Steve Woods

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  • LibreOffice & Nextcloud for EU Institutions

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Security, Tech

    EU flagEU data protection authorities have negotiated a contract for the use of Nextcloud and LibreOffice Online in EU institutions. They are now testing the solutions, German IT news heise reports.

    Data protection-friendly alternatives

    It was announced last Wednesday that the European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski and his team have begun testing both solutions this month. In coming months they want to examine “how these can tools support EU day-to-day work“. This pilot phase is part of a larger IT reflection process that the EDPS already started last year aimed at encouraging EUIs to consider alternatives to large-scale service providers to ensure better compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.

    By procuring the Open Source Software from one single entity in the EU, the use of sub-processors is avoided. In doing so, the EDPS avoids data transfers to non-EU countries such as the USA and allows for more effective control over the processing of personal data.

    According to Mr Wiewiórowski, “Open Source Software offers data protection-friendly alternatives to commonly used large-scale cloud service providers that often imply the transfer of individuals’ personal data to non-EU countries. Solutions like this may therefore minimise reliance on monopoly providers and detrimental vendor lock-in. By negotiating a contract with an EU-based provider of cloud services, the EDPS is delivering on its commitments, as set out in its 2020-2024 Strategy, to support EUIs in leading by example to safeguard digital rights and process data responsibly“.

    Microsoft Office in the sights

    Mr Wiewiórowski has already examined the contracts which EU institutions have with Microsoft and reached the conclusion in 2020 that the data processing purposes when using Windows or Microsoft Office had been defined far too openly. Processing contractors were not adequately audited and data could be transferred too easily by EU institutions to countries outside the Union. At the time, he demanded that Microsoft should only retain user information within the EU. The roles of all those involved with all their rights and obligations must be clearly regulated. Furthermore, Users should look around for alternatives that “enable higher data protection standards“.

    The EDPS started further investigations into the use of Microsoft and Amazon cloud services by EU institutions. These entailed the use Microsoft Office 365 by the EU Commission. According to Wiewiórowski many contracts were concluded prior to the “Schrems II Judgment” and had to be examined in the light of the European Court of Justice case law.

  • Qu’ils mangent des navets

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

    Thérèse Coffey, the alleged Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has advised consumers to opt for turnips as tomato and cucumber supplies dwindle, owing to shortages.

    This instantly reminds your correspondent of that phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette, supposedly uttered by her during the French Revolution: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche“, usually translated into English as “Let them eat cake“.

    However, there is no there is absolutely no historical evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or anything like it, although folklore scholars have found similar tales in other parts of the world.

    Lookalikes - Thérèse Coffey and Marie Antoinette

    Anyway, back to Coffey, a minister devoid of humanity and compassion, but richly endowed with incompetence, callousness and that all-important can’t-do attitude.

    Coffey has stated that shortages of salad and other vegetables in UK supermarkets could last up to a month. However, critics have accused the government of bringing the problem on itself by failing to support local growers and through Brexit policies.

    Speaking in the House of Commons, Coffey told MPs British consumers should “cherish” home-grown produce, whilst castigating the latter for wanting “a year-round choice“.

    In her own words:

    “It’s important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country. A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar.”

    Finally, so that Coffey can indulge in ‘cherished‘ home-grown produce, your ‘umble scribe will perform a public duty by providing a link – should the alleged Secretary of State happen to be reading this post, to a recipe for cream of potato and turnip soup.

    Enjoy! 😉

    Update 25/02/23. One consequence of Ms Coffey’s advocacy of “cherishing” this humble root vegetable is that supermarkets are reported as running of turnips. Your correspondent could find none at his local Lidl yesterday, although swedes (the Swedish turnip) are plentiful.

    As a final postscript, your ‘umble scribe notes from The Guardian today that its political sketch writer John Crace has written:

    Four years ago I tweeted, “Let them eat turnips”. It was meant to be a joke about Brexit. Now it’s government policy. Satire comes at you fast these days.

  • Campbells responds to bigot

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

    One disadvantage of social media is it allows hard-of-thinking bigots a platform to express their prejudices.

    However, this might not always work to the advantage of the prejudiced, as the exchange below between a Tennessee redneck and Customer Service for the Campbell Soup Company re homophobia illustrates.

    Original post comments Your new commercial with the 2 dads makes me sick, whilst Campbells Customer Service replies Hi Kim! If you're feeling sick, we suggest a enjoying a delicious can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. Make sure to enjoy it hot, so that it can help warm up your cold, dead heart.

    According to Wikipedia, chicken soup – with or without noodles – ‘has long been touted as a form of folk medicine to treat symptoms of the common cold and related conditions. In 2000, scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha studied the effect of chicken soup on the inflammatory response in vitro. They found that some components of the chicken soup inhibit neutrophil migration, which may have an anti-inflammatory effect that could hypothetically lead to temporary ease from symptoms of illness’.

    No research has yet been conducted into the curative properties of chicken soup on prejudice and homophobia.

    However, Campbells could be onto something. In the words of the French chef and culinary writer Auguste Escoffier:

    Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.

    Bon appétit, bigot! 😀

  • Tasteless food, tasteless advertising

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

    Junk food giant McDonalds’ advertising department clearly has as much taste as the food, otherwise it would not have placed the advertisement below by a Cornish bus stop directly opposite Penmount Crematorium on the road between Truro and Carland Cross (the A30/A39 junction).

    McDonald's to remove 'tasteless' sign opposite Cornwall crematorium

    Will the person who thought this was a good idea be getting a roasting?

  • Lost?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language

    Spotted in Bristol’s Old Market Street this morning.

    Bilingual Welsh Road works sign - Traffig gwyriad - Diverted traffic

    Whether it has been dumped far from home and/or is trying to make its way home is not clear from its demeanour.

    This not the first occasion a bilingual Welsh sign has been used in England, as reported by Nation Cymru with this example of the English city known in Welsh as Caerwrangon and Worcester to the local monoglots.

  • More Reach ambiguity

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

    In my first paid job after graduating, your ‘umble scribe received further instruction in English, namely adapting what he wrote to fit in with his then employer’s house style, part of which included the avoidance any ambiguity.

    As Merriam Webster points out, ambiguity is defined as “a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways: an ambiguous word or expression“.

    If only those writing today’s newspapers had also received such training as your correspondent or access to a newsroom dictionary with the above definition for the entry ambiguity

    Experience would suggest neither situation obtains, particularly in the titles of the Reach plc stable of regional “news” titles, as this ambiguous offering from the Daily Post/North Wales Live implies.

    Headline reads The historic inn opposite a popular country park that's been serving weary travellers for centuries
    Which establishment is serving weary travellers – the inn or the country park?

    Your correspondent diligently read the piece to discover how and what Loggerheads Country Park has been serving weary travellers down the centuries, all to no avail. 🙁

  • Farewell Nadhim Zahawi

    Steve WoodsLinux, Media, Politics

    Nadhim Zahawi disgraced MP for Stratford-on-AvonNews broke this morning that the alleged prime minister minister, one Rishi Sunak, had finally shown some of the “integrity, professionalism and accountability” promised when he was inexplicably made Conservative Party leader by its ageing right-wing membership.

    Yes, he’s finally sacked Nadhim “Stable Genius” Zahawi as Party Chair for what is described as a “serious breach of the ministerial code“.

    And the nature of that serious breach? While he was in office briefly as Chancellor Chancer of the Exchequer under disgraced former alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Zahawi by failing to declare he was investigation by HMRC into his tax affairs. It subsequently transpired that he has had to pay the taxman £5 mn. in back taxes and a penalty for tax avoidance. Despite his ministerial media appearances involving prominent – possibly patriotic – display of the Union flag (which some call the Bloody Butcher’s Apron. Ed.), environmental campaigner and philanthropist Julia Davies subsequently wrote in a Guardian opinion piece entitled “Dear Nadhim Zahawi: here’s what patriotic British millionaires do – we pay our proper taxes“.

    Your ‘umble scribe cannot remember any time in his six decades of life when the minister allegedly in overall charge of collecting the country’s tax revenues has been investigated and penalised by the people he’s supposedly administering for not paying what he owed.

    Even before the Zahawi incident, Sunak, who so far has only been PM since the end of October, had already lost one cabinet minister within two weeks of assuming office: over-promoted fireplace salesman “Sir” Gavin Williamson resigned as a result of alleged bullying.

    However, looking around what passes for the current alleged government of the English Empire (which some still call the United Untied Kingdom. Ed.), it seems that despite Zahawi’s sacking, other members of Sunak’s administration seem to regard compliance with the ministerial code as an optional extra during their terms of office.

    Dominic Rennie Raab supposedly Justice Minister and Deputy Prime MinisterTake for example one the case Dominic Rennie Raab, supposedly the Secretary of State for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister.

    Dominic is not a boy who took any notice of his mother’s admonitions to “play nicely“. He is currently under investigation for allegations of bullying. The Guardian reported in December that eight separate incidents of bullying by Raab during a previous term of office at the Justice Ministry during Johnson’s premiership.

    Johnson himself faces a Commons privileges committee inquiry into whether he lied to misled parliament over the Partygate scandal.

    Handy tip for anyone who believes there is any integrity in Johnson: never trust a middle-aged man with a toddler haircut who combs his locks with a balloon.

    It doesn’t look as if there’s much of Sunak’s “integrity, professionalism and accountability” on either the front or back benches of what passes for the political party he is supposed to be leading.

    Before the announcement of Zahawi’s sacking, there did not appear to be much local support in Stratford-on-Avon for their tax-avoiding dishonourable member. Given the opinions expressed to The Guardian four days ago, our Stable Genius would be well advised not to seek the Conservative Party candidacy for the next general election.

    Update 31/01/23: In today’s letters in The Guardian, Keith Flett of the Beard Liberation Front remarks that Nadhim Zahawi “has now managed to bring the hirsute into disrepute“.

  • How to Lose French and Alienate People

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Social Media

    The stylebook of Associated Press (AP), the largest news agency in the USA is a highly regarded reference work for journalists wishing to improve their written English.

    The same cannot be said of the AP Stylebook Twitter account which posted the tweet below on Thursday.

    Tweet reads We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing “the” labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.
    Zut alors !

    The offending post has since been deleted, the BBC reports.

    Before its deletion, the advice was widely mocked by Francophones and Francophiles. Even the French embassy in the USA joined in the derision, briefly changing its name to the “Embassy of Frenchness in the United States“.

    Writer Sarah Haider responded that there was “nothing as dehumanizing as being considered one of the French” and that a better term was “suffering from Frenchness“, whilst political scientist Ian Bremmer suggested “people experiencing Frenchness” as a possible alternative.

    Washington Post journalist Megan McArdle also joined in the fun: “The people experiencing journalism at the AP have their work cut out for them“.

    After the tweet had been deleted, those in charge of the AP Stylebook Twitter account said their reference to French people had been “inappropriate” and that it “did not intend to offend“.

    The moral of this story: think before you tweet.

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