Things To Look Forward To...

You can now pre-order Sixteen Shades of Crazy, the new novel by Rachel Trezise, from Amazon UK. The book will be officially launched at the Hay Festival in May 2010.

You can also pre-order her new novella  Loose Connections which is due to be released on March 4th, 2010, to celebrate World Reading Day.

TED Talks: Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

What’s Important?

There’s an old saying that goes something like: “No matter how far down the wrong road you’ve gone, turn back.”

I’m a software developer. By trade, I write software and build web sites and all that stuff. This is what allows me to pay my mortgage, eat food, and buy rare vinyl bootlegs of Motley Crue concerts when I don’t get ridiculously outbid.

At other times in my life I’ve been a drummer and a stand-up comic. I’ve woken up drunk in fields and I’ve taken part in the Montreal Comedy Festival. I made no money from being a drummer and I lost money as a comic and yet, through all those hours on the road, mostly alone but sometimes in a vehicle full of friends, I had something more valuable than cash: I was my own man.

As a stand-up comic I made friends who will, hopefully, be friends for life. I made some enemies too but that’s how it goes. I also made my own decisions. Which gigs to play, how to get there, who to hang with, who to side with. There’s nothing quite like having to answer to only your conscience and the tax man.

Now I’m behind a private-sector desk again and I’m taking orders again. I’m compromising again.

At some point in life a little voice, nothing more than a mere whisper at first, starts to ask: “Are you happy?”

As you get older that voice grows louder, more insistent.

It gets harder to ignore.

“You’re in your thirties now. Not long to go. Half-way there, maybe? Are you happy?”

Someone called it a “Thrisis”. I think it may have been in The Guardian or The Observer. A thrisis is like a mid-life crisis only it strikes in your early thirties. It’s when you suddenly stop and wonder whether you’re headed in the right direction, whether you want the second half of your life to be like the first, or whether it’s time to make a change.

The advantage is that, in your early thirties, it’s not too late to turn back.

Take Jane

I'm going to keep posting this until people start listening...

I've been thinking, for some time, about the curiously selfish form of ignorance spouted by the 'if you've done nothing wrong' brigade when it comes to matters relating to privacy, ID Cards, etc.

My argument has always been that there are people in our society who have done nothing wrong, committed no crime, for whom privacy is, literally, a matter of life and death.

Now the NO2ID crowd have released the following video that perfectly sums up what I've been trying to say for years. Take Jane...

But hey! You've done nothing wrong, right? You've got nothing to hide, right?

Take Jane...



[Update - 20.12.2008]

This morning someone asked me: "What are the chances of this happening? Imagine how secure these database will be. How would he be able to get her address?"

It looks as though the gods of Human Rights Arguments are smiling on me as, later this morning, I happened to glance at The Register and saw this story of a police officer, no less, abusing the police database (Comint) to blackmail child abusers and drug dealers.

In this case I obviously don't feel any sympathy to the 'victims' involved ('you buys your ticket', and all that) but it does serve to illustrate how easily these systems can be compromised. This wasn't even a technical hack by some computer genius - just a bent copper on the inside.

Consider the staggering number of people from all walks of life, from senior to local government and a lot more besides, who will have access to the National Identity Register and tell me: do you trust 'em all?