The Americans are saying that they have captured information in raids following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that will enable them to track down more of his colleagues. I heard a rumour that what they actually had was the password for his myspace account. Have a look, it does seem that they may be on to something.
Archive for the 'Media' Category
I’m sorry to be a misery guts but the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi isn’t something to celebrate or be proud of. Here’s why:
- Civilised countries don’t assassinate their opponents, they capture them and put them on trail.
- I don’t believe in capital punishment, even for the most heinous crimes, but even if I did surely it should be the outcome of a judicial process.
- If you are going to assassinate somebody the least sensible and most cowardly way of doing it is by dropping a bomb on their house.
- The Iraqi PM, Nouri Maliki, said when announcing the death of al-Zarqawi, that the Iraqi government would kill all the “terrorists” opposing his government. Is that possible? Of course not. The only way to solve any conflict is by bringing the leaders of all groups together. If you kill the leaders then no dialogue is possible.
This sort of “solution” appeals to simple-minded people. It reflects badly on our politicians that they are prepared to resort to it.
My oldest daughter Poppy grew up watching the BBC. She never saw adverts, which was a great advantage in the supermarket since she never realised that all that shiny packets stacked up by the checkout were sweets. However, since Five improved their children’s programming, with great shows like Bottle Top Bill, she’s been changing channels and watching commercial TV. Yesterday in the bathroom she said to Carol, my partner, “There’s a lavatory cleaner you can get now that has something in it that makes it stay in the toilet, even after you’ve flushed it, so that it can keep on killing germs. We should get some of that.” Later on she said, “You know, there’s a shampoo you can get that makes your hair really bouncy and shiny. It’s got a new ingredient.”
I’m starting to think that maybe it wasn’t such a smart idea preventing her from getting the hang of adverts earlier. I bet other kids her age just filter them out, like we grown-ups do.
I just heard a journalist on the BBC’s Newshour programme talking about the young Canadian men accused today of planning a bombing campaign. While discussing the implications of the fact that five of the people charged were under 18 he said that people were concerned that there was a “jihad generation” of young people emerging, with more militant views than their parents. What an ugly expression and how attractive it will prove to bad journalists. I am almost tempted to start a Site of Shame charting those hacks who use or avoid using it.
I was also rather alarmed by a picture supplied by the Associated Press captioned “Police seized an array of bomb-making materials”. As far as I could tell the only thing in the bag of bomb-making equipment that I don’t own is what looks like a PMR446 walkie-talkie, and I have been considering buying a couple of those. It’s a good job I garden organically or I might be in real trouble.
I have a friend who has never pirated any software. He’s not an imaginary friend, he genuinely doesn’t have anything on his computers that he didn’t pay for. He regularly tells me about the latest way in which he’s been stiched up by the companies that he so generously supports. The most recent purchase was Kore 1.0 from Native Instruments. It is full of bugs and misfeatures, he paid a fortune for it. I’m sure it will get more reliable and work properly sooner or later, I just hope he doesn’t have to pay again for the ‘upgrade’ to the fully-functional version.
Meanwhile I have been known to occassionally use someone else’s copy of a program, just to make sure that it works properly. And so I have sometimes been a client of the Pirate Bay. This Swedish torrent tracker helps you download things like programs and music for free via bittorrent (I know, it hardly needs explaining these days). At least they did until the Swedish police raided them and took away their servers, despite the fact that what they were doing was apparently legal in Sweden. I hope they come back soon.
One of the great things about their site was that they published all the letters and emails they got from tough-talking software lawyers and companies. They also published their replies, which invariably smacked of dumb insolence.
To: law@iprights.com
Subject: Re: URGENT - FOOTBALL MANAGER TRADE MARK INFRINGEMENT
On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 law@iprights.com wrote:
> Dear Sirs
> Our client: SEGA Europe Limited
> We act on behalf of SEGA Europe Limited in the enforcement of its Intellectual Property Rights in the United Kingdom.
> As you will be aware, Sega is world famous and is recognised as being an industry leader in interactive entertainment. Sega, and its software developer Sports Interactive Limited have recently announced that its new football management PC game FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 is due to be launched later this month. As a result of the recent publicity our client and Sports Interactive enjoy a substantial reputation and goodwill in the FOOTBALL MANAGER name.
> Further, SEGA developer, Sports Interactive is the owner of a UK trade mark registration for FOOTBALL MANAGER under number 2,169,952. We attach details of the UK registered trade mark for your information.
> thepiratebay.org website / FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005
> It has come to our client’s attention that through the service provided by your thepiratebay.org website, users are able, by clicking on a link on your website featuring the FOOTBALL MANAGER trade mark, to download an unauthorised and illegal version of our client’s new FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 PC game. In this regard, your website is currently listing FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 as number 1 in its Top 50 and a substantial number of UK users used your services to download this game in the UK.
> By providing this service to UK users using the FOOTBALL MANAGER name, you are infringing the FOOTBALL MANAGER trade mark in the UK. Further, our client is concerned that due to the volume of illegal copies of our client’s FOOTBALL MANAGER 2005 PC game being provided via your service our client is losing substantial sums of money in lost sales.
> This email is ask that you immediately remove the link complained of, and to confirm that there will be no further misuse of the FOOTBALL MANAGER trade mark in relation to your services.
> In the meantime, our client reserves its rights in respect of any causes of action available to it in this matter and in respect of any claim for costs and/or damages against you. In this regard, your speed in complying with our requests will be taken into account.
> Yours faithfully
> Willoughby & PartnersDear Sir(s), Madam(s), and/or Slimemold(s), I have the distinct pleasure of informing you that no Swedish trademark and/or coypyright law is being violated, regardless of how the situation may or may not be under UK law. I would advise you to read up on Swedish trademark law, more specifically Varumarkeslag (1960:644), as this might save you a great deal of future humiliation. I would also advise you to a) not write the subject all in UPPERCASE, as it makes spam filters go nuts b) not attach meaningless data from trademark registrys in PDF format and c) stop lying.
Of course I can see Sega’s point, they’re trying to be reasonable. But there’s something in me which admires the outrageous cheek of the Pirate response. The word, I think, is Chutzpah.
I listened to the interview with the unreal Guy Kewney again and I realised that there’s something quite scary about it. At the start of the first answer the confused guest is clearly out of his depth. By the end of the third answer the presenter has managed to adapt her tone and questions to make it sound a little bit like he knows what he’s talking about.
Expert interviewees have a strange status in broadcast media. Presenters rarely challenge what they are saying, partly because the presenter doesn’t know anything about the subject but also because the network’s credibility depends on the experts credibility. If you demonstrate on air that your pundit is wrong then the audience will wonder why on earth you chose that particular person in the first place. The unfortunate consequence is that ‘experts’ frequently get away with the most absurd views and the audience has only a shadowy doubt in their mind about what they just heard.
Guy Kewney had a lot to say about the Apple vs Apple case. He said on his blog that Apple Corps (The Beatles) would probably win. He said that Apple Computer would probably have to remove the Apple logo from iTunes and iPods. After the judgement he said that he thought that the judge got it wrong. But he’s not a lawyer, he’s a technology writer who predicted the wrong outcome, why should we care what he thinks? Maybe what the cab driver said in his interview, that people are keen on downloading music and they like choice, was actually no less substantial and incisive than what Mr Kewney would have said. And at least he didn’t try to sound authoritative about things he didn’t really know about.
Mr Kewney also makes a great deal of fuss about the fact that he is white, very white he says, while the cab driver who took his place on the air was black. In fact, in his blog it sounds like he thinks that they should have noticed the mistake not because of what the accidental guest said but because of what he looked like. I think he’s completely wrong about that as well.
According to the Guardian, News 24 put a cab driver on air by mistake on 8 May. A producer had gone down to reception to collect Guy Kewney, computer pundit, who was going to talk about the Apple vs Apple verdict. A cab driver who was waiting to collect Mr Kewney heard the name and stood up. The producer rushed him upstairs into makeup and before he knew it he was on the air. You can hear the results here.
You can also watch selected highlights of the interview at the end of this week’s Newswatch.
Guy Kewney, in his blog, says that it was a Studio Manager who picked him up from reception. That’s very unlikely, Studio Managers don’t make mistakes like that. He also says elsewhere in his blog that he’s doing an interview about the cock-up on another TV programme but they don’t want him to tell anyone about it because they’re worried that a load of ringers will turn up in reception at the same time as him. “I am Guy Kewney! No, I am Guy Kewney!”
One other interesting thing about this is that before it happened Guy said that he thought Apple corp would probably win the case. That’s what lawyer Robert Lands thought as well when he appeared on World Service radio at half past ten that morning. Unfortunately he was just saying so when the news that Apple Computer had won the case appeared on a screen in front of the presenter Dan Damon. Cue an embarrassing contradiction. So all in all a bad day for pundits at the BBC.
There’s a song on Neil Diamond’s new LP, 12 Songs, that I’m quite fond of. When I first heard it I thought it would be an ideal candidate for putting on one of the tapes I make for my grrls to listen to on long car jouneys. It’s a jolly, cheerful, soppy Sesame Street kind of song all about the nature of love.
Love is all about chemistry
Isn’t something you go off to school to learn
It isn’t math or ancient history
It’s the kind of thing that comes down to simple terms
It’s not about you
It’s not about me
Love is all about WE
Yes, it’s all about we
But I was forgetting the simple fact that there’s only one word in those lyrics that has any significance for children. Wee. One of the evil collection of elite words that will cause instant, tireless mirth in any child. Wee, Poo, Fart. They’re all solid gold, magic words as guaranteed to make children collapse with laughter as the sight of a man falling on his bum. There’s another one. So Neil Diamond must have never played this song in the presence of any child. If he had, he’d have heard this.
What’s so amazing is that Nintendo have gone and made the very same mistake. They’ve called their new gaming console “Wii”, pronounced “Wee”. It’s amazing. Has nobody who works for Nintendo ever spent any time with children? Or maybe their kids are so ernest that they wouldn’t find it funny. However, the connection with bodily functions is stronger that it first seems. Maybe the whole thing is intentional.
The novel one-handed device contains motion sensors that allow players to control the action onscreen by pointing it at their television and waving it around.
Heh heh.
PayPal to launch mobile payments service in the UK - News Analysis - Mobile Europe: “Using PayPal Mobile’s ‘Text to Buy’ service, consumers will be able to make instant purchases, such as CDs, DVDs, shoes and clothes, by sending product codes via text message. Items will then be delivered to home addresses already saved in the buyers’ PayPal accounts. Merchants who have signed up to PayPal’s new mobile service will be able to open new direct sales channels to buyers, while consumers will be able to see an advertisement - in a magazine, or on TV for example - and purchase products immediately. PayPal Mobile will also enable users to donate money to charities, instantly.”
Am I still dreaming or isn’t this going to be really popular? You see a poster for a CD, you just buy it straight away. If it catches on, advertising in stations and bus stops is going to get very expensive.
Remember the Beatles? They were famous a long time ago and they started a record company called Apple Records. The record label also signed a handful of other artists, including John Tavener, Ravi Shankar and James Taylor. In other words, it’s not a well-known record label. Now they’re trying to sue Apple Computer, I bet you’ve heard of them, because they claim that the iTunes music store infringes their trademark, a nice juicy green apple. The record company is run by former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison. They obviously don’t have a clue about the modern world at all. Instead of suing their world-class rival they would have done better to open up a rival online music store called Apple Tunes or something. They might then have had a chance of actually selling some of the music that they’re so precious about.