By concentrating our efforts on our digital properties, we can continuously update our content and further expand the number of topics and the depth with which they are treated without the space constraints of the print set. In fact, today our digital database is much larger than what we can fit in the print set. And it is up to date because we can revise it within minutes anytime we need to, and we do it many times each day.

Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. is the publisher of 16 iOS apps (iTunes link), as well as publisher of several online encyclopaedias under the domain britannica.com. Neither of the apps offer fully free access to all the content published, the Encyclopaedia Britannica app costing a whopping $1.99/month subscription fee. It wouldn’t take long before online pundits, and people spending a majority of their time online every day, would object, even calling the publisher out of tune with the times. But this is wrong.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Broadens Its Targeted Audience Group by Charging

It would be wrong to say that the publisher charging for something limits their audience, and relegates them to the corner of the companies out of tune. The Belgian rightholders group SABAM, who want to charge libraries for reading books to kids, are out of time. Let me repeat that again:

The Belgian SABAM group who want to charge libraries for reading books to kids are out of time.

Charging public institutions to read books to kids is not only ridiculous but also out of touch with the world. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

The Culture of Free™ is a fad, a fad which will soon disappear

Not subscribing to the culture that all content should be freely available does not equate to being out of time. Even not if there is a free alternative. Or a cheaper alternative. Nor are the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Financial Times out of touch for charging for access to their complete library. Nor is BMW wrong for charging more for its cars although cheaper alternatives are available.

What the Encycloaedia Britannica did was actually the opposite of what the online living people claim. Rather than being out of touch with the reality of the internet, the Culture of Free™, they broadened their targeted demographics. At $1,99/month versus $699 for a second hand 2007 edition on eBay, or $1,395 for the last ever print edition.

Instead all Encyclopaedia Britannica content, more than in the printed edition and with every day updates, is now available for the meager sum of $1,99/month. A subscription fee which can be ended and picked up at every time.

Picture stolen from Bogart The Explorer's FB page

A subscription fee many fans of the free Google and just as free Wikipedia vehemently oppose. The main problem with this ever growing group, who belief in the right to free universal access with a simple keystroke is that they will not pay for content. Even if this access commands a fee, if there is a way to gain free access, they will do so if no free alternative is available. A smaller group will not need the access and resist temptation.

Luckily a free resource with lots of knowledge is available and that niche is covered. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia. And blogs publishing freely available content. Not everyone refuses to pay for content they might find freely though.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., an institution which can count more than 100 Nobel Prize Laureats, multiple Pulitzer Prize Laureats and thousands of other respected specialists to its stable of contributors, is an organization which does not cost anyone anything. They do not receive any cent or dime of our hard-earned money. Taxes are not given to them. Instead the company prides itself in delivering lots of high quality content, knowledge, at an ever cheaper price. With ever more articles and corrections are errors are found.
They have the right to charge whatever they think is reasonable. Or unreasonable.

Instead they opted to command the meager sum of $1,99/month. Around 25% of the price of the average Starbucks drink in the First World. Less than the price of two Magnum popsicles in the Third World.

Let’s do the Math

1,395÷1.99/month = 58 Years and 152 Days

The last printed edition of the 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica sells at $1,395. A one-time fee for over 65,000 articles, written by more than 4,000 contributors. The online edition (for iOS) costs $1,99/month or 701 months access for the same price as the printed edition. 701 Months, or 54 years and 152 days access.
Access to an ever growing archive, with an ever expanding multimedia library. With always more links to reference worthy resources. With articles not limited by the physical size of a print edition anymore.

58 Years and 152 days of access for the same price.

Charging for Content: It’s OK. Really

In one of the many blog entries by Encyclopaedia Britannica staff, Change: It’s OK. Really, the first ever publisher of an online encyclopaedia emphasizes that the end of the print edition marks the beginning of a new era, “to serve knowledge and learning in new ways that go way beyond reference works”.

A new way to serve knowledge, knowledge brought to you by Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer winners and thousands of other respected authorities in their field. Some of the brightest people to ever walk our planet. 58 Years and 152 days of access for the same price of one print edition.

Those who think this fee is too high can always fall back on Wikipedia and the knowledge which can be found via Google or other search engines. For many others the Encyclopaedia Britannica suddenly became more affordable and more accessible than ever.

Then: January 23rd, 2010.

Now: August 17th, 2011.

The Plan: Write more.
The Plan Extended: Write more, especially on this site.

If you can’t find me here, I’ll probably be over at Recipe Finder.

Photo Credit: Photo by Kaptain Kobold.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
(Martin Luther King Jr.)

You change my life in so many ways
Options I did not know existed
New doors have been opened
Incompatible with my plans

Anyone who told me this would happen
I would have called their shrink
If you told me weeks ago
I had laughed at you

Of course I tempted Fate
Decided what I wanted to do
Told everyone my next step in life
Challenged Fate knowing what I wanted

I saw you standing in the corner
You changed everything and every plan

Fate, You’re a damn bitch
But damn do I love it

Photo Credit: Malu Green.

As life moves on and the years start adding up, people tend to sit down and reflect more. This is probably still my weakest point, I like moving forward too much to really sit down. Nevertheless I have learned to not always immediately react on things anymore, sometimes I even know when to shut up. Occasionally I still fail at the latter.

Generally though, I tend to live a quiet background life all while being the dynamic me people know. While trying to still be prolific I really enjoy living in the shadows. It is nice there, not too hot nor too bright.

Believe me when I say that I do know how it feels to live in the spotlights and the three people who have followed this blog since years do know that I do not shun these spotlights either. But I’m getting old and people change.

Suffice to say that I was very surprised today to find myself in the crossfire or rather the line of fire from someone I do not know. In the middle of a very hostile and spiteful attack.

An anonymous ‘ex-member’ spit his/her gal on the latest 9rules blog entry, going fully frontal. After several personal and/or inside details on the former 9rules Triad (and my publisher) were revealed it was the turn of my colleague Andy, my boss Mark and myself.

Being under SplashPress is supposed to make members feel better? Didn’t the crappy sites get added when Andy was running 9rules? You said you didn’t like the direction of 9rules, but you gave Andy a promotion. Frank is managing editor? He’s too busy looking up to you to be qualified. The descriptions on the team page are all lies. You aren’t fooling anyone. You’re still messing up and Mark is letting you by not getting you a qualified team. You might be running things but Mark owns 9rules and I hold him completely responsible. His network is trash and he’s ruining a quality site.

It would be easy to rebut this and go into detail how Andy wasn’t involved with the latest Round, I had left SPM all while being a long term participant to Splashpress Media. Or even by saying that I probably stopped following 9rules long before ‘Ex-member’, but I won’t. This entry isn’t about hitting back or defending myself. Nor is it about admiration.

Life’s Too Nice To Be Spiteful

Life’s too short and the future belongs to those who look forward

I am nowhere near perfect and hate to admit this. But as the years move by I have learned many things and I continue to learn daily. I have examples in life, people who motivate me to continuously improve and keep an eye on the real world. Understand what really does matter. Remind me how lucky we are.

There is more to life than look back at errors people made and hit out at them for those. Nature is lovely but cruel at the same time. Over the last 12 months several thousand people lost their life due to earthquakes, landslides and typhoons. Others were killed at war and people just around the corner of your and my doorstep live in poverty, some even die on the streets.

In our Western society, especially those of us who live mainly online, we barely know what it means to suffer but instead we get sucked up in meaningless disputes on ‘tinternet. Laugh at the best fails of 2009, no matter how harsh and painful several are. We do not respect our roots anymore and forget that what really matters. That what only seems to move people when disaster strikes. The spirit of community and siding together. Hate’s more important to many of us.

Love Each Other. Grow Up and Improve

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it

I love admiring people. Each and everyone daily reminds me that I have to improve, work at everything I do. Probably I even have gathered lots of inspiration from ‘Ex-member’, maybe I still read Ex-members site on a regular basis. Who knows, I don’t know who ‘Ex-member’ is. What I do know though is that every single day I get up and want to improve not only this site, the sites I write on but also, and most of all, my own tolerance levels. Days like today prove that I am doing damn fine and believe me, life’s really nice if that’s your motto and that’s how you live. My idols help me reach out to what initially seem unreachable situations.

Life’s too short and we only get one shot at it. Face the truth, there is too much misery on this planet to get stuck in disputes.

Be your own worst critic and the worst critic of your idols and you’ll do fine. I know I am.

Photo credit: Talia Twilight Photography.

A dream which became reality.

As a kid I have always been a reader. I would read more than 100 pages per day already when I was only 7 years young. I loved my parents’ Winkler Prins. On rainy days you could find me in my room, on bed with most of the time at least six tomes around me. I was a knowledge leech as kid already. My parents had a Wikipedia without online connection.

I was a reader with an unsatisfied hunger for knowledge. My life seemed complete.

The Internet, My New Encyclopaedia

I do not want to think of the enormous bills my parents probably had to pay but it was their own fault. They got a modem and showed me the internet. A nice internet. Looking at a monochrome monitor, often cursing at a blinking cursor at the top left of the screen while waiting for the information to download. Information coming from people I didn’t know, people who were all over the world. Lots of stuff to read. Newsgroups. My life couldn’t become better and if one, other than the usual sex, drugs and rock&roll, the internet certainly contributed to me ditching what pretty much every other adolescent did: watch TV, watch the ever more popular becoming MTV and sports. I was different.

In between two parties I would logon and read as much as I could before another Saturday evening of debauchery and alcohol followed. I wanted to read. As much as I could.

The internet provided me with a continuous flow of information, every day more. When mid 90s the main media started to publish their content online I almost immediately ditched my daily habit of reading the newspaper and Knack. My life became almost picture free. I read as many words as I could every day, often to the detriment of my social life but there was barely any discussion I could not participate to because I knew something about almost everything.

The Internet is for Text

Excuse me, and you might not agree with this opinion, but using a <h3> tag was both the easiest way and fastest way to display that message, *my* message, quickly and hugely. Maybe I should have used a <h2> tag even.

Even in these modern days of constantly faster connections I still believe in this statement: the.internet.is.for.text. Personally I can not say that I watch one online video per day on average. I love reading too much. Although I have a rather large movie collection, barely ever will I allow myself to take a break from reading and sit down for 2 hours or more, enjoying a movie. Barely ever will I allow myself to take a break from reading.

It’s who I am and although I appreciate Flickr and SmugMug or Vimeo, I prefer reading.

9Rules

I have more than once declared my love for 9Rules. When the ‘content gallery’ launched it was great at what it did: display awesome blogs about several topics. I was an avid lurker reader. As the network expanded I struggled to keep up with more than 140 additional blogs to my daily reading habits and at some point I stopped following the ever-growing network anymore. I figured that I would continue to discover awesome blogs just by reading the more than 400 blogs I already read.

Recently there have been some changes at 9Rules. 9Rules was sold to Splashpress Media, my employer. Because I did not believe the SplashPress Media network was a worthy bearer and owner of the once so thriving and awesome 9Rules, I shortly left Splashpress. But only for a really short time.

Long enough to refocus on the 9Rules.

Some day the unexpected happened. The (online) person who over the last years had inspired me most became the new publisher of Splashpress Media. Scrivs.

Mentoring is the best job ever

I re-entered the Splashpress Media fold and have been having a blast ever since. Never has a challenge been this big and rewarding. Every day again I strive to publish (at least prepare) new valuable content. Not write for traffic but write to contribute to the community. Write to constantly improve. Write to show that I belong on board and am a worthy member of the team.
In the background I have what is probably the most awesome job one can have: I help bloggers. Help them with tips how to find their blogging groove. How to feel great when writing something. My IM is always open and I would rather contribute to, collaborate on an entry for them than ignore them, trying to push out the best content I can deliver. We have seen some awesome results already over the last weeks and I am sure that some of our authors will be headhunted soon.

Because they write valuable content. Not because they know all tricks to rule the search engines and social media. Because their content is awesome.

Today’s there’s nothing more left for me than point you to the latest 9rules blog entry: Let’s refocus on quality content. An entry which makes me happy and makes me want to improve iFranky. Improve enough to some day be proud enough of my work here and submit this site to 9Rules.

Go read it now.

Photo credit: Image by neonihil

If you’re hiring well, you’re hiring people not just for this job, but for your career. These are the people who, for better or worse, will explain to others what it is like to work with you. They’ll explain your quirks, your weaknesses, and your strengths. When they eventually leave the group, they’re taking your reputation with them. You may never talk to them again, but they’ll continue to talk and my question is: what stories are they going to tell?

One of the most important things to make this double-edged sword highly successful is to assure that the employees still feels wanted after joining; the hire is an important pilar of the department.
How long does it take you to settle in a new job? That period is arguably even more important than the actual ‘chase’; it’s when the new hire grows roots.

The time at Emmaus Preston was rather limited and even though I was happy not to have to deal with that board anymore, it has taken me around a year to reorganise and refocus.
Refocus and return to the colours of my roots: Racing White Daring Molenbeek, the first club I played football for.

I am no person who stands still for a long time or will whine about how miserable life is, but as the years slowly accumulated I certainly needed some time.

I don’t do end of year reviews either nor do I pay much attention to the symbolic importance of dates, years but I am happy to notice that there seems to be an upturn to life and I am slowly but surely starting to think again. Think about the future. Or as someone went ahead and changed my former life quote, ‘Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it‘:

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Of course all this doesn’t mean anything and I still have certain things to sort out.
I merely needed an excuse to announce the change in design, justify the colour change and state the obvious:

I’m back, bitches.

If there’s one thing you can learn from publishing online, especially in the news sector, it’s that you can’t let complacency set in. You have to grab things by the balls and do what you have to do.

The same applies to dreams, plans. They won’t happen while sitting there, waiting for a miracle. To be happy you have have to pursue your dreams and get active, get of that lazy ass of yours and stop bitching if that was what you were doing. Sometimes you might need a reminder, but when you have been lucky enough that someone woke you up… act! Don’t wait and talk about it, just do it!

I am hungry. I am an achiever. I want to be somewhere there at the top, where ever that may be.
Life’s short, too short and you only live once.

We all have our dreams and some of us are lucky enough to be able to work at their dreams. So it comes that hot on the heels of the acquisition news, I can announce that I have decided to step down from my position as member of the managing team at Splashpress Media . Step down after having worked up to where I was. Step down because I want more, because I am hungry.

Splashpress Media is a small company, an indie network and has always resisted the call of VC. There is no board I could possibly join as consultant, advisor or whatsoever, but I will be down in the trenches with the authors and freelance for both The Blog Herald and Forever Geek. Both those sites definitely should aspire to become worthy 9rules members. And I want to profile myself as a hard working and valuable 9r member.

What’s next for myself? I am an idea tank, throw something at me and within minutes I’ll have ideas for it. Change the core and only minutes later again, there are new ideas. But ideas alone are worthless, they also need to be converted. Now is the time to start showing that I have learned and not only play hard. Now is the time to act.

Act and live by the rules.

First I need a partner in crime and then… rock ‘n roll!

Image: Geopoliticus Child watching the birth of the New Man, Salvador Dalí.

Andrew D. Rosen asked an interesting question today over at the Blog Herald: how much do you earn per post?

Many people nowadays wonder how to make money from blogs, some still think we can get rich doing nothing, sitting at home naked.

The truth couldn’t be more different.

In my position at Splashpress Media I can tell you that there are huge differences in pay across the board and different networks have different payment structures. Often the fee is based on several different factors:

• Location of the blogger: someone who lives in the UK obviously has higher living costs than a Vietnamese citizen. Both have the same number of hours in a day to craft entries;
• Experience and ‘Rockstar level’ of the blogger: experienced bloggers and so-called A-listers tend to ask more for an entry because usually they have a following, a group of loyal readers who will also subscribe to their entries. Blog rockstars tend to get more trackbacks and comments than beginning, aspiring bloggers;
• Controversy and linkbait experience: Nowadays an often forgotten quality of bloggers is their ‘controversy’ strategy and capability to link bait. Blogging became popular because it was a personal and opinionated style of writing. Bloggers were online columnists. A controversial blogger will get many comments and generate traffic;
• Number of entries: Some bloggers only look for some gigs monthly. Often they are specialized in writing ‘feature entries’. These take a lot longer than your average blog post;
• Social media popularity: Many professional bloggers have a high popularity on the social bookmarking sites. An entry submitted by them will easily get more votes and hence generate lots of traffic;
• Credit crunch

Different networks apply different structures

At Splashpress Media we apply a flat fee per post based on many of the above mentioned factors.
Duncan Riley’s Inquisitr recently started looking in to a traffic-based payment system. Nick Denton’s Gawker network pays out a traffic based fee, with a small monthly fix. Michael Arrington’s Techcrunch‘s network pays the bloggers a flat monthly fee.

Due to the differences it is very hard to put a number on the earnings of a blogger. Lately many beginning bloggers are paid only USD 2.50 – USD 3.00 per entry. There are several reasons for this: credit crunch being one, the international open application market being the second reason. In a market with many Asian candidates ‘Western’ people always face more and more competition and often have to lower their rates to the actual average. Reading and reporting about blogger jobs on a regular level, I can confirm that being paid USD 0.05/word has become a great and only very seldom reached level. The reality is much closer to USD 0.01/word on your average blog.

Valuable advice for applicants

We receive daily applications from both beginning and professional bloggers. Some are downright hilarious and read like this:

I am a very good writer I have good knowledge .You can write
very good blogs and want to work with you.

Hilarious as this submission may be, generally perfect English is not the most important criterium to get a gig. Obviously an (open) application like this one will immediately be filed in drawer 13, not only because of the English was below par but because there isn’t enough of information for us to decide. What do you need to mention in your application email?

• Full name and contact details: Under certain condition we will allow people to post under a pseudo, but usually we require complete details;
• Link to your OWN blog: Even in these times I can think of many bloggers/applicants who do not have an own blog. This is important as it allows us to discover everything you didn’t want us to know about you;
• Samples of your work: Link some of previous work in the email. Do NOT submit any attachments as we love to see the work published online and check out reactions on your work;
• Financial expectations: To avoid any further confusion, disappointment submit immediately what your financial expectations are. This is especially important when you filed an open application. If you reply to a public ad without financial specifications, also mention your expectations. This saves everyone time and because we just checked out your previous work, you might be more lucky than you expect;
• Other specialities: Mention what your other specialities are, especially if you are strong in web development, server administration or even SEM or Adsense optimization
• LINK to your CV: Feel free to submit your CV but LINK to your CV and do NOT add it as an attachment. Many companies have a no-attachment email policy and to be honest, I do not need your Resume as a local file. Your resume belongs on your personal site or on your Linkedin profile;
• Convince us, go out of your way to land a writing gig: Let’s be honest, we are dealing with a credit crunch and the online commercial situation needs pink glasses to be called colourful. If you like a site and want to convince the editors of your skills, feel free to offer 2 or 3 free entries. By now we will already have formed an opinion about whether to hire you or not. In case of doubt these entries can help you, if we would have hired you even without those, they will only serve you ass a bonus because we will think that you are motivated and absolutely want to post on site X.

Disclosure: These are general guidelines and might or might not always be applied by every site editor/owner. The main rule, especially when applying to an open position is to RTFM.
Other than above mentioned numbers, I will not be drawn in to list any number we pay to our bloggers as every situation is handled individually and differently.

It would be a fantastic contract, yes, but there are other things more important than money. A player wants to be remembered for what he has won.

Imagine 10 years after you stop playing, you go back, you look around, you are not in any picture, you have no medals, no trophies; it is like you played for nothing.

You may have a fantastic car, a fantastic home, but what does it matter?

You can have a contract that is better than your friends, but no player looks back and says, ‘I won more money’.

Being a Manchester United fan I obviously do not fear Man City or see them winning trophies anytime soon. I must admit that the prospect of seeing Kaka in the Premier League is an interesting one, but at that price?
No one is worth that kind of money. And to be honest, I kind of ‘gave up’ on football some months ago after realizing how negative fans, me included, think. I want to be entertained and enjoy what players offer me, not scrutinize their every move.

I’m off again, reading about one more friend probably not winning the battle with cancer just weighs too heavy on me.

Update: Luckily Lisa Lisa hasn’t given up yet still a very sad day.

It was a difficult situation and many people ‘close’ to us have done their best to abuse all possible options. Although, pessimistic as I usually am towards people and knew they were looking to find their foothold against one of us, I did not see the signs coming, but they were trying to drive us apart.
It was a very emotional road, a rollercoaster bigger than most attraction parks offer, and we both committed a lot to the cause. Driven in our commitment we initially grew apart. Grew apart after an awesome and very promising first contact. Sometimes it’s just the way life goes. It is sad that I did not always see the road they tried to walk, thus allowing them to abuse a possible split between us, worse even thus allowing me not to believe 200% in You.

Still, and most important of all, even though the road we walked together was very ‘cobbly’ at times, we did an awesome job and I am sure you will do an even better job as time moves off. You are the right guy for this project and you will succeed. I regret not to be able to be there and side with you in the future, but hope our professional roads will continue to collaborate, not just at national meetings.

The gift some months ago was not just ‘something’, it was a sincerely meant present, a present because you believed in me and gave me a chance although I probably was the least qualified for the job. When we first met I immediately ‘sensed’ you. Since then many disruptive things have happened and I forgot to ignore them, ignore them like I did to initial doubts I might have had about our collaboration and ignoring those doubts was the right thing to do because they were plainly stupid.

One thing I have learned over last months: no matter how rough the road together might have been at times, from the start there were great dynamics between us and last weeks have shown that ‘they’ were/are wrong in their arguments.

Right now I only have one dream: I hope that no matter what might happen to you, bother you, annoy you, that if some day you need help/assistance you will let me know and allow me to help, advise you.

P.S.: I will not accept any linguistic analysis from your partner, I bet her knowledge is not focused on people writing in their fourth language :P
I might come back to her if one day I need an editor for a great blogging gig ;)

They do not understand the value, importance of lime. No you don’t put lemon in a G&T.

The fact that the Tanqueray is brought to you by a Brit girl, with the accompanying bottles of Tonic and _lemon_ don’t make this lack of knowledge more acceptable.

I must admit that I used to be a rather addicted gamer as a kid, when my parents still had our first C64. Mission Impossible, Summer and Winter Games, Spy vs. Spy all were very high on my activity list, just like arcade games such as Outrun, Double Dragon and Streetfighter II. And I certainly am not the only one who prefers these games on modern titles.
Once the C64 was replaced by an Amiga and then OS2, gaming was sent to background. The whole console rage just happened but never caught any of my attention. Just like the whole iPod thing. Until recently.

As previously said, the real reason I bought a PS3 was because I wanted to upgrade my movography (?) to Blu-ray, now the platform war finally was won and the PS3 seemed the most appropriate, feature rich low-budget BD player at that time. Once confronted with lots of freetime, a new discovery started. Sometimes I liked playing Need for Speed on my PC and with the release of NfS Undercover imminent I purchased a secondhand version of NfS Carbon some weeks ago. Although initially I was annoyed by the poor aliasing in the 1080p display and the impossibility of listening to my own music while playing, quickly I started enjoying the controller and the great sound the PS3 delivered on my new amplifier. I purchased some more games, mainly the high rated ones, those not requiring to be an awarded pianist a button freak, and soon playing replaced the countless hours I previously spend reading online.
Right now, after only some weeks, several games have been added to the collection already and it is only a matter of time before I become a Button Master. First I have to finish Oblivion Platinum Edition, GTA, MGS 4 and Soulcalibur 4. NfS Undercover, FIFA09 and Race Grid: Driver already have been sent to the bookcase. NfS because it was another typical boring EA release.

Ever since Ian Parker-Joseph, leader of the UK Libertarian Party commented on the 1984 entry, I have been reading about Libertarians in the UK and the Libertarian Party .

Having lived in Germany, but also as a qualified police agent in my home country, the 1984-issue is a sensible one for me, but also an issue of mixed feelings.
I actually do have NO problems with the gouvernment collecting my data. Get over it, but there’s no issue with a compulsory ID card, nor is there with handing over all my internet logs to the authorities. The problem only arises when this huge data collection can create paranoia, when there is no law protecting the privacy of citizens.

I must admit that when I came to the UK, the thought of being almost 24/7 on CCTV was a scary one, but soon I got used to this new form of Big Brother spying upon me. Especially since I had just left Germany, a country where it is NOT allowed to log IP addresses. The same country where a law regulates that internet providers log the login to the internet, emails and VOIP calls. This combined with a stringent set of laws on regulating the protection of personal data. The UK is not alone, Big Brother is watching you all over, in any country, and I seriously doubt that most so-called privacy anal-retentists browse online anonymously or avoid cloud based services such as GMail and Google Web History and consequently block cookies from third parties such as ad providers, statistics programs and many more. Probably most of them have at least one credit card, and maybe even participate in several bonus card systems in their favourite shops, thus allowing everyone and their neighbours to analyse their spending patterns.

Your privacy is an illusion. I’m drifting. Back to the Libertarians.

Wikipedia offers, via the Internet Encyclopedia of Psychology, following definition of Libertarianism:

Libertarians are committed to the belief that individuals, and not states or groups of any other kind, are both ontologically and normatively primary; that individuals have rights against certain kinds of forcible interference on the part of others; that liberty, understood as non-interference, is the only thing that can be legitimately demanded of others as a matter of legal or political right; that robust property rights and the economic liberty that follows from their consistent recognition are of central importance in respecting individual liberty; that social order is not at odds with but develops out of individual liberty; that the only proper use of coercion is defensive or to rectify an error; that governments are bound by essentially the same moral principles as individuals; and that most existing and historical governments have acted improperly insofar as they have utilized coercion for plunder, aggression, redistribution, and other purposes beyond the protection of individual liberty.

Noble words, as is the case with almost any ideology. The principle of liberty has been forgotten in most parts of our world and has become the same illusion that your privacy is. A visit to the UK Libertarian’s website makes the ideology sound even better:

At long last there is another way forwards for our country; one which puts you, rather than the corrupt politicians at Westminster, firmly in charge. Our policies provide real-world solutions to the real-world challenges that we all face today, and do so whilst putting government and the State back in their rightful place as the servants, rather than the masters, of us all.

Who would not immediately want to become a member of this Party?
When you start reading their manifesto, feelings might chance be reinforced even more, depending on what your favourite movie is. Did you take the Red Pill and do you believe in The Matrix?

If you answered both questions with Yes go now and apply for your membership.

If you also are a firm believer in the morals of the movie Fight Club, you will have even more sympathy for the LPUK:

We will amend the Firearms Acts to repeal the pistol ban, which has both completely failed to reduce armed crime and crippled our country’s ability to compete in the pistol shooting events in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, while depriving law-abiding householders of the ability to defend their homes with one of the most suitable weapons available. [From the LPUK Manifesto, topic Law and Order]

Things become interesting here, especially when we hit over to The Devil’s Kitchen, a funny and well-written thought-provoking blog, started by one of the LPUK co-founders (Warning: common offensive language). Actually a political blog right down my alley.

Today’s entry seems to fit the provoking, but also _scary_ mentality of the LPUK:

We might instead say that if we impose systems under which children are only forcibly separated from their parents under the very worst of circumstances, and under which parents are not always and unequivocally treated as evil abusers if they fail to live up to ideal standards of parenting, then sometimes this will mean that children will suffer horribly and die – but that it will avoid a far larger number of children suffering horribly by being taken into council care without good cause.

And fuck, if we’re libertarians rather than just blathering cunts, we might say that this is the *right thing to fucking do*.

A very powerful but dangerous message, prone to be understood wrongly. Ad rem and also bordering the style of propaganda which always will be listened to when countries experience negative economic downturns. The same style of propaganda alike style, which made the secessionist Vlaams Blok popular in the Belgian 1991 elections. The style of propaganda which could lead to a bump in popularity, because in a country driven by binge drinking a petty crime, isn’t it true that everyone has the right to defend themselves? And we admit:

Allowing people to carry firearms certainly will lead to the death of several people on the compulsory Friday after work binge drink, but at least the victims will have had the opportunity to shoot back.

Libertarians of the LPUK, let’s rehearse the populist blogging style once more please.

The ‘Harsh’ Facts

• I like thought provoking, harsh and highly aggressive opinions if based on factual truths.
• I must admit that The Devil’s Kitchen could quickly become my favourite UK blog
• DK has the potential to bring the highly offensive blogger madbull back.
• I consider myself a Libertarian.
• I like to provoke and select quotes just to ridiculize things. Fisking?

The UK government is planning to track everything you do on-line and on the phone. Even if you have done nothing wrong, every e-mail you send, every website you visit, every text you send and every call you make will be tracked, logged, categorized and stored for years.

Through an innocuous sounding “Intercept Modernisation Programme”, the government wants telephone and internet companies to send all their logs to a centralized system where it will be made accessible to law enforcement and military agencies at will.

Read more about the threat here, here and here.

Now that your car numberplate is scanned daily and CCTV tracks you up to 300 times per day, the government wants to invade the final bastion of privacy – the sanctity of your own home. In an effort that mimics George Orwell’s dystopian book 1984, it now wants to log all electronic communication between everyone.

Neither terrorism nor crime poses a threat big enough to warrant such sinister intrusion into the daily lives of innocent citizens. While targeted monitoring of potential criminals can be justified in many cases, instantly turning 61 million citizens into suspects is not British, not moral and not befitting for a democracy no matter the threat. Irrespective of the moral implications of this proposed tracking, do you really trust the government to keep all this information secure? How many times have we heard about supposed private information being dropped or intentionally leaked in the last year alone?

We do not want to live in a society where innocent people have to worry about what they say, what they do and how they act. If the Intercept Modernisation Programme, or any programme like it, goes through, it will kill the democracy it is trying to preserve. Even the Information Commisioner, Richard Thomas, has described this as a “step too far“.

Please sign the petition against these plans on the Prime Minister’s website.

If you feel strongly about this, please consider forwarding this information to your friends or tell them about the threat in some other way.

Thank you.

Via Michael Heilemann.

iCult, I love you.
Unrelated: my work Vista PC still hasn’t crashed, frozen or whatsoever. Since November 2006.

We will not be bullied, and people who file frivolous lawsuits need to be put down. I would rather run TechCrunch into the ground and go out of business than let this guy win.

The will to share, the possibility to share. The ease of sharing.
The eternal chase for that special invite to a closed, private beta. The fear of missing out on the next big thing, only accessing a new service when they launch publicly.

The ease of meeting new people, the ease of accessing awesome content. Short or long. That same ease to throw everything overboard again and forget about those new people, that awesome content and enjoy life, enjoy the always rainy weather in this country.

I am confuzed. I want to blog again, I really want to write again but sadly can’t settle on a topic. I’m your usual geek, always learning, leeching knowledge and discovering new stuff, even new professional ventures in. But, I tasted life…

…a long time ago. It’s out there, it’s knocking on the door. It’s shouting at me. Yelling!

Telling me to get out there. No, not in to RL, but pick up there where I left. Dissect themes, skin them, write reviews, share my _oh so_ interesting opinion on online stuff. Become an authority in commentary. I need an outlet.

But most of all… not just stalk people in my IM list, get in touch with them. They all were good friends and I dropped of the internet. So if I hit you up anytime soon, you’ve been warned.
And hopefully I can work at all those drafts I started. Drafts about themes, blog platforms and plenty of commentary. Now it’s time for Beetlejuice though . And maybe IM.

The beauty of social networking finally has come to reality: I have met someone I first met online in real life.

The irony: we only lived about 700 yards away from each other.

It was a pleasure to finally be able to connect the virtual world with reality.

Sadly my thighs and legs don’t agree though. :)

But now, I’m back online.

Armed with everything I might eventually need (Model number, serial number, purchase date, invoice number and .pdf invoice), I rang 0870-SAMSUNG, although the printer was purchased at Pixmania, I first was greeted by a loudly laughing woman. Laughing, not greeting. No niceties. When after some seconds I hesitantly said ‘Hello?!‘, I knew from her reply I had dialed the correct number. Yes, I was connected to the Samsung Help Desk. Phew.

Optimist/Pessimist/Cynic I am, I had only given myself 5-8 minutes to sort this out or I would have ordered a new printer. I am in the first month of my new IT budget and honestly am too lazy to walk to the network printer. Network printing, a former pet-peeve of mine. My desk though… has its own printer.

I was really surprised when within less than two minutes I had received both a reference number and the promise that a technical agent would call me in the next two hours. Not once was I asked where or when I did purchase that printer, nor did I have to go into detail about my problem.

That was easy. Let the wait begin now.

But there was no wait. Only few minutes later a Samsung Tech Agent called me and asked me to describe the problem. Not knowing how a printer is engineered, this proved to be a much more difficult problem than expected. What can be that hard about explaining that a printer doesn’t grab the paper anymore, all while making loud, protesting noises, before throwing a ‘Online error’ at you? The agent luckily was whether a bad car driver or had several friends who couldn’t handle the gearbox of a car properly, because the analogy ‘If you can’t find’em, grind’em‘, immediately explained what my problem was.

Within the next 2-3 days Samsung UK will drop off a new unit for me. No need to send mine in, wait for weeks and pay shipping costs.

That’s what I call Customer Service. Service with a capital S. Especially considering the fact that the printer only cost GBP 47.99 (less than $100).
Well done Samsung.

Update 04.15.2008: The new (refurb?) unit arrived today. Hats off, Samsung Customer Care. :-)

What proves this? My NADD. The numbers of projects I have been taking on over the last 2 weeks has significantly grown again, with the usual pressure of having taken on way too much already. And still I usually manage to find some time to discover new stuff.
Tell me what’s on your tray, screen right now. And what else goes through your mind?

This is my palette right at the moment:

• As usually music is playing. Stalk me at last.fm. I even manage it to skip tracks, I don’t like, in Party Shuffle .
• Both Mail and NetNewsWire are constantly open and update regularly. I love to keep both read and answered if needed. I like it clean, empty.
• The usual tabs (around 7) are open in Safari and checked regularly .
• Coda has become a part of my daily after work workflow. In Coda, 2 projects: a WP design and Chyrp. Both call for Photoshop with 2 different mockups.
• Today I have been playing with Tablecloth and Blueprint.
• Several IRC rooms open in Colloquy.
• Restricted IM profile in Adium and obviously Twitterific.

Other thoughts occupying me right at the moment are the day job and the project we recently started plus two major annoyances we bumped in to at work last 10 days. Those 3 factors actually already large enough to occupy most people and make them look forward to a relaxed evening in front of the tube.

But in the evening, when arriving home, there’s the bane of the online presence calling me. The inconvenience about being in the active online back end world, wanting to stay up to date? It’s not the high amount of hours or the double shift, it’s the desire of always wanting to try out the newest stuff. New software, new online platforms and applications even . It’s the thrill to learn new stuff.

And then there’s the dating thing and upcoming V-Day. I have been invited already. I haven’t RSVP’ed yet.

Right now, I must take care of my laundry though and then spend an hour cleaning. I think. If the internet doesn’t call me back. Or new entries tumbled in my feed reader.
Luckily I have no kids, that would just dry me insane!

I do not visit social networks anymore. I have left the sphere around problogging and both were a relieve. I also have buried some other ongoing annoyances from last 2 years: exes and the trainwreck BlogExplosion.

So I went to the Apple store in the Manchester Arndale Center for the first time.

Loaded with cash.
Plastic cash.

I had lots of plans.

Although the conversion to Mac OS X came with several problems, and certainly missed Windows (network) features, I had decided over the last days to refocus on video… and now wanted some decent equipment. The MacBook is fun, cool and easy to carry around… but lacks in power. So I was going to get a MBP. Updated or not.

And a 2.8Ghz iMac as well.

And a new phone. Funnily enough I broke the screen of my shitty LG Shine yesterday afternoon and now I needed a new phone too.
Only two models made it past my initial internet quest: the iPhone and the Samsung U900 Black.

But I needed more. Since I already have sold the Dell notebook, I wasn’t going to feel bad about buying some superfluous stuff for everything and decided I wanted some stuff.

• A black iNcase sleeve for both MB and MBP.
• As every music fan, I wanted more and better than the standard iPod (touch) earbuds and had dropped my eye on a pair of Sennheiser in-ear buds;
• Because we do (almost) everything at the computer, the set of matching iSkin keyboard protectors.
• The obvious MiniDVI to DVI-D converter
• Some cases and scratch protectors for both iPod Touch and iPhone;
• A certain book about Final Cut Pro;
• Last but not least Mac OS X 10.5 for the MB, which was configured with Tiger when it arrived.

All these items are available over the Apple store and since the Arndale Center store one of the less than 10 shops in the UK is, i expected them to have everything obviously. Even the iPhone.
I already had decided I couldn’t be bothered by offering the Carphone Warehouse or O2 the commission and would buy everything from Apple directly. In person. Physically.
Not online.

I made an error.

Contrarily to most switchers, when I arrived at the Apple Store and a salesmen jumped at me, even before I had enjoyed 30 seconds of time to browse, I did not as to speak to a Genius. No, I knew what I wanted and Google had helped me with all the other stuff last days.
Suffocated as I felt, I first asked for an iPod touch case. ‘We’re sold out, but here’s a store card and feel free to ring us to check if we have new ones in stock. We’ll gladly put one aside for you.’

Dumb ass, I thought. There are no official iPod touch cases yet, other than the Socks, but whatevah.

My next question was a harder one. I wanted a Toslink wire to connect any device, mainly the soon to be bought MBP with my kick ass stereo.
Why have a Mac and only enjoy sound over crappy built-in speakers?

Again I was confronted with the same answer: ‘We’re sold out.’
Luckily I had drunk MY kool-aid before I went to the Arndale Center and lassively I answered ‘No worries, I’ll order them online.’

I honestly was starting to doubt the so raved about Apple service. Especially when after walking and browsing some in this Ikea designed store puristic designed store, with way too many people in it, I found my Toslink cable and also the MiniDVI to DVI-D adapter I had asked for in between grumbling teeth.

At a totally different spot than where the interim employee with the Faster Than Shadow Apple Store Card Move^TM looked.

Of the 3 people who read here, luckily there’s no one who doesn’t know that I’m a bitch^TM, so I guess you all can imagine my appetite for more Apple stuff was gone. Even the iPhone appetite.

End result? I left the store with a Leopard install pack, a Toslink connector which fits every MP3 device, except the iPod touch, the iSkin protector I wanted, the iNcase sleeve in Khaki because obviously no black one was available, my wanted MiniDVI to DVI-D connector and iPhone socks.
The iPhone, iMac and MBP? Maybe I’ll get some next week when I’m in the Arndale Center again, but today the awesome customer service killed my mood to splash money.
Even if it were only an interim employer, just there because of the launch of the iPhone… the Apple Store is that big and has that many items that I knew where everything was within 20 minutes.

I’ve done it again… Mark all as read. And deleted a bunch of feeds. And at the same time added a bunch of personal blogs again.

The why is simple. I had to play, play with the newest gadget. But most of all because I’m sick of blogging about blogging and bloggers blogging about bloggers. Some days of reflexion confirmed what I already knew: blogging about blogging just isn’t my cup of cappuccino. It will mean a return to tech blogging.

And that MacBook is damn sexy.

Hasn’t fried my eggs once yet, but I could imagine getting used to it. Actually I haven’t used any of the Windows computers anymore since Friday. I discovered right-click for Mac already and even connected my Logitech Bluetooth mouse.

Adium is sexy, the built-in iSight sucks, just as much as .Mac does and window focus after Vista is annoying. I loved the auto hover focus, now I forget to click and start tying always.

My dock is full already and everything I need is installed. Even Remote Desktop for Mac.

Looking forward to go to the local Mac store soon and grab the new alu wireless keyboard, the mini-DVI adapter, a bunch of cases and last but not least Leopard.

On another note: of course it wasn’t going to take long before the iPod Touch was jailbroken. It took me four long days to resist the temptation.

This is my last Mac/Apple post here, future ones will be at the Apple Files Blog, but I first need to finish my design there. Cutline free. Now if only the [delete] button would work as [delete] and not [backspace].

Update: Can’t believe I had to figure this out all on my own, but [delete] is [fn] + [delete]. The keyboard delete is [backspace]. This obviously also is valid for the new wireless alu keyboard.

I got sacked. Sacked with growing results, sometimes rather impressive results, other moments less immense but still acceptable results.
Sacked because I was sick and the germs lasted longer than I had hoped. Sacked because in that period I dropped of the planet and hardly ever had energy to blog, all while still having a full time job.

A non-blogging blog editor.

I must note, that although they want another editor, I didn’t really try to stay on board, nor did I take the option

In terms of our future relationship, I still really want to work with you and am very grateful for all you have done for me and XXX. I am prepared to meet your min. requirement of $XXXX per month and still want you to head up the advertising/sales. Plus you can write wherever you want for $XX-$XX per post. And I’m open to joining with you on a new project.

Anyone knows that little fucker pride?
That silly bugger which makes you say ‘I’m out’ when it got hurt? Hurt because at one blog the growth was almost 100% feed subscribers in only 10 weeks?

Thing is I got sacked degraded and my pride prevented me from accepting the offer, continuing the future relationship and setting up the new project together. Or selling ads to stick on tons of blogs.

It’s Franky, b*tches. I’m back.