Author Archives: dan

Mah Finance Sector Is Too Big

[Note: Credit for these ideas must go to many people, particularly Joshua Zeidner and Matthew Slater, both of whom are working on mutual credit, LETS and other alternative currency systems. Check out the Matt’s Complementary Currencies module for Drupal and, shortly, Josh’s JUNO API for connecting these systems together] I’ve kind of tuned out ofContinue reading “Mah Finance Sector Is Too Big”

I work in New Media

One of the funniest things I saw last festival was a song by The Bedroom Philosopher called “I work in New Media”. It completely deflated the hyped-up bubble of “new media” language-mangling and revealed that, ultimately, none of us can describe what we do, let alone in 140 characters or less. Well, someone has finallyContinue reading “I work in New Media”

The dark site of P2P

Found via ArsTechnica : Australia’s third-largest ISP finally found itself in court this week after film companies last year sued iiNet for not disconnecting Internet users on their say-so. The case will be a major test of Australia’s “safe harbor” copyright law that provides immunity to Internet service providers—but only those that “reasonably implement” aContinue reading “The dark site of P2P”

Git in one minute

Based on notes from a recent BarCamp, here’s my one-minute introduction to Git, a distributed revision control system (a system for managing collaborative changes to files, usually used for software development). This is probably only useful to someone who’s already a programmer and already trying to use git, as a kind of cheat-sheet. git notesContinue reading “Git in one minute”

It’s time to get angry about Australian Internet censorship

I received an email from GetUp today stating that “live trials” of Australia’s Internet filtering system are about to begin. The system filters a secret blacklist of sites from all Australian computers. An earlier leaked version of the list found around 2000 sites, mostly child pornography. A couple of things are happening here that IContinue reading “It’s time to get angry about Australian Internet censorship”

The Hotel gets 5 Stars in “The List”

I’m celebrating today as one of my shows, “The Hotel“, got 5 stars in The List. Still waiting for The Scotsman. Fingers crossed… In the meantime Edinburgh Fringe rolls on, taking my energy, liver and emotional stability with it. It’s a total rollercoaster, but of course I wouldn’t have it any other way. Good thingContinue reading “The Hotel gets 5 Stars in “The List””

Synchonising Google contacts with your OS X Address Book without an iPhone

So, I lost my iPhone a while ago and that was annoying. Then my annoyance doubled when I realised that my Google contacts were no longer being synced to my OS X Address Book. It turns out that Apple will only let you synchonise Google contacts when you have an iPhone connected to the system.Continue reading “Synchonising Google contacts with your OS X Address Book without an iPhone”

Guest Appearance on Byte Into It

Last week on Melbourne’s 3RRR, Georgia Webster, Andrew Fish, Keren Flavell and myself discussed Windows 7, TinyXP, iPhone security, defamation, video games, the seeming success of the Australian ‘net filtering trial and my experiences at the Open Video Conference. It was a really fun experience and reminded me how much I miss radio. There’s somethingContinue reading “Guest Appearance on Byte Into It”