dee harvey

Linking to comments

Jun 302010

Earlier this evening I was reading on Mark Rayner’s blog about a new version of Rock-Paper-Scissors with 5 elements – monkey, pirate, ninja, zombie, robot.

I always read the blog comments and have often been justly rewarded for this effort, as I was today. Far down the page, a poster called HB invents his own 5 element game – Rock-Paper-Scissors-Steak-UriGeller.

Rock-Paper-Scissors-Steak-UriGeller is hilarious. Go and read it yourself and you will laugh. I want to share it with my friends on Twitter and on Facebook. This isn’t the first time recently I’ve wanted to link to a blog comment or a post on a bulletin board, so I’ve been linking to the URL and then giving instructions for finding the right post (similar to what I’ve done above).

What I want to do is link directly to the comment itself, but I don’t know how to do that, unless I can edit the page the post is on, which is not the case for most of the pages on the web. It is inconceivable that there isn’t a way to do this.

Weirdly I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone send me a link to a particular comment in this way. It’s as though you’re either part of the comment conversation, or you’re not. People tell their friends about the article, but rarely one or more of the comments. Which is weird, given how good some comments are.

What is also missing is a convention for doing this kind of linking, so that you could type something like “>HB” after your link to indicate that you were really recommending the comment by HB, rather than (or as well as) the entire article.

Actually I don’t believe there isn’t such a convention already. There must be, and it was invented in 1998 and I just still haven’t heard of it.

Sharing videos privately

networks, video No Responses »

Jun 232010

The New York Times has an article about A Site for the Videos You Don’t Want Everyone to See. The site is called VidMe, and the idea is that you can use it to share videos with the people you know and love rather than with the entire world, as is normally the case with video sharing sites.

Well actually it is normally the case that video shared online is shared with people you know and love, the entire world is vanishingly unlikely to be watching clips of your family picnic along with your Ma and Da. But they could, should they choose, and that might matter.

In the comments on the NYT article the objections to this service seem to mainly be
1 that it is not possible to make anything on the web truly private
2 that you already can limit who can view videos using existing video sharing sites

Objection 1 is a well-rehearsed argument about online privacy being a pointless endeavour. I disagree with it, but that’s not really what interests me here.

One of the sites mentioned in support of Objection 2 is SmugMug. Now you may very well be able to upload private video to SmugMug, but what it promises is that “You Look Better Here”.

Compare this to VidMe and its question “Tired of sharing everything with everyone?”.

SmugMug’s upfront offer is:

Unlimited photos
No ads or spam
Gorgeous galleries
Stunning HD video

VidMe’s is:

Privately share videos with only those you want
Always see who has access to each of your videos
Easily remove anyone’s access to any video instantly
Take control of your online sharing

As Clay Shirky would have it, these services are making different, in fact contradictory, promises – the first is promising to make your media look professional and slick (presumably in order to impress people) and the second is offering to hide your media from all but the people you choose to share it with (presumably to communicate with people you know).

You could post video online before YouTube promised to let you “Broadcast yourself”. The fact that is has long been possible to restrict viewing of your videos doesn’t mean that it isn’t important when someone thinks it’s worth launching a service based specifically around doing that.

This is a service offering (a clunky and inconvenient) way to use video not to broadcast yourself but to talk to your friends. Few enough of existing video sharing sites are about that. The idea of broadcasting yourself has become the main way of conceiving of online video, even personal video. This is different.

A Woman’s Instinct is Always Right

networks No Responses »

Jun 162010

A lot of claims are made for the usefulness and trustworthiness of female intuition (whatever that might be). I was recently party to an online conversation where someone claimed that a woman’s first instinct was always right.

It’s such an extraordinary thing to think, never mind say, but what has really started to obsess me slightly is the idea of living it.

What would a (female, presumably) life look like if you behaved as though your first instinct was always right?

Who would your friends be (if anyone)? What job would you do? In fact, never mind a job, would you ever be able to get anything done?

Maybe I’m wrong to equate “instinct” with “first thing that pops into your head”.

Nooner

Uncategorized No Responses »

Sep 142008

Last night we watched High Noon.

It’s interesting on pacifism. Is pacifism just a lazy way of not having to ever make a stand for anything?

What kind of morality can there be in standing up for what you believe in if you put your own life and the lives of people you love at risk?

But what kind of world do you live in when people only consider the safety and well being of their own and refuse to stand against the (inevitable?) bad guys when they come?

I get kind of frustrated sometimes with the idea that there should never be war because of how terrible war is. Well OK, war is terrible. But if you’re not prepared ever to go to war over anything then what do you stand for?

Of course the main example of a just war is WWII and the supposed fight against fascism. But of course neither Britain nor the USA went to war with Germany to save the victims of the Nazis. Any saving of the innocent that went on was basically collateral benefit rather than the goal of involvement.

I guess I’d be a pacifist myself if it wasn’t for a nagging voice that tells me that in my case I’m just doing it for the easy life. I’m like the townsfolk who thought Will Kane was crazy. I’d rather just let the gunmen ride into town.

Coward? Probably. Pragmatist – I’d like to think so. But there’s nothing idealistic about my distaste for war or violence.

Bank of Screens

privacy, video No Responses »

Jul 272008

I watched Red Road during the week. I thought it was great. But then I’m obsessed with all things to do with surveillance.

The woman in it gets to watch this huge bank of screens and follow people around on them. I am totally against this kind of thing but I would really love to have a go of one. Just sitting there watching people doing regular things would fascinate me. In some way I think that’s where my fascination for videoblogs – and by that I mean regular people’s short, personal video offerings – comes from. Little glimpses into everyday life can be so telling. On their own they can be kind of boring and mundane, but in aggregate they are a huge story. I guess that’s why the bank of cameras is so compelling – you’ve got your compendium of views right there in front of you.

Last week at work I got access to some footage from a police ride along that one of the reporters did. The cast offs had some really great stuff in them. There was some stuff from an actual real life bank of cameras in Belfast. And also a policeman on the beat showing off for the camera. He did a practise search of some young men. I find it really poignant for some reason. Why did they agree to let a policeman search them? Did they really feel they had a choice? The young lads seem incredibly sweet and they’re pretty funny. I guess it’s not the typical interaction between a policeman and some young lads as he is gently chiding them and they are ribbing him and he is fully aware of that but ignores it. Basically like a teacher and some rascally teenagers at school.

Police Ride Along Videos

Watch Africa on TV and be purified

video No Responses »

Jun 262008

Watching Survivor with my friend Andra is one of my guilty pleasures. I just finished watching series 16 – Micronesia and at the end I had my usual reminder of just why this particular pleasure makes me feel guilty. At the end of each ~~series~~ season they show a little taster of the next one. Check out the preview for Survivor: Gabon

Survivor always has a bit of the cultural colonialism about it – Americans going to beautiful untouched wildernesses abroad and living as “tribes”. There’s always at least one reward where they go to some kind of supposedly traditional feast and meet the natives wearing their traditional garb. In fact, in a particularly unpleasant gesture during the most recent season they actually blobbed out the bare breasts of women. So they get the tribespeople to put on this ghastly show so the “audience back home” can get see a bit of foreign culture kitsch and then deem their traditional costume too obscene to be actually shown.

But this trailer is really quite explicit: America is safe and homely. Africa is dangerous. But Africa’s nature and people offer a way back to prelapsarian innocence. Here are some direct quotes:
“one of Earth’s last sanctuaries for pure, untouched wilderness”
“rituals and dances as pure today as they were generations ago”

The tagline is “Earth’s last Eden”!

Extraordinary.

I’d love to see an urban Survivor. Or possibly better – a surburban one. Survivor Swords – see the tribes compete in the shadow of Dublin’s only international airport on the flat terrain of “Co.” Fingal.

When nobody can hear you

music, networks No Responses »

Jun 182008

Last night I watched an episode of Imagine about the Berlin Philharmonic on tour in Asia. It was a fascinating look inside an institution made up of highly talented and skilled people who must work together. One woman spoke about how her husband asked her why she bothered practising so much when nobody could actually hear her!

Her husband is both right and wrong – everyone in an orchestra is making a sound, else there would be no noise. In the case of the Berlin Philharmonic, each musician is (in theory at least) playing their instrument extremely proficiently. And yet when you listen to the piece they’re playing together, the individual musician is not often distinguishable.

There’s little individual glory in playing in an orchestra, even one as highly regarded as this one. The film exposed the extent to which these musicians were motivated by being part of an institution with a history, with a tradition of excellence. One of them said that conductors (in this case Simon Rattle) come and go, but the Berlin Philharmonic endures.

This points to a tension between the individual who makes his name and the collaborators who contribute almost anonymously.

In a world world where individualism reigns, reputation is crucial. But it’s more than reputation: it’s renown. People seek to become known for what they do beyond their own circle, because that (hopefully) puts them in a position where they can make money based on their name. Getting press can be as important in many fields as performing well.

But what about where people can make their living being part of something bigger than themselves? Many of the musicians interviewed spoke of having been outsiders throughout their lives and of how important was the sense of belonging they got from being members of the orchestra. The tradition of excellence and the history of the institution itself mattered to them. They were proud of being a part of this group and held themselves to very high standards in what they did.

For people who seek to belong to something bigger than themselves and who are motivated to work hard to contribute to a group endeavour, how can you create the conditions to inspire their loyalty and provide them with the sense of belonging and pride in what they do?

Some of the practices of the Berlin Philharmonic are very interesting in this regard: potential new members get to join on probation and are ultimately voted on by their peers who decide whether or not they get to stay on a permanent basis. The voting process also applies to the conductor – even the big star has to comply with the traditions of the orchestra and submit himself to the judgement of his peers.