A lot of the journalistic types go into the profession hoping to pose though questions, expose stories and fight corruption but before they know it, they’re speculating about whether Jordan is getting divorced from some bloke.

So here is a gripping illustration of journalism:

Before:

After:

I finally won my copyright battle on Youtube!

I had filed a complaint once before about by video, “Ricky Knight against the BNP” which was downloaded and re-uploaded by a user called “nobnp4uk,” a YouTube magpie who will grab any bits of footage that fit his aganda. I’m not saying his agenda is wrong at all, I’m against the BNP as well, I just don’t believe stealing my video helps anyone in the fight against fascism.

I filed another complaint on Friday, and first thing this morning it was accepted and acted upon, with the offending video removed. Within 5 minutes, “nobnp4uk” was on my case.

He told me:

you could have just asked instead of sending copyright infringements threats. i was in that video. so is this how the greens work? unite against the bnp? all over a crap pixelated video that you wouldent have been able to film if it wasent for the people who did the action. thanx mate its good to know that you put this first rather than fighting fascism. your just another glory seeker who is in it for him self.

And I was like:

1. I did ask, and you were very rude in replying, just as you’re being rude to me now. 2. I find that hard to believe. 3. I’m not a Green, just a bystander. 4. If it was “a crap pixelated video” then you shouldn’t have stolen it and faked “freedom of information.” 5. I didn’t get paid or any glory at all, I just got hassle from both sides of the same argument.

So he was all:

erm excuse me. rude? do you remember the first rude comment the one you deleted? then you asked for credit and i gave you it? rude…sending a copyright infringement. now thats rude. you could have my account closed down why? because you think your important? keep your video mate and next time i will ask you not to film us when we do an action ok. thanx for nothing.

so whats your idea of freedom of information? you use it in your blog.

And I was like:

I don’t consider Writing “originally uploaded by some called hadleighroberts” at the end of a very long (and inaccurate, IMO) description does not constitute appropriate credit. See this link for what Freedom of Information actually is: http://tinyurl.com/dflzph and this one for the Creative Commons license that I own: http://tinyurl.com/cknoxa
Have a nice day

And then he deleted the comment, after, I like, totally won!

That’t the problem with YouTube, EVERY video on any topic descends into bitchslapping, the same arguments repeated over and over on every video, no matter whether it’s relevant or not!

Already in the top Guardian stories:

• Michael Jackson has died
• Police focus on doctor who was with Michael Jackson as he died
• Michael Jackson death: painkillers may have been factor

What did catch my eye though, was a statement from Twitter:

Immediately, there was an outcry on the Internet. “Why is Miliband commenting?” “Degradation of politics!” “As bad as Brown calling Susan Boyle!”

Calm down dear, it’s a hoax. The “real” Foreign Secretary later posted this on his blog:

The death of Michael Jackson is very sad news for his family, friends and fans.  My thoughts are with his family at this time.

But the instant Twitter put out in my name last night was not me.

Admittedly, this probably earned a great deal many more hits than his regular blog posts.

Really though, it goes to show how desperate the media is for any scraps of news on this pretty empty story (empty of details, not of significance, I hasten to add.) The press was all too keen to run with the story, not realising it was a joke until the Foreign Secretary’s next tweet:

CNN has basically become an mj-only version of mtv!

This is why I am glad it’s a hoax, for I don’t want the Foreign Secretary A) to get his news from CNN and B) to have any idea what MTV is.

Another non-story then, though still people persit with inane show-off comments on DM’s blog.

S0 what better excuse to add this little piece of self-promotion?

However, if you anoraks really need something to read, you can head to my new copyright page!

It may seem a little over the top for a lowly (but growing in popularity) blog by a student, but after only 3 months, I’ve been involved in literally some copyright battles:

The local newspaper, Bath Chronicle, thought it would be okay to use my YouTube videos in one of their articles online and decided not to credit me.  On the one hand, I was flattered that my work was appreciated in a professional journalistic environment, but on the other, it was a clear breach of copyright. However, the people at the Bath Chronicle are very pleasant and once I contacted them, they corrected the infraction.

Again related to YouTube, (it may be a YouTube issue really) I had a video that was actually stolen by user “nobnp4uk” as in my video was downloaded then re-uploaded without any notification or attribution. The copyright department were spectacularly useless, and after I submitted a formal complaint, they deleted my video! After writing to them again, they replaced my video once again, but to this day they are yet still to delete the illegal video, though they will happily remove other videos because it uses 10 seconds of professional music. What a joke.

I was originally hoping to extend my Facebook holiday to the entire month of May, were it not for a few people asking me to do things that required the site. Nevertheless, my essays are done and I did learn a thing or two from my experience:

- People are bitter. On Saturday I responded to a comment on this website which required the use of Facebook; since I was under no contractual or religious obligation to stay away, I decided to honour the request. I doubt I was particularly “missed” but the result was a few snide comments like “I thought you were giving up Facebook?”

It was as if they were hoping I would “fail” my little experiment. I’d apparently disrupted the social consensus that everybody has to love Facebook and be on it for an hour a day, it seemed that this deviation was unnerving to them. The response was hardly “Yes we can.”

- The next thing is that people still don’t get Twitter. I have a simple function that when I post something to Twitter, Facebook automatically picks it up and uses it for a Status Update. I find it convenient as I don’t tweet too often to make it spammy. It was assumed that I was logging in to update my status; they decided not to see the “via Twitter” small print.

- However, I have discovered a new relationship with FB. For me, it’s like a huge Yellow Pages. If you ignore all the chitchat and groups and distractions, it’s a pretty useful tool.

Conclusion: I doubt I’ll be “checking” Facebook very often, but I will be using it as a sort of Big Brother database if I need to check up on you, as we’ve discussed before. It’s not going back on my blackberry. (If you need something, email. If you don’t have my email, find it on Facebook!

Though I will make a special mention of my bit of Facebook: If 1,000,000 People Join This Group, Nothing Will Change. It’s A Group

The University of Bath library is coming to the end of a two week initiative whereby if a student decodes a QR code attached to a catalogue entry and takes it to the issue desk, they get a free chocolate bar.

Sounds a bit rubbish, but it is actually really good! QR codes are simple on the edge of pointless, but the chocolate is by no means a crappy basics style bar. It’s a custom made block in the form of a QR code! White chocolate for the base, dark chocolate for the code part. You can’t decode it (it’s not clear enough) but it looks like the same code that takes you to the library website (they do all look alike, though, so I might be wrong). I was expecting some silly treasure hunt around the library, which would have been more fun than writing about French sovereignty and globalisation, but also time-consuming.

So, it’s clear I approve of the free chocolate initiative, but I’m not really going to join the QR camp yet.

However, the Plug Bar has a QR club as well. Yesterday, decoding a QR on the wall, I won a free hot drink. A PROPER free hot drink, unlike in Parade.

Now if the SU want a good review on this blog, free chocolate and coffee is definitely a good first step, but the offer is going to end soon.

After the free stuff ends, as it sadly will, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll use my QR Reader (for my Blackberry 8900, I use BeeTagg) ever again.

The only practical day-to-day use I have found so far is that on the library catalogue I can scan a code to get the shelf code and title so on.

It’s pretty self-redundant. It takes quite a few attempts to scan a code that’s on a computer screen because of the pixels and the flash rate and more. I think a 3.2 mega pixel camera on a mobile is pretty good, so if it’s hard for me to do it, it’s even harder for other people. By the third go it would have been quicker to write it down.

It’s even quicker to just take a picture of the text, if you don’t have a pen. At least this way, you can take multiple entries.

One laughable idea from the Learning and Teaching department thought people might use QR codes in presentations. It’s often constructive, when presenting, to have people getting up, walking over to the screen and trying to take a picture from 5cm away. It’s also helpful to have 50% of the people in the room complaining because they don’t have the technology, and are missing out.

Does QR have any real domestic uses? Ideas in the comments, please!

EDIT: As requested, a quick explanation of QR codes:

Simply put, you see a QR code, then you take a picture of it on your mobile phone and use a QR Reader application (As I say, On my Blackberry I use BeeTagg, but there are many out there to download on various different phone models.

I think they are normally used by delivery companies. I can see why it might be useful for someone with a proper scanner (not a mobile-phone based one) to get the name, address, item data into their Sat Nav and so on, but I can’t see much use for “ordinary people”

Wikipedia is bound to know better than me, but I think the “deal” with QR codes is that they are two-dimensional. Notice that they are always square compared to the wide think-line, thin-line barcodes you get in shops. I imagine the QR reader looks up and down, then left to right for information.

The rules are that I’m not going to log in to Facebook in any way until Saturday 30th of May. I have to pretend that “I don’t have Facebook”.

The aim of the experiment is to test whether Facebook is a positive or negative influence on my life. My friends and “friends” will know I’ve always been a facebook-sceptic, but I do like the way you can find people and publicise events.

When I went to deactivate the account (you should try it, even if you don’t want to confirm) I was subjected to an interesting piece of emotional blackmail. Facebook gave me a quick heart-wrenching montage of my photographs with the caption “[Person A] will miss you”, “Person B will miss you.” I was doubtful for some of them, but it was enough to make me reconsider.

Here are the reasons:

+ THE SPAM, oh the spam. They will know who they are, but I just can’t stand getting a notification because such-and-such posted some inane comment on a thread that already has 73 messages on it. It zaps my phone battery and my patience until I stop reading. Then when I want to know some information I am told “it’s on the Facebook thread” expecting me to wade through a swamp of small talk to find a location on an event. It’s a little bit like when Jim hacker from Yes, Minister is looking for some information, and his civil servant has hidden the tiny little note in the middle of a 500 page report in the fourth briefcase full of documents. Anybody will know, from when I write emails, if I am supposed to attend something, I need the time/date/place in simple calender-entering format.

+ The next big thing for me is the layout, I’m not doing this to protest against it, but I am really fed up of what other people are doing. Sounds silly for a social networking tool, but I need the homepage to have what I need on it. I don’t need to know if someone I barely know has had a chat to someone I really don’t know. Simple as that. I miss the “Less of this person” tool to get rid of some people who spend too much time on the site.

+ Facebook has become commercialised. I’m not a fan of all the adverts and products and things you buy. A global social networking system should be somewhere between socialite and socialist.

+ All those extra optional features, applications and so on. I’m tired of saying “No” to zombies, vampires, gangsters, poker and others.

+ It’s exam time, so I should be concentrating on work. (Despite blogging)

More in-depth stuff will follow, but I really need to get on with essays. So until the end of May, send me an email, a Tweet, a Comment or use the “Contact” page on this website. My Facebook is closed.

I’d be amazed if you hadn’t heard of the Swine Flu that’s going around. It’s like SARS, and Bird Flu.

In fact, I’m waiting for Jeremy Clarkson to organise a publicity stunt in which he rolls around in a sty to prove that it’s all a lot of nonsense.

I’m inclined to be cautious, particularly due to the unconfirmed case of a research student from the University of Bath is being tested for possible Swine Flu.

It’s worth thinking about on a bigger scale though, I remember someone of a conservative political persuasion once told me that it “would be good to have a plague or a war or something to bump off half the population.” He didn’t say which half, but I would guess it would be the half without a very thick cheque-book.

It would certainly stop the debate about immigration, if not everything else.

On my birthday (coincidentally), Tom Harris MP wrote a post asking whether “Twitter is more leftie than the blogosphere”. /

I ask this because when I check my Twitter feed, it tends to contain slightly less criticism of the government — in fact, less politics in general.

In fact, it’s almost certain that there is “less politics” due to the fact that on Twitter, the chatter is a lot more inane, “so-and-so is making a cup of tea” or “watching the Apprentice” as opposed to “such-and-such dislikes the third reading of the South West transport bill!”

Blogs are, in contrast, a more personal space. The chances are that like searches for like. Harris concludes that blogs are like dinner parties, while Twitter is like the pub. I’m certainly inclined to agree, based on my previous post.

Though, this should provide an opportunity, as blogs define themselves in the search for an identity. By having a space for “intellectual” (longer) thoughts, and a space for “who cares-ities” (“X is going to the shops!”) the two become more distinct.

The overlap would be the Livejournal; the internet diary. Many people use blogges to talk about their morning toast or their yoga lessons in more depth than the average tweet would allow.

We might even be rid of the “Hi. How are you?” “Hi. Didn’t you read my Twitter from 3 minutes ago?”

The “deal” with Twitter, for any middle-aged readers who might wish to engage with one of the “young people” we hear so much about, is that it provides a forum in which you can post your least important thoughts, 140 characters at a time. Sceptics will say that Twitter is basically identical to Facebook, but with all the features removed except for the status updates. Instead of online friends whom you’ve never met, you now get ‘followers’.

The concept of followers is interesting; they are not stalkers, but it certainly makes any would-be stalker’s life a lot easier. Find your celebrity of choice, hopefully one that really wants to “engage with the youth” (politicians are probably best for this), follow them on Twitter, and then follow them in real life. If the terrorists get hold of Twitter, the west is doomed.

The reverse is also true, for all the furore over Britain becoming a Big Brother state, people seem to be more than willing to give up their personal information on Facebook. The police no longer need to invest millions in security cameras and CCTV; they just need to get a Twitter account. Fortunately for the libertarians, the only people anywhere near the British government who come close to understanding Twitter are Alastair Campbell and John Prescott, who like to advertise their own blogs rather than tell us when they’re making a cup of tea. Twitter seems perfectly suited for ‘proper news’ items, like when it snowed in Bath earlier this year and the University told us that lectures we cancelled. However, the meaning of news is notoriously flexible.

During President Obama’s State of the Union Address, it was revealed that Members of Congress were tweeting or twittering throughout with important information like “the best seats are reserved for the Senators”. A small number of MPs have tweeted in the middle of Prime Minister’s Questions. Surely, if someone is busy typing on their Smartphone while they are supposed to be listening to something, it means they are not paying attention, and advertising that very fact.

So Twitter has become very popular in media and political circles grasping for any sort of relevance. The problem is not that their ideas and thoughts are too complex, but that they jump on any sort of gimmick that lessens the credibility of institutions in desperate need of authority. Through descending to shorter and more inane chatter, they have confused new with good.   

I’ve often said that the process of blogging is like talking to an empty room. By comparison, Twitter can only be described as talking to a very crowded room, with everyone else talking at the same time, frantic to make their own voices heard.