Does Google’s Glass Herald The End Of Civilisation?

 Computing, General, Security  No Responses »
May 192013
 

Executive summary: No.

According to some, the introduction of Google’s latest product – the Glass(es) – will undoubtedly herald the end of civilisation as the we know it and the survivors will be skittering from bunker to bunker in a forlorn hope of evading surveillance. Actually the biggest threat Google’s Glass(es) have to the world, is the threat to proper grammar – they’re glasses!

The strange thing about the lists of problems encountered with Google’s Glass(es) is that they are “problems” that are already here. Google has done something nifty with their product, which is basically to integrate possibilities into something a non-geek can use. And it is not as if it is particularly revolutionary – people have been looking at augmented reality on smartphones for years and thinking that it was pretty cool, but wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have to hold up your smartphone all the time?

The big problem is the threat of pervasive surveillance, and threats that come about as a result of that pervasive surveillance. If Google were never to have invented these things, we would still have a problem with pervasive surveillance. As other have pointed out, the use of video (and still) recording on smartphones is already bring in an age of pervasive surveillance; or at least pervasive surveillance under the control of individuals as we already have pervasive surveillance by corporations and government.

It is true that there are negative aspects to pervasive surveillance, but it is also true that there are positive aspects too. Street crime becomes a far riskier proposition if everyone around can just say “Ok. Start recording video.”. People getting up to foolish activities being “outed” on Youtube? The more it happens, the less the pain.

And of course make laws to punish the publication of privacy invading video but not the recording of it; with a proper public interest imminity. That is what the public should be interested in, not what it wants to be interested in.

There are those who say that publication of embarrassing activities onto social media sites may make it harder for people to get employment. The fault here is not what is published to social media sites nor people who take part in such activities, but with the employers who insist on having employees so squeaky clean. If you never employ people who have danced naked on top of a table, you’ll end up with boring employees.

And I’ll bet that there is a high incidence of naked table-top dancing in the past of anyone whose thinking is inventive, creative, and out-of-the-box. Or in other words, employers should be going out of their way to hunt down and employ the naked table-top dancers (No I probably haven’t).

There are those who say that it will somehow increase bullying. It is true that this will be an extra tool in the arsenal of bullies, but in can also be an extra tool in the arsenal of those targeted by bullies. To stop what happened to Amanda Todd (and others), we need to stop bullying whether assisted by technology or the old-fashioned kind.

And of course we have the argument that Google is powerful enough already, and Glass(es) will make that worse. Well, first of all Google Glass(es) won’t be the only product of this kind out there. And if Google is too powerful, it is time to chop them down to size rather than blocking this product.

At least the hysterical reaction of some businesses is giving me a new retirement fund possibility. When I eventually get around to getting some, mine will have prescription lenses in, and any business that wants to ban me will get sued for discrimination against the “disabled”.

We need to be careful of condemning a technology for the poor behaviour of people, when it is the poor behaviour that is at fault.

Tories To Splinter Over Europe?

 General, Politics  No Responses »
May 192013
 

Probably not … this is hardly the first time that the Tories have had a spat over membership of Europe.

But when one of them grandly announces that they are all united over Europe, you know there’s trouble. You hardly need to announce that you’re united when there’s no trouble.

When you’ve got Lord Howe announcing that David Cameron is running scared over Europe, and rumours of someone close to the top using the phrase “swivel-eyed loons” in connection to grass-roots party activists, then you have a party with definite issues. In addition to the normal doubts over Europe, Tories have a streak of unrealistic traditionalists within their party – who could quite well qualify as “swivel-eyed loons”.

The loons want to hark back to a time when Britain had an empire, hung serious criminals, flogged less serious criminals, and a few other policies from the 19th century. And the thought of co-operating to any extent with the old enemies of France or Germany raises the hackles.

Well they are entitled to their views, and I’m entitled to borrow a phrase and call them “swivel-eyed loons”. And good luck to them; they will be the cause of the Tories becoming unelectable for another decade or so.

And of course there is the other half of the party – those with more than one brain cell – who realise that such archaic world views are really not helpful. Could the division cause the Tory party to splinter? Well there’s always wishful thinking.

But realistically there is already a place for disgruntled Tories to head off to: the UKIP party. You could almost say that the split has already occurred and that we’re watching the painfully slow death throws of the old Tories.

 

Beards: Feral, Unkempt, or Natural?

 General  No Responses »
Mar 082013
 

If you spend any time looking ’round the Internet for information on beards – which is admittedly a somewhat odd thing to do – you will quickly come across a certain segment of the “Internista” referring to something called “feral beards”.

This took me some time to figure out, as the phrase summons to my mind the image of a beard that leaps off the face, scurries off into a nearby bush, and growls menacingly at anyone who comes too close. Which I’m pretty sure I’m safe from that kind of beard unless I start feeding myself mind-bending drugs. But what on earth did they mean ?

Well, it turns out they are referring to the kind of beards that grow on men if the man doesn’t start hacking the growth away. The sort of beard that normal people might refer to as unkempt, or even (if they are being sensible), natural. The word feral is used by those who have certain opinions regarding beards – that those who just let them grow are somehow lazy, unclean, untrustworthy, the “rat’s nest“, “shaggy beards“,  etc. Basically these people just don’t like beards, which is fair enough if you are deciding whether or not to grow your own beard. But using derogatory language about another’s choice ?

Even unkempt is quite inaccurate; if a beard looks like a mess, it could be because it hasn’t been combed in a week, or because you aren’t used to seeing real beards. Now there’s always the possibility that what you’re looking at is really unkempt – complete with bits of food, and wild creatures living in it. But the overwhelming majority of men with beards will spend some time working on them – cleaning them at least daily, combing regularly, and perhaps trimming back a bit.

Which is why I say such beards are natural. Which is not to criticise those who indulge in unnatural practices such as shaving, and trimming their facial hair, but; in fact I wouldn’t use the word “unnatural” except to draw attention to the fact that it isn’t natural! It’s natural, trimmed beard, or shaved face.

And if you start thinking “but a beard just makes you look untrustworthy” or something similar, bear in mind you are indulging in the same kind of thinking that results in burning crosses in the front yard. It may not be the same to the same scale (after all I can always shave my beard off), but it is judging someone by appearance in the same way that a racist judges someone by their appearance.

Banksy: Theft and Vandalism

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 242013
 

When you think about what has happened to a certain Banksy’s artwork recently :-

Banksy from Wood Green

The stranger and stranger it gets.

First we have what is legally an act of vandalism, but the community in which that act of vandalism took place seems to approve of that act of vandalism. Vandalism could be defined as the destruction or defacement of some property; which given the protests since the removal of Banksy’s artwork could mean that whilst Banksy’s original artwork was an act of vandalism, so was removing it!

It seems strange for a community to have any rights over private property that is within that community; almost a denial of property rights. But it already exists – planning permission, maintenance enforcement notices, make a property a listed building, etc. Is it going too far to say that the community should have some say in how a building is “decorated” ?

As to the “theft”, people have been very quick to deny there’s been a crime here. But the community itself feels that something has been stolen from it – which is theft. It may not be legally theft, but if the community believes it to be theft, then perhaps the law is wrong.

Graffiti in general is a bit of an issue, as a good percentage of it has very little in the way of artistic value. Perhaps we need a way for a community to vote to protect “street art” and to condemn simple graffiti. That way those who have to live with it, get to choose what to keep and what to whitewash.

As for the property company that tried (and apparently failed) to sell the artwork in question here, it is rather hard to condemn them. If someone were to paint an artwork onto the side of my flat worth thousands, I would have a hard time saying no. Perhaps a ‘community street art protection order’ could expire after a certain period – perhaps 5 years – after which the property owner would be free to sell the artwork.

The Anti-Gun Lesson from Pistorius

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 222013
 

So it looks like he’s out on bail.

He could be guilty of murder, or he could have been trying to protect his home from burglars.

Let us assume it’s the later. There are all sorts of problems with his story of what happened – if you were to tackle a burglar in your own home in the middle of the day with plenty of practice at that sort of situation.

But in the middle of the night ? Woken from a sleep and still in a daze? And not really knowing what to do ? It’s all to easy to imagine me doing something really daft in that situation is all too believable.

Add guns to that mixture, and you have the recipe for a disaster. Which if Pistorius is telling the truth is exactly what has happened.

There are those who argue that it is a right to keep a gun in the house to protect yourself from burglars. Ignoring whether it’s a right or not, it is for most of us a dumb thing to do. Most of us do not undergo the sort of training that will let us make sensible decisions in such a situation, and those that do have the training are not likely to operate at full effectiveness without the right level of caffeine.

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