At: ashok.org.uk/2010
Tomorrow night, I expect the fine city I'm now calling home will have a mayor who doesn't just fail to win the popular vote, but for whom there is a preferred candidate for most voters.
Losing the popular vote is pretty much par for the course with FPP, but this election looks especially clear we can do better.
I think we should all vote for something; and a preferential voting system would naturally discourage the mudslinging that has characterised this campaign.
Twitter's a pretty handy way to vent about something good or bad that's happening.
Here's a really simple way to flag that:
They're just hashtags. They're as short as can be, but I think their meaning is pretty clear.
As a part-time political nerd, I'm keen to keep informed about British politics, particularly in the run-up to a general election. I do a lot of reading, but I also watch programmes like the leaders' debates.
I'm a registered voter, but I happen to live overseas. Given the sorry state of global television distribution by television channels, that causes some hiccups.
I'm not concerned that I can't get access to these videos; with a fair dose of technical knowledge it's pretty simple. I am concerned that it is wrong to make it harder than it need be for any potential voter to get informed.
I hope that for the upcoming debates, the television channels will make them available to all, as easily as possible. If you agree, please let them know (see the links at the foot of this post).
Update at 07:39 EDT, 23rd April 2010 – Some success
Tagged: Rants, Web, Technology, Politics, Media, Distribution
Posted at 09:09 EDT, 18th April 2010.
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Socially acceptable copying
Copying television programmes and music tracks around is a very social thing. Not so many people do it using their computers just now, but I'll wager that's because it's fiddly, rather than because it is socially terribly unacceptable.
We've been copying and sharing media around for a long time. You can go back to home taping, which plainly never managed to kill music. But you can go back a lot further than that: to the fireside, to the cave wall, to an oral tradition of storytelling and art that far outstrips today's commercial structures for copyright.
Lots has changed since then, but storytelling is still at the heart of it.
More on Socially acceptable copying…
Tagged: Social, Distribution, Media, Technology
Posted at 06:59 EDT, 26th May 2010.
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