Posts by Peter Fox

ECJ sorts FOI v data protection brewery beef

The Reg covered the previous ruling

For those who want the details

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/21/personal_data_no_foi_bar/

England versus Germany: Quaff real ale

Ian Hornsey's book BREWING is a good read.

Plenty of geekiness in the microbiology and chemistry departments. Really useful for home brewers wanting to raise their game.

Icelandic ash cloud to keep UK skies closed 'til Saturday

Next winter will be bitterly cold

On past form we can expect significant cooling of the northern hemisphere caused by the ash cloud.

Next winter is going to be a great deal worse than the last one. I'm not a climate expert but I can tell that a few months of solid freeze will have a much larger economic impact than a few days of air travel restrictions. It will also seriously disrupt everybody, not just air-passengers.

Not now darling I'm twirping

Sweet!

Sweet!

Online minor marketing law marked web's 'worst'

Worst!? - More like best!

Why would anyone "collect" this sort of marketing information? HOW would they do that? "Hey little girl have a 'free' Foo (and I promise not to send more than100 spams a year or pass your details to anyone else except the people who pay for it).

More power to the legislature. The idea that by accepting a free Foo some kid has contracted to receive spam or be groomed to purchase shonet-of-the-month is a nonsense that needs blowing out of the water ASAP.

Google Squared - the Cuilest search app ever

Is there some sort of Killfile for this foul-mouth ranter

Just wondering, because swearing is what dur-brains do to seek attention when they have nothing useful to say.

So, what's the f**king difference between a Netbook and an ultrathin?

Not clever not funny

It appears there is some pathetic prat using the good offices of the Reg to swear away in some dim hope that we're going to be impressed. Grow up or get back under whatever stone you crept out from.

Junk science and booze tax - a study in spin

Excellent work

Congratulations. It is articles like that this that make the Register unmissable.

(Err... Is this article a meta-meta-meta study?)

Down the Digital River, into the heart of download darkness

A mistake

It's not clever, it's not funny and the subject is hardly worth getting worked up about.

Criminal record checks: More often wrong than right

Another factor makes it MORE skewed

Many people have to get CRB checked many times over. If you work for more than one employer, for example as a freelance teacher then you can't say "I've been checked, here is my certificate". So this means that many of those 'OK' reports will be duplicates, whereas presumably the 'not-OK' will not get repeated.

Official: OOXML approved as international standard

Shamdard

Well done to Groklaw for following the details.

Darling admits Revenue loss of 25 million personal records

What exactly was the NAO doing with raw data?

Either they should be carrying out in-depth work on a sample OR they should be content with anonymised data records. This is BASIC stuff... ...but then we are dealing with molluscs.

Help wanted, apply within

Picking up threads == motivation

A while ago a friend of mine had this experience. He found there were mix-ups between 'dreams' and reality during recovery. He said it was quite difficult to separate bizarre unreal 'experience' from actual events or reports of events.

My two thoughts on this are:

1. Having _written_ things to refer to would help to verify/validate reality. Being able to answer the "Did somebody tell me X, did X happen" questions sounds like a very good idea. Timeline is an obvious choice.

2. This chap was quite motivated to get back to work. Being motivated is a recognised success factor for speedy and full recovery. But what are those motivations is the first question outsiders have to ask. The internal ones such as "I want to finish the jumper for X's birthday" can't be deduced. But the everyday activities such as work, morris dancing, and so on are known to friends. What these friends could do is make it easy for the patient to pick up the threads, keep continuity and not feel nervous about rejoining society.

So my concrete suggestion is that organisations whose members or employees end up isolated in an unreal world, send a weekly postcard for the purpose of keeping the patient confident of still being part of the real world and motivated to rejoin it. Let's face it, anything is better than hospital but isolation breeds doubts and worries.