Been a long time working on an essay-style post on evolution and leaders. In the meantime, here are three tracks that I recorded for 'Haunted Forest' and decided not to include for pacing. Hope you enjoy.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Thursday, 9 February 2012
A Bot's Introduction to Ann Leslie
I've just had a sudden, and vaguely alarming revelation.
It starts, as vaguely alarming revelations often do, whilst up far too late at night perusing the Twitter Timeline for BBC Question time (For some Reason). The words 'Ann Leslie' were trending for the reason that a humanoid called 'Ann Leslie' was on the program tonight and appeared to many people to be rather amusingly tipsy, although having not watched the show, I have literally no idea about that. She also managed to anger/delight quite a few people, with some points which I also didn't see. Because I didn't watch it. As I hope I made clear.
I had thought about watching it on iplayer,
Luckily I didn't pursue this, because as time went on and more and more humans has abandoned Twitter the Trend began to be invaded by more and more 'Bots' who kept the trend alive for hours after the program.
Now I am utterly clueless about 'Bots', or what purpose they serve. Bots seem to me to be computer generated word smashing machines. They often seem to feature, possibly stolen, images of women. What this expected to achieve, I have no idea, as they don't appear to actually do anything. They just seem to ride around on trends like pouty surfers. Very rarely they'll offer you some link in nonsensical english that you'll never click on. Some are fairly targeted, like a 'Robocop' Bot that replies: 'I'd buy that for a dollar'... For some Reason.
So the people had gone to bed. And the Bots took over. Here are some examples of what they came up with:
It starts, as vaguely alarming revelations often do, whilst up far too late at night perusing the Twitter Timeline for BBC Question time (For some Reason). The words 'Ann Leslie' were trending for the reason that a humanoid called 'Ann Leslie' was on the program tonight and appeared to many people to be rather amusingly tipsy, although having not watched the show, I have literally no idea about that. She also managed to anger/delight quite a few people, with some points which I also didn't see. Because I didn't watch it. As I hope I made clear.
I had thought about watching it on iplayer,
Luckily I didn't pursue this, because as time went on and more and more humans has abandoned Twitter the Trend began to be invaded by more and more 'Bots' who kept the trend alive for hours after the program.
Now I am utterly clueless about 'Bots', or what purpose they serve. Bots seem to me to be computer generated word smashing machines. They often seem to feature, possibly stolen, images of women. What this expected to achieve, I have no idea, as they don't appear to actually do anything. They just seem to ride around on trends like pouty surfers. Very rarely they'll offer you some link in nonsensical english that you'll never click on. Some are fairly targeted, like a 'Robocop' Bot that replies: 'I'd buy that for a dollar'... For some Reason.
So the people had gone to bed. And the Bots took over. Here are some examples of what they came up with:
My infallible acquaintance skirts the chemist's gender. Ann Leslie
The catalog steams above whatever rack! Ann Leslie
The nun overwhelms the authentic criminal around a museum. AnnLeslie
Should the moral nun predict her magazine? Ann Leslie
Your wizard laughs under the cyclist. Ann Leslie
His sickening pad chambers the premium juvenile. Ann Leslie
The embedded author rests past the incident. Ann Leslie
How can the ineffective lamp spike the vowel? Ann Leslie
When can the torture count beneath the disturbed elitist? Ann Leslie
Leaving it untouched, save arranging it into the vaguest couplets and setting the text a-cock with that natty slant I'm pretty sure that I could get away with passing that off as poetry. If I used a breathy poetry voice and included plenty of pauses I could possibly even make it sound like one. The repeated 'Ann Leslie' at the end of each line would be particularly effective in this context.
So the 'vaguely alarming revelation' is that a series of seemingly thrown together, utterly meaningless words has managed to interest me far more than hearing the words of a living breathing person, whilst also managing to amuse me to the extent that I now never ever want to see anything of this woman in case it ruins the fantastical impression of her that these words portray.
I'm sure I'm in some way missing out by not seeking out the words and wisdom of the woman concerned, but I just fear that it won't live up to the Bots Introduction.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Internet Holiday, Censorship and Resposibility.
I am a dinosaur of the internet. I was there when it was still a world of hobbyists, undiscovered by advertisers or pornographers. I was in college, studying 'media', we were the only course allowed the passwords to access this exciting, yet slow moving, world of text and low resolution images. Time in this world was strictly metered, and with the limitations of the technology, this meant that most of your visit would have been spent in the online equivalent of an abandoned bus station, waiting for a clapped out Number 7 to take you to the next destination.
I missed the really early days, the days of usenets and newsgroups, purely by virtue of not having the requisite nerdiness to pursue these incomprehensible exchanges. My brother did though, bringing back dispatches from this unusual world and displaying them with a joy I could just about understand. So, computers can 'talk' down phone lines. How could we know how earth shattering that would become?
Now I immerse myself almost totally in the online world. It is where I do most of my work, how I communicate with most of my friends and where I get virtually all of my news. My mobile phone is no longer a phone, more a handheld 'net portal. I know email address's in the way I used to know phone numbers.
I guess that's why I decided to take last week off. Entirely. No Twitter, Email, no News... Oh god... No News... How would I cope with no news and No Twitter... What would happen if I thought of some piece of disposable wit about a political decision? Who would I tell? My girlfriend doesn't actually find me that funny... On the 'net I can usually get a few 'LOL' messages if I fire a good one... Where would I get that pathetic little ego massage that comes with the magic words "... Has retweeted you"
As it was it turned out to be no big deal. Not like an alcoholic saying that they will take a 'month off to prove they don't have a problem' it was more like stopping watching a particular TV show. You find something else to do. You fill the time. You notice, but that's all... I didn't miss it. I read a lot of books, I went out to dinner with my girlfriend (who, now and again, reads this thing - Hello babe!) I hardly thought about Right V Left, or which SPAD had set what stupid thing on Twitter or any of that...
So now I'm back... And it seems I've just missed a Twitter Blackout... Well... I technically took part in it, without really having any intention to do so, or any knowlege of the background. Seems Twitter may censor certain words in certain territories, a plan that certainly fails to acknowledge the creativity of those with 'hidden' messages. Codes and Cyphers stretch back thousands of years, they are a technology as old as the written word.
I have difficulty seeing how they would implement such a scheme, but no difficulty seeing why. After last year, with the Arab Spring, the U.K 'Riots' and subsequent clean-up, the Superinjunction fiasco amongst other events, the pressure on Twitter to take some responsibility for the 'content' must be immense.
Should it be though? Are Nokia responsible for what I blog? How about Apple? I might want to edit this later... Perhaps it's Vodafone's responsibilty... Or even my electric company?
No... It's my fault... Not the fault of those who enable. In the same way that Google are no more at fault for piracy than the street map that directs you to the Market that sells pirate DVDs. The fault, or more precisely the responsibility lies with the originator of the 'content'
Of course I believe that Twitter should not filter content based on region, then again, neither should telephone or Text services... (witness the amazing recent campaign in Pakistan to forbid various words from SMS use... A list which made it round Twitter in about 5 seconds and introduced me to a lot of novel curses, both in Urdu and in English)
That said, the originator should know that free speech always has a price. It may be government harrassment if you disagree with them, or social alienation if you contravene the 'norms'. Every idea worth espousing comes up against some resistance. To be truly brave a person has to put their name behind their opinion.
I, for one, have hid behind the Twitter Hive Mind to voice opinions that I would have felt uncomfortable about otherwise, to engage in debates that I would otherwise excuse myself from either to avoid personal attack (abortion and Religion being the major points that just seem to attract the internet nutters to your door) or to engage in some Spartacus style Streisand-ing and add my voice to a (sometimes illegal) groundswell or meme.
Is it wrong for Twitter itself to want to excuse itself from becoming the mouthpiece for any and all 'anonymous' forces?
It's a difficult question. I love free speech, I'm even able to divorce the concept from the content when some idiot uses it to justify their small minded 'hate Speech' or nonsensical religious bullying. I do worry for it though... I worry that enough people will use it as a shield that it will take on the same perceived tarnish as those once beautiful words 'Human Rights'
Maybe... maybe all of that...
but maybe I've just been reading too much Christopher Hitchens and I need to get myself back on the newstrain... pronto...
I missed the really early days, the days of usenets and newsgroups, purely by virtue of not having the requisite nerdiness to pursue these incomprehensible exchanges. My brother did though, bringing back dispatches from this unusual world and displaying them with a joy I could just about understand. So, computers can 'talk' down phone lines. How could we know how earth shattering that would become?
Now I immerse myself almost totally in the online world. It is where I do most of my work, how I communicate with most of my friends and where I get virtually all of my news. My mobile phone is no longer a phone, more a handheld 'net portal. I know email address's in the way I used to know phone numbers.
I guess that's why I decided to take last week off. Entirely. No Twitter, Email, no News... Oh god... No News... How would I cope with no news and No Twitter... What would happen if I thought of some piece of disposable wit about a political decision? Who would I tell? My girlfriend doesn't actually find me that funny... On the 'net I can usually get a few 'LOL' messages if I fire a good one... Where would I get that pathetic little ego massage that comes with the magic words "... Has retweeted you"
As it was it turned out to be no big deal. Not like an alcoholic saying that they will take a 'month off to prove they don't have a problem' it was more like stopping watching a particular TV show. You find something else to do. You fill the time. You notice, but that's all... I didn't miss it. I read a lot of books, I went out to dinner with my girlfriend (who, now and again, reads this thing - Hello babe!) I hardly thought about Right V Left, or which SPAD had set what stupid thing on Twitter or any of that...
So now I'm back... And it seems I've just missed a Twitter Blackout... Well... I technically took part in it, without really having any intention to do so, or any knowlege of the background. Seems Twitter may censor certain words in certain territories, a plan that certainly fails to acknowledge the creativity of those with 'hidden' messages. Codes and Cyphers stretch back thousands of years, they are a technology as old as the written word.
I have difficulty seeing how they would implement such a scheme, but no difficulty seeing why. After last year, with the Arab Spring, the U.K 'Riots' and subsequent clean-up, the Superinjunction fiasco amongst other events, the pressure on Twitter to take some responsibility for the 'content' must be immense.
Should it be though? Are Nokia responsible for what I blog? How about Apple? I might want to edit this later... Perhaps it's Vodafone's responsibilty... Or even my electric company?
No... It's my fault... Not the fault of those who enable. In the same way that Google are no more at fault for piracy than the street map that directs you to the Market that sells pirate DVDs. The fault, or more precisely the responsibility lies with the originator of the 'content'
Of course I believe that Twitter should not filter content based on region, then again, neither should telephone or Text services... (witness the amazing recent campaign in Pakistan to forbid various words from SMS use... A list which made it round Twitter in about 5 seconds and introduced me to a lot of novel curses, both in Urdu and in English)
That said, the originator should know that free speech always has a price. It may be government harrassment if you disagree with them, or social alienation if you contravene the 'norms'. Every idea worth espousing comes up against some resistance. To be truly brave a person has to put their name behind their opinion.
I, for one, have hid behind the Twitter Hive Mind to voice opinions that I would have felt uncomfortable about otherwise, to engage in debates that I would otherwise excuse myself from either to avoid personal attack (abortion and Religion being the major points that just seem to attract the internet nutters to your door) or to engage in some Spartacus style Streisand-ing and add my voice to a (sometimes illegal) groundswell or meme.
Is it wrong for Twitter itself to want to excuse itself from becoming the mouthpiece for any and all 'anonymous' forces?
It's a difficult question. I love free speech, I'm even able to divorce the concept from the content when some idiot uses it to justify their small minded 'hate Speech' or nonsensical religious bullying. I do worry for it though... I worry that enough people will use it as a shield that it will take on the same perceived tarnish as those once beautiful words 'Human Rights'
Maybe... maybe all of that...
but maybe I've just been reading too much Christopher Hitchens and I need to get myself back on the newstrain... pronto...
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Opinion: Glitter Not on Twitter...
Oh all bow down and praise to the great God, Twitter... Yet again... The Hive Mind has provided...
Right... I was genuinely >< that close to doing a ranty style blog about the 'New' (to me) 'Wrestler Style' introductions to Snooker matches on the television. I soon realised a few things, A) I don't actually care about Snooker enough to raise that much ire and B) This could have been going on for years by now, and since I rarely watch snooker, you could all be battle hardened to it (despite it's near Criminal inappropriateness)
So I begged Twitter for some News... And unlike all other totems of worship she hath provided.
A few days ago, a Twitter account was set up, purporting to be the 'Official Garry Glitter' account. It announced a comeback tour and hinted at 'New Material'. This was of course shocking enough to nearly bring Twitter to it's knees, collapse the internet and perhaps send the world spinning of it's axis to plunge, Space 1999 style, into the depths of the cosmos.
Now, I am proud to say I called spoof immediately (Have to boast about that, as I was taken in by the fake Wendi Deng, and thought the new Nadine Dorries account was a spoof... Although I still believe I am half correct on that and she is a 'Spoof Human')
Today it has been revealed that I was right... Or at least that the account is not real. However instead of saying it's a 'spoof' they are using the word 'social experiment', releasing a statement explaining their actions.
Now there were a few 'tells'. The 'new Material' and Tour stood out. It just didn't wash... When convicted child molesters release 'new materiall they tend to do it in less open ways. Honestly, just look on youtube for Johnathon King's more recent output to see 'how it is done' by such a creature... Oh and prepare to have your jaw dropped through the Earth's crust.
So yeah... A spoof account, albeit linked to a campaign for online safety... So far, so admirable... I do have one reservation, the use of the word 'Experiment'. Maybe this will come out later, but I don't see from the information revealed so far what the experiment actually is.
For me the word 'experiment' has quite a specific meaning, not obviated by the preceeding word 'social'. An experiment 'measures' something, there are controls in place. Maybe he plans a statistical breakdown of supportive/negative tweets. But even then there is nothing to contrast it against.
If I was less forgiving I would call it a specialised 'trolling' campaign, as the public reaction was never in question. The best part of people were always going to be understandably outraged, whilst some people who want to be considered 'Dangerously alternative' (or perhaps also clocked him as a spoof) were 'Supportive'... Maybe some of them just really liked Glam Rock.
So hats off to him for an audacious attempt to raise public awareness of online predators, even if the reveal seemed a bit shrill and sanctimonious. (Having a go at 'edgy' jokes made about your 'spoof' account... Please...)
But until I see some results, results that actually say something, I will not accept the word 'experiment'. It was a campaign to raise awareness of an issue, predetermined by it's creator, it was not an attempt to find out anything new about human behaviour.
(Oh and to clarify for anyone who thinks that just because I am questioning the 'experimental' aspect of this campaign I am somehow pro-Glitter. He's fucking lower than the germs in a syphilitic rat... And his music was always shit.)
Right... I was genuinely >< that close to doing a ranty style blog about the 'New' (to me) 'Wrestler Style' introductions to Snooker matches on the television. I soon realised a few things, A) I don't actually care about Snooker enough to raise that much ire and B) This could have been going on for years by now, and since I rarely watch snooker, you could all be battle hardened to it (despite it's near Criminal inappropriateness)
So I begged Twitter for some News... And unlike all other totems of worship she hath provided.
A few days ago, a Twitter account was set up, purporting to be the 'Official Garry Glitter' account. It announced a comeback tour and hinted at 'New Material'. This was of course shocking enough to nearly bring Twitter to it's knees, collapse the internet and perhaps send the world spinning of it's axis to plunge, Space 1999 style, into the depths of the cosmos.
Now, I am proud to say I called spoof immediately (Have to boast about that, as I was taken in by the fake Wendi Deng, and thought the new Nadine Dorries account was a spoof... Although I still believe I am half correct on that and she is a 'Spoof Human')
Today it has been revealed that I was right... Or at least that the account is not real. However instead of saying it's a 'spoof' they are using the word 'social experiment', releasing a statement explaining their actions.
Now there were a few 'tells'. The 'new Material' and Tour stood out. It just didn't wash... When convicted child molesters release 'new materiall they tend to do it in less open ways. Honestly, just look on youtube for Johnathon King's more recent output to see 'how it is done' by such a creature... Oh and prepare to have your jaw dropped through the Earth's crust.
So yeah... A spoof account, albeit linked to a campaign for online safety... So far, so admirable... I do have one reservation, the use of the word 'Experiment'. Maybe this will come out later, but I don't see from the information revealed so far what the experiment actually is.
For me the word 'experiment' has quite a specific meaning, not obviated by the preceeding word 'social'. An experiment 'measures' something, there are controls in place. Maybe he plans a statistical breakdown of supportive/negative tweets. But even then there is nothing to contrast it against.
If I was less forgiving I would call it a specialised 'trolling' campaign, as the public reaction was never in question. The best part of people were always going to be understandably outraged, whilst some people who want to be considered 'Dangerously alternative' (or perhaps also clocked him as a spoof) were 'Supportive'... Maybe some of them just really liked Glam Rock.
So hats off to him for an audacious attempt to raise public awareness of online predators, even if the reveal seemed a bit shrill and sanctimonious. (Having a go at 'edgy' jokes made about your 'spoof' account... Please...)
But until I see some results, results that actually say something, I will not accept the word 'experiment'. It was a campaign to raise awareness of an issue, predetermined by it's creator, it was not an attempt to find out anything new about human behaviour.
(Oh and to clarify for anyone who thinks that just because I am questioning the 'experimental' aspect of this campaign I am somehow pro-Glitter. He's fucking lower than the germs in a syphilitic rat... And his music was always shit.)
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