Jul 06

London Wins

Went down to Trafalgar Square (photos) for the announcement about the Olympics. Cheers and clapping all around at the result, in the typical slightly muted english way, or was it because there was absolutely no room to do anything except clap. Swooshing banners, smoke and zooming jets were the offical celebrations,I gues there is more to follow.

London2012.jpg

Jul 05

G8 coverage

Take a look at Panos London’s AfricaVox, a collaborative blog from African journalists who are here coveing the G8 summit. I like Salamatu Turay’s account of her first peaceful protest on Saturday (good job it was not yesterdays).

Jul 05

Why didn’t I think of that?

In the build up to yesterday’s Deep Impact, an astrologist in Russia attempted to stop the collision by sueing NASA, as the collision would ‘affect the balance of the universe’ and her horoscope would be awry. Obviously she failed in her effort to get an injuction to stop it, but wonder if she can continue to calim damages if anything happens to her…

Jul 04

Singing dogs

Singing animals are always a favourite for flash animations; on eclectech, it’s dogs singing about UK ID cards….

In fact without one you’ll a become practical nonentity
It is the card that proves you have a national identity!

Via.

Jul 03

Photos and Interviews

I had a slightly surreal experience (for me) last week. I was interviewed by the Independent on Sunday for an article on on why more and more women are using various types of technolgy (PCs games etc). It may appear some time (it’s not there today). The surreal bit was haivng my photo taken. I hate being photographed at the best of times, but being snapped by a guy lying on the floor of the work’s reception, whilst various senior management walk in and out was an interesting experience.

Jul 03

Repeating on me

I’m glad I’m not the only one to notice the odd behaviour from Typepad feeds. Almost all of them so far are repeating the last month or so of feeds and it’s getting boring.

Jul 03

Live8 Coverage

I could moan about the BBC coverage; they had a few too many ‘celebrity’interviews at the start of the show, which I guess dried up as the backstage guests got stuck into the hospitality and they did not show any of the videos that were playing between the sets, videos that had made to illustrate the points beign made. But at least I’m not in the US, restricted to watching on the commercial music channels (unless I have web access). Take a look at this comment thread over on Live8 Insider to get an indication of how it could have been.

Jul 02

Live8: more trite, more seriousness

Jonathan Ross (very tongue-in-cheek): Make poverty history and get Robbie laid, that’s the two messages we’re sending out now

David Sillito, BBC News, backstage at Hyde Park:
Chris Martin is having a chat with the Kofi Annan outside a portacabin with Sir Elton John, Richard Ashcroft and Annie Lennox all looking on. Around 300 other people are trying to master the art of staring at celebrities while looking as though they are far to cool to be bothered by all this. (From BBC)

Ian Youngs, BBC News at Hyde Park
To reinforce his message, Bob Geldof introduced a survivor of the 1984 Ethiopian famine. It was an emotional moment and proved to the crowd they could make a difference. But the embarrassed-looking young lady was then dragged around the stage by Madonna during her first song. The clash of serious message with frivolous pop suddenly became a little uncomfortable.

Random crowd quotes:
– I’ll never do it agian in my lifetime, it’s good to have done it
– The music’s great; great cause.
– It’s our duty to do this

Madonna: it’s a much bigger issue that my own personal problems…I would go there [Africa] if I could effect real change, and not something momentary.

The Killers: People today are coming together as a family, because our brothers and sisters in Africa require our help.

Lenny Henry: [Why are we here..] We’re all really scared of Bob Geldof..and the poverty thing, that too

Andrew Marr: debt cancellation is virtually done. There will be a deal on aid…$25b extra…but it is still not sorted. Trade…that’s the hard bit and not getting very far…we may get some good words on it…African politicians have to put their own houses in order… Nobody should come away from this thinking.. Make poverty history, it’s a great concert, it’s a tick in the box and thats it.

Lots of photos, from concerts and marches.

With a touch of serendipity, my previous post was picked up by someone who has anger that the focus is on this and not this. I’m just quoting some of the things I hear, small indications of various sincerity levels.

Do I think that 9 concerts around the world, attended by a few million, watched by billions can magically change the world. No. But nor can a march of 200000 in Edinburgh. The only people who have a major impact are the politicians, who control the flow of aid and debt and, far more importantly, access to markets and trade; the politicians in both the G8 countries and those in charge of the countries impacted in Africa and other areas of the world affected by poverty. But slowly, slowly, the politicians listen and slowly, something may be done. People need to think they are doing something to encourage this listening. By attending a march. By dancing at a concert. By signing an online petition. By writing a blog post. By donating money. You need to do what your conscious drives you to Read this for another take on the matter.

Sorry, rant over…

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Jul 02

Live 8: the trite and the serious

Some random quotes from the various interviews the BBC held inbetween sets or from people on stage.

Jeremy Clarkson: It’s better to try than not do anything at all

Bill Gates: if you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act

Neil Morrissey: trying to eradicate some poverty in the Third World, I mean Africa

Stereophonics: turning up and doing a couple of songs, that’s the least we could do.

Bob Geldof: there are over three billion people watching you now…

Will Smith (standing next to an original US Declaration of Independence on the Phily stage): today…Declaration of interdependence..this truth is self-evident, we are all in this together, every three seconds in the poorest courtries in the world a child dies of poverty…just like that someone else is dead, every 3 secs somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter, someones future is gone …8 men can make a world of difference in the lives of billions of people.

Travis: 20 years later the world is still hungry

Bob Geldof: I know it’s a cheek but I couldn’t resist, I just had to play on this stage (launching into an unscheduled version of I don’t like Mondays).

Midge Ure (immediately after Geldof on stage): I’m alright, epecially after hearing that, which was dreadful, but it was Bob, what do you expect?

Midge Ure: It’s about standing up and being counted…. give us your soul, give us your feelings. If it was your child dying…you’d doing something about it, but because it’s Africa we push it away.

George Aladiyah: Africa has received more aid than every other area in the world…it’s not money, it’s about giving people opportunities, getting off people’s back…giving people the way to earn their own money.

Brad Pitt: By the time this concert ends this evening, 30000 Africans would have died because of poverty…this does not make sense.

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Jul 02

Live8 Feeds

Watching Live8 in London on the BBC, U2 finished and Coldplay on at the moment. I thought to try and get the sound going through the PC, which has a far better system than the telly, but nothing is synching. BBC Radio is about 10secs behind and the AOL webcast is about 30 seconds behind. Now the obvious thing to do is re-arrange the connections so everything works together, but me, wires and moving furniture do not go well together.

The march continues in Edinburgh, Technorati continues to gather posts (of all opinions). The Live8insider blog have some great backstage photos, plus exclusive Tshirts to win…

Andrew Marr being interviewed..”you used to have movements, now you have moments”. So is all this technology making these multiple moments, captured with cameraphones, text messages and blogs into a longer term movement. Or is does life continue to accelerate, with many seeing their momentary interaction as enough.

Jul 01

Be a trailer star

New Line Cinema have added a twist to the promotion of one of their new films (Wedding Crasher), they provide you with a great tool to add yourself to the trailer of the movie. You upload a digital headshot of you (or your friend), do a little but of manipulation and then it takes the headshot and imposes it on one of the characters in the trailer. Nicely, you’re allowed to set it up and see the result before they ask for your email address, which is then used to send you a link for you to forward to all your friends. A great Friday funny. Via Adrants.

Jul 01

LIve8

Via Global Voices Online a slightly different perspective on Live8. A Kenyan blogger at Thinker’s Room
wonders why such a concert should be held and the benefit of it:

Meaningless concerts and laughable commissions are not going to fight any poverty. Even dubiously benevolent concessions like debt cancellation are meaningless in themselves. It is utterly meaningless to cancel my debt if you do not allow me to earn money. Let us both compete fairly on the International market. Your farmers are already enjoying considerable technological advantages — they do not need subsidies. Don’t wax lyrical about debt relief if without avenues for me earning my own money I shall promptly be in debt again.

.

More opinions on Live8

Jun 30

TMI

Scoble says that comments are broken and he gets more work done. David Weinberger says he’s stopped reading blogs. Jeanne Sessum says she can’t keep up. There’s too much information. The ‘important’ or ‘interesting’ stuff will repeat itself, will stay buoyant in the sea of the blogospehre, but you’ll only see it if you are looking. And the informations’s status is determined by the interest of the readers; whether there is enough interest to pass it on. At BARC, Suw Charman talked about subjectivity, how we are reflect our values and perceptions in what we read, write and say.

And my subjectivity, my background, meant that the themes I picked during Tuesday afternoon reflect my interests. Blogging and the role of gossip in the evolution of lanquage. The role of reciprical altruism and the alpha blogger. Information hubs and a matriarchal society. These are the themes that are floating in my head – hopefully I can pull them together into a whole.

Jun 30

More Google stuff

They’ve been busy. Google have released 2 further applications this week. The first is Google video. THois has been coming for a while, as they have been requesting video submissions. Now they release a search method for them. Each video appears to have documented metadata and transcripts (as far as possible) which are searchable. To watch the videos you need to download a plug in (which has already been hacked).

On a more ‘traditional’ route, Google Print is also in beta. Google print searches the text of books that have been provided from publishers and libraries. In many cases, the search results link to online publishers/sellers. so you can purchase there and then.

Jun 30

Earth maps

I’ve been playing with NASA’s WorldWind for a while. It uses the LandSat images and Radar Topography to give you 3D images of the big features. The information is good, you can switch views with ease, but performance has always been a problem for me. I fail to finish most sessions as server connection usually drops. Now Google has bought out a similar service, using the Keyhole Satellite images. From first appearances, it appears to have less data than the NASA service, but functionality is very similar. Where it wins is with performance and ease of use. The interface for Google Earth is far more friendly, designed for a more massive audience than WorldWind, which definitely has a scientific focus. All I need now is more time to play…whilst waiting for Microsoft’s entry into this space.

Jun 27

Traffic Cameras

The AA today have released a road atlas detailing around 3000 speed cameras and known positions for up to 3000 mobile cameras. They are releasing this information for ‘safety purposes’ as the cameras are ‘usually’ placed in accident blackspots. But Transport 2000 have a problem with this, in that it will allow people to speed between cameras.

So, I could be really smart, plan my route, mark all the cameras and remember where they all are. Alternatively, I could download the £40 extension for the TomTom system and have the system tell me where they are!