The law of unintended consequences! (wiki)

I’ve written two posts (one, two) previously complaining about NTL Ireland’s poor customer service. Others responded but it seems like NTL Ireland may have the last laugh. And it’s based on a true story!!

Thankfully, the nitendo is white, the psp is black and the computer doesn’t have an internet connection so my 9 year old niece dumbed things down for me! In a stream of conscious type of excitement, she told me, ‘I’d like game x for the white one and game y for the black one’.

The long and short of it is that she’d like Age of Empires for the computer and MySims for the white one (sorry, the nintendo DS). But I was a bit freaked out when she told me about one of the games she already has. It’s called Imagine: Babies for the Nintendo. I didn’t believe her that it was an actual game. But it is! It’s so incredibly sexist and demeaning that I can’t believe it’s allowed to be sold. As you’ll see from the description below, it’s targeted specifically at girls.

Basically she has to pretend to be a babysitter and earn money.

Here’s a description from game.co.uk

Embody a young student who visits her grandmother’s house for the summer. Your grandmother leaves to go on holiday and leaves you in charge of her house. During her absence you will have to maintain the house and even decorate it to your taste. In order to do this you will need to earn money by taking care of all your neighbour’s babies, where you will find your vocation–babysitting!

Imagine: Babies Features:

* Embody a young babysitter and take of your neighbour’s babies all with their own personalities!
* Take care of 6 babies (one after the other), each with a distinctive character.
* Prepare their bottle and baby food in the kitchen, check on the amount of food in stock and buy the right food according to their needs.
* Rock the babies in a cradle, put on the soothing radio or move the mobile to help them sleep or to calm them down.
* Change their nappies to keep them clean, keep an eye on their health and dress them up with different clothes
* Entertain the babies: Play with them and their toys, play music to make them dance and take them into the garden to play on swings and other garden toys
* Exchange information, photos and clothing with other players through Wi-Fi
* Keep the house clean: Use fun mini-games to create a welcoming home for the babies: wash up, clean and vacuum, paint the walls, mow the grass, trim hedges and drive away spiders!
* Make the house to your own taste: Use the money you earn and the vouchers you receive in succeeding in your missions, buy items at the shops to decorate the house

/Rant

Some kids tried to break into my house by smashing a double-glazed window at the rear of my property. Thankfully, the muppets made so much noise that the neighbours were alerted and scared them off. The neighbours also called the police, who did actually turn up to examine look at the crime scene.

Now, in fairness, I don’t expect any CSI-type examination, nor do I expect the police to catch the idiots. How could they?

I visited the police station today to report it and get a ‘log number’ for my insurance claim. The crime happened in a small town where car break-ins so rare that they are reported in the local newspaper. When I entered the station (or barracks, as my relatives call it), there were two Guards having a bit of banter in the lobby. One of them politely asked what I wanted. When I replied that I wanted to report a crime, he got all excited and the two of them vanished, not to be seen again. The Guard who was actually manning the desk eventually turned up. As I said, it’s a small town so I just had to mention the address and she knew about it.

I didn’t have to tell her about the crime but, after getting the log number, she started to ask me for my name, address and date of birth. Not many people know that the Guards have a policy of recording everyone that comes into contact with them. It’s to do with their super-duper PULSE computer system (Police Using Leading Systems Effectively). Technically, I’m a victim of crime and now the police who fight crime now more about me than the crime itself. I now have a file on the police database and the criminals do not. And I’m not 100% comfortable with that.

There’s a phrase, ‘What have I got to hide?‘. Another way of looking at it is, ‘What have I got to lose?‘

I wanted to find out more about PULSE and Garda policy towards it. I’m sure they’ve nothing to hide but the search function of the Guards homepage doesn’t work! The only information about PULSE I can find on the official Garda website is this tidbit on their IT page:

PULSE (Police Using Leading Systems Effectively)

PULSE is the largest IT system within An Garda Síochána. The system is available to all members of An Garda Síochána nationwide and ensures that accurate up-to-date information is available to all members in responding to the demands of a modern police force.

Development and enhancements to the system are on-going. The most recent major development is the introduction of Fixed Charge Processing to process fixed charge offences or fines on-the-spot and enable the effective recording of penalty points resulting in the “penalty points” being integrated into PULSE.

If you search Googe.ie for ‘Garda, Pulse’, 50% of the entries on the first page are negative. Indeed, this one for the Data Protection Commissioner is interesting. The title is:

Gardai- Inappropriate data on “Pulse system” -data deleted when access request received- not fair to person- could frustrate the provisions of the Act

The Data Protection Commissioner keeps mentioning ‘the prevention, detection or investigation of crime’ when discussing PULSE so I guess these are central aims of the system. Now obviously, some will question why I’m so exercised about giving the police my date of birth. I guess it’s because I believe I live in a free country and I believe I’m allowed to go unhindered in the course of my business (there’s probably even something in the constitution about it??).

PULSE is considered a great success among (sic) law enforcement agencies throughout the world and the Guards would have us believe that several of them have visited Ireland to study it’s implementation. To my mind, it’s a nascent tracking system for a country’s citizens and not to be encouraged.

Before you make up your mind, think about those two phrases again: What have I got to hide? and What have I got to lose?.

Is that a record?

P.S. This is pretty cool. I’m writing this from The Moorings Pub in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. Eircom has a scheme where you can get free wi-fi (until next April if you’re a customer) in various locations around Ireland. The Moorings is one of those places. It’s a nice bar (it does food too) and it’s even better now that they have internet access.

Actually, I wasn’t asked for any passwords etc so I think The Moorings had free internet access anyway and maybe they’re just piggy-backing on the Eircom scheme??

I’ve had a Garmin satnav gadget for my car for the past couple of months. It’s a stupid thing really: paying a couple of hundred euro when a map costs around a tenner. But it gets me from A to B. It broke recently in that it would detect the satellites in space but the two wouldn’t talk to each other. Their website said you could email or phone for help. Unfortunately, they didn’t list an email address so I had to phone their British call centre.

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Their operative listened to my story and didn’t try any nonsense. She even knew there were no post codes in Ireland when she took my address. She just gave me an Returns number and told me I’d have to pay the postage to their UK centre. So, last Wednesday, I paid €11 to send it by registered post to the UK. I didn’t hear anything from them until today when a courier dropped a brand new replacement unit! That was a one week turnaround, including postage!

So, all in all, I’m a happy camper. I’m disappointed that it broke so soon but their customer service is friendly and efficient.

How long do I need to do this to get to 25,000,000 people?

I’m sure that everything that can be said has already been said but I’m absolutely amazed at how much damage one can do with 2 CD’s…

Italics

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Image below

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/isadub/1873139491/” title=”Photo Sharing”><img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2096/1873139491_bc858019ed_m.jpg” width=”240″ height=”161″ alt=”Skip” /></a>

The flickr link above is what flickr says you’re supposed to do… The link below is ‘just’ the photo’s url.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2096/1873139491_bc858019ed_m.jpg

From IMMA’s website… I’ve added paragraphs ;-|

Japan’s leading electronic composer/artist, Ryoji Ikeda*, focuses on the minutiae of ultrasonics, frequencies and the essential characteristics of sound itself. Since 1995, Ikeda has been intensely active through concerts, installations, and recordings, integrating sound, acoustics and sublime imagery.

In the artist’s works, music, time and space are shaped by mathematical methods as Ikeda explores sound as sensation, pulling apart its physical properties to reveal its relationship with human perception. This performance at IMMA includes two of his most influential and acclaimed performances C4I and Datamatics.

Using computer and digital technologies to the utmost limit, his audiovisual concerts suggest a unique orientation for our future multimedia environment and culture.

Ryoji Ikeda* –> cool website

Anyhow, if you comment and I don’t post your comment, sorry. It’s likely that you’ve been caught in the spam filter and I simply don’t have the time to go through it anymore.