The Golden Strawberry

Heck, it's been a while hasn't it?! I have been meaning to blog about all sorts of things, but events and computer problems have just got in the way. Now I have nothing to do but revision. So I'm obviously going to avoid that, and blog instead.

My curiosity has been awakened by this article on the New York Times website:

"A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment...
 
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Kerron Cross has national security on his mind, obviously. It appears he has just received his new Parliamentary pass, so he thought that it would be a great idea to tell the world what his password is:

"I put in my own birthday. Which I'm pretty sure I got right. ;-)"

Isn't it common sense not to write a lengthy post on the inner security workings of Parliament? I despair. As one of the commenters says:

"sweet Jesus you are a cretin sometimes..."

Well, quite.

Cory

It seems that everyone is on Facebook nowadays. Even Oxford Dons. The Times reported that:

Staff at Oxford University are searching the website, collecting photographs of students who they say have broken rules on post-examination celebrations, and handing down fines. The student union has branded the move a “disgraceful” intrusion into privacy and has e-mailed every common room advising how to prevent dons viewing the photographs.

I have some sympathy for the students. However, surely you don't simply assume that university authorities will ignore your drunken escapades if they are posted on one of the world's biggest social networking sites? It is bizarre that university employees had the time and the motive to search through the Facebook accounts of thousands of students just to find a few incriminating photos (though you have to admire their dedication).

Now that Facebook has morphed from being mainly populated by students (as it was when I joined in November) to housing thousands of other non-studenty types, even politicians and journalists, it seems foolish to post every silly drunken photo and assume it's only your student friends will see them. As the Times article continues:

A survey of 600 British companies revealed that one in five had logged on to Facebook and other networking websites to vet potential employees. Jacqueline Thomson, from public relations firm Brands2Life, said that she had turned down one applicant after learning that he had used Facebook “to criticise previous employers and discuss company information”

I also really like this one:

Brad Karsh, a US career consultant, turned down a job applicant after reading on Facebook that his interests were “smokin’ blunts with the homies” and “shooting caps into whitie”

That must have been a rather easy decision to make. Either what the applicant said was true, in which case you may not want to share a desk with him, or he had a very bad sense of humour, which is surely an equally viable reason to refuse the "blunt smokin' homie" a job. I also remember seeing another article in which an employer checked a prospective work experience candidate's profile, only to find he was naked in his profile picture. Nice.

The moral of the story must be: remove any incriminating evidence from your profile. If you have to do silly things, don't broadcast it to the rest of the world (and any potential employers, for that matter).

Cory

Hello all,

apologies for the lack of posts. Compared to university, working 9-5 is rather stressful and tiring. Add to that scoring at the weekends, and I haven't had a day off for three weeks. Not good for constructive blogging, at any rate. And as can be seen, there is enough dross out there in the blogosphere without me adding to it.

For now, here are the three latest people to add us to their blogroll, and it's only fair we reciprocate:

Tom Hamilton at let's be sensible, who is also a contributer to the strangely dormant (of late) Fisking Central. Hope we see some more fisking soon.

Rob Thompson at Rob's Place

And last, but not least, The Liberal Republican.

Happy hunting,

Cory

I looked at technorati to find out who linked to us, in order to re-jig the blogroll. I discovered this Meme from August, in which we were tagged by Baby Washington. Well, better late than never. So here are my choices:

1. One book you have read more than once

Jennings goes to school by Anthony Buckeridge. Fossilised fishhooks! I loved the Jennings books between the ages of about 10 and 15; marvellous ripping yarns that have informed my writing style since. Recommended to small inky-fingered children everywhere.

2. One book you would want on a desert island

Orwell In Tribune by George Orwell. It's so damned fantastic, and has articles on everything from communism to toads to second-hand books. To think that he was writing these columns weekly, whilst writing 1984 and Animal Farm, almost makes me want to throw my laptop across the room in frustration. Inspirational would be a better word to describe it though.

3. One book that made you laugh

Incompetence by Rob Grant. You may recognise that name - he created Red Dwarf along with Doug Naylor. Either this or Colony is guaranteed to make you chuckle too often in public. Incompetence is set in "a Europe of the near future, in which nobody can be sacked on the grounds of age, sex, race or incompetence". I took this on holiday and read it three times in two weeks.

4. One book that made you cry

I honestly don't think any have. This isn't because I'm macho, I just usually avoid sad books which will make you cry. Instead, I re-read Incompetence.

5. One book you wish you had written

1066 and all that by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman. This is the sort of alternative history I would love to write, but would probably lack the means - and the talent. Mostly, this is a parody of student's mistakes and malapropisms, such as "John was so bad that the Pope decided to put the whole country under an Interdict, i.e. he gave orders that no one was to be born or die or marry (except in Church porches)." My favourite-ist part of the whole book is:

THE INDUSTRIAL REVELATION

During these Wars many very remarkable discoveries and inventions were made. Most memorable among these was the discovery (made by all the rich men in England at once) that women and children could work for 25 hours a day in factories without many of them dying or becoming excessively deformed. This was known as the Industrial Revelation and completely changed the faces of the North of England.

6. One book you wish had never been written

Any by Richard Littlejohn. Do I have to pick one? Well, OK then.

7. One book you are currently reading

Peter Rex's biography of King Edgar, which is worth a read even if you aren't as unhealthily obsessed with tenth century Anglo-Saxon England as I am.

8. One book you have been meaning to read

The Future of Socialism by Tony Crosland. I know it's one of the intellectual cornerstones of modern leftish thought and all that, but I just haven't felt in the mood to really get stuck into it.

9. One Book That Changed Your Life

Has to be Reasons to be Cheerful by Mark Steel. It taught me many, many things. It told me that you can be funny and make a political point, and that being left-wing was the way to go. Although my views have evolved since reading the book, and re-reading it now I can see a few problems with what Mark Steel has to say, it would be stupid and wrong to play down the effect this book had on my life. And it, along with the Jennings books, my parent's puns and Red Dwarf, was probably among the main inspiration for my own particular sense of humour. Mark Steel may not have found another convert for the revolution in me, turned me into a political animal with his own lefty blog. And for that I'm eternally thankful.

10. Now tag five people

Hmmm.... how about Pub Philosopher, Don't Trip Up, Doctor Feelgood, Mission: Ramble and Adam. Enjoy!

Cory

As you can see, the blogroll has been cleaned up. New blogs have been added, old ones have been taken down, and some which have moved have been given the correct address.

There's also a blogroll for those linking to us. That list is correct as far as I know. If you link to us, or want to reciprocate links, please e-mail me.

coryhATbtinternetDOTcom

Thanks,

Cory

Idiots for Labour are back. This is the best news I've heard in ages.

Cory

Via Norm, via Clive Davis:

Richard Schickel, who is apparently a "distinguished film writer", has written this not-too complementary piece about bloggers reviewing:

Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book... I don't think it's impossible for bloggers to write intelligent reviews. I do think, however, that a simple "love" of reading (or movie-going or whatever) is an insufficient qualification for the job. That way often leads to cultishness (see the currently inflated reputations of Philip K. Dick or Cornell Woolrich, both easy reads for lazy, word-addicted minds).

 

And we have to find in the work of reviewers something more than idle opinion-mongering. We need to see something other than flash, egotism and self-importance

Both Norm and Clive have decent things to say on the matter, but if I could add my tuppence worth...

Criticism is a democratic activity. It is 'a good thing', surely, to have reviewers who bring learned criticism to the latest film/novel/whatever, highlighting its social significance and its fitting into this or that school of film-making (or whatever).

It is also essential to have the other side of the coin - 'normal' people who just simply enjoyed a good romp, and want to spread the word.

Why can't potential cinema goers hear these voices as well - which are judgements often by bloggers nearer to their taste than professional film reviewers?

On all of these attacks on bloggers (including the Melissa Kite/Iain Dale saga which has been getting right-wing bloggers' knickers in a twist for a while now) there seems to be one uniting theme. People who get paid to write for a living don't like people doing as good a job for free. Well, forgive me if I have little sympathy with them....

Cory

I had to take a break from blogging I'm afraid; the Strawb was in danger of turning into an Ashes rantlog. Expect more whinging about Ashley Giles and Monty Panesar if England draw the second Test.

Anyway, how about this. Germaine Greer has just received an award from the Plain English campaign, for this tasty little sentence:

The first attribute of the art object is that it creates a discontinuity between itself and the unsynthesised manifold.

Which seems fair enough. All the words seem to make sense, and then you put them together. All meaning is lost.

In Germaine Greer's article on Guardian Unlimited about this award, she disputes this. Naturally enough. Here is the whole thing in its ghastly entirety. Below are a few choice snippets:

Anyone who uses the word "somewhat" wouldn't know plain English if it mugged him in the street.

This is most likely a load of tosh. Possibly. Then again, look at the fourth comment:

Germaine Greer, 1999 (in an interview for LA Weekly): "No, the person I was referring to was someone more important to me, namely Fay Weldon . . . She has a new husband who's somewhat younger than she is" (my underlining). Been mugged recently, Germaine?

This is the best bit though, Greer on the "unsynthesised manifold":

Most reasonably educated Guardian readers would, I faintly hope, have recognised the phrase "unsynthesised manifold" as an English version of a basic concept in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, first published in English in 1790 and familiarised in Britain by the work of Coleridge and just about anybody else who writes about aesthetic theory.

Possibly the most arrogant, self centred piece of contemptible claptrap I've read for a while. Hands up all those familiar with aesthetic theory? Or for a better (more plain, you might say) way of putting it:

If "most reasonably educated Guardian readers" understood the expression "unsynthesised manifold", why does this article go to such extreme lengths to explain it? Is it because "most reasonably educated Guardian readers" actually didn't have a clue what you were talking about?

I certainly don't have a clue what she's going on about. But then, I've never studied aesthetic theory. Probably like you, or many other "reasonably educated" Guardian readers. If I wanted to learn about academic arrogance, I'd read books for my politics essay.

Cory

A very slightly edited version of my comment in Redbrick:

As mature, responsible, intelligent students, we all know that we shouldn’t believe what we read. We certainly shouldn’t believe what we read on the Internet. There is one website in particular that we should all think twice before consulting – Wikipedia.

For those only armed with a typewriter rather then a computer, Wikipedia styles itself as “the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit”, housing almost 1.5 million articles in English. It is one of the top forty most visited websites in the world, according to the web ranking service Alexa. You do not need to have a registered account to change its information – literally anyone CAN edit it. As an idea, therefore, it is rather cute. It is also rather popular. As proof, here’s a quick unscientific survey:

Hands up all those who have used Wikipedia at any point during college or university? If you have kept your hand down, you must be lying. Everyone I know on my course – History – has used Wikipedia at some point, whether to do background reading for a seminar, or to reference some basic facts in an essay. I’ve done it too, lazy git that I am. Some (unnamed) acquaintance of mine even used Wikipedia as the basis for their revision in the end-of-year exams.

Is Wikipedia a reliable source of information? Certainly not according to university lecturers. In my experience, saying you found out information on Wikipedia is an easier way to derail a seminar than lobbing a hand-grenade into the room. The tutor will rant for fifteen minutes on how the internet is evil, you cannot believe a word anyone says on it, and that Wikipedia is edited by people who wouldn’t know what history was if it kicked them in the groin and then stole their shoes. Or something. The seminar never gets back on track after that, and the last ten minutes is spent discussing something really meaningful and important, like Marmite.

These lecturers’ fears, however, are borne out by recent events. This week fans of the now infamous film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” changed Kazakhstan’s Wikipedia entry. Borat, the fictional Kazakh journalist played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the film, was installed as president on the page. Kazakhstan’s motto was changed to Borat’s catchphrase “High Five”, and the national anthem opening line was changed to say: “Kazakhstan greatest country in the world. All other countries are run by little girls”, as sung by Borat in the film.

Alterations like this are possibly just harmless fun. The correct information is now safely back in place, and unregistered users are now barred from altering Kazakhstan’s entry. Often, though, the factual errors and distortions on Wikipedia can be more sinister and more serious.

In 2005, for instance, the article on Norway’s Prime Minsister, Jens Stoltenburg, was changed to say, “He sat in prison from 1983-84 for paedophilia on a little boy” (see a screen shot here). He hadn’t. Also, a hoaxer altered the entry for John Seigenthaler Sr, a former journalist and assistant to Robert Kennedy, so it said, “For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven.” These lies were on Wikipedia, and also on the websites www.Answers.com and www.Reference.com that use material from wikipedia, from May 29 until they were finally removed on October 5, 2005. In the meantime, his biography was viewed by millions of people who would believe the lies perpetrated by Wikipedia. After all, it must be true. They read it on the Internet! This also means that Wikipedia is being used by surfers whose identity cannot be traced to spread malicious lies and slander about anyone they take offence to, with no fear of legal recrimination. (see an article by Seigenthaler here).

Even if you agree much of Wikipedia is untrustworthy, the next time someone mentions something (or someone) you have never heard of, your first reference point will be Wikipedia.. Well, I’m not going to stop you. Just remind you that you will never find the Encyclopaedia Britannica list Borat Sagdiyev as President of Kazakhstan.