Circle, Triangle, Square

Police Career Path - what to do if you're about to face a disciplinary panel for excessive force

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:32:38 GMT

There's an interesting story in the Guardian at the moment - link at the end of this piece (and thanks to serpentstar for the point).

So, here's a question.

If you're a Metropolitan Police Officer who is under investigation for using excessive force during an arrest, what do you do?

A. Wait for the investigation to exhonerate you?

B. Quit before the result comes out and take up a career in private security?

C. Retire on medical grounds before the result comes out, accepting a medical pension from the Met and leaving the accusation of excessive force unanswered. Then apply to work as a civilian with the Met. Transfer from there to the Surrey police force as a police officer. Transfer back to the Met, then to the Tactical Support Group, at which point you push over a newspaper vendor during a protest, leading to accusations that you caused his death.

It's a quandry for the modern age, isn't it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/05/query-g20-assault-case-officer

Augmented Reality RSN

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:51:48 GMT

There's a lovely idea - take a GPS phone with video camera and a compass, then overlay the location and distance of your nearest tube station.

You're going to look a bit of a plonker standing by the side of the road, but still, it's a gorgeous concept.

Software out Real Soon Now.

About that bag of white powder in my rucsac, Officer ....

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:23:25 GMT

Interesting journey into work this morning.

I got stopped by the British Transport Police under the auspices of the Terrorism Act, and subjected to a search.

What was really interesting was that while the officer in question very politely made it clear that the search was not optional, he also stressed that I was under no obligation to provide them with my ID, or even my name unless I wanted to. When he patted me down and found my wallet, he didn't open it. He didn't even look at the envelope of a parcel I had in my bag.

That's a real step forward.

I guess it helps that my face fits; white, middle class, middle aged (*sob* ) and that I don't look 'weird' - no obvious piercings or tattoos. And I know how to talk to authority, and don't put their backs up as a matter of principle. But if it were a matter of the officer's discretion whether to ask for ID or not, I don't think he'd have phrased it the way he did. (Edit: Under the provisions of Sec.44 of the Terrorism Act, 2000, you don't have to give your name and address. However, I've seen videos of police on Youtube opening someone's wallet and taking their name and address from the contents. The officer searching me today made no effort to do anything like that.)

I don't have a particular problem with stop and search (if it's applied fairly) - but if nothing shows up then I shouldn't have to show ID.

I think that's a good balance; I'm very aware several people on here will disagree.

(oh, and the 'white powder' was the chalk I use for climbing. I thought I should mention it before he found it.)

Porn, cute cats and activism

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:33:00 GMT

Edit to add: Whoops - just wanted to point out that the link is totally safe for work.

Kevin zuckerman's recent talk on digital activism - a vey interesting read, looking at Iran and China - two relatively different approaches to censorship and how being overly censorious only educates your activists more. And pictures of cute cats.

Buffy vs. Twilight ...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:53:43 GMT

Come on ... we all know how this is going to end :-)

Ganked from Rhodri Marsden at the Independent

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:47:30 GMT

A beautiful piece of design - this inventor (a design student, I'm guessing) has taken the challenge of making the UK 3-pin plug thinner than the MacBook Air.

Footnote for myself ....

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:00:52 GMT

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

Summary:
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

Interesting stuff from Jakob Nielsen as useful - though I really wish that

a) he'd join the 21st C. and get an RSS feed for his ~~blog~~ web column.
b) he'd realise that good design is part of usability.

Step forward in stem cell research

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:52:49 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/23/stem-cells-placenta-cord-blood

interesting article in the Guardian this morning - a team of US scientists have worked out how to harvest versitile stem cells from the placenta. And this can be done post-natally, so there's no chance of harm to either mother or child. It also doesn't require the use of embryo tissue, therefore dealing with the main objection of the Right To Life movement. Good news.

On missing a trick ...

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:16:31 GMT

I cut through the Exchange (the shopping mall in the centre of Ilford) on the way to the train station today - I was intrigued to see if there would be queues for the new iPhone outside the O2 shop there ... and if I'm honest, if there hadn't been, I'd have probably tried to get one this morning.

The O2 shop in the mall opens at 9.30.
The O2 shop in the mall is directly opposite the Carphone Warehouse shop.

Kudos to the manager of the Carphone Warehouse shop who opened his doors at 9.15am and shouted across to the queue of about 10 people outside O2 "We've got the new iPhone in stock too!"

Witness the queue disappearing.

Goodwill voucher for the RMT strike last week.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:06:17 GMT

I can't in any conscience apply for this, because my journey to work last week was, if anything, easier than normal, but if your journey was disrupted because of the RMT strike, London Transport are allowing you to put in a claim for what they're calling a 'Goodwill voucher' - money off your next ticket.

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/refunds/industrialaction/default.aspx to apply - NB: you don't get it if you're a PAYG customer, or if your ticket was valid for less than seven days.

Mash-ups and the Freedom of Information Act ...

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:58:13 GMT

So, if you make a Freedom of Information Act request to the Post Office for a list of all their postboxes, and then a seperate FOI request for their last collection times ...

And then you plug that data into Google Maps ...

What do you get?

http://www.dracos.co.uk/play/locating-postboxes/

A lovely website that enables you to put in the first part of a UK postcode and get a map showing you where the post boxes are there.

And in the best Web 2.0 way, if there's an unidentified postbox on the list, you can add it to the map yourself.

(I know, I know - who uses the post any more? But it's useful for those occasions where you might need to.)

Transport related genius :-)

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:38:42 GMT

http://www.tubeexits.co.uk/

Years ago, there used to be a book you could get which told you which carriage of the tube to stand in so that you'ld be nearest to the exit you needed for the station you were getting off at - for those who aren't used to the tube, this can literally save you 5 minutes or so at each station if the tube is crowded.

Now it's available as an iPhone / iPod Touch application for £1.79.

A round of applause ...

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:41:09 GMT

I've been a donor to the British Legion for a long while; I figured that the work that they do in supporting armed forces personnel (both those currently serving, and ex-service personnel and their families) is worth much more than the odd quid around Remembrance Sunday.

Today, they repaid that in spades, with this open letter to Nick Griffin, MEP and fascist.

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/news/general/an-open-letter-to-nick-griffin-chairman-of-the-bnp-and-mep-for-north-west-england

"On May 27th, 2009, the National Chairman of The Royal British Legion wrote to you privately requesting that you desist from wearing the Poppy or any other emblem that might be associated with the Legion at any of your public appearances during the European Parliamentary election campaign. </p>
He appealed to your sense of honour. But you have responded by continuing to wear the poppy. So now we're no longer asking you privately.

Stop it, Mr Griffin. Just stop it."

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:27:14 GMT

Once you've seen the fnords you can't unsee them.

In other, completely related news, some men* are complete and utter fuckwits and I despair.

*No one I know - just random fucktard on the bus.

How to make a proportion of your friends list jealous with one sentence ...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:27:15 GMT

So, last night, I went to see episode 14 of series 7 of QI being filmed.

A friend had tickets, so we went, turning up at the studio on the South Bank and queuing for the best part of 2 hours to guarantee getting in. But queue beers and good company soon made the time pass. Once in, and suitably warmed up by the in house comedian, the show began.

The panalists were Jo Brand, Alan Davies, Rob Brydon and Jimmy Carr, so we were pretty sure we were in for a good night, though I have to say, I was most impressed with Rob Brydon - he's got a gentle, almost perplexed air about him which fitted well with the show. I thought Carr was trying just a little bit too hard. But they were all good.

What surprised me most was the fact that the show was filmed in almost one take. There was a bit of chat, then the theme tune played and for the next two hours the panel just chatted to each other, with a vague gameshow going on at the same time. The only break was when the camera tapes needed changing, but I got the feeling if that hadn't been the case, they'd have just kept going.

Once it finished, Stephen Fry had to re-record two links - perhaps a minute's worth of film altogether, and then it was done.

Tickets were arranged through http://www.applausestore.com if anyone would like to sign up for tickets in the future.

More as a reminder to myself.

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:37:11 GMT

Overly Literal Videos

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:46:30 GMT

"It started out as Hogwarts, now it's Lord of the Flies" has to be my favourite line :-)

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:52:38 GMT

Thanks to lupercal, I've just retaken the test to see where I stand on the political spectrum.

Damn you - now I don't know where to vote later today!

Here's the test

Inspirational reading

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:37:00 GMT

http://www.worldofends.com/

I can think of many of you (hekai especially) who will probably find that self-evident, but it's worth a read. It's a lovely definition of what the Internet actually is.

I am deeply amused ...

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:09:49 GMT

That even before more than one percent of the details of a new game are available to players, I have seen the first blue teddybear.

What if Google invented email?

Sat, 30 May 2009 11:20:12 GMT

Google Wave.

Google Wave is a new way of communicating; redrawing email, social networking, instant messaging, blogging and a whole heap of other features. After all, as they say in the introduction, email is 40 years old and predates the internet; it's based on the metaphor of snail mail and that hasn't really changed despite all of our experience of internet based communications.

The system is still in development; Google are opening the APIs up to developers because they want a whole raft of Wave based applications ready when they launch the service. Wave is open source, invented by the guys who wrote Google Maps - look at all the fantastic mashups that have been created because of their openness.

It's a 1h20m presentation and well worth watching - especially the first 40 minutes or so when they're showing off some of the possibilities of Wave - it starts going into the APIs after that, which is frankly a little bit over my head.

But this is exciting stuff.

Time to man the barricades ...

Thu, 28 May 2009 12:23:33 GMT

Well, perhaps not.

http://www.takebackpower.org/

The Liberal Democrats are suggesting that we use the opportunity caused by the snouts in the trough (see LJ passim.) to fundamentally look at how we do politics in this country.

They're suggesting we, not local party committees, should have the right to de-select MPs. Don't like your MP? Sack him.

They're suggesting that we should have the right to an elected upper house, rather than current mish-mash of theocrats, nobles and cronies that are there at the moment. (And yes, I'm aware that sometimes recently said house has been very useful in slowing down the government. I think that says more about the current government than the House of Lords, to be honest.)

They're suggesting that we have fixed term Parliaments, so it's not at the whim of the current PM to decide when to call an election, allowing them to choose the time of best advantage.

They're suggesting a lot more.

I fully suppose that many of you will not agree with their suggestions.

But some of you will.

Have a look.

http://www.takebackpower.org/100_days_to_save_democracy.html

Mid life crisis?

Wed, 27 May 2009 12:13:49 GMT

Apropos of very little, I found that I could buy a 1969 VW Beetle for about £2000 when I was searching the internet over the weekend.

I don't have a car at present.

I don't really _need_ a car.

But I think this might be the first sign of my impending mid-life crisis. Luckily it's expressing itself through VW rather than Porsche, eh?

Flay And DeVille's Circus of Marvels - the End of the Pier Show

Mon, 25 May 2009 10:15:22 GMT

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We're in the final throes of preparation for the Circus of Marvels End of the Pier Show on Monday 1st June.

We just wanted to let you all know that we'll be taking the pre-booked tickets offline at 6pm on Sunday evening - after that, you'll have to get your tickets on the door.

http://www.flay-deville.com if you want to grab a ticket for £10 before then.

We'll be closing our reserved ticket list at noon on Monday - if you'd like us to hold a ticket on the door for you up to 8.30pm, drop us an email to circus@flay-deville.com before the list closes.

Hope you're enjoying your bank holiday - see you next week.

Best wishes

Flay and DeVille

Flay and DeVille's Circus of Marvels - Reserved Ticket List Open!

Tue, 19 May 2009 17:17:52 GMT

Ladies and Gentlemen, Roll up, roll up, to the Circus of Marvels!

With two weeks to go until the End of the Pier Show, we would like to announce that we are opening our Reserved Tickets List.

If you would like us to hold a ticket for you on the door, you can mail circus@flay-deville.com, telling us your name, and how many tickets you would like us to hold.

You can pick your tickets up from the box office at Madame JoJos from 7pm on Monday 1st June. Please make sure you've claimed any Reserved Tickets by 8.30pm.

We'll open the doors at 8pm, and the show starts at 9pm. The acts go on until about 11pm and we'll have music and dancing until 1am.

Remember you can still buy tickets in advance for £10 from http://www.flay-deville.com

See you in a fortnight!

Flay and DeVille