February 2005 Archives

There are 24 Academy Awards handed out on Oscar night. Save yourself all the sheer horror of watching the event on TV and just find out the winners in my extended entry.

And yes, I'm updating this LIVE.
All awards now posted. Enjoy!

Friday's inaugural meeting of the Brisbane Bloggers was interesting and useful. We are rather an eclectic bunch of armchair philosophers, and as such it was most entertaining to spend some time chatting with new people about everything from politics to technology and drinking games. I'm just sorry I couldn't stay long, as I was obliged to attend a graduand function after about an hour. Nevertheless, the first meeting was fun, and I'm sure that in future meetings the Brisbane blogging community can work together to achieve some useful public debate.

Speaking of debate and public engagement, I haven't exactly been bombarded with suggestions on my previous RFI post on community engagement. Thanks to Rob for your suggestion - most appreciated! But to everyone else, if you read this blog, I'd be grateful if you took the time to just make a suggestion or two.

Finally, I am absolutely floored by the extraordinary hypocrisy of the elected president of the American Library Association, Michael Gorman, who is now describing bloggers as effectually ignorant:

Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.
MORE HERE

His main complaint is that bloggers base their criticism of his writing on excerpts of his work. This, in spite of the fact that Gorman himself says he has learned about the blogosphere as a result of reading only fragments of works. Email messages containing blog excerpts seem to form the basis of this highly antagonistic and defensive article in LibraryJournal. "At least two of the blog excerpts sent to me....". He is even trite enough to suggest that the investment Google is making on digitising books and making them available through the Google search engine should instead be spent on books and libraries in California. This cheap grab at the public interest is apparently proof of his shallow understanding of the project Google is undertaking. Whilst he regards Google as an inefficient tool for information retrieval, he seems to be wilfully ignorant of the fact that the global audience for information retrieved through Google is now in excess of 934 million citizens, and not just the 35 million in California, and that humanity and society are far better supported by global connectivity and the information sharing that occurs online than if there were a few more libraries in wealthy California. What a shame that an individual who is supposedly dedicated to knowledge propagation has mistaken alternative channels for information access and debate as competition for his own business of information entombing.

If you were interested in finding out how we could use technologies to involve community members in:
- influencing commercial decision making;
- public debate on social issues; or
- fun activities with people of like interests
... what would you like to know, and/or what would you recommend?

All comments greatly appreciated.

EDIT: As I've been asked for more info on this post, I've placed some basics in the extended entry.

The title of this entry is dreadful, and probably should be replaced, but it won't be. Deal with it.

Yesterday I hired a car and gave a presentation to one consultancy job 20km from town, met with another potential client 70km from town, had a stroll along a beach at the Gold Coast 92km from town, drove back to have lunch 84km from town and then continued on to work where I had another meeting in town. I think I clocked about 210km for a period of about 6 hours. Not exactly far, but more than my own little car likes to deal with in one hit - hence hiring a reliable vehicle. I've always loved just getting in to a car and driving anywhere, but I hate worrying about the mechanical integrity of the vehicle I'm driving. Having a comfortable vehicle that you know has been serviced perfectly, is clean and detailed after every use, is air-conditioned, has a decent stereo system and has some nice grunt under the hood, is fair dinkum bliss to drive. Hiring cars is fun.

In other news:
- I have four functions to attend on Friday night, including the Brisbane Bloggers inaugural meeting
- 10Gb of high speed internet connectivity looks like it will do me for the month (I've used 2Gb so far this month)
- Anyone who has broadband, and who I occasionally speak to on the phone, it would be much appreciated if you could download Skype and let me know your username so I can speak to you on VoIP for free
- I've decided I need a tan (fear not, family, I'll be using fake stuff, not actually going out into the sun.... and in any case when I say "tan" I mean I intend to look less like the underside of a fish. I'll still be white, just not Snow White).

Over the past few days I have had:

• no email at all due to mail server downtime (for a period in excess of 28 hours)


• masses of spam from QUT which doesn't seem capable of properly closing 'closed' mailing lists


• masses MORE spam due to my mail host shutting down greylisting while the server is tested

So if I have failed to respond to your emails, I apologise. It's possible, however, that I never received anything from you at all. Bear with me, because I will get to things as soon as I can.

EDIT: It is with a lovely sense of irony that I am able to record that I have just received an email which reads, "Note: This Return Receipt only acknowledges that the message was displayed on the recipient's computer. There is no guarantee that the recipient has read or understood the message contents." Only trouble with this return receipt is that it's for an email I sent a week ago and the recipient has already contacted me a week ago to say the message was blank. Ah technology!

It's a mystery to me why so many organisations simply fail to use their internet presence to encourage user loyalty and interest in shopping at their stores. When you think about why people might actually go to a retail store site online, it's normally because they want to see a product range and check if their local store has stock of whatever it is they want. They don't want to go to a site and see useless high-bandwidth flash images and the kind of advertising they can get on television.

It seems that organisations are still very stupid when it comes to knowledge management. Inventory control they understand for supply chain management. But customer satisfaction is something that they simply don't understand - at least beyond interpersonal communication at a retail outlet in the real world.

There are a few organisations that have "got it right", although the effectiveness of some websites is still questionable. Any organisation that retains a product catalogue online - even if they don't choose to sell those products online - has at least understood the fact that people who access their website through the internet are looking for *something*, and they are not just idly browsing as they might do around a store. While it's good to have prices available online as a point of comparison, if organisations are concerned about compromising competitive advantage, then they should at least link their inventory control management software to catalogues online. If customers can find out where the closest goods are available, they are in fact more likely to develop loyalty to a retail chain than if the goods are constantly cheaper than elsewhere. In spite of concerns to the contrary, people looking around to buy goods online rarely seek out more than two or three sites for the purpose of price comparison. In fact, in the survey conducted in 2003 by Taylor Nelson Sofres, it was found that the vast majority of internet shoppers bought from the first site where they found the goods they had been seeking, rather than practising price comparison.

Yet still so many organisations merely put corporate and advertising materials on their sites rather than a decent product catalogue, linked with stock inventory and availability. Sadly, these organisations seem to have missed the fact that the internet is about information. Even sadder, getting most inventory management software to spit out products and information on product availability according to location is probably one of the simplest systems to set up. Most of these databases can output XML copy for specified fields with the greatest of ease.

What a waste of data. Inventory software might be being used effectively for stock control, but in the age of the internet, competitive advantage is all about repacking the information you have to empower your customers. Unfortunately, until organisations recognise this fact en masse, most internet marketing will still be restricted to so many bells and whistles.

I was concerned to read this story of Justin Hall, long-time blogger, who after what appears to be a pretty clear (and pretty public) nervous breakdown, simply stopped blogging. This is part of the problem with the cult of exhibitionism and narcissism which is inherent to the nature of blogging (and which I have explored extensively elsewhere). Revealing all to the world inevitably involves revealing weaknesses, and a public profile just heightens the impact of publicising those weaknesses via a blog. It is possible to maintain a sense of dignity in posts but only those who have known celebrity status seem intuitively capable of understanding where to draw the curtain between public and private life.

For instance, Wil Wheaton's blog exposes much that is personal, but Wil understands there are limits; he does not discuss his wife or step-children except to show how much he cares for them, and he does not reveal any extremes of emotion usually until *after* he has time to reflect on them. Rather than being immediate and reactionary, Wil Wheaton tends to be more thoughtful and reflective, drawing on the goodwill of his readers rather than shocking them into submission. Of course, Wil *has* celebrity status and draws a cult audience as a result of his involvement with the Star Trek franchise. Unlike peer bloggers, Wil attracted an audience virtually before he had anything to say merely because he was celebrity. Fortunately for those readers who initially followed him, Wil also proved to be an entertaining and erudite author/blogger who sustained his audiences with skill, rather than celebrity.

But the old adage from marketing theory is about driving customers to your products, sustaining customers, and locking in customers. Good blogging will sustain customers, and perhaps even lock them in if the blogger is prolific and interesting enough. But driving traffic *to* a site is what tends to encourage bloggers to find some internet 'scoop' in much the same way that journalists pursue in mainstream press. And where an internet story doesn't score, it's rather tempting to exploit the anonymity of the internet, and be as exhibitionistic as possible; capitalising on the voyeurism of internet readers and surfers. To drive traffic to their sites, some bloggers have intellectually and emotionally stripped themselves bare, and found the minor celebrity status they have drawn as a result, to be rather seductive.

Problems arise when this dedication to a customer readership, and to sustaining interest in one's writing, becomes so time-consuming and so revealing, that the loss of one's personal time, privacy and capacity for individual growth is inevitable. This cult of blogging is about blogger-oriented audience dependence, and a desperate need for positive reinforcement. It's an addiction, and should be recognised as such. And it's a danger many A-List and non-celebrity bloggers have faced. Some have passed through a phase of non-blogging, and returned as wiser, more careful bloggers, anxious to keep some of their lives entirely offline. Others remain gagged forever, unable to face the harsh reality of an audience they have disappointed.

I'm glad to read that Hall believes he will be back to blogging eventually, but it's clear that in his new relationship, he needs to spend some establishing time in private. Indeed, I would be much surprised if Hall divulges much of his private life for a very long time. As a blogger he may well be able to return to the intellectual and technological endeavours which have dominated his professional life. But as an individual, sustaining personal relationships, and a private existence, he needs both time and space to develop - without an audience.

IRCers (Internet Relay Chatters) are well accustomed to using slash as a prefix to virtually every command in the program - and particularly 'slash me' (/me) to describe themselves in the third person. But now, those dedicated gamers online who indulge in Everquest missions for several hours every day, can also indulge their taste buds by typing /pizza and ordering delivery pizzas online. So this means that other than living rather unhealthy lives by spending several hours before a PC and refraining from exercise, these gamers are now also encouraged to be unhealthy in their eating habits. Rather than getting up and making something to eat, it's as easy as typing /pizza and having a fat-encrusted, carbohydrate-rich, obesity-inducing foodstuff delivered to the door.

Now while I used to love pizza once in a while (before dairy intolerance pretty much ruled out ever indulging in pizza ever again), and while anything is okay in moderation, the ease with which gamers can access pizzas through the Everquest system is concerning because it encourages unhealthy eating amongst gamers. Most of us who have been involved in gaming will know that the health attributes of gamers aren't the best anyway (marathon gaming sessions usually mean very little sleep, no bathing, plenty of caffeinated drinks and junk food) but this new channel for unhealthy living is just adding to the overall recipe for obesity that gamers are pursuing.

Frankly, it can't be good for the gaming industry business. All these gamers are probably going to die from heart attacks in their 30s and 40s anyway, and due to their gaming activities and unhealthy living, they're less likely to reproduce, making it less likely that a new generation of gamers will be born. Surely it would make sense for the gaming industry to pursue some life-enhancing and healthy living attributes among gamers if the industry is going to last? Rather than /pizza, perhaps Sony could encourage /salads and /exercise in future?

Thanks to Kevin for the 17" monitor he has donated to me when one of his was not being used! Much appreciated, babe. Nice to finally be able to see what I'm doing here!

I would like for the record to show that it is Friday night, it is 8:15pm and I am home watching TV. I am, now officially, a 'good girl'.

This year will be a busy year for conferences and festivals for me. As a blogger it seems I have managed to convince a few people of the benefits of sharing ideas and engaging with the community through a socratic system of discussion and reflection, and this has led me to participate in an advisory role for a wide of range of events. Beyond my involvement in largely academic conferences associated with communications research and practice, and with online education, I've been invited to present on a panel for the United Nations International Conference on Engaging Communities in August. We'll be discussing new tools and mechanisms for engaging citizens in public debate, and we'll be looking at the changing role of participation as a result of emergent technologies. I've also been invited to act as an Ideas Advisor for the Ideas Festival of 2005, taking place in October here in Brisbane. The last Ideas Festival was in 2003, and the Advisors for that Festival were luminaries in their field. It's an honour to be asked to participate in such a forum, and I hope my work in blogging the Festival can help to raise awareness of the kinds of innovations and possibilities that can be realised through networking with all facets of business and research communities.

First of all a quick update: since the public disturbance issue of last Sunday morning I have heard not a peep out of my neighbour. I'm hoping he is embarrassed beyond belief that his obtuseness landed him in the position of a public nuisance, but time shall tell.

In the meantime, I wanted to thank the police for their sympathy and kindness in dealing with my claim last weekend, so I wrote a short note of thanks, detailing my respect and appreciation for the professionalism and gentleness with which my query had been handled. I expected nothing in reply - it was merely an expression of thanks. But in return, the Senior Sergeant at the station has written me a note, thanking me for my thankyou letter! Further, the two officers who dealt with my query have had entered into their permanent record, my note of appreciation. I'm absolutely floored! How extraordinary to deal with a police force who are so generous and acknowledging of the community!

So often we record moments of frustration and poor experiences with governance. I'm so pleased to be able to record here and now, a very positive experience with the Queensland Police, and to say I'm really thrilled to have received such an unexpected and moving epistle of appreciation.

If you have broadband PLEASE watch the Valentine's Day film by zefrank. It's work safe and ostensibly a talking head doing what would otherwise be a stand up comic's gig. And it's hysterical. Valentine's Day may have been 2 days ago, but this sketch is worth the wait. Enjoy!

A very Happy Valentine's Day to all the lovers out there! And to all those I love, here is my Valentine *hug* to you all too! :-)

I wonder what effect today will have in a certain little black box? The Global Consciousness Project is a rather fascinating study in collective random number generation, and while the sceptics may regard the Princeton University study as veritable quackery, the idea of a device that can predict earth-shattering or emotionally significant events rather appeals to me. Anyone who knows anything about chaos theory will understand that amid apparent chaos, an underlying order will result. The Global Consciousness Project Black Box may not yet be the order hinted in chaos theory, but it may well point to where it may be found... in collective consciousness. Fascinating stuff anyway.

So go ahead and have a great day today, whether you're single, hitched or just much loved. You never know. It might change the world.

This morning I finally called the police to complain about a neighbour of mine who would probably best be described as an "old coot". I've described this morning's scene in the extended entry, but suffice to say that the assistance of the police was exemplary, and I am hopeful the source of frequent disturbances in my little block will forever be silenced.

Have just caught up with Steven Spielberg's film starring Tom Hanks, The Terminal. Although it rated poorly with many of the critics, and although I admit the battle between its two central characters (Russian tourist, Viktor Navorski, and the new Head of the US Homeland Security division, Frank Dixon) is somewhat irritating and probably over-dramatised, it is otherwise a sweet and gentle film. It may not have the absolute punch-you-in-the-stomach intelligence, pathos and intensity of Lost in Translation, but it has a similar sense of surrealism, and comic charm in the sheer madness of the life-in-transition that occurs only at airports. Well worth a look. I found it delightful.

In this morning's tech news, Carly Fiorina, one of the most powerful women in the IT sector and CEO of Hewlett Packard, has been asked by the Board of HP to resign. She will step down at the end of the month.

The news has divided the tech community, with some believing that Fiorina's management of the Compaq-HP merger was simply that - management, rather than vision. After merging the companies there was no clear path for future development; no new products or services on the market. Others believe that the company is less likely to have any vision as directed by the ambitions of the Board, than under Fiorina's iron rule. In any case, it will be a busy day for the stockmarket and stakeholders in HP.

But beyond the business aspects of the leadership change, the role of women in IT comes once again under the scrutiny of commentators. Fiorina always presented herself as an equal with her colleagues in a dominantly masculine industry sector. But she always retained a sense of her femininity, and her leadership has formed the basis of many commentaries on the burgeoning opportunities for, and changing roles of, women in business.

I doubt if her resignation will change much in the way of leadership roles for women. But I am ready and resigned to the possibility that her sex will be discussed as an issue contributing to her departure. Sad, but likely.

Apparently I missed Global Safer Internet Day yesterday.
Must have been all the p0rn and pills spam that distracted me.

This year's focus was on safe mobile phone use. Kids these days are now in the practice of accepting sms messages and arranging to meet with people they don't know.
Just how dumb are we breeding kids these days anyway?

While I absolutely support the idea of self-monitoring communications systems (as opposed to censorship), I wonder whether the existing programs for education on self-monitoring techniques are really that effective? If you don't know it's Global Safer Internet Day and even if you did know, the kinds of warnings you're getting are saying things like "don't arrange to meet up with someone you don't know", surely we need a new promotional campaign? Because this one surely sucks.

I've found a few weird and wonderful objects d'art for the person who has everything and still wants more - ideal pressies for Valentine's Day, really. Thanks to Boingboing, Engadget, the Blogdex and Think Geek.

1. When you need to say "I love you" by making your tablecloth glow, have an Interactive Tablecloth.
2. For the partner who would need to break into their computer, climb through layers of IDE cables and then use a magnifying glass to see your special Valentine message, try a Valentine on a RAM chip.
3. How about getting your favourite person a Star Wars poster screen printed on to Venetian blinds? (For those thinking of buying this for yourself, the answer is NO.)
4. When your loved one doesn't spend enough time at work, maybe they just need some office cubicle action figures?
5. And finally, for the person who just wants to "link up", or as the corporate literature says, "for the ultimate narcissist in you", just embed a WhoLinksToMe somewhere on their site.

I am most concerned this morning about a report that an exclusive Melbourne school is considering adopting a strategy of randomly drug testing students. Besides the fact that no clear guidelines have been published with the report about what the school would do about any students found to have been taking drugs, there is a massive and unqualified invasion of civil rights in this concept.

As usual, the simplistic and narrow-minded advocates of this strategy use the argument "if they have nothing to hide, then it won't affect them". I am incredibly frustrated by such an unconscionable argument. And I am appalled that the community can be so apathetic and ignorant of the implications of this absurd defence.

Random drug testing of students is a disgraceful and degenerate practice which effectually waives students' rights to privacy, autonomy and identity. Privacy is the keystone of a free society, and making a choice to waive the right to privacy by endorsing a practice of random drug testing effectually refutes our participation in a free society. Our very contribution to democratic practice is threatened; the more power given to governing bodies to police personal practices, the less autonomy we have as individuals, and the less free we become as a society. As a legal precedent the implications are profound; if students may be randomly drug-tested, then they lose control over their bodies. Rather than individuals attending a school where their destinies are directed by individual intellectual effort, the school "owns" their product and output, and can direct their futures on the basis of biological reports. Further, if a drug test is tampered with, or inaccurate, there remains the possibility of affecting an innocent student's career and future development with the taint of drug abuse.

Of course, there will be some out there who will argue that if we can randomly breath test - and even drug test - drivers on our roads, then we should be able to drug test employees and students in organisations.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Again this argument is absurd and ignorant. Drivers on our roads who are affected by drugs or alcohol do not have the reflexes and presence of mind to respond to emergency situations and to hazards in normal driving conditions, to effectually navigate without potentially causing serious injury or death to other drivers on our roads. Random breath testing of drivers for alcohol content, in particular, can and should be used to determine those drivers who break the law by driving with a blood alcohol level determined to be above an acceptable limit for safe driving. Those caught with a high blood alcohol limit are putting themselves and others at risk. The same can NOT be said of students who take drugs. Besides the fact that the drug tests themselves are at best, unreliable, the truth of the matter remains that if a student (stupidly) chooses to imbibe an illegal substance, they are not putting their classmates at risk by attending school under the influence of drugs. The old argument that drugs will cause some students to be disruptive or even violent simply doesn't wash. Personality disorders, emotional problems and boredom or frustration can do the same thing, and we have been coping with these issues through normal disciplinary and counselling practices for generations. Teachers are well-versed in identifying "problem students" and varying strategies are in place to deal with disruption and violence. In any case, past surveys of drug-taking by students have demonstrated that drug taking is more likely to result in absence from classes than violence or disruption in class.

This drug-testing strategy assumes guilt in students. If we live in a true democracy we MUST resist such abominable constraints of human rights. We MUST protect our right to privacy and to the assumption of innocence, rather than abandoning ourselves to a society where our freedoms have been utterly culled.

So:
- Enterprise has been canned (about time, even though I thought Majel Barret would make it run to the very bitter end of 7 seasons). Just waiting to hear what Wil Wheaton has to say about this.
- Apologies to those who have commented lately on my blog and I haven't approved your messages in a timely manner.... I have now approved such messages
- Oh yeah, and THIS was an accident. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

I just have to say it - it is an absolutely *stunning* day in Brisbane today. Cool breeze off the river, low humidity and 28 degrees. Wow.

This is a bizarre mix of the sporting and geek interests that I must just record here for future reference....

10 April NRL Bris Broncos v Parra Eels (2.30pm) at Suncorp <- Oh dear. Bad result for the Eels.
23 April Super12 Reds v Sharks at Ballymore
28 April Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at Myer Centre<- going to this
29 April Super12 Reds v Cats at Ballymore
14 May Super12 Reds v Brumbies at Suncorp <- going to this
19 May Star Wars Episode 3 at Myer Centre <- got tix for this
25 May NRL State of Origin Game 1 <- hoping to go to this
28 May AFL Brisbane Lions v Kangaroos at the 'Gabba <- yahuh
15 June NRL State of Origin Game 2
29 June War of the Worlds at Myer Centre
2 July ARU Wallabies v France at Suncorp
6 July NRL State of Origin Game 3
21-25 July Ashes 1st Test at Lords
2-8 August Ashes 2nd Test at Edgbaston
11 August Sin City at Myer Centre
11-15 August Ashes 3rd Test at Old Trafford
13 August Bledisloe Cup at Telstra Stadium (Sydney)
25-29 August Ashes 4th Test at Trent Bridge
3 September Bledisloe Cup at Eden Park (Auckland)
8-12 September Ashes 5th Test at Brit Oval

Plus a series of AFL Games I'm interested in seeing during the year. It's gonna be fun :-)

Thanks to Kevin for the link to the darkly amusing article about the action figure used in a picture on an Islamic website as blackmail for the release of Iraqi prisoners. It must have been a tad weird for an American toy company to have to identify its own product (including toy rifle held in a threatening manner at the action figure soldier) as the true subject of the picture. Not that it's ever good to grin at hostage taking at any time, I think we can be safe in having a chuckle at the extreme stupidity of using an American doll product in hostage negotiations with the Americans.

I have had a glorious 5 days of no blog spam whatsoever since my upgrade to Movable Type version 3.15.... until this afternoon, when all the blog spammers who used to comment spam me, are now trackback spamming me.

*sighs*

At least these are easier to monitor and delete I guess.