It’s Bloomsday, a day which for some of us is far, far more important than Midsummer.
Meanwhile, for light relief (and for Beckett fans, who get a raw deal at this time of year), try this. (Warning: rude words ahead).
Quote of the day
“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion …”
Reminds me of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s remark that “everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts”.
The Blogosphere at its best — contd.
Last month I wrote about a discussion which showed what a useful part of the public sphere the blogosphere has become. Now comes another example — in this case a calm explication by my colleague Doug Clow of the background to Britain’s Bloomsbury-based New College of the Humanities. The initiative has attracted an extraordinary amount of hostility and ridicule in the newspapers, which leads Doug to observe, mildly, that he is “shocked, shocked to discover that the accounts presented in the mainstream media are not perfectly in accord with the situation as I understand it.”
That’s putting it mildly. Doug then goes on usefully to clarify a number of important points: that NCH is in reality just another organisation preparing students for degrees awarded by the University of London International Programmes; that it isn’t a ‘university’ or even a ‘university college’ because in the UK university status can only be bestowed by the Privy Council (though I guess that that would be forthcoming if the government decided to award it); and that it’s a for-profit company with a charitable arm.
The OpEd firestorm that A.C. Grayling and his fellow-adventurers have generated is interesting because, among other things, it shows how resistant some establishments are to change. The truth is that NCH is not the end of civilisation as we know it, but the first appearance on British shores of a phenomenon that’s an established feature of the US scene, namely an expensive Liberal Arts school mainly aimed at the offspring of the wealthy. I wouldn’t want my own kids to go to it (and not just because of the fees), but there are plenty of parents in London who spend more than £18k a year on lunch, and to whom Grayling College will look like an excellent finishing school for their offspring.
T.S. Eliot, the iPad and me
This morning’s Observer column.
TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, which was first published in 1922, is one of the most important poems of the 20th century. And in case you’re wondering what a technology columnist is doing making pronouncements like that, I should explain that I’m just quoting Andrew Motion, who used to be poet laureate and knows about these things. But for mere mortals, or at any rate engineers like me, the complexity of the poem has always put it out of reach. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried to read it before concluding that it would have to be added to my list of futile aspirations.
Until now.
What has changed is that last week Touch Press, an innovative publishing outfit founded by Max Whitby, Theodore Gray and Stephen Wolfram, in partnership with the olde-worlde publisher Faber & Faber, launched a digital edition of the poem for the Apple iPad…
LATER: Interesting blog post by one of the App’s designers.
Listeners
Fading beauty
in our garden, this afternoon.
The academic uses of social networking
I know it’s long (over an hour), but this video from a Berkman Center discussion of social networking in which a quartet of Harvard academics talk about their interactions with, and reflections on, social networking is worth it.
The Dutch do the right thing
Hurrah! The Netherlands has become the first European country to enshrine Net Neutrality in law. This from The Register.
The Dutch Parliament yesterday agreed to make the Netherlands the first nation in Europe to officially put net neutrality principles into law. The law will force ISPs and telecom operators to ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network.
The new telecom law has won a near unanimous vote, despite fierce opposition from telecom operators, who had been planning to charge for over-the-top services, such as Skype or WhatsApp Messenger, which bypass traditional cellular communications. Vodafone Netherlands is currently still blocking the use of Skype on its 3G mobile network.
Facing sharp criticism, the largest Dutch political party – the liberal VVD – withdrew an amendment which would still allow carriers and ISPs to charge extra for services. The proposal came from Afke Schaart, who until last year was Director of Public Affairs for KPN, the biggest telecom operator in the Netherlands.
In recent months, Dutch telecom operators have complained that the volume of text messaging is slowing sharply because of cross-platform mobile messaging apps which allow users to exchange messages without having to pay for SMSes.
Poetry corner
This is a passage from T.S. Eliot’s great modernist poem, The Waste Land.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows on final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…
Q: Why does this passage remind one of a famous international banker?
