Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Sacha,
There you go again. Place is not the only or strongest criteria for a community. Ask any of those you’ll be focused on tomorrow night.
I didn't say place was the only criterion for a community. I do object to the idea that representing an electorate is irrelevant or not worth the bother, and I think I've explained why. It's the poor, elderly and disabled to come into electorate offices looking for help.It's good that there is someone there to try and provide it.
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Danyl's been busy.
As I said yesterday, I was struck by how this discussion inevitably turned to not just to why Labour are struggling, but what politics would get them out of their rut -- when, as I was trying to explain, it's the sheer political absence of the current climate that's important. Basically, of course it suits Matthew Hooton for it to be about someone being mean to the Mad Butcher.
And now Danyl goes and makes a joke that says it better than all my hand-wringing.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Not so sure about that – constituency work is unglamorous but there are still people out there who have this uncynical belief that their local Member of Parliament (and their electorate agents) know shit and can help. And you know what: The overwhelming majority do, and can more often than not.
THIS.
I’ve seen what comes through the front door of a constituency office, and that link is very important. For all that it has been compulsory to mock Judith Tizard for her incorrect views on downloading and and stuff, she and a series of more or less saintly electorate agents helped a lot of people over the years. People do go into those offices looking for help, and good electorate MPs try and make sure they get it.
The idea that that’s not worth the bother, or that Green MPs should only represent a narrow community of interest leaves me cold. The job of representing an actual community, regardless of the various politics of the individuals in it, is something to aspire to.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Steve Withers,
The Greens don’t waste much time on local candidates. There is no reason to as under FPP locally they stand NO chance of actually winning a single seat in NZ. It’s all about the party vote.
I find the idea that seeking to be an electorate candidate is a “waste of time” dispiriting. Sure, not every electorate: but the Greens have won an electorate contest before, and might have had a shot since if they’d been more organised and tried. Having an electorate base is a good thing. So is the continuity of having an LEC and local people you know will turn up for you. There's a lot to be said for representing a community.
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to Edward Sargisson,
You have to give explicit permission to a website to allow it to automatically post your Read articles to Facebook.
Developer DocumentationThe articles worrying about people having their porn reading shown on Facebook are beat-ups. Don’t give the porn site that permission.
People give permission to all sorts of shite on Facebook, though. And the permission isn't always going to be as explicit at the Guardan and the Washington Post make it:
Frictionless sharing is different from Beacon, since you must explicitly authorize a site or app to share your information with Facebook. How this sharing mechanism works depends on the app. Authorizing The Washington Post or The Guardian Facebook apps allows you to read those news sites right within Facebook. The downside, however, is that everything you read is shared back to your friends.
Yahoo News works a little differently. The site has a function called "Social" that can be turned on or off. When it is turned on, frictionless sharing is in full effect, and everything you read is shared via the Facebook Ticker. Turn social off, and you're back to private mode, when only clicking on the Like button will send articles back to Facebook.
It's really not hard to see sites that want the eyeballs fudging that permission thing.
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
And I’m with Russel in that Google may be just as evil (and Google is evil), but at least it provides useful and (mostly) good quality services. And last I checked, it doesn’t go broadcasting your searches or reads or watches to all and sundry.
I clicked Stephen's link, quite quickly found a search five years old and mildly embarrassing and thought about deleting the lot. And then I thought, actually, this data improves the quality of my searches ...
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to James Butler,
but Facebook also has the audacity to want to show it to your FRIENDS AND FAMILY OMG OMG OMG!!!1!!!eleven!!
Having passively acquired 656 Facebook "friends" I wouldn't be totally relaxed about this.
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I loathe Facebook, but I’ve recently come to see that they’re just a tiny bit more blatant, that’s all.
I suppose I just find Google's stuff more useful to me, and thus tolerate it a bit better.
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Hard News: The price is that they get to…, in reply to James Butler,
TBF some tech companies patent for the sake of patenting – it doesn’t mean that the patented feature is intended to be implemented. But I’m being generous here.
It should be noted that it's a patent for something Facebook told Australia's privacy commissioner was a "technical flaw".
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And thankfully no mention of this load of tosh pants. Perhaps someone at Labour HQ could kill that judgementfail with fire.
Good grief. It is possible to close down websites, isn't it?
