Thoughts and wanderings around the internet, e-government and geekdom.
Evidence-based policy and democracy looks at the paradox that evidentially improving public services (e.g. crime rates) show declines in public perception (e.g. fear of crime statistics). My take on the thesis: Currently the public feels disconnected from the decision-making process, so won’t believe “spin” published by the government. If the public were more connected to the decisions and how they were made, they might recognise and understand the evidence.
I just added Google Analytics to my site, despite feeling slightly wrong about giving yet more of the world’s information to the big G. Anyway, I was surprised to see that the visitors from my site come from a splendid spread of locations. Very little in North Asia or Africa, but that pretty well tracks internet usage and my rare or complete lack of postings about those areas.
Google Analytics for this site
Eye Movement and Lying is a neat no-nonsense guide to what might or might not work in this area. It feels about right for the way I work. Would reactions could well change in stress situations? Generally no; I guess they might be more likely to behave like the norm. One to try at the mediation on Wednesday week (my family – not me and Caroline!).
Will the Mac mini take over the front room? I think it could – it’s already doing well in mine, and that’s the “old” version with the Front Row hack on it.
A speech and a declaration I found interesting: Gordon Brown on globalisation and the Ministerial declaration at the Manchester e-Government conference. Both looking forward, both with some substance, unusually.
Cybercrime yields more cash than drugs? Seems difficult to make those numbers stand up, especially since it includes corporate espionage, child pornography, stock manipulation, extortion and piracy. Then again, cybercrime requires far fewer real assets, so should be better at scaling up than drugs.
Pledgebank, one of the e-Innovations funded projects has helped create an organisation. The pledge was “I’ll set up a fiver a month standing order if 1,000 other people do”. Over 1,000 have, which gives a minimum starting point of £60k a year – enough for part time part-paid volunteers (or a full-timer) and some marketing. Nice idea, and I’m sure there are a whole pile of similar national, regional and local organisations that could work the same way. Question: how many people will convert to paying having signed the pledge. It’s not an eBay thing where there is a legal relationship once you offer to buy something.
With the new toy (Treo 650) comes the need to try a new blogging tool. so here it is.
Maybe I should reconsider my long-standing aversion to iTunes on the PC. It sounds like most of the things that annoy me are being fixed within or without the system. Now to work out how to maintain a 60Gb iTunes library and sync part of it with a 40Gb iRiver. Haven’t succeeded yet in a way that doesn’t involve exporting everything every time.
Treo 650 tips and tricks is mostly applications, but some useful ones.
As may be clear, I got the new 650 on Friday, so have been playing around with it for a few days. First impressions – it’s far faster and has a simply beautiful screen. Otherwise its much the same.