Goldfish not included.

 What happens when you don't seal the bag properly in a typical British summer.

This isn't just someone putting up an ad for a missing pet, this is a legally required planning notice put up by the local council - who whould know what they're doing considering the number of these they have to put up in  year.

You can just about read the top three paragraphs and that's it. It relates to a temporary road closure that happened 18 months ago!

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Newsbytes

Canvassing Support.

Bertelsmann who own the UK's Channel 5 have pulled them out of the Project Canvas consortium, just when broadband was looking to be a serious competitor to DTT and DSAT for streaming output to the punter.

For those of you who want to know the consortium had the idea of another set-top box, this one dedicated to picking up streamed content on the web and letting you watch it on your TV. Considering that the only serious web-based competitor to this is Windows Media Edition, I thought this would be a winner.

One caveat on that though..... there's still over 10 million people who either don't have or don't want broadband, which may put a crimp on what the consortium are doing if it were delivered tomorrow, but as they are taking their timer and developing this slowly, I think Bertelmann are leaving the party too early.

via El-Reg

Crossed eyes forever!.

UBIsoft's UK marketing mogul Murray Pannell has gone out on a bit of a limb recently and said that there'll be a 3Dtv in every home by 2013.

Yeah,.... right,......

OK, I think he might seriously look at the current sales figures for HDtv - they still aren't great for either the sets or the set-top boxes. I honestly think he needs to rethink himself. I wouldn't even know where to find what the figures for those who still don't even have DTT, not a show-stopper, but still a significant number I would have thought.

via The Independent

Out-foxed.

I'd never heard of Martha Lane Fox until all the quango-culling happened when the Con-Lab coalition came to power after the last election. She was head of what was called the "Digital Public Service Unit": one of Gordo's last few inceptions before he and the Labour party lost their remit to govern. She's put herself forward as a sort of digital champion.

She's published a document which is both a masterpiece and a travesty of publishing. Her "Manifesto for a Networked Nation" is - if you can bear to read through it before your eyes give out with the ludicrous colour scheme and almost infinite changes in font - is a laudable aim. She has done her homework reasonably well, even if she is colour-blind. And don't think her website raceonline2012.org is any better: it fries the eyes as well.

via Digital Spy - which is far easier to read than her manifesto

Oh what a circus, oh what a show....

.... paraphrasing Andrew Lloyd Webber.
As if the world hasn't realised, the U.K is going through the torture of it's General Election and is heading for what's called a "hung parliament": baiscally with none of the major parties having an overall majority.

I'm not a political; person as such, I leave that up to my wife who is outspoken to say the least: her beliefs being described as slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan. I make no comment myself. I will admit of being an avid watcher of the whole process of the Election due to the wonderful Circus is becomes over those weeks that lead up to the point where one or other of the party leaders heads off to Buckingham Palace to get the "Royal Assent".

The coverage from the national TV companies can be hilarious especially when life catches them on the hop and the headless chicken syndrome descends on the production team. Another humerous thing is the graphics and gymnastics some of the commentators come up with when trying to expalin the "current situation".

Leaving the jokes about "... having enough rope for all those necks!" in the first analysis this is not a good situation for the country, it doesn't make for a stable political situation. On further analysis it may be good for the Liberal Democrat party for a short length of time as they have enough members to acctually sway any vote in the House of Commons either for or against which ever of the larger parties becomes the Government.

In short I will be glued to the coverage for some time.

Many Hard Scars

In the UK, and I suspect other parts of the world, there has been a debate on legalising, or at least giving people immunity from prosecution if they help someone to commit suicide. Pressure to actually come out and say something definitive has been increasing because of this debate and legal actions from a sufferer of MS from Bradford in the UK.

Debbie Purdy won a ruling by the Law Lords that she had a right to know what action her husband would face if he helped her to end her life. This has finally forced the Director of Public Prosecutions to say something, and the current incumbent of that role: Keir Starmer QC, has finally published a guidance paper. BBC News has a story on this.

As with anything like this there are the "PRO" and "ANTI" camps, and I think I have at least one foot in the "PRO" one for the simple reason that I think that the attitude of prolonging the life of someone with a terminal illness who has no quality of life for what ever reason is somewhat selfish.

God Forbid that I should ever end up in this situation. I doubt seriously whether I could cope with living in a state of complete immobility and pain. That said I wonder whether I could actually have the courage to take that enormous transition between worlds.

UK ID card scheme.

The pig-headedness of politicians never ceases to amaze me.

10 Downing St. and the Home Office are still pushing to get this running even after having all the problems the chosen implementation will suffer from made pellucidly clear.

I personally have no objection to a national ID card system that would make my daily life easier - I'd welcome it in a minute if it would combine all the goverment/tax/health/social services data that currently exists about yours truly.

BUT.........................

Unfortunately these are still science fiction due to the stupidity inherent in the human race.

So what are my objections to the current scheme? Well, it has nothing to do with human rights or anything to do with the so-called "surveillance society". They can be summed up simply as:

• Fraud: No matter what the underlying card system is, Chip'n'Pin or contact-less, it is still open to abuse. Note how quickly the criminal fraternity caught up with the technology after it was introduced.
• Physical reliability: The physical environment and cleanliness of the card can and does cause significant problems. With Chip'n'Pin it's the build up of crud on the contacts that causes the problem. It then builds up in the reader and it's not going to be long before
  the reader needs servicing, if not disinfecting!
• Cost: the current government estimate is about £5bn ($7.4bn). In the past, an overspend of not less than 50% of the original estimate is a good bet for HM Gov. projects, so the independent experts saying £10bn to £20bn is quite feasible.
  Oh, and you the holder of the card are going to have to pay £50 just for the privilege of having the card produced.
• Logistics: yes.... well the way the UK's vehicle licensing system works seems to be OK, but it's only dealing with one un-related item of data at a time, this system is eventually going to have so many hooks and tie-ins it's bound to collapse eventually.

Give it up for now Jacqui, wait until the technology is a little more reliable and can cope with these problems.