Al's Blog from the Bog

Last night’s BBC programme, The Virtual Revolution, charting the two decades since the invention of the World Wide Web was something of a Curate’s Egg. Interviews with an impressive array industry figures gave the programme gravitas, but the central premise was flawed. The aim seemed to be to show that the Web’s raison d’être was to fulfill a utopian dream of freedom, equality and opportunity, and that it hasn’t lived up to this ideal.

The programme attempted to show the distinction between the Internet and the World Wide Web but then as the discussion went on the lines became very vague, the two terms used almost interchangeably. I would argue that the distinction is critical and a programme like this should have exercised some rigour in keeping a safe distance between them.

A running theme (contrary to the earlier explanation) was that the Internet/Web was created by a group of pseudo-anarchic libertarians based largely in San Francisco. This is simply not true. ARPANET, the network that was to become known as the Internet, was created to facilitate basic communication between different computer systems, some of which were geographically widespread. Subsequently it was seen as a way to provide some level of protection and redundancy of systems so that ‘the system’ would not fail in the event of a nuclear strike taking out one or more of it’s nodes. It never entered anyone’s mind that it could be a part of some “Great Levelling”.

Once it was in existence, groups of people emerged who used it as a tool for disseminating social, cultural and political information as well as news and opinion, such as The WELL.

The World Wide Web came about some twenty years after the birth of Internet. Despite the global linking of computer systems there was still a problem: (computer) language. There were so many different systems speaking different languages that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to share information in a format that was universally readable. Tim Berners-Lee came up with the idea of using a set of protocols and languages such that one tool – the web browser – could be used to read and link together information on all these disparate platforms. So again, no concept of human democracy, equality and freedom other than the freedom to share information anywhere.

This is where some confusion may arise. Berners-Lee had no intention of profiting from his invention and didn’t want anyone else to profit from it either. Hence he released his idea to the world, unconstrained by copyright, patent or licence. He had defined the rules of the game – and continued to develop them – but everyone was free to join in. Naturally, as his idea grew and became more popular, it was far too much work for one person so he founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to take charge of it. The W3C’s members are businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, and governmental entities, but not individuals. The idea was to prevent any sector from dominating, although there are plenty of complaints about this happening in practice.

If this had been the target of The Virtual Revolution, I would have had no complaint, but it didn’t even warrant a mention. The programme seemed to focus on the notion that the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, The Huffington Post and others are so powerful on the Web that they prevent individuals from having a voice, behaving like the editorial departments of the traditional media. They ‘control’ what we see on the Web. They are the elites who have formed a hierarchy, a vertical control structure that is the antithesis of the Web’s (and the Internet’s) supposed desire for a horizontal or flat structure on equality.

Aside from the fallacy of the premise, it is surely clear to everyone that any field of human endeavour (I use the word broadly) needs a control structure. Utopian and anarchic structures cannot survive while humans are genetically programmed the way we are. As a race, we will always have the ambitious, the lazy, the bad, the evil members. Perhaps this is actually necessary for our survival. At any rate, it means there must be law, rules and control. The best we can hope for is that we can trust the control structures, that they don’t become corrupt. I would suggest that they way the Web works – and the Internet for that matter – is about as good as it gets.

How can we judge this? To start with, leaving aside issues of social inequality, anyone can use the Web. Anyone can have a weblog (or blog). Anyone can take part in ’social media’ networks. As for the resources available, search engines, social networks and web sites succeed or fail (in terms of audience) according to their popularity with users. Users are free to move between them when, and as much as, they like. Our movements around the Web are unrestricted. Yes I know there are exceptions. Some bad stuff is blocked. Some bad stuff is not blocked. There are problems in China, Iran etc. (I’m not playing down these problems but they are not created by the Web, they are created by humans). People, by and large, can vote with their mice (mouses?).

My point is that it is not the Web that is the problem, it is humans. The Web can never be immune to the effects and behaviour of people, in the same way that no other aspect of life is protected. The Web remains, as it started, a free*, open, egalitarian communications medium. The Virtual Revolution is shooting at the wrong target.

*When I say free, I don’t means there is no financial cost. Everyone has to pay their bills. If you want a computer, someone has to pay. Similarly if you want electricity, broadband, a web site, a blog or whatever. There are “free” services, but this just means they are paid for by advertising or some other mechanism over which you have little or no control. This is not unreasonable.

internet, technology BBC, internet, technology, tv, World Wide Web

Although I’ve been ‘using’ Twitter since May last year I still consider myself to be something of a ‘newbie’, having posted only 176 messages in that time. It took me a long time to get the point and it’s only in the last couple of months that I’ve started to feel confident with it. I’ve never been an ‘early adopter’ and find that my personality tends more towards the lurker than active participant where social media is concerned.

Now that Twitter is all the rage in the media, or rather Twitter-bashing is all the rage, I can see that over the months I have started to understand it, to the extent that I find it blindingly obvious that much of the coverage is ridiculous, immature and downright inaccurate (no surprise).

Being considered by many commentators as just ‘the latest internet craze’ it is ripe for those commentators to start picking. The internet is evil, it’s full of porn, nazis and paedophiles. It makes our children spend their lives in a sedentary activity, forces them to eat junk food and ruins their health. Oh and it causes cancer. Twitter is on the internet. QED.

Mainstream media organisations have one job, and only one job: selling themselves. By which I mean gaining, keeping and growing their audience; everything else is incidental. Aside from the issue of social media making mainstream media redundant (discuss…), headlines like “Twitter: just another way of talking to people” would not sell many newspapers. There needs to be scandal, depravity, danger &c. And of course there is, because Twitter is just another forum, populated by human beings. So there’s bound to be some of the above. Not much, but some, somewhere, though I haven’t found it yet (of course I’ve not looked ). It’s the old ‘holding a mirror up to society’ thing.

We should forget about arguments over whether it’s any good or not, whether it has any value, whether it’s dangerous or useful. It just is. The point is that it’s a tool, facilitating communication, so we have to decide as individuals whether or not we want to join in.

As a tool it works pretty well. It has had its problems – growing pains you might say – but it does pretty much what it says on the tin. Being like an internet version of SMS, the messages are short, snappy, cleverly crafted (sometimes) and to the point (sometimes). The premise is “What are you doing?” so I assume the main requirement must be speed, in the sense of immediacy. Whatever is posted must be instantly available to all who wish to see it. In my experience, it delivers.

As for the content, that’s up to the users. It has nothing to do with the system. If you say that Twitter is full of rubbish, what you are really saying is that its users are full of rubbish – and I would respectfully suggest that you haven’t seen the output of all 6 million+ users. I haven’t seen the output of all 6 million+ users either, but I’ve seen some of it and I’d bet there are people talking about just about any topic you can think of. So there’s rubbish, inanity, egotism and narcissism of course, and I’ve read that there may even be some imaginative souls using it for sexual shenanigans. Then there’s friendly, helpful, advisory and supportive stuff, intellectual conversation and even a bit of tech talk. So as I said, just like any social forum anywhere, real or virtual.

One of the really interesting parts is the way the system can interact with other systems. For example, when I ‘tweet’, the message automatically appears here on my blog and on my Facebook page. This is a small example of how everything can (and will eventually) be interconnected. Makes me think of Dirk Gently and “the fundamental interconnectedness of everything” but that’s for another day.

On a personal note, I’m not keen on some of the “look how big mine is…” stuff that buzzes around the periphery. It’s usually men (really?) and relates to how often you tweet, how many followers you have, how many times your posts are ‘retweeted’ (re-broadcast with attribution) and so on. And why do people have to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’? But I’m getting old, so lots of stuff annoys me now.

If you don’t like it, don’t use it. If you do like it, use it in whatever way suits you. But if all you can do is criticise it, take a good look in the mirror.

entertainment, technology entertainment, lifestyle, technology

This week saw the official announcement of something or other to do with broadband in Ireland. If that sounds a bit vague, well I’m sorry. I’m never quite clear about these ‘official’ events/launches/occasions: there is no new information – we all knew that 3 had got the job of supposedly providing broadband for all the places in Ireland that don’t already have it – just lots of smiling and congratulating and posing and repeating of tired mantras and ignoring difficult questions. Political posturing at its finest.

Now that it’s all ‘official’ (rather than just decided?) I suppose we can all comment on it. The newspapers are, briefly, full of smiley, posey pictures; all the politicians and aspiring politicians crawl out of the slime to either congratulate the government on another brilliant scheme or berate them for wasting money on another half-baked idea.

As far as the national picture is concerned, looking at the positives, it’s great that the government is prepared to step in and fund the provision of broadband for everybody. On the negative side, the government have surely set the bar too low, in that: less than 2MB cannot really be considered broadband in the 21st century (forget the moans about bandwidth reducing when there are lots of users – all broadband is contended); the target of ‘covering the whole country’ is imprecise – in the UK they are specifying the supply of broadband ‘to every household’, which is quite different.

To illustrate the second criticism, consider Achill. The island, as far as the NBS is concerned, is split into two parts: one is on the ‘planned’ list, the other is on the ‘not included’ list. Why does one part of the island miss out? Well, there is already a 3 mast which, notionally, covers this part of the island. The reality, as anyone with the slightest experience of cellphone signals will realise, is that in some spots there is a great signal but move around the corner and there is none. Achill is not flat; hills get in the way, leaving ’shadows’ where there is no signal. Then there are walls: most broadband users do not want to sit in the garden surfing the net, at least not in Ireland. So again, some houses and offices are fine, others get nothing. There is no reason to believe that the ‘planned’ part of Achill will fare any better.

Achill is not a special case: this picture will be repeated all over the country. Hence to say that the whole country will be covered by broadband, one way or another, is meaningless. You’ll find the usual ‘haves and have-nots’ thing between wired and wireless areas, and between good and bad signal areas. Let’s not pretend, either, that the proposed satellite coverage for areas where a cellular signal is impractical is the answer. As a satellite ‘broadband’ user for several years, I can attest to the deeply unsatisfactory nature of this ’solution’.

I have no doubt that, if I am one of the lucky ones, I will appreciate the improvements of cellular broadband over satellite broadband, but I will continue to look with envy at those a few miles up the road with their DSL lines.

Life in Currane, national politics, politics, technology achill, Broadband, Currane, Ireland, life, politics, technology

Just a short post to say that I am now the proud owner of an iPhone3G – indeed this post has been made using it. Of course it will take a little time to get used to the keyboard, but I’m loving it!

technology iPhone, mobile telephony, technology

How long should I wait for an iPhone? It’s been over 3 months since I put my name on the waiting list at my ‘local’ store and still no sign of a 16GB black one, so I rang customer services to see if they could speed things up a bit. It didn’t go well.

Let me be clear about this: I’d like to buy an iPhone3G but I don’t really want to lose my current number. It’s not rocket science.

I’ve been an O2 customer for well over 8 years now. In that time I think I’ve had one upgrade, probably about 5 years ago. My monthly bills are small, but I was eligible for a silver upgrade, at least until everything changed in the ‘O2 Upgrade Fiasco’ a couple of weeks ago.

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technology iPhone, mobile telephony, O2, technology