Longrider

I see that Dell has done a deal with Google to bundle Google software on new machines. As a Dell customer – a happy one at that, which seems to make me unusual, I plan to buy another one when I upgrade. I am not, however, happy with this news:

Computer giant Dell and internet search engine Google have reached a deal to install Google software on Dell’s PCs before they leave the factory.

The Dell computers will contain Google software including several personal computer applications, a Google toolbar and a co-branded homepage.

Although details are patchy at the moment, you only have to look at Google’s business model to realise what this is likely to entail:

Instead of selling software to make a profit, Google makes money by selling advertising to firms that want access to those who use its free products.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that Dell computers will be used to deliver advertising to its customer base using Google software. Being something of a purist, I like a clean install on machines I buy – the operating system and nothing else. No customised software or tweaks to the OS and absolutely, definitely, no advertising. There is a time and a place for advertising. I will not succumb to adverts on my blog as I consider it a personal space and it is also why I don’t have a G-mail account. I do not want to be bombarded with unwarranted ads in my email or on my personal space. I do have Google’s Adsense on my consumer site, Rogue Trader Watch as I felt it may be worth a try, this being all about consumer issues after all. But as it hasn’t generated any income, it proved to be a waste of time – not that that worries me as it isn’t my main site and it just sits there as a resource for consumer information if people want it. The difference here is; I chose to have ads on that site and it is not a personal space. The big word here is “choice”.

In general, though, I agree with Alice Bachini-Smith when she says:

I do not want big advertising on my blog, the front of my house, tattooed on my forehead, or anywhere about my territory, and I do cringe at the sight of otherwise nice-looking people and things decorated with ugly great banners selling big blue things that disturb the visual peace…

…there is a time and a place for everything, and the time and place for the latest big corporate advertising campaign should, in this day and age, definitely be wherever I don’t have to look at it. 

The same applies to my computer desktop. This means that when I buy my next machine, I’ll have to reformat the disk to get rid of the Google crap and reinstall a clean OS – that is my choice. I would just prefer it not to be necessary.

Jack Straw, leader of the house, has identified just what the problem is with the home office:

Meanwhile Commons leader Jack Straw has claimed the “fundamental problem” with the Home Office it is the people it deals with, rather than its staff.

He described many of its “customers” as “dysfunctional individuals” who proved to be a “burden” and a “challenge”.

“They are dysfunctional individuals many of them: criminals, asylum seekers, people who do not wish to be subject to social control - the purpose of the Home Office.!”

So, now you know; it isn’t arrogant and out of touch ministers who wish to exercise social control, incompetent civil servants nor bullying, control freakish officials. Oh, no, the cheeky bastard is blaming us. It’s all our fault.

Well, I took and passed my ADI Part 1 today. A two-part theory test involving a series of multiple choice questions answered using a touch screen and the hazard perception test consisting of 14 video clips where the candidate is required to identify developing hazards and click on the mouse as they arise.

As I had been an ADI for five years, but lapsed, I have not undergone the training course I did the first time around. Discussing my training needs with the AA identified what I already knew, that I needed to brush up, but a full course would be over the top for my needs.

When I booked the test, the DSA offered me the opportunity to purchase their practice disks and I did, believing that this would help. However, as it turned out, that benefit was limited. Yes, it did prepare me for the hazard perception test, but the theory questions were those intended for new drivers. Nowhere was there anything more advanced – although some of the new stuff on environmental driving caught me out. Well, did you know that increasing speed from 50mph to 70mph increases fuel consumption by 30%? No, neither did I.

As this was the official disk, I used it to practice and went along to the test believing myself fully prepared. Unfortunately, the questions in the test bore little resemblance to the ones on the practice disk. These were (quite rightly) more advanced. They included topics on how people learn and how to deal with pupils with disabilities. Not to mention automatic cars. I’ve never driven an automatic and have no ambition to do so. Certainly I have no intention of teaching in one. Consequently, my knowledge of this is purely theoretical. I’m sure I dropped some points on this subject and I know I struggled with the disabilities stuff. Discussing this over at the UK Bike Forum, one contributor tells me that there is another disk containing the ADI preparation – it looks like I was sent the wrong one. So all the practice came to naught – it was my previous experience and knowledge that saw me through.

Moving onto the hazard perception part of the test, the idea is fine. I have some doubts about the practice, though. A mouse click is somewhat loose when measuring performance. On one clip, I was disqualified, much to my annoyance, for clicking too quickly in succession. There were several potential developing hazards and I believed that I was responding appropriately. Not so, according to the software. Nil points. I was furious with myself and was convinced that I had failed the test. This was because during practice I was unable to score consistently. Yes, I saw the developing hazard in good time, but even re-running the clip did not always mean a higher score. It all depends on the point at which you click and whether the software identifies it with the relevant developing hazard. So, I figured that if I managed to score either four or five on each clip, as I had been doing in practice, the lowest score would be 60 – some three points above the pass mark. Now I had blown up to five points on one clip. Fortunately, I scored well on the rest.

The hazard perception test is, in my opinion, a good idea in principle but not fully developed. As a tool it is still a little too crude.

Overall, I scored 90/100 on the theory and 60/75 on the hazard perception. Although both are above the pass mark, neither is high enough for my liking. I could and should have performed better.

Next week, I have to book my part 2.

Down in Wales the neighbours have been getting twitchy over nude sunbathing. Lynett Burgess has just been cleared of indecent exposure by a magistrates court. It seems that she was in the habit of walking about in her own garden while naked.

My immediate response to this would be; “Yes? So?” Not so Ms Burgess’ neighbours:

The court heard that Ms Burgess’s next-door neighbour Morien Jones, 34, filmed her sunbathing naked and took the video to police.

Father-of-three Mr Jones told magistrates: “I was renovating the back of my home with a local builder when Ms Burgess appeared in her garden.”

“She walked back and fore completely naked - I went to get my video camera to record the incident.”

“I have been extremely shaken by this. It has been very upsetting and worrying. I don’t want to bring up my children in such an environment.”

This pathetic little incident says much about Ms Burgess’ neighbours and the attitudes prevalent in our society. So offended and shaken was Mr Jones that rather than look away, he bravely got his video camera out and, facing immense risk to his moral decency, sacrificed himself to film the incident. Ye gods! Shaken? What sort of constitution does Mr Jones have if he is shaken by the sight of the naked female form? Oh, of course this is all for the sake of the children. If I hear that facile mantra once more, I swear, I’ll scream. This is the oft used excuse of the hard of thinking in an attempt to restrict the freedoms of others – anything may be justified if it is appended by the chilling phrase “because of the children”. Rubbish! Nonsense! Children are people, just as are adults. Stop insulting our intelligence and engage your brain – should you be able to find it.

So children have to be protected from naked bodies now? FFS do me a favour! And, perhaps Mr Jones might want to reflect on the repugnance society holds for people who film their neighbours in various states of undress. As he seems incapable of behaving like an adult, I’ll offer a clue. Look up the word “voyeur” in the dictionary.

Prosecutor Maggie Hughes said sunbathing nude “could be grossly offensive to normal decent persons in society”.

I appreciate that Maggie Hughes is merely doing her job – even though it is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money to prosecute this case (one could even say, it’s a grossly offensive waste). But nudity in one’s own garden grossly offensive? Is it bollocks! Since when was the human form grossly offensive to “normal decent persons”? What century is this nincompoop living in? However, Ms Burgess gets in before me:

Ms Burgess replied: “I take exception to the word kick and find you prudish.”

Ms Hughes didn’t like the charge thrown back at her, though, and claimed that she was not a prude. Given that she finds the idea of someone sunbathing in their own garden in a perfectly natural state offensive, she is, indeed, a prude – as is the infantile neighbour who complained and felt it necessary to compound his offence by filming the cause of his affront. What a pathetic, sanctimonious, prudish, voyeuristic, hypocritical arsehole.

Ms Burgess is planning to move away – who can blame her?

The Labour party spent eighteen years in the political wilderness. At the end of that time it appeared that they had learned some lessons from this; that “old” Labour and its socialist values were too far from the centre ground to be electable. Hence “new” Labour, business friendly Labour, electable Labour. In half that time again, those lessons appear to have been forgotten. The sleaze that plagued the Tories has returned to haunt Labour. But, worse, far, far worse, is the sheer arrogance of a party so used to power that it has forgotten the eighteen years watching from the sidelines.

Via Devil’s Kitchen comes the story of the selling a copy of the Hutton Report in order to raise funds for the party. I’d been meaning to comment on this, but time slips by so quickly…

I find it difficult to comprehend just what was going on in their minds. Really, just what were they thinking? The Hutton report was the outcome of a sordid chapter in the party’s history, where they effectively drove a man to his death. Something they are not averse to repeating. Having driven Kelly to an early grave, Simon Davies proved to be a thorn in their side, so they thought they would try again. Then there are the Paddington survivors…

All of which tends to suggest a level of contempt by the ruling elite for those outside the favoured group. We, the proles, are treated with derision, brushed off with a degree of arrogance that is difficult to appreciate unless one has tried to communicate with these people. Repeated lobbying of my MP and recent discussions with the department of health make it clear that my views are unwelcome, inconvenient and, most of all, unimportant. They have what they want; power for the next four years. As I cannot influence that, they just don’t give a damn. A veneer of appearing to care what the electorate thinks will appear during the run-up to the next election, when a flutter of tabloid headlines will be donned like Venetian masks, but it’s a façade, a means to an end, nothing more, they don’t really care what we think.

So, I guess, it comes as no surprise to see Libby Purves’ article about errors in the criminal records bureau in the Times the other day.

The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has erroneously bad-mouthed a large number of innocent citizens. One publicised case is of Emma Budd, who lost her chance of working for a children’s charity when the bureau wrongly identified her as a convicted shoplifter. It admitted that this has happened around 2,700 times but dismisses it as “a tiny proportion” of its work; the Education Secretary speaks sententiously of being on the safe side. It was the Home Office who made the remark about CRB customer satisfaction being at an “all-time high”.

Given government departments’ and their agencies’ propensity for incompetence – and an inability to fully understand that they are incompetent – I can accept, understand even, that these things happen. But the response is unbelievable – even for this bunch of wretched, incompetent, shameless, arrogant, pig-headed, obscene little shits.

And — here’s the significant bit — nobody is sorry. The Home Office feels within its rights to abuse some citizens because others might be wicked. There is a right of challenge, but the procedure is that the “disclosure” goes simultaneously to the individual and the employer. Thus Miss Budd’s job “went out of the window”, and so did her next application. Government agencies merely boast that 25,000 unsuitables were barred last year from positions of trust, which makes it all right to screw up the prospects of 2,700 innocents.

No, they are not sorry. It is all in a day’s work – and if innocent people get hurt, well, that’s just too bad. Somewhere along the line, these imperious charlatans have forgotten the relationship that is supposed to exist between us. We, the electorate, employ them, the public servants – yes, servants. And when servants get things wrong, they are supposed to apologise. In this instance, there should be a process of compensation where loss has occurred. Certainly there should be resignations, discipline and sackings. But, no, these arrogant, bumptious, self-righteous arseholes don’t give a shit.

The tone amounts to a national Disrespect Agenda: sanctimonious, scolding, applying standards only to little people. Tessa Jowell’s husband can be thick with Silvio Berlusconi and dodgy fake loans prop up politics, but down in the everyday world cumbersome new “money-laundering” regulations force pensioners to identify themselves three different ways to a bank manager they’ve known for years, and make it illegal for an estate agent to market your house without taking your national insurance number.

John Prescott can with impunity assault people and demand sex in his office, but a harassed teacher who lays a restraining hand on a child’s shoulder risks ruin. The Home Office can mismanage dangerous prisoners, yet roll its eyes up in pious self-justification as it libels the innocent. Health and police posters can berate us as malodorous wife beaters while actual police ignore burglaries and NHS Direct takes four hours to ring back.

We deserve more respect.

Quite. Respect. We hear a lot about that. They talk the talk well enough. Yes, we do deserve more respect from the buffoons we elect to high office. So why doesn’t the electorate display self respect at the ballot box?  If they did, these hateful people would be cast back into the political wilderness from whence they came and where they so deservedly belong. :dry:

Letter from Patricia Hewitt’s Department

The government’s apparent obsession with data – and data sharing, causes me some concern. Like you didn’t notice :devil:. Given the government’s level of competence with large IT projects, I have no faith that any personal information contained therein will be secure. With this in mind and with the NHS database looming large, I wrote to the Health Secretary and requested to opt out as promised by John Hutton.

Health Minister John Hutton has announced that patients concerned over the security of their personal medical history can opt to have it removed from the new national electronic database.

NHS patients worried that the information could be abused can restrict access to details by placing it in an electronic “sealed envelope” which will only be opened in cases of extreme emergency.

However, those omitting details of their medical history run the risk of clinical staff making mistakes through lack of important information.

The letter I received in reply said something very similar. Penned as if from the immortal Sir Humphrey Applebey, it took a page and a half to pretty much say what is in the above three paragraphs.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to give you such an acknowledgement at this time. It is the Government’s intention to help patients make an informed choice about their own level of participation in the NHS Care Record Service (CRS). The Government is looking very closely at the circumstances where it may be appropriate for patients to exercise this choice, in consultation with organisations representing the interests of patients, citizens and health professionals. A major campaign to inform patients of their rights is planned for later this year.

 And…

They will be able to place particularly sensitive information in a ‘patient’s sealed envelope’ so that it can be made available only with their express permission. Only those staff who have a ‘legitimate relationship’ with the patient will be able to see a patient’s record, and then only the parts they need to see to do their job.

That sealed envelope again. It’s all a bit vague. Translated into plain English; they don’t know. I could be cruel and say that they haven’t a clue. That is, of course, the problem. This administration is so obsessed with data management that it stumbles ahead without proper scoping and planning. They appear to be unaware of what, exactly, they want to achieve. My relationship with my GP works well enough using a secure, discreet system in his surgery. Any GP seeing me at the surgery has access to my medical records should they need it for my medical care. On the occasions that they have referred me to a specialist at the hospital, the necessary information is passed to that specialist. Given that it ain’t broke, fixing it is, perhaps, not the best use of limited funds.

GP’s Concerns

My GP expressed similar concerns when he emailed me in response to a copy of the letter I sent to the DHS. Worryingly, he suggested that it may be possible that detailed information in future would not be maintained on the local surgery system. Now, that I find disturbing. It’s all very well telling us that only relevant people will have access:

However, please be assured that access to patient information will only be available to authorised NHS healthcare professionals who must be registered and authenticated users of the NHS CRS. They must have a legitimate relationship with the patient - that is, are directly involved with the delivery of their care and have a ‘need to know’ relevant to that role. It cannot stressed too highly that unrestricted or uncontrolled access to personal information is not an option.

But the only way of ensuring that kind of security is not to keep the data off-site in a shared database. No database is wholly secure. Given recent problems at the Department of Work and Pensions and the Inland Revenue, government databases appear to be the electronic equivalents of colander. :dry:

There is a hint of contradiction between the above paragraph and the final one in the letter that tries to use scare tactics, inferring that refusniks will be subject to a lower level of healthcare:

However, potentially serious consequences arise from patients ‘opting out’. For the patients themselves, since future care may have to be given (perhaps in a life­threatening emergency) in the absence of knowledge of existing conditions, earlier treatments and medications; and for the NHS as a public service, such as increased costs in treating patients who have opted out, reduced ability to quality assure care and learn lessons about outcomes, and less robust healthcare statistics and financial flows. Inevitably, those who do make that choice may not receive the same quality of care as other patients.

I am not easily intimidated. Indeed, such veiled threats merely work to entrench my position. The stinger, though, is in the last couple of lines – they do intend to share the data beyond those directly responsible for primary healthcare. I would presume that it is anonymised for statistical purposes, but again, without absolute assurances, I will resist. I just don’t trust them.

The National Identity Register

We are told that there will be no link between this database and the NIR. This may be so. However, no incumbent government can make such a promise and guarantee that their successors will honour it. Far better to ensure that the mechanism does not exist in the first instance.

The Western Counties Photographic Federation held their weekend away again this year. This time it was “secret Dorset”. Saturday was a blustery visit to the Abbotsbury swannery to see the swans with their newly hatched cygnets. A small point, here; signs to the swannery proudly exclaim “baby swans”. You’d think that they would at least call them by their proper name – ignorance from those who should know better smacks of dumbing down, and it irritated. Young swans are cygnets, what’s difficult about that?

Minor gripes aside, the relatively flat lighting made for some nice close-up shots of the mute swans. There are also black swans nesting there and this is something of a rarity – the first time for 600 years apparently. Anyway, here’s a picture:

The mute swans also provided some photo opportunities:

I’ve posted some more over on my photo blog.

Sunday took us out to one of my favourites; a bluebell wood. This is so typical of the English countryside in late spring.

Fortunately, my latent migraine that surfaced mid morning on the Saturday and again on Sunday (staved off with copious doses of “migraleve”) didn’t put too much of a dampener in that I have a couple of hundred pictures to wade through.

The final insult was the bike not starting and having to be ignominiously transported home on the back of a flatbed. The problem appears to have been a damp connection causing a discharge from the battery – at least that appears to  be it… The bike is starting now after a night connected to the battery charger.

I see Mr Eugenidies is commenting on the latest Da Vinci nonsense.

Roman Catholics in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) have received Muslim support in protests against the release of the movie, The Da Vinci Code.

Film censors have cleared the movie for release in India on 19 May.

An umbrella organisation of Islamic clerics in Mumbai have labelled the film as “blasphemous” because it spreads “lies” about Jesus Christ.

Here we go again… I guess now that the Mohammed cartoons row has died down and that the fake ones have been exposed for what they were, Islamic clerics are desperate for another opportunity to shout, scream and stamp their feet in an attempt to bow the world to their wishes. Riding on the back of the Catholic church is a bit odd, but never mind, it’s a convenient tool for a bit of rioting and flag burning, so what the heck, eh?

This has nothing to do with free expression or religious freedom. What we have here is a bunch of extremist fruit-cakes attempting to force their religious beliefs on others.

“If the government doesn’t do anything, we will try our own ways of stopping the film from being shown,” he said. “We are prepared for violent protests in India if needed.”

This, of course, is all the more reason to resist; vigorously.

Meanwhile, another fruit-cake, Joseph Dias, intends to starve himself to death in protest:

A Roman Catholic activist, Joseph Dias, began a hunger strike on Tuesday which he said would be continued until the film is banned.

Sigh… Two things will happen as a consequence of Mr Dias starving himself to death:

• Nothing. People will see the film anyway – even if it is banned, if they want to see it, they will.
• Mr Dias will have voluntarily removed himself from the gene pool.

So, go ahead, die if that’s what you want. Just remember though, according to the religion you believe in so passionately; so passionately that you are prepared to commit suicide over it; suicide is a mortal sin.

As is usual with stories such as this and previously with the Satanic Verses and Jerry Springer, the Opera, when religious groups get their knickers in a knot and start to demand that a film, book or play is banned, they simply increase demand – as Alfred Molina points out.

“You think that religious leaders would know by now that when you say ‘don’t see that film’, it just makes everyone want to,”

In other words; thanks for the free publicity, chaps. The Satanic Verses was a dreadful, virtually unreadable novel, yet sold millions. Jerry Springer, the Opera is puerile and tasteless, yet people watched it on the television and go to see it at the theatre. Ask yourself why? Because religious extremists wanted them banned and that is the quickest way to get people out to watch the play, or film or buy the book – that’s why I bought the Satanic Verses. I wouldn’t have wasted my money otherwise. As a consequence of the controversy, an airport thriller that is otherwise unremarkable and the equally unremarkable film it spawned will earn undeserved notoriety and will earn their respective creators millions. The film will be a box office hit and the DVDs will sell like the proverbial hot cakes. They still don’t get it. But, then, I guess that with their heads being so far up their sanctimonious arses, they never will. :dry:

Disclaimer

Opus Dei wanted a disclaimer at the beginning of the film to reassure the ignorant public that this was a work of fiction and not the “truth”. One has to wonder at such silliness. The film’s director declined.

“It’s not theology or history,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Spy thrillers don’t start off with disclaimers.”

People going to the cinema or buying the DVD are well aware that this is fiction and no one has claimed otherwise. So why get all concerned about people believing that it is real? The premise is, after all, pretty far fetched:

A mythical first century prophet (if he ever existed) is not killed, marries and moves to France where he has a family and that bloodline carries on today. Naturally this is fiction. The “truth” is much more mundane. A mythical first century prophet (if he ever existed) is executed and dies. He is buried and three days later comes back to life before physically ascending to the heavens having not been recognised by his erstwile followers. Of course the novel and film are fiction and of course the Catholic bible that was translated by St Jerome in the fourth century against the background of the politics of the time is the real truth… No one in their right mind could believe otherwise.

Um… perhaps Opus Dei has a point… :whistle: