What is wrong with the web?

I dont often or like for that matter wading into these tye of subjects but i thought id have ago this time.

“Parents, please be aware. Don’t let your child be alone in a bedroom with a webcam and a computer with Internet access unsupervised,” said Alberta Integrated Child Exploitation Unit Det. Kevin Fald.

edmontonsun.com – Edmonton News – ‘Don’t let your child have a webcam’

This isnt the exact quote i wanted but it was along the same lines “what do expect when yur child has the latest technology … they shouldnt have it” Why shouldnt have a child have access to the internet and the latest technology, just because somebody might take advantage. The problem is not with the technology or the web services available it is the fact that parents aren’t of the web generation and aren’t giving guidelines to there children.

I am 100% totally against censorship and parental controls as it isnt the answer to the problem in question. As a species we are curious and if boundaries are put there we will break them. An example of this at my old school they had a friendly censornet system which was far to sensitive, it is ok filtering the nasty but images from Hiroshima and the Holocaust are also nasty, were does the filter stop and who says what is ok? The internet is full of rubbish and to somebody this blog will be rubbish and to another it will be valuable information and opinion. By setting up universal rules for children to follow, they are more likely to stay safe only, i am more inclined to say go onto the web and find out what is out there but if you see something that you dont know what it is then close it, now we come onto the Instant Messaging revolution, see this is a simple one only have on your contacts list who you know if you don’t know them dont have them on your contacts list, IM is between friends and family. As you get older you are more inclined to have the barriers and let more people onto your contacts list, but at this point you should know a dodgy character, and not be so gullible.

The US has passed legislation which controls what website operators are allowed to put in their site meta tags. The law bans the use of words which might lead anyone to obscene content.

Newsvine – Meta tag abusers face 20 years in prison

Then onto another not all that dissimilar subject, the US trying to police the web. A mean how are they going to make this one stick and it may be tied to certain things, but what is to stop apple suing me for having a higher rank than them when searching from apple (not that it will ever happen) America is willing itself into a position were it can oversea the internet, but the internet is designed to be a collective of different ideas, not one mass of grey boring information. America designed the inter-network when the phone system was just starting to be used, it was designed so any place on the earth could be contacted even if there were places bombed and cables cut. Tim Burners-Lee created the internet as we now know it to share information, the basis of which any sharing can take place being self-censored not by government but by the user who says, that is the line and i arent going to cross it. This way the internet can meet all its users needs.

Sorry for the sort of rant it had to be done.

Blogged with Flock

What makes a good website?

I have being try to figure this one out over the last couple of days before I start development of the new 3stooges.co.uk site, i know what i personally want from the site, but what will make this site different from any other site? Well first of nothing there are so many websites out there that it makes no difference what your content is cos chances are there will be somebody else somewhere doing the same, so does it then fall to interesting design, well yes and no if you make it too radically your site becomes niché (new cool feature in mac os i found to get accent) and confusing to use, and you could even make the site too good and the content would be all poo.

So a perfect website would be nice to look at, some cool features and plenty of good content. In that statement i opened another can of worms what is good design, for me it would be functional and looks simple.

“99% of the internet is rubbish” -unkown “the internet is a series of tubes” – Ted Stevens

So How dependent are we on electricity?

Well the answer is simple, VERY.

We had a power cut yesterday and i could do nothing while the power came back on (about 35mins). We couldn’t ring out on the Landline or VOIP line, watch the tele, do my day-to-day business on the interweb, i couldn’t even hoover(yes i was forced to tidy up, and i still haven’t finished)

But just think how much of our infrastructures are dependant on electricty? Increasingly Phones, Traffic Lights, Safety systems (these should have back-up power) Even the bare essentials are effected, showers, heating/AC, Cook Appliances. Practically everything goes off, i would be interesting to see how we could manage without power. The big power cut in New York a few years back highlights out dependancy how many millions did it cost and how many people were trapped or unable to commute in that 14hour stretch.

No moving to focus on the UK, with the amount of redundancy in the National Grid dropping as more and more pwer stations are taken offline we are going to face more and more power-cuts, which means we have to get big on renewables or nuclear, or even both. I have to say i arent a fan of nuclear but the fact is there is that many people who object to the current viable renewable means that nuclear is the only option.

N.B. I couldn’t be bothered to link to sources for the information but it is freely available have a quick google.