Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Pop along to Oblomovka for Danny O'Brien's take on the decision at OpenTech 2005 to set up a PledgeBank pledge that aims to set up initial funding for a UK-based digital rights organisation (an EFF-UK).

The rationale for the £5 subscription sounds good:

What can you do with a monthly budge of 5000UKP a month? Well, at the risk of sounding "Just Five Pounds Will Free This Poor DRMed Document And Let It Roam Free In One of Our Free Range Open Standards", we did some back of the envelope calculations after the talk, and agreed we could do something: Probably two staffers and an office.

One would act as a media conduit. Half our problem in the UK right now is that the press just don't have anyone in their address books that they can confidently call about on these issues. As Rufus said, most of the time they just run music industry press releases as news. The biggest lesson for me with NTK was that your best way to influence the agenda, and generate support, is to generate stories, and point people to the right experts. Just having someone at the end of a phone, handing out quotes and press releases, and pro-actively calling journalists to make sure they know what's going on, putting them in contact with all the other orgs in this area in the UK, is half the work.

The rest of the job is actual activism (one person can do a lot, if they don't need to cram all their white paper writing, research, and lobbying between contract coding sessions, and finishing their university degree) and bootstrapping more funding.

So: another pledge that looks worthwhile supporting. Sign-up now and encourage anyone you know to do the same...

Sign spotted on our local pub (which is currently being renovated): "Demolition by Ferrari".

Is latexiron moonlighting?

And is this the real reason for the jet engine?

A familiar face will be returning to the TARDIS in the next series of Doctor Who: Sarah Jane Smith.

Looks as though the second season could be as good as the first...