My week of Monday 16 to Sunday 22 January 2023 was an easy-paced one, with two livestreams and a bunch of document editing pushed out the productivity tubes. A whole bunch of errands were also dealt with, in preparation for the upcoming start to the work year.
Crowdfunding update
Just three days remain to pledge your support to my crowdfunding campaign The 9pm Hardware Refresh 2023.
The core component, a new computer to replace the seven-year-old MacBook Pro that has now completely died, has already been delivered. But there’s more to go.
We’re currently climbing through 86% of the way to Target Four, which represents a camera and a better external monitor. And I’ll be setting further targets tonight.
The campaign runs until Australia Day, 26 January 2023. Please consider.
Videos
- The 8pm Quiz of The Year 2022 Part 2, streamed on Tuesday night.
- The 8pm Quiz of Everything 2023 Part 1, streamed on Thursday night.
You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 21, 20 January 2023. This week we saw a teaser for next week’s action-packed robodebt royal commission hearings, an audit of the telehealth expansion, and more.
You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to an email compilation of any new stories each Sunday morning.
Podcasts, Photos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None of any of these things.
Recommendations
The Musk-Twitter dramas continue to provide vast amounts of amusement and schadenfreude. I’m in danger of overdosing.
- The outages which affected third-party Twitter clients were no mistake. Twitter’s new developer terms ban third-party clients.
- From the BBC on Tuesday, Twitter: Five ways Elon Musk has changed the platform for users.
- On the inside Twitter is of course Extremely Hardcore. “Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the social media site against impulsive billionaires who wanted to use the reach of its platform for their own ends, and then one made himself the CEO.” This is a very good feature and well worth reading at an easy pace.
- Meanwhile in other Musk news, Fraud trial begins over Elon Musk’s 2018 Tesla tweet, which allegedly artificially affected stock price.
- And finally another story which at this point should surprise no one, Musk Oversaw Video That Exaggerated Tesla’s Self-Driving Capabilities.
In other news:
The Week Ahead
The main themes this week are to wind back the intensity of my own media production, at least temporarily; increase the focus on some client work, because deadlines loom; wrap up the crowdfunder; and ponder various matters as 2023 gets under way properly.
[Update 24 January 2023: Guess what? I’m putting this back yet another week.] On Wednesday I’m recording the rescheduled episode of The 9pm Edict podcast with Elise Thomas, freelance journalist and OSINT analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. She’s been on the podcast before in April 2021 and February 2022.
If you’re a podcast supporter with TRIGGER WORDS or a CONVERSATION TOPIC for this episode, please get the details to me by midday AEDT this Tuesday 24 January. That’s tomorrow. The finished episode will be posted on the weekend some time.
Thursday is Australia Day, and that night we wrap up the summer mini-series of the Quiz with The 9pm Quiz of Everything 2023 Part 2 at 8pm AEDT. Click through and set yourself a reminder.
We also wrap-up of The 9pm Hardware Refresh 2023 crowdfunding campaign at 9pm AEDT, and I’ll be reporting the final hour during the Quiz.
On Saturday night I’ll be enjoying the Lunar New Year Comedy Festival in Chatswood, Sydney, and I’ll stay in the city through until Monday so that Sunday becomes a relaxing day of some sort.
And then the Australia Day extended long weekend will be out of the way, and as is the tradition in Australia, the New Year begins properly.
As a secondary goal, I hope to get some video of NSW TrainLink’s New InterCity Fleet D-Set train being tested on the Blue Mountains line this week. The wonderful Ken Tsang maintains a timetable of special trains ideal for this purpose. Provided it fits in around my other commitments, of course. And there’s always next week.
Further Ahead
- ASPI Presents: The geopolitical and technical changes reshaping cyber risk, Canberra and online, 6 February 2023. I’ll be attending online, of course.
- Everything Open conference, Melbourne, 14–16 March 2023 (TBA).
- NSW state election, 25 March 2023. I’ll definitely do something special for this one.
- The Sydney Dialogue, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, online, 4–5 April 2023.
- Coronation of Charles III, 6 May 2023, although I have no idea what I’ll actually do about it.
[Photo: A delightful big bear welcoming patrons to the Siam House restaurant in Sydney’s Thaitown, photographed on 16 January 2023.]