What is in Kelvin's Head?

Google Reader RIP

15/03/2013
In the midst of the hubbub over a certain election in the Vatican earlier this week, I noticed one or people tweeting “This would be a good time to bury bad news”. As it turned out, there was quite a significant piece of geek news that came out at that time which has got quite a lot of people riled and got quite a lot of people bewildered as to what the fuss is about.

Seems that Google is going to turn off the Google Reader service. Now, I don’t need to explain what Google Reader is to readers of this blog, do I gentle reader? Oh no, you’ve all read, bookmarked and inwardly digested that post I put up about blog aggregation in 2010.Â (What do you mean you don’t have it at your fingertips? You can find it here: http://thurible.net/20101111/how-to-read-blogs/)

It is rather a significant moment in the life of the blogosphere when google announces that that particular service is coming to an end. It works, it beats everything else I’ve tried and I’m surprised that they are pulling the plug. It may well mean that overall blog reading will shrink and it will be an inconvenience to move to another kind of reader.

Four thoughts:
1. This is a Woolworths moment. I know I check Google Reader less than I used to do because somehow my brain has come to believe that those posting and linking on social media are more up to date, happening, switched on voices than people who don’t. That means the first sight of interesting content most often comes for me on twitter or Facebook. If we look at a service less, it is of less value to the people providing it and hence, the Google Boffins can probably read the runes. They practically dominate web analytics in any case. My guess is that they can see that the use of this service is falling fast. If you don’t shop in Woolworths, Woolworths will close, no matter how nostalgic you are for the pick and mix that you never actually bought.
2. This was a free service. They don’t have to provide it. Get used to it.
3. All those people who are worried about privacy and Google do have a point. Untangling the individual from the corporation one of the major themes of our day. This is a day of victory for the Open Source movement whose advocates can rightly look smug.Â (They will anyway).
4. I expect I will find another reader to follow RSS feeds. RSS is a lovely thing. However, like wikis, the great unwashed don’t get it. I’d like to say that they want their content served up on a plate for them without any effort. However, it would appear that they don’t, doesn’t it? That’s what RSS does.

4 responses to “The SNP and Equal Marriage”

Indy

18/07/2012

I think the issue is that the SNP Government is going to authorise religious same sex marriages as well as civil ones.

It would be an obvious compromise to allow civil weddings but not religious ones – that seems to be the route the UK Govt will go down.

It would be tempting for the SG to do the same. It’s a neat solution – that way they could say there is no question of religious denominations being forced to perform same sex marriages. It will only be civil ceremonies.

And, let’s face it, although there are some religious denominationa which support same sex marriage – Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews, Pagan Federation etc – how many Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews, Pagans etc are actually out there? They are very much outnumbered by the Catholics, Muslims and fundamentalist Protestants aren’t they?

But for some reason the SG has decided to go for the option which allows religious as well as civil same sex marriages. We can only assume that, for them, that is actually an issue of principle, of support for religious freedom.

But it makes it more complicated doesn’t it? Because they have to find a way to protect the rights of religious denominations which wish to conduct same sex marriages while also protecting the rights of religious denominations who do not want to conduct same sex marriages. And do that in the context of legislation which protects religious rights, freedom of speech and equality which is not within their control.

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Lazarus

18/07/2012

Putting aside any issues of substance here, I’m not sure you’re being quite accurate in your interpretation of John Haldane’s Newsnicht appearance. He was careful to distinguish between civil partnerships and same sex marriage, saying that the latter had to be discussed within an understanding of the ‘common good’ (a discussion which the programme didn’t have time to allow). I’d be amazed if he’s changed his opposition to same sex marriage (expressed quite regularly in the media eg in the Beyond Belief programme here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019rlng/Beyond_Belief_Same_Sex_Marriage/).

As to whether Haldane was criticizing the Cardinal -I suspect any interpretation along these lines would require quite a degree of cynicism (or wishful thinking!) given his previously highly supportive attitude (eg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6707465.stm).

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Jaye Richards-Hill

20/07/2012

I met him when Ruth and I did the Big Questions earlier this year. Apparently, Haldane is an advisor to Pope Benedict….

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Erp

24/07/2012

There may not be many Unitarians, Quakers, Reform Jews in Scotland but there are a lot of Humanist weddings (I believe in Scotland in 2010 the number of weddings by Humanist celebrants exceeded the number of Catholic weddings) so they are the biggest group performing legally recognized opposite-sex marriages who would like to perform legally recognized same-sex marriages (as opposed to a ceremony after a same-sex marriage has been registered at the registry office).

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