The Power of the Internet

This past week two issues came to my attention.  One was a global issue and grabbed the attention of newscasters, bloggers, and generally the world’s media.  The other however was just as important yet by Monday had received almost no coverage or indeed support.

Saturday 15th April 1989 ninety-six football fans lost their lives at the Lepping Lane end of Hillsborough football stadium.  One of these fans was 15 year old Kevin Williams.  He went to a football match and never came home.  His mother Anne was told he had died at 3.15pm but eye-witnesses have him asking for his mum at 3.55pm.  More than forty ambulances were held outside locked gates at the stadium for more than an hour and denied access to the scores of people who were dying just yards from them.

Basic medical assistance would have saved Kevin’s life.

The cover-up in this case reaches beyond Kevin’s death but the facts remain that had police let the ambulances into the ground some of the 96 would not have died.  The police also made witnesses lie on record cover up their mistakes.

Anne set up an online petition to ask the Attorney General to grant her request for a new inquest into her son’s death.  The petition required 100,000 signatures by 4.00pm Thursday 19th January.  By Monday 16th the e-petition had slightly more than 8,000 signatures.  A campaign began on Twitter to bring attention to it, and the need for lots of signatures in a very short space of time.  Liverpool fans and indeed football fans of all clubs took the issue in hand and tweeted links to both background articles and the petition itself.  Celebrities as diverse as Joey Barton and Piers Morgan tweeted and re-tweeted pleas for signatures and the petition had the required number of names by early Thursday morning. At the cut-off time the number had swelled to 117,420.

This is a testament to the power of the internet and what can be done when enough people get behind a cause that goes beyond tribal and partisan lines.  It is the first step in a long journey for Anne which began twenty-two years ago, and hopefully will end with Justice for a mother who lost her son.

Anne Williams, You’ll Never Walk Alone.

The second issue was one of a global nature and centred on the Internet itself.  The US government wanted to push through Congress two pieces of legislature,  the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), which would forever change how the internet was to be used and controlled.   The Bills were created to prevent piracy but as they are financed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to the tune of $94million, they smack of being firmly in the interest of corporate America, and this is not what the Internet was created for.

A campaign, more aggressive than Anne’s has been underway for quite sometime to prevent these acts being made law.  The internet is not the property of the US or any other government and should not be policed as it is.  The campaign is with this in mind.  Websites like Wikipedia and Reddit went dark for twenty-four hours, Google and Yahoo replaced adverts on their sites with links to information on the bills, and almost every site with upload facilities (such as YouTube and Facebook) are opposed to the bill.

These bills are more than an attempt to clamp down on online piracy, it is a blatant coup d’etat by America on the international governance of a free an open internet.  It will do little or nothing to prevent online piracy but will, for millions of ordinary users, destroy the internet forever.  The only winners will be the massive media corporations whose interests are, despite what they would have us believe, not as much about the ownership of ideas as the ownership of the revenue generated by these ideas.

Sites used by millions on a daily basis by almost every internet user will be changed forever.  You will no longer be able to post photos on your facebook status, or share YouTube videos on Twitter unless you have express permission from the creator.  Every post will be regulated and controlled and the internet will become a police state at the control of the federal US government.

The massive protests and responses forced the two Republicans who created the bills to pull their support effectively ending them as an immediate threat.  It is a testament to how strong the feeling was about this issue, and like Anne Williams cause was carried through on a tide of public opinion.  Perhaps more important for Anne, because had these acts been passed the twitter campaign would never have been.

The internet is the most powerful tool many of us have at our disposal and we must protect it.  My blog is still in its infancy but I believe in it and I hope it grows and grows.  It is not lost on me that I am using the internet to put across my ideas and I hope whoever is reading this feels free to share this blog with as many people as they can.  After all the sharing of ideas is what the internet was created for and it is not up to anyone to decide how that should be done.

Once again thanks for reading.

My Wife Called Me a GeekNerd

I admit it freely; I am a geek, I am a nerd.

Star Trek, Star Wars and StarGate.  Doctor Who, Transformers, and Buffy.  You name it I've watched it and probably loved it.  There is something about the entirely improbable that compels me, from aliens to vampires, from time travel to big giant robots, and everything in between.  These elements are part of my staple TV diet and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Similarly, my love of books reflects this.  My bookcase is dominated by authors such as Raymond E. Feist, Terry Brooks, George RR Martin and of course Tolkien.  Worlds that don't exist, Midkemia, MiddleEarth and Westeros, are as real to me as this one. Imagination is a wonderful and beautiful thing, and kids (and big kids!) have been enjoying theirs for ever.

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, geekdom and nerdism, this is what I am.

I am proud of this, but I wasn't always.

It is never easy to be the butt of jokes, but it is something you can get used to.  You develop a thick skin, an outer veneer of protection.  But it is not completely impenetrable, nothing really is when you're a kid in a big world.  You start to believe the jibes, that you are somehow less important than those taunting you.  I took solace in the crew of the USS Enterprise, in the fact that the TARDIS could go anywhere it liked, anytime it liked.  I still do, but now I just enjoy the shows, then I needed them.

So when my wife called me a 'geeknerd' I blinked only at the two terms being thrust together like some kind of alien-predator hybrid.  It was a term of endearment, and only slightly motivated by the fact that she believes me to still be a child:-)

Like all things, it will take time to catch on, to become a term we can all be comfortable with.  Like Arsenal fans taking the (initially) derogatory term 'Gooner' to their hearts, being called a geek at one time would have brought a vehement denial, but not now.  Likewise nerd was not a term I would have loved, now though I embrace it.

I have accepted being a geeknerd, and will wear the term like a badge of honour.  It doesn't matter in what way your imagination flourishes, in what worlds you take comfort, or in what terms you are seen by others.  Be comfortable in yourself and those around will be comfortable in your company.

I am proud to be a geek, and i am proud to be a nerd.
I am a geeknerd.

media learn

Right here goes.....
I came very late to the social media party, and have learned very slowly about its uses and applications.  Let me start at the beginning for you.

Less than two years ago I bought my first computer(well second but the first disappeared on a train somewhere between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, more on that in a later blog) without really knowing why or what I was going to do with it.
Shortly after that my girlfriend (now wife *smileyface*) came to me and said she had got herself a Facebook.
I laughed, oh how I laughed.

Two weeks later I had a Facebook too.
My next purchase was an iPhone, and with it a Facebook app.  I could now keep up with all my friends on the go!! How awesome is that!!! However, it wasn't enough, I knew these people, I knew what they were up to anyway because I could talk to them in real life, I needed more.

So..Twitter.
Now I could keep tabs on famous people too. None of Facebook's need for accepting or requesting Friendships that potentially hamper my nosiness. All you have to do is click a little "follow" icon, and as long as you (to a certain extent) minded your Ps and Qs you could stalk your favourite twittarati to your heart's content.

Now I need to explain at this point that while I enjoyed looking at Facebook and Twitter I rarely posted anything on either site, I was an observer rather than a participant.  This has changed recently and I will go into the reasons for this in another post, but for now I am a Tweeter or whatever term is appropriate.

Thus this blog, 140 characters just sometimes isn't enough.  I will try to use this blog to talk about football, TV, books, or whatever comes into my mind at any point.  I hope it will improve my writing and allow me to articulate more clearly, and hey maybe my tweets will make more sense.

 Thanks for reading.