Prayers At Council Meetings? I Pray Not!

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Feb 192012
 

To be honest I don’t pray to any gods – I don’t feel the need to speak to imaginary friends.

In a recent court case, an atheistic ex-councellor and the National Secular Society won a court ruling that a local council was wrong to put prayers on the official meetings agenda. Not because anyone’s human rights were being abused, but because the council was not empowered to do so under an interpretation of the old law governing local councils which explicitly prohibits that which is not explicitly permitted.

Given that this law is currently being revised to give far greater powers to local councils, the brouhaha that has exploded from the moral minority (I’m thinking of Eric Pickles) ever since is really rather uncalled for. This ruling (unless someone interferes) is a really rather temporary victory.

But without considering the legal position, it is time to consider whether it is really appropriate to have public prayers to begin a council meeting. One councillor interviewed about this situation said that her council brought back public praying as a way of bringing the council members together. Undoubtedly it works for those who believe in a certain god.

But what might be easily overlooked is that it is also a very good way of excluding those who don’t believe in that god – atheists or people with a different religion. Whilst this country has a christian past, there is no reason for going out of your way to making others feel uncomfortable. Even if the others are in a minority, or even especially because they are a minority.

After all praying out loud before a council meeting is totally unnecessary.

There is no trouble with having a minute of quiet contemplation where those who choose to do so can talk with their imaginary friends silently if they choose to do so.

 

Dealing With Offensive “Internet Trolls” (or Goblins)

 Computing, Media, Security  No Responses »
Feb 142012
 

This morning I caught an item about how so-called “Internet Trolls” are forcing some famous people to close down their Twitter accounts because of offensive posts in reply to anything they post. Before getting to the main point of this post, lets get one thing cleared up to begin with.

Trolls on the Internet aren’t those who post offensive messages. Sure they’re irritating, but they are disruptive more than offensive. That’s not to say that trolls cannot also be offensive, but most are not.

This is yet another example of the media getting some clueless reporter to write up a story about “new technology” (it ain’t new any more) without checking their basic facts with someone who has half a clue – even checking with Wikipedia would quickly tell someone what the definition of an Internet Troll was (hint that funny coloured word at the beginning of the second paragraph takes you to the definition).

Us old-timers call those who use offensive language inappropriately “offensive little gits” which probably is not cute and cuddly enough for the media to like. Perhaps we should call them goblins (it’s all in the wrong order, but Gits, Offensive, B(onus), Little, INternet, S(omething)) just to keep the media happy.

Now onto the main point … this story was quite right about the fact there is a problem with people being deliberately offensive on the Internet, and it is not restricted to just famous people. There are plenty of examples of ordinary people facing all sort of offensive messages (I was going to dig up an example I know of, but it’s buried too deep).

Now us old timers remember a simpler age where people posting offensive messages would be dealt with quite simply. First the offended person would complain to the organisation (often a University) “hosting” the network address used by the offensive person. Next, the person at that organisation in charge of such things would find the relevant user, and apply the clue stick as hard and as often as seemed appropriate.

Up to and including throwing goblins off the Internet. Of course we also kept an eye out for vexatious complaints – there are some people who will complain about the most ridiculous things.

This was mostly lost when the ISPs started dominating the provisioning of the Internet to most people (although it survives in a few dusty old corners) because it “costs too much” for the ISPs to police their users. But there is no reason why it couldn’t be brought back.

And with careful management it should work quite well – of course some care would have to be taken as regards political activists posting on the Internet. The aim here is not to censure genuine political criticism or discussion, but to apply the clue stick as hard and as often as necessary to the Internet goblins.

Roadworks – So Why Is It Happening ?

 General  No Responses »
Feb 112012
 

At the moment (and for quite a few weeks in the past), there has been a lot of activity in the road outside my flat – a major cross-roads is being dug up, fiddled with, and all neatened up again. Which has the usual bunch of irritations :-

  1. Because the traffic lights are set so far back from the cross-roads, it makes crossing on foot even trickier than it usually is.
  2. It always seems that they’re keen on working whenever I would prefer some peace and quiet – including on a couple of occasions working through the night.

But perhaps more frustrating than anything else, is just what the road-works are for. Why not stick up a little sign explaining what they are for ?

The Inane Fuss Over Apple’s Secret Port To The ARM

 Computing  No Responses »
Feb 082012
 

If you read certain articles on the web you might be under the impression that Apple has had a secret project to port OSX to the ARM-based architecture with the intention of producing a cut down (although not necessarily very cut down) Macbook Air running on the ARM architecture.

Which is preposterous.

Firstly this secret project to port OSX was merely bringing up the ‘lower half’ of OSX (Darwin) on a particular variety of ARM-processor. The end result ? Probably something more or less equivalent to a “login” prompt on an old multi-user Unix system with no GUI. That is not to underestimate the accomplishment of the student involved – in many ways that would be a good 75% of the work involved.

But a few key facts here :-

  1. This is not the first port of Darwin (or even OSX) to the ARM-based architecture. Pick up your iThingie … that’s got an ARM inside, and whilst we all call the operating system it runs iOS, it is really OSX with a different skin on. Sure there are some differences and limitations, but they are merely skin deep – at the lowest level they’re both Darwin.
  2. If there’s a secret project to run OSX on an ARM-based laptop of some kind, this ain’t it. Take a closer look at the processor used in this experiment. It’s an ARM processor less capable than that in the very first iPhone. You won’t see it in any new laptops. If this secret experiment had any real product behind it, it would be more likely to be an intelligent embedded device – a really clever fridge or something (and no, not a TV).
  3. If there was a real product behind this, it seems pretty unlikely that Apple would choose a student on work experience to do the work. After all such a student might just spill the beans on a secret project given enough green folding stuff as incentive.

What is probably the case here is that Apple came up with this project for the student as a way of testing whether he was worth considering as a full employee – after all it is a better way of testing a potential employee than asking them to make the tea! And have no intention of using the result as a product.

What they will do however is use the student’s observations to feed back into the OSX team – what problems did he encounter that might qualify as bugs ? Etc.

In reality, Apple probably already has OSX running on ARM based machines in their labs. It’s an obvious thing to try out given that all their iThingies are ARM based, and it is not an enormous amount of extra work to finish off what is already in place to get something that looks and runs like OSX. After all, Apple did ages ago admit that early versions of OSX did run on x86-based processors when their product line was all PowerPC based, and keeping OSX portable across architectures is something they probably want to keep as a possibility.

Will Apple launch an ARM-based Macbook Air ? Not anytime soon. Whilst the value of a 64-bit architecture is over-rated, it would seem unlikely that Apple will ever again launch a 32-bit based “real” computer. But with 64-bit based ARMs arriving in a year or two, who knows ?

The Government’s “Anti-Business” Bias …

 Politics  No Responses »
Feb 062012
 

If you read certain articles, you might believe that the current UK government is anti-business. The Tories ? Anti-business ? That is simply preposterous – the Tories would never let the government be anti-business. They are after all in politics to help their business buddies.

What certain bankers don’t understand is that there is a certain level of anti-banking here – which is not anti-business. Banks are merely a subset of business, and given that many banks are “too large to fail” comprise a rather special category of business that is not very business-like.

And the government is not really anti-bank at all, but anti-preposterous banking bonuses. Banking bonuses seem to have risen out of proportion to the value that people add to a bank. As mentioned before, no person is wholly responsible for the success or failure of a bank – a CEO may come up with a great plan, but his or her underlings have to carry out that plan. And the success of the CEO is dependent on how effectively his or her plan is carried out.

Personally I do not have a problem with bankers earning millions in bonuses (and I’m very unlikely to ever get such a bonus), providing that :-

  1. They are properly taxed.
  2. They are proportional to the bonuses given to every other employee in the firm.

It is interesting to see that the bosses of National Rail have voluntarily given up their bonuses into a fund for improving the safety of railway crossings. Whilst there was some pressure about the potential size of their bonuses, it was nowhere near as much as that received by the banking bosses, and they gave up their bonuses a lot quicker – nice to see that some business leaders see that their bonuses may be a little excessive after all, rather than whinging about how the government is “anti-business”.

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