This is what our local library was recently reopened as, though presumably not because it's now far more difficult to "discover" the whereabouts of the few books which were left behind.
My university's library was also recently extended, for which it won the city society's "best new building" award, yet it is the internet facilities within the library which are most frequented, closely followed by the coffee shop rather than the book sections. This isn't surprising as researching on the internet is highly encouraged to the point at which it's easy to get away with solely using online references.
Maybe the traditional fine system needs to be reviewed in order to attract users back: when I was ticked off for the late return of a couple of books, knowing from the catalogue records that no other student hadn't bothered to borrow or reserve any of our reading list throughout the module, it did make me wonder why I didn't save myself the bother and just go on the internet instead. It's just that I prefer cutting out the "middle man", as online copies aren't guaranteed to be of quality or even complete, but also because I don't believe that Google is a replacement for a good librarian, particularly a subject librarian, who can locate far more using the tricks of their trade.
For years as a child, I spent the whole of every Saturday in the library curled up with a good book or 10. Maybe that's not what my son will be doing in a couple of years time, but I'd like him to at least have the choice.
If the pictures are posted to a profile with public access, what privacy is there to invade? You can't put these pictures up on display, then get upset that people see them. If it is the case of a school employing someone, either already in-house or contracted, to obtain this kind of information, then actually yes, I can be very upset about that...
Maybe it will be a good lesson to these idiots not to document their wrong-doing.
Or at least to switch their profiles to "friends only", for their sake and their own.
I wouldn't necessarily be too keen about my own child drinking under age, but I wouldn't be at all happy about his invasion of privacy either - I'd consider that stalking.
If they're too young to drink, they're certainly too young to be snooped on by adults, especially by those in positions of authority to them...
Would you trust someone to update a map if they can't use the right there? Yes I do and so do most other map users: they just don't know it.
Ordnance Survey, for example, does not require formal qualifications of a very large fraction of their map editors rather than the ability to edit the map to meet their other cartographic standards, as a dyslexic colleague of mine happily found.
It's inevitable some map editors will be illiterate and also that simple mistakes will be made, as in any other occupation. This is what QA is for:o)
It already makes me angry to find that it took 3 weeks for the loss to be reported to senior management. To then hear that it took a *further* 6 to 10 days for the Met, Info Commissioner, FSA and SOCA to be informed frankly incenses me. *That* would've been the ideal time to urge account holders to monitor for unusual activity.
To add insult to injury, the helpline number which has been set up for those concerned is non-geographic. This means that, depending on your service provider, it's usually not the cheapest call you could make, especially from a mobile through which 0845 numbers are considered premium and thus not eligible to count within free minutes. Organisations using non-geographic numbers also often take a cut of that cost and if this is the case with HMRC, even if the cost is allocated to diverting the call to the "correct" department, it's still unacceptable that HMRC could be charging people to receive advice on what is their mistake.
I regularly receive telephone calls from the HMRC - not mention other benefits agencies - regarding benefits, from staff who require my name, date of birth and those of my son, our address, my national insurance number and even occasionally the names of *former* partners. On every occasion I have politely refused but asked for their extension number so that I could call them back on the number I know to be genuine. Often I've either been told that the caller will lose their job if they don't complete their enquiry or I have been promptly hung up on.
Although it has thankfully turned out to be the HMRC, it's the kind of unprofessional call I come to expect from a pushy, cold-calling salesman, not a government agency. If these CDs have fallen into the wrong hands and worse still, have been copied, I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing such specifically targeted victims of phishing as any success rate within a choice of 7.5 million families could be well worth a fraudster's while.
The slow panic has been setting in for me since I heard that it definitely included our details and although there may be "no evidence the data had gone to criminals" (yet), this isn't exactly a case in which no news is good news.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what our local library was recently reopened as, though presumably not because it's now far more difficult to "discover" the whereabouts of the few books which were left behind.
My university's library was also recently extended, for which it won the city society's "best new building" award, yet it is the internet facilities within the library which are most frequented, closely followed by the coffee shop rather than the book sections. This isn't surprising as researching on the internet is highly encouraged to the point at which it's easy to get away with solely using online references.
Maybe the traditional fine system needs to be reviewed in order to attract users back: when I was ticked off for the late return of a couple of books, knowing from the catalogue records that no other student hadn't bothered to borrow or reserve any of our reading list throughout the module, it did make me wonder why I didn't save myself the bother and just go on the internet instead. It's just that I prefer cutting out the "middle man", as online copies aren't guaranteed to be of quality or even complete, but also because I don't believe that Google is a replacement for a good librarian, particularly a subject librarian, who can locate far more using the tricks of their trade.
For years as a child, I spent the whole of every Saturday in the library curled up with a good book or 10. Maybe that's not what my son will be doing in a couple of years time, but I'd like him to at least have the choice.
Or at least to switch their profiles to "friends only", for their sake and their own.
I wouldn't necessarily be too keen about my own child drinking under age, but I wouldn't be at all happy about his invasion of privacy either - I'd consider that stalking.
If they're too young to drink, they're certainly too young to be snooped on by adults, especially by those in positions of authority to them...
It already makes me angry to find that it took 3 weeks for the loss to be reported to senior management. To then hear that it took a *further* 6 to 10 days for the Met, Info Commissioner, FSA and SOCA to be informed frankly incenses me. *That* would've been the ideal time to urge account holders to monitor for unusual activity.
To add insult to injury, the helpline number which has been set up for those concerned is non-geographic. This means that, depending on your service provider, it's usually not the cheapest call you could make, especially from a mobile through which 0845 numbers are considered premium and thus not eligible to count within free minutes. Organisations using non-geographic numbers also often take a cut of that cost and if this is the case with HMRC, even if the cost is allocated to diverting the call to the "correct" department, it's still unacceptable that HMRC could be charging people to receive advice on what is their mistake.
I regularly receive telephone calls from the HMRC - not mention other benefits agencies - regarding benefits, from staff who require my name, date of birth and those of my son, our address, my national insurance number and even occasionally the names of *former* partners. On every occasion I have politely refused but asked for their extension number so that I could call them back on the number I know to be genuine. Often I've either been told that the caller will lose their job if they don't complete their enquiry or I have been promptly hung up on.
Although it has thankfully turned out to be the HMRC, it's the kind of unprofessional call I come to expect from a pushy, cold-calling salesman, not a government agency. If these CDs have fallen into the wrong hands and worse still, have been copied, I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing such specifically targeted victims of phishing as any success rate within a choice of 7.5 million families could be well worth a fraudster's while.
The slow panic has been setting in for me since I heard that it definitely included our details and although there may be "no evidence the data had gone to criminals" (yet), this isn't exactly a case in which no news is good news.