blog.teekay.me

#bbc6music : a blog post

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:57:26 +0000

BBC 6 Music, a digital radio station in the UK specialising in alternative music from all over the spectrum, is rumoured to close as of yesterday when a damning report by the BBC Trust. The report surveyed residents to find that only one in five were aware the station even existed and that it lacked presenters with credibility as music experts. The Times has reported Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, as saying that the station may be axed to scale back BBC costs and allow commercial rivals more room.

This is absurd. BBC 6 Music has a dedicated and growing listener base of 695,000 in 2010, which is 12% up on the previous year, and although this is small compared to the giants of Radio 1 and 2, it is still perfectly reasonable for a station only available digitally. These days I would bet most radio is listened to while driving, and most cars on the road don’t have a DAB-enabled radio, and cannot pick up 6 Music anyway.

I digress, because it is not the statistics we should be concerned with, but the heart and soul of a station such as this. Unconstrained by the charts and absconding from the terrors that is formularic playlisting (which my father tells me is what made him stop listening to radio), 6 Music has literally unlimited access to the entire BBC archive and is the only station with the remit to play it. The presenters are, on the whole, highly intelligent people with their own passions for music, and, as anyone with a real interest in new music will tell you: these people are at the forefront of introducing artists with their first bit of radio airplay; Tom Robinson’s Evening Sequence being notable for guaranteeing every single piece of music sent into them gets played. 6 Music is one of the most important outlets new artists have, and though 695000 may not seem a lot to a BBC Executive, that number is probably twice or three times the number of plays they have had in their lifetime over the internet.

Where else would Phil Jupitus have a text-in “for whether or not to play Curtain Call by the Damned, in its full 18 minutes of overwrought gothic glory.” And it happened; in the morning breakfast show. He is quoted today in The Guardian: ” Cutting 6 Music is an act of cultural vandalism, and an affront to the memory of John Peel.”

Windows Phone 7 Windows Mobile becomes Windows Phone, and at the...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:36:45 +0000

Windows Phone 7

Windows Mobile becomes Windows Phone, and at the Mobile World Congress, today in Barcelona, Microsoft have unveiled the seventh iteration of their device - and my god does it look good; and as Steve Ballmer said, leaving the room, “we have no OBJECTION to Adobe Flash support… although V1 will ship without it”. Clearly someone who can see the hypocricy in the iPad’s ‘ultimate web experience’ monicker.

Regardless, with support for a fathom of social networks, a truly connected device and the X-box Live and Zune HD software built into the phone itself; Microsoft have produced a phone interface to rival Apple and Android. Though we didn’t see any evidence of a lack of multi-tasking in Windows Phone 7, I’m on edge as to how they’ll react with their competitors on either side of the board: is there a happy medium?

The interface looks incredibly smooth and fluid, and it will remain so, with Microsoft promising no carrier customisations: HTC’s Sense UI on WinMo will be a thing of the past, offering continuity between devices. The interface itself is clean, straight typography and iconography, no backgrounds, no shadows or complex processing - just a simple, speedy user interface.

The first devices are poised to ship in the holidays of 2010, and I’m sure as more information becomes available, Windows is going to become an incredibly tantalising proposition. Let’s hope they don’t price themselves out of the market against Android’s open framework.

Damian Kulash vs EMI

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:28:56 +0000

The major labels are well known for making increasingly ridiculous inititatives in order to ‘safeguard’ their own material, but this latest attempt to stop Ok Go’s latest viral video “less viral”, is just absurd.

You must have heard of Ok Go. The hipster-cum-rockers who released their treadmilling ‘Here It Goes Again’ of seventeen takes to critical acclaim and almost 50,000,000 YouTube views on their official account alone, have engineered another highly sophisticated, impossibly co-ordinated feel-good video that they want the world to see. Their record label disagrees.

Embedding is disabled for the video, which prevents me from posting it here, or anywhere else on the internet, besides YouTube. EMI supposednly want to do this to prevent any loss of profit from the lack of advertising outside of the YouTube page, but really… won’t sales increase from people seeing it around the web anyway? And Ok Go’s current success stems almost entirely from that first video, so why should EMI let them die again with pointless restraint when ‘This Too Shall Pass’ could rebirth them from the ashes.

"I suppose that’s a major theme of this decade that has just been: the failure of companies to give..."

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:30:33 +0000

“I suppose that’s a major theme of this decade that has just been: the failure of companies to give the consumers what they want, which in turn has resulted in a culture where illegality, piracy and hacking is the norm.”

- ck/ck: The Sound Of My Head Banging Against The Wall (via inky) (via marco)

Wikileaks at the 'Here Be Dragons' Conference

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:48:00 +0000

Wikileaks at the 'Here Be Dragons' Conference

Rage Against The Machine, currently in a battle for the...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:51:00 +0000

Rage Against The Machine, currently in a battle for the Christmas #1 spot on the UK music charts with the X-factor winner Joe McElderry, are pulled from their performance on Radio 5 Live after singing the famed line “Fuck You! I won’t do what you tell me!” on the Thursday morning show.

Audio from The Guardian, aggregated from the BBC. Used under fair use.

Square: the future of mobile payment?

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:42:00 +0000

I’ve recently learned about Square: the latest startup of the Twitter-famed entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, and what he promises to be a revolutionary system for electronic payment.

The premise is simple: a wireless, cell-network based credit card reader - so simple it’s been done before, dozens of times; Apple already does this in their retail outlets, using modified iPhones and scanners to complete customer purchases from anywhere with WiFi, but Square is different, it revolutionises the payment processing of plastic by bringing the technology to everyone through a small plastic reader.

Square itself is a small attachment to any device with a 3.5mm audio input, that’s your iPhone, iPod touch, Zune HD, Windows Mobile, Android or even a laptop. The Square software then decrypts the audio back to a number and sets up the transaction. A quick signature from the payee on a touchscreen interface and you’re away. Square is s hosted service too, so the moment a transaction is completed a receipt is available online and confirmation sent by email or SMS. This transaction recording also allows companies to be informed when a repeat customer buys their tenth coffee: no more paper loyalty cards to be punched.

It’s simple to see now how Square is a technology full of potential: from coffeehouses to craftsmen to craigslisters, Square allows credit card transactions with existing hardware, no payment gateways, anywhere with a 3G signal. So when will Square reach you? “We’re trying to get the cost down significantly and just give them away”, says Dorsey in an interview of CNBC, “We’re aiming [a rollout] for March”. Dorsey wants to see one of these plastic squares in the pocket of every American. Some have criticised the operation, saying that Dorsey has developed technology with no use: with Japan already moving to a cashless economy using mobile phones as payment devices - but a cashless society is fragile with frightening Orwellian allusions, people like to be able to access their money in physical form, it makes them feel safe.

But there are of course downsides: Square is going to face the same if not higher levels of fraud as other gateways and will have to put up contingency funding; in it’s current state, Square cannot be used in the UK and other countries with the EMV standard for credit-security as it just scans the magnetic strip which doesn’t hold the encrypted PIN - it is effectively extending the use of a fundamentally insecure system. Square have also, so far, only invested in the iPhone, and although they promise to roll this out to as many devices as possible, it makes you wonder if the service will always be biased towards Apple’s mobile devices. While still in beta, with twenty locations currently trialing the device across the startup-heavy San Francisco, it will be interesting to see this product evolve and if what seems to be a brilliant idea can become a lifechanging reality.

CC-BY-SA or how the Daily Mail continues to ignore the law

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:36:00 +0000

The Creative Commons, in my opinion - despite the recent Wikipedia relicensing debate - hold some of the best licenses of the internet age, encouraging the growth of freely available content whilst still allowing for restrictions on certain types of use to be imposed by the owner. It boils down to four major aspects, abbreviated to two letter acronyms: BY, NC, ND and SA. Attribution (BY) is the most common Creative Commons license property to be imposed: it allows the content owner to request that users of their items ‘link’ back to the original page, naming the author and providing some recognition for the work; non-Commercial (NC) prevents commercial organisations from using licensed work for their own gain, unless it is authorised; ND, or no derivatives, prevents people from modifying your original work, and SA, share-alike, allows modification but forces users to also license under CC.

So now that ridiculously long and terribly confusing sentence is over we can move on. The Daily Mail has again used photographs found on flickr, licensed under the CC, without following any of the licensing terms. This isn’t a one off occurrence either, they’ve repeatedly used the internet as a source of free content for use on their stories - and some have barely any text: here photos are taken from a flickr, which is rightly attributed, but in looking at the photo details it’s clearly under full copyright with all rights reserved. The latest article today on the international craze of ‘moneyfacing’, which I’ve personally never heard of and is barely news, here has stolen the photos of @tshannon and is ignoring her requests for them to remove them. According to her latest status update The Sun are also using the content in their print edition. The Telegraph, who initially copied the Mail, were at least quick to get back to the content owner about attribution - and this is really what annoys me: attribution.

It’s not as if, in this case, the content owners are even asking to be paid. The previous article with the incredible pictures of lightning should have never been posted, but this was made to be shared freely; mentioning the author in the story costs nothing and helps generate rapport between producers. It helps the original owner gain some traffic.

How hard does it really have to be to follow a few simple requests? If we stole your content we’d be sued - national corporations should not be exempt from the law, especially when they make a profit from it.

Tweet @MattieTK with your thoughts.

Jacqui Smith’s “Late Night Viewing” recorded...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:14:04 +0000

Jacqui Smith’s “Late Night Viewing” recorded in her expenses claim.

COP15 loses ground

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:36:00 +0000

The Guardian today reported the leak of an important document outlining plans for the world’s richest nations - including the UK and USA - to take climate control from the UN through legislative action involving carbon quotas. The analysed documents contain information that states, under the proposed legislation, select nations will be exempt from the proposed 1.44tons per capita, increasing their carbon allowance to twice that, and vetoing all power of smaller, developing nations in their rights to a say on global issues affecting them most dearly.

The Danish Texts are thought to be pushed through with the arrival of the most powerful man in the world: “It is being done in secret.”, notes a diplomat, “Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process.”

This draft seems incredibly dangerous for our future, and our children’s. The Maldives, a developing island nation, recently staged a cabinet meeting underwater to publicly demonstrate the dramatic effect climate change and specifically rising sea levels will have on their country; but under this new agreement they will have no say, and will have to develop slower as a carbon allowance is imposed. All this whilst an unrestricted, sooty China builds further coal-fired power stations and rich partygoers heat their British patios.

Nick Griffin, British National Party Leader and MEP on the...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:48:03 +0000

Nick Griffin, British National Party Leader and MEP on the Climategate incident and his party’s policy on climate change.

"THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HAS JUST BLOWN UP, WE SEEN THE EXPLOSION OUTSIDE OUR WINDOWS. TERESA…"

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:12:00 +0000

“THE WORLD TRADE CENTER HAS JUST BLOWN UP, WE SEEN THE EXPLOSION OUTSIDE OUR WINDOWS. TERESA…”

- The free-speech organisation Wikileaks today announces a 24 hour live release of over 500000 text and pager messages intercepted in the United States on September 11th 2001. From 8am GMT events will roll out as they did eight years ago. #911txt

How much should content cost?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:23:39 +0000

The BBC today, in the wake of News International’s move to monetize its online news, has announced it has “no intention” of charging for its online content; this is of course no surprise, as British license-fee payers are effectively paying for the online service already. News International’s Rupert Murdoch, however, as part of a private enterprise, has previously been on the record for saying that he intends to begin charging for online content from his British newspapers. How he wants to do this is unknown, though it is presumed that it will be in the same vein as The Wall Street Journal: this publication, also owned by Murdoch’s group, charges a $1.99 subscription per week to its services, displaying a “Subscribe to read more” after so many words of an article.

Murdoch was recently quoted for saying that he would remove his results from the online search engine Google News. This is confusing to say the least, especially as he was incredibly angry at Google for “stealing” his news for their users. But all Google does is index content - it sends a robot to each website which trawls for changes and uploads them to their servers. There is a simple way to block Google from doing this, or any search engine for that matter, and it is to place a text file in your root directory stating which robots you would like to allow access to. Today it has emerged that Microsoft’s new search service Bing has offered to help Murdoch in removing his content from Google. This would be a hit for the emerging searcher, which would block Google from the newspapers but subtly allow Bing to index content. Would this gain any users though? Or is it simply a PR strategy made to inform Googlers that Bing actually exists?

There is another simple explanation why Mr. Murdoch has not blocked Google or partnered with Microsoft yet: Google is the biggest search provider in the world, their .co.uk is the top search provider in the UK: blocking them would be a financial nightmare, The Sun, particularly, would lose revenue rather than gain it. To every Sun there is a Mirror, and a Mail, and a Star - that’s three papers reporting the same content. If The Sun blocks Google they lose visitors from that source to their competitors. If the Sun monetizes their content they will lose even more. It is not as if The Sun is something special, like The Wall Street Journal - something well regarded in the financial circles. Considering the cost to buy The Sun for a week, at current prices, is just £1.40 in London, it’s hard to imagine the Sun being able to charge a subscription that will make more money than their current advertising model while appealing to enough users. Though it is a high selling newspaper, it hardly has the unique journalism required to be able to sell online content directly to consumers; their audience more likely to read a physical newspaper than search through internet pages. And if they wanted to, surely they could just check one of their competitors sites (which will gain viewers and thus advertising revenue).

I can see the model functioning for The Times: the journalism is improved, the focus is different, the audience has changed; but in a generic tabloid newspaper such as The Sun, what makes it worth it?

The LHC at CERN, the centre of leading Particle Physics...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:01:58 +0000

The LHC at CERN, the centre of leading Particle Physics research, finally experiences its first collision. These images from the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector show the first set of data Physicists have in an attempt to unravel what happened in the opaque beginnings of the Universe.

Jedward are out.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:10:00 +0000

And thus the saga of brilliance ends.

My mother, in a befitting statement - on the controversial week of Simon Cowell making a predictable but unexpected move to save the identical Irish duo - moved in favour of changing our watching habits to Strictly Come Dancing, disgusted by the fact that The X-factor was, in her opinion, no longer a competition of merit.

In my opinion, it lost that status long ago, but it still was marvellous entertainment, especially with the ridiculous antics of John and Edward, who we (and soon later the press) affectionately dubbed Jedward for ease of communication. In due course I moved upstairs, and with the aid of my trusty MacBook and two extension leads, I quickly made up a setup running a live stream of ITV and some nice video games to keep me company during the ad breaks on the side. I have no interest in watching C-list celebrities dance.

Indeed, from the outset we never saw them even getting this far. I hated them from the start: they were obnoxious cocky teenagers, typical of what you could find at any school, but multiplied by two and sporting ridiculous space-age hair. Simon hated them, ergo, we hated them. Louis loved them, ergo, we hated them. Then they got the votes required, then they made it to boot camp, then they got to the live shows through sheer luck of being with an expatriate judge.

And so it went on, week after week of mangled songs, pitiful dance routines and hilarious commentary from my favourite man at Popjustice. We grew to love them; like a constant “so bad it’s good” moment; like Braindead but with less zombies; like watching Miss. Katie Price bite the head off a 4 inch grub. Seeing their misfortune made us feel good about ourselves. We weren’t crawling all over the media like they were, but would we want to be?

Then the curtain, frankly, burned down. They were in the bottom two for a second week - and Simon couldn’t save them. In a valiant effort, Louis grasped at the little talent they had to blow it out of proportion, but it didn’t convince the girls. Cheryl was fast to vote against, and Dannii, making a comment that the “talent show” was no longer a “singing competition” hit the killing blow.

My heart fell. I knew that I’d never watch the show in the same light again. There would no longer be the Jedward act to look forward to, just a bunch of unknown karaoke singers bound by their ‘talent’ to produce a performance worthy of nothing. Jedward made me enjoy the audacity that comes with the first auditions, all the way to the end, and for that I thank them and will truly miss their company in the final.

"[Joss Stone] dismissed the dangers of cannabis, despite ministers upgrading the drug from a class C..."

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:02:29 +0000

“[Joss Stone] dismissed the dangers of cannabis, despite ministers upgrading the drug from a class C to class B drug last year saying it was ‘like having a drink’”

- Simon Cable, Scientific Hermit, Daily Mail.