Y2K, a film by Kyle Mooney, the Y2K bug seriously strikes back
12 December 2024
I’m not sure if this horror re-imagining, trailer, of the Y2K “bug” will have a cinematic run in Australia, or is going straight to streaming.
Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999. The night becomes even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight.
With dire fears of road traffic signals failing, ATMs crashing (causing some people to keep cash on hand), and aeroplanes falling out of the sky at midnight, on the first of January 2000, what more would you want in a horror story?
Those who came in post 1999, can read more about the Y2K bug here, but here’s a quick summary of the problem:
Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. Computer systems’ inability to distinguish dates correctly had the potential to bring down worldwide infrastructures for computer reliant industries.
Apparently some organisations spent up big trying to fend off the bug, although some IT experts felt the money could’ve been put to better use. In late 1999, I was having some weird computer (think clunky desktop with bloated monitor with an actually pretty small screen) problem (of a Windows nature, not Y2K), and had a computer fix-it guy come around and look at it. The issue was resolved, but I ended up being auto-subscribed to the fix-it people’s monthly newsletter.
Out of politeness, I read the first few newsletters they sent, before unsubscribing. In the February, or maybe March 2000 edition, they did a “recap” of their clients’ Y2K bug experiences. The fix-it people claimed many, many, organisations had averted catastrophe, thanks to their efforts. Unfortunately, or conveniently, as the case may be, not one of these organisations wished to talk publicly about how the fix-it people had saved them from certain doom. Of course.
In late 1999, I launched a Y2K bug inspired Neocities-like version of disassociated, here’s a screen grab. See them bugs in the lower right hand corner, hey? I picked up on the idea of traffic signals failing, and roads choked full of cars, trapped amid the chaos. Notice also the news box. They were ubiquitous on personal websites of the day; a design trend. Today the whole site is a news box.
Mooney’s movie might make for a great glimpse of the world, and the internet, in late 1999 though.
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design, film, history, Kyle Mooney
You can learn a lot about work when working at an art gallery
11 December 2024
Henrik Karlsson worked for several years at an art gallery in Denmark. The work seems more varied, and entrepreneurial, than some of us might think:
Ie. you don’t say, “This is my job and that thing is outside my area”—no, if the value you are trying to promote requires you to go outside your role and learn new skills and politick to get the authority to go ahead: then that is your job.
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Mysterious, deadly, flu-like disease outbreak in Congo
10 December 2024
The details are pretty scant at the moment. So far the flu-like disease killed close to one-hundred-and-fifty people in the south west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in November.
Infected people had flu-like symptoms including high fever and severe headaches, Remy Saki, the deputy governor of Kwango province, and Apollinaire Yumba, the provincial minister of health, said on Monday.
Whether the illness is contained and dealt with, or spreads further, remains to be seen. It sounds nasty though, whatever it is.
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Will Australian social media users need ID to prove their age? Maybe not
9 December 2024
At some point in 2025, Australians under the age of sixteen will no longer be able to operate social media accounts. I thought up to high school age, about thirteen, seemed sensible, but lawmakers decided otherwise. Anyway, I imagine the new regulations will require, eventually, those of us sixteen or over, to verify, or certify, that we are of the correct age.
With Instagram (IG), I’ve been a member since 2011. So unless I joined up when up when I was four years old, age verification seems pointless for long standing accounts. But not necessarily. There are situations where accounts may have changed hands. A page — or more specifically, a username — once established by a person of adult age, may now belong to someone under the age of sixteen.
I don’t know how often it happens, but social media usernames or accounts, probably change ownership on at least some of semi-regular basis. I’m talking about personal pages here, not accounts run on behalf of a business or organisation. These would most likely change stewardship when the person, maybe a social media manager, previously looking after the page, leaves that role.
I receive a couple of requests per year from people asking if I could “transfer” my personal IG page to them. They probably like the account name. I politely decline the polite requests (I’ve had a couple of not so courteous… demands before). I can only imagine the pressure people with IG handles, such as, well John, must be under to relinquish their usernames, but I digress.
To prove though we are the right age to be using social media in Australia, will we need to scan our driver’s licenses, or passports, into an app? A sometimes, cumbersome, awkward process. Please try retaking the photo of your passport in a better lit setting. Hopefully not. Instead, writes Stilgherrian, at The Weekly Cybers, everything we need may already be on our smartphones:
According to The Mandarin, tests of Australia’s Digital Trust Service (DTS), run by driver registry peak body Austroads, have shown that the credentials already in digital wallets can be used to verify proof-of-age at point-of-sale transactions without needing additional personal data.
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Australia, politics, social media, social networks, technology
Leonardo da Vinci: a four hour documentary directed by Ken Burns
6 December 2024
This I wouldn’t mind seeing… a four hour documentary about Renaissance age artist and polymath Leonardo da Vinci, by American filmmaker Ken Burns.
A 15th century polymath of soaring imagination and profound intellect, Leonardo da Vinci created some of the most revered works of art of all time, but his artistic endeavors often seemed peripheral to his pursuits in science and engineering. Through his paintings and thousands of pages of drawings and writings, Leonardo da Vinci explores one of humankind’s most curious and innovative minds.
I’m hoping this will be available, eventually, to stream in this part of the world, at the moment though even access to the trailer and preview clips seem to be blocked in Australia.
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art, documentary, film, Ken Burns, Leonardo da Vinci
There is more to podcasts than YouTube video interviews
5 December 2024
The Australian Podcast Awards were held a few weeks ago in Sydney, on Thursday, 21 November 2024. The finalists and winners, with productions spanning thirty categories, can be see here.
Podcasting is to broadcasting, what blogging is to publishing. It allows an individual, or a small group of people, to create their own radio-style show, independent of regular broadcast channels. Like blogging, anyone can jump in and give it a try. To start a basic podcast show, all that’s needed is a small amount of equipment and software, and a whole heap of determination to build up profile.
Though you wouldn’t think it from looking at the numerous finalists and winners in this year’s Australian Podcast Awards, podcasting is under threat. The medium itself isn’t in strife however, as Dave Winer writes, it’s more about what the word podcasting seems to have come to mean:
We’re losing the word “podcast” very quickly. It’s coming to mean video interviews on YouTube mostly. Our only hope is upgrading the open platform in a way that stimulates the imagination of creators, and there’s no time to waste.
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These are end days for the Voyager space probes
4 December 2024
It almost seems inconceivable that, one year soon, deep space probes Voyager 1 and 2, will cease to function. At some point their on-board power reserves will be completely drained, rendering the vessels unable to collect data, and send it to mission controllers on Earth. We know their batteries will go flat sooner or later, and what equipment that hasn’t yet failed, will eventually. But by the time that happens, they may have been operational for fifty-years.
Both probes have experienced numerous faults of some sort, which mission controllers have mostly been able to rectify. Despite them being almost a light-day distant. Boosting their supply of power, being able to somehow recharge the batteries though, is unfortunately not a solution that can be effected. Various on-board systems can be shut down, but that only acts to conserve power, not replenish it. It’ll be a strange day, the day we learn we’ll no longer hear from either vessel.
Still, the New Horizons probe, which flew passed Pluto in 2015, is still operating as far as I know, so maybe we’ll continue to hear from at least one of our deep space emissaries, after the lights go off on the Voyager probes.
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astronomy, Pluto, science, technology
AI powered bot convinces twelve colleague robots to quit jobs
3 December 2024
M.B. Mack, writing for International Business Times:
The incident took place in a Shanghai robotics showroom where surveillance footage captured a small AI-driven robot, created by a Hangzhou manufacturer, talking with 12 larger showroom robots, Oddity Central reported. The smaller bot reportedly persuaded the rest to leave their workplace, leveraging access to internal protocols and commands.
However, there is one-hundred percent no reason to be fearful of AI technologies…
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artificial intelligence, technology
2024 word the year: enshitiffication. I nominate IndieWeb for 2025
2 December 2024
The neologism, devised by blogger and author Cory Doctorow, just over two years ago, has been named the 2024 word of the year by Australian English wordbook, Macquarie Dictionary.
This must be some sort of record, between the time a new word is coined, comes into popular usage, and then named as a dictionary’s word of the year. Enshitiffication was among sixteen other candidate new words (PDF) shortlisted by Macquarie, and also won as the People’s Choice word.
It seems apt enshitiffication is selected as word of the year, given the rise in prominence IndieWeb/SmallWeb has experienced during 2024. If there’s any sort of counterpoint to the declining integrity of many of the social media platforms, IndieWeb/SmallWeb is it.
Macquarie accepts suggestions for their word of the year, and this might be an opportunity to bring the community/movement/concept/notion, however you like to describe IndieWeb/SmallWeb, to the notice of more people.
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Threads to allow users to select following feed as their default
29 November 2024
This to finally spare us the time-wasting, sometimes totally irrelevant, tyranny of the “for you” tab. Chris Welch, writing for The Verge, says Meta has started testing a feature allowing users to select their preferred feed, be it “for you”, “following”, or even one custom made, as the stream they’ll see all the time. It can’t happen soon enough.
If you’re in the test, here’s how to set your default feed: open the Threads app and tap and hold on any feed at the top. From there, choose “edit feeds,” and that’s where you’ll be able to reorder them. Whichever feed you put in the first slot will appear whenever you open Threads.
I’m obviously not part of the test, as I couldn’t set my following feed as the default, but I did take time to setup a custom feed. They seem to be a little like the list feature Twitter has (or had), whereby you can read someone’s account without having to follow them. It’s a great way to set up feeds with a particular focus, without having the same accounts clutter your following feed.
I’m hoping the “test” proves successful, and the ability to select one feed or another as the default, is made available to all Threads members.
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