Slashdot Mirror

I live in London. Two free daily papers have just closed, largely because the (daily) Evening Standard (which wasn't previously free) became free:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/

There's also the (daily) Metro. OK, they're hardly the (London/New York/etc) times but they're not rubbish (well, the Standard isn't, anyway!).

Indeed. Not that it's had any discernible effect on crime rates in London.

The article provides no basis on which to draw that conclusion. There are other problems with the data set and conclusions, but the simplest question to ask is what percentage of crimes was detected prior to the introduction of CCTV?

It's also worth noting that London doesn't have a single camera 'network' per se. Each local authority is responsible for its own cameras.

Indeed. Not that it's had any discernible effect on crime rates in London.

In my humble opinion, the money wasted on video cameras would be better spent on health & education for the poor, incentivizing smart people to become police officers by paying them more, and vocational rehabilitation of offenders.

This guy earnt £300000/year, and 5 years in jail.

Haha, so wrong on all fronts.

"The rise in allowances comes at a time of rapidly growing pay for town hall officials, the most senior of whom now earn more than £200,000."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23394395-councillors-pay-up-by-twice-the-inflation-rate.do

I would argue that no one should have access to it. There have been enough reports showing that it does not help stop or solve crimes.

The potential for abuse by regular citizens is just as bad as it is for the police or government.

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23371706-details/Yes,%20we%20are%20biased%20on%20religion%20and%20politics,%20admit%20BBC%20executives/article.do
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-biased-admit-stars-BBC-News.html

And straight from the horses mouth:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6763205.stm

Meanwhile real criminals including murderers are caught by CCTV camera evidence every day. Reality beats hysterical paranoia every day.

Yes, reality beats hysteria. Perhaps then you should lose your hysteria about the number of "real criminals including murderers" being caught by surveillance cameras, and join us here in reality, where even the UK police admit that CCTV cameras do not reduce crime. (See also this and this.)

I can buy a UK box for about £17 from Asda (=Walmart), which is about $25 at the moment. Minimum wage is currently £5.73 per hour.

We use DVB-T, but the technology is similar (MPEG-2 etc).

Incidentally, Asda also sell a DVD player for £9 (=$13).

Orwell would be proud

Well, the UK seems to be doing just fine with their high CCTV coverage: last year they had 4.2 million cameras, and the number is increasing. The effectiveness of all this is of minor importance, as long as now they can be used to catch some child murderer every now and then, so the population is pleased. When the huge infrastructure is there, the rest will be done by currently still to be developed technology to do complete tracking of people. I don't think we are very far off, though.

>Personally I think it's the business of the government to protect the interests of the majority... maybe... I'll have to think about that a bit more.
>Anyway. I'm English

And that's why you have 1/5th of the world's CCTV cameras, yet your country has a crime rate higher than Canada, a country where CCTV is rarely found and when it is, is fought by a government appointed privacy commissioner.

The majority of Britons wanted the police to watch what their neighbors do 24x7. They got that. The majority also realized that this is morally improper, so the majority decided to use the veil of reducing the crime rate (in reality, the crime rate, at best, has remained steady with CCTV) to get what they wanted.

One could argue CCTV has prevented an increase in the crime rate, but perhaps your country needs to find out what makes it so incredibly dangerous it needs TWENTY-FIVE TIMES more cameras to control your citizens than the average country.

Or you could just agree with me, and realize that the majority of people in your country (*and mine!*) are curious to know what their neighbors are doing and are willing to do immoral things to find out, as long as they know they won't get the blame.

The insurance companies maintain profitability by selecting price points that set them ahead, given all of the expenses they are likely to incur. The more fat people they have on their plans, the more likely they are to spend money on all the fat-related medical issues that arise, so the more they must charge.

If you enter into a plan that doesn't raise prices on smokers or the obese, that's your choice. In that case, you are choosing to subsidize them. And then whining about it. It's not unfair to you because it's a choice you are specifically making.

As usual, this door swings both ways, and it doesn't matter whether the health care is universal or privatized...any kind of medical insurance raises these issues.

Except with single-payer government care (universal care in some cases - such as a voucher system - can be setup to use the private system) *there is no choice*. In a private system, you can choose to join a plan that takes into account tobacco usage. Or choose one that doesn't. In single-payer government care, the government can force anyone they want to pay for the care in taxes, and then deny them care.

Sounds like a good idea to me. People with unhealthy lifestyles cost communities and bigger units (states, federal govt) a lot of money in emergency services, medicare costs, etc. I welcome the idea that those with healthy lifestyles shouldn't be subsidizing those with unhealthy lifestyles.

This seems facially reasonable, but is related to why I will never support government funded healthcare :

It allows the government (and by extension, a majority vote) to dictate what you do with your life by making it incredibly hard to live otherwise. For example, the British Conservative party wants to bar people with "Unhealthy Lifestyles" from getting NHS care. You know, the care they pay for. Furthermore, this never has any sane relation to the cost of the activity - In the UK, smoking costs 1.7 billion and raises 8 billion in excise taxes, another $2 billion in VAT. I find it unlikely that the same isn't true in the US. Plus, obesity is at least partly biological - apparently you want to punish people for things they have no control over.

Health has a great deal to do with dumb luck and actions we have no control over, even for "lifestyle diseases" that are more common with obesity, alcohol, or smoking. And getting one bad card in health can prevent you from living a healthy lifestyle. There's the surveillance implications - government is watching what you eat, how you live. There are some things that simply aren't the government's business, even if they might theoretically make emergency services more expensive. Front end taxes (on cigarettes, alcohol) are fine, if probably too high since they're an easy political sell; lifestyle monitoring is not. The government is here to serve us, not the other way around.

By their own admission a leading UK telecoms company has deprived several charities of a legal revenue stream to line their own corporate pockets.

Given the outrage following the several Audiocall staff kept 100K of children in need cash for itself, I hope BT get the same treatment.

Also perhaps worthy of note at this point is the story CCTV Does not stop crime.

Seems it might have been a momumental waste of money, but of course it won't ever be pulled down as that would be an admission of yet another mistaken policy! So we pay (in council tax, etc) to run the system that spies on us for no real benefit. Marvellous.

Well you don't pay very close attention then. London has over 10,000 CCTVs that are GOVERNMENT crime cameras. That number does not include cameras from private businesses or ATM machines, etc. It's extremely hypocritical of you to whine about the tabloids when you are, in fact, acting like a tabloid (saying shit without backing it up with any facts).

Here's a link for you: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-details/Tens+of+thousands+of+CCTV+cameras,+yet+80%25+of+crime+unsolved/article.do

For most surgery, I would agree. But there are certain types of surgery where I believe sloppy work can be instrumental towards helping society to correct an unnecessary infatuation with vanity.

Of course, the "victims" in these cases tend to perpetuate the sue-and-get-rich methodology that has led the RIAA business plan for the last 5 or 6 years.

As a regular reader of the BBC for news, I would agree the the BBC takes and outside view of America, but they do have their own agenda, and have admitted they are biased:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23371706-details/Yes,%20we%20are%20biased%20on%20religion%20and%20politics,%20admit%20BBC%20executives/article.do

No, no sarcasm. It really seems to be a phenomenon here, too.

That's as ridiculous as banning an article of clothing that can be used to disguise identity! It could never happen! THE VERY THOUGHT IS PREPOSTEROUS!!

Then again, as far as the hoodie ban goes, anything that even makes an attempt at reclaiming the UK's streets is welcome, whatever the free-speech implications.

Bullying on the internet, however, can be addressed more effectively by simply rotating 180 degrees until one's face is no longer pointing toward the screen. Further measures may include going out, getting some fresh air, and finding a nice hobby.

'Isn't there now an add compain going on in radio and TV over there telling you if you see strange activity in a house, a person with too many cell phones, or just strange behavior on the street to call a national hotline for terror?'

Indeed there is:

http://www.met.police.uk/so/at_hotline.htm

http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20080307-terrorist-campaign-photographers-searched-london

Examples of terrorist paraphenalia include cameras, credit cards, mobile phones, computers, suitcases, cell phones and, err, vans.

This is from the same people who brought us my all time favourite 'public security' campaign:

http://www.art-for-a-change.com/News/eyes.htm

'Aren't there cameras that talk back if you get unruly on the street?'

Generally only if the unruly behaviour is caused by mushroom intoxication. But we do have rather a lot of cameras:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-details/George+Orwell,+Big+Brother+is+watching+your+house/article.do

'I love it when arts majors try to emulate Orwell and struggle hard to dream up "dystopian" scenarios in anything and everything to appear sophisticated in the eyes of their colleagues..'

Especially when there's no need to dream up anything - over here on Airstrip One, a far more effective dystopian surveillance system than Google's snapshot is already in place:

"According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2 million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily. Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London. On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move."

Welcome to the UK, Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes.

To put it more concretely, if some Muslims came over here and told me I had to live under Sharia, you can be sure I would not take that gently.

The record companies are saying there are no agreements yet It was all just a dream.

Not trying to track me...

Just like the congestion charging cameras in London, UK don't track you or where you go. Or how some cameras on the motorways don't track you either to judge your average speed and fine you if you go over...

You know one of the main reasons their introducing more cameras in the UK - to get rid of street crime.. by intimidating you (the randomly violent thug) into being really cautious about what you do because you're almost always on CCTV. See what I'm getting at...

Ofcourse there are two sides to the argument - you might feel safer by knowing that if a drug pushing terrorist paedophile were to assault you in the street, atleast there'll be easier to convict them if their ever caught...

My point is: with a current trend of power hungry politions, leveraging whatever they have now to ensure their political ideals are on-top in future; are you sure you're happy with that?

All it takes is a little bit of c*****ship, a touch of fascism and dictatorial policy before it starts sliding - ever seen that movie V for Vendetta? :)

Kate Walsh comes to mind. MySpace to iTunes to super-star with no record label behind her.

My understanding is just the opposite, actually -- the crime did come down slightly, but -- more importantly -- the number of unsolved crimes plummeted. Putting the criminals behind bars is expected to pay off.

What are sources for this information?

Xenu Cometh!

Well the main reason is the consumer's willingness to pay.

True.

But record labels also need to recoup their investments and one "successful" artist has to pay for many "unsucceful" artists.

False. Lets not describe their wholesale corruption with anything so nice as "recouping their investments". These people are thieves; with everything from illegal payola and artists contracts to massive overcharging for technical services and "lost" royalties. They lie about royalties, they lie about production costs, they lie about how much they assist the artist and they lie about how heavily the "successful" artists subsidize the unsuccessful artists.

Just like hollywood accountants they claim to be losing money on most artists but basically, just like spammers, they never stop lying. Any claims like you've just made about unsuccessful artists being subsidized should be ignored unless there's exceptionally strong evidence proving the claims.

---

It's not piracy, it's sharing. Didn't your parents teach you to share?

They're way ahead of you: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412351-details/Outrage+as+DNA+profile+of+seven-month-old+baby+is+added+to+register/article.do

"""
It was revealed this year that more than 100,000 DNA samples had been taken from children, aged ten to 16, who have never been charged or convicted of any crime.
"""

There is a fair bit of evidence to suggest we already have been visited, if not contacted.

Some fairly recent ones...
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2340161 5-details/'Mile-wide+UFO'+spotted+by+British+airli ne+pilot/article.do
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21994224-2,00 .html

There is always a government agency to refute the evidence... though they have little of their own.

No, I do not own a tinfoil hat. I'm just saying, maybe The Truth Is Out There. :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Londoners were caught on camera over 300 times a day. I fail to see how more cameras change this. Sure, they are directly in the hands of police officers, but if we truly live in an Orwellian state, doesn't the government already have access to said cameras? why is this even an issue?

Actually, the experience in the USA is more along the lines that with sufficient police forces, you can catch many of the criminals. With sufficient court systems and prison systems, you can keep them off the streets enough to make a very noticeable drop in crime rates.

Yes, it's expensive; but you have to ask yourself, is letting a lout like this one stay on the street saving you any money?

Then again, all the usual arguements about properly funding schools to prevent kids from being a criminal in the first place apply - but then again, Washington, DC has some of the most expensive public schools in the country in terms of money spent per pupil, yet consistantly has one of the worst crime rates in the developed world. You also have the problem that leaving the current criminals on the street can cost far more than locking them up.

I'll note that I'm a proponenet of punishment/correction reform. I'd love to see a way to get people to obey the law without long prison sentences that put them around other criminals(so they get more criminal skills), costs a lot of money and prevents them from being a productive member of society during that time(for the most part). Still, the whole cruel&unusual clause has been interprited to stop most alternative forms of punishment.

I also do not like the warehousing of addicts in prison - there's far better places to put them to dry out. In my mind the only criminals that need to be in prison are the ones that are physically dangerous to the rest of society or are otherwise determined to be detrimental. The murderers, rapists, batterers, and such. Combined with multiple offenders for the non-violent stuff.

Here is the article I was referring to with the car one. Is there some other explanation for this? I'm not saying the USA is perfect--much US policy frankly sucks--but these petty assaults upon basic dignity are rare here, and when they happen often lead to political career-ending scandal.

And when they finally get A.I. out of diamond-based computing they could embed it into this package:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2339894 4-details/Damien%20Hirst%20unveils%20his%20jewels% 20in%20the%20crown,%20a%20&%23253;50m%20diamond-st udded%20skull/article.do

Prefer their equivalent of CNN then? http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2 048161,00.html Or, if you like: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2339118 8-details/Teachers+drop+the+Holocaust+to+avoid+off ending+Muslims/article.do But really, let's cut straight to the point: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2339595 8-details/Why+did+top+policeman+agree+to+appear+in +a+film+for+the+Scientologists/article.do

I notice that there's a man going by "Captain Gatso" who's still active in certain protest activities in the UK. Looks like there's now suspicion on him as a letter-bomb terrorist, which he's denied outright and which doesn't make sense. The UK's universal surveillance plan for the nation's roadways (eg. here) was once marketed as something to fight crime, but is now all about "road pricing." Considering the amazing claim that the average Briton is now spotted on camera 300 times a day, that the cameras bark orders at you, and that the software will actively scan for signs of trouble, I'd like to avoid England until things change. No offense to you, much to the politicians and other officials building this network. Unfortunately we in the US are following along, with both parties involved.

Print to WebA major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.

The US is showing you amateurs how to do censorship correctly.

First you subvert the population, then you censor. None of this "revolution by force", "censorship by edict", oh no. The correct way to do it is get the population on board with a completely bogus set of threats and rationalizations they think are their own -- "terrorism", "homeland" security, "for the children" -- then the population's own representatives willingly subvert the country's founding documents and the people like it.

Everywhere I look, I see sheep.


As opposed to just killing them outright.

Poisoned spy 'had information on Kremlin figure'

At least in Russia, they are given the freedom to protest. I mean, only in the US does the police arrest and detain people who have not committed a crime right?
Hundreds Detained Ahead of Moscow Rally

Yeah, we are so good at taking rights away that the public is actually happier and seemingly better off without them! What's your complaint again?

(Before you mod me OT, keep in mind that I'm responding to a post that is modded well(Score:5, Insightful). How could that post be ON Topic and mine not?)

1. Deadly polonium traced to Russian nuclear plant
2. Plot Thickens as Spy Poison is Traced to a Nuke Plant in Putin's Russia

The second source suggests that the isotope composition is the signature that identifies a specific power plant. However, the Atomic Weapons Establishment declined to give the location of the plant.

I am sticking to my original guess of the culprit: a renegade group in Russia. Various reports have indicated that numerous factions, answering to no one, operate within the Russian government. One of these factions likely committed the crime.

Putin is just too smart to kill someone in such a blatant way. He would have known that such a gruesome murder would have serious negative consequences.

I know that when i finish uni im going to want to leave the UK and live abroad, and im sure that the people who want to leave USA want to do it for the same reason.

Three hundred thousand people are leaving the UK each year now. The reason most people are leaving are the high cost of housing (especially for retirees), the lack of job and pension security.

Even the immigrate to the UK websites give manage to put a positive spin on it: "high job turnover rate creating opportunities"

Although, there are many reasons which may the UK attractive to people from other countries:

"free state schools attended by over 90% of school-age children with the balance attending private schools."

"world-class free healthcare system available to all."

"welfare: a large welfare system to help you out if one of life's disasters befalls you."

The UK is a great place to live and rent if you are a single professional from a country with a lower cost of living, and want to spend a couple of years putting aside some money for a mortgage. But if you want to buy a house in an area with a good school, then you're going to need a really high salary - Around 50K pounds just to be able afford a house in a area with a good state school.
Even more so once the "reevaluation of house prices" is carried out.

The UK does not allow freedom of speech let alone freedom of the press. I am outraged that someone (a 14 year old girl) in the West could be arrested for the following: The teenager had not been in school the day before due to a hospital appointment and had missed the start of a project, so the teacher allocated her a group to sit with. "She said I had to sit there with five Asian pupils," said Codie yesterday. "Only one could speak English, so she had to tell that one what to do so she could explain in their language. Then she sat me with them and said 'Discuss'." According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - then began talking in a language she didn't understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher. "I said 'I'm not being funny, but can I change groups because I can't understand them?' But she started shouting and screaming, saying 'It's racist, you're going to get done by the police'." Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day. A complaint was made to a police officer based full-time at the school, and more than a week after the incident on September 26 she was taken to Swinton police station and placed under arrest. "They told me to take my laces out of my shoes and remove my jewellery, and I had my fingerprints and photograph taken," said Codie. "It was awful." After questioning on suspicion of committing a section five racial public order offence, her mother Nicola says she was placed in a bare cell for three-and-a-half hours then released without charge. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. This actually occured in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island. Read the article here: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2337062 3-details/Schoolgirl+arrested+for+refusing+to+stud y+with+non-English+pupils/article.do

Have you read the news today? The BBC has acknowledged it is institutionally biased, based on a report it commissioned itself.

That's probably because anyone carrying an iPod in the UK, at least, will be mugged.

Here in much of the US, muggings aren't that common, since you never know who's carrying a handgun. Thieves go after much higher-value things, like cars (i.e. carjackings).

here you go.

I even read a story about a woman losing her husband in an accident, but there was still some sperm of him frozen somewhere and she had still his child. I couldn't be bothered to look up a link for that though...

It seems that the BBC is now using 31337 courriers to distribute their shows. This is the second time in a week that they've had a major leak. The first was Extras which is Ricky Gervais' new thing. He's the one from the British version of the Office & producer of the American one. Anyhow... I suspect it's the summer interns all getting what they can before returning to school. Info here... http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/articles/200 91865?source=PA

You left out the stabbing and the dislocated jaw... http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/165115 41?source=PA/

Everyone, please send emails to this address of a similar nature:

Dear editor,

I am a computer hacker. By this, I mean that I enjoy learning and exploring computer technology. I have a degree in computer science, and am involved in many not-for-profit computer-technology endeavors. I am not a criminal. I do not violate computer security, I do not write malicious software, and I do not intentionally cause harm to the computer systems that I have access to. Any computer system access that I have has been given to me through legitimate means. It has come to my attention that you have used the term 'hacker' in the article linked below to indicate a person who intentionally violates computer security systems: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/191647 14?source=Evening%20Standard&ct=5

The proper term for such a person is 'cracker' or 'security breaker', i.e. one that "cracks" computer security. By using the term 'hacker' in the way that your publication has done, you spread misinformation about me, and people like me. You are demeaning and destroying a culture that, above all, values learning, knowledge, and wisdom. Please stop insulting hackers by equating them with criminals. For more information, see here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/appendixc.htm l

Please issue a correction, and please make sure that a clear distinction is made in the future.

(your name here)
A Proud Hacker