…Leave to Brew

This sounds really encouraging. I imagine the looming recession could provide strong motivation for corporations to try out such crazy new ways of working.

But, while I’m trying really hard not to be cynical, I think this video doesn’t address the way patents seem entirely damaging to collaboration. If patents started to get used for the purpose they were intended—which was to encourage sharing of private ideas—then all could be well. But right now, patents are the strongest form of protectionism and are used to block innovation.

Also, I think that corporations will have to fundamentally change for this to work. Until the current collapse of the western economic model, most corporations were led by shareholders with frenzied greed. This is antithetical to the open, collaborative exchange of ideas. Nike can’t have their cake and eat it. Most of the smart people do work for other organisations, but you can’t tap into their talent unless you care as much for them as you do for yourself. And I mean care for them. Not simply care about their wallet.

Had to post this.

Radio 4’s Today programme just hosted a discussion between Dr Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science and Nas Amir Ahmadi, managing director of Detox in a Box. Dr Goldacre’s point was that Detox programmes are shallow marketing and have no measurable effect on health. He went further to say that they may actually dis-empower people by encouraging a lot of effort and spending a lot of money which has no effect. Anyway, he cited a line on Detox in a Box’s website which claims their product is effective at helping the body reduce levels of “heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadminum [sic.], nickel, arsenic, and aluminum” and asked Nas Amir Ahmadi to cite evidence that her product reduced cadmium. Ahmadi replied by saying that Goldacre must have been looking at the wrong website because those things were not mentioned on hers.

Enter Google to the fray, and the search phrase ‘“detox in a box” heavy metals’, which highlight a page from Detox in a Box’s website containing exactly what Dr Goldacre said it did:

“One of the most complex detoxification functions is against heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadminum, nickel, arsenic, and aluminum.”

I imagine the company may revise this page in a hurry after the interview, so I took a composite screenshot of the entire page for posterity. Aren’t I the helpful sort?

One sweeping generalisation my experiences of 2008 have helped me to make is that forums provide heat whilst communities provide light.

By forum, I mean that trusty bulletin-board style discussion space we know and love. Well, maybe the L-word is a bit too strong. By community (and I’m talking online here), I mean a bunch of people sharing a similar interest or approach. Communities can exist in forum software, but they are also increasingly found on social networking sites.

In been a member of two forums this year, two communities and one thing that possibly has a foot in each camp. I don’t think I’m on to anything new here, but forums seem inherently designed for conflict. Forums are full of people defending points of view, or attacking other points of view. Forums I’ve particularly come to fear and loathe are those where people are discussing politics or religion. In meatspace, a broad range of people is generally a great thing. But that’s because being face to face with others reminds us that we’re discussing the issue with another human being. Take away the personal contact, and all hell commonly breaks loose. The object of the exercise becomes to discredit, not to understand.

This is where you need community. A true community is a place where people seek understanding first. It is not something you can easily make, and you can easily damage it if you do not care about others in it.

I don’t think there is an easy way to engineer a community. I think that if the proposition for a group is that of giving and receiving help, a community is likely to form—given time. Conversely, if the proposition is simply discussion, I think the group will soon attract those who enjoy argument and self-aggrandisement.

In fairness, I put my hand up and admit I have been a guilty party in several forum conflicts in 2008. But I’ve also benefited beyond measure from at least one of the two communities of which I’m a member. And so I plead: ask me for help, don’t ask me what I think!

“You probably thought it was smart to buy a foreign import of superior quality, with better mileage and resale value. Maybe you even thought that years of market share loss might prod us into rethinking our process and redesigning our products with better quality in mind. but you forgot one thing: we spend a shitload of money on lobbyists. So now you’re out $25 billion, plus the cost of your Subaru. Maybe next time you’ll buy American like a real man. Either way, we’re cool.

We’re the big three. We don’t need to compete.”

Source: The Beast

No, I’m not talking about fat ladies singing. For many years, I’ve used the Opera web browser. I started off with Opera back in about 2000 when I was using Windows because of the security problems with Internet Explorer, and because the other main alternatives at that time were Netscape or Mozilla which seemed rather bloated and slow to me. Later on, Mozilla Firefox came on to the scene, but it was still slower than Opera, and didn’t have the sheer convenience and joy that Opera has for heavy keyboard users. Even today, now that Firefox has caught up with Opera in terms of speed and performance—perhaps even slightly overtaken—it’s still just plain awkward to use with the keyboard.

That was until I decided to give Vimperator a proper run for its money. It’s basically an add-on for Firefox that makes Firefox look and behave a lot like the popular command-line text editor, Vim. Vim is entirely keyboard driven, so Vimperator makes Firefox entirely keyboard accessible too. I think Vimperator might just save my life—not only matching Opera for its keyboard friendliness, but outstripping it completely and allowing me to do even more with my keyboard.

Woo hooo!

I also came across quite a nice little line on the Vimperator wiki. Vimperator removes all of the buttons and menus from the Firefox interface because they’re just not necessary for keyboard users (I already remove the buttons and menus from my Opera configuration). The Vimperator position seems to be, “What? So the 80+ buttons on your keyboard aren’t enough for you?”