Why I think the Tory Facebook thing is a terrible idea

OK, this is super quick one, as I’m dashing out to the pub – but I think it needed to be done because I don’t think I have been clear enough about why I’m cross.

So…

I’m a firm believer in free speech. I don’t want to stop you, or anyone else, from saying what’s on your – or their – mind.

I am also very pro-democracy. It’s beyond important that you excercise your right to vote for whichever party or candidate you think is the best.

And I’m cool with you campaigning for that party. Even – perhaps especially – if I disagree with you.

So here’s why I will definitely break up a friendship with you if you install the Tory status update:

1. When I talk to you about politics, I want to hear YOUR opinion. Not the opinion of your party’s spin doctors.

2. I am friends with you – in real life and on Facebook – because I value what you have to say. Because you don’t spam me, because I trust you. Turning over your status update to an application that automatically issues spam is not the action of a trustworthy person.

3. Politics and religion are tricky subjects at the best of times. I have a passionate and abiding dislike of the Tories, which flares up whenever I am confronted with their propaganda.

I disagree with them on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to begin. Confronting me with that in bitesized chunks in what I consider to be a safe space (where I choose who I admit to my circle) is something that I consider to be an abuse.

I’m going to think about this some more. I am almost certain that this is a really terrible idea, and I really hope they are lampooned for it.

I like to think that the Conservatives don’t understand social media and I’m really hoping that this venture will serve as proof. It’s my firm opinion that neither of the main parties in this country have a grasp of the medium in the same way as – for example – the Obama campaign – for several reasons. Among them:

They are not regular participants in this environment and don’t understand the rules of engagement
They already have power and have become complacent. There is nothing for them to subvert and no groundswell of support for them to mobilise. They are tilting at windmills.

I really would like to know what you think – as long as you don’t spam me with Tory HQ bullshit

Expelled

There’s a new movie, Expelled, doing the rounds. It’s being pushed as a piece of free-thought. It isn’t.

Expelled is a pernicious piece of propaganda. Yes, that’s right: Expelled is the work of creationists.

Which is why I’m writing a post about Expelled, explaining what it really is, and linking to a site which will tell you what’s really going on with Expelled.

All these Expelled links are also contributing to a (deserved) google-bombing.

If you have a blog, and you’re against this whole ID/Creationist nonsense, spread the word and link as much as possible to the correct Expelled site.

kthx

R x

The Housing Crisis – part the first

There is so much to write about the housing crisis, it’s hard to know where to start. So this is a rough outline of where I want to go with this – it will be fleshed-out over the next couple of weeks – but I’s like some ideas to start flowing now.

So consider this post to be part of the ‘post first, ask questions later’ school…

So. This is what I’m thinking:

1. Brighton’s recent business survey found private (buy to let) landlords to be a *good* thing for low-income workers. I think this assessment is dead wrong, and I think the logic you need to follow to reach this conclusion makes you a prime candidate for total moral bankrupcy. In my book, at least. I’d like to talk more about this – I have a nature hatred for private landlords, having been screwed over more times than I’d like to count by these mercantile bastards. I think this prejudice might be blinding me. But I doubt it…

2. Bo Klok houses – IKEA (world of moral minefields) has come up with some really quite astonishing ideas, which are being put to work in Newcastle Gateshead. I’ve seen Swedish social housing, and Two Piers’ Christchurch is built around a Danish model; so I can see how this could really, really work (and don’t forget, in Sweden, it’s dark for about half the year. These people know how to build so you don’t go postal on your neighbours…). It’s interesting that the scheme is being administered via a social housing marketing expert company,(or something… I’m not sure I get the part where profits and social housing collide, but I know *nothing* about their business model, other than they are means-testing applicants and houses can *only* be resold via the agency. That sounds like there may be some co-op in the mix but without further study I couldn’t tell you). Live Smart @ Home

Links: Guardian Story – Bo Klok

I’m interested in how Bo Klok, combined with a co-operative model and some proper funding, could change the face of Brighton’s housing shortage.

I’m also deeply suspicious of how the private rental sector would take the news that they’re being undercut… and how the private landlords who are so very deeply involved in local politics might attempt to move heaven and hell to prevent this from happening…

I’m interested in what boom and bust means for co-ops.

I’m interested in what ‘ownership’ of a house means, and what shared ownership – or custodianship – of a building means for its long term survival and maintenance…

I’m interested in how models of owning/renting work across Europe and what that means in terms of how people conceptualise ‘home’.

I’m interested in how we frame ‘community’ – are shared ownership schemes, strong tenants schemes, fully mutual cooperatives – more sociable places to live? Do we have the same problems as everyone else? (My suspicion is that we have less problems in some ways – we are forced to be social so we know our neighbours – but we have more disposable income and live somewhere with lots of people so the temptation to spend a *lot* of time drunk is definitely there. We also have interesting problems cause by adults- some of whom are very set in their ways – attempting to share space).

After so much destructive legislation in the 80s and 90s, where next for coops? Will there ever be another Two Piers? How can we encourage self-build? How can we streamline the paperwork and the regulation to a manageable level for small co-ops? How do we ensure their longevity? How do we persuade the Powers That Be of their usefulness in the long term?

How do we persuade government that a thing not-for-profit is a thing still worth doing, or do we follow the path of Home and make some money out of it, just because that means we’ll get left alone?

And what happens now to all those people in their 20s and 30s who may well find themselves sliding into negative equity? It looks like a certainty now – so what can be done to mitigate the ruining of thousands of lives?

Answers on a postcard… or in the comments, or linky, or digg it, or – well – you know the drill…

See also: http://grovesmedia.wordpress.com/ 

Doris Lessing falls in same hole as 1,000 other pundits

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2224159,00.html

“Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books. We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned, and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing…

We never thought to ask how will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging.”

Er. Who wants to tell Doris about the free books projects, about the authoritative and insightful articles which spread as far as they eye can see on subjects from Aardvarks to Zeppelins? Who wants to explain that it takes all sorts, this blogoshpere. Some of us have read quite a lot, others not so much. Some of us use the internet for porn and free movies. Others for enlightenment and education, games, communication and – yes – reading (and porn, and free movies).

It’s not a new viewpoint either; “your media is not real media. This box is not a worthy thing, the internet is a load of old bollocks” sounds achingly familiar. It’s just a pity that Lessing has fallen into the same trap; somehow, I expected more of her.

My head is full of gunk. This chap puts it much better: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/steven_poole/2007/12/a_writers_companion.html

Inluenza

Influenza, commonly known as flu, is an infectious disease of birds and mammals caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses). In humans, common symptoms of influenza are fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort.^[1]

Das me. ‘Pologies for the broadcast silence – I was gonna do loads of posting this weekend. Instead I looked at the ceiling for a bit, and nearly finished Rayman’s Raving Rabbids on the DS Lite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

Ung Hover

Yeech

I hope everyone else felt better than I did this morning. The result, of course, of a hugely entertaining evening dans le pub(or two – or in some cases three) with some of the widgety crowd. And what mighty goodness there was.

Widgety Goodness – Lunchtime

First off, a fantastic morning; interesting, engaging and hugely enjoyable. A huge thanks to the WG team.

This’ll be a quick one, as I’m attempting to scarf down a wagamama noodle soup while writing this. There is the promise of the slideshows from today’s brilliance to refer to when I come back and rewrite and/or add to all of this.

Some initial thoughts:

Russell Davies is now on my godlike genius list. He’s funny too. I enjoyed what he had to say about the ‘Uncanny Valley’ and the analogies that can be drawn between that and our response to personalised advertising. Namely that too-personal advertising freaks us out. More on this later.

He says, and he’s right, that if even Amazon can’t be relied upon to get it right (friends will have seen an indignant post of mine on Facebook about being shown a WHOLE PAGE of topless calendars not so long ago) , then who can?

I like the term “Darwinian Disco” to describe the new landscape of the internet. The idea that web-based applications will continue to evolve and to grow (and yes, to die) is hugely appealing. It also implies that the web is an eco-system, and that platforms and apps will grow to find their own spaces in which to thrive. All to a funky Satuday Night Fever soundtrack. Groovy.
Privacy is a thorny issue in social networking, and it doesn’t get much thornier than implied permission, integral to something like a Facebook app which scans your friends and their locations and serves up content based on that information. The argument goes that this is dynamic content – it’s not held anywhere and can’t be accessed by anyone other than the user looking at your page at that time. the argument also goes that users don’t care about privacy if what they’re getting is useful.

I disagree. To me, this system is a little bit like inviting someone over for dinner because you enjoy their company, and them assuming that this entitles them to rifle through your address book (or your knicker drawer) – but that’s OK, because only they will see it, and they won’t remember any of it anyway. It doesn’t wash.

It may well be the case that the legislation surrounding data protection and privacy has no precedent to deal with dynamic data creation, but there is a question of ethics here and I’m not entirely convinced that the ethical implications have been sufficiently thought-through. I actually have the offending app on my Facebook account, and I’m going to delete it this evening. This user *does* care about her privacy.

Final thought: It is not possibly eat noodles quickly and type at the same time.

More later…

WooHoo! One in the eye for Stephen Green!

A victory for common sense, and, more importantly, a crushing defeat for Christian Voice.

I couldn’t be happier. Maybe they’ll go away now (not likely – reality ed)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/05/njerry105.xml

Ooooh, give me some of that Widgety Goodness

Keeping up to date with new ideas, platforms and trends is a huge part of any web professional’s job; knowing what works, and what doesn’t – and finding appropriate business models which fit well with these new forms of media – is the challenge facing thousands of us. It’s always exciting and sometimes a little confusing, and finding the best information available is often a major headache. So thank goodness for Widgety Goodness, a one day conference in Brighton aimed at answering the four big questions for would-be widgetizers:

• what role do widgets play in online strategy?
• what tools are available for the development and distribution of widgets?
• what destinations do widgets go to and how do I get them there?
• how do I track and analyse widgets once they have left home?

Many of the leading lights in the World of Widgets will be talking about the various aspects of widgetisation, including Ivan Pope (Widgety Goodness and Snipperoo), Will McInnes (Nixon McInnes), Russell Davies (Open Intelligence Agency and NMA’s third most influential person in New Media) and Mike Butcher from Techcrunch.

You can find out more at http://widgetygoodness.com/

Harvey Goldsmith/Led Zep/Ebay – wtf?

I used to think that Harvey Goldsmith was a genius – one of the good guys, with a serious talent for A&R and an even bigger talent for Making Things Happen.

So it’s a bit sad to see that he’s got it all bass ackwards on something as simple (and as complicated) as ticketing for one of his shows… The long and the short if it is that he, like so many before him (stand up, Michael Eavis, live 8, the entire Mean Fiddler Group) has his knickers in a twist about sales of Led Zep tickets on Ebay.