Oblomovka

2002-06-22»

The folk who brought you the The Circle (a P2P network with some intriguing properties) have just finished their first round of funding. To get the cash, they used one of their other innovations – a tweak of Bruce Schneier’s Street Performer Protocol that, they say, gives better incentives to freeloaders to become contributors. They call it The Rational Street Performer Protocol.

One useful aspect about the RSSP is that even if you understood none of the above, you can still use it. Basically, the RSSP says that if you are providing a regular service (like a Web comic, or software maintenance) you should get people to pledge you money in the form:

I will donate one dollar in every $____ raised over $____ up to a maximum contribution of $____

I still don’t quite understand the logic here (which never bodes too well for economic ideas that rely on “rational” consumption), but at least it’s easy implementable. Also, it somehow reminds me of sponsored swims at school.

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2002-06-21»

I’m still pretty enthusiastic about SpamAssassin even though I spent last night fixing bugs in its 2.20 version, and unentangling one commonhouse user who was sick to death of it. Now there’s a version out that Outlook users can install onto Windows. I know that SA won’t be the final solution for spam, but I hope it might have the effect of making spam better written and less cliched.

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2002-06-20»

Killer asteroids and killer flu viruses, all in one day. What did I do?

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2002-06-19»

Argh. One of those days where I haven’t done a thing but answer mail, and it’s already 2:30pm. Not even any time to check out Paco Xander Nathan‘s postmodernist Google competition entry (via Missing Matter), nor the lab notebooks of Linus Pauling, now scanned and online (via Robot Wisdom).

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2002-06-18»

I’ve just sent a very STANDish mail out to the people who helped with the campaign against the RIP Standing Order that would give dozens of government departments access to traffic data without a warrant. It’s all very quiet-pat-on-the-back for everybody involved.

This, however, is my personal Web site, where I’m allowed to say:

Holy fucking batshit, we won!

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett (equivalent, I suppose, to John Ashcroft in the US) actually came out and said that the government had “blundered”, and was “wrong”. The BBC just ran a news story (needs Real player, and will go out of date at 1230BST on Wednesday 19th June – I’ll get hold of an MPG shortly) about how the majority of pressure came from e-mail and faxes from ordinary Net users.

After a hardcore Internet campaign, they withdrew the whole goddamn proposal, at a stage where it was only a week away from becoming law.

People keep on saying “unprecedented U-turn” and “unusual government honesty”. I’m trying to work out how we can turn this into everyday politics.

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2002-06-17»

From Peter Seeger, via Techdirt, via Bifurcated Rivets:

When Woody Guthrie was singing hillbilly songs on a little Los Angeles radio station in the late 1930s, he used to mail out a small mimeographed songbook to listeners who wanted the words to his songs, On the bottom of one page appeared the following: “This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.” W.G.

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So we were talking about Gary‘s responses to the anti-RIP campaign on Cal’s Web forums. Here’s what Gary said:

Gary, 20:00 14 June 2002: Big deal! If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. Simple. People who start big campaigns about little things like this need shooting.

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ell, 02:43 15 June 2002: Gary: Go read George Orwells’ “1984”, then tell us we have nothing to fear. :P

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Gary, 13:18 16 June 2002: Not read the book but I’m sure a work of fiction like that is hardly worth getting over-exited about. Big Brother is watching? Of course they are! They HAVE to. In this post-September 11th time, every avenue of attack needs to be considered and monitored INCLUDING those that people are getting over excited about – if we want to live in a safer country without fear of being attacked on the scale of what happened on September 11th we MUST be prepared to allow the Government to intercept all forms of communication and associated evidence – and then act on it if they see criminal activity. Like I say, if you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.

Cal wondered if we were in a minority being worried about these issues. I said:

The particular form of this argument makes it smell like a troll, but there are people with this opinion around. I don’t think they’re in the majority though.

It’s one of those areas where people will often exaggerate their own position when knocking off a one-liner, but don’t actually reflect that attitude when they’re living their day to day life.

In my experience, you get people saying this to strangers on Web forums, in taxi cabs, on TV vox pops, but if you actually engage with them on private e-mail, from the back seat, or after they’ve said it on camera, they quickly back down from their position to something more moderate.

The problem with a lot of politics is that most people see it as a specialised form of small talk: you state your opinion to get a reaction from your friends. It’s like talking about football or religion – the more separated you are from the ability to do anything about the topic, the more extreme and opinionated you become. Helplessness breeds extremism.

I never know whether I’m being hopelessly optimistic (or deluded) when I say things like this. I’ve spent so much of my life – as have we all – subtly floating away from those who disagree with me. I spend a lot of my time wondering whether I’m wrong; whether I’ve become an extremist; whether the other side has a point. I don’t see this as paralysis, I see it as critical thinking. It’s one of the many reasons I like the Web – watching people change their minds, even if they change it from what I believe to another point of view. I bet, for instance, there are a lot more British people who believe in widespread gun ownership than there ever was before the Net introduced them to the real opinions of “those crazy gun whackos”. Ultimately, I still think they’re crazy gun whackos, but at least I’ve engaged with them.

I think I’ll e-mail Gary and ask him what he thinks.

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2002-06-16»

In case you were wondering: Dave Winer’s in hospital.

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2002-06-15»

I’m trying to not clog up the STAND blog with minutiae while we’re still getting visitors looking for info on how to protest the the RIP bill extensions. But I had to put this link somewhere: it’s the new website of the sinister Surveillance Commissioners: judges, jury and administrator for all RIP-style spying on the British public:

This website is primarily designed to be used by those who authorise and conduct covert surveillance operations and covert human intelligence sources (as informants and undercover officers are now known). It shows you how to carry out these activities in compliance with the powers granted by Parliament, and how the OSC monitors the exercise of those powers. By way of practical help we have identified some key points, some sources of advice, and some examples of good and bad practice.

I hope that the website will also be useful to members of the public who are interested in finding out about covert surveillance.

Sir Andrew Leggatt
Chief Surveillance Commissioner

Yeah, but how much are we allowed to find out?

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2002-06-14»

In China, teen girls see hunks as dreamy, and route their way towards them:

Nonetheless, the craze blossomed here and in Beijing. “There was no way they could block [Taiwanese boy band “Flowers Four”, and their TV show “Meteor Garden”] here. This is Shanghai,” said Zhang Lulu, a 19-year-old devotee of the group.

She maintained that government bans cannot work in a society that also tolerates widespread pirating of compact discs and videos: “When girls like us have needs, there is nothing anyone can do to stop us.”

So not only do I live in the future; I live in a Bruce Sterling future.

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