links for 2009-10-27

Love it: "May I say at this point that part of the fun of being a pedant is to bring out the pedantry in others, so if you think that I am wrong in any of the above assertions, please write a letter to the Editor setting out your case in minute detail". He can expect 1,057 letters.

"These online mix-sharing sites are clearly something of a moving target, because they tend to operate under the radar or pay unmanageable licensing fees. But we’ve turned up a fresh batch you can use to share virtual mix tapes with friends and strangers around the world, without paying a cent". I still do it by hand using Audacity and Acid, and posting a CD, but then I'm old school like that ;-)

"The photographs of a number of persons of interest are displayed prominently in today’s newspaper, as well as online, accompanied by the friendly request: 'Are you featured on the card? How do you feel about it? Let us know.' According to sources within the activist community, many of them are hopping mad. Some of those who are still active feel that this is every bit as intrusive as the police action: others, who have not been active politically for many years, point out that displaying their pictures prominently in the national press, alongside copy that highlights the police description of such activists as 'domestic extremists', could have serious implications for their jobs and livelihoods."

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to to make the Press Complaints Commission a Public Body"

...or as I read the story "Police make criminals of people they have caught breaking the law". One of the things the Mail is complaining about is that police are criminalising the middle class for "not paying court fines". If you don't want your blood pressure to rise, I recommend you don't search the Mail site for "unpaid fines" to see how furious the paper is if yobs, thugs and foreigners don't pay fines..."Half of yobs fined for anti-social behaviour never pay", "Thousands of vandals and thieves refuse to pay £80 on-the-spot fines", "£486m still owed in court fines" and "The foreign supercars which have racked-up more than £4.5m in unpaid parking fines".

"I have a hunch that whatever form the media of the future is going to take, whether it will be niche and hyperlocal or multi-tasking in multi-media conglomerates, the people who are going to be really useful are those who combine traditional story-telling skills with both a social and technical understanding of the web. I want to be one of those people."