Following some personal thoughts on this last week, here is essentially the same thing write large: well-known blogger Paul Carr first quit most social media and locked Twitter, and then quit Twitter as well.
His reasons for doing so are here and his reaction to the reactions of his decision are here. Fascinating stuff.
Ah, the perils of superficial policy.
No sooner do you have a webconference love-in with the founder of a website who could save you potentially billions of pounds, than you have to condemn pages doing stuff you're not so keen on on the, erm, same website.
Perhaps Cameron and Zuckerberg can poke each other to get their relationship back on track?
I was struck by this comment made by David Cameron during his Skype call with Mark Zuckerberg:
Normally if Government wants to engage with people we’d probably spend millions of pounds, even billions, on our own website, and with your help we’re basically getting this public engagement for free.
This is revealing in two ways:
That last point is demonstrably untrue.
Notwithstanding Cameron getting a bit carried away because he was talking to one of the kool kids, and therefore exaggerating in a playground-like manner, it does hint at Cameron's mindset when it comes to whether government should or shouldn't be leading debates with the public, or whether other providers (probably private ones) could be doing it for them.
This is nice:
A Liverpool councillor is facing calls to resign after a picture mocking [disabled people] was posted on her Facebook page. The picture, of a group of physically disabled adults, appeared on Liberal Democrat member Sharon Green’s site, with text underneath comparing them to the council’s Labour group.
I don't know what's worse: the fact that Cllr Green did it in the first place, the fact she thought it was funny, the fact she thought it constituted any type of legitimate comment on her political opponents, or that she refuses to take responsibility for it.
She's an idiot.
In a poor attempt to get more publicity for the Hay Festival (think Radio 4, but even more middle class, snobby and elitist), Stephen Fry has announced "the most beautiful tweet".
The writer of said tweet, on being honoured, was a classic Twitter #fail:
[Winner Marc MacKenzie] said he started tweeting because people kept telling him they enjoyed reading his Facebook updates.
"What I like about it is how my brain works. Occasionally I have these odd thoughts that come to me and they amuse me so I jot them down. I like sharing them and it's an interesting form to work with.
"A certain percentage of tweets are tired cliche phrases so when they come into my head I think 'That won't do.' I can't stand triteness so I always look for ridiculousness in trite."
I have thus taken the unusual, but absolutely necessary precautionary step of blocking Mr MacKenzie, in case his tweeting brilliance renders me unconscious.
In an interesting break with tradition, this week's Friday Puzzle is brought to you on a Friday.
First, the answer to last week's puzzle:
Assuming that there are nearly 7,000,000,000 (7 billion) people on Earth, estimate the size of number you'd get if you multiplied together the number of fingers on everyone's hands. For this calculation, it might be easier to count a thumb as a finger. How many zeroes would this number have? How many beaches of sand would this be? How far into the galaxy could we reach if your answer was converted to miles? How many zebras would you need to have this many hairs?
The answer, of course, was zero. The man who puts this puzzle together, my good friend Wrighty, is a cad, isn't he?
Whilst the answer to that seemingly complex puzzle was simple, the answer to this week's seemingly simple puzzle is, I suspect, complex (puzzle courtesy of Brainbashers:
Fred Smith bought a used car for £4,000 and sold it to Alice for £5,000. Fred later bought it back for £6,000 and then resold it to Alan £7,000. How much profit did Fred make?
Other links:
Today's activity from Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabularies (HMIC) and its huge error around their planned launched of "My Police" is another example of the poor exercise of statutory agency power (on the back of the recent BBC example).
To recap: HMIC is planning to launch an initiative called "My Police". The only problem being that the excellent @MyPolice already exists and works very effectively.
When I first heard the news I honestly assumed that HMIC didn't know @MyPolice existed. It wouldn't be the first time a statutory body was unaware of innovative practice beyond their usual sphere of engagement. But in this situation it became clear the case against HMIC is the worst possible: not only were they aware of @MyPolice, but they actively didn't care about the clear overlap once they became aware of it.
For me, the primary issue here is one of power. HMIC clearly doesn't believe in or value the idea of @MyPolice because (a) they're treading all over the @MyPolice brand, and (b) they didn't engage to understand how both could work together.
There's also the secondary issue of HMIC not understanding the value of such bottom-up initiatives as @MyPolice and how they can contribute to the police as a whole, fulfilling, for example, the (occasionally derided) policing pledge.
I hope the situation has a positive outcome, though I hold little hope. Sooner or later, public bodies are going to have to realise they can't continue to fail to engage with what is represented by @MyPolice; because if they do, this will represent their failure to engage with the people they are there to serve.
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