Weekly Wrap 115: Four trains and too much food

19 August 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

Today I’m catching up on a fortnight of blog posts, so for now my summary of the week Monday 13 to Sunday 19 August 2012 will consist of nothing but the facts, ma’am.

Personal observations about the last fortnight or so will follow within the next 48 hours or so.

Podcasts

Articles

I wrote two articles, one for ABC’s The Drum about media coverage of the Natonal Broadband Network, the other for CSO Online about the hoax “hack” on the Sony PlayStation Network, but neither has been published yet. Stand by.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

  • On Monday I had lunch at Rengaya in North Sydney on Websense’s tab.
  • On Tuesday I attended IBM’s Security Symposium 2012 in Sydney. They provided accommodation at Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park hotel the night before so I could make the 0800 start, and plenty of refreshments during the morning.

The Week Ahead

The schedule for the next few days is being shaped by my impending travels, to the Sunshine Coast on Thursday 23 August to present at Consilium, on Sunday 26 August to San Francisco to cover VMworld, and back to Sydney by Wednesday 5 September to present at ACCAN’s national conference.

So between now and Thursday lunchtime I have to write two presentations and finalise two episodes of the Patch Monday podcast, as well as wrap up some other bits and pieces of writing. And get a haircut. And buy some new clothes.

At this stage I plan to be in Wentworth Falls until Wednesday morning, then hit Sydney that afternoon for the opening of the Samsung Experience Store (indeed) and an overnight stay before the real travels begin.

[Photo: The Blue Mountains Hotel, in Lawson, photographed on 13 August 2012 from a passing train.]

Talking NBN propaganda on Balls Radio, FM 99.3

19 August 2012 in Conversations, Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

On 14 August 2012, in my regular spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio, we spoke about the political misinformation surrounding Australia’s National Broadband Network.

The conversation was triggered by the previous week’s release of NBN Co’s updated corporate plan. The estimated capital cost had increased by 3.9%. Even before you take into account the many variations, this is within what any sensible accountant would call a more than acceptable variation.

Yet in the media this was almost universally reported as a “cost blowout”. Pathetic. I was angry. I’ve got a piece coming soon at ABC’s The Drum. This conversation is more or less a prelude.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:17 — 4.5MB)

You can of course hear us talk live every Tuesday night from 7pm AEST on Sydney’s FM 99.3 Northside Radio.

I’m fairly sure that copyright remains with Mr Dobbie rather than being transferred to Northside Radio, but I’ll figure that out later.

Weekly Wrap 114: Screeching and grinding, mostly

19 August 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

Today I’m catching up on a fortnight of blog posts, so for now my summary of the week Monday 6 to Sunday 12 August 2012 will including nothing but the facts, ma’am.

Personal observations about the last fortnight or so will follow within the next 48 hours or so.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 149, “Does the internet really need new laws?” Why do governments keep wanting to make special new laws for the internet? Surely a crime is a crime, no matter where it’s committed? The answers come from high-profile geek Pia Waugh, with strong interests in free and open-source software and open government; IT lawyer Kay Lam-McLeod, from Brisbane-based practice Idealaw; and Kate Carruthers, founder of Social Innovation.

Articles

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

[Photo: Ready in TARDIS 1, a photo taken in one of the TARDIS audio booths at ABC Radio's Sydney headquarters in Ultimo.]

Talking regulating social media on ABC Radio National

19 August 2012 in Conversations, Human Nature, Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

On Thursday 9 August I had the very great pleasure of discussing the regulation of social media with the ABC’s Waleed Aly.

As I’ve been writing these catch-up posts today, I’ve become aware that there’s been quite a bit of media commentary on this topic lately. People are seeing Bad Things happening online and want to Make It Stop.

Even my own small media involvement has seen this topic come up, since the beginning of July, at Crikey, ABC Local Radio, Balls Radio and probably elsewhere. It almost makes me want to use Gerry Anderson’s special machine.

Actually it’s all been fun. But what makes this conversation stand out is that Mr Aly is a bloody intelligent bloke, witty and incisive all at once. As just one example, here’s the observation with which he ended the interview.

Anyone who wanted to have the power to read people’s minds, I think, has the internet and now realises that power might be something more of a curse.

While the conversation took as its starting-point the outrage over the discovery of a Facebook page full of offensive jokes about Aboriginal people, we also talk about Facebook’s inconsistency in enforcing their own rules, and I call for Stephen Fry’s program QI to be taken off television.

ABC Radio has posted their version of the audio at Regulating social media, where for some reason they fail to mention my involvement. Here’s mine.

Both versions start off with a brief interview with Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, Helen Szoke. My interview starts at around 6 minutes 40 seconds.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:18 — 7.1MB)

The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Talking bullying and Twitter laws on Balls Radio, FM 99.3

19 August 2012 in Conversations, Human Nature, Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

On 7 August 2012, in my regular spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio, I vented some thoughts about so-called cyber-bullying and the inevitable call for yet more silly ad hoc laws.

The conversation bounced off the topics I’d discussed in the previous day’s Patch Monday podcast, namely the reaction to the trolling of an Olympic athlete, but also covered a little bit of the future of Twitter itself.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:35 — 5.1MB)

You can of course hear us talk live every Tuesday night from 7pm AEST on Sydney’s FM 99.3 Northside Radio.

I’m fairly sure that copyright remains with Mr Dobbie rather than being transferred to Northside Radio, but I’ll figure that out later.

I haven’t posted here for a fortnight. The next five posts will be the catch-up, and they’ll all appear in the next 24 hours. Enjoy. Or not.

19 August 2012 by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Weekly Wrap 113: Slow clones and their delays

05 August 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

My week Monday 30 July to Sunday 5 August 2012 was dominated by the insanity involved in cloning hard drives and restoring my backup system to good working order.

Doing all of this over USB 2.0 interfaces was not helpful, but they were the only ports I had available on the loaner MacBook I’ve been using. Remember, I’m nomadic and quite often 100km from Sydney.

And then my backup drive failed…

Creating a new Time Machine backup of around 450GB of data takes 6 to 7 hours. Encrypting a 1TB drive takes nearly 23 hours. Even zeroing out a 750GB drive takes 5 hours.

And whenever you make a mistake, or a drive throws an error, you have to start that process again.

It’s been a wonderful lesson in patience. See, that’s the positive angle. Sigh.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 148, “The politics of data retention”. It’s in the news because it’s one of the ideas being floated as part of the inquiry into potential reforms of national security legislation being conducted by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security. The podcast includes Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan, national manager of high tech crime operations for the Australian Federal Police; Bernard Keane, Canberra corresponded with Crikey; and network engineer Mark Newton.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Monday I did a spot on ABC 105.7 Darwin with a couple of other people about overly-busy lifestyles, but the internet stream from which I was recording it was dodgy so I haven’t posted the audio.
  • On Tuesday night I did another regular Balls Radio spot, but I didn’t record it. That’s probably for the best, it was rather disjointed.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

I’m returning to Wentworth Falls on Monday, and have a day trip to Sydney on Thursday. In theory it’s a steady-paced week of writing. We shall see.

[Photo: Blue, being a photo of Wentworth Falls railway station on Thursday afternoon, one of the few bright spots in the week.]

Visiting San Francisco for VMworld 2012

30 July 2012 in Internet, Personal by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

I’m heading to San Francisco for VMware’s VMworld 2012 event starting on Sunday 26 August and staying on for the rest of the week.

I see that the logo features the words “Right here right now”. If they play that effing Fat Boy Slim song, I will truly go postal!

This will be my fifth visit to San Francisco in the last two years, and I must admit the place really is growing on me. Apart from the fact that it’s in that collapsing empire called the US. It does depress me to see the disabled veterans begging on the streets.

I mentioned this trip on Twitter about half an hour ago and already I’ve been told to visit a “beer mecca” called Toronado. What else, do you think?

And yes, I’m travelling as VMware Inc’s guest.

Weekly Wrap 112: Security, hacks, unexpected encounters

30 July 2012 in Weekly Wrap by Stilgherrian | No comments

I was in Sydney for most of my week Monday 23 to Sunday 29 July 2012, and despite some minor annoyances I’m reasonably pleased with the results.

I also started a new gig on a SEKRIT project. It looks like it’ll be quite fun, but I won’t be able to tell you about it for ages.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 147, “Mid-2012 malware: new flavours, same ice cream”. Has 2012 turned out to be “the year of cyberwar” accompanied by an explosion of Android malware? Hear from Alex Kirk, senior research analyst with the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT); David Hall, Symantec’s consumer spokesperson for Asia Pacific; and Bob Hansmann, senior product marketing manager at Websense.

Articles

If ever there was a week that illustrated my transition to grumpy-old-man writing, this is it.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

It looks like it’ll be a relatively easy week, but with most of it spent at Wentworth Falls — both because that’s the schedule and because it’s that end-of-the-month week where I really don’t have any money left.

[Photo: Diary of the Lost Crane being the view from level 12 of the Metro Sydney Central Hotel on a foggy Wednesday morning.]

Talking malware and stuff on Balls Radio, FM 99.3

25 July 2012 in Conversations, Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

Here’s last night’s regular spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio from FM 99.3 Northside Radio in Sydney.

I waffled on disjointedly about stuff that was on my mind after this week’s Patch Monday podcast — that is, how midway through 2012 it looks like all this talk of cyberwar is rubbish — and something about dental floss.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:34 — 4.6MB)

I’m fairly sure that copyright remains with Mr Dobbie rather than being transferred to Northside Radio, but I’ll figure that out later.

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