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Facettes de la petite mort (probably NSFW)

Das ist meine bier!

Wisconsin cops pull over some teenagers in a car.

Does God command what is good because it is good; or is what God commands good because he commands it?

If he commands what is good because it is good, then things are good or bad irrespective of what he desires and we don't need God to establish morality after all. But if what God commands is good only because God commands it, that would mean that anything could be good or bad, and we're just lucky that God doesn't command us to kill and torture.

Crazy Norwegian to swim Atlantic.

Let's Make a Wish... A threesome if you please.

All of my guy friends have tried and tried and tried without success to get a second woman to engage in a sexual act where there is already one woman involved. This wish that you would grant me would make the envy of my peers, where before all I got was their pity. And I will die happy, knowing that I was able to participate in a sexual act with multiple partners, in this case two (at the very same time).

Rock, Paper, Payoff: Child's Play Wins Auction House an Art Sale (NY Times: Reg required or bugmenot)

Today I have been mostly forming a secret society with my dog, he told me to name it the Jamesmasons. Crows are not invited due to the high concentration of orange; it's only for me and my dog.

I've finally got around to uploading the photos I took on a little excursion to Roundway Hill.

Viewable here at my Flickr account.

Some low-resolution examples, click on the pics to see larger versions.

I read an interesting article last week by Edward Felten about a proposal to incorporate RFID chips in US passports.Edward W. Felten: Why Use Remotely-Readable Passports?

Yesterday at CFP, I saw an interesting panel on the proposed radio-enabled passports. Frank Moss, a State Department employee and accomplished career diplomat, is the U.S. government's point man on this issue. He had the guts to show up at CFP and face a mostly hostile audience. He clearly believes that he and the government made the right decision, but I'm not convinced.

The new passports, if adopted, will contain a chip that stores everything on the passport's information page: name, date and place of birth, and digitized photo. This information will be readable by a radio protocol. Many people worry that bad guys will detect and read passports surreptitiously, as people walk down the street.

This is a remarkably stupid idea that has little to no tangible benefit and will most likely compromise security and enable identity theft. The only possible reason for this proposal is that some technology company seeking a government contract convinced someone that it was a good idea and no one in the process could understand the repercussions if it were to be implemented.

There clearly is a problem with identity theft and the forgery of identity documents such as passports so governments seek solutions to improve security. As you would expect they seek advice from experts in the field. Unfortunately they seem to be ignoring the advice of independent experts whose advice is that there is no technological solution to the problem and taking the advice of industry experts, which typically will be technology companies seeking to sell the government a solution.

Take for example the intention of the British government to include biometric data on the proposed National Identity Card.

Biometric data systems simply are not capable of working on the sort of scale that the proposed national identity card system would require them to.

They are good enough for their priamry application which is to verify that for example the iris scan of an individual matches within a certain threshold the biometric data held on the person's ID card.

But the system also would be required to prevent an individual being able to get a second ID card with different identity details. The proposed method of doing it would be to check that the individuals biometric data isn't already listed against an identity in the national identity database.

In February 2003 the National Physical Laboratory performed a biometrics feasibility study on behalf of the Home Office, DVLA and the UK Passport Service.

They studied the feasibility of the use of recognition systems for face, iris and fingerprint on the scale needed to cover the population of the UK. No biometric system is perfect and a balance needs to be found between false matches and false non-matches.

A false match is where the biometric template of an individual is matched to that of a different individual i.e. Vera Duckworth of Manchester is falsely recognized as Pauline Fowler of London.

A false non-match is where an individual is scanned and are not matched to their own biometric template i.e. the system has failed to recognize them.

Iris recognition was found to be the best method of distinguishing between individuals.

The results for the iris recognition part of the study were that Iris recognition can achieve a false match rate of better than 1 in a million with a false non-match rate of below 1 in 100.

For the current UK population of 60 million a random individual would be falsely matched with on average 60 other individuals in the national database plus would have a slim chance of not being matched against their own data.

With such a high chance of false matches (in fact it is practically a certainity that every individual will falsely match with another) there is no way to discern the difference between a false match and a true match for an individual who is applying for an ID card with a fake identity. Biometric technology clearly isn't upto the job of preventing multiple legitimate ID cards being issued to an individual until there is no possiblity of matching with another person.

Undoubtably technology will improve over time but will it improve to the required extent, it has a long way to go to do so.

The worse thing about biometrics is the faith in its infallibility, your biometric template is nothing more than a bodypart reduced to a long stream of numbers it is merely a fancy password and it's one that can never be changed. The proposed system treats the biometric template as the core of your identity with all the other information about you such as your name and address of secondary importance.

If the details of your biometric template can be stolen and accurately faked then your whole identity can be stolen.

Shit I've gone into rant mode the gist of this was supposed to be that politicians cannot be expected to be expert in all fields and justifiably must make decisions based upon the advice of experts. But they must listen to all the advice from all sides even if it isn't what they wish to hear as decisions must never be based solely upon the advice of comapnies seeking a huge government contract.

There is a cynical part of me that believes that the reality is probably that politicians are being unduly influenced by such things as campaign contributions and are awarding contracts not based on outside advice at all.

Labels: Computer security, ID Cards, Security

My response to the Conservative's immigration policy.

We should put a cap on the numbers of people emigrating from the UK to other countries.

Selling their property and retiring to warmer climes such as Spain or the South of France and taking their wealth with them. They are robbing this country of it's prosperity to a greater extent then the asylum seekers who are coming here and claiming benefits.

The downside to this is that the number of Conservative voters in the country will not diminish at it's current rate.

Apparently the cardinals have elected Emperor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious as the new pope. Forget that he was a Hitler Youth the fact that he is a Sith Lord is of far more concern.

It seems that following on from this post: Bush's iPod - home of the illegally shared file last week that Downhill Battle have taken up the cause of persuading the RIAA to sue the president by registering the domain name SueThePresident.com and they're seeking people to make the site now.

Siva Vaidhyanathan also suggested the RIAA might wish to sue the president.

Copy of an email I just received from Flickr.

Hi electricinca!

You may have heard on the grapevine that we planned to
reward our dear Flickr members who bought a Pro Account in
the early days. Well, it's true! And since you're one of
those lovely people, here's a little something to say YOU
ROCK!

1. Double what you paid for!
Your original 1 year pro account has been doubled to
2 years, and your new expiry date is Nov 16, 2006.

2. More capacity!
Now you can upload 2 GB per month.

3. 2 free Pro Accounts to give away to your friends!
This won't be activated for a day or two, but when it
is, you'll see a note on your home page telling you
what to do.

Thank you so much for putting your money where your mouth
is and supporting us, even while we're in beta. Your
generosity and cold, hard cash helped us get where we are
today.

Kind regards,
The Flickreenies.

What a bunch of very generous people they are.

I'm celebrating court hearing success for my fish addiction.

It appears that both the government and the Conservative party have seized upon the case of Kamel Bourgass, Al-Qaeda suspect and killer of DC Stephen Oake, to make political capital in the run up to the election.

Tory leader Michael Howard has said Tony Blair's failure over asylum led to ricin plotter Kamel Bourgass being able to commit his crimes.

Mr Howard said Bourgass should not have been in the UK and said the case showed "the chaos in our asylum system".

Does this extreme case indicate the general failings in the British asylum system or should we take a broader picture and examine many cases before judging if the system is in chaos. Mr. Howard's statement would appear to be little more than an implication that asylum seekers are a danger to our society.

I think that the Conservatives have taken the wrong tack with their efforts to focus their campaign on immigration and may well have been led astray by focus groups. Immigration is an issue that I think most people are actually less concerned about than they say they are. It is an issue that has been fuelled by the tabloids which makes the average bloke in the street feel he should have an opinion on when really he couldn't give a toss.

The Labour government have also seized upon the case for their own ends.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke earlier insisted: "Things like identity cards, stronger borders to deal with migration issues, the kinds of anti-terrorism legislation that we passed in the last Parliament are all necessary."

Perhaps if Bourgass' plot to poison thousands had succeeded and the reason he wasn't stopped was due to the fact that the Police and security services were unable to identify him then there might be a case to argue for ID cards but none of this happened.

He was identified and tracked and was arrested along with many other individuals who had some connection to him so therefore the present system worked perfectly. The only problem was that his arrest was bungled which led to him having an opportunity to try to escape and then kill DC Stephen Oake in the process.

In addition it was played up at the time that it was a terrorist cell plotting a Ricin attack that had been stopped. It is now known that he was a loner and all the other individuals that had been arrested at the same time have been released having had the charges against them dropped or the court cases abandoned. Yet the Home Secretary in giving his opinion on the verdict still used the term terrorist organisations.

The Guardian: Police killer gets 17 years for poison plot. Charles Clarke, the home secretary, expressed his satisfaction with the verdict. "What the case showed was that there are terrorist organisations which seek to challenge us in this country and challenge our basic freedom," he said.

The case clearly did not show that at all, there may well be terrorists seeking to disrupt our society but only the goverment is seeking to curtail our basic freedom. There appears to be very little evidence that Kamel Bourgass was organised in his plot let alone part of a larger organisation.

I wonder what happened to the Blitz mentality of 'business as usual' whilst we were suffering the equivalnet of a 9/11 every week now we seem to be in a period of 'hysteria as usual' precipitated I feel by the government.

It's all scaremongering for the sake of winning an election, coercion through fear for political reasons in effect 'electoral terrorism'.

Labels: ID Cards, Security, Terrorism

A short article in the International Herald Tribune White House Letter: 'Boomer rock' keeps Bush's heart in tune unwittingly reveals President Bush to be an illegal filesharer.

The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist in the 2004 campaign. Among them are "Circle Back" by John Hiatt, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" by Joni Mitchell and "My Sharona,"

With such an obvious case of copyright infringement and for such a high profile infringer I feel the RIAA would be remiss if they did not pursue this individual and take him to court. Such a case would really hammer home to teenage Americans how filesharing is wrong and that not even those in high political office are above the law.

Labels: copyright

Get Perpendicular is a brilliantly funny animation done by Hitachi to promote their new storage technologies.

But try to ignore that and just sit back and enjoy one of the best animated shorts you'll have seen in a long time.

Night Watch is a Russian made vampire movie that looks set to surpass Blade.

Set in contemporary Moscow, Night Watch revolves arounbd the conflict and balance maintained between the forces of light and darkness -- the result of a medieval truce between the opposing sides. As night falls, the dark forces battle the super-human "Others" of the Night Watch, whose mission is to patrol and protect.

But there is constant fear that anancient prophecy will come true: thata powerful "Other" will rise up, be tempted by one of the sides, and tip the balance plunging the world into a renewed war between the dark and light, the results of which would be catastrophic.

The trailer looks awesome, I love the effect with the crows and it is apparently only the first part of a planned trilogy of films.

'Freedom!' is the fatuous jingle of our civilization, but only those deprived of it have the barest inkling of what the stuff actually is. - David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Perhaps a little Morphine will refresh my memory - Homer J. Simpson

I've just found out that all duty managers of the cinema need to be identified by the council as part of our license to show films in the city. They are requesting two passport sized photographs including one that has been notarised by an upstanding member of the public as being a true likeness.

Now I cannot get a straight answer from anyone why this is necessary because it seems that no one truly knows. It's just yet another pointless bureaucratic load of bollocks.

Some quicklinks to stuff I would like to write about in greater detail but lack the time to do so at the moment.

IFTF: What's your personal video gaming history? A project that I'd be interested in contributing to, but as I barely have enough time to write this blog I doubt if I'll get around to doing it.

Wikipedia to be released in CD-ROM/DVD format and to be hosted on Yahoo's servers. With both these pieces of news I think that the Wikipedia has secured it's future. It will continue in it's present form as a website but also as a stable DVD format to compete with the likes of those offered by Encarta and Britannica.

The effects of celery on loose elastic. An intriguing gallery of some of the artwork of Art Frahm.

Pamela Anderson stars in a comedy series that proves you can't judge a bookstore by it's cover girl. The name of this new show...

Stacked It must have taken some kind of inspired genius to come up with that title. The best bit about the show is that it will star Christopher Lloyd as an eccentric professor, although probably a bit less crazy than he was as Doc. Brown in Back to the Future.

Oddly Fox Television have decided to promote the show by creating a friendster profile for it, with blogs by the cast and crew.

The most interesting thing about all this is discovering the list of Pamela Anderson's favourite books at her Friendster blog, aside from the expected self promotion with her novel Star topping the list there is also Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, and Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse.

I think I'll have to go and pick up an attractive bookstore clerk the next time I'm browsing the shelves.

Get yourself represented.

BBC News: Blair sets 5 May as election date

The general election will be held on 5 May, Tony Blair has formally announced.

Speaking after asking the Queen to dissolve Parliament next week, Mr Blair said Labour had a "driving mission" for a third term in office.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders pre-empted the announcement by starting nationwide tours of key seats.

Michael Howard accused Mr Blair's government of "losing the plot" while Charles Kennedy said he would focus on people's hopes, not their fears.

I'm really torn this election as I am a Labour supporter from way back but can no longer support them given the way this government has acted on crucial issues in the last few years.

At least I can consider my vote a tactical one in order to oust the Conservative incumbant as Labour are the third party in the area and have very little chance of winning the seat.

If we had a sensible system like Proportional Representation I would be more torn I think.


BBC Election minisite

Labels: politics

Star Wars merchandising has hit unbelievable proportions with the limited edition M&M wrappers.

There are a total of 72 different packs. You can even get a handy checklist to tick them off.

Shit, to collect that many you're gonna have to eat a hell of a lot of chocolate or pay a fortune on eBay to Star Wars-hating chocloholics. It's a hard life being a Star Wars obsessive.

Labels: Star Wars