Ringing the changes

I got bored with my iPhone ringtone and got sidetracked into a couple of hours of agonising and experiment. At first, I couldn't decide between music and samples from 2001. The happy coincidence of being called Dave makes Hal saying "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" and so forth an obvious choice. But a bit of investigation revealed that you can only set the ringtone, you can't set other alert or warning sounds, not even incoming message sounds. So it was goodbye to Hal and I decided to go with music.

However, once I'd decided on music then I was a bit stuck. Obviously, a ringtone is going to say something about you, so you have to think about it very carefully. Do I want to appear old-fashioned? Boring? An individual? Quite a quandary. And you need to pick something that you will hear in a crowd and realise that it is yours.

Oh well. I've temporary settled on my modified "Back in Black" by AC/DC. (I modified it by editing out the very beginning couple of seconds, so that it goes straight into the guitar power chords.) But I can't decide whether to stick with it or whether to keep searching for the perfect ringtone. I used to use "London Calling" by The Clash, and this was an excellent choice, but I associate with my old phone and I feel that my iPhone should have its own distinct personality.

I came across an excellent piece of software, by the way. It's iToner from Ambrosia. You can drag any old music or sound file to it, even from inside iTunes, and it will convert it into an iPhone ringtone.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

BBC, Macintosh, Cymru

I saw that there is now a new version of the BBC iPlayer for Macintosh, so I decided to give it a try even though I can't see myself downloading DRM-crippled versions of shows that I've already paid for through my licence fee. Anyway, I had to sign up to be a BBC labs tester and it didn't work anyway, but after giving up on trying to download a TV show, I clicked on the "Radio" tab instead and...

Everything was in Welsh.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

It was fun while it lasted, that blogging thing

Un oh.

I’ve just received some information that could have major consequences for bloggers. My understanding is that a green paper will be published in the New Year setting out plans to make it easier for people to sue for defamation. The idea is to cut down the disproportionate costs of bringing a libel action and there’s even a suggestion that there could be a small claims court for libel.

[From politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Is Labour about to clamp-down on the blogsphere?]

It's only a matter of time before South West Trains or Woking Borough Council take umbrage and shit me down. If you think this might be an exaggeration, remember that Labour have form here. They've wanted to get hold of the interweb for a while.

Answering questions from the floor at the Royal Television Society conference in London last month, Minister for Truth Andy Burnham said: "The time has come for perhaps a different approach to the internet. I want to even up that see-saw, even up the regulation [imbalance] between the old and the new."

[From UK.gov says: Regulate the internet • The Register]

Oh dear. I suspect that the green paper (or the "Proposed Full Employment Act for Lawyers" as it should more properly be called) will have no effect other than to destroy the UK web hosting industry as everyone moves their servers to the US and stops using their real name to publish. I actually have a friend who is already involved in a bizarre law suit that originates in the US. A guy in the US (let's call him "The Nutter", for short) is trying to sue a guy here in the UK for using the same name as him in a social network context (don't ask me for details, I won't give them).

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Lunatics in charge of regulating the asylum

If I were a rational person then I would simply despair for our future and/or leave the country.

"The internet as a whole is an excellent source of casual opinion," he said. "TV is where people often look for expert or authoritative opinion."

[From Government plans to tighten up online regulation, says culture secretary Andy Burnham | Media | guardian.co.uk]

God help us. What the Kultur Kommissar actually means by this comment is that TV can still be regulated after a fashion whereas the Internet cannot. I remember reading a book about the history of TV in America -- I can't remember what it was called, this was a few years ago -- which made a penetrating observation about this phenomenon, saying essentially that the guiding principle of government regulation of TV was that the government was regulating because... it could. It couldn't regulate print media any more so it transferred both its cultural nightmares of the mob and its content to the new medium of television. Now that television is beginning to matter less and the fractured multi-channel, trans-national business is harder to regulate, it has become the establishment friend of power and the great unwashed have got their hands on blogs to the dismay of the aristocrats.

Incidentally, so far as the relationship between TV and the Internet goes, I see that Channel 4 has thrown in the towel on behalf of the broadcasters and started broadcasting a programme made up from -- as far as the briefest of glances could tell -- nothing more than YouTube clips. While this is certainly an improvement on the usual Celebrity Chefs on Ice rubbish (particularly because no celebrities or chefs are getting paid because of it) it's not at all clear why you wouldn't just watch YouTube.

Anyway, back to that well-known source of authoritative and expert opinion, TV. As far as I know, the majority of the population never watch documentaries, news, current affairs or anything else aspiring to the Reithian vision. I doubt that 1 in 20 people know who Andy Burnham is. I only know who he is because he made a very, very dumb statement when he was the minister in charge of ID cards, saying that

"I take the view that it is part of being a good citizen, proving who you are, day in day out," said Mr Burnham.

[From Fifth defeat for ID card scheme | Politics | guardian.co.uk]

There's a pattern here: he's wrong about everything. But why is he so wrong about the Net? The Net gives me access to authoritative opinion: it's TV that is the source of casual opinion. If I want to know about the impact of some health care reform, I'll go and reader a doctor's blog. If I want to know what's going on in the police force, I'll read a policeman's blog. And so on. Why on Earth would I care what Fiona Phillips or Jeremy Paxman thinks about things?

Sure it's early days, and the structure and etiquette have yet to settle down, but it's already clear that having direct access to first hand experience, well-informed opinion and up-to-date expertise make the Net far more valuable that almost all opinion from television.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Commercial break

The Great She Elephant has set up a T-shirt shop and has already created one of the definitive ideas for our age -- on her first day. T-shirts with meta-slogans. I've ordered one already, and so should you. Run, don't walk, over to Meta Tees.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Moving story

Well, today I had the most exciting train ride I've had for a long time. The guy sitting in the seat in front of me, in person a rather ordinary (in fact, rather dull-looking) middle-aged man in a grey suit -- I hope he's not reading this -- was reading his text messages on a Nokia smartphone of some description. I was seating in the seat behind, trying to get some work done. I could see over his shoulder through the gap in the seats, so out of sheer boredom I glanced at this screen. It was sensational! I couldn't see what he was typing because he held the phone down to his lap to type, but I could see the messages he was getting back when he held them up to read them. They were from a woman. I deduced that they worked together and that one of her friends had recently left her husband and that she might do that same. Most of the messages concerned speculation as to their joint activities when next along. Probably the only one that I can remember that is fit to describe in a family blog said that she was wearing a T-shirt under her work dress and that when they got behind the door (I'm not sure what that meant) she was going to strip off the dress so that he could... well, you get the picture. (I don't, by the way, as I'm unable to picture any especially stimulating T-shirts.) This sort of thing doesn't happen every day, so thanks for brightening up the morning, Mr. Grey and Mrs. Scarlet.

P.S. I would never send messages like this on a mobile phone. The danger of hitting SEND to the wrong person is just so overwhelming... and what are the chances you'd remember to delete the messages when it comes time to give the phone back to the IT department and pick up your new one...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Surveillance and stupidity

Searching for something else, I came across Camilla Cavendish, writing on Times Online. She is right to say that

The latest proposal by Home Office officials, to hold every telephone call and e-mail in the UK, described as a “crucial tool” for protecting national security and preventing crime, is wholly disproportionate.

[From We're a nation of interfering traffic wardens | Camilla Cavendish - Times Online]

But it's more than merely disproportionate: Delivering that kind of power to petty bureaucrats, especially British petty bureaucrats, actually stimulates, encourages and invites the kind of distressing behaviour that we imagine to be the torment of the hapless inhabitants of Burma or North Korea. Just as the Regulation of Invesitgatory Powers Act (RIPA) ended up being used by councils -- at great expense -- to stop parents from sneaking their children into State Education Camp No.913 when they should be going to State Education Camp No. 914, I firmly expect the government's great e-mail database to be utterly useless in finding Osama bin Laden but invaluable to Woking Borough Council when investigating important cases of people not shutting their rubbish bins properly. By matching the e-mail trail to the DNA database to the CCTV photos, they'll have you bang to rights if you put too much in your bin (too much being now defined as more than a binman, sorry binperson, can easily move with two fingers.

I know which way my two fingers are pointing. One of the reasons why I'm beginning to think it unlikely that my children will ever decide to stay and seek their fortune in this green and pleasant land is that the steady erosion of fundamental liberties -- for no good purpose -- is becoming so commonplace that it is scarcely remarked on.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

The world's least favourite credit card scheme

I was in the Far East and I needed a software package on my Mac because I wanted to muck about with some graphics for a presentation. I logged on to the (UK) software company and attempted to purchase. Both of my Visa cards were declined and the store doesn't take American Express (or anything else useful such as PayPal). Aaarrgh! How crap is this. Presumably, Barclays' systems were rejecting the transaction because it's CNP coming in from outside the UK and presumably the store doesn't really want any business from international travellers with Amex cards. So stuff them: I will buy the software from somewhere on the street next time I'm in Hong Kong and, frankly, I hope it's a bootleg since I'd done everything I might reasonably do to pay them when I needed the software. Wait a moment, there's always PirateBay...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

This is the life

French air traffic control are on strike, so I'm stuck on the tarmac, sitting in airless 737 with a bunch of other tired, bored, angry people who want to go home as much as I do. British Airways don't tell us there's going to be at least an hour delay, naturally, until we're all sitting on the plane. Since I'm being forced to traveller cattle-class by a mean and joyless conference producer, there's nothing to eat or drink either. What a total waste of time, especially when I have so much to do. I can just about type, with my laptop jammed up against the seat in front, but it's at an angle that is making my wrist ache: I can feel the pins and needles starting already, so I'm not going to get much work done. If I were a veal calf, aggrieved campaigners such as Carla "it's the people who are the problem" Lane would be waiting to for me at Gatwick.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

Unfair!

Isn't there some sort of EU rule about unfair competition from governments? If so, surely British satirists will have to launch an action, because they simply cannot compete with the U.K.'s elected representatives (at every level). In today's newspaper I read that a local council wants to send out detailed -- and intrusive -- questionnaires in order to establish who the legal guardians of rubbish bins might be. This is, naturally, so that they can prosecute people for putting too much rubbish in the bins (or the wrong kind of rubbish). They blame it on Brussels -- reasonable I suppose -- but I doubt even North Koreans have to register their bins with the commissars. I don't really understand the thinking behind this, except that a general policy of creating crimes that it's hard to arrest and prosecute people for (eg, not shutting a rubbish bin properly) will improve the crime statistics, because these statistics are currently made up of crimes (eg, murder) that it's difficult to arrest and prosecute people for. Householder, particularly homeowners, are much better bet. Such people often try to get their children into good schools as well, it appears.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

News and olds

Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't be a little tougher on the use of the word "news". There must be some way that Google or someone can apply some rudimentary information theory so that news feeds could actually be restricted to news. The definition of news must include so element of surprise: something that you know already isn't news. There would be no point sending out a news bulletin saying that the sun has risen or that a government IT project is late and massively overbudget. We already know these things: it's only if they don't happen that we need to be told. The problems come at the margins, of course. I was thinking about this the other day, when this article turned up in a news feed:

Internet consultant firm Gartner claims that only 1 in 10 commercial virtual worlds succeeds, and most fail within 18 months

[From Slashdot | Most Business-Launched Virtual Worlds Fail]

As soon as I read this I thought, hold on, don't only 1 in 10 of all new restaurants succeed and don't most fail within 18 months? In fact, don't only 1 in 10 of all new businesses succeed and don't most fail within 18 months? So shouldn't the headline have been that "commercial virtual worlds are exactly the same as commercial anything else". Is that news?

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

Wireless whingeing

I was staying at the Okura in Amsterdam for a couple of days. They put me in one of their refurbished rooms, which was great. It had a bath as well as shower and a flat-screen TV in the bathroom wall. Normally, I just have a shower and then get on with things, but it was genuine pleasure to lay back and soak in the tub while watching (in my case) football on the telly. The shower cubicle was glass-sided as well, so I watched Sky News while having a shower in the morning. Most convenient.

The room was very comfortable, with a well-configured desk for working (it has U.S., European and U.K. power sockets -- nice touch!) and a comfy bed. All in all, very good. Except... it was 27 euros per day for Internet access. Why do they do this? It drives me mad. I got in late and was very tired, I flopped into bed and quickly typed a couple of e-mails, but when I wanted to send them to had to get up, go and find my wallet and type in the usual rubbish before I was able to log in. There should be a law forcing hotels to display their internet charges -- these are, essentially, a hidden charge since it's simply not possible to go for a couple of days without internet access in the modern world. If only my dongle came with more reasonable roaming charges then these outrageous hotel charges would be a thing of the past.

One more point: like most people in the hotel, I'm sure, I didn't really care what the Internet access cost since I wasn't paying for it, but it's the principle of the thing (and the hassle) that bothers me. Why isn't Internet bundled into the room cost with water and electricity?

By the way, I stayed at the Empire Hotel in New York a few days later and it had free wifi, just as wifi should be.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]