Monthly Archives: December 2014

  • Help GnuPG hire a second developer

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source

    GNUPG logoThe Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has announced a fundraising drive for GnuGPG, the world’s leading privacy tool.

    GnuPG has an estimated base of more than 4 million active users around the world and attracts a thousand new users each day. It guards emails, files and programs from snooping and spying on Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux. This crucial program needs help to keep going in 2015 and beyond.

    Continuing revelations about government spying have shown how little of our information is really safe. GnuPG is one of the few tools that can offer real protection. Edward Snowden used it to encrypt his communications with journalists. All companies and individuals running free software systems use it to protect their software against manipulation – sometimes without even knowing about it. Credit card data and back-ups are routinely encrypted using GnuPG and the program will continue be needed for many years in the future to restore that data.

    GnuPG is available free of charge, but it costs money to develop and maintain. For more than a decade, g10code GmbH, the company owned and headed by GnuPG’s principal author Werner Koch, has been bearing the majority of these costs. The company is seeking €120,000 to carry on its work on GnuPG in 2015.

    With this money, the company will:

    • hire a second developer to work on GnuPG;
    • maintain the GnuPG software and documentation;
    • put this vital bit of our privacy infrastructure on a more solid organisational footing, so that it will remain viable in the long term.

    Donors will be listed on the GnuPG website and in the next GnuPG release, unless they choose to remain anonymous.

    You can donate directly to the GnuPG project through this page: https://gnupg.org/donate/.

  • An idea from Yorkshire

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    I’m indebted to Up Our Street for the picture below.

    fly-tipping covered in Environmental Crime Scene tape
    Picture courtesy of Up Our Street

    It shows fly-tipping somewhere in Sheffield covered in tape bearing the wording “Enviro-crime scene“.

    The tape is being used in Sheffield and Rotherham in Yorkshire.

    According to the Rotherham Advertiser, the tape is being used to help make the public aware of the problem of illegal rubbish dumping.

    According to the mandatory council spokesperson quoted by the Advertiser, use of the tape “lets residents know that the council has responded and reassures the public that the council is aware of the items and that they will soon be removed.

    The spokesperson continues:

    It has also been our experience that once people realise that the council is on top of the matter it encourages residents to let us know who has been causing the problem.

    It also helps the cleaning team know that the item has been fully checked for evidence that could be used in prosecutions and indicates that it is ready to be removed.

    Can we get hold of some of this tape for Bristol’s BS5 area?

  • Crowdfunding for Bristolians only

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Tech

    What could have been a fine report on a local space technology story has been ruined by poor writing in the Bristol Post.

    Yesterday’s Post carried a story on Bristol SpacePlanes and its efforts to develop a reusable orbital vehicle.

    CGI impression of Bristol SpacePlanes Ascender craft
    A CGI impression of the Bristol SpacePlanes Ascender craft

    The Post’s journalist gets off to a bad start in the first sentence:

    Bristolians are being invited to help launch planes into space in a new crowd-funding [sic] campaign.

    Just Bristolians, Bristol Post?

    I thought the idea of crowdfunding (minus the hyphen. Ed.), was that anyone can be part of the crowd that provides the funds, irrespective of geography.

    This suspicion is borne out by 30 seconds research. The first item on crowdfunding I found, from Wikipedia, states: “Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet.”

    Nowhere in the Wikipedia entry is there is indication at all that crowdfunding is to be restricted solely to Bristolians.

    Or am I just misreading to local media’s propensity to find a local angle to a story? Here’s a hint: it already has one, featuring a local high technology company and doesn’t need a second one! 🙂

  • TidyBS5 at the Neighbourhood Forum

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    The regular meeting of the Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Forum took place in Barton Hill yesterday evening and once again the problems of litter and fly-tipping were a prominent item.

    I gave a brief summary of what had been happening campaign-wise over the last month and there were also some excellent contributions regarding future actions.

    One new development was a cleanliness petition which attendees were encouraged to sign by local councillors Hibaq Jama and Marg Hickman. The petition will be going online shortly and a link to it will be posted here when it’s available.

    One new angle to the cleanliness campaign is the Tidy BS5 Volunteer of the Month. The December winner is Angela Smith, who organised a Sunday litter pick in November in Bloy Street with her neighbours.

    Angela Smith receiving her award
    Angela Smith receiving her award. PiEdcture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    The local police also support TidyBS, as can be seen from the photo below.

    Police and local residents show support for TidyBS5
    Police and local residents show support for TidyBS5. Picture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    Bristol Mayor George Ferguson will be visiting Easton & Lawrence Hill wards in January and his minders for that visit will be making sure that the litter and fly-tipping problems which residents and those working in the area have to endure daily are well and truly to the fore in his itinerary.

    One related matter raised was recycling in the area’s high-rise flats. Young local people are trying to get then instated in some local tower blocks. At present, some blocks dating from the 1960s and with over 1,000 residents have no recycling facilities at all. (Not a very positive message or good example from a city that’s only a fortnight or so away from being European Green Capital for 2015. Ed.). However, Deputy Mayor Gus Hoyt has been talking to researchers at UWE about recycling in high-rise blocks. UWE’s researchers have found out that when flats are given recycling boxes, the average recycling rate is only about 10%. In reality it is more economical and efficient to collect rubbish together and then sort it at the waste depot. Gus’ research is continuing and will no doubt lead to changes in recycling practices sometime in the future

  • Gaunt’s Ham Park supports TidyBS5

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

    This morning residents living around Gaunt’s Ham Park in Barton Hill became the latest to add their support for the TidyBS5 campaign to rid the streets of BS5 of litter and fly-tipping (posts passim).

    The picture below was posted online earlier this morning by Up Our Street.

    Gaunts Ham Park residents with banner
    Picture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    The more support, the more chance there is that Bristol City Council will take the residents of East Bristol seriously when the raise their voices, something they have not always done in the past.

  • TidyBS5’s message spreads

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    The message about residents wanting BS5 to be kept tidier is spreading. Pictured below are some of the residents of Easton’s Bloy Street calling for cleanliness. The picture is courtesy of Stacy Yelland of Up Our Street.

    Bloy Street calls for a Tidy BS5
    Bloy Street calls for a Tidy BS5

    Last Friday, together with local councillor Marg Hickman, I attended a meeting with Up Our Street and Bristol City Council to discuss litter and fly-tipping in the area. Some very interesting facts came out.

    To begin with, the Neighbourhood Partnership area covered by BS5, consisting of Ashley, Easton and Lawrence Hill wards, is the worst in Bristol for fly-tipping, with 560 reports in the last quarter alone.

    Our old friends, the communal bins were discussed at length, particularly their role as a magnet for fly-tipping (posts passim).

    The opportunities for basing action on Bristol’s forthcoming tenure as European Green Capital 2015 were raised too. (If Bristol cannot clean its act up in places like the inner city, it’s in very grave danger of being Greenwash Capital instead! Ed.)

    Street clutter was also on the agenda, something the motorists’ friends, Bristol’s Tories, have noticed, particularly as regards the city’s proliferation of road signs.

    Turning to actions, as a result of the meeting, Marg and I will be visiting local schools to discuss litter, recycling and the like with pupils next year, in addition to which I’ve been asked to write a regular piece on rubbish-related matters in the quarterly local news sheet (also called Up Our Street. Ed.) that goes to Easton and Lawrence residents.

    As another way of publicising TidyBS5, Hannah Crudgington has suggested a monthly litter champion award for those public-spirited people out there who are prepared put themselves out to deal with what others have failed to put in bins or take home with them.

    Finally, other parts of the city, such as St Paul’s and St George, now which to emulate what’s been started in BS5.

  • Pointless paving

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    One thing living in Bristol for nearly 4 decades has taught me is that Bristol City Council is profligate and lacks competence.

    This was once again brought sharply into focus earlier this morning in a dead-end street called Clifton Street (map) leading to the back entrance of Easton CofE Primary School where I encountered the roadworks shown in the photograph below.

    image of dropped kerbs and textured paving on a dead-end street
    Bristol’s most pointless dropped kerbs?

    The view shows the entrance into the staff car park of the school, the approach to which has just been enhanced by 2 dropped kerbs and textured paving on each of the street’s two footways as part of works to replace the street’s kerbstones.

    There are only going to be two times in the day on weekdays when there is likely to be any traffic at all on Clifton Street – before and after the school day.

    As for the use of textured paving, this is generally installed to assist the visually impaired and I cannot see many visually impaired people using dead-end streets in Easton anyway.

    I wonder how much this municipal largesse by the city’s highways department has cost the public purse.

    If the city council really wanted to spend money on roadworks in Easton, there’s plenty of other stuff that needs attention, as shown in the example below.

    damaged Stapleton Road pedestrian refuge
    Picture courtesy of Hannah Crudgington

    The damaged pedestrian refuge shown above is on Stapleton Road, just a couple of hundred metres away from Clifton Street. Local residents have been attempting to get the council to repair it for over 6 months, after it was damaged by a bus driver with delusions of driving competence. These efforts have so far come to nought.

    In the recent TidyBS5 residents’ rubbish summit (posts passim), it was stated that council officers frequently intone the words “It’s the inner city” as an excuse for lack of action. Clearly this only works one way, i.e. when the lack of action concerns something either highlighted or desired by residents; when the initiative comes from within the council, there’s apparently no object, no matter how pointless what is proposed. I’ve encountered this ‘not invented here’ syndrome before in local authorities.

    It’s normal to see a spate of daft council spending in March each year, just before the municipal financial year runs out. This year it seems that Bristol City Council is providing the residents of Easton with an early Christmas present in the form of dumb expenditure.

  • Technology encourages boys and poorer children to read for longer

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Tech

    New technology is unlocking the key to the biggest problem that has been bedevilling the education world for years – the poor performance of white working-class boys in reading, The Independent reports.

    The Early Years Literacy Survey shows the role touch-screen devices play in the home and pre-school learning environments.

    image of Kindle ebook reader

    Figures show that a higher number of children from low income groups (DE households) are more likely to read stories on touch-screen devices for longer and use them for educational activities than those from high income groups (AB households). Findings show that:

    • Twice as many young children from DE households than from AB households read stories on a touch-screen for longer than they read printed stories (29.5% vs. 17.4%);
    • A higher number of children from DE households than AB households use technology more for educational activities than for entertainment (43.2% vs. 30.4%). Figures also reveal that boys are more likely to use touch-screen devices for reading and educational activities for a longer period than paper;
    • Twice as many boys as girls look at or read stories on a touch-screen for longer than they look at or read printed stories (24.0% vs. 12.0%); and
    • More boys than girls use a touch-screen device for educational activities than for entertainment (36.0% vs. 28.2%).

    The survey also found that 91.7% of children aged 3-5 have access to touch-screen technology at home and access to touch-screen technology in early years settings has doubled since last year. Moreover, the majority of pre-school teachers and practitioners said they would like to see more touch-screen technology in use in early years environments.

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