The Subrosa Blog is now complete
Please be aware that this incarnation of the 'Subrosa Blog' has now ended - why not visit the new Stuart Homfray weblog?.
Of course, that's not to say that the Subrosa blog will never return... I may decide to reincarnate it as a sort of sideblog or something!
If you've arrived here via a search engine results page, you may also wish to consider entering the site via the main entrance, as Subrosa itself has now outlived it's usefulness...
posted by Stuart NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT POSTED VIA BLOGGER!
Friday, June 27, 2003
Recovery from system downtime...
Currently in the process of recovery from a rather strange 'flu-like illness (NO! Not SARS!) so I'm currently in the process of trawling through the piles of email that arrived whilst I was in 'sleep-and-repair mode'.
Currently, I'm on Tuesday, so if you've sent me an email since then, I hope to get back to you shortly... :)
posted by Stuart 2:37 PM
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Sometimes hyphens are necessary...
If YOU were an Italian rechargeable battery company named Powergen, and you wanted to get your company online, then your domain name would need to indicate that you were nothing to do with the "vertically integrated Anglo-American energy services business" who are ALSO called Powergen. But, would you forget the hyphen?
posted by Stuart 8:15 PM
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
COE draft on the 'right of reply' in on-line media
The Council of Europe - an influentional body made up of 45 member states along with 'observers' Canada, Japan , Mexico, and the USA - have drafted a recommendation stating that all on-line media - from professional news organisation through to your own weblog - MUST guarantee that "...the right of reply should be granted to every natural or legal person who is named by on-line media..."
The right of reply should, in theory, be granted to anyone who is attacked (for example, if I say, "Dixons are terrible because thay are far too expensive," then Dixons are fully entitled to ask me to post a response!)
If, however, I work for a particular company and they treat me badly in some way, and so I decide to set up an anonymous weblog in order to highlight this behaviour, the company's 'right to reply' enables them to be informed of my identity so that they can respond. Clearly, this would not leave me in a particularly favourable position!
The type of alterations within the report itself are also rather interesting. If we look at two of the proposed principles themselves:
Definitions
For the purposes of this Recommendation:
a. the term "professionalon-line media" means any natural or legal person or other entity whose [main]professionalactivity is to engage in the collection,dissemination, editing and/ordissemination of information to the publicon a regular basisvia the Internet, such as on-line news portals or bulletins;
b. the term "information" means any statement of fact [,opinion or idea] in the form of text, sound and/or picture.
- Principle 2
In order to guarantee an effective right of reply, member States should consider introducing an obligation forprofessionalon-line media to conserve a copy of their information made publicly available, at least while a request for inserting a reply can be legally made.- Principle 4
Professional oOn-line media should make the name and contact details of a person responsible for handling requests for replies easily available....we can see three issues:
- The word "professional" has been removed. This means that everyone that publishes content online, including all you bloggers in the Eurozone, are to be included in the legislation
- Principle 2 suggests that you will be obliged to store archives, and not alter your original inflammatory posting!
- Goodbye anonymity! Principle 4 says that you must provide contact details on your page or site
So is this going to hurt us? As it stands, in the short term, probably not. All we'd need to do is set up our weblogs in a country not covered by this law (for exampe, the USA), or we could simply set up an anonymous email account at somewhere such as My Way.
The REAL problem lies somewhere up ahead in the future. Down what path will these small steps take us? Is Uncle George going to be slapping his forehead, mumbling, "Thought Police, Thought Police," over and over again to himself??
Anyway, don't worry! As Declan McCullagh states in his piece Why Europe still doesn't get the Internet, "while the Council of Europe is very influential and its proposals have a tendency to become law, that outcome is not guaranteed".
posted by Stuart 3:35 PM
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Low-flying Aircraft over Wolverhampton
Over the past few days, there seems to have been a marked increase in the number of low-flying jet aeroplanes over central Wolverhampton. From very rarely seeing any low altitude planes, you can now see at least six, seven or even eight.
For example, let's take today. I took my dog for a walk at around midday - it takes around 15-20mins - and I saw 3 aircraft following an approximately northern path, and one heading east. That seems a little extreme - 4 planes in 20 minutes. Not only that, but there were two more at around 6:45pm (one heading east and one north again). Admittedly, they all look like small-ish commercial jet flights (especially the yellow paint-job between the wings and the tail of the last one!), but this is a rather drastic increase. I understand that Wolverhampton Business Airport are looking at expanding, but I was under the impression that we are still in the planning and discussion stage!
Another interesting point, possibly unconnected, is the planned stacking area, departure route, approach path and emergency let down areas are not really anywhere near where I am (if you look at the map, I'm located a little bit to the right of the 'n' of 'Wolverhampton' - very much NE of Halfpenny Green Airport), so why are they flying over here all of a sudden?
posted by Stuart 9:05 PM
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Chinese Propaganda Posters
A look at the art of the propaganda poster in the People's Republic of China, from 1949 to the present. Stefan Landsberger discusses the various political, social and economic themes that found their way into these pieces of work.
Despite the flaws in China's interpretation of communism depicted within the works (not least, within issues of human rights), the romantic visual style of many of these posters is quite compelling, as is the superb technical skill of the various artists and designers.
(Thanks to Rant of The Week for this one)
posted by Stuart 11:43 AM
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
US Foreign Policy and the Iraq Invasion
AT LAST! An answer to the question "why did we have to attack Iraq?"
posted by Stuart 8:26 PM
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Welcome to DARPA's new toy - LifeLog. This 'Super Diary' project aims to capture and store everything about the user - everything you see and hear, your movements, your physical state, your telephone calls and voice mail, all of your computer interactions such as email, instant messaging, browsing habits - EVERYTHING!
DARPA have said that the project is not connected to their data-mining project, recently renamed Terrorism Information Awareness, and that the "...allegation that this technology would create a machine to spy on others and invade people's privacy is way off the mark," but they have told potential contractors that the data collected could facilitate "early detection of an emerging epidemic."
Frederick Douglass said, "Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude."
I think that we're going to need a new A-Z!
posted by Stuart 7:54 PM
Monday, June 02, 2003
Know Your Data Campaign
Privacy International have launched a campaign in the UK enabling people to write to their telecoms providers asking for details of records held on them. The campaign provides three model letters to send to providers: mobile phone, Internet Service Provider, and standard telephone service.
posted by Stuart 7:47 PM
Steadily does it...
Whilst reading the May 31st issue of Mike's List, I found a link to an interesting website. If you would like to read it, perhaps you should pay it a visit.
posted by Stuart 5:58 PM
