Resuming transmission

Cheers and welcome back!

A perfect storm of issues has effectively kept me away from this blog for most of the last 18 months.
I moved to a region called Hervey Bay in Queensland, where the weather was brilliant and the oceanfront lifestyle even better. "Get a beach house." I took it to heart.

Unfortunately, the internet in said beach house was complete shite – 1.5Mbps down on a good day. My dreams of living next to the ocean and running a consulting business from my home office evaporated as I spent more hours on the phone trying to get a workable connection than actually on the web.

This is where I insert insults about Malcolm Turnbull's 'Fraudband' unravelling of the National Broadband Network, once a truly inspired national infrastructure project for the new(ish) millennium.

Get a beach house—preferably with decent internet!

Crikey. My Bookmarks in Chrome now look like my Pocket page...

An extract from my new Chrome Bookmarks page

You have to hand it to Google, they don't sit still long (except the sleepy Blogger team who are MIA).

What's this "Bookmarks" link on my Chrome Browser bookmarks bar I just thought. Click—short intro, then bam. There it is, looking for all the world like a page out of my "must read" collection in Pocket (which I really really must get to...). Mt Doom research prior to my hike to the summit, Hobbiton, astronomy goodness, Temasek's great custom ROM for the Samsung Note 3, more.

Opting out of Google's new ads is easy

I'd you are a Google user you'd have to be blind to have missed the notices from them about the new advertising intentions. They will take your +1s and reviews and place them together with your photo into ads for that producer of service.

Now a lot of people are happy to give endorsements and +1s. But having that review turned around into an actual ad is something else altogether...

However you have to admit that Google have been doing the right thing by making sure we'd all know about the change. Emails, noticed on our accounts, feed inserts. It's a long way different from the way Facebook do things...

But they did go the default-in route, which is rather the way Facebook work, and that has a lot of people off side.

Regardless of your view, the solution is easy. A couple of clicks and it's done. Just follow these instructions.

Loading up the new NBN connection...

So far, my account of getting connected to the National Broadband Network has had almost 2000 views and is the third most viewed article on my blog. Soon it will pass the Russian meteorite post, but a long way to go until it catches the walrus on a Russian submarine, with almost 7000 views.

But (shameless plugs done) what can this NBN thing deliver?

I was watching ABC iView, streaming a show I missed, and decided to see if it could handle a bunch of YouTube clips running at the same time.
 
Four high definition YouTube clips and ABC iView all live streaming at once. Not the hint of a buffer.

Not that I'd multitask like this, but I could be watching a streaming show, while editing a video and keeping an eye on emails and social media. Toss in some software or podcasts downloading in the background and other users in the household, and that's a realistic scenario. Now possible with NBN.

But Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull reckon you don't need the NBN. Vote for Tony and wireless for everyone.

What I've been reading and writing - a bit of a catch-up

This is a catch-up of my reading and writing lists as auto-compiled into e-zines by Paper.li. As usual, it is mostly for my own reference down the track, but maybe someone is interested.

The recycling bin may no longer be full of discarded newspapers, but holy moley I'm chewing through some online reading...

Editions for the week ending:

1 October

24 September

17 September

10 September

3 September

27 August

20 August

13 August

6 August

30 July

23 July

16 July

9 July

Phew. That's it. Must keep on top of this a bit better...

Visit Antarctica with Streetview - even the actual South Pole. Awesome in a can!

Google is really pushing the boundaries with where it takes its Google Streetview cameras. So I'm thinking I'll feature some of these wonderful places with some screen grabs, for those who don't have the time to explore themselves.

First up is Antarctica. Click through to go exploring, and don't forget to wander on through doorways, or to zoom in on displays, artefacts and signs ("Close the damn door").

Mawson's Hut.

Shackleton's Hut.

The actual South Pole - yes there is a pole. And a whopping great building! Unfortunately one frame is poorly spliced...

What? You're still listening to audio broadcasts in real time? Discover podcasts.

So you are one of those people eh? Still listening to the radio in real time? Ever stopped to wonder what those podcast things are they keep mentioning?

Podcasts are like the radio equivalent of your PVR - audio on demand, and video too.

I've written before about some of my favourite podcast resources for astronomy brainfood, and there are several others on my subscription list - 36 all up at this point in time. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National have a heap of top picks on world and national affairs, science, medicine, environment, media, history. There are TED Talks, RadioLab, and my friends over at ScienceOnTop.

The things I like most about podcasts are that you can listen to them anytime that suits, anywhere on your smartphone.

And you can listen to them faster. You know what it's like - sometimes they just talk so s l o w l y...

What the hell is this, Apple? Science fail!

Seriously, astrology?
WTH?
Do you need a Wikipedia link to explain the difference, Apple?

Crikey - 40,000 views! And now I'm 'published' and podcasted...

Thanks Mars Curiosity! You sure helped bump up the viewership of this blog. Some time over the last couple of days, the numbers flew past 40,000 views.

And some of my posts on science and astronomy are now being published and podcasted.

I'm now a writer for Australian Science, with three posts so far, although you may have seen them here first:

Emergency Services scanner feeds now online. Is there anything the interwebz can't find you??

Expensive gear now superfluous...

Following the tragic news of yet another mass shooting in America, there was an online message about the radioreference.com  live feed of the local police radio chatter - with the obvious warning that much of the feed at that time was quite disturbing.

The service also links to emergency service radio feeds for many Australian services (but not ACT or Northern Territory). There is scattered availability in the other states, with Inner Sydney an interesting omission...

Amazing that this sort of eavesdropping used to require expensive hardware of questionable legality. And now there it is, given the interwebz treatment for anyone to listen in on.

In just an hour of listening in on the Sunshine Coast feed, they nabbed a guy who lifted a $400 pair of sunglasses from a shop in Noosa (didn't arrest the shop owner for charging that much though!), a female wanted pseudo-ephedrine runner, a wanted parole defaulter and a male with suicidal tendancies after a knife-wielding house invasion in Coes Creek. Not a bad work rate guys!

Regarding the shooting in Aurora Colorado, in Australia we can be truly thankful that John Howard - strongly supported by Tim Fisher - showed true leadership following the Port Arthur shooting and (at great personal political cost) pushed through sweeping gun law changes that make such an horrific crime so much less likely here.

Annular "Ring of Fire" Eclipse pictures

I've been meaning to post these pictures I took of the Annular Eclipse back on 20 May.

An annular eclipse is one where the Moon is further out from Earth on it's elliptical orbit, so its disc doesn't completely block out the Sun, leaving a ring exposed.

A key difference is that, because some of the Sun is still exposed, a solar filter is required throughout to view it. And that of course makes the "blood moon" view of a typical full eclipse impossible.

I'm in the Southern Hemisphere, and this eclipse was a purely Northern Hemisphere event.

Catch-up on The Beach House Weekly reading summaries

The weekly Paper.li digital magazine tool dropped off for a while and they lost the ability to call up archive copies by week.

It's sorted now, so here's a catch-up . Likely this isn't of much interest to anyone else - more for my own record. But feel free to check them out if you like!


What I've been reading and/or writing about:
July 2
June 25
June 18
June 11
June 3

Look out - Greg Jericho has written a book about social media and politics. Can't wait!

As the old media of Fairfax and New Corp struggle vainly to resist the changes being wrought by the internet and social media, some people "get it".

One of those people is Greg Jericho - formerly anonymous author of the hugely popular blog Grog's Gamut.

Greg was unnecessarily and shamelessly outed a while back by former Canberra Times (old media) journalist James Massola, who is now with the Fin Review.

Although he ended up leaving his public service job, Jericho has gone on to a fairly successful role as an alternative voice on Australian federal politics - primarily via the ABC's cutting edge commentary platform The Drum.

Interview with Dr Brian Boyle on the Square Kilometre Array project

In a first for this blog, an exclusive face-to-face audio interview with Doctor Brian Boyle - Project Director of the Australia and New Zealand bid for the Square Kilometre Array.

I met Brian when he gave a presentation on the SKA bid to those of us fortunate enough to be at the Mars Curiosity Rover Launch Tweetup at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Centre. So it's something I've followed very closely since, including following Brian via Twitter (@BrianBoyleSKA).

In the interview, we cover the bid and outcome, what it means for Australia and indeed world science, the technology and supporting infrastructure, science in the media, inspiring new students into astronomy, and even some joking around maybe a sequel to The Dish - Dishes...

The interview was conducted in a (kind of noisy sorry) cafe in Canberra on 29 May 2012. Apologies for a couple of bits that could stand being cropped out due to lack of editing software. The interview is in two parts over 35 minutes:

Google's Project Glass - seriously cool? Or seriously scary?

My first reaction to this new thing from Google Project Glass was "wow - this is cool!" Then I thought about it some more...



Many people would already be a bit concerned about how much Google knows about their lives. And Facebook for that matter. Oh and don't forget Apple - that Siri business ain't there for your benefit you do realise?

And it was a curious juxtaposition to this that Google boss Larry Page launched a campaign to recover the "Love and Trust":

Human winged flight wows us. Then the hoax claims commence...

I'll let you into a personal secret. You know how most people have those recurring dreams - like you've turned up at school still in your pyjamas? My dream for many years was that I could fly. Just by flapping my arms. A lot. But I could maintain height, hovering near the ceiling. It's been some years since I last had that dream, but I have always harboured a desire to really fly.

So this morning when through Twitter came this video, well you could say I was kind of excited. A lot.
(PS: there's some language at the end after he lands - feel free to stop it before that if concerned or kids around. You're not missing anything.)

If the online world is the doom of the entertainment industry, they'll only have themselves to blame

An interesting analysis on TechCrunch of the chant of impending doom from the entertainment industry about downloading.

The article makes the point that the industry rants and raves about how pirating is breaking them, and that the industry should instead be embracing the new streaming and distribution opportunities. And that they should

• focus on customers
• deliver engaging media experiences to all screens
• make it feel as familiar as channel surfing.

This is all true. But there are some key facets of the equation missing.

These proposed online media regulations are in need of a serious rethink

What has become known as the Finkelstein Report has been delivered to Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. It is proposing to form a News Media Council with powers to order media organisations to issue apologies, corrections and give rights of reply. Nothing wrong with that. In fact I could think of one particular media outlet I'd like to give me a right of reply on some issues.

But they are proposing that these rules and their monitoring role be applied to all online sites right down to 15,000 hits per year.

Crowdsourcing science - you can have fun while helping science research

Have you checked out any of the crowdsourced science web projects yet? Some of them are even 'gamifying' their projects to make them more fun and presumably keep participants engaged for longer.

It really started with Galaxy Zoo, a site where you help astronomers classify galaxies. The idea that you could be the first person to see some of Hubble's images is pretty amazing.

A new project from the Zooniverse is Planethunters.org, where you can help find your very own exoplanets!

Keep calm and carry on - exploring

I didn't get it at first, when Glen Nagle from the Canberra Deep Space Communication Centre (Tidbinbilla) tweeted a design for this poster:

But thanks to The Cool Hunter, I saw this clip about the poster from World War II that began it, and led to what seems to have become another one of those viral internet things.