Category: culture-and-politics

A ex-student I taught and good friend of mine, Harry Jones won his WIPO trademark case against Jonathan Ive and Apple inc recently. Yes the Jonathan Ive who now works on a lot of Apple products. For years Harry has owned the domain names JonthanIve.com and jonyive.com. Unlike most Harry bought the domain names because he loved the work of the designer with the same name. Harry was a fan and ran a fan site to honour his work. Unfortunately Apple and Jonthan Ive had other plans and put a lot of pressure on Harry to give up the domain name. I remember last time I saw Harry, he had a recording of Jonathan himself asking for the domain name. He also had many calls from Apple people trying to play good and bad cop with him. It was all very underhand and to be honest makes me even less of a Apple Fan.

Actually I was talking to Tara Hunt the other night about her presentation at thinking digital and her new book. And cited Apple as a company doing everything wrong but still loved by many. Well I fell straight into the trap, it would seem because in her book she talks about Apple and says Apple provide a fantastic customer experience. So much so that they can pass on everything else and still come out smelling of roses. And you know what that's just not right in my book.

Apple and Jonathan Ive put increased pressure on Harry to give over the domain name, and who's reporting on it? Hardly anyone. Will this convince anyone that Apple do bad things like all businesses? Nope. Anyway, I'm sure Harry is much happier now he's not being harassed by Apple people. The Wipo decision document makes for some interesting reading, some of the press can't let go of the money thing, its actually quite simple..

The Respondent has demanded USD400,000 for transfer of the disputed domain names, even though he had previously been offered USD10,000 by Apple Inc. This demonstrates that the disputed domain names were registered primarily for the purpose of selling, renting or otherwise transferring the disputed domain name registrations to the Complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of the Respondent’s out of pocket costs.

What would you do if Apple phoned you up and started bugging you about selling the domain?

1. Hand over for there first price?
2. Give it up for free because you love Apple so much
3. Make up some figure on the spot and see what they say.

Now the answer may seem like number 2 for most of you Apple fans, but actually number 3. Its also silly to suggest that the domain name was primarily for selling when there bugging him about selling it. I'm not selling Cubicgarden.com but if the cubicgarden corp phone me up and start throwing around cash, you bet your dollar I'll be suggesting silly prices just like Harry did.

Good on you Harry for standing up to these bully boy tactics. Matt Mason said sueing your fans means you got no business model. Well Apple and Ive have been very short sighted, they could have given Harry even more material and maybe guided Harry who was in it for the fandom. So Tara, this has got to be a example of where the Apple approach is just bad for business. Shame on you!

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Found in Ars Technica, Lawrence Lessig was sent one of those DMCA takedown notices by Warner Music recently. And out of all the people you want to send one of those takedown notices, Lessig is the very bottom of the list.

Oh no you didn't: Warner hits Lessig vid with DMCA takedown

Legal scholar and copyright reform advocate Lawrence Lessig was unhappy to discover that one of his presentations on YouTube was hit with a bogus DMCA takedown notice from Warner Music. Lessig intends to fight back and give Warner some schooling on fair use.

When will they learn?

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Tim Wu on Network Neutrality. I have a lot of time for Tim Wu although I don't actually read his blog. I first discovered him when he took over from Lawrence Lessig on his blog while Lessig was on Holiday. The points he makes in the video are well crafted but it also reminds us not to take our eyes off the ball. For example I do use Twitter (of course) but I'm very aware its on borrowed time. I'm a big fan of Indenti.ca and now Jaiku, and will be on it and promoting them when ever I can.

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Most of the mainstream press are some what happy with the outcome. But in actual fact they have cut the tail off something much deeper that they will ever admit to…You only have to listen to what Paul McCartney says to understand how out of touch not himself but the industry around him really are.

The former Beatle told BBC Newsbeat that he believed that music should be paid for.

Speaking about the case, he said, “If you get on a bus you've got to pay. And I think it's fair, you should pay your ticket.”

He suggested that websites such as The Pirate Bay were harmful to young bands.

“The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren't going to last forever,” he said. “So if they have a massive hit that's going to pay their mortgage forever.

“They're going to feed the children on that and if they don't get that money, if they don't see that money, I think it's a bit of a pity.”

Thankfully there are some people trying to get a hold on all of this. I would obviously point to the project we just launched called R&DTV but also this interview with Trent Reznor by Kevin Rose..

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I'm in the lucky position of buying in this housing market. I say lucky as in more lucky that others who have seen there expensive houses quickly de-value over the last year. But there is little I can do about that, I'm very sorry to say. So flats in Manchester are coming down in price pretty quickly, Some of the flats which were on the market for 180-200k are now down to 125k and sometimes less. Currently if your looking at a two bedroom and two bathroom place in central Manchester it will set you back anywhere between 95k – 145k depending on location and size. These are also guide prices so you can easily put in offers well below these prices.

I have seen a few places I like and a couple I love but only recently have considered putting in offers on one. But if you were in my position what would you do so? I do have a time limit of a year for reasons best not discussed here. A lot of people have said, wait it out it will go down even more. Some have even been brave enough to attempt to put a date when things will get so low. I've recently been doing some research into this and found Home.co.uk quite useful if a little behind on its real time stats.

Flat Sale Prices in Manchester in December 2008: 150 flats, with a average price of £124,021 and a median price of £106,500. Current asking prices is also quite interesting. But going by this information Manchester will keep a reasonable price for its property no matter what happens?

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I love working for the BBC but there is certainly a divides which do come up and lets say make the work more challenging. Rain my partner in crime on Backstage brought to attention a letter/email in Ariel.

The keyword ‘respect’ is noted as a BBC value on the back of your BBC pass. ‘We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best. “Software enginneers and computing professionals in the BBC are frequently labelled with demeaning and insulting terms, like ‘techies’ and ‘geeks’, by members of staff in other professional discaplines’. “I find it upsetting to hear these disparaging terms in the office and feel it sad that there is a growing acceptance of the use of these labels among staff – even among the profession itself in an attempt to ameliorate the terms. They are even used in BBC output, such as the Click programme. “The terms are typically used by staff in non-technical roles who, I feel, are getting away with blantent office bullying and professional one-upmanship which is damagine to the moral and self-esteem of staff in crucial technical roles

Andrew Ellis, software engineer FM&T

Unlike Rain who almost takes offence to Andrew's email, I get what he means. Yes I am a geek but I'm selective with the word. Yes alot of us have reclaimed the word but not everyone has and as we know people will use words to gently put people down.

Gay is one of those words which has been turned around by the community but, you know what I'm not going to start throwing it around willy nilly. Some people still find it offensive a type slur which is painful. So before calling people Geek, I tend to wait and see if there comfitable with the word when I call myself a geek.

Back to Andrew Ellis's email, there is something about the way the mainstream portrays geeks which does bug me. The problem is geek is wide and differental. Some of my regular readers will remember the geek stereotypes piece wired magazine did a while ago.

Rain says,

My current favourite TV programme is ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and follows a bunch of guys who could be described as ‘geeks’ and pokes fun at their everyday social, um dilemmas as high functioning chaps who might be on the edges of the social spectrum and have issues with everyday stuff such as socialising, girls or sarcasm. It’s light hearted and pokes fun at things we all see in ourselves sometimes, especially geeks.

For me I find it sometimes too close to offensive to be watchable. What bugs me about it is the stereotypes again. Geeks can't talk in public, geeks can't talk to woman, geeks are men, geeks are techie, geeks wear odd non-matching clothes. Well sorry this doesn't fly and to be fair no wonder people like Andrew get teased about being a geek. The IT Crowd is another show which maintains the geek stereotype, and to be fair I do watch it but sometimes cringe. One of the best episode recently was actually today when the geeks convince there manager (Jen) who knows nothing about what they do, that the internet exists in a black box complete with flashing red light. So the Joke is less about how geeky the two IT works are but more about how little knowledge the rest of the workforce has about technology. This strikes me as a more positive light of geek that the usual studdering bumbling idiot which pass for a geek.

This is much more fitting with my experience of people who are geeks too. Actually this is another reason why I think the Girl Geekdinners are so important. Its breaking down the stereotypes that geeks are men, geeks dress a certain way and geek woman are somewhat strange. All this in the end should in the future mean people will be more open about the fact there a geek and be actually proud to be a geek. One day…eh?

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I'm in the European city of the year for the weekend. No thats not a invite to break into my Manchester Pad but a interesting fact I picked up from the local paper (the evening post) today. I can't work out if this is the same award as the European Green City award which Bristol is also in the line-up for. Either way, congrats Bristol, you even beat out my current Home Manchester which does need some work doing on it in some areas. Bristol is a great city, don't get me wrong. Its got everything but I just wish it was bigger and had more tech/internet jobs. Between HP research Labs, University of West England (UWE) and the watershed, you could imagine some very cool things happening but generally it seems quite slow. But hey thats a outsiders point of view looking inwards, I maybe be very wrong.

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The polls currently say McCain 90 and Obama 200.

I go to bed knowing the world is finally a safer place, now Obama will be the next American president.

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So I started to write a comment to this TechCrunchUK blog post. But decided it was worth writing a blog post instead.

So a quick overview of the blog post. Mike Butcher went to Dublin to check out Digital Hub which is funded by the Irish government. He then launches into a pled for the same thing in the UK. He names it the Techhub and starts to say it should be based in London.

But I think it ought to be in London. Why? Simple really. Money, access and the networks inside London. Startups can make use of the amazing access to the wealth of mentoring, venture capital and talent here. I know there is an argument for creating other centres around the UK. But the classic clustering effect created by Silicon Valley would be replicated by concentrating efforts on one geographical area.

Yawn! I've heard it all before, and to be frank its getting a little tired. What is it with people and big shiny shiny central locations? What would this all achieve? Remember the dome people dummys! What about all the other simular activities going on all across the country? Liverpool where I was tonight has something like this, Manchester already has the MDDA and is working with many others on Media City UK, even Bristol now has the iShed project which i'm hearing so much about. Yeah forget all those, lets build another one bigger that everyone elses. Also what is the need to duplicate Silicon Valley in the UK? We should be building on our strengths and building the next, not a copy of the past.

What really gets me is, what is techcrunchuk going to do to make this all happen? Seriously, what practically are they going to do?

I was talking to the people at Geekup Liverpool today and explaining how Geekdinners changed over time and how it was different from other events in London at the time. The point I was making, was that when I first moved to London, I got fed up of the events I was going to. So I did something about it. I made something happen. I mean for example, the Techcrunch tours, what happened to those? What came out of them? Anyway, Mike jokes at the end…

This is going to require people from government to get involved. I may even have to kidnap Boris Johnson and hold him to ransom.

I'm not advocating kidnap, but hell if you could get some action by fingering through that massive contact list you must have and pulling some strings to get something done. Then great do it. But till then, I don't really want to hear anything more about techhub. Support whats currently going on across the country before thinking up yet another version of the same.

Rant over….sorry mike but its frustrating to see what people are doing across the UK and your advocating something which doesn't seem to help them or the industry in a meaningful way.

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I was waiting for my train for Manchester today at London Euston. A old woman comes up to me and asks me, if I'm from Kenya, I say no and she thinks for a second and then asks me if I'm from Africa. I say no once again and she then asks where I am from? I say the UK and she gives me a funny look and asks wheres my parents from? I say the Caribbean and in return she takes a second and says can I give her 4 pounds. I look at her and wait for her to say more about why she needed the money but it doesn't come. So I say, I only do cards, I don't have any cash at all (which if you know me well, is very true actually). Anyway, she turns away and just walks away.

The whole thing lasted less that a minute, I was thinking afterwards while running for the train so I can get a seat with a table (I got one, facing backwards). She didn't even ask for spare change or a low amount of money, I mean would you give someone you don't know a fiver for no reason? Anyway, also the repour thing was quite laughable and i'm never the kind of person who goes for that whole thing. Yo yo, were from the same city, now give me a fiver.

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