joannejacobs.net: July 2007 Archives

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July 24, 2007

Bomb scare ... or ... Not.

Can I just say here that I love my friend, Shannie. She has given me a place to stay. She has given me love and support.

And tonight she has made me laugh so hard that I've cried.

I received an SMS from Shannie this evening saying she has caused the locals at Pau Airport in France a bit of a scare. After a bit of a big night last night... ahem... Shannon woke to a terrible migrane. Little battler that she is though, she dragged her migrane-addled self to the airport for her connecting flight only to find that no matter how hard she tried, she was in fact going to continue to react to the night before. So, ever resourceful, Shannie chained her backback to a chair and went to visit the loo to have a long conversation with the porcelain bus. At the end of this debate, wherein I think the porcelain might generally be regarded to have been victorious, Shan returned to her backpack in the gate lounge, only to discover it covered with a thick, orange, explosive fabric and herself surrounded by several armed guards, shouting at her in rapid French.

"J'ai mal a tete!" she exclaimed. "Migrane! " *vomiting sounds*.

The French guards were not quite sure whether to arrest her or commit her.

"Je suis Australienne! Je suis en vacance! Je suis malade!" she continued. Not pleased but generally less inclined to arrest her and more inclined to spank her, the guards decided eventually to remove the explosive fabric and not actually blow up her luggage. At least not until she had finished reading the latest Harry Potter book anyway.

My darling Shannie, I love you, but you DEFINE the word "dag".

But I'm glad at least you are feeling a little better, and I promise that when I receive the *photos* you took of your luggage and the French guard after the incident I will share these with the world :')

Posted by jj at 10:09 PM | Comments (2)

July 22, 2007

The End of Things: Harry Potter Concludes (No Spoilers)

I have said farewell to what has become a dear friend in the Harry Potter books today. It's a funny thing how stories about magic and heroism find their way into our hearts. Or there again, perhaps it's quite understandable. In the end though, it almost doesn't matter what happens in the books. Far more important is how much we, the Readers, have come to be united in an enduring quest.

Of course it is still a little sad to say goodbye. But all good things...

So I wish all those who have enjoyed the series by book and/or film the very best in their own paths and quests and hope they will always remember that even as the curtain falls forever, the magic the series has brought into our lives will endure.

Farewell Harry. Thank you J K Rowling.

Posted by jj at 11:03 PM | Comments (2)

July 20, 2007

Announcing....

I've moved. Thank you to Shan for giving me her loft for a few weeks. And now, to let my poor aching body rest.

Posted by jj at 9:10 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2007

Goodbye Racecourse Rd

This week I am moving from my home of nearly 6 years into some temporary accommodation for an indeterminate period of time whilst I establish the next stage in my career.

So if you can't contact me over the next 10 days this would be the reason. Thanks to Shannie for putting me up and to all who have sent their best wishes and vibes for the week ahead.

Posted by jj at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)

July 13, 2007

Climate Change: DON'T use the media as your source

For all the people who have contacted me about the appalling program that was aired on ABC last night, I encourage you to read what the CSIRO have to say about the program and its contents.

Because listening to a bunch of poorly informed hacks expostulating about issues in which they have done no primary research, rather than seeking out the people who actually know about climate change and the physics that are behind it, is, frankly, stupid.

Posted by jj at 9:20 AM | Comments (0)

July 9, 2007

Australian trade still lagging

ABC News has reported today on the presentation to be delivered at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, noting that Blainey's notion of the 'tyranny of distance' is still alive and well in international trade. This is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed in economic policy and consideration of services and practices in Australia, and it is a shame that so far very few speakers have engaged on the topic. But everything from broadband rates and research and development program management, to export policies and international collaboration, all impact on Australia's dismal international trade performance. It's time Australians stopped complaining about the distance and small population problem and looked at countries with similar (and smaller) population sizes as possible partners in international trade.

There are strong opportunities for Australia if we only get over our lack of confidence and apathetic business and policy demeanor in terms of world trade. Just because something is created locally doesn't make it either too experimental or not good enough in world terms. But if we have to partner with US or European entities in order to achieve that shift in perception, then so be it. We should enter into clear and supported international partnerships on research and development with exchange programs on employment of skilled staff (overcoming visa issues, without compromising security) and we should share the rewards of such a program.

And while it may be controversial of me to say this, I am extremely doubtful of Australia's capacity to enter in to the same kind of programs with our neighbouring countries in Asia, because in the short term at least, Australia's links with Asia are, if anything, damaging our international trade reputation. I'm sorry but most of Asia is still very parochial or cheap labour, neither of which is going to look good in world terms, and where we do trade with Asia we have a tendency to sell resources at very low price and then re-import those goods after they have been processed at excessively inflated prices. If anything, Asia is a drag on the Australian trade economy for the present. It may well be a fabulous opportunity down the track, but in order to gain the sort of reputation that will make Australia attractive to Asia in years to come, we need to address our reputation in world terms now.

Australia is a country of innovation and resourcefulness in the face of dire circumstances. Yet the only research, development and employment exchanges we foster are for junior staff and graduate students. It's time we recognised the value of all facets of Australian contributions to innovation, and acted on that skill set, facilitating trade, employment and infrastructure development that demonstrates those strengths to the world.

Posted by jj at 10:31 AM | Comments (1)

July 7, 2007

Murdoch, Dow Jones and hacking iPhone and Live Earth

This is a bit of a mixed bag but the US$5 billion bid that Murdoch and his News Corporation have made for the publishers of the Wall Street Journal, has succeeded, giving Murdoch substantive reporting credibility with global business news publication.

While Murdoch's star continues to rise, Apple's strangle hold on cool gadgets is being ripped apart, with the proprietory interface for the iPhone hacked and the full shell laid open for all to see.

And of course today is the day of Live Earth, the concert to raise awareness of global climate change issues. While some of the performers have questioned their role as ambassadors of environmentally sound life practices, I still believe the spirit of keeping climate change on the world socio-political agenda is a useful exercise. Nevertheless it seems that the front page of the Live Earth site has been hacked. Right now the standard liveearth.org address takes you to the VMware Virtual Centre 2 page.

Posted by jj at 7:54 AM | Comments (0)

July 5, 2007

Beware of the Blog

The rise of blogging as a tool for communicating to both our intended and potential audiences is undoubtedly a revolution for media, for individuals and for business and governments generally. But because of the way communications tools and major search engines work, the blog has also become a fertile environment for blind acceptance and propagation of the most uninformed and downright dangerous advice that litters the internet.

In this extended post I explore how blogging can be misused in generating and disseminating misinformation. But let me be clear - there's more hope than despair about blogging, herein...

As an advocate of emerging technologies (I describe myself as a Technology Evangelist), it is usually my job to help businesses and individuals understand how blogging can be deployed effectively as a means of keeping up conversations with clients, with friends and with those who share your interests or passions. But all too often, I’m forced to defend the integrity of blogs as a tool for communicating, because some individual has set up a lobbyist blog or has made a post on their generally rational journal, which is now acting as a hotbed of discussion and debate and is based on erroneous or libellous information. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. The fact that in the age of blogging, everyone is a publisher, means that there will inevitably be episodes of inappropriate or inaccurate information propagation online.

And of course this isn’t new, nor are blogs the only culprits of mass misinformation. For years, corporate bandwidth has been battling under the duress of bulk emails that are comprised of either fictional or even well-intentioned but misguided advice, often embedded in some hideous Powerpoint presentation, and usually urging users to send the message on to everyone they know, in order to protect the recipient’s friends, relatives and colleagues from various forms of harm. The trouble is that the more blogs and blog posts that perpetrate or repeat inaccurate advice, and the more that others link backwards and forwards to each other on the subject, the more likely it is that such fiction will be taken as fact.

One of the greatest aspects of Google is its PageRank technology which works by taking a search query and checking how many other sites link to that string of words. Unlike previous search engines that used categories or checked how often a string of words was included in a page, this search technique was harder to ‘hack’ because it understood the notion that if other people are recommending reading something, then the more people do that, the more likely it is that the information is accurate, or at least what you are looking for. Essentially, the PageRank search technology exploits the fact that people are better filters for information quality than automated tools. The effect of this marvellous feature is that users of the internet increasingly view content gleaned from a set of Google search responses as factually correct, reliable information.

Trouble is, that’s not always the case. And it’s not being helped by the massive growth of the blogosphere.

In March, the global blog monitor, Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/), reported that they were tracking more than 70 million blogs online, of which roughly 21% or 15.5 million are active (publishing regular posts). Blog growth is still massive with more than 120,000 new blogs being established every day and increasing use of idea tagging and social bookmarking initiatives such as del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) and Digg (http://www.digg.com/) being used among regular bloggers as a catalyst for blog posts, discussion and debate. And as more and more blogs are emerging online, and more people are recommending information to one another via those blogs, or via social bookmarking facilities, the more likely it is that blog posts, or sources cited by blog posts will be returned in searches on any search query.

The very technology that made Google so reliable a search engine is therefore facilitating diffusion of misinformation via blogs.

But, fortunately for all of us who are advocating the use of such technologies in business contexts, this is a problem that is relatively easily solved. Indeed the problem of lots of misinformed human filters is best solved by lots of human doubt.

For generations, academics have been espousing the value of critical analysis as a means of establishing the legitimacy of theory and rhetoric. And the profession of journalism was built on the notion of providing checks and balances on political and public practice. Now we are all connected in this information society, it becomes crucial for all consumers (or ‘produsers’) of internet-mediated content to treat all information received with a very healthy degree of scepticism. Indeed, the very structure and conversational architecture of blogs enables this form of analysis and debate. It’s just that we are living in a brief window of time when users are more likely to treat information they receive from a trusted source as accurate rather than doing their own bit of investigation before passing messages on.

What we need is a change in our human behaviour for online content consumption. And there are enough avenues for checking the veracity of information online. The kind of information that is sent via email as a warning is best checked on Urban Legends pages such as Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/). And for all its faults, Wikipedia is a superb vehicle for enabling debate on the truth or fiction of ideas and messages.

I’m confident that eventually, this (mis-)use of blogs in generating and regenerating misinformation will be lessened to a point of negligible importance over time. But for now, we need to beware of the blog. Not because it is a cesspool of fiction and iniquity, but because in changing our behaviour in using it - in being aware - we can collectively harvest more value from the tool than harm.

joannejacobs.net

Do not believe everything you read.