Category Archives: Technology

Turnbull Still Failing Miserably On NBN

A year ago, I wrote an article criticising the lack of progress on the revised NBN plan, introduced by Malcolm Turnbull after the change in government in 2013. I labelled it a “dismal” performance – and that’s exactly what it was. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam questioned progress at a Senate hearing on July 11, 2014, […]

Turnbull Sells Out – When Is The Exorcism?

Time for a quick waltz down memory lane. Who else remembers the nonsensical plan by former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, for the mandatory filtering of all internet connections in Australia, to attempt to block all material online which had been classified “Refused Classification” (RC)? The campaign against it was long and hard, and eventually Conroy […]

Sunday Nerding: The Columbia Disaster

Into space this week for the first time in a little while, and a documentary on the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster, back in 2003. Unlike a lot of documentaries on this topic, this one looks at more of the cultural and scientific aspects of the incident, rather than just a raw explanation of what caused […]

The Metadata Minefield

Despite there being little or no evidence on the effectiveness or usefulness of mass data retention in jurisdictions where it has been implemented, our current Australian government seems determined to steamroll legislation through the parliament to introduce it here. For its part, despite some noises against the idea, the current opposition Labor party – (the […]

Sunday Nerding: The Enigma Code

With the recent release of the film The Imitation Game about the life and times of Alan Turing, the key scientist – (a mathematican) – in solving the problem of being able to quickly break the German enigma codes of World War II, I thought it might be time to explain in simple terms what […]

Sunday Nerding: The Dark Web

There’s little doubt that recent years has seen many people have their concerns about privacy, security and anonymity online heightened by increasing overreach by governments and their agencies. Why should we be concerned? And should we be concerned at all? Watch this excellent BBC report on the topic and decide for yourself. There are many […]

Sunday Nerding: The Illusion Of Time

Do you have a little time to watch this documentary? You do? Think again – you might not! This one is a bit super-nerdy, but quite interesting – as Brian Greene tries to answer what time really is.

Sunday Nerding: The Story Of Linux

Even if you have never heard of it, if you are a regular internet user, or a regular user of a modern smartphone, you are interacting with the Linux operating system all of the time. In terms of marketshare of public servers on the internet, Linux is installed on around 38.6% of these machines. Most […]

Sunday Nerding: London Crossrail

Like many nerds, I find trains and railways fascinating. I also love a great engineering story. Today I present the first part of a documentary series into London’s new Crossrail project, the first new addition to their underground system in over 30 years.

Sunday Nerding: The Telstar Satellite

Back to one of my favourite topics – space technology – and a documentary on the development and launch of the Telstar series of satellites.