I’m always ready to moan about PC - whether that’s Personal Computer or Political Correctness.

However before we had PC we had to deal our own cards at solitaire and had adverts (and attitudes) like this

http://www.icanhasinternets.com/2010/05/25-horribly-sexist-vintage-ads/

Legal disclaimer, this is a joke, do not take this seriously, quoting this in your exams may result in a fail.

Sorry if you’re looking for genuine information,  well funny tho’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/extra/video/p006b9w2

I’m a bit late in slagging Investors Business Daily (and all Americans by implication) in their announcement that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he were British. A great story for national stereotyping (racism?) in that it uses American stereotypes of Brits (accusing us of having a naff health system) whilst conforming to British stereotypes of Americans (being ill informed and assuming anything good must be American). I’m sure the father from Goodness Gracious Me is even now saying “Stephen Hawking? He’s Indian!”.

However, with the power of the web over paper and ink the article has been miraculously changed. IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor’s Business Daily — How House Bill Runs Over Grandma

A fine example of why software should be released via the web rather than committing to hundreds of CD’s before realising there is a minor glitch.

Maybe all that being able to hand your course work in then get it back and fix it is good training for the real world after all.

Pleas come back and read this entry again next week - I may have changed it to make it more interesting by then…

I’ve just had to moan at the Beeb (again). They have been reporting in the social housing report saying that claims of “queue jumping” are proved wrong by evidence that “equal numbers” are in social housing. Der, queue jumping is about the time spent waiting not the final results.

Does it matter? If equal numbers of ethnic groups are housed (by which I assume they mean proportional to the population or to the applicants or … it could get quite complicated!), anyway if some sort of equality is in place isn’t everyone (except the BNP) happy?

I doubt it. If you have been waiting for years for housing you are not going to happy! If authorities deny problems then extremists pick up supporters and if someone can provide a scape goat to aim your anger at then it takes strong person not wallow in a blame fest.

So yes it does matter because by potentially miss-reporting angry people will feel unrepresented and be driven into the arms of the BNP etc.

Has this got anything to do with IT? Only that accuracy is important - maybe that is a lesson I learned coding. Many of us create / review reports, read / generate statistics, make / influence management decisions and doing it right and being seen to do right can make a huge difference to work force moral.

I am starting a campaign to find a new term for someone who wants things to be right - perfectionist, pedant are negative terms. Is there already a word for someone who expects the details to be right when they matter but doesn’t get fussy when they don’t? I can’t think of one so I’m inventing “accuratist” - I expect it’s copyright to a watch company!

With the shock news that Hollywood is planning to make a film based on that <irony/>great</irony> video game “asteroids” http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/07/asteroids-movie.html I am left wondering about how IT has inspired movie plots (as opposed to movie techniques).

Fortunately before I cudgelled my brains too hard I found http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2007/08/14/top-20-movies-about-computer-hacking-and-geeks/

So what other films spring to your mind? And do any of them have any credibility from an IT stand point?

I was going to suggest  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099864/ as a joke but its tagline of

“The Master of Horror unleashes everything you were ever afraid of ”

it seems pretty appropriate to quite a few IT  systems I have worked on…

Here’s a use of technology (including the web) that I like

Just as much fun as filling in those surveys in trashy magazines but it actually tells you something useful - which parties most closely match your views.

Actually it told me something scary - the party that most closely matches my views is UKIP. I need therefore to distrust the methodology, change my views or move - I am not voting for Robert Kilroy-Silk.

Methodology? Being a cynic (although I fight against it) I am obviously wary. It would be easy to set up a site that purported to advise you who you agree with but always came back with the same answer whatever you put in - bit like old Sunday school talks, whatever the question you knew the answer would be Jesus.

I’m not even sure that it would be illegal - advertising standards? The web is pretty hard to regulate even if it was deemed illegal. What is a bit worrying is that at first glance some parties seemed way out of my line but looking at the actual results 5 parties were within 4 points (6%) of each other with one (UKIP!?!!) a few ahead and one several behind. As ever, although figures don’t lie the way we present them makes a hell of a difference.

So will I change my views? Now this is where it is interesting, because to do the survey I had to consider various issues and having got the results I am re-evaluating my views - wow, actually thinking about EU issues! I might do the survey a few times, see what I have to compromise on to get a candidate I like and then go with that.

What is more irritating than young people talking about the “your” old times? Over at http://tech.uk.msn.com/features/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=147411818

someone seems to be out of there pension zone.

 Actually it’s not too bad an article but monochrome monitors were different to colour monitors and you can’t get them any more. You may get colour monitors that only display in two colours but they aren’t the same thing! The old mono monitors had a separate interface. I know because I used to write  a twin headed DOS application and the only way to do it was using a standard colour monitor and a mono monitor as they used different address spaces. For the mono you wrote ASCII directly into the adaptors memory and it rendered it into a very nice sharp font. The fact you couldn’t get them any more was part of the death of the product.

As for DOS - don’t most of us use a command line windows prompt everyday? OK, maybe not most of us but plenty of us do. And Windows 95 sat on top of DOS, everyone knows that (well quite few people claimed it did).

Is it coincidence that yesterday I was trashing floppies, looking at ZIP drives, using my PDA, typing at a “DOS” prompt and discussing dial up modems with my neighbour?

I expect the author was one of the consultants to Ashes to Ashes - in my 1980’s we didn’t have trendy concealed lighting, bay trees, constatntly visible bra straps, …

I’ve been watching the Sex Education Show vs Pornography on the tv. The claimed aim of the show is  expose (it does plenty of exposing!) myths that come from pornography and campaign to protect kids from on line porn. You always have to question the media (C4 more than others?) about whether they are genuinely trying to be educational or just sensationalising - especially on this kind of subject. Whatever the education / sensation balance I thought there was some valuable stuff in there.

One of the things they have been doing is challenging ISP’s & PC retailers to put protection on by default. Why aren’t safe search filters and parental controls set by default? Given that I’m not sure what they are talking about with “activating Parental Controls” we can assume most parents will find it a challenge to activate them. Of course the show implies that a couple of simple settings will keep your kids safe. I didn’t think it was that easy - please (please, PLEASE!) correct me if I’m wrong.

Somewhat depressingly, having visited their web site (http://sexperienceuk.channel4.com/sex-education) I can find nothing to actually help people to make the settings they are recommending. http://sexperienceuk.channel4.com/protect-from-porn tells you what you should do but not how - or how much good it will do.

The stats they quote on pornography (especially relating to kids exposure) is shocking - even allowing for some statistical massaging

That can’t be good - what can we do about it?