notes.husk.org. tagged quote.

“ Ben Terrett’s Newspaper Club won in the Graphics category in the Design Of The Year thingat the Design Museum. Which I’m especially pleased about because, if anything, what we do is remove the graphic design from things. ”

Russell Davies, in 1966 weeks, his weeknote.

2010-03-05

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quote 11:58:46

“ Tories might reread Labour’s 1983 manifesto and accept that although the big economic argument of that year (private ownership or public ownership?) has been won, the big sociocultural argument (Christian traditionalism or secular pluralism?) has been lost. Given its stress on economic planning, Labour’s 1983 manifesto does look archaic. But so does the 1983 Tory manifesto, given its stress on marriage-based households and its reluctance to admit alternative family structures. ”

Richard Kelly, writing in New Statesman in 2003: Not as daft as you thought, on the only Labour general election manifesto while Michael Foot was leader.

2010-03-04

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quote 12:48:04

“ The BBC’s own Public Purposes, stated in its own charter [all] bellow for investment in network internet content, which will increasingly, inevitably, ineluctably do a better job of achieving these purposes than TV, whether broadcast or on-demand. […] Rather “the Internet” is again and again stated to be core to the future of the way the BBC reaches its audiences — but only if the output of the BBC is restricted to linear programming and the internet is a new pipe for this linear programming. ”

Paul Bennun at Somethin’ Else posting a Our Response to the BBC Strategic Review.

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quote 12:45:43

“ The [report] is a concession to the whiskery rightwing argument that the BBC should meet only those needs that are not provided for elsewhere. If the BBC has no need to address teens because C4 already does that, why does it bother with sport, given that Sky does that; or news, since there’s always ITN? Follow that logic, and the corporation would end up exactly where its commercial rivals want it to be: as a subscriber service for a handful of tiny audiences whose niche tastes are so unprofitable no one else will cater to them. ”

Jonathan Freedland, in a comment piece for the Guardian: The BBC is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch.

Some would argue that this is a reductio ad absurdum argument, but I think it gets to the heart of why I’m worried about the report: if the BBC is shrinking, where will it stop?

(My main disagreement with his piece is the blithe acceptance that online content can be scaled back, but I’ve covered that elsewhere.)

2010-03-02

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quote 23:20:31

“ How can the BBC say, with a straight face, that the internet is “the future for the BBC” while cutting its budget by 25%? Exactly how do you improve the site’s quality and consistency by closing half the sections? If it were that simple, why not cut everything the BBC does by 25%? ”

Adrian Hon: Back to the Future: The BBC is still dead.

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quote 23:18:39

“ while consumption of media continues to evolve with the rise of on-demand content across different platforms (as we shall see in upcoming Forrester reports) the BBC’s response seems lacking in conviction. Where the BBC once led fearlessly, it now seems fearful and curiously out of step. ”

Nick Thomas on The Forrester Blog, in a post titled “

Does the BBC still believe in digital?”

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quote 12:21:45

“ The BBC Trust’s recent review of Radio 6 Music confirmed that it is popular amongst its fan base and its music offering is distinctive. However, although it has achieved good growth in recent years, it has low reach and awareness and delivers relatively few unique listeners to BBC radio. And whilst 6 Music does not have a target demographic audience, its average listener age of 37 means that it competes head-on for a commercially valuable audience. Boosting its reach so that it achieved appropriate value for money would significantly increase its market impact. Given the strength of its popular music radio offering from Radio 1 and 2 and the opportunity to increase the distinctiveness of Radio 2, the BBC has concluded that the most effective and efficient way to deliver popular music on radio is to focus investment on these core networks. ”

The BBC Strategy Review on 6music, which will be assimilated by Radio 2, so their “distinctiveness” can be added to the older station’s own. It remains to be seen whether resistance is futile.

2010-02-27

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quote 20:09:08

“ I think of science fiction as the realism of California. ”

Kim Stanley Robinson quoted in an article entitled Kim Stanley Robison maps the future’s gray areas in the Los Angeles Times.

2010-02-24

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quote 10:09:28

“ I think people in general […] think enterprise is bigger than consumer. But it’s not. In PCs, it’s 10%, which is sizable, but consumers are over 50%. Our heart and soul and DNA is in consumer. It just so happens there are consumers working in enterprises who want to use these products. ”

Tim Cook, Apple COO quoted in Business Insider’s coverage of the Goldman Sachs conference.

2010-02-22

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quote 15:33:00

“ My highlights from the day included Jon Spooner from Unlimited Theatre who used his skills as an actor and storyteller to explain complex scientific theories in straightforward, entertaining ways. ”

Jez Paxman, in That’s the story, talking about a talk at The Story conference Matt Locke organised that I attended on Friday.

Spooner’s talk, which was early in the day (when most people were still shocked at arriving at Jackanory Live rather than How To Convey A Narrative) probably left me feeling more annoyed than any other.

It started off straightforwardly enough, with a slightly boiled down but essentially correct description of the neutrino, but then started to try and connect the particle with “coincidences”, claiming that when - if - a neutrino interacts with the matter in your body, a coincidental happening is the result. This instantly got my back up; it’s close to the sort of “quantum homeopathy” rubbish that New Scientist’s Feedback so often criticises, and left me wondering if Spooner just didn’t understand the science.

As his talk progressed, though, and got more outlandish, I realised that we’d turned a corner, from truth to fiction. I’m so used to people being (unknowingly?) incorrect about physics and science that my first response was not to assume storytelling, but misunderstanding. Evidently I hadn’t yet mentally adjusted to the tone of the conference.

Afterwards, I mentioned this to some of my friends, who spotted the transition from more-or-less correct physics to a story instantly. That’s probably because they don’t share my hangups. Reading Paxman’s quote now, though, I’m wondering if I wasn’t right to feel annoyed at launching a story - a fiction, or even a pack of lies - from a foundation of truths, as it seems to have caused confusion between the science and the story.

On the other hand, maybe I’m reading Paxman wrong, and he too knows that the “complex scientific theories” portrayed weren’t real. As I’ve indicated above, it would hardly be the first time I’ve been too literal-minded.

notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

2010-03-09

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