Monthly Archives: August 2022

  • The living dead

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

    While the interminable Conservative Party leadership contest between the 2 tenth-rate rivals, one Mary Elizabeth Truss and rich boy Rishi Sunak, draws tediously on, with government administration seeming to have almost ceased despite drought, rampant inflation, surging energy prices (with the promise of higher prices to come. Ed.) and the outgoing party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is hardly anywhere to be seen, not even for a photo opportunity as he dives into the dressing-up box to indulge his inner Mr Benn, a new phrase has been coined – zombie government.

    A still from the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead

    As Wikipedia states: “A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse.” The English word zombie was first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the romantic poet Robert Southey, in the form of zombi. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the word’s origin as West African and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi or nzumbi (fetish).

    Comparing Conservative Party ministers to reanimated corpses is disingenuous, as the latter have far more compassion.

    All the crises mentioned in the first paragraph all seem to be coming to a head and combining during what is traditionally known in Britain as the silly season, which occurs during the long parliamentary summer recess, when, having no – or very little – politics to report, the newspapers and other media resort to more frivolous and lightweight items of ‘news‘.

    However, all is not yet lost.

    Yesterday the Metro reported that the notoriously work-shy Johnson (remember those missed COBRA meetings at the start of the pandemic? Ed.) had actually managed to turn up for a meeting, although the outcomes of the meeting stated to accompany the headline hardly seem to have made the gathering worth the effort of organising and attending.

    Front page of Friday's Metro with headline PM TURNS UP FOR MEETING

    And to think all this will continue until after the closure of the leadership poll for the 160,000 or so Tory Party members at 5pm on Friday 2nd September…

  • Peel Street meets the Globe

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

    A piece of artwork has appeared on the parched grass of Peel Street Green Space, which occupies the ground between Pennywell Road and Riverside Park on the far side of Peel Street Bridge over the Frome (aka the Danny in east Bristol. Ed.).

    Globe artwork at Peel Street

    Its arrival seems to have pre-empted the Bristol Post, which today wrote:

    A new public art trail reflecting on colonial histories and the impact of the slave trade is coming to Bristol.
    More than 100 artist-designed globe sculptures will appear in seven cities across the UK from Saturday and will be free to view by the public until October 31.

    The project, which is organised by The World Reimagined, aims to explore the UK’s relationship with the Transatlantic slave trade, its impact on society and how action can be taken to make racial justice a reality. The designs of the globes produced by the commissioned artists explore themes such as the culture of Africa before the slave trade and an ode to the Windrush generation.

    The World Reimagined has sited 103 unique Globes across the 10 trails in 7 host cities across the UK – Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London and Swansea. All the trails will be connected to a digital platform that enables visitors to explore the collection and the history it reflects.

    The Peel Street globe is entitled Like The Sun and was created by Felix ‘FLX’ Braun, a Bristol-based a contemporary fine artist and muralist

    The site of the globe.
    © OpenStreetMap contributors

    The Bristol trail is handily shown on a map by The World Reimagined on which the globe installations are termed ‘Learning Globes‘.

    Bristol trail
    Click on image for full-sized map

  • DuckDuckGo blocks Microsoft trackers

    Steve WoodsPrivacy, Security, Tech

    French IT news site Le Monde Informatique reports that DuckDuckGo has decided to block Microsoft’s trackers in its mobile browser applications and browser plug-ins in an effort to extend its approach to privacy protection. It had already been criticised at the start of the year on the matter.

    Screenshot of DuckDuckGo search engine

    Protecting internet users from tracking and protecting their anonymity is not simple. DuckDuckGo is part of this move and was very upset to find out that as part of its agreement with the Bing search engine, Microsoft had given the green light for user tracking. This is no longer the case since from that date onwards DuckDuckGo’s CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, has stated that blocking the loading of scripts on websites by the browser was extended to Microsoft’s scripts in DuckDuckGo browser applications for iOS and Android and browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and Opera) and that beta applications will follow next month.

    DuckDuckGo is attempting to block tracking scripts from search engines and sites such as Facebook, as well as other types of tracking scripts or software. It uses what it calls third-party tracking loading protection to prevent these third-party scripts or cookies from being loaded into the browser. If they did, they could track movements on the web and build a profile of the user, their preferences, etc. If other browsers and browser plug-ins also enable users to protect their privacy, DuckDuckGo has made privacy its priority.

    Delayed neutralising

    Mr Weinburg’s decision was taken after the discovery at the start of the year by security researcher Zach Edwards that DuckDuckGo was blocking trackers from Google and Facebook, but was allowing some of Microsoft’s trackers via Linkedin and Bing. The discovery was then reported by BleepingComputer. “Previously, we were limited in how we could apply our third-party tracker download protection to Microsoft tracking scripts due to policy requirements related to our use of Bing as the source of our private search results,” Weinberg explained, adding that, “We’re glad that’s no longer the case. We didn’t have and don’t have similar restrictions with any other company.”

    DuckDuckGo still has an advertising relationship with Microsoft, which it will maintain. Clicking through on advertisements on DuckDuckGo is anonymous and Microsoft has undertaken not to profile DuckDuckGo users. If Microsoft continues to save the user’s link, it will not associate them with a profile. On an updated support page, DuckDuckGo has provided a summary of everything which its its browser authorises and does not authorise, as well as providing details of web tracking protection.

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