Veisalgia– the medical term for the common or garden hangover. I suspect that there has been a slight epidemic of veisalgia in the ranks of Samizdata’s contributors and editors lately. A useful word to know when filling out sick leave application forms for work.
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noun. Software or websites that has options checked default-yes when you sign up that, if you are not paying close attention, will do things you have ‘consented’ to that you probably would rather not be done (for example, giving them permission to give your e-mail address to spammers). As landmineware relies on the fact that in the real world, people do not watch their every step and so do not read lengthy terms and conditions, privacy statements and disclaimers. They achieve their objective by preying on people’s unwary but typical behaviour. (also landmine-ware) (Coined by Perry de Havilland) January 3rd, 2006 | Comments are closed
 There is an e-mail program called Goowy which is one of a species of software I call ‘landmine-ware’, which is to say during the sign up process, on one of those bits no one actually reads, there is a yes-by-default opt-in box that allows the software to do something very few people would agree to if they actually noticed what they were being asked to agree to. A friend of mine just signed up for Goowy and as a result Goowy just imported her entire contacts list from Gmail and spammed them all (including me) with invitations to sign up for Goowy. Now as this was technically permitted by the default-yes selected check box, there is nothing clearly actionable about this. However as no one would usually agree to their entire email address book being spammed by a third party, it would be fair to say Goowy counts on people just not realising what they are ‘consenting’ to and thus relying on people’s natural tendency to not carefully watch every step they take (hence my description of Goowy as ‘landmineware’) Now just to spare all the obsessive libertarians reading this from getting their knickers in a contractarian twist, just because something may not be immoral theft (i.e. Goowy did not ‘steal’ permission to spam in your name) it does not mean it should be socially respectable to trick people into doing something either. Yes, ideally we should all read every line of the disclaimer on every single thing we sign up for on the internet. Yet other than a few obsessives, no one actually does that in the real world as there is a general expectation that nowadays companies understand how much spammers are hated and what bad PR can be generated by acting like a spammer. Sadly Goovy suggests that this expectation is not quite as dependable as it should be. At the very least, tricking people into in effect becoming spammers gets people like me writing nasty things about any company who would do that. In short, any company who resorts to abusing what is typical customer behaviour should not be trusted. Even if tomorrow Goowy announced it was going to make that option default-no rather than default-yes (i.e. permission to spam your entire address book of contacts), I would not allow them to be anywhere near my personal email and I suggest you do not either. January 3rd, 2006 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now that David Cameron has revealed to all but the most blinkered that he is just another social democrat who shares 99% of Tony Blair’s beliefs, I look forward to seeing how this will be spun by his apologists. No doubt they will still say Cameron’s utterances are just a cunning plan to get the Tories into office by stealing Labour’s best ideas but really he will rescue us from encroaching regulatory statism and socialist monstrosities like the dismal National Health Service. Oh sure, and how will that work, exactly? If your answer to my remarks is still “but we need to get them into office to replace the dreadful Blair”, tell me why that would make any difference even if it was true? What is the point in replacing Blair with someone who is so similar ideologically? Is trivial window dressing like removing Tory MEP’s from the preposterous EPP-ED grouping really enough to buy your vote when he is falling over himself to pledge his loyalty to regulatory interventionist government and expanding the role of the state? If you want to oppose Blair via The System, for goodness sake stop thinking about the Tory party. If you cannot kick your addiction to democratic empowerment fantasies, at least vote UKIP or even LibDem (who at least are less authoritarian on alleged security issues), but please do not reward the Tory party for becoming NuLabour with a Henley accent if you ever want to see the end of Blair-ism and its poison legacy. January 3rd, 2006 | 149 comments - (Comments are closed)
Last century over 170 million people were murdered by their own governments, and your government doesn’t want you to have a gun. Doesn’t that bother you just a little? January 3rd, 2006 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
Some time ago I referred to statistics on reported crimes in the UK, which prompted a rather heated discussion (that’s putting it mildly, ed) about the value of such numbers, given the obvious difficulties in knowing whether reporting of crimes gives an accurate picture of just how bad the situation really is. The British Crime Survey (BCS) which takes the public’s impressions of the impact of crime through interviews with thousands of people, can sometimes give a quite different picture. This story shows that reports of armed violence are on the rise, and also contains data showing that experiences of crime have also gone up. A rather sobering set of numbers with which to start the New Year. January 2nd, 2006 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Putin is sending shivers through the world with his attempts to strong-arm the Ukraine back into the Kremlin’s zone of influence and no doubt more and more column inches are going to be directed at this emerging crisis. Yet it seems to me pretty obvious that that Russia, circa 2006, is almost hilariously weak to be throwing its weight around. The Russian economy is pathetic for a would-be imperial seat of power, running about half the size of India based on purchasing power. Its GDP per capita is about the same as such mighty global players as South Africa, Mexico and Trinidad. The antics of its kleptocratic and economically illiterate former KGB leadership makes the place less attractive to investors by the day. Frankly you would have to be crazy to put your money in Moscow. Even its military has repeatedly demonstrated that it is inept and corrupt in equal measure. All this talk of Russia’s importance is vastly over-stated. In short, Russia needs to be treated with respect, but only the sort of respect you give a drunk with a knife as he staggers down the street. The price of gas sold to the Ukraine is currently below market levels but the cackhanded way Russia has handled this makes it pretty obvious that markets are the last thing on Putin’s mind. But perhaps he is to be applauded for massively strengthening the hand of pro-nuclear power advocates with his preposterous posturing. Even the turgid political class of western and eastern Europe can now have few illusions that it makes sense to rely on an unstable place with delusions of grandeur for their energy supplies. Methinks it might be time for those with some spare dosh to invest some of it in nuclear energy stocks. January 2nd, 2006 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
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Sounds like a laugh. Presumably this posting will help. I have no idea just how much of a shit this Brian Leiter is, and how much he contributes to the “Brians are bad” syndrome, but I expect that he is indeed a shit to some degree. I will visit this blog a few times, and then decide if I want to keep reading it. If I do, I will then blogroll it, here. Nearly forgot. Happy New Year everybody. January 1st, 2006 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Dissident Frogman has infiltrated Samizdata.net HQ, snuck into the wine cellar and photographed the target for tonight…  January 1st, 2006 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
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