Alison W

Tidying

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:35:05 GMT

Just tidied up my LJ settings here and deleted some defunct-and-so-out-of-date communities too.

Moving on ...

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:17:31 GMT

I'm stopping using this LJ as I've now moved to a new blogging system (which I'm also helping to write in the best practices of FLOSS) which will be found at http://alisonw.com/

Indeed it is likely to get updated *massively* more often.

You can add it to your LJ as a feed via http://syndicated.livejournal.com/alisonw_com/profile

Dropping in ...

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:31:57 GMT

... for a quick update. Recent events have included a really wonderful Night of the Senses last Friday, raising money for a great charity. I'd especially like to thank all those I 'found' along the way - and would love to meet again! please!

I've just watched a great speech by Vince Cable from Conference in Bournemouth. I still feel he was a missed opportunity for a great leader.

New stuff

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:40:42 GMT

Have spent this afternoon revising my main website, bring a lot of the code up to date as it has been a-g-e-s since it was last updated. A little new stuff there already and more to come.

For those who missed the story about the EVE-Online meeting in Iceland that I attended a couple of weeks ago, here is the New York Times' take on it. written by Seth Schiesel, their reporter who came up to Iceland with us for the five days. As always, you can find other news about my EVE-online activities on my 'in-character' journal for Inanna Zuni.

Money for old rope, etc.

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:14:08 GMT

Having noted the other day that the UK version of the Icelandair website didn't actually specify the weight and size limits on cabin baggage I've been doing some searching, and eventually found the details. My bag and contents would be fine *except* that this whole 'anti-terrorism' liquids thing has got really ridiculous.

I quote:
Each passenger is permitted to carry ONE item of cabin baggage through the airport security search point ... handbags may be carried within the single item of cabin baggage.

No liquids of any type are permitted through the airport security search point ...The definition of liquids includes gels, pastes, lotions, liquid/solid mixtures and the contents of pressurised containers, e.g. toothpaste, hair gel, drinks, soups, syrups, perfume, deodorant, shaving foam, aerosols, etc.

Other prohibited items:
* toiletries

You may purchase liquids, gels and pastes (i.e. toothpaste) and solid cosmetics (i.e lipstick) from shops and restaurants after airport security and take these onto the aircraft as long as they all fit into your ONE carry on hand baggage item.

Sheesh. No getting around that I will have to trust the baggage handlers at Heathrow then with my possessions, even though I could carry (well, pull along on wheels) everything instead and not have to wit around for the plane to be unloaded.

and easy money for BAA and the airport shops ...

----

Update: I'm now doing more searching and (and I really shouldn't be so surprised by this) I'm finding contradictory statements depending upon which page I look at and the route I took to that page. ;-0

That was fun (I hope!)

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:55:49 GMT

So I've just finished my two sessions ... the "democracy in an online world" one had three guys cmoe along and generated some useful ideas which I will test over the next week. The "Motivation" one overflowed, with people having to sit on the floor, with a dozen people squashing in to room better suited for eight. I'm reasonably pleased how they went though clearly different to making the similar presentation on a panel or to a large conference.

Currently in a session about the MOO API.

ps. Sorry about the typo in the header of the previous post. I corrected it but it didn't get pickedup by the RSS feed consumers!

The LJ Comparison (a copy)

Sat, 31 May 2008 14:02:39 GMT

"`First, I would like to examine the voter turnout for the recently finished LJ advisory board elections. 35460 accounts cast votes in the Russian and English polls combined. At this current time, according to stats.bml, there are 1789025 active accounts, 956685 accounts that have been updated in the last 30 days, and 545102 accounts updated in the last 7 days. So out of all active accounts, only 1.98% voted; 3.71% or 6.51% voted out of the accounts updated in the last 30 or 7 days, respectively. I think the 7 days number is most interesting, because those are the users who used LiveJournal during the period when the polls were open. To look at this another way, 93.5% of the accounts that bothered to update didn't bother to vote."

We have the technology!

Sat, 31 May 2008 12:46:56 GMT

Got very little (if any) sleep last night, so was reasonably on time getting into Capital today for barcamp in Leicester Square. Weirdly, just after I arrived, a member of the staff there walked over and said hi (later he mentioned that my name came up in conversation yesterday!)

Anyway, the Wifi has only just started working (over-engineered original solution, it appears) and I'm now sitting ion my second session of the afternoon. I've decided to offer two sessions which, for ease of giving, I've put consecutively on the timetable and in the same room.

More as it comes!

An Update, you ask?

Fri, 30 May 2008 19:02:26 GMT

Yes, well. Sortof.

This weekend I'm heading to my old office (a co-incidence) for BarCampLondon4 (CamelCase ftw!) and had been worring about whether I could 'keep up' with the young 'uns who rattle around such unconferences. Talking isn't an issue (I do a lot of that as it is - I just signed up to geekspeakr too) though no idea yet what I'll talk about. Hopefully I'll get inspired while I'm there!

But, anyway ... it started me wondering about my footprint on the web and a quick check showed much of it is out of date. *Seriously* ood. So I've just wiped my main *(.com) website and put a holding'ish page there and will add the rest in the next week or two, then make a start revising the other sites.

In just under three weeks I'll be heading off to Iceland to meet with the developers at CCP, creators of the EVE-Online MMORPG. Earlier this month I was elected to the 'Council of Stellar Management' they have set up as a player-elected group to closely liase with the devs in creating new content - and sorting out the issues of the current stuff! Given there were 66 candidates from all over the world, I was rather chuffed indeed to be one of the nine elected, especially as unlike most of the other successful candidates I don't have a guaranteed body of supporters in being part of a large alliance or such.

So, there it is. A quick update here, a code tweak there, and here I go again ... ;-P

Drivers Details Lost

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:30:24 GMT

No, not the one by Shakespeare (even though learning to drive is clearly a labour of love) but one of the many losses of data on its citizens by the government of the United Kingdom.

I'm less worried by the (yet another) loss of data, but the fact that this time the loss occurred in the *USA*. What was it doing that side of the pond in the first place? The US has a lower quality of data protection law and, more to the point, did all those learner drivers give explicit permission for their information (name & address) to be sent out of this country? I hardly think so ...

A game of two halves

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:19:55 GMT

I understand from commentary in the blogosphere that the England team played some sort of game of Football last night, and lost, removing them from entry to the "Euro 2008" competition.

Now I take precious little interest in Association Football (or American or Aussie rules football either, for that matter) but is it not the case that few of the leading clubs in the UK actually have many native-born players of calibre? I can see Arsenal's ground from my window, yet I believe nearly all of the cast of players are from foreign climes.

How can one expect a national group to perform well when they get little chance to play in the top echelons of their sport in the first place? Was this loss not just a sympton of the downgrading of the home-grown player?

The real questions to be asked of HMRC

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:29:07 GMT

So we hear that HMRC have lost the detailed records of twenty-five ~~thousand~~ million individuals. So far so bad.

But isn't the first real question Why was this information being sent on two CDs in the first place? At most that means data of some 1.4GB; hardly enough to break sweat on a secure internet connection, and the government has such a network in place. Why wasn't this safer - and much faster - method of data transfer utilised?

The second real question is if these CDs were sent by *internal post* what were they then doing in the normal public postal service?. Companies that I've worked for have sometimes had 'internal post' and it was transported around by company employees. That is, after all, what 'internal' means.

And finally, ID cards. Once upon a time it was stated that there would be a whole new database created especially for the purpose. More recently it was announced that instead of having 'clean and secure' data that instead the Government would re-purpose the existing data they hold. Now that detailed information has fallen out of their control on over one-third of the UK population how can we ever trust the information likely to be stored on an ID database? and the safety / security / privacy of that data?

And the answer to that is, of course, that we cannot.

Just say no!

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:17:28 GMT

I regularly have the question "How can we trust wikipedia when anyone can edit it? Shouldn't we bam it from our school / college / office / newsroom?" asked of me.

And my answer, every time, is a question: why do you trust *any* source of information? If you read a book, a newspaper article, a story on a website, hear something said to you by a friend or on a radio report, what makes it 'valid' to you, how do you choose to judge whether what you are reading or hearing is true, likely to be true, probably false, or even a definite lie.

We all make judgements about 'knowledge' every day. Sometimes we'll decide that "It is a nationally-known broadsheet newspaper" means we should implicitly just what is written there (though maybe not on April 1st; I still recall the island of Sans Seriffe!) or we'll recognise the particular author as someone who we've trusted in the past to get it right and we'll presume that they've got it right this time. Your friend may have 'been there and saw it themself' but you don't need me to remind you that from a different viewpoint the situation may have eben completely at odds with what your friend believed.

In every case - and that includes the content of Wikipedia - it is a matter of judgement and deciding for ourselves whether the sources quoted are resonable. Wikipedia, like every other encyclopedia or reference work, is a secondary source; it takes information from a multitude of authors to present to you a summary, an overview of a topic for the interested person. It isn't the primary source of that data, indeed polict prevents original research being added to Wikipedia articles.

But the reverse is also true; Wikipedia is the ultimate in the 'Peer review' that we all seek in official journals; scientific, medical, social, geographical. The 'peers' of Wikipedia may be you and me, but will almost certainly include researchers, lecturers, students, and many others closely interested or connected with the subject.

And isn't that really more important? Each of us have our individual interests that have grown with us, whether it be transport or technology, socrates or sociology, we should take comfort in being 'amateurs'. People who have an interest in the subject for its own sake, something that we research because we want to know more. Then we add some of these newly-learnt facts to Wikipedia so that others may benefit.

And benefit is what it is all about.

So yes, 'anyone' may edit Wikipedia. But that 'anyone' is more likely to be someone who knows and cares for the quality of that information rather than someone seeking to mislead you. With over two million articles in the English language, and over eight million over more than 250 languages, there are remarkably few serious errors or examples of long-lasting vandalism.

Wikipedia; you learn, you edit, you extend the gift of knowledge.

Virgin -v- BSkyB

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:22:05 GMT

When cable tv was first installed in my home - something around 15 years ago - there were only eight channels provided, one of which was Sky One. My contract then was with "Cable Camden" and since then the bills have been paid to "Cable London", "Telewest", "ntl:Telewest" and now "Virgin Media", though I don't recall ever signing a new agreement with any of those.

So far as I am concerned Sky One is, has, and always will be part of the service I expect and was the prime reason I took cable tv in the first place. The fact that the Murdoch empore wants to almost double the cost to the remaining cable carrier is clearly unreasonable. Virgin Media's spokespeople have said they are happy to pay some increase, even to go to binding independent arbitration, but BSkyB are refusing to budge.

This is basically about commercial muscle. There are now just the two non-terrestrial service suppliers, and they are each looking at their long-term business plans and whether they can increase their margins and reduce their churn.

I have cable here in part because I can't install a dish due to Council regulations, and in part because it is, frankly, a better signal. I won't seek to change to a dish should the cmopanies fail to reach an agreement in the next forty minutes.

I might, though, note that most of the channels I do actually watch when I look at 'live' television are available on the 'Freeview' platform, and that the few programmes I'm interested in which aren't can be easily downloaded as "Torrents".

The only losers here will be Virgin and BSkyB. Viewers realised they have other choices ...

The Road to Hell ...

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:37:17 GMT

is, alledgedly, paved with good intentions. However it appears that the person who machinated to replace me as Chair of Delga a few years ago - Richard Porter - may have had other intentions.

It has been announced by the BBC that he has quit the LibDems and joined the Tories.

I'd have to say that I think he'll be far more 'at home' there as he never seemed that 'liberal' a LibDem to me ...

Heading to Foreign climes

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:48:54 GMT

Next week I'll be attending the Belgo-British conference. According to the brochure it is about ...

Globalisation and the Citizen

The lives of citizens in Belgium and the UK have been,
and will continue to be transformed by the forces of
globalisation. There is pressure on our working lives to
adapt to global competition; our consumption patterns
undoubtedly must alter as we accept the reality of global
warming; our identities, communities and societies must
adapt to new notions of citizenship and national identity;
and a revolution is underway in the way we communicate
and access information.

The Belgo-British Conference 2006 will explore the
effects of globalisation on the lives of British and Belgian
citizens. As in previous years, the Conference will draw
participants from politics, journalism, media, academia,
arts, science and business. The Belgo-British Conference
is attended by high-level influencers and leaders of the
future. This makes the Conference a unique opportunity
for fresh, long-sighted thinking and high-level networking.
The Belgo-British Conference will explore four themes
in four parallel working groups.

Seems like it might be fun ;-P

Still here

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 08:38:01 GMT

Yes, there have been problems with accessing a couple of my websites; I'm presuming it is DNS and as I've had an offer from a friend to run primary for them I shall deal with that shortly. Other than that not a lot to report; been doing the "Wikipedia thing" mostly.

Anyway, just thought I ought to say hi to people who read my LJ and here!

60 ... 65 ... 67 ...

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 20:30:40 GMT

So it is decreed (well, ok, 'leaked') that we will all have to work until we are 67 years old if we wish to receive the government's pension. Fair enough, I suppose, the number of elderly people of whatb was formerly known as Pensionable Age is clearly increasing, and the number of children isn't keeping pace.

However!

When I was young I was told I would be able to retire at 60. Given that most women receive lower wages and salaries then men do (often for the same job) there seemed to be some sense in that, although historically it was more likely that on average a wife would be five years younger than her husband so the five-year difference in retirement ages meant they would retire together.

Then the government, forced by various complaints that this difference was "unfair to men" announced that the retirement ages for both genders would be equalised and, surprise surprise, everyone's age would be at the (then) upper figure of 65, rather than some intermediate figure which might balance the savings from women retiring later and men retiring earlier.

As it happens, the schedule for increasing the retirement age for women from 60 to 65 affects me a lot. I am - by just a few months - at the age where my retirement age jumped the full five years.

And now, according to the press, it will jump another two as "[the change] will affect everyone under 50".

Anyone want to take a guess at what age I will actually reach "retirement age" by the time I get to be that age? So far each time each time I get older it moves further away!

LibDem Conference

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 16:25:59 GMT

I was supposed to be at my Party's conference in Blackpool this week, however various events conspired to make it unsafe for me to confirm a hotel booking in time (ie while there was still somewhere available for me to sleep that I could afford!) so instead I am watching it via the live relay provided by BBC Parliament.

In many ways this is rather good; I can listen to the proceedings without someone's head in the way or any "noises off" and can even pop into my kitchen to make a coffee or grab a bit without being told by a steward that I mustn't take food or drink into the conference hall.

The other advantage is the one to the people in the hall that I'm not there ... because while watching the discussion I seem to be regularly shouting at some of the idiots in my party speaking from the lectern!

At the moment there is a discussion on the membership fee; whether it is right to increase it from £5 to £12. Speaker after speaker is talking against the proposal, indeed some of these vociferous members are complaining that a 140% increase (don't you just love the use of percentages to make it seem a *lot* of money) is unacceptable. One - whom some of you might know - had the audacity to suggest that this extra £7 would not be possible, yet all party members who wish to attend conference have to pay their own way, and that cost (hotel at least £20 per night, travel, eating out, etc) is at least £200! Yes, there is a choice that can be made in deciding to pay one's way to attending conference, just as there is to pay an extra £7 per year instead of a bar of chocolate a month. Many others are arguing from a similar standpoint.

Whether the minimum cost to join the Liberal Democrats is £5 or £12 will not, in my opinion and in the long run, make a substantial change in the number of members. Increasing it though from a figure which is already reckoned to cover the run-on cost of an individual member would be a gift to other political parties who want to knock the LibDems ...

Update: The voting on the three amendments has descended into a farce. I am grateful that I am not there! Last time I was in that hall I was a delegate at the Women's Conference of a different political party and forced the meeting to a total halt by moving Points of Order when the platform tried to throw out the agreed agenda. I'd be sorely tempted to do the same there again today! (and it ended up as an increase in the minimum to just £6)

The semi-annual update ...

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 10:34:40 GMT

Well ... yes ... I don't post here a lot, do I. (rhetorical!)

Because this page gets reflected onto my public website I don't tend to post public entries here that often, although that might change soon with the OpenID specification getting closer to release and thus the ability to mix blogs, websites and content across domains ina secure fashion.

Anyway, some of you will find me online elsewhere, some of you I'll look forward to meeting for coffee (or tea!) at some point soon, and others will, no doubt, have found this site while checking up on my business activities and "doing a google" on me, so I could also save you some time by saying that I discovered late last year that there was a Wikipedia article about me, that the BBC has an awful photograph of me, and that I spend far too much time at the keyboards of my various computer systems.

Happy June!

London 2012

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:50:42 GMT

I am supporting our bid for the 2012 Olympic Games.

To show it I've signed the flag!

For more about the London Bid visit http://www.london2012.com/en/

Busy

Tue, 07 Sep 2004 18:51:17 GMT

creating new websites and RSS feeds ... and nearly ready to live-test the new site created for one of our PPCs.

Now there are two ...

Wed, 23 Jun 2004 09:59:40 GMT

There are now two by-elections for Parliamentary seats coming up. In addition to that in Leicester South Terry Davis, who holds Birmingham Hodge Hill for Labour, has been elected secretary general of the Council of Europe and will resign shortly.

Well, it's been a while

Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:43:09 GMT

since I last updated my blog, so what should I write? Well, the work thing is slowly moving along, indeed there was an article about the issues involved in my particular start-up organisation in the Daily Telegraph just before the election and I'm currently waiting for various responses from places about putting my affairs in order.

I'm not having any 'affairs' though, sadly. I'm not quite a 'SINBAD'* yet though and see a couple of people on an occasional basis.

Politics has been interesting, what with the election (our percentages all went up, so did the number of seats we won in Europe and the GLA) and we're currently gearing up for by-elections and a probable GE next autumn.

* Single Income, No Boyfriend, Absolutely Desperate

BP CHeck

Thu, 22 Apr 2004 20:24:24 GMT

Checked my BP earlier today and was rather worried that it seemed too high. Have just measured it again and is now much lower and so it may have been 'external factors' that was raising it ;-)

Currently: 144 over 91, pulse 58

For me, that's quite good ...