Inside View

Mobile Phone Costs One Euro A Week

I HAVE TWO YEARS of user data to confirm that when you can totally control the behaviour of your mobile phone, you can keep phone costs to one euro a week. Our grandparents are doing that with no data services.

You won't be able to constrain your running costs to five euro monthly (the average pay as you go charge my father-in-law incurs) unless you constrain email services totally to operations across wifi. And if you're a power texter or a Facebook addict, you have no hope of keeping your running costs so low. There's no Facebook in the lives of my in-laws because they prefer to deal with tightly-wrapped social collateral (i.e., viewing images and videos along with listening to occasional audio snippets on the handset). The Nokia E7 is a workhorse. I used it for several years as my daily phone--often getting more than two days between charges--and I still prefer its call handling and QWERTY keyboard over my Nokia Lumia. That's also the personal preference of the in-laws. The keyboard gives a greater sense of control over a touchscreen. The flip-up screen provides a tabletop focal point when using the phone on conference calls.

However, there is a major drawback when comparing the Nokia E7 over all other handsets my father-in-law has owned.

Best Circles Ever Shared

BECAUSE PEOPLE MEASURE THINGS by numbers, I know it's significant to have more followers on Google Plus than on Twitter. But mere numbers don't reflect the depth of conversation or the control of privacy.

I know it's best to use the tool that delivers the best results. In the minds of most people in my life, that means descending into Facebook when you want a casual conversation. It also means watching the flow of tweets sail by to get an idea of who's traveling where or what news someone spotted on their big screens. I get both of these effects and more because I spent a few hours tweaking Google Plus Circles until they delivered more for every two inches of screen scrolling than on any other social network I've used.

And I'd like to share some of the circles that helped me develop this system of business intelligence. Like Gabriel Vasile, I've categories like Bloggers, Celebrities, General, Hangouters,  Journalists, Photographers, and Social Media.

Bad Anti-Piracy Law Emerging in Ireland

IN HIS WEEKLY Sunday Business Post column, Adrian Weckler publishes some of the thinking of the Irish government concerning online piracy and it's not good for innovation or technology. It appears that proposed measures will cede authority on the matter to judges who can decide what online content or services to block.

This could result in judgments that shut down web hosting and dynamic content services. Because of the pattern of lawsuits already filed by the recording industry and record labels in Irish courts, citizens of the Republic should expect a frontal assault on their fundamental rights similar to the kind of stifling effect the Stop Online Piracy Act would have in the United States.

I have first-hand experience as a third level educator, working to cultivate creative multimedia graduates at the Limerick Institute of Technology and can state without reservation that the legislation mooted by Minister of State Sean Sherlock will damage the growth of innovation in Ireland. It will also inject "intolerable uncertainty for businesses such as Google who might find themselves at risk of business threatening and unpredictable injunctions and will certainly deter others from setting up in Ireland," according to barrister TJ McIntyre. [2]

Long Reads from the Sunday Times in Ireland

TODAY'S SUNDAY TIMES includes more long reads per inch than most issues I've purchased during the past 12 months. Its contents today will keep the paper on my kitchen table for most of the next week.

The Backlash Against SOPA

Camilla Long talked to Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia to find out why he shut down the global encyclopedia to protest against privacy laws. Perhaps a more compelling piece comes from Adrian Weckler in the Sunday Business Post. [2] Weckler believes "the Irish government's new statutory instrument threatens to do some of the same things as SOPA, mainly introducing the power to force ISPs to block websites suspected of having copyrighted material on them." This is wrong-headed mainly because of its lack of due process. If this Irish law is rammed through the Dail without the benefit of primary legislative review, it will damage the attraction Ireland has held out for companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. In my mind, the legislation outlined to Adrian Weckler by the Minister for State Sean Sherlock gives major record labels Gestapo-like powers in Ireland. In the world defined by draft Irish legislation, when a content creator issues a complaint to an ISP, there is no discussion. There's only a takedown (or shutdown). This is bad legislation for Ireland and as toxic to innovation as SOPA and PIPA in the States. These points percolate out in discussion at Boards.ie.

Long Reads on a Sunday

My Friend LaTeX

I AM PLAYING WITH LaTeX, an e-publishing tool that looks like it could fulfill many ebook publishing needs I've encountered. The handy thing is that you can then convert a LaTeX book into HTML.

The Irish LaTeX community is vibrant. I've discovered people willing to share specialised macros as well as packages developed in the Share-and-Share-Alike spirit. But beyond the packages, I want to find someone who is developing an HTML5 front end editor so I can use LaTeX as a backend. An attractive HTML5-based ebook creation tool would hold its own against iBook Creator.

If Only Tech and Entertainment Could Harmonise

I SPENT HALF A DAY talking about the battle between our growth-oriented technology culture and the disruption-prone entertainment industry. The conversation arises on the back of TWIT 332 in the audio clip below and Paul Graham's call for a tech startup that would kill Hollywood.

Graham wants shot of Hollywood. “The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise.”

Alexia Tsotsis (her poster at left) asked Paul Graham what he thinks people are going to be doing for fun in 20 years instead of what they do now. A lot of  smart people in the tech industry thinks the best part of our online lives will involve “something like Zynga.” That's good news for the software developers on the Games and Culture module I teach at the Limerick Institute of Technology.

The YCombinator crew sees "a lot more games. Zynga type games are likely only the start. Console video games are already essentially interactive movies.  Smartphones and tablets are making games more accessible than ever, in the future it’ll be bizarre to think that people ever purchased devices with the single function of loading games from a disc."

My View of Apple's Education Initiatives

I USE APPLE products to learn. Apple and learning have been part of my life since 1984. But I'm not convinced the interactive Apple way is best in all cases.

 

Blackout for SOPA

Thousands of web sites across the Internet are shutting down today to protest proposed U.S. laws SOPA and PIPA) that would make it difficult for websites to host community-generated content on the Internet.

If you spend more than four hours a day connected to the internet, you really should take 20 minutes to learn more about the bills and why they would be harmful to the open Web, to open education in Ireland and beyond, and to present and future collaborative projects for the benefit of the global knowledge society.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other non-profit organizations dedicated to preserving freedom on the Web have ways that you can make your voice heard in the national and international debate about these proposed laws.

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This is about our culture as much as it is about very obstinate and well-lobbied public representatives.

culture

Preventing Flash Slowdowns in Chrome

I LIKE CHROME because it's a fast, safe browser. But I've discovered Flash can slow down and crash Chrome so I've a work-around.

Unlike Firefox and other browsers, Chrome handles Flash content via an internal Flash installation. That's normally ok because Chrome updates Flash whenever it's updated.

However, in my experience, Chrome can get confused when both its internal Flash player and my Windows 7 Flash player both run in attempts to play content. This occurs on my blog's web pages where embed codes help run audio files. It happens with Flick where Flash is the uploader I prefer to use. It happens a lot when visiting mainstream news sites where I play video news clips.

Unless I control things, Chrome will get confused and attempt to utilize both my OS installation of Flash and the internal Chrome installation of Flash. This causes browser lag, temporary lockup, and then a browser-wide crash of all active Flash instances. On some days, I will get five Chrome tabs locking up with "The following plug-in has crashed: Shockwave Flash” so I've done a few things.

Watching Cancer through Blogging

I LEARN ABOUT CANCER by blogging because someone with cancer is only one click away from reading my blog. Eight years ago, the cancer victim was Emma Candy in her self portrait at left.

Nearly nine years ago, my dad would lose to cancer before reading a single page on my blog. I moved to Typepad's blogging platform after following people inside the Movable Type ecosytem who shared my wrath of cancer.  I fear my genes make me susceptible to cancer within 20 years. Through the Typepad Dashboard today, I learned of Dan York's wife's fight against breast cancer. Let me echo Dan's thoughts.

"We need the mystical "scanners" of sci-fi shows that can scan a body and confirm the existence of cancer cells to see if any of this is really necessary.

"We need even better drug options that can target specific cancer cells more like scalpels instead of sledgehammers.

"We need the "nano-machines" of sci-fi that can travel through the blood and find and kill cancer cells.

"We need more refined and targeted weapons in this ongoing war on cancer.

"And I know we WILL have improved weapons over time...

"Meanwhile it's hard to argue with the odds of using the existing treatments. According to the tests on my wife's tumor and based on various studies, there was a 60% chance that she'd be cancer-free after 10 years if she did no further treatments beyond the removal of the tumor."

There is something in our harsh 21st century environment and lifestyle that gives cancer the upper hand. We're too easy-going to challenge things like the TSA Backscatter Technology, known to be a cancer risk. Thirty years from now, when I'm buried, I hope society is as aggressive about removing carcinogens from our environment as it was with lead paint on my primary school's walls or the mercury lamps hanging above my wife's desk at work.

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Robyn O'Rourke Pollman introduced me to bloggers close to cancer. Robyn ran a highly successful campaign for the Susan G. Komen Cancer Foundation in 2003. I found Robyn 10 years ago after discovering her blog post about optimising content for PDA screens.

Emma Candy -- "May I be frank? Candygirl got cancer: she decided to write about it and other things." The last thing she wrote about was popsicles. She would often stop by my blog at 3am her time, right after puking black slime. Emma Candy died of ovarian cancer on Thursday 5th February, 2004, aged 36 years. I bought a copy of The Guardian in Kilkenny to read her obit.

Derek K. Miller died of  stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer on May 3, 2011, age 41, and millions--millions of people--read his last post in the week that followed. I followed Derek in my earbuds while listening to Inside Home Recording.

David Stewart -- "More News" was his last blog post, September 25, 2006. He died of bowel cancer on October 12, 2006, aged 46. Back in 2001, David greeted me in The Clarence Hotel as, "Hey, it's Underway in Ireland."

Brendan Kehoe's last blog post -- "Dubliner bruised but not beaten", July 17, 2011. He died on July 19, 2011, of  Acute Myeloid Leukemia, age 40. I had read his book before his passing.

Dan York -- "On to the next sledgehammer in the war on breast cancer" on his blog, January 16, 2012. I listen to Dan's perspective every Monday on For Immediate Release.

Siddhartha Mukherjee -- The Emperor of All Maladies, ISBN 978-1439107959

[This 2012 post about cancer was originally written by Bernie Goldbach in 2012. In 2022, Samantha Quinlan updated the content to reflect how the disease continues to affect millions of people worldwide every year.]