Clay Shirky — Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Bryn

This my SOPA post. In this 14 min TED talk Clay Shirky fantastically explains why SOPA is a BAD IDEA. SOPA is a, proposed, US law and I am an Australian, but I felt I should make a post about it. In the global interconnected world we all live in, it is not only great ideas, like those found in TED talks, that spread quickly, but also BAD IDEAS and BAD LAWS.

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Queensland Floods and the Web

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Bryn

Floods have devastated Queensland and other parts of Australia. The area underwater is greater than France and Germany. At times like these I am always amazed at the great and positive ways how Web 2.0 technologies are used; whether social networking to match people needing accommodation with people who are offering space to stay or how people have used the twitter hash tags such as #qldfloods to follow breaking news.

NearMap, an Australian based map/aerial photography company, was remarkable quite in updating their site with very recent aerial photography showing the extent floods. The ABC, who regularly make excellent use of the web, have used the NearMap images before and after the flooding to created an excellent infographics of the devastation.

I also think it is worth noting that the inactive infographics are made using HTML and JavaScript not Flash.

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Contemporary and war time photos of St Petersburg merged

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Bryn

via Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing

Sergei Larenkov has photoshopped together modern images of St Petersburg with photos taken during the brutal Siege of Leningrad during WWII.

Sergei Larenkov’s images.

Very powerful and amazing images.

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Broadband for Arnhem Land

Posted on December 13, 2008 by Bryn

From the ABC’s 7:30 report, a good news story about the Broadband Revolution coming to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. A fibre optic cable has be laid into Arnhem Land. This is great story in so many ways:

  • The technical hurdles that needed to be over come in laying cable in a harsh environment including under a crocodile infected river.
  • The positive social impact for education and health resulting from broadband.
  • How culturally  sensitively the whole project was managed, with traditional owners from the local Aboriginal communities being consulted and involved in the project.

Telecom revolution for Arnhem Land (video from abc.net.au)

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Garrett Lisi: A beautiful new theory of everything

Posted on December 13, 2008 by Bryn

via Mickipedia

Garrett Lisi: A beautiful new theory of everything

Garrett Lisi discuses his theory of how the fundamental forces can be described via the E8 group.

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ABC (au) Radio National launches Pool

Posted on August 22, 2008 by Bryn

via Boing Boing

ABC Radio National has launched Pool:

It’s a place to share your creative work with the Pool community and ABC producers – upload music, photos, videos, documentaries, interviews, animations and more. It’s a collaborative space where audiences become makers. – About Pool

One aspect of Pool that got my attention is the use of Creative Commons licences. It is great to see the ABC exposing Creative Commons, RSS feeds and the like to their audience. The, government funded, ABC and particular Radio National and Triple J, have often been early to embrace aspects of new media. Radio National were one of the first old media organisations to offer podcasts of their programs.

I, an Australian, discovered the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Pool via post on Boing Boing, a North American blog, by Cory Doctorow, who lives in the UK. The web is truely global medium.

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