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Why You Should Use Twitter

Byrichard

Twitter is a short message that are only 140 characters long. It can be used in three ways. The first is by instant messenger, the second is by text messaging to your mobile phone and the third is via the web interface.

It’s referred to as microblogging, although not by me. I see it as being something more powerful.

The BBC, Google, and other companies have already used it for showing people what the latest news is. Of course, with such a medium you have to be careful not to send too many messages or people will give up.

Where it would come into its element is traffic info, radio schedules, or even event notifications. Imagine that you knew about this before rag week and that many of your friends were members. You could tell them “just finished ragging, on my way back to uni” or “only 20 tickets left for an event”. In other words, you can let people know what an organisation is doing quite easily.

Another way to enhance this is when you’ve got quite a lot of friends and they’re all members. “Hey, just handed in my assignment, going to sit in the grass outside halls, welcome to join” and many people who might have been bored now know where to find you.

Of course, you’re paying the price of SMS (text messaging) if you’re away from the computer but it’s at a local tariff to the best of my understanding. It’s an interesting development, similar to the status bar in many of the current messengers and on Facebook.

To First Year Students

Byrichard

I urgently recommend that you challenge the election results in relation to Salima. She won by only 25 votes and there are a few people saying that they would have voted differently had they known what the fliers contained before they voted.

The fact that someone failed their first year, only to become SU president six years later is utterly unnaceptable. You’re students and you’re working hard in order to build up knowledge and prestige for the course you are studying. If yor SU president failed their first year then what right do they have to represent “students” ?

I’ve worked hard, Martin has worked hard, Phil has worked hard. They’re good people on the campus with the most activities, the student radio and more

If Martin missed out by 25 votes then this, in my eyes, is too close and a recount and re-vote should be requested.

It is not healthy that within certain circles there are allegations of corruption whilst the SU president never bothered to comment.

The SU president is an elected offical and as such is responsible to the student body. The fact that she never bothered to answer WNOL, Smoke or Sarah Lefley, a collegue, in relation to this topic is utterly unacceptable and an investigation should be carried out.

I can’t accept that a failue should be elected two years in a row to the highest rank of our SU by only 25 voices in such mitigated circumstances.

Reading versus Videos

Byrichard

When I’m online I love reading. I read articles everyday. I see what people are doing. I see what’s happening in the world through text. When I see some information that may be of interest to me in video form I’m lazy. I hardly ever bother watching that video. I’d much prefer to have the text version.

I’ve often watched mobuzztv and Iused to enjoy watching the videos but recently I find myself watching them less and less, probably in part due to bandwidth constraints.

I especially avoid watching certain types of interviews because they’re dull. The interviewer has a bad technique and there’s no editing. I don’t want to hear someone talk for three minutes for something that can be summarised into one sentence. It’s a shame that video bloggers have not yet learned how to conduct proper interviews.

An interview should be well researched, both material wise, knowing what the person knows about the topic and then charisma wise. Get an interesting subject but unresearched and the questions won’t give good information. Get a poor speaker and there’s a good chance the audience will lose interest and stop listening.

get some cut aways and illustrate what the person is saying. Talking heads are boring.

Finally avoid being arrogant, don’t gloat because you’ve got an interview with someone most people have never heard of or care about.

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Friends and Those Who Fool Me

Byrichard

Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from some post grad students asking whether I could go and film the football game they were covering. It was between westminster uni city FC and another club whose name I don’t think I heard.

It’s the first football game I cover so it was an experience. It was in a smallish club an the crowd was quite small. I set up in the home and away section of the stands and filmed people running from one end to the other many times over.

It’s a shame I didn’t have one of the better cameras to use because the video footage would have been better. Still it was an experience. This summer had meant that I saw a lot of football matches. It meant I knew what shots to frame up. What actions to look for. The award ceremony was the more interesting bit to film because it saw me on the field with the teams making sure to get the shot of people receiving their awards.

Too bad our team was not the victorious one.

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Before waking up

Byrichard

Before waking up I found myself catching a plane to an airport before catching a small private plane to somewhere in the mountains where I went skiing. I was going home but for some reason I was late.

I was telling myself that I had to get back to one place to get my luggage before going home before realising that I didn’t. I decided to rush for the plane, dropped by my room, and threw a cursive look before running back to the small private plane, asking whether I was on the first flight before the plane took off.

For some reason, it had to taxi along some mountain roads and almost hit some bowling balls on the tarmac. Quite a confusing dream to have had.

I usually have strange dreams as summer starts trying to get in through the curtains. It’ss the fourth or fifth day of sunshine in sunny London.

Another day of sitting in the sun whilst waiting for night to fall to continue working on the dissertation.

Last night I spent at least an hour going through some of my notes. Highlighting relevant bits and thinking about how to structure the introduction.  Now it’s another 15 days of such effort or more.

The deadline is still over a month away but it’s better to do as much as possible now to relax afterward… or at least not panic.

Swimming Birds

Byrichard

The Planet Earth and Blue Planet documentaries have some amazing footage and some great sights. One of those greats sights is that which starts with birds sitting in the middle of the ocean because the wind is too weak for them to glide. You see the superpod of dolphins and a cluster of those dolphins leave to hunt.

The wind picks up and the birds begin to fly. As they fly we see the dolphins get closer to their quarry. A school of fish. The dolphins bring the fish up to the surface, within diving range of the birds. The birds can go as far down as fifteen meters to get their prey.

You see the dolphins who help the birds get their lunch. Without the dolphins, the birds would have little food.

The dolphins have left and the tuna arrive. They create an artificial seafloor and the birds keep munching and diving for fish.

It’s an amazing sight. There are hundreds of fish and hundreds of birds underwater at the same time. It’s amusing to see how they flap their wings to get down and grab their prey, then point upwards and float back to the surface.

It’s only within the past two months that I learned that birds can swim underwater.

Ducks do it to get to their algae in ice ponds but only whilst the current is not too strong to drown them.

The birds described above do it to get their prey.

Yet another species of birds dive bombs and leaves trails of bubbles behind them.

Ahhh, the things one must watch for dissertation research.

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University politics are amusing

Byrichard

There is a rumour that the person that is running should not be doing so and as a result, there are bits of information coming out about this. It’s interesting because I did not want the person to become SU president due to her canceling an interview for a live Multicam I was producing in my second year.

There is information that leads us to conclude that she should not be running for her position and I find this is amusing. It’s student politics at their best.

I spent at least six hours last night chatting to many friends, both on campus and within the SU bar and it’s been a really good afternoon-Evening-Night-Morning.

If only all days were like that, full of conversations.

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People love photographs

Byrichard

Video is one of those mediums that is great because it captures several moments and amalgamates them into a sequence. Those moments are with the voices and sounds, the excitement, and more. It’s too much information for most and that’s why video is a hard medium to use at parties.

The more impersonal a video the better it works, within the realms of you being at the event with your friends.

In contrast, photography is far better accepted. People have been using for photographs since before they comprehended what that box with a big piece of glass actually does. As a result, they were desensitized to being photographed. There are no objections and by the time they realize you’ve taken their picture objection is futile.

With video, you point the camera and watch from a distance. It’s not because you’re a stalker or a voyeur but rather because that is the nature of cinéma verité – Kino Glaz.

How can someone be comfortable when they know that what you’re doing is getting a precise recording of both their conversation and expressions. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.

That’s why the camera points up as soon as people realise they are being filmed. it’s my signal that I know that they don’t want to be filmed anymore and I move on. Over time people are desensitised to this “invasion” of privacy and there are occasional video lovers. Theatrical people are one example.

During the last two years of High school every night, I would go down and shoot their theatre performances and they’d buy the tape from me. of course, I almost got in trouble with their lecturer but I was not breaching copyright. I was providing them with a visual record of their activities.

Performers also enjoy having copies of their work. Ingyama a few years ago, Anarachic hand and of course last year’s first-year music students. It’s a way for them to show the world what they have produced. Sometimes it’s not good so they prefer to forget about it but when it’s good they’re happy and post it on their websites, whether myspace or specific domain names.

The World Wide Web and the network of networks are not ready for the proper sharing of video at the moment. It’s fine for three or four-minute segments but any longer and you’ll find your audience disappearing. That’s because internet service providers aren’t always giving their customers enough bandwidth. In other cases, it’s just that it’s boring.

The Silent Disco was really well received within a small community in part because it’s anonymous but also because it’s made up of good memories for them. it’s good memories for me too by the way.

My collection of undercroft pictures ended in October and I want it to continue. we’re in March now.

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An ode to lost votes

Byrichard

One girl lost my vote a year ago when not turning up to a live interview she was meant to attend, deciding an hour before to cancel

Another lost my vote for not having the strength of character to campaign for herself through a medium like facebook or Myspace.

One lost my vote for her slogan, which I do not appreciate.

Which people are we talking about? We’re all equal. Some have the luxury of misbehaving around uni before going home to their parents to recuperate. Others don’t.

I will vote for those individuals I know. I will those whom I have seen work as a team and those whose friends I know. I will vote for those whom have attempted to make themselves visible or known to me whether in person or online by their own steam.

In retrospect the campaign has been surprisingly dissapointing. Where’s the student newspaper with the candidate’s applications. Where were the flyers for the people running. Where’s the presence of the UWSU elections anywhere within smoke media.

You’ve got voting starting yet do we know any of the candidates outside our circle of influence and friends?

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Unreasonably low – a rant against a certain ISP

Byrichard

Dear Victim,

Yesterday you exceeded the daily usage limit of 500MB as referred to in our Terms and Conditions.   This type of activity could have a detrimental effect on our network and therefore we cannot allow this to continue.   Should you continue to exceed the daily download limit we will, unfortunately, be forced to downgrade your service to a throughput limit of 56Kbs dial-up speed, for a period of 5 days.

If you exceed these limits on a regular basis, we may be forced to suspend your account.

For users of Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications such as BearShare, Warez, Morpheus, BitTorrent, iMesh and KaZaA note the following:
Most P2P applications you install will usually be configured so other users can access your hard drive and share your files all of the time. This constant file transfer can degrade your computer’s performance and generate heavy traffic loads on the network, making it difficult for other users of the network to work well. The network is a shared resource and we all must use it responsibly.

Network bandwidth consumption is monitored. If your users could possibly impact the overall performance of the network, your computer may be blocked until the situation can be discussed.

Should you have any queries regarding this email, please contact Customer Services

Regards

Appallingly crappy ISP

I’m a third-year media student who has spent the past decade online practically every day. I know where to find content. I understand the nature of the medium. I’m not your garden variety fifty-five-second user.

I’m the type of user that would wake up every morning and download a gigabyte or more a day when at home. I go to the uni network and I’ve downloaded 600 megs within about ten minutes and my daily allowance is a pathetic 500 megs.

Five hundred megs is not even one full copy of Linux. Some video podcasts are over a hundred megs each. Podcasts can be up to 100 megabytes in size.

I hate their false advertising and promises. I have no choice though, I’m not the one selecting the ISP.

afterthought

Where did Yahoo go wrong with their implementation of advertising along the same lines as google? They took two years longer than they should have to implement what belonged to them. I hope they go bankrupt.