Chairman's log

Trick or Treat

denispayne — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:17:11 +0000

Halloween (All Hallows Eve) started life as All Saints Eve - or at least in one version and whilst many churches will be holding special services most of us will be either enjoying, or not, the revelries of our young people – trick or treat etc.

If that’s something you’re not looking forward to, then Cambridgeshire Police have published posters in black & white or full colour

Big Brother is watching you

denispayne — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:36:55 +0000

Some of the tech press has been reporting recently that owners of iPhones are being tracked – automatically, and without the ability to disable the function. It turns out to be true, but with sufficiently low accuracy that its not really an issue – except the principle.

What I’ve found more interesting – and more confusing because I can’t see the value – is that Google knows where I am. More precisely, Google knows where my wireless router is.

Every bit of computer kit has a MAC address – and wireless routers both have one and transmit it (even if they are set up encrypted). To get the MAC address for your router (Windows) open up a command window and type “arp -a”.

Then go to http://samy.pl/androidmap/index.php and input that address. I did – and you can see the result for yourself by going to http://bit.ly/dJuSNA – that’s pretty accurate.

What Google (or anyone else) is going to do with that, I don’t know – but it just goes to show that you can’t hide …

Back online

denispayne — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:20:12 +0000

All change – well, at least there will (some time) be change …

As for that “really confusing stuff from the Standards Board for England about what I can and can’t say – particularly when I title this as “Chairman’s Log”” – the Localism Bill (though it won’t be law for at least 12 months) is dismantling the Standards Board for England. Though it would be better to describe this as change, rather than dismantling. Something with teeth will be replaced by something without – and all Councils will be required to adopt a model code of conduct (though its described as “voluntary”) and a mechanism to enforce it (though without any real powers …). There are some problems still to be solved – the new mechanisms have no solution for bullying, which is a real problem (not in Histon or Impington, but certainly locally).

And the County Council has plans for introducing clearer guidelines for those it describes as “professional bloggers” – deadlines keep slipping since County HR have more pressing issues arising from “restructuring” – but its coming.

Going offline

denispayne — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:27:26 +0000

I’m going offline for a bit – perhaps a while, perhaps even for ever.

A number of reasons:

some really confusing stuff from the Standards Board for England about what I can and can’t say – particularly when I title this as “Chairman’s Log”
and similarly from my employer (the County Council)
time – I’ve not been posting recently (you’ve noticed, of course) – there’s too much to do (for now) and not the time – and there are other things I want to do with time I can release

So, farewell for now.

I’ll leave the links to Archery, Towns and Villages, and my Reports to Council – which are public documents anyway.

All the best