Getting it right second time

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One of the delights of the Guardian is the “Corrections and clarifications” column which runs alongside the leaders. Not only is it an example of good practice (everyone knows that we journalists make mistakes, so why not make a feature out of a bug?), but it often makes enthralling reading. See, for example, this entry from July 14:

The photograph of a jellyfish shown in ‘Bathers beware’, page 9, yesterday, was of a Pelagia noctiluca and not, as we have been informed by the agency which supplied it, Auerlia aurita.

Exeunt France, Zidane

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It’s over. But what madness overtook Zidane? Here is the moment as recorded in Rob Smyth’s Live Blog of the match.

109 mins: ZIDANE SENT OFF FOR STICKING THE HEED [sic] ON MATERAZZI!!

Oh. My. God. In his final professional match, Zidane had been sent off for a disgraceful headbutt on Materazzi. He just rammed his head into Materazzi’s chest; it was really firm and nasty. Horrible. Now that really is a headbutt. It was also completely off the ball and at first it seemed he’d got away with it, but after talking to his assistant – and possibly after an intervention from the fourth official – the referee was alerted to what happened, and sent Zidane off. He has always had a nasty streak, but this was just ridiculous. What on earth did Materazzi say to provoke that? Either way, it was a disgusting, nasty, blackly comic headbutt, delivered with a Hitchcokian suddenness, and it’s an unbelievable ending to Zidane’s lustrous career. It was a JFK moment and a GBH moment rolled into one oh-my-giddy-aunt moment. And he could still end up lifting the World Cup!

He didn’t. But it was such a terrible end to a great career. Mind you, one look at Mathias Breschler and Monika Fischer’s astonishing large-format portrait of Zidane would convince anyone that he’s not the kind of guy you’d like to meet on a dark night.

Now that’s it’s over (the tournament, that is), here’s the strangest thing of all. During the entire duration of the footyfest, which supposedly gathered the best footballers in the world into small patches of Germany, there was only one truly outstanding match — that between France and Brazil. I watched many of them with my laptop perched on my knee, and that was the only match which seriously diverted my attention from email, browsing, blogging and work.

Email candour

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I’ve been reading the leaked emails from Des Swayne, Dave Cameron’s parliamentary gopher, courtesy of the Sunday Times. The one I particularly like includes the following passage:

1. Transfer of HoL [House of Lords] reform to Jack Straw means that Teresa [May, the shadow Leader of the Commons] will speak for us: this is a sensitive issue and Teresa is neither liked nor trusted across the party. A tight rein will be necessary.

2. Nicholas Soames wants to talk to you about how to ‘stroke’ the peers. I have asked Louise for a slot.

What can this mean? Nicholas Soames is a preposterous voluptuary (and close friend of the Prince of Wales) who never fails to amuse. One of his estranged ex-girlfriends was once quoted (I think in Private Eye) as saying that making love to Soames was “like having a very large wardrobe fall on you — with the key sticking out”. He always reminds me of another celebrated voluptuary, Lord Castlerosse, who was similarly statuesque. The prospect of Dave and Soames massaging members of the House of Lords does not bear thinking about.

Political blogging in the UK

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Useful piece by Ned Temko in this morning’s Observer. Includes links to some of the most prominent blogs. One of them is by David Miliband, the teenage Cabinet minister (and the next Labour leader but one), who writes his own blog entries and claims to read the comments.

I also rather like the Blog maintained by Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor. I’m astonished that he can find the time to write one — his day job is one of the most punishing in the media business.

Iain Dale’s Diary is rather good too, though the reference in the name will escape most younger readers. (Mrs Dale’s Diary was an early, genteel BBC radio soap which ran during my childhood in the 1950s.) Maybe the reference escapes the author too: after all, his name is Iain Dale!

All systems go (on my Mac)

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This morning’s Observer column — about virtualisation…

At this point, dear reader, I know what you’re thinking. However fascinating this ‘virtual machine’ nonsense may be to geeks, it’s of no interest to normal human beings. You may feel as Mrs Dave Barry did when her husband, the Miami Herald humorist, took her for a spin in a Humvee and proudly explained that the vehicle could inflate and deflate its tyres while in motion. Why, she asked, would anyone want to do that?

So what’s the point of virtualisation? Simply that it provides a vivid illustration of the most disruptive attribute of digital technology – its capability to break the link between an application and a physical platform. Once upon a time, if you bought a PC it ran Windows, and if you bought a Mac it ran Apple’s operating system. But now Macs run Windows, and IBM ThinkPads – which have the same processor – can run OS X (though of course Apple is doing its best to head off that possibility). And Linux runs on everything.

This disconnection of application/ service from hardware is happening all over the place…

Back to the future

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I know it’s not a very exciting photograph, (Quentin has a much better one on his Blog) but it’s significant in its way. It shows Ubuntu Linux running faultlessly alongside Mac OS X on my Dual Core Mac, courtesy of Parallels Workstation. If I had more RAM (and a Windows licence) I could also run Windows XP (as Quentin does). Virtualisation is an old idea, but it’s really coming of age now. And what it means is that the one-to-one bonding between the platform and the application is being eroded. So not only is the network becoming the computer, but the computer is becoming any operating system you like. Quentin thinks that virtualisation — or virtualization, as Google likes it — is going to be a very hot topic from now on, and I think he’s right. Just look at this experiment he set up at Ndiyo.

Tsk, tsk

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From today’s Guardian…

It may be one of the richest tennis events in the world, but the six-figure prize money on offer at Wimbledon is apparently not enough for some of the world’s best-paid sports stars.

Yesterday it emerged that players are routinely swiping the green and purple towels from the courts at the end of matches. The All England Club confirmed that more than 2,500 of the £24 towels disappear during Wimbledon fortnight, costing the club more than £60,000 a year…

Desert Island Discs

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Image (c) bp plc

While driving yesterday I was listening to John ‘Lord’ Browne, CEO of BP, being interviewed on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs programme and was struck by one of his choices — a song by Diana Krall. But of course I was unable to make a note of it at the time. It turns out that the BBC maintains a useful web page detailing the choices of current and past guests on the programme. Later, I bought the track — ‘Narrow Daylight’, written by Diana Krall and Elvis Costello — from iTunes, and very nice it is too.

I met Browne at a college dinner a few months back and discovered that we have two interests in common — photography and cigars. We use similar cameras, but he has much better smokes. Which is not entirely surprising: after all, he’s the one with money to burn.

Open Content in action

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I’ve written a little about the Net Neutrality debate , and posted some Blog entries bout it — e.g. here, here and here. It’s a complex and interesting subject, and politicians have clearly had difficulty getting their heads around it. So I was interested to see how Wikipedia would approach the topic.

The entry seemed to me to be a model of its kind — well-informed, mostly well-referenced and balanced. But its ‘neutrality’ has been challenged and has triggered Wikipedia’s discussion process. The discussion page on the issue is fascinating. Here’s the bit about the bias complaint.

This article seems to me to be slanted towards the pro-net neutrality position. The primary problem is about “framing the debate”. I think its pretty clear that the term itself is a frame, an analogy would be if the abortion debate was called “the pro-life vs. anti-life debate”. The article falls for this framing by first discussing the general or abstract concepts of network neutrality. A better approach I feel would be to discuss the origins of the debate, namely that emerging internet applications that cost ISP’s much more in bandwidth charges led them to ban certain devices or find ways to pass that charge on, by charging content providers instead of end users.

The other issue with this debate is that it seems to be an “astroturf” debate, with a inordinate amount of editorials on it.
Please see “Dispute from 71.140.198.6” below Hackajar 16:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest talking about reframe here instead of forcing a NPOV [Wiki-speak for ‘Neutral Point of View’ — JN] Hackajar 16:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hackajar’s additions on May 16th are clearly biased and speculative, simply regurgitating Google’s fear-mongering tactics about the COPE Act. This sort of hysteria is part of the debate over NN regulations, but he shouldn’t be offering up such astroturf propaganda as if it were factual.

Statements were added as a matter of common sense, a UPS driver does not pay the city to use road to drive to your house to deliver a package, not influenced by “fear-mongering” generated by any company. Hackajar 13:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. We publish verifiable information from reliable third party sources. Not “common sense.” Please review WP:NOR. Thank you. Nandesuka 13:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think I added some con-NetNeurality stuff to balance it out. I’m not saying what position I have or whether I have one. John wesley 12:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Once again, the page has been massively edited with a “net neutrality is good, non-regulation is bad” point of view. They’re bringing in all sorts of red herrings from the 90s and distorting the interests in the regulation fight.

Folks, Wikipedia is not supposed to be an extension of Moveon.org, it’s supposed to be place where people can get the straight story without all the spin. Net neutrality is a complex issue, not a good guys vs. bad guys emotional drama. RichardBennett 20:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It’s always irritating to have one’s views changed by other people’s better arguments, but this discussion has caused me to re-evaluate the original entry. I think the point about ‘framing’ is right. Wouldn’t it be nice if all public debate about complex issues were conducted this way? Then we really would have a deliberative democracy. I’m always puzzled by people’s hostility to Wikipedia: to me, it looks like one of the best things to have emerged from the Net.