adam reeve » Issues

Police State?

adam — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 21:36:35 +0000

A woman in Denver has been arrested and charged after refusing to show her ID to a private security guard who asked for it while she travelled to work on a public bus. Scary.

The f’ing Broadcast Flag is Back

adam — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:25:43 +0000

Like some kind of legal zombie the broadcast flag has come back from the dead. It’s been stapled onto the back of a totally unrelated (and popular) law in a blatent attempt to get it in through the backdoor. This kind of deceit seems to be common practice in the “land of the free” and it makes me sick.

If you’re a USian, use the page linked below to send a fax to your congress person explaining that you didn’t vote for them so they could give away your rights to record TV shows at home.

Public Knowledge – Night of the Living Broadcast Flag!

(from boing boing)

Video Games Are Good For You

adam — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 15:58:02 +0000

Author Steven Johnson has written an open letter to Hilary Clinton in response to her call for an investigation into the effects on children of video games. I think it perfectly illustrates the absurdity of the current campaign-de-jour of the technically illiterate ruling classes. Pandering to middle America has always been a big vote winner, sadly it usually leads to really, really dumb policies.

US Grand Prix – What Went Wrong?

adam — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 01:25:22 +0000

So I posted earlier from day 1 of the race weekend, with some photos. Back then it was all sweetness and light. Then Sunday happened, and it all went horribly wrong. I do have photos from day 2 and 3, and I will post them this weekend. My enthusiasm has however waned…

Who do I blame? Honestly, Bernie Ecclestone. He was the one guy who could have made things happen, but (I can only assume) he thought everyone was bluffing until it was too late. Michelin did the right thing by pulling the tyres, it was a tough call but you have to make it. Should they have brought more conservative spares? Sure, but hindsight is always 20/20. The chicane options were daft, as Max Moseley said, it’s unfair to slow everyone down because some teams had bad equipment. Ideally the Michelin teams should have run with a speed limit on turn 13, but, again, I can see why that wasn’t a popular option.

The real villan in all this, and one which seems rarely mentioned, are the rules. As the years have gone by, Formula 1 has degenerated from a sport which demanded peak performances from both driver and engineering teams, to a “who can get around the rules most creatively” contest. The rules should be there to ensure safety and a level playing field, they should not be there to try and slow cars down, or decrease reliability, both of which are clearly objectives of the FIA. If there hadn’t been the “one set of tires for qualifying and race” rule, this wouldn’t have happened. Back in the day, teams would have many different compounds on hand at the race, and could pick and choose at will. Now, in the name of “making the sport more interesting” we have absurdly restrictive regulations which directly cause farces like last Sunday. And that’s Bernie’s fault.

Faith Based Telephony

adam — Wed, 11 May 2005 18:29:57 +0000

OK, so I know I promised not to post about politics or religon, but this has to do with telephony so it’s vaguely gadget related. Plus, it’s too funny not to post. United American Technologies (a self-proclaimed “Christian-based phone carrier”) have been trying to sell their services to the public with some interesting claims, specifically that they are the only telco which doesn’t support gay marriage and child porn. Wonkette has the full (hilarious) story. They also have some recordings of the UAT salespeople here.

Choice quote:

Mr. Mirman: What about the others? What does Verizon do?

United American Technologies: Okay. Verizon, what they do is they train their employees to accept the gay and lesbian lifestyle.