The Blog
31 Aug 2004 Joi Ito's Web: David Weinberger, a small person :
Mitch: he literally just said "either you are with us or with the terrorists" Mitch: and followed by comparing Bush to Churchill Mitch: Rudy is sure he's Churchillian Does comparing Bush to Churchill and calling him Churchillian count as a Godwin moment? Shouldn't they be comparing Bush with Roosevelt, in the sense of Franklin D allowing Pearl Harbour to happen in order to get the USA into WWII? Or is that a conspiracy theory too far? [ 31-Aug-04 8:21am ] Skype Adds Mac OS X Support :: Voxilla :: A user's guide to the VoIP revolution
So now all the recent Mac users can play as well. Skype now have a client for Windows, PocketPC, Linux and now Mac. The announcement was on 29th August but I can't see the download on their website yet. I guess it'll go up today or tomorrow. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 31-Aug-04 8:10am ] 27 Aug 2004 [ 27-Aug-04 5:13pm ] Now that the IPO has been a success and they have the money and income, what should Google do next? Here's a few ideas.
Next? [from: JB Ecademy] [ 27-Aug-04 4:48pm ] I can't believe this. We're getting a rash of 419 scammers on Ecademy. They sign up, navigate through all the email confirmation hurdles, set up a profile with a picture even. And then start spamming the members with 419 messages via the internal message system.
How the hell do I protect against this, apart from just banning them as they arrive and start abusing the system? [ 27-Aug-04 4:36pm ] Marc's Voice: New Friendster features? : 2) Being able to route new contacts through Friendster. I love being able to say "Send me a Friendster message" to people I meet through the blogosphere or conferences, instead of having to give out my real email address or IM nick or phone number on the public Internet. And did you know you can now block Friendster messages from undesirable acquaintances?
I'm convinced there is a real need here. I've been calling it "Arms Length Communication" We need a way of contacting people we don't know very well or at all that is non-threatening, deniable and doesn't expose us to huge quantities of spam. There are those among us who don't care and post our contact details everywhere we can and just struggle through the mountains of cold calls and spam. But most people, while they are open to communication from strangers or new acquaintances, are scared of letting out their contact details. I've lost count of the number of business people who say "call me" but don't put any contact info in their email signatures. 25 Aug 2004 Black and White Photography: London Tube Map. Wonderful overlays of actual London Tube maps onto satellite photos. [from: JB Ecademy]
[ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] It looks like the challenge to blog the UK political conferences is looking up. VoxPolitics is acting as the hub. At least for Brighton (Labour Brighton Centre, Brighton from 26-30 September 2004), there's free Wifi on the beach.
Now what about the Conservatives (Bournemouth Monday 4th to Thursday 7th October 2004) and the Lib-Dems (Bournemouth (19-23 September) ? Are there any Ecademists from the South of England that fancy getting in there and telling us and the world what's really going on? See also my aggregator of UK political blogging. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] AKMA's Random Thoughts: So Weirdly Wrong This is a story from the good Rev AKMA about using a laptop while sitting on a park bench outside a library. Now AKMA is not exactly a threatening looking person. And sitting on a park bench using a laptop never used to be a crime in the USA. But he describes being hassled by a policeman because he was "stealing" Wifi from the library. When he dutifully shut down WiFi and then showed the policeman that his Apple had no antenna symbol he still got moved along. “It’s a federal law, sir; a Secret Service agent came and explained it to us.†Now the library offers free WiFi but apparently being outside the libraries doors doesn't make it ok to use it.
I don't know where to begin with this story. I could start ranting about police states but that doesn't help anyone. I could ask where the Library's T&Cs were but there probably aren't any. I don't know if they used a captive portal with a click through to a T&C page, but I'm willing to bet that probably all they've got is a photocopied sheet on a pinboard. I could rant about the morality and legality of using open WiFi internet access that you happen to find but then we'd get into another clone of the usual pointless arguments with bad metaphors about whether it is actually illegal or moral. In any case, here AKMA was using a deliberately open, deliberately free access point. As one wag put it, maybe the policeman was sponsored by Starbucks and got his donuts via T-Mobile. But that's a cheap shot. I do kind of wonder if laptops with WiFi are now instruments of terrorism along with toenail clippers. Can we expect the police to start rounding up people in Bryant Park with laptops open? Especially with the RNC coming up? Oh dear. And I said I wouldn't rant about police states as well. Really, the whole episode is just bizarre... [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] Linksys, Vonage connect on VoIP | CNET News.com
Linksys and Netgear have announced Wireless access points and routers that have two analogue phone ports that work with the Vonage VoIP system. Linksys also have a plug in module that converts an existing ethernet port to an analogue phone point. While I welcome it, the big question for me is how closed this is. Can you use other services apart from Vonage? [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] Get Paid to Wardrive
Quaterscope is building a database of access point locations to build a cheap and dirty location system. They're paying $0.01 to $0.05 per access point-GPS Anyone for Cellphone Cell-ID-Lat/Long collection? BTW. I'm still on the lookout for a really cheap NMEA compatible GPS add on for a laptop. New, 2nd hand I don't care, just as long as it's NMEA compatible and will work with a laptop. Anyone? Anyone want to sell me one? [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] Following yesterday's news about record oil prices. OPEC is pumping to capacity. Iraq is effectively off-stream. China is now the second largest oil importer after the USA and ahead of Japan. China's oil imports are growing at 20% a year.
Something's got to give. This wasn't supposed to happen for another 10-20 years. Looks like the curse of "Interesting times" is upon us. So how do we get out of this one? Detailed analysis here. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] Blunkett's latest initiative (don't get me started) to get tough on crime (and the causes of crime) is an initiative to banish the scourge of graffiti from our inner cities.
I dont have a problem with graffiti. I have a problem with how bad it all is. If all graffiti artists were as good as Banksy, I wouldn't mind a bit. But the vast majority consists of little more than a hasty and unreadable tag layered on top of hundreds of other hasty tags. Rather than an on the spot fine or temporary incarceration in a police cell, maybe what we should actually be doing is sending them to art school. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] MS have a beta of a Web version of MSN Messenger.
Unfortunately you can't be in two places at once, so if you sign into this it will knock you off a real MSN messenger somewhere else. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] I'm looking for UK Political Blogs, commentators and newsfeeds. Can anyone recommend some good lists or URLs? [from: JB Ecademy]
[ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] Late last year and this year has seen a huge increase in the use of the internet by the USA political parties and action groups. From the Dean campaign to the (somewhat fake) weblogs from the Presidential Election candidates, to Kerry's donation drive, to bloggers at the Democratic Convention, to local activist websites, it feels like they've finally embraced the Internet as a means to do politics.
By contrast, the UK's political use of the net is primitive and stuck in a time warp from 5-8 years ago. There are some bright spots in sites like They Work For You but that's about it. Quite a lot of MPs have websites. But they are generally static, driven by Frontpage and rarely updated. The main sites are formulaic with no community, no route to talk back, no attempt to engage. Amazingly the Conservatives have an RSS feed of news but they are alone. There's surprisingly few weblogs that focus on UK Politics. Generally the Internet side of UK politics looks about as apathetic and uninterested as the offline side. So what I'm looking for is people who can help change this. Specifically, - An email writing campaign at anyone involved to encourage them to build interactive community sites and to get the current sites to generate RSS from the existing news pages. This includes the major media. The BBC, Independant, Scotsman have RSS feeds. That's all. The Telegraph and Guardian have some feeds but nothing specifically on Politics. - People who can build and host community sites for local political chapters and activist groups. - People prepared to lobby their MP or councillors to start a blog. And if they won't, to start a blog on their behalf. - People who can try and get themselves accredited to the upcoming party Conferences as "Blogging Journalists" and then provide an alternate view to the traditional big media TV clip of "Auld Lang Syne". - New and interesting hacks that leverage the existing sites in the style of FaxYourMP or Public Whip. I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas. The aim is to try and drag UK politics into the 21st century. If enough (any!) people come forwards, we can at least start a club here on Ecademy and then whatever else it takes. As a start I threw together a site over the weekend that provides an aggregated view of all the news and Blog sites I could find in UK Politics. This was inspired by a US site that did the same thing for the Democratic party convention. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] Cox hoists broadband speed limits | CNET News.com
So now they're offering 4Mbps down, 512Kbps up for $39.95 or about £22 pm. That's about the same price as NTL's 600Kbps/128Kbps (shortly becoming 750Kbps). They have a premium service at 5Mbps. So tell me again why NTL/Telewest is slower and/or more expensive  And where does this end with current technology? Around 10Mbps? [from: JB Ecademy][ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] MP hits back over spoof weblog
Proxy Blogs for MPs hits pay dirt. Compare the proxy here with David Lepper's official site here. Even a blind bat could not mistake one for the other. I particularly liked these comments from David and others. Mr Lepper said: "It's highly objectionable that someone is posting information on the internet claiming it has been written by me. "I'm particularly concerned because there is an email address given which purports to be my own. "I would hate anyone to think the responses from this address came from me." The MP believes he was contacted by the author of the web site who complained his real web site has not been updated. Dr Nick Palmer, secretary of the all-party Parliamentary internet group, said: "Blackmailing MPs into creating blogs is not the best way. If they want the MP to blog, they should get in touch and ask. "David Lepper is a serious and dedicated MP and does not deserve to be ripped off in this way." I wonder which bit of Almost David Lepper, MP. I'm NOT David Lepper, the MP for Brighton Pavilion. Brighton Pavilion has to be one of the most wired places on the planet. I believe in democracy and I believe in the media networking revolution. I believe MPs should blog. If David Lepper, MP, did blog, it might look something like this. they find hard to understand? I guess David prefers to keep his head down and out of the blog spotlight. Welcome to the Internet, David! Incidently I discovered all this from a news aggregator of UK Political blogs that I recently launched. [Edited to add] Compare this with Alan Milburn The proxy author went in to an MP Surgery and has convinced Alan to allocate one of his constituency workers to start posting items to the blog. [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] LinkedIn was on the front page of the business section of The Times today.
Does anyone know the journalist, Elizabeth Judge, or David Bishop, of the Federation of Small Businesses, who said: "We think there is no substitute for personal contact. Face-to-face meetings remain the best way of doing business."? [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] This article proves the point.Prescott leaps to aid of kayaker. Prescott is surely the best Prime Minister we've (n)ever had since nothing bad ever happens during his watch. And he's not afraid to get stuck in when the worst happens.
It must be wonderful for Tony Blair to relax in the Tuscany countryside secure in the knowledge that the country is in such safe hands. *Grin*! [from: JB Ecademy] [ 25-Aug-04 4:24pm ] 
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