November 21st, 2009 12:07am
billmarshall
Is any one else getting fed up with these TV adverts telling us to drive 5 miles less a day to save the planet?
That’ll be the same government that builds new airports and runways (and then taxes air flights), that allows local governments to build out of town shopping centres and denude the town centres of shops, that creates housing policies that build houses on estates with no amenities far away from workplaces and shops and then wonders why everyone wants to own a car. That strangles rail investment and avoids integrating transport systems to allow efficient movement across different modes of travel. That allows urban roads to be so riddled with potholes that travelling by bus is a shuddering experience, and who has failed to provide the broadband infrastructure that might allow videoconferencing to become a viable means of business communication instead of some meetings.
Funny how it’s always the people who suffer the most who are asked to take action and/or pay the price while the ones who create the problems in the first place are untouched by the consequences.
November 2nd, 2009 09:42pm
billmarshall
Don’t you just love banks? Not content with blackmailing our governments into bailing them out for their idiocy and incompetence then complaining because they are asked to pay some of it back since we “own” most of their establishments now (and that “own” must be the most meaningless phrase in commercial history) they now add insult to injury.
Like, no doubt, many others, I received a letter telling me one of my banks was changing the name of my account. From a High Interest Current Account to just a Current Account. Have you guessed the reason yet? Yep, got it in one, they’re not going to be paying any interest on it any more. And of course in the alternative “upgraded” version there’s a monthly charge. How stupid do they think we are?
Sadly there will be plenty of people who will bin the letters as being just another one of those endless streams of mind-numbing conditions documents that require three years free time, a masters degree in legal obfuscation, and a microscope to decipher.
Me, I’ll be finding a new home for my current account money, and probably for my savings and isas as well, since they’ve also had their interest rates cut to microdecimals – so much so that the tax benefits have almost dissappeared. Pity I didn’t buy gold a few months ago, I’d be well in now.
October 31st, 2009 10:53pm
billmarshall
I had a delightful surprise last night. On the way to visit a friend I passed by a park area near my home. The park isn’t lit and the trees surrounding it still have enough leaves to keep most of the streetlight out. Walking by, my eye was caught by a flicker of light and looking closer I realised that it was coming from a mobile phone held by one of two youngsters of maybe 14 years old who were lying on the ground. Slightly puzzled I was about to move on when I caught another movement nearby – a bushy tail – which as my eyes adjusted to the darkness resolved into a young fox about 10 feet from the youths. As I stood and watched I realised that they must have been keeping very still for some time and that the flicker of light was from one of them trying to film the fox on his mobile.
They were doing an excellent job of avoiding disturbing the fox and I watched it move gradually closer until it was within about 2 feet of one of the boys, probably hoping that they had some food but showing remarkably little fear of them for such a streetwise creature. It was an enchanting sight.
The fox looked to be in good condition so there must be plenty of food available here in the centre of the city. Good to see such an animal flourishing so close to us. Equally encouraging to see two young lads appreciating it too. It’s so easy to fall for the trap of the tabloid media’s demonisation of young people, and assume whenever you see youngsters at night that they must be up to no good. These two were showing quite the opposite and clearly were delighted to be so close to a wild creature and must have been displaying great patience and reserve to be tolerated and trusted by that fox. I hope they managed to get some footage on their phone and that they continue to be enthralled by the natural world.
October 14th, 2009 04:43pm
billmarshall
You know there’s something strange happening to the world when you find yourself almost agreeing with Rupert Murdoch!
What cataclycm could cause this abberation? Google’s attempt to take over the world of books and the Associated Press’s attempts to battle them in the area of news generation.
Actually given the all powerful search engine’s involvement I’m not sure whether this post belongs here or on my SEO Blog, but I think my history in the book trade means it should be here. Though my time at James Thin Booksellers now seems an age away and most of my reading seems to be online these days, I still love books and have the greatest respect for the people that write them. At one time I also had great respect for quality journalists, particularly those of The Scotsman who were trained under Alastair Dunnett, but I seldom see any these days – the newspapers I used to devour are now riddled with spelling and grammar errors, poor writing devoid of any sense of rhythm, and little recognisable research.
The news moguls are concerned about the use of their “quality content” by other people, often without attribution, and are trying to find ways of getting people to pay for it. They see Google as a major and increasing problem because more and more they are delivering not just search results but sizable extracts, which in our short attention span world can mean that people don’t even need to visit the news sites at all. If they don’t visit then they don’t see the adverts or don’t consider paying for premium content. Since hardly anyone actually buys a physical newpaper these days that’s the end of their business model.
Now it has to be said that Associated Press don’t seem to have much a of a clue about the web and what it is or how it works. They’ve spent some years trying to avoid people linking to their sites – without paying for the priviledge – and for a while they tried to avoid deep-linking completely. They don’t seem to get that the web is about links. They also seem to have little idea of collaboration or any form of trying to profit from their work other than by direct sales and direct advertising. Essentially they don’t seem to have adjusted to the modern wired world and have decided that Google are their main bogey-man.
Now so far you may not have much sympathy for them, but there’s another side to all this and that’s copyright. If you respect writers (and musicians as well) then you want to see them paid for their efforts or they might just stop producing the literature, quality news articles, or music that we appreciate so much, or at best they might be unable to spend so much time on it and lose quality. For that reason I’m in favour of copyright, although I appreciate that it may need to develop in order to cope with the digital world of the 21st century. While I would be happy to see increased availability of out-of-copyright and some out-of-print material, at the end of the day I can’t agree with breach of copyright.
Some people, particularly in the USA, seem to have a rather extended view of the idea of “fair use” – the principle that allows quoting of work for review or criticism for instance. Plagiarism seems to be all too common and lifting of content just because it happens to be on the web seems to be accepted. It’s in this vein that the increasing indexing and display of site content seems to be considered reasonable. But even if you accept that, how can you tolerate the wholesale copying of books and the assumption that because you did the work of copying you suddenly have the right to make money out of them. I was brought up to understand that the action of copying or storing in a reproducible medium was itself illegal – copyright notices generally say so explicitely – yet some major academic libraries have collaborated with Google in doing this very thing.
Frankly I’m astonished that major publishers didn’t immediately slap court orders on Google to prevent such copying. They didn’t seem to wake up to the fact of what was going on and didn’t protest loudly enough when Google suggested that they could opt out if they wanted to. The principle of copyright should give the owner the assumption that they don’t have to run around opting out of someone else’s attempt to steal their work. Maybe the publishers were hoping they’d get a cut later, maybe they just didn’t understand the internet in the same way as they seem not to understand ebooks.
Google almost got away with it by paying various large sums to writers and publishers organisations but now we’ve got governments intervening as they realise the problems of monopoly that are arising. American federal regulators stepped in to prevent the latest agreement going through following a wave of complaints, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the latest major figure to speak out against the whole idea as she opened the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair a few days ago.
I’m very aware that what I’ve written here is less than an iceberg tip of a very large and complex subject and I could easily spend months researching the various implications. There are, for instance, questions of privacy and confidentiality in accessing the planned book repository, questions about whether Google is trying to make profit from out of print books, and probably many more.
The trouble is we’ve already allowed Pandora’s Box to be opened by allowing the copying in the first place – mesmerised by Google’s self-appointed task to index all the information in the world. What gives them the right to do that? And what do we do if they succeed and establish a monopoly? So just this once I reckon I’m happy to see a media mogul go up against them if it means that this whole subject gets a thorough airing and people and governments realise the implications of allowing copyright to be ignored.
September 15th, 2009 03:31pm
billmarshall
Today saw an announcement of a further reduction in Edinburgh’s once famous publishing industry. The offices of Chambers, respected worldwide for their dictionaries and established way back in 1819 by brothers William and Robert Chambers, are to close. 27 staff will be affected and the remainder of the work will move to London.
Thus is cut another tie to the literary past – Chambers were the publishers of the Songs of Robert Burns amongst many important works. I remember when it was common to see their dictionaries in school classrooms and I think my dad still has the big thick dictionary he bought to help with my studies when I was young.
Apparently the heads of Chambers Harrap, as the company has been for some time, tried to sell it but couldn’t find a buyer. It seems we all use the internet for reference material these days and sales of dictionaries have declined markedly.
A sad day, and I fear my old boss Jimmy Thin will be spinning in his grave.
July 18th, 2009 02:03pm
billmarshall
This time last year I was commenting on how pleased I was to see Greg Norman leading the Open at the age of 53. Greg wasn’t quite able to prevail against the immaculate play of Padraig Harrington but what he achieved was superb. This year with the third round at Turnberry just underway we’re seeing an even more amazing situation – Tom Watson at the age of 59 and having had a hip replacement last year is joint leader.
Watson is of course a legend – 5 times a winner in the event and the star of possibly the finest golf battle ever when at this very Turnberry links he and Jack Nicklaus left a star-studded field for dead and played out what was effectively a match-play event for the last two days with an unbelievable finish which saw Watson win by a single stroke.
Universally loved by the Scottish golf crowd, as much for his gentle and respectful manner and his appreciation of links golf and its history as for his achievements in the game, Watson comes across as a really nice guy, and it’s hard to believe he’s now almost 60. Especially when he’s sweeping golf balls miles down the fairway with a swing that’s as pure as any seen in the game since Sam Snead.
His first round here was immaculate. In the second round he had a bad patch early on in very difficult conditions and most folk watching probably thought that was his cue to fade out and leave it to the youngsters. Not a bit of it! He may look like your favourite granddad but he still has a champion’s competitive nature, a game honed for wind and links play, and knows this course better than almost anyone. Yesterday he also putted better than he had since his halcyon days.
It would of course be nothing short of miraculous if he could win it, but with Tiger out, Harrington having hit a bad patch after a superb couple of years, and Garcia seemingly unable to putt, you have to romantically wonder if experience could maybe just count. It would be a fairytale and it would be the most popular outcome you could imagine. Whatever happens Tom, thanks for the wonderful memories and, go on – do it one last time!!
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