Absent friend

Just back from a fantastic 9 days away in La Vendee. Some who know me will know that good friend, co-boat owner, man who got things done and enjoyer of life Marcus passed away very suddenly in January leaving a vast hole in the lives of his family. The same friends with whom we have just had our holiday in the sun, sand and swimming pool (well the sea was a little cold still!) - I am not alone in missing a friend but I really really don't know how they do it - much loved, sorely missed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to ponder my musings and for any contribution you make. Although comments appear immediately (i.e. unmoderated) I will remove (or if possible) edit offensive comments.

Popular posts from this blog

Outing the OS "policy options" 'consultation'

Apologies for so much grammar in the title but those of you who have been following this since November 17th will know exactly whence the implied skepticism comes. In the intervening months you may have observed (as I have not been 'anon') various comments I have made to various posts and other blogs (I can't remember them all now so no links!) correcting factual errors and establishing a soap box of sorts from which to contrast and/or challenge in a "you can't prove that your emperor has any clothes" kind of way some of the statements, demands and assumptions of the 'georati' (?). Now of course you may argue that I, on behalf of emapsite, have an agenda of my own, what with being an OS Premium Partner (that's value adding reseller) and all. You may be right and I am not going to be sharing corporate information here so you'll just have to speculate but on the whole you won't find me hiding behind some smoke-screen of nobility and social g
Read more

Access

I guess we all think we know what access means - I can get hold of things or through to my target. Of course the definitions go much wider. There is tendency though, not unusual of course when pedalling a personal agenda, to look at access through a single lens. Before, I go there, I should declare my interest in what follows. As a founder of emapsite , the few of you who read this will think there is a specific axe to be ground here owing to our track record as a successful OS partner, turning OS and other data assets into products desired by our customers, and that specifically I am railing (or about to rail) against the the Chancellor's announcement that the government will be creating a Geospatial Commission and what follows on from that, as confirmed in today's Industrial Strategy . I defer to the Urban Dictionary . There have been some cogent posts from those with long interest in and insight into open data including those by Ed Parkes , Leigh Dodds and Owen Boswar
Read more

Transparency, contact tracing and the language of surveillance

Image
As Richard Pope attests in his recent blog there is some pretty boring-to-the-ordinary-person aspects to the whole transparency, tracking and contact tracing narrative. To an extent we appear to be becoming desensitised to the who and the how, the centralised/decentralised, the open/proprietary, the technology choices and how inclusive or otherwise they might be, and to the notion of privacy. On this last point language plays a key role. You'd hope this was clear language on the back of a truck in Sri Lanka The Coronavirus (Safeguards) Bill 2020 proposes protections for 'digital interventions'. Though the ambition is understandable and the intent and brevity admirable its reliance on the same language, in relation to privacy, GDPR, anonymisation, digital exclusion, sharing, containment, research and time merits some exploration: Digital exclusion is highest in those communities most at risk notably the poorest and the elderly, sub-sections of whom are at the fo
Read more