WebMink

A page from Adams

Doc Searles' first encounter (complete with GWB-style typo) with the new White House e-mail challenge-response system sounds like my experiences trying to open a new account on the Nationwide Building Society web site (get it exactly the way the designer envisaged or get it wrong) It brings to mind a quote from Adams - not the revolutionary leader nor the second American president nor even the famous composer, but rather the author of 'The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy':
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'
[What do you mean you haven't read it? Go right now to Amazon US or UK or CA and get the omnibus edition for your next ride]

posted at 5:29 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

BA Customer Service Reaches New Heights

When we travel these days, we are all suspected terrorists. Each of us traversing the airport is repeatedly treated without respect or dignity as we are frisked, questioned, ID-ed, commanded and found-fault-with by unaccountable people. I've already reported here on this subject a few times from my own experiences and pointed to earlier idiocies.

But Dave Farber's 'Interesting People' list has just yielded the (sour) cherry on the top. BA, the world's favourite airline (for people who enjoy being treated badly) ejected John Gilmore from a flight and then denied him travel on another flight for wearing a lapel badge with a political slogan because (a) the crew didn't understand the badge he was wearing and (b) didn't bother to try and (c) being British had never heard of the First Amendment and (d) they could and no-one can tell them otherwise.

The badge simply said "Suspected Terrorist" like in the first sentence of this posting and despite having passed through all the usual 'security' apparatus (BA check-in, SFO TSA, gate check-in, boarding greeter) and being declared no risk by anyone, John was ejected from the flight and then denied further travel and so was his companion.
The terrorists have won if we turn our country into an authoritarian theocracy "to defeat terrorism". I suggested that British Airways had demonstrated that trend brilliantly today. She understood but wasn't sympathetic -- like most of the people whose individual actions are turning the country into a police state.
It seems the crew thought the badge was in bad taste (actually, in context, I'm not sure I agree with them) and refusing to remove something in bad taste is enough to get you denied travel. Reminds me of a song by the Manic Street Preachers. BA provided the best possible object lesson in the problem John is campaigning against - couldn't have been better if he had set it up. These people have way to much power with way too little accountability.

[Footnote 1: In case you don't know, John Gilmore was one of the first employees of Sun Microsystems and once financially independent because of his work at Sun devoted himself to civil liberties projects, including founding the EFF. Check out his web site or, if it's down, the Google cached version.]

[Footnote 2: Reading other coverage of this, I was led to amazing comments on Metafilter, where there are plenty of folk who believe the arbitrary exercise of unreasonable authority is just fine and that Gilmore is just a fool looking for trouble. If BA has a problem with Gilmore, they should have said so at check-in, the gate or on boarding. As it is, the action is arbitrary and unjust. Andrew Cooke's comment sums up the issue nicely:
i'm starting to wonder exactly what reading material i can take with me. presumably the "terrorist" t shirt i posted a link to the other day can't be worn. i guess lessing's "the good terrorist" is ok, cos it looks like a real book, but woodcock's "anarchism" (a history of the movement) probably wouldn't be that good because it has "anarchism" in beg red letters on the cover (i'm not casting round desperately for examples here, just looking at the booskshelf by my side as i type).
I'm now waiting to see the press comment & BA reaction. I have a nasty feeling no-one will care.]

posted at 3:11 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Friday, July 18

No RSS? No Blog.

I just clicked on a link (assuming I am allowed to tell you this) in my AdSense ads and reached apennyfor.com, a blogger seeking traffic by buying ads - fascinating. So I thought I'd honour the investment and follow it for a few days, see what it's like.

The snag is, I don't read blogs in the browser any more. NetNewsWire has changed my habits - blogs have become a push technology for me (remember that meme?) and I now wait for NNW to tell me there's new stuff to read. So any blog that lacks an RSS feed of some sort is effectively invisible to me. Including this one, sadly.

[Update: My post was spotted and there's now an RSS feed so I'll be tracking...]

posted at 1:04 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Thursday, July 17

Google exercises editorial control

Just found this in my spam trap:
Hello,

It has come to our attention that you are encouraging your website users
to click on the Google AdWords ads that you are serving via the AdSense
program. This has the potential to artificially inflate AdWords advertiser
costs. Therefore, per the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions, AdSense
participants are not permitted to incite or encourage users to click on
the AdWords ads.

If users click on ads with little chance of converting to a customer for
our advertisers, advertiser costs are increased while the return on the
investment is reduced. This is an activity Google does not support.

Please remove the following language on your website:

"No tips in the tip jar; no gifts from the wish list - so I'm giving
Google a try, please click often ;-) without click-spamming (new term I
learned on Google)."

If we find your account to be in violation in future, action may be taken
against your account and payment may be withheld. Please be sure to
review, and remain in compliance with, our Terms and Conditions and
program policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies).

Sincerely,

The Google Team
Seems their bot has no sense of humour and/or irony. I'm not sure I agree with them trying to exercise editorial control. comments invited.

posted at 12:04 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Wednesday, July 16

Tuesday, July 15

Evanescence

I've not gone for heavy rock all that much in the past but Evanescence hit the mark perfectly for me. I have been listening to their double-platinum album 'Fallen' [UK|US|CA] over and over and I adore the rich mix of energy, melody, thrash-metal and lyrical beauty they manage to capture. It was the movie 'Daredevil' that thrust them into the limelight with 'Bring Me To Life' and I find that song an echoing cry from the heart - watch the video, it is excellent. The album itself has depth and breadth, from quiet love ballads ('My Immortal') to orchestrally-backed choral heavy metal ('Whisper'). I'm sure it embarrasses the kids to have me plugging it, but I just love it!

posted at 4:55 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Chinese Whispers

It's interesting to see how someone with a limited background of a topic (reporting this event and never heard of wikis?) and who is only half-listening covers a speech. My 'industry perspective' at Supernova last week was covered in tech-tabloid The Inquirer by Doug Mohney. I suppose I should really be gentle as the guy, despite not actually taking the time to interview me at the event, is clearly not too upset and at least spelled my name right. But let's take a look at what's been chinese-whispered:
Simon Phipps, Chief Technology Evangelist at Sun [he was listening to Kevin's introduction, then], give a semi-interesting spin [high praise] from his perch. He said not all the smart people in the world can work in one place --- make me wonder if Boss Scott's has heard that [sure he has, I said this was one of the Bill Joy quotes most cited inside the company -and Jeff says it's obvious] – so innovation happens elsewhere (than Sun, I guess) [a whole load happens at Sun too, buddy - can you say "NFS" or "Java" or "JXTA" - it's just most people have heard of it before and didn't need telling, this was not a sales pitch] and "community-based peer product" ["community-based peer-production" actually, a phrase coined by Prof Yochai Benkler, which I explained] was good, steering carefully around [actually steering directly into and explaining what I was talking about so even those only half-listening could get it] the phrase "open source." He described "Open Source" as being the beta ground for commercial software [Actually, no, absolutely not what I believe and not really close to what I said. I was not giving a talk about open source; I was explaining my view that the chief driver towards decentralised technology was actually societal, the emergence of a massively-connected society. What I said was that the open source approach was like the beta test (should have said "release candidate") for the software development methodology of the massively-connected era. I also said that nEcho was an interesting early alpha for the standards process of the massively-connected era. I gave other examples too. I clearly didn't say "massively-connected" enough though] . There's a Sun "experiment" called MadHatter that will see if "community-based development" can build enterprise-class software and if Sun can build a business around it [I don't even know where to begin, maybe he needs to read more...].
I could analyse the second paragraph too, but it's not really worth it. I clearly failed to communicate my true point - that the chief driver towards decentralised technology was actually societal, the emergence of a massively-connected society, and not technological - because Doug Mohney only heard the examples out of context. Still, Cory Doctorow got it. Or maybe Doug just has an axe to grind with Sun (his previous coverage seems to suggest it's because his stock portfolio has hit the deck) and decided to take some cheap shots?

posted at 2:13 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Aussies cave to ISC blackmail

Hmmm. Interesting what turns up in the mail on the same day - two similar sized populations coming to opposite conclusions about the same facts. Byron's interesting and well-researched piece in USA Today reminds us that the City of Munich (population 1.2 million) has voted to use Linux on its 14,000 desktops despite a higher price ticket because it's sufficiently good and gives the users control over their own destiny:
"On price and technical criteria the advantage was Microsoft's, but the gap was not that big," Maack says. "On strategic issues, it was clearly open-source, and the gap was very great."
Meanwhile in South Australia (population 1.4 million) the state government claims open source software in general is poor quality and is happy to have its decisions made for it by others so as to avoid the bullying tactics of 'Big Byte'. Time will tell which is the right conclusion, but I know which one I'd pick.

posted at 2:07 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Monday, July 14

What will they do with that then?

Seems even Microsoft's live-in lover (my former employer Unisys) doesn't think that their server software is going to be enough to sustain them in old age, according to InfoWorld:
A Unisys official said Java-based applications are prevalent in Windows environments, even if Microsoft is not a major proponent of Java. "If you look at customers out there, even if they're running Windows they've got some Java-based applications that they're running," said Walt Lapinsky, director of strategic software at Unisys, in Tredyffrin, Pa.
It will be interesting to see who decides to make thir app servers use this feature.

posted at 8:06 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |