Growing up, toy guns were verboten in our household. My brother and I - like most young boys - grew up on a diet on Star Wars, The A-Team, and Transformers. Gun were cool! Our mother would brook no truck with this. Guns were banned. When my brother was given a water pistol as a birthday present from a friend, the offending squirter mysteriously disappeared. (In fairness, we were messy children, so it could have been lost in the detritus of our bedroom. However, my parents had form at…
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Like a prize idiot, I went to work yesterday, but left my laptop at home. Prat! So, time to put the Samsung Galaxy Note II through its paces. I've had the phone for a couple of months and been really pleased with it. But I sensed that I hadn't really used it in anger. I decided to spend the whole day trying to do my work only using the GN2. And, to make the challenge more exciting - no recharges! Let's kick things off! To help with my blogging, I used the official WordPress for Android…
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My schooling of English history covered the 1066 invasion, then jumped to the Tudors, a smattering of the industrial revolution, a bit of the First World War, then a heavy focus on the Second World War whereupon, it seemed, history stopped. As far as I can recall, we learned nothing about the English Dissenters - the radical sects which flourished after the English Civil War. Then As I've continued my informal education, two groups in particular stand out - the Levellers and the Diggers. To …
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One of the first rules of setting up a political lobby group is that you should have a name which defies opposition. Who in their right mind would be against "Citizens For Prosperity" or "The People's Democratic Society" or "Ministry of Peace" - why only a violent Communist! That's who! It is this spirit that the "TaxPayers' Alliance" was named. We're all tax payers, aren't we? It's so wide a name as to be meaningless. Yet its name has connotations of inclusiveness which make it very hard to …
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Eric Joyce MP has written about why he doesn't think the vote should be extended to 16 year olds. While I've admired his stance on digital rights, I disagree with him and his reasoning on this issue. This isn't about whether young people are able to understand the issues, or whether they are taxed without representation, or even if they are somehow "mature". We vote because the direction of the government affects us. No matter our age. It is my contention that every citizen of this country …
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I arrived at Woking Library shortly before 1600 on a Thursday. At that time of day, the library is filled - somewhat understandably - with people who aren't working a normal 9-5 job. Retirees, students, and the unemployed. I walked through the extensive computer section of the library. Dozens of computers with free Internet access. While a few people were on Wikipedia, or checking out the library catalogue, the majority seemed to be playing free flash games on the web. For a moment, I…
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Annoyingly, FourSquare has started be be a source of spam for me. I get friend request from people who only like certain brands of stores, from recruitment consultants trying to work out who I'm visiting, and from cultists who are desperate for me to visit Scientology centres. I also get friend requests from people I've never met, including from Ahmed al-Najjar (احمد النجار). I've never met Ahmed and I've no wish to taint him as a spammer - I'm sure he's just misclicked in his friend request …
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In Terry Pratchett's book "Going Postal" he writes about the impact on the Discworld civilization of the semaphore tower. A new - but relatively basic - technology which revolutionises how people work, play, and interact. It changes the fortunes of the humble and the mighty. It is as useful for individuals as for nation states. In our universe, the modern semaphore tower was first conceived by Robert Hooke in 1684. Yet it the optical telegraph didn't really exist until 1792 - over a…
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One of my hobbies is looking for QR codes by leafing through the free papers which blight the city of London. Yes, I lead a tragic existence, but it keeps me off the streets - so let me be, eh? Most of the QR codes that I see now are pretty good. They have clear explanatory text, point to mobile websites, and generally follow the Ten Commandments for QR codes. But, every so often I spot one which really shouldn't have been let out in the wild. A property company (who shall remain nameless…
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... as our money becomes completely electronic, new crimes will undoubtedly be committed which take advantage of the technology itself. Perhaps if we could imagine what crimes might happen, we could start to think about how to prevent them. What financial crimes could be committed within a completely electronic marketplace? Future of Money Design Award On one level, there's no change to the basic ideas of monetary crime. You either target an individual or a bank, then fool them or force…
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When I was a child, I prayed to God to send me a bicycle. The Priest told me God doesn't work like that; so I stole a bicycle and prayed for forgiveness. Emo Philips (probably) There's a noble tradition in hackerdom of finding creative ways around obstacles. My personal favourite expression of this desire to get things done quickly is the maximum "far better to seek forgiveness than beg for permission." It's something I practice both at work and for my private projects. It's much easier,…
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There's been a little bit of confusion in the blogosphere recently about the true cost of smartphones. Ewan Spence points out that the iPhone actually costs $2,000. An instant response by Bill Palmer points out that Nokia's Windows 8 smartphones cost $2,500 Dead link.. The US and European markets are radically different in how they operate and advertise. The US tends to advertise phones as being "Only $10 upfront!" whereas the UK tends to advertise as "Only £20 per month!" With a range of …
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