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Archive
Posts from 2004 to 2017. This was a personal blog during a fairly chaotic decade in independent publishing — some of it tech commentary, some of it Australia, some of it ephemera. It’s kept here in full for anyone who arrives via an old link.
Current writing lives at SiliconANGLE.
Here’s The Punch on numbers
News Ltd CEO John Hartigan gave a speech today. Inquisitr coverage here. Interestingly he gave some data on The Punch The Punch has taken off like a rocket since it was launched in May ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú our target was to achieve traffic of 80,000 users in the first month. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s actually achieved almost 200,000. Now let […]
How to get a new home connected to ADSL 2 in Australia without a 1 month+ wait
See previous post for context. So I finally conceded that the only way I’d jump to the first position was to get a phone line connected. We take possession on the 2nd (July, it’s the 29th June as I type this) and it turns out that Telstra can connect a physical line on the 3rd. […]
Apple 10.5.7 fail follow up: it wuz Safari that did it
Follow up to this Apple fail post: Leopard 10.5.7 causes freezing, overheating issues I haven’t completely stopped my Macbook Pro from freezing, but I have all but (least it has happened only once since I worked out what might be happening.) Write this on all over the Apple forums: it was Safari that did it. […]
The last semi-regular Inquisitr numbers
This post is the last-semi regular report of The Inquisitr numbers, and not just because the post before this was the 1500th in this incarnation of duncanriley.com (there was one before.) I’m all for transparency, but likewise the figures wont be that exciting now. We roughly got to where we wanted to be (and it’s […]
Why is the Australian media silent on Chk-Chk-Boom Girl?
I wrote on Sunday asking what Channel Nine’s role was in the Chk-Chk-Boom Girl scam. Chk-Chk-Boom Girl appeared on A Current Affair (ACA) last night, and you’ve probably never seen a softer interview. Clare Werbeloff claimed on camera that she saw a camera, and ran up to it, and magically came up with a story […]
Australia’s bogan viral sensation may be a fraud
What does it say about our country that our best viral video exports are usually bogans? I’ll leave that argument for another day. If you haven’t seen it yet, this video is so big at the moment that News.com.au has a related story as its current lead (image above)….ironically (well, maybe not) with a Corey […]
In response to Mark Pesce
On Nick Hodge’s excellent video podcast last night, noted futurist Mark Pesce said (and I quote) that I should “shut the fuck up.” He’s entitled to his views, but it’s what he said around it that I take offense at (and the reason I’m writing this post), in particular the idea that I ignore the […]
The last unpublished This Week in Geek
I quit the weekly column at Crikey today, and they chose not to publish the last one. Why let it go to waste though. The stories that I cut before submitting (and are not below) were a Huffington Post internship selling for $13k, a new round for BlogHer, and a piece asking why The Gruen […]
Budget 09-10: NBN and Censorship
Repeat after me….repeat after me….polly want a cracker….. least that’s what we got with tonights budget when it came to the NBN. Mentioned by Wayne Swan, and naturally trumpeted by Stephen Conroy (in a press release) new funding for the NBN itself in this years budget was….wait for it….$0. You don’t have to believe me […]
Censorship related funding to watch for in the Budget
Budget night Tuesday night. Although the Government’s “cyber safety” policy was costed in last years budget, the massive change to Government finances could see a revision to what was announced last year. Here’s what to look for. Last years costings here as the start point. $125.8m total. ISP funding The original commitment included “a one?¢‚Ǩ‚Äòoff […]
One time I wish I wasn’t right
The Register: Aussie censors implement six degrees of separation policy This article received massive attention overseas since it was published late last week, including top of Reddit and Digg. It notes that EFA received a link deletion notice for “linking to a link to allegedly harmful content.” The crux confirms a concept I mentioned in […]
Down 2
The Inquisitr dropped 2 places to 8th on the April Australian Startups list from TechNation. This may have been available in previous months, but I’ve paid more attention this month: a Hitwise rating. According to Hitwise, The Inquisitr comes in at 7028 of the most popular web sites. Compared to some of the others in […]
Nine’s double edged sword
One of the few Australian television programs we watch is Underbelly. However when I say watch I think we’ve watched it once when its broadcast on a Monday night, mostly we catch up with it during the week. Nine was half reasonable in offering a DRM infested download of the show, as part of their […]
Australian New Media and Journalist Twitter list
Dave Earley has put together a list of “Australia?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s top 100 Journalists and news media people on Twitter.” I didn’t count them, but there seems to be more than 100. Either way, damn fine list, and without doubt the best compilation of this type I’ve seen yet. I’d hate to think how long it must […]
2nd, 6th… got to try harder
The queen of Australian blogging lists Meg updated her Top 100/ 250 Australian blog list over Easter, the first time since Australia Day. The Inquisitr came second for the 2nd time running. My old business partner Darren Rowse beat me out with Problogger. He wasn’t there last time: in Jan it was Gizmodo Australia, the […]
Holy Smokes Batman: Telstra might be broken up!
Age:?Ǭ†Telstra set to abandon major cable upgrade In the aftermath of the Government’s decision last week, Telstra’s immediate task will be to rethink its investment in cable after it emerged that regulatory changes could include forcing the telco to divest the network which passes 2.5 million homes and businesses. Wow. Just wow. Should the Government […]
Whoops, NBN might not be feasible. The devil is in the detail
Steve Murphy in the Business Spectator: The 21st Century infrastructure equivalent of the Snowy Hydro is what K-Rudd says of his new Broadband plan, but will we end up flushing as much money down the fibre optic drain as we do water down the Hydro. The problem is we don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t know and the Government can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t […]
NBN Questions: debt + international connections
Two questions 1. Does the $43billion include the cost of repayment of debt, or is it simply the cost of the actual rollout? Whether the Government directly borrows, or offers infrastructure bonds, both come with interest that needs to be repaid. The official release says “will invest” which could suggest that the $43 billion figure […]
10 million page views
It must be milestone week. First, 5000 posts for The Inquisitr, now 10 million page views. We snuck past the 10m mark some time on March 23 US time, or morning March 24 AEDT. The funny stat: if we take a line from Oct 5 (US time) our 5th month anniversary, we’ve done 9 million […]
5000
The comment count is a little strange. Disqus 17,300 odd, and I don’t think there was 7000 in the time before Disqus and after. The 5000 came Friday US time (March 20). So 5,000 posts in 319 days at an average of 15.7 posts a day.