Who else should be shot while we're at it?

It seems that Jeremy Clarkson has said that the Public Sector strikers should be shot. Cue waves of outrage from people who don't watch Clarkson, and didn't hear what he said.

"Frankly, I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?"

The Beeb is clearly nervous: the One Show episode seems to be blocked on iPlayer, but you should be able to find it on You Tube - I did.

Of course, anyone who watches Top Gear will know better than to take what he says seriously. But really, you don't have to be a fan of Top Gear to realise that the rent-a-rant brigade have escaped the orbit of Planet Perspective.

The curly one had just been saying how great the strike was:

Presenter: Do you think the strikes have been a good idea?
Top Bloke: I think they have been fantastic. Absolutely. London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty... Airports, people streaming through with no problems at all. And it's also like being back in the 70s. It makes me feel at home somehow.

Remember when we didn't have to cope with useless security theatre every plane journey? How much safer are we really because our shoes and belts are x-rayed instead of going through a metal detector?

And then, in a gentle reference to the BBC's tendency to indulge in a slightly spurious balance on any issue, he continued:

Clarkson: ...But we have to balance this though, because this is
the BBC.
Prestenter: Yes, exactly.
Clarkson: Frankly, I'd have them all shot...

Has our culture of political correctness gone a bit too far? Even the PM
has had to say this was a silly remark. But really, all he needed to say was
that it wasn't government policy.

I'm not sure that the semi-hysterical cries in the media for sackings and apologies are really necessary. Get over it.

Enough ranting from me. I'm sure there are people who, even more than the strikers, should be rounded up and shot. Any ideas?

#superinjunction

Indignation in the mainstream media, and gloating by the twitterati - that's pretty much how the superinjunction story has run so far. The press are indignant that they cannot publish what the twitterer on the street seems to know about #ctb and Imogen someone-or-other. And the idea that the courts can apply sweeping injunctions to silence discussion of the peccadillos of the rich strikes the press where it hurts - in their pride, and their pockets!

Injunctions are bad enough, the story goes, but superinjunctions are a step too far in a free society. Are they, though? What is actually going on? Is this really one law for the rich and famous, and another for the rest of us?

Actually, not so much. We normal people expect that the press won't print details of our personal lives - we rarely have to deal with more than gossip from those we know. The press, by and large, go along with this. They even extend this courtesy (or legal protection) to the children of the rich or famous.

And then something strange happens... The tabloids have somehow convinced us that the freedom of the press is at stake if they cannot write freely about people's private lives where that will sell more papers. People in whom people are interested, it seems, no longer have any privacy. But do they - and should they?

In France there is a different approach. The press turns a blind eye when the rich and famous have extra-marital flings. That, they consider, is their own... affair. Public figures, like the rest of us, can have a private life. But this can go too far - apparently allegations of rape, like those against M. Strauss-Kahn in the US, are often also brushed aside.

Private individuals do not have a right to privacy in such cases - but it seems to me that the same standard should apply to "public figures" (whatever that means). They should not expect impunity for criminal behaviour.

On the other hand, why does a person's right to privacy vanish just because the tabloids can make money by selling us the details?

Does speaking to the press on any issue whatsoever strip you of the right to a private life?

Can any accomplishment or achievement whatsoever really give the media carte-blanche to air all the details of your private life?

And where would that take us as a society? What sort of shallow narcissism are we demanding of our public figures, politicians, sportsmen, that they must agree to such intrusion, as the price for exercising their skills and abilities in the public sphere?

A free press is in the public interest, and the public interest demands that criminal activity be brought to light, that conflicts of interest by our leaders be exposed, that blatant hypocrisy by our moral guardians (in the press and outside) be shown up.

But the public interest is not the same as what the public might like to know. There is a difference between news and gossip, and our press has lost sight of this.

Please may I use the facilities?

I went to look up the opening hours of a local Barclays Bank branch, and I noticed there was a wee tab I could click on, called "Facilities". Wondering what facilities the branch offered, I clicked on it.

"Facilities: Yes"

I'm still slightly mystified. But I wonder what they would do if someone came in asking to use their facilities.

At least they are open on Saturdays.

Tumbleweed

Some tumbleweed rolls past...

Don't you know there's an Election on?

Maithrie was blogging about the election, so I thought I'd mention an interesting site from they work for you. You put in your postcode of constituency, and they give you a quiz where you compare your views on policies - many of them local - with those of the candidates.

An excellent idea.... except that the DUP, UUP/Tories, and the SDLP can't be bothered telling us what they think. Poor show, Alasdair McDonnell, Jimmy Spratt and Paula Bradshaw. Looks like the Greens or the Alliance then?

There are also similar quizzes from http://www.votematch.org.uk/2010/ and http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ - you can't have too much information (though you can have too little time to read it all, I've found).

Bloke colours vs Girlie Colours

We've "known" for ages that Girls can name colours that we men are quite certain are actually animals, plants, or basically almost anything but colours. But is it true?

The Doghouse Diary recently posted a cartoon to show how this works.

But XKCD have gone one further, with a survey that investigates this phenomenon.

And is it real?

For full details, you'll need to check their blog - but in a word (or two (or three)) Yes... and No....

So there we have it. Women know slightly more colours - and they can apparently spell better as well.

What's going wrong with the Police?

As M3 and I were returning to the UK a few weeks ago, we saw two Metropolitan Police officers behaving in an aggressive and intimidating manner to a young Spanish visitor - fortunately, after about half an hour of throwing their weight around and abusing their authority (and snapping at any members of the public who, they felt, were standing too close, or looking to see what the fuss was about), they let her go.

Most of the police officers I've met have been civil and helpful. But there seems to be an increasing number of uniformed thugs who enjoy throwing their weight around. And it's not just jumpy airport police either.

Soon afterwards I read on the Granuiad Online about police officers harassing ordinary members of the public who were taking photographs in public. The Register has been covering this issue for a while.

And then there was the would-be airline passenger who, annoyed by the way Doncaster Airport collapses under the UK's meagre snowfall, and fearing he would not be able to fly the following week, posted the following irate nonsense to his friends and "followers" on twitter:

"Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Twitter is a network that people use to update their friends and acquaintances on what flavour of coffee they are drinking, or whether they are cycling to work, or taking the train. You can "follow" your friends, and receive a stream of conciousness from their daily life. It's not where you'd normally expect to find secret plots to destroy western civilisation.

Paul Chambers was clearly venting. This was not the act of any sort of credible terrorist - and certainly not a public threat calculated to strike fear into the heart of anyone with the slightest amount of common sense. So what do you imagine the defenders of our free society made of it?

A week later, the South Yorkshire Police arrested the unfortunate Mr Chambers under the Terrorism Act and questioned him for nearly 7 hours. It seems he actually had to explain to the officers interrogating him what Twitter was. You'd think if the police were investigating Internet bomb threats they'd have someone who actually knew something about, you know, the Interwebs, and, like, computer stuff. But that might be perilously close to doing their job, and protecting society from actual real threats.

After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and he has, it seems, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. So no sense of perspective at the Airport either (if you're curious about their thought processes or reasoning in this case, the airport's contact page is online here).

The Independent reports that the South Yorkshire Police went so far as to charge Mr Chambers with "sending by a public communications network a message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003."

For goodness sake!

It's a shame that the police are wasting their time and abusing their powers by harassing innocent people - whether photographers, visitors to the UK, or twitterers - instead of serving society, and protecting our freedoms.

A new kind of spam?

I was wondering about the newfound popularity (slight though it was) of my blog from Japanese-language bloggers. By "popularity" I mean that there had been about one kind and apparently relevant comment on a number of my posts.

Then I noticed that their blogs all seemed to relate to eye clinics.

It could be a coincidence, I suppose - but somehow I'm not so sure. Spammers are getting cleverer... or at least more devious.

The thing is, if blogger uses "nofollow" links in comments, to prevent spammy links from contributing to better placements in search engines, I'm not sure what the point of the spam is. Perhaps it's more old-school than that. Maybe they are hoping actual humans will follow the links, Flattering, if they think my blog will help with that. I doubt it, though.

Checkpoints

Yesterday we had traffic cops checking our passports and my driving licence. One grumpy "get out of the car" cop, possibly peeved that he'd been waving his torch around and been ignored. One polite cop. We ignored the grumpy one even harder and showed the documents to the good cop, who wished us a good evening and sent us on our way.

Today we were stopped at a Navy checkpoint. They must not have so much to do after the collapse of the Tigers - but I'm not sure why they need to do the Army's job for them - especially as the President is increasing the size of the Army (peace dividend, it seems...)

Such is the aftermath of the Presdential election here in Colombo.

It wos the Sun wot dun him

So the Sun has come out against Gordon Brown, at the end of his Labour Party Conference. Gordon Brown quite properly replied that it will be the voters who decide the election, not the Sun (The voters of Scotland, Wales and England at any rate, since Labour lack the courage to face the voters in Northern Ireland).

Still, there is something not quite right about a newspaper making the news to this degree. I thought the papers were supposed to report the news (in the Sun's case, the gossip), and I realised that to a degree they also choose the news - but the degree to which this move on this day was calculated to puncture Labour's positive post-conference glow is just a bit too political for my taste.

As the media becomes more political, I hope that in the UK we won't see politicians ignoring the interests of the people and their own principles (for those who still have any) and tailoring their policies to gain the support of Rupert Murdoch's News International, or any other media group.

It's bad enough that they tailor their policies to the interests of companies whose boards they hope to join!

Electric dreams - missing technology

A fascinating show from the BBC, Electric Dreams is an experiment to see how one family adjusts to life in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Their house was stripped of modern technology, completely reorganised in period fashion, and decorated and equipped with only items available in 1970. The family dressed in 70s clothes, and they they lived a decade a day, with new gadgets (like a freezer and a colour TV) arriving as they became generally available.

Life was very different then - and at times the family complained of being bored, and having "nothing to do" (except for the mother, who was very busy indeed with housework). They spent a lot more time together, eating as a family for instance, and going out together. They had to plan ahead, and phone home - no texting to say you're going to be late, or you've changed your mind.

The programme gave a fascinating glimpse of social history (initially in glorious monochrome) from the power-cuts and strikes of the 1970s, to today's increased freedom from household chores. It also illustrated some very contemporary preoccupations, such as the parents' anachronistic level of concern with health and safety, attitudes to smacking, and the relative freedom then of children to spend time outside, without today's paranoia over "stranger danger".

But there was one major media technology available in the 1970s that was curiously absent. A form of entertainment, and source of information. One that could be used even during the power cuts the family experienced, even when confined to an unheated, game-console-free bedroom "without any supper". One that was virtually omnipresent in the 70s, and that is still widely available. A technology that remains compatible with content produced many years, decades, centuries, even millennia ago. A technology popularised by an invention in Europe in the 15th century.

They had no books!

Perhaps they did, but we didn't see any. Maybe that says more about the priorities of the media people concerned than about the 1970s?

More free lunches

There was a Drupal Camp in Belfast this weekend. No tents involved, fortunately - that last time I tried that, the air mattress deflated during the night, and I woke up lying on the ground. This was a more comfortable affair - a bunch of people talking about Drupal, doing presentations and demos, and having free lunch - two free lunches, in fact.

It was good timing really - I have been playing with Drupal a bit recently to get a website set up. It's not finished yet, so you can't see it. But I now know a few more useful tricks. It'll be ready soon. Maybe.

In short, thanks to the sponsors of the event, I am now better fed and a little better informed. The cake was a lie, but we did have special Drupal gingerbread men, and I won a frisbee. Better than winning a book, because then I'd have had to do a talk at the next event. And I got to sleep in my own bed, and didn't wake up on the ground, with only a thin tent between me and some particularly ominous clouds.

But in spite of the risk of clouds I'm still planning on going back to Greenbelt next year. Some people never learn.

Microsoft Alderaan Slammed in Race Row

The Register reports that outrage was sparked when the website of Microsoft's outpost in Alderaan was clumsily photoshopped, allegedly to conform to local racial demographics.

Two humans were crudely pasted into the picture to make the all-Wookie board of Microsoft Empire seem more acceptable to potential customers in the influential and wealthy Alderaan mobile, droid and deathstar O/S market.

However the subsequent furore may have hampered the chances of the up and coming Microsoft, as it tries to compete for market share with the dominant BSD2 and 3-CP/M systems deployed in most clone armies.

Jabba Gates and Steve "chair" Bal'cca of Microsoft Alderaan were unavailable for comment.

And you thought it belonged to you: Why DRM is such a bad idea

Last night I noticed a very funny thing. Amazon had "un-booked" some books they had sold. Their customers woke up to find that their copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm had been taken back, and the cost refunded. Ironic as anything, but how could it possibly happen?

They had not bought a physical copy - they had paid for a licence to read an electronic copy on Amazon's eBook machine - a "Kindle". And that electronic copy was weighed down by DRM - Digital Rights Management (or Digitally Restricted Media) - so that the people who control it are not the buyers, but the sellers. So when Amazon felt they needed to revoke people's eBooks, they could.

You buy it - but they own it!

It turns out that Amazon, surprised by their customers' outrage or embarrassed by the irony of retrospectively un-selling 1984 -- who knows -- have said they won't do it again.

But they can - and that's the problem with DRM. You don't own what you have bought. "They" can stop you lending it to people. They can prevent you from electronically quoting snippets. They can invisibly edit or change what you have bought - or add new advertising. Or they can take it away altogether. And, often, if the publisher goes bust or even decides to stop selling it, what you bought just stops working. Forever. And it's illegal to try to get it back (in America, it's a felony).

And that is why DRM matters, and why the laws that pander to it matter even more.

And the more media becomes digital and is delivered electronically, the worse this will get.

Maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow; but soon - and for the rest of your media.

Links: NY Times, NY Times Blog, Slashdot discussion.