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A proclamation:

NO WORK be done on NOVEMBER FOURTH

Thanks Jim (coudal.com/nov4)

Man this is something, the twitter election feed which uses a script to update the stream (see election.twitter.com) is now scrolling almost continuously. I'll bet that'll hammer a browser or two...

So OK America, what'll it be?

Behind door number one: that Hitler chap hasn't done anything bad to us and those Europeans are always getting themselves in trouble with their corrupt old-world ways. Let's just look inwards and stay out of trouble.

Behind door number two: Ola! Tag! Salama! Kumasta! Nî hâo! Hey let's all reach out and work together to save this sinking ship of a planet.

So vote, OK? You know what to do!

Have been catching up on US writers recently, and having just come into the office to discover our parent company is to be nationalised, I'm hoping those sleepless senators listened to voices like Joseph Stiglitz

If, as Paulson claims, banks get paid fairly for their lousy mortgages and the complex products in which they are embedded, the hole in their balance sheet will remain. What is needed is a transparent equity injection, not the non-transparent ruse that the administration is proposing. [...] The fourth problem is a lack of trust, a credibility gap. Regrettably, the way the entire financial crisis has been handled has only made that gap larger. [...] With lack of oversight and transparency the cause of the current problem, how could they make a proposal so short in both?

Aside from really pissing me off (odd getting pissed off at finance ministers but there's a first for everything) this comes just days after Tim started posting a set of thought pieces on transparency (he asked me to help with these which is how transparency has become an overnight obsession) which introduced me to Alan Knight and his organisation, Accountability.

Tim has posted a video of Alan talking about the need for credibility in the markets and the development of reporting and assurance in the markets. In particular, he describes using wikis as tools to empower the stakeholders of his new accountability standard.

Now there's a thought, didn't your mom tell you to never let yourself get pushed into things? Shame there wasn't time for congress to invite constituents to help write the recovery bill together via a US governement wiki!

Well it used to be Big Oil or Big Business but we really are seeing the emergence of Big Copyright

Ohna's award-winning short film has been pulled by Google because of an automated copyright alert. This smells exactly the same as Google's ongoing mistreatment of the little guy. The same rules apply: justice cannot be applied by formula or filter. Unless each case is handled (note 'hand' as in 'human') individually by a trained adjudicator a never ending stream of injustice ensues.

I suggest Google work out how to pay for this adjudication service soon as sooner or later they're going to need a new business model...

Ohna reports:

Yesterday our short film SON was taken off YouTube's screening room because someone at Paramount Pictures copyright police company decided that maybe we had used some footage from Son Of Rambow. Whoever made this decision had obviously not watched the film as SON is obviously all original footage and in fact the only ressemblance to Paramount's film is the word SON in the title and the fact that there is a young boy in the cast. Despite the obvious blunder Paramount are making no effort to remedy the situation by removing their notice from YouTube and by doing so are damaging our reputation and possibly causing us loss of income.

The woman could use some words of support. Go comment on her post

And if you are aware of similar events, make you register each and every case with the EFF's chilling effects website.

Scoble wants us to link to this

He's got a point, this is potentially very worrying (and is also something I just wouldn't have guessed would happen):

This is a fight for the Web. We all just crawled inside a box that locks Google out.
Don’t believe me?
Go to Google and do a search for “Le Web 08.��?
Do you see a Facebook entry there? Nope. Google is locked out of the Web.
This has created HUGE value for Microsoft and has handed Steve Ballmer an Internet strategy which brings Microsoft from last place to first in less than a week.
Boom!

Scary stuff indeed...

Hey, we've just had a long and very informative post from Matt, a Luton-based Openreach engineer. I hope this really is an engineer speaking and not some perverse item from a 'guerilla marketing' agency subverting from within. He describes some real horror stories, if you're interested in the BT thing it's well worth a read:

I was on a fault last week and the customer drop-wire from the pole to the house was rubbing through trees so I replaced it only to get a phone call the next day from my manager asking why I hadn't charged the customer as the trees were on his property--this is the level that they are stooping to.

Do they care? This thing has been simmering for a while now, I wonder at what point a BT pr person is going to chime in?

Is BT still shit? (A Donkey on the Edge)

Get ready for a crackdown on broadband use

Man, this pisses me off. The only person who gets to decide the value of a good or service I invite into my space is me.

Right now, my ISP isn't providing me with value, not even close as my connection rarely gets over 64k (yes, k not m) and the damn connection won't come up after a router power cycle or other network crash.

If the service was a little closer to what was advertised I could start building my own value with it. Because I work in the internet industry, there's a really good chance my connection to the cloud allows me to create stacks of unique value. You know, just doing a quick mental calculation I'd be happy to pay my ISP say £40, £50, maybe even £75 a month.

Of course given past performance, I'd say the chances of my ISP being interested in understanding how I create value are pretty much next to nil.

When are businesses gonna get on the damn bus?

Apple says get a Mac So you know, I replaced my lovely 12" iBook with a lovely 12" powerbook back in 2006. Since then, I've travelled miles and miles on motorcycle and Eurostar and the whole time my mini workstation has been powering through... I tend to have Virtual PC, Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Omnigraffle, BBEdit, three or four browsers and Omnioutline all running at the same time (while downloading podcasts and listening to iTunes) with snappy response and power to spare...

Now, I know that's no big deal in modern laptop terms but for me (as I create my own unique value in partnership with apple's products) it's both great and exactly what need. Unfortunately, everything is beginning to run on Intel macs, Adobe CS3 looks like Leopard only so if I upgrade I'm also gonna need a new system... add to that the running Windows without VPC and I really need to update my Powerbook.

So, dammit Steve, I thought you were going to anounce the new 12" powerbook last month, but nooooo, you had to go and do the Air™ thing:-(

Steve, this is a machine I cannot use. For starters, I don't need thin, I need small. I need bounce-resistance (speed bumps and motorways) and I need crush-resistance (as I get kicked out of the conference room again and hastily stuff reports and coiled cables into my already overstuff laptop bag).

So where does that leave me...

I need a new laptop with an optical drive, an ethernet, an intel processor and a 12" form-factor. I need it soon, so if I can't get a 12" Powerbook, what are my options? I may actually have to shudder switch to a PC and go with a Dell or a Toshiba...

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only consultant out there to get into trouble with Tagged.com. The more I look, the more I find people sharing similar experiences

So here's a public service anouncement.

If you're pissed off at receiving the damn emails, why not threaten, or at least hurl abuse at, the VCs behind tagged.com? Here are some bits to get you started:

enjoy :-)