Year: 2009
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Motion Triggered Spy Cam
A project for the weekend. [via]
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ID card fail – Nobody in UK has machines to read the newly issued cards
The Times reports that the UK has no machines to read its own ID cards
The first ID cards are here – but no one in the UK can read them
Thousands of ID cards have already been issued to foreign residents in the UK as part of the government’s £4.7 billion scheme, but no one can read the details stored on themIf the government cannot roll out a workable identity card system to cover foreign residents then this gives me great confidence that they will bungle the introduction of the ID card system that will cover all residents of the UK.
If nobody has the equipment to read the biometric data on the cards then it renders the entire system redundant and poses the question of what was the purpose of all the expense.
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Spy centre will track you on holiday
The Times reports that THE government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons.
The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.
The computerised pattern of every individual’s travel history will be stored for up to 10 years, the Home Office admits.
The government says the new database, to be housed in an industrial estate in Wythenshawe, near Manchester, is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. However, opposition MPs, privacy campaigners and some government officials fear it is a significant step towards a total surveillance society.
The Government have this mindset that damn the consequences that the more they know about its citizens then the safer we all will be even in the face of intelligent and reasoned opposition. [via]
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Jamie saves our bacon
Jamie Oliver and Channel 4 have once again teamed up to try to change the eating habits of the British public and Save our Bacon.
Through buying British we can both assure better welfare of the pigs and help our British farmers. Because British farmers have to abide by higher welfare standards than our European neighbours British pork is slightly more expensive than the imports from the EU.
In addition Jamie wishes us to purchase the less favoured cuts of pork such as the belly and the shoulder instead of loin or leg. These cuts are just as tasty but because they sell less well than loin they are significantly cheaper. By creating a carcass balance where each cut sells equally well Britain will have to import less loin and British producers will not be forced to export the shoulder at an unfavourable price. It is a true win-win situation for both the British public and the British farmer.
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Cinnamon topped blueberry muffins
I made some of these Cinnamon topped blueberry muffins earlier today and they are delicious.
So simple and easy to make, I shall not be buying muffins from my local supermarket or coffee shop again I think.
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More electronic books are coming to mobile phones. Google and Amazon are making it happen.
New York Times: Google and Amazon to Put More Books on Cellphones
In a move that could bolster the growing popularity of e-books, Google said Thursday that the 1.5 million public domain books it had scanned and made available free on PCs were now accessible on mobile devices like the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1.
Also Thursday, Amazon said that it was working on making the titles for its popular e-book reader, the Kindle, available on a variety of mobile phones. The company, which is expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle next week, did not say when Kindle titles would be available on mobile phones.
I welcome this move but I personally think that the future for books on phones will be audiobooks as I think that it’s a much more natural fit. I already listen to audiobooks on my mobile and as the amount of storage available increases and the data rates improve I think that people will increasingly buy and download audiobooks straight to their phones.
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Review: The Reader
Bleak and emotionally wrought film with excellent performances by Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz and both David Kross and Ralph Fiennes as Michael Berg at different ages.
I found it impossible to relate to the two main characters or really understand the motivations for their actions or inactions even though I think the film is trying to make them in some way understandable. However I think that this failure of the film is somewhat deliberate as human psychology is sometimes inexplicable and the characters themselves are not entirely sure why they have done the things they have.
