Flickr user i didn’t mean to go to Stoke posted this photo and story about this security guard in the process of detaining him and a friend for taking photos in the outdoor, pedestrianized area of Middlesbrough, UK.
I don’t know how traumatized the guy was after being detained but I hope some good comes out of it as people learn that there is nothing illegal or unethical about street photography.
His friend captured some video coverage of the incident.
Moments later as i walked away this goon jumped in front of me and demanded to know what i was doing. i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.
There are a myriad of reasons to NOT vote for the Progressive Conservative party in the upcoming provincial election but this one in particular makes me chuckle:
Remember that on March 3rd, Alberta needs a new government.
Over on the Freakonomics blog, Steven D. Levitt asks the thought provoking question, what would you do to maximize terror if you were a terrorist with limited resources. Readers’ responses to the post were a mixed bag of terror suggestions and hate mail. In a follow-up post, Levitt says that, “The people e-mailing me can’t decide whether I am a moron, a traitor, or both”.
Personally I think it’s an interesting topic, and not one that will give “the terrorists” any ideas they never had before. Hopefully it will provide those in charge of terrorist prevention and response to be better prepared in the event of domestic terror attacks.
In Canada, I think the biggest vulnerability to terrorism would be if they took out a couple of train bridges and brought Canadian commerce to a stand-still.
Because of the layout of the country (something like 80% of our population lives within a couple hours of the border) the transportation networks run basically east to west. I’ve been told there are only two main lines that run parallel across the country. A huge percentage of our goods arrive via sea in Vancouver and are shipped across the country by train. Disabling the tracks in the middle of the country would cripple this process, and doing so probably isn’t much more complicated than a couple of properly placed explosives.
Removing just two very vulnerable bridges, one in Medicine Hat and another in Edmonton, would be enough that virtually no goods could travel across Canada. I have no idea how long it would take to rebuild a train bridge, but it would definitely be the worst terror attack in our country’s history.
So what could be done to prevent such an attack? Building bomb proof bridges is not exactly an option. Putting up security guards around the bridges probably would work, but who wants to pay for that—not to mention the fact that because on any given day the chances of a terrorist strike against the bridges is so slim, it might be ineffective anyway unless the guards are always particularly vigilant.
I guess the best I can do for peace of mind is try not to think about it.
Update: Levitt’s third post on terrorism.
Who is the most hated family in America? Well it might just be the Fred Phelps family. As a result of their extremist family religion preaching hatred and intolerance, protesting at the funerals of US soldiers killed in Iraq, and being all around not nice people, nobody seems to like them.
Louis Theroux of the BBC presents the documentary “The Most Hated Family in America”.
Hit play or watch at YouTube. Next see part 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Warning: this video contains offensive attitudes from homophobic nutcases!
Fantastic Louis Theroux documentary about homophobic, anti-semitic religious lunatics (Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church) in the USA. Originally aired on BBC2 (UK). If you can look past the epithets without being offended, it’s a laugh riot. Fred Phelps comes across as REALLY stupid!
Originally aired on BBC 2, UK, April 2007
(via Waxy)
The following is purported to be an exact excerpt from a 1950s Home Economics textbook, (I assume published in the United States).
The Good Wives Guide
Have Dinner Ready
Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.
Prepare yourself
Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
Clear away the clutter
Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. and then run a dust cloth over the tables. Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Prepare your children
Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they ar small), comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.
Minimize all noise
At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet and happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
Listen to him
You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first—remember, his topics or conversation are more important than yours. Make this evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you. Instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure, and his very real need to be at home and relax.
Your goal
Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit. Don’t greet him with complains and problems. Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.
Make him comfortable.
Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low soothing and pleasant voice. Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him. A good wife always knows her place.
Jason Scott has written a great article on Wikipedia’s latest controversy.
A popular editor of Wikipedia was hired by the Wikia company and in doing so revealed that he wasn’t a guy with some college degrees but in fact was a 24-year old kid from Kentucky. This made a lot of people unhappy, and in the ensuing discussions, Jimbo Wales and strongly alleganced Wikipedians have tried to downplay it, mostly because that position’s always worked before. It’s not working as well this time.
As an aside, I should mention that Jason’s site, ascii.textfiles.com has become a favorite of mine lately and I enjoy pretty much everything about it.
Update: Jimbo Wales has asked Essjay to step down. Jason Scott has a great follow-up.
When I was enrolled in University, one of the classes I wanted to take was Philosophy of Game Theory. Unfortunately, disillusioned by my lack of interest after taking the introductory class (a prerequisite) I decided that Philosophy wasn’t for me after all.
Game Theory (Wikipedia) however, is still a very fascinating topic. Couple that with an interest in biology, sociology, and economics and the short documentary, “Nice Guys Finish First“, by Richard Dawkins becomes a tremendously interesting look at how selfish and altruistic behavior can be the greatest benefit or harm to the individual—and consequently also to the group.
Hit Play or Watch at Google Video.
When Niall Kennedy found out a creative commons licensed photograph he had taken was being misused by Microsoft, he did what any net savvy blogger would do: he replaced the image with goatse. (Ok, personally I wouldn’t have gone that far, but it definitely got their attention).
From his site:
I license my text and image creations under Creative Commons licenses in the hope they will help other people tell a better story or unleash some sort of increased creativity upon the world of content I enjoy every day. When that content is used beyond the terms of my published license I choose to take various forms of action ranging from e-mailing or sending an instant message to the person (if I have it or can query accurate information without much effort) or by issuing legal documents of copyright violations to the offensing site or host.
Read the whole story: Handling of Microsoft’s copyleft violation.
“Congratulations, you’ve just won a trip to the Bahamas, Florida, or Cancun. Please press nine for further details.”
9.
“Hello, is this Jeff I’m speaking with?”
“Yes, this is Jeff”
“Hi Jeff, I’d just like to confirm…”
“oh, just a second, where are you calling from?”
“I’m calling from Orlando, Florida… oh um, mumble mumble travel agency”
“oh, ok…” whatever.
“Can I just confirm your phone number in case we get disconnected?”
“Well actually, your company has called my house before, and I’ve asked very nicely on several occasions to be taken off your list, but everytime I ask, I get hung-up on. Is there anyway you could please take me off your phoning list?”
“Oh, well actually because you’re in Cancun, I mean… um, Canada, the computer just dials the numbers and I have no way of removing them from the computer”.
“I see, well do you think it would be possible for me to talk to your manager and see if he or she could remove me from the list?”
“Actually, if I put my manager on, he won’t remove your number either, I’ll get in trouble and he’ll probably just hang up on you too.”
“Why do you work at a place that hangs up on people?”
“oh, I don’t know, it pays the bills—I guess. Have a good night.”
“Thanks, you too.”
Click.
MSNBC is running a story about the unethical tactics used in the filming of Borat. One of the victims, Linda Stein, has published an article about her encounter with the guerrilla comedian.
Also relevant is the story of two embarrassed frat boys who in response to this AskMetafilter forum are suing 20th Century Fox, and three other production companies.
Michael J. Fox Talks To Katie Couric about Parkinson’s, Rush Limbaugh, and stem cell research.
Press play or watch here.
When I worked in Malaysia for six weeks last year, one of the projects I worked on was creating station ID storyboards for Channel V International. The purpose of these identification “advertisements” is mostly to strengthen their brand by reminding people who is providing the content they are watching.
Many television stations now add watermarks, usually their logo, on the feed at all times so that there is always that reminder of where the channel comes from. It also serves as a protection against others from stealing their content and profiting from their work.
I discovered today that there are websites that harvest posts from my site via XML feeds and place them beside their own advertisements. These sites are called sploggers (spam bloggers). I have no real way of watermarking my posts, so instead I’m just writing this post to say, if you are reading this post from anywhere other than your feed reader or directly from the http://jeffmilner.com website, then you are helping these sites profit by stealing the work of myself and others like me.
But for everyone else, thanks for reading.
Seriously, there is something wrong with the United States. They are considering legalizing TORTURE! See this Metafilter post and its many links.
This has me blown away. So here’s your chance (yes you) to tell me (and everyone else), what you think about the USA trying to legalize torture.
In 1971 Stanford University conducted a study of the psychology of imprisonment. While extremely unethical by today’s standards, this 50 minute video takes a facinating look back at the incredible psychological experiment. See also the Prison Experiment slide show with written history.
(The German movie Das Experiment is based on this event.)
I just finished reading an interesting piece on watercoolergames.org about the Super Columbine Massacre RPG, a video game in which you take the role of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine killers, on that fateful day in the Denver suburb of Littleton. How many people they kill is ultimately up to the player.
Judging from some of the harsh comments and some of the news articles written about the game from journalists that never even bothered to play the game it seems to me that a lot of people can’t comprehend the possibility that a video game could be a potential medium for provoking thought or education. Not that playing the game is a particularly enjoyable endeavour, but as compared with the documentary, the movie, or the multiple number of books written on the subject, why is it assumed that “the game” would automatically be something that condones their behavior whereas these other mediums get a pass?
One commenter had the nerve to go so far as to say,
“If your purpose in this game is to ‘understand’, my question is why do we need to understand? Understanding evil is not important—knowledge is not power. Evil is present and does great harm in our world. A better choice is to empower through ministry that heals. It’s my thought that your game doesn’t minister or provoke healing discussion—rather, it fuels the negative impact, divides people from Truth rather than lead them toward it.”
To me, a comment like this is so out-of-touch that it’s shocking. I can understand that at first appearance the idea of making that fateful day’s events into a game may seem trivilizing, but after having taken a few minutes to try it myself, I can say it allows for an interesting perspective that isn’t exactly possible in other forms.
If you’re not convinced, then I recommend checking out the fascinating interview about the game with a Columbine survivor and another one with the game’s creator which, after reading, may cause you to adjust your preconceived notions about the game.