September 2010
38 posts
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You should probably ignore this post
Okay, here’s the scenario: I want to demonstrate a certain thing which relies on subject URIs being in a particular namespace and being easily-discoverable.
For example: a clear path (via the RDF) from an episode to a topic in the http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/ namespace.
Because /programmes doesn’t include /nature URIs in either its episode graphs or its /programmes/subjects graphs,...
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BT confirms it sent customer info to ACS:Law -...
This piece on TechEye.net confirms what we knew yesterday:
BT has confirmed it sent customer details in unencrypted Excel spreadsheets as email attachments to the legal firm ACS:Law.
BT said this morning it was investigating how this had happened and was still waiting for ACS: Law to let it know if any of its customer details had been compromised by the leak.
When asked if the details were...
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What was wrong with ACS:Law’s anti-piracy...
As far as I can tell, pretty much every aspect of ACS:Law’s anti-piracy operations was flawed in some horrible way, and I mean that in the very real sense of “utterly broken to the point of the sublime”.
Collecting infringing IP addresses. This was carried out — always by a third party, but one with whom ACS:Law kept very close oversight of — in a horribly naive fashion. If you’re curious, the...
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What the ACS:law leak tells us
There’s some very interesting stuff in the leaked ACS:law mailboxes. As you’d expect. It also raises more than a few… how can I put this? “concerns”. Not just about ACS:law’s practices, which were the subject of some scrutiny already, but also of certain ISPs, and the Digital Economy Act’s implementation.
First, there’s the fact that a firm of...
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PECNs continued
After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over Twitter, it dawned on me that I missed a trick in my previous write-up of PECNs.
Let’s see that definition again:
“Public Electronic Communications Network” means an Electronic Communications Network provided wholly or mainly for the purpose of making Electronic Communications Services available to members of the public
The part I missed was the...
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Public Electronic Communications Networks
The term “Public Electronic Communications Network” or “PECN” has quite a specific meaning. The principle definition is given by the General Conditions of Entitlement published by Ofcom, which came about as the regulatory regime shifted from one of licensing to one of general authorisation (that is, in order to operate a communications network you used to need to obtain a license, and nowadays you...
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The Crown Prosecution Service
From the Guardian’s coverage of the appeal today:
Caroline Wiggin, for the prosecution, said Chambers had earlier sent direct messages to the woman in Northern Ireland as it appeared possible that the airport might close. In one he wrote: “I was thinking if it does I have decided to resort to terrorism.” She argued that the context provided by such messages strengthened the case that...
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Gaza
The firing of rockets and other munitions of war into Israeli territory from Gaza constitutes serious violations of international and international humanitarian law. But action in response which constitutes collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza is not lawful in the present or any circumstances.
— UN Human Rights Council, Report of the international fact-finding mission...
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Section 127
Section 127 of the Communications Act is a piece of legislation designed to combat obscene and threatening phonecalls and the like. In that context, it’s not particularly badly-designed. As is typical of many of the laws we have in this country, it has potential to be misapplied if not approached sensibly.
In the context of the Paul Chambers “Twitter joke trial”, I got...
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Facebook vs Google
This is a follow-up to Hemmy’s post, which is itself a follow-up to Dan’s, so you should probably read those first.
It’s true that Google collects a lot more “private” information about us than Facebook, at least typically. It’s also true that both services are entirely opt-in, though I would contend that Google is a lot easier to opt out of, if you want to,...
BBC News:
US senators have rejected attempts to open a debate on a bill which proposed lifting the ban on openly gay people serving in the US military.
Just 56 senators voted in favour of debating the defence authorisation bill, four short of the 60 required.
Selfish, small-minded, pig-headed, petty, ignorant, bigoted, ungrateful fucks.
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So what is the Web, anyway?
In this series of posts about why and how the BBC uses the Web, I haven’t really talked in detail about what the Web is and — by extension — why it’s worth utilising as a medium.
The one-liner: the Web is a way of creating links between resources which have all been published in the same way.
“Resources” can be lots of things: pictures, videos, audio, Excel...
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Okay, so why is it better?
I admit, my phrasing was ambiguous, and to an extent deliberately so.
In reality, it’s nonsense to say “the Web is better than TV” as a self-contained statement. The web is better at certain things than TV, just as TV is better at certain things to the web. See also: radio.
So what actually is “better” in all of this?
In a word: diversity.
Expanding from a...
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Oh, and while I think about it
Another aspect of this which has been bugging me, as a result of some morons commenters on the Internet.
Paul Chambers’ tweet wasn’t stupid.
Stupid would be:
@RobinHoodAirport crap! why are you closed? you’ve got one week to get your shit together, and then I’m blowing you sky high!
That would have been stupid.
No.
What Paul tweeted was, on the balance of just about everything, utterly...
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Why does the BBC have a website?
Okay, let’s get the literal answer out the of way.
The BBC has a website because Brandon realised the Internet would be very important quite early on and waited for the BBC board of governers (as it was then) to catch up, with the aid of a somewhat cheeky holding page. When they found out, he convinced them that he right and the BBC’s official presence on the web was born.
Nowadays, the BBC’s...
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Brief musing
On the subject of the Paul Chambers case, I can’t help but wonder if those who show no sympathy (for whatever reason) are also generally the sort of people who contend “but if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!” when folk speak concernedly about encroachments upon civil liberties.
Just a thought.
I say this not to deride those people per se, or to lump them...
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Alex in Wonderland: Chapter Two
Within approximately three seconds of the front door closing, Alex was quiet and watching TV quite contentedly. Dad headed through to the bedroom to do some work.
After a little while, Alex came through and tugged Dad’s arm.
“Daddy, I don’t want to watch TV in the living room any more. I’m just going to play with my toys.”
Dad was quietly impressed, and went through to the living room to...
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Alex in Wonderland: Chapter One
“Alex! Time to get up!”
Nothing happens.
“ALEX! It’s time to get up!”
More insistent this time.
Mum walked into Alex’s room and stood over her bed.
“Alexandra! You need to get up or we’ll be late! Come on!”
Alex opened one eye. “I’m. An. Alex!”, she corrected loudly, before closing her eye and hiding under the covers. Mum stood silently for twenty seconds before Alex decided to look to...
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Alex in Wonderland: Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Alexandra. Except that she wasn’t a little girl, nor was she called Alexandra. Only stupid people thought that. She was, as she would indignantly point out, an Alex.
Alex was three years old. Soon she would be four, and was going to have a party — at least, she’d decided she was going to have a party. The annoying details of making sure that...
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For the benefit of all patrons, please remember
…that those people you are writing about on your blogs, news articles, tweets and comments on the aforementioned are — in general — real, and indeed may even be reading your senseless witterings.
I realise it may offend your sensibilities that somebody has the audacity to have a different skin colour, religion, or sexual orientation to you, or even has just found themselves in an unfortunate or...
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That'll learn me
I wrote a decent-length post about how I don’t like hitting the “like” button on posts which are emotional outpourings: not because I didn’t read and understand and possibly sniffle a little get something in my eye, but because “nevali likes this” really seems quite wrong applied to such posts.
But then I accidentally hit the “Back” button in my browser without the text entry field...
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Britain is Broken.
Yes, “Broken Britain” has finally annoyed me enough to write about it.
So, let me tell you what’s broken about Britain.
The assumption that anybody taking photographs of a child is a paedophile.
The assumption that anybody who’s a Muslim might be a terrorist.
The assumption that a group of youths standing around chatting must be a gang.
The assumption that anybody on incapacity...
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The Paul Chambers case
You’ll remember the “Twitter joke trial”, right? Joke tweet:
Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!
…gets spotted by jobsworth airport security manager by way of a trawl for tweets referencing the airport, and who subsequently — despite considering the threat non-credible — calls the police anyway,...
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Stuff I want to see the YouView specs for
Canvas is now YouView, complete with a new home for the draft specifications.
There are a few things missing-in-action which I’m particularly interested to see, principally because they’re areas that I’ve spent a fair amount of time researching and prototyping in.
How are applications subscribed to, discovered and launched?
How is extended (IP-delivered) metadata for...
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Go backstage
Good evening, my Internet chums.
I’ve been mulling over an idea for a little while, and I’ve finally got around to doing something about it.
The idea is, in a nutshell, a Q&A site revolving around the technical aspects of the broadcasting world (including convergence, metadata and related APIs, delivery over the Internet, etc.). Like Stack Overflow or Server Fault, but for...
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Let’s get a few things straight.
This is a bit of a rant, at nobody in particular. Okay, I lie. This the web, so the targets of my ire are linked to. Huzzah! It covers a selection of topics. It’s like a box of chocolates.
First up: “blah blah blah {will become,is becoming,has become} a social network”. You know what? No it isn’t/won’t. I’m not sure you even comprehend what a “social network” is, or that...
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Those Canvas specs...
Yesterday, the Project Canvas consortium published a set of draft specifications for parts of the proposition. The date on the documents is May 2010, and both the date and non-disclosure notice (now moot) suggests these were the documents Robert Andrews tried to get out of the BBC back in June.
The set of documents is by no means complete. There is lots of stuff missing, and that’s stuff...
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As easy as 1.. 2..
This evening I have written up a brief proposal on the Project Baird wiki which I suspect might prove to be a little controversial, and will probably come back to haunt me.
I say “proposal”. It’s more of an idea I’ve been mulling over for the past few days.
It boils down to this: given the leap from “A” on one side to “C” on the other, I’ve opted for “B” as the logical middle-ground. I...
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The One Show
This week’s Private Eye has a rather cutting (as one expects from Eye TV) critique of The One Show:
After two weeks, all the indications are that the only story The One Show will be providing for tabloid news desks is how long it will be before these ramshackle new arrangements fall apart. Shorn of the distraction of the Chiles-Bleakley dynamics, the programme looks like the tacky mess it...
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Apple iTunes Ping hijacked by 'free iPhone'... →
iTunes Ping has only been running for a couple of days and already the Spamming Community of Doom seem to be all over it. The main issue with Ping spam is that unlike Facebook, customers have their credit card information attached to their accounts. Bad news for anyone clicking through any big ‘offer’ links.
Um, what? How do the pages pointed to by those offer links gain access to any of that...
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Wibbly-wobbly socially-networky stuff
Paul Rissen wrote a short post on Twitter and Facebook’s respective successes today, on the back of a conversation on Twitter which began with a somewhat provocative tweet.
I think Paul is wrong on this. Actually, I lie. I think he’s not entirely right.
The aspects of their existence of which Paul speaks are certainly factors in their successes, but they’re not the reasons why they...
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Reverse Gear
A brief timeline:
First there were the rumours that a certain Formula 3 driver was The Stig. Somebody noticed that his company had earned quite a bit of money by rendering driving services to Top Gear. Put two and two together and get a number which may or may not be four.
Then the press picked up on this, and reported it. The cat was, as they say, out of the bag.
Then things started to get...
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“Hi, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Since I know that you love to BROADCAST YOURSELF and...”
– “Subject: [REDACTED] has invited you to join iTunes Ping”
I don’t think that’s the stock Apple-supplied text, if I’m brutally honest.
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“Can Ping become the network that is able to diffuse Social TV and going...”
– From a LinkedIn Group.
Well, yes, it could, when it’s further developed. If it was developed in that way. It could become self-aware and unleash a horde of killer robots upon the Earth when further developed.
Honestly, some of this stuff is like looking up at the Moon for the first time...
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Karsten Manufacturing Corporation
Trademark details for “PING”, bearing a “First use” date of 2008:
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer software, namely, file sharing software; communications software for electronically exchanging data, and graphics accessible via a computer network; computer software and hardware for processing images, graphics, audio, video, and text;...
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While I think about it...
Why the chuff did Apple license the “Ping” trademark from the clothing manufacturer? The use of the term “Ping” in computer networking (and, as a follow-on, social networking) is as old as the hills. So much so that MBA-laden salesdroids use it with such disturbing incongruent regularity that many of us have an instinctive nervous twitch encountering the word whenever...
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The Apple Event
Nothing earth-shattering here. A few good, a few bad, and definitely some uglies.
iPod touch
Camera is finally here, but is rubbish. Other aspects are nice, but predictable. Shame it persists with this curvy-backed nonsense, though.
iPod shuffle
Screams of “Okay, we screwed up”. Fair play.
iPod nano
Dinky. If anything’s going to kill the Shuffle, this will be it.
iTunes
That...
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From BBC News:
The High Court in London refused to grant the BBC an injunction blocking the publication by HarperCollins of an autobiography that unmasks the character on the BBC Two show.
:
The BBC argued that the planned book - an autobiography of former Formula Three driver Ben Collins - would breach confidentiality obligations.
