Weekly Wrap 601: A soggy start to official summer, with links to bushfires and Parliament

The Great Sog of La Niña continued through the week of Monday 29 November to Sunday 5 December 2021. This was a huge contrast with exactly two years ago, when Sydney was shrouded in bushfire smoke.

In that week’s Weekly Wrap I posted a sepia-toned photo of HMAS Canberra, and the following week an image of a NSW TrainLink V-Set with the Sun visible as a mere orange dot in the background. A year later I reminisced with a photo of the smoke-shrouded harbour.

So this week, in the absence of any striking new photos, I’ve posted another shot of Sydney Harbour in the smoke.

Podcasts

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Articles

Also, that word I coined in last week’s ZDNet story, Morrison’s pamphletocracy of critical tech holds barely a quantum of substance, namely “pampletocracy”, was uttered in Parliament this week. Check out this speech by Tim Watts MP.

“One cynic has gone so far as to call this model of government a ‘pamphletocracy’,” he said.

OK so I dared him to do it.

You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to an email compilation of any new stories each Sunday morning.

Photos

  • I have of course updated my Waratah sequence 2021 for another week. The photos now span 96 days, and yet there’s still more to come.

Videos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse

None. However you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for when new videos do appear. I’ll be editing some of my bird and train videos soon.

Recommendations

The Week Ahead

My primary focus this week will be the geek-work that I want to finish before things start shutting down for Christmas — because that way I can invoice the clients. That said, I’ll also poke at the backlog of research documents I’m meant to read, and ponder what to do with The 9pm Edict podcast over summer.

On Monday I’ll be writing something for ZDNet, probably, because the NSW iVote system fell over during Saturdays local government elections.

On Tuesday I’ll catch a Lowy Institute event, In Conversation with Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang. I’m looking forward to this. Audrey Tang is a remarkable human being. A transgender government minister who does Haskell and Perl.

The global Internet Governance Forum 2021 runs all week, and there’s a lot of sessions, but they’re all being streamed live from Poland, so I’m not sure how much I’ll watch.

I’ll be spending the weekend in Sydney for some social activities. This will feel weird.

Further Ahead

  • Launch of The 9pm Summer Series 2022 Pozible campaign, 8pm AEDT, 14 December 2021.
  • Catsitting in Sydney, 20–30 December 2021. This runs over the Christmas period, and that’s kind of the point. I’ll also load it up with all the things I’ve been meaning to do in Sydney but have delayed due to the Quarantimes.
  • TwoSet Violin 2021 Virtual World Tour, online, 28 December 2021.
  • linux.conf.au 2022, online, 14–16 January 2022 (TBC).
  • APRICOT 2022 / APNIC 53, 28 February to 4 March 2022 approx.

[Photo: Sydney Harbour shrouded in bushfire smoke on 5 December 2021. There was more smoke about an hour later, but this shot includes both the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge so it’s solid value for money.]