Author: Brian Carnell

British Justice

How the hell does this happen? Two 17-year olds and an 18-year old in Great Britain target a family because they know the mother and father have learning disabilities and committ a series of crimes so disgusting (warning, this is genuinely disgusting even though no one was killed) that the trial judge describes it this way,

It is quite beyond the pale of normal understanding. I have many years of experience on the bench and criminal bar and although I have been concerned in more serious cases such as murder, I cannot remember any quite so revolting and degrading as this one.

Which means, of course, that rather than through the book at these two, one of them just had his sentence reduced from 24 months to 18 months. Almost as disgusting as the crime.

The European press often lambastes the United States for treating violent minors as if they were adults. Better to do that, though, than see this sort of monster back on the streets after only 18 months. No wonder crime is such a problem in Great Britain these days.

The Role of the Barcode in Human Progress

The BBC has fascinating account of the role of the humble barcode in human progress. The barcode made its debut 25 years ago in Great Britain — just a year after the first bar code appeared in the United States.

The barcode is ubiquitous today and, as the BBC documents, has revolutionized retail stores. For example, the BBC interviews a consultant to supermarket chains who notes that in the early 1970s the average store only stocked a couple thousand different product lines. Today the average supermarket in Great Britain stocks 25,000 different product lines. The efficiencies gained by using bar codes for pricing changes and inventory made it possible to dramatically expand the goods that stores could profitably sell.

It is clear from the article that, at least in Great Britain, they also led to the much-demonized consolidation of supermarkets and the emergence of enormous chain stores. The improvements in supply chain management that barcodes allowed also increased the economies of scale and allowed giant supermarkets to pass on the savings to their customers.

Barcodes are also used in other businesses, including to track raw materials and products in factory settings. The BBC notes that experiments are under way to use radio tags that have pricing and other information embedded so that a box of corn flakes can ring itself up at the register automatically. There are also experiments under way to use small barcodes to tag produce and similar goods.

Ah, the sweet smell of progress.

Source:

In praise of the bar code. Mark Ward, BBC News, February 16, 2002.

The Problem of Digital Data Loss

Harvard Business School has an excerpt from Bryan Bergeron’s book, Dark Ages II: When the Digital Data Die about the problem of digital data loss. I’ve been avoiding Bergeron’s book because, frankly, it seems rather alarmist (Bergeron suggests, for example, that data loss problems could threaten the very structure of modern civilizations). The HBS excerpt, however, focuses on risk management for data loss issues.

A lot of the concern over data loss is obviously geared toward companies, but it is increasingly a problem for individuals as well. Bergeron notes that he had to buy a used Commodore 64 to retrieve a program that he wrote in the 1980s. I had a similar probably in the early 1990s when I discovered a stack of Apple II disks filled with word processing documents that were stored in a proprietary format. I had to sneak into a computer lab late at night, pop the hood on the remaining Apple II and reconfigure it just to be able to print out the files and then OCR them. Talk about a pain in the butt.

My data management problem is now much larger since the “My Documents” folder on my PC consumes about 8 gigabytes of hard drive space (and that’s excluding all of the photos and MP3s).

Bergeron has a pretty through look at managing the risk of data loss for companies. From a personal perspective, I am very concerned about data that is stored in applications that may not exist or be executable in a decade or so from now. For that reason I try to make sure that the documents I create are stored in widely available formats.

Everything I write, for example, is stored in plain text ASCII files. I use a number of programs for a variety of purposes that use proprietary file formats, but I convert everything to JPEG and GIFs and similar formats when I am finished with a project.

This also makes it a lot easier to retrieve information when I need it, since almost all applications can handle those formats.

Another thing I’ve done recently is switch to a program called Zip Backup for backups. With Zip Backup, I highlight the various folders that I want backed up and then it creates 650 megabyte Zip files (or however large I specify) which it writes to a hard drive I specify and then I write the Zip files to CD. This also means I can access the backup archives on any machine that supports both CD-ROM and the Zip format (more than once I have had serious problems finding the software to restore old backup archives). Not bad for only $19.

QuickPad Pro Works as a Portable, Cheap Word Processor

I am typing this review on my QuickPad Pro, which, like the AlphaSmart, is a portable dedicated word processor (though it has limited spreadsheet and personal information manager software). On the one hand, the QuickPad Pro is sort of a technological throwback, but on the other hand, it performs its main task well.

The QuickPad Pro weighs in at about 1.5 pounds and is about the size of a piece of 8 1/2 by 11″ paper. It runs off four AA batteries, which should get you through 100 or more hours (I’ve had mine for several weeks and am still on my first set of batteries). The cost is a mere $329 plus shipping.

The keyboard is a standard laptop-sized that is comfortable — the only downside is the half-sized space bar key, which takes some getting used to.

The screen is a non-backlit LCD that supports two separate text modes: 16 lines x 60 characters or 8 lines x 60 characters. This alone is a huge advance over the leader in these sorts of machines, the AlphaSmart. I eventually stopped using my AlphaSmart because the 4 line x 40 character screen was far too limiting. The QuickPad Pro’s screen makes it possible to edit long documents that would be far more difficult to do with something like the AlphaSmart.

The screen’s contrast can be adjusted somewhat to compensate for different lighting conditions, though without any backlighting, you need to have good lighting for it to work.

The QuickPad Pro has another feature that dramatically increases its usefulness compared to its competitors — a Compact Flash slot. I plugged a 64MB CF card into mine and used it to store all of my files. This also makes it possible to use the QuickPad Pro for writing/editing large projects. For example, I’ve copied the draft of the book I’m writing onto the CF card.

However, the one drawback to using a CF card is that when a card is in the slot, it sticks out about half an inch. This makes it difficult to store the QuickPad Pro with the CF card installed, requiring users to remove the card when storing the unit in its case. A better design would have used a CF slot with an ejection mechanism so the card could have been recessed entirely within the unit.

There are several ways to get data from the QuickPad Pro to a PC. I primarily use the CF card — just insert the card into a CF reader attached to a computer and copy the files.

Additionally, files can be transferred using USB, a free serial port, or via the QuickPad Pro’s built-in infrared transmitter. The unit ships with an infrared receiver that can be attached to PCs that works relatively well, if somewhat slow.

There are some odd oversights with the QuickPad Pro. The most inexplicable is that there is no built-in spell check function. Even the AlphaSmart offered a limited spell-checking function, and its absence in the QuickPad Pro is a major oversight.

There is also no way to do a word count on a document — a feature I’ve always found helpful. Saving documents has a major possible “gotcha.” When the user is editing a document or typing, those changes are not being saved automatically — lose power, and you also lose any changes.

Unfortunately, there’s also no way to save a document and continue editing it. To save a document, the user has to press “Escape,” which brings up an odd menu asking the user whether or not the document should be saved. If the user types “Y,” the changes are saved, but press “N” or mistakenly hit “Escape” again, and all changes are lost. There needs to be a way to save a document while editing it, and the user should be required to type “N” to cancel saving changes — users are simply too likely to mistakenly press “Escape” twice.

Finally, the battery compartment was not very user friendly. The battery compartment requires using a coin to open, which is odd given that even at a couple of hundred hours per set of batteries, even moderate users are likely to replace the batteries several times a year — having to pop the battery compartment is extremely inconvenient compared to the AlphaSmart’s elegant battery compartment.

However, none of these problems detracts from the fact that the QuickPad Pro is hands down the best sort of portable word processor since the Tandy 100. It is light enough that I can throw it in my backpack and not know it is there. And since I don’t have to put up with long boot times or worries about having the system shut down after just a couple of hours, I get a lot more writing done than I ever tend to do with my laptop.

For people who are looking for a cheap alternative to a laptop for basic writing tasks, I cannot recommend the QuickPad Pro highly enough.

Measles Outbreak in Great Britain

Great Britain is in the middle of a measles outbreak, with 20 confirmed cases of the disease and another 47 children still waiting for laboratory tests to confirm whether or not they have contracted the disease.

Great Britain has been seized by anti-vaccination hysteria over the past couple of years by people who claim that the MR vaccine is associated with autism. So far there is no evidence at all to support that contention, but many parents have refused to allow their children to be vaccinated nonetheless.

In this measles outbreak, 18 of the 20 confirmed children with measles did not receive the vaccination. In the other 31 suspected cases, only seven of those children had received the vaccine.

Vaccination rates in parts of Great Britain have fallen precipitously as the anti-vaccination campaign has continued. To protect against a measles outbreak, about 90 percent of children need to be vaccinated. The national average in Great Britain is 84 percent, but in some areas of London the vaccination rate hovers at a dangerously low 65 percent. Areas with vaccination rates that are consistently below 80 percent run a high risk of an outbreak.

Two years ago, thanks to low vaccination rates, a measles outbreak occurred in Dublin, Ireland, that killed two children.

Sources:

Fears of measles outbreak. The BC, February 5, 2002.

Measles outbreak fears spread. The BC, January 4, 2002.

Measles father – ‘still unsure about MR’. The BC, February 1, 2002.

Measles outbreak gathers pace. The BC, February 13, 2002.

Owner of Cow Used in Fundraiser Says PETA Wrong about Mistreatment Allegations

The owner of a cow used as part of a fundraiser for Florida Southern College called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ claims that the cow was mistreated are “ridiculous.”

The animal was used in a game of Cow Bingo, where participants bought $10 tickets corresponding to parts of a field where the cow would heed the call of nature. PETA claimed that the cow was fed laxatives and gave birth shortly after the event. The cow’s owner, Mike Hiestand, says neither of those claims is true.

“The cow did not give birth,” Hiestand told the Lakeland Ledger. “Why would I take a chance on hurting a calf and feed a cow laxatives? Some of the kids asked me if I could use laxatives to make the game move along faster, but I refused.”

Hiestand also disputed claims by PETA’s Amy Rhodes that the cow was stressed by the event. “If she was stressed, she would have torn down the pen,” Hiestand said. “She doesn’t know the difference — whether you take her to a pasture or the Lakeland Square Mall.”

Hiestand challenged PETA up or shut up. “I’d like them to prove there was any mistreatment of the cow,” Hiestand told the Lakeland Ledger. “My family spends more money on that cow than some people spend on their kids.”

Whatever you do, Mr. Heistand, just do not let PETA “rescue” your cow. Animals given that treatment by PETA do not tend to live long enough to be stressed out.

Source:

Owner: Cow was treated fine. Erik Ortiz, The Lakeland Ledger, February 17, 2002.