Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Rain


Its raining outside, again. However this time, thanks to a freak plumbing incident, the effect is heightened because it is also raining inside.
The hot water tank is leaking and dripping through the kitchen ceiling.
I'm waiting for an emergency plumber. Where is he? He should be here by now.


Monday, February 26, 2007

Demolition VII



IMG_0196-C, originally uploaded by ki113rb33s.


Saturday, February 24, 2007

Demolition VI



IMG_0203
Originally uploaded by ki113rb33s.
This is a colour photo, I like the way it looks b & w the sky is nice and looming too, it poured with rain almost straight after.
I'm enjoying my New Camera. :-)


Diggers - Demolition V



IMG_0185-crop
Originally uploaded by ki113rb33s.
Took this today with my new camera..
I like the old-fashioned atmosphere it has, with the grain and the contrast.


Friday, February 23, 2007

Birthday night out!


Complimentary cocktail. I knew mobile blogging was a daft idea! xxxxxx


Profanity seen from space


In what is fast becoming a theme I found this story in the register about a giant profanity, the word "Fuck" sculpted from straw bales somewhere in England, the story has a picture. It can be seen here on google maps.
As a former farmer I say Nice one Eddie, whoever you are, and to the art world I say is this art?.
Could farmers sell advertising space?
Anyone got any more "seen from space" stories?


Thursday, February 22, 2007

Schoolyard penis seen from space


Kids and weedkiller, a recipe for fun...
A colleague of mine, whom we shall refer to only as Stephen, pointed this story out to me from the education section of the Guardian, how I laughed.


War of the words


RoUS blogged about this insane email.
I bet it was sent by the IIS Team ;-)
That was a JOKE guys


Statue of thatcher


Lest we forget; thatcher may have been Britain's first woman prime minister, but don't lets let that statue rewrite history. She was a sociopath and a megalomaniac who spent much of her term in office removing our freedoms, destroying our institutions and pandering to the me-me-me generation who supported her, the yuppies. It is far too soon to gloss over that.
I hope that they didn't pay for it with my money.
If I were dead I'd turn in my grave.


Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Today I am The Answer (i.e. 42)



oops
Originally uploaded by ki113rb33s.
Yes I'm 42 at last, how long have I been waiting for that to happen (Hint: Not!)
My lovely family softened the blow by buying me a camera (canon eos 350d if you're interested.)
Hardly had I finished showing it off around the office than this guy ran his low-loader aground right outside our window, across an intersection and blocking both streets. How could I resist? :-)


Thursday, February 15, 2007

Sparkle Sparkle - Demolition IV



Sparkle Sparkle
Originally uploaded by amcd (boogs).
Taken by some other geezer on flickr I like this one because its more atmospheric than my ones of the same thing, I love the way the tin-foil building is shining on the stone one.


Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Comparative Units of measure


I was going to post about a geeky gizmo thing, who's true nature is now no longer significant as I've changed my mind.
I was going to tell you that it was about the size of a cigarette packet (or pack of cigarettes as I believe its called in foreign parts) for non smokers it was about half as thick again as a pack of cards, for people who only play poker on-line (and don't smoke either) it was like two or three pads of the big oblong size of post-it notes.
If you don't smoke, don't work and only play on-line poker may I respectfully suggest that you're heading for trouble.


comparative shopping for education


UUK publishes a report today into the impact of variable tuition fees.
The BBC are saying that it will show that "... there was no correlation between the level of fees charged by universities, or the bursaries offered, and the level of applications". If its true and we can extrapolate from one years data then that's good news.

Don't get me wrong I'm not opposed to Universities providing support and incentives to attract students, neither do I have a problem with graduates being made to repay loans when they can afford to.

But one of the scenarios I've been dreading is the "comparative shopping engine for education", in ten years time if you ask your GP why they chose medicine you better watch out, the answer might be that it was cheaper than becoming a fashion designer.



Sunday, February 11, 2007

Aunt


I'm at my mum's today, she has her sister staying with her. Hello aunt!


Wednesday, February 07, 2007

look at the wee people



DSC00619
Originally uploaded by ki113rb33s.
I wanted to take a good picture of the building, I didn't expect the people to be quite so interesting too.


Personality cult


Loyal followers of my personality cult (current membership:1) will be overwhelmed to learn that I'm interviewed in Feathercast 24 at www.feathercast.org (I don't know how to insert links when I post from my phone. -update: blogger seems to take care of it for me, now I want to know how to add labels.)
I talk about Apache James, why I like it and where I think we're going with it.
Respect to David for making me sound coherent and sensible, even though I talk for 24 minutes (and thats after its been edited) without taking a breath!
If you enjoy listening to me I suggest you listen to some of the others, where he and Rich talk to actual smart people. :-)


Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Foundations


My son was asking about foundations last night, we got on to the subject of big buildings and I told him I'd take a photo to show him what they do.
Which reminded me that I was going to blog some pics of the building site across the road from the office.
Here's a nice view of work going on on the foundations, the blue machine on the right is drilling holes which get filled with concrete, and the reinforcing steel you can see near the back.


Home Secretary to trust sex offenders, can he do nothing without biometric ID cards?


The BBC are reporting that the Home Secretary wants sex offenders to register their chat room nicknames.

What is the guy on? It shows a complete misunderstanding of the issues, the whole problem with sex offenders and the internet is that is easier to be anonymous than identified, and this proposal pretty much assumes that sex offenders can be trusted to comply, or that the forces of Law and Order in the UK are capable and have the capacity to detect non-compliance.

As if.

Of course the deeper, wider, and more well hidden part of this iceberg is the Home Office's ill concealed realisation that its job is almost impossible in a state where there is currently no incorruptible way to prove identity. If we had his Biometric ID cards the police might just start to have the capability.

From the word go identity, from the Government's point of view not Descartes', is based on a foundation of hearsay.
When you register a child you don't need to provide any evidence of the child's unique existence, only a slip from the hospital, it is circumstantial evidence that the child really exists, and certainly doesn't provide any way for the child to be uniquely distinguished. From that point you can get a genuine Birth Certificate and start the process of accruing other "evidence of identity".

On the whole the process would be too complicated and take too long to make it worth the effort of establishing such a "real" false identity, but in theory you could do it, that loophole undermines the validity of pretty much every other form of evidence.

The Home Office have pinned their colours to the mast with Biometric ID cards for UK Citizens, and a giant shared database, well kind of, which one assumes will use your ID number as the primary key.

I can see the attraction of not having to make people enter, time and again, information which is already on record in some other part of the government's big pit of data. Give me your ID number and I'll look it up myself for you, you won't have to fill in forms and you won't have to prove it by sending me stuff because I can verify it with the people I get it from, and cross reference you with a load of other people who know other things about you.

As a citizen I have a Big Problem with this.

I believe that I have a right to certain services provided on my behalf by a government whom I elect. I accept that I may have to prove my entitlement to those services, and that the government may have a reasonable reason for collecting retaining and using this information for this purpose.

I really object to the notion that this information might be made available for any other purpose without my explicit consent.
The fact that we're increasingly seeing proposals and examples of special exemptions to the data protection laws suggest that this activity is truly not in my best interest, those laws exist to protect us.

What has all this to do with on line paedophiles?
Not a whole lot in truth but the story reminded me of a conversation I recently had at work. We were talking, in a "water cooler" way, about the problem of identity verification and I explained the reasons why digital signatures/certificate authentication weren't proof of identity and we wound up with an obvious solution, we need to use your biometrics, to log-on you need to put your ID card in the slot, and your eye up to the scanner.

If I'm thinking these things who knows what is going on in the basements of Whitehall.

Can we please stop this madness before it is too late?


I know nothing, I'm not a fortune teller, and you'd be insane to think that I am. This disclaimer was cribbed from an email footer I once received. It is so ridiculous I had to have it for myself.

Statements in this blog that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements including, without limitation, statements regarding my expectations, objectives, anticipations, plans, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward looking statements include risks and uncertainties such as any unforeseen event or any unforeseen system failures, and other risks. It is important to note that actual outcomes could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements.

Danny Angus Copyright © 2006-2013 (OMG that's seven years of this nonsense)