Cognitive Dissidents

Scientologists try to block Cruise YouTube rant

Scientologists are attempting to block the spread of a video clip in which Tom Cruise zealously espouses his faith in the church.

"If you're on board, you're on board, just like the rest of us," he tells those of wavering faith. We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we can rehabilitate criminals and unite cultures," he says.

Mr Cruise's emotional testimonial is accompanied by a guitar riff playing the theme from Mission: Impossible. Cruise, a Scientologist for 20 years, has recently emerged as one of the controversial church's most outspoken proselytisers. Some suggest that the actor, 45, has been elevated to one of the highest echelons of the secretive church, cryptically known as OT-VII.

Tags: scientology, tom cruise, mission impossible, lalo schifrin, copyright, copyright violation, cults, heretics, bare faced messiah, oto, black magick, crowley, hubbard

Posted by Dr. K at 12:03 PM | Permalink

The Secret Cause of Flame Wars

According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I've only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time.

"That's how flame wars get started," says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. "People in our study were convinced they've accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance," says Epley.

The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers.

Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time.

"People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they 'hear' the tone they intend in their head as they write," Epley explains.

At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times.

Email and IM are not responsible alone - if you don't know a person well enough to "get" their sense of humour - even interactions in "meatspace" can go astray very quickly ..

Tags: new flesh, cyber wotsits, communication, body language, email

Posted by Dr. K at 12:29 PM | Permalink

The only difference to me is that it seemed like all my "online friends" who were real "meatspace friends" were on FaceBook - but nobody used MySpace at all ... go figger ....

Tags: facebook. myspace, social networking, web 2.0, new-clothes

Posted by Dr. K at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well I do actually - and I keep submitting news I find interesting - and have I done for the last year or so

Somehow nothing makes the front page - I think its because I don't indulge in "groupthink" - I also keep making smartass comments (which I think are great but always get dugg down) - and also because I don't have any "friends" who digg up my contributions.

I have talked about the wisdom of the herd before - but digg makes it plain that the "wisdom of the herd" is nothing more than a bunch of sheeple following the bleater ...

.. .or maybe I am just a cynical old git who is out of touch with the latest fads ...

Tags: digg, free speech, wisdom of the herd, popular illusions, south sea bubble, stock market crash, web 1.0, dotbomb2.0

Posted by Dr. K at 11:30 AM | Permalink

I've been using digg for a while now - and played with the tools for watching digg in realtime - as well as for searching.

I was thinking today - after a few hours using bigspy - that although I'd tried all the tools I probably preferred bigspy to all the others.

The reason for that is easy - I can see bigspy items from across the room and at a glance - and simple click takes me to the story.

But then I wondered - which of the digg tools are most popular?

Hence the poll - I've been meaning to test internet polling software and incorporate polls here for some time - so now is my chance.

Tags: digg, online-poll, swarm, stack, arc, bigspy, rss, news, blogscape

Posted by Dr. K at 4:35 PM | Permalink

My major problem with playing music in MP3 format is the "disconnection from the physical to the ephemeral".

If I play vinyl - god forbid I actually dare to use something obsolete - then I have piece of vinyl in my hands.

It has a cover, a sleeve and a tracklisting that I can follow .. and if I like it - i have made notes on the label to tell me what I think.

When I DJ I remember what tunes I want to play more by the physical attributes of the record/cd that I am playing.

MP3 strips this all away - I no longer have any physical reference for the music I like - in effect I have to use other cues to remember the music I like

I can't say "like maaaan - this album is soooo cooool cos it has a great cover" - and then remember it because I can find it in a stack of vinyl.

I just have the music - and the titles and artists and that is it ..

It forces me to pay more attention to the music - because I can't rely on other cues to determine what I want to play ..

Is this a bad thing or a good thing? I don't know yet - but I will persist ..

After all - there is more at stake here than the idea that music has to be "DJ Friendly" and easily marketed ...

Tags: music, mp3, creative copyright, attention, cchits

Posted by Dr. K at 10:31 AM | Permalink

Great update on the old "SneakerNet" idea from Wired

How do you get 120 terabytes of data -- the equivalent of 123,000 iPod shuffles (roughly 30 million songs) -- from A to B? For the most part, the old-fashioned way: via a sneakernet. It's not glamorous, but Google engineers hope to at least end the arduous process of transferring massive quantities of data -- which can literally take weeks to upload onto the internet -- with something affectionately called "FedExNet" by the scientists who use it.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of quarter-inch tapes

... nor a 747 full of CDROMS ...

UPDATE: I found the Wiki on SneakerNet and had nostalgic fits at this - this is how I populated my Amiga with early FOSS software and the like ...

When home broadband access was less common, many people downloaded large files over their workplace networks and took them home by sneakernet.

Tags: sneakernet, fedexnet, google, wired, bandwidth

Posted by Dr. K at 11:50 AM | Permalink

Everyone talks about Digg being gamed - but look at this spammed up Tailrank entry ..

UPDATE: I've been informed that tailrank have improved their spam detection abilities and that this entry slipped in while testing. Nice work - tailrank is good already and anything that can stop it becoming the "new digg" has to be welcomed ...

Tags: gaming the herd, digg, tailrank, splogs

Posted by Dr. K at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There is a great article in Wired - Herding the Mob.

I've already talked about my problems with the Wisdom of the Herd before - and my recent explorations of propaganda and disinformation do nothing to convince me that following the "bleater" like a flock of sheep is going to produce a "better society" ..

I'm going to list the Wired categories and nothing more - if you are interested you know where to find it ...

Four ways to manipulate the mob

The Buddy System (e.g. digg)

Users organise into groups to vote up one and other's stories.

Geek Baiting (e.g. Digg, Reddit & del.icio.us)

Companies publish geek friendly articles that have nothing to do with their business. The Goal: to drive traffic to an ad-filled Web site

Network for Hire (e.g. digg)

Clients hire scamming firms to promote their articles. These outfits recruit networks of uses willing to sell their votes

Pump-and-chump (e.g. eBay)

Retailers earn a good reputation selling insexpensive products, then defraud customers on more upscale items.

But I have to add:

Search Engine Bombing (e.g Google Bombing)

Many people create pages that link keywords with other keywords i..e "George Bush" and "failure".

SEO Optimisation (e.g. White Hat SEO)

Uses a "black box" techniqiue to explore Search Engine algorithms and optimise pages for high rankings within the scope of the terms of service.

"Blackhat" SEO Optimisation (e.g. Black Hat SEO)

Uses a "black box" techniqiue to explore Search Engine algorithms and optimise pages for high rankings - but soutside scope of the terms of service.

"Spam Blogs" (e.g. Splogs)

Uses the "blog technique" to build links and "Spam the Herd" - uses all of the above techniques to good effect on digg, reddit and del.icio.us ..

Anyway "gaming the herd" has been staple of human societies ever since they first invented politicians and priests

Tags: wisdom of the herd, crowdhacking, wired, digg, reddit, delicious, spam, spamblogs, seo, blackhat seo, propaganda, spamming the herd

Posted by Dr. K at 9:19 AM | Permalink

Confirming my attitude that "The Future is a Nice Place to Visit - but I Wouldn't Want to Live There" - i.e. that inbuilt cynicism that many of us older sci-fi computing geeks have about the wonderful potential applications for modern technology in the 21st Century - now we have the smallest RFID chips in the world ...

.. for now .. until they make them "nano-sized" and dust everything .. and then make "nano-sized anti-nano chips" which then go to war against each other ... (oops - sorry - wrong dystopia)

The new RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number, like their predecessor. Hitachi used semiconductor miniaturization technology and electron beams to write data on the chip substrates to achieve the new, smaller size.

Hitachi's mu-chips are already in production; they were used to prevent ticket forgery at last year's Aichi international technology exposition. RFID 'powder,' on the other hand, is so much smaller that it can easily be incorporated into thin paper, like that used in paper currency and gift certificates.

...

These devices could also be used to identify and track people. For example, suppose you participated in some sort of protest or other organized activity. If police agencies sprinkled these tags around, every individual could be tracked and later identified at leisure, with powerful enough tag scanners.

To put it in the context of popular culture, see the picture below, which was taken from the 1996 movie Mission Impossible. One of the IMF operatives places a tracking tag on the shoulder of a computer programmer. Pretty clunky-looking tag...

I know why they don't design a "nano-factory" that is an assembler that uses the basic building blocks of DNA to transmit a unique code ... and then lets inject everyone at birth with these "nano-identiy chips" such that everyone is trackable all the time ... lets start each code with "666" shall we ...

ooops - sorry wrong dystopia - again

I really must try and be more optimistic about the useful uses of technology in the 21st century - carping on about human rights, privacy and surveillance just doesn't hack it anymore - because nobody cares.

Tags: rfid dust, big brother, rfid, nano-chips, nano-warfare, dystopia, surveillance, tracking

Posted by Dr. K at 6:34 PM | Permalink

Right now I am wondering if my weblog provider has been blocked by some kind of censorware - or whether my ISP has some kind of DNS problem.

For several days I've had problems accessing the admin portion of this blog - but recently the blog itself was unavailable - along with SpyBlog, which is hosted in the same place - and anyway you would think that blocking the whole of the Yahoo! premium hosting service was a little severe

Right now my only access is from a proxy server in the UK - at least it appears I can post and do admin stuff - but it is a real pain in the backside.

If anyone is reading this via telefonica in Spain let me know ... of course if you are using telefonica and can't read it - you won't be able to let me know ....

If it continues I might go and stop over at wordpress for a few days and document whats going on over there - rather than using this somewhat ad-laden proxy server.

Tags: censorship, censorware, blocking, proxy servers, telefonica

Posted by Dr. K at 11:48 PM | Permalink

I should start a category for daft clothing labels - this made me laugh lots - Not Even Remotely Right

Even my wife and mother laughed - but then this is a house where irons are banned ...

Tags: clothing, labels, humour, sexism, feminism

Posted by Dr. K at 12:52 PM | Permalink

The ongoing row over at TechCrunch about Pay-per-Post is totally viral in nature - it infects anything that comes into contact with it and anyone who comments on it.

It goes like this: I just posted a blog entry about the whole TechCrunch vs PPP thing which is going on - but Pay-per-Post itself is prepared to pay $10 to anyone who is prepared to post about the whole TechCrunch vs PPP thing.

So now I am in a position where (a) I could have earned $10 by blogging about all this stuff, (b) didn't earn $10 by blogging about all this stuff, but (c) need to reassure my audience (trust me - I know you better than you think - but we'll leave that for another time ...) that I am not just a paid shill for either TechCrunch or Pay-per-Post.

Enter the next phase of the viral cycle - the Disclosure Policy - which, in the words of the website involved is important:

Because advertisers are offering bloggers payment or gifts to create content about specific products or services, the blogger's interest in the product or service may be in part the financial gain. Whether the blogger would have included content in his/her blog about the product or service without gift or payment, the fact is the blogger is receiving payment for certain content.

Now the great thing about all this is that Pay-per-Post are also offering $10 for blogging about DisclosurePolicy.org as well - a great double whammy that ensures that anyone who talks about Pay-per-Post is also going to talk about disclosure policies.

There is no choice - the minute I chose to speak about the Pay-per-Post vs TechCrunch viral marketing scam I was open to the charge that I have been paid to post on that topic, so to clear the air I have no choice but to talk about disclosure policies otherwise I leave myself open to the charge that I have been paid to post

But hey - now I've posted twice in one day on a topic that would have earnt me $10 each time - surely I must be a shill for either TechCrunch or Pay-per-Post or DisclosurePolicy.org ...

I think you get the picture - so lets go and search for a nice "Disclosure Policy" ...

Now I find the policy at disclosure policy.org a little strangely worded - along with TechCrunch itself - none of the three options suit me and I don't like the wording of the first one - so it needs editing until it reads like this ...

This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions.

Perfect - I'll stick with that ....

Tags: techcrunch, pay-per-post, blogging, advertising, disclosure

Posted by Dr. K at 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've already opined that I will review expensive gadgets and sportscars on this blog, but the row now erupting on TechCrunch about the evil menace of Pay-to-Post is the best online row we've had since the last online row ...

To update anyone who doesn't know what is going on: Pay-per-Post offer a service where any blogger can accept money to write about a topic - its called "creating buzz" and "link building" and things like that.

If you slide over to their site and check it out you find you can earn as much as $10 by "creating buzz" or "writing postive articles about" certain web sites and products.

Meanwhile over at TechCrunch the talk is of "pollution of the blogosphere" and other high minded talk that totally ignores the fact that the "blogosphere" is already a cess-pit of spam, cliques and other "link building" and "buzz boosting" activties straight out of Web1.0 ...

The fight is getting quite interesting - especially as you can currently earn $10 from Pay-to-Post by talking about the article involved ...

Yet, apart from that, once anyone places adsense or other advertising on a blog - a clearly marked "sponsored article" should end the matter. Its just more sponsored content - like adsense or amazon or a host of imitators.

Especially if bloggers stick to writing about things they would normally write about.

So if I started praising the virtues of a particular mobile phone you might get a little suspicious - given that regular readers will know that I hate mobile phones with a vengeance

Whereas if I wrote about a new RSS based service that had some novel ideas that would be a little more in keeping if I was writing in News-Machine - but I might get away with it here.

If I write about things in context - then how do you know when I am getting paid or not?

The sticking point here is "disclosure".

Does the blogger concerned announce that this is a sponsored post - or do they write it as they would anyhow and don't tell anyone they are doing it for money?

Would anyone believe them if they said they weren't writing it for money - but could possibly have been paid $10 for writing it?

Does it matter anyhow - given that we all naturally filter out advertisments until we are actually looking for something?

How important is it - given that weblogs are just another type of website and that everyone is urgently being to "monetize" their blogs in some of the largest blog aggregators?

In the end the reader will choose what they prefer - blogs which are sponsored by "tip jars" and Amazon "wish lists" vs blogs that accept advertising and sponsorship vs blogs which publish sponsored articles.

My guess is that they will probably choose a mix of all three, as I think most people accept writing a blog is a time-consuming occupation, and everyone knows about ADSL bills on a monthly basis.

So, will "Pay-for-Post" eat the "Blogosphere"?

It depends on what you mean by the "blogosphere".

If you are referring to 90% of the self-referential blogs that exist for a short time until their owners realise they have nothing to say - then giving these writers something to write about (other than their dietary and sleeping habits and their latest lost and found loves) will actually improve the "blogosphere" no end.

Tags: techcrunch, pay-per-post, sponsorship, bloggers, advertising, adsense, blogosphere, disclosure

Posted by Dr. K at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This must be the the funniest piece of link bait I have read in a while - almost everything in it is designed to offend FOSS and LINUX advocates and get them seething and whining.

These are just a few of the insane highlights - I recommend anyone to go and read Linux: A European threat to our computers

Like most things that are worth owning, Computers are an American invention. Look at any modern computer and you will see that the whole thing is the product of American brilliance.

Best not to mention those English pionerers, Babbage and Turing, nor the early experiments with computers at Manchester and Cambridge universities. It also managed to neatly ignore the fact that most of the silicon chips that power these computers are made in China, Taiwan and other places.

Nice opening sentence that gives a flavour of things to come - should have blood pressure levels rising among Linux advocates already.

I’m talking about a project called ‘Linux’, something you may not have encountered, but might do some day.

It’s a computer program that was initially developed in Finland as a means of circumventing valuable copyrights and patents owned by an American company called SCO Group.

What a great troll - pure flamebait. Claiming the only reason Linux was invented was to circumvent copyright should have the Linux advocates apopleptic with rage - but there is more.

This would be certainly true were in not for the Linux project’s seductive Marxist ideology and the effect that it has on ‘Blue-State’ liberals. Indeed, Linux is so pervasive amongst the blue states and many liberal universities that a leading computer expert Steve Balmer (from Microsoft) described Linux as cancer.

Not content with enraging Linux advocates with selective FUD - the next step is to brand Linux "Marxist" software used by "liberal universities".

If Linux advocates were apopleptic before - they should be frothing at the mouth by now.

And guess what software Osama Bin Laden uses on his laptop?

If you guessed it was Linux you would be 100% right. Osama uses Linux because he knows designed to counterfit DVDs, curcumventing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and defraud companies like Disney.

Next time somebody asks you how Al Queda agents pay for their rifles and rocket launchers, you can tell them that foreign hackers make software called Linux which helps them steal from Americans.

Having applied the "Marxist" smear to Linux - its now time to play the "War on Terror" card.

Yes folks - 9/11 was all your fault because Osama Bin Laden uses Linux to watch Disney movies and you use Linux too.

By now the Linux crowd should be rioting in the streets, burning images of the author, and issuing fatwas demanding that the author recant or die ...

If you see a company using Linux, it may be that they have not paid for this software. Report them to the Business Software Alliance who have the legal authority to inspect any company’s computers for illegal programs like Linux.

This is a masterpiece of FUD - trying to suggest you report people using free software to the BSA because they have not paid for it. Brilliant!!

Finally, remember to include Linux users in your prayers tonight. As individuals we may not be able to change people’s minds, but the Bible teaches that God can make any sinner repent.

You'd think the author had laid it on so thick that even the slowest wits amongst us would have caught on and set their irony filters to maximum - but this is hilarious.

Apparently Linux user are sinners - therefore they must be in league with the devil and we should pray really, really hard to save their souls from hell

This is so funny - but wait until you read the comments - I just hope the poor guys server (Linux, Wordpress, MySql & PHP) can take the load from dishing out the ever growing file.

Great bit of link bait, gets my digg and gets an extra link on my blog - what more can a piece of link bait ask for?

Tags: linux, windows, foss, oss, link bait, irony

Posted by Dr. K at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

What is today's top story online? Click here to decide.

Michael Arrington, a popular blogger on new Internet businesses ( www.techcrunch.com), caused a stir last month when he said Digg ( www.digg.com) looked as though it was close to equaling The New York Times in one measure of online readership. "Digg is looking more and more like the newspaper of the Web," Mr. Arrington concluded in a post on his popular blog. According to Alexa.com, which tracks Web traffic, the news-aggregating site begun in late 2004 also has more online traffic than The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, or USA Today.

Tags: digg, wisdom of the crowd, wisdom of the herd, long tail, news aggregation, social networking

Posted by Dr. K at 10:30 AM | Permalink

I recently compiled a list of my Top 10 Time Wasters on the Internet - I guess I had nothing better to do.

Google Earth - If you want to have a life and not spend the entire time zooming around the planet volcano spotting or hunting for the perfect unspoilt beach - then you should NOT download this.

Google - Everything you never wanted to know about everything you don't need to know about. Warning: Your addiction will get worse if you read this book.

Email - I don't need penis enlargement, I don't drive, I already have business cards and I don't need a free phone. One of the greatest killer apps on the planet has turned into one of the killer pains in the ... well you get the picture.

TailRank and/or Rojo. News for news junkies and where I get part of my daily fix.

Google News - Real world news from the over 4500 sources, searchable by keyword and allowing for RSS feeds. This service has wasted a lot of my time lately.

digg - Technology news which is the only viable alternative to slashdot

del.icio.us - The Number One social bookmarking website is a Number One timesink too. Why are other people's bookmarks so fascinating?

Technorati - If you don't read blogs already - don't go here. Because they have MILLIONS of the darned things.

Squidoo - Be an expert - make a lens. Its so addictive that 10 lenses later you realise you had work to do. At least I earned $0.11 for my efforts.

flickr - The top social photo sharing site is so good that I can never resist it. Just one more keyword. Go on - you know you want to.

Tags: internet, computing, time-wasting, timesinks, top10

Posted by Dr. K at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This column from PC Magazine entitled The Great Microsoft Blunder - manages to sum up every problem I've ever had with IE - and then project them into a nightmare I would never want to face when I was working in IT.

From the beginning Microsoft were playing "catch up" with NetScape - and it took a long time before MS would get a grip on the phenonema called "The Internet" - and then try and woo networking people.

You see - I remember the kludges I used to have to do to make Novell, MS and various UNIX boxes communicate with each other ....

Back in the early days Microsoft didn't get it - configuring a Dos or Win3.1 PC to talk to everything else was a nightmare - and possibly expensive, depending on the systems you were trying to integrate (i.e. PC-NFS) - and the introduction of WfW did not help matters either.

As Microsoft explored the possibilties of "networking" - normally stable protocols broke everywhere as MS tried to impose their (non) open standards on the rest of the world - and Microfrost lost a lot of friends in businesses that relied on UNIX servers to manage their infrastructure.

Right now - I don't even want to TEST the new IE beta.

Why should I?

What's in it for me? Free phone support? From Spain? I think not ...

If I test the new beta for free I expose myself to all sorts if unknown security risks - and unless I get paid for doing so why should I bother?

Every other week, or near as makes no difference, we learn just how easy it is for black hat spyware and malware merchants to subvert our computers using security holes in IE.

Why should I act as a beta tester for a piece of software that is a PROVEN security risk?

Now I use FireFox instead - and I'm not going to evangelise - FireFox except to say Try It!

To borrow a phrase from one of the "anti-social" web2.0 sites - "IE is dead to me".

Tags: firefox, ie, security, web-browsing, internet, security

Posted by Dr. K at 12:43 PM | Permalink

I've recently read the article about by Clay Shirky about how Ontology is Overrated.

That's how long I was offline and how long it has taken me to catch up - luckily while I was catching up I made a lot of notes on my internal blog - the one I use to write reminders and tech notes to myself - and now some of these are going to get refined and see the light of day.

My major problem with the Clay's argument is that it conflates artificial categorisation taxonomies - in this example the Library of Congress categorisation scheme - with naturally evolved taxonomies.

Human taxononmy is not machine taxonomy.

Human taxonomy is not a formal taxonomy - human taxonomy changes with new entries, new ideas and new concepts.

Human taxonomy is a folksonomy.

I have to say - from the point of view of a human being - "Ontology is Everything".

Consider the following oppostional "semantic features" - or "tags" as they are called when used in the "semantic web".

RAW vs COOKED
DEAD vs ALIVE
HOT vs COLD
FOOD vs POISON

This naturally occuring ontology is not just an "imaginary" structure created to organise objects - it is a vital method of "carving the world at its joints" that is necessary for human survival.

We all use this ontology daily in order to determine what is "safe to eat" - a category that is both culturally determined and culturally flexible.

I would have never have known that "RAW FISH" was safe to eat - and very nice too - if the Japanese hadn't overlaid their own ontology onto mine.

Because they placed the "RAW FISH" sub-category into the "FOOD" category - I modified my category - and now eat Sushi when I can.

Before that I would have placed "RAW FISH" in the "POISON" category - my mother still does.

Back when our ancestors created ontologies it was nothing more than a primitive survival mechanism.

Ontology is necessary - human beings use ontologies all the time to navigate the world safely - so for our survival "ontology is everything".

But I think Clay Shirky was building a "straw man" argument to make his point.

There are many problems with human created ontologies - "Taxonomies" - but I think that most of these are caused by using out-of-date taxonomies.

We need dynamically created taxonomies - one example would be the taxonomic tree used by biologists.

Every so often a new animal, fish or insect is discovered that doesn't fit with the existing taxonomy.

Biologists don't go - "oh no - it doesn't fit - we must junk our existing classification scheme".

Instead they debate long and hard about what generally agreed changes can be made to the existing taxonomy to make it reflect the new discovery - while trying to preserve as much of the existing taxonomic structure as possible.

So when Clay Shirky says that "Ontology is Overrated" - I think what he really means is that "static ontologies such as fixed taxonomies based on tree-like hierarchies are overrated" - a slight difference.

Any categorisation system that is flexible and dynamic will reflect the flexible and dynamic nature of human categorisation - and that will be more usable to human beings than a static ontology - solely because it reflects the dynamic nature of human social categorisation systems.

I believe that the making of the "semantic web" means making the machine web easier to use by humans - by tapping into the shared collective knowledge of human beings - not by using fixed machine ontologies or systematic SEO keyword search.

Why not?

Let's forget formal ontologies - lets "tag" - and when we are not tagging we shoud argue about the value of tagging, of folksonomies and ontology.

That's how new ontologies are created.

Tags: tags tagging folksonomy tagsonomy ontology semantics human semantics machine semantics tag clusters tag clouds tagcloud tagclouds categorisation syndicspace

Posted by Dr. K at 5:13 PM | Permalink

It looks like the New York Times has finally figured out a problem that I wrote about on January 1st

In a an article entitled This Boring Headline Is Written for Google - the NYT dissects the problems of written media in a search engine dominated world.

... software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded. There are no algorithms for wit, irony, humor or stylish writing. The software is a logical, sequential, left-brain reader, while humans are often right brain.

... you know you're also writing for search engines, and you tend to write headlines that are more straightforward," said Lou Ferrara, online editor of The Associated Press. "My worry is that some creativity is lost."

Quite.

If we all write for the machines - for the SEO robots that dominate media in the Age of the Web - then who is going to write for human beings?

Tags: writing freelance SEO keyword density search engine optimization optimisation keyword content google

Posted by Dr. K at 4:11 PM | Permalink

After the discussion on the End of CyberSpace - in which I opined that CyberSpace was the easiest and best word to use - I began to think about how much I hate the phrase "Blogosphere"

I mean - I really hate it - it doesn't sum up the strange interconnected weirdness that makes up "BlogSpace" at all.

The concept of a "sphere" limits things - a sphere has a centre and a boundary- but the centre of "BlogSpace" is a continually moving object and the boundaries of BlogSpace are always expanding.

I don't think BlogSpace is a sphere at all. Just another unique Internet space that we can enjoy - while it lasts.

I've spent a lot of time in other virtual spaces - GopherSpace, MUDSpace, USENETSpace, WAISSpace, IRCSpace and FTPSpace.

A lot of these are obsolete - but some remain - others have changed.

Once they were new and now they are superseded by something else.

I now spend a lot of time in WikiSpace, ForumSpace, IMSpace, GoogleSpace, TorrentSpace, BlogSpace and also RSS Space - which I have now come to call "SyndicSpace".

They are all regions of that thing called "CyberSpace".

For this reason I would argue that - just as the "Cyber" prefix helps to denote that the non-physical-space is "CyberSpace" and not "MeatSpace" ("Reality"), then I also argue that the "Space" suffix is enough to denote the region of "CyberSpace".

So when talking about "CyberSpace" lets talk of CyberSpace and all the different "Spaces" within in it - otherwise we might be using words that place imaginary bounded spatial metaphors on a potentially infinite space.

I look forward to "The End of the Blogosphere".

The "Blogosphere" is dead - long live BlogSpace

Tags: blogspace blogosphere wikispace cyberspace language culture computing end of cyberspace end of blogosphere syndicspace

Posted by Dr. K at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been reading the discussions on the End of CyberSpace for over a week now.

Personally I kind of agree with David Sifry's view that we "don't need a new word".

Once it was called "ArpaNet", then it was called the "Internet", and it then it was called "the Web" and now these days some people talk about "Web2.0" or the "semantic web".

But "CyberSpace" has been adopted from Science Fiction -from WIlliam Gibson who invented the term - and somehow it has stuck around.

Perhaps it's because the word "Cyber Space" is convenient in so many ways.

Continue reading "The End of Cyberspace" »

Posted by Dr. K at 1:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

It is my belief - after the SONY DRM disaster - that the long term business plan of "BigMedia" companies is not just an attempt at "content lockdown" - the prevention of unauthorised copying of copyrighted media.

It is also my belief, in disagreement with other pundits, that this is not an attempt at "platform lockdown" - where you have to buy multiple copies of your media to play on alternative devices.

I now believe that the long term aim of the BigMedia companies is nothing more than "Content Lock-In".

Continue reading "Platform Control vs Content Control" »

Posted by Dr. K at 6:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

There was a manager, a designer, an engineer and a hacker standing around a nonfunctional prototype machine one day.

The manager looked at it and said: "Oh woe is me! I am undone! The design must be wrong!"

Then the designer stepped in and said: "Woe is me! The design is correct! The assembly is in error!"

The engineer commented "Woe is me! It should work but it doesn't! It must be an IT problem!"

Then the hacker bent over and switched the prototype machine on.

Tags: joke

Posted by Dr. K at 1:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This entry from "Boing Boing" about how to turn a disposable camera into an RFID killer reminded me of when I worked for London Transport.

I was part of the team that tested "contactless smartcards" using EPoS machines and special smartcard readers in the Harrow area.

One day the engineer on the project and I decided to test what it would take to corrupt the data on the cards - after all we had cards, the readers, the EPOS machines and the backend computers to play with - the world was our oyster.

We did a lot of testing in those days - so it seemed sensible at the time.

After trying various magnetic devices and other abusive techniques we hit upon the idea of using a
microwave oven.

Surely, we reasoned, prolonged repeated pulses from a magnetron would be enough to corrupt the RAM on the card??

We started in small bursts at defrost - and nothing seemed to happen - no corruption - nothing. The card seemed to get a little warm though - you'd think that we would have been warned by that- but no.

So we upped the power and time and the inevitable happened. The induction effect in the contactless smart card overheated the card and it exploded with a flash and an immense bang.

Luckily the microwave oven was unharmed - it was the canteen oven for the night shift - but I can safely say that the card was well and truly "corrupted" after our experiment.

Tags: rfid microwave oven oyster street tech

Posted by Dr. K at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Next up in an infinite array of daft and amusing Internet questionaires: What Color Should My Toenails Be??

Your Toes Should Be Black

A total rulebreaker (and heartbreaker), you're always a little punk rock. Your flirting style: Wacky and a bit shocking Your ideal guy: An accomplished artist, musician, or writer Stay away from: Preppy guys looking for a quick bad girl fling

Whoa!! Scary!! The only time I have ever painted my toenails - guess what colour??

Posted by Dr. K at 2:00 PM | Permalink

A much blogged item over this New Year period has been the Wired article about ”click fraud" and its implications on pay-per-click advertising.

Called "How click fraud will swallow the Internet" - I read it, thought it was interesting and then forgot it.

After all I'm a writer - not a web marketing wonk, SEO specialist, click fraud hacker or black-hat malware programmer.

But later on today I stumbled upon some sites that specialise in offering freelance work.

It’s not surprising really - I'm a freelance writer and could always do with some kind of work - except as a black-hat malware programmer - that's a job I leave to SONY.

What I saw on this website disturbed me.

It could mean the end of creative writing as we know it.

Continue reading "How SEO will swallow creative writing" »

Posted by Dr. K at 10:30 PM | Permalink

It didn’t properly register that there was a comments section on the blog and it didn’t occur to me that anyone would actually want to comment. When it did finally register I had a look.

One in particular stood out:

This site is so typical and boring.
Have a good life.

First of all I’d like to thank the reader for commenting.

You’ve doubled my readership at a stroke - because now I know that someone else apart from me is reading this blog.

Secondly, I’d like to address the comment.

Continue reading "Typical & Boring" »

Posted by Dr. K at 1:57 PM | Permalink

What is this? Can you read it? It's designed to stop automated robots registering on the site but this human being can't make head nor tail of it ....

Who knows ... I even stood on my head and looked at it upside down to see if the programmers had got it wrong.

Posted by Dr. K at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This, from Flickr made me LOL.

It reminded me of the time I wrote my first book and tried to "quote" something.

Everytime I did the lawyers said "oh no .. you have to get each excerpt licensed from the author or publishers"

What about "the 5%" rule I asked (all I wanted to do was start each chapter with a quote from a book I liked) - "oh no .. you have to get each excerpt licensed from the author or publishers" the lawyers said.

Right now I have an ongoing copyright violation complaint where someone on the net has re-formatted pieces of my work witthout permission or license and then used it as part of an "on-line training course".

I asked the lawyers whether there was a copyright violation and they said "oh no - it doesn't look like they have broken the 5% rule"

It's still ongoing .. there will be much more on this later .. the lawyers have only just started exchanging letters ...

Continue reading "Remixing & Copyright" »

Posted by Dr. K at 3:07 PM | Permalink

I couldn't resist, so I filled in a simple questionaire ...

My pirate name is:

Black Morty Bonney

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

My WaReZ name is:

bYtE KiLL@ BoB

You download Open Source software just to throw it in the waste bin and you make ashtrays out of LINUX distros. Nothing pleases you more than owning 100Gb of software you never use - so you can trade it for another 100Gb of software you will never use.

Tip of the hat to: fidius.org - Thanks

Posted by Dr. K at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Meanwhile from The Independent today the strange tale of "The Wrong Trousers" has finally surfaced in mainstream media.

Poor Brian Sack only wanted to sell his leather trousers on eBay.

But his sense of humour made this a auction into a viral e-meme that overpaid advertising wonks would die for.

Last time I looked his eBay Counter had run up to nearly 900,000 hits, not to mention all the emails he has been swamped with.

With nearly 2 months to go before eBay delete the entry - who knows how high the hit counter will go before it disappears.

In the end he only got $102.50 for them, a BARGAIN.

If only I'd known - I'd have bid for them myself - I love leather trousers!!

Posted by Dr. K at 12:20 PM | Permalink

From "The Guardian" today, this story.

"Computer Gamers Jailed Over Virus".

For some time now the government have wanted to catch some of the "evil hackers" and punish them severely - as a warning to the others - and now they have.

Continue reading "Computer Gamers Jailed Over Virus" »

Posted by Dr. K at 10:28 PM | Permalink