WebMink

Goodbye, AdSense

2009-06-10T14:50:00.002+01:00

I got an e-mail from Peter Brown at the FSF recently asking if I'd investigated the new advertising network they are endorsing, AdBard. Since I have seen Google Adsense revenue fall and fall, and since I have increasingly seen advertisements I don't like on my pages, I took a look at it.

It has some interesting features. First, they only accepts sites that support Free software for displaying advertisements. Second, they only accept advertisers supporting Free software, and they give site owners the chance to vote on advertisements. This way the accept/reject decision is transparebt and crowdsourced. Third, they are limiting display to one ad per page.

Those were all attributes I liked, so I am switching Webmink.Net over to AdBard. The topic is always controversial so I look forward to your views!

Where Angels Fear

2009-05-04T16:27:00.001+01:00

There's something awful in the news. It seems �The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.� That's dreadful � how can the followers of a saviour who was tortured to death be so hypocritical? Is it really true that the more devout an individual is, the less likely they are to respect the humanity of another?

Given my personal experience of Christians (as opposed to the collective abstraction people like to lampoon), that seemed so unlikely, I had to dig a little further. First, let's look at the survey results that CNN has published. According to CNN,

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

So that �more often� in the lede is actually rather dodgy. While it implies that, for any given American, the frequency with which they go to church will be an indicator of their willingness to torture, it's actually dealing with some different sort of statistic. The picture becomes clearer when two further details are observed. First, the baseline for American society is apparently 40%:

People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

Then it seems that non-evangelical protestants are less likely than the non-religious to support torture:

The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations -- such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- categorized as "mainline" Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified.

Ah. So that lede isn't correct, then. The indicator is not really �how often the person attends church� - it's �what denominational affiliation the person has�. Members of �mainline� (i.e. non-evangelical) denominations are less likely to support torture than the average American. According to CNN, that is. Who don't link to the actual research just in case you study it yourself.

So let's take a look at the original research as well as the generic, non-religious-based research. Well, actually, we can't as it doesn't appear to be published � there are only interpretations of selected results, with selective quotations provided. The full demographic data of the sample surveyed is not available anywhere I can find it.

What we do discover from the second article though is that these results:

are from a very small sample size, only just large enough to make any statements about �religious people� and too small to talk about anything other than abstract categories;
result from a single question which is framed in a way that eliminates the possibility of the sort of nuanced understanding of ethics any difficult question deserves;
ultimately say more about partisan political views than about religion. Maybe what's going on here is a characterization of �conservative, political� as �conservative, religious�?

So is there anything useful here? Are these grounds for evangelical atheists to once again pronounce the evil of religion? Well, no, I don't think so. I don't think there is really any useful data available on that subject here. Rather, it's been framed as an opportunity for tub-thumping reinforcement of prejudices against red-necks. Big deal.

A Tale of Two Issues

2009-04-10T23:46:00.003+01:00

Two things happened on Tuesday that needed sorting out:

I clicked the wrong link in TripIt and my main account got wiped out as a consequence
I discovered that BusinessWeek had got it into their heads I am on Sun's Board

The path the two issues have tracked as the week has progressed couldn't be more different.

Despite the TripIt issue being a case of user error (albeit induced by bad design!), the folks over there were extremely helpful and took my direct e-mail to the first person I thought of as sufficient indication they needed to engage. I had good, direct communication from an empowered employee who took ownership of the problem, checked in with me regularly to make sure the actions they were taking were OK with me and told me what to expect. I had my main TripIt account re-instated after 48 hours. I even had TripIt's VP of Product, Will Aldrich, show up in blog comments to apologise for the problem happening and to say they are redesigning the UI area that triggered the issue. Great stuff, very encouraging and restorative to my shaken faith - thanks, everyone.

The BusinessWeek issue has been exactly the opposite. Despite it being an egregious error on the part of BusinessWeek that has nothing whatever to do with me and read incredibly badly on their reputation for accuracy, I got something of a brush-off. My report to their editor was forwarded to a staff member who told me (via cut-and-paste text) that I should have filled in a form reachable via a pale grey icon below the fold and on the far right on the erroneous page. Nothing much happened until I sent the same text as I'd sent the editor via that form a day later when I found it. What then happened was a reply saying they would look into the issue appeared from some other company (clearly a supplier). The matter is still not resolved as of the time of writing, and I was just told it could take several days to make their listing match the SEC filings. [Update on April 14: Fixed at 4:25pm]

One of these companies has a great future.

TripIt Destroyed My Account - but fixed it!

2009-04-08T01:42:00.003+01:00

I have been a fan of TripIt right from the beginning when I was in their alpha program. Their ability to read travel booking confirmation e-mails and build me a great itinerary from them is legendary, their iCal feed is the backbone of my calendar and their growing social networking features keep finding chance overlaps with friends.

But today I had an experience that has shaken my faith in them. I sent an itinerary to them from the wrong account and found it must have happened before because I had an account with that ID on TripIt. I went to the profile page to delete the account and just at the final step was offered the opportunity to merge the account into another account. Seemed smart, so I agreed.

What they then did was disastrous. Instead of taking the account I was deleting and merging it into my master account, they did it the other way - deleted my master account and "merged" it into the unwanted one. In the process, they lost all my social network contacts, lost my iCal feed and lost all of my shared arrangements with my various itinerary partners.

I instantly wrote to them about it, but still have no reply. I hope they will be able to reinstate my account (I have heard from people on Twitter who have had the same experience). When they do, they need to immediately disable this dangerous and badly conceived "feature" that keeps harming their most loyal users.

Update Fri Apr 10: TripIt turned out to be marvelous and have now restored both my account and my faith - see my analysis.

Language Synchronicity

2009-02-21T15:16:00.002Z

Just a small outbreak of synchronicity here as I see reported a load of hand-wringing from a UNESCO project:

Some of the data are especially worrying: out of the approximately 6,000 existing languages in the world, more than 200 have become extinct during the last three generations, 538 are critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe.

while at the same time we see an illustration of the problems caused by humans speaking multiple languages over in Ireland:

It was discovered that the man every member of the Irish police's rank and file had been looking for - a Mr Prawo Jazdy - wasn't exactly the sort of prized villain whose apprehension leads to an officer winning an award ... "Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence," read a letter from June 2007 from an officer working within the Garda's traffic division.

If the mix of living languages causes misunderstandings and probably worse, I'm not sure I buy into the romantic notion of trying to preserve loads more that are falling into disuse. As I recall, Babel was a punishment...

Live, as required, in Sydney

2009-02-02T04:09:00.003Z

I don't know if it was the afternoon start, the problems with her keyboard, or something else altogether. But Juana Molina did not seem pleased to see a room full of people out to enjoy her remarkable and accomplished music in Sydney last Saturday. She seemed elsewhere - had nothing to say, commented condescendingly as if our presence was unwelcome or the venue beneath her, seemed ill at ease throughout the performance.

The music was worth hearing though. I'd not fully appreciated that everthing she does is live, and had anticipated canned loops throughout. As it is, she creates every song live, recording the guitar or keyboard notes in mid-flight and weaving the set-up into the song. My respect for her talent is greater than before - she is clearly someone deeply practiced in what she does.

The incident with the keyboard was also impressive. The one she was using failed and a replacement found. She performed while it was installed, performed while it was configured and loaded (from the floppy disk in her guitar case) and weaved the testing of the new one into the next song. All thoroughly professional.

The sound she makes live isn't as clean and rounded as her recorded sound - that's obviously polished in the studio before the bits hit the disk. Her audience was perhaps muted as well. It seemed to comprise women dragging along bemused partners to experience the happening. Row upon row of alternating nodding and bemused, tilted heads spanned the tent.

Finally the end came. Once the regulation period of suitable applause was submitted, Juana Molina returned for her required encore, delivered it with excellent professionalism and departed, perhaps a little surprised to discover how many of us were actually fans rather than anthropologists. Overall a worthwhile afternoon, but I'm not sure that her inner entertainer really shone through.

The Batman Conspiracy?

2008-12-16T12:22:00.003Z

Just a brief note for those unfamiliar with some colloquial English. Two usages have sprung to mind this week as I have gaped in wonder at synchronicity.

The first word I'd like to mention is "blag", which despite some attempts to borrow it for cheap use related to blogging still means to fool someone into giving you something by eloquent charm and a little dishonesty, as in "he was able to blag a seat in the Senate".

The second usage is "made off", meaning to steal from someone by sleight of hand and evasion, as in the phrase "the thief made off with all my money."

So what's going on with the world when two enormous alleged crimes are allegedly perpetrated by people named after the alleged crime? Are Blagojevich and Madoff actually plot devices in some huge Batman scriptwriter conspiracy? Can we reduce our law enforcement costs significantly by looking for people called "Fraudstein", "J Ripper" or even "Nick"? Enquiring minds need to know.

Why IWF's Wikipedia Reversal Is Not Enough

2008-12-12T21:57:00.005Z

While I was delighted to see the UK's morality police at the Internet Watch Foundation show a laudable honesty in backing down over their censorship of a learned article covering a decades-old controversy over an album cover, I was struck by the response from Mike Godwin, who is chief counsel to the Wikimedia Foundation. Mike sent it to a mailing list to which I subscribed and, with his permission, I've reproduced his response here in full as it makes very important points about why our freedoms are still at risk becuase of the worthy, yet flawed, approach of the IWF.

As general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, I was one of the handful of people mobilized in our rapid response to Wikipedia's being censored in the United Kingdom as a result of Internet Watch Foundation's blacklist.

Although the Foundation (and Wikipedia users) are grateful that the Internet Watch Foundation changed its mind (after concerted protest from us and from our community), there is still plenty to be troubled by in the operations of the Internet Watch Foundation and its blacklist.

First of all, the IWF's blacklist is not at all transparent to users -- try to view a web page blocked as a result of the IWF's blacklist, and you get an error message that doesn't indicate that censorship is happening.

Second, the IWF's appeals process is also less than transparent. When we first challenged the IWF's blocking of Wikipedia content (the full text of the article, not just blocking of the offending but lawful image), we were soon told that there had been an appeal of the block but that Wikipedia had lost. Who represented Wikipedia in that appeals process? I asked that question immediately, and discovered that, of course, no one had represented our side.

Third, it's clear that IWF relies for its expertise on the question of whether content might be "potentially illegal" by talking to pro-censorship law-enforcement entities. This is not the way to operate if you want to understand freedom of expression as an expansive rather than a cramped and restricted freedom. Policemen and prosecutors tend to think of all the ways they can view an act as criminal -- you need civil libertarians (ideally lawyers trained in the theory of freedom of speech) to balance the perspective of law-enforcement personnel, if freedom is to mean anything in your society.

Finally, it is worth noting that the particular means by which censorship is implemented via the IWF blacklist is one that doesn't scale well. It may be all too easy for IWF to blacklist a marginal porn site and have almost all UK ISPs route communications with that site through a proxy server that blocks particular content. But that sort of blunt-instrument approach hardly scales when you're dealing with a top-ten website like Wikipedia, which relies on contributions from many hundreds of thousands of uses all around the world. Wikipedia's own need to prevent vandalism means that we have to be able to identify and block particular IP addresses where vandalism may originate -- the implementations of the blacklist by UK ISPs ensured that, to Wikipedia's servers, most contributions were coming from a small number of IP addresses. This meant that any attempt to block a vandal meant disempowering a huge collateral number of constructive contributors in the United Kingdom.

Even though we won this particular censorship skirmish, it bears repeating that the IWF signifies a very problematic approach to content control by governments, including, sadly, the United Kingdom. Not only is the process obscure, transparent, arbitrary, and capricious, but also, because the IWF is not itself a governmental entity, it is essentially unaccountable to the public it is supposed to be serving. That is something that citizens in the UK and elsewhere may feel requires some reform.

--Mike Godwin
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation

Update: Removed the Google video embeds that were messing up Ubuntu viewers, let me know if there are other issues.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T11:41:00.001Z

A happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.

Club 8

2008-11-24T17:08:00.001Z

It was 3Hive that put me on to Swedish duo Club 8 ages ago. I sat and listened to them this weekend and thought it was time to pass on the goodness. According to their Wikipedia entry, they got together in 1995, and since then they've produced six albums.

What's striking about their sound is how much Dido owes to their singer, Karolina Komstedt, who sings with unstoppable calm regardless of the energy or pathos of the song. I've really enjoyed listening over the weekend.

They've placed enough free tracks on their web site to constitute a sampler album. Here are pointers to them, playable in-browser assuming the JavaScript works.

Jesus walk with me from The boy who couldn't stop dreaming
Whatever you want from The boy who couldn't stop dreaming
Heaven from The boy who couldn't stop dreaming
Spring came, rain fell from Spring came, rain fell
Love in December from Club 8
Missing you from The friend I once had

Meeting Heros

2008-10-11T15:21:00.001+01:00

The Honorable Derek Hanekom
Originally uploaded by webmink

As a personal aside to my trip to South Africa, I had the pleasure and honour of sharing a table at dinner with Derek Hanekom on Thursday evening along with many others.

While I'm sure he'd be embarrassed to be described as such, he's one of the heros of the reconciliation miracle in South Africa. He served in Mandela's cabinet as Land and Agriculture Minister after returning from exile in Zimbabwe where he and his wife retreated after their abuse at the hands of the apartheid regime for supporting the ANC.

He's now deputy minister for science and technology (although of course that's all subject to flux) and I was impressed by his grasp both of ODF and software freedom issues. He's also clearly not afraid to to action when he sees a problem.

As Phil Zimbardo reminds us in his TED Talk and book, we are all heroes in waiting, but it's not often one gets to meet someone who took the unappealing yet appropriate fork in the road when offered.

Indian Summer Again

2008-09-28T17:39:00.001+01:00

Morning Rose
Originally uploaded by webmink

Well, we had a delicious lunch in the garden again today, under blue skies and kissed with warm sunshine. The trees around us are still largely green, and the roses are making a late show. One of those days when I don't wish I lived anywhere else!

In the spirit of beauty favoured by Tim Bray, here's a photo of our favourite rose lit from the side by the morning sun during breakfast. I took it as a practice shot with the G9 but it's turned out beautifully. I'm still having trouble getting used to using the 3" screen instead of the viewfinder - so unnatural, especially snapping through a car or plane window.

Equinox Summer

2008-09-21T16:12:00.002+01:00

After a lousy, grey, cold, wet summer in the UK, this weekend has paradoxically been gorgeous. The sky has been blue, the sun warm and we've even been able to eat in the garden - only the second or third time in the year.

As I noted in my links, I've finally succumbed to the inevitability that I can't take the 20D with me unless I am travelling with luggage, so I've taken the opportunity of price reductions related to the announcement of the G10 to buy a Canon G9 to travel with me on shorter journeys. I love it so far.

Since the weather is near perfect today despite it being the autumnal equinox, I'm taking the chance to practice, so expect a few sample snaps!

Omnivore's 100 - Is Webmink An Omnivore?

2008-09-13T21:28:00.003+01:00

This post relates to Very Good Taste � blog � The Omnivore�s Hundred. The VGT Omnivore�s Hundred list for me (with things I have eaten in bold and things I'd not eat crossed out):

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
~~21. Heirloom tomatoes~~
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
~~26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper~~
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat�s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth �60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald�s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S�mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs� legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

LHC Day in Geneva

2008-09-10T11:01:00.004+01:00

I've been attending A2K3 in Geneva, and it just so happens it got me here on LHC Day (the day that CERN turns on the Large Hadron Collider). Since it is just down the road, I'm guessing I'll be among the first to go when it blows up and makes an earth-sized black hole, so to celebrate in a different way to XKCD, here is one of my favourite (and sadly my wife's least favourite) Tom Lehrer songs (from YouTube).

Fig Flambe

2008-09-01T00:04:00.000+01:00

Turkish figs are back at the local supermarket and I've been cooking Fig Flambe again this weekend after a long break, I've been improving the recipe somewhat; here's what I'm doing now:

Webmink's Flamb�ed Figs

Ingredients:

One fig per person (plus one extra per 4 people if they aren't huge figs)
One rounded tablespoon of butter per person
One heaped teaspoon of fragrant honey per person
One teaspoon of balsamic vinegar per person
One shot of spirits per person. I use 50/50 rum and brandy

Method:

Slice the figs into 2mm-ish slices. You can tell if they are fresh enough because you'll find they just squish to a mush if they are over-ripe.
In a large frying pan, melt the butter, stirring constantly. I keep the pan as hot as I can without it smoking.
Add the honey and stir until it melts and blends with the clarified butter
Add the balsamic vinegar.
Heat and stir until you have a hot, golden foam that is starting to thicken and darken at the pan edges.
Add the sliced figs and coat them all with the foaming syrup. Stir and coat for a minute or so.
Add the spirits in a single, fast pour to the centre of the pan so it hits the bottom of the pan and boils. If you now tilt the pan slightly, the alcohol vapour should ignite.
Serve at once with greek yogurt. We sweeten ours with a little honey and a dash of vanilla essence.

We've had this twice over the weekend and it's been very popular, and I have enjoyed the musky fragrance of honey and balsamic vinegar filling the air in the kitchen. Do let me know of improvements to the recipe.

Brooke Fraser

2008-08-31T17:35:00.004+01:00

Browsing around on iTunes a week or so ago, I spotted a music video for sale called C.S. Lewis Song. Pretty intriguing title, so I sampled and discovered Brooke Fraser for the first time. She has a stunningly pure voice and the lyrics of her music are thoughtful and for a change mostly not about relationships, so I've dug further - first to the other (excellent) iTunes video, Shadowfeet, and then further to her most recent album, Albertine, from which both those songs are taken.

Turns out that she is from New Zealand and this is her second album. The first, What To Do With Daylight, is also excellent and made her a star in her home country with Arithmetic and other tracks. She's moved to Sydney since then, spent some of her new wealth on sponsoring children in Africa and got married.

The whole album is excellent - I've scored almost every track as 4 stars. The title track is available free from her website and is strong and compelling, as is the back-story. Her voice remains compelling at both ends of her range, and all the lyrics are refreshingly deep and spiritual.

To get a taste, browse her YouTube channel where all her music videos show up. While her record label is clearly trying to make sure we don't find out too easily, it turns out she is also making great worship music as a member of Hillsong United. I am captivated by her song Hosanna for example.

She's about to tour the US at the moment, and I think she's got a strong career ahead of her. She joins Delta Goodrem and Missy Higgins in my "antipodeans to watch" category and I suggest you give a try too.

Auto-Tube

2008-08-17T18:06:00.003+01:00

Looking through my Adsense account I noticed Google has now added units of YouTube videos as an option for display. I've added a block of them to the aggregator and to the personal blog, let's see how they go.

Eat Less Meat, Save The Earth

2008-07-09T11:59:00.003+01:00

I posted a link to this TED talk last week but I keep showing it to people here so I thought I'd actually post the video. Mark Bittman gives a short, inspiring talk on the imperative of changing our eating habits as a driver for both health and climate change. At home we're changing the way we shop and eat (largely as a result of Michael Pollan's books Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food) and this sums up the rationale and method nicely.

(If you see two grey bars above, click one of them to select a video player since your browser is able to offer both). The talk is also on the TED site.

3 little strikes, one disproportionate response

2008-07-05T18:19:00.004+01:00

I just sent this to my MEPs - I suggest you consider doing the same if you live in Europe. The Open Rights Group has the details and you can write instantly.

Dear Sharon Bowles, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, Caroline Lucas, Ashley Mote, Peter Skinner, Nirj Deva and Nigel Farage,

I was very concerned indeed to read in the news that some last-minute
"Telecoms Package" amendments could bring the so-called �3 strikes�
approach in by the back door. I understand that a possible
implementation of these amendments could result in any citizen losing
their right to connect to the Internet as a result of three
unsubstantiated accusations of downloading music or video or software
without permission.

The Internet is increasingly the channel through which citizens gain
access to government, to employment, to telephony and to much more in
addition to entertainment. It is as inappropriate for any law to
withhold this connection as it would be to ban citizens from walking on
public highways. To withhold basic access in this way should be a
sanction only used in the most extreme circumstances, ones where basic
liberty of other forms would also be withheld.

As my representative in the European Parliament, I ask you to vote
against any amendment that would result in arbitrary and
disproportionate sanctions such as this "three strikes" approach.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Phipps, FBCS

Feel free to plagiarize my letter. And let me know if you get a reply.

Unexpected Radical

2008-06-17T08:15:00.001+01:00

I spent a little time at the weekend reading the newspaper coverage of the campaign started by David Davis here in the UK. Davis was until Friday one of the most senior members of the opposition Conservative party, a political grouping that continues to struggle for credibility even in the face of an increasingly unpopular Labour Party in power under the humourless gaze of Gordon Brown (all Blair's values, none of his charisma).

Hearing Davis' speech on Friday as he resigned his seat in Parliament was a breath of fresh air, the first political statement I have heard over here for ages that has had any connection with my fears for our liberty. It seems to be a genuine act of principle, a grasping after one of the few tools at his disposal to put the issue on the agenda.

What has he done? Well, he was the shadow Home Secretary, the politician appointed by the opposition Conservatives to handle home affairs. It's one of the more visible political jobs in the UK and reflects his seniority after he was beaten to the Conservative leadership by David Cameron. He has resigned both that job and his seat in the House of Commons, with the goal of forcing an election in the constituency that put him there. He wants the election to be on a single issue and to highlight that issue in Britain. He's chosen that path becuase it was the only way to get the issue raised.

What is the issue? The triggering issue was the vote over whether the police in the UK should be able to hold a terrorist suspect without charge for two weeks longer than at present - a total of 42 days. The Labour government has been steamrollering the issue through, using the same disreputable "if you're against this you love terrorists" rhetoric that's become so common. The Conservatives, sensing a play in their own turf, have effectively rolled over and let it happen.

But more widely, the issue is the fact that the erosion of civil liberties in Britain has just gone too far. Davis said: "I will argue this by-election against the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government." Not just "this government", David, your own lot are complicit too. In that context, it was going to take something pretty extreme to have a decent public debate on the subject.

And will we have that debate? Not if the establishment and the leader-writers have their way. Davis is currently at the focus of a set of campaigns intended to undermine his position by his own party, who fear he distracts from their "direction" and are framing this a sour grapes from the leadership loser, and the government, who want to paint him as an egotist playing "a farcical stunt". But I hope they have miscalculated. As The Guardian says:

Could David Davis somehow have stumbled across something the establishment has missed, an untapped anger with what the public sees as a snooping, heavy-handed state that spies on it through speed cameras and CCTV and microchips on its rubbish bins, that tramples its freedoms and makes sloppy mistakes with its private data?

Davis is the first voice with any chance of getting heard that has shouted "enough is enough, protect me by protecting me not by making me a slave". Despite my position usually being to the left of his, Davis has my support (maybe even some of my money) since this is an issue that needs tackling, and none of our current elected leaders seem to have the stomach for it. I'm with him, and I'm not the only one.

Please Vote For My Photo

2008-06-16T09:28:00.012+01:00

You may remember last year my posting about being unable to get my photograph of Sydney Opera House onto iStockphoto. The problem was that the Opera House has an over-broad interpretation of trademark law that they are trying to use to control the market in photographs, and iStock is respecting rather than challenging it. I still can't post my photo to iStock, but there is a chance to get a bit of airtime for the issue if I can get some votes for the photo! And I need your help.

I just entered the photograph into a Sydney Opera House photo competition (thanks for the anonymous tip), and I'd love to get your (hopefully 5*) vote for it if you feel so moved. I actually have a second photo entered if you're in the mood. My entry looks like it is the very first in the competition and the prize is notoriety, just what the issue needs.

Norwegian Music

2008-04-12T01:12:00.006+01:00

Sitting in the hotel (right next to Herr Nielsen's Jazz Club) last night in Oslo I realised that the music I was listening to on my laptop was just track after track of Norwegian music. There was Beady Belle, then Thomas Dybdahl (try Damn Heart or Half Of Me, both free B-sides, and my absolute favourite single Love Story), then Ane Brun - and that's ignoring nearby Scandinavians like Teitur and Tina Dico (try this. Wonder how I'd missed the connection for so long?

Update: As Walter points out, I forgot the most obvious musician (and the one who features largest in my collection), Jan Garbarek.

Coming of Age in Wireless Britain

2008-03-26T13:14:00.004Z

Last week I decided to give mobile broadband a try while I was away from home in London for a few days. After looking at the various plans, I decided to pick the one that Hutchison's 3 subsidiary offers, and went to a Carphone Warehouse to buy it. The experience was very enlightening - clearly this is a part of UK culture I've overlooked for too long. Just in case you are as naive as me, I'll document the experience - apologies for all you hardened warriors who consider this trivial.

First came the purchase process. It's not like buying anything else I have ever purchased. After "yes please" came several huge bureaucratic forms, a demand for photo ID, an address check, a credit check and finally the wait for the transaction to complete online. It was probably the most invasive process I have undergone in the UK, including applying for a passport. All for a modem and a �15 service.

Then came the first use experience. I had carefully checked the literature and the package to make sure the Mac was supported, as well as asking the assistant to confirm. I got the modem out of the box, read the instructions and followed them. "Plug the modem in to a USB port and follow the on-screen instructions". I plugged it in (after insterting the SIM) - apparently it was a memory stick as well as a modem. Its little blue light flashed happily. Hardware Growler told me it was working. But there were no instructions and no broadband.

I rang the support number on the package. After following some menus, it told me to dial another number for support. I dialed that and followed more menus. I finally got to a place that told me support was only available in the daytime. I read more and more of the paperwork in the box and finally found some small-print telling me that use on a Mac involved drivers that were available for download from 3's web site. Except I couldn't get online because ... well, my mobile broadband wasn't working yet.

Since I was traveling, and since the three-day return period was ticking, I decided to take it back next day. I clearly wasn't the first person to go through all this. "Oh yes, all the other companies include a CD with Mac drivers, but 3 don't". I decided there was a high risk of not getting it working within the short three-day return period so I went through the "termination" process, another bureaucratic fascination, and made sure I had all the magic numbers needed to prove I had done it.

The third step was today, when the invoice turned up. An invoice not for �15 but for �18, since they added a �3 "billing fee" without telling me. I called the number printed on the invoice to check the account was indeed canceled and found it asked me to dial a different number for broadband. I then spent maybe 20 minutes on hold to another national-rate number and was finally able to confirm with a charming Indian lady that it was cancelled.

I am obviously sheltered and naive becuase I found several aspects of this experience to be customer-hostile. First, the amazingly intrusive purchase experience; second, the fact that 3 lied about the package including Mac support; third, the fact they didn't provide phone numbers for technical or billing support even though the documents I was using were only about broadband; fourth, the fact the price advertised was not the price charged. I'll not be trying this stuff again for a while.

Boxwood Incense

2008-03-10T12:41:00.002Z

Hey, lazyweb: I bought a tube of boxwood japanese-style (non-dipped) incense from Banana Republic back in 1999. It is my absolute favourite incense but it has almost run out, I only have fragments of broken sticks left. Google doesn't give me any strong hints where I might get some more - does anyone have any ideas please?