Archive for September, 2010

Twitter Bombs (Not Literally)

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

The Internet has revolutionised all aspects of life, air-travel included. You can now book your flight, choose your seats and check-in online before you’ve even left your house, and now you can even set off terrorist-alert sirens in airport security armed with just your Twitter account.

At least that turned out to be the case for Paul Chambers. The trainee accountant, 27, was planning to fly to Belfast from Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster, only to discover that it was closed at the time following the heavy snowfall in January. To vent his frustration in a concise and supposedly harmless manner, Chambers took to Twitter (@pauljchambers), saying:

“C**p! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your s**t together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah TwitMan!

A week later, Chambers’ jested deadline, he was apprehended by anti-terrorist officers, under Section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act which covers sending of indecent, obscene or menacing messages. At trial, the presiding judge, Jonathan Bennett, acknowledged the unusual nature of the case, but described the joke as being of a “menacing nature in the context of the times we live in”, convicting and fining Chambers £1,000.

Chambers has sought to appeal, and his trial was held at Doncaster crown court last week. Barrister Stephen Ferguson has urged Judge Jacqueline Davies to overlook the prosecution case as the offending remark could not be proven as menacing. Robin Hood Airport security officials have dismissed the tweet as a “non-credible threat” and “operationally nothing”. The court has been adjourned until November.

If the court decides to make an example of Chambers’, it could send out a cautionary tale about the potential harm of inconsiderate use of social networks and public platforms. However, if the conviction were upheld, it brands a man for life with a criminal record for an insignificant, facetious comment for which Chambers has already lost his job, and creates a public trepidation around social networks for fear of misspeaking. Although, if the conviction were to be overturned, it could potentially precipitate more off-hand comments like this and cause a flurry of false alarms and disruption to air travel. Obviously, Chambers’ tweet was somewhat foolhardy, but nobody would’ve expected such a disproportionate fallout from it and practically any Twitter feed you can name will have some comment of a similar nature.

At least they will now. With Chambers’ appeal getting a full complement of media coverage, the Twitosphere is alight with messages of support. A campaign has started with the hashtag #twitterjoketrial to bombard (pardon the pun) the micro-blogging service with jokes in the same hyperbolic nature to Chambers’. Twitter user @mrderekpayne tweeted, ”After a long day in court Paul Chambers says he ‘could murder a pint’. & is promptly rearrested”, and @barsteward said, “Apparently, West Yorkshire Police want to question the Kaiser Chiefs about their inside knowledge & prediction of a riot.” Support also came from famous Twitterati, such as the notorious Stephen Fry and Graham Lineham, writer of Father Ted and The IT Crowd.

This isn’t the first time an off-hand Twitter remark has landed someone in hot water. Cardiff councillor John Dixon, whilst walking through the streets of London, tweeted, “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.” Dixon was subsequently put through a disciplinary hearing as a result, with members of the ‘Church of Scientology’ claiming that the remark infringed on their religious freedom, despite Scientology not being a recognised religion in Britain. Professional journalists who use social networks (Twitter especially) are often asked by their employer to include on their profile that their opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the company they work for. It’s understandable that those either in positions of authority, like councillors, or journalists should be wary of what they say in public, even on a platform like Twitter, as they are recognised as authoritative and potentially influential sources of information. But for members of the public, like Chambers, this is not the case. Why then has this obscure tweeter been singled out as menacing when, amidst the more than 50 million tweets per day, equally offhand and possibly more sinister messages must go unnoticed?

Once the dust has settled on this case, people will probably forget and go back to thoughtlessly tweeting threats at whoever or whatever sparks their disdain that day. But it’s still worrying to think that you could have, like Chambers, your life upturned in less than 140 characters.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Too lazy to analogise, I’m truly screwed

Monday, September 13th, 2010

It’s pretty well-known that as one gets older the mind begins to slip, my 48 year old mother is already showing signs of approaching senility. I’m nineteen, supposedly at a point in my life of both physical and mental prowess. The former has been demonstrably false for a long time now but I’d hoped the latter held. I have since realised that I am mistaken. As it turns out, I have the mental capacity of a dementia patient who thinks he’s a wristwatch. But I don’t think it’s just me, I think my entire generation may’ve falled into the trap of the Information Age.

I find that, particularly when using the internet, I instinctively scan the page for significant points or simply the information I’m looking for rather than read the whole passage to find the information with the necessary context. Attempting to read an entire article, post or even paragraph takes a massive amount of concentration, a battle which is more than occasionally lost as my mind swiftly buggers off somewhere else and I’m left starting at the screen, drooling slightly like a recentely-released criminal rediscovering softcore porn.

One is inclined to ignore the annual moan of the older generations about how exams are getting easier and that the education system is “dumbing down”, as it’s pretty obvious that the sort of people saying so are forbidden by law to go within 300 yards of a school. I’m being careful to stress that I’m not making a damning criticism of the young people that I am, for a few more years at least, counted amongst. Like most people my age, I can attest that school exams are hardly a blowjob in the park. But I’ll admit that whilst exams aren’t getting easier, our ability to learn and revise is, the information available to us is now more than lecture notes and recommended books, could this be the cause?

It doesn’t take someone with a degree in bullshitology psychology to poset a reason for this. My generation has grown up with instant access to the collective knowledge of all preceding ones, accessible from a device that can fit into my pocket. Given the speed with which I can find a source of information on whatever bizarre topic I’m contemplating, it follows that my brain also seeks the specific information or data within that source with as much speed and as little brainwork as possible. What results is skimming. Rather than learn the details of a topic, or getting the full context of the information I need, my mind finds the information, puts it to use and then, rather tellingly, promptly forgets it entirely. Given the speed with which I can recall the information online, where’s the benefit in my brain remembering it? Someone once said that all invention is but an extension of the body of man, is it possible that we’ve replaced our memory with hard-drives, our brains with servers, our ability to learn with Wikipedia?

I first began to notice this whilst working at CNET UK, rather than read a press-release or a news story in it’s entirety the first time round, my mind would automatically scan the words almost passively on the screen trying to fish out something that could be significant. This caused, early on, some pretty stupid mistakes on my part and I’d have to consciously force myself to read every word start to finish. In other writers, this could very well account for the rise of ‘lazy journalism’ that you’d get from, say, The Daily Mail. It’s also could explain why so few people of around my age read much, when there’s the web you can waste away hours on mindless preoccupations, sitting down to read a book is the comparative mental equivalent of…….ahh I can’t be bothered to think of an analogy.

I’ve had a long-held ambition to write a book, something which takes a great deal of time, perseverence and patience, which themselves require a long attention span. The annoyingly loud pessimistic side of my brain makes no secret of the fact that I will, in all probability, never write anything significantly long, frankly an 800 word blog post takes a considerable amount of concentration and focus on my part. Attempting to write a 300+ page book would require caffeine consumption on a scale that would kill me off before I’d finished the introduction.

If you’ve made it this far, then congratulations you’ve managed to prove me wrong slightly. But try reading every post on this blog, I’d randomly guess estimate at being the length of a short book, in one go and we’ll talk.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ground Zero Mosque – Actually, it’s neither.

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

I’m a student, and I know that we have a reputation for being a little bit detached from the reality. But as far as I’m aware the rules of spatial mechanics have remained unchanged (or is that why I can’t remember staggering home at three in the morning anymore?).

But apparentely not, as Park51 – a recentely planned building development in New York City, which is being referred by many as the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ – has attracted more criticism from shouty, opinionated people than the average audience of the Jeremy Kyle Show. This is where the laws of physics appear to have been rewritten, as Park51 is actually two blocks away from the former location of the World Trade Centre, a full 0.2 miles according to Google Maps. The people criticising the mosque have been acting as though it’s a decadent, 300-foot monumental eyesore filling the exact space where the WTC was, with the bodies of dead US soldiers hanging from the rafters, complete with with the words ‘We Win, America!’ in big neon letters atop a statue of Osama Bin Laden fisting Uncle Sam. In reality, the artist rendition looks just like any old skyscraper you can name in New York City.

Park51

Yep, looks like a monument of the Islamization of The West to me.

What’s more, it’s not even a mosque. It’s a community centre, albeit a specifically Islamic one with a mosque inside. What’s the difference there between an Islamic and a Christian community centre? That might sound obvious, but only if you greatly generalise on Islam and fail to distinguish between extremists and moderates. Even if it were a dedicated mosque, the same distinction still applies.

I’ve also been told that the controversy has emerged because the collapse of the Twin Towers had rubble landing on the place where the not-mosque is planned. So, what? That fact is utterly meaningless unless the US want to change their foreign policy to a canine philosophy in which they indicate their borders by where they’ve pissed.

Think I’m exaggerating? Just look at the organisation “Stop Islamization of America” (SIOA), who view the not-ground zero not-mosque to be an indication of the Islamic invasion of the USA and an insult to all the soldiers who died. The SIOA claim to be “a human rights organization dedicated to freedom of speech, religious liberty, and individual rights” – judging by their actions and their name – unless you’re a Muslim.

I can see why it might be considered, at most, poor taste. But the vitrolic opposition to the not-mosque has gone far beyond arguing for respecting dead soldiers and have, rather paradoxically, sunk into a all-out display of religious intolerance.

There’s been some comparison with the ‘Draw Muhammed Day’ on Facebook, which is an interesting comparison but not in the way that the SIOA think. ‘Draw Muhammed Day’ was in response to threats by Islamic extremists towards the creators of ‘South Park’ who were poised to depict the prophet of the Muslim faith, which is against Islam. Those who participated in ‘Draw Muhammed Day’ did not do so for any Islamaphobic reason, it was a demonstration that free speech is non-negotiable: no-one is immune to criticism and you cannot bully people into silence through the threat of violence.

The SIOA believe that this is somehow testament to anti-Islam sentiment in the US but this is not the case. ‘Draw Muhammed Day’ was a defence of free speech, which is the complete opposite of what the SIOA is about. They want to prevent the building of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’, even though doing so is explicitly against free expression and ignores freedom of religion, which was one of the founding principles of America.

I’m not taking the piss out of the attacks of September 11th because I’m not a completely heartless bastard. Nor am I taking the piss out of Islam — because I like my head — but this arguement is totally fucking ridiculous. It is not a mosque. It is not on ‘Ground Zero’. Blocking it’s building is against the freedom of expression and religion that the US is itself founded on and those very soldiers died defending. I can only conclude, therefore, that those opposing the not-mosque are doing so purely out of religious prejudice. Maybe that’s unfair, as simply the bandied-about name ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ immediately creates two misconceptions on this issue, but anyone willing to look into it for half a second can find the facts of the matter. So it’s really down to a combination of prejudice and ignorance — a lethal combination in any context.

UPDATE: Someone has just pointed out to me that this post is remarkably similar to an article by Charlie Brooker on the same issue. Brooker’s column is far funnier, uses similar techniques of hyperbole and ridiculing the pointlessness of the debate, and it was also done about two weeks ago. I actually hadn’t seen it before I wrote this post but it looks as though I’ve copied his points, just putting that out there.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Apple’s Music Event 2010: Death of the Click-Wheel

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Another Apple announcement has come and gone, treated with the understated calm that we’ve come to expect from the technology giant. That’s bull, of course, asking Apple to announce something quietly is like asking that same thing of Brian Blessed. Of course, I’m going to propagate the hype myself now by blogging about it.

Incidently, I wrote about last year’s music event and made some semi-serious predictions for 2010.

Of course, the event began with Steve Jobs’ usual self-congratulatory ejaculation as he delights in just how well his products have sold, ignoring the criticism that the iPhone 4 had. Then he spends half an hour rolling around in piles of your money. YES! YOUR MONEY! YOU PATHETIC PRICK!

Ahem…

iPod Nano Sixth Generation

The sixth-generation iPod Nano is perhaps the biggest overhaul, mainly because it’s no longer a Nano — more a result of a horrific gene-splicing experiment between the Touch and the Shuffle. It’s inherited the Shuffle’s belt-clip and restores the square form factor that the third generation Nano had. Instead of the new Nano being a diminutive version of it’s Classic brother, it now sports a fetching touch-screen. This multi-touch (and no, I don’t know why you’d need multi-touch on an iPod Nano) and capacitive addition essentially does away entirely with the original iPod layout we’ve all come to know which, given that no new Classic announcements were given, marks the death of it’s former look. Instead of a click-wheel, the entire front of the device is a touch-screen, allowing navigation of the device. From the images I’ve seen, it does look like this screen is far too small and cramped to be comfortably used, although the newly redesigned interface for the Nano clearly has a touch-screen in mind. But the main reason I’ve not bought an iPod Touch already is the notorious fragility of touch-screens — I’m not convinced.

The iPod Touch has also had a minor touch-up, but nothing like the plastic surgery of the Nano. It’s slimmer, which by now is practically assumed of any newly released device, and has a screen supporting Apple’s randomly-named ‘Retina Display’. Another throwback to the iPhone 4 is the front facing camera (and the inclusion of a back-facing camera) to allow Apple’s new video-calling service FaceTime over Wi-Fi — given it has no 3G antenna band to get screwed up, this iPod might be less of a commercial balls-up than it’s cousin, iPhone.

iPod Touch with FaceTime

In perhaps the biggest U-turn since Clinton, Apple have reunited the iPod Shuffle with it’s buttons. The last iteration of the cheap and chirpy noisemaker removed almost all the physical buttons on the device itself, meaning it had to be controlled instead by the buttons on the tinny travesty of headphones that come in the box, and navigation was aided by an almost as tinny voice. Though the voice remains (which is fine given most Apple fanboys hear voices anyway, mainly telling them to buy more Apple products), the buttons are back.

In a display of balls-out ripoffery, Apple have taken several chapters out of MySpace and Spotify’s books and will introduce a music-oriented social-network feature into the next incarnation of iTunes, known as ‘Ping’. Essentially, this will broadcast your appreciation of ‘The Fast Food Rockers’ to your friends, leave you without any friends and persuade you to find solace in the purchase of an iPad. I kid, of course. The real point is that you see what your friends are listening to and then you (because life is one big futile attempt at gaining social acceptance) purchase the same songs to demonstrate just how like-minded you are with your mates — kerching for Apple. Like a bit of Tinchy Stryder do you? No, you don’t. Nobody does. Everybody just thinks they should.

Something happened to do with the Apple TV, but that’s irrelevant seeing as nobody bothers with them — not while we’ve got Sky+ at least. It’s smaller, obviously, and is just a media streamer for your computer to your TV but with it’s own film and TV rental service. Boring.

All in all, the Nano is the biggest change, which is usually the case at Apple’s September music event. I’ve always loved the Nano precisely because it’s a middle-ground between the cheap but relatively feature-less Shuffle and the complex, expensive Touch — now, the Nano is less intermediate and more horrendously choreographed mix’n'match. Nothing unexpected or unusual, Steve Jobs didn’t come out in a floral dress and announce his impending sex change. Nor did he emerge holding Bill Gates’ hand, vindicating years of rumours. Once the Nano hype has died down, the tech world will breathe a collective ‘meh’ at yesterday’s announcement and we can all get on with our lives.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »