Buy Our Anti-Skin Failure Elixir Before It’s Too Late!

23Apr07

Picture by dokmarius Some rights reserved.

Olvier Ansaldi beat me to the punch¹ on a small piece that appeared in this morning’s edition of the free Dublin newspaper Metro²:

Four in every five blogs on popular websites contain potentially offensive content, such as pornography, new research claims. Computer software firm ScanSafe, which commissioned the report [...]

You know, I’m really getting fed up of hearing about the latest impeding threat to our health/morality/gadget when it comes from someone who is trying to sell a solution to the threat to our health/morality/gadget especially when it’s based on research that they commissioned. A similar thing happened a few weeks ago in connection with a virus for the iPod. I mean, are people that stupid that they’d actually not realise that they’re being hoodwinked?³

I’m also fed up with the rag press who are more interested in selling sensationalism and their own agenda than selling facts. Mind you, this is nothing new. I’ve been reading Niall Ferguson’s excellent book on World War One, “The Pity of War” which has a section on the media’s behaviour in the build-up to 1914 and during the war itself. Lord Northcliffe, the Rupert Murdoch of his day, went so far as to declare in 1918 that:

I do not propose to use my newspapers and personal influence to support a new Government … unless I know definitely and in writing, and can consciously approve, the personal constitution of the Government.

Fox News how are ya?

One of the truly great things about the current wave in the tech industry⁴ is, as Darren Barefoot said at BarCamp yesterday, that the consumers are becoming the producers. Whether it’s editorial (blogs), radio (podcasts) or TV (videocasts), the tools that are available are lowering the barriers to entry to all sorts of media. Sure this is raising the noise part of the SNR but it also means that anyone with a message other than Buy My Product/Politician/Policy can also be heard.

Viva La Revolucion!

Oh and apparently 4 out of 5 blogs have offensive content so here’s some pron⁵:

Picture by Jagvar

Fwoahr!

– Fintan

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1 – And has started to use footnotes as well. Boo!
2 – Mind you this is also the same paper that had a largish picture of a new sex-toy for dogs. I kid you not. And it wasn’t Japanese.
3 – Of course they are.
4 – Some call it Web 2.0
5 – Sic.

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