Category: Uncategorized

Here from my Silicon.Com newsletter is an update about current status of the UK National ID cards scheme.

It seems that all is not well, for example Accenture and BAE Systems abandon bidding for any ID cards contracts.  Read here for more info.

Well as fast as the company that owns most of the UK delivery infrastructure (BT) work against the (what seems inadequate) budget that they have allocated for this upgrade work.

However all of their work may soon not be enough to keep up with ever increasing demand for broadband bandwidth.

With the daily arrival of yet more WebTV stations, more video sharing sites and more picture storage sites are we fast approaching a major web traffic jam when we all end up with just a dribble of data, instead of the promised land of up to 8MB’s?

This interesting article looks at some of the issues, such as 3.5 million people downloading the new BBCi Player in the first two weeks after its launch. If the average program is 350Mb, that’s a lot of traffic!

What is OFCOM about this impending log jam, read the full article here. Things may only be getting slower!

I found this story in one of my SlashDot newsletters today.

I don’t send many texts, maybe it’s age!!! But it forms a huge percentage of many of the UK mobile phone companies revenues.

So what is the real cost of the sending a text compared to say, downloading via your ISP, sending an email or even using the normal post to send a letter?

If these figures are to be believed, then no wonder so much profit is being made by the likes of Vodafone, Orange, 3 etc.

The article is based on recent USA AT&T data, but the principal would be the same for the UK I would think. I’ll have to see if I can find out some of the background info from a UK point of view and post it back here, unless anyone else beats me to it.

Here’s the main article at A Gthing Science Project

I was recently asked by a local councillor what I thought about the level of police numbers and what benefit I thought would come from increasing them.

Having lived in my very quiet street for the past 23 years and only having ever seen four police constables there (two of which once came to arrest me!! – It was a case of someone having used my name/address from the electoral role – another post perhaps?) I can safely say that I would probably not notice any difference. That is not to say that I don’t think that there should be more police on the streets of the UK.

Clearly, more police are required to deal with the increasing number of violent attacks on innocent people, gun grime has got completely out of hand and drugs continue to be a seemingly unsolvable problem, just to name three problem areas.

However, more motorists are being prosecuted for various offences and more and more minor offences seem to be making the headlines.

Here, Simon Heffer of the Times reports on an incident in Kent, where it seems they do have more police officers and are very available to harass and arrest 81 year old pensioners for driving too slow at night!

Yes, I do want more police on the streets of the UK, but I think the people in charge (you know the ones that sit behind the desks) have to make sure that they new police recruits are properly trained and fit for the job, not just target achieving bully’s!

Perhaps it’s not all the Kent Polices fault; looking at this quote from from the presiding Magistrate Angela Howe..

“We believe Mr Gibson is a man of good character, but in finding himself in this unusual situation he let his temper get the better of him and acted out of character.”

I do hope that Magistrate Angela Howe never finds herself in a future unusual situation and manages to not get over heated!

It seems that many of our MP’s have hidden secrets.

Brought on, I am sure by some Labour led investigation set-up to offset the media’s interest in the recent Peter Hain deputy Leadership election finding scandal. It seems that Tory (ex) MP Derek Conway’s political career hangs in the balance.

Now, I am sure that many MP’s have to engage family members, particularly wives (partners etc.) to help them with their work and why should they not be paid something for their time and trouble for this service.

But when as it seems as in the case of Derek Conway’s family, everyone has been involved, some reports say to the tune of more than £250,000 of tax payers money, then I do think that there is a bit of case to answer for Mr. Conway.

I wonder when a) MP’s will clean up their act, do they really think that the public has them in high esteem at the moment? and b) when will we (the taxpaying public) see some of these MP’s actually suffer stiff penalties for there errors of judgement? Probably never, in both cases.

Interesting link for another political firm.

Well sort of… for many UK astronomers who in February will lose access to two of the world’s best telescopes.

The reason? It’s the result of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) cutting off payment fees for the use of the Gemini North and Gemini South Telescopes.

I have always had an interest in astronomy and using my own telescope (TAL-120) I have always enjoyed my use of it even through the ever increasing light pollution that affects the UK night sky. Even though I only use my telescope infrequently due to other distractions, I would miss not being able to use it when I wanted, so I understand the mounting frustrations around this decision. See here for the full story.

It seems a bit crazy to me that the government is cutting funding to the STFC, but I wonder if its anything to do with the obscene amount of money that is being dropped into that black hole called Northern Rock!

I hope the STFC can find another way to somehow refinance these payment fees before they expire and get our research astronomers back online.

Well it’s happened at last! Pandora.com has under pressure from Music licensing authorities has blocked all access to non-USA users – see my login attempt.

I’ve followed the story in a previous post and it seems strange to me in this day and age of supposed innovation why a company like Pandora is forced out of the UK (and many other countries) by over eager licensing authorities wanting to stamp free choice for the likes of you and me.

Here’s some more background info around to the story courtesy of Computing Magazine.

Here’s a very good time line of when and how much personal data has been lost over the past twelve months.

Now, if this is only the tip of the iceberg – as we might expect. How much more data has been lost/stolen that we don’t know about?

Also bear in mind that in most of these cases, the loss was not reported straight away as the various departments/companies struggled to find the missing data before it was public knowledge!!!

I expect the events that happened in the commercial companies have resulted in very serious consequences for the individuals, but I bet the same has not happened to the relevant government employees!

Bring on new National ID Card scheme!!! NOT!

So we have the loss of 600,000 service personal (I did not know that we had that many service personnel ) records through a laptop stolen from a parked car belonging to a Royal Navy recruitment officer – I wonder if he will be prosecuted?

We also have the paper records found in A Kingston Upon Street in early January.

What about the Stockpot Primary Care Trust (PCT) that has admitted it has not informed the thousands affected after their names, dates of birth and details of medical conditions were lost on a USB drive in December 2007.

Now we find that another Nine NHS trusts have lost the records of hundreds of thousands of adults and children, in the latest embarrassing loss of data by this government.

And where does data end up? On E-bay!!!! 

But I still want a National ID card scheme! Not!

When will someone in government sort this mess out, probably never!!!

What is the Information Commissioner doing about this? Not much it seems!!!

I was going through some of last years Time Magazines and always look forward to their end of year Top Ten lists in particularly their Top Ten Music lists.

Here’s a few links to some of their lists…

Top Ten Albums – 2007

Top Ten Songs – 2007

Time Magazine Top Ten Lists – 2007

Time Magazine – Best of 2005

Time Magazine – Best of 2001

Time Magazine – Best of 1988

Time Magazine – Best of the 1980’s