Posts by J R Fry

NHS diabetic gizmo will text for help if wearer is in danger

Not a cure

This certainly doesn't apply to Type 1.

All food gets converted into carbohydrates (glucose) in the body, but some foods take longer than others. Insulin is needed to metabolise the resulting glucose into energy that the body can use. Type 1 Diabetics don't produce any insulin, so blood sugar goes up to dangerous levels regardless of what's being eaten. Refined carbs will increase blood sugar quicker than proteins and fats, but it all has the same effect eventually. Injecting insulin is the only way to manage Type 1 diabetes. Low blood sugar is what happens when too much insulin is injected, as Mike Bell has pointed out rather vividly.

Type 1 diabetics on a basal bolus insulin regime (one or two slow-acting insulin doses per day, with fast-acting insulin injected at mealtimes) can benefit from fewer insulin injections if carbohydrates are avoided. The basal dose works over a 12 or 24 hour period, so covers low GI foods like vegetables and meats. For example, a fried breakfast (without hash browns or toast) needs little or no insulin because the basal dose can deal with the slower release of glucose.

ICO issues half-baked cookies guidance

Cookie absence

This guidance does nothing for the opt-out method where the site will track you based on behavioural analysis and only uses a cookie if you want to opt-out of receiving the targetted ads. In other words, it fully complies with the requirement to notify users if you set a cookie and collects data on you if there's no cookie.

In fact, it's worse than that. Setting the opt-out cookie, or using an add-in like TACO, doesn't actually stop the sites from continuing to collect the data on your browsing habits. It just stops the ads from appearing to you.

This remarkably cunning sleight of hand by the evil genii of web marketing has the unfortunate result of letting people know what surprise gifts or dirty little secrets their significant others are shopping for. I couldn't figure out why I was getting ads for exactly the toys my kids wanted for Christmas last year. Turns out my partner had set the opt-out cookie, but I hadn't. It was still collecting info on the stuff she was searching for, and then serving ads to me for the same stuff.

Govt working on 'browser-based' solution for new cookie law

Diabolical Ingenuity

How is this going to help us avoid those diabolically ingenius behavioural analysis methods that use cookies as opt-out mechanisms? Basically, websites collect information about your browsing habits using behavioural analysis, no cookie required, and they use the data to display targetted ads.

If you want to opt-out you have to set a cookie. But, and this is where the evil genius bit comes in, the cookie is to opt-out of the targetted advertising. It doesn't stop them collecting data about your browsing habits.

It's blown any chance of me buying surprise gifts for my partner, though. If I search for gifts on-line she gets adverts for whatever I'm planning to buy for her on her browser even if I've opted out on mine.

SA pigeon outpaces broadband

RFC2549

I don't think this was a fair test at all. Their methods didn't comply with the IETF standard as described in RFC2549 or RFC1149.

IWF pulls Wikipedia from child porn blacklist

Pornography

The image is pornography, as defined in the UK Sentencing Guide which is based on the COPINE scale. However, it's worth pointing out that some of the images on the Mothercare website are classed as Level One child pornography by that definition ("naked or semi-naked in legitimate settings / sources").

What's really scary here is that the law has criminalised most parents - anyone who has taken a photo of their child in the bath, or in their underwear, is a child pornographer. My four and five kids take nude photos of themselves with my digital camera all the time. While it's unlikely that you'd actually be prosecuted the fact remains that, if you were, then you would be found guilty. There's a huge potential here for anyone with a grudge against you to simply shop you to the police for having child porn images on your computer. You can safely bet there are a handful of Level One pornographic images in most parents' photo albums. Heaven forbid if you've shared these with family members via email or posted them online - you're looking at a custodial sentence and being put on the sex offender's register.

As with the extreme pornography law, the child porn laws criminalise a huge number of harmless individuals and gives anyone with a grudge a perfect reason to get you arrested and banged up. Likewise, if you're considered a troublemaker by the powers that be then they already have plenty of offences they could convict you for. You need to keep your nose very clean if you want to avoid going to jail.