Archive for October 2011
Views and Comments
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15510444
Have a little read of the above story.
Protesters at St Paul’s etc…
Here’s the quote that interested me :-
Lucy, one of the protesters, welcomed the speech but said they needed a promise from the church that they would not be forcibly removed.
Now, ok – I agree it aint nice using physical force in an eviction.
But, sometimes it is necessary.
If the church goes through the appropriate legal channels and gets a court order saying that the protesters have to leave and they don’t ( which I suspect they won’t ) – what happens ?
You have to remove the people – physical force is the only remaining alternative.
Now – were the protesters to agree ( indeed give, in their own words, “a promise”, or “cast iron guarantee” ) that they will leave when told to do so, I would say “yep – the church has to agree to that as well”.
But they haven’t have they ?
They want assurances from the church that physical force will not be used, but they have offered no assurances themselves that they will go peacefully if told to do so.
The door swings both ways people – too many people so often forget that.
Pin It
Occupy
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56209000/jpg/_56209824_56209822.jpg
Ok, so we have all heard of occupy now – peaceful demonstrations in most cities – violent in some (although I do believe the Rome violence had nothing to do with occupy)
But…
What is it – who are they – what do they want ?
What and who are fairly self evident – a group of normal people who are against capitalism and the greed of the modern world.
What do they want – that’s a tough one.
They have no leaders, they have no political sponsors, they have no spokes people, they have no agenda.
At this moment in time they are a curiosity – something the press can use as page fillers when there is nothing else to show.
So my point (or the reason for this post) is – what’s the point ?
In the middle east people demonstrated against governments, and escalated the demonstrations and requests until they were either beaten down, or got what they wanted – they had an aim – to change their current environment.
Occupy doesn’t.
They will sit in financial centers, outside churches, wherever, from now until doomsday and achieve absolutely nothing, because they have no direction – no point.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with some of what the general idea is – the financial system needs changing, we need to change to walk away from the greed culture – but parking in front of a church is not the way to do it.
To get what you want you have to make demands, you have to back those demands up with threats ( sorry yes, threats ). Threats to stop the country, to interrupt the system, to cause an inconvenience.
And to continue doing those things, and where necessary escalating them, until someone listens and you can enter into a discussion about your requests.
As it stands occupy is doomed to be a nothing, a curiosity that will live in the history books as the greatest world non event.
Pin It A misquote–or mis-conception ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15319924
Read the above article.
I am not going to comment on either the rallies, or the violence in Rome.
What did interest me was this quote from the head of the bank of Italy – the new ECB head.
Young people are right to be indignant,” he was quoted by Italian media as saying.
“They’re angry against the world of finance. I understand them… We adults are angry about the crisis. Can you imagine people who are in their twenties or thirties?
Young people are angry.
So are we Adults.
Have a think about it – WE ADULTS
The older generation in charge of the current mess believe they are the adults and know better, they understand why their children are upset and are misbehaving in the streets.
He isn’t taking any of the protesters seriously – they are just childish tantrums.
Pin It Kindle Fire
Cute little beast isn’t it ?
The new Kindle Fire – full colour – cheap – tablet.
So what’s the story with it ?
Ok, on the face of it it isn’t a very impressive machine – it’s adequate – but not mind blowing :
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It has 8 gb of memory and no expansion slot ( 8g aint gonna hold a lot )
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It doesn’t have either a camera or a mic.
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It doesn’t come in 3g mode ( only Wi-Fi )
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It has a cut down version of an old release of Android as an operating system.
So why is everybody ranting about it (besides the price – it’s half the cost of an i-pad)
People are talking about it because of what Amazon has put inside it – the browser – Silk.
Silk is a custom made browser for Amazon that changes a few of the rules (although Opera does similar ).
Let’s look at a standard browser before we discuss “Silk”.
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A standard browser has the job of going to the net, picking up data and presenting it to you in a nice formatted layout.
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How it does this is by going to all of the links held in the page, gathering all of the pictures, text, videos, flash bits etc etc – then working out where they should all go and reformatting them so that they fit on your screen.
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This is a very processor intensive process and can use very large chunks of your internet download allocation to get all of the data ( if you are using a 800×600 screen and ask to see a 8,000 by 6,000 picture – your browser will download the whole thing and resize it – similar for some videos – your browser will download the whole thing before showing you it)
Silk does things differently.
When you want to view a page in silk, the page address is sent to the Amazon servers (of which there are many). The servers job is then to go and collect all of the data for that page and format it in such a way that it fits on the screen of the person requesting it (in this case a small 7inch kindle fire).
When the server has loaded and formatted everything – the resultant page is sent to your Kindle.
This saves you huge amounts of downloads, and frees up a lot of processor work as everything is done at the server end. (admittedly it is possible that the extra step of the server doing the work may, in some cases slow down your response time – but not often – those Amazon servers are fast beasties)
That’s why Silk is different.
Another reason Fire is different from the tablet cloud is that Amazon have not released it in Europe – and so far have not mentioned an intention to do so.
“Are they mad ?” I hear you cry – the Europe market is worth a fortune.
No – they are not mad – there are reasons behind the decision, although no one can pin down exactly which is the relevant reason yet.
Here are a few of the current top runner reasons :
1. (I don’t like this one)
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Amazon do not make the device, and have only pre-ordered enough to cope with the demand from the American market – as a test if you like. If it doesn’t sell there they will flog off the remaining units they have paid for and we’ll hear no more of Fire.
2. (This is possible)
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Because Silk is going to be placing a greater load on the Amazon servers, they are releasing it in the states only to see how the infrastructure copes with the extra load. If it handles it they will release it to Europe safe in the knowledge that their server farms aren’t going to crash as soon as Europe goes on line.
3. (This is likely)
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Again because of the way Silk works, Amazon are going to run into legal problems in Europe. Basically because all of your browsing data now goes through their servers. This is relevant because of a number of factors :
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i) Privacy
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Holding European data on American servers violates many European data privacy laws (and the data is subject to American legal Sub-Pena’s)
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ii) Privacy II
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European courts have already taken several companies to task for holding browsing history ( and for using it to direct adverts at people ) – With Silk, Amazon will not only be able to see what sites you are logging in to – it will be able to see exactly what you have been doing – the saleability of that data is immense.
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iii) Intellectual property rights
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Amazon will make a copy of the web page you want to see before formatting it and sending it to you – this is in violation of many IP laws (eg. When you look at a page from, say, the BBC – you are not allowed to pass on the photos held there – you are not allowed to store them – you are only allowed to look at them. Amazon will be storing them and passing them on to you – as part of a business plan to make THEM money – people are not going to be happy)
There are other conspiracy theories running around – but to this writer none of them hold water.
I personally think that whatever the reason/reasons are that Amazon will get over them and we will see a European Fire (even if it is a cut down version ) basically because the European market is so huge and to leave Europe out of the equation will push far too many customers directly into the arms of suppliers who have catered for the Europe market (something Amazon can’t afford to do).
So let’s wait and see what father Christmas brings.
I certainly shall be investing in one if they hit Europe.
(And will happily jump from Amazon to a new supplier if they don’t)
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Absolute Services
Med-I-Gym
