People and Communications

Via a Facebook message, I found out that The Independent Media Producers Association of Trinidad & Tobago (IMPATT) will be launching in September of this year. When that happens, the scope of what IMPATT will be doing will probably be better defined - but if you're working in media in Trinidad and Tobago, or are an independent producer of media (aren't we all?), take a read and consider joining the IMPATT group on Facebook.

IMPATT is going to do a "soft" launch via the internet in September and a proper launch and membership drive in October.

To this end we getting assistance from Caribbean Media Arts to gather some much needed info.

CMA in conjunction with the NTA is doing a quick survey of the current labour landscape of the media industry.

If you work in media:

Look out for the forms in hardcopy at your stations/production companies.
Or request the digital version that you can email back to us.
available by the 8th of September.

OUR CHALLENGE
To get onto the myriad freelancers and support services who are not attached to stations/production companies. So please send suggestions as to how to reach the freelancers.
Even better - get them to join the IMPATT facebook group or the Caribbean Media Arts facebook group.

For more info call Caribbean Media Arts : 625 7752

A change is coming in the industry... be part of it!

Over the last 3 months, I've been managing land that my father left behind. During this time, I've been asked to write 2 letters to the Housing and Development Corporation (HDC) for tenants so that they could get financial assistance in getting their homes repaired. This, of course, I did - but the second letter got some more attention when the tenant mentioned to one of the HDC people that the land was in dispute. It really wasn't, my father had some legal cases in court at the time of his death - but the reaction by the HDC was that they needed a copy of my deed.

Apologetic, the tenant and his wife who reside on my land explained this to me. I smiled. This was an opportunity. I'd get to see what the HDC really does, what it will do and what it won't do. This was an invitation.

Rather than giving the tenant a copy of my deed, I drove one up with a copy of my deed to see what this was about. After all, I'd written two letters - and some other people might not even know about the HDC's projects. Being better versed on HDC simply makes sense - many people don't know about these projects. I know I didn't prior to the requests for letters. When I asked both people who received letters how they had found out about the projects, I was not too surprised to find out that they had found out about them at People's National Movement (PNM) Constituency meetings. Trust the politrickians to selectively disseminate information... South Oropouche is an Opposition (UNC-A) stronghold...

Unfortunately, for reasons that defy reason, one cannot simply go to a branch office that is closer to where one is - one is forced to go to Port-of-Spain. This is a symptom of just about any government office in Trinidad and Tobago - the fact that they are so disconnected from the areas that they are supposed to service despite branch offices in the same areas.

Well, really, not worms. Just one worm, according to someone on the NANOG list.

The worm spreads by sending messages to Facebook friends from your account and asks them to click on a link in the .pl ccTLD. It's similar to zlob and koobface.

The worm sends personal user data to zzzping.com. The domain has been shut down by DirectNIC already, so private information is safe as of right now.

The worm is still spreading - you can see the statistics here.

Apparently, the Facebook security team is working on this as well. Anti-virus vendors have been notified. Detection and, hopefully, removal, should be available within the next few days.

Safe bet: Don't click links that show up as .pl when you mouseover them. ;-)

I remember the era before the spreadsheet, and I was fortunate enough to see Visicalc become the first 'killer app'. It transformed the way people did things, so much so that nowadays spreadsheets have become so mundane that you can pay for powerful spreadsheet software in software bundles - or get them at no cost in open source bundles. Offices use spreadsheets every day for things that were not possible before Visicalc; the computerized spreadsheet allowed people to do so much more automatically that it had a large part to play in personal computer adoption in businesses. In essence, it changed the world.

When I first revisited Kirix Strata in the context of Benford's Law, I was within a rut of thinking that had to do more with what I needed to do (cross referencing land tenancy records against receipts and introducing GIS) than anything else. That focus lead me toward Kirix Strata, and a lot of communication with Ken Kaczmarek and Aaron Williams of Kirix. I downloaded the 30 day trial version of Kirix Strata and started tossing my data at it. Ken and Aaron insisted that they do a webcast with me, and being in my rut of thinking I simply decided to entertain them. After all, how could it hurt?

Thomas Friedman wrote that the World is Flat, but the Internet has proven to be less than flat on more than one occasion. Nations allow their interpretations of the Internet to their populations, the First Amendment of the United States isn't enacted the same way in most parts of the world (and in extreme cases simply does not exist), and generally speaking, the hyper-libertarianism that came with the Internet does not seem substantiated. In essence, the Emperor not only has no clothing - the Emperor is seen differently around the world, depending on the accident of one's geopolitical residence. In China, the government filters anything that it finds harmful through the very technology that allegedly was to make censorship something routed around: the very routers themselves.

The brave new world of the Internet is only an evolution of pre-Internet society, not a quantum leap as was initially expected. That there are different links for different nations and languages, that IP addresses are tracked to ascertain locale of the user and to assure appropriate content gets there - these are not things that the average internet user thinks about on a daily basis. But it was not always so.

Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World explores the history of the Internet and the effects it has had on society - as well as the impact that society has had on the Internet. From the days when Jon Postel challenging the United States Government for root control of the Internet all the way up to present day China, the way that nations filter information is explored and explained, with specific examples ranging from Napster's file sharing and the Kazaa evolution and eventual demise to Yahoo's issues with France in the context of users selling Nazi paraphernalia. China's Internet, which is vastly different from that which people from other countries have seen, demonstrates that a government can successfully filter and inject it's own agenda into what Chinese Internet users have available. Even the WTO ruling on Antigua's claims for loss of income due to US Law are explored - as well as many other issues that the Internet has tolerated.

Prior to 1439, there were wooden block and movable type presses in Asia - but in 1439, a goldsmith put together something that changed the face of publishing around the world. Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg, better known as Johannes Gutenberg, may have even been instrumental in the spread of Christianity through the world with the Gutenberg Bible. Such was the power of new publishing technologies then, where the cost of owning and operating a press made one a part of the media. This media persisted and improved over time, and reductions in the technology cost saw the press used in all manner of areas to distribute news, pamphlets and books. Old Western movies and books do not seem complete without the 'newspaperman' who will rush off to set up the press for tomorrow's news. The ability to broadcast information to people was extremely viable, and left the need for monks and academics with cramped hands to copy books in the dust. Information could be mass produced and shared - and sold.

In the last century, radio and television became major parts of the press - Tesla's invention of radio¹ was later refined by the likes of Marconi, Roberto Landell de Moura, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Alexander Stepanovich Popov and others. It wasn't long before this became a medium for broadcast. Television was much the same.

Right before the turn of the millennium, something else became a media source - you're using it right now. It's the Internet - and where once media was about broadcasting, the Internet has increasingly influenced media into discussion. All prior media disseminated news, propaganda, advertisements and the opinions of anyone graced with the ability to use the equipment. The Internet also does the same - but the number of those who are now graced to use the equipment has increased dramatically as well. But the question is now: Where can news be found? Who are the media?

Dan Gillmor, in 2006, wrote We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People, a rallying call for the masses to become a part of the media - appealing to bloggers and perhaps read with disdain at the time by the traditional media outlets. In it's own way, Gillmor's book became an icon - people who hadn't even read the book started talking about 'We the Media', internalizing it in their own was and regurgitating the various perspectives in streams of 1s and 0s over the Internet.

But there are issues. For one, journalists of traditional media are afforded rights in some places that the average citizen does not - such as the ability to protect sources. The second, and perhaps the most important, is who perceives who as the media.

Enter We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age.

From the official design challenge:

After the Mobile networks was introduced to Kerala (India) in 1997, the fisherman soon began investing in mobile phones which allowed them to call local markets while they were still at sea and determine where they would receive the best price for their catch. The improvements in information flow facilitated by mobile phones helped to raise the fisherman's profits by 8%, lower consumer prices by 4% and reduce the average 'catch wastage' from around 6.5% to almost zero...

...Simply meeting the communication and entertainment needs will not mean much unless we answer the vital question, Is there a social responsibility while extending mobile connectivity throughout the world? We need to focus on how mobile phone can help the overall socio-economic development. There is also a need to focus on the kind of mobile user experience that must be delivered for these new consumers?

How can you harness the power of mobile telephony to enhance the livelihood and quality of life of the farming community of India?

USID Foundation and Nokia are behind the contest. As someone working on agriculture and aquaculture in Trinidad and Tobago, I find it odd that a contest would be geopolitically limited in such a manner - especially since it cites global food shortage. Global. While those who are heavily tied to a bureaucracy that supports geopolitically separated contests and support, I have to wonder: with such a common theme around the globe, why just India? Why not Latin America and the Caribbean as well?

The answer, of course, is that funding agencies just haven't caught up with the technologies and world view that they so often expound.

In a fun and interesting twist, Marillion's latest song - 'Whatever Is Wrong With You?' - comes with a challenge:

Make a video, upload it to YouTube and, if your video gets the most views by 0:01 GMT on 1 December 2008 you get £5,000. Marillion meets Web 2.0 in style! And the lyrics are so... well, explain why Marillion remains my favorite band of all time. Both Fish and Hogarth eras, you splitters!

I honestly wish I had some video skills so I could take a shot at this - but who knows, maybe I'll toss something out there at them. Just for fun. I don't expect I will win, but I know I do have an original idea and it's something I actually related to something I sent the Marillion folk a few months ago... but, of course, I probably got trapped in the electronic or human spam filters. Obla di, obla da.

If you do have some video skills - and I know some readers of KnowProSE.com do (as well as some people who should be reading)... why not give it a try? Go check out WhateverIsWrongWithYou.com and check out the rules, download the MP3 and... get out your scissors and silver foil, toss some Christmas lights on your clothes, and go a little... Marillion.

On another note - brilliant marketing, great way to get We of the Marillion involved more. Now I have to go see someone about a dog with Christmas lights...