Passing Thoughts

Jhonn Balance 1962-2004

Its been a kind of weird day. I found out this morning that Jhonn Balance of Coil died over the weekend. Coil have been one of my favourite groups of late and I find his death effecting me quite profoundly. The guy was one of those people who was way out there and lived his art, heart and soul, rather than being a part time visitor. Sacrilegious as it might seem to some I can't say that I even have time for some of the weird nonsense he believed in but I did connect deeply to his art and music despite that. Coil have been at the height of their powers of late and Jhonn's loss is all the more tragic because it's clear that he had much much more to say.

(image from hfos.net - click to see loads more images)

Flickr

One of my favorite things on the internet at the moment is Flickr. There is some stunning photography to be seen and as well a sense of watching the whole world going by. I'm reminded of an imaginary review by Stanislaw Lem called One Human Minute. Two streams that are well worth checking out are: that of my friend Ijonas and this one by someone called Ty which I came across this morning. Flickr keep adding features all the time and this weekend they added a counter to show how many times each photo has been viewed by other people. Looking through my photostream somewhat bizarrely this picture:

is the one that has been viewed most.

Fireworks or not

I'm working from home at the moment. Abby is laid up with a bad back and so looking after children is not really feasible. When you are in a position like this you really wonder how single parent families cope. Its quite nice though at the moment from my point of view - I'm getting lots of work done and seeing lots of my family. Can't complain about that.

Last night Milo and I went out to look at fireworks. I have very fond memories of going out as a youngster myself with my Dad and Brother and Sister to see the various displays around town. To my astonishment there was very little going on. In any of the places I've lived prior to here (mainly Glasgow and Leeds) the inhabitants would be making a jolly good show of trying to set fire to the city and give it a damn good send off. Not here. Maybe its a Northern thing. Anyway I resolved last night to take the children up north for fireworks night when I get a chance.

And so George W was reelected. I've followed the election with interest and via the various blogs I read have discovered many new things. From reading the internet you would get the impression that America is full of intelligent well educated people but I guess those are only the ones that write and publish. You can see what the rest are like from their voting and the contents of your spam folder.

I've been quite depressed about peoples ignorance recently. Studies show that the people who voted for Bush are not that well informed about the world about them. This ignorance is everywhere you look though - I've had arguments about whether Homeopathy has any validity with people who really should know better. With technical things its even worse. Its clear that peoples understanding of the technology around them is poor. The views and decisions that non-technical people make about technical things shows a profound lack of understanding that borders on treating technology as magic. I guess in the past I've worked directly with fairly technical customers (even if the company they worked for wasn't). In web archiving this is most definitely not the case. What I really find astonishing though is the attitude that if they don't understand then other people don't either. This has lead to technical recommendations from our team being ignored by non-technical people. I guess once the world around you starts being mysterious then you just have to start guessing and its easy to presume that other people are guessing too.

One thing that makes that easier is that science can't give absolute answers most of the time and if you misunderstand the process (which people do more often than not) then you are free to (incorrectly) insert your own.

The argument goes something like this:

A technologist or scientist makes view known
person: But you could be wrong?
T/s: well.....yes...but
person: so [insert wild unsupported idea here - for example creationism,homeopathy, the fact a project might work
despite the budget being too small and not having the right tools....] might be true?
T/s: No
person: but you said you might be wrong?
T/s: well...yes...but
person: so I could be right?
etc. etc.

This may seem reasonable from the 'person' point of view but to the scientist/technologist the conversation looks like this one:

person: so do you know what is making these small holes in the skirting board?
t/s: no. but we've deduced that its small, moves quickly and quietly
person: but you don't know
t/s: well not as such
person: so it could be a Rhinoceros then.
t/s: no
person: but you just said you don't know
t/s: well...yes...but..
person: so it could be a Rhinoceros
etc. etc.

it looks like security and it even smells like security

I recently renewed my passport. The passport office use a company called SMS to deliver the passport back to you. SMS purport to run a secure recorded delivery service. The first I hear of them is a letter saying that we weren't in and could we arrange a new delivery. I try the web site first. I'm not a huge fan of phones in general and automated phone systems with options and being put on hold don't rate highly in my preferred way of doing things. The website seems to work fine but there is no delivery. After a couple of days I try the phone system - its automated but its essentially an answering machine so no problems there. Then I get a phone call from them: We are unable to find your property on a number of occasions. Uh? I live in a terrace of houses. With a number on it. A couple of seconds with streetmap.co.uk and my postcode gives you all you need to know. I get loads of things delivered - its the main way I buy stuff. It all arrives. The woman on the phone ignores my incredulous tone as I give basic instructions. Come saturday morning when the delivery is promised. Nothing. Then late afternoon a stranger who lives near by brings it round. Uh? again. SMS promise *secure* delivery. They say in their letter that you need to give proof of identity. I am absolutely sure this why the passport office pay them for their service. Instead they actually offer nothing of the sort. A few half arsed attempts at delivery by someone too stupid to even read a streetmap and then deliver it to a random person instead.

Annoying as this is what it really shows is that security is only as good as the people involved. No matter how good the new ID cards are for example there will always be low paid people who don't care about their jobs checking them. The real solution of course is to pay people properly and to make sure they are motivated rather than spending huge amounts of money on unproven technology.