The State of the Union....

It seems that the World is truly broken.  

Recently, a storm began to brew over "taste and decency" of Wikipedia. On the site there is an article about a band, who used a photo of a naked girl posing.

The problem - the girl in question is obviously younger than 18.

There were many discussions about the image in question, on Wikipedia. Some of those discussions agreed that the image should be replaced with the alternative image for the album cover that the band itself used.

Other discussions overruled the original discussion, which in turn were themselves overruled. Finally, "the people" over at Wikipedia declared that the image wouldn't be replaced under any circumstances, as "We are not censored", and "We are not a democracy".

As the saga continues, "someone" other there in Internet land, reported the page with the article to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a UK non-government body that works with the ISPs out here to "self-regulate" illegal content on the net, and how said content is accessed by the British ISPs.

After contacting and working with the Police here in the UK, the Wikipedia article was added to the IWF blacklist as being "potential illegal"

The guidelines to the Law, here in the UK are:

The law on indecent images of children is clear. It means any images of children, apparently under 18 years old, involved in sexual activity or posed to be sexually provocative.

However, it would seem a simple case; but it is not simple...

Wikiepedia and supports are saying that it's not fair and that there are plenty of images of naked children out there on the net in general and on Wikipedia's on site.

The IWF and supports are saying that the image is a clear violation of the Law, and as the Wikipedia servers are not hosted in the UK, the IWF couldn't issue a take down order, and had to block the page.

So why I am writting this?

Well, it seems that today the World is unable to see the truth of the matter. It's not whether the IWF were wrong to black list the article, it's about whether  the image breaks the Law or not. If it does break the Law, then it should be replaced.

Does the image break the Law? Read the law and decide for yourself.

The law on indecent images of children is clear. It means any images of children, apparently under 18 years old, involved in sexual activity or posed to be sexually provocative.

Personally, it seems that one who influences the world, has blinded it. I am saddened by this, as I guess I placed more hope in mankind

What Will the Future Hold?

What will the future of computing hold for my kids.

As I have been getting older, I have to the realization that "thelogster V2" is not going to be vaporware forever.

So what computer will my kids use ?

When I grew up I used:

• Commodore Pet
• Atari 800 (I think)
• ZX Spectrum (Friends)
• Amigia 600 (Friends)

Then we moved on to a PC (I have used every Microsoft OS since DOS 5)

We have moved away from the hobbyist computers to low cost high performance computers that have more power than the Space Shuttle.

Will my kids learn to program in C# or C++, instead of good ole' BASIC??
Will my kids have a OLPC machine?

Only the future will tell...

Twitter Like a the Little Song Bird that You Are

So - I am now on Twitter, so you can read about my interesting life while I am on the move..


Watch out world, here I come.

The Good News

Saturday was a fun day, as in Saturday I mean the day after Friday, and as in fun, I mean as fun as having teeth pulled with no anaesthetic and using blunt instruments.

Strawberry Fair hit Cambridge, I guess it can be described as our answer to the Burning Man festival. Drugs, booze, and Plant/Cat* worship.

I was there with some other members of our church, preaching to the lost of Cambridge and surrounding areas.

The Good Results:

• 9 people gave their lives to Christ.
• God healed 4 people (2 ankles, 1 set of eyes, and 1 blood disorder)

The Bad Results:

• 38 arrests, up from 21 the year before
• 1 person had a seizure, and had to be helped to the hospital tent by yours truly.
• So much trash on Midsummer Common, it took three days to return to "normal"

Seriously, I feel honoured and privileged to have been there preaching the Good News and doing the work that God has chosen me to do. I would gladly do it again next year, but the local residents have asked for a reprieve from the fair for a year.


(* depending on your prefrences)

The Dark Side of Wikipedia

Well it seems that I have discovered the dark side of Wikipedia.

Some of the articles on the site are wholey inaccurate, as the people who edit them can simply erase updates and report changes as vandalism, leading to an "edit war".

Wikipedia has such high expectations, but it is really turning in to a soapbox for cranks and people with personal vendettas

Don't trust the wikipedia :(

The Never Ending Cycle

The never ending cycle of testing, fixing, testing, and fixing.

This is just so important ... I have managed to get my company to invest in an MSDN subscription, so I now have legit access to XP and Vista to test the release/install system that we use.

I build the installer for the software, update the Active Directory entry, and viola - the software is installed next time my customers reboot their machines. So... if I have messed up on the installer somewhere, then lost of people are going to see it.

This is why I am getting a "new machine" (i.e virtual machine) to test the installs on via the Active Directory.

Also - I need to update the NUnit test classes, as on one out of the five WebService stubs is being tested ....

Come on Strong

Last Sunday night our church held its "Simply Worship" evening.

The worship team played this really cool song "Come on Strong Yahweh"

Take a look at this


Come on Strong Yahweh by ~the-happyman on deviantART

Silverlight

I have discovered that a beta for the new version of Silverlight is out now.

It looks really cool - it now supports "Framework Languages" on the client. i.e. you should be able to write C# or VB.net code to run on Windows and Mac via the Silverlight framework.

Like... how cool is that :)

What The ?????

So today is Sunday, and I am in church, having a great time spending time worshipping God.

During the sermon, the paster re-tells the story of how his son was told that "we" no longer refer to dates asA.D*, but as A.C.E or C.E, as A.D may offend non Christians.

Eh !?

So let me get this right, a "Christian" country can no longer refer to 2008 as 2008 AD, but as 2008 ACE, or 2008 CE. In case of offence to other faiths.

Whoa ... what about us spirit filled Christians..... It something similar was done to Islam or Buddhism , there would be riots in the street.


It is time to stand up and be counted my brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for the UK, for it is not a Christian country.... but it will be again :)


(* For those that don't know - A.D. means Anno Domini or "The year of our Lord")

The Sponge of the Mind

I am going though a transition time at the moment, from knowing the product that I am working on inside and out, to almost knowing nothing about the product I am working on..

That will change with time, as I gain more experience in using and developing the product.

So far things are going pretty well, working down the list of current issues and enhancements. I probably need to start to get to grips with Bugzilla (which, for the uninitiated, is not Godzilla's little brother)

Sidebar - Something I have learnt today, sometimes it is a good time that someone doesn't value you, because if that someone does value you, you probably wouldn't like the person who you would have become.

New Frontiers

Well the first day at the new job went well..

Got the software to build (finally) - Cheers Microsoft, for not giving out the Interop Assemblies for Office 2003 (unlike all the other versions of office that have them)

Found a bug - and fixed it..

• Software needs .Net 2 (check)
• Installer needs .Net 3.5 (doh)

Only 3 downsides

1. The air con at the new place works - unlike my old company (going to wear a jumper tomorrow)
2. Need more network connections (I only have one network cable to my desk, I am used to like 25)
3. Can't connect to CVS, Personal Email or VNC - they are either using some filtering or some hidden proxy lark.

Overall it was a good day

Tomorrow's the Big Day!!

Yep, that's right, tomorrow is a big day.

I start my new job ....

But hey, as the Jesus said - "Let tomorrow worry about tomorrow.."

So, guess what I am not doing :)




(Well not much anyway)

A New Chapter

Well they say that all's well that end's well.

Today was my last day at my previous company, one that was in the media industry. It was four years of good experience and relationships.

I start my new position as Senior Software Engineer at another company, this one is in the pharmaceutical industry, on Monday.

So as one chapter of my life comes to an end, a new chapter opens.

What I have learnt from the last four years:

1) Never start something that you don't have enough time to finish.
2) Trust your team members that they know what they are talking about.
3) Never back the sales team over the software development team, cause you'll end up with a project that is never ending and constantly changing.