Hummingbird Mentality

Simon McGarr, editor of online periodical Tuppenceworth, and in his role as council to Digital Rights Ireland, stalwart defender of all those juicy ephemeral rights and freedoms we currently enjoy online; has had an idea. You see Simon loves newspapers. He writes about them, speaks about them, and researches them, with the intensity others reserve for rock music or sports results. So when Simon tells me newspapers are in trouble, I listen. Readers are aging and circulations declining (relative to population growth), and the question inevitably arises, how can the humble daily hope to survive? Mr McGarr thinks he has an answer. Before we get to that, let me describe how things are on the other side of the fence; because you see, I’m part of the problem. Sure I’ll trawl through the Sunday Times if it’s lying around, I’ll even pay for a Guardian once in a blue moon if I’m feeling guilty and uninformed, or heaven forbid a Herald, when they drag up (as they invariably do) some new evidence in a cold, old case that has a special importance to me. But basically, I don’t read newspapers.

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For subscribers of this blog (and it does get one or two hits), who’ve been wondering why I haven’t been updating with greater frequently, I’d like offer an explanation.

There’s a profound fragmentation going on right now in online identity. The change from isolated web sites (with technical, and in the early days, financial barriers to entry) to readily updatable, easily subscribable, often free blogs, acted to more tightly integrate the public web. An unfortunate side-effect of newer forms of blogging, more sophisticated social networks, and the surfeit of emerging web services, has been to splinter identity across multiple platforms. Ultimately this problem may be solved by more open and intercommunicative social networks using something like Open ID, by an ur-MySpace aggregating all the disparate services, or by next generation life stream scrapping utilities. Until then here’s where where I am..

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As Twitter leaves the realms of ‘joiner geek’ social network, and (partly due to it’s integration with platforms like Facebook), becomes a more popular and diverse service, its utility is being more rigorously critiqued. What is Twitter for? Its a cogent question. In a world of blogs, microblogs, and social networks, what’s the use of twitter? Is it merely a loose knit social network, or a (nano) blogging platform? Is it just the latest fad? Lets look at some real world uses of Twitter, how its utility differs from more traditional blogging platforms, and some scenarios in which it could be more effectively used.

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Social Network ‘Facebook’, has made an enormous splash this week with the release of the ‘Facebook Platform‘, an opening up of the mature Facebook API to internal widgets with access to Facebook’s ‘core functions’. Whilst this move has been criticised by some influential members of the syndication community, it places Facebook at the forefront of mashup’s and the read-write web. In one fell swoop, Facebook has become a socially enabled aggregation platform.

‘Zuckerberg describes the Facebook core function that the new third-party applications can tap into as a “social graph,” the network of connections and relationships between people on the service’.
- Dan Farber on ZDNet

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Filmed last weekend in Dún Laoghaire Harbour, with some kooky individuals.

I spent about eight hours yesterday working out how to do this. A working method was surprisingly hard to come by, so hopefully this will be of use to someone. Luckily it’s really easy once you know how. This technique should work not just for YouTube, but any other flash video site, like Google Video, DailyMotion etc.

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This weeks award winning episode of radio show and podcast ‘This American Life‘, addresses the issue of Habeas Corpus. Broadly speaking, Habeas Corpus is the right of a prisoner to apply to be brought before a court to have the legality of their detention adjudicated. ‘This American Life’ examines how it’s suspension for detainees of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and in secret extraterritorial prisons run by the CIA, has effected their treatment. The episode includes eye opening interviews with two former inmates of ‘Gitmo’.

In addition to providing a predictably terrifying list of interrogation techniques in use against detainees accused of ‘terrorist activities’, from electrocution, to sexual humiliation, water deprivation and physical violence; and documenting how bounties offered for Al-Qaeda members led to the imprisonment of innocent civilians; this episode also describes a fascinating chapter in the history of Habeas Corpus.

John Ronson, an author and documentarist in the vein of Louis Theroux, takes a look at the suspension of this Magna Carta granted right, during the British restoration, an act which led to the impeachment of the Earl responsible (Lord Clarendon); and 450 years later, to an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to the US Supreme court, by All-Party Parliamentary Group of 175 members of the British parliament.

Compelling and disturbing listening.

Links: MP3, Transcript, Podcast Feed

Paul Walch of Segala, asks ‘Do we want a code for blogs?’

This question has arisen due to the Kathy Sierra controversy, the case of the online harassment of an O’Reily writer by an anonymous group of commenters, at a blog created specifically for uncensored criticism. Very quickly the ‘blogosphere’ divided into two camps, those who repudiated the hate speech directed at Sierra, but considered it a cost of the freedom of speech that blogging affords. And those, like tech writer and Web2.0 pioneer Tim O’Reilly, who believed a response was needed (beyond the specific legal retaliation sought against the perpetrators). O’Reilly’s proposal was a code of conduct for bloggers. Here’s the wiki for the code under development.

What follows is my response to Paul’s question, both in terms of the idea of a bloggers code of conduct, and the specific code O’Reilly proposes.

In short

Absolutely not, as Glen Farrelly points out, ‘good’ bloggers will follow their own individual codes regarding what they perceive as responsible behavior, ‘bad’ or ‘irresponsible’ bloggers will not follow any informal codes.

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An article by Mike Elgan in Computer World Magazine, laying the boot into e-books, has sparked a surprisingly intelligent discussion on Digg. According to Elgan, e-books are bound to fail because..

1. They aren’t cheaper - both the hardware and content are more expensive
2. Content is available on other platforms (e.g.: PC)
3. People love paper books

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Just back from Barcamp Ireland 3. What a day, so packed I couldn’t possibly get to half the talks (which ran concurrently), but I managed three lectures and the panel discussion. The event was held in the beautiful Digital Hub, off Thomas St in Dublin. The building is fantastic, with bare brick walls and natural lighting throughout, and would make a fantastic billionaires studio apartment.

I’ve posted some wikified notes. I grabbed several mini interviews, on TFM’s sweet but pricey Roland wav recorder (check out the uber cheesy website), not enough material for a full blown podcast, but I’ve thrown them up, below. Also attempted to moblog throughout the day, with mixed results.

Mini Interviews

Sean O Sullivan of Rococo.
Robin Blandford creator of Comment Casting.
Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications.

Update: Fixed the wiki link!