WillWybrow.com

I figure I spend a bunch of time Googling syntax or functions in code if I can’t remember them. And sometimes I’ll even lift out a whole section of example code from a search result and try and change as little of it as possible to maximise the time I spend not doing work. These little shortcuts make life bearable.

So I’ve decided to invent a new programming language. Each line is a search query you’d type in to bring up a reference page and an example of what you’re trying to do. Then, at compile time, the compiler does the searches, lifts out the example code from the top hit and then builds the binary from the collection of sample code.

It would probably be a fruitless and very tiresome (if not never-ending) effort to list ALL the things that could do with being shaken up around here. So for the moment I am going to settle for this very brief but presently high-profile list of some shit that needs changing.

1. Decriminalisation of Drugs

   I am sure I don’t need to link you to any of the number of articles online about the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal. Google it if you want to. This, from the TIME.com article about it:

   “Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research [into its success]. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

   In light of the news about the mephedrone deaths that have just happened, the government will inevitably end up adding it to the list of banned substances, like they did with synthetic cannabinoids at the end of last year. That they still have to keep banning the new ways people find to get themselves high suggests that people are going to try it regardless. The only real way we can increase the safety of those who do choose to try it is by regulating the quality of the drugs sold (so that they’re not cut with rat poison) and to fully understand through scientific experimentation the effects so any short- and long-term effects can be made clear through education. Legalising the old-school drugs that everyone knows about will cause users to gravitate towards them. They’ve been more extensively studied than these new ‘legal highs’, so that bodes better for education and treatment of ill-effects and addiction.

2. Libel Law Reform

   In case you haven’t been keeping abreast of one of the most (if not the most) high profile libel lawsuits of late, Simon Singh was recently accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association. He wrote that any chiropractic practitioner who claimed to be able to cure things like colic in babies was lying, with plenty of demonstrable evidence showing it to be ineffective. As well as in being counter-intuitive to assume that spinal manipulation can solve all your problems. While with any reasonable set of laws, the chiropractors would have no hope of achieving anything from suing someone with stacks of scientific evidence to back up their claims, actually suing someone for libel is no longer about who wins or loses. Because of the incredibly dramatic cost of being sued for libel, often the accused has no choice but to back down and not fight if the accuser is financially well-endowed. With a relatively small cost to a corporation, it can silence any individual or small organisation it wants to with the threat of expensive legal action, and thus hide any of its wrongdoings. The Libel Reform campaign seeks to raise awareness with the ultimate goal of getting this changed. And while it might not benefit the majority of people directly, it is a freedom of speech/censorship matter that needs to be addressed and corrected lest it remain an affront to liberty forever.

3. The Digital Economy Bill

   Sometimes I think Lord Mandelson doesn’t see things the way the rest of us do. His perspective on certain subjects is so skewed, I think maybe he might benefit from some psychiatric evaluation.

   Even if he passes the lunatic test, though, this doesn’t make his Digital Economy Bill any less insane. Mandelson wants to be given unlimited power to amend copyright legislation. He wants rights holders, via the courts, to be able to disconnect people suspected of filesharing without requiring any proof. He is willing to deny internet access to whole households to punish (and that’s punish, not rehabilitate or force repayment from) copyright infringers. There has also been a clause added that says ISPs would be obligated to block access to certain websites that facilitate copyright infringement (which could even include YouTube and possibly Google), but again this seems to only take place at Mandelson’s command.

   I’m also interested in the overlooked modifications to Nominet. It’s a kind of nationalisation of the service for registering domain names in the UK. Might not mean much to most people, but putting more of the internet in the hands of this government unnecessarily (Nominet is functioning fine as an independent body at the moment and can’t possibly benefit from being under government control) is an unmistakably bad thing. Some of us have registered domain names and don’t want ownership of them revoked at the whim of Lord Mandelson.

That’ll be all for now, I think. I will do some more when I get back to my chat logs and assemble all the ideas I came up with when Chris put me on the spot yesterday evening with all the policies I’d have if I formed a political party.

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.