I didn't quite catch that...

Well, clearly not, given the keenness of several Norn Iron bloggers to get onto the radio.

Yes, as mentioned, thon radio documentary about Norn Iron blogging was on this morning. And t’was good. I’ll put up a ‘listen again’ link for all you foreign listeners when I get a chance. Because youse are all morally obligated to listen again to it. Because not only do I get a bit of air time, but a comment of mine on Nelly’s Garden gets a quick mention. Woo-hoo.

UPDATE: Listen again here, should be for the next week. Go forth, minions, and be lulled to sleep by the tedium of my quotes. Don’t forget to wake up for all the others speaking, for they have interesting things to say.

Oh, there is one interesting thing to say, as reminded to me by Stephen: next Saturday, there’s a load of us strange internet blogging types having a little meet in the Big City. For the putting of names to the voices.

Bliss‘s Friday Cheap Entertainment is always worth a gander, but this week’s is spectacular.

I particularly like the second one.

I done changed my mind: the could and should be a blogging code of conduct.

As long as Twenty does it.

So, what made me change my mind? Simple: rule 1.

Thou shalt not LOL. LOL, ROFL, LMAO and other such things should be beyond the average blogger for bloggers are a race defined by high IQs and the ability to laugh in other ways such as ‘haha’ or ‘heh’.

What can I say? LOL vexes me when done it’s actually meant to convey humour. When it’s meant sarcastically, then it’s alright, but must be followed by !!!1!! or similiar.

Oh, and as to how it would be enforced. Anyone who asks that question clearly hasn’t met Twenty’s pets…

There’s currently a bit of a fuss about the kind of behaviour that goes on on t’internet. And how it’s probably about time that there was some kind of blogging code of conduct. Which, not to put too fine a point on it, I think is bullshit.

For a start, it would be totally unenforceable. How would such a thing be setup; as an addition to the T&C on blogger, perhaps? You know, those T&Cs that are mostly unread and generally ignored? And that’s before you take into account the myriad of other systems available for publishing a blog.

Or perhaps it could be enforced by bloggers themselves. By banning people from comments, and delinking blogs that offend. Getting Google to remove nasty blogs from search results. That sort of thing. Except that this is already what happens, and it doesn’t seem to be working the way that the article would like.

And even if there was a magical technological fix to enforce such a code of conduct, it would still be daft. And probably wrong. One of the most fun things about the ol’ blogs is the way that anyone can have one, and pretty much say anything they like. A Code of Conduct would, right out of the box, change that completely. It’d become a way for employers to punish whistleblowers; for dissent to be stifled, for differing political views to be dropped.

Of course, there are a few limits in place on free speech in blogs, and it’s generally exactly opposite to what the article claims:

“There is an unwritten rule in the blogosphere that it is wrong to delete nasty comments. It suggests that you can’t take criticism but now there is a sense that this is nonsense,” she said.

Most blogs I read would be of the opinion that their blog is their property, and therefore they can (and do) do whatever they want with comments. Such as deleting (or making funny) comments that they dislike. I know I would do that (and have done on, I think, two occasions). But I digress.

One of the things I like about the whole blogging lark is the way it is actually quite similiar to actual society; my favoured comparison being a local pub. Most of the time people get along fine, but when they don’t there isn’t a specific “code of conduct”, there’s just application of existing rules. And it’s worked thus far, so lets just leave it as is.

Some of the more observant of you may have figured out that I’m quite a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica. And for good reason: the writing, the scope, the actors, the special effects and the eye candy are all amazingly good.

But there has been much discussion recently about the show; people have been throwing accusations of shark jumping about the place.

SPOILERS for those of you waiting for Sky to show the rest of season 3.

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From Harry Hutton:

It is every Englishman’s dream to fly over London in a hot air balloon with his pasty arse hanging over the side, and take a great big dump on the Houses of Parliament, while singing the Eton Boating Song.

Change the soundtrack, and I dare say that a few more nationalities would sign up for that as well.

As an example, I heard tell that Sian Lloyd was planning on dropping trou’ to the musical delights of The Cheeky Song (Touch my Bum). But I think that she has different reasons than most for her actions.

If a security guard helpfully and deliberately informed a criminal exactly when he was due to finish his shift, and that the store would be unguarded thereafter, said security guard could be considered complicit in any robbery committed by the criminal at that time.

If a Secret Service manager made a point of letting an assassin know when the entire Secret Service was on break, they could be charged with treason.

So why is the Senate crowing about doing exactly the same thing, but on a much larger scale.

Giving the enemy – any enemy – a specific time for when you will cut and run is, quite possibly, the worst idea that anyone could ever come up with. And that’s against some pretty strong competition.

We started this month with a tale of brutality to vehicular beauty, and it seems that we’re heading towards ending the month with more of the same.

US comedian Eddie Griffin has wrecked a rare Ferrari worth $1.5m (£760,000) that belonged to the producer of his new film – and escaped unscathed.

Only 400 Ferrari Enzos have ever been produced, all between 2002 and 2004.

The. Bastard. Killed. An. Enzo. A much more beautiful car than the Bugatti, even if it isn’t as fast. It’s a farking Ferrari, man; one of the rarest of said cars.

And this tool went and buggered it, live on camera, in a parking lot.

His excuse? “Brother can’t drive.”

Understatement of the year, there, matey. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m away for a good cry. Feeling sorry for the 399 Enzos that have lost a brother…

Yes, it may be the case that others were left out; yes, even published writers were overlooked. But it remains the case that there’s a wee radio programme happening soon that may be of interest to some of the folk who frequent these parts.

And the news from the horses mouth:

… this Saturday morning at 11.30 on BBC Radio Ulster (94.5FM). Please pass on the news …

That’s this Saturday morning, at 11:30. On the Radio Ulster station. For half an hour.

Which is nice.

‘course, I’ve never read it, but any time I hear about a study in it, it causes high blood pressure and blunt force trauma. Because I have to start headbutting the desk.

Standard fig leaf applies: before anyone starts accusing me of anti-doctor-ism, I should say this: some of my closest friends are doctors. Hell, quite a few of my family are. So obviously I’m not including all doctors in this.

Case in point:

‘Ban under-21s buying alcohol’

Under-21s should be banned from buying alcohol to curb Britain’s binge-drinking crisis, doctors are demanding.

Alcohol causes one in four deaths among 15 to 29-year-olds but the country is only just waking up to the dangers of drinking, they claim.

Britain’s response should be to follow the example of the US and raise the legal limit for buying alcohol from 18 to 21, say experts writing in The Lancet.

No. No. No. No. No. And no.

At 18 you are allowed to fight for your country; you are allowed to vote in elections; you are required to pay tax; you can drive; you can smoke; you can be tried as an adult; you can marry; you can raise children; you can enter legally binding contracts.

Is the consumption of alcohol somehow more serious than these? And even if it is, what fucking right do doctors have to be making such demands?

This is what really, really, really annoys me about the pronouncements that journals like the Lancet adn organisations like the BMA make: they take their observations and automaticially assume that the law should be changed to take them into account. If everyone else did that, then I’d be calling for american date formats to be illegal. Which would be no more or less valid than calling for everyone’s freedoms to be curtailed because a study says that people who have drink problems tend to drink earlier.

Doctors do hugely important work, yes. They save lives, they ease suffering, they tidy up after accidents. They loose sleep and work under huge stresses. But that doesn’t make them any more qualified to demand new laws than the next person in the street. So why do journals think differently?

Via Tony, I must confess that my regular behaviour could probably be raising a few flags. Not as many as his, obviously, but still, people have been in court for less…

A few reasons why this poster really annoys me:

• A lot of people like to take pictures of things that are different: this is why Venice’s gondolas are popular. And why merkins take pictures of black taxis. And why a lot of people take pictures of sangers, checkpoints and other in-your-face security. Because it’s not what they have at home and it looks like it doesn’t belong. So now acting like a naturally curious person is grounds for being reported.
• How does one hire a van in a suspicious manner? Must you be wearing a false mustache? Speaking of ze Jermans?
• “Do you know someone who thinks that their travel plans are not your business? Then make it our business! Inform on them to BigBrother@mi5.gov.uk!”
• Define “terrorist related websites”. Because I read quite a few that would be less than happy with current governmental direction. Which is probably going to be declared a terrorist activity in the not-too-distant future.
• Have you seen someone with a large quantity of mobile phones? Yes, lots of people. People have different phones for work and personal life, for north of the border and south of the border, for the wife and the girlfriend, for phone use and for free texts (got as an offer with Genie in ’99). Not one of these things makes the carrier a terrorist, does it?

But never let anything like a reasonable explaination get in the way of Big Brother, eh?

This whole twitter thing hasn’t really caught my imagination; I tend to work on the principle that if logging in to the site is too much like effort, then probably what I was going to say isn’t really worth it…

Plus, it like, totally reduces everything to single sentences. Which is, like, really annoying.

But provides opportunity for comedy. Which is something, at least.

There was a time, long ago, that I did a little subject called “Religious Studies” at school. And a bit of said subject covered Amnesty International, and all the good work that it did.

And I looked at the work that it had done, and it was good.
And then I looked at the work that it was doing at the time, and, well, it wasn’t.

The prior history was full of covering the basic rights: life, liberty, fair trial, freedom of speech, etc etc. And yet the current projects seemed much less tangible; the rights of children to do whatever the hell they wanted; the rights of people to mucho benefits; the rights of the MOPEs of the world. And then they’d start on the social justice aspects.

This, frankly, did not sit well with me. Why was AI spending so much time concentrating on specific jail cells in the north of England while China still ran gulags? Why did depriving prisoners in Texas of cable television justify more column inches than disappearing Cubans? Why were fundamental rights in the Spanish speaking world spoken of less than peripheral rights in the West?

Then, of course, it suddenly became worse for people to been killed accidentally by western forces than for local troops to deliberately slaughter villages. This pissed me off even more.

And I gradually stopped listening to what they had to say; despite all the good work they had done, the mention of AI condemning something didn’t automatically mean I’d care. Because most of the fights they chose to fight were pointless sideshows, and worse, the fights that they chose not to fight were things I cared about much more.

And it would appear that the Economist feels the same.

But some years ago [Amnesty International] decided to follow intellectual fashion and dilute a traditional focus on political rights by mixing in a new category of what people now call social and economic rights.

Rights being good things, you might suppose that the more of them you campaign for the better. Why not add pressing social and economic concerns to stuffy old political rights such as free speech, free elections and due process of law? What use is a vote if you are starving? Are not access to jobs, housing, health care and food basic rights too? No: few rights are truly universal, and letting them multiply weakens them.
…
Many do-gooding outfits suffer from having too broad a focus and too narrow a base. Amnesty used to be the other way round, appealing to people of all political persuasions and none, and concentrating on a hard core of well-defined basic liberties. No longer. By trying in recent years to borrow moral authority from the campaigns and leaders of the past and lend it to the woollier cause of social reform, Amnesty has succeeded only in muffling what was once its central message, at the very moment when governments in the West need to hear it again.

Amen. Now if you’ll kindly stop with the social rights and start focusing on the human rights again, maybe more people would start listening. I know I would.

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The last ten minutes of the BSG season finale are absolutely stunning. And have completely thrown out my thoughts about where the show was going.

But by God, it looks like the new way could be pretty interesting as well.

Despite all the fuss, I have to say I’m not blown away by the revelation that the Rev. Dr. and Adams have actually sat down together. It’s been obvious that it was going to happen like this for a while; everyone’s been played quite nicely. The electorate and the parties all fell into place on water charges, and as soon as they did, there wasn’t really any alternative but to form a government. You have to hand it to ‘em, when it comes to manipulation, distortion of facts and plain old bribery, Westminister takes some beating.

And I have to admit to having a slight admiration for the way the DUP has pissed on the bonfire a little. I’ve been quite annoyed by all the speeches from Hain (twat), Blair (double twat) and Brown (thieving twat) about today being an absolute fixed date, there will be no slippage, it’s today or nothing, no really we mean it this time… So it’s nice to see that that particular bluff has been called. Sort of, anyway.

I’m sure that The World (+ wife) has heard about the council planning hidden cameras to find envirocriminals by now. Bloody typical, just when Labour are busy showing the world how to be top dog at invasive deployment of technology, the bloody Tories try and join in…

Anyway, yer man Beelzebub makes a very valid point:

One thing tells you all you need to know about the effectiveness of Ealing Council. If they consider discarded baked bean tins to be suitable camouflage – an everyday sight that won’t catch the eye – then they can’t be doing their rubbish-collecting job properly in the first place, can they?

Quite.

The good things associated with hitting the bars after work, where you work:

• You get a chance to unwind.
• You find out things about people that are often unexpected.
• You can get riotously drunk safe in the knowledge that someone will get you home.
• You don’t have to bother with much of this ‘paying’ lark, especially on t’door.

The bad things:

• You may well wake up well after noon the next day and not notice that some bastard put the clocks forward until you go and try to rescue your car from the work car park…

Tonight, for the first time in years, I worked a ‘corporate’; a shift where the venue was closed to the public and hired out to a single organisation. Which means less churn at the door, more regular faces through the evening and generally a better sort of crowd; someone who is dropping many thousands of pounds on organising a night is much more likely to be selective about their invitees than, say, a hen night.

The down side is, of course, that it’s generally a lot more boring. Oh well, shit happens.

There were a number of things that made it worth while:

• The UV lamps for the checking of attendees facilitated the discovery of quite old graffiti, which provided some entertainment.
• The UV ink provided much in the way of opportunities for mischief.
• Several of the people that were organising the whole thing turned out to be quite good craic.
• Professionalism and opportunism demanded a higher number of staff be on duty than normal, providing further craic.
• Old, well behaved people that don’t usually drink often make entertaining drunks.
• Said old drunks tend to fade out early, mean plenty of time to make it to the bar for a swift half before last orders…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a security system is only as strong as its weakest component.

In government work, and in IT, you’ll quite often find that said weakest component is between 4 and 7 feet long and quite mushy.

No matter how well a system is secured, it you don’t properly control access to the system, then it is vunerable.

Of course, the systems that control identity will be subject to the third highest level of security, with the second level being financial systems and the top being ones that make large parts of Russia glow in the dark.

Which is why it’s so comforting to see stories like this:

An IT tax office worker who stole the identities of 1029 people and sold them to a fraud syndicate has been jailed.

Twenty-eight-year old Mobolaji Olayinka tapped into the Inland Revenue computer and searched for taxpayers entitled to credits they had not yet claimed, and sold it to a criminal gang who in turn claimed £1.3m.

If you think that your unchangable biometric data would be secured any better, I suspect you’re in line for disappointment…

Business leaders are calling for clarification of Brown’s latest announcement (“Do your jobs and we’ll throw you an extra billion”). Because, as is well know, anytime that Brown announces new money, it’s generally old money repackaged.

Turns out that this case isn’t that different…

Commenting on Mr Brown’s announcement he [Confederation of British Industry local chairman Declan Billington] said: “Amazingly the chancellor’s headline grabbing offer of a further £1bn is taking the credit for £400m donated by the Republic to a future devolved assembly, for additional infrastructure spend.

Oh really? Gordon is trying to claim that this money is under his control?

The cheek of the man is astounding, it really is…