The BillBlog – Page 65 – Musings from Bill

July 16, 2008

Being there

[As ever you can read this on the BBC News website]

On Monday I went to see Clay Shirky talk at a lunchtime seminar hosted by the Demos think tank, travelling in to London earlier than I needed to on a crowded train, sitting on a slow bus across town and then squeezing into a bright but too warm room to sit on a hard seat in order to listen to something which was being recorded and will later be available as a podcast.

Clay was charming and intelligent and funny, and I got to hear him thinking out loud about the impact of social tools on international politics, which was fun, but I could have done all that by listening in online, or even by watching the stream of brief reports appearing on Twitter, the communications service that is currently taking the net by storm.

Instead I sat there offering my own online commentary on what he was saying while looking up references on the web as he talked.

Continue reading “Being there”

July 15, 2008

Time for digital turnoff

Jeff Jarvis has a great post over at Buzzmachine in which he argues that its time to ‘tear down the broadcast towers’:

My most striking realization since getting my iPhone (love it, thanks for asking) is that radio is doomed. Pandora is a wonder, creating my own radio station, live and on the fly without need for a broadcast tower.

I agree. Here’s something I wrote over two years ago about television…

Rethinking Digital Television

Spending £700 million on digital switchover is perhaps the most foolish waste of public money since the Maginot Line, and will be as effective in stopping the tide of Internet-based programming that is about to sweep over Europe and the rest of the networked world.

Building a dedicated transmission network designed solely to distribute digitally-encoded television over a fixed set of frequencies, so that audio and video can be received by specialised aerials, decoded on single-purpose computers and displayed on screens is an absurd idea when cable companies are already making the switch to IPTV and a general-purpose data network – the Internet – can provide a suitable infrastructure for programme distribution.

Continue reading “Time for digital turnoff”

July 12, 2008

My del.icio.us bookmarks for July 11th through July 12th

Here’s what I tagged on del.icio.us between July 11th and July 12th:

Thingology (LibraryThing's ideas blog): Build the Open Shelves Classification –
2gether08 | Spirited Away – what next for 2gether – Call for ideas from Steve Moore for all at 2gether08
Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » Could Too Much Transparency Lead to Sunburn? – "As technology evolves, the same public information laws create novel and in some cases previously unimaginable levels of transparency"
All Nvidia G84 and G86s are bad – The INQUIRER – Nvidia chips seem to have a problem. A big problem

July 11, 2008

Charlie Leadbeater Synecdoche

NESTA Event: Charlie Leadbeater Synecdoche

Originally uploaded by BillT.

Charlie was speaking at the NESTA-organised seminar with Tim Berners-Lee last week. I thought this captured his essence.

July 11, 2008

My del.icio.us bookmarks for July 10th through July 11th

Here’s what I tagged on del.icio.us between July 10th and July 11th:

Lose Your Wikipedia Crutch: 100 Places to Go for Good Answers Online – Distance Degrees.com – Useful list of places to look
BBC NEWS | Politics | Voters' data 'should not be sold' – Another sensible report to be ignored by the UK government…
Personal Internet Security: follow-up report – Richard offers a clear-sighted view on the new personal internet security report from the House of Lords Science and Technology committee
London Games Fringe – be there.

July 10, 2008

My del.icio.us bookmarks for July 9th through July 10th

Here’s what I tagged on del.icio.us between July 9th and July 10th:

Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy – Ecellent piece and one of the few that goes back to the psychology literature.
Wordle – EU Telecoms Law –
Tim Berners-Lee at NESTA on the Future of the Web « Perfect Path – Excellent critique from Lloyd.
Understanding the Web browser threat by Stefan Frei – Important study of browser update patterns

July 9, 2008

Hanged for a sheep

[As ever you can read this on the BBC News website. There’s another related piece about the proposals]

And here’s its Wordle…

Making laws in the European Union is a long, complicated and often tedious process that involves a delicate ballet featuring the Council of Ministers, the Parliament and the Commission. Before a Directive is passed there will be numerous committees, occasional votes, multitudinous amendments and many, many occasions for lobbyists, campaigning groups and special interests to try to influence things in their favour.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that a package of amendments to telecoms laws currently making its way through the European Parliament’s committee system has received careful scrutiny from those who worry that the interests of the music and film industry are being placed before freedom of expression or civil liberties.

Continue reading “Hanged for a sheep”

July 9, 2008