Joe's Jottings

Month: March 2010

  • Your email address CAN be harvested from Facebook…a heads up!

    Or…yet another reason to watch who you befriend….

    Facebook attempts to be what’s known in the online world as a ‘Closed Garden’ – interactions with the rest of the Internet are restricted somewhat to make the user experience better…or to keep you in the loving arms of Facebook, depending on how cynical you are.  One of the tools in this process is the Facebook API – a set of programming tools that Facebook produce to make it possible for programmers to write software that works within the Facebook framework.  Indeed, Facebook get very peeved if you try automating any aspect of the site’s behaviour without using the API.

    One thing that the API enforces is the privacy controls; and one thing that you cannot get through the API is an email address.  Which is cool – it prevents less scrupulous people who’ve written games and such from harvesting email addresses from their users to use for other purposes.  It also ensures that all mass communications are done through Facebook.

    Of course, if you’re determined enough you could go to every Friend’s profile page and copy the email address from there…or there are scripts that people have written to do the task by simply automating a browser.  The former is tedious, the latter is likely to get you thrown off of Facebook.

    However, a method documented hereshows how this can be done through the auspices of a Yahoo mail account.   It is apparently a legitimate application available within Yahoo Mail for the benefit of subscribers.  How long Facebook will allow this loophole to be exploited is anyone’s idea, but given that I have a number of Facebook friends I felt it worthwhile warning folks.

    The problem is not you, my trusted and good and wonderful reader, who would only use the tool for what it’s intended for – added convenience in contact management.  The problem lies with people who are a bit free and easy about who they make friends with.  If you do end up befriending a less than trustworthy individual, they could quite happily get your email address through this method, and soon enough you’ll be receiving all those wonderful offers for life enhancing medication and get rich quick schemes.

    So…watch who you befriend.  Today might be a good day to prune out those folks that you’re not one hundred percent sure about!

  • The further perils of real time search…

    A short while ago I wrote a couple of posts about the issues around Real time Search (How important is Real Time Search and Google and the Dead Past) – that is, Internet based searches that include Internet content that has been generated in the few minutes (or even less!) prior to the search.  Those of us who’ve been around the Internet for long enough will remember the days when you could wait days or weeks for stuff to show up in a Google search; nowadays Tweets can turn up in search results almost immediately.

    There are many reasons – most expressed in the two posts above – that I have for feeling rather uneasy about the whole idea of real time search, particularly around personal privacy.  I think the main mistake I made when I wrote those two posts last year was to underestimate the speed with which things would move.  Recent developments in geolocation based systems – that record the location from which a post is made – such as FourSquare and the geocoding side of Twitter have made it easy for Tweets and similar online posts to locate people in the real world.  A particularly fine example of this phenomena is the suitably named ‘Please Rob Me’ – this site uses some clever coding to detect when people Tweet that they’re away from home. 

    The publication of ‘exploits’ for web browsers and other software could also become a hot topic.  At the moment, a hacker may determine how to ‘poison’ a website with a specially manufactured piece of code that can infect an unprotected PC with a virus or Trojan Horse program.  The hacker can then publicise the fact via various means, hoping that others will get the chance to use it before the manufacturer of the browser relaeses a ‘patch’ for the bug that the code exploits.  Real time search could very much help hackers – by releasing details of an exploit, then linking to it from a few sites, then tweeting it, it’s quite possible that details of such exploits could be showing up in search results within minutes or hours of the exploit being identified.  Unless the search results are sanitised in some way to prevent this happening – highly unlikely – then this will surely lead to decreasing online safety.

    A related problem might be in the creation of online Pop-up Shops’ for ‘warez’ or other illegal content.  For those who’ve never come across a ‘Pop-up Shop’ these are shops that take out a very short lease on a retail property – typically a month or so around Christmas or some other busy event that will guarantee good local footfall.  They then sell cheap goods, Christmas cards, etc. and then shut up shop and disappear – whilst these shops are totally legit business, the Internet equivalents are frequently not.  Given real time search, a suitably optimised ‘instant site’ with an arbitrary URL could be put on a server, show up in search engine indexes / Tweet indexes within the hour , make material available and be gone before the authorities even know it was there.

    Real time search is here – faster and probably more effective than I feared.  And it’s not going to be pretty.

  • Just for today…

    This is something I came across many moons ago, and is one of the most useful ‘secular prayers’ that I’ve ever come across.  It originated with Alcoholics Anonymous and it’s a most useful approach to take.  Apologies if you’ve come across it before, but it’s well worth it a read:

    Just for today, I will try to live through this day only,
    and not tackle my whole life problem
    at once. I can do something for twelve hours
    that would appall me if I felt that I had to
    keep it up for a lifetime.
     
    Just for today, I will be happy. This assumes to
    be true what Abraham Lincoln said, that
    “most folks are as happy as they make up
    their minds to be.”
     
    Just for today, I will try to strengthen my mind.
    I will study. I will learn something useful.
    I will not be a mental loafer. I will read
    something that requires effort, thought and
    concentration.
     
    Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is,
    and not try to adjust everything to my own
    desires. I will take my “luck” as it comes,
    and fit myself to it.
     
    Just for today, I will exercise my soul in three
    ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and
    not get found out. I will do at least two
    things I don’t want to–just for exercise.
    I will not show anyone that my feelings are
    hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not
    show it
     
    Just for today, I will be agreeable. I will look
    as well as I can, dress becomingly, talk low,
    act courteously, criticize not one bit, not
    find fault with anything and not try to improve
    or regulate anybody except myself.
     
    Just for today, I will have a program. I may not
    follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will
    save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision.
     
    Just for today, I will have a quiet half hour all
    by myself, and relax. During this half hour,
    sometime, I will try to get a better perspective
    of my life.
     
    Just for today, I will be unafraid. Especially I
    will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful,
    and to believe that as I give to the world, so
    the world will give to me.

    One thing that I’ve found over the years is that sometimes the very biggest problems and most intractable issues can be resolved by splitting them down in to smaller steps, then solving each smaller problem in turn.  This prayer – and I will call it that – attacks the issues of lifestyle and habit in the same way.

    Too often we  don’t attempt to make major changes in what we do because the idea of keeping those changes going day in, day out, for the rest of our lives, is quite scary.  The underlying message here is hopeful; by changing our behaviour and attitude for 1 day at a time, we can gradually build new habits as we go.  If we drop the ball one day, it isn’t the end of the world; we just pick up things again from the next day and start afresh.

    I’ve put this idea to work myself in recent months; a year ago the idea of doing a blog post every day for the foreseeable future was rather scary; but the realisation that that just broke down to 500 words a day, one day at a time, made it much more palatable.

    So…after me…Just for today….

  • Internet access a ‘fundamental right’?

    I would say that I’m something of an ‘online person’ I ran a Bulletin Board ‘the hard way’ in the late 1980s / early 1990s using a phoneline, a modem and a PC at home, and have been on the Internet in one way or another for over 20 years, and was involved with Prestel back in 1982/83.  However, this article from the BBC made me do a serious reality check.   Nearly four out of five people in a survey done of 27,000 folks around the world considered that Internet access should be regarded as a ‘fundamental right’.

    Now, this sort of thing crops up every now and again, and it always elicits the same response from me.  At this point in the history of our planet, nonsense.  Yes, information is increasingly important – even, or perhaps especially – in developing countries and economies.  But a ‘fundamental right’? No.  Let’s not forget that the Internet is a communications technology first and foremost – similar to the phone system, road and railway network, etc.  And let’s face it, there are many people in the world without access to a reasonable road and railway system, let alone  a phone system and the Internet.

    Let me give you the run-down on precisely why I think that there are many rivers to cross before we get to the luxurious position of the Internet being a fundamental right.

    The Internet can’t carry food…

    Or people, or goods, or equipment.  An information superhighway is great in an information economy, but of limited use when you have a subsistence, agricultural or manufacturing based economy.  And let’s face it, whilst information is essential in developing new skills and supporting economies, it can be delivered in lots of old fashioned ways – like books, pamphlets, radio, TV.

    The Internet needs power…

    To deliver a reliable Internet service in to a country requires that that country have a viable and effective power supply.  Even now, many developing countries do not have reliable power.  Is it realistic to prioritise the right to the Internet over the right to a reliable and cheap energy source that can provide power for light, heating, entertainment, energy for industry? 

    What’s the point of an Internet without machines…

    Even with projects like OLPC and other ideas to get computers in to developing nations, there will still be the problem of providing equipment and software in to developing nations in a sustainable and long term manner.  A laptop computer – or a mobile phone, for that matter – is a complex piece of kit and is unlikely to be easily manufactured or maintainable locally. 

    The Internet doesn’t educate or heal

    Whilst the information on the Internet may be helpful in education, just how much of it is relevant without literacy?  And which is a more effective means of delivering basic and even advanced education in a developing nation?  $1000 spent on a computer that might help 1 person, or the same amount spent on books and similar resources for a class?  the Internet does not provide basic health care – it may provide useful information but cannot vaccinate.

    The bottom line is that we live in a world of limited resources in which we have to prioritise those resources.  To claim the Internet is a fundamental right is to forget that the real fundamental rights – a home, food, safe water and no local Gestapo kicking the door in because you disagree with your Government – are yet to be achieved over much of the planet.  In a technologically advanced society their might be an excuse for this sort of comment, but in parts of the world where the next drink of water could kill you, it’s a luxury that cannot be realistically afforded.

  • Twitter – the medium is NOT the message!

    Regular readers of my ‘jottings’ might recall a recent post of mine in which I debated the value of Tweeted Wisdom.  Always one to consider returning to the scene of past musings, I was today motivated back in to Twitter criticism territory after I read a Tweet that suggested that:

     “100 is the new 140 for massive retweetlove”.

    Now, I have enough problems with 140 characters, but then again I’m using Twitter to communicate ideas and concepts as well as gossip, funnies and bon-mot to the good folks following me.  Whether I get re-tweeted or not is not the first thing in my mind when I put a Tweet together – what matters to me is whether I can marshall the idea effectively in to the 140 character limit.

    Starting to apply lower character limits to Tweets based purely on the possibility of re-tweeting does seem rather ‘arse about face’ to me – it IS putting the process of communication ahead of the content – i.e. putting the medium before the message.

    Some years ago, the Ford Motor Company were in pretty dire straits – losing money and market.  There was a serious concern amongst the higher echelons at Deerborn that Ford might actually go under.  Various policies were implemented throughout the organisation, including cuts to the design and manufacturing base of the company.  The story goes that at one Board Meeting, some of the directors were commenting that they had managed to get the books looking better by reducing costs, and that most of the cost reductions had come from savings made by closing down manufacturing facilities.  A grizzled old veteran who DID know the difference between a carburetor and a Carbonara pithily pointed out that, based on that thesis, the best way to save the company was to close ALL the company’s manufacturing facilities and stop making cars altogether….

    And this is how this sort of emphasis on the mechanism of Twitter strikes me; people get way too wound up with the phenomena and culture and technology of Twitter rather than the function – and the function of Twitter is to allow rapid, succinct communication and conversation between people.  Or even between people and other computer programs!  But the emphasis is on communication and conversation – and when we start emphasising the possibility of a re-tweet over the quality of content, we are in danger of making Twitter more ‘gimmicky’ – something that is not good.

    So, for what it’s worth – use that character allowance for the purpose it was originally given to us – to communicate.  Giving 30% of available space up for posisble re-tweets seems pointless.  What matters is what you say; not necessarily how many times it gets re-tweeted.  The ultimate re-tweetable message accoridng to some folks would be a single word – don’t let the usefulness of Twitter be compromised by ego.

  • Keep your tank full!

    Some years ago when I was engaged (in a small way) in the movie industry I read a rather interesting book of advice to low budget (or zero budget) film makers.   One of the most useful things I read was the advice to make sure that you kept the tank of your car full of petrol.  That way, if opportunity knocked, or you needed to get somewhere fast, then even if you were rock-bottom-skint you wouldn’t be caught by being unable to buy petrol for the car!

    It’s a simple idea, and one that I’ve adopted to some degree with various aspects of my day to day life.  It’s always been particularly useful because I have a very up and down cash-flow – being self-employed can sometimes result in personal finances being like the Biblical 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine. The money one is the obvious application.  Whilst it’s possible to stuff money in a savings account or, in these days of fiscal doubt, in a biscuit tin buried under the roses, it can sometimes be more useful to spend the money on things you KNOW you will need in the not too distant future – pay extra off your Credit Card, keep a few extra quid around to allow you to take advantage of ‘BOGOF’ offers in the supermarket, cheap deals in the local shops, etc.  We have a ‘stock box’ which contains cans, dried foods, rice, pasta, cooking oil, etc. that we keep topped up for use in winter conditions or as a stop gap when things might get tight.  The advantage of getting stuff rather than saving the money is that it prevents the money being spent on other things.  Of course, it doesn’t help with those ‘rainy days’ that always whack our lives, but it at least allows you to lay things aside for a rainy day. 

    The ‘keeping your tank full’ approach also applies to time; whilst it’s true that you can’t store time in a bottle (except in the Jim Croce song) what you can do is make use of spare time that you do find yourself with to get things done that may need doing further down the line when you may be short of time in which to do ’em.  My own ‘favourites’ in this category of task are quite often Blog Posts or at the very least ideas for future posts.  The WordPress software makes this easy; I can write a couple of posts in the same session and use the software to schedule their publication in the future.  Other tasks that I often fit in to this category are what I call ‘errands’ – doing some of the stock up shopping listed above, collecting and dropping off dry cleaning, sorting out files – anything that will be required in the next few weeks and that may get forgotten in the ‘hurly burly’ if time becomes short for any reason.

    And I’ve also applied it to my health and well being; whilst I know you can’t stock up on sleep, I have been known to go and take afternoon or early evening naps when I get an unexpected opportunity.  Whilst it might only benefit me over the next 24 hours or so, it’s good to make sure that I don’t run up a sleep deficit – especially living with 3 cats, one of whom is a royal pain in teh arse at keeping the rest of the house awake!

    So…keep your tank full and don’t get caught running on empty!

  • Sturgeon’s Law

    Following on from a recent post when I commented on the quality of Web 2.0 ‘user generated content’ I started thinking about the continued validity of Sturgeon’s Law – usually stated as ‘90% of everything is crap’.  When it was first formulated, the vast majority of the consumers of science fiction – the genre to which it originally applied – were protected from most of the crap by the editors.  (Having said that, the magazines of those far off days still contained a reasonable amount of stuff that could be described as ‘less than brilliant’…but that’s another story!!)

    In my own view, I think Sturgeon’s Law is slightly out of date now – I’d probably suggest that the figure is closer to 95%, and what is worse is that:

    1. Web 2.0 allows much more of it to come through to the web-using public.
    2. The demand of satellite TV, Cable TV, etc. for new content has again reduced the quality threshold, allowing more stuff through that, to be honest, just isn’t up to the mark.
    3. The situation is almost certainly going to get worse; it’s increasingly difficult to apply any critique of quality to produced media without being accused of being elitist.

    Is there an answer?  I certainly hope so; I have a good many years of life ahead of me and I hope that some of the time will be filled with entertainment that makes me laugh, cry and think .  I want to be provoked; I don’t want media to slide down to a lowest common denominator value or simply be inferior re-hashes of past glories.

    The bottom line is that, whether we like it or not, we have to reintroduce the old concepts of judging value; of estimating and rewarding quality, even if this means we have to produce material that is regarded as too intelligent or challenging by some.   It may mean that sacred cows are killed – I have frequently commented, for example, that some otherwise excellent scripts of the most recent incarnation of the TV science fiction series ‘Dr Who’ were ruined in parts by the writers bringing in politically correct characters and dialogue that absolutely jarred.  It might also mean that we have LESS content; I for one would prefer to have less entertainment and media of a higher quality and production standard.

    The answer is almost certainly not technical; there is too much content produced and we don’t have a technical means of grading material based on such subjective and culturally loaded terms like ‘quality’, ‘taste’ and ‘entertaining’.  maybe we all need to ‘up our game’ and be less forgiving of stuff that just seems slipshod and hastily put together to meet a marketing demographic.  Perhaps we need to have more editorial input on our web forums – there will always be calls of ‘censorship’ and freedom of speech when you do this, but perhaps it’s the first steps on the path to breaking Sturgeon’s Law.

  • Google predict the end of desktop PCs….

    When I started in IT, I encountered a program called ‘The Last One’.  It was a menu-driven application generator that allowed a non-programmer to specify the sort of system they wanted (within a limited range) and generate a BASIC program that would do the job.  When it was first announced – and before any of us got to take a look at it – there was a little nervousness amongst the ranks of programmers, based on the advertising strapline for the program, that suggested the software was called ‘The Last One’ because it was the last program you would ever need to buy…

    Which was, of course, utter rot.

    I was reminded of it today after coming across this piece in which the bods at Google are predicting the  end of the desktop computer.  And the reason I was reminded was that the ‘The Last One’ story just went to show how bad IT pundits – and those in the industry – are at predicting the future.   You see, the problem with predicting the future is that you have to make certain assumptions and extrapolations from today in to the future, and then work out consequences based on those assumptions.  And if you get your assumptions of teh future wrong – or the assumptions of how the world works now – then it can all go horribly wrong.  And that’s what’s happened to Google.

    The demise of the desktop computer – to be replaced by iPads, Smartphones and similar mobile devices.  Note that Google aren’t even suggesting that laptops and netbooks and their ilk will be delivering the goods – it’s all going to be a mobile wonderland.  Now, short of some sort of high tech ‘Rapture’ occuring in December 2012 that whisks away all the computers we use in our homes and offices whilst leaving only mobile computing devices behind, I very much doubt that this is going to happen.

    Google have mixed up predicting the future with what they (with their interest in mobile operating systems and desire to compete with Apple) want the future to be.  A dangerous thing for a technology company to do.  Whilst in Google’s idea world of media and search consumers everyone would be able to do what they need to do on some sort of mobile gizmo, those of us who work with computers for serious amounts of time each day will NOT be able to function with  poxy little touchscreen keyboards or Blackberry QWERTY pads.  Sorry guys, we need real sized keyboards which will be realistically associated with a decent sized screen and so will be at the very least a reasonably sized laptop – which we’ll sit on a desk and run from the mains.

    Quite a few of us also like the idea of storing data locally – not in ‘The Cloud’ or on Google’s application servers – something that isn’t easy on many mobile devices right now.

    Google – you’re wrong.  Stop looking at the dreams of your own and other researchers, and start looking at how real people use computers – especially in their work.  And make that the basis of any more crystal ball gazing.

  • The problem with Tweeted Wisdom….

    Like many of us on Twitter, I follow a number of Twitter users who post aphorisms, quotes, sayings, etc.  A sort of electronic review of the ‘Wisdom Literature’ of the last 2000 years.  This can be pretty cool; I do wish that some folks would post their tweets across the day rather than in large floods, but, hey, it’s tolerable.

    However, I recently started wondering about aphorisms in general – just how much wisdom can you cram in to 140 characters?   There is a lot of really smart stuff that gets posted, but just how much of it ‘sticks’ with us – indeed, how much of it is actually thought about by the people who actually post the wit and wisdom? 

    Don’t get me wrong – there is quite a bit of good stuff that comes up.  My main issue is just how much we think about what we see – indeed, how much time do we have to think about what’s presented to us in the Twitter-stream.  After all, Twitter is fast and ephemeral – that hardly seems a suitable medium for something designed to stimulate thought and insight.  There is a serious risk when we start delivering and consuming ‘bite sized’ wisdom literature, and that is that the interpretation  and assimilation of what we read gets forgotten about.  

    the whole idea of ‘widom literature’ is that it delivers to us something to chew on; it’s not a finishing point, it’s actually a starting point from which each of us may trace our own journey starting from the same starting point.  There is a Christian practice called Lectio Divina – literally ‘Divine reading’  which is based around reading a piece of spiritual writing – maybe scripture, maybe something generally spiritual – and then study it, ponder on it, interpret and then use as a basis for prayer or other worship.  And this is a process that takes time, and isn’t rushed.  While a piece used in Lectio Divina might easily be short enough to encompass in a Tweet, the time taken to interpret it certainly isn’t ‘Twitter-Time’.

    Twitter is a great medium for certain types of message, but I am starting to wonder whether it’s a valid medium for wisdom literature ; I toyed with the idea of launching a ‘blog’ type site last year based around publishing a suitable quotation each day and writing a short piece based around my own thoughts on that topic – but then ditched the idea after a week or two because I realised I was subjecting others to my own interpretation. 

    At least Twitter removes the ego from the posting of such literature quotes; there’s no space to post an interpretation, after all!!  But Twitter reduces everything submitted to it to something that exists in the reader’s ‘window of opportunity’ for just a few minutes before it’s forgotten.  Is that really how to treat this type of post?

  • The end of 6 Music

    So, the BBC are going to close down 6 Music – which will be a great shame as it’s one of the few stations around that play a good mix of contemporary and past music, AND also has presenters that are knowledgeable about music and that have a love and passion for it.  Which is rare in this day and age of pre-packaged poppets of either sex whose main claim to fame is that they’re currently ‘in the public eye’ because of who they’re seen with or where they’re seen.

    The cuts announced by Mark Thompson to the Corporation’s 3.5 billion budget may be politically motivated or commercially motivated, depending upon who you listen to.  They may be a ‘stalking horse’ to try and coax the Government to give the BBC more money, and won’t be pushed through.  They may be designed to soften up  the public to make them willing to take higher license fees to keep services.  there are any number of possible reasons floating around the blogosphere right now, as well as the stated reason of focusing the BBC’s resources on what are called ‘core functions’.

    I’m not going to get in to the other aspects of the restructuring; I’m just going to focus on 6 Music and try and bring it’s cost in to perspective.  It costs about £9 million a year to keep it running, and there are some useful comparisons of ‘cost per listener’ of the BBC’s digital stations here.  In terms of pure cost per listener, Radio 1 Xtra and the Asian Network cost considerably more.

    £9 million is a little over half the cost of the original (ending in July 2010) deal with Jonathan Ross for his services to the BBC – £17 millions over 3 years.  Graham Norton has just signed a 2 year deal with the BBC for a total of £4 millions. Thompson’s salary £800,000 a year.  Take the opportunity to read around about the expenses culture at the BBC – again, you’ll find that an awful lot of license fee seems to be spent on things a long way away from the provision of programmes.

    The cost of  6 Music is small fry for the BBC – it’s a bout 0.0002% of the total budget of 3 odd billion.  It’s almost a rounding error in the BBC’s scheme of things.  To cut the services will do the BBC no good at all.  It’s such a fundamental misjudgement that I am starting to wonder whether the ‘conspiracy theorists’ are right and we may soon be told by Thompson that it was all a mistake and that 6 radio will not be scrapped after all.  A lot of the listenership of 6 Music is vociferous and media-savvy; there are many alternative media sources available for people today.  The BBC’s repeated treatment of licence payers as a cash cow that need not be listened to can only go on for so long before a backlash starts, and this round of changes might just be the thing to do it.

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