Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts

Friday, 18 September 2009

"Religion and the Web" - BBC Radio 4, 2009-07-20

Beyond Belief is a long-standing BBC Radio 4 series, hosted by Ernie Rea, dealing with the religious interface with the everyday. Back in July it covered the internet:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lny4g

The audio is available on iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00lny4g

The first half of this 28-minute radio programme consists of various pro and con arguments about internet social networks, which mostly come down to "The internet isn't real!" (and therefore of little use in relationships). In particular the seminarian from Colorado seems to take the view that the internet is no good because it wasn't mentioned in the Bible, quoting a verse from John that he interprets as valuing face-to-face communication over writing letters. (Er... tell that to St Paul?)

But he misses the point. The internet is not something wholly different and "evil", it is merely an extension of previous media and means of communication. As host of The Rev Up Review podcast I contacted many people in the United States by email, instant messaging and Skype - people I am unlikely to have contacted otherwise. They would have been effectively out of my reach here in Portsmouth, UK.

Were these relationships of any less value that face-to-face ones? Perhaps. But in 2007 I flew across the Atlantic to attend a convention, and I met them in person, face-to-face. So these particular "internet" relationships are now exactly equivalent to "real life" relationships. Without the internet, however, they would almost certainly never have existed.

Listeners beyond the reach of iPlayer can download the mp3 audio from RapidShare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/341818810/BeyondBelief_ReligionAndTheWeb_20090720.mp3

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

What is a blog? (repost from other blog)

Not only a succinct explanation of what a blog is, but also what it's for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

Sunday, 9 December 2007

Covering all bases: trying out Linux - part 1 (repost from other blog)

How can I possibly hold my head up as a certified computer nerd without knowledge of the third most popular computer operating system (and incidentally the one that runs most of the internet)?

I've had goes with Linux before, but each time it was a half-hearted affair, and by no means entirely successful. Nevertheless, I decided it was time to give Linux a fair trial, and by 'fair' I'm referring to the the fact that my previous attempts were on redundant hardware that wasn't up to the job.

In recent years the computer marketplace has changed. It's now possible to buy a basic PC, without monitor or OS, for under £250. But 'basic' is a relative term. This £250 PC has a 64-bit dual-core processor, 2 GB of system RAM and a 250 GB serial ATA hard disk - computing power that would have cost between five and ten times as much a mere five years ago.

So, I bought one. I already had a suitable monitor (a 19" widescreen LCD), and I'd downloaded the operating system in readiness for the 'experiment'.

And the OS? The word is, apparently, 'Ubuntu'. You can go to the website and download a CD image file, which you then use to make a boot CD. There are comprehensive instructions on the site if you don't know how to do this - it's not difficult (and if you use a Mac it is ridiculously easy). You can then use the CD to try out Ubuntu Linux on any PC (or even an Intel Mac, apparently) without messing with your hard drive. Then, if you wish, you can install it. That's when the fun starts.

The process worked well enough. I had to be careful adjusting the display settings (several of my attempts resulted in the disappearance of the mouse cursor), but I found that ignoring the 'test' mode and rebooting worked fine. Next on the list was connecting to the internet. Firefox is pre-installed, but because of the way my home network is set up I had to adjust the network settings to a static IP address and enter DNS addresses to make it work.

I gave up on the printer. I've no doubt that connecting a USB or parallel printer would be a doddle, but I have a print-server on my network that was extremely difficult to set up for my Macs, so I wasn't surprised to find the Linux set-up a little opaque. That's something I'll need to come back to.

Ubuntu Linux also comes with OpenOffice 2.3 pre-installed, though I did notice that it wouldn't read some of my ancient StarWriter documents, despite the fact that my PC version of OpenOffice (version 2.0) has no trouble with them. It's probably a simple matter of installing the correct filters.

One important thing I discovered, pretty much by chance, is that Ubuntu Linux does not, by default, check for updates. There are preferences you have to change to allow it to update itself - once I did this, it downloaded and installed about 40 updates.

One last gem I'll mention in this initial part of the saga - I needed to copy a DVD (home produced - not copy-protected). I put the disc in the drive, and found that if I right-clicked on the desktop icon there was an option to copy the disc. This was a breeze - it made an image, then prompted for a blank disc, and burnt the copy. This will definitely be my preferred method for making DVD copies in the future. No third-party software required - not even any need to launch another app.

So far, I'm impressed.

Friday, 27 July 2007

The Wikipedia Story (repost from other blog)

Clive Anderson investigated Wikipedia earlier this week on BBC Radio 4: The Wikipedia Story

He dealt with the usual criticisms ("it can't be relied on; how do we know the expertise of those who edit pages; it's easily vandalised, etc") with the typically incisive mind of a lawyer, and at the same time engendered enthusiasm for what is undoubtedly a laudable project. He visited the UK branch of Britannica to get a view from the establishment side of the encyclopaedia business, and he even elicited a sound-bite or two from renowned internet doomsayer Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur and whose broadcast comments reeked of sour grapes.

The radio programme is available as an audio stream here (I don't know for how long - but it will shortly be released as a podcast*):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ram/wikipediastory.ram

Download RealPlayer here

Anderson and his interviewees emphasised the essential point about Wikipedia and Web 2.0 - that there is no way this is going to be like a traditional encyclopaedia, nor should it be. We now live in a different information age. By all means trot down to your local library and heft a massive tome from the shelf in order to find out what you want to know. Meanwhile those of us with more pressing knowledge-needs can log on, check out, cross reference and be on to the next item before the traditional researchers have located their bicycle clips.

*UPDATE: The stream and podcast are no longer available, but you can download the mp3 from RapidShare here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/296133897/WikipediaStory_The_BBCR4-20070724.mp3

Tuesday, 26 June 2007

Significant new media ... or pointless bloggery? (repost from other blog)




Andrew Keen has published (using 'old media') a book about the evils of new media: The Cult of the Amateur. Naturally he wants to promote it on the Today Programme:

Click here for streaming audio
(the relevant piece is at 21'09" into this 26'22" clip)*


Download RealPlayer here

Sorry, Mr Keen, the new media is here to stay. It has its faults, just like old media, but your bleating about 'authority' and 'editors' won't make it go away. It's the lack of the old kind of regulation that makes the new media so attractive to its users.

(More later, when I've had time to collate my thoughts on this important subject.)
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(Later...)

Now that I've listened to the clip again, and had time to consider, here's my take (note that I've not read Mr Keen's book):

Historically, people have been less likely to question the authority of the old media than they are to question the authority of the new media. Now, they are savvy enough to know that just because something is on a web page doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

When people read stuff on blogs, or MySpace, or wherever, they know it has no built-in authority and will interpret what they read accordingly. Youngsters growing up with the new media are fully aware that they are free to create stuff themselves, and they are also aware of how much authority they themselves have in doing so (that is, none at all) so they are naturally inclined to question what they read.

As a result of this default mode of questioning, they're likely to apply the same critical thinking to all media, new and old -- which can only be a good thing.

If you ask people whether they believe everything they read in a traditionally printed newspaper, they'll likely say, "No, of course not." But until recently if you questioned what someone was telling you about a reported event, they're likely to have told you, "It's true, I read it in the Daily Such-&-Such."

Wikipedia is often brought up as an example of how the internet shouldn't be trusted, but Wikipedia's self-correcting mechanism ensures that its information is mostly reliable. Not completely, but mostly reliable. Just like Britannica, as a December 2005 report has shown.

One of Andrew Keen's objections to the new media is that it has 'zero value'. By which I suspect he means it's free, and therefore worthless. Aside from any frustrations he might have with being unable to monetize his own internet-based efforts, this is a particularly blinkered view. Something is only worth what you pay for it? Hard cash or you're not interested? Tell that to Google. Tell that to Scott Sigler.

Web 2.0 is not, as Brian Appleyard incorrectly states in this clip, to do with interactivity -- we had that to some degree in Web 1.0 -- it's mainly to do with the separation of form from content, which is what makes the creation of web-content so easy for the non-technical user. Web 2.0 is facilitating a medium that allows people to make themselves heard -- to communicate, to create, to think. Long may it continue.

*UPDATE: If the streaming audio is unavailable, download the mp3 of the clip from RapidShare here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/296130093/Today_AndrewKeen_Amateur_BBCR4i-20070625.mp3