Let me be one of the first to say that the obvious conspiracy theory behind this has got to be that they have captured Mr Bin Laden a while a go and this is all a ruse.
Assuming that that isn't the case though Al Queda must be laughing themselves silly. Ok - they seem to have pulled off two or three very serious attacks. But in return they US government has turned them into the bogey man. You would imagine by the way that the US government is acting that Al Queda have agents on every corner, bombs lurking in every suitcase. hijackers on every plane. If I was in charge of Al Queda I would have long since given up doing actual bombings and just be doing a PR exercise. Making tapes, doing interviews and generally winding up the west something rotten. The US government will manage the rest. The whole point of terrorism is just that - terror. I know who I'm more scared of when it comes to George W or Osama. And which one is going to do more damage to my way of life and future.
I was listening to the radio last night and they where talking about the new NHS computer system. Having been exposed to the way government IT projects are procured I would have no confidence that any Government IT could be achieved with any degree of success. Let alone such a large project as this. The problem lies in the mind set of the procurement process. The basic premise is to make sure that there is a clear trail of liability when something goes wrong. When something goes wrong. And therein lies the problem. Accountability is all well and good but it misses out something very important. When the basic stance is blame no one is prepared to stand up and take responsibility. And without personal responsibility failure is inevitable.
Actually the upcoming strike seems a lot like this to me. The civil service is inefficient and it does cost a lot. The cost of employing someone in the civil service is much greater than employing someone on the private sector as far as I can tell. However the civil service is not, in my experience, overstaffed. Cutting people is the easy answer because it will lower costs but to my mind this is just privatization all over again. Quick and dirty cost saving in order for short term gain. Which will have terrible long term consequences. To properly fix the problem would be a monumental task.
This government is full of good intentions. It is not particularly good at thinking about the long (or even medium) term consequences of its actions.
I find myself drawn back to the new Nick Cave album time and time again. There are odd elements about it. The lyrics at times seem perversely cheesy or worse Nick Cave by numbers. There are guitar riffs that could be straight from a seventies metal album but the mix of blues and gospels, the energy and the confident delivery of the band make this an excellent record.
My entries here are a little few and far between at the moment. I shall be attempting to rectify that. One of the things that is going to help me is my new Powerbook. When I moved to my new job my focus shifted from the world of Enterprise software and Microsoft Windows to Web software and Linux/unix. I have been using linux fairly happily for the last few months but I needed a light laptop for taking to conferences and meetings. I have a superb Dell laptop but the idea of installing linux on it and struggling with the things that linux does badly (wireless in particular) did not fill me with joy. In addition its a bit of a tank and has become the family computer since we moved. And so an opportunity arose and I now have a new machine. Mac OSX is a sheer pleasure to use. Everything works just as it should. For example it sync's with my phone OUT OF THE BOX. I didn't manage that on the other machine even using Nokia's own software. The world in which I move is dominated by powerbooks (from the people I meet for work you would think it was Apple and not Microsoft that was the main supplier of operating systems) and there are a large number of tools and research software available to me here as well.
My good friend Rick has just released a Novella for free. Called "The Flesh Remembers" you can read about the release and get it here. I read it yesterday and it is superb. Its protagonist Dexter Lomax is cynical really has been there and seen most things. His knowing flippancy and references to the likes of the X-Files make the shear horror of what he uncovers all the more powerful Rick is kick-starting his writing career again after the sad break up of his marriage and on the evidence of this novella he will go far.
I increasingly get most of my news via the internet. I read one or two traditional news sites like the BBC but these days Blogs of one sort or another supply my primary news. Technorati is always a good source of interesting news as are the various sources aggregated in my News reader. This slightly skewed approach to the world often throws up interesting things. This week on of these was that someone called "Jandek" played his first every gig in Glasgow totally unannounced. From what I read about Jandek I was immediately intrigued. A quick search showed that getting his records in this country is not very easy and so I downloaded a couple before ordering them from the states. These are records of desolation and loss. I've read it said that "Jandek *is* the blues" and I have to agree. These wasted raw tracks are powerful and compelling. I shall be ordering more.
Its a sign of how busy I am that I've only just started reading the latest Pratchett book. But so far its looking superbly promising.
I'm just back from the soft launch of the UK Creative Commons which took the form of a lecture from Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is a superb lecturer, presenting one of the best power point presentations I have ever seen he made his points with clarity, style and humour. The Creative Commons is a copyright license that specifically embodies the fair use of material without the need to get lawyers invovled. Its work checking out the page I've linked to which explains it much better than I can. I have much more to say on this issue but I've got a train to catch. Watch this space (slowly) for more...
Ugh. Babies. No sleep. I was doing Gabriels feeds last night (he mostly breast feeds but when I am not going into work I do my turn with the bottle) he normally needs a couple of feeds but for some reason he was guzzling much more. Still he's a lovely little thing with the sweetest smile.
I am actually quite enjoying working on London at the moment. I can put this down to two things: a) I don't need to commute through London which makes a huge difference and b) when I do venture into London proper its to go to exciting meetings with interesting people. One of my meetings this week was for the Creative Commons with the BBC Creative Archive people, TATE, Cory Doctorow and a number of people working directly with CC. The Creative Archive is essentially the BBC's output made available on line for not for profit use. It will be licensed in such away that the people of Great Britain will be able to not only watch it but remix and re-use it in ways that can only be speculated about at present. We are hoping that the British Libraries web archive will be just as exciting. The creative commons license is a very good thing - if you make creative content available on-line for free then you should give it a good look.
Things are going well at work, I'm hoping to open up the programme server to the world in general in the next month so you will be able to read my work blog (which I post to slightly, but only slightly, more frequently than this one). The side project I alluded to seems to be pulling its weight as well and my cause a apple powerbook and some furniture to arrive in my life very soon all being well.
More songs have seemed to creep into my listening this month: in particular Tom Waits: Real Gone, Bonnie 'prince' Bille: I see a darkness , Xiu Xiu: Fabulous Muscles, Plastikman: Closer , Joy Division , Nick Cave: abattoir blues
Oh- I've broken the comments at the moment. The level of comment spam was getting intolerable. I am working towards another version of the site with all my music and poems back up but other things are taking priority as you might imagine.