Reading about a possible anti texting while driving in today’s Digitel leads me to put fingers to keyboard here.

I’ve long felt that not only are there too many distractions for drivers these days, but that too many drivers simply don’t take driving seriously enough.

It’s potentially a lethal weapon in careless hands, and one reason just about everywhere in the world a driving test of some kind is required before one is allowed a license to drive, first.

Apparently, lawmakers are concerned over two main issues.

The first is that any new law is almost certainly to infringe on the individual’s civil liberties. While I would agree that there are already many petty rules and regulations that do just this, those that text and drive are not only putting their own safety, and indeed life, at risk but the safety and life of those around them – both other drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. You want to increase your own chances of dying in a wreck by not wearing a seat belt, go right ahead; you know the risks. Texting-while-driving is different for  the reasons stated above. If so many people can’t be responsible drivers then legislation is probably the only way to attempt to make them drop this dangerous practice.

The second issue is that it would be hard to enforce. There is some truth in this, as has been seen in the UK. Texting while driving (and even talking on a non-hands free cellphone) has been illegal for a half dozen years or so now, and yet people still do it.

The fines have been increased as have the number of penalty points on the license, and it has had some effect.

It’s often teenagers, who have less driving experience, and less speed/distance pereception, that are performing this dangerous practice the most.

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

Still, do we not pass other laws because they might be difficult to enforce? It can be difficult to track down a murderer or a rapist. The drug laws in most countries are quite ineffective, but there are still laws against murder, rape, and drug taking.

The sooner that the message is pushed out there to everyone, that texting and driving is as bad as drinking and driving, the more chance we have of reducing its occurrence.

People still drink and drive, but it’s arguably not nearly as prevalent as it was years ago, when there were no real DUI laws in place.

Texting & Driving Ban is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

Well, go then! If you and your colleagues hadn’t been so greedy over the last few years at least, and taken all the money you did, while running the banking industry worldwide into the ground, then none of us would be in this mess now.

The Royal Bank of Scotland was so badly mis-managed that the UK Government felt necessary to take a 70% stake in the bank (and a 43% one in Lloyds).

Now, those at the top are customarily paid huge bonuses based on performance. However, with so much money owed to the taxpayer (remember that the Government doesn’t have any money of it’s own), is it right and proper that these executives should be paid up to £1.5billion in these bonuses this year. This is some 50% more than last year.

The old cry is always that if we don’t overfeed these leeches at the top of the pile, they’ll leave and go elsewhere.

Some have reportedly been advised to resign.

I am still amazed that very few of these executives have faced legal proceedings. Bernard Madoff might have systematically ripped off his ‘investors’ for a number of years, but the average bank all the way down to High Street level has been doing the same thing for many years too.

While Lord Mandelson has pointed out that the Government doesn’t run RBS, it’s board and management does, that surely doesn’t give the board and management the right to award themselves such huge sums of money, when almost three quarters of their business is being propped up by the Government.

Heck, if, as a small businessman, had a bridging loan from one of these banks, and decided to use my profits to pay out extra to myself and my staff, instead of paying the loan back, they’d have me in court before I could say ‘bailout’

As for those that scream about Government control, I quite agree that Government needs to stay out of business as much as possible. However, Government surely has a responsibility to formulate and prosecute laws that ensure that people aren’t ripped off, especially, when it’s our money

So, you greedy bastards, pay back your debts first, before you start spending other peoples money lining your own pockets yet again, as you’ve already done to excess in the past.

RBS Bosses May Quit is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

My first thought at hearing that Rupert Murdoch was considering pulling his news sites from Google’s news servers was ‘Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish’.

I have had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal’s daily podcast at Audible.com for a few years, but I’m watching closely to see how the content changes since News Corporation took over.

I don’t like the way News Corporation manipulates the news. In a quest to keep up viewing figures and newspaper circulation they target much of their output at the lowest quality end. Trashy tabloid titbits, and sensationalist soundbites does not make for decent news material in my view.

Much of News Corporation’s output is full of political bias and partisan politics too. That, I have always felt is an insult. I want to be given news, and facts, that I can go on to form my own judgment about. I don’t need or want to be given news with any particular slant. I realize that Murdoch likes to appeal to the right-wing nutjobs, but I am not one of those. I’m also not a bleeding heart liberal, and would (and do) complain about biased output in that direction too.

Still, if Murdoch is able to use his wealth to manipulate the Internet and screw it up like he has with traditional media, then the outlook for fair and unbiased, quality news is bleak.

Murdoch & Google is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

U.S. Attorney General says too early to say whether Somali pirates would be tried in the U.S. if they are captured.

Why not just make them walk the plank?

Both sides can surely play at the pirate game?

Pirates! is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

As Mona says in her article at Pixelbits, Facebook can now do whatever they want to with whatever you post on their site, even after you have left.

Now today, I’ve seen lots of indignant words going back and forth over this issue, on Twitter, and Friendfeed, and in numerous blogs.

Now, whilst I’m not saying that everyone should simply roll over and let Facebook run over them; will our protests about the change to their TOS really cause any change to their change?

I think not, any more than all the protests that went on about the ‘old’ interface. There are approaching 200 million users on Facebook now, and I think it’s true, that for Facebook, there’s safety in numbers.

Heck however, much us geeks, nerds, and online activist types shout about it, most people aren’t even going to read about it, and most that do won’t understand the implications, or even care about it anyway.

I’m am NOT using this as an excuse for inaction at all, but once again, there is that big wall. The wall of Apathy that blights everything that happens on earth.

That’s the real enemy.

The Facebook TOS Issue & The Real Enemy is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

Do you consider yourself on the right, or the left?

Are you a progressive or a conservative?

Democrat or Republican?

I’m none of those.

Allow me to digress a moment. I hate crowds. Ask my wife. I dislike being in a crowded mall, or in any huge crowds of people. I’m not claustrophobic, I just get impatient with not being able to make progress to where I want to get to, and often with all the noise about something I’m not enthusiastic about.

You see, I don’t care if I’m in a group of 1,000 that are all supporting Idea X. If I don’t like Idea X, I’m not going to cheer for it.

I’m not going to go see a movie that most of the world thinks is the greatest ever, if it doesn’t appeal to me.

I’m not going to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, even though I am ’supposed’ to because I don’t like turkey.

I am not going to put myself into any one political group either. I hate partisan politics. I hate the way that some folks will trash anything and everything that the Democrats do, simply because they always side with the GOP. Oh, and vice versa too!

No one group ever has the right ideas and policies for everything. Why can’t folks take a good hard look at an issue, and then come forward with some unpartisan ideas of their own, instead of wasting all their energy simply slamming the other side, imply because the other side thought of it?

A current example is the Stimulus bills or bailouts. Heck, the previous Bush administration started it, and it all went through with barely a whimper – give money to the Wall Street Bozos that have FAILED the American people in a bug way, but then, once the administration changes, condemn any further idea of bailout as wrong.

Labels again -  now it’s Marxist, Communist, Socialist etc. All soundbytes really, as the majority of folks in the USA have never had a true experience of any of those things, and in any case, what the current administration is proposing is far from Communism, Socialism or Marxism.

It’s all down to these labels though. It’s like bumper sticker mentality, but an exclusive one. Whereas I might have a sticker that says I support a charity, that doesn’t mean I exclude other charities or causes, it simply means I want to promote this particular one, right now.

But the divisive partisan labels you see, are mostly negative. They don’t say that supporting any political view is good, but simply trash every other view except theirs.

There are whole twitter groups now, where the members twitter about politics, but not promoting their ideas, just condemming everything that their group or party hasn’t thought of.

Of course this is nothing new, but I’ve always gone through life looking at the glass being half full, not half empty.

It’s sad to see such negativity. Anyway, the last General Election was a vote for a change in the way things are done. The last eight years haven’t been any kind of spectacular success.

Why can’t people move forward together, and work in a constructive manner, instead of throwing negative junk around all the time, that benefits no-one?

Silly Partisan Labels is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

I like Open Source. I don’t like Proprietary solutions.

That’s a pretty sweeping statement to make, I know, but that’s my general take on things.

Not just computers you understand. Anything. I don’t want to be tied down to one manufacturer for anything if I can help it.

In many cases manufacturers work together to develop open standards. Ok, we get rival groups – Betamax vs VHS; HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray are two that spring to mind for example. There have been many other cases through history. One solution almost always wins out in the end.

It’s not always technically the best solution either. I remember back in the days of those Video tape format wars, there was, in Europe and the UK at least, another format. Philips released a number of formats, and the one I tried for a while was Philips 2000. The tapes were up to four hours long per side. Per side you say? Yes per side, as like an audio cassette, you played one side, and then turned the tape over, and re-inserted it, and played the other side. There was dynamic tracking too, so none of that messing around with tracking buttons like you had with VHS. Actually Sony’s Betamax was arguably better than JVC’s VHS, but VHS won through because of better marketing. Philips have often come to market with some great ideas, but their marketing tends to suck.

It’s one of the reasons why Microsoft is so successful. Not that they have the best products. You can hardly call innovative either.  They tend to copy or buy out other companies ideas and solutions. Lotus 1-2-3 was a far better product than Excel, but Excel became market leader simply because it ran better on Windows that Lotus’ spreadsheet. Same goes for Word over Wordperfect. Of course one they become ‘industry standards’ then most folks learn these applicaiton and become proficient in them so they can get a job working with them.  By and large, being proficient in 1-2-3 or Wordperfect isn’t going to impress many interviewers these days.

However, the thing that makes me mad is the way that Microsoft want it all their own way. Not only do they want you to buy their lacklustre Operating Systems (which are popular because they’re bundled on most computers on sale at retail outlets); not only do they want you to use MS-Office products (which are also often bundled on computers for sale to consumers at retail outlets), but they change the file formats that these applications  output, so that  everyone you send them to, will also have to go out and buy the latest copy. It might be a way to generate sales, but it sucks.

If you use MS-Office at home, why should you have to spend $100+ on upgrades to do this, if you’ve got a perfectly functioning copy of  Office 2003 or even 2002, simply to read a new file format? What extra wonderful functionality is in that new .docx format, that I can’t live without anyway?

OpenOffice got ISO9002 certification for their .odt format, but that wasn’t good enough for Microsoft, they sulk and pout becuase they want .docx to have that too. Hang on a minute, you can’t have two standards.

We have a similar issue of course with Internet Explorer. The lousy security aside,  why do Microsoft sit down at the W3C  table, agree to be part of the standards, and then go off and only implement the bits they feel that they want to?

It’s like Microsoft says OK, lets sit down and see what everyone else is doing. Right, we don’t much like that, and as we’re the biggest in the world, we don’t really give a crap, as we’re going to do our own thing, because everyone will buy our product anyway, whether it’s to an agreed standard or not, because we’re THE standard. Such arrogance.

I’ve no problem with Microsoft being a huge wealthy company. I’ve no problem with sucess. I do have a problem with arrogrance, bullying, and treating everyone else with contempt to get there and remain there though.

Eventually of course, everyone gets ticked off with arrogant bullies, and they get taken down a peg or two. Every dog has its day. No empire lasts forever, and history has shown that over and over.

One day the sun will set on Microsoft, and I doubt few outside of it’s empire will mourn it’s passing.

Open Source, Standards, and Empires is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

So the noise at Facebook today is all about breasts.

It’s hardly a new issue, and it’s on I’ve seen raised on various occasions both sides of the Atlantic.

Here’s my take on it.

1. Facebook can do as they like with their web site. If they decide they don’t want you to wear green in any photos, and they’ll instantly ban anyone that does, they can do that. They have the right to do whatever they wish. It might well not be good business sense, and the example I used was a somewhat (but purposely) silly one, but it’s their site.

On the other hand, if the reason that Facebook has removed the photos of breast-feeding mothers, and ordered them not to re-uploaded under threat of banishment, because some other users complained, then those complainers need to go and do something useful, or be the ones to leave Facebook, and Facebook needs to run its site how it wants to, and not under pressure from a few prudes.

If I were one of the mothers concerned, I wouldn’t be setting up another Facebook group to complain. No siree. I’d just quit Facebook, and email all my friends why, and give them a new address.

I have a Facebook account, but it’s very much a secondary thing. The reason I have a blog like this, is that I can post almost anything I like in here.

If I want to post photos of myself sitting naked up a tree with a rose up my butt, I’m free to do so. It’s OK, don’t worry, I don’t have any roses to hand right now.

Seriously, though, I am never ceased to be amazed by the obsession that people seem to have with body parts.

What I cannot ever understand is that is ok for many many people the world over (this isn’t peculiar to Americans, or the British for example) to watch sanatized gratuitous violence on the TV every night.

No one much bats an eyelid when 5 and 6 year olds run around playing at shooting each other.

No one bats an eyelid when kids have as role-models actors that play violent scenes in movies – killing everyone in sight but never getting more than covered in everyone else’s blood, and perhaps some shrapnel in the leg that makes it harder to run, and more likely that they will get killed (but never do).

Kids grow up thinking that violence is cool becuase it doesn’t really hurt. Of course, nothing is futher from the truth in the real world.

On the other hand, if someone dares utter a naughty word on network TV, as did Joe Scarborough on his morning show, or someone deliberately (or not) shows a nipple on  Prime Time, like Janet Jackson did, all hell breaks loose and the networks are fined huge amounts in many cases.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we have profanity and nudity all over the TV for family viewing, but why do we ignore the violence (even if it is acted), but make so must fuss about our own bodies?

Again, if a girl was on Facebook, provocatively showing her breasts in a sexual manner, I can understand, but they were feeding their babies. What the heck is wrong with that?

Oh and the ‘kids’ angle won’t work either. Heck, I’m sure some adults are grossed out, because THEIR parents made it out to be that way. If my kid asked I’d simply say that the lady was feeding her baby, just like mommy fed you when you were that size.

I truly feel that if you’re grossed out by the sight of a woman breast feeding you need to get a life. If you’re that bothered about it, that you also have to waste other people’s time by complaining about it, then you really need to get a life.

Heck, why did I spend time writing about this issue anyway? Perhaps I need to get a life too.

Keeping Abreast Of Facebook is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

I was reading over at How To Split An Atom how some therapists would like to classify Internet addiction as a clinical disorder.

How much is an addiction? Four hours apparently (outside of whatever online time you do for work).

Myself I think this is nonsense. Perhaps if you spend 4 hours doing one single thing every single night, it could be considered an addiction, but there is so much to do online, from reading, listening to music, to blogging, researching for personal interest, and so on.

Anyway, what about television? If being sat at the computer for fours hours in your spare time is an addiction, then sat in front of the TV for that time is surely one as well? I don’t hear any proposals to treat people for TV addiction, and many spend more than 4 hours each evening watching it.

That’s the thing too. I am one of the few people that doesn’t watch TV. Seldom. Perhaps an hour or two a month, that’s about it. Occasionally a few hours more, it’s the exception rather than the rule. I don’t know how little time it really is, as I’ve never keep a log, but I often go weeks without watching a single thing. Now, that is considered odd by many – that I have no interest in TV. However, if I sit at the computer for the same time instead, I’m addicted to it!

I’ve been sitting here for nearly three hours already this evening, and there was over three hours this morning.

I guess I should finish writing this, and go find a shrink. I’m sure, as they’re probably in league with the drug companies, they can find a pill for me to take to stop me sitting here.

Internet Addiction To Be Classified As A Disorder? is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

I’ve not seen it myself. Nope. Then again, the last time I watched TV was to see McCain and Obama give their speeches on election night.

One of the reasons I don’t watch network TV is the annoying number of ads, rather than the number of annoying ads. I fully realize that it’s the advertising the generates the revenue for the networks, but unlike online advertising, which you can usually ignore, and which in any case, tends to be contextual, rather than, as in the case of television advertising, completely irrelevant to the content.

I’m good at skim reading and I’m pretty good in general at skimming past anything that doesn’t interest me, and that I don’t need to know. On the occasions that I do watch television, I find I simply don’t remember advertisments. I do get annoyed that the program I am trying to watch is interrupted every 6-7 minutes with a multitude of junk food ads or about pills you should take after a lifetime of eating the aforementioned junk food, but I can’t remember for the most part what the actual products are, as I don’t take pills unless I really have to, and almost never eat junk food as I don’t like it.

Still, what I don’t understand is how some folks get so animated about a 30 second ad, when much of the programming itself leaves a lot to be desired!

That Toyota Ad is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog