Posts by Beachhutman

lest we forget

It is so easy to overlook one of the primary objectives of galileo, isn't it? By using it to institute EU wide vehicle tracking (sold as "navigation assistance") they would be able to in effect produce an EU owned tax stream with unlimited upside to their income. As this is a non starter, this is now just an expensive, taxpayer funded, big willy competition with the US. The private sector walked because they know there is no money to be made from licences to use Galileo as long as GPS is about. And so the Lisbon not-a-constitutional treaty was specially modified so that Peter could be robbed to pay Paul, and no country (far less the auditors) can effectively stop them doing this.

Yep, the EU is a wonderful thing.

securituty

"Ladies and Gentlermen, we apologise for the slight delay while you wait to enter the King Tutt Extravaganza And Fundraiser. This is due to increased security measures. Please listen carefully. All visitors are to undergo security checks before entering. These will be carried out by our team of four trained security checkers. We apologise for the slight delays this will cause, we are recruiting new checkers, subject to satisfatory illegal immigration status, and we hope to have doubled the number by December 2009. No liquids, powders, pastes or gels will be allowed into to the exhibition area, unless these are in a plastic bag not more than 1 litre in capacity, which renders them safe. Small bottles of acid, germ warfare agent or poison gas may be safely carried in your 1 litre plastic bag which you should wave vaguely at the security guard who will then ignore it. Confiscated drinks may be repurchased on the other side of security, and these will not be confiscated again until you are about to enter the subsequent area. All potentially dangerous items must be abandoned at the security check or left at the baggage check. The queue for the baggage check is on the other side of this building. Potentially dangerous items which will be confiscated include childrens plastic scissors, tiny nail clippers, all pens and pencils, makeup, under wired bras (please take your bra to a help station if you are in doubt) shoes, some ornamental socks, all cameras, mobile telephones, belts, change, combs, safety pins, cotton buds, and any over the counter medicines in those little foil sachets. In order to make the exhibition inclusive and reflective of UK society all signs will be in Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Polish, Thai, and Suoni. English translations are available as leaflets from the kiosk outside at three pounds each.The exhibition has also been maximised for social learning and integration, so the first row of viewing will be reserved for groups of schoolchildren below the age of eight, and will be equipped with paints, crayons, and musical instruments to help them express their wonder and awe. Finally, in order to reduce the risk of vandalism, the actual exhibition will now consist of a selection of photographs and old postcards from people who have seen the famous artefacts elsewhere and written home to Britain about them. The Artefacts are safely stored in a vault and may be viewed by webcam at www.WhatevershappenedtotheBM.biz There is a small Visa payment for the web viewing service.Thank you for your patience"

Your not joking?

I'm not always amused by people who cry "If you ain't doing anything wrong you don't need to worry!"

Nonsense. They will soon start to scream when they get speeding tickets in the post for speeding they didn't do in places they didn't go to. Or they learn that the government has flogged off their travel data to an insurance company, which now knows exactly what journies they make, even those they thought were private. This government works hard to criminalise the everyday, and soooner or later these people too will be wrongly accused of something. Just because some people who DO deserve fines whine, doesn't mean that the innocent are safe. They too will be trapped by these automated data collection systems one day.

But YOU'RE not going to believe ti anyway, so I'll stop now.

Not the point

Really gets me irritated when the sunday schoolers come up with "If you're innocent you have nothing to fear" argument over speed cams, ID cards, DNA databases, and such stuff. They are oh so virtuous until the day THEY are the ones who get tagged by a cop wobbling his speed cam, or visited by the police and accused of being in a place they weren't, or denied their civil rights because the government data is wrong, or have a child DNA tagged because the cop THOUGHT he MIGHT have done something wrong.

It isn't about how gruesome accidents are, or if you were speeding (an emotive nonsense word that actually means "faster than the police prefer") The fact is that the police are so often wrong with speed, victims, crimes, data, attitudes, that alas in UK we no longer trust them. That is tragic. Speeding fines are a symptom.

fear not folks

for they'll all get jobs with the new ID cards database setup, until it turns out that LSE's 20 Billion was a gross underestimate, and they all get sacked again

But then there's the eu Gallileo road pricing project

and the DNA database

Oh, and the NHS COMPUTER PROJECT

Or has the world forgotten 3-4 June, the year after 1988

The answer is the date does not exist here. But wooden pitchforks and rakes? It may come as a shock to you, but China has airlines, TV, cellphones, smart cards, billionaires, KFC, sex shops, online gambling, ATMs, taxis that speak english (sic), subways, skyscrapers, chat shows, free public wifi, five star hotels, rock venues, malls the size of towns, anti-corruption laws, walmart, tesco, IKEA, ......and people own guns.

That date did quite a lot, quietly. And actually, is the US "democracy" (or even the Brownian mendacity) really what you'd expect them to want? Not right now buddy.

Spam critters

I'm getting several of these attacks a day now here in China where we use Skype for contacts with overseas clients and suppliers. The websites look like this one, which isn't very clever when sent to an obviously English-speaking user!:

http://skype dot gx dot cn/tom

it'll be back

when the EU insists on it, so they can use the revenue to pay the cost of the galileo silliniess

Plum Jam

Maybe, just maybe, we could have a real person one day? You know, somneone who undersands what you want, instead of expecting you to understand what they want ?

sna fu yung

Here in Beijing we just assumed someone had been up to no good and the Great Firewall had got em, causing colateral damage! Good to know Skype screwed up instead!