P on Q

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Quentin sent a mysterious Tweet yesterday. Now all is explained…

Take today, for example. I drove out to a nearby village, had a pleasant lunch with my wife and mother-in-law, and then, a little later in the afternoon, a lion peed on me.

This is not something that I would normally expect on a quiet Sunday afternoon, but life would probably be very dull if it didn’t happen from time to time.

He was, I admit, the other side of a fence. We looked each other in the eye, we both purred some suitable greetings, and we seemed to be getting on rather well. But then, as he turned to go, he lifted his tail, and his range and aim were good. I turned fast, but not quite fast enough to stop a little from going down my neck.

I shall continue to assert that he intended this as a mark of great friendship and respect…

Hmmm….

Mr. and Mrs. Boring go to Court

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From The Register. The couple’s name is too good to be true, is it not? But the date on the piece is not April 1. Anyway, here goes:

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania couple has sued Google for invasion of privacy, accusing the world’s largest search engine of photographing their swimming pool and posting it to the web.

Aaron and Christine Boring claim that in offering 360-degree panoramic pics of their private residence via Google Street View, the web giant has “caused them mental suffering and diminished the value of their property.”

According to their suit – turned up by The Smoking Gun – the Borings purchased their Pittsburgh home in 2006 for “a considerable sum of money,” and “a major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy”. So they were annoyed when pan-and-zoom-able pics of the home, including its swimming pool, turned up on Street View.

These pics were acquired, the suit says, when a Google vehicle appeared on their private road without a privacy waiver or other authorization. Claiming this private road is marked with a “Private Road” sign, the suit calls Google’s behavior “an intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion of…seclusion.” The Borings’ lawyer calls it “outlandish.”

Gesture politics

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The disintegration of the Brown government is almost painful to watch. here’s the latest example of the replacement of policy by well-intentioned but fatuous gestures:

LONDON (AP) — The British government wants to ban convicted pedophiles from using social networking Web sites such as Facebook, the Home Office said Friday.

The plan involves forcing sex offenders to give any e-mail address they use to police, who will then ask the Web sites to block their access, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.

Smith said the proposal is aimed at sending out the message that the Internet is ”not a no-go area when it comes to law enforcement.”

”We are changing the law … so that we have got better control over the way in which child sex offenders are able to use the Internet,” Smith said on GMTV.

The government wants to prevent pedophiles from using social networking Web sites to groom children to be sexual abuse victims, according to the Home Office.

Under the proposed legislation, it would be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison for a convicted child sex offender to use an e-mail address that has not been registered with police, a Home Office spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

However, the report goes on to say that “the government acknowledges it has yet to work out the details of how the plan would work.”

Yep. That’s the Broonies for you.

Carphone Charlie gets his wires crossed

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This morning’s Observer column…

To date, three UK ISPs have signed up for the Phorm system: BT, Virgin Media – and TalkTalk. This suggests that Dunstone’s rage against the BPI may have impaired his capacity for joined-up thinking. On the one hand, he declines to monitor his customers’ behaviour at the behest of the music industry; on the other, he seems content to monitor their behaviour in order to take a cut from advertising whose targeting has been improved by such monitoring. It won’t wash, Charlie. Make a clean break and see how it improves your argument.

Update: Rory-Cellan Jones emails to say that Dunstone told him that Talk Talk will make the Phorm snooping something that users have to opt in to. If that’s true then it means the Phorm system is dead — it’s unlikely that BT and Virgin will not also make it opt-in for fear of losing customers to Talk Talk.

Anthropological tales

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From Andrew Brown’s Blog…

I happened to be talking to an anthropologist this morning, and the conversation turned to a celebrated academic. “I knew him when I was at New College”, she said. “I was in a lift with him once. There were just the two of us. I was wearing a miniskirt and he put his hand up it.”
“!!??!!” I said: “Did he know you?”

“No. Not at all. We hadn’t spoken or anything. He was well known for it. I kicked him, hard, on the shin … I have never ever read any of his books, because of that.”

Bedtime reading

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Hooray! The proof copy of Jonathan Zittrain’s book has arrived. I’m reviewing it for Management Today. So that’s the weekend taken care of, then.

Sacre Bleu!

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Devotees of P.G. Wodehouse will know that whenever a gifted chef ups and leaves there will be hell to pay. Remember what happened when Anatole threatened to leave the employ of Bertie Wooster’s aunt Dahlia?

Well, guess what? Food Gal is reporting that Google’s Executive Chef, Josef Desimone, is jumping ship to become Facebook’s very first executive chef.

This is serious. Mark my words: there will be blood! (To coin a movie title.)