Google Reader, Hitler and me

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This morning’s Observer column.

One of the wonders of the online world is the Downfall meme on YouTube. (For those whose time is too valuable to be wasted watching video clips, I should explain that the parody is based on remixing a scene from Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film, Der Untergang [Downfall], which chronicles Hitler’s final days in his Berlin bunker.)

The clip takes the scene in which Hitler, memorably portrayed by Bruno Ganz, launches into a tirade upon finally realising that the war is truly lost and overlays it with subtitles about contemporary issues or events. Thus Hitler rants about the inability of the iPad to do multitasking, that Sheffield United have been relegated or that Twitter has gone down again.

What brings this to mind is that a new version of the meme appeared last week. In it, Hitler is told about Google’s decision to “retire” (ie scrap) its Reader app. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING??!!” he roars. “HOW CAN THEY DO THIS TO US?!! How dare they take away Google Reader. I have over 300 feeds in there!! Have they any idea how much effort I’ve put in? Of all Google products I spend 99% of my time with Reader. Why do they do this?” And so on.

For the first – and I hope the only – time in my life, I find myself agreeing with the Führer. For I, too, am a dedicated user of Google Reader…

It’s interesting — and perhaps predictable — to see the storm of (mainly geeky and journalistic) outrage at Google’s decision. But — as this post argues — it was probably a perfectly rational business decision from Google’s point of view. Most Internet users don’t use RSS, there’s no obvious direct revenue stream from it and Google is desperate for strategic reasons to shepherd its users onto Google+. On the other hand, maybe the reputational damage will cause the company to think again. After all, Google’s prime pitch is that it’s a good Net citizen — campaigning to keep the Internet open and uncensored etc.

Another thought sparked by the uproar is an observation made ages ago by Clay Shirky in another context when he said that what people complain of as information overload is actually a symptom of filter failure. I agree. Every new communications technology in history has led the early victims of it to complain of information overload. But in due course they figured out tools for managing the overload. The Net is no exception and RSS is one of the first-generation tools we devised to handle it.

In the meantime, the important thing for people like me is what to use instead of Reader. The Online Journalism Blog has published a very helpful spreadsheet giving details of the various alternatives. Thanks, guys.

Quote of the Day

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“If you’re the most intelligent person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”

James Watson

Luckily, I spend a lot of my time in the right rooms.

A classic review

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The New Statesman had the lovely idea of reprinting five classic book reviews from its archive. I’ve been struck by Victor Pritchett’s wonderful review of Nineteen Eighty-Four . This is how it begins…

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book that goes through the reader like an east wind, cracking the skin, opening the sores; hope has died in Mr Orwell’s wintry mind, and only pain is known. I do not think I have ever read a novel more frightening and depressing; and yet, such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down. The faults of Orwell as a writer – monotony, nagging, the lonely schoolboy shambling down the one dispiriting track – are transformed now he rises to a large subject. He is the most devastating pamphleteer alive because he is the plainest and most individual – there is none of Koestler’s lurid journalism – and because, with steady misanthropy, he knows exactly where on the new Jesuitism to apply the Protestant whip.

The story is simple. In 1984 Winston Smith, a civil servant and Party member in the English Totalitarian State (now known as Air Strip No 1), conceives political doubts, drifts into tacit rebellion, is detected after a short and touching period of happiness with a girl member of the Party and is horribly “rehabilitated”. Henceforth he will be spiritually, emotionally, intellectually infantile, passive and obedient, as though he had undergone a spiritual leucotomy. He is “saved” for the life not worth living. In Darkness at Noon, death was the eventual punishment of deviation: in Nineteen Eighty-Four the punishment is lifeless life…

Shards of modernist brutality

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Shards B&W, originally uploaded by jjn1.

I was in in t’smoke today for an interesting lunchtime meeting — which, coincidentally, took place in an Argentinian steakhouse (no horses were harmed in the preparation of my — mouthwatering — fillet steak; not a place for vegetarians, though). Afterwards, reassembling my Brompton in the freezing wind outside I suddenly saw this view of the Shard. So I (laboriously) took off my rucksack, delved into it for a camera, took the photograph and packed everything away just before my fingers succumbed to frostbite. It was the coldest day I’ve ever cycled in London.

Larger size here.

US to China: stop this cyber-espionage. Beijing: What cyber-espionage?

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Interesting. Up to now the US has not directly (or at least publicly) accused the Chinese regime of cyber-espionage. This NYTimes story suggests that there’s been a change of heart.

WASHINGTON — The White House demanded Monday that the Chinese government stop the widespread theft of data from American computer networks and agree to “acceptable norms of behavior in cyberspace.

The demand, made in a speech by President Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was the first public confrontation with China over cyberespionage and came two days after its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, rejected a growing body of evidence that his country’s military was involved in cyberattacks on American corporations and some government agencies.The White House, Mr. Donilon said, is seeking three things from Beijing: public recognition of the urgency of the problem; a commitment to crack down on hackers in China; and an agreement to take part in a dialogue to establish global standards.

I’m a bit sceptical about allegations that there is a lot of IP theft by the Chinese, partly because of the provenance of many of the allegations. But then again, maybe it’s a bit like banks and cyber-crime: they’re reluctant to admit that they’ve been hacked in public. Maybe IP-rich companies are behaving the same way. Either way, it’d be nice to see some evidence.

The e-word

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I’m in (snowy) Ireland where, according to the newspaper I’m reading, one in four mortgages is in trouble and yet the eviction rate is only 0.25%. In the UK, which is not going through a property crisis on anything like the same scale, the rate is 12 times higher. In the US it’s 5%. Something has to give.

But eviction (aka foreclosure) has terrible historical connotations in Ireland, much as the Highland clearances have for Scots. So on the one hand the current situation is unsustainable. On the other hand, it’s hard to see an Irish government condoning what ruthless English landlords used to do to their peasantry (aka my ancestors). Politics in Ireland is the art of the impossible. And meanwhile tomorrow is the start of the Cheltenham racing festival. Now there’s something really serious.

Hackers and casuals

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Fascinating blog post by Ajay Kulkarni, a developer. He argues that Android users fall into two categories — Hackers and Casuals.

First, there are the Hackers, the original Android users. The ones who bought the G1, the Droid 1, the Nexus 1, who invested in the platform because they believed in its fundamental philosophy: openness.

And this is who we normally imagine when we think of Android.

But in the last two years, Android devices have gotten cheaper, prolific in every carrier store.

As a result, there’s a new immigrant population in the Android community: the Casuals. These are the individuals upgrading from their feature phones, drawn to Android because of price.

Why is this interesting? Because the two groups approach — and use — their phones differently.

Hackers customize. They install their own keyboards, dialers, messaging apps, even home screens. Many are developers. They explore, they tinker. They love settings, settings, and more settings.

Casuals personalize. They like wallpapers and custom ringtones. But they don’t tinker. Many are late adopters to smartphones. They use Facebook, Twitter, and other popular apps, but they don’t explore new apps or technologies.

If you’re a developer, you have to approach each group differently. The post goes on to illustrate what that means in design terms.

Terrific post. HT to @charlesarthur for pointing me to it.

The sensible pet

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The sensible pet, originally uploaded by jjn1.

One Sunday in August, a couple of years ago, we were driving along the beachfront in Antibes when we saw this eminently sensible dog, who stayed in the shade while his master and topless mistress (just out of shot on the left) sizzled in the scorching sunshine like sausages on a spit.