While ECHR’s judgment as described below seemed pretty final, the Labour government still attempted a final appeal – asking for the case to be heard in the ‘Grand Chamber’ (i.e. throwing another few ECHR judges in to the pot). They didn’t have any new arguments or grounds for appeal though and so today I heard that the ECHR has refused the government request. Labour were probably trying to kick it into the long grass until after the election, knowing that it would soon be somebody else’s problem. The judgment should hopefully ensure that the shiny new coalition government’s review of civil liberties should have section 44 high on the agenda, along with the raft of other shameful laws that Labour introduced in its muddle-headed, knee-jerk reactions to  the terrorist threat. They will be getting continuing pressure from the Police and other security services to keep these easy to use laws, of course, so its still important, at any opportunity, to support the call for the return of our fundamental civil liberties. Liberty have a few ideas on how to do that; making a donation to the Civil Liberties Trust would also help.

Paper at: Workshop on method(s): challenges of on-line research.

Abstract:

This presentation will introduce Issue Crawler software as a methodological tool for examining hyperlink networks. The software identifies sets of websites with dense connections around particular issues. Generated data allows the use of social network analysis techniques to understand the structure of the web. The talk will identify some of the methodological issues raised by the tool and also present some data from a recent study of anti-war websites. Some of this work has been published as Gillan, K. (2009) “The UK Anti-War Movement Online: Uses and Limitations of Internet Technologies for Contemporary Activism,” Information, Communication & Society 12(1): 25-43.

Slides available from RICC Workshop on Methods website.

The European Court of Human Rights today issued its judgement on the case that Penny Quinton and I have been taking against the government over section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They have agreed that this piece of legislation offends against Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and does not contain sufficient safeguards for members of the public. [1]

The case stems from events in September 2003, when Penny and I were independently subject to stop and search under the Terrorism Act. We’d both been attending protests at the DSEi arms fair, myself partly for research purposes and Penny as an independent journalist. The campaigning legal firm Liberty agreed to take our cases and we spent several years going though the judicial review process, before finally taking it to the European Court last year.[2]

To finally win is fantastic news and sends a very strong signal to government about the limits to what is acceptable in combating terrorism. Section 44 is regularly abused by police who find it convenient for general policing. The problem is the legislation itself, which is screaming out to be abused. The Terrorism Act encourages police to perform stop and search ‘for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism’ (e.g. phones, maps, laptops, notepads, car keys) and ‘may be exercised whether or not the constable had grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of that kind‘ (Section 44(1)). When challenged by those seeking redress for misuse of these powers the constable should properly claim in court that he or she had no suspicion of the person they stopped and searched. Another reply might risk saying something that could be perceived as discriminatory or otherwise unreasonable, so why make your thoughts public? This is indeed how the officers reacted when we challenged their use of the Terrorism Act against protesters – we just don’t know why we stopped them. The Terrorism Act makes it easier to search people than any other police power and officers are encouraged not to disclose (or indeed use) any reasoning. So its hardly a surprise that hundreds of thousands [3] of stops under this legislation have created suspicion and fear of the state, while not one has led to an arrest on terrorism charges.

News reports are now available from the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, and quite a few more!

Notes
[1] The full judgement is available here: Gillan & Quinton vs. The United Kingdom (4158/05).
[2] Elsewhere I’ve written about why the judicial review process is blind to certain kinds of systematic misuse of police powers.
[3] 250,000 stops were made in 2008/9 and 117,278 in 2007/8.

So, you’re starting to be convinced of the benefits of linux? Keen to experience the increased speed and power and to try out some of the thousands of pieces of free software available? Like the thought of being secure from viruses and spyware? But still a little attached to your Windows operating system? Here’s a few tips for making the best of both worlds.

1. Use Ubuntu

There are loads of distributions available and it may be difficult to make a decision. Ubuntu has rapidly become the most popular and this must be due in part to its ease of installation and use for newcomers. So why not follow the crowd and try Ubuntu first? Go on, go and download the latest release.

2. Dual boot Windows/OSX and Linux

Dual booting means that when you power on your machine you get a choice of going into either of two or more operating systems. There are lots of articles around on how to set up a dual-boot machine with XP, or with Windows 7, or with OSX. My own experience is dual booting Windows XP Pro and various versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse and whatever else took my fancy at the time. The obvious benefit is that you have all your familiar applications there, and you can take your time learning linux without jumping in at the deep end and having to learn everything at once. Remember:

• If starting with a clean computer install Windows first (the same seems to go for OSX). Windows isn’t designed to play well with other operating systems. Ubuntu certainly is.
• If you’ve already got Windows installed:
  • Backup everything. Time-consuming, yes. But there are dangers in the install process, especially the first time you do it, so don’t leave anything to chance. Remember to backup data that is stored by your applications in locations other than My Documents. Some applications have decent data export tools; for others you may need to search through folders within C:\Documents and Settings\your-user-profile, such as ‘Application Data’ and ‘Local Settings’.
  • Clean up your Windows install. Most important is to defragment your hard disk. Your files are scattered across the disk, especially if you’ve been using the operating system a while. Your Ubuntu installation may require moving a lot of that mess into one place to make room for your new OS. Get XP to do it first so that it can keep track of where everything is stored. It is probably also useful to use a utility like CCleaner to get rid of temporary files and oodles of accumulated crap.
  • Make sure you’ve got access to a proper install/restore disk for your pre-existing operating system.

An alternative to dual booting is virtualization. Installing a program like VBox-OSE on Ubuntu lets you install a full copy of Windows or OSX operating systems plus your favourite applications right inside Ubuntu. There’s clearly a benefit here of not having to reboot to use other programmes but there’s a penalty in the speed your applications run.

3. Separate Data and Software

If you are dual booting it makes sense to put all of your data on a separate partition that can be accessed and written to by both operating systems. But even if you’re not dual booting, keeping your data separate may make operating system upgrades easier and lets you experiment with confidence. Keeping your data separate is more secure and if anything goes wrong you can simply insert a linux live CD to get a temporary operating system and get straight to your data. Points to bear in mind:

• You can use the linux utility gparted to create additional hard disk partitions. Its not included in a default Ubuntu install (although you can get it easily through the System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager). It is included on an Ubuntu live CD though. I prefer to use it from a live CD – that means you’re not using any of the hard disk for running the OS so you can easily change any of the existing partitions.
• If dual booting with Windows the logical thing is probably to format the partition as ntfs, since both Windows and linux can read and write from that filesystem. Choosing linux’s favourite ext3 filesystem format is fine too, but you’ll need to install Ext2IFS on Windows to be able to write to it from within Windows. (IFSdrives seems to be super-reliable and after a two minute set up you can just forget its there. Though because it writes from windows as if the ext3 partition is ext2 it doesn’t keep the journalling up to date – I don’t really know what this means but it doesn’t seem to matter!)
• Once you’ve created your data partition you might want, in Ubuntu, to change the text file located at /etc/fstab. You can then reliably mount your data partition in the same location meaning that you can create links to place on your desktop or wherever is convenient. The following commands in Terminal do the trick:
  • sudo mkdir /media/choose-name-for-data-store-here – this creates the place you’ll go to for your data.
  • sudo blkid – this gets a list of partitions on physical drives, and you need to note down the UUID of the partition you want to automount. Labels like /dev/sda1 (meaning the first partition on the first SATA harddrive) correspond to labelling in the gparted graphical interface, so you could always use that to work out which partition you’re aiming for.
  • sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak – this backs up your fstab file in case of errors.
  • gksu gedit /etc/fstab – this opens a text editor to edit your fstab file. Add something like the following at the bottom, then save and close.

# mount data store partition
UUID=b7296b71-b1bd-4e73-9b7f-077dd37902c5    /media/filestore    ext2    rw,user,auto    0    0

• • You’ll need to make a few changes to that example: change the long UUID number to whichever you found with the blkid command (don’t include quote marks); change /media/filestore to whatever you named your data store directory; and change ext2 to whichever filesystem you formatted your partition with (probably ntfs or ext3).
  • Back in the Terminal run “sudo mount -a”. If there are no errors you should now be able to navigate in the file manager to the directory you created in /media to see the data on your additional partition.
  • NB If for any reason you want to unmount your data partition in Ubuntu then you’ll need to do it as root, i.e. use the command “sudo umount /media/your-data-store-directory”.

4. Investigate problems (and note down the solutions!)

Its always possible that some particular configurations of hardware don’t work as easily as one would hope. Hardware manufacturers might share information with Microsoft that they don’t with linux developers. (Although the biggest manufacturers are getting much better in this regard.) But if you’ve got a problem with your installation it might be relatively simple to fix and somewhere has likely been there before. Get googling and be very specific about your searches. (Searching ‘choppy graphics’ is clearly not going to be very useful – know your hardware so you can search, say, ‘NVidia 8500 ubuntu 9.10 video mplayer bug’.) Remember that you can trust information on the official sites (say the Ubuntu bug tracking website or community wiki) much more than random blogs (like this one!).

Most importantly, when you get your fix, note down exactly what you’ve done so you can a) undo it if it causes other problems and b) redo it if, say, you decide to install a different or newer version of your operating system. An obvious point perhaps, but its a lesson its taken me longest to learn.

5. Use the Cloud

Using  cloud services – i.e. places available through the internet where you store some of your data – is a good way of separating data from software. It not only gives you a handy backup of your data but also makes it available from whatever computer you happen to be using – as long as you can keep track of all those passwords. Services I like include:

• Dropbox. This quietly keeps your files synchronised across any computer that you’ve installed it on and you can get an installer for linux, Windows or OSX. There’s also a web interface where you can access all of your files and even roll back to earlier versions of them. A free account gets 2GB of storage space so you’re not going to be backing up your whole hard drive this way, but its useful for those worky files you always want with you. (This link gets us both a bit of extra free storage space if you sign up).
• Xmarks add-on for Firefox. Keeps my bookmarks, keyword searches, passwords etc securely synchronised across computers. Lovely.
• Also, as a researcher I use Zotero to keep track of my reading notes, bibliographic data and so on. The v.2 beta version now includes the possibility of synchronising your metadata, notes and your pdf copies of readings, websites and so on. At present this seems to provide unlimited storage space for free!
• GMail contact data can be kept in sync with Thunderbird with the Google Contacts add-on. Even if you don’t use GMail I think its worth signing up for an account just to use its contacts as a central point to sync multiple copies of Thunderbird (or Evolution for that matter) and perhaps your mobile phone too.

Depending on what sort of data you want to look after and/or share there are plenty of other services out there: Flixr is an obvious one for photographers and is often linked into photo management software like F-Spot and Picasa.

6. Keep up to date (but be careful of upgrades!)

Software updates are now a vital part of computing. Ubuntu installs with its Update Manager configured to run as soon as you turn on your computer. The updates only rarely require a computer restart so you can generally accept the suggested updates and leave the system to it. One warning, however, is that Ubuntu releases a new version of the operating system every six months. These upgrades won’t happen automatically, although the Update Manager will let you know when they’re available. But upgrading is a bigger job than simply accepting software updates – especially if you’ve got an odd selection of hardware or have heavily customised your operating system. The potential instability of system upgrades has caused some controversy among linux fans. The best practical advice is probably not to upgrade as soon as its available (in April and October each year) but to wait a month or so. When you do upgrade make sure you’ve got a little bit of time to iron out any wrinkles and go back to those installation notes you made so meticulously.

These tips are hardly an exhaustive how-to. But the purpose is to suggest some  of the easy practical steps to feeling secure about your linux use. Keep things organised and your data secure and you can be free to experiment. Customize your desktop, set your visual effects to do something pointlessly cool, install a wide range of applications or even create another partition and install an entirely new operating system just because its looks take your fancy. The excitement of linux is in the experimentation – just take a few precautions before you hurl yourself in.

I came across various instructions for connecting an Ubuntu powered laptop to the internet through your mobile phone’s data connection. My first thought was ‘brilliant’, followed rapidly by ‘ooh this’ll be fiddly’. It requires a bit of manual coding, but using Rahid Hasan’s excellent how-to it just worked first time (that link looks broken now, its also copied here). I can now enable my bluetooth on my eeePC, turn off the wifi, and a get a reasonable connection speed via my Nokia E71 on three. Grand – no more hotspot charges.

UPDATE: This is a little more complicated in Ubuntu 9.10. For some reason pairing the phones doesn’t result in a bond on the refcomm channel. I get the error “In file /etc/ppp/peers/BluetoothDialup: unrecognized option ‘/dev/rfcomm0′”. The following seems to solve it.

To get it working, follow the instructions linked above with the following modifications:

1. All of the required packages were already installed on Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 Netbook Remix, so no need to do any of the sudo apt-get ing
2. The command to restart bluez-utils is now /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart
3. Phone specific information: the apn for three is three.co.uk and the data profile number is 1
4. Check what devices you have with ls /dev Is there one listed as rfcomm? If not, then the following command is required: sudo rfcomm bind 0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx zReplace the x’s with your phone’s mac number and the z with your dialup channel number (both found when you follow the linked how to). This command only seems to be required once per session, then you can, in theory, pon and poff as much as you like. Perhaps the solution is to run the command at startup.
5. I get permission errors unless I run the launch command (pon or poff) with sudo
6. On launching the connection I get a permission error (only members of group “dip” can use this command) – but no group dip seems to exist. So, use sudo to launch instead.
7. Start the connection with sudo pon BluetoothDialup And stop it with sudo poff BluetoothDialup NB these commands can be written into custom application launchers through Preferences->Main Menu; but use gksu instead of sudo.

Paper presented to the European Sociological Association General Conference, Lisbon, September 2009.

Abstract:

The academic publisher Reed Elsevier also organised the world’s largest defence exhibitions. The exhibitions themselves have regularly met vibrant street protests, and from 2005 campaigners targeted the corporate organisers. A coordinated network of anti-arms trade activists, academics, medical professionals and institutional shareholders formed a multifaceted campaign that sought to persuade the corporation to change its behaviour on its own terms. After initial intransigence, Reed Elsevier divested itself of its defence sector activities in 2008.
On the basis of interviews with activists and corporate employees, this paper addresses two sets of questions about the Elsevier campaign. First, what are the components of a successful, corporate-focused campaign? Insights from the recently expanded literature on the outcomes of social movements will be tested against both facts of this case and the conscious strategy pursued by participants. I will argue that the movement outcomes literature continues to cope better with movements demanding state responses than those directed at corporations. Secondly, therefore, this paper examines a set of broader questions about the character of moral demands placed on corporate activity, and the way in which management discourses of corporate responsibility or citizenship partially constrains the response of relevant decision makers.

You can download the presentation slides from: Moral Business Presentation (ppt).

The latest edition of Ubuntu (9.04) is generally excellent. There are continuing problems with graphics cards, however, that probably flow more from the proprietary (closed source) drivers provided than anything that Ubuntu folks can control. For me, its the NVidia driver that’s the baddy, failing to recognise any accurate information from my Acer widescreen monitor. This required manually writing a new xorg.conf file pretty much from scratch – here’s the solution for pairing NVidia 8500 GT with an Acer P193w

NB The following sample xorg.conf file is set specifically for a particular hardware set up. Because this configuration doesn’t allow the graphics card to take required information from the monitor (becuase it seems to get this wrong) using this configuration in a different system could cause serious hardware damage. In particular, it is essential to get the correct modelines for your monitor, using the modeline calculator referenced in the file.

sample xorg.conf for nvidia

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# NB this is kev's hand edited version making use of xorg.conf manual and
# nvidia linux driver manual
# http://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/xorg.conf.5.html
# http://http.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-8178/README/chapter-03-section-02.html
# keyboard and mouse sections were pasted in from an xorg found on the ubuntu wiki,
# hopefully they're applicable here
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Module"
  Load            "glx"
Endsection

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier      "Keyboard0"
  Driver          "kbd"
  Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
  Option          "XkbModel"      "pc105"
  Option          "XkbLayout"     "gb"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier      "Mouse0"
  Driver          "mouse"
  Option          "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Device"
  Identifier    "NVidia0"
  Driver        "nvidia"
  Screen        0
  Option        "NoLogo"    "true"
# set false to use freqs set in xorg.conf, default is true
  Option        "UseEdidFreqs"    "false"
# true could damage monitor if incorrect info specified in xorg.conf,
# but may be necessary if driver misidentifies all edid info from monitor
# default is false
  Option        "IgnoreEDID"    "false"
# nvidia's proprietary alternative to xinerama for multiple monitors,
# default is false
  Option        "TwinView"    "false"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier    "Monitor0"
  VendorName    "Acer"
  ModelName    "P193w"
  HorizSync    30-81
  VertRefresh    55-76
  DisplaySize    428 278
# modeline calculated by http://www.arachnoid.com/modelines/
  Modeline    "1440x900" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync
  Modeline    "1280x800" 83.46 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828 -HSync +Vsync
  Modeline     "960x600" 45.98 960 1000 1096 1232 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync
EndSection

Section "Screen"
  Identifier    "Screen0"
  Device        "NVidia0"
  Monitor        "Monitor0"
  DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection    "Display"
      Depth        24
      Modes        "1440x900" "1280x800" "960x600"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier     "Default Server Layout"
  Screen        "Screen0"
  InputDevice    "Keyboard0"
  InputDevice    "Mouse0"
Endsection

NB This adventure has been postponed due to my lack of knowledge/skills to make it work

Moving from a flat to a house so no longer will the same room function as lounge, dining room, study and guest room. Simply having a very long cable on a widescreen monitor meant that one PC used to serve both work and entertainment functions, but alas no more. So, how to have a satisfactory work-from-home PC and a media PC without spending too much moolah? One (theoretical) answer is to scrounge a basic ‘obsolete’ PC and use it as a thin client – meaning it is just a gateway to using the resources on my current, decent quality PC. The software to make this possible is really oriented to businesses, schools or colleges running clusters of computers cheaply but the principles are (probably) applicable at home. And I hope you don’t need to be a veteran sysadmin to make it work. This post, is going to be a running commentry on what I’ve learned as I go through the stages.

The Scrounge

A thin client doesn’t need much in the way of processor speed or memory and has no use for a harddrive, but it does need decent network card (and it’ll be much easier if its PXE-bootable).

Scrounging hint: given that software licensing and data protection are the things that are likely to make an IT department nervous about giving stuff away, just ask for the machine without the hard drive. Sorted.

Lucky me – my workplace was refurbishing old computers and had a box to throw my way (Dell Optiplex GX280). Its 3GHz processor and 512MB RAM would actually make for a very reasonable linux machine without the need for any of this thin client business. But it doesn’t have a hardrive, and anyway, the thing client’s the whole point. So…

Exploring the PC

What have you got your hands on? Download a linux live CD like Xubuntu to find out (NB get the larger full disc, the alternate install disc is no use without a hard drive). If you’ve got an older machine try DSL. Load to the BIOS, slide the CD in, and hit F2/F12/Del or whatever to change the boot order. Save and exit.

Have a play, does everything seem to work? Good…

Now, open the terminal and type:

lspci

This gives you the lowdown on some of the important components. Look for ‘Ethernet controller’ and write down the full description of the controller because you’ll need it later.

Personal hurdle 1: No BIOS! eek. Some info about the graphics chip appears and then nothing, nadda, sweet FA. Turned out that the person donating the machine had kindly put in some extra RAM from another identical looking machine also being decomissioned. But non-matching (or maybe just malfunctioning) RAM made the machine halt before it had even managed to load the BIOS. Apparently this is usually a sign of a hardware problem so try unplugging things if you run into it. I removed the offending hardware and all’s rosey.

BIOS settings

As yet the only BIOS setting I’ve needed to change is to enable the PXE bootable thing, which was pretty easy to find after hitting F2 and looking around. If the card isn’t PXE-bootable, you’ll either have to invest in a new NIC or try one of the alternative methods.

Personal hurdle 2: BIOS settings locked! Okay, so this is pretty likely on a machine scrounged from a business. Try to find your PC’s manual. Mine described a jumper on the motherboard to resent admin and system passwords for the BIOS. Open the box, pull the jumper connection, close the box, power on, no more mister password. For fuller advice try this random website on BIOS settings.

Well okay, that’s as far as I’ve got so far. But it all looks plain sailing from here. Yup, gonna be a breeze…

Networking 1 – setting up a static IP address

Usually this kind of network would run with two network cards in the server PC, one getting an internet connection and one connected to a switch. But a very useful blog post from Life, Revived suggested that you can make do simply with an existing ADSL router as long as it has two or more ports. So, physically you just need a cable running from the router to both server and client(s).

The more complex bit is about how the computers do their IP addressing. The server needs a static IP. This means putting appropriate settings (which should be available from you Internet provider) in the configuration screen found, under Ubuntu. Check the router’s IP by putting it in the address bar of a browser – for Speedtouch routers this is 192.168.1.254 – you should see your router configuration application. Now do this:

1. System->Preferences->Network Configuration
2. Under the ‘Wired’ tab select your connection – probably eth0
3. Hit ‘Edit’ and go to the IPv4 settings tab.
4. Change Method to ‘Manual’ and hit ‘Add’
5. Fill in the details.

• ‘Address’ is the static IP of your PC. The first three figures should be the same as that for the router and the last must be different. (There are some useful guides to networking at PortForward.com, including information specific to different router models.) If you’ve got other computers using the router, either wired or wireless turn them on and have a look at the router config webpage – you should see the range of IP addresses dynamically assigned to your PCs – choose a static IP that is well outside of that range.
• Netmask always seems to be 255.255.255.0.
• Gateway is the IP address of the router.
• DNS Server addresses come from your Internet provider – you can enter more than one address here, separated with a space.

Keep a note of all those numbers – they’ll come in handy in a moment.

Personal hurdle 3: There’s a silly bug in Ubuntu 8.10 which means that after a reboot the network reverts to the automatic settings. There are a couple of workaround suggestions here, but they didn’t work on my system. Instead, the following workaround from the official bug report worked:

check the “system settings” checkbox, THEN uncheck the “connect automatically” checkbox, check “connect automatically” again… wait for sometime and then click on “Authenticate” [OK in my system]: n-m should trigger the sudo authentication dialog box and let you save the settings.

Setting up the server

Now its a case of hopefully following the instructions at the Life, Revived post, which I’ve copied in parts below.

Install the ltsp server:

sudo apt-get install ltsp-server-standalone openssh-server

Edit your dhcp configuration file which will tell the client where to look for an operating system:

gksudo gedit /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf

Enter the network information you used above. Mine looks like this:

#
# Default LTSP dhcpd.conf config file.
#
authoritative;
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.1.200 192.168.1.230;
# option domain-name "example.com";
option domain-name-servers 212.139.132.6;
option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
option routers 192.168.1.254;
#    next-server 192.168.0.1;
#    get-lease-hostnames true;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option root-path "/opt/ltsp/i386";
if substring( option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9 ) = "PXEClient" {
filename "/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.0";
} else {
filename "/ltsp/i386/nbi.img";
}
}

Restart the dhcp server with:
sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart
If all is okay, then great. Time to build the image for the client to boot from:
sudo ltsp build-client

Setting up the client

The final job is to write the boot instructions for the client to a floppy disc. Dig out your note of the ethernet controller info and visit rom-o-matic.net. Have a look at the list of network cards and select the appropriate ROM type, hit ‘Get ROM’ and save somewhere sensible. To write the disc use a terminal command like this:

dd if=file-you've-downloaded.dsk of=/dev/fd0

Personal hurdle 4: My server PC doesn’t have a floppy drive. Unfortunately,  running a Xubuntu live CD on the client machine doesn’t seem to allow access to the floppy, so I’ve had to physically swap the floppy drive into the new machine to write the boot disc. Alternatively using a CD might have been easier (choosing a .iso instead of a .dsk download from rom-o-matic), but ideally I’d like to be able to use the CD drive in the client machine without the minor faff of remembering to put the put CD in on every shut down.

Go, Go, Go!

Now its time to start the client machine, hit F2/DEL to get into the BIOS. Choose to boot from the floppy you’ve just inserted and give it a whirl.

My results so far: ‘Non-system disk or disk error’. Shucks, time to revist rom-o-matic…

Paper for presentation at the Alternative Futures and Popular Protest Conference, 15-17th April 2009, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Abstract:

Direct action (DA) is often considered to be a tactical approach to protest, utilised in the service of a wide range of causes. More recently, the notion that DA forms the basis of a radical social movement of itself has gained some currency (e.g. Doherty, Plows and Wall 2003). This paper argues that we should rather understand DA as an orientational frame: a structure of normative beliefs that can form a guide to understanding and action in a variety of contexts (Gillan 2008).
Examining documentary sources on the British DA tradition and ethnographic data from recent instances of DA protest against globalisation and war, I identify the core beliefs that hold the DA frame together. Three elements in particular are identified. First, DA is based on a fundamental belief in individual freedom that motivates an evaluation of the individual moral culpability of both protest participants and their opponents. Second, DA groups have an attitude to decentralised, non-representative decision making that offers a particular understanding of democracy. Third, DA involves the re-imagining of political space as grassroots collective constructs free from systems of domination, that are consciously sought or created by DA groups.
Exploration of these key ideational elements will offer two benefits. First, we will see how the interaction and translation of ideas within particular contexts shapes the possibilities and constraints that movement participants encounter. Second, this analysis opens up possibilities for comparison with (and critique from) more obviously ideological structures of belief.

You can download a pdf version of this paper from: Direct Action, Democracy and Individualism (PDF).

Presentation at Medsin Global Health Conference, University of Manchester, 29^th March 2009.

This talk was based on recent research into the campaign that persuaded Reed Elsevier to quit the defence sector. You can download the powerpoint slides here.