Who's in control nation states or global corporations? | Gary Younge

Frustrating that UKIP gets support when it's corporate friendly policies cause the problems that they blame immigration and the EU for. Who's in control nation states or global corporations? | Gary Younge http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/control-nation-states-corporations-autonomy-neoliberalism

Michael Rosen: Ken Loach says goodbye to Margaret Thatcher

"How should we honour her? Let's privatise her funeral. Put it out to competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. It's what she would have wanted."

http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ken-loach-says-goodbye-to-margaret.html?spref=tw&m=1

(Source: https://twitter.com/MichaelRosenYes/status/321333797100597249)

Warning. This article on gay marriage contains optimism | Gary Younge

"The arc of history is long but it bends towards justice," said Martin Luther King.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/07/gay-marriage-optimism-activists

The new iPad

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/15/pogue-ipad

The new iPad does seem to be something and nothing in terms of an upgrade and John Gruber is right to defend the newness. It is however Apple that has spent years getting us to move on from tech spec numbers and look at features, and the new iPad can be viewed as a spec change as it doesn't have a new OS version that the iPhone 4S got over the iPhone 4.

Article: The Top Idea in Your Mind

Fascinating ideas, well worth remembering.

The Top Idea in Your Mind
http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

(via Instapaper)

Something vile is growing in America

Arizona:

"The mood has changed, too, among white Americans, who have interpreted the increasingly aggressive language used by politicians as a green light to express their own prejudices. Incidents of harassment towards undocumented Latinos from employers, landlords and neighbours have increased. Should the victims protest, they are frequently taunted with the refrain: "So what are you going to do about it, tell the police?"

"

Ninjawords: iPhone Dictionary, Censored by Apple

Just reading the linked story, Apple really do have to do something before their reputation is sunk.

A couple of key quotes:

"In other words, the App Store reviewer(s) explicitly searched for curse words they already knew, and found them."

"Every time I think I’ve seen the most outrageous App Store rejection, I’m soon proven wrong. I can’t imagine what it will take to top this one.

Apple requires you to be 17 years or older to purchase a censored dictionary that omits half the words Steve Jobs uses every day."

Banned from school for not going to school?

I love the logic:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/06/snow-britain-weather-travel

"Fifty pupils have been suspended after they went on strike because their school stayed open through the snow. The year 10 and 11 pupils at Nova Hreod school, Swindon, refused to come back in from the playing field after morning break on Wednesday.

Headteacher Julie Tridgell said she had to give a tough response, as ringleaders encouraged the students to stay out. The pupils, who cannot return to school until Monday, had been using the strike as an excuse for bad behaviour."

"The false choice between our safety and our ideals"

Executive Orders of Barack Obama (http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/executive_orders/)

- Ensuring Lawful Interrogations
- Review of Detention Policy Options
- Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities




Thank you Barack for this sanity.

Retailers push the MP3 format with new logo

I would prefer a logo that promotes DRM-free regardless of format. I personally prefer AAC, but I think it is retailers that don't understand different formats; I downloaded and AAC file from 7digital and it turned out to be wrongly encoded as a MP4 video file.

Microsoft fingers Apple and Real for Vista insecurities

Yep, security is not the problem with Vista. :)

Why does Phorm concern you?

Trust is always a concern, but a key issue for me is control. With Phorm I feel I have no control. An example of good control is Amazon's recommendations, if I buy a book for someone else I can tell Amazon not to use it for making recommendations, I have control. With Google, I agree to their adverts and find them unobtrusive and helpful, but I can not use Google as and when I choose.

My analogy of Phorm would be if my water company examined my sewage to see what foods I had eaten, and then added 'flavours' to my drinking water to tempt me to buy new food and drink.

Telegraph: Mixed evidence for black sprinters' monopoly

It is even easier to dismiss when you realise that Olympic champions, whether it be Steve Redgrave or Carl Lewis, are 'freaks', outside the norm. So drawing conclusions from the edges might be hard to apply to the flat-footed kid sitting next to you.

Guardian: When Google owns you

Yet more FUD.

Storing electronic data offline could also mean it is lost at any moment, through fire, theft or accident.
Don't right tabloid headline stuff unless you real numbers that back this up.
How many times do people lose all their information from their own computer, compared to how many lose it online? Before computers how many lost all their paper work?

Jack Schofield;"Beware the Internet bogey man!"

Guardian: AOL says it will 'sunset' Xdrive

You're serving up a degree of FUD.

Any company that has a dependence on a single supplier, or supplies to a single source is at risk from the other company going bust or pulling the plug on their key product. This risk is as old as the hills, and is not new to cloud computing. It is fair to say the cloud computing is immature, but there was a time when relying on a single computer was common place, but now it is normal to deliver a service from several computers across a network.

XDrive itself was primarily a consumer service, and it was unlikely many companies had it at the centre of their business.

This time, the joke's on Apple

Whilst the video is funny, mostly at the Mac's expense, the funniest part is that some people think that there is a real comparison between these two machines, they are completely different in their purpose.

Woman 4 times more likely than men to give passwords for chocolate

Wow, men are so stupid that they can't work out how to get free chocolate by giving false information.

Guardian: Got Vista's SP1? Some people have and would rather not

Microsoft could buy Dell and stop licensing Windows. That would clear up the support issues.

Film of the year 2007

I didn't get to see so many films this year, and I can't remember all that I did see, but I do remember these:
Hot Fuzz
Bobby
Apocalypto
The Last King Of Scotland
300
Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix
Sunshine
Die Hard 4.0
Hairspray
Run Fat Boy, Run


Of these Hot Fuzz was the funniest, and worth re-watching. Bobby did a superb job of recapturing the excitement and shock of the time. However, my film of the year is The Last King Of Scotland, simply because it has one of the best acting performances I have seen. Forrest Whitaker is truly terrifying as Idi Amin, whilst still showing how captivating he could be, his terror was so convincing that I was scared for the camera crew filming it.

Guardian - Apple kills Think Secret blog

This, alongside the TorrentSpy ruling, is a case of shooting the messenger. Our laws are clearly in need of review if providing information is illegal.