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.

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/

Ignore the judge...

So Twitter Saves The World!

Does it rule wisely?

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?

"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?

---

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.

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?

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....

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.

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?

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!

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!

Data is fuzzy, not clear...

You've read Wendy's piece about Statebook but you should also read the the original Hawk-Eye critique by the team at Cardiff, which she refers to in net.wars this week.

It's all about margins of error; it's wrong to represent sharp edges for the predicted path of a tennis (or cricket) ball, when you're out by at least three inches.

Knit Your Own Ood!

"It turns out that as a legal question
rapid prototyping has barely been examined. Bradshaw found nary a reference in a literature search. Probably most lawyers think this stuff is all still just science fiction."

Would you buy a nano-manufacturing box for $1,000?

Edited by author 02-06-2009 02:03 PM

Help musicians, not recording company execs!

I should remind you, just in case you forgot, that Wendy M Grossman is almost as well known a singer as Kinky Friedman.

If she says "DON'T extend copyright!" then you really should think about it. And she's not alone, either...

Edited by author 01-16-2009 11:45 AM

Healthy Jobs markets?

Our special health correspondent reckons that the problem with Steve Jobs's health isn't his health.

It's his creation of Apple as a Jobs Cult that's the problem.

...journalism... RIP?

Wendy is, of course, a journalist. So are several of us! Does this mean we have no financial future?

Not right now, no, we don't...

Well, I can't disagree with your conclusions, because there is, clearly, a problem with the people arguing on both sides.

When you have a duel, there's no mileage in admitting to wounds! - and so although the orthodox "scientific" medical approach knows full well it has a problem with diagnosis issues (and mis-diagnosis, in particular) it stoutly maintains "But this is scientific!" Well, in a sense, it is: there's a scientific basis for the research that goes on in the labs. But what goes on in the hospital (as Wendy says in her article) is far more bloody random!

Similarly, the value of homeopathy placebo can't be denied. Let's not actually argue (right now) about whether there's more to homeopathy than placebo; let's just admit that, whether there is more, or whether that's it, we can both accept that there is placebo, OK?

That being accepted let's quickly admit that placebo plays a large part in "scientific" cures, too. Statistics show that Ibuprofen isn't as effective as Nurofen - the brand name for the best-selling Ibuprofen product in the UK. But chemically, Nurofen is identical to the cheapest generic Ibuprofen you can buy. Placebo, no argument! Doesn't mean Ibuprofen is only placebo, does it? - but it does mean we should accept that placebo is there, too.

So: if homeopathy ointment uses a placebo effect, we can be pretty sure that the patient's conviction that "it works" is an important factor. So, naturally, the homeopath isn't going to stand up and say: "Actually, all this potentisation, and thumping the mixture so many times with a leather ball, well, it's just mumbo-jumbo." Conviction is important! It works!

My summary is a fairly simple statistical one.

We know that diagnosis is, almost always, guesswork. It's intelligent guesswork, and it's based on a lot of experience in the case of most practitioners (on both sides). But we also know that if you go to a therapist with a complaint, it's very rare that they'll take a blood sample, send it off to a laboratory, and ask the lab to provide a full spectrum analysis of all possible pathogens. (And even if they did, that's not going to tell you definitely what illness you actually have).

What they actually do is apply the "IIDWIAW" test. That means, they say: "Hm, looks like thrush; rub this ointment in, and If It Doesn't Work In A Week, come back." Or "take these pills" or "try these eye-drops" or "don't drink milk" - and if that doesn't work in a week...

Now, if you have a serious illness which needs immediate treatment with a powerful drug or YOU'LL DIE! then obviously, a correct diagnosis and the prescription of exactly the right powerful drug - or surgical procedure, or anti-allergy precaution - is essential. Placebo isn't enough.

Alternatively, if you have a simple illness like man flu or earache, and you give the patient something poisonous and powerful in the belief that it's the plague, you can seriously damage their health.

So, what are the stats?

How many patients die each week, because they presented with critical symptoms, which some homeopath ignored and treated with chalk or glycerine?

And how many patients are given antibiotics each week, or blood thinners, or beta-blockers, who are going to show up seriously ill with any of the known side-effects of such powerful drugs - when they actually would have got better in a week anyway?

Irriatingly, nobody has the numbers.
<hr?

Medicines.

One problem I have with the "scientific" appoach to medicine is, they ignore empirical results, and only "back" those cures and treatments which they can *explain*.

Without doubt at the far end of the scale are quackeries which at best merely do not work.

But that leaves a HUGE amount of stuff in the middle gound, which *works*, with masses of (yes, even repeatble) epmirical evidence to support it. But because the scientifics can't explain WHY it works, it's "not allowed".

Pity really - since last I checked the pharma types still weren't even *quite* sure how aspirin works, and had a particular bunch of aborigonals not widely chewed the bark of a willow tree to cure headaches, we would probably be told it was something which migh have a placebo effect but of which nothign else can be proved...

I've not tried homeopathy - my crainal osteopath thinks I should, mind you, and I know that what she does is good stuff...

Argument? - NOT PERMITTED!

Wendy and the Editor (me!) don't altogether agree on all points about "alternative" therapies. But when it comes to freedom of speech, we are of one mind. And when a body which claims scientific backing sues a dissident scientist rather than debating the issue, Wendy is rightly incensed.

For what it's worth, I have a lot of time for homeopathy. No, I do NOT think it is scientifically justified - in the sense that I personally think the ultimate dilution, and water memory theories are junk science. But I do think that homeopathy has a valuable place in medicine.

And my GP agrees with me!

"If it saves just one child..."

The world is over-provided with "success at any cost" activists. Some of them - like the people who would ban all short-range radios on the offchance that it might save some electro-sensitive from discomfort - we can safely choose to ignore.

When it comes to child abuse, however, experience teaches us that you dare not dissent. You will be accused of unspeakable things.

But the protection of children, however important it is (and it is!) is not "at any cost" and idiocies committed in the name of protection, remain idiocies. Wendy explains...

Beware the Truthometer!

She calls it "reality TV" but this week's net.wars column by Wendy Grossman reads more like unreality TV to me.

I mean, a Twitter account operated by a fictional Xerox machine in a popular TV series about advertising?

Anyway, Wendy has been in Hollywood. Will it go to her head? Will she join Kermit and become rich and famous? Waddya think...

Fox in the hen-house?

Actually, for all we know the US bankers who didn't know that what they were doing was dumb, really didn't.

They probably dismissed Warren Buffet as an old fart...

For me, Kate Moss... it's "Art"

Would the picture shown here deprave or corrupt you?

Is it obscene?

If not, why not? If so, why?

Buffy the EULA-breaker

Vampires in Oxbridge? Well, a new Joss Whedon thriller set amongst the dreaming spires or the calm punts would be fun! but this week, the net.wars series explores the future of cloud computing, and what Angel might have done about its terms and conditions.

At least, when I was editing it on my flight from Faro, that's what I thought it was about...

net.wars - doplr-gangers. If you go there, I'm not!

It may be time to join yet another "social networking site" like doplr - and then again, as Wendy so succinctly put it:

"Friends don't LET friends join social networks..."

Edited by author 08-22-2008 08:22 AM

Sir Alan Ayckbourn

You back my scratches, and...

Literary criticism? We haz LitCrit. At least, if you're going to discuss copy protection, "software as a service" and video distribution rights, you'd better discuss someone whose output is worth protecting.

Wendy has been to the Scarborough theatrical production of an Ayckbourn play. Why does Sir Alan prevent publication of video performances?

---

Five ringtone circus...

Smog? Never mind the smog, check out YouTube!.

Edited by author 08-03-2008 05:58 AM

Car boot sale?

In 1980, it was your signature which gave you away.

Today, it's your "spending patterns." Which is clever, when it works, says Wendy. But what's the explanation for when it doesn't?


Image: Walter Matthau as Miles Kendig

Retroactive incentives?

It's easy to see who has the lobbying muscle, when it comes to reforming copyright laws (writes Wendy this week).

Wouldn't it be nicer if the performers, rather than the recording business, got the benefit?

I have to disagree with Wendy about newsletters. I run a mountain biking club, www.bogtrotters.org. We used to publish a printed list of rides with some editorial material every 3 months. It was very tedious filling envelopes, even for just 40 members. I moved the list of activities to our website 6 years ago, combined with a couple of mailing lists for announcements and discussions. In the intervening period the membership has steadily grown, to 115 now. I'm 55, and there are only 3 other members older than me, who seem to be able to cope with electronic delivery perfectly well. There are a few luddites who rely on a quick mobile call to check what's happening

Edited by author 06-27-2008 11:09 AM

That's a Black Goose, that's what...

The sad tale of a Government department that regarded security as a low priority has now been told, in the Poynter Review.
Read all about it, and weep...

Edited by author 06-21-2008 04:48 AM

Print deadlines

The trouble with going for email newsletters is that you can procrastinate forever about when it's finished.

When you give it to an operator of one of Mr Gutenberg's devices, the printer has a schedule, and expects copy the day you booked the presses. It comes out on time that way.

Well, that's one theory, sure...

Smuggling Smarties ... in a glass case?

You do feel naked when you find people at the conference giggling over your filenames.

Ouch.

Edited by author 05-30-2008 10:26 AM

Happy Birthday, FIPR!

Hulk Hogan is not a great model for a society's database, our chief columnist points out this week.

But despite "promises" that's what we're getting. And any local council can hire Hulk, it seems...

---

New is old again

Wendy has spent too much time in SF movies...

---

Edited by author 04-26-2008 09:35 AM

Power to the cpu!

Actually, the disaster may already be happening, because electricity supplies to data centres are already the primary cost of running an Internet Service Provider. But think about the data storage alone...

Please attach comments.

---

"We know where you live..."

So it seems, anyway; this week, Wendy is on the trail of surveillance skulduggery - in Wikipedia, Phorm, and Government.

And, of course, AT&T...

our chat on irc.mibbit.com (popup)

Edited by author 01-27-2008 05:13 AM

The freedom to be wrong

Keith Henson (pictured) went to jail for criticising the Church of Scientology - and he hasn't been the only victim of the campaign. Wendy's piece this week summarises the battles in the war between the web and the thetans.

Her point is a simple enough one: if we condemn the Church of Scientology for repressing free speech, we disqualify ourselves from using a similar evil tactic. Therefore denial of service attacks on Scientology web sites should be avoided.

But is that the end of the discussion?

---

 

Edited by author 01-11-2008 08:46 AM

Fancy being frozen alive before you die?

Apparently Wendy does.

From a scientific point of view, I can sort of understand the interest in developing such a technology. I can think of people who, like King Arthur, you'd like to have alive (or revivable) for a future emergency. But the trouble is, I can't think of any of them who'd actually be any darned use in any likely future.

Imagine Arthur, thundering into Tehran at the behest of an American President, on warhorses. Imagine Abraham Lincoln, asked to define a Constitutional approach to affirmative action, or global warming.

It's bollox, really, isn't it? Humans have a life; after that, it's someone else's turn. Move on.

---

 

Edited by author 12-07-2007 10:44 AM

What things are private, really

It's the opinion of our star columnist, Wendy Grossman that

 People do, clearly, care about privacy – when the issues are made visible to them. Unfortunately, the privacy-invasiveness of a service, policy, or Web site usually only becomes visible after the horse has escaped and is comfortably grazing in the field of three-leaf clover.

Agree?
 

Edited by author 11-23-2007 08:52 AM

That database! Identity matters!

It's impossible to draw all the lessons we need from the child benefit database fiasco. But there were three relevant seminars in London that same week.

Wendy went to them all...
 

My New Best Friend

It's Facebook time. That's not like "face time" but it's equally embarrassing, says this week's net.wars column.

---

 

The End of Hats As We Know Them

It's been an apocalyptic year, with too many air miles, says this week's net.wars column. Fancy starting a fight about energy?

---

 

Ask me in Room 101

Big Brother - the ultimate nightmare is, surely, where The Government knows more about you than your family does.

Did you enjoy the movie Gattaca? Wendy says she did, in this week's net.wars column - "but I wouldn't want to live there..."

---

 

Auto-invasion?

It's probably true that I'm happy to scratch my own arse - and yet would be really unhappy if the Government (or someone off Facebook!) tried the same operation on my sensitive spots. Is this a new law of the Internet?

---

 

Linden dollars may not be gambled!

It's illegal to gamble online in the US (not that this actually stops the habit, but there...) and therefore it must be illegal to have an online Casino in Second Life.

But it's not illegal for paedophiles to access web sites. So is MySpace entitled to ban them from MySpace access?

---

 

Too few votes cast?

It's a theory, sure: "Without passionate supporters there would be no candidates." If e-voting bores the pants off everybody, will there be politicians?

---

 

I didn't write this...

Wendy was the one who mentioned Wayne Crookes on NewsWireless.

Nonetheless, if she offended him then (it turns out) It's All My Fault.

And if you linked to NewsWireless - no matter that you linked to an article on WiFi antenna design - then you're equally culpable.

I don't mind sharing my opinion on this subject with the world: I think that if Crookes really is sueing people on this grand a scale, then he has "issues" which are probably better resolved by a therapist than in Court. It's not that I don't sympathise with someone who has been libelled: I do! But surely, all you have to do is establish that the statement complained of is libellous and unfair? Why take down everybody else in a world war about it?

---

 

Edited by author 06-01-2007 11:51 AM

The Whites - and the sunny side...

Always look on the sunny side - no, the bright side. No, dammit, that's the Pythons. Anyway, Google can make you feel cheerful.

---

Britney Spears!

---

 

Fie on levitation!

Can Uri Geller bend spoons? Can other people use his lessons to do so? Hard to say. But here's an easier question to answer: Does Geller own copyright in a 15-minute video, in which there is a three second quotation from some of his own footage?

Edited by author 05-11-2007 10:51 AM

Not just ID cards

Would British technology be further ahead, or further behind if we hadn't had a Blair in charge?

---

Secret History

Or, a history of secrets. It's a good question as to whether secrets and freedom and privacy are compatible...

---

 

Minute Life? Hour Life?

It's not just InfoSEcurity that fascinates our resident Second Life Coach this week. No, she's been sent to cover a second-world event...

---

 

net.wars: two networks

Wendy summarises: because the two markets – wireless phones and the Internet – have developed from opposite directions, we have two network neutrality debates, not one. The wonder is that it took us so long to notice.

See this week's column...

---

 

Power Voting!

Some people (get this) are still pretending that US voting machines are not thoroughly corrupt! This column suggests why you should ignore them...

 

Autonomy for Web users

Fancy doing a piece to the CFP audience next year?

Well, why not tell Wendy what your speech would cover? She might even get you in...
.

Edited by author 12-08-2006 07:00 AM

Gowers: but will the US permit it?

This week's column, Wendy praises Gowers on copyright but wonders whether the UK Government will be strong enough to resist US pressure to ignore his recommendations...
.

It couldn't happen here...

Civil freedom - in the UK, we have it. It means that we would never have internet content blocking the way they do it in China.

...right?

Except, obviously, for kiddie porn. And maybe hate crime. Oh, and possibly, well, don't we all have a little list?

---

Always the bridesmaid...

Wendy is not an ICANN Board member. Did this surprise her?

Not as much (it seems) as the lame questions they asked.

Edited by author 11-03-2006 10:14 AM

But none, I think, do there embrace...

The quote is from Andrew Marvell ("To His Coy Mistress") but Wendy's sermon this week takes privacya little more seriously and rather less terminally...
See the text of the poem for the allusion...

Lawsuits you, Sir!

No, the lawsuits aren't inevitable following the Google takeover of YouTube - but the real change will be "the advertising, stupid!" - and that's another story. Where will it go?

---

I didn't do it!

Sympathy for Our Wendy. She's the author of a piece she didn't write - and wouldn't, either!

Is that a robot in your pocket, or...?

Here's a little poem which illustrates why it is an elephant:
  
    So oft in theologic wars,
    The disputants, I ween,
    Rail on in utter ignorance
    Of what each other mean,
    And prate about an Elephant
    Not one of them has seen![4]

Edited by author 07-28-2006 12:57 PM

Into the lobby together!

It was even more of a surprise when occasional contributor, Kieren McCarthy, also announced he was standing. And no, the Editor is NOT standing...

Tags: ICANN, ICANN Board, Wendy Grossman, net.wars, Kieren McCarthy

Into the lobby!

It was rather a surprise when Wendy announced that she was going for one of the seven vacant slots on the ICANN board...

Edited by author 07-21-2006 09:36 AM
I think that's right. Take Miles Kington whose humour column has amazed us for years in The Independent. Is that journalism?

By definition, most would say, "yes, because it is part of a daily paper." Ten years ago, we'd have accepted that.

G

I think the differences are ones of action, not of location. I can be a journalist, provide incisive comment and keep a diary all in the one location, but it's the location that gets referred to as a blog (or a journal, or a homepage or a website).

I write. On some days I write about current events. Other days I post links to things I find amusing. Sometimes I let people know what I'm up to. Frequently I do all of these on the same day.

The labels, I think, apply to individual pieces of writing, which in the past would have appeared in different places, organised by type. On the internet they tend to be organised by person, and that's going to take some gettting used to.

Journalism vs blogging...

I think there are important distinctions between journalism (which does not have to include blogging) and real blogging (which doesn't have to exclude journalism) and simply diary keeping.

But the distinction is vague. After all, the keeping of a journal, or diary, was what journal-ism was...

Tags: net.wars, Wendy Grossman, blogs, Free Alaa </p>

---

Fully Updated Beyond All Repair

Remember the "regulatory powers" plan (still going through Parliament in the UK) which would allow the Minister to retrospectively "correct" a bug in a Law without bothering the House of Commons? Well, how would you like a technology which automatically updated the Internet to match?

I did this to me?

Of course we want to catch criminals. So we tape their phones.
Then we find that our own phones are tapped...

I think the whole nudity taboo is deeply corrupt. But it's also a given; it is like that. So if there is a problem about being perceived as a "purveyor of nudity" (and there can be) the question is more to do with how effective the response is.

Frankly, I can't see that the Six Apart response is rational. I mean, I really, really doubt that LiveJournal will become a haven for free porn purveyors just because images of mammary glands are permitted. Equally, I think MySpace would be idiotic to yield to pressure to ban entries from known pornsters.

But I bet both of them will persist with their policies.

One has to question the faith of individuals decrying "They banned Jesus" when the images of Jesus were intentionally used knowing that they violated current policies and reported to Livejournal in order to test the abuse team.

And out of 1.85M, the total number of protestors still won't make much of a dent, especially since they'll all be up and back on Tuesday. Those who are leaving LJ permanently for sites like GJ and the like are the ones making the meaningful protest.

I still maintain that the bulk of this issue has less to do with visual interpretations of breastfeeding, and more to do with a group of vocal individuals who are absolutely furious that they've been told no.

Livejournal doesn't have 10 million users: the 10 million figure on the front page (they say themselves) represents the 10 million accounts created since 1999. That almost certainly includes an unknown number of accounts deleted and suspended, and is known to include over 3 million accounts which have never been updated.

The number of accounts currently active in some way is 1.85 million.

What is even better is that even art works (such as Madonna with Child, etc) that show a child nursing but with a hint of areola are being banned. Even Jesus can't save the lactivists.

Edited by author 06-02-2006 11:00 AM
Babies don't come out of mummies' navels. That's silly. But as it happens, we had some gooseberry bushes at the bottom of the garden.

Is this only female nipples? What about ladyboys? I mean the professional standard ladyboys, not the Channel 4 do-it-yourselfers.
.

I'm kind of surprised too: http://www.ffii.org.uk/images/byCountry.png - or at least I would be if I thought the proponents of software patenting had even a basic knowledge and understanding of patent system economics and what is known about its application in various fields and industries. Unfortunately they do not: their arguments are invariably riddled even with logical fallacies and factual errors, let alone the economic naivety, and they appear to be not just incompetently ignorant but actually wilfully ignorant of the realities of the patent system and hostile to the opinions of economists: http://www.researchineurope.org/policy/patentdirltr.htm

It may have been true once, but these days I certainly don't see the background of the lobby against software patents as having anything much to do with 'obvious' patents. An unwholesomely large proportion of software patents do indeed seem to be 'obvious' or too broad or not even novel of course but those are problems which it is arguable (though not very convincingly in my opinion), could at least in principle be overcome. Professor Noveck's peer to patent project, for example, is a very interesting attempt to mitigate the damage done by the economically indefensible and now apparently politically irreversible extension of subject matter scope in the US. As you can see, here in the EU we also have a rationality (and integrity) vacuum in which the disease of patent and other IP extremism is flourishing but I think we still have a fighting chance of curing it and restoring economic sanity to the system.

I'm kind of suprised people always look at the amount of patents granted in country or region to measure its rate of development.

"OK. You're the EU and you want to compete with the US, which grants 18.75 patents per hour (2004 figures; that rate has undoubtedly gone up since then)."

Of does patents being awarded in the US, how many are genuine inventions!?
The background of the lobby against software patents is that most patents like the Amazon one click patent are obvious as hell. I don't understand why people always see patents as beneficial to increase the level of competition and innovation in the ICT sector. Especialy for small and medium sized companies, it just creates more paperwork and employment for lawyers.

The ICT industry has been able to grow and have its IP protected by copyright just fine.

Out of patience; no software patents

Was the EC right to wipe out the idea of software patents? Wendy appears to think they were probably right...

Edited by author 05-26-2006 10:10 AM

"Try to do a U-turn..."

 We did try to get Wendy some simple directions for driving across London but panic set in. So she used the GPS.

We're lucky to have her still with us!

But can't you just keep the LJ ticking over, with links to your new blog?

That's what I'd do...

I disagree about how easy it is to leave LiveJournal - the community aspects are partially replicable via RSS and message boards, but it integrates them (mostly) very well, and the integrated security means that if you want to read _everything_ your friends are saying, not just the public posts, then you need a livejournal account.

Pretty much all of my friends have LiveJournals, and the network effect means that I'd have to have an extremely good reason to either go elsewhere or start up my own blog offsite.

Edited by author 04-01-2006 04:40 AM

Ink on whose fingers?

This is fingerprinting. For children. Does having a fingerprint on record make you a criminal? And if not, why are we agin it ?

Digital Rights Manifesto

DRM normally stands for Digital Rights Management. From the customer's point of view, it's probably more like Digital Rights Minimisation. Wendy puts up her ideas for a Digital Rights Manifesto and here are the results of reader feedback.

You can feed back here, too!

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Edited by author 01-06-2006 05:19 AM

Net war, or pillow fight…

It’s not all that clear that the war about Wiki editing will ever really cease. Nor is it clear when our web site will calm down and start showing quote marks as quote marks. Bear with us, as we switch to a new server?

Supersize Wendy, or yourself

How good a producer do you need to be to get into personal TV as a producer?

---

supersize, EasyNet, Life squared, VoD

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Blame Brussels...

The ability to lobby effectively against Parliament may be
obsolete warns Wendy this week. If we let Brussels pass repressive laws, the local debating society will be able to get away with an expressive shrug and "They made me do it" as their excuse.

See also: Electronic Frontier Foundation, European Union, Open Rights Group, Suw Charlton

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Edited by author 11-04-2005 11:33 AM

Boasting about root...

Wikipedia says that boasting about root is a sign of inadequacy: If a person "has root access", it means that they are able to act as the administrator of that computer. "Having root" (ie, being the administrator of the system) is commonly associated with a so-called "feeling of power", to rule and divide, mostly by less experienced users.

This week, Wendy pillories the music industry as being even less adequate...

Technorati: root, RIAA, copy protection, hackers, sudo

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Edited by author 10-28-2005 07:10 AM

You sure you aren't disabled?

With the Boss away, it falls to us flunkies to read Wendy's column and post it this week. It's all about being disabled. That is, old, or ill, or blind, or otherwise unable to use a PIN with your credit card...

Technorati tags: Chip and PIN, disabled, blind

Life... don't talk to me about Life...

I know for a fact that it isn't Wendy's Birthday so I deduce that she has had a bad day with a new software package.
.

Computers as bad as TVs?

This week, Wendy asks for some review software.

Instead, she gets a 32-inch flat screen TV. With a keyboard... and a mouse. Argh! - it's a computer...

• Technorati: Media Center


• Technorati: TiVo

This is via NTL. Try the telnet session as I have done. If AOL lets you it, that it's entirely likely that the DHCP range (or static IP range, if you have static IP) of your ISP isn't on AOL's list.
Mind you, NTL got put in some of the spam source listings a while back, so perhaps AOL have a point....

Hayden, sorry, but this is still not my experience. I email AOLers all the time without trouble. Though do note that I'm using my own server to do this, not that belonging to my ISP.

Which I'm curious how you have access to. Are you a Wizards customer?

wg

How can you get a patent for making something more complicated than it was?

As it happens, this week's net.wars subject is one I covered myself, elsewhere. To quote my objection: "Cleverly, instead of just sending a text containing my email address, I send a text containing a code word, and THEN, when I get a reply, I send the text containing my email?"

And all that, instead of just sending them an email in the first place? Surely, there has to be something more to it than that? What's the patent FOR?

Well, it goes further than that. The man's argument (Delfosse) assumes that if you own a patent you can prevent other people using it. I'm curious... is that really right? I always thought patents controlled the transactions; if someone uses your patent, you're entitled to charge them. I don't see how you can police the use of the idea... can you?

Technorati: patent
Technorati: allisblue
Technorati: CIID

To Wendy (resurrecting an old discussion)
AOL does reject email not sent via your ISP's server. Here is a conversation (rudely cut short) I had with one of AOL's SMTP servers from my home...
hclark@server:~$ telnet mailin-02.mx.aol.com 25
Trying 205.188.159.217...
Connected to mailin-02.mx.aol.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
554- (RTR:BB) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrbb.html
554- AOL does not accept e-mail transactions from dynamic or residential
554- IP addresses.
554 Connecting IP: <removed by me>
Connection closed by foreign host.
hclark@server:~$

I rest my case :-)

Hayden.

Well, well, well...

It seems they're trying to sell the Well before it becomes obsolete.

Our Wendy is a long-time fan, member, and activist; this is your chance to see The Well from the inside.
.

Edited by author 08-12-2005 09:17 AM

Data Retention won't be killed

This week, Wendy discovers that with politicians, the worst ideas simply keep coming, like zombies, even after they've been totally destroyed. And data retention really is one of the worst ideas...

Time bandits

Hope you have some spare time on your hands...?
.

So, is this how net.wars started?

It's fifteen years since our Wendy discovered the Electronic Freedom Foundation. "The EFF was probably my first contact with the net.wars range of issues," she admits in this latest column.

A Bo Derek of Birthdays!

This week, Wendy gets all nostalgic about the "coming of age" of The Internet.

Well, basically (she told me) everything is ten this year, because 1995 is when e-commerce started.
 
She forgot Cold Fusion, mind...

More whacky than wikki?

You have to love concepts such as the "swimsuit edition" of Sports illustrated, or the phenomenon of beach volley-ball in bikinis. A way of getting women to take some of their clothes off?

Of course, the problem isn't what the women are doing. It's the fact that people don't want to be seen to be looking at half-naked women just because they are half naked. No, no; it's "sport" and therefore respectable.

To Hayden Clark: nice theory, but in fact I have no trouble emailing people at AOL. That's my agent's other address that I have to use because of Verizon. (Verizon, btw, promised to white list me, sent an email msg saying I'd be clear in five days; ten days later, email still blocked.)

"ranges used by home DSL providers" doesn't make a lot of sense here in the UK, where the same ISP will sell DSL to homes, small businesses, and large businesses, and AFAICT there is no "home range" of IP addresses.

wg

Breaking the kneecaps of email.
"email sent to her from my London-based home mail server still bounced". If this is your email server at home, I'm not surprised. AOL would block it too, with the more useful error message that AOL does not accept mail from IP addresses in the ranges used by home DSL providers. Use your ISP's SMTP server and things might be different. Unless you're on NTL, sigh......

Foreigners, almost certainly. Block them

There must be something we can do about Verizon and its absurd Kafka-castle of spam filtering.

Any ideas?
.

Archive filling...

After moving to the new server back in January, we moved everything from the old one across.

So it came as something of a surprise to find that one or two stories didn't want to play: like "You Can't Make Money On The Internet" back in March 02.

So if you find new articles lying about, it's because I'm filling in the old patches.


.

Edited by author 05-13-2005 08:13 AM

We're still trying to spot the bees...

Telling lies, making up stories - is it all the same?

maybeee...

Poor people don't deserve service...

Your phone listens to you. But if the humans who operate the network don't understand you, why should you expect that the phone will?

Wendy explains where voice recognition is going, and she wants to get on a different flight, please...

...

You think that's critical?

Why?

It seems to me that:

a) these things can only work when they are activated - most of them are passive circuits, requiring external transmitted power
b) their transmission range is inches rather than feet
c) one laptop computer will generate 50 times the RF output of 100 RFID tags (I'm guessing!) even if they were all activated simultaneously

I can quite see why they are saying: "We haven't considered this." I can't see why they should!

What everyone seems to have missed here is one critical factor. To my knowledge the FAA have still not ratified the use of RFID technology on aircraft from a safety point of view.... I was at an RFID Technology in aviation forum late last year where a senior FAA official admitted that they had not considered this issue, let alone test or ratify the impact of several hundred RFID chips in passenger passports floating around the passenger cabin on the aircraft systems.

Jonathan - I'll forward your note to Wendy.

Teddibly, means "terribly" and it's what Americans think posh Brits sound like.

Go (as they say over there) figure...

I might be missing the point but the whole idea of a central database is to ensure that individuals cannot enrol more than once. If the individual enrols once under the name of Mr Smith and then again under the name of Mr Terrorist he would be flagged and not issued another ID card because you cannot have two IDENTICAL biometric profiles on the same database. This is the ONLY way of eliminating MULTIPLE ENROLLEES (and why do people have multimple identities??? because they are the ones with most to gain from deceipt whether they be terrorists or just individuals claiming social security payments under several aliases....

OK, I give up. What's "teddibly" mean?

ID cards, no database?

You shouldn't criticise ("They" tell Wendy this) if you haven't got a solution.

Well, here it is - like it?