The basement, originally uploaded by rutty.
I haven’t been taking so many photos recently and I’ve started to miss it. I love photography, I have plenty of gear and I need to get back to using it.
I decided that it was about time that I got out my tripod and took some photos that weren’t baby-related. Photos for fun, and took this one of the basement for the Dotdragnet “Choose A Room” photo contest.
I added the chair and bear for random interest and editted it in iPhoto.
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Boots’ cynical stance on homeopathy
There's something of a backlash taking place online against Boots today, after their professional standards director Paul Bennett admitted before a parliamentary committee yesterday that the chain sell homeopathic remedies because they sell, even though they know there is no scientific evidence that they actually work.
National papers involved in a conspiracy of silence
[W]hy, I wonder, was The Guardian the only national paper to report on the fact that former News of the World football reporter Matt Driscoll was awarded almost £792,736 for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination by an employment tribunal?The Guardian story appeared online on Monday night and in Tuesday's morning's paper. It was covered by the Press Gazette. It was reported on a lawyer's website. There were also mentions on various blogs[...].
But this record payout – believed to be the largest award of its kind in the media – was not considered to be newsworthy enough for any national to mention.
Yet it must surely be in the public interest for people to know about misbehaviour by Britain's best-selling newspaper
‘Aggressive’ policing of protests condemned in post-G20 inquiry
Senior police officers could lose the consent of the British public unless they abandon misguided approaches to public protests that are considered "unfair, aggressive and inconsistent", an inquiry has found.Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, used a landmark report into public order policing to criticise heavy-handed tactics, which he said threatened to alienate the public and infringe the right to protest.
The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an "approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent".
The initial reaction from protest groups was positive. A lawyer from environmental organisation Climate Camp [...] described the findings as a "huge step forward".
Chumby One: handsome successor to the cutest computer ever
The Chumby One — the successor to the incredibly innovative Chumby device — is just about ready to ship, and is available for $99. Chumby is a cute, squeezable hand-held device that is wide open — everything from the circuit board designs to the software is open-licensed and freely downloadable. The idea is to produce an adorable, versatile device that any hacker, anywhere, can improve, so that all Chumby owners can get more out of it.
Activists repeatedly stopped and searched as police officers ‘mark’ cars
The roads were empty when Linda Catt and her father drove their white Citroën Berlingo into London on a quiet Sunday morning. They could not have known they were being followed.But at 7.23am on 31 July 2005, the van had passed beneath an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera in east London, triggering an alert: "Of interest to Public Order Unit, Sussex police". Within seconds Catt, 50, and her 84-year-old father, John, were apprehended by police and searched under the Terrorism Act.
After filing a complaint, the pair, neither of whom have criminal records, discovered that four months earlier, a Sussex police officer had noticed their van "at three protest demonstrations" and decided, apparently on that basis, it should be tracked.
Murdoch-Microsoft deal in the works
Microsoft is ready to pay Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to remove its news content from Google, according to the Financial Times. Microsoft has also approached other "big online publishers" with similar deals."One website publisher approached by Microsoft said that the plan 'puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them",' wrote the FT's Matthew Garrahan. "… Microsoft's interest is being interpreted as a direct assault on Google because it puts pressure on the search engine to start paying for content."
This he calls a "ray of light to the newspaper industry."
Dirt can be good for children, say scientists
Children should be allowed to get dirty, according to scientists who have found being too clean can impair the skin's ability to heal.Normal bacteria living on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when we get hurt, the US team discovered.
The bugs dampen down overactive immune responses that can cause cuts and grazes to swell, they say.
Their work is published in the online edition of Nature Medicine.
Protests grow over digital bill
The Digital Economy bill has sparked a wave of protest among consumers and rights groups.Soon after the bill began its journey through Parliament on 19 November, many expressed worries about parts of it.
The bill suggests the use of technical measures to tackle illegal file-sharing that could involve suspending the accounts of persistent pirates.
Critics fear this and other powers the bill reserves could damage the UK's growing digital economy.
BBC iPlayer launches Wii channel
The BBC iPlayer is relaunching on the Nintendo Wii in the form of a dedicated Wii channel on 18 November.Only consoles with a broadband connection in the UK will be able to run the channel.
To get the service, Wii owners will be able to download it from the console's online shop for free.
Australia mulls Scientology probe
The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has said he will consider calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the Church of Scientology.But he said the evidence must be looked at carefully before proceeding.
Senator Nick Xenophon launched a scathing attack on Scientology, citing letters from former followers alleging extensive criminal activity.
Scientology spokesman Cyrus Brooks said the senator's attack had been an abuse of parliamentary proceedings.
Senator Xenophon tabled seven letters from former Scientologists who he said were willing to co-operate with New South Wales and Australian federal police.
"The letters received by me which were written by former followers in Australia, contain extensive allegations of crimes and abuses which are truly shocking," he said
Apocalypse Then: a two-part series on the lessons of Y2K
In 1993, a tech consultant named Peter de Jager wrote an article for Computerworld with the headline "Doomsday 2000." When the clock struck midnight on 1/1/00, he wrote, many of our computers would lose track of the date, and very bad things would happen as a result.Looking back, De Jager's article is remarkable for its pessimism. He interviewed several IT experts who said the tech industry was completely ignoring the computer-date bug. Many didn't think it was a real problem, and those who did felt no pressure to do anything about it—after all, the year 2000 was a long way away. "I have spoken at association meetings and seminars, and when I ask for a show of hands of people addressing the problem, the response is underwhelming," de Jager wrote. "If I get one in 10 respondents, I'm facing an enlightened group."
But then something strange happened: Everyone started worrying about Y2K.
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2 Months already?, originally uploaded by rutty.
Has it been two months since our little girl was born? Crikey, it barely seems a few weeks, but here she is: our Ruby at two months old.
She’s thriving too, although a little under the weather today after her ordeal at the vaccination clinic yesterday. She wasn’t impressed with that! Still, she’s a healthy feeder and a very good sleeper.
She’s continued sleeping through the night between her 22:30 and 07:00 feeds – something she started at six weeks. What a star! She’s also giving Mummy and Daddy lots of smiles (also farts, but let’s not dwell too much on that).
Happy two month birthday Ruby!
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As is sometimes seen in shops and restaurants: please excuse our appearance while work is in progress.
I’m trying out a few themes at the moment. I go in cycles with this. I’m trying to work out a decent minimalist theme that’s typography-based. The one that’s active now – Wu Wei – appeals to me a great deal but has some formatting issues that I want to work on.
I think I’d like the content to be central, rather than offset to the right, and the post information in a smaller font and off to the left. I think I can do this but I have more important priorities than farting about on my blog. You’ll notice the lack of posts here recently!
I’ve added a lifestream page which shows my twitter, flickr posts etc, but the formatting is currently rather horrible on that too. I’ll tidy that all up once I’ve done all my other jobs.
Alternatively, I may just move on to a different theme if the mood takes me (and it might)
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Labels may be losing money, but artists are making more than ever
The Times Labs blog takes a hard look at the data on music sales and live performances and concludes that while the labels’ profits might be falling, artists are taking in more money, thanks to the booming growth of live shows.
The Times says that they’d like more granular data about who’s making all the money from concerts — is there a category of act that’s a real winner here? — but the trend seems clear. The 21st century music scene is the best world ever for some musicians and music-industry businesses, and the worst for others.
Which raises the question: is it really copyright law’s job to make sure that last years winners keep on winning? Or is it enough to ensure that there will always be winners?
Huawei Pushing Aside Cisco and Ericsson
There was a time, about a decade ago, that Cisco (CSCO) executives would comment that Huawei was so good at copying (aka appropriating) Cisco’s technology that it even replicated bugs in the software. What was once a joke has morphed into a juggernaut in the communications-equipment marketplace that shows no sign of abating.
Huawei has pushed itself onto the world stage of equipment OEMs for carriers worldwide in wireless, IP-broadband, core networks, software, and services. According to market research firm Informa, Huawei is now the number three supplier of wireless infrastructure equipment, trailing only Ericsson (ERIC) and Alcatel (ALA)
Unemployment can be one of life’s toughest challenges, but there are many practical steps you can take to help you best cope.
An array of information is available through the BBC News website and various groups offer help for people who are unemployed.
Here is a guide to some of that advice and information.
Surreal drama of Zambia ‘porn’ trial
The trial of a news editor in Zambia, accused of distributing obscene material, is coming to an end. Chansa Kabwela says she sent photos of a woman giving birth without medical help to senior government officials to highlight the effects of a nurses’ strike. Jo Fidgen has watched the trial, and reflects on what it reveals about Zambian culture.
Build a Silent, Standalone XBMC Media Center On the Cheap
You won’t find a better media center than the open-source XBMC, but most people don’t have the space or desire to plug a noisy PC into their TV. Instead, I converted a cheap nettop into a standalone XBMC set-top box. Here’s how.
The David Nutt affair, Lord Drayson, and the new political confidence of science
As I’ve been covering the repercussions of the sacking of David Nutt as the Government’s chief drugs adviser over the past two weeks, I’ve been reflecting on what the affair means for British science, and its role in political life.
On one level, of course, the episode has been rather depressing. This Government talks a good game on making evidence-based policy, but as I’ve argued before, the dismissal of Professor Nutt highlights that what many ministers prefer is policy-based evidence. Scientific advice is still too often seen as something to be embraced if it supports conclusions that are politically palatable, and ignored if it does not.
Cut the Cable For Good with Boxee and Apple TV
If you vaguely recall hearing similarly over-the-top pronouncements before, you’re almost certainly right. For more than a decade, pundits have been saying that your internet connection would, any day now, be the primary pipeline for television shows, on-demand movies, YouTube videos, music videos, video podcast feeds, online radio, personalized audio streams, online and offline pictures and music—anything you could fit on your screen, really.
Enter Boxee
Boxee’s media center gives you that, and all from one application. It’s free, it’s open source, it’s built from the guts of the killer Xbox Media Center (which is still a quite active project itself), and it simply works. Loaded onto an Apple TV, or any TV-connected computer, Boxee also gives you free license to drop your cable or satellite dependency with hardly any regret, especially once you realize your year-to-year savings.
After a year-long Inquiry, English PEN and Index on Censorship have concluded that English libel law has a negative impact on freedom of expression, both in the UK and around the world. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, and should only be limited in special circumstances. Yet English libel law imposes unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on free speech, sending a chilling effect through the publishing and journalism sectors in the UK. This effect now reaches around the world, because of so-called ‘libel tourism’, where foreign cases are heard in London, widely known as a ‘town named sue’. The law was designed to serve the rich and powerful, and does not reflect the interests of a modern democratic society.
Ofcom knocks back BBC DRM plans
BBC plans to copy protect Freeview high definition (HD) data have been dealt a blow by regulator Ofcom.
It has written to the BBC asking for more information about what the benefits would be for consumers.
Initially it looked as if Ofcom would approve the plans but, during its two week consultation, it has received many responses opposing the plan.Critics say a Digital Rights Management (DRM) system for Freeview HD would effectively lock down free BBC content.
Current public opinion about childhood vaccinations sometimes seems to be influenced less by science and more by Jenny McCarthy. But here’s something that rarely gets discussed: the threat posed by the nonvaccinated to children who are immunosuppressed.
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I have a lot to be happy about at the moment. I have an amazing wife – I am so lucky to have her – and a healthy, beautiful daughter. I love my girls more than anything. We live in a nice part of the UK (Beeston in Nottingham) and have lots of great friends. I love my hobbies (brass banding and photography especially) and have many other reasons to be happy.
Life is great, but this was somewhat tempered yesterday by a rather shit day at work. My company, Ericsson, has come to the surprising decision to close our site in Ansty near Coventry. This is where I work and means that I will no longer have a job come the middle of next year.
I can almost understand their decision to move R&D activities overseas – much of it has already done so and most of our competitors already have strong presences in China and India – but we’d only moved into this building in June and thought that we’d be safe for a little while. How wrong we were.
You have to be philosophical about it, to a degree, and say “well, let’s take this as an opportunity to find a better job closer to home”, but I can’t adequately express how gutting this is, to lose a job that I enjoy.
It is just that – a job – and I’m confident that I can find something else, but at the moment I’m angry and upset at this decision. Understandably so. Outsourcing to low-cost countries is essential for companies wanting to be competitive in a world economy but the consequences to workers, and their families, in the so-called “developed” countries is extremely depressing. No doubt some of those sites that have escaped this time will suffer the same fate in the not-too-distant future.
I’m luckier than most. I have a talented wife who can look after me financially if I need to, but I don’t want that. I want my own meaningful career and that’s something that I’m going to make sure that I continue once this job expires sometime in Q2 2010.
I’m not letting this get me down, not too much. My anger and upset will pass and I still love my time with my wife and daughter. Life is still good – there’s just a nasty smudge appeared that will disappear sooner or later.
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Our daughter, originally uploaded by rutty.
When we had Ruby I thought that I’d be taking her photo every ten minutes and blogging every smile, burp and happy moment. It hasn’t quite worked out like that – there’s too much going on in the day – but we’ve had many, many happy moments.
Ruby is nearly seven weeks old now and doing really well. She’s had her six week checkup at the docs and everything seems to be working as it should. She’s started to smile, she looks at us when we talk to her and is just generally gorgeous.
Most importantly she seems to have started sleeping through the night. Jo feeds her at about 10:30 at night and when she goes down after that she’s sleeping until we wake her at 6:45 the next morning. I can’t tell you how much we’re enjoying the extra sleep!
She’s a joy to come home to and we love her to bits.
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Childhood vaccines, autism and the dangers of group think
Wallace has run smack into an abiding, perhaps growing, phenomenon of the Internet Age: Citizens armed with information are sure they know better. Readers who brush up against expertise believe they have become experts. The common man rebels against the notion that anyone — not professionals, not the government and certainly not the media — speaks with special authority.
Where it stops, nobody knows. But already we see a wave of amateurs convinced they can write a pithier movie review, arrange a catchier song, even assess our planet’s shifting weather conditions, better than the professionals trained to do the job.
Unhappy with the scientific consensus that man’s activities have exacerbated global warming? Then just find and promote the academic naysayers. Or merely post your personal musings: “Climate change, bah, there’s a foot of snow on my lawn.”
Heavy illegal downloaders buy more music – Boing Boing
A new British independent poll conducted by Ipsos Mori concluded that the people who do the most illegal downloading also buy the most music. This is in line with many other studies elsewhere and is easy to understand: people who are music superfans do more of everything to do with music: they see more live shows, listen to more radio, buy more CDs, buy more botlegs of live shows, buy more t-shirts, talk about music more, do more downloading — all of it.
And of course, these are the people the music industry’s supergeniuses have set their sights upon for bizarre enforcement regimes like the one that British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has promised
3 Silly Religious Beliefs Held By Non-Silly People
Not everything is a matter of opinion or perspective. Not everything can turn into something completely different if you just look at it differently. Some things are either true or not true. It is not true that the universe was created 6,000 years ago. It is not true that the sun goes around the earth. And it is not true that evolution is shaped by the hand of God, or that consciousness is animated by an immaterial soul, or that the universe is sentient.
Denying physics won’t save the video stars
Peter Mandelson’s proposal to disconnect the families of internet users who have been accused of file sharing will do great violence to British justice without delivering any reduction in copyright infringement. We’ve had 15 years of dotty entertainment industry proposals designed to make computers worse at copying. It’s time that we stopped listening to big content and started listening to reason.
An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a “biostitute” who whores for the pharmaceutical industry[...] Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN’s Larry King Live and singled out Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, [...] administered, they said, for just one reason: “Greed.”
[...]
So what has this award-winning 58-year-old scientist done to elicit such venom? He boldly states[...] that vaccines do not cause autism or autoimmune disease or any of the other chronic conditions that have been blamed on them. He supports this assertion with meticulous evidence. And he calls to account those who promote bogus treatments for autism — treatments that he says not only don’t work but often cause harm.
European Internet sinking fast under 3-strikes proposals – Boing Boing
Things look bad for the European Internet: “3 strikes” (the entertainment industry’s proposal for a law that requires ISPs to disconnect whole households if one member is accused — without evidence or trial — of three copyright infringements) is gaining currency. Efforts to make 3-strikes illegal are being thwarted by the European bureaucracy in the EC.
The Pirate Party, which holds a seat in the European Parliament, proposed legislation that said, essentially, that no one could be disconnected from the Internet without a fair trial. When the proposal when to the European Commission (a group of powerful, unelected bureaucrats who have been heavily lobbied by the entertainment industry), they rewrote it so that disconnection can take place without trial or other due process.
‘Bracelets’ useless in arthritis
Copper bracelets and magnetic wrist straps are useless for relieving pain in people with arthritis, say University of York researchers.
In the first tightly controlled trial to look at both alternative therapies, there was no benefit to their use for pain or stiffness.
All 45 patients tested a copper bracelet, two different magnetic wrist straps, and a demagnetised version.
An arthritis charity said people should not waste their money on the therapies.
“Jab ‘as deadly as the cancer’” roared the giant black letters on the front page of the Sunday Express this week. “Cervical drug expert hits out as new doubts raised over death of teenager” said the subheading, although no such new doubts were raised in the article. We will now break with tradition and reproduce a whole paragraph from the Express story. I’d like you to pay attention, and perhaps build a list of its claims in your mind. This is one of those stories where every single assertion made on someone else’s behalf is false.
Reading Kafka improves learning?
New research suggest that exposure to bizarre, surreal storylines such as Kafka’s “The Country Doctor” can improve learning. Apparently, when your brain is presented with total absurdity or nonsense, it will work extra hard to find structure elsewhere. In the study by the University of British Columbia psychologists, subjects read The Country Doctor and then took a test where they had to identify patterns in strings of letters. They performed much better than the control group.
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