Gary Gale 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 1: Can You Increase Privacy With More Surveillance… And More Transparency?

    Gary Gale ( profile ), 15 Nov, 2014 @ 05:12am

    Overtones of "The Culture"?

    There's a strong parallel (to me at least) between the transparent and always monitored society posited in this podcast and that of the late, lamented, Iain M Banks' Culture novels, where everyone could, if they wanted to, monitor everyone else and privacy was more a product of not being interested than concealing one's activities (and no I'm not suggesting that the desire to conceal is a bad thing) or not having them being monitored.

    To quote Wikipedia ...

    "At one point it is said that if the Culture actually had written laws, the sanctity of one's own thoughts against the intrusion of others would be the first on the books.

    This gives some measure of privacy and protection; though the very nature of Culture society would, strictly speaking, make keeping secrets irrelevant: most of them would be considered neither shameful nor criminal."

    Any podcast which makes me think is a good podcast and this was a great podcast.

    Keep 'em coming!

  • On the post: Colbert Takes On SOPA

    Gary Gale ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2011 @ 02:57am

    Err, Viacom ... People Outside Of The US Might Want To See This Too You Know

    As a UK resident, I'm watching the whole SOPA and PROTECT IP thing with interest as the UK has a horrible habit of importing such ideas into this country.

    Click through onto the web from the Techdirect daily email and I get ...

    "Sorry, this video is unavailable from your location"

    Shame I can't actually see the video clips on this post as Viacom obviously thinks it's not something that people outside of the US would actually want to see.

  • On the post: Because When MetroPCS Says 'No Contract,' It Actually Means 'Well, Of Course There's A Contract'

    Gary Gale ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2010 @ 12:59am

    An International Problem

    There's a prime example of this sort of language mangling going on here in the UK at the moment will billboards from T-Mobile screaming about FREE TEXTS FOR LIFE ... where "for life" means if you continue to top up your pay as you go phone with a minimum amount and "free" means it's included in the price of the top up.

    So, neither "free", nor "for life" ... two manglings for the price of one.