The meaning and importance of privacy

In the UK the law is not only made up of Acts but by Regulations, which then drills down to quasi-legislative codes of practice.

The DPA Acts deal with data and privacy relevant to individuals in two main ways. I'm not in a mood to give a lecture on this today. Those interested can Google the stuff.

Data Protection legislation is meant to provide protection of 'privacy' - and those protections were driven to the UK by European Directives back in 1995.

There is a tendency in the UK for people to bawl "DATA PROTECTION! ..DATA PROTECTION" for anything they want to withhold or at some subjective feeling that their activities are being 'discovered'. This reminds me about patients in health services, and prisoners, bawling "HUMAN RIGHTS...HUMAN RIGHTS..YOU BREACHING ME HUMAN RIGHTS". In reality these pieces of law are very carefully worded and apply in very specific ways. I normally ask people "What part of the Data Protection Act...or which of your Human Rights have been breached?" - a confrontational approach you might think, instead of the anglocised emollient approach. Well, you should see how people begin to stutter when they realise that they don't know WTF they're talking about.

Contrast this 'lurv and respect' for privacy, with the tendency in the UK and probably other countries, for people to take your private email address and lump it with hundreds of others in the 'To' or 'cc' field - and blast it around the place! Actually, that is equivalent to taking my personal telephone number and putting it on a messageboard somewhere for the entire world to see. It's fine if I want to do that, but it's not fine if a 'so-called' friend of mine somewhere was to take it and do that without my prior approval.

How hard a line do I take on that. Well here's a bit of email exchange that might interest you (between me and a trusted 'friend')

CW early on 27th Feb 2007 [In response to a 'friend' forwarding to me someone's email without their consent, I said]:

"Do keep in mind that none of my emails to you nor my email address should be copied to others accidentally or otherwise - without my express written approval. I treat my email address like my private telephone number."

[I don't think I could have been more specific]

CW on 5th July 2007:

"You said on 27 Feb 2007 10:36AM [quoting the person] 'And I will never share anyone phone numbers or any kind of address to anyone. Without the person knowledge. …….Please I will never give out your information, because I would NEVER like anyone to do that to me.(sic)'

If even one of the 11 people you have copied my email to decide to act ‘accidentally’ as you do then what happens to my email address? It is very easy to see what will happen. However your email actively tells others to forward on the email. Your letter sparks of a chain from which my email address could be all over the Internet within days.

Person responds
"Please accept my apology; you may not believe this but I DID SCREWED UP. It was a mistake and I do apologize.

I know you trusted me I just don’t know what I can do to change that but I am very sorry ok."

And the point is exactly as the person states - there is nothing that can be done to change the irreversible. And..and..sorry does not help - irreversible acts. Why? Because when something is so important to you, when the act causes such a breach of trust - how do you ever trust again that 'most trusted' person. It is like a crack in a pane of glass that can never be mended. So that's what happened. I avoided contact with the person ever since. Chance? No. I don't give chances - especially after I was so specific and the breach occurred within a matter of months. Yes friendship severed by a serious breach of trust. In the grand scheme of things a 'stupid' email means little. But it wasn't about an 'email'. It was about TRUST i.e. the ability to hold water!

No. Listen. There are some things in life you just do not do. You don't shag your best friend's wife. That's an irreverisble breach of trust.

And similarly on the matter of privacy, I'd have to be afflicted by a serious mental disorder, to take a friend's phone number and put it on a messageboard on the internet. The act of sending a friend's email around to hundreds of unknown others without consent is the equivalent act and equally disrespectful of privacy. Yes, and I know that shagging your friend's wife is not the same as spreading around an email address or telephone number.

Now to join the two issues, by way of contrast. On the one hand people in general are oooh so concerned and protective of their own privacy, but what they do to others shows a remarkable contempt of privacy - especially when it comes to personal contact details.

Some times I wonder

It's happened so many times before in my life in England, that I provide clear and conspicuous information but people then ask me for clarification. I often wonder what the heck is going on.

Here's the situation. I send out letters to professional colleagues with my postal address, telephone contact details and email, clearly visible on a green and beige coloured box on the top right corner of my letter. I'm seeking responses on certain professional matters by a certain deadline, by postal mail only (due to the confidential nature of the matter). Letters went out last week. So this morning I receive and email from one asking me "I would be grateful if you could clarify where I should send my report."

Well I'll deviate to tell me what my initial psychological response to that was ( Imean my thoughts) i.e. "Did I not print the address on the top right corner?". You see this kind of question made me think 'Heck could I be at fault, have I cocked up again'. But no, I always check my paper correspondence about 5 times before sealing and posting them. Really! I consciously do a checklist of all parts of my letter like here at English Plus. Well, no! I have to stop doubting myself.

The next thing I'm thinking, "Can't he read..after all he's got the email address off the letter...and the postal address is just two lines above that." Or "Maybe he's too busy... Oh - right, so because he's busy I must spend my time duplicating information that is so conspicuous". No - it's not me. I've done nothing wrong.

And then I think "Hmm...is it something with my address? Is it too short? Does it look suspicious in any way?" It is factually a very brief address because it is a named postbox. What's that? In the old days you would have "PO Box 1234" or something like that. These days you can name your post box like 'BM Surgery'. Yes, the funny thing I've noticed about living in England is that people in general like to double, and triple check the obvious, with a sort of 'just in case' point of view. However, the strange flip side of that is that there have been monumental cock-ups with data security of names, addresses, credit card details etc in England. So you kinda have to wonder 'Well is it because of a culture of cocking-up that these people are so flipping suspicious and obsessional?'

So what did I do in the end? I replied to the email and politely give the same postal address. And then I decided to write this.

On a roll here - Skype is great.

I like Skype. I dare say I was one of the first people in the world to try Skype (www.skype.com).

Now, you reading this might think 'everybody knows about skpe!'. Well no - not everybody knows about skype. Half of the people I know are clueless about it and aren't even inclined to try it.

Skype gives me the following benefits:

1. It lives on my cellphone (aka mobile phone) - that allows me to call and chat with anyone in any part of the world. What's so great about that? Well I do it for free (well I mean included in my cellphone subscription). Not everybody likes 'free' - so I'm cool with that.
2. Skype lives on my computer. And? Well - I have a skype in number that looks like any old number so select people can call that number and get through to me while I'm at my computer. And? Well they can then talk to me like if I'm on a phone. And? And I can be in any where on earth!!
3. Skype then affords me a skype to go number that I can use from any other real phone to make international calls (at cost, at skype competitive rates).
4. From my laptop computer I can use Skype to make unlimited calls directly to landline numbers anywhere in the UK for £2.24 (subject to a 3p connection charge). Well this is actually very good because I make less than 50 landline calls per month from my home phone. So I don't need to pay the likes of BT or Virgin Media something like £7/month for unlimited calls.
5. Really good sound quality.
6. Conference calls - that can hook up people on landlines and those on skype.
7. Video conferencing.

Well I know I'm sounding like I'm a walking talking advert. Thing is that I'm not selling anything, and I ain't making any money from sharing this information. So you're under no pressure at all to look at skype. If you're technophobic don't bother to try it - see a shrink.

Why a Google Calendar

I like Google Calendar. The people who invented this really put a lot of thought behind it. It took me about a year to get using it regularly. I now wish I hadn't taken that long.

Here's how it benefits me:

1. I can store my agenda securely online.
2. I can have several agendas, some that I keep private and those that I want to show the public.
3. I can access it from my cellphone (mobile phone) which has Internet access.
4. I can set up to 5 reminders for each event.
5. The reminders can be days in advance or down to 10 minutes before events.
6. Reminders come as SMS, email and popup's (the later when I enter my Google Cal).
7. For important events I can stagger reminders over weeks down to minutes. That keeps me alert not to lose track of things.
8. I don't need to keep my agenda on a computer.
9. I can track UK holidays easily by importing a shared calendar from someone else, without any risk to my other agenda items.
10. I can share my calendar with others and they with mine.
11. If I want, I can sync my desktop calendars with my Google Cal. So changing either one reflects changes in the other.

I'm not recommending Google Cal to you. I'm just shouting about it because, I find it makes my life so much easier. If you happen to want to share an easier life, then try it.

Trapped

Yesterday something small occupied my mind. But it was something that repeatedly came to mind over the years.

I got into my car and drove off as usual. About a minute down the road, I could see a tiny fly in the upper right corner of my windscreen. It was bumping its head on the screen trying to get out. It was quite a distraction. So I slowed down, wound the window down and tried to brush it through the window with my left hand. The fly would escape the waft of my hand and get back to bumping its head on the windscreen.

I then drove off and hoped that with the window partially down it would get sucked out. That did not happen. Eventually I had to whack it. And that was the end of that.

So why the devil is this important? Well my dad used to tell me (probably between ages of 10 - 17) about flies being caught behind windows, likening that to people being trapped behind invisible boundaries. That served as a way of looking at things over the next  30 years.

It is so true - I see many people being trapped behind unseen (or unrecognised boundaries). They know the boundary is there; they just don't have the means to understand it and know what to do about it. So they continue to do what they always did and what they've been programmed to do.

But the hand that waves them in one direction is important. Sometimes a helping hand is extended to these 'trapped' people. However, they are so driven by instinct that they continue on the programmed path. The outcome? Not good.

The moral of the story is to:

1. Find the boundaries

2. Identify what needs to be done.

3. Do it.

Feeling whole again

It's been something I wanted to write about for some time - the feeling of wholeness. Like sometimes one of your prized objects doesn't work well and you simply feel 'not whole'. It could be something simple like a wrist watch. Or it could be your dishwasher.

Well in the last few weeks two things weren't right and I did not feel right.

First the dishwasher broke down - totally clogged. Next the Jag developed two problems. The right front door speaker went dead. Then she developed a strange hum and a mild vibration on the steering column about a week ago. At first I thought it's me just being hyper-observant of minor noises. But no, this got worse as the days rolled on.

To cut a long story short - and this is the good part - both 'objects' had extended warranties on them. So I simply called up and explained the problems. The dishwasher was fixed in a jiffy.

Then the jag was sorted out within a few hours today. It was a bad hub-bearing that caused the problem. Like whew! Because if I had to pay for that, it was gonna be major dosh. As it happened I did not see or hear of the bill. Jag service simple fixed and delivered the car back at home. The bill was dealt with imperceptibly with the warranty people. I don't even know what it is!

I took her for a test drive and she performed like day one.

So, hey - I'm whole again. I feel good. And I feel even better for having the foresight with these 'objects' to have purchased extended warranties.

What's with the banner

The banner picture is of one of my favourite places. It was a peaceful time when I was on vacation  in 2005, at an exotic location. I could sit back and look up at the heavens and think about nothing.

Yeah nothing. It's great to think about nothing. I was on a small atoll in the South Indian Ocean. There was such serenity. And after thinking about 'nothing' for quite some time, I began to think about something. I was lying on a beach on another atoll, looking up at the blue sky. Around me was a pale green clear water gently washing up to my ears. What came to me? The thought: "What is it about?" Yup. Just like that. You know like 'What is all this about?'. My existence? My existence in relation to the world.

In a few days I would return to my usual world - a maddening pace, surrounded by technology and smiley people trying to be helpful or unhelpful, all eking out an existence, doing somebody else's job to gain enough money to maintain ownership of their possessions. I'd join them in the monumental rat race created by my political masters. So, no I'm not free.

Oh well. It's good to be let out of the cage for a few moments. One day...one day ..I'll find freedom. Real freedom. 

Oh well

Life rolls on. I write a great deal everywhere else but here. I'm not entirely sure why. So I'm trying to change that. I'm thinking perhaps that no one really looks on here. But in reality that should not matter, because it's not meant to be show. It's supposed to be my record of my thoughts, and feelings I imagine.

I remain displeased with the world. The more I go on the more I see 'games' of all kinds around me. I'm thinking why on earth does life have to be so complicated. Whatever happened to raw honesty and consideration for the betterment of others. It has become such a selfish world. Well having said that I kinda have to think and qualify my statements because somebody might think 'Huh..you've got a strange world-view'. You know, people always have to find the exception to any statement. That's partly what I mean by complicated. Can anyone these days give the general perspective on life without worrying about what someone else will think about minor exceptions. Okay, right - its a selfish world the way I see it.

Much of the time I'm at work it all seems to be an act. It's like we interact, we smile, we laugh but it's not real. I mean I come home and think to myself, "Was that joke by so and so really that funny?" Not really..but we had to laugh to keep up appearances. Do I really want to compliment so and so. No not really but good management practice is that you compliment people around you for their efforts.

So I'm thinking, when Bloggs complimented me did s/he really mean that? Or could it be that s/he was playing the same game. I guess I'll never really know. English society is strange and you always have to be thinking "What's below the surface?". Really. Sometimes when you're saying something you see people nodding their heads. So you  might think "Right..They agree with what I'm saying". Big mistake. People nod because they understand what you're saying -not that they agree with you. So now I have to interpret what nods mean. Krieky! You see what I mean about complicated.

The use of 'one'

Sometimes I get confused using English, once I think too hard about it.

Like today 22:00 I began wondering whether the possessive form of 'one' had an apostrophe. So I'm thinking, " Is it ones'"? or "Is it one's"? In fact I began to wonder how on earth I knew that 'one' was pronounced 'won'. I couldn't remember who taught me the proununciation of 'one'. Anyways, the word looked so strange.

I searched around on Google and found this link: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/one.htm which really gives a lot of information. Eventually I gathered that possessive form of one is in fact one's.

So...so...now I'm cool again.

Crime situation and more

The crime situation in T&T grows worse. I watch on. The population collectively seems confined to whinging. Politicans seem insensitive.

Blimps etc fly around, but seem to be no deterrent to crime.

Recently 5 fire-hydrants were stolen by thieves. That one took the cake really. In my wildest dreams I couldn't believe that would be a thing to steal.

Guyana is in a state of chaose. Duncey police from Trinidad are concerned now about Guyana. One copper got some body-music and his gun stolen. Oh and police officers have been carrying home their guns for fear of...well...well...you guess.

Tony Blair is accused of much with the SFO: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/industrials/article3367546.ece