A Future Identity

Here's something nice: a speculative piece about the state of the UK's ID card system and national identity database in ten years' time, written by an SF author who is working on a novel set around then. It's well thought out and scarily plausible.

Incidentally, I finally managed to get my passport application in the post. The first working photo booth I found was an old style one that takes four photos with no warnings and ended up producing a bunch of pictures that looked like an extra from a George Romero film. Later I managed to find a modern machine, one where you can see your picture and check that it is vaguely OK before printing. I still don't look like Johnny Depp, but it's a good enough picture. So now I have to wait. The passport agency should be emailing me with progress notices about my application...

Standing on Shoulders

As this year I will be producing a project report for my OU course, it is great to find some good advice on how to cheat good. I think the advice on color/colour might be reversed in my case, but there you go...

Boothless

Having filled in my passport renewal form and paid online, all I needed to do was send in my old passport and a fresh photo. How difficult can that be? Well, I was in Cardiff for the weekend, helping with a shop stocktake, so I figured I'd be able to get a picture sorted in between doing other things. I found various photo booths around town, all of which were out of order, as were the ones in the motorway service stations on the journey there and back.

Could this all be part of the conspiracy to stop people renewing their passports before all the new rules, regulations and bigbrotherisms are introduced? I guess I'll just have to find a booth somewhere around here...

A Time of Renewal

Well, May is the month where the spring is at its height (though looking out of the window, where rain is lashing, driven by howling winds, it doesn't much look like spring!) and is traditionally a time to celebrate rebirth and renewal, what with Mayday and all. Well, this year there is the Renew For Freedom campaign, which is encouraging folks to renew their passports in May as a protest against the oncoming ID cards.

It's not just a protest though: it's a defence measure. The government plans to introduce additional biometrics to newly issued passports within the next few months, a process which will include requiring applicants to attend "interrogation centres" and the beginnings of the national ID register to be put into place. This will not be optional. It will, apparently, be non-compulsory to carry an ID card when they come out (though how long that will last is anyone's guess), but we will only be able to opt out of the ID register (and the fingerprinting, eye scans, and storage in an IT system which probably cannot be built correctly, let alone to budget) if we do not have a passport. So renewing now means not going through that process for another 10 years, during which time hopefully the politicians will have changed their minds — or at least listened to people who know what they are talking about, and have modified the plan into something that will do some good.

Actually, I don't think the idea of the "interrogation centres" is entirely bad. Current ID verification pretty much comes down to a couple of bits of paper and getting someone to sign a photo for you. Going through the verification in person might be useful if handled right. But don't tell the Home Office I said that.

Anyway, I've just got the form filled in, so all I need to do now is get a photo taken and sent off with the form. That's one of the jobs for the weekend.

Roofus Novus, Part 3

Well, it's all done. Our house is now nicely roofed and cladded. And thanks to <3's phone...

Before:	After:

The colouring and size is different between the pictures due to a phone upgrade in the middle of the process, but you get the idea. We're very pleased with the results, but now this means we'll have to tidy up the rest of the place and give the lower half of the house a fresh lick of paint. Oh well, it never ends...

Bell, Cherry, Republican... Nudge

Recently word came out that there is a critical flaw in the machines used as electronic voting booths in some US elections. It is important that this technology is done right and not just rushed into — as with the postal voting fiasco in some of last year's elections in the UK. What is more worrying is that these voting machines are subject to far less rigorous controls than slot machines. So which is more important: gambling or democracy? I guess we can look at that in a different way: which is a bigger source of tax revenues and which is an expensive overhead?

Roofus Novus, Part 2

It seems to be taking longer than expected, but I think we are nearly there. As of yesterday evening, the cladding was complete, the roof was all there, and all that remained to do was the downpipes from the gutters and a bit of edging and trimming on the gable end.

However, there is still the small matter of the lean-to fuel store thing on the side of the house, which is also having its roof replaced. This hasn't been done yet as the scaffolding runs right over it, making access difficult to say the least. Apparently the plan is to clear the scaffolding today and do the lean-to at the beginning of next week — a two day job, they say. After that we get our new, improved house back.

And a bill.

If You Can't Stand The Heat...

D'oh! Yesterday was a fine, bright hot day, which is all well and good but when I got back from work I took a look in the greentent (we don't have a greenhouse but we have a neat plastic sheet covered tent type thingy) and, opening the doorflap I was greeted by a cloud of steam. Not good. Most of the contents were looking distinctly the worse for wear. Apparently most vegetable seedlings aren't keen on saunas.

What I'm most concerned about are the globe artichokes I have in there, which are due to be planted out fairly soon. Time for a bit of TLC and hoping that their roots haven't been terminally poached.

Another gardening lesson learned.

Identity Crisis

Just to get all techy for a moment, a recent thread on Python-Forum involved a newby who felt he had spotted some weirdness in how the Python programming language handles variable assignment and particularly when working with lists (and the '+=' operator). It was fairly clear what was going on, but I couldn't find anything in the official documentation to cover the 'list += ...' behaviour. Happily though I have now found an article which nicely covers the area in question. I'm basically posting it here as a note to remember this site myself.

Over the last year and a half I have really grown to love Python as a language. Occasionally there is weirdness but in general those bits do actually make sense when I sit and think for a while.