My week of Monday 6 to Sunday 12 March 2023 began in Melbourne and involved a bit of drinking, but it was also reasonably productive. All things considered. Flying back into Sydney as dusk continues to be beautiful.
I also took delivery of the Sony ZV-E10 camera and accessories that were part of The 9pm Hardware Refresh 2023 crowdfunding campaign. Thank you all. However I haven’t had to time to familiarise myself with it, so I’ll post more about that next week — including some photos and videos.
I’ve finally created an easy way to get onto my mailing list in case you’re not already a supporter. I’ll email you about upcoming podcasts, live recordings, crowdfunding campaigns, and other bits and pieces. There’s usually only one or two emails per month. Maybe three.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Poorly-Governed Semantic Argument with Justin Warren, recorded last Friday in Melbourne and posted this morning, Sunday. Even though it says it’s Saturday. Long story.
Careful listeners may notice that the previous episode with Dr Trent Yarwood was labelled 00195 in some places and 00196 in others. For various reasons I’ve made that one 00196 and this one 00195. Yes, that’s out of order, but it required fewer changes.
Articles
- Digital developments from Canberra 28. Nuclear submarines are the big story this week, but there’s plenty more — including the sudden resignation of our FOI commissioner, predictive policing, and various reports.
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, Videos, Media Appearances, Corporate Largesse
None of these things. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear.
Recommendations
The Musk-Twitter saga is the the gift that keeps on giving, especially this week as some of these stories are top-shelf schadenfreude.
- The Guardian tells us that the Rise in Twitter outages since Musk takeover hints at more systemic problems. Yeah, Elon, that happens when you sack all the engineers who know how things work.
- “Twitter has allowed the certificate for its Tor onion site to expire, effectively killing off a privacy- and speech-protecting service that it introduced last year.”
- It’s only an unverified rumour so far, but it is alleged that Twitter can’t maintain some of their computers because Musk fired everyone with access to the root encryption keys.
- Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone. “Tiers will start at $500,000 a year for access to 0.3 percent of the company’s tweets. Researchers say that’s too much for too little data.”
- “Not only does Elon Musk not have a clue what he’s talking about, but this is exactly what he tried to do at PayPal, claiming it needed a full ‘V2’ rewrite of the code when it didn’t. Instead, it shifted resources away from key areas, caused PayPal to lose much more money to fraud, and eventually got him ousted as CEO.”
- Elon Musk is ‘open to the idea’ of buying Silicon Valley Bank as he lays Twitter payments groundwork, so yes that would turn out well. I too am open to the idea of buying a failing bank.
- Finally, are we about to another attempt at a Twitter replacement? Meta is building a decentralised, text-based social network.
And in other news:.
- From the Guardian, a huge summary: Robodebt: five years of lies, mistakes and failures that caused a $1.8bn scandal.
- With all the news this week about AUKUS and nuclear submarines for Australia, you might like to listen to this backgrounder from November 2022: The 9pm Underwater Doomsday Conversation with H I Sutton (1h02m13s). This was a really good episode, even if I say so myself.
- Disputes over COVID’s origins reveal an intelligence community in disarray. Here are 4 fixes we need before the next pandemic.
- The Christian right is trying really hard to disown the Wieambilla shooters. “There is more basis for prepper terrorism in the climate alarmism dogma preached by leftists, globalists and elitists than such orthodox Christian doctrine as premillenialism, so why isn’t the lying harlot media (LHM) blamed for this tragedy? That’s at least somewhat plausible.â€
- “On a move that’s bound to annoy some people, Scientists create mice with two fathers after making eggs from male cells.”On a move that’s bound to annoy some people, Scientists create mice with two fathers after making eggs from male cells.
- It’s from 2013, but Oregon man on meth fights off cops while masturbating in bar: police. A while back I was thinking that “Meth Life” might make a good podcast segment. It probably still would.
- And finally, Scientists have revived a ‘zombie’ virus that spent 48,500 years frozen in permafrost. So that’s a thing now. It was nice knowing you all.
I am truly loving the phrase “lying harlot media” (LHM). #JeSuisLHM
The Week Ahead
There’s lots of client work this week as we approach the deadlines for a particular client’s projects. You might finally get to see some of this stuff.
On Thursday hope to catch AUKUS briefing: What to know about the AUKUS report from the United States Studies Centre.
On Thursday afternoon I’m doing a brief live radio spot, ABC RN’s Big Tech segment, at 1650 AEDT. You can listen here or on the ABC Listen app, or later on at a link I’ll tell you about that evening.
On Saturday I’m heading down to Sydney to finalise a venue for the Public House Forum recording, which may involve some drinking. On Sunday I’ll tell you all where I’ve chosen , but probably not in the morning.
And as I mentioned up the top, somewhere in there I’ll explore the features of the new camera.
Further Ahead
- Australian Cyber Conference 2023, Canberra, 20–22 March 2023. I won’t be going, but I’ll leave it here for reference because it relates to some client work. Yes, the work mentioned above.
- NSW state election, 25 March 2023. I’ll definitely do something special for this one, although that might just be something personal.
- The 9pm Public House Forum 7 livestream and recording, Sydney CBD venue TBA, 1 April 2023. Guests include Sydney Morning Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox and satirist Mark Humphries. Please click through to book a free ticket, just so I know how many people might be coming. The venue will be announced on Sunday 19 March.
- The Sydney Dialogue, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, online, 4–5 April 2023.
- The 9pm Public House Forum 8 livestream and recording, 29 April 2022 (TBA).
- Coronation of Charles III, 6 May 2023, although I have no idea what I’ll actually do about it.
- Truth, Trust and Hope, “a global dialogue on disinformation and the erosion of public understanding and trust in science”, Nobel Prize Outreach, Washington DC and online, 24–26 May 2023.
[Photo: Full Moon rising from 6,000 feet. This photograph was taken from Virgin Australia flight VA879 MEL-SYD at 1940 AEDT on 7 March 2023 as it turned south over Royal National Park for its approach to Sydney. The aircraft is Boeing 737-800 registration VH-VIT.]