My own piece of the Internet
 
Category: <span>Uncategorized</span>

Category: Uncategorized

What commitment means

I have been reading about Diana Nyad, a 64 year old American woman who has just swam from Cuba to Miami. She is the first person to swim the 177 km without the assistance of a shark cage, and the first 60 year old to swim such a vast distance. The best part of the story is that this was her fifth attempt. Nyad had tried and failed at 28, 60, 61, and 62. That’s some commitment. Nyad said on her second attempt, “I’d like to prove to the other 60-year-olds that it is never too late to start your …

Dark thoughts on election morning

Election Day, 5.30am: I’m sitting on the back step drinking a cup of tea and listening to the Kookaburras laugh at the absurdity of it all. In 13 or so hours officials will start counting votes and it is very likely the Liberal National Party coalition will be successful in winning more votes. Some time this evening Tony Abbott will appear on a stage to rapturous applause from his audience and do his best not to look cocky, his body hunched in that strange pugilistic simian way he has, his jaw set in a half-smirk.  Abbott will only appear on …

The problem with Utopian big data theories and why there is no magical data fairy pregnant with the truth

Big data will save us all. Or so some technical pundits reckon. Before I go into that a brief excursion into history is required. In 1979 there was an accident at a Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania. The engineers had unwittingly let some water leak into the wrong system which triggered a shutdown of the main pumps responsible for cooling the plant. Sadly, the pipes feeding the backup pumps were incorrectly shut after maintenance. Normally the techs would have been warned, but the warning light on the control panel was hidden by a paper tag. The situation quickly …

The conversation prism

Brian Solis of the Altimeter Group has released an updated version of The Conversation Prism which shows both how social media is very fragmented, and also points out the inherent weakness of the term social media. This is business today not something that is exclusively social or media focused. Most of the brands featured are less about “media” and more about commerce or business. Using tools that help people connect, share, and learn is the new normal What’s shown in the brightly coloured prism are 26 different categories from business to quantified self. Some of the brands featured – Facebook, …

A rant about Google Glass and social media

I was going to write something about how Google Glass is for losers who have to live their lives through a technological veil and I thought better of it. Apart from the medical, engineering, and commercial applications  I thought there may be a little envy in my skepticism about needing to have a computer strapped to my head so I can see the world the way a bazillion dollar company wants me to see it. OK Glass. The thing is, we’re all bored, distracted, unengaged so we can be socially virtually engaged. Like automatons we stare at our screens so …

In killing Google Reader, Google are killing openness

I was never a Google Reader user. Should have been but chose to consume my news the hard way with a spazmodic mix of bookmarks, Evernote, twitter, and other websites I can barely remember. Now I use Flipboard but question its efficiency even though it is very pretty. Google reader was built on  RSS, an open technology that makes it easy for publishers to syndicate content and readers to consume content. When Google announced they were retiring Google reader saying, “usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products.” 150,000 irate …

How the Gillard and Abbott NBN’s compare globally

There has been a heap of press this week on the back of the Coalition’s NBN policy announcement in a slick launch at the Foxtel Studios yesterday.  There were a lot of sarcastic tweets, and a pretty funny Facebook page. Using Akamai’s “The State of the Internet” report from Q3, 2012 I compared the global average peak connection speeds  with what is currently being built by the Gillard government, and what Abbott and Turnbull have proposed. Now I am no network genius and am positive that I am making pretty simplistic assumptions about peak speeds with both models, particularly the …

The new trolls are better than the old trolls

Australian tabloid news show, Today Tonight is crying foul about being trolled by comedian professional troll, Tristan Barker. An associate of Barker’s told Today Tonight she had been bullied by Barber and the tabloid bought it, running a heavily promoted story about how they had found another victim of Tristan Barker. A Today Tonight executive producer rather huffily complained that the “victim” was nothing but an “attention seeker” and that “We found evidence to suggest that she had been bullied by Tristan Barker…when people are using fake names it gets very difficult to control.” Clearly research is not a strong …

Trust, the one thing a subscription business can’t get wrong

In January, after reading a Business Insider article promoting them, I subscribed to the bespoke shirt service from Hall & Madden. They were offering three dress shirts based on Hugo Boss styling and manufacturing for $150. The best thing is that they would deliver three new shirts every three months. As someone who never gets around to buying new shirts this seemed to solve a number of problems, chiefly my sloppy unstylish dressing. I told the sales manager about what an awesome deal they offered and he dismissed it with a snort, “Mate, go down the road and you can …

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Bertie Gladwin was 91 when he graduated with distinction with a Masters degree in military intelligence. Having left school at 14, Gladwin started his studies after retiring in the 1980s to keep his mind active and has since completed three degrees. The tech world is obsessed by the wunderkind, the boy genius who discovers a new way to delight, engage and amaze, and becomes richer than Scrooge McDuck before they turn 26. It can make anyone old bloke in their late thirties (or early forties) feel a little worried about her own chances of ever becoming wealthy enough to buy …