Unusually, a post on current affairs (just don't expect a high standard)
There are two things which have been in the news today which make me really quite hacked off. If you're in the UK, and have seen the news, you can quite probably guess what they are, if not necessarily why.
I'll give you a cut so you can have a guess...
Number one: News coverage of the royal baby. Congratulations to the parents, yes; I have to admit part of me is going 'aww, a baby!' because, well, I like babies and puppies and cute things. And yes, it is historic; whether you like or hate the royal family (or are somewhere in between! sometimes the media and the internet conspire to make me believe that any intermediate position is impossible...), you can't really deny it's a historic event.
But it's not actually anything to do with the baby, or the birth, or even the excessive, ridiculous coverage it's getting - I rather liked some comments I saw about the Telegraph's 19-hour feed on the Lindo Wing door1, to the effect that it made quite soothing watching, and someone else who'd not realised immediately what the door was and thought it was some sort of modern art.
No, it's the moronic, senseless and illogical comments made by the reporters. In general, I rather like the BBC; I don't think it's really a considered opinion so much as an ingrained love of something paid for by licensing, rather than advertising, and all else that the BBC stand for. But I am fed up with them tonight, because in the first five minutes after I switched on the news, I heard three reporters commenting on how the new law of absolute primogeniture wouldn't have to be 'put to the test', or 'resorted to'.
It's a bloody law. Royal Assent was given in April: it has been passed, although it hasn't come into effect yet; it is a fact. Therefore the question of 'testing' or 'resorting' to it is a ridiculous misuse of language: if the baby had been a girl, then she would have been third in line to the throne. Of course the media would have made much of the fact that if she had been born before October 2011, she would have been passed over for any future male sibling; but there definitely wouldn't have been any chance of anyone going 'oh, it's a girl, is it? Well, she'll have to fight for the throne' - which is what it sounds like the BBC are suggesting every time they say it!
Number two: Cameron's bloody stupid internet censorship ideas. Don't get me wrong, (some of) the ideas behind it are good. But it's an appalling implementation: for ISPs to apply 'family-friendly' filters by default, unless customers opt-out.
For starters, although a quite minor point, I can't help but feel that from the media coverage, requesting to have the filter switched off will be tantamount to saying 'hello, ISP, I watch PORN.' Which, you know, consenting adults can do whatever they like, and shouldn't be judged by a company who they are paying to, let's not forget, provide them access to the whole internet, not the government's selected highlights.
But also: I don't have kids. I live alone, and I'm an adult: I'm perfectly capable of deciding what internet content is appropriate for me to view, and what isn't. I resent the idea that if I change ISP, they will automatically try to 'shield' me from the big bad world - how patronising - and also, the idea that the majority of parents aren't capable of taking sensible measures to restrict their children's internet access on their own.
Admittedly, this is a world where toddlers can 'accidentally' buy JCBs on eBay, and teenagers can run up huge data roaming charges and then have their parents run squealing to the press about the awful, mean phone company, who should have done more than repeatedly send them messages warning them about the costs, so perhaps I shouldn't be so trusting of the general population. But I'd like to think that, even if the majority of parents are that stupid - and I still think it's a minority - then this wouldn't be solved by removing the responsibility from them entirely.
Finally, there is the simple fact that so-called 'smart filters' are, in fact, shite. We have one at work; it started off by blocking Nature (because of course, accessing the world's most cited interdisciplinary science journal couldn't possibly be relevant to work in a hospital, no), and still often blocks things for no apparent reason. I've had completely innocuous websites categorised as 'tasteless' or related to sex, and actually had to request that the Information Governance team allow me access to another journal, admittedly more niche than Nature, which had a paper relevant to the work I was doing. So yeah, I really don't fancy Cameron's nannies looking over my shoulder at everything I type.
As ever, I get carried away in the moment and completely fail at wrapping things up; plus it's getting late (as usual) and I really should go to bed. In conclusion: grr, media and government. Grr.
1I seem to remember reading that it was live from 4am until 11pm; why they weren't filming in those hours, I don't know!
I'll give you a cut so you can have a guess...
Number one: News coverage of the royal baby. Congratulations to the parents, yes; I have to admit part of me is going 'aww, a baby!' because, well, I like babies and puppies and cute things. And yes, it is historic; whether you like or hate the royal family (or are somewhere in between! sometimes the media and the internet conspire to make me believe that any intermediate position is impossible...), you can't really deny it's a historic event.
But it's not actually anything to do with the baby, or the birth, or even the excessive, ridiculous coverage it's getting - I rather liked some comments I saw about the Telegraph's 19-hour feed on the Lindo Wing door1, to the effect that it made quite soothing watching, and someone else who'd not realised immediately what the door was and thought it was some sort of modern art.
No, it's the moronic, senseless and illogical comments made by the reporters. In general, I rather like the BBC; I don't think it's really a considered opinion so much as an ingrained love of something paid for by licensing, rather than advertising, and all else that the BBC stand for. But I am fed up with them tonight, because in the first five minutes after I switched on the news, I heard three reporters commenting on how the new law of absolute primogeniture wouldn't have to be 'put to the test', or 'resorted to'.
It's a bloody law. Royal Assent was given in April: it has been passed, although it hasn't come into effect yet; it is a fact. Therefore the question of 'testing' or 'resorting' to it is a ridiculous misuse of language: if the baby had been a girl, then she would have been third in line to the throne. Of course the media would have made much of the fact that if she had been born before October 2011, she would have been passed over for any future male sibling; but there definitely wouldn't have been any chance of anyone going 'oh, it's a girl, is it? Well, she'll have to fight for the throne' - which is what it sounds like the BBC are suggesting every time they say it!
Number two: Cameron's bloody stupid internet censorship ideas. Don't get me wrong, (some of) the ideas behind it are good. But it's an appalling implementation: for ISPs to apply 'family-friendly' filters by default, unless customers opt-out.
For starters, although a quite minor point, I can't help but feel that from the media coverage, requesting to have the filter switched off will be tantamount to saying 'hello, ISP, I watch PORN.' Which, you know, consenting adults can do whatever they like, and shouldn't be judged by a company who they are paying to, let's not forget, provide them access to the whole internet, not the government's selected highlights.
But also: I don't have kids. I live alone, and I'm an adult: I'm perfectly capable of deciding what internet content is appropriate for me to view, and what isn't. I resent the idea that if I change ISP, they will automatically try to 'shield' me from the big bad world - how patronising - and also, the idea that the majority of parents aren't capable of taking sensible measures to restrict their children's internet access on their own.
Admittedly, this is a world where toddlers can 'accidentally' buy JCBs on eBay, and teenagers can run up huge data roaming charges and then have their parents run squealing to the press about the awful, mean phone company, who should have done more than repeatedly send them messages warning them about the costs, so perhaps I shouldn't be so trusting of the general population. But I'd like to think that, even if the majority of parents are that stupid - and I still think it's a minority - then this wouldn't be solved by removing the responsibility from them entirely.
Finally, there is the simple fact that so-called 'smart filters' are, in fact, shite. We have one at work; it started off by blocking Nature (because of course, accessing the world's most cited interdisciplinary science journal couldn't possibly be relevant to work in a hospital, no), and still often blocks things for no apparent reason. I've had completely innocuous websites categorised as 'tasteless' or related to sex, and actually had to request that the Information Governance team allow me access to another journal, admittedly more niche than Nature, which had a paper relevant to the work I was doing. So yeah, I really don't fancy Cameron's nannies looking over my shoulder at everything I type.
As ever, I get carried away in the moment and completely fail at wrapping things up; plus it's getting late (as usual) and I really should go to bed. In conclusion: grr, media and government. Grr.
1I seem to remember reading that it was live from 4am until 11pm; why they weren't filming in those hours, I don't know!