techno-culture

I am not much of a celebrity gossip person, mainly because I am hopeless at keeping up with Hollywood stars much less the B and C and D list celebrities that fill the pages of Hello! Twice a year I am able to administer a biannual Hello! test when I go to the dentist, who always has the magazine amongst others in the waiting room, and confirm yet again that I recognise almost no names at all and have no idea why I should care the she is dating he or he has developed a paunch or that he broke up with she or that she is offering us a glimpse of her fabulous house. However, I do enjoy Marina Hyde’s cruelly Wicked  Friday celebrity gossip double pager, Lost in Showbiz, in the Guardian’s G2 section and she today revealed the alarming news (for which visuals are best banished from the mind) that Cher was dating Tom Cruise for several months in the mid-80s when she had enormous hair and he, well, he was exactly the same as he always seems to be. Apparently Cher will coyly reveal this fact soon on an Oprah episode, and some details about lying in Tom’s arms and… no, I simply cannot go on.

Congrats to Joe and all at PutPlace for making it onto the radar at Under the Radar. Onward and upward!

OK, maybe not today, but coming up, the 15th anniversary of the web, or to you and me, the day Tim Berners-Lee released the code on which the visual, graphic web is based (though other ‘birthdays’ are noted here – pick the anniversary you like best). The BBC has an interview here and then an intriguing set of comments and predictions on the future of the web from a gallery of pioneers.

The Telegraph has a list of the 50 best-ever cult books (for good and bad reasons, so you don’t need to feel like you have to rush out and read them all). Top of the list is Slaughterhouse 5: such a fantastic book. I spent the whole summer of my 16th year reading Kurt Vonnegut books, one after the other, as my dad had loads of Vonnegut paperbacks around the house and then there were more up at a house we rented at Fallen Leaf Lake that summer, near Lake Tahoe; but somehow I didn’t get to Slaughterhouse 5 til college. I still remember my whole open-eyed college-girl naivety reading about Dresden, which didn’t fit in with the Hollywood version of WWII I’d have been more familiar with.

So many of the books on that list make me smile or laugh out loud; either remembering them with affection — or embarrassment, I’m afraid. I’m delighted to see some of my own most loved and lesser known books, including The Master and Margarita (one of those books you read then buy for everyone else on birthdays and holidays). As the reviewer says: “Essential stuff, and with the finest description of a headache yet committed to paper.”

What really fascinates me are the zeitgeist novels that are really cringemaking when you look at them now but seemed so… meaningful at the time. Amongst those I’d include books like Fear of Flying, on the Telegraph list, and probably one that comes to mind from the same era but not on the list, Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. I read it at just the right age, I think, and it seemed to be the perfect novel, and Robbins to be just so ultra-cool and feminist and the kind of guy you wanted to run way with on the back of a motorcycle. I haven’t thought about that book or all the other Robbins books I devoured afterwards, in a long long time — somehow I don’t think they’d be quite so treasured now, but I’d have to go back and reread it to be sure. Anyway check out the Telegraph list and see if your special treasures (or anti-treasures) are there. Jonathan Livingston Seagull… how vomitorious!

Under the vague terms of the government’s draft statutory instrument on internet data retention, just about anyone with any kind of internet service — including a board or a blog — could theoretically be required to retain data. That, and the huge range of crime for which retained data could be used in an investigation, means ISP prices are likely to rise. Consider that 10,000 requests were made in a single year for call data, which is far more easily stored and managed because call data are fairly straighforward to archive as they are kept for billing purposes initially, anyway. Email and internet data are not normally kept, and it is hard to see how prices will not begin to rise if anything like the same volume of data is requested.

My story in today’s paper:

Fears of economic fallout from internet data retention plans

KARLIN LILLINGTON

Fri, Apr 25, 2008

PROPOSED RULES for the retention of internet data could damage Ireland’s efforts to attract foreign direct investment and hinder efforts to encourage indigenous internet-based businesses.

Consumers and businesses will pay more for internet services as internet service providers (ISPs) pass on costs for managing and storing internet data under the Government’s proposed data retention legislation.

But more than ISPs may be affected by the legislation. A wide range of businesses and internet services, including those provided by consumers, could be liable for storing and managing data under the broad definitions of a “service provider” in the proposed statutory instrument that would be used to implement the European Communities (Retention of Data) Regulations 2008.

Irish ISPs say the Government’s intention in the legislation to expand the definition of “serious offences” from crimes with a minimum five-year sentence to crimes with a sentence of six months means that they could face hundreds of Garda requests monthly for data. Continue Reading »

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and with the support of the Times, we are going to see how a tech podcast works out. I hope to get the first one up next week and then maybe do a weekly download. More details when (and if!) this comes together. I figure if I post about it, it will increase the pressure to actually DO something… lol.

I missed these guys by just a few days, as I flew back on Saturday from the Valley. A shame, as I’d have loved to have covered this. If people are around the 24th I am sure they’d welcome you for drinkies.

I was given a copy of the draft legislation for the statutory instrument for bringing in even more data retention — in this case, for email, internet telephony, and internet usage. There’s much of interest in this document (and another story or two to come) — most extraordinary was the government’s attempt to change the definition of ’serious crime’ to enable them to request retained data for basically just about anything. That is the case already with call data as there is NO restriction on the type of crime for which the gardai can request data. The proposed legislation at least recognises this is unacceptable and would also apply to the 2005 Act pertaining to call data — but in a nice sleight of hand the government is simply redefining the ’serious crimes’ for which retained data can be requested… as virtually anything. In other words, making the crime fit the punishment, so to speak. Under this new definition, pretty much ALL crime is now a ’serious offense’.

This piece ran front page in the Irish Times today. How ironic that this is running the same day the papers are filled with news of four laptops full of sensitive data lost nearly a year ago by Bank of Ireland, but only reported now.

Garda powers of request for internet data to be widened
KARLIN LILLINGTON

THE RANGE of criminal investigations for which the Garda will be able to request e-mail and internet data retained by internet service providers has been broadened by the Government.

In the latest draft of the statutory instrument implementing European directives on data retention, which has been seen by The Irish Times , “serious offences” would be defined as “any offence for which a person . . . could receive a maximum custodial sentence of six months”.

This is a broader definition than that in Section 1 of the Bail Act 1997, which defines a “serious offence” as an arrestable offence with a minimum prison sentence of five years.

Offences that could now be deemed “serious” under the statutory instrument would include public order offences, such as refusing to move on when asked to do so by a garda, or minor assault.

The former minister for justice Michael McDowell had vowed that retained data would only be used in the prosecution of serious criminal and terrorism cases.

Continue Reading »

Theoretically, there are lots of ways a computer could work. Let New Scientist count the ways.

Sitting here in San Francisco listening to HP CEO Mark Hurd and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer give keynotes to their European market channel partners. Predictable in content (motivate the troops!) with some interesting tidbits, one of which is the fact that those ‘I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC’ ads seem to get under Microsoft’s skin, at least going by this comment Steve made:

We’ve got a lot of work were doing on the future of the PC, driving down price and adding more features. We don’t like some of the shots we’ve taken… regarding PCs and Macs, blah blah blah, in the Apple ads.

Oh dear! Well, if Microsoft had pioneered the innovation of, say, widgets, or applications like iPhoto and easy CD/DVD burning and easy sharing of content across applications, rather than introducing them as copycat elements in Vista, I’d be more sympathetic to those annoying potshots Apple takes now and then.

• at least one call comes into my rescue about a cavalier needing rehoming right away
• at least one of my own dogs or cats needs to go the vet and then some type of daily treatment
• the weather is expected to improve
• I realise none of the clothes I need for work trips is clean and presentable 

Yes, it is that time again — a rescue dog call; two of my own dogs to the vet on Friday; better weather coming; and I should have gone to the dry cleaners last week. But: the rescue dog is sorted; mine are being boarded where their medications will be managed correctly; whatever the change in weather, it is still nicer in California; and I will have to wear something else! I’m out to San Francisco and then down to Menlo Park next week for a few days, part work coupled with a family visit (of course).  

AMD says it is cutting 10% of its employees worldwide, and was a year late with its Barcelona chip, but the analysts say the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. Good quote from the Motley Fool:

AMD is the Apple to Intel’s Microsoft, hanging around even in the worst of times to keep the market leader on its toes. Regulatory bodies here and overseas might have issues with a complete monopoly situation, and major customers such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell certainly like to see a competitive supplier situation as well.