Friday, October 23, 2009

I see one big problem with Google Wave as it stands; who do I communicate with?

(My having to publish this here illustrates the problem. I can share this with precisely one person on Google Wave, as things stand).

When I'm using email, I can communicate with anyone who has an email address, on any platform, as long as I know that address. With Google Wave, they must have a Google account.

With a blog, I can publish, and anyone with a H.T.M.L.-capable device and an internet connection can read my blog, and reply. Blogs often become conversations. With Google Wave, I can only communicate with other Google Wave users.

Google Wave needs to be available to people who don't have an account.

Googe Wave needs to have a general publication option.

Of course, it has definite pluses. Being able to have a conversation involving several people, where one can see what is happening live, but doesn't necessarily have to be online for the whole conversation to keep it alive; what a godsend. Especially once it goes mobile.

So; this is an exciting idea, but it needs to be more open.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Chestnuts.

Once again, this time on Sveriges Radios Christer, the alternative of sticking a tax on broadband to compensate copyright-owners was raised. Not discussed, just raised.

Mm. I have no objection to paying copyright holders, but I do object to paying twice. I buy my music from emusic and iTunes, or on C.D.; shall I pay for the privilege of paying again? If a tax is introduced, I would expect file sharing to become legal. Fair is fair.

And who shall get this money? Shall we trust a private body to distribute this bounty? Shall it go to a select few artists based on their size, as the fees paid by shops do? What copyright holders shall qualify? Photographs are routinely pirated on the web. What burden of evidence will be placed on claimants? How will their share be calculated?

The gentleman who suggested this, with no further expansion, called himself a philosopher. Damn sloppy work, I have to say.  A degree does not a philosopher make.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Musings on Superman.

I used to think that Superman would be very difficult to write; where's the challenge for him, he can do anything. But I changed my mind. On a mundane level, this is a guy who's taken the weight of the world on shoulders; he may be unbelievably powerfull, but he's still just one guy who can't be everywhere. Couldn't that give one a nervous breakdown? How does he deal with complex situations? What does he believe?

And he's a journalist who can go anywhere, hear and see anything, and then express himself to a broad public. In a way, Clark Kent could be more powerfull than Superman; what does he do with this power?

On a barely related subject, I read about Richard Dawkins expressing the fear that magical childrens fantasies could make children more likely to fall for religion. I don't know about that, I suspect that realising Narnia isn't at at the back of the wardrobe is probably a good first step on the way to questioning the other fantasies that one is presented with. But also, the regular dreams that we're presented with, namely money, fame and supercompetence, are so boring that we need something more. And something that can stimulate a belief in a better world, a more fun world, because we have to dream about it before we can make it. And I want a nice, fluffy world where no-one is hungry and every-one can be what they want to be and the walls glow electric blue or whatever.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

And we shall become Atlantians!

I was reading Göteborg Postens artical today on the city's plans to protect itself for rising sea levels; sea barriers and moving parts of the city; and it got me to wondering (again) why we aren't even talking about science fiction solutions; finding an energy efficient method of freezing a chunk of the ocean, perhaps even using that trapped energy rather than seeing it as a problem. Separating the CO2 into C and O2. Collecting or altering what we've already put up there. Is this totally beyond the realm of scientific reality? Cost would have to be a none issue, as no-one can afford to live on Venus, which would appear to be what we're turning Ma Earth into.

Perhaps I'll postpone the book I'm blocking on and write that one instead, and hope that it turns out to as prophetic as all of the doomsday sci fi. Then we can get on with finding the next way to wipe ourselves out.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Repost from my other blog, but I think it fits in better here.

Google is a strange phenomena. They have lots of services that one can't find by following links off their own website; one has to find out about them. This is perhaps due to most Google products being almost perpetually in beta, but still, it's an odd promotion strategy. They have some fantastic stuff, but I find it unfortunate that they've moved away from providing services that work on older, slower machines and slow connections; both Gmail and Google Documents complain when I try to run them on my parents 30 K.B./S connection, although, in fairness, Gmail does provide solutions, in the form of making older, less demanding versions of the web page available, and a simple H.T.M.L. page solution.

Still. what I liked about their strategy from the beginning was that it opened up the 'net in a new way to a whole new constituency, much as Opera does. Lots of people have older computers, and lots of areas don't have broadband; web 2.0, with it's heavy dependence on Java, Flash and soon doubtless Silverlight, is a slow and frustrating place. One of the features about Opera that I loved when I was working on a Windows 95 machine was the turn off images button!

However, I found a partial solution when I was last back in Ireland; use the mobile web in your computer browser. It has limitations, but it's a whole lot faster; Yahoo, Facebook and Opera all have mobile pages, and lots of media organisations too. Although they lack features available of the regular web pages, they're a whole lot smaller, and feature no demanding plug-ins. No (fluff)friends on Facebook, but you can read your messages and not require blood pressure medication.

So, come on all of you technologically handicapped, join me in the third world of the internet, the mobile web. Population seven million and rising.

Until the iPhone kills it :)
That's strange, my carefully embedded hyperlinks didn't work.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Cool Iris.

For those using the Firefox browser, there's a great extension called CoolIris (used to be PicLens). Basically it's a button in the top right corner that puts all of the pictures on site which are enabled for it on a giant, movable wall, which one can zoom in and out of. It seems to work with all blogger sites. It seems to automatically follow the hyperlink embedded in the 'photo to the larger version, where such exists. One can display the 'photo in three stages, the last being full screen; and there are little previews available at the bottom if one desires.

It's great for checking out the pictures on a site with-out having to click backwards and forwards all of the time, although one does lose context. I just like it, it's cool.