Monday 25 to Sunday 31 July 2022 saw the waratah I’ve been tracking finally open up its seed pods, and I produced a podcast. See what I did there? I also started to track what’s happening in the new Parliament and launched a new crowdfunding campaign.
On the weekend I kicked off the two-day process for implementing David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system, as described two weeks ago. So far it’s going very well. I’ll write about it in due course, but for the moment I’ll just say that the software OmniFocus continues to be excellent. It should do, because it’s designed specifically for this purpose.
One thing I will say, though, is that it feels very good indeed to be getting my personal organisation back to the excellent state it was in some years back.
Meanwhile, time marches on. In just a few weeks it will be spring. That means it’s time to launch another crowdfunding campaign, cunningly titled The 9pm Spring Series 2022.
Yes, I’ve started slightly earlier than hinted at recently. But Pozible pre-approved the project because they know me quite well now, so I thought I might as well launch it as soon as I was ready. I’ll promote it more heavily next week.
However in the first 24 hours it’s already reached around 14% of Target One, which is fantastic.
There’s still three more special-guest episodes of The 9pm Edict to come before then, however, and you’ll see them listed below in bold.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Low-Energy Bob Katter Lovefest with Unexpected Nudity, a solo episode recorded and posted on Saturday.
Articles
- Digital developments in Labor’s first week of Parliament, 30 July 2022. There wasn’t really much at all, given the short sitting week, all the ceremonial and procedural stuff, and things like the climate legislation, but here we are anyway.
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
- The photos in the Waratah sequence 2021 now span 334 days and the seed pods are finally wide open, as you can see from the header photo.
From the Archive
Each weekday this month I’ve been tweeting links to things from my archives with the hashtag #StilArchive2022. For this final week I’ve chosen:
- May ransomware blight all the cyber stragglers and let God sort them out, ZDNet Australia, 16 July 2021.
- Labor’s plan to fix Australia’s encryption laws doesn’t go far enough, ZDNet Australia, 5 December 2019. Labor’s Telecommunications Amendment (Repairing Assistance and Access) Bill 2019 naturally lapsed with the end of the previous Parliament, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes next.
- Sport has to think outside the box, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 February 2012. A decade later, the last bit amuses me. Sporting codes do indeed run their own streaming now.
- How brand new science will manage the fourth industrial revolution, ZDNet Australia, 12 August 2018. This feature some thoughts of the wonderful Genevieve Bell, who was also on my podcast The 9pm Artificial Intelligence Doom Elevator with Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell AO in 2020.
- Cybercrime 2016: Paper-boy refrigerator revenge, CSO Online, 20 October 2011.
Here’s the entire collection. If you’d like me to keep going with this sort of thing, maybe one item per week, do let me know.
Videos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None of these. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Recommendations
There’s plenty of recommendations this week as I’ve been cleaning out all the open tabs in my web browser.
- Winston Churchill’s ‘magnificently idiotic’ platypus quest – and more strange stories of Australian animals abroad, because of course Churchill wanted a platypus.
- ‘The council tenants weren’t going to be allowed back’: how Britain’s ‘ugliest building’ was gentrified. Personally I don’t think this is an ugly building at all. It’s a fine example of brutalism and public housing. But yeah, it’s different now.
- Apparently the world is becoming less colourful.
- An excellent comedy bit, My Top Tip For Feeling ‘Claggy’ by Sarah Millican.
- An amazing little film 1967 courtesy of the BBC Archive: Are PINK FLOYD too LOUD?. Personally I think it should be “Is Pink Floyd too loud?”.
- I’ve been reminded of one of the more amazing sights of the early communications era, A 19th Century Telephone Network Covered Stockholm in Thousands of Phone Lines.
- An amusing twitter thread, this. “It’s drizzling, I have a stupid hat, and vintage tractors were rumbling past the house all morning,†says Dreadnought Holiday. “Let’s go to the village show…”.
- We analysed NZ Twitter users’ language during lockdown – with surprising results.
- Our friends at SpaceAustralia.com have done a lovely profile of Dr Alice Gorman aka @drspacejunk, who of course has been on The 9pm Edict podcast.
The Week Ahead
On Monday I’m finishing off the Getting Things Done set-up. You probably won’t see much of me online.
Bond on Tuesday continues with Moonraker (1979) starring Roger Moore. Find a stream and get ready at 8.30pm AEST. We press PLAY at 8.40pm.
On Wednesday I’m heading down to Sydney for a covid-19 vaccination booster, dose number four in fact, a haircut because I didn’t have one last time, and a few drinks with a friend to sort out some logistics before returning.
On Friday I’m heading down to Sydney again, but this time to start housesitting in Surry Hills for most of the rest of the month. If you want to catch up with me in Sydney, it looks like August is the month to do it.
On Friday afternoon I’m recording a podcast with SpaceAustralia.com’s Rami Mandow, who was on the pod in May. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for this episode, please let me know by 8pm AEST this Thursday 4 August. That episode will be posted on the weekend.
Further Ahead
- Win the Week recording, ABC Ultimo. 9 August 2022. I’ve booked for four out of the eight episodes, starting with this one which is episode two. I may well cancel a couple, however, because heading to Sydney for all of them might prove a bit much.
- The 9pm Edict recording with Justin Warren, 11 August 2022. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for this episode, we’ll need them by midday AEST that day. Here’s his previous two episodes.
- Tech Leaders Forum 2022, Leura NSW, 20–22 August 2022. After a hiatus during the Quarantimes, this once-annual gathering for tech journalists is returning for 2022. Its purpose is for industry PR people to meet the journos who cover their clients.
- American democracy in peril: The US Senate’s crucial role, United States Study Centre, online, 23 August 2022.
- The 9pm Edict recording with Umair Haque, date TBA. If you’re a supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for this episode, we’ll need them by 6pm AEST on Tuesday 23 August.
- APNIC 54, Singapore and online, 13–15 September 2022. I daresay I won’t be travelling physically to Singapore, but we’ll see.
- NetThing: Australia’s Internet Community Forum, online, 27–28 October 2022 (TBC).
- Victoria state election, 26 November 2022. I’m sure I’ll do something special.
[Photo: A seed pod of a New South Wales waratah flower (Telopea speciosissima) nearing its final stage of opening up, photographed on 30 July 2012. This was day 333 of the Waratah sequence 2021, in which I’ve tracking the evolution os a single waratah from from when it was still a bud on 1 September 2021.]