WillWybrow.com

You may have heard of two technology-related stories in the news recently.

The first is that Gordon Brown is going to spend £300 million on his Home Access scheme to bring free laptops and one year’s worth of free broadband subscription to poorer families across the country.

The second is that Lord Mandelson is pushing for tough counter-piracy measures for internet filesharers, including disconnecting entire households from the internet.

What Labour seem to be doing is giving out internet access with one hand while taking it away with the other. Education Secretary Ed Balls has declared that there are educational, economic and social benefits to being on the internet that cannot be ignored. Indeed, the internet is so vital that part of the criteria you need to fill to qualify for the Home Access scheme is that you are a child on free school meals. That means these laptops and free internet access come with a similar priority level as providing food for underprivileged children. If that doesn’t sound like an opinion leaning towards classing internet access as a human right, I don’t know what does.

But Mandy obviously is unconvinced, since it is still his intention to cut off entire households from the internet because of the action of one of the house’s residents – or even the action of a neighbour – even when there’s every likelihood that a disconnection would result in more ‘innocent’ people (non-filesharers) than ‘guilty’ people (filesharers) being denied all those social and educational benefits.

A disconnection from the internet today is more crippling than ever. Apart from the real inconvenience it would cause to people no longer being able to look things up or check their online banking at their leisure, it would also stand in the way of anyone who occasionally works from home (seemingly more and more people nowadays), and it’s tantamount to capital punishment for anyone with lots of social networking contacts they can’t see very often in person.

And so far I haven’t even addressed the real problem. Buying DVDs and music is fine for those able to afford it and who are also ignorant enough to presume that £15 is a fair price for a DVD or CD (it isn’t). But those more technologically inclined will find ways around being tracked if they want to continue filesharing. Downloading will never, ever stop. But handing out free laptops and free broadband to poor children is going to give them the previously unseen option of downloading music or watching TV shows online. What will the Government do when its own broadband users commit copyright infringement? Disconnect them as fast as possible?

The internet is either a vital resource or it isn’t, Labour. Perhaps Brown should make sure everyone in his cabinet agrees which before they start making contradictory comments to the media.

Or just lynch Mandelson and let the crows have his eyes, whichever.

Some people use the Facebook “like” function to indicate approval of “shared” content. That is surely its purpose. But as I’ve already stated, there’s no option for disliking things. Some people have suggested adding such a feature.

Sometimes there’s not really anything to “like” about an update, for example, if I said “the BNP sucks,” I think it’d be reasonable for someone pressing “like” to mean “agree.” Reflecting on this, I thought to myself, “why don’t they add a “dislike” and an “agree” and “disagree” button?

In fact, they could add a list of possible emotional responses to an update and their opposites. Users could choose the appropriate word to match their feelings on the subject.

Or, of course, Facebook could implement a space after each update for users to input their own feelings. That way users would have access to the full expression of opinion that their language(s) allow. In fact, the space could be extended to allow a full comment on a subject to express views more complex than single words. That would be some kind of amazing, let me tell you.

Such are the fevered dreams of technologically-inclined.

I don’t know if I really have the dedication to keep this up… Lately I’ve not been passionate enough nor able to concentrate enough to get much down on the site; I just want to bask in my doom and quietly feel sorry for myself a lot.

I’ll probably do something big to the site soon, overhaul it and archive the blog to a subsection if I can’t keep it up. I’d hate to be one of those people who sits around with an unused blog. It’s not like I’m going to be able to carry on with it for longer than two more months anyway. We’ll see what happens.

I kinda miss the pseudo-anonymity that I used to have before the domain change. When I get out of this mess I am going to resume writing under an anonymous guise and leave this site as something more professional looking.

You’ll know where to find me. Just look for my colour.

Step one: find something that a lot of stupid people love (Lee Evans, Christianity, etc.).

Step two: say that it sucks.

This will guarantee that the idiots come flooding in.

If you missed it, here is the page: http://willwybrow.com/moj.html.

I owe a big apology to Keziah, whom I successfully worried with my brtual prank… I am sorry!

The Guardian had quite an entertaining one: announcing the move from print to Twitter as the primary format for the newspaper.

The funniest one I saw this year would have to be ThinkGeek’s newsletter; I remember them actually getting me with one a few years ago and have looked forward to them ever since.

You can either go one way or the other on April Fools’ Day: a plausible prank or a funny joke. Naturally there will be some comedic geniuses who combine the two successfully, and manage to trick people and tickle people in equal proportions, but I was happy with my plausible-sounding prank this year. Some people got it, and some people didn’t; the earlier in the morning it was seen, the less time you’d have had to realise that it was April the First, so it was more believeable.

Maybe see you next year.

Ideally, we’d be able to set privacy settings in terms of the privacy of our profile page visitors. For example, if your profile is public, you can view other public profiles. But if your profile is private then you can’t.

You shouldn’t be allowed to stalk whilst hiding from being stalked. It doesn’t work like that, world.

Maybe I was a little trigger-happy with the Facebook Like Function earlier:

Facebook just rolled out a crappy “like” function for news feed items. But they forgot to implement it right, or in a way that its users could find really useful (is something that hasn’t been “liked” disliked, or simply overlooked?).

Just go to people’s profiles and “like” every story you can. It’ll piss them off by giving them loads of notifications and it will show that the stupid construct loses all meaning when you want to make sure that you’re not accidentally disliking stuff.

I’m sorry to spring this on all of you so suddenly, but I’ve decided to move away. I have arranged the purchase of two Hawaiian islands and contractors are already building my grand palace there, Fort Will.

It’s going to be filled with loads of computers and furniture and a helipad on top and a dock out the back. Also, loads of swimming pools and pool tables and air hockey and an original Pac-Man arcade game. On the other island I’m building a supercasino and strip club for my new rich friends. Maybe if I remember you guys still, I’ll invite you over to chill with me, but it’s unlikely that I’ll have the time between banging super-hot chicks and buying loads of expensive shit to make me happy.

I know you’re stunned and confused. How did all of this happen so fast? Well, I’ll tell you; I just received an urgent e-mail from a Mr. Williams Baron. I’ve posted the transcript for you all to bask in:

IMMEDIATE PAYMENT TO BENEFICIARY

We wish to notify you that you have been listed as a beneficiary to the total sum of $10,000,000.00 (Ten Million United State Dollars) From the records of outstanding beneficiaries due for payment. According to information gathered from our bank’s security computer we were notified that you have met all statutory requirements in respect of receiving this payment but because of too much taxes imposed by banks, the Financial crime enforcement agency and the I.R.S the said payment has now been arranged in a safe Security-proof box ready for delivery to your address.

This office yesterday has already met with the diplomatic Security courier company that would be responsible for the delivery of security-proof box to you, therefore shipment will commence as soon as we have your final go ahead order. The diplomat who will be bringing in this Consignment (Box) to your address is an expert and has been in this line of work for many years now so you have noting to worry about.

Urgently provide us with the information stated below it would be used for the safe delivery of the security-proof box.

(1) Your Full Name:
(2) Home Address:
(3) Phone, Fax and Mobile Number:
(4) Company Name/Occupation:

Please you need to maintain topmost secrecy as it may cause problem if found out that we are using this media to help you. You are not to inform anyone about this arrangement until you received your money. You may call me on telephone number: 00447035909633 immediately you receive this message to discuss more. Thank you and God bless

Best Regards,
Williams Baron

See you around, peasants.

Some of my friends keep their own blog. I know I love mine more than anything else in the world. It’s a memory, a possession, a creative outlet, a home and a refuge, all in one place. There’s courage to be found in the rigid face of the upstanding green-flecked columns, wisdom to be sought from the words therein and solace to be found within the back-end and the archives that can’t be rivalled.

I don’t know if any of my friends feel like that about their blogs (I suspect they do not), but I know that everyone likes to know that they are being read.

I don’t use newsfeed software. I never really got into that whole system. But that’s not to say I don’t appreciate it when it’s convenient. That’s why, thanks to my iGoogle page, I have been able to add a “Blogs” tab, where I’ve put boxes from all the blogs that I read regularly, check occasionally (because they don’t get updated very often) and used to check (because they no longer are updated, but I have to be there in case someone starts up again). I’ve managed to put them in approximate order of activity, trying to take into account recency and volume of activity, using “Wybrow’s Algorithm” (I just guessed, and it “feels about right”), and I am definitely going to keep on top of it (unlike what I tried to get going with my feed list page on this website) with new additions from friends, reading everything as it’s published. I check my iGoogle page nearly every day (since there are some tech-oriented newsfeeds on there where I can read about Steve fucking Ballmer whenever I feel like it), so I will always be informed.

I would like to share it with everyone, though… to let others know the other folk who live online nearby. Maybe I will make a “planet” feed aggregator on a new site. Planet Will - incorporating both my and my friends’ posts. Maybe.

Until then; get fucking updating, everyone!