Unfortunately the aftermath of yesterday's Leveson Report is not pretty for liberals, regardless of which way you see the debate. On one side you have those that seem to align with libertarianism, who see Cameron's instant (and solitary) statement that "statutory regulation" is not an option as the right call for our liberties, in turn putting the rights of a select few individuals ahead of the rest of the public for little reason other than a vague principle of "freedom of the press" that Leveson's proposals must surely break.
Then you have the side that perhaps are more socially liberal who feel that the rights of those people that have their lives or reputations destroyed because of the lack of ethics in the press need to have some balance versus the obviously vital need for an independent press to hold our government to account, and side more with Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband in their calls for swift implementation of the core proposals with regards to regulation of the press.
But what is the regulation that is being suggested? If you want a perhaps shorter version of what I'm about to write, check out this fine post, otherwise read on.
Leveson is trying to create robust suggestions for a self-regulatory system that must, to be effective, include all the main players in the press industry.
Right off the bat it's important to see here that Leveson is not suggesting that there is compulsion upon the industry to join a regulator. This is completely different from, say, the energy market where being a provider of energy means that you are under the scope of OFGEM, for example.
Leveson used a turn of phrase at the end of his press conference, that this is about "guarding the guardians", probably from themselves as much as anything else right now...and the comparison is apt. While OFGEM or OFCOM watch their respective industries, the system Leveson wants here will be one that comes from within.
So Leveson wants a body with an "independent board" that will oversee the industry. It needs to be mostly independent, the reason for this illustrated quite clearly by the failings of the PCC where, as the Leveson report highlights, editors weren't keen on punishing each other and a culture brewed of simply not investigating issues brought before them.
Without a mainly independent component, all we will have is a PCC that keeps getting beaten down and forces true state regulation to be required, with a clear battle-line drawn between a state body and a body that retains all of the vested interests and corrupt practices the PCC has shown.
Leveson says these independent people need to be appointed in a transparent and independent way. No press people, no press parachuting their buddies in, and certainly no appointing these people in a dark back room somewhere. This is primarily about trust, so that the public know that those looking after the industry are doing so without the inherent bias and vested interests we have come to know and loathe.
He also believes that initially the chair is selected by an independent body, a body that is free from influence by the press, by political parties.
This is where the libertarian leaning side of the debate find their "light" statutory regulation. Their concern is that as soon as you define the process for finding independent members of a board that the process can be abused. This is why, however, the light regulation is needed. Barring current editors and current politicians from the board ensures that the panel is, at it's start, free from direct influence on either side.
While careful scrutiny will have to be had at the legislation that dictates the need for this independent process, it is hard to argue that if a truly open and transparent process is put in to legislation that the press will simply roll over and not scrutinise the process as it is used!
Leveson even wants to make sure that "we can't afford it" isn't an argument for the press, and suggests that public money can go towards the formation of this body. It is, after all, for the public good.
It's here where "regulatory control" finishes. The body may be required to have a standards code, but the board...now independently selected with a broad mix of independent participants and those experienced in the industry...will have control on defining that, within some specific guidelines. These guidelines are regarding privacy, accuracy, public interest, freedom of speech and individual rights. It's important to recognise Leveson isn't stating that certain codes of conduct and standards must be accepted by being enshrined in law, only that the document must consider those elements.
The purpose of this is purely to ensure that there is public confidence in the body, in the press, and to have a clear definition...self-defined by the body...of what those various things mean to the industry.
Leveson welcomes that an advisory body, as suggested by the current PCC chair, is something that may be needed to ensure that those in control of the newspapers have proper input as to the standards they should adhere to. Of course all of this is also about public trust, so it is sensible to say that it's appropriate for this standards code to be open to consultation.
Leveson then moves on to what should be expected of the members of the regulatory body, the newspapers that will be self-regulated. For a start the organisations should have a clear governance framework that details how they will adhere to the standards code, and be required to be forthcoming about breaches in the code it discovers and how it is dealing with it.
This obviously reflects the issues with phone hacking, and how the culture at the papers, ignored by the PCC, was to simply wash over it with a "everyone does it" implicit acceptance. The intention is to make it harder for organisations to get away with gross breaches of their industrys own code of ethics.
Importantly Leveson sees the board as a "last stop" for complaints. While the PCC may have been the only (scant) resource for some to get serious complaints addressed from outside of a legal challenge, Leveson wants individual organisations to make a (speedy) complaints procedure transparent to people. He clearly feels that the importance is on newspapers individually being able to rectify their own mistakes and to treat issues at the appropriate level.
Then we move on to complaints to the regulatory body. Away from the current situation where a limited scope of people can apply to complain to the PCC, the idea is that the board can decide who they take complaints from and should consider all complaints. They can throw them out if they don't meet certain criteria, but they should be responsive to anyone with a legitimate complaint, and without cost to the complainant.
The suggestion here is that the board may not be adequately equipped to make a fully informed decision on such complaints, and Leveson (as he regularly does) says the body can set up it's structures as it wishes, but does say that any such structure must not have the conflict of interest currently built in to the PCC model, which is primarily that editors of papers have no place deciding on the credibility of complaints.
On top of this, where an investigation is needed, the regulator needs to be protected to conduct those investigations as they see fit, without such processes that allow editors to bog down complaints with appeal after appeal. This is, after all, a regulator proposal, and it'd be ridiculous to have a regulator who lacked the authority to conduct itself!
When dealing with the outcome of these complaints it's important to move away from the current situation also, one of people fighting an uphill battle to have their complaint recognised properly even if it is upheld. One of the main criticisms of papers making errors in their own standards is that no-one ever sees that they've done wrong.
Leveson starts out to rectify this by saying there should be a requirement for a register of sorts, to have a publicly accessible list of complaints and their outcomes maintained by the regulator. He stops short of going further, in deciding there should be legislation that dictates how apologies should be dealt out. While he wants to ensure scope is extended so that there doesn't have to be an identifiable person wronged for an apology to be required by the body, he leaves it to the body and the industry to work out what an appropriate standard of apology would be.
Obviously, we would all prefer that misleading errors in fact on migration figures, on the front page, were corrected with apology on the front page too. While I doubt we'd ever see a regulatory body getting that on the books, at least with an independent body there is more chance of such apologies being harder to miss than they are currently under a PCC that cares more for the paper than the wronged individual when it comes to printing apologies.
Also in legislation Leveson recommends capping the amount that a regulatory body can fine those who breach the standards code. 1% of turnover, or £1mil, whichever is lowest. This may mean more scope for putting fines on to papers that misbehave, but it also puts some form of protection in for the industry against unreasonable financial penalties that an independent body may, for whatever reason, try to impose.
Now...let's pay careful attention to this, as it's important to the "freedom of the press" issue. Leveson is stating that one of the key things that the regulatory body must NOT be able to do, is prevent publication. They may, as the PCC currently does, request on the behalf of individuals that the press not approach them, but they cannot say what they can or can't put to print.
In fact, through this body the stricter requirements on all involved to be open, transparent and have well defined standards means that, in Leveson's opinion, editors could actually go to the regulatory body to get advice on things they have published within the context of it's own standards. Leveson sees this as potentially very useful to courts in, amongst other things, protecting the freedom of the press by providing context that judges may find useful in, to name a specific example, cases of injunctions.
As with any other similar structure Leveson also wants it to follow standard practice...annual reports for transparency to the public are a must.
An area that Leveson talks about that I believe everyone agrees about, regardless of opinion on the issue of statutory regulation, is the suggestions of an arbitration body. Intended to cut out the need for the press to always go to court to defend itself, and to provide a quick, cheap and effective route for complainants to use.
There is also some recommendation that courts should take in to account the lack of a publisher's membership to a regulatory body when awarding costs to someone that goes to court to make their complaint, even if unsuccessful. Vice versa, if a paper has to pay to defend itself in court when the individual hasn't tried arbitration the court should have the freedom to take that in to account when awarding costs.
To give the whole structure legitimacy there must be some legal "rubber stamping". Where a regulator comes forward, who meets the criteria set out above to do this duty, then someone has to be responsible for reviewing that criteria and approving it. In this case the job is recommended to OFCOM.
While "bloated" as Cameron may like to say, OFCOM provides the best level of experience for assessing these bodies, with an internationally recognised level of independence in it's job. There is the worry that the chair of OFCOM is Government appointed, but this isn't a real issue. Leveson doesn't rule out the fact that if people don't agree with the OFCOM decision to appoint a regulatory body or not, there is always the court.
Indeed it appears the only reason to appoint the role of recognition body to OFCOM is to ensure that the courts don't get bogged down with administrative issues, in a format they're not equipped to deal with. The courts will always be ultimately responsible, but OFCOM can make the process smoother.
Then, here's the best bit.. if the papers think they're getting an unfair rub, that the "independent" regulator is no longer independent...they can go and organise to join a new regulatory body and get it recognised by OFCOM. There is no requirement for only one regulator (though this is obviously preferable) and it ensures that all involved have to work together for the system to work. If the press don't feel comfortable, then they can change how they are regulated. The government will have zero control over this.
Tinfoil hatters can argue that OFCOM would keep blocking new regulators from being formed, keeping the press locked in, but the press would be able to take the issue to court. The courts would look at the very transparent and clear criteria upon which a regulator can form, and the courts would rule against OFCOM (and therefore the government).
And just in case that wasn't enough, any legislation that passes on this, Leveson suggests should include a very explicit term that the government must uphold the freedom of the press. You can't say fairer than that, as without writing that piece of law out of the books, any part of the industry will be able to use the courts readily should there be even the slightest hint of governmental interference in what they can or cannot publish.
Now, where in all this is there a clear desire to have political influence over the papers, or legislation that cannot be clearly and properly written to shut out such influence? Where in this whole system to papers get locked in to a system that means they are not free to publish what they like, and operate on their own terms (as long as they pay respect to providing standards of conduct in explicit areas of concern)?
I argue that the stance by those seeing any legislation to underpin regulation as too much...as a threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the press are, in this case, paranoid and unfortunately not dealing with the content of the proposals so much as less relevant abstract ideas and beliefs.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Cameron wrong on PCC elections, this wasn't normal
Cameron has suggested that a <15% turnout nationally for the PCC elections is expected for a new position, saying that elections for a first time postion were "always going to be low" in turnout. Let's just look at how history relates to that remark...
In 1979 the first EU Parliament elections took place, with a turn out of 32% held soon after a general election with 76% turnout. This first time national election, for a body that wouldn't actually do anything internally to the UK, managed to attract almost a third of voters, and just under half of the normal voters in a general election.
In 2000 the London Mayor was elected, for the first time, and got a turnout of 34% while only a year later the general election turn out would be less than twice that at 59%.
And then we have another "first time position", the Bristol Mayor, who was elected at the same time as the PCCs were and yet got a 29% turnout, this two years after a general election with a turnout of 65%. Indeed PCC turnout appears to have been higher in Bristol than nationally solely because of the turnout for this other new position!
For the PCC elections to be at such a low turnout is far below being the norm for first time elections for new positions, to be around half the usual popularity for voting for such a new role (with a much greater amount of spoilt ballots) shows that this is not just a "slow start" or similar for a new role, it is a protest by the electorate, and a REJECTION by the people of the UK for a role that has no place in this country.
In 1979 the first EU Parliament elections took place, with a turn out of 32% held soon after a general election with 76% turnout. This first time national election, for a body that wouldn't actually do anything internally to the UK, managed to attract almost a third of voters, and just under half of the normal voters in a general election.
In 2000 the London Mayor was elected, for the first time, and got a turnout of 34% while only a year later the general election turn out would be less than twice that at 59%.
And then we have another "first time position", the Bristol Mayor, who was elected at the same time as the PCCs were and yet got a 29% turnout, this two years after a general election with a turnout of 65%. Indeed PCC turnout appears to have been higher in Bristol than nationally solely because of the turnout for this other new position!
For the PCC elections to be at such a low turnout is far below being the norm for first time elections for new positions, to be around half the usual popularity for voting for such a new role (with a much greater amount of spoilt ballots) shows that this is not just a "slow start" or similar for a new role, it is a protest by the electorate, and a REJECTION by the people of the UK for a role that has no place in this country.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Avon and Somerset PCCs - Variety and choice!
I'm so glad that we have PCC elections coming up. The vast choice of different strategies and policies to choose from, against the array of wide demographics and local constituencies of candidates, will truly shake up the police service for the better.
Take for instance Sue Mounstevens, a woman...if you would believe such a thing, with only 20% of CANDIDATES for PCC roles being women, versus the 30% of women currently actually doing the job of helping to provide strategic direction to police forces!
She's an independent candidate, a magistrate from the Bristol area, and doesn't want politics to interfere with policing. She'll be making sure victims get more support, that offenders are cracked down on, that money is spent efficiently and that there are more police visible in your area! Ultimately she cares about anti-social behaviour, violent crime and burglary (especially against women).
Our next candidate couldn't be more different!
Ken Maddock is the conservative candidate from just outside Bristol. He wants to...and I think the other candidates have missed a trick by not being explicit in this... REDUCE CRIME. I know, right? Revolutionary thinking! He'll do this by having more police visible in your area. He also wants to make sure victims get more support, and that money is spent efficiently.
So we have two candidates there, already a real diversity of choice... one a man, one a woman. Who else? Can we be so lucky as to have even more choice?!
Actually, yes we are that lucky, reader. Meet Pete Levy, the Lib Dem candiate who is from...Bristol! Unlike the other candidates he is younger and has no hair. Also, in line with Lib Dem strategy he used to be a policeman!
Pete wants to reduce crime too, providing victims with more of a voice and more support, focusing on stopping re-offending, and ensuring that policing is visible in rural AND urban locations! He particularly singles out anti-social behaviour, violence against women..and in the "gold star for understandable jargon" award, wants to develop a "multi agency approach to effective integrated offender management"
Take that, Crime.
But wait, before you think our choices can't get any more diverse, there is another candidate! Dr (he's smart!) John Christopher Savage! He sounds like a super-villain, but he's not, he wants to fight crime too.
He's the Labour candidate, coming from the all together different location of Bristol, fighting for more efficient and fair use of funding, while listening to the victims of crime more. The aim from all of this is to reduce crime! Like the Tory candidate he doesn't feel that he needs to explain what his crime fighting priorities will be, probably because it will be ALL THE CRIME.
So there you have it, four candidates, each bringing a completely fresh and new angle to the PCC role. One is a woman, another is bald, one lives just outside of Bristol, and the other really stuck it out at university. Truly it should be easy to align ourselves with one of these people purely on their unique offering and how it aligns with our own priorities, and not to simply vote along party lines as we would in any other election!
Exciting times, I can't wait to see which of the huge variety of directions Avon and Somerset police will be taking.
Take for instance Sue Mounstevens, a woman...if you would believe such a thing, with only 20% of CANDIDATES for PCC roles being women, versus the 30% of women currently actually doing the job of helping to provide strategic direction to police forces!
She's an independent candidate, a magistrate from the Bristol area, and doesn't want politics to interfere with policing. She'll be making sure victims get more support, that offenders are cracked down on, that money is spent efficiently and that there are more police visible in your area! Ultimately she cares about anti-social behaviour, violent crime and burglary (especially against women).
Our next candidate couldn't be more different!
Ken Maddock is the conservative candidate from just outside Bristol. He wants to...and I think the other candidates have missed a trick by not being explicit in this... REDUCE CRIME. I know, right? Revolutionary thinking! He'll do this by having more police visible in your area. He also wants to make sure victims get more support, and that money is spent efficiently.
So we have two candidates there, already a real diversity of choice... one a man, one a woman. Who else? Can we be so lucky as to have even more choice?!
Actually, yes we are that lucky, reader. Meet Pete Levy, the Lib Dem candiate who is from...Bristol! Unlike the other candidates he is younger and has no hair. Also, in line with Lib Dem strategy he used to be a policeman!
Pete wants to reduce crime too, providing victims with more of a voice and more support, focusing on stopping re-offending, and ensuring that policing is visible in rural AND urban locations! He particularly singles out anti-social behaviour, violence against women..and in the "gold star for understandable jargon" award, wants to develop a "multi agency approach to effective integrated offender management"
Take that, Crime.
But wait, before you think our choices can't get any more diverse, there is another candidate! Dr (he's smart!) John Christopher Savage! He sounds like a super-villain, but he's not, he wants to fight crime too.
He's the Labour candidate, coming from the all together different location of Bristol, fighting for more efficient and fair use of funding, while listening to the victims of crime more. The aim from all of this is to reduce crime! Like the Tory candidate he doesn't feel that he needs to explain what his crime fighting priorities will be, probably because it will be ALL THE CRIME.
So there you have it, four candidates, each bringing a completely fresh and new angle to the PCC role. One is a woman, another is bald, one lives just outside of Bristol, and the other really stuck it out at university. Truly it should be easy to align ourselves with one of these people purely on their unique offering and how it aligns with our own priorities, and not to simply vote along party lines as we would in any other election!
Exciting times, I can't wait to see which of the huge variety of directions Avon and Somerset police will be taking.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Windows 8: Day two
OK, so I have slept on it... did Windows 8 really have all those niggles or was I just being apprehensive because of how I'm used to using things? In fact, was it as happy a move in strategy as I said it was yesterday?
Today's interaction with Windows 8 was basically getting it moulded to how I'm going to like to use it, as I did with Windows 7 only less than a month ago. I thought that I had been sensible in my planning. Oh not quite...
Files were installed on to a seperate partition thinking that if the two systems are so compatible, I should be able to run files installed under windows 7 on the windows 8 environment. For the most part, I was correct. Open Office, Filezilla, Winamp, Steam... all they needed was to have a profile set up on the Windows 8 drive.
Adobe on the other hand... ugh. Some programs (Muse, oh my) work fine, but others need a fresh install. The frustrating thing here is that it results in two versions of the same program duplicated on my system. But this is a minor niggle, and only something those with dual booting and a particular desire to save space will come across.
Meanwhile I've been playing more with the start screen. Having set up my messenger app to allow me to connect to facebook (an all around much more immerser and readily available way of keeping in touch with people through the day), I have now snapped it to the side of my second monitor. This has had a very welcome benefit.
(The right hand side is cut off, Photoshop is full screen in my primary right hand monitor)
While a fifth/sixth of the second monitor has this space reserved for messenger now, the rest doesn't revert to the most recent Modern UI app that I had open every time I click on a desktop app. Indeed, this means I can now have the desktop show in the larger portion of the second monitor!
This is almost perfect. If I want to get involved with any start screen apps it's a simple swipe/drag across the screen to make the small panel in to a large one, then by hovering in the top left of my screen I can cycle through all open apps by clicking.
Now. This isn't ideal; It'd be great if I could go back to the start screen but only within the portion of the screen reserved for the Modern UI, and there MUST be a better way to choose what app I want to switch to. For a start I don't see why hovering in the top left shouldn't make the small rectangle previews spread out along the left or top of the screen. Currently you can get the same effect, but it's a fiddly action of going to the top left and dragging your mouse downwards. Why make it two movements, Microsoft? Why the needless complexity?
But all this aside, suddenly the issue yesterday of having an almost redundant second deskop screen is solved! With there almost certainly being an app that people will happily have residing in the small column space, most "power users" must have very little to complain about now. At least that is my opinion as someone that has been using windows environments since Windows 3.1.
Sure, the start menu isn't there, but I still contest that such a change is very much pointless. If I hit the start button on my keyboard the startscreen pops up, I immediately start typing to find the application I want and... voila. If this is too much (tapping, and typing) then why not do what you would have done on Windows 7/Vista/XP anyway and put the application you want on your task bar, or as a shorcut on your desktop. You can do this here too, obviously, and so nothing is ever more than 3 clicks away, if you don't want it to be.
Of course, this is my view as a dual screen user. It's clearly a better experience with two monitors...but I'm not sure the "burden" of switching between contexts really exists when you get used to the concept even on one screen.
So if anything my opinion has improved over the last 24 hours...but it doesn't forgive the niggles that still exist. Being in the windows store and not having an easy and obvious option to go back to the home page of the store is frustrating. Even more frustrating is being able to search for apps by starting to type if you're on this home page, but not if you're in a search results page. Why the change in functionality, Microsoft?
As ever, it's going to be the small and needless poor choices that Microsoft have made that stop Windows 8 being even remotely accepted as a "Mac beater", if it ever had that chance in the first place. Here's hoping that some revisions and updates will be made soon!
Today's interaction with Windows 8 was basically getting it moulded to how I'm going to like to use it, as I did with Windows 7 only less than a month ago. I thought that I had been sensible in my planning. Oh not quite...
Files were installed on to a seperate partition thinking that if the two systems are so compatible, I should be able to run files installed under windows 7 on the windows 8 environment. For the most part, I was correct. Open Office, Filezilla, Winamp, Steam... all they needed was to have a profile set up on the Windows 8 drive.
Adobe on the other hand... ugh. Some programs (Muse, oh my) work fine, but others need a fresh install. The frustrating thing here is that it results in two versions of the same program duplicated on my system. But this is a minor niggle, and only something those with dual booting and a particular desire to save space will come across.
Meanwhile I've been playing more with the start screen. Having set up my messenger app to allow me to connect to facebook (an all around much more immerser and readily available way of keeping in touch with people through the day), I have now snapped it to the side of my second monitor. This has had a very welcome benefit.
(The right hand side is cut off, Photoshop is full screen in my primary right hand monitor)
While a fifth/sixth of the second monitor has this space reserved for messenger now, the rest doesn't revert to the most recent Modern UI app that I had open every time I click on a desktop app. Indeed, this means I can now have the desktop show in the larger portion of the second monitor!
This is almost perfect. If I want to get involved with any start screen apps it's a simple swipe/drag across the screen to make the small panel in to a large one, then by hovering in the top left of my screen I can cycle through all open apps by clicking.
Now. This isn't ideal; It'd be great if I could go back to the start screen but only within the portion of the screen reserved for the Modern UI, and there MUST be a better way to choose what app I want to switch to. For a start I don't see why hovering in the top left shouldn't make the small rectangle previews spread out along the left or top of the screen. Currently you can get the same effect, but it's a fiddly action of going to the top left and dragging your mouse downwards. Why make it two movements, Microsoft? Why the needless complexity?
But all this aside, suddenly the issue yesterday of having an almost redundant second deskop screen is solved! With there almost certainly being an app that people will happily have residing in the small column space, most "power users" must have very little to complain about now. At least that is my opinion as someone that has been using windows environments since Windows 3.1.
Sure, the start menu isn't there, but I still contest that such a change is very much pointless. If I hit the start button on my keyboard the startscreen pops up, I immediately start typing to find the application I want and... voila. If this is too much (tapping, and typing) then why not do what you would have done on Windows 7/Vista/XP anyway and put the application you want on your task bar, or as a shorcut on your desktop. You can do this here too, obviously, and so nothing is ever more than 3 clicks away, if you don't want it to be.
Of course, this is my view as a dual screen user. It's clearly a better experience with two monitors...but I'm not sure the "burden" of switching between contexts really exists when you get used to the concept even on one screen.
So if anything my opinion has improved over the last 24 hours...but it doesn't forgive the niggles that still exist. Being in the windows store and not having an easy and obvious option to go back to the home page of the store is frustrating. Even more frustrating is being able to search for apps by starting to type if you're on this home page, but not if you're in a search results page. Why the change in functionality, Microsoft?
As ever, it's going to be the small and needless poor choices that Microsoft have made that stop Windows 8 being even remotely accepted as a "Mac beater", if it ever had that chance in the first place. Here's hoping that some revisions and updates will be made soon!
Monday, October 29, 2012
Windows 8: First impressions
So... I didn't type my postcode in correctly? Huh? Oh... I have to put a space in the middle of it. Great.
This is, unfortunately, a sign of things to come with my first few hours foray in to the new Windows 8 system. Not of ground breaking issues that are going to cripple my ability to operate the computer, but idiotic niggles that aren't telegraphed properly...the sign of lots of thinking but not enough user testing with those unfamiliar with the system.
Starting with a tool to work out how compatible my new Windows 7 machine is, it's clear that the trend of making things super easy to carry out continues unabated; in it's overly-simplistic path cutting out the ease of doing things in the way that lets you maintain your system as you wish.
Not wishing to just upgrade my machine, but to keep the system "dual booted" so I can go back to windows 7 if I need to, the process was something I had to search out. The easy option of installing straight from a download would have ruined my plan to have the operating systems co-existing.
But once I got there the install process was a breeze, and it wasn't long before I was eased in to the new system. But then came the first sign of worries to come, during the install the repeated message of "move your mouse to the corners" was played, to signify that something would happen if you did.
Is this what Microsoft is relying on to deal with informing people of what is actually quite a fundamental shift in their user experience? It turns out, unfortunately, that it is. Those that most need this advice screen are, surely, the sort of people that will get people like me to install Windows 8 on their machine...or will buy it pre-installed from a generic PC selling store. Yet if they start their machine up for the first time with the OS installed, they don't get that prompt again. They are dumped in to a "start screen" and left unceremoniously with no advice on where to go.
Now...this isn't new. Windows XP, Vista, 7... they all left people with a screen and no instruction. However they did have a big (very big in Vista) start button. It invited you to click, and when you did there was a host of information for you to quickly learn. It was a step by step process to ease you in to the basic functions of the OS.
With Windows 8 and it's "Modern UI", previously called Metro UI, you get no such instruction. It's got pre-installed "apps" on the screen ready to click around, but even then that journey only leads you deeper in to the thorny shrubs of poor user experience.
If it sounds like I'm getting overly down on Windows 8, perhaps now I should say that this is all transitional. The fact is that with a bit of a web search, some help from a IT savvy friend or family member, or just some good old fashioned thrashing around with the mouse, you will find out how to work this system. Once you do...you'll be fine.
If you want to go to the start screen (Hey...just call it the start menu, it is almost exactly the same in terms of what it is providing you with), then you hover your mouse for a fraction of a second in the bottom left of your screen. Alternatively you can just hit the windows key.
Can't find what you're looking for? Well, be proactive, more than ever you can really customise your "start" experience to help your own productivity. And simply starting to type will search through your apps and programs quickly...pretty much as it did with the windows 7 start menu.
"But where's the shut down option! This is a terrible system, no-one will ever use it now!" seems to be a cry from those that don't understand how user interfaces develop and evolve. Sure, it's nonsense to all of us that have had the "shut down" button right there in front of us...but this is an artefact of the time you got told never to directly shut the PC off. Now? Hitting the power button usually goes through the process of shutting the system down, or...if your preference is different...to put it in to sleep/hibernate. On dozens of phones and tablets the idea of shutting the system down with an on screen command is laughable.
Is it really ridiculous for Microsoft to move in this direction?
Well, no...but it comes back to that original point of how it's a complete mismanagement of people's expectations. It's not unfair, I think, to say the system has been developed with new users in mind, not experienced ones. Maybe we should take that as a compliment, dumped in the deep end with all of our previous experience weighing us down...at least Microsoft seem to think we're intelligent enough to adapt? Maybe not.
In reality there being a whole series of usability niggles throughout this new experience, and that can't be put down to simply catering for a market of new users, since it is they who will be equally as confused by such poor choices, mainly within the new aspects of the operating system.
Not being able to close or back out of an app to the start menu easily just doesn't make sense. In previous windows people will have minimised things, or hit a task bar icon to switch programs. Putting this out of sight puts an extra movement in their process to move between applications. But, of course, on a phone you'd just hit the back button. Silly me.
Sure, you can go to the start screen, but that process involves the same "go to the corner" that minimise used to do...but now you have to wait for it to show, and that's if you've put your mouse in the right position to show it.
This will only take time to master, but the question is whether this little thing is something people should be asked to learn. If the question is "how can we improve people's interaction with their computer" then this cannot be the answer...reverse engineering the only question that could have been asked to get such an interaction is "what's the shortest route we can make to tie touch screen functionality in with a mouse and keyboard experience, without compromising our key aim of 'immersive experiences'"
In short, it feels like decisions have been made with the wrong question in mind, but that they've made the best of that restriction.
There are other niggles too. I use a dual monitor set up, and this greatly enhances the Windows 8 experience...but I have no way of locking the start screen "on" if I want to, something that might really aid productivity. Instead if I use anything on the "desktop", which will be most of my applications for my job of web development, both screens automatically drop to desktop.
Looking at it like it's just an oversizes start menu, the choice here makes sense...but with such rich functionality it seems a shame to not have that be my choice. Especially since that choice doesn't even seem to work! Open an app on the Modern UI and then go back to the start screen. Now click on your desktop on the second screen...oh, we've now gone back to that application.
Again, this could be useful at times...but in other circumstances I may want the flexibility that comes from using the start screen to quickly navigate back and forth from a large number of applications both on desktop and in the Modern UI.
Another specific example of poor choices is their own Windows Store. It works pretty well, don't get me wrong, it feels to me like it may well end up being the best App store of any of the big three operating system providers. But stupid choices get made that take me out of feeling like this is a slick and well developed system.
If I click on the star rating for an application it doesn't do anything when the application isn't installed. My expected reaction? To go to the reviews that provide that rating. Instead, nothing. Now go to an application that you can't install through the store, the same action now provides a rating for the app!
Except now I can't take that rating away. Shit. Better rate it "3" just in case I never get around to using it and influence it's standing. I feel bad now, and completely out of control because I can't take back this mistake, Windows is forcing me to now choose between lying about how I rate the app in order to not negatively influence this person's work, or to just be "fair" and give an average rating to something I'm not sure of.
Add on to this technical choices that just frustrate, such as the inability to grab POP3 mail through the default mail application, and we have layer after layer of small issues that will take a while to get used to.
I have no doubt though that we will get used to it. Those who are "power users" will, I feel, end up putting many of their programs on the task bar in desktop mode, or as shortcuts on their desktop. It takes a matter of minutes to get yourself back in to the way you used windows 7, just without the start menu...and let's be honest with ourselves...which true "power users" actually used the start menu anyway?
Meanwhile the "Energy saving users" will have a quite immersive, albeit imperfect for now, experience that makes it easy to check (non-POP3) mail and catch up on the news, share some of it on Facebook or Twitter and see how the weather is doing. As the type of people that will rarely have more than one window open the switch from desktop to start screen will barely even be registered.
And at the end of it we have the only OS that will offer a seamless experience between the desktop and the mobile, no longer making people feel like they are taking a "cut down" experience on their portable device. I think Microsoft deserve some applause for the bravery in taking such a step, but they also really need to sit down and solve some of these basic issues too, starting perhaps by doing some proper unprompted usability testing and at the very least understanding the need for better instructions for first time Windows 8 users...be they new to PC, or as old as Windows 3.
This is, unfortunately, a sign of things to come with my first few hours foray in to the new Windows 8 system. Not of ground breaking issues that are going to cripple my ability to operate the computer, but idiotic niggles that aren't telegraphed properly...the sign of lots of thinking but not enough user testing with those unfamiliar with the system.
Starting with a tool to work out how compatible my new Windows 7 machine is, it's clear that the trend of making things super easy to carry out continues unabated; in it's overly-simplistic path cutting out the ease of doing things in the way that lets you maintain your system as you wish.
Not wishing to just upgrade my machine, but to keep the system "dual booted" so I can go back to windows 7 if I need to, the process was something I had to search out. The easy option of installing straight from a download would have ruined my plan to have the operating systems co-existing.
But once I got there the install process was a breeze, and it wasn't long before I was eased in to the new system. But then came the first sign of worries to come, during the install the repeated message of "move your mouse to the corners" was played, to signify that something would happen if you did.
Is this what Microsoft is relying on to deal with informing people of what is actually quite a fundamental shift in their user experience? It turns out, unfortunately, that it is. Those that most need this advice screen are, surely, the sort of people that will get people like me to install Windows 8 on their machine...or will buy it pre-installed from a generic PC selling store. Yet if they start their machine up for the first time with the OS installed, they don't get that prompt again. They are dumped in to a "start screen" and left unceremoniously with no advice on where to go.
Now...this isn't new. Windows XP, Vista, 7... they all left people with a screen and no instruction. However they did have a big (very big in Vista) start button. It invited you to click, and when you did there was a host of information for you to quickly learn. It was a step by step process to ease you in to the basic functions of the OS.
With Windows 8 and it's "Modern UI", previously called Metro UI, you get no such instruction. It's got pre-installed "apps" on the screen ready to click around, but even then that journey only leads you deeper in to the thorny shrubs of poor user experience.
If it sounds like I'm getting overly down on Windows 8, perhaps now I should say that this is all transitional. The fact is that with a bit of a web search, some help from a IT savvy friend or family member, or just some good old fashioned thrashing around with the mouse, you will find out how to work this system. Once you do...you'll be fine.
If you want to go to the start screen (Hey...just call it the start menu, it is almost exactly the same in terms of what it is providing you with), then you hover your mouse for a fraction of a second in the bottom left of your screen. Alternatively you can just hit the windows key.
Can't find what you're looking for? Well, be proactive, more than ever you can really customise your "start" experience to help your own productivity. And simply starting to type will search through your apps and programs quickly...pretty much as it did with the windows 7 start menu.
"But where's the shut down option! This is a terrible system, no-one will ever use it now!" seems to be a cry from those that don't understand how user interfaces develop and evolve. Sure, it's nonsense to all of us that have had the "shut down" button right there in front of us...but this is an artefact of the time you got told never to directly shut the PC off. Now? Hitting the power button usually goes through the process of shutting the system down, or...if your preference is different...to put it in to sleep/hibernate. On dozens of phones and tablets the idea of shutting the system down with an on screen command is laughable.
Is it really ridiculous for Microsoft to move in this direction?
Well, no...but it comes back to that original point of how it's a complete mismanagement of people's expectations. It's not unfair, I think, to say the system has been developed with new users in mind, not experienced ones. Maybe we should take that as a compliment, dumped in the deep end with all of our previous experience weighing us down...at least Microsoft seem to think we're intelligent enough to adapt? Maybe not.
In reality there being a whole series of usability niggles throughout this new experience, and that can't be put down to simply catering for a market of new users, since it is they who will be equally as confused by such poor choices, mainly within the new aspects of the operating system.
Not being able to close or back out of an app to the start menu easily just doesn't make sense. In previous windows people will have minimised things, or hit a task bar icon to switch programs. Putting this out of sight puts an extra movement in their process to move between applications. But, of course, on a phone you'd just hit the back button. Silly me.
Sure, you can go to the start screen, but that process involves the same "go to the corner" that minimise used to do...but now you have to wait for it to show, and that's if you've put your mouse in the right position to show it.
This will only take time to master, but the question is whether this little thing is something people should be asked to learn. If the question is "how can we improve people's interaction with their computer" then this cannot be the answer...reverse engineering the only question that could have been asked to get such an interaction is "what's the shortest route we can make to tie touch screen functionality in with a mouse and keyboard experience, without compromising our key aim of 'immersive experiences'"
In short, it feels like decisions have been made with the wrong question in mind, but that they've made the best of that restriction.
There are other niggles too. I use a dual monitor set up, and this greatly enhances the Windows 8 experience...but I have no way of locking the start screen "on" if I want to, something that might really aid productivity. Instead if I use anything on the "desktop", which will be most of my applications for my job of web development, both screens automatically drop to desktop.
Looking at it like it's just an oversizes start menu, the choice here makes sense...but with such rich functionality it seems a shame to not have that be my choice. Especially since that choice doesn't even seem to work! Open an app on the Modern UI and then go back to the start screen. Now click on your desktop on the second screen...oh, we've now gone back to that application.
Again, this could be useful at times...but in other circumstances I may want the flexibility that comes from using the start screen to quickly navigate back and forth from a large number of applications both on desktop and in the Modern UI.
Another specific example of poor choices is their own Windows Store. It works pretty well, don't get me wrong, it feels to me like it may well end up being the best App store of any of the big three operating system providers. But stupid choices get made that take me out of feeling like this is a slick and well developed system.
If I click on the star rating for an application it doesn't do anything when the application isn't installed. My expected reaction? To go to the reviews that provide that rating. Instead, nothing. Now go to an application that you can't install through the store, the same action now provides a rating for the app!
Except now I can't take that rating away. Shit. Better rate it "3" just in case I never get around to using it and influence it's standing. I feel bad now, and completely out of control because I can't take back this mistake, Windows is forcing me to now choose between lying about how I rate the app in order to not negatively influence this person's work, or to just be "fair" and give an average rating to something I'm not sure of.
Add on to this technical choices that just frustrate, such as the inability to grab POP3 mail through the default mail application, and we have layer after layer of small issues that will take a while to get used to.
I have no doubt though that we will get used to it. Those who are "power users" will, I feel, end up putting many of their programs on the task bar in desktop mode, or as shortcuts on their desktop. It takes a matter of minutes to get yourself back in to the way you used windows 7, just without the start menu...and let's be honest with ourselves...which true "power users" actually used the start menu anyway?
Meanwhile the "Energy saving users" will have a quite immersive, albeit imperfect for now, experience that makes it easy to check (non-POP3) mail and catch up on the news, share some of it on Facebook or Twitter and see how the weather is doing. As the type of people that will rarely have more than one window open the switch from desktop to start screen will barely even be registered.
And at the end of it we have the only OS that will offer a seamless experience between the desktop and the mobile, no longer making people feel like they are taking a "cut down" experience on their portable device. I think Microsoft deserve some applause for the bravery in taking such a step, but they also really need to sit down and solve some of these basic issues too, starting perhaps by doing some proper unprompted usability testing and at the very least understanding the need for better instructions for first time Windows 8 users...be they new to PC, or as old as Windows 3.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Why you shouldn't vote for Police and Crime Comissioners
I recently wrote a longer post in response to Stephen Tall that went in to detail as to why I dislike Police and Crime Comissioners as a "democratic" model for police accountability and direction.
But...as usual...it was LOOONG. So let me try and give you a brief explanation of why you should not vote on November the 15th:
Imagine that our parliament, where MPs from all over the country come together to discuss and debate issues on our behalf, and make laws through a democratic system of voting is replaced. Instead, we still elect MPs, but they aren't involved in our law making process. Instead we elect a single president who will make all of the decisions, and have sole responsibility.
Do you support that change, from MPs around the country making laws, to a single person making laws?
If yes, go ahead and keep on voting for your Police and Crime Comissioner with a consistent purpose. If, like most I would imagine, the answer is no...then what are you doing even endorsing such an autocratic change? Don't vote on November 15th!
But...as usual...it was LOOONG. So let me try and give you a brief explanation of why you should not vote on November the 15th:
Imagine that our parliament, where MPs from all over the country come together to discuss and debate issues on our behalf, and make laws through a democratic system of voting is replaced. Instead, we still elect MPs, but they aren't involved in our law making process. Instead we elect a single president who will make all of the decisions, and have sole responsibility.
Do you support that change, from MPs around the country making laws, to a single person making laws?
If yes, go ahead and keep on voting for your Police and Crime Comissioner with a consistent purpose. If, like most I would imagine, the answer is no...then what are you doing even endorsing such an autocratic change? Don't vote on November 15th!
Police and Crime Commissioners: Democracy, how?
Stephen Tall has just posted an article about why he, as a Liberal Democrat, supports Police and Crime commissioners. Unfortunately he focuses on so many logical fallacies to make his point. Let's count:
First, I'd just like to say...at least it's a principled stance. If you're happy for the sham of democracy that is directly elected mayors, then being happy for the sham of democracy that is PCC's makes sense. It's still crazy if you actually care about democracy though....
Boom, instant strawman. Amateur, really? Well then, why do we even have part time representatives at local level, the amateurs! Hell...a third of our parliament have never been an MP before...why do we hand these people such power?!
What I find really interesting about Stephen's argument here is the complete counter-intuitive nature of it. On the one hand Stephen will say here these people are amateurs, that they can't be trusted to de-facto be on the ball when it comes to providing the right direction. Yet on the other, as you will see, he claims that we the public need to be trusted to elect people to do the job.
So which is it Stephen? Are we to trust out local councillors as they have been handed power by people, or to mistrust them as amateurs that don't have a clue about what's going on?
What does this even mean, Stephen? Ham-strung? Responsibility without power?
Let's remember that the local police authorities must:
By comparison, a police and crime commissioner must:
So I guess the sum total of the things that "ham-strung" those local authorities was the need to consider equality and racial diversity, and to actually listen to the public as part of their legal obligations, rather than through political expediency.
For those that don't know, by the way, local police authorities were formed by members of local councils for the area, roughly in line with the political allegiances in the region. This ensured that views from people in Cornwall (for example) were considered alongside views from people in Devon, and that different political priorities were measured up against each other in accordance with the views of the local people. Other "lay" members were also appointed, including magistrates that had real experience of dealing with the outcomes of criminal investigations.
To use my Devon and Cornwall example, the independent members vary from members of boards for charities or schools, to private business people (piano teacher, PR). They are real people like you and I, offering real, direct input from a variety of locations around the region.
Strawman number two, and an appeal to emotion...maybe we should throw ad hominem in there too. Stephen clearly doesn't respect those who oppose the idea, otherwise he wouldn't play on the emotive description like "elitist" or the idea that they are "fearful of too much democracy".
You see now by arguing against Stephen's point, I am an "elitist" and "fearful of democracy"! Drat, sussed out! Or rather not so much, such "bullying" tactics tend to spur people on rather than shut them out...
Strange, I thought liberals were fearful of the person that the general population didn't want to represent them getting the job? Hang on. I remember being told time and time again that it was liberals and their annoying propensity for STV (and the lesser AV) that would have the BNP swarming to power in 2015!
But sure, liberals probably don't want an illiberal in power...goes without saying. Does that mean that they are against this system simply because that could be the end result? That's right, people... STRAWMAN.
Who wouldn't be...
The end, simple as that, and they all lived happily ever after! It's such a "genetic" fallacy, this idea that different applications of democracy cannot be criticised, indeed the flaws of any democratic system simply have to be ignored because...hey...that's democracy for you!
Poppycock.
Unless the voter is voting for a local councillor, of course. They're just amateurs.
Sure, if you want to paint opponents (strawman) of simply being paranoid about evil forces infiltrating our beloved democracy. Thankfully the views of those like me who stand very much against these plans have a little more depth.
Our concerns are rooted in the fact that the police and crime commissioners have LESS duties to maintain the police force in their area, not more; That the very nature of the "democracy" that is electing them threatens to leave entire communities unheard and left to rot in areas of demoralising, but not high-electoral-priority crime; That tying the power to control strategy to a single party, rather than a broadly representative group, lessens the ability to prevent poor planning in the future; That the electorate fundamentally do not understand enough about the nuance of organising the police forces in this country, and therefore being asked to decide between a set of people with broadly the same ideas (less crime, more police, more victim support!) isn't providing democracy to anyone; And that...as with every election of this type...the danger of personality rather than ability becomes to reason that someone gets power. The list, I'm sure, goes on.
Our concerns are far more legitimate and far more important than the not too unreasonable limited views of the tin-foil hat brigade.
It is surely true that they may be watched more. The great tragedy of the police authorities is that it wasn't clear how they were important in shaping the role of the police. Victims, perhaps, of the turn of the century and new ways of communicating, their structure and process was stuck in the mid 1900's style of minuted board meetings and commissioning statistical research.
Oh how easy it would be, how cheap too, to start gaining public opinion in a more effective manner, and to be more transparent in what they do. But no. We shall not try these simple changes, we will throw the baby out with the bath water.
But scrutiny? Accountability? Boris Johnson was just re-elected to London Mayor. Why? Personality. Dislike of Ken. Was it because of what he did? He himself admitted that he had FAILED to deliver his promises. On the campaign trail it was shown that he was lying to the public about what he had achieved. "Crime down" according to boris, when actually it was up...the London Mayor IS the police and crime commissioner for the London Metropolitan area...and we're supposed to believe that scrutiny and accountability means anything?!
Well, when the system is now tailored so that political types can sack chief constables that stand in their way, and appoint a sock-puppet chief constable that'll do their bidding, it's not too high a hope is it?
But just a second... is the option here really black and white? We either have police authorities, regionally representative of the public, with direct public interaction and real experience in crime and punishment, but without any power over the chief constables....or a single unrepresentative individual elected with a huge £100k salary that can sack and appoint chief constables at will?
Of course not, it's an insult to our intelligence that we should sit here and accept this new system because it is a route to ensuring public control of the police, rather than police control of the police. It's one route, yes, but the best route?
Proper appeals to emotion here. Fact: Police and Crime Comissioners will have no operational control over the police. Kettling? These changes make no difference there. Not, of course, unless the PCC decides to sack their chief constable and bring in a more liberal one... but then there you go, that's not the police controlling policing matters, and the public controlling direction and strategy...that's a single elected person controlling a professional to do as they wish. That is, ultimately, corruption.
Hillsborough is a particularly low blow by Stephen. It is clear from the reports so far that there is nothing that any police authority would have been able to do with police simply lying about what went on, asking/intimidating people to falsify reports. A PCC would similarly have no effect on this.
What's the point to bring these issues up? This "reform" won't alter them, but they're being presented as if they are the reason we need Police and Crime Comissioners.
Is it actually a liberal stance now to say "Hell yeah we should have someone who will run a police force like a mob family, and fully politicise operational decisions!"?
This is what people are complaining about when they talk about politicisation of the force...it's not that politics are in place, since the way policing operates will always reflect society and that in itself is political. It's when policing STOPS reflecting society, and starts reflecting an individual, that it is no longer an impartial service.
See above...
Ah, a new logical fallacy for the mix (if you're still counting, keep up!) tu quoque, to add to the ad hominem and strawman.
Our complaint about politicisation is that the public won't be involved when a single person, representing what will ultimately be a small area within a larger one, most likely focused on a very loyal voter-base that need to be nurtured. A single elected individual is extremely unlikely to take a broad range of views on board and treat them all with equal weight, especially when they are elected either through their own biases with a political party, or with the political pressures of the funding that has been given to them to achieve their new found power.
By comparison, police authorities had true scope, they took from all sections of the region, and even directly involved the public from around the region.
How the hell can you have the audacity to stand there and claim that it is we, questioning why a simple and small reform of local police authorities, authorities that already have much tighter democratic legitimacy, and a greater guarantee of minority voices being heard and represented, are the ones that are trying to take the voice of the public away from how the police do their policing?
Based on what, Stephen? What makes you hopeful? The misplaced notion that around a quarter of the country voting between two or more candidates promising pretty much the same thing will suddenly spur on dramatic changes to the way the police do their job?
Except there are no guarantees of that. Even with AMS, we will have regions that may well fall in to the same cycle we have with FPTP, where only one party wins. That's not democratic accountability, it's just inherited autocracy. Transparency? Pah...I point once again to pretty much every vote I've ever seen and the sheer amount of lies and manipulations that are thrown around, completely tricking honest and trusting members of the public.
It's the reason that real liberals will support TRUE democracies, that being bodies of people to collectively represent. The closer you can get to one person one vote on an issue, the more people will be getting what they actually want. Deferring your vote to an individual so that it is one person, all the votes...that's not transparent...there's no debate, there's no discussion. You can't see why that decision has been made or what influenced it.
Anecdotal fallacy. Jersey is a community island of around 100 thousand people, it has a population smaller than some of our smallest cities, on an island with a handful of towns alone. Compare that to Devon and Cornwall where a single person would have to represent 1.65 MILLION people. Comparing how a large town, or a small city, would police itself, to how entire counties, in some cases more than one county, would be directed by a single individual, is an absurd concept.
But take all that aside, so Jersey has a system going that liberals would enjoy. What does that prove? That Jersey perhaps isn't quite as "hang-em" as Stephen seems to think we believe them to be? Great! Does that mean that the rest of the UK will be the same? Maybe, maybe not. Does that matter? No, because the successes and failures of individual areas based on our own perception of what "works" or not is independent of the frailties, risks and weaknesses of the system that still manages to produce any positive results.
And indeed polling would agree, people are vindictive and blood thirsty.
No they won't, at least not to everyone, only to some people, and only on issues that affect them. Got the silver-fox vote sowed up? Well then, show them that hoodies hanging about on street corners and home burglaries are getting priority funding. Never mind the assaults that happen in that area where they don't vote for you, or the car thefts in the other area that doesn't vote at all.
Unless they do a Boris and just massage the figures, or outright lie. Again, they can ignore that crime is rising, as long as their core voters feel crime is falling where they care about it.
More like getting the police to work for them...and there is no mandate for PCCs to care one jot about actually engaging with whole communities if they don't wish to.
We can but hope, because that kind of nation-wide revelation is probably the only thing that can save this flawed idea from cutting large swathes of the public out of how their police are run, and worse cause their relationship with crime to actually get worse as entire communities are ignored in order to help re-election chances.
Here’s the thing: I don’t have a problem with elected police commissioners. I know they were a Tory manifesto idea and that the Lib Dems are opposed to them (while reluctantly agreeing to vote for them as part of the Coalition Agreement). But I’m just fine with them. My support for directly elected police commissioners is paralleled by my support for directly elected mayors:
First, I'd just like to say...at least it's a principled stance. If you're happy for the sham of democracy that is directly elected mayors, then being happy for the sham of democracy that is PCC's makes sense. It's still crazy if you actually care about democracy though....
For too long, city council politics have been in the hands of amateur part-time leaders:
Boom, instant strawman. Amateur, really? Well then, why do we even have part time representatives at local level, the amateurs! Hell...a third of our parliament have never been an MP before...why do we hand these people such power?!
What I find really interesting about Stephen's argument here is the complete counter-intuitive nature of it. On the one hand Stephen will say here these people are amateurs, that they can't be trusted to de-facto be on the ball when it comes to providing the right direction. Yet on the other, as you will see, he claims that we the public need to be trusted to elect people to do the job.
So which is it Stephen? Are we to trust out local councillors as they have been handed power by people, or to mistrust them as amateurs that don't have a clue about what's going on?
some have been very good, some not so good. But all have been ham-strung by a political system that grants them responsibility without power, allows them to be in office but not in government.
What does this even mean, Stephen? Ham-strung? Responsibility without power?
Let's remember that the local police authorities must:
- Set budgets
- Charge money through council tax (if necessary)
- Set the strategy for the police authority area
- Get feedback from local people
- Encourage and nurture diversity and equality
- To deal with complaints
By comparison, a police and crime commissioner must:
- Set budgets
- Charge money through council tax (if necessary)
- Set the strategy for the police authority area
- Hold the chief constable to account (and appoint them)
So I guess the sum total of the things that "ham-strung" those local authorities was the need to consider equality and racial diversity, and to actually listen to the public as part of their legal obligations, rather than through political expediency.
For those that don't know, by the way, local police authorities were formed by members of local councils for the area, roughly in line with the political allegiances in the region. This ensured that views from people in Cornwall (for example) were considered alongside views from people in Devon, and that different political priorities were measured up against each other in accordance with the views of the local people. Other "lay" members were also appointed, including magistrates that had real experience of dealing with the outcomes of criminal investigations.
To use my Devon and Cornwall example, the independent members vary from members of boards for charities or schools, to private business people (piano teacher, PR). They are real people like you and I, offering real, direct input from a variety of locations around the region.
I understand and respect those who oppose the idea and the principle of commissioners, those who cleave to the collectivity of committees known as local police authorities. But it’s an argument that all too often spills over into that least attractive mindset: the elitist liberal fearful of too much democracy.
Strawman number two, and an appeal to emotion...maybe we should throw ad hominem in there too. Stephen clearly doesn't respect those who oppose the idea, otherwise he wouldn't play on the emotive description like "elitist" or the idea that they are "fearful of too much democracy".
You see now by arguing against Stephen's point, I am an "elitist" and "fearful of democracy"! Drat, sussed out! Or rather not so much, such "bullying" tactics tend to spur people on rather than shut them out...
Many liberals are openly fearful of a right-wing hang-em-and-flog-em nut-job winning power.
Strange, I thought liberals were fearful of the person that the general population didn't want to represent them getting the job? Hang on. I remember being told time and time again that it was liberals and their annoying propensity for STV (and the lesser AV) that would have the BNP swarming to power in 2015!
But sure, liberals probably don't want an illiberal in power...goes without saying. Does that mean that they are against this system simply because that could be the end result? That's right, people... STRAWMAN.
I get the concern. Come to that, I’m pretty appalled by the idea of Lord Prescott’s return to public life in Humberside.
Who wouldn't be...
But you know what? That’s democracy for you.
The end, simple as that, and they all lived happily ever after! It's such a "genetic" fallacy, this idea that different applications of democracy cannot be criticised, indeed the flaws of any democratic system simply have to be ignored because...hey...that's democracy for you!
Poppycock.
Campaign in favour of what you want and against what you don’t want. Despair of the electorate’s judgement. But respect the voters’ right to make the wrong decision.
Unless the voter is voting for a local councillor, of course. They're just amateurs.
There are legitimate concerns that vesting a commissioner’s power in just one person might lead to corruption or limit debate.
Sure, if you want to paint opponents (strawman) of simply being paranoid about evil forces infiltrating our beloved democracy. Thankfully the views of those like me who stand very much against these plans have a little more depth.
Our concerns are rooted in the fact that the police and crime commissioners have LESS duties to maintain the police force in their area, not more; That the very nature of the "democracy" that is electing them threatens to leave entire communities unheard and left to rot in areas of demoralising, but not high-electoral-priority crime; That tying the power to control strategy to a single party, rather than a broadly representative group, lessens the ability to prevent poor planning in the future; That the electorate fundamentally do not understand enough about the nuance of organising the police forces in this country, and therefore being asked to decide between a set of people with broadly the same ideas (less crime, more police, more victim support!) isn't providing democracy to anyone; And that...as with every election of this type...the danger of personality rather than ability becomes to reason that someone gets power. The list, I'm sure, goes on.
Our concerns are far more legitimate and far more important than the not too unreasonable limited views of the tin-foil hat brigade.
Such concerns will, I believe, be outweighed by the vast scrutiny and direct, personal accountability that will come with these powers. You can bet their every move will be watched with greater care than is currently focused on the authorities they’re replacing.
It is surely true that they may be watched more. The great tragedy of the police authorities is that it wasn't clear how they were important in shaping the role of the police. Victims, perhaps, of the turn of the century and new ways of communicating, their structure and process was stuck in the mid 1900's style of minuted board meetings and commissioning statistical research.
Oh how easy it would be, how cheap too, to start gaining public opinion in a more effective manner, and to be more transparent in what they do. But no. We shall not try these simple changes, we will throw the baby out with the bath water.
But scrutiny? Accountability? Boris Johnson was just re-elected to London Mayor. Why? Personality. Dislike of Ken. Was it because of what he did? He himself admitted that he had FAILED to deliver his promises. On the campaign trail it was shown that he was lying to the public about what he had achieved. "Crime down" according to boris, when actually it was up...the London Mayor IS the police and crime commissioner for the London Metropolitan area...and we're supposed to believe that scrutiny and accountability means anything?!
Certainly I hope the new system will put a stop to the tendency for committees to be captured by chief constables, for there to be a greater equality in the power dynamic at the top of the force between the professionals and the people’s representatives.
Well, when the system is now tailored so that political types can sack chief constables that stand in their way, and appoint a sock-puppet chief constable that'll do their bidding, it's not too high a hope is it?
But just a second... is the option here really black and white? We either have police authorities, regionally representative of the public, with direct public interaction and real experience in crime and punishment, but without any power over the chief constables....or a single unrepresentative individual elected with a huge £100k salary that can sack and appoint chief constables at will?
Of course not, it's an insult to our intelligence that we should sit here and accept this new system because it is a route to ensuring public control of the police, rather than police control of the police. It's one route, yes, but the best route?
There is one argument with which I have no truck: the mealy-mouthed complaint that elected police commissioners will ‘politicise’ the police. What is policing if not political? Was ‘kettling’ peaceful G20 protesters a non-political act? Was the Hillsborough cover-up something politicians should have ignored?
Proper appeals to emotion here. Fact: Police and Crime Comissioners will have no operational control over the police. Kettling? These changes make no difference there. Not, of course, unless the PCC decides to sack their chief constable and bring in a more liberal one... but then there you go, that's not the police controlling policing matters, and the public controlling direction and strategy...that's a single elected person controlling a professional to do as they wish. That is, ultimately, corruption.
Hillsborough is a particularly low blow by Stephen. It is clear from the reports so far that there is nothing that any police authority would have been able to do with police simply lying about what went on, asking/intimidating people to falsify reports. A PCC would similarly have no effect on this.
What's the point to bring these issues up? This "reform" won't alter them, but they're being presented as if they are the reason we need Police and Crime Comissioners.
Is it actually a liberal stance now to say "Hell yeah we should have someone who will run a police force like a mob family, and fully politicise operational decisions!"?
This is what people are complaining about when they talk about politicisation of the force...it's not that politics are in place, since the way policing operates will always reflect society and that in itself is political. It's when policing STOPS reflecting society, and starts reflecting an individual, that it is no longer an impartial service.
Besides, if policing should truly be non-political, why do those who oppose the new system stick up for local police authorities which have a majority of elected councillors?
See above...
I have the suspicion that the worry of ‘politicisation’ is really code for ‘we’d prefer the public not to be too involved in how they’re policed’.
Ah, a new logical fallacy for the mix (if you're still counting, keep up!) tu quoque, to add to the ad hominem and strawman.
Our complaint about politicisation is that the public won't be involved when a single person, representing what will ultimately be a small area within a larger one, most likely focused on a very loyal voter-base that need to be nurtured. A single elected individual is extremely unlikely to take a broad range of views on board and treat them all with equal weight, especially when they are elected either through their own biases with a political party, or with the political pressures of the funding that has been given to them to achieve their new found power.
By comparison, police authorities had true scope, they took from all sections of the region, and even directly involved the public from around the region.
How the hell can you have the audacity to stand there and claim that it is we, questioning why a simple and small reform of local police authorities, authorities that already have much tighter democratic legitimacy, and a greater guarantee of minority voices being heard and represented, are the ones that are trying to take the voice of the public away from how the police do their policing?
I remain hopeful that elected police commissioners will, probably not to begin with but in time, lead to better policing.
Based on what, Stephen? What makes you hopeful? The misplaced notion that around a quarter of the country voting between two or more candidates promising pretty much the same thing will suddenly spur on dramatic changes to the way the police do their job?
Why do I believe that? Because I’m a democrat who believes that greater transparency and clearer accountability improves decision-making.
Except there are no guarantees of that. Even with AMS, we will have regions that may well fall in to the same cycle we have with FPTP, where only one party wins. That's not democratic accountability, it's just inherited autocracy. Transparency? Pah...I point once again to pretty much every vote I've ever seen and the sheer amount of lies and manipulations that are thrown around, completely tricking honest and trusting members of the public.
It's the reason that real liberals will support TRUE democracies, that being bodies of people to collectively represent. The closer you can get to one person one vote on an issue, the more people will be getting what they actually want. Deferring your vote to an individual so that it is one person, all the votes...that's not transparent...there's no debate, there's no discussion. You can't see why that decision has been made or what influenced it.
For too long, the liberal approach to crime — to have a tough but fair system which makes offenders face up to the consequences of their crimes, punishes them proportionately, and aims for their full rehabilitation into society — has been easily, cheaply derided by our opponents as ‘soft on crime’ when it is anything but. As The Economist found on a recent visit to Jersey, an island which already has elected police chiefs and isn’t usually regarded as a bastion of liberalism:
There is a great emphasis on keeping offenders, especially young offenders, out of the criminal justice system, and avoiding anything that looks like public humiliation. Young tearaways and petty offenders will be sent to perform community service, but there is no question of putting them in bright yellow waistcoats emblazoned with the word “offender”. All Parish Hall Enquiries are confidential. Islanders use the word “paternalist”, a lot, to describe their approach to justice. Those who offend repeatedly will face tough justice in the end, the home affairs minister, Senator Ian Le Marquand, told me: “but we like to take our time getting there.” So is justice tough or soft on Jersey? Locals call the distinction rather empty. What counts to them is trying to get justice right.
Anecdotal fallacy. Jersey is a community island of around 100 thousand people, it has a population smaller than some of our smallest cities, on an island with a handful of towns alone. Compare that to Devon and Cornwall where a single person would have to represent 1.65 MILLION people. Comparing how a large town, or a small city, would police itself, to how entire counties, in some cases more than one county, would be directed by a single individual, is an absurd concept.
But take all that aside, so Jersey has a system going that liberals would enjoy. What does that prove? That Jersey perhaps isn't quite as "hang-em" as Stephen seems to think we believe them to be? Great! Does that mean that the rest of the UK will be the same? Maybe, maybe not. Does that matter? No, because the successes and failures of individual areas based on our own perception of what "works" or not is independent of the frailties, risks and weaknesses of the system that still manages to produce any positive results.
Will that approach find echoes across the country after 15th November? I may be a liberal, but I’m not that much of an optimist.
And indeed polling would agree, people are vindictive and blood thirsty.
However, elected police commissioners who want to be re-elected will need to show that their approach works
No they won't, at least not to everyone, only to some people, and only on issues that affect them. Got the silver-fox vote sowed up? Well then, show them that hoodies hanging about on street corners and home burglaries are getting priority funding. Never mind the assaults that happen in that area where they don't vote for you, or the car thefts in the other area that doesn't vote at all.
that they can actually cut crime
Unless they do a Boris and just massage the figures, or outright lie. Again, they can ignore that crime is rising, as long as their core voters feel crime is falling where they care about it.
working with the police, working with the communities
More like getting the police to work for them...and there is no mandate for PCCs to care one jot about actually engaging with whole communities if they don't wish to.
I have enough confidence in a liberal, evidence-based, humane approach to justice to believe that even those elected police commissioners who preach lock-em-up-fire-and-brimstone will repent when they realise that prevention and rehabilitation are the best ways to crack crime.
We can but hope, because that kind of nation-wide revelation is probably the only thing that can save this flawed idea from cutting large swathes of the public out of how their police are run, and worse cause their relationship with crime to actually get worse as entire communities are ignored in order to help re-election chances.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
IE9, :focus and a strange bug
So earlier @laurakalbag posted about a problem she's having on her site...
When you first visit the site on IE9 it looks as such:
But if you put focus on to something (it's hard to see, but I've applied focus to the first of the thumbnails) it returns to look like this:
What's worse is if you click on a div, it ends up like this!
Seems like a very odd one, and worth keeping a note of.
First of all, you need to realise that IE9 (and probably IE8 and IE7 at least) all allow you to "focus" on most elements, not just on those that should be able to receive traditional focus such as links or inputs. This is different from how webkit and mozilla seem to operate.
Next, IE9 automatically puts focus on the body when the page is loaded. In the case of @laurakalbag her site had a css rule for ":focus", which is naturally applied to any element that the browser deems to have focus...including the body or divs.
This is where the weirdness properly starts though. The reason for the change in state is because when focus is applied somewhere, the body element obviously loses focus. This allows it's background colour (a purple) to return, no longer over-ridden by a semi-transparent black (looks light grey).
Now it's understandable that where a css property hasn't already been defined, it being defined in the focus attribute will make it change (such as the box-sizing attribute, that causes the div to contract in the third screenshot above). What is truly strange is how IE treats the order of importance of CSS attributes.
Put simply, using this case as an example, if you define the background-color of the body and of :focus eligible elements (which, in IE9, is most things), then you must put the background-color value in your .css file.
This makes no sense, as anything in style tags in your .html file, defined AFTER the .css file, should take precedence. But it doesn't here. In fact you can define you :focus values AFTER you've defined your body values within either the .css file, or in style tags in the .html file, and it'll respect the values of the physical element over the :focus values every time. It's an entirely inconsistent practice.
Check out these link to see the same type of action occurring (you need to use IE9 or IE8, obviously):
:focus and body background-color defined in .css file
:focus defined in style tags in .html file, body background-color defined in .css file
:focus defined in .css file, body background-color defined in style tags in .html file
:focus and body background-color defined in style tags in .html file
You'll see that the first two links are green, while the second two are red. The first two are as we would expect it to work as we designed it, but actually probably work counter-intuitively to how priority is given to CSS values. The last two links display contrary to how we would like, but probably follow the rules properly
So... what should you do in this situation?
First of all, define your :focus with more specific scope. You probably don't care about focusing on your divs, so why not use "a:focus, input:focus"?
If this isn't an option, the only way to deal with this is to exploit the way IE9 interprets the priority of css values, and to use classes to define the background-colour that should be used, or to put specific inline styles on to your elements.
Class added to body (with body.class in .css file)
in-line style added to body
Conclusion?
When dealing with :focus for Internet Explorer, be careful, and be specific! If you can't be specific, then the next best thing is to get all of your themes and styles in to a .css file, again being more specific with your selectors than using the class as a simple object variable, and to ensure that where your pages need different styles to use those classes, not to try and use styling through <style> tags!
There's a super bananas :focus and/or background and/or cascade bug on IE9 on my site. And I've only these vague ideas of what's causing it.
— Laura Kalbag (@laurakalbag) October 20, 2012
When you first visit the site on IE9 it looks as such:
But if you put focus on to something (it's hard to see, but I've applied focus to the first of the thumbnails) it returns to look like this:
What's worse is if you click on a div, it ends up like this!
Seems like a very odd one, and worth keeping a note of.
First of all, you need to realise that IE9 (and probably IE8 and IE7 at least) all allow you to "focus" on most elements, not just on those that should be able to receive traditional focus such as links or inputs. This is different from how webkit and mozilla seem to operate.
Next, IE9 automatically puts focus on the body when the page is loaded. In the case of @laurakalbag her site had a css rule for ":focus", which is naturally applied to any element that the browser deems to have focus...including the body or divs.
This is where the weirdness properly starts though. The reason for the change in state is because when focus is applied somewhere, the body element obviously loses focus. This allows it's background colour (a purple) to return, no longer over-ridden by a semi-transparent black (looks light grey).
Now it's understandable that where a css property hasn't already been defined, it being defined in the focus attribute will make it change (such as the box-sizing attribute, that causes the div to contract in the third screenshot above). What is truly strange is how IE treats the order of importance of CSS attributes.
Put simply, using this case as an example, if you define the background-color of the body and of :focus eligible elements (which, in IE9, is most things), then you must put the background-color value in your .css file.
This makes no sense, as anything in style tags in your .html file, defined AFTER the .css file, should take precedence. But it doesn't here. In fact you can define you :focus values AFTER you've defined your body values within either the .css file, or in style tags in the .html file, and it'll respect the values of the physical element over the :focus values every time. It's an entirely inconsistent practice.
Check out these link to see the same type of action occurring (you need to use IE9 or IE8, obviously):
:focus and body background-color defined in .css file
:focus defined in style tags in .html file, body background-color defined in .css file
:focus defined in .css file, body background-color defined in style tags in .html file
:focus and body background-color defined in style tags in .html file
You'll see that the first two links are green, while the second two are red. The first two are as we would expect it to work as we designed it, but actually probably work counter-intuitively to how priority is given to CSS values. The last two links display contrary to how we would like, but probably follow the rules properly
So... what should you do in this situation?
First of all, define your :focus with more specific scope. You probably don't care about focusing on your divs, so why not use "a:focus, input:focus"?
If this isn't an option, the only way to deal with this is to exploit the way IE9 interprets the priority of css values, and to use classes to define the background-colour that should be used, or to put specific inline styles on to your elements.
Class added to body (with body.class in .css file)
in-line style added to body
Conclusion?
When dealing with :focus for Internet Explorer, be careful, and be specific! If you can't be specific, then the next best thing is to get all of your themes and styles in to a .css file, again being more specific with your selectors than using the class as a simple object variable, and to ensure that where your pages need different styles to use those classes, not to try and use styling through <style> tags!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Hypocritical Histories: Votes at 16
Labour and political opportunism, will it ever end? This time it's on the issue of Votes for 16 and 17 year olds. @WayneDavidMP today laments that Nick Clegg "declined" to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds.
I think he's got a bloody cheek. Shall we just look at the history of Labour's 13 years in power and what they did to further the cause for votes at 16?
1999: Labour stand in the way of Votes at 16 amendment by the Lib Dems
2003: Tory peer, and Lords, agree to votes at 16. Labour declines to timetable commons portion of legislation, killing it off
2004: SNP call for vote to extend franchise to 16 year olds. Labour vote against as does Wayne David MP.
2005: Lib Dems make a vote for a lower voting age. Tories vote against it, Labour barely turns up, certainly Wayne David MP doesn't seem bothered to come and vote for it.
2006: Lib Dem lords table amendment for votes at 16, Labour peers vote against it.
2008: A Labour (shock!) private member's bill is talked out of the commons by Tories.
2010: While Lib Dems reiterate for the third election running they would support votes at 16, Labour merely offer a "free vote" on the issue, without even the conviction to whip such an issue to pass.
So.. let's not have any of this nonsense about Lib Dems denying 16 and 17 year olds the vote. History tells us that if it goes to a vote Labour and the Tories will simply vote against it, as Wayne David himself has already done. Perhaps if this MP wants progress on the issue of extending the franchise, he should take the first step of personally not standing in the way of progress.
I think he's got a bloody cheek. Shall we just look at the history of Labour's 13 years in power and what they did to further the cause for votes at 16?
1999: Labour stand in the way of Votes at 16 amendment by the Lib Dems
2003: Tory peer, and Lords, agree to votes at 16. Labour declines to timetable commons portion of legislation, killing it off
2004: SNP call for vote to extend franchise to 16 year olds. Labour vote against as does Wayne David MP.
2005: Lib Dems make a vote for a lower voting age. Tories vote against it, Labour barely turns up, certainly Wayne David MP doesn't seem bothered to come and vote for it.
2006: Lib Dem lords table amendment for votes at 16, Labour peers vote against it.
2008: A Labour (shock!) private member's bill is talked out of the commons by Tories.
2010: While Lib Dems reiterate for the third election running they would support votes at 16, Labour merely offer a "free vote" on the issue, without even the conviction to whip such an issue to pass.
So.. let's not have any of this nonsense about Lib Dems denying 16 and 17 year olds the vote. History tells us that if it goes to a vote Labour and the Tories will simply vote against it, as Wayne David himself has already done. Perhaps if this MP wants progress on the issue of extending the franchise, he should take the first step of personally not standing in the way of progress.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Why we should be getting outraged about Matthew Woods
Matthew Woods is an unfortunate soul. Thinking himself the comedian he posted, from what I have been able to find out, a slew of jokes that would have found any mortal comedian on stage booed off.
Booed off stage that is, not...as is the case in Matthew Woods' case... imprisoned for 3 months with a judge cursing the system that didn't allow him to be jailed for longer due to the fact that Matthew pled guilty to the "crime" of posting an offensive message on an "electronic communication network"...otherwise more nefariously known as Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.
Matthew is unfortunately not the first, nor will he be the last; despite the seemingly PR motivated moves of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK trying to find a more reasonable way to react to people's outbursts of bad taste.
Perhaps the highest profile case, certainly due to it's eventual collapse with the conviction being overturned in the high court, was that of Paul Chambers and his "Twitter Joke Trial". We celebrated that day thinking that never again would the authorities be able to risk abusing what is ultimately a flawed law to secure flimsy convictions against people simply speaking out of turn.
But then came Azhar Ahmed, Neil Swinburne (Warning, Daily Mail), and on a different law Barry Thew.
Azhar Ahmed is, by all accounts, simply an angry young man. Are we doing the right thing by making him both angry and motivated to further hatred of the state? Barry Thew is, reportedly, someone suffering from mental health problems...who's son died in the custody of the very police force that he was protesting tastelessly against with his t-shirt. What part of his attitude towards the police is to be forced out of him by subjecting him to the full repression that the state can put on him?
Maybe some people need to reacquaint themselves with the notion behind "First they came...", because quite frankly it is not enough for us to sit here and claim that it is ok for people to get locked up for saying things that we don't like, or expressing views that we are not comfortable with. When that expression turns to action, or when it is actively used in the purpose of brainwashing and motivating other people to commit crimes, or where it is negligent to the direct effect it will have on people's safety, that is when expression in itself becomes a crime...but not before.
It may be cliched, but can you imagine if we were having the discussion about equal rights for homosexuals, women or black people during a time where twitter and facebook existed? How offensive to the populace would some of the comments and arguments presented by those fighting for their equality seem, and how much would their causes have been hampered by a state so readily able to lock them up for their non-conformist views?
I think it's a stretch trying to say that Matthew Woods has anything meaningful to say, of course, but it is the underlying principle that is important...are we happy to scare the general public in to not speaking out against the social norm? Are we happy to force conformity on people with the threat of jail time? When laws are based on what is "reasonable" and "offensive", measures that can only be sized against what the majority of the public feel at that time, how can we protect those who have something to say even if we don't want to hear it?
Maybe it's a lack of understanding in modern society about what we almost lost in World War 2, but I for one get a little terrified by the prospect of any nation "needing" a law like s127, or even of the section 4a of the Public Order Act 1986, for these incidents.
We need a distinction, and we need it sooner than later now that the world has been brought so close together with it's communication networks. Harassment, bullying, intimidation and attempts to create public disorder are not crimes that we should allow to go unpunished. Speaking your mind in a manner the majority wouldn't be comfortable with? Punishing such things is an unacceptable practice.
What's worse is that this is a liberal issue at it's core. Where someone is saying something that brings no detriment to another (and no, hurt feelings may be something unpleasant, but no-one should have a right to never hear anything that offends them), their right to say that thing needs to be protected. For a few years now this has been a very real issue. What have the Liberal party of the UK done about this, the Liberal Democrats?
The answer is nothing, unfortunately, which leaves me wondering why it is that they should be voted for. If the Lib Dems cannot stand up when laws are being abused to silence opponents of the norm, and while in power make those laws go away, to alter them to be much more specific to expression that is used to commit crimes, then they simply aren't fulfilling their role.
I expect Labour to keep these laws in place...state control is their mantra. And despite Tories being "small state", I also expect them to keep these laws in place, since they are ultimately terrified of anyone who isn't them. I also expected Lib Dems to make liberalism a priority, so am utterly confused why this isn't happening.
Right now we're letting people get locked up for their emotions having boiled over, and for extraordinary poor taste in comedy. That is the base level of using the powers the state have. What we do not need is conferences and discussions on how the police are to determine whether or not to charge against that law or not; we need the laws that allow such a process to be gone, so that the police do not have the option of charging people for unpopular sentiment.
I'd like to just end with this, from Wikipedia, on the Gestapo...
It's all too easy for us to say "Oh, don't be absurd, the times we live in now are nothing like what the Nazi's did", but to say that is also wrong. We are now listening in on each other on Facebook and Twitter, with the same curtain twitching level of anonymity that allowed Germans to pass on information about their fellow nationals to the authorities and get them punished. Whether they did this out of genuine concern or because they aligned with the Nazi's views is barely relevant...what is important is that their society fell in to the worse kind of way because they let the differences between one another become more important than what bound them together, because they assumed that some people had less rights because they were different.
I look at our society and I don't see one that is any morally superior to that of the German people that allowed Nazism to take a grip and poison the world, and the fact it is allowed to continue while we have a party in power that is about as well poised to help stop that kind of society from developing, through it's inaction, is unforgivable upon that party.
Some people don't like the police, some people don't like the army and our foreign operations, and some people don't know when a joke isn't funny. They also go to work, enrich their friend's and family's lives, maybe they support charities and their local communities. Why are we so happy to steal away the latter part of what a person gives to the world because we aren't comfortable with how they express the former? To me, it's that brazen disregard of the complexities of individual opinions and views that is the most offensive thing of all.
Booed off stage that is, not...as is the case in Matthew Woods' case... imprisoned for 3 months with a judge cursing the system that didn't allow him to be jailed for longer due to the fact that Matthew pled guilty to the "crime" of posting an offensive message on an "electronic communication network"...otherwise more nefariously known as Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.
Matthew is unfortunately not the first, nor will he be the last; despite the seemingly PR motivated moves of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK trying to find a more reasonable way to react to people's outbursts of bad taste.
Perhaps the highest profile case, certainly due to it's eventual collapse with the conviction being overturned in the high court, was that of Paul Chambers and his "Twitter Joke Trial". We celebrated that day thinking that never again would the authorities be able to risk abusing what is ultimately a flawed law to secure flimsy convictions against people simply speaking out of turn.
But then came Azhar Ahmed, Neil Swinburne (Warning, Daily Mail), and on a different law Barry Thew.
Azhar Ahmed is, by all accounts, simply an angry young man. Are we doing the right thing by making him both angry and motivated to further hatred of the state? Barry Thew is, reportedly, someone suffering from mental health problems...who's son died in the custody of the very police force that he was protesting tastelessly against with his t-shirt. What part of his attitude towards the police is to be forced out of him by subjecting him to the full repression that the state can put on him?
Maybe some people need to reacquaint themselves with the notion behind "First they came...", because quite frankly it is not enough for us to sit here and claim that it is ok for people to get locked up for saying things that we don't like, or expressing views that we are not comfortable with. When that expression turns to action, or when it is actively used in the purpose of brainwashing and motivating other people to commit crimes, or where it is negligent to the direct effect it will have on people's safety, that is when expression in itself becomes a crime...but not before.
It may be cliched, but can you imagine if we were having the discussion about equal rights for homosexuals, women or black people during a time where twitter and facebook existed? How offensive to the populace would some of the comments and arguments presented by those fighting for their equality seem, and how much would their causes have been hampered by a state so readily able to lock them up for their non-conformist views?
I think it's a stretch trying to say that Matthew Woods has anything meaningful to say, of course, but it is the underlying principle that is important...are we happy to scare the general public in to not speaking out against the social norm? Are we happy to force conformity on people with the threat of jail time? When laws are based on what is "reasonable" and "offensive", measures that can only be sized against what the majority of the public feel at that time, how can we protect those who have something to say even if we don't want to hear it?
Maybe it's a lack of understanding in modern society about what we almost lost in World War 2, but I for one get a little terrified by the prospect of any nation "needing" a law like s127, or even of the section 4a of the Public Order Act 1986, for these incidents.
We need a distinction, and we need it sooner than later now that the world has been brought so close together with it's communication networks. Harassment, bullying, intimidation and attempts to create public disorder are not crimes that we should allow to go unpunished. Speaking your mind in a manner the majority wouldn't be comfortable with? Punishing such things is an unacceptable practice.
What's worse is that this is a liberal issue at it's core. Where someone is saying something that brings no detriment to another (and no, hurt feelings may be something unpleasant, but no-one should have a right to never hear anything that offends them), their right to say that thing needs to be protected. For a few years now this has been a very real issue. What have the Liberal party of the UK done about this, the Liberal Democrats?
The answer is nothing, unfortunately, which leaves me wondering why it is that they should be voted for. If the Lib Dems cannot stand up when laws are being abused to silence opponents of the norm, and while in power make those laws go away, to alter them to be much more specific to expression that is used to commit crimes, then they simply aren't fulfilling their role.
I expect Labour to keep these laws in place...state control is their mantra. And despite Tories being "small state", I also expect them to keep these laws in place, since they are ultimately terrified of anyone who isn't them. I also expected Lib Dems to make liberalism a priority, so am utterly confused why this isn't happening.
Right now we're letting people get locked up for their emotions having boiled over, and for extraordinary poor taste in comedy. That is the base level of using the powers the state have. What we do not need is conferences and discussions on how the police are to determine whether or not to charge against that law or not; we need the laws that allow such a process to be gone, so that the police do not have the option of charging people for unpopular sentiment.
I'd like to just end with this, from Wikipedia, on the Gestapo...
According to Canadian historian Robert Gellately's analysis of the local offices established, the Gestapo was—for the most part—made up of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by citizens for their information.[35] Gellately argued that it was because of the widespread willingness of Germans to inform on each other to the Gestapo that Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a prime example of panopticism.[36] Indeed, the Gestapo—at times—was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations.[37] Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations.[38] Gellately has also suggested that the Gestapo was "a reactive organization" "...which was constructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally dependent on the continuing co-operation of German citizens".[39]
It's all too easy for us to say "Oh, don't be absurd, the times we live in now are nothing like what the Nazi's did", but to say that is also wrong. We are now listening in on each other on Facebook and Twitter, with the same curtain twitching level of anonymity that allowed Germans to pass on information about their fellow nationals to the authorities and get them punished. Whether they did this out of genuine concern or because they aligned with the Nazi's views is barely relevant...what is important is that their society fell in to the worse kind of way because they let the differences between one another become more important than what bound them together, because they assumed that some people had less rights because they were different.
I look at our society and I don't see one that is any morally superior to that of the German people that allowed Nazism to take a grip and poison the world, and the fact it is allowed to continue while we have a party in power that is about as well poised to help stop that kind of society from developing, through it's inaction, is unforgivable upon that party.
Some people don't like the police, some people don't like the army and our foreign operations, and some people don't know when a joke isn't funny. They also go to work, enrich their friend's and family's lives, maybe they support charities and their local communities. Why are we so happy to steal away the latter part of what a person gives to the world because we aren't comfortable with how they express the former? To me, it's that brazen disregard of the complexities of individual opinions and views that is the most offensive thing of all.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
After November 15th...
The ads will tell you you need to vote for your Police and Crime Commissioner on November 15th. Why? Because CRIMINALS will HOPE YOU do NOTHING!
Utter, insulting, nonsense.
It says something about the desperation of those behind the new policy, the policy of taking the power of policing budgets across multiple forces, spread over two entire counties in some cases, and putting it in the hands of a single person, that they are ALREADY resorting to the politics of fear.
The insinuation is sickening. If you're not voting, you're essentially some kind of criminal loving bastard then, aren't you!
If you haven't already, please read what I put online when there was the chance of defeating the policy from becoming law, and why this is the wrong fix for a non-existent problem.
The outcome of the elections, with likely turnout figures, is predictable to see. Towns or areas that vote more readily than others will get increased budgets spent on them (or at least the crimes that those areas suffer from will), meanwhile areas that don't bother to vote won't get as much support. This is because rather than it now being a responsibility spread across representatives for all regions, the single person will act as parties do in government.
How many pro-student, pro-youth policies do you see getting implemented versus pro-pensioner? Look at the Tory Conference... "we will cut housing benefit for the under 25s...we NEED to cut the welfare bill...Don't worry winter fuel allowance and bus passes will remain universal regardless of wealth!"
The youth don't vote, so they don't get any help. The same will happen to crime ridden areas that are apathetic about the abilities of the police. What is someone who is from the east of Devon going to give two shits about when it is a problem of those in West Cornwall?
So, don't bother. Everyone stay at home (at least there is less chance of you being burgled that way). Don't legitimise a process that is intended to make it easy to play politics with your lives. Don't accept the abandonment of true cross party, and multi-region, oversight and control of the police force...and certainly don't accept one person being in control over what does or does not deserve polices attention across entire counties.
Don't vote for your Police and Crime Commissioners on November 15th, the criminals couldn't care less either way...in fact they might just like you to vote, as it may help to continue a system that provides "weak" areas that are rich pickings for criminals.
Utter, insulting, nonsense.
It says something about the desperation of those behind the new policy, the policy of taking the power of policing budgets across multiple forces, spread over two entire counties in some cases, and putting it in the hands of a single person, that they are ALREADY resorting to the politics of fear.
The insinuation is sickening. If you're not voting, you're essentially some kind of criminal loving bastard then, aren't you!
If you haven't already, please read what I put online when there was the chance of defeating the policy from becoming law, and why this is the wrong fix for a non-existent problem.
The outcome of the elections, with likely turnout figures, is predictable to see. Towns or areas that vote more readily than others will get increased budgets spent on them (or at least the crimes that those areas suffer from will), meanwhile areas that don't bother to vote won't get as much support. This is because rather than it now being a responsibility spread across representatives for all regions, the single person will act as parties do in government.
How many pro-student, pro-youth policies do you see getting implemented versus pro-pensioner? Look at the Tory Conference... "we will cut housing benefit for the under 25s...we NEED to cut the welfare bill...Don't worry winter fuel allowance and bus passes will remain universal regardless of wealth!"
The youth don't vote, so they don't get any help. The same will happen to crime ridden areas that are apathetic about the abilities of the police. What is someone who is from the east of Devon going to give two shits about when it is a problem of those in West Cornwall?
So, don't bother. Everyone stay at home (at least there is less chance of you being burgled that way). Don't legitimise a process that is intended to make it easy to play politics with your lives. Don't accept the abandonment of true cross party, and multi-region, oversight and control of the police force...and certainly don't accept one person being in control over what does or does not deserve polices attention across entire counties.
Don't vote for your Police and Crime Commissioners on November 15th, the criminals couldn't care less either way...in fact they might just like you to vote, as it may help to continue a system that provides "weak" areas that are rich pickings for criminals.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Are you thinking of voting Tory in 2015?
Do you have any family? A son or daughter? Maybe a brother or sister even?
If so, how would you feel if they were able to be sacked from their job with no reason? How would you feel if they couldn't afford to live away from their parental home, if they're lucky to not be forced to be homeless, due to high rents, a housing bubble kept inflated by the government and an almost complete reduction in housing benefit for the under 25s?
How would you feel if, while in this period of unemployment, chasing the same job as at least 2 or 3 dozen other people are going for (if you're lucky), they get deemed to be "workshy" and are forced to do community service instead of carrying on the job search?
How about being forced to work for a company with no relevance to their career path, for a third of the income that they'd be paid if they were officially given that job, having their morale sapped from them as they are passed from company to company to do the work that they would have only a few years ago paid a fair wage to get done?
How would you feel as their hopes are raised for a possible interview to find a trainee position out of these enforced labour sessions, only to find that they are over-subscribed and the chances to getting such a job is nigh on impossible.
How would you feel if they had an accident, seriously injuring themselves, but then couldn't get any benefits because government targets force people to be told that they are able to do work, despite a now limited scope of jobs available that they are physically capable of doing?
How would you feel if they fell pregnant, had a child, but couldn't afford to have both the heating on and food on the table, without going to handouts arranged by charity, not by government, never guaranteed to be there the next time they need help?
How would you feel that if they then finally managed to find a job, they'd be promised a measly £2k to give up further rights, leading to them once again being sacked for no good reason?
If you would feel pretty good about all this, and think this is a fair and understandable way to deal with your family in this situation, maybe you should carry on with your plan for voting Conservative in 2015.
If so, how would you feel if they were able to be sacked from their job with no reason? How would you feel if they couldn't afford to live away from their parental home, if they're lucky to not be forced to be homeless, due to high rents, a housing bubble kept inflated by the government and an almost complete reduction in housing benefit for the under 25s?
How would you feel if, while in this period of unemployment, chasing the same job as at least 2 or 3 dozen other people are going for (if you're lucky), they get deemed to be "workshy" and are forced to do community service instead of carrying on the job search?
How about being forced to work for a company with no relevance to their career path, for a third of the income that they'd be paid if they were officially given that job, having their morale sapped from them as they are passed from company to company to do the work that they would have only a few years ago paid a fair wage to get done?
How would you feel as their hopes are raised for a possible interview to find a trainee position out of these enforced labour sessions, only to find that they are over-subscribed and the chances to getting such a job is nigh on impossible.
How would you feel if they had an accident, seriously injuring themselves, but then couldn't get any benefits because government targets force people to be told that they are able to do work, despite a now limited scope of jobs available that they are physically capable of doing?
How would you feel if they fell pregnant, had a child, but couldn't afford to have both the heating on and food on the table, without going to handouts arranged by charity, not by government, never guaranteed to be there the next time they need help?
How would you feel that if they then finally managed to find a job, they'd be promised a measly £2k to give up further rights, leading to them once again being sacked for no good reason?
If you would feel pretty good about all this, and think this is a fair and understandable way to deal with your family in this situation, maybe you should carry on with your plan for voting Conservative in 2015.
Friday, September 28, 2012
The curious case of Craig Evans
So, you're feeling amorous and decide to send a text to a current love interest of a sexual nature... all good? Except if you're Craig Evans who appears (as far as reports allow us to see) to have been a bit too hasty in his actions and accidentally sent his message to all of his contacts.
This may not normally be more than an utterly humiliating and embarrassing experience, with family members, friends and acquaintances alike all receiving the invitation for some...let's say... "happy times". Except as a swimming instructor he also happened to have the number of a couple of his students, aged around 13-14, who also received the message.
Cue a court case at Birmingham Crown Court, and a sequence of events that landed him with an 18 month jail sentence for, as far as we can so far tell, causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
It's bizarre.
First of all, there is the issue of bringing the case to court. The CPS has been notorious in the last 12 months for taking cases to court that simply aren't in the public interest, such as the ill-fated attempts to pin terrorism malicious communication charges on Paul Chambers.
The fall out from Chambers' case led to the Director of Public Prosecutions promising to be much fairer about how they approach charging these sorts of "crimes" in the future.
Of course the case of Craig Evans is one that started before this particular about-turn by the CPS.
The question starts though with the legal wording. Intent.
At what point did the CPS decide this was intentional? There are (to my layperson mind) two situations here that are reasonable; the third being that this was a cunningly orchastrated plan to solicit sex from two underage girls while maintaining an air of innocence through the "ooops I didn't mean to do that, why would I send it to my mum" defence.
First, it wasn't intentional and, as the defence appears to have put it, the guy simply made a mistake in sending it to everyone on his phone instead of via text to the intended recipient.
Second, it was intentional as some kind of twisted prank but the intention itself was never to get anyone to engage in sexual activity.
In either case I'm not entirely sure how the charge of "causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity" can be applied. Maybe a proper lawyer can enlighten us, or someone that has transcripts of/attended the case...
There is, therefore, a definite whiff of something weird going on. It has to be expected that the defendant's team weren't denying that an "inciting" message had been sent, but that it wasn't intentional. I would also assume that the question asked of the Jury was whether they felt it was intentional or not.
The jury found him guilty, and the judge at Birmingham Crown Court gave him 18 months.
Now, however, he is out after an appeal, halving his sentence and suspending it.
But wait... the conviction wasn't overturned. He is still technically guilty of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, he will no doubt still be on the sex offenders register and scuppering any chance to carry on with his job as a swimming instructor that works with children.
The judge is reported, on reducing the sentence, to have said...
So... it's not clear if he targeted anyone. This means that the only way the charge can stand is if he intended to target everyone, in the knowledge that two kids would be included, but not those children specifically.
Any other explanation (again, to layperson Lee here) means that there is an acceptance that intent is not possible to determine. If that's the case, isn't there a burden of proof that says "beyond all reasonable doubt" in Crown Court cases? If the Judge admits that they just aren't sure of what he intended, how can the charge itself stay standing?
EDIT: To further confuse, Elias also said that the Custody Threshold was reached, under law this relates to how...
So we also have this statement that not only the original judge, but the appeal judge too, felt this crime was so serious that simply putting a fine on him wouldn't be sufficient, only jail time would do. While accepting that this may well have been an unintentional act (or if intentional, not targeted at the girls specifically), how can you still say a custody threshold has been reached?
This case is strange, from the CPS bringing it to the appeal judge not quashing it. What are we missing? The legislation is concise and clear, there's not an awful lot that is possible to be causing such a crazy situation to be occurring. I guess we have to watch this space...
This may not normally be more than an utterly humiliating and embarrassing experience, with family members, friends and acquaintances alike all receiving the invitation for some...let's say... "happy times". Except as a swimming instructor he also happened to have the number of a couple of his students, aged around 13-14, who also received the message.
Cue a court case at Birmingham Crown Court, and a sequence of events that landed him with an 18 month jail sentence for, as far as we can so far tell, causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.
It's bizarre.
First of all, there is the issue of bringing the case to court. The CPS has been notorious in the last 12 months for taking cases to court that simply aren't in the public interest, such as the ill-fated attempts to pin terrorism malicious communication charges on Paul Chambers.
The fall out from Chambers' case led to the Director of Public Prosecutions promising to be much fairer about how they approach charging these sorts of "crimes" in the future.
Of course the case of Craig Evans is one that started before this particular about-turn by the CPS.
The question starts though with the legal wording. Intent.
A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if—
(a)he intentionally causes or incites another person (B) to engage in an activity,
At what point did the CPS decide this was intentional? There are (to my layperson mind) two situations here that are reasonable; the third being that this was a cunningly orchastrated plan to solicit sex from two underage girls while maintaining an air of innocence through the "ooops I didn't mean to do that, why would I send it to my mum" defence.
First, it wasn't intentional and, as the defence appears to have put it, the guy simply made a mistake in sending it to everyone on his phone instead of via text to the intended recipient.
Second, it was intentional as some kind of twisted prank but the intention itself was never to get anyone to engage in sexual activity.
In either case I'm not entirely sure how the charge of "causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity" can be applied. Maybe a proper lawyer can enlighten us, or someone that has transcripts of/attended the case...
There is, therefore, a definite whiff of something weird going on. It has to be expected that the defendant's team weren't denying that an "inciting" message had been sent, but that it wasn't intentional. I would also assume that the question asked of the Jury was whether they felt it was intentional or not.
The jury found him guilty, and the judge at Birmingham Crown Court gave him 18 months.
Now, however, he is out after an appeal, halving his sentence and suspending it.
But wait... the conviction wasn't overturned. He is still technically guilty of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, he will no doubt still be on the sex offenders register and scuppering any chance to carry on with his job as a swimming instructor that works with children.
The judge is reported, on reducing the sentence, to have said...
It is difficult to conclude that he was targeting anyone
So... it's not clear if he targeted anyone. This means that the only way the charge can stand is if he intended to target everyone, in the knowledge that two kids would be included, but not those children specifically.
Any other explanation (again, to layperson Lee here) means that there is an acceptance that intent is not possible to determine. If that's the case, isn't there a burden of proof that says "beyond all reasonable doubt" in Crown Court cases? If the Judge admits that they just aren't sure of what he intended, how can the charge itself stay standing?
EDIT: To further confuse, Elias also said that the Custody Threshold was reached, under law this relates to how...
The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it, was so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence.Source: Criminal Justice Act 2003
So we also have this statement that not only the original judge, but the appeal judge too, felt this crime was so serious that simply putting a fine on him wouldn't be sufficient, only jail time would do. While accepting that this may well have been an unintentional act (or if intentional, not targeted at the girls specifically), how can you still say a custody threshold has been reached?
This case is strange, from the CPS bringing it to the appeal judge not quashing it. What are we missing? The legislation is concise and clear, there's not an awful lot that is possible to be causing such a crazy situation to be occurring. I guess we have to watch this space...
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Responsive Images: No solution yet
I've just finished reading what is, essentially, a very good A List Apart article on the new(ish) problems of high resolution displays entering the marketplace (such as the new iPad).
It's good because it tells people, again, what they should be practicing but oh so many aren't...optimise your assets. However it's not great because it's the same conversation we've been having for over a decade now. The problems of the turn of the century, where people would "go crazy" and design for 56k modem users leaving those of us on the 28.8k connections languishing in ever longer download times, are the problems of now...but on a more global scale.
I had high hopes...
...but ultimately this avenue was simply not progressed. And thus we have the problem about discussion of proper responsive web design in the modern time: It focuses *only* on the front end development team.
I love front end development, the creativity and freedom to express is fantastic...but I also love that when there is a problem that front end development simply can't address, I can fall back to my server side knowledge.
So when I see this...
...I just have to groan in despair. (emphasis is mine)
You see, the problem of serving the right image size for the right device is indeed a front end problem. You measure the size of the screen you've got, you take the resolution in to account, and you put the right image in to keep everything looking pretty and engaging.
Bandwidth though, bandwidth... that is a server side problem (for now), and one we have gone on for too long ignoring. The idea that you can have a purely front-end solution to the paradoxes of bandwidth management is unrealistic right now, and may always be. I guess that's why the rest of the article ignored this issue.
Take for example your "average web developer", who is on holiday in the moors. They have, at best, a 2g/edge connection to the internet over mobile networks but their company has just called them to sort out a critical problem with a website.
They pull out the (hypothetical, but soon to happen) large screen laptop they develop on knowing this kind of call was possible, with a 200DPI screen. Your purely front-end developer produced website loads some catastrophically large images that take ages, and cost loads, to load and assess.
On the flip side you have someone with an old iPhone2, sitting at home on their WiFi, with bandwidth that exceeds the kind of speeds you'd ever need to buffer your favourite episode of Breaking Bad with no buffering issues, and they are being served heavily optimised images just in case they have little network capability.
Each person receives the opposite experience that they deserve, and all because our purely front-end approach doesn't take in to account the main factor that we're trying to be responsible about.
The solution?
Browsers need to take more responsibility. Our only communication with the user's situation is through the browser. We are sitting in a room with an earpiece on that is connected to a single person. That person can talk to anyone they want, but we can only listen to, and speak to, them.
The browsers need to start taking information from the user's machine, and from their very browsing, to generate reliable and mid-term data of that person's bandwidth. Through access to the device's inner workings, and complimented by being able to keep short-term calculations of something as simple as an ongoing average download speed on all sites, would provide our websites with the information they need to do right by the user.
This could be as simple as sending this information along within the data that is sent to the server as standard (in a HTTP request). A numeric value of the current likely download speed would let server-side developers take that value and guide what is served to the user, by managing which CSS files are delivered, or more directly through a server-side image processing solution such as Adaptive Images.
But it's not impossible to assume that the browser developers themselves can't go one step further. If we are to implement the srcset or picture aspects of HTML5, then why not future proof the web and consider that a value for bandwidth may also be included?
If a media-query style selector was available for bandwidth, such as "min-bandwidth" and "max-bandwidth"...dealing with the potential problem for the value of this bandwidth changing (and thus changing content)...we could add a better granularity to our front-end image requests.
Looking at the Apple pushed srcset attribute, and using a value that represents the current average download speed in KB/s, we could see this (taken from the A List Apart article's example and modified)...
You see that I'm following the same nonsensical syntax that has been proposed by saying that "b" represents the bandwidth availability of the client, as "w" represents the pixel width.
If we were to look at the "A List Apart" example, that incorporates the picture element, it may look more like this:
This would solve a whole load of problems, aside from being even more verbose than the already verbose suggestion! For a start it would begin by looking for a small and generic image that all can use. If the screen is a high resolution display it'll go for the higher resolution image, but only if the bandwidth measurements are such that it is responsible to do so.
The end result is that the developer with the large laptop in the hills will get poor resolution imagery, but it'll be fast...while the person at home will get crystal clear high quality imagery, also delivered fast.
By being more holistic in our approach to how we make decisions, whether front-end or server-side, we can deliver better experiences. Adding the ability to control content by an average bandwidth value, at the start of a user's browsing session ideally, we can control load times. We can ensure that no image we serve is likely to take more than 3 seconds to load regardless of the quality being delivered, all because we are deciding on that quality based on their bandwidth limitations.
EDIT: There is a further look at this, and how much broader we can go beyond screen dimensions, on Matthew Palmer's site.
It's good because it tells people, again, what they should be practicing but oh so many aren't...optimise your assets. However it's not great because it's the same conversation we've been having for over a decade now. The problems of the turn of the century, where people would "go crazy" and design for 56k modem users leaving those of us on the 28.8k connections languishing in ever longer download times, are the problems of now...but on a more global scale.
I had high hopes...
A visitor to your website might be using a high-PPI tablet or phone from the comfort of her couch, or from the middle of the Arizona desert. Likewise, those brand-new Retina Macbook Pros could be connected to the internet via Google Fiber, or tethered to a 3G hotspot in an airport. We must be careful about our assumptions regarding pixels and bandwidth.
...but ultimately this avenue was simply not progressed. And thus we have the problem about discussion of proper responsive web design in the modern time: It focuses *only* on the front end development team.
I love front end development, the creativity and freedom to express is fantastic...but I also love that when there is a problem that front end development simply can't address, I can fall back to my server side knowledge.
So when I see this...
Other attempts exist, such as bandwidth detection, cookie setting, server-side detection, or a mixture of all three. As much as I’d like robots to solve my problems, these solutions have a higher barrier to entry for your average web developer. The major pain point with all of them is that they introduce server/cookie dependencies, which have been historically troublesome.
We need a purely front-end solution to high resolution images.
...I just have to groan in despair. (emphasis is mine)
You see, the problem of serving the right image size for the right device is indeed a front end problem. You measure the size of the screen you've got, you take the resolution in to account, and you put the right image in to keep everything looking pretty and engaging.
Bandwidth though, bandwidth... that is a server side problem (for now), and one we have gone on for too long ignoring. The idea that you can have a purely front-end solution to the paradoxes of bandwidth management is unrealistic right now, and may always be. I guess that's why the rest of the article ignored this issue.
Take for example your "average web developer", who is on holiday in the moors. They have, at best, a 2g/edge connection to the internet over mobile networks but their company has just called them to sort out a critical problem with a website.
They pull out the (hypothetical, but soon to happen) large screen laptop they develop on knowing this kind of call was possible, with a 200DPI screen. Your purely front-end developer produced website loads some catastrophically large images that take ages, and cost loads, to load and assess.
On the flip side you have someone with an old iPhone2, sitting at home on their WiFi, with bandwidth that exceeds the kind of speeds you'd ever need to buffer your favourite episode of Breaking Bad with no buffering issues, and they are being served heavily optimised images just in case they have little network capability.
Each person receives the opposite experience that they deserve, and all because our purely front-end approach doesn't take in to account the main factor that we're trying to be responsible about.
The solution?
Browsers need to take more responsibility. Our only communication with the user's situation is through the browser. We are sitting in a room with an earpiece on that is connected to a single person. That person can talk to anyone they want, but we can only listen to, and speak to, them.
The browsers need to start taking information from the user's machine, and from their very browsing, to generate reliable and mid-term data of that person's bandwidth. Through access to the device's inner workings, and complimented by being able to keep short-term calculations of something as simple as an ongoing average download speed on all sites, would provide our websites with the information they need to do right by the user.
This could be as simple as sending this information along within the data that is sent to the server as standard (in a HTTP request). A numeric value of the current likely download speed would let server-side developers take that value and guide what is served to the user, by managing which CSS files are delivered, or more directly through a server-side image processing solution such as Adaptive Images.
But it's not impossible to assume that the browser developers themselves can't go one step further. If we are to implement the srcset or picture aspects of HTML5, then why not future proof the web and consider that a value for bandwidth may also be included?
If a media-query style selector was available for bandwidth, such as "min-bandwidth" and "max-bandwidth"...dealing with the potential problem for the value of this bandwidth changing (and thus changing content)...we could add a better granularity to our front-end image requests.
Looking at the Apple pushed srcset attribute, and using a value that represents the current average download speed in KB/s, we could see this (taken from the A List Apart article's example and modified)...
<img alt="Cat Dancing" src="small-1.jpg"
srcset="small-2.jpg 2x 50b, // this is pretty cool
large-2.jpg 100w 100b, // meh
large-2.jpg 100w 2x 400b // meh@2x
">You see that I'm following the same nonsensical syntax that has been proposed by saying that "b" represents the bandwidth availability of the client, as "w" represents the pixel width.
If we were to look at the "A List Apart" example, that incorporates the picture element, it may look more like this:
<picture alt="Cat Dancing">
<source media="(min-width: 45em) and (min-bandwidth: 400kb)" srcset="large-1.jpg 1x, large-2.jpg 2x">
<source media="(min-width: 45em) and (min-bandwidth: 200kb)" srcset="large-1.jpg 1x">
<source media="(min-width: 18em) and (min-bandwidth: 100kb)" srcset="med-1.jpg 1x, med-2.jpg 2x">
<source media="(min-width: 18em) and (min-bandwidth: 50kb)" srcset="med-1.jpg 1x">
<source media="(min-bandwidth: 50kb)" srcset="small-1.jpg 1x, small-2.jpg 2x">
<img src="small-1.jpg">
</picture>This would solve a whole load of problems, aside from being even more verbose than the already verbose suggestion! For a start it would begin by looking for a small and generic image that all can use. If the screen is a high resolution display it'll go for the higher resolution image, but only if the bandwidth measurements are such that it is responsible to do so.
The end result is that the developer with the large laptop in the hills will get poor resolution imagery, but it'll be fast...while the person at home will get crystal clear high quality imagery, also delivered fast.
By being more holistic in our approach to how we make decisions, whether front-end or server-side, we can deliver better experiences. Adding the ability to control content by an average bandwidth value, at the start of a user's browsing session ideally, we can control load times. We can ensure that no image we serve is likely to take more than 3 seconds to load regardless of the quality being delivered, all because we are deciding on that quality based on their bandwidth limitations.
EDIT: There is a further look at this, and how much broader we can go beyond screen dimensions, on Matthew Palmer's site.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Greedy Brits
There is a strange phenomenon in this country that I can't quite understand. Whether it's misunderstanding, pig ignorance or willful misrepresentation out of greed, our country suffers from a disgusting disease of greed.
Of course, those greedy lot are more vocal than the more measured, and may well be a minority, but their presence is significant in the national discourse none the less.
Take Higher Education tuition fees; This is a "debt" (it's not a real debt) that falls heaviest on those who are strong earners, specifically those that are strong earners from day 1 of their graduate life. Yet if you listen to the NUS, and to Labour, and a swathe of misinformed protestors on the issue...you'd believe it is bleeding the poor dry.
Ignore that the terms of this "debt" are far more favourable to the poor than they were before, repayment terms giving people a much greater margin of income before they need to repay their fee loans, all we seem to be able to see if the pound signs that say £9k instead of £3k.
No, paying more is bad. Except a large number of people, with a median wage of £21k (granted, this isn't a graduate median wage, but that figure is nigh on impossible to find accurately) in this country, won't be paying anything back. The rise of the fees from £3k to £9k may as well have been pushed even higher to £100k, because the repayment terms are so favourable to those who are poor.
Furthermore, the terms mean that it doesn't matter what your debt is, you'll be paying it off for 30 years anyway (if you reach the threshold of the median wage in the country, at which point you become part of the wealthier minority). Oh, except if you're super rich of course, in which case you'll not.
So who is really arguing against these changes? If you're rich (but not wealthy in heritage), I guess I can understand it. You used to pay your tuition fee loan off really quickly, now it's going to take you longer; it's "unfair" you have to pay more now given you take more. But if you don't know...what is the problem? you're afraid that you'll have to pay more than you used to?
As I said above, maybe these people are just ignorant of the realities, or maybe they are just out and out greedy. To be paying more than you would have under Labour's old system you have to be someone that enters the top 10% of all earners in the UK, one of the richest earners on the planet.
It creates a bizarre situation where people are complaining that they have money to pay towards maintaining an institution that likely helped them achieve "greatness", because rather than taking an extra 60p of everything they earn in the future on their luxurious salary, it'll only be 51p.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
There are literally billions of people in the world that can't even comprehend taking home enough money each year after taxation and "debt" repayments, probably while owning a fairly secure asset in at least one home, to buy three small cars. And you're complaining that you might have to reinvest some of this in to an asset in our society that helped you get to where you are?
Seriously, sort out your priorities.
Then there is the supposed declaration by Nick Clegg of war on the "middle classes", as it would be described in the Daily Mail. New taxes on those earning over £50k, the top 10% of earners in the UK! Cue absolutely batshit-insane, shooting-self-in-foot, cutting-nose-off-to-spite-face, nonsense...
"What is the point in working if the harder you work the more you get penalised? You'll just end up with a nation of backward, scrounging wasters because everyone else will just leave." - m.bauder, London.
We live amongst people that seem to honestly believe that having money that *you don't need* portioned up so that some of it goes back to help people that *don't have the money they need* is penalising you for working harder.
Now, let's just take this shit about you "working harder" our of the equation. It suggests the single mother juggling three part time jobs to keep her kids heated and fed while only just aquiring the median wage isn't working hard. It assumes the cleaners that come in to work every day to the London underground and clean up our shit and take our abuse and stress on a daily basis don't work hard. More importantly it assumes that sitting at a desk, funneling other people's decisions, and having meetings over lunch is hard work too.
But what is the penalty? If I currently earn £42k, and I get a £5k pay rise, then I'm up each year by around £2500. What exactly am I having to deal with to get that £5k pay rise anyway? Maybe a new person to take responsibility for? A better job title?
Maybe I'm self-employed and I only get that extra £5k is I am doing actual extra work, perhaps more hours, truly "working hard"...am I going to look that £2500 down and say... "nah, don't need it" just because it happens to be the result of a 40%, rather than 20% tax rate?
let's not forget that I'm already taking home something in the region of £28k *already* and that is at least £5k above what you "need" to live a comfortable life style.
Don't think the idea of £2300 is worth it compared to £2500 in take home pay? Fine, don't do it. The work won't disappear, it'll just go to someone else who is either a far more rational greedy person or, (fingers crossed) someone that actually needs the money.
You stamping your feet, crossing your arms, and sticking your bottom lip out saying "fine, I won't earn that much then" isn't a threat. It's laughable that you think your earning power is even remotely that important. All the "threat" does is allow more people in to work, and it means money has the opportunity to be more evenly distributed around the population of this country.
"Im sick of polititions thinking hitting the middle class is the answer, go after the people who can afford your ludicrous tax hikes!" - ali, Dublin
It just confounds me that people that earn an insane amount of money by global standards can think they don't have anything left to give. So you might need to not buy your over-priced brand of tomato sauce, maybe you'll need to use the car a bit less (at least you might walk more, avoid the heart attack from all this stressed outrage at how everyone is trying to take the pennies from your piggy bank). At what point though will you ever realise how good you've actually got it?
Of course the basic, greedy, one-track-mindism of this kind of person, to boil everything down to money and possessions, causes much more damage. Not being able to "afford" to give a fair share of your disposable income to the state to pay for things like welfare, job creation, healthcare, education, security only means that more is needed to help people. If your money isn't helping to create jobs, then it's costing you more in welfare bills. If your money isn't helping to educate and pre-preemptively tackle issues such as violence, and illness...then people will just cost more in patching them up. If your money isn't going towards keeping the peace, then it just costs you more in cleaning up, detaining and compensating.
It begs the questions as to whether or not these greedy lot are even responsible enough with money to deserve it!
At the end of the day we live in a society now where if you earn the median wage, taking out the basic costs of living such as necessary food, rent, insurance, tax and basic amenities, they have perhaps a 25-30% disposable income that they can use (probably to spend on more than basic food first!). Someone earning £50k will have close to 50% disposable income. I wouldn't be calling for that level to be the same no matter the wage (though note it would still mean someone on £50k would have twice as much money in real terms), but do we really believe for one second that out of everyone in the entire country it is this group of people that are both unable to give more, and are already targeted "too much"?
Of course, those greedy lot are more vocal than the more measured, and may well be a minority, but their presence is significant in the national discourse none the less.
Take Higher Education tuition fees; This is a "debt" (it's not a real debt) that falls heaviest on those who are strong earners, specifically those that are strong earners from day 1 of their graduate life. Yet if you listen to the NUS, and to Labour, and a swathe of misinformed protestors on the issue...you'd believe it is bleeding the poor dry.
Ignore that the terms of this "debt" are far more favourable to the poor than they were before, repayment terms giving people a much greater margin of income before they need to repay their fee loans, all we seem to be able to see if the pound signs that say £9k instead of £3k.
No, paying more is bad. Except a large number of people, with a median wage of £21k (granted, this isn't a graduate median wage, but that figure is nigh on impossible to find accurately) in this country, won't be paying anything back. The rise of the fees from £3k to £9k may as well have been pushed even higher to £100k, because the repayment terms are so favourable to those who are poor.
Furthermore, the terms mean that it doesn't matter what your debt is, you'll be paying it off for 30 years anyway (if you reach the threshold of the median wage in the country, at which point you become part of the wealthier minority). Oh, except if you're super rich of course, in which case you'll not.
So who is really arguing against these changes? If you're rich (but not wealthy in heritage), I guess I can understand it. You used to pay your tuition fee loan off really quickly, now it's going to take you longer; it's "unfair" you have to pay more now given you take more. But if you don't know...what is the problem? you're afraid that you'll have to pay more than you used to?
As I said above, maybe these people are just ignorant of the realities, or maybe they are just out and out greedy. To be paying more than you would have under Labour's old system you have to be someone that enters the top 10% of all earners in the UK, one of the richest earners on the planet.
It creates a bizarre situation where people are complaining that they have money to pay towards maintaining an institution that likely helped them achieve "greatness", because rather than taking an extra 60p of everything they earn in the future on their luxurious salary, it'll only be 51p.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
There are literally billions of people in the world that can't even comprehend taking home enough money each year after taxation and "debt" repayments, probably while owning a fairly secure asset in at least one home, to buy three small cars. And you're complaining that you might have to reinvest some of this in to an asset in our society that helped you get to where you are?
Seriously, sort out your priorities.
Then there is the supposed declaration by Nick Clegg of war on the "middle classes", as it would be described in the Daily Mail. New taxes on those earning over £50k, the top 10% of earners in the UK! Cue absolutely batshit-insane, shooting-self-in-foot, cutting-nose-off-to-spite-face, nonsense...
"What is the point in working if the harder you work the more you get penalised? You'll just end up with a nation of backward, scrounging wasters because everyone else will just leave." - m.bauder, London.
We live amongst people that seem to honestly believe that having money that *you don't need* portioned up so that some of it goes back to help people that *don't have the money they need* is penalising you for working harder.
Now, let's just take this shit about you "working harder" our of the equation. It suggests the single mother juggling three part time jobs to keep her kids heated and fed while only just aquiring the median wage isn't working hard. It assumes the cleaners that come in to work every day to the London underground and clean up our shit and take our abuse and stress on a daily basis don't work hard. More importantly it assumes that sitting at a desk, funneling other people's decisions, and having meetings over lunch is hard work too.
But what is the penalty? If I currently earn £42k, and I get a £5k pay rise, then I'm up each year by around £2500. What exactly am I having to deal with to get that £5k pay rise anyway? Maybe a new person to take responsibility for? A better job title?
Maybe I'm self-employed and I only get that extra £5k is I am doing actual extra work, perhaps more hours, truly "working hard"...am I going to look that £2500 down and say... "nah, don't need it" just because it happens to be the result of a 40%, rather than 20% tax rate?
let's not forget that I'm already taking home something in the region of £28k *already* and that is at least £5k above what you "need" to live a comfortable life style.
Don't think the idea of £2300 is worth it compared to £2500 in take home pay? Fine, don't do it. The work won't disappear, it'll just go to someone else who is either a far more rational greedy person or, (fingers crossed) someone that actually needs the money.
You stamping your feet, crossing your arms, and sticking your bottom lip out saying "fine, I won't earn that much then" isn't a threat. It's laughable that you think your earning power is even remotely that important. All the "threat" does is allow more people in to work, and it means money has the opportunity to be more evenly distributed around the population of this country.
"Im sick of polititions thinking hitting the middle class is the answer, go after the people who can afford your ludicrous tax hikes!" - ali, Dublin
It just confounds me that people that earn an insane amount of money by global standards can think they don't have anything left to give. So you might need to not buy your over-priced brand of tomato sauce, maybe you'll need to use the car a bit less (at least you might walk more, avoid the heart attack from all this stressed outrage at how everyone is trying to take the pennies from your piggy bank). At what point though will you ever realise how good you've actually got it?
Of course the basic, greedy, one-track-mindism of this kind of person, to boil everything down to money and possessions, causes much more damage. Not being able to "afford" to give a fair share of your disposable income to the state to pay for things like welfare, job creation, healthcare, education, security only means that more is needed to help people. If your money isn't helping to create jobs, then it's costing you more in welfare bills. If your money isn't helping to educate and pre-preemptively tackle issues such as violence, and illness...then people will just cost more in patching them up. If your money isn't going towards keeping the peace, then it just costs you more in cleaning up, detaining and compensating.
It begs the questions as to whether or not these greedy lot are even responsible enough with money to deserve it!
At the end of the day we live in a society now where if you earn the median wage, taking out the basic costs of living such as necessary food, rent, insurance, tax and basic amenities, they have perhaps a 25-30% disposable income that they can use (probably to spend on more than basic food first!). Someone earning £50k will have close to 50% disposable income. I wouldn't be calling for that level to be the same no matter the wage (though note it would still mean someone on £50k would have twice as much money in real terms), but do we really believe for one second that out of everyone in the entire country it is this group of people that are both unable to give more, and are already targeted "too much"?
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