Land of the Free…

Found this on the interesting, if occasionally outraging, War on Photography Blog:

taking photographs of public buildings is, in and of itself, evidence of suspicious behavior sufficient to give authorities the right to stop and detain anyone engaging in such behavior.

Isnt that a great attitude for the Chief of the Franklin, Wisconsin Police Department to have?

Isnt it equally great to remember back to the bad old days of the Cold War when this sort of behaviour was used as an example of how Ebull the Commiez were?

Campaign for Plainer Newspeak

Anyone who sits through meetings ticking off phrases like “leveraging” and “best practice” on a secret bingo card recognises how vile office language can be. All the same, the Local Government Association’s list of words that should be banned on Plain English grounds is a bit crazy.

LGA chairman Margaret Eaton said: “The public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases.”

I think there’s a minor Fail, right there. “The public sector” is not exactly Not-Jargon, is it? The BBC even had to help her out a bit by saying “national and local government” in the next sentence, so readers who are unfamiliar with official jargon would know what she meant. And, surely, many people wouldn’t understand the word “impenetrable”

I’m all for the principle of officials explaining what they mean. The actual list of banned words has some stinkers but there are many phrases there that would be hard to replace.

Banning some of these words would make entire branches of knowledge invisible. I have to assume that “downstream”, “lever”, “fulcrum”, “toolkit,” “seedbed”, “mechanism” are banned for metaphorical use only. Otherwise car maintenance, physics, geography and gardening are all in trouble.

Some of the other words seem to have no reasonable alternatives. They would have to be replaced by a couple of explanatory sentences, which surely wouldn’t help to make them clearer:
Ambassador. Welcome. Area based. Capacity. Customer. Client. Agencies. Flex. Vision.

I defy anyone to describe an ambassador without using the forbidden A word itself or some much more complicated and incomprehensible formulation that refers to vice-counsels and international relations. Without referring to “protocol”, because that’s on the list.

Welcome – argh. Depends on the context. I can’t really think of any way to say “Welcome to X Council” that isn’t either longer or less welcoming. If you have to greet an ambassador then you really are in Plain English trouble,.

Area based: Erm, erm…. Set in a place. (Am tying myself in mental knots to avoid saying geographical. “Set” is a rubbishy choice anyway, though, but I can’t say focussed. I think it’s on the list.)

Customer – erm, “person who buys things or gets some sort of service”. (Can’t cheat and say “client”. That’s on the list.)

Outcomes was so bad they named it twice. I’ll assume that was a typo, because it doesn’t seem like a major offender. “Results” is only one letter shorter and I’m sure that most people could guess that they mean roughly the same thing from the context.

And what about “sustainable” and “freedoms”? It usually takes 3,000 word undergraduate essays to start to explain these concepts. Are council workers going to have to precis them.

Cleopatra Was Egyptian – Shock News!

Wow, breaking news brought to us by the BBC reveals that Cleopatra was, wait for it, of african descent! It seems that the in-depth research of the 1963 blockbuster Cleopatra was wrong and the queen of Egypt was not actually a white caucasian but was native to Eqgypt. Amazing claims like this needs some fantastic research. Fortunately the headline news on the BBC rewards us:

Cleopatra, the last Egyptian Pharaoh, renowned for her beauty, was part African, says a BBC team which believes it has found her sister’s tomb.

Wow. Knock me down with a feather. It gets better:

But remains of the queen’s sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicate that her mother had an “African” skeleton.
Experts have described the results as “a real sensation.”

Amazing. An African skeleton… How could Liz Taylor have got it so wrong only 45 years ago. Do we need to re-cast and re-film an entire generation of epic movies? Next you will be telling me Jesus wasn’t a tall, blue eyed, blonde haired Caucasian.

Actually, I cant keep it up. This is mind numbingly insane.

First off: Who is actually surprised that Egypt is in Africa? Seriously, anyone? This is a news item that basically says “Egyptian Queen is part African.” Is it really that quiet a news day? (no). This is the Online BBC news that ignored seven hours of riots and petrol bombs in Lurgan, Northern Ireland (despite coverage being in the newspapers). This is the online BBC news that is regularly a day behind unfolding events. It is obviously wasting too much time writing copy for the department of the BLOODY OBVIOUS.

Secondly: No one is disputing Cleopatra’s lineage coming from Alexander’s generals and being predominantly Greek. However, the idea that this remained purely Greek (Macedonian?) after the first generation is simply batshit insane. Yes there was a huge amount of inbreeding, and most royal marriages were with Greek nobles, but over 250 years without allowing locals into the bloodline is unlikely. That would have been news worthy.

Thirdly: In my limited archaological knowledge, WTF does “african bones” mean? Is this 19th century casual racism where its thought that the darkies have a different genetic makeup to us “white people?”  What on Earth is there about the bones that make them “african” rather than Egyptian or Greek? Seriously, WTF!

There has been some reluctance of late for this blog to attack the blinding madness that the BBC is pushing out, mainly because it puts us in the same camp as the Daily Wail, but this is a step too far.

The BBC has seriously lost any sense of what is, or isnt, news. This is thinly veiled advertising for a BBC program of dubious merit. Shame on the BBC and I want them to refund what ever portion of my licence fee went towards this drivel.

Banks continue to control us

Untouched by their reckless behaviour (and blatant lack of any real knowledge of the mystical “market forces”) the true leaders of the Western World continue to flex their muscles and show that the interests of ordinary people are, on the whole, irrelevant. They remain blind to contradiction in demanding huge public subsidies, then refusing any form of public control. They continue to assert, in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary, that “they know best” over the current financial crisis. They ignore the problem of begging money with one hand, and paying out huge bonuses to their own staff. They know they are so important that whatever they do we, the public, will continue to bow to their demands. It beggars belief how most banks haven’t been declared International Terrorist Organisations – they demand money and threaten global meltdown if we don’t comply, they have a non-democratic influence in governmental policy and are happy to crush small businesses; the only thing missing is they aren’t (on the whole) Islamic.

Anyway, enough of that rant. You could easily be excused for thinking that giving a bank your money (often paying for the privileged) would mean it stayed your money and the bank just looked after it (although they would use it to make more money for themselves). You would be excused for thinking that you should be able to get access to your money.  You would, however, be wrong.

Not content with charging customers £1.75 for cash withdrawals (except those customers well off enough to be able to get to the increasingly rare free cash machines [ATM], if they can find a working one), the banks are now unveiling measures to make it harder for you to use your cash/credit card. All in the name of security though… so that makes it ok…

A few years ago we heard how Chip and PIN was being brought in to prevent card fraud. Gone were the days in which your signature was enough to prove who you were, now all it took was a 4 digit PIN. This seemed like madness, and in fact creates the current situation where my wife can use my card without anyone noticing she is not a Mr, but the banks were adamant it would prevent fraud. They added to this the demand for every Cardholder Not Present (CNP) transaction to use the 3 digit verification number (CVV) on the back of the card (ironically where the pointless signature strip lives). It was claimed that this would reduce CNP fraud and the two measures would reduce fraud to such an extent that their costs would be negligible.

Except, it never worked out like that.

People buy things over the internet, and give out their CVV with alarming ease – every time you do an online transaction you are asked for it – so after a while it becomes impossible to use this as verification. You would like to think the people you are carrying out an online purchase from are PCI-DSS accredited, but do you check? Do you read through their audits to make sure your holy grail of card number and CVV are safe? Do you assume the credit card companies are doing that? The padlock icon is just to tell you that the data link between you and the shop is secure, it says nothing about the long term storage of your data. I have even seen companies that email out a receipt with the card number in full and the CVV code used – all in a plain text email… Far from secure.

Anyway, it seems that despite these new measures the banks are still suffering almost as much fraud as before (which begs the question…)  and have now unveiled new measures. Basically they will look at your transactions and if the bank thinks you are doing something unusual they will block your card. Its crucial to note here, that this happens if the bank thinks you are doing something odd. They will monitor your activity and then make a decision as to if your behaviour falls within their idea of what is normal. The BBC report on this is interesting:

A leading bank is introducing new technology that will mean every credit card transaction is scrutinised for fraud.
HSBC is introducing the programme, which will affect 10 million card accounts and millions of transactions.

Hmm. You have to wonder what other data the HSBC will be able to mine from this, but we will leave the big brother rant for another day.

The banking industry has warned that more legitimate transactions will be queried or cancelled as a result.

So, what they are basically saying is that because the banks are losing money, ordinary people will be inconvenienced even more than normal. Imagine the scene, you are on holiday in a foreign country (several time zones away), you go for a meal and pay with your card. Only to have your card rejected. What do you do? The banks don’t care. You have to do the running to get everything sorted and cant even claim back any costs incurred from the banks mistake. Outrageous. The standard banking advice is to tell your bank when you are going on holiday but this is crap. It rarely works. From the same BBC page:

When Sally Wiber went on holiday to Borneo, she followed industry advice and told her bank where she was going.
But her credit and debit cards were blocked when she tried to use them on her first day.
“I spent much of the first day trying to deal with my bank and getting internet access, and then had a rather frustrating phone call trying to make sure that I could use my cards for the rest of my holiday,” she said.

Wonderful eh? I can support this from personal experience. My employment has me travelling around Europe a lot. My bank know this. I have told them about my travel and they know my job. However, in France last year, despite my bank being told in writing about my travel, my card was blocked on the second day. I used it on the first day to withdraw cash and make purchases, but on the second day it was decided my activity was unusual. Apparently, as I was on a family holiday, I had been committing the heinous crime of buying presents… I had told the bank I was going on a family holiday. The first days purchases (to a greater value) were fine, but the second day triggered something. The biggest problem I faced here was being stuck, in France, with no phone and no bank account and no money. How do you resolve that?

Does the banking industry care? Again from the BBC:

But Mark Bowerman of the card issuers’ trade body APACS said it was something consumers would have to accept.

That is a “no” then. He continues:

“If we as customers expect banks to do something about this we have to expect that from time to time we’ll be in a shop and the transaction will be queried or card declined. These systems are designed to stop cards being used fraudulently, so if that’s the price we have to pay I think people should be prepared to pay that price,” he said.

Crikey, doesn’t that sound like the war on terror? It actually reads that because the banks want to put a stop to card fraud people have to pay the price. I love the glib way he says that from time to time we’ll have a transaction declined. Like it doesn’t mean anything. Like it doesn’t mean embarrassment and possible legal problems for you when it happens. Try paying for a meal, having your card declined and then explaining that’s just the price you have to pay. Please let me know how far it gets you.

The BBC continues:

Spending large amounts of money or using your card frequently can trigger the alarm at the user’s bank, and with so much fraud taking place abroad, the same goes for using a card outside the UK.

So, basically, using your card can trigger alarms. This happened to me a few weeks ago when I was buying a new suit. I used a credit card that gives me loyalty points, and as I pay it off in full each month I was well within my credit. I spent a while buying an expensive new suit in the January sales, with a shop assistant fawning over me. When it came to pay, I hand my card over (knowing I had a credit limit more than £2000 over the cost of the suit and coat) only for it to be rejected. Shame is an understatement. Queue of people behind me and a shop assistant now convinced I am a petty thief. All because I tried to spend £300 in one transaction, rather than lots of £50 transactions.

There is a solution, and one which may shoot the credit card companies in the foot, but one I am heading towards more and more. Give up with the card. Credit cards are different, as it enables you to spend money you dont have, but you can live without your bank card. This is the travel advice from ABTA on the BBC, to try and get round the problem of having your card blocked at random:

Take a range of payment methods. Take cash for immediate expenses, take two cards, preferably from different banks and take travellers’ cheques as well for extra security if it goes disastrously wrong.

Why go to all this trouble. The only reason you would take the cards is to spend your money abroad. If you take cards with cash and traveller’s cheques as “backup” you are mad. The card is a back up for the other two, but now you cant trust it. If you have a backup you cant rely on, it is worthless, so don’t take the cards. Go abroad with a bit of cash and traveller’s cheques. You don’t need anything else.

Equally, given the disastrous savings rates, you could probably live your day to day life cash only. Wouldn’t that be weird?

Just to show how effective the banks previous anti-fraud measures have been:

Card fraud is rising – up 14% in the first half of 2008 – and fraud abroad now accounts for 40% of all card crime.

Not very effective then. What is the future for these new checks? Will they learn enough to allow people to go on holiday? Will they work?

What we have seen with chip and pin – it was successful for 18 months, two years – the fraudsters have worked a way round it, so we are now looking at more sophisticated means.

So then, in 18 months we will be encumbered with a system causing us problems, making sure we cant rely on our cards (defeating the purpose of them) and it wont be stopping fraud.

Wonderful.

The abortion debate

One of Heather’s recent posts (Lies make the baby Jesus cry) has attracted a few comments. This is odd because most of our readers rarely comment (shame on you) but in some respects unsurprising because the post was on the constantly emotive topic of abortion. In a nutshell, Heather expressed some doubt on the “testimony” presented by an anti-abortion website which described very late term and post-birth “abortions” (murder to normal people) as if they were regularly carried out.

The source had a statement which read: “Generally the practice at the time….and up until 2002 was to end the life of an abortion survivor by strangulation, suffocation, leaving the baby to die, or throwing the baby away.” Heather quite rightly (IMHO) pointed out that this was most certainly nonsense. Strangling a baby after birth is not an abortion.

Anyway, one of the commenters (Lee) has brought up a few points that I felt needed to be elevated beyond the comment thread and given a post all of their own:

Aren’t you talking about an old issue? The girl in the video was born in the 70’s…

Got to answer this yes and no. This is an old issue in that people have argued (and lied) about abortion facts and figures for a long time. The website Heather addressed stated this practice continued until 2002 (old only in internet time). The post itself was made on 17 December 2008, that isn’t even old in Internet time.

The woman in the video was born in 1977 (still not “old”) and yes, US Abortion law has changed between then and now. The “landmark” Roe vs Wade was in 1973 and allowed for an abortion to take place up to three months into the pregnancy. This is not final term and is not post-partum.

Killing a baby after it has been born is now, and was then, murder. In 1977 it was illegal to terminate a baby who was about to be born naturally, unless a doctor stated the mother’s health was at risk (Doe vs Bolton). You can argue that “corrupt” doctors would sign off on anything being a risk to allow a late term abortion but that is a whole different discussion – and can never be prevented unless you rate the mothers life as subordinate to the unborn child.

Maybe I misunderstood the point of your post.

It seems likely, but I actually think you got the point.

It seemed to me you were implying that the girl in the video is lying about the circumstances of her birth.

Yep. If Heather wasn’t implying this, she should have been.

Now it gets fun:

I watched the video (thanks again for the link), it seemed interesting, she didn’t seem to be lying…

Ok. You watched it and thought she was telling the truth. I watched it and thought she was lying. Where do we go from there?

People lie for all kinds of reasons and people will also present a lie as the truth once they have become conditioned to believe it. If the woman in the video was brought up to think they were the circumstances around her birth, she will believe it with all her heart and can easily pass a polygraph. It doesn’t make it the truth though.

I did some research.

So did I. This is why I think there is a healthy dose of lying for jesus going on here.

Not extensive…

Maybe you should try to do some more extensive research. False modesty is not a virtue.

I’m just a blog reader, but it was pretty easy to find information that proved what the girl in the video claims.

I can search the internet and find proof the Earth orbits the Sun. I can find proof the Apollo moon landings were a hoax and proof that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is false. Doesn’t make any of them true. What she describes is illegal, and was illegal in 1977. Who was prosecuted following this? Where are the court records of the trial?

I suppose lots of other people would have proved her birth certificate (signed by the abortionist) and her medical records wrong by now if she was lying.

How? Show me her medical records detailing her birth. Her birth certificate would have been signed by a doctor just like everyone else, it wont have “Abortionist” in big letters after his or her name. Equally, claims like this – which hit the emotional triggers of lots of people who want it to be true, rarely get subjected to scrutiny.

Crucially, read / listen to what is actually said. The woman claims she was born alive before the “abortionist” arrived and was transferred to a hospital. Her records will begin there. She (and her parents) can make any claims they want about the precursor events.

The claims are unverifiable. They are improbable based on law at the time. They are unlikely based on human nature. What conclusion do you draw from that?

Are you saying that these kinds of failed abortions didn’t happen, or don’t happen? (now there is a law against letting infants die if they survive an abortion…so hopefully they don’t happen anymore).

“Failed abortion” is a wide-reaching phrase. Abortions are carried out in the first trimester (and were in 1977) so it is monumentally unlikely a natural, live and viable birth could take place while in the abortion clinic waiting room. I would be surprised if you honestly thought that US hospitals in the 1970s left babies to die.

The US congress took it seriously:
Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2001 [Linked to http://www.nrlc.org/federal/Born_Alive_Infants/BAIPA_%202001_HJC_report.pdf]

The link to the Right to Life website speaks volumes as to the selected choices of information sources. The fact that Congress were convinced to “take it seriously” in 2001 doesn’t lend much support. The blog Heather referenced said this was still going on in 2002 and, there is a tendency to pass legislation on things that are already prohibited if there is enough political pressure to do so. With abortion there is certainly the political pressure.

It does raise one big set of questions though. Prior to the legalisation, and regulisation, of abortions how many babies were left to die, how many were born then strangled, how many mothers died due to complications, how many women died in back street abortions? (etc). Anti-abortionists are not “Pro-lifers” if the mother’s health is sacrificed for the baby. Banning abortion does not make it go away.

If you really want to reduce abortions, without going down the dreaded road of contracption, then plough all your funds into making society better for the parents. Improve healthcare, improve education, improve social supports – just be ready for when a certain section of society realise they get paid for having kids and breed like rabbits. Despite what the anti-abortionist propoganda claims, 99% of abortions are not “lifestyle choices” made by people who feel a child will cramp their demon-worshipping activities.

UK Culture Secretary Fails Internet

In a terrible indictment on the UK government, Andy Burnham (Culture Secretary) demonstrates some fundamental gaps in his knowledge of both the mystical internet and what freedom of speech means.

From the BBC:

Film-style age ratings could be applied to websites to protect children from harmful and offensive material, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.
Mr Burnham told the Daily Telegraph the government was looking at a number of possible new internet safeguards.
He said some content, such as clips of beheadings, was unacceptable and new standards of decency were needed.

Briefly defending him, Mr Burnham has only suggested it as an option. But that is as far as my charity will go.

First things first. Film style age ratings do not “protect” anyone from anything. Browser based implementations (such as blocking your browser from viewing certain ratings) would prevent people from seeing “offensive” material but that is a different matter. Film style age ratings are far from 100% successful in stopping people seeing offensive films (have you seen Mama Mia?) and they are only moderately sucessful in stopping people seeing age-inappropriate content. Why would they work on the internet?

Despite being culture secretary, Mr Burnham appears unaware that the internet is global in nature. This website is written by British people, hosted on a German server and has 60% of its traffic from the USA. Who gets to say what is, or isnt, appropriate here? Harmful content is very culture-specific and by its nature, the internet skips over these boundaries. Do we censor information that the Iranians find offensive? Or the North Koreans? Or southern-US Baptists? Who gets to choose what is harmful? What gives that person the right to say to me what is harmful for my children?

There are some common standards that could be applied, but I suspect there are less of these than Mr Burnham thinks there are. Some cultures think it is acceptable for people to watch criminals being executed, others don’t. Supporters of capital punishment talk about the death of the criminal serving as a deterrent to others. This only works if others know of the death, which is why most executions of this nature are public. Is it harmful (in this context) for people to see the punishment carried out? It is “harmful” in the eyes of a culture that does not condone the death penalty, but why should that culture control the internet?

One thing that screamed out at me was the idea that a video clip of a beheading was unacceptable, rather than the beheading itself… But, in my charitable mood that might have just been a turn of phrase.

The madness continues:

[Mr Burnham] also plans to negotiate with the US on drawing up international rules for English language websites.

Wow. So the UK and US will make a pact that dictates the rules for Australian websites? That sounds fair. What about Iranian websites translated into English? This is mind-numbing madness. Hopefully the US government is technologically literate enough to tell Mr Burnham to boil his head for a few hours. Equally, most video clips showing beheadings are on foreign language websites. What control does the US have over them (short of invading, although admittedly the US rarely stops short of that…).

“Leaving your child for two hours completely unregulated on the internet is not something you can do,” he told the Telegraph.

Another bit of madness. The internet is not a parent. It is not even a child minder. Parents need to be able to educate and assist their children, not rely on badly-thought out “ratings schemes.” Parents need to sit with their child as they surf the internet. Its like anything children do – if you abandon your child to do it, you have no control over what they do. You may think you have some say, but you dont. Take the ratings scheme: most children who are able to surf un-assisted will be able to change web-browers to one that ignores the ratings. Or better still, will be able to enter a URL without a .uk or .com ending where the UK/US RULE is ignored. Technologically backward parents will not be able to implement a control to prevent the child switching to [Lynx|Amaya|Chrome|Opera|FireFox|Mozilla|Safari|Etc]. Does Mr Burnham think every browser coder will be willing to implement a strong age-ratings control without new ones spawning up? Is he that foolish?

The final bit of oddness is: [Emphasis mine]

He went on to say it was time to review the accessibility of certain content on the internet and insisted he was not trying to curb free speech.
His plans are likely to anger those who advocate the freedom of the worldwide web.
You can still view content on the internet which I would say is unacceptable. You can view a beheading,” he said.
“This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it, it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people.”

For a culture secretary, Mr Burnham is woefully ignorant of what “freedom of speech” means. Personally I am opposed to beheading people. I find the death penalty for any crime offensive. Not everyone shares my opinion and, as a result, there are websites where you can read about executions. There are even websites that support the death penalty. I would say they were unacceptable. Does that mean they should be blocked from your browser? No, it means I shouldn’t view them. If I find something offensive, then I shouldn’t look at it. With my children, I sit with them to educate them about what they see. Should I accept your view of what is acceptable for them?

Despite what Mr Burnham says, freedom of speech is not about being free to say things that he (or anyone else) finds acceptable. I find political diatribes offensive and I find religious websites offensive. Will Mr Burnham have them removed? Or would that be a violation of the concept of Freedom of Speech? (I suspect the answer is yes)

The world is full of things which people will find offensive. I find children dying of hunger in Africa unacceptable. Does that mean we ban video clips of it (there go those Oxfam adverts) or does it mean we try to prevent it happening in the first place?

Mr Burnham is right to be offended by the video clips of beheadings. So why dont we prevent the beheadings?

I am sorry, Mr Burnham. As culture secretary you fail.

Die in a hail of gunfire

Who would have thought it, eh? Some crazy people have jumped on the Mumbai Massacre bandwagon to espouse their crazy ideas. Amazing…

Disappointingly predictably, certain individuals are using the massacre to promote their own crazy agendas. On the “Cybercast News Service” yesterday there was an article in which it was claimed that the killings would have been prevented if India didn’t have such strict gun laws:

India’s strict gun laws are partly to blame for the success of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, according to the head of an Indian gun rights group and a U.S. expert who has examined the impact of gun laws on crime and terrorism.

Abhijeet Singh, founder of Indians for Guns, told CNSNews.com Tuesday that if the citizens of Mumbai had been allowed to carry guns, terrorists would not have killed as many people as they did–and might have been deterred from attacking in the first place.

Wow. It still surprises me a little that people can (with apparent seriousness) claim that if everyone had guns, there would be less gunfights. I can see an element of appealing logic, although it flies counter to the current anti-knife crime campaign we have in the UK, which seems to be working. The idea hangs on the fact that Terrorist X wont carry out an attack because if they do, the people they attack will be able to return fire and kill them.

Flawed logic.

First off – if this was true, soldiers wouldn’t be attacked. Islamic terrorists are reasonably prepared to die in the course of their actions, so the return fire is not a deterrent. Equally, even if everyone is carrying guns, the terrorists still have the huge advantage of being the attacker. A crowd of people goin about their daily business is in no state to drop to cover and return handgun fire when they are ambushed by assault rifles. The terrorist has the initiative, dictates where and when the attack will happen and can still kill large numbers before fire is returned with sufficient effect to defeat them.

Another line of reasoning was that if the public had all been armed, the terrorists would have killed a few, then the return fire would have got them – reducing the overall casualty figures.

Wrong, but less flawed. Most people are not combat trained. Despite all the range time gun-lovers carry out, despite all the films they watch, and magazines they read, combat shooting is something very, very different. Battle inoculation is so important that soldiers undergo it so they can experience what being under fire is like – hopefully to reduce the chance they will fuck up when the time comes to fight. Even with all this, and months of specialist training, soldiers make mistakes in the heat of battle. Some people will panic and shoot randomly, some will miss, some will be good shots but poor at target identification. The potential for carnage is beyond belief. The only thing you could hope for is that the terrorist would be just as shocked by the bullets flying in every direction they’d panic and fuck up as well. The problem is terrorists have often been to training camps, where they are taught what it is like…

The whole idea is insane and creates a wonderful scenario for any budding terrorist planners.

Imagine the scene: A shopping mall filled with several hundred armed people going about their daily business. One armed terrorist, dressed like everyone else, walks into the mall and opens fire, dashes to cover, fires again and lies low. The crowd are under fire. Everyone draws their guns and shoots in the direction they think the attack is coming from… At this point, the mall is filled with people seeing other people pointing guns at them. In the ensuing carnage there is only a moderate chance the terrorist will actually get killed, if he has any sense he could easily lie low enough to avoid being hit. Better still, when the security forces arrive, they are faced with how ever many survivors there are, all shooting at each other – how do they decide who to take out?

It is pure madness. Is this really the scenario these people want, or do they think all the members of the public will do cowboy style quick-draws, drop to one knee and double tap the terrorists in the head? By Zeus, the madness makes my eyes water.

Guns do not keep you safe. They do not stop people shooting you. At best they give you the chance to shoot back, but a holstered gun is useless. Carrying a gun makes you a target for everyone else with a gun.  Carrying a gun, at best, gives you a false sense of security.

As ever, the comments for the CNS article are a fertile ground of madness. Some of the more, erm, entertaining ones:

Quote: “Distributing weapons to general public is not the wise and right idea to counter the terrorism.” Hmm, that’s funny, the citizens of Israel found the exact opposite to be true. You think maybe they might have some experience in the matter? Here in Michigan, USA, I carry a loaded pistol every day, everywhere I go. Nothing unusual, just normal everyday business. It’s nice to feel like a citizen instead of a subject.

Erm, no.

I, for one, have had a gun put to my head. I was lucky to have survived. I have vowed to never go through this again without a fight. Dispite my handing over everything to the robber, he still shot at me, but missed, thank God. I can’t carry at a bar, but look how many people are assulted leaving the bar to go to their car. Where would my pistol be? Locked in my car. Big help, isn’t it! I would like to see just one time where a person with a carry permit has gone on a shooting spree in a church, school, sports arena, or entertainment facility with a capacity of 2500 people plus, as these are the places Michigan law forbids my having my weapon with me at. Note! I can carry in a church with the permission of the church. It looks to me like none of the Government Law Makers or any of their families or friends have ever been assulted, so they don’t know what it is like. I suggest they get their heads out of the sand, look at reality and come up with laws that are reaistic.

God and Guns – dont they go together well… This person misses the whole point, but it isnt surprising really. I have been shot at, I have had mortars fired at me, I have had petrol bombs thrown at me by rioters. I was carrying a gun at the time and it didn’t help at all. This person doesn’t want protection, they want to be able to shoot the robber, after they have been robbed. Wonderful escalation that will result in the robber just shooting them first. I defy anyone in the real world to draw a gun and kill an attacker who has a loaded weapon drawn and pointed at them.

Armed,law abiding, citizens protect a nation and its people. But, an unarmed population is at the mercy of their own government, home grown thugs and terrorists as well as invaders from outside their country. Gandhi was right on!!! A realistic pacifist knows that force is the only way to meet force in the end. “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” — The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times) speaking at the “Educating Heart Summit” in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate

Well, while it may be true that “armed, law abiding citizens” protect a nation, they are called “soldiers.” Having every citizen armed is certainly not the same thing and does not protect a nation. An armed population is just as at the mercy of its government as an unarmed one. The realistic pacifist mentioned is not a pacifist, pretty much by definition. Self defence is important but if carrying a gun is not defence. A weapon is designed to be used to attack someone. Armour and a Sheild were defence, the sword was the offensive weapon. In modern times the gun is there for offensive activity. If you want to defend yourself, buy a kevlar vest and helmet. Yes, a good (military) defence is a good offence – however that does not carry over to every day life – unless you shoot all passers-by just in case.

If you are so scared that you feel the need to have a gun tucked inside your pants, fine – as long as you dont draw it anywhere near me, I don’t mind. Just remember though, that now you have a gun you are a threat to everyone around you who doesn’t know you. How do they know that you aren’t a screaming madman about to go on a killing rampage? What if you look at them a bit funny and they think its time for the offensive-defence…

Personally, even having been to most of the worlds war-zones, I’d rather not carry a gun.

When all else fails, blame the Internet

On this morning’s bus journey, I read in what appears to be yesterday’s Metro, from the date on the Metro website version of this article, (although I can’t believe the Metros has a Sunday version.)

Web vengeance on Baby P couple
The identities of the mother and stepfather of Baby P have been posted on the internet – along with messages urging convicts to attack them.

The baby P story is a truly mind-numbing story, involving the torture and murder of a baby, at the hands of his mother, stepfather and the lodger. The child was listed by social services as being at risk, The police had already been involved and had sought a prosecution. No one seemed able to save the lad’s life. It’s one of those stories that push the boundaries of your capacity for rage.

The visual presentation of this story has been disturbing, even for those who can’t bring themselves to read the court statements. The police released a 3-d rendering of a baby’s head with a catalogue of injuries. The next day, the papers followed this up the image with pre-injury pictures of an angelic-looking little blonde boy.

Every one involved – which now means most of the UK population – has been looking to find someone or something to blame. The almost inconceivable stupidity of the social services staff seems a fair target. The government has set up an enquiry. A BBC Panorama programme tonight will investigate claims by police and a senior social worker that they recommended that the child be taken into care. (Hindsight is 20/20, as teh saying goes.)

But, the actual culprits have already been found guilty. The visceral response is to want to execute them. Of course, faced with these backward and depressed people, no doubt themselves abused as children, the quality of mercy would get the better of this instinct, for most people. After all, that’s why most of us are not murdering simpletons.

Understandably, many people expressed their natural fury on the Internet. Intemperately, yes. Still, it seems quite bizarre to see that now this means that the Internet has got to take the blame. As usual.

There was already a half-hearted attempt to blame the Internet in the trial reports when it was reported of the mother that

When she was awake, she spent much of her time on the internet, gossiping in chatrooms and playing online poker.

I am no fan of either moronic chatrooms or online gambling. But, I find it hard to draw any connections between either of these activities and child murder.

Similarly, I can’t see that venting rage on the Intenet is much of a crime either. The argument seems to be that internet rage is bad because it will find its expression in attacks on the guilty three.

Late last week Facebook shut down pages carrying threats and abusive comments about the mother, including one entitled: ‘Death is too good for [the mother’s name], torture the bitch that killed Baby P.’
Another was added yesterday and had been viewed by at least 6,000 people last night.
The mother’s profile page on Bebo was removed after abusive messages were added.
The postings demonstrate the ease with which the law can be breached online.

How odd that writing (richly deserved) insulting comments on a website can be a crime. Indeed, unless, the web access in x prison is much more generous than in my (non-custodial, though it sometimes feels otherwise) workplace, I don’t even see how the mother will get to read the comments.

I am most baffled by the idea that identifying these people and saying vicious things about them is somehow equivalent to instructing fellow prisoners to injure them. And that such orders – from people unknown – will be followed to the letter.

Are there people in jail who assume that behavioural instructions on the internet have the force of law? Well, more than the force of law, apparently, because they may not be too responsive to the force of law, given that they are in jail.

Would a random cheque-fraudster who finds him or herself sharing a cell with one of these disgraces to humanity think “Oh, we’ll get on really well” but then read the undisobeyable internet instructions and be obliged to torture and kill the said disgrace to humanity?

Wealth Buys My Happiness

I am somewhat short of time and this is a topic that really needs some in-depth commentary to do it justice. While I fully intend to return to this over the next few days, please think of this as a mini-meme: If you read this post please have a think about blogging your opinions on the articles below. If you dont want to, that’s OK, as I said, I will address the fact that I pretty much disagree with every one of these… 🙂

Background: In light of the Credit Crisis and the environmental disaster we are bringing in on ourselves, New Scientist has put together a “Growth Issue” in which a variety of people argue we need a new social model in which economic growth is not the goal and we all adopt a fun-filled, relaxed, minimal work life.

First off the editorial: Always annoying but this sets the tone: Read it first then move on to the main feature.

The weirdest of the feature has to be the “Life in a land without growth” article. It is a hypothetical report from 2020 detailing how great life is now we have done away with economic growth. The report has a great start:

IT’S 2020, and we are a decade into a huge experiment in which we are trying to convert our country to a sustainable or “steady-state” economy. We have two guiding principles: we don’t use natural resources faster than they can be replenished by the planet, and we don’t deposit wastes faster than they can be absorbed.

but then goes massively down hill with:

In our society, scientists set the rules. They work out what levels of consumption and emission are sustainable – and if they’re not sure they work out a cautious estimate.

Hmm. Didn’t Lisa Simpson try this for Springfield? I am more than a little worried about the idea of a culture where “scientists set the rules.” From that point on, I began to disagree with most of the report and decided, if that was our society, I’d be a terrorist.

The next utopia-article that annoyed me was the “Nothing to fear from curbing growth” one. To be fair to Kate Soper, it is better written than the hypothetical report but she hits on a theme which gets my back up on a gigantic scale: The idea that the more money you have, the less happy you are.

This is monumental nonsense. As far as I can tell it was a tool used to keep the working poor in their place by convincing them that aspiring to great-wealth would be bad for them. It manifests itself in our obsession with the failings of the rich and famous – every time some one wealthy checks into rehab, or complains about being depressed etc., the nonsense about money not making you happy is dragged out. Interestingly, this is something asserted more often by well off people than poor people, which makes you wonder about their motives.

Kate Soper shows how there is a mistaken transposition of survey data to draw this conclusion:

For example, rates of occupational ill-health and depression have been shown to be linked to the number of hours we work, and once a certain level of income is reached further wealth does not correlate with increased happiness.

Hours worked does not equal wealth and we have an odd conflation here.

Working 20 hours a day does not make you happy. I can testify in the court of Odin that, having done a 36 hour shift I was not even close to being happy at the end of it. I would be much, much, happier if I didn’t have to work.

That part of her claim I agree with. Working long hours is depressing.

Working long hours, however is not the same as being wealthy. In fact it is often the inverse. Poor people have to work all the hours Zeus sends to make ends meet. This makes them depressed. They are depressed because they are poor.

There is a middle ground, but it is a middle ground I will never have sympathy for. Some people are at the very low end of being well-off and, as a result, have to work insane hours. These are not actually rich people though – recent examples are the merchant bankers in the city of London, working 18 hours day to get million pound a year bonuses. Sadly, their lifestyle demands those bonuses and therefore demands those hours. If they are living in the centre of London, where a toilet costs a million pounds to rent, they best work as hard as the cleaner (who admittedly lives in a cardboard box under tower bridge). They are “wealthy” but not happy. However, they are an odd group and far from representative.

Then we get the genuinely wealthy. I suspect Bill Gates is a pretty happy person and enjoys his life. I think it would be foolish to say he was less happy than someone who was working 12 hour shifts stacking shelves in the supermarket, followed by a six hour shift waiting tables to try and keep a roof over their families head.

Going back to the article, it jumps from working long hours = depressing to saying that beyond a certain level of wealth the increase in happiness is not proportional. This left me with a huge so what.

If I am X happy with £100million, does it matter that I am only (X*2)-Y happy with £200million? Not to me. I am more happy, and that is enough. The rest of her article continues the conflation of work and wealth so I will leave it for now.

Now, as a final point, and going back to the title, I will again assert it is largely incorrect to say that money doesn’t buy happiness. For the screaming pedant it is correct because happiness is an emotion and unless the very existence of lots of (positive) numbers on your bank balance makes you happy the money isn’t doing that bit.

However, what money gives you is the ability to become happy. If you are wealthy enough to not have to go to work, you can spend quality time with your family; you can spend more time doing hobbies; you can learn new things; you can read new books; you can travel the world. There are more things that I want to do than I will ever have time to do so it is a constant battle with the clock. Money buys that wonderful thing called time. The problem is we have to give up time to work so the key for most people is finding the best balance between lots of work, and lots of time.

Being slightly scientifically oriented, I am open to having my mind changed on this topic – but I suspect any arguments will just go back and forth on issues of pedantry. What I propose instead is a simple experiment.

If you feel, like so many others, that money does not make you happy then send me £50,000. With this we can see if having less money makes you happy and if having more money makes me happy.

As this is a fixed amount and may well be below the threshold that Kate Soper was referring to there is a second experiment: I will make a note of my current happiness using any criteria you choose. Then I am given £1million and my happiness is re-assessed. Next this is increased to £10million (with another assessment) and finally a sum of £20million and a final assessment. From this we can see if the increasing sums of money show a corresponding increase in happiness.

Does that sound like a good idea? I am more than willing to take part in the experiment at a moments notice.

On the other hand, if you aren’t willing to give me all your money, don’t claim being rich doesn’t make you happy.

Footnote: I used “you” and “your” a lot, these are just generic terms. I didn’t mean you unless you are Bill Gates [or similar] and fancy the experiment. Do you?

Rights fading away

If you hadn’t already noticed, I am a keen hobbyist photographer. I love going out with my family and taking pictures of everything around me. This is pretty harmless and it gives us nice pictures to hang on the walls or foist off on relatives in place of Christmas and Birthday presents. As a pastime, there could be much worse.

Being interested in photography, I always considered myself lucky that I was born in a democracy where people are basically free to indulge in their hobbies and predominantly interested in landscape photography where you dont have to ask someone to smile.

It seems, however, I was actually quite wrong and it is only my tendency for landscape shots that keeps me on the right side of the law. Despite our “evil freedoms” being abhorrent to the nutcases like Usama Bin Laden, we actually have a lot less than you would think. Actually, that isn’t true (yet) but I will come back to this.

Two news items from this weeks Amateur Photographer magazine give pause for thought about our “rights” and freedoms. The first is a worrying incident in the land of the free:

A TV crew filming a story about photographers being harassed at a US railway station were stopped by security and told to switch off their cameras. (…) Tom Fitzgerald, a reporter for Fox 5 television, was interviewing the chief spokesman for rail operator Amtrak when a security guard ordered the crew to stop filming. Ironically, the spokesman had apparently just confirmed to the reporter that photography was, in fact, allowed.

It continues to mention that this is not an isolated incident (flickr discussion) and the madness that “moves are afoot to introduce draft legislation designed to protect the rights of photographers to take pictures.”

It is doubly ironic that they tried to put paid to the film crew filming the company spokesman saying filming was allowed. What better example of corporate non-communication could there be?

The Amtrak Goons are insane, but are not alone. We have a similar problem in the UK:

Olympics 2012 bosses have apologised to photographers who complained about heavy-handed treatment by security guards at the East London construction site. The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) came under fire after two amateur photographers complained following a confrontation outside the site on 3 May. Louis Berk and Steve Kessel say they were left feeling intimidated after guards demanded to see their identification. ODA spokeswoman Laura Voyle said the guards approached the photographers ‘to investigate a report that they had been seen within the Olympic Park boundary’. However, the pair insisted they had been on a ‘public pavement’ and had not ventured onto the Olympic site itself. (…) And [Olympics Security Manager] promised to conduct a ‘review of instructions on how they will deal with issues relating to photography’.  (…) However, [Louis Berk] does not feel reassured, telling us: ‘What concerns me is that I still don’t know if the ODA realises that suspicion of taking photographs of their property from a ‘public place’ is not a cause for intervention by the guard force.’

There is more madness around the 2012 London Olympics but this highlights the current problem.

In a nutshell, both instances were the result of private Security Guards not being aware of the rules regarding their location. This is down to poor education by their employer. In the UK you can photograph almost anything (some locations are exempt under the 1911 Official Secrets Act) from a public place. If you can see it, you can photograph it. Kind of makes sense really. It is different if you are on private property, but 90% of the time the property owner will give permission. Again, it makes sense. I can only assume the law is similar in America.

What is worrying is that both instances show people have a default setting of STOPPING photography. I will be charitable and say neither organisation put out instructions to annoy members of the public (including tax payers who paid for the bloody Olympic-farce) so the security guards must have assumed the camera was a security threat. Over the last few months there have been lots of occasions where over zealous guardians have taken offence at people trying to take photographs, even in (weirdly) popular tourist destinations like Trafalgar Square. I have read claims that people were questioned because they could be “terrorists doing reconnaissance” (with an overt camera and tripod – good job Johnny Foreigner isn’t clever enough to use a mobile phone camera…) or other equally spurious risks (there were children present etc..).

The problem is, these fears (and certainly this one in particular) are nonsense. Bruce Schneier, BT’s chief security technology officer, recently wrote an excellent article for the Guardian where he dismisses most of these fears. The article is really, really worth reading even if you aren’t a photographer – there are many more “freedoms” at risk from our apathetic approach to them and “terrorism.” Schneier has an interesting theory that this madness where we fear long-lens cameras is because it is a “Movie Plot Threat.” Also worth reading.

Sadly, it may well be too little, too late for our society. We fear that the evil Islamic terrorists will destroy our culture, so to “beat” them we destroy it ourselves. Well done us.

Parentkind

Interestingly, today I received an email from some one called “researcher” who appears to have taken offence at a post Heather made last month titled “Shoot the messengers.”

Oddly, the total message included read:

Check your information first before you slate companies – re Parentkind and The Parent Organisation

Now, all I can think of is that “researcher” is someone with a vested interest in these organisations, but I can confirm that Heather did indeed check her information re those organisations, so I am left all confused as to the point Researcher was trying to make.

Researcher – if you are reading this, please feel free to explain further.

[Edited: 28 december 2008: Obviously “Researcher” doesn’t read the blog and didn’t feel the need to explain any further….]

Cameras and Security

A comment on a recent post, by someone apparently called Video Surveillance, got me thinking about some common misconceptions. In case you are wondering, I the link I munged goes no where of any value – it certainly doesn’t continue the “story” began in the comment.

The odd thing is one of the concepts the commenter (bot?) has brought up. Do video cameras make you safer?

With crime on the rise many people and business are looking for added security.

Well, I agree with this. There is a very strong argument that crime being on the rise is a misleading claim, but the fact is people think crime is on the rise, so they are looking for added security. Sadly, people who are easily misled into thinking crime is on the rise, are also easily misled over how to improve their security.

Video surveillance is one the top ways to improve the security of your belongings and loved ones.

Well, after a good start this amazing claim. Here I strongly disagree. This is the standard “marketing” crap pushed out by people selling woo to the public. Tell them they should be scared, then lie about your product solving their fears.

As with all the best lies, there is an element of truth. As part of a robust security package, video surveillance will improve your overall security, slightly. I am not sure what “top ways” means, but it certainly is not the “best way” or the “most cost effective way.”

Security is a many headed beast, and it will mean different things to different people. The best that can be claimed about video surveillance is that it offers a “deterrent” effect in that people who SEE a CCTV camera may be less inclined to commit a crime because they know the chances of being caught AFTER the event are slightly greater. The same can be said about a robust lock or a big thick door, however. A functioning, real, burglar alarm which is actually responded to is more effective than a CCTV system.

Here we hit a crux of the problem. For CCTV to be anything other an an “after-incident” investigation tool it has to be monitored 24/7 by people capable and willing to respond to an incident within an effective time scale. I could set up the best CCTV system in the world to monitor my house, but if I didn’t lock the door when I went on holiday it would be useless. CCTV is defeated by the simple expedient of wearing a hood – what sort of security system is that. Without monitors and responders it is the most pointless security system (do you really want to watch a video of someone breaking into your house?). With monitors and responders it becomes prohibitively expensive.

All in all, selling CCTV as “security” is tricking fools out of their money. CCTV has value in identifying criminals and will have some deterrent effect but it certainly is not a remotely cost effective method of improving your security.

If you want real, tested, cost effective security advice, my rates are reasonable 🙂

My own blacklist

It’s going beyond boring to keep plugging this “1984 in the 21st century” stuff, so I’ve been willfully blanking lots of it, but this story is too chilling to ignore.

Just think of every shitty boss you’ve ever worked for. Every dishonest co-worker. Every work dispute you’ve ever had. Every manager who’s made you take the rap for their own corruption or stupidity.

Now, just imagine that the aforementioned shitty bosses could get a lifelong revenge on you at no inconvenience or risk to themselves.

The BBC story says:

Workers accused of theft or damage could soon find themselves blacklisted on a register to be shared among employers. It will be good for profits but campaigners say innocent people could find it impossible to get another job.To critics it sounds like a scenario from some Orwellian nightmare.
An online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty, regardless of whether they have been convicted of any crime, which bosses can access when vetting potential employees.
But this is no dystopian fantasy. Later this month, the National Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR) is expected to go live.

Note that you don’t get on this database by being convicted of a crime. That would see you on the Criminal Records Bureau computer, which – for all its shortcomings – requires there to have been a prosecution before you find yourself unable to work ever again.

You can get on this database just because someone suspects you of doing something untoward in their employment. Or, obviously, just hates you for any number of reasons.

The Trades Union Congress spokesperson said:

Individuals would be treated as criminals, even though the police have never been contacted

Precisely, thus overturning centuries of law based on the “innocent till proven guilty” premise.

For once, the comments on this story on the BBC website aren’t dominated by the “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” battalion. Most commenters were understandably horrified and made some cogent arguments against it.

I’m still going to hammer a few of the arguments home.

  • A dispute with an employer can now permanently ruin your entire working life, even if you are completely in the right.
  • In many industries – bar and shop work – unjustified accusations of theft are pretty commonplace. Things get stolen or takings are down and a paranoid boss tends to blame anyone handy.
  • People who are stealing at work can be very good at casting the burden of doubt on other workers, especially if they are new or temporary. (A fortnight’s temporary work as a naive student could leave you so unemployable that you might as well not finish that course.)
  • If you are guilty, you might as well not bother going straight in future jobs because you won’t get any.
  • The private information to be held on these databases must contravene the Data UnProtection Act as it’s obviously not being used for the purposes it is collected for. (For instance, your NI number is supposed to exist to allow your contributions to be credited to you. )
  • The BBC article refers to some remedies under the law. They are too feeble to even merit a mention. And in case, they are purely personal. You yourself have to find out if you’re on the database. You have to ask for your record. You then have to require that errors of fact be corrected.
  • If you have anything against you – legitimate or not – as a UK citizen, you are at a big disadvantage in working in the UK, compared to other EC nationals. You need checkable references, legitimate qualifications and, increasingly, CRB checks. I suggest that you move to another EC country forthwith, so you can make up a few past jobs and some impressive trade qualifications, which no one will be able to question. Imagine you are a builder who has got caught taking home some bathroom fittings (pretty much seen as one of the perks of the job until recently.) That’s it. You’re sacked. You’re also finished up as a worker in the UK. Your job will go to someone with a completely spotless UK record – which probably means someone fresh from Eastern Europe. I can’t believe that free movement of labour in the EU was meant to allow countries – like the present-day UK – to willfully marginalise their own populations.

On a social – but also very selfish level – who wants to live in a world where one mistake – or one falsely attributed mistake – dooms people to a life in which legitimate earnings are just a pipe-dream? That is the way to turn the country into a crime-ridden wasteland. As the UK goes under ever more extreme lock down, life gets ever more desperate for the people outside of Daily-Mail world.

Boycotts are generally feeble tools for achieving anything. All the same, as far as I can see, the only possible recourse against this sort of thing – in the absence of any organised public concern – is to just refuse to buy any goods or services from the offending companies.

So I’m starting my own blacklist.

The BBC mentions Harrods, Selfridges and Reed Managed Services. They’ll do for a start, although that’s too easy. Never having used the services of any of these companies, it won’t make much of a dint in their balance sheets if I decide to boycott them. All the same great oaks, small acorns etc.

When I find out the names of more participants, I’ll post them here.

Ebay and pay more

Now, given that this blog has an amazingly technical readership (who often put Heather and me to shame) it will probably come as no surprise to most of you that Ebay is actually a more expensive way of buying things. However, it was a bit of a shock to me.

Today, I was looking around for books on the CISSP course and out of idle curiosity I did a search for CISSP for dummies (yeah, yeah). On ebay today, the cheapest I could find was £13.99 plus £2.75 postage (visit auction page – auction ends 12 May 08 so the link might die).

Compare against Amazon.co.uk where the same book costs £13.49 plus £2.75 postage (here).

Now this is a trivial example, and most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid over saving 50p (I would but that is because no one ever makes donations here and I am poor). However, if we look at it a bit further…

Ebay has the CISSP Exam Cram 2 book available as a Buy It Now for the discounted price of £21.37 plus £2.75 postage. Can Amazon beat that?

Well, yes. On Amazon, the CISSP Exam Cram 2 is £14.99 (postage seems to be a grey area here but I think it will be £2.75). That is no mere £0.50 saving, that is a whopping £6.38.

There is a change in the balance of power over the CISSP all in one exam guide (Ebay, Amazon) where Ebay is actually about £3 cheaper, but by and large you actually pay for the privilege of using Ebay. It strikes me, from talking to all the ebayers I know, that people have a strange attitude towards Ebay. When people go to shop there, the idea of checking prices becomes alien.

For some reason, people seem to get caught in some weird mindset when they are faced with an auction and apparently regularly pay prices close to, or in excess of, the market rate for an item. I have experienced this a bit in the past when I’ve been bidding on cameras or camera parts – I have never won a single auction because almost every one of them has gone over the price you could buy it from a camera shop.

Why on Earth does Ebay have this effect on people? Great for sellers but, methinks, not so good for the buyer…

Traffic safety or surveillance?

Any road user in the UK will know about the hordes of traffic cameras all over the country. These wonderful things are supposed to be there to prevent people from speeding – basically they are set up to trigger if you go past at a speed that is above the limit for that stretch of road. If you speed past one, it takes your photo and you get fine & penalty points through the post.

I am not going to use this post to complain about how they don’t actually prevent speeding and are little more than income generation for the local council. That is a rant for another day.

This rant is about the nature of the cameras themselves.

The idea as sold to the population is that this is not “surveillance” of the public (Thor knows we have enough CCTV for that) and photographs of vehicles would only be taken if they exceeded a certain speed (generally the speed limit +10%). However, a comical item on the BBC seems to show a difference.

Leaving aside the whining, simpsonesque “wont anybody think of the children” rant, the concern I have is why on Earth did this camera take a picture of a vehicle that wasn’t speeding? Why was a speed camera recording images of a non-speeding vehicle so the police could dream up other charges?

Welcome to 1984… (again)