August | 2014 | Steve Woods

NL: PSV Eindhoven introduces wifi at stadium; fans protest

19/08/2014 Steve WoodsOddities, Social Media, Tech

PSV Eindhoven supporters launched a vehement protest against the introduction of wifi at the their Philips Stadion ground during their side’s 6-1 home victory over NAC Breda in their opening game of the season, according to yesterday’s Guardian.

Fans displayed one banner reading: “F*ck Wi-Fi, support the team”. Placards with crosses running through the wifi signal were also held aloft before the match. Supporters’ groups believe the introduction of wifi is just the latest of a series of decisions by the club intended to gentrify the crowd at home matches.

However, the club’s website has a slightly different take on the introduction of wifi. The game against NAC Breda marked the test phase of the ‘Connected Stadium’ project. All visitors had free access to the internet, social media and email via the ‘PSV’ network. This is the first time in the Netherlands that a stadium has been equipped with a wifi network. The club is also asking users for feedback.

First posted on Bristol Wireless.
Builder’s English?

17/08/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language

Seen this morning on Church Road, Lawrence Hill, Bristol.

The person who wrote the copy must have fallen asleep in English classes when the difference between the abbreviated second person conjugation of the verb ‘to be’ and the second person possessive adjective was being explained.

Never mind, poor English skills don’t seem to have been a barrier to employment with Cleverley Builders of Whitchurch, Bristol or Swann Security; it was uncertain to your correspondent as to who had produced the sign. However, the ability to lie on signage is also valued by Cleverley Builders and/or Swann Security as no evidence of the physical presence of video surveillance equipment could be discerned.

If the author of the sign happens to read this, help is at hand to assist you in learning the distinguish them.

Neither of my parents, both of whom left school at 14 years of age and received not much more than a primary education in rural Norfolk in the 1930s and 1940s would not have made such a glaring mistake in English – a mistake which seems all too commonplace amongst the beneficiaries of the modern British education system.
West Country confusion

17/08/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities
The Western Daily Press is a stablemate of the Bristol Post and seems to share many of the latter’s afflictions – the same ugly Brutalist building on Bristol’s Temple Way, poor English, dodgy photo captions and the like.

It was therefore no surprise to encounter a prime example of confused reporting this morning, as illustrated by the screenshot below.

If one examines the article to which the news page above relates, three disparate elements seem to have been combined by reporter Geoff Bennett (who also writes for the Bristol Post. Ed.) and his associates, i.e.:
- a headline referring to widespread outbreaks of salmonella food poisoning in hospitals in England;
- a cuddly kittens picture and apposite caption; and
- a report on the court case of the alleged groping barber (who was cleared by the court. Ed.) which gave rise to Friday’s sexist Bristol Post front page (posts passim).
There is nothing like good, unambiguous reporting of the news – and the Western Daily Press is capable of nothing like it!
Bristol Post Balls – bad punning and sexism

15/08/2014 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

Regular readers will be aware that the Bristol Post is not renowned for the quality of its journalism.

However, the dreadful pun and sexism of today’s front page of the dead tree edition marked a new low in the paper’s already woeful standards.

Bad puns are annoying in headlines at the best of times and sexism is tolerated far less than when the fifty-something males in charge of producing Bristol’s daily work of fiction first started out in what was then called journalism.

There has been a steady stream of criticism of the Bristol Post on Twitter throughout the day.

However, the paper has not sought to respond to any of its critics, presumably because the person in charge of the Twitter account has yet to notice the ‘reply’ button.

In addition, some of Bristol’s Twitterati have also been alerting the national media to The Post’s disgraceful front page seeking to trivialise a sexual assault.

With front pages like the one above, is it any surprise that the Post’s circulation figures (as measured by ABC) are falling by nearly 11% per year? Not to me it isn’t!

Update 18/08/14: Bristol 24-7 is reporting today that Bristol City councillor Naomi Rylatt has written to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) over the above front page headline, describing it as a “disgusting attempt at humour“.
Eiffel Tower deploys wifi

15/08/2014 Steve WoodsTech

Le Monde Informatique reported on Wednesday this week that, at the end of 2013, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) decided to provide a high bandwidth wireless connection for both its employees and visitors to the Eiffel Tower and more particularly for customers using the Salon Gustave Eiffel for private events. Two sites therefore had to be equipped – the public and non-public parts of the Tower itself and the company’s headquarters. Users also had to be able to move between the two sites retaining the same wifi connection.

To achieve these objectives, SETE turned to BSO Network Solutions. The infrastructure installed enables a 100 Mb/s connection with a firewall cluster managed by BSO Network Solutions. This supplier monitors all of the infrastructure from its Network Operation Centre.

The project comprises 25 wifi access points, 13 of which have already been deployed. The outstanding part of the project mainly concerns areas of the monument not open to the public in order to assist maintenance operations by engineers. The project’s overall cost has not been disclosed.
Lombardy to move to open source

01/08/2014 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

Free software for public sector organisations will become a reality, at least in the Lombardy region, according to Italy’s Today news site. An agenda item submitted by the Five Star Movement, which makes provision for promoting the use of free computer systems in the public sector, has been approved by the regional council.

“In Europe and in forward-looking Italian organisations, open source has been adopted comprehensively and is useful in saving public funds; in fact it also ensures financial savings due to the possibility of public sector organisations re-using software,” explains the Five Star Movement’s Eugenio Casalino, who presented the agenda item in the regional council.

In 2012 the Italian government did away with a grant of €40 mn. to provide Italian public sector organisations with Microsoft software.

Hat tip: Paolo Vecchi.
Telegraph on prolonged peace mission

01/08/2014 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities

A typographical error in a headline on the Telegraph’s website envisaged a long lull in the present conflict between the Palestinians in Gaza and the state Israel which has now been raging for more than 3 weeks.

The error has since been corrected to read Gaza conflict: 72-hour ceasefire agreed by both sides.