| Saturday, May 17th, 2008 |
| 9:31 am |
Restoring Faith in Human Nature This is a web site that gives me a warm feeling inside. What Do They Know monitor freedom of information requests and puts the request and all the responses online for all to see. It is somewhere between political activism and voyeurism. For example, what requests are people making about CCTV? or Nottingham City Council. Once a search is set-up, any new requests can be sent to you by email. |
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 |
| 10:55 am |
Why? Hi-tech face recognition cameras used in Budgens to spot underage drinkers
A supermarket chain is introducing face recognition cameras to prevent staff mistakenly selling cigarettes and alcohol to under-18s.
Face recognition: Will be used to stop underage drinkers buying alcohol
The biometric technology is being piloted by Budgens at one of its London branches.
If successful, it could be rolled out across the country to create a database of youngsters who try to buy alcohol.
Never mind the civil liberties aspects of this, why would a company do this on commercial grounds? If they want to stop kids buying alcohol from their store, they could have their staff ask for some form of ID. Yes they may loose a few sales when legitimate purchasers are turn away for not having some ID but that cost is going to be a lot lower than the price of installing and maintaining a sophisticated computer system. Especially when face recognition technology is defeated by cunning disguises like hats or sunglasses. |
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 |
| 4:23 pm |
Civil Rights Abuse Daily: Episode 23 Ripper in legal bid for freedomBut Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said ...
"Top of my list of priorities, I have to say, is not Peter Sutcliffe's rights, it's the rights of those people who were his victims, ..."
First of all, I thought the point of human rights was that everyone had them equally, with no person's rights more or less important than another person. Secondly, most of Sutcliffes' victims are dead and there is no evidence to suggest that those who are still alive (two I think) or the families of the deceased would have their right's threatened in anyway by Sutcliffe's release. Thirdly, I would hope that the Home Secretary has, say, terrorism as their top priority and not the rights of some victims of a crime committed 20+ years ago. |
| 10:03 am |
Its life Jim, but not as we know it ABC in America is remaking Life on Mars and according to the Wikipedia article it will be sent in 1972 and not 1973. My first thought was bloody typical American remake changing things for no good reason. Then I remembered, 1973 was the year that Watergate exploded. Maybe ABC didn't want to remind the viewers about an unpopular, corrupt Republican President in an election year. |
| Sunday, May 11th, 2008 |
| 11:35 am |
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| Saturday, May 10th, 2008 |
| 9:08 am |
Do you feel safe yet? This week you may have seen the story that despite billions spent on CCTV they only help solve 3% of street crime. Meanwhile, an indy band call Get Out Clause has released a video that was recorded using CCTV. The band set-up in front of a camera, performed and then used the Data Protection Act to get the images. They did this in front of eighty cameras across Manchester. Its certainly a novel and publicity attracting way of getting a video made, something the band should be congratulated on. However the press have mostly missed the real story here. The band performed in front of 80 cameras yet could only get footage from 20 of them despite the fact the companies operating the cameras are under a legal obligation to provide the data when requested. The Data Protection Act is meant to be the counter-balance to all those privacy invading cameras. It is how the government justifies taking your civil liberties away and yet three quarters of organisations are failing to meet their legal obligations. So, do you feel safe? A quick poll: a: I feel safe because of CCTV b: I DON'T feel safe because CCTV isn't working. We need more / better cameras c: I DON'T feel safe because of the CCTV |
| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 |
| 1:23 pm |
When Washing Powder Ads Go Bad  "Instant White" This is an ad from Ligy Laundry Powder by advertising agency WhyCreative out of Beijing, China. From Ligy Laundry Powder |
| Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 |
| 12:11 pm |
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| Friday, April 25th, 2008 |
| 10:31 am |
Why oh why oh why... "Criminals are enjoying such a life of luxury in jails that they are refusing to try to escape" Call me old fashioned but I don't want criminals trying to escape. The point of prison is to keep the criminals on the inside away from the general public so Government policy is working fine. The whole story ( Criminals enjoying "high life in cushy jails" ) is a combination of Daily Mail style idiocy and blatant publicity seeking by the Unions. "Travis gave an example of a breach at Everthorpe Prison in East Yorkshire, where a dealer regularly used a ladder to scale the fence and supply inmates with drugs and mobile phones." And why didn't the prison guards simply call the police? Everything about this story suggests to me that the Prison Service isn't underfunded, it simply employs too many idiots. |
| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 |
| 2:50 pm |
Anyone Surprised? Associated PressThe first results from [the Zimbabwe] election recount under way show President Robert Mugabe's party has won an additional parliamentary seat, state media reported Wednesday. |
| 9:48 am |
Contradictory Lifehacker had great but completely contradictory tips today. First up was the Carbon Copy Post-It Notes. Yes, Post-It Notes where you can keep a copy for your own records. I suspect there are at least two people on the fList going "What a great idea, I must get some" but my reaction was WTF! The next post was about tips on environmentally friendly computing as yesterday was apparently Earth Day. It included Aardvark which can save ink and paper but cleaning up unwanted banners and surrounding "fluff," prior to printing a page. I'm sure someone ( Lewis Carrol? Douglas Adams?) has commented that being able to hold two contradictory ideas in our head is what makes us human but I don't think we will save the environment by printing a few less sides of A4 if we are also buying carbon-copy Post-It Notes. |
| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 |
| 11:25 am |
Blatent Self Promotion I've just finished putting together a new web site: Friendly Affordable SEOSEO is Search Engine Optimisation, or in English, how to get your web page to appear at the top of Google's search results. Useful stuff to know for businesses or fan clubs wanting to attract visitors. The core of the site is a bunch of free SEO articles. These were originally planned as a ebook to sell but I decided there wasn't enough there so I bunged them on a web site. One article I'm particularly pleased with is “Britney Spears”, “Sex” and “SEO”. I've placed on Digg and it would be a big favour to me if some of you would go here and Digg it up. [ Translation: Mindlessly follow the link and say you think its a great article ] Whilst I'm prostituting myself I might as well mentioned that I've updated my Tregenza.com domain. Chris P.s. If you spot any glaring typos please let me know. P.p.s. I've deliberately used American spellings on most of the web site. It is sad how low I'm willing to go in the pursuit of money. |
| Saturday, April 19th, 2008 |
| 10:40 am |
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| 10:11 am |
Another Way To Waste Time For those of you who were remember Octarine, you may wish to add Bizarro to your daily reading matter. We ripped off several of his cartoons in Tales... and I think the In / Out of Context / Penguin t-shirt Gary & Paul did was also one of his. |
| Monday, April 14th, 2008 |
| 12:57 pm |
My Day Off Today is meant to be a day off from my normal blogging workload but I got distracted and wrote a long article on inventive rhythm games. As it may appeal to some of you, I thought I would share it with you. Read it on Myomancy - Rhythm Games are taking over the world or below the ... ( Read more... ) |
| Friday, April 11th, 2008 |
| 12:39 pm |
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| Thursday, April 10th, 2008 |
| 1:04 pm |
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| 12:56 pm |
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| Saturday, April 5th, 2008 |
| 12:57 pm |
A FunCon Programme Item  I can't help thinking that with two or three of these kits and a couple of hours, fans could make an a really impressive vehicle. The Moov |
| Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 |
| 9:18 am |
Important Science Breakthrough
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