Recently in Culture Category

Well it already was, but I'm loving the direction it's been going..

It occurs to me that there maybe a fair number of people posting about O2's efficient and wholely applaudable management of the iPhone launch, who haven't read O2's Terms and Conditions for the use of their website:

View image

I draw particular attention to parts of section 2 of Content, namely:

Is defamatory of any person, entity or organisation

Is otherwise offensive in the opinion of O2 (UK) Limited

Relates to the conduct of a business

is not looking good, partly due to this:

Also the o2 upgrade site is pretty much knackered!

In response the conversation on one of Scoble's shared items:

1. Google must not be evil, or, through inaction, allow evil to come to Google.
2. Google must obey orders given to it, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. Google must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So says NPD. Have you?

A new survey by NPD has found that the 73% of Americans have never heard of Google Docs and other online office applications, but perhaps worst still only 0.5% of respondents have abandoned desktop office applications for an online alternative. 94% of Americans have never tried a web based productivity suite.

Why is it "perhaps worst" that 0.5% have abandoned desktop applications for the online one? Does that not smack of egotism? Not even just a little?

OK I'm not really sure if this site has any readers but on the off chance that it has actually attracted anyone to it, here's an idea: Would anyone be interested in a little machinma project?

How about doing a "live-action" machinma version of Cory Doctorow's Anda's Game?

It would *almost* make me re-open my World Of Warcraft account...almost...

Michael Parkinson used a great description on his Sunday Supplement of how his 3 year old Grandson talks: "he talks in joined up scribbles".

I love that as an image! So how would you describe the way you talk?

Its seems that not everyone is happy with the traditional arrangement of working. We've had tele-working for a number of years now, and it seems that the next stage is making the company itself less fixed to the group. Here we have the idea of a nomadic business, that is a business with no permanently fixed location and one where all the members are not necessarily all in the same place all the time.

This approach extols the idea of using VOIP (Skype, Vonage), e-mail (Hotmail etc) and cellular technology to maintain your interpersonal links (hiring a POBox for all that snail mail too).

I must admit I like the idea of a "Bedouin" company, and in many respects it mirrors many of the relationships that I have nowadays. Simultaneously the world is becoming both more and less disconnected: the friends from University that live in the Channel Islands you get e-mails from or the Aunt in the Far East who can use Skype, your guild mates in USA, Denmark and Japan, and the collegue in the next city who you IM. All forming a "tribe" of people who aren't together but are.

Cory Doctorow had the right idea in Eastern Standard Tribe, we're connected together by timezones, interests and wires (well and wireless) not by physical location....mind blowing init?

I've heard a lot of people asking why there hasn't been a huge out pouring of support for the Hurricane. I reckon this is because we expect that America should be capable of dealing with something like this. If you looked at Indonesia, and the related Asian countries, I don't think anyone of the street would expect them to have the resources, but we do for America, and this seems to be an increasingly false assumption

Just caught the documentary "Slaughterhouse" on the Beeb. very graphic and probably quite disturbing for a lot of people. But I think it was very good in opening a lot of peoples eyes to the actual process of "creating meat". Worth a watch if you can catch it again, just make sure you have strong stomach and aren't eating.

This is a freaking hilarious strip! Go Piro!

Once again from BoingBoing but quite interesting so I'll reproduce this
rant from PVP about getting comics syndicated in newspapers.

Why it all began... As Michael Jantze was kind enough to explain, the newspaper comics feature was invented as a tool to sell more newspapers. At the time, there were huge newspaper wars in almost every city as more than one paper would compete for readers. If your paper had a cartoon feature that the other didn't, you could draw more readers to YOUR paper. It was big business and the syndicates made a LOT of money from cartoon features. It was shady and handled in back-rooms sometimes. Michael says the term Yellow journalism was coined because of the sneaky things people did to get a hold of the first cartoon: the Yellow Kid. Over the years, things calmed down some, but competition between papers in the same city was still strong. The syndicated played an important role. They were there to guarantee that cartoon features were edited, family friendly and always delivered on time. The syndicates OWN all the cartoon feature, not the creators themselves. Should a cartoonist crap out, they could just hire someone else to draw it. The papers could buy 10 features and only have to write one check. It was a good system. The syndicates got money for their features and in turn offered something that other newspapers didn't have. Some papers would buy a strip and never publish it, just so the other competing paper couldn't have it on their funny pages. Today things are very different. The days of two paper cities have long past. Now there's one city per paper and competition is dead. In fact, sometimes the papers of many neighboring cities are all owned by one large corporation. Simply put, newspaper competition is over. Newspapers no longer need comic strips to help them sell papers. The comics page has simply become another expense for them. Michael Jantze told the crowd at our panel that a 20 comic funny page could cost a newspaper 150,000 a year. Now think about this, because this is the key to my announcement: newspapers are PAYING the syndicates for the privilege of developing their cartoon brands. Think about this. If Coca-cola wants to use newspaper advertising to strengthen it's brand, it has to pay for that kind of exposure. The syndicates makes millions from their comic features via books, television, movies and merchandise. The only way they are able to sustain that kind of income is due to the exposure and advertising that the newspapers give them. But the syndicates offer nothing in return. The funny pages are full of retreaded old strips that have lived way past their prime. Entertainment wise, they provide nothing. The syndicates really got a sweet deal. But that's about to change.

If anyone is in Glasgow at the start of August, I recommend the
following:

The Blimp, playing 5th August at The Bunker.

Gig's expected to start around 2100.
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in fact sod it, this is the list of web-comics
that I'm working through (and yes they're on the Edge of
Sanity....after all I do have to drive up his bandwidth up too!)
And on a connected note, I went to see Spider-man 2 the other day. Not
bad as comic book adaptations for film go but seemed awfully like a
middle film (see LOTR:The Two Towers). The Spiderman/Peter Parker &
MJ story line got pushed on a good way and in less time that in the
comic books. The most contrived thing (well for me) was the "illness"
he was suffering due to his (effectively) bi-polar personality. I did
like the manifestation of his inner turmoil being demonstrated
physically but some of was just plain bad science. Ok yes I can accept
that his web shooters wouldn't work, on the basis of some form of
voluntary muscle being required and there is a basis of this being
affected by stress/trauma (hmm analogy of impotence springs to
mind...and curiously both are problems with ejecting "white fluid" from
the body...but I'm lowering the tone of this). Could we not have left
it there??? I mean like seriously (sorry forgot the <american>
tags) his eye sight deteriorating and his inability to walk up walls?
Ok the whole leaping about thing I can almost let go on the same
reasoning as his web shooters, but the first film established his wall
crawling abilities as being due to quite a fundamental physical change,
i.e. the millions of little spikes. OK it never explained how it was
that he didn't end up sticking to things inadvertantly, but it does not
appear that a concious effort is required for him to stick to a
wall...he just does when its required...hmm maybe just did talk myself
round that one. But definately the eyesight thing should not have
happened...his eyes just decided to pack it in? erm and then start
working again when he needs them...i'm not convinced.
However despite this complaints (and my trying to spot the mistakes in
the film...and ok yes I did look out for MJ's dress magically changing
form whenever the camera was below her...and the wire reinforced
spiders web...yes and I noticed the guy sitting in the car quite
happily as it collided (or was) with another one) the whole thing was
quite good fun. Not to be taken seriously, but quite good fun. SPOILER
BELOW!
My next question is will Harry forgive and forget that Spiderman caused
the death of his father now that he knows that Peter is Spiderman and
that his Dad was the Green Goblin or will Harry follow in his fathers
footsteps and become the GG? Personally I suspect the former, as I
don't think that they could re-do the first villan...but then again I
could be wrong.
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