kierenmccarthy.co.uk

Two problems today. One, I’ve got a 9pm flight out of London Gatwick to Marrakech. And two, England were playing against Ecuador in theWorld Cup at 4pm. As ever, the Internet popped up like a white knight…

This shouldn’t be a problem except that the bus to Gatwick takes me two hours. And there’s only […]

It’s a rare event that the technical aspects of the Internet make it onto TV, but Dave Farrar appeared on New Zealand Breakfast TV of all things on Thursday explaining that Internet NZ was going to stir things up in Marrakech because of the .xxx decision.
The fact it was .xxx was, of course, the […]

The whole issue over who runs the Internet and how, comes to a head on 30 September when the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and IANA contract between the US Department of Commerce (DoC) and ICANN end.
To date there has not been a single public meeting over this fundamental state of affairs and, incredibly, even […]

Who’d be Paul Twomey? It would be the job of one man just to keep track of the ICANN’s current feuds and lawsuits. Two of them have popped up again: CIRA and ICM Registry.

Three months ago, CIRA - Canada’s registry owner - wrote to Twomey saying it had “grown increasingly concerned with ICANN’s departure […]

I’ve long had a rule that whatever Microsoft does, no matter how wonderful it sounds, and especially if loads of news stories appear saying it is wonderful, at some point it will end up screwing the very companies I want to succeed.
But what’s this? “Microsoft and Creative Commons Release Tool for Copyright Licensing.” Yes, […]

There are a few good rules to follow if you plan to make a living from public writing aka journalism.
For one, do not write about people or countries that are not your own unless you acknowledge that fact explicitly. Two, do not write about topics simply because they are controversial, unless you are an […]

The Internet overseeing organisation ICANN is meeting in Marrakech starting on Saturday and it looks as though there is going to be much to discuss, some of it planned for, and some of it that people will seek to avoid. But one question rises about all others: what will happen to the Internet on […]

The animal rights group Speak has just been censured by the Advertising Standards Authority for a “misleading and inaccurate” quote it attributed to the chairman of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), Sir Michael Rawlins.
The ASA received a complaint from NICE saying that the quote - which appears on the front of leaflets […]

It was the honorary degree ceremony for Oxford University this morning at the Sheldonian Theatre - called for one reason or another, The Encaenia Ceremony.

I have to confess I haven’t heard of any of those getting their honorary degrees, which is a blessing I suppose as it means they comes from academia and aren’t […]

Yesterday lunchtime, quite by accident, I saw that at 5pm that afternoon at the Oxford Playhouse was the annual Charles Simonyi Lecture, to be given by Nobel-prize winning scientist Sir Harry Kroto, on the subject of: “Can the Internet save the Enlightenment?”
So I changed my route home to go via the Playhouse and buy […]