Category Archives: News

MySpace & News Corporation Problems

January 11, 2006Blogging, Internet, NewsAlistair Lattimore

In July, News Corporation announced that it had purchased Intermix and all associated products for US$580 Million. Intermix owned and operated MySpace.com, one of the largest social portal sites on the internet boasting nearly 50 million members.

Everything was going along swimmingly for News Corporation, until they started censoring what their users were writing! It is the expectation that the internet is free and anyone can write just about anything and ultimately no one will care. It seems that News Corporation took offense to their users linking and discussing their competitors. When users would mention a competitor, the posts were being edited and the offending words, images and links deleted.

You would assume that MySpace were feeling threatened by their competitor and sought to weed it out of their site. Unfortunately, this manual intervention stirred the pot a little more than expected and a huge backlash followed. As soon as the backlash gained momentum, MySpace stopped censoring their clients information and restored all of the existing data – in fear of it escalating any further.

I think this would have been a very strong lesson learned for the new owners of MySpace. In an online business, even more so for a business driven by the power of social networking, you can’t suddenly go and change the rules. If you change the rules and your users don’t like it – your competitor is only ever a handful of keystrokes away.

Microwaving Adversaries

July 25, 2005NewsAlistair Lattimore

The U.S Military have a new weapon, the Active Denial System which they intend to deploy in Iraq next year.

This new weapon shoots out a 95 Gigahertz microwave beam and is intended to be used for “crowd control”. The idea is that the rioters will do anything they can to get out of the road the weapon, as it creates an intense heating and burning sensation to the target.

In short, they’ve created a mobile microwave with a focused beam of energy to super-heat/cook humans. I wonder how they are going to know if they are over exposing a person to microwaves? They won’t worry about that, those people will just be casualties of war with melted skin and cancer. What if the person being hit with it can’t move? Remember what happens when you put metal into a microwave? I do, its very bad. What do they think is going to happen when the target has a metal belt on or say, a titanium plate in their leg?

Next, the U.S Military will use a normal rifle for crowd control. They’ll say that the rioters will only get hurt if they don’t get our of the road of the bullets.

Image shamelessly stolen from ABC News.

London Bomb Explosions

July 22, 2005General, NewsAlistair Lattimore

There have been further bomb explosions in London on Thursday 21st July.

I was initially very concerned about the event, however after hearing the news for the last three hours, it has been unequivocally confirmed that the media are sensationalising juggernauts. Channel Ten had a phone interview with someone disgussing breaking up to the minute news and he must of said the same thing 17 different ways – yet the Channel Ten anchor kept asking useless questions which the reporter clearly didn’t have the answers for. He could have had an eight second phone conversation saying:

There have been four bomb explosions in London, three in the underground and one in a bus, mirroring the bombings from the July 7th 2005. The explosions were much smaller than those that killed 56 people a fortnight ago and thankfully there have been no casualties at this stage.

Yet, he babbled on and on, reiterating the same information every different way, in a fast paced, concerned and destressed voice. That same reporter would have been sitting in the news room 30 minutes prior, relaxed and no doubt drinking a coffee. Then suddenly, he is speaking and acting as if he was part of the event and has been directly impacted by it.

It really does frustrate me, why can’t they just report the information and not sensationalise everything? They can’t because they must live by the media mantra:

If it bleeds, it leads.

London Terrorist Bomb Attacks

July 8, 2005General, NewsAlistair Lattimore

Update: July 12, 10.45pm
After the sudden surge of up to the minute information that is commonly called ‘news’, the real story and figures emerge. There are now 53 people confirmed dead, still approximately 700 people injured. The Australian Foreign Affairs department has now confirmed that there are six Australians in hospital in London, two of which are still in critical condition while one of them is in intensive care. Probably not surprising, there have been serious bomb scares reported since the bombings, which caused major evacuations.

The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, made a comment that further attacks are ‘likely’ but the timing of such events is unknown. Exactly how is that different from the situation they were in before the latest attack happened? There have been reports various major cities around the world would be targeted in the last few months, so it isn’t like they didn’t know it was possible or likely – they simply just didn’t know when. I really don’t think the terrorists are going to put the date, time and targets on a billboard any time soon.

Update: July 9 8:30am
The initial reports of six or seven explosions were inaccurate. There were four explosions, which roughly spanned a 45 minute period. Three of the explosions where in the underground and one on the bus. There are now 37 people confirmed dead and over 700 injuries. The underground has been closed until further notice, which is a precedent. Responsibility for the bombing has been claimed by a group apparently related to Al Qaeda; though they all do these days, its nearly as common as children with ADD/ADHD.

There have been multiple explosions in London. At this stage, the reports are that six or seven explosions have taken place, primarily in the underground subway except for an explosing involving a double decker bus. Early reports are confirming two fatalities and at least 90 casualties. Prime Minister Tony Blair has given a statement and has confirmed that it was a terrorist attack that was timed to coincide with the G8 summit. During his address, it was clear he has been shaken by the event.

To think they would strike directly after the series of Live8 concerts which were held to Make Poverty History and the very day after London was announced as the host for the 2012 Olympic Games. You would think the world, including the terrorists, would be happy that the well off countries are banding together to try and help the less fortunate, alas no.

If you are looking for audio/video, the ABC News Website currently has feeds of it:

Tony Blair speaking from the G8 summit about the blasts in London [video: win broadband, win dialup]
A series of blasts have hit London with reports of many injured [video: win broadband, win dialup]

Flickr also have a photo pool available.

Sickening.