Somewhere to write, discuss, reflect, ponder, muse and mull over life, stuff, things and anything that takes my fancy.
Just finished reading a great book that was on my reading shelf for over 9 months!
Tulia is a story of Race, Cocaine and Corruption in a Small Texas Town as the title states. It’s a fascinating read and hard to believe that the events described could have happened as recently 1999!
I won’t go into any of the story, just go to Amazon and buy it, you won’t be disappointed.
Looking back over some clippings that I took from my Time Magazines last year, I found some graphics that had been used to describe research derived from the 2004 US census.
There are really worth while having a look at, click on the Links in the post to go to the high-res images.
John Reid on being asked if he intends to stay at the Home Office to see through all the changes that he insists are needed.
John Reid on suddenly deciding that he has to take some time off!!!
Another hypocrite bites the dust!
It’s official; Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, says that more and more personal data is being collected and stored on all of us, both by the the UK Government and UK businesses.
Britain now has more CCTV cameras (both public and private) per head of population than any other country in the world – some five million at the last count, that’s about one for every 12 people!
And now in the latest twist to this modern surveillance society, many police forces have asked that all CCTV cameras be upgraded so that they can take advantage of new technologies that can automatically identify people and analyze their behavior!
To use a borrow a quote from Richard Thomas, the UK is “sleepwalking into a surveillance society“.
I agree with the argument that we need to able to track down criminals and terrorists when the need arises, but surely this ‘total’ coverage is going too far.
What I wonder will be the next step, the recording of sound with the video and perhaps having them talk back to you!!! Oh! I forgot, that’s already happened!
Couple all this up with the UK National DNA database, the UK ID card project, the UK Children’s Database it seems that we are truly sinking under the weight of surveillance.
Where will it end? Will we all have to get a barcode tattooed on our skin so that we can be scanned? Maybe I’m being too paranoid, we will have to see!
I had the opportunity to visit Bletchley Park a few weeks ago for an XMLUK members conference and while there had a chance to look over the Colossus Mark II computer that is being restored there. On the day that I visited it was actually up and running, which was an extra bonus.
Sounds all very geekish, but as someone who work on his first computer in 1967, it certainly was very interesting to see some of the foundations of what should have been the start of a dominant British Computer Industry. Sadly with the burning of the Colossus blueprints and the destruction of the all of the machines after WWII, and the gifts of various computer technology to the USA, that was not to be.
However, thanks must go to the team of enthusiasts including Tony Sale, Cliff Horrocks, David Stanley and many other who have struggled and in the end very successfully managed to rebuild one of these machines and get it running again. The full story of that rebuild can be found here.
Some reference sites that talk about the history and background to the Colossus project.
Here’s an interesting site, click on the guy with the pipe and you get taken to a random site of ‘his’ choosing! I clicked half a dozen times and was amazed at the variety of sites thrown up.
Similar to StumbleUpon.com, just different.
Yet more taxpayers money to spend as English MP’s have voted to award themselves a £10,000 a year pay rise for new web sites as part of their communications allowance. This is on top of £7,000 MP’s already get for printed communications!
The increase was recommended (of course it was) by a parliamentary committee to improve the MP’s communication between MP’s and taxpayers. See here for the full story.
I’ll be amazed if the whole £10,000 actually gets spent on the web sites, but if it is, then it should produce some really good web sites, let’s see what some random web sites look like now.
We’ll come back and visit these web sites and some others to see how the web site have been developed.
One of the worlds earliest astronauts has died of a heart attack. He was the only astronauts to fly on all three Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.
Why is this in my blog? As a young boy I followed every single aspect of the early space missions. Sitting and listening to my fathers old valve based Philips radio, we used to listen in to the overseas broadcasts from American radio stations broadcasting various information about each and every space flight – Walter Schirra’s flight in MA-8 was on Oct. 3, 1962 and lasted 9 Hours and 13 Minutes and he landed just 8 km from his return target!
He eventually went on to fly on the Gemini VI mission and finally captained the first Apollo mission Apollo 7 along side Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham in November of 1968 laying down the foundations for mans first trip to the moon.
In today’s world full of some much technology that’s taken for granted like PC’s, Ipods, Computer games and the Space Shuttle, it’s important not to forget people like Schirra, who paved the way so that many others should follow and benefit from various technologies used in the space program.
If you’ve even listened to Internet Radio, particularity Internet radio services like Pandora or LastFM, then they may be on their last days of broadcasting. A recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board could put an end to the popular web radio services. This stupid ruling increases webcasters’ royalty rates (what they must pay) between 300 and 1200 percent over the next 5 years, seriously jeopardising the industry and threatening your listening.
However, you can help. Join SaveNetRadio, a coalition made up of artists, labels, listeners, and webcasters are trying to force the U.S. Congress to “create a structural solution for this problem and create an environment where Internet radio, and the millions of artists it features, can continue to grow for generations to come.”
It’s unknown at this time if the ruling will in any way influence UK based Internet Radio stations, who are already covered by UK legislation, but as they say, what happens over ‘there’, eventually influences us over ‘here’.
I lost this link a while ago and then suddenly tripped across it tonight. Be the first to see tomorrows Newspaper Front Pages!
Here’s the starting place from Newseum.org. Enjoy.
Beasley's Place 