Showing posts with label london. Show all posts
Showing posts with label london. Show all posts

06 January 2013

Mayor Of London Says Internet To Blame For British Press Sins

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is something of an institution in the UK, famous for his blond mop of hair and outrageous opinions. He's also been a journalist on and off for two decades, and is close to Rupert Murdoch, so it should perhaps come as no surprise that he's penned a characteristically witty defense of British newspapers. They're currently under threat of having governmental regulation imposed upon them in the wake of the UK's Leveson Inquiry, written in response to years of journalists breaking the law in search of hot stories, as Johnson acknowledges: 

On Techdirt.

30 June 2012

London Police Want To Crowdsource Guilt-Free Surveillance

One of the earliest proposals for mass surveillance was the Panopticon: 

On Techdirt.

27 April 2012

London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo Uploads To Social Media During Games

As Techdirt has reported, the London 2012 Olympics bring with them a range of "special" measures guaranteed to make London a place for lovers of freedom to avoid this summer. But it seems that the organizers wish to ensure that anyone attending will also have a rather miserable time

On Techdirt.

26 February 2010

Schneier Nails it on CCTV Folly

Another brilliant essay on security from Bruce Schneier. It's all well-worth reading, but here's the nub:


If universal surveillance were the answer, lots of us would have moved to the former East Germany. If surveillance cameras were the answer, camera-happy London, with something like 500,000 of them at a cost of $700 million, would be the safest city on the planet.

We didn't, and it isn't, because surveillance and surveillance cameras don't make us safer. The money spent on cameras in London, and in cities across America, could be much better spent on actual policing.

When will the politicians face up to the facts on CCTV? (Via Boing Boing.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

08 February 2010

Crowdsourcing + Open Source: the Perfect Combination for Startups?

Crowdsourcing represents an interesting attempt to generalise the open source methodology to non-technical areas. The basic idea is to tap into the the vast store of knowledge and wisdom among the general population by providing a mechanism to funnel the best ideas to those who can build on them. Recently there have been some interesting examples in very different domains that suggest crowdsourcing is beginning to enter the mainstream.

On Open Enterprise blog.

13 July 2009

National Portrait Gallery: Nuts

This is so wrong:

Below is a letter I received from legal representatives of the National Portrait Gallery, London, on Friday, July 10, regarding images of public domain paintings in Category:National Portrait Gallery, London and threatening direct legal action under UK law. The letter is reproduced here to enable public discourse on the issue. For a list of sites discussing this event see User:Dcoetzee/NPG legal threat/Coverage. I am consulting legal representation and have not yet taken action.

Look, NPG, your job is to get people to look at your pix. Here's some news: unless they're in London, they can't do that. Put those pix online, and (a) that get to see the pix and (b) when they're in London, they're more likely to come and visit, no?

So you should be *encouraging* people to upload your pix to places like Wikipedia; you should be thanking them. The fact that you are threatening them with legal action shows that you don't have even an inkling of what you are employed to do.

Remind me not to pay the part of my UK taxes that goes towards your salary....

26 March 2009

Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009

If open knowledge is your thing, London is the place, Saturday the time:

The Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) is back for its fourth installment bringing together individuals and groups from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of discussions workshops.

This year the event will feature dedicated sessions on open knowledge and development and on the semantic web and open data. Plus there's the usual substantial allocation of 'Open Space' -- sessions, workshops and discussions proposed either via the CFP or on the day
.
Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

23 February 2009

London Open Source Writers Meetup

As an experiment, @codepope and I have arranged to meet up as a possible kernel of open-sourcey writerish activity in London tonight. Anyone who writes - as a journalist, blogger, tweeter - and can make it is welcome, although I'm afraid PR on its own doesn't count (fine, if you do both).

We're aiming to meet for 6pm in one of the cafes at the Royal Festival Hall (allegedly furnished with Wifi), but first we'll hang around the entrance facing the Thames, on the main level. Any questions, contact me (glyn.moody@gmail or @glynmoody, or @codepope) before then.

See you there. Maybe.

09 February 2009

Open Tech 2009

Good to see more openness being spread around:


*What is OpenTech 2009?*

- Open Tech 2009 is an informal, low cost, one-day conference on slightly different approaches to technology, democracy and community. Thanks to 4IP for sponsoring the event.photo BY-NC by bill thompson

*What do we need?*

- Proposals from people who want to give a presentation, run a panel, organise a tutorial, or run a demo of something new and interesting on something that they think matters or getting people to help.

- Publicity - please blog this announcement, write a newspaper article, forward to mailing lists, and tell your friends!


What topics do we hope to cover?

- Mashups, open data and security
- Disaster politics and technology
- Future of media distribution
- Community engagement
- Democracy 2.0
- Highlights, lowlights and lessons learnt
- Long term thinking on big problems and massive opportunities
- Tutorials & Workshops - share what you know

- If you've got an interesting proposal that doesn't fit into any of the categories above, please send it in anyway!

It's on Saturday 4th July 2009 in Central London.

10 December 2008

Someone Once Told Me...About CC Licences

I'm a big fan of black and white photography. Without the distraction of colours, it seems to me that you look more deeply at the image. Anyway, any site predicated on black and white photos is good; this one, called "Someone Once Told Me", is even better, not least because most images were shot in London:


Black and white photographs

A new one every day

Each person writes a message

Of something that someone once told them

What did someone tell you?

The short, untethered messages are positively surreal.

Just one problem: all the images are

copyright SOTM ©2008


This is a site crying out to be shared freely. Perhaps someone should tell its creator about Creative Commons licences... (Via Londonist.)

10 November 2008

It's Morphic Resonance All Over Again

Last week I was talking at the Open Everything meeting in London, where I went through some (most) of my tropes about openness and the creation of a commons, about enclosure (of land, creativity and ideas), how today's open movements are based on the economics of abundance, not scarcity, and are actually a return to a pre-lapsarian state, rather than something inherently new.

What was particularly heartening about the occasion was meeting so many other people with similar viewpoints, albeit coming from slightly different starting positions. Indeed, one of the most positive signs that something is afoot is the broad-based nature of this growing unanimity around the world.

For example, I came across a reference to the paper "Undermining abundance (Counter­productive uses of technology and law in nature, agriculture, and the information sector)", which also ties together the enclosure of many different domains:

Technology and law are increasingly used to undermine processes of abundance intrinsic to nature, agriculture and the information sector. A number of examples are reviewed here. Such counter­productive use of technology and law is traced to corporate profit­seeking. The relationships between the phenomenon of abundance and the related concepts of scarcity and commons are explored. Finally, approaches are proposed that harness abundance for the human good.

This led me to the blog of the author, Roberto Verzola. He's based in the Philippines, which has provided me with interesting insights into what's happening in that part of the world in terms of openness.

Here's a taster of his original thinking, from a posting provocatively entitled "The piracy of intellectuals":

We’ve seen people who come from or work for Western software firms. Well groomed, in business coat and tie, they look the antithesis of the pirate they hate so much. They come and visit this country of pirates, and perhaps make a little study how much they are losing from piracy in the Philippines.

Quite a number of them, however, come to the country to do some pirating themselves.

But they don’t pirate software, which is apparently beyond their dignity. They pirate people. They pirate those who write the software. They pirate our best systems analysts, our best engineers, our best programmers, and our best computer operators.

The advanced countries of the West routinely pirate from the Third World our best professionals and skilled workers, but begrudge us peoples of the Third World if we engaged in some piracy ourselves. They accuse the Third World of “piracy of intellectual property”, yet they themselves engage in the “piracy of intellectuals”.

In truth, there is quite a difference between pirating intellectual property and pirating intellectuals.

For example, it costs our country perhaps ten thousand dollars to train one doctor. Training a second doctor would cost another ten thousand dollars. Training ten doctors would cost a hundred thousand dollars. In short, given an ‘original’ doctor, it would cost us as much to make each ‘copy’ of the original. When the Americans pirate our doctors, they take away an irreplaceable resource, for it takes more than ten years to train a new doctor. The Philippines has approximately one doctor for every 6,700 citizens. When the U.S. pirates this doctor, it denies 6,700 Filipinos of the services of a doctor. And every year, the U.S. takes away hundreds of our doctors. How many Filipinos died because they could not get the services of a doctor on time?

What about a computer program? Whatever amount Lotus Corporation spent in developing their spreadsheet program, it costs practically nothing to make a second or third copy of the program. It would take a few seconds for them to make each copy. When we Filipinos pirate their program, we have not stolen any irreplaceable resource, nor will it take Lotus 10 years to replace the program, nor have we denied any American citizen the use of the spreadsheet program. It is still there, for Americans to use. We make a copy of their program, we don’t steal it, because we have not taken anything away. We have made our own copy, but they still have the original.

Pirating a computer program is quite different from pirating a doctor. When the U.S. pirates our doctors, it doesn’t take a copy and leave the original behind. Instead, it takes the original and leaves nothing behind.

Strongly recommended.

03 November 2008

From Open... to Open Everything

You've read the blog, now visit the conference:

On 6 November 2008, London will host an Open Everything event, a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of 'open'. The conversation will cover, well, everything. Qualifier: the 'thing' in question is built using openness, participation and self-organisation. There are people coming to talk about open technology, media, education, workplace design, philanthropy, public policy and even politics. These people want to tell you what they’re doing and find out what you're up to.

Look at it this way: for fifteen quid you get a unique opportunity to heckle me....

31 August 2008

A City of Shared Stories

Now that's what I call a mashup....

30 August 2008

The Greening - and Maturing - of Boris

Despite previously attacking the Kyoto Protocol - which regulates international carbon emissions - as "pointless" and saying that anxiety over climate change was "partly a religious phenomenon" Johnson now admits that the 2006 Stern review on the issue had convinced him of the need to act. "When the facts change, you change your mind," he said.

How many senior politicians would dare say that (hello ID cards, hello Gordon)? I predict that we will see far less of the buffoonish Boris, and much more of this grown-up, sensible Boris in the future. Future PM, anyone?

03 August 2008

Bananas About London Bananas

Whoever thinks blogging is a sad, soulless activity is clearly bananas. (Via Boing Boing.)

16 January 2008

06 December 2007

Behold! The New Anti-Open Access FUD

As I've noted before, I'm something of a connoisseur of FUD, and I really like coming across new examples. Here's one, directed at the burgeoning open access movement, which wants to make publicly-paid for scientific papers freely available (and others, too):


'The idea of public access to research information is a little bit specious,' added Robert Parker, managing director of RSC publishing. 'The UK government will be funding the London Olympics in 2012, but that doesn't mean that everybody can have free tickets - there is a big difference between funding something and having it be freely available.'

Nice sleight of hand there, Robbie. Except that the UK government is funding the Olympics in the (probably mistaken) belief that everyone will benefit from the knock-on effects on the economy, world prestige, blah-blah-blah: so there *is* an expectation of getting something in return for the public funds. And of course no one expects free seats - because there is a finite number of them - whereas the larger benefits, if they materialise, can be shared.

Open access is different because taxpayers can benefit from it directly. Most importantly, though, open access is digital in nature, and therefore can be copied and distributed for effectively zero cost - it is non-scarce and non-rivalrous. There is no way of giving away seats at the Olympics for zero cost, because they are scarce, rivalrous resources. The economics are completely different, as any managing director should understand. (Via Peter Murray-Rust.)

19 November 2007

OpenSolaris CIFS Server: Colour Me Confused

The goal of this project is to provide a native, integrated CIFS implementation to support OpenSolaris as a storage operating system. The OpenSolaris CIFS Server provides support for the CIFS/SMB LM 0.12 protocol and MSRPC services in workgroup and domain mode. Substantial work has already gone into modifying and adapting the existing OpenSolaris file system interfaces, services and commands to accommodate Windows attributes and file sharing semantics. The intent is to provide ubiquitous, cross-protocol file sharing in Windows and/or Solaris environments.

Now, I may be wrong, but this all sounds very similar to Samba. So the question is, how did Sun manage to emulate the protocols? And does the agreement between Microsoft and the EU over interoperability have any bearing on this? Yours, confused of London.