Backing up from an equally annoying and upsetting week - I lost a harddrive just after Easter. Luckily I had backed up most of my work-related files just before, but much other data seems gone, including all of my emails, my calendar, and my address book. You don't realise how much you depend on Outlook until it's gone... Data recovery services charge through the nose and I can't justify spending a cool $6000 for a 70% chance of getting my data back.
Haven't written for a while, but (because) much is going on. I'm currently preparing the 2003 fibreculture conference here in Brisbane, with a host of colleagues, and am also hoping to get in a grant proposal for a project I'm developing with my colleague Liz Ferrier at UQ.
Add to that day-to-day teaching and the plans for a new Journalism portal at QUT, and I'm plenty busy. In the meantime, I've also received a variety of new Prog DVDs (including the PFM in Japan DVD I've mentioned before, and a little miracle of a Van der Graaf Generator live in …
No, this isn't about whether you'd rather be obliterated by the weapons of mass destruction of Dubya's evil empire or Kim's evil minnow. Rather, there's the start of an interesting series of articles about content management systems at the All-American Web Portals site (what a name). They're promising to look at a group of PHP-Nuke-style CMSs to compare their features.
I've mainly worked with PHP-Nuke so far (and now with Drupal, of course), with some good success - both M/C Reviews and EMIT run on PHP-Nuke. In the versions I've used it's very much for PHP programmers only …
Doing more work on my M/C Journal article for the 'fight' issue today. It was accepted for publication with some requests of further changes by the refeerees. One referee wondered about the impact of CD burning and filesharing on CD sales, so I did a bit more research and rediscovered a nice article at The Register which questions the RIAA's claims using its own figures. (That article is in turn based on this one.)
Of course there is always an element of conspiracy theorism in these kinds of reports; of course there is an almost universal dislike of the …
Someone on Slashdot pointed to this article on "Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality" by Clay Shirky. Very interesting stuff, and another indication (as if one were needed) of how blogs and similar interactive technologies are coming of age. I'm listing it here for further reference.
Ooh, some very interesting new releases listed in the latest Cuneiform/Wayside announcement. Michael Giles's long-lost Progress is finally available, and there'll be a DVD from Van der Graaf Generator ! Also Robert Wyatt's Solar Flares Burn for You, a new band with Frédéric L'Épée, Happy the Man's new The Muse Awakens and a new CD from Djam Karet.
Another pointer on Slashdot, to a Wired article about the problems for large entertainment corporations as they support the RIAA's war on online music exchange systems (filesharing and Webcasting in particular).
Basically, Sony hardware (for example) would be quite happy to sell the latest portable MP3 gadgets, while Sony Music sees this as eating into their profits (which is questionable, of course). Conversely, the RIAA's actions against filesharers and Webcasters, partly on behalf of RIAA member Sony Music, undermine Sony hardware's ability to sell MP3 gadgets. Whose point of view will be preferred by the heads of SonyCorp.? I …
