really stood out for me this week: “Gay Plague” – How Prejudice Killed a Generation. It mostly focuses on America’s (lack of) response to HIV/AIDS but mentions the global perspective at the end.
- The story of Adelaide’s Grand Central Hotel, a Victorian-era building which was demolished in 1975 to build a car park. I can vaguely remember this building from my childhood, when it was used as an office building.
- Stray Kids Talks New Album ‘NOEASY’ & Embracing Their Noise Music Label, a piece from the wonderful Teen Vogue about a K-Pop group of note. The music video is next-level.
- Limit on K-pop stars ‘who look identical’ appearing on TV has been scrapped by South Korean gender ministry, a South China Morning Post story from 2019 covering the rules that used to limit the number of “similar-looking K-pop stars appearing on television” because “having idols on TV that look the same may distort young people’s sense of identity”.
- The hidden world of cats: what our feline friends are doing when we’re not looking, a fascinating Guardian piece from 22 July.
- These Parrots Raid Rubbish Bins (and it’s my fault), kinda. Sulphur-crested cockatoos have indeed learned how to open rubbish bins. This is the latest in this guy’s explorations of jerkbird behaviour.
- Comedian Oliver Izod has “changed the tune of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ by one note and now it’s way better”.
The Week Ahead
This will be week eleven of the current COVID-19 lockdown for Greater Sydney. I am excited to be able to go shopping in Katoomba on Monday, and perhaps to Sydney on Thursday for back maintenance.
Update 7 September 2021: With the 70th anniversary of the Australian-US alliance last week and the 20th anniversary of 9/11 this weekend the talkfest continues this week. There’s now three four sessions in my calendar.
On Wednesday I’ll check out the United States Study Centre (USSC) seminar Trust and Diversify: A geoeconomic strategy for the Australia-US alliance, and then the Lowy Institute’s The end of the 9/11 era.
On Thursday there’s Satellites, Space and Cyber Threats, a panel discussion from the Cybersecurity Advisors Network (CyAN) APAC. Disappointingly, all the panellists are middle-aged white men.
On Friday it’s the USSC session Twenty years since 9/11 with Duncan Lewis and General David Petraeus.
At some point I’ll record a bonus episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, a kind of encore to the Late Winter Series 2021.
And I really must get onto both some writing for ZDNet and some of the geek-for-hire stuff that’s been building up.
Further Ahead
The seminar and conference season is approaching and the calendar is starting to fill up — especially the week after next.
- The road from 9/11: The evolution of counterterrorism and extremism, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, online, 13 September 2021.
- APNIC 52 conference, online, 14–16 September 2021. These are always fantastic sources of information and I hope it’ll inspire some ZDNet stories.
- Kaspersky Asia Pacific Online Policy Forum, Greater Cyber-resilience through Cyber Capacity Building, online, 14 September 2021.
- 2021 Indonesia Update. In sickness and in health: diagnosing Indonesia, ANU Indonesia Project, online, 15–17 September 2021. Obviously this clashes with APNIC 52, which has priority, but I’ll try to get to some of the more relevant sessions.
- Aussie Backyard Bird Count, 14–24 October 2021.
- NetThing 2021, online, 4–5 November2021 (TBC).
- Australian Cyber Conference, Melbourne, 15–17 November 2021 (TBC).
- NSW local government elections, 4 December 2021.
- linux.conf.au 2022, online, 14–16 January 2022 (TBC).
[Photo: A pied currawong (Strepera graculina) waiting to be fed at Bunjaree Cottages on 30 August 2021. This isn’t the only currawong that’s started visiting very day, just the most prominent.]