Photographs I'm Printing (13)

Olympus OM-10 Kodak colour film scanned and printed on Canon MG7550

Back in the 1990's the British telecom industry used to have an annual bash in Brighton. I went one year, and before I got stuck into whatever it was I was there for, I wandered along the pier and took some photographs. It was one of those reels where every one was a winner.

10 Virus Dodges You Should Be Doing Now

From my limited recent experience in the real world, it seems that the official communications are one thing and the reality is another. A lot of those communications about Covid Secure working are for the benefit of insurance companies and compliance managers. Reality is not far from how it was in the past. Except you can't sit down in a cafe, you have to go through the mask-farce on public transport, and perspex screens.

Anyway, here are a bunch of fun things to do as we continue to be extras in this year's hit farce Two Metres and a Mask.

1. Ask if the sanitiser has alcohol, if it does say you can't use it. Look pained and apologetic when you say this, add that you can't drink the stuff either. Works for me.

2. No volunteering for tests. There are no reliable tests for the Virus or for its antibodies. You may as well flip a coin and stay in for 14 days if it shows Heads.

3. No tracing apps. The Apple / Android tracer that was downloaded automatically recently is set to OFF by default. You're just exposing yourself to the dodgy test results other people might get.

4. Edit the contacts on your phone. Delete anyone you don't want to hear from. Only answer your phone if there's a name you recognise.

5. Set up a filter on your e-mail to junk mails containing 'Covid', 'Corona', 'virus', 'difficult times', 'lockdown', and other such words.

6. In the unlikely event anyone official asks why you ignored their mail or call, say "We've been told at work only to answer calls or accept e-mails from people we know. For our safety."

7. Don't argue with anyone about this stuff. The bureaucrats who have to deal with it know it's bullshit, and it's not polite of you to point that their job is a meaningless waste of time. There are a lot of decent people who believe the scare, indeed, decent trusting and trustworthy people will tend to believe what their Government tells them. Just nod along.

8. DO. NOT. QUEUE. Just walk away, Rene. Do not use shops that do 'No mask, no service' or 'One in, one out'.

9. Use mail-order, delivery, click-and-collect and takeaway as much as possible.

10. If you are working from home, tell everyone the camera on your laptop has mysteriously stopped working (On Windows 10, Settings->Privacy->Camera->Let Apps Use My Camera set OFF) and turn off those Teams notifications. Go back to e-mail and phone calls. You will thank me for this advice.

Bonus: The trains and tubes are almost empty even in the rush hours. Put on a mask and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Photographs I'm Printing (12)

Olympus OM-10 Kodak colour film scanned and printed on Canon MG7550

Nice. The town. The only disappointment is that it has a  pebble beach. This is looking towards the Castel Plage and Castle Hill. I have a feeling this was taken with an 18mm lens I had, hence the distorted perspective.

It's not what you know about me that matters. It's what you do about what you know about me.

It's not what you know about me that matters. It's what you do about what you know about me.

I don't mind being tracked, monitored, surveilled, recorded, pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.

I mind anything being done with what they learn.

Especially by someone with powers they should never have been granted by legislation that should never have been passed.

That is a lot of people in central and local government, the Police, Intelligence services, the Armed Services and all sorts of quangos.

What I mind is that people who should need a Judge's permission to enter my house, can come storming in without permission. They can freeze my bank accounts, and lose me my job. All without the Court's permission and my chance at a defence.

And when it's all over and if I have proven my innocence, I have no-one to claim against.

All those people should be personally liable for the damage their mistakes and bad judgements cause to their victims' lives. Social workers, policemen, spies, inspectors of all kinds... anyone whose word will be taken in preference to mine and to my detriment. They should have to buy insurance against those claims, and they should not be granted any powers unless they have that insurance.

But they don't have to, and that's what I mind.

Photographs I'm Printing (11)

Olympus OM-10 Kodak colour film scanned and printed on Canon MG7550

Somewhere between Lynton and Porlock Weir (I think), on the cliff side of the A39. There are some steep and winding roads there. I thought the sign had just the right amount of deadpan whimsy.

Facial Recognition Officially A Loss-Maker

Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, has decided to get out of the facial recognition business. His letter to the US Congress waffled about advancing racial equality. That's an utter non-sequiter, of course. What he meant was this **** is a potential litigation money-pit and we want no part of it. Or if he didn't, you may want to consider shorting IBM stock.

Facial recognition software is widely available. There's a Python library for it. It uses a package called dlib. Apple has facial recognition software. Facebook has its own algorithms, as does Google. A recent study by the NSIT included 189 algorithms from 99 developers. That survey concluded that facial recognition software works just fine for white folks, and pretty well for Chinese, Koreans and Japanese. It totally sucks when identifying African women, half of whom it thinks are men. The darker the skin, the less well it works.

In the 2011 UK Census, 87% of the UK population weas White, 3% Black, 4.2% from the India and Pakistan, 2% were mixed and the remainder Arabs or Far Eastern Asias. In Newham, however, only 29% of the population is White (no, that's not a typo). That's a lot of poor identification. In 33 districts of England the proportion of Whites is below 80%, and those are the populous ones.

The concern is that a local council or police force will buy a cheap algorithm, some second-rate cameras, and use a mid-range scanner to load up their rogue's gallery to the database. The result will be a mass of false identifications, accusations and arrests, disproportionately affecting people with black or brown skin. The council or police force will do what all public bodies do when they make a dumb decision, which is double-down. Next thing you know, half your council tax is going on out-of-court settlements to not-actually-minorities-in-that-postcode represented by solicitors who play golf with the councillors. Or whatever those people do.

The world is full of unaccountable bureaucrats with way too much power. Giving them facial recognition would be dumb. Not as dumb as locking down your country, but you know, half-way there. We should be concerned. So should anyone supplying this stuff: it should not be sold to just anybody. Especially to anybody who can fine us, lock us up, and put us on registers we should not be on. Which is pretty much any Government department or agency. Of course the Spies will have the really good stuff (at least I hope they do) but the Spies can't lock anyone up. At least in this country.

If IBM thinks it can't beat the ethinic-facial-recognition problem, it's a good bet that no-one else can. Unless the people at IBM aren't as smart as they used to be. Facial recognition is a nice toy for social media, and a useful tool for organisations with large photo libraries of public figures. However, the real money is in security and surveillance, and IBM have decided that there wasn't enough to justify the risks.

Photographs I'm Printing (10)

Olympus OM-10 Kodak colour film scanned and printed on Canon MG7550

Taken in 1992 or so when I was working for AT&T. I think this is Grand Central Station. The blur makes it special, and I'm not even sure I was intending to take a photo of the guy with the pose and the umbrella. He was just put there by the Gods of Photography.