Right then: I’ve made a tentative foray into the world of webtools for urban living: The Farringdon Lane Docking Station on Twitter. Now I need help making it better.
There’s a long established trend of inanimate objects being on Twitter, including Tower Bridge and The River Thames. In both cases, they update people on crucial aspects of their current status: for example, is the tide in or out? I felt it was time this particular bike rack joined the service – as a keen user of Boris Bikes (an ironic moniker given they were commissioned by Ken Livingstone) I often need to check the status of the rack outside the Free Word Centre (where I work).
The Farringdon Lane Docking Station is a popular rack, one that is usually either (a) completely full with no space to park a bike, or (b) completely empty with no cycles available to use. For that reason, I often find myself trying to check the status of the racks online or on the move. Unfortunately, the workflow required is relatively difficult, involving several steps through the website or iPhone apps like Fliplab’s London Cycle. This actually takes a fair few frustrating minutes via a 3G connection, which is no good when I am in a hurry and keen to make a quick decision about whether to take a tube train or a bike.
I thought I could solve this by creating a twitter account that automatically updates itself, whenever the status of the dock changes. That way, whenever I think I may need a bike, I can simply fire-up my twitter application of choice and look at the latest status of the docking station. I don’t have to load unnecessary information about the status of every other docking station.
Unfortunately, my coding skills are minimal and limited to simple PHP. I don’t have the wherewithal to pull data from the London Cycle Hire site using their API. I solved this by making a customised RSS feed using the Feed43 (Feed for free) service. This scrapes the cycle hire map page (which has the status of all the bike racks embedded into it). Then I used Twitterfeed to post the results into a customised twitter account. The results are below:
The problem with my system should be obvious! If the chain of data was linked together properly, then we should be able to see every single change in status, not a huge jump from 16|0 to 8|8. This is clearly happening because both Feed43 and Twitterfeed pull data a long but regular intervals, not on a second-by-second or minute-by-minute basis. This is useless for my purposes. How can I improve it?
Month: February 2011 (Page 2 of 3)
First they came for the prisoners.
A few weeks ago, MPs voted to ignore the European Court of Human Rights. The court in Strasbourg had said that a blanket ban on prisoners voting was incompatible with human rights law, and that the British government should rectify this. Following a debate in the House of Commons, Parliament thumbed its nose at the Court, as MPs voted 234 to 22 to keep a full ban on prisoners. Our Prime Minister put blatant populism above politics, declaring that “giving prisoners the vote makes me sick” (even if that means paying £143 million in compensation from the barren public purse).
Then they came for the paedophiles.
This week, we heard that those convicted of sex offences might not have to stay on the sex-offenders register for life. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that those included on the register should be able to appeal against permanent inclusion on the list, and on Tuesday it rejected a Home Office appeal against the ruling. The Government now has to formulate a policy based on this decision. At PMQs, David Cameron called the situation “appalling”.
There are clear similarities between these two stories. Both present issues where what might be considered the popular and common-sense approach is over-ruled by judges, forcing the Government to do something counter-intuitive. Both stories will inspire tabloid frothing at judge-made law. And in both cases, there are actually good and sober reasons why the judges ruled as they did, and why we should support their decisions. In the case of prisoners voting, such a change could catalyze the reform of prisons into places that offer better rehabilitation for convicts. Moreover, if a person will be released within the lifetime of a parliament, why shouldn’t they have a say on who will be representing them once they’re out? Similar arguments exist for sex offenders: In cases where a prisoner has been rehabilitated, coming off the sex offenders register might help reintegration.
It is crucial to remember that in both cases, all the courts did was rule against an absolutist approach: No ‘blanket’ ban on prisoners’ votes; and sex offenders have the right to appeal, not an absolute right to come off the register. The best comparisons for these issues are with parole or bail – you have the right to apply for it, but you might not get it. It is left to magistrates and judges to decide, depending on the actual circumstances.
So there may well be good reasons why extending the rights of some pretty unpleasant people might improve the whole of society… but it is for the penal reform groups to advance that argument. My concern is with how both these stories have been discussed by politicians – The Prime Minister in particular. With his bully-pupit, he has set a terrible example, placing the blame with the judiciary. His comments are clearly designed to undermine the European Court, the Convention on Human Rights and its manifestation in British law, the Human Rights Act (HRA). David Cameron and his allies have never been comfortable with that document, and these outbursts are designed to soften MPs and the public into agreeing to a watered-down Bill of Rights that will make our standing as citizens more tenuous.
Everyone remembers Pastor Martin Neimöller’s famous poem, which begins “First they came for the Communists” and ends with the narrator alone, with no-one left to speak in his defence. The moral should be clear: If you don’t stand up for the human rights of others, then eventually you will lose your own rights; stand up for the rights of others, and you protect yourself. But while we remember the poem, I think we fail to relate it to the present day. Neimöller’s victims, the Jews, the Trade Unionists, and the Communists, are all inoffensive and mainstream today, so we assume we are far away from the oppression described. But what we forget is that during Neimöller’s lifetime, all these groups were among the most vilified: the rhetorical equivalent of paedophiles and prisoners today.
What the Prime Minister seems to forget, is that Human Rights laws are designed to protect the most hated in our society, not least because these people are always amongst the most vulnerable too. They are supposed to frustrate our gut reaction. They are meant to be inconvenient. That the Courts’ rulings have caused outrage is actually a feature of our democracy, and not a bug. Kudos to the 22 MPs who recognised that, and shame on the Prime Minister. By undermining the principle of human rights, he undermines us all.
Update
This was crossposted over at LiberalConspiracy.org in a more succint form. It got a fairly good response in the comments, although Tyler makes a good point:
Voting is not a human right. As is so often confused by so many on the liberal left, it is a CIVIL right. It is thus conferred on people by the laws of the land. It is granted to an individual by citizenship, and is not unalienable or transferrable, unlike free speech etc.
If it were a human right there would be no real reason why children shouldn’t have the vote, for example…
As such, this argument that voting is some form of human right is simply the wrong one.
Mea culpa, but the central points remain intact.
One protester made a helpful explainer for President Mubarak. It says “Mubarak leaves. Yes: Parliament dissolves. No: Protests, disobedience. strikes.” Photo: Al-Jazeera English on Flickr, creative commons.
My earlier idea about publishing the thoughts of the protesters in Tahrir Square seemed to cause confusion. Sunny said:
@robertsharp59 so, er, we’re publishing blogposts by people within the square…after the event is over?
Well, that was not quite the intention. The blogposts I have read from people ‘on the ground’ in Cairo and elsewhere seem to focus on the movements of the security forces and pro-Mubarak counter-protests, or other ‘in-the-moment’ stories. The use of the word ‘think tank’ to describe the discussions taking place within the square caught my eye, because it implies discussions of policy and new political structures: More forward looking, and less reactive.
It may be that such discussions and ideas have already found their way online, but I’ve not seen many, and in any case they are scattered around the web. Such ideas that are coming out are filtered, either through journalists or by experts who are not part of the protests. These reports and analyses are valuable, of course, but I think primary accounts would have a certain value at this precise political moment. As The Bee said
@robertsharp59 @sunny_hundal Would be really good to get the view from the inside & not “retold” by someone else
(More thoughts in response to my idea on The Bee’s website, which awesomely is in English and German.)
On Facebook, Sophie Mayer was enthusiastic, and reminds me of the We Are Iran project.
I see something on the model of We Are Iran crossed with a conference proceedings… Would be an amazing record of a moment and an opportunity to organise ideas and information. Oh for a mimeograph!
Update
A couple of PEN members may be putting this together with their contacts in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Libya! Get in touch via the comments if you would like to help.
Update 2
Following my post earlier this week about Failed Multiculturalism Jumping the Shark, I was all-eyes when Alex Massie has suggested that using “political correctness” as an insult may have gone the same way:
First, let’s note that “politically correct” is a degraded insult these days. If jumping the shark hadn’t jumped the shark itself I’d say that political correctness jumped the shark long ago. Disparaging those who disagree with you as “politically correct” isn’t an argument, it’s a way of avoiding argument. Look at me, it says, and see how brave I am to stand alone against the tide. Here I must stand for I can do no other. Unlike the soft-headed simpletons who prefersome sort of lemming-like approach that makes them feel warm and fuzzy. Alternatively, perhaps “politically correct” is just another word for fashionable these days.
If either of my readers are not au fait with the term Jumping the Shark, here’s all you need to know about the phrase.
Tahrir Square – “The biggest think-tank in the Middle East”
In the Western world, there is much hand-wringing over just how our people and governments can help the people of Egypt get a better government. Since we are viewed as part of the problem, any interventions (either supporting the Mubarak regime, or condemining it more forcefully) will likely make matters worse. So for now, we hear slightly patronising platitudes about how the Egyptian people “must decide for themselves” followed by cautionary tales of radical Islam in the very next breath.
There is one way in which Western nations – or rather, the people civil society groups in those nations – could help the pro-democracy groups, and that is by publishing their message. With communications still slow and unreliable in Egypt itself, the messages of What They Actually Want are patchy, stilted, and vulnerable to pro-Mubarak spin.
In Tahrir Square, just over one hour ago, Mostafa Hussein sends out the following message:
Tahrir square is the biggest brainstorming & think-tank in the middle east and possible the world now. #egypt #jan25
Well then: how about the people of Europe and North America, with their unrivalled and unfettered communications network, publish the preliminary findings of this new think-tank?
I do not mean “Let’s publish thoughts of Egyptian journalists and analysts” or “thoughts of Arab writers” or “eye witness accounts of what is happening”. I mean, why not publish the debates and discussions of those in the square right now.
Now, I actually think that a book is the right medium for this. Something that has been formally published and can exist in printed form has a certain authority and weight (literally and metaphorically) that these ideas need. TV interviews and news reports are two-a-penny and far too transient, as are blogs, YouTube Channels and Twitter feeds. A book on the otherhand – even a short book – can step outside the river of news and become something more tangible and influential. It will be something other than the charter of the Muslim Brotherhood, that everyone can point to as an alternative to Mubarak and his henchmen.
With the new digital inventions at our fingertips, there are no technical barriers to doing this. Initiatives like The Benjamin Franklin Project have shown that the free tools on the Internet are all that is required to gather and publish news and views. And the means to pull content together are already in operation down on Tahrir Square. Lulu.com allows you to publish a proper book, with an ISBN and a listing on Amazon, almost on a whim.
So, how about a British or American civil society group offers to spend until the end of this week managing the project, and undertakes to publish the book, in English, to an international audience. I am thinking of a projects of the scope of The New Liberal Arts project – short essays. I reckon think tanks like Demos, or the Fabian Society have the capacity to pull this off… or maybe a forward think news organisation like OpenDemocracy, The Guardian, or The Atlantic?
Update
A couple of PEN members may be putting this together with their contacts in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Libya! Get in touch via the comments if you would like to help.