Rewired State goes teen and scores

Work for peanuts team by Julia Chandler

Public Strategy has a great and comprehensive post on Young Rewired State- Dame Emma Mulqueeny's baby held over the weekend at UK Google HQ.

Two projects leapt out for me:

'Blab to Betty - confidential unpatronising sexual health advice'

Something like this is sorely needed as sex ed is rather notoriously bad in the UK - it's one of the reasons we have such high teenage pregnancy rates. But also for young lesbians and gays sourcing advice and education online isn't good enough because censorware often blocks access via schools and libraries and if you're monitored at home you don't want to be surfing advice, community or sex ed websites. So a text (? post doesn't give details) service could help fill a gap in provision.

'Blog-o-tics taking Bills plus blog search searched for emotive terms to create overall attitude score'

This rang bells for me and then I remembered I'd seen something which sounded similar in the 2008 US Election: Virtual Vantage Points monitoring of blog reaction.

These split the blogosphere into conservatives and liberals and picked up on text mentions in each. The idea from Young Rewired State sounds like taking this further.

I'd pulled out Text clouds from them for March 17 to see reaction to Obama's big speech on race.

Another group it reminded me of was what 6 Consulting (formerly from Cambridge) do in social media monitoring.

Neither of these ideas won anything but I can definitely see a space for both.

Texting + driving = death

This video, produced by Brynmawr filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes in conjunction with Gwent Police and Tredegar Comprehensive School, has quickly become an international viral hit. Featuring young women from the school it has very little dialogue so has featured on blogs all over the world because the visual message is extremely impactful (literally).

'Cow' tells the tale of Cassie Cowen, ‘Cow’ to her friends, whose life is changed forever after an horrific crash.

Since the film had its premiere in June, it has attracted attention from the BBC and it is hope the film will become part of the core schools programme across Wales and the UK.

This is the viral hit but it's only one part of a 30' short film which covers the crash itself and its emotional aftermath.



Texting while driving makes you more than five times as likely to end up in an accident.

I understand that some car manufacturers are developing vehicles which will automatically disable mobile phones.

No, you cannot look at the naked pigs

Image by inju via Flickr

I have posted numerous times about the 'issues' with web filters. Their side-effects and their lack of evolution (despite manufacturer claims).

So the news that China was softening its requirement that all new computers come loaded with a censorware program called (honestly, something lost in the translation) Green Dam Youth Escort because of over-blocking comes as no surprise.

While the government claims that the software is aimed only at blocking violence and pornography, it has emerged that it also blocks discussion of homosexuality and other non-pornographic gay content. It had even been found to block pictures of pigs, mistaking the image for naked human skin.

It must be progress, China-wise, that they feel the need to respond to such inanities!

Amusing, but this is exactly the same scenario which school web administrators find themselves in in the UK all the time - having to decide whether to unblock something (think gay, sex education, abortion, history of Nazis) the machine has decided is damaging.

Despite what they tell you, the people selling this stuff know that it is possible to get around it. However they also know, like the regime in China, that for most people it works. Censorware works.

And that's the problem with censorware, anywhere. Unless it is democratically controlled it is privatised or state-controlled censorship.

Cute animals: RIP Lucky

This cute kid is saying last words to beloved goldfish Lucky. Dad videotapes and Mom cracks up in the background :(

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

What's the point of the IWF?

Rory Cellan-Jones reports on a small ISP which is challenging the Internet Watch Foundation's anti-paedophiles methods.

This is their idea of a black list, compiled from reports by the public, which ISPs are asked to use, somehow 'protecting children online'. The blacklist onto which a Wikipedia page found itself and was then withdraw after a justified uproar.

Zen Internet, a small Rochdale-based ISP, Rory reports, "has not yet implemented IWF's recommended system because we have concerns over its effectiveness. Our Managing Director, Richard Tang, is going to meet Peter Robbins the Chief Executive of the IWF to discuss these concerns."

Rory also says that children's charities are pressuring for the few ISPs who don't automatically follow the IWF's line to be forced to do so.

He quotes an IWF critic, Dr Richard Clayton:

"Everybody thinks they've done something by blocking this stuff but in practice it makes very little difference to who sees it and it's quite expensive."

The Wikipedia episode just highlighted what webbies already know - the blacklist is just a waste of time.

Why? Because most of this material is held abroad and the IWF is ineffective about getting it removed.

But it would obviously suit government to give into the children's charities and pressure ISPs because they would be 'seen to be doing something'. But the material and the pedophile networks exist on the 'dark net', a place you're unlikely to inadvertently stumble on. Those distributing it aren't going to have it in places where law enforcement might easily find it.

So this beggars the question which I made during the Wikipedia episode: 'what is the proven value of the IWF?'

What - exactly - are they achieving?

If you're trying to stop criminality and the exploitation of children, why aren't the police funded to do the job? Where else do you see amateurs, like the IWF, being presented - and being funded - as our best hope to 'protect children' ?

I think it's time for webbies to really step up and demand the government stops faffing about and that the IWF funding spent on this pointless blacklist goes to specialist police who can really challenge the distributors of material that exploits children.

• Past post, Privatised censorship and actually protecting children

POSTSCRIPT

Comment from another small ISP on Rory's blog, nailing the IWF's dodgy business interest:

1) They only provide a list of Child abuse Images hosted outside the UK. They issue takedown notices to anyone hosting this content in the UK but this has an interesting side effect, see later.

2) This list contains only a few thousand http urls - nothing more and an insignificant fraction of the amount of website urls in the world.

3) They don't provide any technology to enable this filtering, they leave the technical implementation to the ISP

4) They refuse to allow an open source implementation of the filtering because of concerns that it would allow the list to become public.

5) They charge a minimum of 5000 pounds per year for access to the list (going up to 20k+ for people who want to use the IWF approved branding etc).

6) There is no oversight on what goes on to this list, we only have the word of the IWF that it contains Child Abuse Images that infringe the appropriate laws. No ISP is going to risk looking at the sites on the list to check. There is nothing to stop them from adding sites critical of the IWF to the list, or for the scope of the list to be increased to block other types of sites.

7) The preferred method of blocking is to pretend the file could not be found and not to draw attention to the IWF list.

From this you can see that you are paying a significant sum for the list plus have to then spend additional cash and resources on a filtering system which then only blocks a tiny fraction of sites and adds overhead to every single page request.

....

* If you don't block these images you are supporting Child Abuse - How would your boss feel if we told him you supported Child Abuse (Direct quote from an IWF "saleswomen")

Postscript 2: Search and suicide

Now have a research author response: see below.

The responses on the British Medical Journal (BMJ) website are mounting up to the 'search and suicide' research they published and which I dissembled.

I mentioned before how a Japanese researcher responded about how they are using the web to directly intervene - Outreach in the Real World - here's a bit more detail. (NB: The BMJ may force you to sign up to view these responses in full).

Not only are online approaches expanding, but outreach-based interventions in the real world are expanding as well. The "Guidelines for Response to Advance Suicide Warning Cases on the Internet," released in October 2005, includes a statement that Internet community organizations can disclose the content of private communications to a third party in emergency situations. As a result, the National Public Safety Commission in Japan reported that among 121 cases of suicide warning on the Internet in 2007, the police identified 105 individuals based on provider information. Of these, 72 cases were intervened by police and other aid measures, while the remaining 33 cases were determined as pranks. Sixteen cases could not be identified because of access from unspecified terminals, such as Internet cafes.

I have absolutely zero problem with this - it's about saving life in the final analysis, not privacy. I can't see why the NHS cannot negotiate similar protocols in the UK. The model is there to learn from. Is that happening? I very much doubt it.

Other BMJ responses are mainly from Hong Kong researchers, but all give a very different take on where research should happen.

'Suicide and internet use levels-- the evidence is lacking', for example, says "the evidence for an association between internet use levels per se and suicide ideation are scant .. it is practically impossible to differentiate visitors drawn by morbid curiosity, boredom, transient dysphoric mood or even academic interest from those with actual suicidal intent, caution should be exercised in interpreting their results."

Another, 'Positive and negative influences of the Internet on suicide', says "the Internet may have beneficial effects on suicide and to better understand the phenomenon both positive and negative influences of the Internet on suicide should be considered." These researchers say that "suicide prevention and intervention can be provided through the Internet for those who have suicidal ideation and visit those sites".

Especially if you use the web to put your positive services in the middle, as the Japanese appear to have learnt.

An American researcher says, "we suggest further studies to be conducted by Biddle and her colleagues comparing the actual traffic to both pro-suicide and suicide prevention websites and focusing future studies on the actual online behaviors of suicidal individuals."

Too right. "Actual online behaviors" being a crucial element to any research around search.

It's very noticeable that there aren't any responses from the UK - how does Biddle et al's research get funded I wonder and why are these other countries seemingly looking at far better and more productive avenues vs. suicide and the web than the sort of web-bashing, headline-grabbing rubbish we're churning out?

NB: I have received no response to email from either the researchers ('Biddle et al') or the charity Sane, which was quoted by the BBC. Help is obviously not wanted as they know it all. Neither, it must be said, have I had much response from search industry bodies and media I contacted. As I have said numerous times before, the industry is lousy at PR. They will wait until regulatory bodies and ill-informed politicians start proposing draconian and irrational legislation before they start dealing with their social impact.

May 5th addition: research author response

Lead author David Gunnell, Professor of Epidemiology Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, has responded to my critique amongst others on the BMJ's website. I will note that I wrote to Gunnell and he didn't reply. This is relevant in the context of this response.

We are pleased to see the interest and broad range of views provoked by our paper. There appears to be consensus amongst correspondents about the potential of the Internet both to provide help and to cause harm. Several correspondents have helpfully highlighted additional approaches to altering the results of Internet searching in favour of minimising risk to individuals experiencing serious suicidal thoughts and planning suicide.

Some contributors (Grohol, Canning, Fu, Knight) express surprise at our focus on methods of suicide.

Not me, wasn't expressed by me.

Furthermore Fu points out that some suicidal web-users may have already decided on their method of suicide and be searching for technical information about its implementation. We agree. However, as we explained in the opening paragraph of our paper, we focused on methods of suicide (rather than Internet resources for suicide in general) because research evidence suggests that one of the strongest media influences on suicidal behaviour concerns its affect on the choice of suicide method used.[2,3] Choice of method, in turn, influences the likelihood that a suicidal act will result in death,[4] and so may have an impact on suicide rates. We assumed that some Internet influences on suicide are likely to be similar to those of other media such as TV and newspaper reporting. In keeping with this Fu highlights the possible role of the Internet in relation to the spread of carbon monoxide poisoning as a method of suicide in Hong Kong. Thus we chose the search terms likely to be used by individuals with serious suicidal thoughts who are planning their suicide attempt. We felt it important that organisations offering support to suicidal individuals should endeavour to ensure their sites occur high up on the list of 'hits' retrieved by searches making inquiries about suicide methods.

But they didn't focus on methods. The search terms they chose, which they didn't explain the genesis of in detail, barely included specific methods - Fu's point. If, as there is strong evidence of, people take clues from media reporting - 'copycats' - then surely it would help to look at what methods are shown/described in reporting and take cues from there? This they didn't do. And it's difficult to make recommendations - especially such dramatic ones as they did - when the initial sources "terms likely to be used by individuals with serious suicidal thoughts who are planning their suicide attempt" are so apparently weak.

We agree with Grohol and other correspondents that additional aspects of the Internet in relation to preventing and provoking suicide are worthy of academic study. Indeed this is something we wish to pursue. However, we felt in an area about which much is conjectured, but little empirical data exist, a focussed inquiry into one relevant aspect was appropriate.

In which case they picked the wrong area. Surely going to source - what is known about how suicidal people connect to information and then act on that information, taking cues from well-developed experiences like the Japanese - would be a more productive avenue. For example, what is the role of UK social networks? Where is research lacking on the actual connections prior to suicides? The assumption here was 'search engines' - and everything flowed from those assumptions. Again and again, the main issue here is researchers who aren't webbies, don't understand how the web works, make assumptions, don't talk to the right experts, then leap off with claims which are - plainly - false and suggest solutions they are not qualified to suggest and lead people down more false trails.

In a single brief research paper it would not have been possible to cover the range of aspects suggested by Grohol. We disagree with Grohol's suggestion that we painted a pessimistic picture.

Talk to the PR, what headlines have they generated? How helpful are those headlines? It is highly irresponsible for such researchers to step back here and say 'we're not responsible'.

We described a number of beneficial aspects of the Internet - highlighting advice and information sites. Indeed we report that 13% of our hits were for sites offering support or information about suicide and 12% discouraged suicide. We also highlight that in England, whilst use of the Internet has increased in recent years, rates of suicide have declined. Thus harmful impacts of the Internet on individual acts of suicide are either being offset by beneficial effects or the impact of other suicide prevention activities.

Yes, they mentioned this. But it wasn't their headline. As I showed, searches for 'suicide' appear to be going down. But this wasn't their headline or reported anywhere at all in the subsequent headlines generated from the cues they gave reporters (i.e. the press release). Look at it this way, if the media is a causal factor the researchers just failed to get the media to report the existence of suicide help and to only focus on the existence of harmful websites.

Some of the assertions made by Canning are incorrect. The sites we reviewed were restricted to the first 10 results for each search. The searches 'methods of suicide' and 'suicide methods', which, like most users, we carried out without the quotation marks, do, in fact, yield different sites.

Ok, point taken. Search engines are improving. Though results are barely different. What else makes up "some .. are incorrect".

The interview data we used to inform our search strategy referred to interviews that were conducted with people who had survived nearly fatal suicide attempts. Two of the twelve individuals we have interviewed to date used the Internet to research their methods and indicated the terms they used. We can think of few better methods of identifying search terms than from such individuals.

This detail wasn't in the paper. Two individuals? And remembering terms they used? On this headlines around the world was built? If you want 'better methods', look to the Japanese. It is actually possible to backtrack from the machine they used and find exactly what they searched on. Security services and police do this sort of thing all the time. Further, Gunnell's response doesn't take on board my point that existing industry methods will tell you what terms are most searched on. They couldn't think of methods because they didn't think to ask experts in that field.

Canning makes some good points regarding the relative use of different search engines. We agree, weighting our findings according to site use may have been more informative.

No, not doing it completely undermines the credibility of the numbers reported. Especially the headline numbers cited at the top of the paper.

We did report that searches of Google, the most frequently used search engine, retrieved the highest number of pro-suicide hits and so weighting our findings by site would be unlikely to substantially alter out findings. Canning also provides a series of useful suggestions regarding strategies for reducing the accessibility of pro-suicide sites and working with the Search Engines themselves.

Why do I have 'useful suggestions'? Because I work in the web area. These researchers don't. They couldn't 'think of few better methods' because they didn't 'think' to collaborate with people such as myself or - actually - true experts who do this sort of thing for a living.

The influence of the Internet upon an individual's risk of suicide and upon population suicide rates is currently uncertain. Our study has shed some light on one aspect of the Internet. Further research is needed to ensure there is a more evidence-based debate on the Public Health impact of the Internet on suicide.

But the paper still stands and the publicity is out there. Is this response letter going to do anything about that? Are the researchers going to take their public responsibility seriously?

This is not an academic question. Decision makers are, unfortunately, far more likely to listen to people like Gunnell than people like me. Gunnell does not indicate here that they have learnt from the reaction that further research must happen by drawing on collaborations with industry and experts in the web field.

This is defensive. This is about covering their academic asses. How does this approach help us actually deal with doing the right sort of research which will lead to the right sort of solutions and actually help those they claim to want to help?

References
1. Biddle L, Donovan J, Hawton K, Kapur N, Gunnell D. Suicide and the Internet: BMJ 2008; 336:800-802
2. Hawton K, Williams K. Influences of the media on suicide. BMJ 2002; 325:1374-1375
3. Schmidtke A, Hafner H. The Werther effect after television films: new evidence for an old hypothesis. Psychol Med 1988;18:665-676.
4. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. The epidemiology of case fatality rates for suicide in the Northeast. Ann Emerg Med 2004;43:723-730

NB: this response was published in full the next day by the BMJ.

~~~~~~

One thing which I did notice on returning to the BMJ's website to look at responses is that they are carrying a blog by a breast cancer victim which appears to be doing it's job - explaining day-to-day reality to practitioners.

I really appreciate the way you are looking at things.Your blog is an eye opener. As a practising physician, it has changed my outlook towards my patients and their illnesses.

Or sortof a blog, posts form part of a category called 'From the other side', which isn't flagged at their top level navigation (and NB again, probably behind a firewall).

It's by Anna Donald.

I should introduce myself before launching into a blog which I hope is not too depressing: living in the shadow of death. This is my starting point, as I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (I lit up “like a Christmas tree” on the scans) in February 2007. It was not a complete surprise - I’d had primary breast cancer - not terribly high risk - in 2003. But disappointing that so much treatment hadn’t cured it.

I hope to write about things that may interest doctors, other health workers and policy makers about what it’s like to have life threatening disease; to be on the other side of the doctor-patient divide, and to experience 21st century health care for a chronic disease (Sydney’s hospitals are pretty similar to Britain’s), from a quality-of-care perspective.

One commentator puts the value of Anna having a voice in a nutshell:

There is a tremendous amount that we can learn from you as you write to us about your experience and insights. We all have challenges which can bring us to a brink (physically, emotionally, spiritually), and it is encouraging and healing to share thoughts and experiences. This can help us to gain empathy and become better health advocates, personally (for others and for ourselves) and professionally

The kids are alllrreight

'Social Citizens' is a really fascinating paper from the Social Citizens project, sponsored by the Case Foundation. It's about young people (Millennials’) and how they are using online tools to connect to, initiate and run causes — the flip-side of the MSMs obsession with the negatives about the young and the Internet:

In October 2007, Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times that young people are members of Generation Q. He meant “Q” for quiet, and inactive, on the important social questions of the day. The celebrated American globalist could not have been more wrong. This generation is making noise, whether adults can hear it or not.

You may have read echoes of this attitude in the tabloids (the 'hoodie' image above features prominently in the Daily Express).

The authors are very impressed with the scale and depth of youth engagement with change using the new technology in what they report on - just think of their impact on corporate behaviour. They go so far to compare them to the 'greatest generation' who fought WW2, and I don't think that's over the top given what we face with climate change:

One example of Millennials’ online activism is Causes on Facebook. In the spring of 2007, Project Agape posted its “Causes” application on Facebook. Within six months, more than 30,000 Causes were created on the social networking site, supporting over 12,000 existing nonprofit organizations. A brief survey of Causes on Facebook reveals an array of mainstream, apple-pie efforts, typical of Millennial activism. They are more practical than poetic, more passionate and less ideological in their activism efforts. Few could argue with the worthiness of helping orphans in China, trying to find a cure for AIDS and ALS, eradicating breast cancer, and helping underprivileged children learn to read.

However, the Causes application is different from traditional approaches because users are drawn to the cause first, then the institution (or group of volunteers if no formal institution exists). Joe Green, CEO of Causes on Face-book, describes the network interaction for causes this way: “There could be 1,000 causes aiming to help SaveDarfur.org with lots of different leaders and networks and lots of people reaching out in many ways.”

The paper documents a stack of other examples; 'Invisible Children' is one, which grew from four young guys' visit to Northern Uganda.

Preview:



[55' Movie on Google. 'In the spring of 2003, three young Americans traveled to Africa in search of such as story. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them. A story where children are weapons and children are the victims. The "Invisible Children: rough cut" film exposes the effects of a 20 year-long war on the children of Northern Uganda. These children live in fear of abduction by rebel soldiers, and are being forced to fight as a part of violent army. This wonderfully reckless documentary is fast paced, with an MTV beat, and is something truly unique. To see Africa through young eyes is humorous and heart breaking, quick and informative - all in the very same breath. See this film, you will be forever changed.']



This is one of the most moving documentaries I've seen in years.

The authors see a flip side though, and speculate that this mightn't all be good:

Specific policy outcomes are not a significant component for most Millennial activist efforts. Social capital is the new commerce and the end result of many cause-related efforts spearheaded by young people.

Social action is a safe place to express a personal identity, and is much safer and easier than in the political arena with its inherent conflict and most often less-than-lofty outcomes. Danah Boyd (UofC Berkeley) explains, “We are living in a time of the elongation of childhood where kids are kept out of public life and only glimpse it through the mass media. Their lives are so heavily regulated and controlled, they don’t see a public world outside of the celebritization of political candidates.”

Is it possible to envision a very large generation of citizens who lead their lives at a great distance from government, even lives infused with causes, volunteering and a hopeful outlook about the world. Can government really be irrelevant to their lives, and, if so, is this a good thing for society? Is it important that young people are engaged in public policy advocacy? Is our tendency to connect only with like-minded people using our on line and on land social networks a good thing for activism or a critical bottleneck to the effective scaling for causes? Are social change institutions critical to the future of Social Citizens and their causes or are they becoming old-century anachronisms of top-down hierarchies that can’t survive much longer?

What draws their involvement? Conflicts like Israel/Palestine get less attention from this group as they're less clear, more grey, than ones like Darfur.

But one thing the authors don't do in discussing negative disengagement from 'government' is make the connections with the Obama campaign — perhaps because it's partisan or just because the campaign's happening now — which exists because of a/the Internet and b/the same sort of new bottom-up/shared/devolved organisations which young people are establishing. This has seen an enormous increase in active political engagement by young people - and voting - though what will happen to 'the movement' once he's elected President is a moot point.

What they do have is some ideas:

Political participation can and should be more meaningful than political campaigns, such as the possibility of careers in public service and policymaking, including serving on committees and task forces for local government efforts.

A major cautionary note for anyone interested in engaging young people in conversations about the role of government and policy issues is that these conversations must be authentic and spin-free, or youth will quickly tune out.

Now there's a big take-away for the oldies. And don't think this is just America. Most UK young people use social networks.

Go here for a bigger view than below

Read this doc on Scribd: Social Citizens Discussion Paper

NB: scribd embed script is not Blogger friendly!

Postscript: Search and suicide

Following my quite stroppy contact with the British Medical Journal (BMJ)'s Editor, my response has finally been published with one element removed because "it is damning the research in an unverifiable way".

It is notable that in a comment on my blog (paulcanning.me.uk) Graham Jones who runs the Internet Psychology web site said that he'd met some people who were connected to the research and "they were suitably embarrassed in private when I pointed out the simple flaws in the research".

I'm told that it took so long because they needed to check every single line "as we are liable for anything posted on our website". That paragraph is certainly unverifiable by them, unless they contact Graham, but it's also the sort of thing which might well upset the privately embarrassed.

Because I could only give them text without links, this means that the Letters Editor must have either had to go back and figure everything out from scratch or - more likely - get something of an education in this area from following the links on my blog.

All in all, quite satisfying.

Now let's see what, if anything, the BBC says from my complaint and the lead researcher from my letter ... I've had no response from my help offer to the charity Sane ...

Postscript: More responses are now appearing in the BMJ. I particularly like this one from a student at Otago Uni in New Zealand:

The selection of terms in this study did not include 'prevention', 'help', 'assistance', 'counselling' and were designed to return the sites they retrieved. Search engines ("web dragons") need skillful handling.

I wasn't at all sure what he meant but Web Dragons comes from a book of the same name, by Ian Witten, who's a New Zealand professor.

More seriously, a researcher from The University of Hong Kong reports his suspicions that users search for particular methods:

For instance, carbon monoxide poisoning by burning charcoal has been portrayed by the mass media in Hong Kong as an easy, painless and effective means of ending one's life since 1998.

Methods are described in the local media - something the UK media is not supposed to do - then people search for them. He concludes:

In view of the global nature of Internet, it seems logical that a global effort is needed to contain the negative effect of Internet on suicides.

Somebody's Baby

Please post this if you can to help it go viral.

• In memory of Lawrence "Larry" Fobes King
• UK: Schools OUT

And Tango Makes Three!

I'm always amazed at the blind hate which anything to do with same-gender love and kids engenders.

There's a story today in the Mail about a school in Bristol which withdrew this lovely looking book (Reading level: Ages 4-8) because lots of parents complained ("fury!" why is it always "fury!") about supposedly introducing their kids to 'sex'.

Huh? Have any of them seen the book?

Here's a review by Andie A., Minnesota, age 10

And Tango Makes Three is a wonderful book about two male penguins named Silo and Roy adopting an egg that came to be Tango. It's also about two male penguins doing what the other penguin couples do, but using a rock for an egg and finally getting a real egg that hatched Tango the baby penguin. It takes place in New York City in Central Park Zoo. It was written in 2005, so not too long ago. There were so many newspaper articles about it, and the authors thought it would make a good picture book. The zookeeper got the egg from another penguin couple that had two eggs and only could take care of one, so the zookeeper gave the other one to Silo and Roy. So that's how Silo and Roy became Tango's daddies.

And Tango Makes Three is a wonderful book. I'd recommend it for people ages 3 to 9. It's also fun for teachers and parents. It has lots of information about penguins. It's based on a true story. I like And Tango Makes Three so much.

Isn't that sweet? And it's a true story!

Roy and Silo were a very famous couple of penguins! For six years they 'pair-bonded' as biologists call it. Silo left Roy for Strappy in 2005 :{ But now they're back together :}

The pair were observed trying to hatch a rock as if it were an egg. When the zoo staff realized that Roy and Silo were both male, it occurred to them to give them the second egg of a mixed-gender penguin couple, a couple which previously had been unable to successfully hatch two eggs at a time. Roy and Silo hatched and raised the healthy young chick, a female named "Tango" by keepers

They exhibit what in penguin parlance is called ''ecstatic behavior'': that is, they entwine their necks, they vocalize to each other, they have [gulp] sex.

[Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name] Before them, the Central Park Zoo had Georgey and Mickey, two female Gentoo penguins who tried to incubate eggs together. And Wendell and Cass, a devoted male African penguin pair, live at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island.

And this ''ecstatic behavior'' is all pretty normal for animals!

These two are obviously having a 'love spat' ...



What is wrong with people who just see 'sex! sex! sex!' all the time? Yes, the complainants were 'religious' :{ What view of the world around them do they want kids to have ... oh yes, that one ... All the bad reviews object to a zoo keeper saying "they must be in love."

Huh?

And what do the mummies and daddies reading about this fuss in a teacup think? Readers?

The kids aren't alright

Having great fun finding cool, green content for two webspaces — not.

recyclenow is the main, government funded body and they have nothing which can be reused on other sites. But neither does anyone else.

In fact, I'm having trouble tracking down much in the way of even usable video, especially aimed at UK kids as one of the spaces is for kids, and have turned to the EU! I have posted their recycling cartoon before and they also have a well-produced video about global warming.

This is from an American kids cartoon:



But games? Widgets? What I have found is various local Councils commissioning their own recycling games! Which can't be reused elsewhere. Which is nutty nut nuts duplication.

The sole exception is Abodo, which is about green living, from Delib. A little cryptic (is it clear what the below is about?), it's all I've got/found from the UK.



This sort of thing is great for getting out messages



clock from Poodwaddle.com

And it's looking like I'll end up using similar American product to sell recycling and green issues to - especially - kids in my English city. Because there's nothing I can find to use from the UK's various recycling/climate change official and unofficial bodies. Unless a reader can tell me of some fabulous resource hidden away from view ...

'Twittering while holding Milan is just freaking awesome'

Tech pioneer Robert Scoble has just Twittered the birth of his son.

The moment, Twittered:

Hugh: I can't get a good link for Flickr for some reason. Hospital wifi is a bit flaky. Just visit my blog and click the Flickr feed there. 04:32 AM September 14, 2007 from twitterrific
Photos of Milan are up at N01/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photo... 04:26 AM September 14, 2007 from twitterrific
Thank you so much to everyone for your kind wishes! Everyone is doing well. Milan is 9 lbs and was born at 2.24 p.m. today. 04:25 AM September 14, 2007 from web
Phoned-in TwitterGram http://tinyurl.com/2eq4zu 02:55 AM September 14, 2007 from TwitterGram
Milan is here! 02:30 AM September 14, 2007 from iTweet
Phoned-in TwitterGram http://tinyurl.com/ypzj5q 02:28 AM September 14, 2007 from TwitterGram

He notes:

Milan isn't the first baby to be blogged from this hospital [Stanford University], either. http://blog.maxzeller.com/ was born here

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Bytes · Right on Miss America - MS tortoise/Google hare - Wikipedia Story

• I agree with Miss America [could she be any perkier?] — she wants mandatory Internet safety classes for kids.

• The Guardian's website has a new Science section, very useful when mass media (the Beeb, sheesh) and politicians push nonsense like concerns about WiFi.
  
  
• AJAX is a technology underpining many dynamic web 2.0 apps, so it's good to see this accessify post suggesting that the well-used Screen reader JAWS is including language about support for AJAX in it's next version.
  
  
• When web accessibility is not your problem (MP3, 28MB) - Joe Clark [session notes]
  
  
  
• Scott Karp: Online Publishers Need To Stop Selling Space.
  

  Google doesn’t sell any space. It sells user intentions, i.e. what’s on people’s minds. And that’s a scare resource — there’s a finite number of people thinking about buying a digital camera today.
  
  So what else is a scarce resource online? Locality.
  

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NYT: Microsoft Offers a Web-Based Strategy

“We’re not moving toward a world of thin computing,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, referring to systems in which simple processing takes place on a PC, but more complex processing is moved to a centralized computer through a network connection. “We’re moving toward a world of software plus services.” Nearly every Microsoft software application will be transformed with the addition of a Web-services component within 3 to 10 years, he said.

SEL take:

Even as Microsoft says it's defending its home turf, the company is of course trying to aggressively compete in the world of search and online advertising, which is Google's core franchise. Recent purchases of aQuantive/Atlas (for $6 billion) and AdECN, as well as high profile deals with Facebook and Digg, show how serious Microsoft is about being a major player in both arenas ... my guess is that "3 to 10 years" is too long for Microsoft to wait to web-enable its critical applications; because by then the free, online options will be much better.

~~~~~~~~~~~

If you missed it, Clive Anderson's great take on The Wikipedia Story is still on Radio 4's website

The NeoConservative Oliver Kamm responded on his blog and distilled the objectors - to them, Wikipedia represents "an anti-intellectual exercise".

(Gawd knows what's going on with the BBC at the moment. Withdrawn digital services + the complicated sounding iplayer. And have you used their website search lately? Whenever I've used it it consistently fails the same comparison test against Google that DirectGov does)

Search Wikia is Jimmy Wales' latest.

Our Four Organizing Principles (TCQP) - the future of Internet Search must be based on:

• 1. Transparency - Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate, both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.
• 2. Community - Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community focus.
• 3. Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience.
• 4. Privacy - Must be protected, do not store or transmit any identifying data.

Active areas of focus:

• Social Lab - sources for URL social reputation, experiments in wiki-style social ranking.
• Distributed Lab - projects focused on distributed computing, crawling, and indexing. Grub!
• Semantic Lab - Natural Language Processing, Text Categorization.
• Standards Lab - formats and protocols to build interoperable search technologies.

Web gives kids surprising new gatekeeper role

What was that postcode again mom?

Where once it was just daughter showing father how to program the Video Recorder, now it's son showing mum how to fill in that form to the government.

According to "Surfin' on Mom's Turf: Cyber Chillin' With 8-14 Year-Olds," a report released by an American marketing company called Stars for Kidz and reported on ClickZ, 14 percent of kids have helped parents prepare their income tax return online.

"In this 8 to 14 age group, these kids are the first strong generation where they have had all these sophisticated levels of technology from childhood, and they function intuitively," said Adele Schwartz, research director at Stars for Kidz.

Additional chores given to kids include

• sharing pictures and e-mails with relatives (38 percent);
  
• looking up movie listings (38 percent);
• responding to invitations, party and vacation planning (36 percent each);
  
• and travel (36 percent);
  
• getting driving directions (35 percent).

"What we see is the kids who are computer competent are becoming pivotal sources of information and planning for the family," said Schwartz.

"Kids think moms [parents] are clueless, while that may or may not be true, kids are quicker and they find [information online] easier."

Interesting stuff.

Certainly my experience is that it's the intuition element which doesn't cross generations easily. What are the implications when the kids control the information flow (apart from mum + dad learning how to search)?

Welcome to Gootopia

Shelly Palmer provides another take on Google History on HuffPost. Welcome to Gootopia:

Alethea Hokum sat quietly, barely breathing. Her glazed eyes showed a faint reflection of the video monitor that had lulled her into semi-consciousness. Startled and just a bit confused, she reached down to silence her vibrating PDA. But something caught her eye. It was a text message offering her an additional 15 percent off if she would like her carpets cleaned this week.

Of course the text message was just a few seconds out of sync with the sponsorship message she had just seen, but Alethea knew the offer was especially for her. It was an offer she couldn't refuse.

She hit the pause button on her television, answered the text message with a simple "y" and pressed send. Two clicks on her remote to get back to the part of the show she missed and less than a minute later, Alethea Hokum returned to her blissful world of personalized, highly relevant media.

Across town, Verity Bunker, a stay-at-home mother of two, was taking a much-needed retail therapy break. As she approached a digital sign at the mall, the message changed to show a woman, with a physique quite similar to her own, in a remarkably familiar setting. Verity could not put her finger on it, but she knew that she had to visit this particular store on this particular trip -- what was it about that sign?

This sounds exactly like the marketing nirvana which execs have rhapsodised about for almost the last decade.

I have a friend who runs a company and I've heard this many a time in the past, usually involving mobile phones 'going off' whilst walking past shops.

But Palmer wants to burst that bubble.

Statisticians will tell you that, with the appropriate sample size and mathematical tools, it is relatively easy to predict what a population will do. However, it is absolutely impossible to predict what any individual will do.

Later that day, Alethea and Verity meet-up with two of their friends at the Tennis Club. Verity says, "... you know, I've been thinking about Mexican food all day. Anyone want to join me?" Three of the four women agree but Alethea says, "That sounds fine, but you know what? The best Chinese restaurant in town is just a block away from here. Why don't we go there?"

So much for all of the day's hyper-targeted Mexican food marketing dollars, or -- was it the fact that the Chinese food trade federation outspent them and got Alethea, the thought leader, to influence the group. Wow! Gootopia is going to be a strange place to live.

This is true. But 'Gootopia' is already a pretty misfiring place. I've been using Gmail for ages and get contextualised ads. Some of the mis-relationships are hysterical.

Sure, this will get better but Palmer's basic point is right. The reality of completely individualised marketing is a long ways off.

NB: Gootopia is actually some sort of 'safe space' for kids online, inhabited by Googles ...

TV Turn-off week

It's TV Turn-off Week - started by the fabulous AdBusters, who are Canadian (not America as some have billed them).

It's all a bit puritanical but they're trying to get this video (score by Philip Glass and footage by Godfrey Reggio, NB, it's Art) to go viral.

It has something to say about kids and TV.




Aric Sigman

"TV is so hugely powerful because, compared to the pace with which real life unfolds and is experienced by young children, it portrays life with the fast-forward button fully pressed. Rapidly changing images, scenery and events, and high-fidelity sounds are overly stimulating and, of course, extremely interesting.

"Once you are used to food with monosodium glutamate flavour enhancer, real food doesn't taste as interesting. Television is the flavour enhancer of the audiovisual world, providing unnatural levels of sensory stimulation. Nothing in real life is comparable to this. Television overpays the child to pay attention to it, and in so doing it seems to physically spoil and damage his attention circuits."

How to disable web filter software

Porn?

I had a comment following up a previous post about the Web filter, SurfPatrol. A local council had just installed it.

Web filters have a terrible rep. Largely for what's called 'inappropriate blocking'.

Because artificial intelligence isn't that advanced - lots of claims about reading flesh tones like the one on the right - sorting out one site from the other is often not as sophisticated as you might think. Basically, it does boil down to the words in the site.

So, firstly, mistakes get made. Hilarious mistakes and Breast Cancer site blocking type mistakes.

But, secondly, the lists Filter (AKA Censorware) companies compile of categorised sites are proprietary - you don't get to see under the hood - and they are well-known for, for example, including sites which criticise them in those lists. The Register has discovered itself blocked in that way.

The other point is that companies are American and may/may not carry over those cultural values into those proprietary lists.

What this means is that with the best will in the world, you cannot avoid inappropriate blocking when you buy these products. And this can have unintended, negative consequences .. like .. blocking rape-crisis, blocking sex education, blocking drugs counselling, blocking Nazi sites from history students.

As you might imagine, gay and lesbian sites get hit disproportionally hard — 'collateral damage'.

People, especially Councils, really don't want this but there's no real way of avoiding it although 'whitelists' are a big help.

The other area where Filter companies have been heavily criticised is for their marketing - their playing on fear to make money (they are extremely profitable and the market is growing). Cybersitter, for example, notoriously put out marketing within hours of the Columbine Massacre.

Needless to say, the War On Terror™ has proved similarly profitable. The CEO of Surfcontrol was recently quoted as saying: "I'm not trying to pick up on an emotional chord, but there are probably cyber terrorist cells inside companies, I don't mean some disgruntled employees ..."

So what do you do?

All the advice you will read on kids and the web comes back to supervision and parental engagement — as well as describing filters themselves as 'only partially effective'.

Filters are never spoken of as anything but a support and offering reassurance - and the Filter companies play very heavily on the latter (for companies they offer legal reassurance).

Computing Which? has the following top tips for protecting children online:

• Keep PCs in a shared living area — not a child's bedroom
• Supervise children's online activities
• Encourage children to discuss any unsavory content they've found
• Warn children about the potential dangers of chatrooms
• Use parental control software but don't over rely on it
• Change your parental control access password regularly
  
  
• To which I would add: Teach them what's an advert

However, if you are effectively monitoring people's (not children's) web use anyway - isn't that the best policing? If you know your web use is recorded? One of the side-effects of buying censorware for a network is that web use in general drops off. This isn't necessarily a good thing.

This side of managing web use is always the forgotten bit - managing self-censorship. If you are a public body you really need to be simultaneously reassuring people that - no- we don't mind you accessing rape crisis sites and - yes - we want to be told if our Web Filter's blocking this and, yes, it's confidential.

Managing web use isn't and can't be just about technical solutions.

And how to disable filtering? See Peacefire and/or StupidCensorship.com.

This is the last point — smart kids can get around it.

• Past post on web filters
• My Submission for ACGLR to Australian Senate (1999) - PDF - HTML

.gov kids

Had a look at some other government portals in the light of DirectGovKids. Shocking, some of them.

Very few have information linked from the homepage, directed at kids.

This is the US Government

:

But, this is the French ... Superb :{)

More on DirectGovKids

Public Sector Forums have been having Fun with DirectGovKids - the new Flash-driven animated route for children to information and *stuff* about government.

Needless to say these grown-up (very grown-up) journos focus on the cow-pooing game.

Well, for all I know this may be teaching a six year-old something vital about the environment! Plus fun and games is a very good way to get a message over

... however they also focus on the accessibility issue and, having looked a bit harder, there are two issues besides the obvious one they point to, and they're to do with the choice of Flash. *NB: With the content, I haven't been through it with a fine tooth comb, I may have missed something. Please don't make me...

1. Availability.
   This is often a problem with networks (think big companies) - Flash isn't available everywhere or can be blocked.
   If, for example, this is a kids route to information not just on how to dress firemen but also to report abuse, then any barrier is indefensible.
   Industry usually banks on a five year time lag before everyone catches up technologically. i.e. yes, some people still have dial-up and creaky connections + equipment. Do you just ignore them, especially when making accessibility claims? There isn't an alternative version.
   
2. Usability.
   Just start from remembering that this sort of application is actually very new. Then think that ATMs have existed for forty years — could there still not be some improvement with ATMs?
   Basically, Flash obviously has some usability issues particular to it and with how it's generally used - the Flash design trope. Studies have found, for example, drop-off rates of a third between Web (HTML etc) pages and Flash pages. Also, do not assume that all kids are universally highly web-proficient - this isn't the case. Flash is great. We love Flash. It has great uses. But it has issues.

• Content.
  From what I could see, there doesn't appear to be content aimed at disabled kids. There has been an effort from what I could see with learning disability but otherwise it appears that they've abrogated this in the main content - e.g. think dyslexia.
• Kids-specific.
  This site could also be used to train kids (hopefully, helping out teachers and carers) how to properly and with knowledge use the Internet — after all, they're already there, on the Web.
  There have been some worrying studies which show that kids are far more likely to accept ad claims and be seduced by ads online - this is why people like fast food advertisers spend so much on it.
  The pervasiveness of the reach of advertising at kids is now extending very lucratively into gaming.
  The site could definitely be used to help counteract those very powerful counterweights to other messages - like healthy eating.
  

Heeeere's Jakob ...

The most notable finding in our study was that children click website advertisements. Unfortunately, they often do so by mistake, thinking ads are just one more site element. In nine years of testing adults, we can count on the fingers of two hands the total number of times they've clicked website advertising. But kids click banners. They cannot yet distinguish between content and advertising. On the contrary, to kids, ads are just one more content source. If a banner contains a popular character or something that looks like a cool game, they'll click it. Pokémon, here we come. (Kids clicked on Pokémon characters even though they were simply featured in banner ads for other products, rather than as links to a Pokémon site.) We strongly recommend that parents, educators, and other caretakers spend time acquainting children with the realities of Internet advertising and teach them how to recognize ads.
>> More - Kids' Corner: Website Usability for Children

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DirectgovKids

This appears to be having a very quiet launch.

It's Flash driven though there is an 'accessibility area' (which is Flash). It doesn't appear to have accessible kids content and you have to go via the 'accessibility area' to reload the website 'accessibly'. Hmmmm.

The Minister, Beverley Hughes, couldn't help themselves at the launch as well:

"DirectgovKids is not only a fantastic learning tool for children, it's great fun too. This [March 2007] is the first time children in the UK have been communicated with directly by Government through an online site. Young citizens will be able to find out more about the world around them, and how Government shapes their day-to-day lives. The site will also give more of a voice to children, allowing them to express their views on current and future policy."

Does she really believe that (the Number Ten site has a kids section) and if so is that anything she should feel proud saying?

DirectgovKids aims to get children from five to 11 engaged with some of the areas of Government that have an impact on their lives, and to help them learn about and understand the society they are growing up in.

The site is designed to look like a revolving globe, with interactive buildings that children can investigate including: a Town Hall, a Police Station and a School. There are online activities and exciting games, as well as animations and slideshows. New areas are being added all the time and include a Health Centre, a school council voting activity and a special area, where children can have a 'virtual vote' on issues that affect them.

The content does look good, though there's no links for kids to anywhere else that I could see. I particularly enjoyed dressing a variety of policemen + firemen 'to get ready for work'... apparently there's also a crapping cows game and a generate poo game as well: "spin the world until you find the supermarket, then go into the Office".