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Interview 10.2: Sebastian Blogs, Life, and Advice

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Seb Talks about Blogs and Life

Seb Prooth

When we left Seb Prooth of Seb’s Random Thoughts he told us about his current film work on YouTube at YouTube.com Melting Clock, http://www.youtube.com/meltingclock/ and the success he’d enjoyed being part of the www.globalgeekpodcast.com “>Global Geek Podcast.

Seb, How does blogging fit with your life?

This is a really interesting question. It just so happens that I have recently been making the conscious decision to blog more often. With the effect of quitting a weekly podcast and having no other connection with the fast moving world of digital media other than my blog, I decided it was time to take things more seriously.

Aside from that, I usually blog when I have something to say. For instance, last week when Richard Hammond of the BBC’s TopGear was severely injured in a crash, I covered the story on my blog. TopGear is one of my favourite shows and when I saw the headline I was compelled to write something.

Where has your blog taken you so far? Where do you see your blog taking you in the future?

My blog has made my writing better. I have written very formally on the blog at times such as when I talked about the effects of Digg and being Dugg when I openly opposed telemarketers making use of Skype to sell their goods. I see that my blog has made me a name on a couple of forums. On a Google search for “Sebastian Prooth” it pulls something in the region of 40 grand results. Although my efforts in podcasting contribute greatly to those numbers, many of the results are due to things I have said on my blog.

In the future I hope to see my blog progressing as it has been. I enjoy the casual nature of blogging. I have the motto on my site “writing not for hits, but to hit with what I write.” If my site gets Dugg and I get 20 thousand hits in 2 hours, I will be pleased, but If I continue getting 150-500 hits a day for what I write without the assistance of Digg or other mass media distribution service, I am happy with that.

What you tell a younger friend to do if he or she were just starting a blog?

If I was advising a younger friend about blogging I would probably tell him or her to go for it. Definitely. The Internet does not need blogs about what you had for breakfast (unless you are a gourmet chef,) or what you did when you had 20 shots of whatever on Saturday night. The Internet needs blogs where people talk with passion about what they know. I can’t stand it when I go to blogs that are there obviously to benefit a company or to push someone’s agenda. We all have agendas, your blog is not the best place to bare your agenda naked to the world.

The Internet is a cruel place at the same time as being the largest and most resourceful – resource on the planet. If you are going to start a blog, and you want readers the first thing you should consider is if what you are going to write about is of interest to anyone but yourself. I don’t really care if Joe Bloggs (pardon the pun) ate chilli for breakfast. It doesn’t have any bearing on my life. But if you are blogging about a feature on the latest beta release of Windows Vista, or reviewing a film that has just come out, or maybe one that came out before you were born, you have an audience there.

If you don’t care if anyone reads what you write, then I suggest you do whatever you like on your blog. Remember, even though now a tired cliché, do not release a great deal of personal information about yourself. And the last rule of blogging is – ENJOY IT!

Thanks Seb, can’t wait to see where you take your blog next.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Interview 10.1: Sebastian Prooth, Blogger, Podcaster, Film-maker
Interview 9.1: A Conversation with Dr. Tammy Lenski
Interview 8: Marti Lawrence, Blogger, Author, Publisher
Interview 7.1: Meet Cat Morley, World Designer

Net Neutrality 8-1-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

More networked journalism: All for one, one for all

Imagine this from the vision of Tom Evslin: What if all our Skype widgets had a button that allowed us to test and report the speed at which our Skype voice packets were being allowed through by our ISPs. What if then — following the 1 percent rule — just 400,000 of Skype’s 40-million-plus regular users hit that button and reported in how Skype’s — and other applications’ packets — were treated by their ISPs.

This would produce an incredible data base showing whether ISPs are, indeed, discriminating against certain packets and applications to advantage their own. I suspect Cablevision of playing wack-a-mole with my Skype because it works fine on slower lines elsewhere but horribly when I try to do interviews with the Guardian or the BBC (which prefer Skype) from home. But I have absolutely no way of knowing whether this is true. . . .

Now a reporter could take that data and go to ISPs to find out their side and get a good story out of this that has a big impact — one way or the other — on the net neutrality debate. Is there a smoking gun of discrimination to favor ISPs own packets? Or not? Let’s find out and report it.

Now, of course, there is also a sort of Heisenberg principle (using the bastardized definition of it) at work here: When the reporter calls, the ISP may say, ‘Oh, this is a mistake. We don’t discriminate.’ And whatever was switched on gets switched off. Or this could happen simply when the ISPs notice that they are being watched by the magic button. So the act of reporting affects the news reported (but then, it often does).

Now a journalist might say that this ruins the story. But the essential role of reporting remains in force: Journalism is a watchdog and now companies know that their customers are their watchdogs. Every customer is now a reporter.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 7-12-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding these links to the Net Neutrality Page.

Skype and WildBlue – A Case for Citizen (Network) Journalists

The sudden failure of Skype over WildBlue on May 15 and the recent sudden recovery may be a good case for citizen journalists. It MIGHT have implications for the Net Neutrality debate.

Users on the WildBlue Uncensored! Forum report that, starting two weeks ago, they regained the ability to connect to Skype and complete calls. Some of them also report usable call quality. As I posted previously, users say they had generally acceptable VoIP and Skype performance over WildBlue prior to May 15. I wasn’t using WB then so have no firsthand knowledge.

Why did Skype suddenly stop working over WB? Why did it suddenly start again? Did WB block or deprioritize Skype or VoIP packets? Or did a Skype update loose the ability to deal with the extreme latency (delay) expected when a satellite is used? . . .

Feltecomplexities of Network Neutrality n’s paper on the

Ed Felten — the Princeton engineering prof who led the effort to crack the Secure Digital Music Initiative and did yeoman work on the Sony BMG DRM fiasco — has published a fast, ten-page white-paper on the complexities of Network Neutrality. Ed describes the many ways in which Neutrality is hard to enforce, and the ways in which tiered, discriminatory service is likely to have grave outcomes: . . .

. . . Network management is complicated, and many management decisions could impact jitter one way or the other. A network provider who wants to cause high jitter can do so, and might have pretextual excuses for all of the steps it takes. Can regulators distinguish this kind of stratagem from the case of fair and justified engineering decisions that happen to cause a little temporary jitter?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Introducing Seb’s Random Thoughts

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SOB Hall of Famer: Seb’s Random Thoughts

Sebastian Had a Major DIGG Article Yesterday

Sebastian Prooth, owner of Seb’s Random Thoughts and Podcast Periodical, is a student of media, and an avid blogger, writer, and technology enthusiast. He’s also a computer/tech geek with his 12+ years using MS Windows and the OS X system he uses daily next to his PC. Sebastian talks about technology, news, and just about anything that’s going on. This isn’t CNN or Technorati mirror; it’s more of a mirror of the author sharing with readers — from the head and from the heart.

Notes from Liz: Sebatians’s topics might be random, but his thinking on them is anything but. Seb is a deep thinker who brings sincere and insightful viewpoints to whatever electic topic he tackles. Whenever I stop in at Seb’s blog, I find myself leaving a comment because he has spurred me to think about what he has wrote and to respond with as much thought as he has invested. One read of his posts will surely show you what I mean. Click on his logo and see for yourself.

Go there and Digg Seb’s article on Skype. It’s almost 400 now.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Has your SOB Blog Been Introduced to US?
Blog Promotion: May I Introduce You?

Net Neutrality 6-12-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Why has Web 2.0 Been (Relatively) Quiet on Net Neutrality??

The point is that I searched through Technorati, and could not find the usual Web 2.0 suspects writing, but just pointing people to fun videos that are cutesy; they are not really taking the banner of Net Neutrality.

I have discussed this with a couple of other bloggers – and wonder if Web 2.0 has not rushed to this because they are so caught up with themselves. Do they think that the banners of open source, community Web, and whatever the buzz words du jour are going to save their companies? If you look at the Web 2.0 sites -Facebook, Riya, YouTube, Second Life, Songbird, BitTorrent and others – they are total bandwidth hogs. Look at how much Second Life is growing, to the point that it is holding virtual conferences, virtual concerts. But at least is it suited to find ways around the potential costs of the loss of Net Neutrality, as it already charges for membership.

And, well, since Friday it is even a bigger issue since the House rejected Net Neutrality.

Now, while the big Net companies – MSFT, Google, Yahoo – have been to the hill to fight for Net Neutrality, the other side of the debate has just been as active. But is smarter and better at lobbying. Just imagine if the Web 2.0 companies rallied their users to send a letter or email to their Senators and Congressman. Would not those voices be heard, or am I a little too Mr. Smith Goes To Washington?

Net Neutrality: Who voted for What?

The largest telephone and cable companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner want to be able to decide which websites run fast, slow or not at all. They want to be able to charge extra money for fast service and if web sites don’t pay extra then they’ll be doomed to a slow connection.

Net Neutrality wants to ensure that all sites get equal treatment.
The supporters of Net Neutrality include leading high-tech companies such as Amazon.com, Earthlink, EBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Skype, Vonage and Yahoo. Prominent national figures such as Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps have called for stronger Net Neutrality protections.

For More Information check out the Net Neutrality FAQ
Yesterday the House of Representatives voted NO for Net Neutrality. The list below shows the people who voted. I have arranged them by state so you can easily see how your representative voted. If you are FOR Net Neutrality and your representative voted NO then don’t vote for him/her in the next elections.
[THE COMPLETE VOTING LIST FOLLOWS]

The Marching Morons Strike Again [Read more…]

Net Neutrality 5-23-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

The Internet Inventor Speaks Out!

At one point in the comments, [Tim] Berners-Lee says something that absolutely tickles me!

“Suppose your ISP runs an online auction: is there any reason why it should support traffic to eBay at all, when it has its own auction service? Suppose it runs its own on-demand movies – why should it have to allow through HBO packets? Suppose it has its own search portal — why should it give preference to Google’s packets, when the customer has available its own search service? Suppose the degradation happens now, not only to Skype traffic, but traffic from video sources of stations with particular political views? What happens when your ISP’s platinum partners establish favorable treatment for packets from sites with particular views on evolution? It is a slippery slope, and the bottom end is not nice at all. If there is a way of influencing the browsing choices of people, even slightly, there will be money in it, and when there is money in it there will be unscrupulous people trying to get that control. Do you really want to us to set off down that slope? Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.â€?

User Friendly.org Cartoons

THIS IS USER FRIENDLY.ORG
THIS IS USER FRIENDLY.ORG WITHOUT NET NEUTRALITY.

Vile and Revile

I don’t know how there is no law against this. Also, it’s so pathetically transparent that this group is corrupt when their member organizations include Cingular, the American Conservative Union, AT&T, BellSouth, and so on. A tagline like “Join Us and say NO to government regulation of the environment� is sick. I’m so sick. It’s as bad as using religion to play on people’s emotions for political and monetary gain.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE