The Relentless Stream of Consciousness

Book Review: The Book of Lost Things

Guy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:14:21 +0000

The Book of Lost Things
John Connolly

Rating:

Connolly’s adult fairytale is a dark story of a young boy’s progression from child to man, looking at how he copes with wide-ranging issues of death, fear, despair, love and loyalty. An excellent book which I had trouble putting down - see my full review on LibraryThing, here.

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The software balancing act

Guy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:32:48 +0000

Ian Leader writes an interesting blog post on ‘Open Source, Email threading and Gmail Labs’. As he notes, closed-source, ad-supported software may be regarded as a fair trade-off in comparison to open source:

“This is probably a reasonable trade off: after all, users don’t just get free software (zero marginal cost) but free hosting, bandwidth and storage as well (real costs to the service provider). However it can be very limiting.” [emphasis his]

However, he cites the example of Google’s slow progress in fixing a minor problem as the flip-side. While it would be a five-minute fix in open source, it becomes a drawn-out hassle to resolve when the code is proprietary and protected. However much we try to balance all the factors, both open- and closed-source models have their up- and downsides in one form or another.

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Pollution problems

Guy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:20:58 +0000

As the Olympics near, converns over the effects of pollution in China’s capital are growing. Air pollution has been on the agenda for some time, with the authoritarian government resorting to drastic measures and mobilising armies of farmers to seed clouds, and planning emergency factory closures at a moment’s notice. But the New York Times reported today on a new threat, this time in the water, with a vast algal expanse off the coast threatening the sailing. While the state-controlled media denies a link between rampant water pollution and algae growth, this is the latest in a long line of concerns about the environmental conditions in the area. Whether or not these affect the Olympics remains to be seen, but at the very least it will hopefully provide the impetus to improve the environment for Beijing’s 17 million residents.

Via The Times, here, and the New York Times, here.

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Road rage, geek-style

Guy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:07:15 +0000

From the most excellent xkcd, here.

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Verizon CEO’s iPhone woes

Guy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:05:09 +0000

“[Verizon CEO] Seidenberg’s main contention seems to be that the iPhone isn’t a success because it has such a small share of the overall mobile phone market, which is sort of like arguing that GM is more successful than Ferrari because they sell more cars.”

Love the comparison From News.com, here.

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Dictator wins; Africa just watches

Guy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:01:36 +0000

In an oh-so-unexpected turn of events, Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was today announced as the landslide winner in the country’s presidential elections. Despite it being a somewhat hollow victory due to intimidation, killings, and the opponent being forced to pull out resulting in an uncontested election, the BBC reports that he was rapidly sworn in on Sunday. On Monday, he’ll attend a summit of the spineless African Union, where a bunch of other African dictators will most likely keep quiet about the events under Mugabe’s rule, or at most write him a letter paying lip-service to their supposed disappointment before hastily moving on to other less controversial matters.

BBC story here. The Times reports on Africa’s democracy defecit here.

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ICANN screws up TLDs

Guy — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:52:16 +0000

I meant to blog this last week but didn’t get round to it. ICANN, the body which oversees the addressing structure of the Internet, voted on Friday to open up Top Level Domains (TLDs) to allow companies or individuals to have any suffix they like. So, for example, News.com reports that instead of being limited to .com or .co.uk, eBay could have its own .eBay TLD. This is a bad, bad decision on so many levels; it will cause a ‘gold rush’ on domains, confuse users, result in convoluted non-standard URLs, remove the existing sensible structure from domain naming, and is potentially an open invite for fraudsters wanting to mimic or hack URLs. Just about the only positive thing is the decision to allow non-Latin domains, which means that (unlike currently) domains could be registered in character sets such as Chinese or Cyrillic.

CNET News.com reports on this stupid mistake here.

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Doctors 2.0

Guy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:27:56 +0000

“Yesterday I was talking to someone about their experience at the GPs - the Doctor googled their question in order to answer it.”

David Evans blogs on the BCS website about the way in which healthcare information will be stored and accessed in the future. I find his thoughts about a web 2.0 collaborative system, which could be seen simply as the next stage in the evolution of textbooks and journals, fascinating.

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Metal body, fabric skin

Guy — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:09:36 +0000

As Brian Suda says, the fabric skin makes you rethink the fundamentals of design. However, while the video notes that the outer metal shell isn’t actually required for crash protection, I did find bastardbrother’s comment on YouTube, that “when you get into a head on collision.. the skin of the car wraps on you and instantly turns into a body bag”, particularly amusing

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YouTube sentence

Guy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:39:48 +0000

News.com reports on the case of two US teenagers, who posted a malicious “fire in the hole” video on YouTube. In it, they ordered drinks at a fast-food restaurant, then threw them over the attendant as she gave them their change. In addition to clean-up costs and 100 hours community service, the judge sentenced them to post an apology on the video-sharing site. This is a great common-sense sentence, with those involved in formulating the sentence realising that the best way to make the punishment fit the crime - and deter others from doing the same thing - is to humiliate the perpetrators for the world to see, in the same way they humiliated their victim.

The full article is on CNET News.com, here.

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No surprise - Israel threatens force

Guy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:48:52 +0000

Reuters reports on the Israeli Transport Minister’s recent comment that an attack on Iran looks “unavoidable”. Shaul Mofaz made the claim to an Israeli newspaper on Friday, saying that UN sanctions were not enough. While Iran isn’t exactly a master of tact - and, indeed, may or may not be trying to build a bomb - the Israeli government only seems capable of threats and force, rather than diplomacy. From oppression of an entire population to constant threatening rhetoric, it’s no wonder that Israel is so resented (and, in many cases, viciously hated) both in the immediate region and further afield.

Reuters article here.

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Google products patchy

Guy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:22:32 +0000

“The conflict is obvious. A community of developers can enrich software with creativity, fun and all sorts of utility. But it is virtually impossible for a mob to keep it simple … Consider, for example, all the overlapping and not entirely integrated ways that Google users can take advantage of feeds and gadgets: iGoogle, Google Desktop, Gmail, Google Reader, OpenSocial in Orkut and so on.”

Saul Hansell discusses Google’s new Gmail Labs initiative. Rightly, he notes that Google’s various products suffer from somewhat patchy functionality, and the company needs to tighten its products so that they’re more integrated and work better together. Full post on The New York Times site, here.

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Lego rebel

Guy — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:10:33 +0000

By Balakov on Flickr - original here. I love this pic, though I had a hard time choosing which one to post as the whole Classics in Lego set is class

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Impossible to wiretap Skype

Guy — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:12:23 +0000

“The upshot is that if Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, or so on received a wiretap order for text or voice flowing through their IM networks, they could (and would) be able to comply because the services are centralized … [Skype couldn't] Which means that it’s the most privacy-protective mainstream method of communicating through voice or instant messaging.”

A survey by News.com shows that Skype is by far the best IM network if you wish to protect your conversations. It’s a sad reflection on society, but with companies subject to laws such as the US Patriot Act, users with nothing to hide may nevertheless wish to protect their data. Full story here.

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Billionaires and blackberries

Guy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:23:10 +0000

Time’s “The Curious Capitalist” has an amusing anecdote about an interview with T. Boone Pickens, the American billionaire businessman who, despite owning millions of shares in Yahoo!, doesn’t know what the tech company actually does. But it seems an understanding of technology doesn’t mater when you’re a billionaire… In response to being read a breaking Yahoo-related story from the reporter’s Blackberry, he dismissively responded, “Oh, they read that letter to me 30 minutes ago.”

Justin Fox tells it much better, here

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ISPs to advertise actual speeds

Guy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:36:20 +0000

“The way broadband speeds are advertised is to be regulated under a voluntary code published by Ofcom. It wants companies to publish accurate estimates of the maximum connection speeds people can expect before they buy broadband packages.”

This is long overdue. The only thing missing is that it should be compulsory - ISPs shouldn’t have the option to opt out and continue to mislead consumers as they have been doing for years. From BBC News, here.

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MP3 model for Twitter?

Guy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:12:23 +0000

“There are two obvious ways forward. Charge the users, or charge those who want to get at the users … The second option might look puzzling, but it has worked before, in the MP3 market … Twitter could do the same: charge for access to its API, or throttle requests over a certain limit from non-paying sources.”

Charles Arthur puts forward this idea on The Guardian website. I disagree. He fails to factor in that the API is what made Twitter what it is today, and the volume of requests is what makes it so popular - it’s all about the “ambient conversation”. Charging for either of these would provoke a backlash from the community, who would see it as turning against those who got it where it is.

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BarCamp presentation

Guy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:07:08 +0000

As I said in my recent post, I’m intending to get a proper review of the BarCampLondon4 sessions I attended written up tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone’s interested I’ve uploaded my [slightly rough-around-the-edges] presentation on “The Geography of Technology” to Slideshare.

It’s not great as a standalone presentation - rather, it was more framed as an abstract idea to prompt discussion at BarCamp. However, if anyone’s interested in reading the more coherent but much longer (~3750 words) essay it’s based on, I’ve published it here.

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Census security

Guy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:52:29 +0000

The Guardian reports on the Treasury Select Committee’s recommendation that, after 2011, census data should come from government databases rather than manual form-filling. While on the face of it it may seem a sensible, time-saving proposal, this raises many questions - both about technical and feasibility aspects, and surrounding civil liberties and data protection. Regardless of whether it’s technically possible, many questions must be satisfactorily answered before this should ever be considered: Can the government really maintain the accuracy of the data? How should Intellectual Property (IP) issues be solved? What are the privacy issues of outsourcing all or part of the process? And where will sensitive information such as religious beliefs (and potentially sexual orientation) be drawn from and held?

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Japanese iPhone: risky tactic?

Guy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:18:11 +0000

News.com reports that Apple is to sell the iPhone in Japan. I don’t quite understand why. As the story notes, the flashy features of the iPhone are standard fare in one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, and I remember quite a few reports at the time of the first iPhone launch which commented that many Japanese consumers couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. While the widely-expected 3G version is likely to make Euro-american geeks drool at the mention of its name, my bets are that in Japan it will be the equivalent of just another Nokia or Sony Ericcson in Europe or the US. Seems a strange and somewhat risky tactic, given Apple’s desire to market it as a high-end phone which doesn’t blend in with the crowd…

The full article is here.

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