One of the things I love about Private Eye is the columns I don't read. Corners of the magazine dedicated to the gossip of the classical music world, the perils of modern architecture, positively incomprehensible reports about big business buying into football. I care for none of these subjects, but I'm immensely relieved that they are reported on somewhere. The Guardian's Saturday edition s…
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Sousveillance (pronounced /suːˈveɪləns/, French pronunciation: [suvɛjɑ̃s]) as well as inverse surveillance are terms coined by Steve Mann to describe the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity, typically by way of small portable or wearable recording devices that often stream continuous live video to the Internet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u804C65q_Jk …
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I've been thinking about James Whatley's discussion asking When does Batman sleep? Here's the pull-quote... Sometimes Brian, I find myself stuck in front of the laptop at like 10pm on a Sunday night. The kids are in bed, the wife isn’t far behind and there I am answering customer care questions over Twitter with some guy in Geneva! This isn’t my day job. I’m a developer. My question to you is sir…
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Update 27/10/2009 - I've received several replies - scroll down to read. After reading EU Parliament's credibility undermined by back track on citizens' rights on the Open Rights Group blog, I was moved to write to my MEPs. FOR THE ATTENTION OF: Sharon Bowles MEP Nirj Deva MEP Nigel Farage MEP Caroline Lucas MEP Marta Andreasen MEP Catherine Bearder MEP Peter Skinner MEP Dear Nigel Farage,…
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On Sunday, I attended the Feminism in London 2009 conference. This Is What A Feminist Looks Like (AKA spot the odd one out) The conference was inspiring, depressing, uplifting and infuriating in equal measures. That's probably a good thing. I'll briefly discuss some of the sessions I attended and also what I think the organisers could do better next year. The Conference Kate Smurthwaite…
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Is there an alternative to privatising the Post Office? Given that the workers control the means of production - could they also own the means of production. In short - could the workers purchase Royal Mail? The idea isn't as crazy as it first may seem. We need to take the market value of the Post Office's shares - then divide them by the number of workers willing to put their money where th…
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Vodafone Update is a combined Twitter, Twitpic and Facebook client for smartphones. I rarely comment on Vodafone specific topics, but as I've already reviewed Dabr and UberTwitter - it would be a shame to leave out Vodafone Update. The usual disclaimer applies - I work for Vodafone Group, but I do not speak for them. Vodafone Update was developed by Vodafone Germany - I don't think I know…
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At the Connect Biennial Conference, I proudly stated the case for Connect's merger with the Prospect Union. Our other choice was the CWU. Unions - in the UK at least - are democratic structures. What gets proposed at conference has to be approved by a majority vote of members - not just those who could take a few days off to go to Blackpool. Casting My Ballot The irony is that the strikers…
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VoteUK is no more. In order to precisely show you where your electoral registration office was, I needed to take its postcode and covert it to latitude and longitude. That's the service Ernest Marples provided. A few days ago, the Post Office - in their infinite wisdom - set their legal dogs on those running Ernest Marples. The Post Office charges for the file that they generated which c…
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So, I've hit my first snag with the Humm Duet Energy monitor. As I mentioned in my first post, the device doesn't have any Internet connectivity. Instead it records everything onto an SD card. In order to visualise the data, I have to manually upload the files to the Green Energy Options MyEnergy site. Rather than a simple web based uploader - GEO have decided to go with Adobe Air as their pl…
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I read most of my news through my mobile - if your website isn't mobile friendly, I won't be bothered to read it. I've greatly enjoyed the BBC's Mobile News service and Guardian Mobile - but now there's a new player - The Times has a mobile site. This is a quick review of what I like and what I dislike about The Times' mobile venture. Discovery The first I knew of the site was this advert ne…
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At the Connect Conference in Blackpool we voted to merge our union with Prospect. The other potential merger was with CWU. There's a plethora of articles about the CWU ruining businesses. Is this really the union people want representing them? Let's face facts, the postal service is dying. I literally can't remember I posted a letter. Email does for me. To tie our fortunes to a sector whi…
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