Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2019

  • Is It Downhill From Now On?

    Today’s Guardian has a sobering article on what the environment could be like in 2050. The most worrying aspect is not the environment itself, but the impact it will have on human society. It’s perhaps not such a stretch to say, as the article does, that civilisation itself will be at risk.

    The author suggests that the risk may be reduced:

    When it comes to the science, the dangers can be substantially reduced if humanity shifts decisively away from business-as-usual behaviour over the next decade. When it comes to the psychology and politics, we can make our situation better immediately if we focus on hope in shared solutions, rather than fears of what we will lose as individuals.

    I know I’m old and cynical, but I see little chance of that shift happening. Fasten your seatbelts, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

  • I Have A Bad Feeling About This…

    I use Ivideon occasionally to keep an eye on the dogs when we’re out of the house. A couple of days ago, I received an email from Ivideon’s newly appointed business development manager.

    We are exciting [sic] to announce that we are launching an affordable and easy-to-use tool for business! With Facial Recognition System you would be able to know many essential features of your target and existing audience with a click of the button: age, gender, emotions – you name it.

    Ivideon 01

    I have a bad feeling about this…

  • “Let The Healing Begin”

    So Boris Johnson says: “Let the Healing Begin…” in his statement outside No. 10. Reminds me of Thatcher’s statement on the steps of No. 10 in 1979:

    “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope”.

    Didn’t happen then. Won’t happen now. I despair for the future of the UK. 

  • Voices for Equality

    Voices for Equality

    Of the 69 countries around the world that still criminalize same sex relationships, 32 are in Africa. In many countries, violence and discrimination is a part of the every-day life of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people and LGBT activism is banned.

    The UN Free & Equal project of the UN Human Rights Office has launched a new campaign: Voices for Equality. Take a look.

  • The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come

    The full text of Sir Ivan Rogers’ lecture given at the University of Glasgow recently is here. He is both a careful analyst of events and a bellwether foretelling a future that is very likely to play out in the agonies of the Brexit to come.

  • More Accomplished Racists Are Available…

    With just nine days to go, First Dog on the Moon has published a handy voting guide to the UK general election. It’s definitely worth reading. Though I fear that his advice will be disregarded, and the current gang of “shits, charlatans and shysters”* will be returned to govern.

    If there is a Tory majority, it will largely be because of their endlessly repeated slogan that they will “get Brexit done”. This means that Parliament will pass the Withdrawal Agreement, and Britain will leave the EU on 31 January 2020. However, Brexit is certainly not done, since the UK enters a new transition period during which the terms and conditions of multiple trade agreements and legislative frameworks have to be put in place. All of which leaves the future as uncertain as ever.

    If you want a more in-depth analysis on what the future might hold, and the stances of the various players, then Chris Grey’s Brexit Blog and “What would ‘getting Brexit done’ mean?” is an excellent, and highly recommended, place to start.

    *with acknowledgements to John Crace

  • A Contract For The Web

    I see that Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched his “Contract for the Web” – that requires endorsing governments, companies and individuals to make concrete commitments to protect the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity.

    Two of the nine principles in the Contract concern respecting users’ privacy and personal data in real and meaningful ways.

    All very laudable – but then I see that two of the companies who are listed as endorsing the Contract are Facebook and Google.

    I think my irony meter has just exploded.

  • A Declining Organism- Speaking the Truth

  • Words Know No Borders…

  • Stumbling at the Finishing Line

    Time for yet another instalment in the long-running saga of trying to get broadband internet available in our area. Our story began five years ago when I described the connection to the internet as being like a piece of wet string. Thus began our struggle to get a fibre-optic network laid around here.

    After a number of false starts, things began to look up when work finally began on laying the network in July 2018. It was a big project that has taken more than a year to complete, but a couple of weeks ago people started getting connected and using the network.

    However, it soon became apparent that not all was well. Consumers can choose between two internet service providers (ISPs) on the network: Caiway and Solcon. It became clear that the only people who were receiving the internet modems and able to activate their internet services were Caiway customers. Solcon customers were (and are, at this time of writing) being told that the network was not ready for use.

    It seemed odd, so I contacted the network provider, Glasvezel buitenaf, who were clear that the network was indeed ready for use, and that they had told both Caiway and Solcon that this was the case. Indeed, their contractor, BAM, had completed the work on the distribution point in our local small town on the 19th of September. Then it was up to each ISP to define the settings in the distribution point’s patch panels, so that their internet services could be delivered to their subscribers’ addresses. Caiway has done this; Glasvezel buitenaf was, and is, still waiting to hear from Solcon.

    Needless to say, I had chosen Solcon as my ISP (more fool me). So on the 28th October I sent them an email to ask when I could expect to have internet services delivered. The reply (also on the 28th) was (in translation):

    I see that Solcon is still waiting on the fiber optic supplier. Of course we want you to have fiber optic internet as soon as possible, however, we are dependent on when Glasvezel buitenaf reports the line is available. To date, that has not happened yet.

    Yesterday, I phoned Solcon, only to get the same story (we are waiting on Glasvezel buitenaf). I said that this was very odd, since a) Glasvezel buitenaf say they are waiting on Solcon, and b) my neighbours who are Caiway customers are happily using the network.

    The helpdesk person promised to investigate further and send me an email reply on what the situation was. I’m still waiting for both the reply and any visible change in the status of my request for internet services. Oh, and Glasvezel buitenaf are still waiting to hear from Solcon what the patch panel settings need to be.

    I think the next stage will be to assemble the torch and pitchfork brigade – if nothing happens soon, I’ll be asking the Village Community Council to alert our Solcon customers that a mass complaint is in order.

    Addendum 8th November 2019: After publishing this post, I sent another email to Solcon yesterday. This was to outline the situation as I saw it, and to point out that I was still waiting for a reply. I have to say that I quickly received a reply from the Solcon Salesdesk that actually cast some light. Apparently there are three parties in the chain, not two, as I’ve always been led to believe. There is Glasvezel buitenaf, the owner of the network, then there is (new to me) the network operator: CAIWEAS, and finally there are the companies such as Caiway and Solcon, who deliver internet services to the customer. The Solcon reply stated that indeed, Glasvezel buitenaf has said the network is ready, but that control has now been passed to CAIWEAS, and it is this party that Solcon are waiting on, not Glasvezel buitenaf, as they originally stated.

    A further clue is in the name CAIWEAS I think. It sounds suspiciously close to Caiway, so I suspect that the companies are intimately connected. Which probably explains why Caiway customers appear to be first in line to receive service. I expect that Solcon customers are banished to the back of the queue. Oh well, I’ve waited five years, a few weeks more isn’t going to kill me, I suppose.

  • NS Newspeak

    The NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) is the Dutch national passenger rail company. I have an annual subscription that entitles me to 40% discount on train fares, and up to six days free travel (keuzedagen) on the entire Dutch rail network. These keuzedagen are available to people who are 60 and above.

    Yesterday, I received an email from the NS. It started promisingly enough (in translation):

    We want to make our subscription offerings less complicated and more flexible for all travellers.

    Well, excellent, I’m all for that. But then it goes on:

    Due to the growing number of travellers, the afternoon rush hour is getting busier and the need to ensure a better spread of our travellers throughout the day. Unfortunately, we cannot maintain giving a 40% discount during the afternoon rush hour.

    Eh? What was that about “less complicated and more flexible”? Introducing a period when the 40% discount doesn’t apply makes things more complicated and less flexible, surely?

    Not only that, but the keuzedag free travel will magically become invalid during the afternoon rush hour. What if I am in the middle of my journey when the clock strikes four? Does the ticket inspector swoop down on me and issue a fine?

    The final flourish in the email is the announcement that keuzedagen will no longer be available to people who turn 60 after 2021. I can continue to receive them as part of my annual subscription, but I’ll be part of a dwindling group as we all die off – much to the relief of the NS, I expect.

    I can only reflect on the effrontery of the NS (and Tjalling Smit, director of commerce and development, who has sent out this email) and consider it a fine example of Newspeak.  

  • Dear Europe…

    That is how a number of letters begin that are published in today’s Guardian. From a range of public figures, they set out what Europe means to them.

    I’m a Manxman by birth, but I’ve spent half my life living in the Netherlands. I owe a lot to Europe, just like these letter writers, and it distresses me to realise that many of my fellow Britons are hell-bent intent on closing boundaries, rather than opening them.

  • Operation Yello-Whammer

    As far as I am concerned, the Guardian’s First Dog On The Moon sums up the clusterfuck that is Brexit very well indeed.

  • I’m not sure about this…

    eXistenZ – here we come…

     

  • Climate Crisis

    I see that the Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world, using “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” instead of “climate change” and “global warming”.

    All the political insanity that is currently rampaging through the world at the moment surely pales into insignificance compared to the existential threat that is the ongoing climate crisis? Indeed the latter will only exacerbate the former as time goes on.

    A few months back, I read The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells. Yesterday, I read in one sitting, We Are The Weather, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Wallace-Wells is a journalist, Foer a novelist. As you might expect, the books are very different in style, whilst both dealing with the subject of the climate crisis.

    Foer’s book is a mixture of styles in itself, ranging from thought-provoking essays, to shocks to the brain from short chapters giving lists of factoids, to a “dispute with the soul” – a dialogue with himself over why it is that we seem unable to deal with the fact of the climate crisis. That’s all of us, whether you accept the science or deny it.

    Foer offers a path to help mitigate the extent of the crisis: switch to a plant-based diet from a meat-based one. The link between farming animals and the climate crisis is the backbone of his book, and he makes a persuasive case. Livestock are the leading source of methane emissions, whilst nitrous oxide is emitted by livestock urine, manure, and the fertilisers used for growing crops. Nitrous oxide has significant global warming potential as a greenhouse gas. On a per-molecule basis, considered over a 100-year period, nitrous oxide has 298 times the atmospheric heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide.

    The Netherlands has just woken up to this inconvenient truth about nitrous oxide and other nitrogen compounds. We currently have what is known as the Stikstofcrisis (the nitrogen crisis), which arose this year when permit applications for an estimated 18,000 construction and infrastructure projects were stopped. Too high a concentration of these nitrogen compounds leads to a deterioration of nature and to a loss of biodiversity. A reported 61 percent of the nitrogen compounds produced comes from agriculture, with intensive livestock farming being one of the most important sources. So the farmers are up in arms about this, seeing the government placing the blame for the crisis on their shoulders. There have been protests and demonstrations.

    The trouble is, we simply can’t go on as we did before. Things will have to change, but that process will be a painful one, whatever we do.

  • China Today, Tomorrow, The World?

    A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Jaron Lanier’s book: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, which is a warning against the rise of surveillance technology and algorithms capable of social manipulation.

    In the West, that technology is in the hands of private companies (e.g. Facebook, Google), but in China, it is firmly in the grasp of the State. I hadn’t appreciated just how far this had progressed until I read a recent article in the London Review of Books: Document Number Nine, by John Lanchester. He reviews two books written about how the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) has adopted the internet, AI and surveillance technologies to monitor and control its citizens.

    It is the stuff of nightmares.

    I’ve just bought one of the books: Kai Strittmatter’s We Have Been Harmonised. The blurb on the back cover says:

    This is a journey into a land where Big Brother has acquired a whole new set of toys with which to control and cajole – ‘harmonise’- the masses. It is also a warning against Western complacency. Beijing is already finding eager buyers for its “Operating System for Dictators’- in Africa and Asia, Russia and the Middle East. And with China’s corporate giants – all ultimately under Party control – being offered a place at the heart of Europe’s vital infrastructure, it is time we paid attention.

    As Lanchester writes:

    Imagine a place in which there’s a police post every hundred metres, and tens of thousands of cameras linked to a state-run facial recognition system; where people are forced to have police-owned GPS systems in their cars, and you can buy petrol only after having your face scanned; where all mobile phones have a state app on them to monitor their activity and prevent access to ‘damaging information’; where religious activity is monitored; where the state knows whether you have family and friends abroad, and where the government offers free health clinics as a way of getting your fingerprint and iris scan and samples of your DNA. Strittmatter points out that you don’t need to imagine this place, because it exists: that’s life in Xinjiang for the minority population of Muslim Uighurs.

    Meanwhile, I continue to be astounded at our willingness to trust Facebook. Lanchester again:

    Do we want facial recognition technology to be in the hands of the least scrupulous technology giant? If we don’t, we’re too late – it already is. Facebook has changed its terms of service over ‘tagging’ people’s photos a couple of times, from opt-out to opt-in, but the gist is that it is too late: Facebook already owns your ‘faceprint’, the algorithmic representation of your face. How much do we think we can trust them with it?

    Not one inch, as far as I’m concerned.

  • Nothing Can Go Wrong… Go Wrong… Go Wrong…

    Part of my working life was spent in the UK, before I moved to the Netherlands. This means that a portion of my State Pension is sourced by the UK government.

    Today I received a letter from the UK’s Pension Service assuring me that my UK State Pension payments will carry on when the UK leaves the EU.

    I would be reassured, except that the letter was addressed to a Mr. Geoffrey Bonne, who they appear to think resides at my address.

    All previous letters I have received from the International Pension Centre in Newcastle Upon Tyne have been correctly addressed. This one came from a different department of the service based in Wolverhampton.

    It would appear that an error has crept into their data systems. I have written to them stating that I would be obliged if they would correct it before consequences graver than an incorrect surname befall me.

    I remain not reassured.

  • RIP Charles Jencks

    The architect Charles Jencks has died. I first came across him via a book: The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, which fascinated me.

    TheGardenofCosmicSpeculati3778_f

    As the book’s blurb said, it was

    A unique and compelling narrative of one of the most important gardens in Europe designed by the internationally celebrated architecture critic and designer, Charles Jencks.

    About 10 years later, I visited two landscapes designed by him: the Crawick Multiverse and the Garden of Cosmic Speculation itself. Neither disappointed.

    I see from his obituary that Jencks included the architect Bruce Goff in his pantheon of Post-Modern architects. That’s another name that resonates with me, and has done so for nigh on 60 years, since I first saw pictures of the Bavinger House, and fell in love with it. Alas, all things must pass – the Bavinger House was demolished a few years ago. Hopefully Jencks’ monumental landscape designs will last somewhat longer. 

  • Who is the Guilty Party Here?

    A very perceptive piece by Joris Luyendijk in the Guardian today. His thesis is that

    The UK now seems to be the country whose government lies about nonexistent negotiations with the EU while threatening to renege on its outstanding financial obligations – often misrepresented as the “divorce bill”.

    and:

    The dominant four newspapers in Britain by circulation are the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Sun on Sunday and the Mail on Sunday, with the more measured but equally pro-Brexit Sunday Times coming in fifth. Each of these publications has been brainwashing its readers with fake news about the EU for years – in some cases, decades – while building up pro-Brexit politicians and stoking divisions. Terms such as “betrayal”, “surrender”, “plots by traitors” and “enemies of the people” are on the front pages routinely. The top 10 British papers by paid circulation does not feature any pro-European newspaper, unless you count the Daily Mirror. It does feature Boris Johnson’s mouthpiece, the Daily Telegraph, and the triumphantly nasty Daily Star. It is a depressing tally, scarcely improved by knowing how many people rely on social media for their news.

    Depressing is not the half of it. It’s the realisation that my fellow Britons swallow these lies from Boris Johnson, his colleagues and the Tory press, and believe them wholeheartedly. I feel ashamed to be British and fear for the future of the UK. My touchstone is that I also hold Dutch nationality, and hence I am also a citizen of the EU. It is the lifeline to which I can cling. It remains to be seen whether UK citizens will be able to do the same.

     

  • Unfit

    Boris Johnson continues to demonstrate why he is totally unfit to be Prime Minister of Britain.

    As a friend said: “He’s a completely and utterly self-serving bastard for using her death to promote his political agenda.  We have come to expect nothing less from him.”

    The real horror was the realisation that he was being cheered on by his Conservative party colleagues. Have they no decency? Well, rhetorical question, I suppose. Clearly they have not.