Swine flew? Sound the ReTweet!

Twitter is a fad.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it is.

So is SMS texting.

I'm gkewney, if you want to Follow me... do let me know if you do!

There will still be Victorian houses...

Wendy puts her finger squarely on the problem with futurology: there's going to be more of the past in it than people think!

Edited by author 06-19-2009 01:45 PM

Laura Robson and the Press

Wendy knows more about tennis than the average bear. And she knows more about how mass media and sport interact than anybody I know.

Will people watch Wimbledon when their only access is TV, or bloggers?

Edited by author 07-24-2009 12:08 PM

I'm a technoster...?

Techno-stress, as Wendy used to call it, has got worse with the "burden of security" which is now imposed on prosumers.

It'll all end up with our future being managed by mobile phone operators. The SIM was designed to be secure ab initio; the Internet, not so.

Central to the debate about "Piracy" is "Who frames the issue?" We're bombarded with fraudulent statistics claiming massive losses... Back when I first bought a PC (running DOS from floppies) my "Killer App" was a DTP package called "Timeworks". At about the time when Windows 3.0 came out, along came a rival product called "Page Plus". Timeworks refused to give obsolete copies away with magazines... Page Plus did the opposite (And have been doing so throughout the many years that have intervened) TImeworks is no more. But Page Plus - which gained market share by ENCOURAGING people to pirate it (and then offering cheap, "no-middleman", upgrades) now pretty much OWNS the budget DTP market.

Peer-to-Peer is beyond doubt the "low hanging fruit": the easiest to identify, and the easiest to prosecute. And - thanks to how it works - people who download ALSO upload chunks of files to others (Uploaders are normally treated more harshly than downloaders) But, meanwhile, in another part of the forrest, the pirates have switched to Means like "Rapidshare" and "Megaupload" to diseminate music, movies and software. Much harder to catch the culprits.

Things change. The development of the automobile put buggywhip makers out of business. Gramophones destroyed the sheet music business. The trend is clearly towards a music "market" in which recordings are merely adverts for the "Real Thing" (where the money is!) - Live concerts. The days when a musician NEEDED a recording contract, or would never get heard, are long gone. With a laptop and access to the internet, an up-and-coming musician / band can create a presence - and a following - without external help. The more MP3's they give away for free, the more seats they can sell at their next performance. But, I suppose people have been trying to halt the march of progress (for their own benefit!) since the Peasant's Revolt. It didn't work then either....

You Wicked Person: sharing a home with a Downloader!

No, it makes no sense: the Government is going to lose the next election, and so it criminalises 20 million people who happen to use the same ADSL line as a file-sharing individual?

Back before Dixons transformed the UK Internet with "Freeserve" (making it affordable to stay online for more than a few minutes at a time through their flat rate charges) there was STILL piracy. Technically savvy "crews" of kids used their "phreaking" ability to log on to BBS sites in the USA (where local phonecalls were free, so BBS's thrived) and downloading any pirated stuff they could lay their hands on. When it was back on this side of the Atlantic, they compiled it into monthly "compendiums" on the new-fangled CDRs... and distributed them for about £20 a pop. Kind of like "Lucky Bags" from further back in my childhood; they contained a cheap pastic toy and a selection of sweets; but you didn't know what was in the bag until you opened it. Not knowing was part of the magic. The CDs spread by the likes of "Mr Blobby" and "Tango" would include games, utilities, apps... some of which would be useful, some not even slightly.

Just as it was then (the 1980's?) what we're looking at is what INEVITABLY happens when kids are strikingly more technically proficient than their elders. They'll find ways around the security that you never even imagined. It's what kids do... and in one way or another, it's probably what they've ALWAYS done.

"We know where your DNA lives!"

Herman The Austrian, as we like to call him (he used to have a posh Austrian accent, but English people thought he sounded German) created Acorn, and the bBC Micro. And the Active Book Company, ABC. And Plastic Logic.

But I did NOT know that he was the fourth human being to have all his DNA mapped!

What next?

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OK, what's the best Social Network?

It's possible, I suppose, that one day, nobody will use email but what's the alternative?

I know what I want: a robot which scans ALL my social networks, and only sends me communications which I'm interested in. How hard can that be, anyway?

Ignore the judge...

So Twitter Saves The World!

Does it rule wisely?

Edited by author 10-27-2009 08:45 AM
I was one of the organisers of the demonstration outside Carter Ruck's offices. Here's why we did it...

Just like any company that is complicit in human rights abuse, Carter Ruck are a perfectly legitimate target for peaceful, legal, protest. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right, or OK. Anyone who chooses to collaborate in the enforcement of an unjust law, such as the current law of libel, and the dangerously unaccountable system of 'secret injunctions', in order to suppress freedom of speech, is making a moral choice. We have every right to take them to task for that choice. It just doesn't wash to seek to absolve Carter Ruck of moral responsibility simply because they are following the instructions of a client.

The idea that targetting Carter Ruck somehow lets Trafigura off the hook is simply mistaken. By drawing attention to Carter Ruck's abuse of the law, we also drew lots of attention to Trafigura's behaviour. It was a double-win. I personally doubt we'd have got that much media attention if we'd protested outside Trafigura's office.

Campaigners are duty bound to carry out their protests peacefully and (for as long as the law remains just and fair) legally. But we are under no obligation to respect the cosy gentleman's agreement that seeks to shield law firms from moral scrutiny. If Carter Ruck (or any law firm) wants to play politics, they can expect to find themselves on the receiving end of more criticism and protest.

I've written a more detailed response to Jack of Kent here:
http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/2...fence-of-flashmobs/

One of those peculiarities of Capitalism... My local pound shop (and probably yours too!) will happily sell me a USB "extension cable" for £1. That's about a metre of wire, with a USB Male socket on one end, and a USB female socket on the other. If I wanted something that's just SLIGHTLY different - a USB "Laplink" cable, with a USB Male socket on BOTH ends, one might reasonable expect the price to be roughly the same: the components are effectively the same, the labour involved is the same... but no. My pound shop doesn't sell such things - but EBuyer and Aria do. And their prices are VERY Much higher; in one case £8.50, in the other £15. BUT!!! It gets crazier than that. If I buy an external drive enclosure from Aria's "Supersavers" department, I can get one for well under a fiver. (They've two models to chose between, both under £5) The puzzle is that both of these enclosures come with a FREE USB Male to USB Male cable as standard. SO I can either buy a cable for £8.50... OR an enclosure for £2.95 - which happens to include a FREE £8.50 cable. I've been telling my customers since DOS ruled the world that "if something seems logical, when it comes to the economics of I.T., then it's probably wrong". But I don't think I've ever seen a more perfect example.

Can't find the new mousehole, so here is as good a spot as any.

Will the Mouse be sent to IMS / Online Information ? Should the Boss go himself? a couple of years ago the Mouse decided this was the wrong IMS show so failed to carry out instructions. the thing is mobile phones keep turning up even though the show assumes a central IT department.

Maybe more later, through thursday.

Edited by author 12-07-2009 04:54 PM
I'll get the Mouse to create a new nest!

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OK, in future, Hunkymouse will monitor this page or so he tells me!
:-D

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Edited by author 12-20-2009 05:28 AM

The day Facebook turned evil

Roger Clarke predicted this and it has happened. Virtually all your confidential Facebook data has been "flipped" to be open to the entire Internet.

I'm closing it right down. I went to "settings" and found things which used to be "Only friends" were now set to "Everyone." I've switched it all back down to "only friends" again.

 What about you?

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For reference, here's Roger Clarke's summary in his report:

7. Conclusions
In general, people would be well-advised firstly to stay well clear of all address-book and 'social networking systems', and secondly to prevail upon their friends, colleagues and acquaintances that they should avoid making any data about them available to service-operators like Plaxo.

There are two qualifications to that general statement. Firstly, a service that was subject to reasonable data protection laws would be less objectionable than services located in the U.S.A. or other havens such as Australia or a third world country. Secondly, it is feasible to design a privacy-sensitive address-book service or social networking service. Unfortunately, none of the services referred to in this paper have demonstrated sufficient understanding of the issues to suggest that they could mature in that direction.


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Do people remember taping off radio?

If not should we remind them? At least, could the music business admit it happened?

Wendy Grossman at her best...