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• The Collapse of Complex Business Models

  Important essay by Clay Shirky explains why complex systems must collapse, rather than adapt or simplify. He writes about Television but the lessons seem to me to be generally applicable.

  But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.

  Unless they convince people outside the system to prop them up somehow, that is. In that case those people become part of the complexity, part of the system, and when the collapse comes collapse with it.

  This is our collective fate if we allow our legislators to prop up the complex but obsolete business models of the past. It’s why the Digital Economy Bill – and its inspiration, ACTA – are so toxic to society, way beyond the scope they appear to hold.

• Sugar: The Bitter Truth

  It’s Easter, and there’s a lot of sugar around over here in the UK – probably where you are too. I watched this video a few months ago and it transformed the way I thought about sugar.

  The lecture includes descriptions of the metabolic cycles by which the liver handles glucose and fructose and clearly explains why fructose is not the same as glucose for your body. Fructose needs handling in a way that could lead your body into high blood pressure, obesity and gout, and it prevents your stomach signalling to your brain that you should stop eating. Fructose separated from the fibre that delivered it is just plain toxic.

  I heartily recommend watching the full 90 minutes of this one before you eat your Easter eggs, it’s changed the way I think about food and eating.

Short links:

• OpenData – Increasing innovation and supporting Making Public Data Public
  The new Ordnance Survey open data site is an amazing 180º turn from their attitude just a few months ago. Let’s hope it triggers deep and delicious awesomeness in British society.
• Microsoft Fails the Standards Test
  Alex Brown discovers that the faith he has been consistently and publicly placing in the goodwill of Microsoft around their OOXML specification has been betrayed. Most of us are not even slightly surprised, I’m afraid.
• Ordnance Survey launches free downloadable maps
  This seemed too good to be true for April 1st, but it seems to be the first fruits of the move towards open data being forced on the crusty Ordnance Survey. It will trigger a fresh wave of innovation for geo-data applications in the UK, which is very welcome indeed. If only it had happened earlier. I still need to take a close look at the licensing, though.

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• Tech coalition pushes rewrite of online privacy law
  This is a welcome development, one we need to see replicated in other subject areas and other countries. Most of the law we have is based on assumptions from an era that has passed.

  The old hub-and-spoke approach to the world – with central control and subject-citizens-consumers – is rapidly being replaced with a meshed world of equals, connected peer-to-peer across the net. We need laws that reflect that reality. The concepts behind the old laws are almost all still valid, but they need re-projection through the lens of a meshed society to allow us to live lives that are private, empowered and full of richness. This privacy coalition is a great step forward, finding as it has a common point between its participants motivations to unite them for reform.

  Now we need to also identify similar common points for unity around access to knowledge, freedom to create, open data and software freedom.

  (tags: Privacy USA Legislation Coalition)

Other news:

• Ex-contender for top IBM job pleads guilty on securities charges
  Finally home to roost. I wonder if this had anything to do with IBM pulling out of buying Sun?
  (tags: IBM Fraud)
• Three core reasons for rejecting ACTA
  A really good summary of the core issues with ACTA, and delightfully it doesn’t mention downloads and disconnections anywhere. The reasons ACTA needs to come under the disinfectant glare of sunlight are that it is a devious detour around democracy that will set mankind’s progress into the connected era back a decade.
  (tags: ACTA Democracy Transparency Rights policy)

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• Parliament’s wash-up’s a stitch-up
  Martin Bell in the Guardian with commentary of how the wash-up process is the opposite of democracy and moreover likely to harm electoral reform. This is a subject worth raising with MPs…
  (tags: UK Politics Election Transparency Democracy reform parliament accountability)
• Must Read: CCIA Sets US IP Czar Straight On Intellectual Property
  They’ve written a fine document that is well worth reading in full and using in discussion with others.
  (tags: CCIA Copyright Patent Trademark USA Law Policy Consultation)
• Hostile Reconnaissance – London Photographers’ Branch
  This rally covers an important area that I don’t see mentioned in any of the advance election materials delivered so far. Which party is going to stand on the “end the surveillance society” platform at this election?
  (tags: Privacy surveillance Photography Rights Freedom UK Politics Election Rally London Events)
• FINALLY: The Difference between Nerd, Dork, and Geek Explained by a Venn Diagram
  Uncomfortably insightful…
  (tags: Geek Culture Humour visualisation)

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